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diff --git a/old/10357-8.txt b/old/10357-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4ceca7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10357-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22656 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6), by Boswell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) + +Author: Boswell + +Release Date: December 1, 2003 [EBook #10357] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHNSON, VOLUME 4 (OF 6) *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +BOSWELL'S + +LIFE OF JOHNSON + +INCLUDING BOSWELL'S JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES +AND JOHNSON'S DIARY OF A JOURNEY INTO NORTH WALES + +EDITED BY + +GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L. + +PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD + +IN SIX VOLUMES + +VOLUME IV.--LIFE (1780-1784) + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOL. IV. + + +LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (1780-DEC. 13, 1784) + +APPENDICES: + +A. ALTERCATION BETWEEN DR. JOHNSON AND DEAN BARNARD. +B. JOHNSON AND PRIESTLEY. +C. THE CLUB IN IVY-LANE. +D. THE ESSEX HEAD CLUB. +E. MISS BURNEY'S ACCOUNT OF JOHNSON'S LAST DAYS. +F. NOTES ON JOHNSON'S WILL, ETC. +G. NOTES ON BOSWELL'S NOTE. +H. NOTES ON BOSWELL'S NOTE. +I. PARR'S EPITAPH ON JOHNSON. + +FOOTNOTES. + + + + +_THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D._ + +Being disappointed in my hopes of meeting Johnson this year, so that I +could hear none of his admirable sayings, I shall compensate for this +want[1] by inserting a collection of them, for which I am indebted to my +worthy friend Mr. Langton, whose kind communications have been +separately interwoven in many parts of this work. Very few articles of +this collection were committed to writing by himself, he not having that +habit; which he regrets, and which those who know the numerous +opportunities he had of gathering the rich fruits of _Johnsonian_ wit +and wisdom, must ever regret. I however found, in conversations with +him, that a good store of _Johnsoniana_ treasured in his mind[2]; and I +compared it to Herculaneum, or some old Roman field, which when dug, +fully rewards the labour employed. The authenticity of every article is +unquestionable. For the expression, I, who wrote them down in his +presence, am partly answerable. + +'Theocritus is not deserving of very high respect as a writer; as to the +pastoral part, Virgil is very evidently superiour. He wrote when there +had been a larger influx of knowledge into the world than when +Theocritus lived. Theocritus does not abound in description, though +living in a beautiful country: the manners painted are coarse and gross. +Virgil has much more description, more sentiment, more of Nature, and +more of art. Some of the most excellent parts of Theocritus are, where +Castor and Pollux, going with the other Argonauts, land on the Bebrycian +coast, and there fall into a dispute with Amycus, the King of that +country; which is as well conducted as Euripides could have done it; and +the battle is well related. Afterwards they carry off a woman, whose two +brothers come to recover her, and expostulate with Castor and Pollux on +their injustice; but they pay no regard to the brothers, and a battle +ensues, where Castor and his brother are triumphant. Theocritus seems +not to have seen that the brothers have the advantage in their argument +over his Argonaut heroes. _The Sicilian Gossips_ is a piece of merit.' + +'Callimachus is a writer of little excellence. The chief thing to be +learned from him is his account of Rites and Mythology; which, though +desirable to be known for the sake of understanding other parts of +ancient authours, is the least pleasing or valuable part of their +writings.' + +'Mattaire's account of the Stephani[3] is a heavy book. He seems to have +been a puzzle-headed man, with a large share of scholarship, but with +little geometry or logick in his head, without method, and possessed of +little genius. He wrote Latin verses from time to time, and published a +set in his old age, which he called '_Senilia_;' in which he shews so +little learning or taste in writing, as to make _Carteret_ a dactyl[4]. +In matters of genealogy it is necessary to give the bare names as they +are; but in poetry, and in prose of any elegance in the writing, they +require to have inflection given to them. His book of the Dialects[5] is +a sad heap of confusion; the only way to write on them is to tabulate +them with Notes, added at the bottom of the page, and references.' + +'It may be questioned, whether there is not some mistake as to the +methods of employing the poor, seemingly on a supposition that there is +a certain portion of work left undone for want of persons to do it; but +if that is otherwise, and all the materials we have are actually worked +up, or all the manufactures we can use or dispose of are already +executed, then what is given to the poor, who are to be set at work, +must be taken from some who now have it; as time must be taken for +learning, according to Sir William Petty's observation, a certain part +of those very materials that, as it is, are properly worked up, must be +spoiled by the unskilfulness of novices. We may apply to well-meaning, +but misjudging persons in particulars of this nature, what Giannone[6] +said to a monk, who wanted what he called to _convert_ him: _"Tu sei +santo, ma tu non sei filosofo"_--It is an unhappy circumstance that one +might give away five hundred pounds in a year to those that importune in +the streets, and not do any good[7].' + +'There is nothing more likely to betray a man into absurdity than +_condescension_; when he seems to suppose his understanding too powerful +for his company[8].' + +'Having asked Mr. Langton if his father and mother had sat for their +pictures, which he thought it right for each generation of a family to +do, and being told they had opposed it, he said, "Sir, among the +anfractuosities[9] of the human mind, I know not if it may not be one, +that there is a superstitious reluctance to sit for a picture."' + +'John Gilbert Cooper[10] related, that soon after the publication of his +_Dictionary_, Garrick being asked by Johnson what people said of it, +told him, that among other animadversions, it was objected that he cited +authorities which were beneath the dignity of such a work, and mentioned +Richardson. "Nay, (said Johnson,) I have done worse than that: I have +cited _thee_, David[11]."' + +'Talking of expence, he observed, with what munificence a great merchant +will spend his money, both from his having it at command, and from his +enlarged views by calculation of a good effect upon the whole. "Whereas +(said he) you will hardly ever find a country gentleman who is not a +good deal disconcerted at an unexpected occasion for his being obliged +to lay out ten pounds[12]."' + +'When in good humour he would talk of his own writings with a wonderful +frankness and candour, and would even criticise them with the closest +severity. One day, having read over one of his Ramblers, Mr. Langton +asked him, how he liked that paper; he shook his head, and answered, +"too wordy." At another time, when one was reading his tragedy of +_Irene_ to a company at a house in the country, he left the room; and +somebody having asked him the reason of this, he replied, Sir, I thought +it had been better[13].' + +'Talking of a point of delicate scrupulosity[14] of moral conduct, he +said to Mr. Langton, "Men of harder minds than ours will do many things +from which you and I would shrink; yet, Sir, they will perhaps do more +good in life than we. But let us try to help one another. If there be a +wrong twist it may be set right. It is not probable that two people can +be wrong the same way."' + +'Of the Preface to Capel's _Shakspeare_, he said, "If the man would have +come to me, I would have endeavoured to endow his purposes with words; +for as it is, he doth gabble monstrously[15]."' + +'He related, that he had once in a dream a contest of wit with some +other person, and that he was very much mortified by imagining that his +opponent had the better of him. "Now, (said he,) one may mark here the +effect of sleep in weakening the power of reflection; for had not my +judgement failed me, I should have seen, that the wit of this supposed +antagonist, by whose superiority I felt myself depressed, was as much +furnished by me, as that which I thought I had been uttering in my own +character."' + +'One evening in company, an ingenious and learned gentleman read to him +a letter of compliment which he had received from one of the Professors +of a foreign University. Johnson, in an irritable fit, thinking there +was too much ostentation, said, "I never receive any of these tributes +of applause from abroad. One instance I recollect of a foreign +publication, in which mention is made of _l'illustre Lockman_[16]."' + +'Of Sir Joshua Reynolds, he said, "Sir, I know no man who has passed +through life with more observation than Reynolds."' + +'He repeated to Mr. Langton, with great energy, in the Greek, our +SAVIOUR'S gracious expression concerning the forgiveness of Mary +Magdalen, "[Greek: Ae pistis sou sesoke se poreuou eis eiraeuaeu.] Thy +faith hath saved thee; go in peace[17]." He said, "the manner of this +dismission is exceedingly affecting."' + +'He thus defined the difference between physical and moral truth; +"Physical truth, is, when you tell a thing as it actually is. Moral +truth, is, when you tell a thing sincerely and precisely as it appears +to you. I say such a one walked across the street; if he really did so, +I told a physical truth. If I thought so, though I should have been +mistaken, I told a moral truth."' + +'Huggins, the translator of Ariosto, and Mr. Thomas Warton, in the early +part of his literary life, had a dispute concerning that poet, of whom +Mr. Warton in his _Observations on Spenser's Fairy Queen_, gave some +account, which Huggins attempted to answer with violence, and said, "I +will _militate_ no longer against his _nescience_." Huggins was master +of the subject, but wanted expression. Mr. Warton's knowledge of it was +then imperfect, but his manner lively and elegant[18]. Johnson said, "It +appears to me, that Huggins has ball without powder, and Warton powder +without ball."' + +'Talking of the Farce of _High Life below Stairs_[19], he said, "Here is +a Farce, which is really very diverting when you see it acted; and yet +one may read it, and not know that one has been reading any thing +at all."' + +'He used at one time to go occasionally to the green room of Drury-lane +Theatre[20], where he was much regarded by the players, and was very +easy and facetious with them. He had a very high opinion of Mrs. Clive's +comick powers, and conversed more with her than with any of them. He +said, "Clive, Sir, is a good thing to sit by; she always understands +what you say[21]." And she said of him, "I love to sit by Dr. Johnson; +he always entertains me." One night, when _The Recruiting Officer_ was +acted, he said to Mr. Holland[22], who had been expressing an +apprehension that Dr. Johnson would disdain the works of Farquhar; "No, +Sir, I think Farquhar a man whose writings have considerable merit."' + +'His friend Garrick was so busy in conducting the drama, that they could +not have so much intercourse as Mr. Garrick used to profess an anxious +wish that there should be[23]. There might, indeed, be something in the +contemptuous severity as to the merit of acting, which his old preceptor +nourished in himself, that would mortify Garrick after the great +applause which he received from the audience. For though Johnson said of +him, "Sir, a man who has a nation to admire him every night, may well be +expected to be somewhat elated[24];" yet he would treat theatrical +matters with a ludicrous slight. He mentioned one evening, "I met David +coming off the stage, drest in a woman's riding-hood, when he acted in +_The Wonder_[25]; I came full upon him, and I believe he was not +pleased."' + +'Once he asked Tom Davies, whom he saw drest in a fine suit of clothes, +"And what art thou to-night?" Tom answered, "The Thane of Ross[26];" +(which it will be recollected is a very inconsiderable character.) "O +brave!" said Johnson.' + +'Of Mr. Longley, at Rochester, a gentleman of very considerable +learning, whom Dr. Johnson met there, he said, "My heart warms towards +him. I was surprised to find in him such a nice acquaintance with the +metre in the learned languages; though I was somewhat mortified that I +had it not so much to myself, as I should have thought[27]."' + +'Talking of the minuteness with which people will record the sayings of +eminent persons, a story was told, that when Pope was on a visit to +Spence[28] at Oxford, as they looked from the window they saw a +Gentleman Commoner, who was just come in from riding, amusing himself +with whipping at a post. Pope took occasion to say, "That young +gentleman seems to have little to do." Mr. Beauclerk observed, "Then, to +be sure, Spence turned round and wrote that down;" and went on to say to +Dr. Johnson, "Pope, Sir, would have said the same of you, if he had seen +you distilling[29]." JOHNSON. "Sir, if Pope had told me of my +distilling, I would have told him of his grotto[30]."' + +'He would allow no settled indulgence of idleness upon principle, and +always repelled every attempt to urge excuses for it, A friend one day +suggested, that it was not wholesome to study soon after dinner. +JOHNSON. "Ah, Sir, don't give way to such a fancy. At one time of my +life I had taken it into my head that it was not wholesome to study +between breakfast and dinner[31]."' + +'Mr. Beauclerk one day repeated to Dr. Johnson Pope's lines, + + "Let modest Foster, if he will, excel + Ten metropolitans in preaching well:" [32] + +Then asked the Doctor, "Why did Pope say this?" JOHNSON. 'Sir, he hoped +it would vex somebody.' + +'Dr. Goldsmith, upon occasion of Mrs. Lennox's bringing out a play[33], +said to Dr. Johnson at the CLUB, that a person had advised him to go and +hiss it, because she had attacked Shakspeare in her book called +_Shakspeare Illustrated_[34]. JOHNSON. "And did not you tell him he was +a rascal[35]?" GOLDSMITH. "No, Sir, I did not. Perhaps he might not mean +what he said." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, if he lied, it is a different thing." +Colman slily said, (but it is believed Dr. Johnson did not hear him,) +"Then the proper expression should have been,--Sir, if you don't lie, +you're a rascal."' + +'His affection for Topham Beauclerk was so great, that when Beauclerk +was labouring under that severe illness which at last occasioned his +death, Johnson said, (with a voice faultering with emotion,) "Sir, I +would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save +Beauclerk[36]."' + +'One night at the CLUB he produced a translation of an Epitaph which +Lord Elibank had written in English, for his Lady, and requested of +Johnson to turn into Latin for him. Having read _Domina de North et +Gray_, he said to Dyer, "You see, Sir, what barbarisms we are compelled +to make use of, when modern titles are to be specifically mentioned in +Latin inscriptions." When he had read it once aloud, and there had been +a general approbation expressed by the company, he addressed himself to +Mr. Dyer in particular, and said, "Sir, I beg to have your judgement, +for I know your nicety[37]." Dyer then very properly desired to read it +over again; which having done, he pointed out an incongruity in one of +the sentences. Johnson immediately assented to the observation, and +said, "Sir, this is owing to an alteration of a part of the sentence, +from the form in which I had first written it; and I believe, Sir, you +may have remarked, that the making a partial change, without a due +regard to the general structure of the sentence, is a very frequent +cause of errour in composition."' + +'Johnson was well acquainted with Mr. Dossie, authour of a treatise on +Agriculture[38]; and said of him, "Sir, of the objects which the Society +of Arts have chiefly in view, the chymical effects of bodies operating +upon other bodies, he knows more than almost any man." Johnson, in order +to give Mr. Dossie his vote to be a member of this Society, paid up an +arrear which had run on for two years. On this occasion he mentioned a +circumstance as characteristick of the Scotch. One of that nation, (said +he,) who had been a candidate, against whom I had voted, came up to me +with a civil salutation. Now, Sir, this is their way. An Englishman +would have stomached it, and been sulky, and never have taken further +notice of you; but a Scotchman, Sir, though you vote nineteen times +against him, will accost you with equal complaisance after each time, +and the twentieth time, Sir, he will get your vote.' + +'Talking on the subject of toleration, one day when some friends were +with him in his study, he made his usual remark, that the State has a +right to regulate the religion of the people, who are the children of +the State[39]. A clergyman having readily acquiesced in this, Johnson, +who loved discussion, observed, "But, Sir, you must go round to other +States than our own. You do not know what a Bramin has to say for +himself[40]. In short, Sir, I have got no further than this: Every man +has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a +right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test[41]."' + +'A man, he observed, should begin to write soon; for, if he waits till +his judgement is matured, his inability, through want of practice to +express his conceptions, will make the disproportion so great between +what he sees, and what he can attain, that he will probably be +discouraged from writing at all[42]. As a proof of the justness of this +remark, we may instance what is related of the great Lord Granville[43]; +that after he had written his letter, giving an account of the battle of +Dettingen, he said, "Here is a letter, expressed in terms not good +enough for a tallow-chandler to have used.'" + +'Talking of a Court-martial that was sitting upon a very momentous +publick occasion, he expressed much doubt of an enlightened decision; +and said, that perhaps there was not a member of it, who in the whole +course of his life, had ever spent an hour by himself in balancing +probabilities[44].' + +'Goldsmith one day brought to the CLUB a printed Ode, which he, with +others, had been hearing read by its authour in a publick room at the +rate of five shillings each for admission[45]. One of the company having +read it aloud, Dr. Johnson said, "Bolder words and more timorous +meaning, I think never were brought together."' + +'Talking of Gray's _Odes_, he said, "They are forced plants raised in a +hot-bed[46]; and they are poor plants; they are but cucumbers after +all." A gentleman present, who had been running down Ode-writing in +general, as a bad species of poetry, unluckily said, "Had they been +literally cucumbers, they had been better things than Odes."--"Yes, Sir, +(said Johnson,) for a _hog_."' + +'His distinction of the different degrees of attainment of learning was +thus marked upon two occasions. Of Queen Elizabeth he said, "She had +learning enough to have given dignity to a bishop;" and of Mr. Thomas +Davies he said, "Sir, Davies has learning enough to give credit to a +clergyman[47]."' + +'He used to quote, with great warmth, the saying of Aristotle recorded +by Diogenes Laertius[48]; that there was the same difference between one +learned and unlearned, as between the living and the dead.' + +'It is very remarkable, that he retained in his memory very slight and +trivial, as well as important things[49]. As an instance of this, it +seems that an inferiour domestick of the Duke of Leeds had attempted to +celebrate his Grace's marriage in such homely rhimes as he could make; +and this curious composition having been sung to Dr. Johnson he got it +by heart, and used to repeat it in a very pleasant manner. Two of the +stanzas were these:-- + + "When the Duke of Leeds shall married be + To a fine young lady of high quality, + How happy will that gentlewoman be + In his Grace of Leeds's good company. + + She shall have all that's fine and fair, + And the best of silk and sattin shall wear; + And ride in a coach to take the air, + And have a house in St. James's-square[50]." + +To hear a man, of the weight and dignity of Johnson, repeating such +humble attempts at poetry, had a very amusing effect. He, however, +seriously observed of the last stanza repeated by him, that it nearly +comprized all the advantages that wealth can give.' + +'An eminent foreigner, when he was shewn the British Museum, was very +troublesome with many absurd inquiries. "Now there, Sir, (said he,) is +the difference between an Englishman and a Frenchman. A Frenchman must +be always talking, whether he knows any thing of the matter or not; an +Englishman is content to say nothing, when he has nothing to say."' + +'His unjust contempt for foreigners was, indeed, extreme. One evening, +at old Slaughter's coffee-house[51], when a number of them were talking +loud about little matters, he said, "Does not this confirm old +Meynell's[52] observation--_For any thing I see, foreigners are +fools_[53]."' + +'He said, that once, when he had a violent tooth-ach, a Frenchman +accosted him thus:--_Ah, Monsieur vous etudiez trop_[54].' + +'Having spent an evening at Mr. Langton's with the Reverend Dr. Parr, he +was much pleased with the conversation of that learned gentleman; and +after he was gone, said to Mr. Langton, "Sir, I am obliged to you for +having asked me this evening. Parr is a fair man. I do not know when I +have had an occasion of such free controversy. It is remarkable how much +of a man's life may pass without meeting with any instance of this kind +of open discussion[55]."' + +'We may fairly institute a criticism between Shakspeare and +Corneille[56], as they both had, though in a different degree, the +lights of a latter age. It is not so just between the Greek dramatick +writers and Shakspeare. It may be replied to what is said by one of the +remarkers on Shakspeare, that though Darius's shade[57] had +_prescience_, it does not necessarily follow that he had all _past_ +particulars revealed to him.' + +'Spanish plays, being wildly and improbably farcical, would please +children here, as children are entertained with stories full of +prodigies; their experience not being sufficient to cause them to be so +readily startled at deviations from the natural course of life[58]. The +machinery of the Pagans is uninteresting to us[59]: when a Goddess +appears in Homer or Virgil, we grow weary; still more so in the Grecian +tragedies, as in that kind of composition a nearer approach to Nature is +intended. Yet there are good reasons for reading romances; as--the +fertility of invention, the beauty of style and expression, the +curiosity of seeing with what kind of performances the age and country +in which they were written was delighted: for it is to be apprehended, +that at the time when very wild improbable tales were well received, the +people were in a barbarous state, and so on the footing of children, as +has been explained.' + +'It is evident enough that no one who writes now can use the Pagan +deities and mythology; the only machinery, therefore, seems that of +ministering spirits, the ghosts of the departed, witches[60], and +fairies, though these latter, as the vulgar superstition concerning them +(which, while in its force, infected at least the imagination of those +that had more advantage in education, though their reason set them free +from it,) is every day wearing out, seem likely to be of little further +assistance in the machinery of poetry. As I recollect, Hammond +introduces a hag or witch into one of his love elegies, where the effect +is unmeaning and disgusting[61].' + +'The man who uses his talent of ridicule in creating or grossly +exaggerating the instances he gives, who imputes absurdities that did +not happen, or when a man was a little ridiculous describes him as +having been very much so, abuses his talents greatly. The great use of +delineating absurdities is, that we may know how far human folly can go; +the account, therefore, ought of absolute necessity to be faithful. A +certain character (naming the person) as to the general cast of it, is +well described by Garrick, but a great deal of the phraseology he uses +in it, is quite his own, particularly in the proverbial comparisons, +"obstinate as a pig," &c., but I don't know whether it might not be true +of Lord ------[62], that from a too great eagerness of praise and +popularity, and a politeness carried to a ridiculous excess, he was +likely, after asserting a thing in general, to give it up again in +parts. For instance, if he had said Reynolds was the first of painters, +he was capable enough of giving up, as objections might happen to be +severally made, first his outline,--then the grace in form,--then the +colouring,--and lastly, to have owned that he was such a mannerist, that +the disposition of his pictures was all alike.' + +'For hospitality, as formerly practised, there is no longer the same +reason; heretofore the poorer people were more numerous, and from want +of commerce, their means of getting a livelihood more difficult; +therefore the supporting them was an act of great benevolence; now that +the poor can find maintenance for themselves, and their labour is +wanted, a general undiscerning hospitality tends to ill, by withdrawing +them from their work to idleness and drunkenness. Then, formerly rents +were received in kind, so that there was a great abundance of provisions +in possession of the owners of the lands, which, since the plenty of +money afforded by commerce, is no longer the case.' + +'Hospitality to strangers and foreigners in our country is now almost at +an end, since, from the increase of them that come to us, there have +been a sufficient number of people that have found an interest in +providing inns and proper accommodations, which is in general a more +expedient method for the entertainment of travellers. Where the +travellers and strangers are few, more of that hospitality subsists, as +it has not been worth while to provide places of accommodation. In +Ireland there is still hospitality to strangers, in some degree; in +Hungary and Poland probably more.' + +'Colman, in a note on his translation of _Terence_, talking of +Shakspeare's learning, asks, "What says Farmer to this? What says +Johnson[63]?" Upon this he observed, "Sir, let Farmer answer for +himself: _I_ never engaged in this controversy. I always said, +Shakspeare had Latin enough to grammaticise his English[64]."' + +'A clergyman, whom he characterised as one who loved to say little +oddities, was affecting one day, at a Bishop's table, a sort of slyness +and freedom not in character, and repeated, as if part of _The Old Mans +Wish_, a song by Dr. Walter Pope, a verse bordering on licentiousness. +Johnson rebuked him in the finest manner, by first shewing him that he +did not know the passage he was aiming at, and thus humbling him: "Sir, +that is not the song: it is thus." And he gave it right. Then looking +stedfastly on him, "Sir, there is a part of that song which I should +wish to exemplify in my own life:-- + +"May I govern my passions with absolute sway[65]!"' + +'Being asked if Barnes knew a good deal of Greek, he answered, "I doubt, +Sir, he was _unoculus inter caecos[66]_."' + +'He used frequently to observe, that men might be very eminent in a +profession, without our perceiving any particular power of mind in them +in conversation. "It seems strange (said he) that a man should see so +far to the right, who sees so short a way to the left. Burke is the only +man whose common conversation corresponds with the general fame which +he has in the world. Take up whatever topick you please, he is ready to +meet you[67]."' + +'A gentleman, by no means deficient in literature, having discovered +less acquaintance with one of the Classicks than Johnson expected, when +the gentleman left the room, he observed, "You see, now, how little any +body reads." Mr. Langton happening to mention his having read a good +deal in Clenardus's _Greek Grammar_, "Why, Sir, (said he,) who is there +in this town who knows any thing of Clenardus but you and I?" And upon +Mr. Langton's mentioning that he had taken the pains to learn by heart +the Epistle of St. Basil, which is given in that Grammar as a praxis, +"Sir, (said he,) I never made such an effort to attain Greek[68]."' + +'Of Dodsley's _Publick Virtue, a Poem_, he said, "It was fine _blank_ +(meaning to express his usual contempt for blank verse[69]); however, +this miserable poem did not sell, and my poor friend Doddy said, Publick +Virtue was not a subject to interest the age."' + +'Mr. Langton, when a very young man, read Dodsley's _Cleone a +Tragedy_[70], to him, not aware of his extreme impatience to be read to. +As it went on he turned his face to the back of his chair, and put +himself into various attitudes, which marked his uneasiness. At the end +of an act, however, he said, "Come let's have some more, let's go into +the slaughter-house again, Lanky. But I am afraid there is more blood +than brains." Yet he afterwards said, "When I heard you read it, I +thought higher of its power of language: when I read it myself, I was +more sensible of its pathetick effect;" and then he paid it a compliment +which many will think very extravagant. "Sir, (said he,) if Otway had +written this play, no other of his pieces would have been remembered." +Dodsley himself, upon this being repeated to him, said, "It was too +much:" it must be remembered, that Johnson always appeared not to be +sufficiently sensible of the merit of Otway[71].' + +'Snatches of reading (said he) will not make a Bentley or a Clarke. They +are, however, in a certain degree advantageous. I would put a child into +a library (where no unfit books are) and let him read at his choice. A +child should not be discouraged from reading any thing that he takes a +liking to, from a notion that it is above his reach. If that be the +case, the child will soon find it out and desist; if not, he of course +gains the instruction; which is so much the more likely to come, from +the inclination with which he takes up the study[72].' + +'Though he used to censure carelessness with great vehemence, he owned, +that he once, to avoid the trouble of locking up five guineas, hid them, +he forgot where, so that he could not find them.' + +'A gentleman who introduced his brother to Dr. Johnson was earnest to +recommend him to the Doctor's notice, which he did by saying, "When we +have sat together some time, you'll find my brother grow very +entertaining."--"Sir, (said Johnson,) I can wait."' + +'When the rumour was strong that we should have a war, because the +French would assist the Americans, he rebuked a friend with some +asperity for supposing it, saying, "No, Sir, national faith is not yet +sunk so low."' + +'In the latter part of his life, in order to satisfy himself whether his +mental faculties were impaired, he resolved that he would try to learn a +new language, and fixed upon the Low Dutch, for that purpose, and this +he continued till he had read about one half of _Thomas à Kempis_; and +finding that there appeared no abatement of his power of acquisition, he +then desisted, as thinking the experiment had been duly tried[73]. Mr. +Burke justly observed, that this was not the most vigorous trial, Low +Dutch being a language so near to our own; had it been one of the +languages entirely different, he might have been very soon satisfied.' + +'Mr. Langton and he having gone to see a Freemason's funeral procession, +when they were at Rochester[74], and some solemn musick being played on +French horns, he said, "This is the first time that I have ever been +affected by musical sounds;" adding, "that the impression made upon him +was of a melancholy kind." Mr. Langton saying, that this effect was a +fine one,--JOHNSON. "Yes, if it softens the mind, so as to prepare it +for the reception of salutary feelings, it may be good: but inasmuch as +it is melancholy _per se_, it is bad[75]."' + +'Goldsmith had long a visionary project, that some time or other when +his circumstances should be easier, he would go to Aleppo, in order to +acquire a knowledge as far as might be of any arts peculiar to the East, +and introduce them into Britain. When this was talked of in Dr. +Johnson's company, he said, "Of all men Goldsmith is the most unfit to +go out upon such an inquiry; for he is utterly ignorant of such arts as +we already possess, and consequently could not know what would be +accessions to our present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir, he would +bring home a grinding barrow, which you see in every street in London, +and think that he had furnished a wonderful improvement[76]."' + +'Greek, Sir, (said he,) is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he +can[77].' + +'When Lord Charles Hay[78], after his return from America, was preparing +his defence to be offered to the Court-Martial which he had demanded, +having heard Mr. Langton as high in expressions of admiration of +Johnson, as he usually was, he requested that Dr. Johnson might be +introduced to him; and Mr. Langton having mentioned it to Johnson, he +very kindly and readily agreed; and being presented by Mr. Langton to +his Lordship, while under arrest, he saw him several times; upon one of +which occasions Lord Charles read to him what he had prepared, which +Johnson signified his approbation of, saying, "It is a very good +soldierly defence." Johnson said, that he had advised his Lordship, that +as it was in vain to contend with those who were in possession of power, +if they would offer him the rank of Lieutenant-General, and a +government, it would be better judged to desist from urging his +complaints. It is well known that his Lordship died before the sentence +was made known.' + +'Johnson one day gave high praise to Dr. Bentley's verses[79] in +Dodsley's _Collection_, which he recited with his usual energy. Dr. Adam +Smith, who was present, observed in his decisive professorial manner, +"Very well--Very well." Johnson however added, "Yes, they _are_ very +well, Sir; but you may observe in what manner they are well. They are +the forcible verses of a man of a strong mind, but not accustomed to +write verse[80]; for there is some uncouthness in the expression[81]."' + +'Drinking tea one day at Garrick's with Mr. Langton, he was questioned +if he was not somewhat of a heretick as to Shakspeare; said Garrick, "I +doubt he is a little of an infidel[82]."--"Sir, (said Johnson) I will +stand by the lines I have written on Shakspeare in my Prologue at the +opening of your Theatre[83]." Mr. Langton suggested, that in the line + + "And panting Time toil'd after him in vain," + +Johnson might have had in his eye the passage in _The Tempest_, where +Prospero says of Miranda, + + "-------She will outstrip all praise, + And make it halt behind her[84]." + +Johnson said nothing. Garrick then ventured to observe, "I do not think +that the happiest line in the praise of Shakspeare." Johnson exclaimed +(smiling,) "Prosaical rogues! next time I write, I'll make both time and +space pant[85]."' + +'It is well known that there was formerly a rude custom for those who +were sailing upon the Thames, to accost each other as they passed, in +the most abusive language they could invent, generally, however, with as +much satirical humour as they were capable of producing. Addison gives a +specimen of this ribaldry, in Number 383 of _The Spectator_, when Sir +Roger de Coverly and he are going to Spring-garden[86]. Johnson was once +eminently successful in this species of contest; a fellow having +attacked him with some coarse raillery, Johnson answered him thus, "Sir, +your wife, _under pretence of keeping a bawdy-house_, is a receiver of +stolen goods[87]." One evening when he and Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton +were in company together, and the admirable scolding of Timon of Athens +was mentioned, this instance of Johnson's was quoted, and thought to +have at least equal excellence.' + +'As Johnson always allowed the extraordinary talents of Mr. Burke, so +Mr. Burke was fully sensible of the wonderful powers of Johnson. Mr. +Langton recollects having passed an evening with both of them, when Mr. +Burke repeatedly entered upon topicks which it was evident he would have +illustrated with extensive knowledge and richness of expression; but +Johnson always seized upon the conversation, in which, however, he +acquitted himself in a most masterly manner. As Mr. Burke and Mr. +Langton were walking home, Mr. Burke observed that Johnson had been very +great that night; Mr. Langton joined in this, but added, he could have +wished to hear more from another person; (plainly intimating that he +meant Mr. Burke.) "O, no (said Mr. Burke) it is enough for me to have +rung the bell to him[88]."' + +'Beauclerk having observed to him of one of their friends, that he was +aukward at counting money, "Why, Sir, said Johnson, I am likewise +aukward at counting money. But then, Sir, the reason is plain; I have +had very little money to count."' + +'He had an abhorrence of affectation[89]. Talking of old Mr. Langton, of +whom he said, "Sir, you will seldom see such a gentleman, such are his +stores of literature, such his knowledge in divinity, and such his +exemplary life;" he added, "and Sir, he has no grimace, no +gesticulation, no bursts of admiration on trivial occasions; he never +embraces you with an overacted cordiality[90]."' + +'Being in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain Dr. +Berkeley's ingenious philosophy, that nothing exists but as perceived by +some mind[91]; when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, +"Pray, Sir, don't leave us; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, +and then you will cease to exist[92]."' + +'Goldsmith, upon being visited by Johnson one day in the Temple, said to +him with a little jealousy of the appearance of his accommodation, "I +shall soon be in better chambers than these." Johnson at the same time +checked him and paid him a handsome compliment, implying that a man of +his talents should be above attention to such distinctions,--'Nay, Sir, +never mind that. _Nil te quaesiveris extra_[93].' + +'At the time when his pension was granted to him, he said, with a noble +literary ambition, "Had this happened twenty years years ago, I should +have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabick, as Pococke did[94]."' + +'As an instance of the niceness of his taste, though he praised West's +translation of Pindar, he pointed out the following passage as faulty, +by expressing a circumstance so minute as to detract from the general +dignity which should prevail: + + "Down then from thy glittering nail, + Take, O Muse, thy Dorian _lyre_[95].'" + +'When Mr. Vesey[96] was proposed as a member of the LITERARY CLUB, Mr. +Burke began by saying that he was a man of gentle manners. "Sir, said +Johnson, you need say no more. When you have said a man of gentle +manners; you have said enough."' + +'The late Mr. Fitzherbert[97] told Mr. Langton that Johnson said to him, +"Sir, a man has no more right to _say_ an uncivil thing, than to _act_ +one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock +him down."' + +'My dear friend Dr. Bathurst[98], (said he with a warmth of approbation) +declared he was glad that his father, who was a West-Indian planter, had +left his affairs in total ruin, because having no estate, he was not +under the temptation of having slaves.' + +'Richardson had little conversation[99], except about his own works, of +which Sir Joshua Reynolds said he was always willing to talk, and glad +to have them introduced. Johnson when he carried Mr. Langton to see him, +professed that he could bring him out into conversation, and used this +allusive expression, "Sir, I can make him _rear._" But he failed; for in +that interview Richardson said little else than that there lay in the +room a translation of his _Clarissa_ into German[100].' + +'Once when somebody produced a newspaper in which there was a letter of +stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of which Johnson himself came in +for a share,--"Pray," said he, "let us have it read aloud from beginning +to end;" which being done, he with a ludicrous earnestness, and not +directing his look to any particular person, called out, "Are we alive +after all this satire!"' + +'He had a strong prejudice against the political character of +Seeker[101], one instance of which appeared at Oxford, where he +expressed great dissatisfaction at his varying the old established +toast, "Church and King." "The Archbishop of Canterbury, said he (with +an affected smooth smiling grimace) drinks,' Constitution in Church and +State.'" Being asked what difference there was between the two toasts, +he said, "Why, Sir, you may be sure he meant something." Yet when the +life of that prelate, prefixed to his sermons by Dr. Porteus and Dr. +Stinton his chaplains, first came out, he read it with the utmost +avidity, and said, "It is a life well written, and that well deserves to +be recorded."' + +'Of a certain noble Lord, he said, "Respect him, you could not; for he +had no mind of his own. Love him you could not; for that which you could +do with him, every one else could[102]."' + +'Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, "No man was more foolish when he had not a +pen in his hand, or more wise when he had[103]."' + +'He told in his lively manner the following literary anecdote: "Green +and Guthrie[104], an Irishman and a Scotchman, undertook a translation +of Duhalde's _History of China_. Green said of Guthrie, that he knew no +English, and Guthrie of Green, that he knew no French; and these two +undertook to translate Duhalde's _History of China_. In this translation +there was found 'the twenty-sixth day of the new moon.' Now as the whole +age of the moon is but twenty-eight days, the moon instead of being new, +was nearly as old as it could be. Their blunder arose from their +mistaking the word _neuvième_ ninth, for _nouvelle_ or _neuve_, new."' + +'Talking of Dr. Blagden's copiousness and precision of communication, +Dr. Johnson said, "Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow[105]."' + +'On occasion of Dr. Johnson's publishing his pamphlet of _The False +Alarm_[106], there came out a very angry answer (by many supposed to be +by Mr. Wilkes). Dr. Johnson determined on not answering it; but, in +conversation with Mr. Langton, mentioned a particular or two, which if +he _had_ replied to it, he might perhaps have inserted. In the +answerer's pamphlet, it had been said with solemnity, "Do you consider, +Sir, that a House of Commons is to the people as a Creature is to its +Creator[107]?" To this question, said Dr. Johnson, I could have replied, +that--in the first place--the idea of a CREATOR must be such as that he +has a power to unmake or annihilate his creature.' + +'Then it cannot be conceived that a creature can make laws for its +CREATOR[108].' + +'Depend upon it, said he, that if a man _talks_ of his misfortunes, +there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where +there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the +mention of it[109].' + +'A man must be a poor beast that should _read_ no more in quantity than +he could _utter_ aloud.' + +'Imlac in _Rasselas_, I spelt with a _c_ at the end, because it is less +like English, which should always have the Saxon _k_ added to the +_c_[110].' + +'Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without +having it perceived[111]: for example, a madness has seized a person of +supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually[112]--had the +madness turned the opposite way and the person thought it a crime ever +to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.' + +'He apprehended that the delineation of _characters_ in the end of the +first Book of the _Retreat of the Ten Thousand_ was the first instance +of the kind that was known.' + +'Supposing (said he) a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, +it would be very troublesome[113]: for instance,--if a woman should +continually dwell upon the subject of the Arian heresy.' + +'No man speaks concerning another, even suppose it be in his praise, if +he thinks he does not hear him, exactly as he would, if he thought he +was within hearing.' + +'The applause of a single human being is of great consequence[114]: This +he said to me with great earnestness of manner, very near the time of +his decease, on occasion of having desired me to read a letter addressed +to him from some person in the North of England; which when I had done, +and he asked me what the contents were, as I thought being particular +upon it might fatigue him, it being of great length, I only told him in +general that it was highly in his praise;--and then he expressed himself +as above.' + +'He mentioned with an air of satisfaction what Baretti had told him; +that, meeting, in the course of his studying English, with an excellent +paper in the _Spectator_, one of four[115] that were written by the +respectable Dissenting Minister, Mr. Grove of Taunton, and observing the +genius and energy of mind that it exhibits, it greatly quickened his +curiosity to visit our country; as he thought if such were the lighter +periodical essays of our authours, their productions on more weighty +occasions must be wonderful indeed!' + +'He observed once, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, that a beggar in the street +will more readily ask alms from a _man_, though there should be no marks +of wealth in his appearance, than from even a well-dressed woman[116]; +which he accounted for from the greater degree of carefulness as to +money that is to be found in women; saying farther upon it, that the +opportunities in general that they possess of improving their condition +are much fewer than men have; and adding, as he looked round the +company, which consisted of men only,--there is not one of us who does +not think he might be richer if he would use his endeavour.' + +'He thus characterised an ingenious writer of his acquaintance: "Sir, he +is an enthusiast by rule[117]."' + +'_He may hold up that SHIELD against all his enemies_;'--was an +observation on Homer, in reference to his description of the shield of +Achilles, made by Mrs. Fitzherbert, wife to his friend Mr. Fitzherbert +of Derbyshire, and respected by Dr. Johnson as a very fine one[118]. He +had in general a very high opinion of that lady's understanding.' + +'An observation of Bathurst's may be mentioned, which Johnson repeated, +appearing to acknowledge it to be well founded, namely, it was somewhat +remarkable how seldom, on occasion of coming into the company of any new +person, one felt any wish or inclination to see him again[119].' + +This year the Reverend Dr. Franklin[120] having published a translation +of _Lucian_, inscribed to him the _Demonax_ thus:-- + +'To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, the Demonax of the present age, this piece is +inscribed by a sincere admirer of his respectable[121] talents, + +'THE TRANSLATOR.' + +Though upon a particular comparison of Demonax and Johnson, there does +not seem to be a great deal of similarity between them, this Dedication +is a just compliment from the general character given by Lucian of the +ancient Sage, '[Greek: ariston on oida ego philosophon genomenon], the +best philosopher whom I have ever seen or known.' + +1781: AETAT. 72.--In 1781 Johnson at last completed his _Lives of the +Poets_, of which he gives this account: 'Some time in March I finished +the _Lives of the Poets_, which I wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and +hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste[122].' In +a memorandum previous to this, he says of them: 'Written, I hope, in +such a manner as may tend to the promotion of piety[123].' + +This is the work which of all Dr. Johnson's writings will perhaps be +read most generally, and with most pleasure. Philology and +biography[124] were his favourite pursuits, and those who lived most in +intimacy with him, heard him upon all occasions, when there was a proper +opportunity, take delight in expatiating upon the various merits of the +English Poets: upon the niceties of their characters, and the events of +their progress through the world which they contributed to illuminate. +His mind was so full of that kind of information, and it was so well +arranged in his memory, that in performing what he had undertaken in +this way, he had little more to do than to put his thoughts upon paper, +exhibiting first each Poet's life, and then subjoining a critical +examination of his genius and works. But when he began to write, the +subject swelled in such a manner, that instead of prefaces to each poet, +of no more than a few pages, as he had originally intended[125], he +produced an ample, rich, and most entertaining view of them in every +respect. In this he resembled Quintilian, who tells us, that in the +composition of his _Institutions of Oratory[126], Latiùs se tamen +aperiente materiâ, plus quàm imponebatur oneris sponte suscepi._ The +booksellers, justly sensible of the great additional value of the +copy-right, presented him with another hundred pounds, over and above +two hundred, for which his agreement was to furnish such prefaces as he +thought fit[127]. + +This was, however, but a small recompense for such a collection of +biography, and such principles and illustrations of criticism, as, if +digested and arranged in one system, by some modern Aristotle or +Longinus, might form a code upon that subject, such as no other nation +can shew. As he was so good as to make me a present of the greatest part +of the original and indeed only[128] manuscript of this admirable work, +I have an opportunity of observing with wonder, the correctness with +which he rapidly struck off such glowing composition. He may be +assimilated to the Lady in Waller, who could impress with 'Love at +first sight:' + + 'Some other nymphs with colours faint, + And pencil slow may Cupid paint, + And a weak heart in time destroy; + She has a stamp, and prints the boy[129].' + +That he, however, had a good deal of trouble, and some anxiety in +carrying on the work[130], we see from a series of letters to Mr. +Nichols the printer[131], whose variety of literary inquiry and +obliging disposition, rendered him useful to Johnson. Mr. Steevens +appears, from the papers in my possession, to have supplied him with +some anecdotes and quotations; and I observe the fair hand of Mrs. +Thrale as one of his copyists of select passages. But he was principally +indebted to my steady friend Mr. Isaac Reed, of Staple-inn, whose +extensive and accurate knowledge of English literary history I do not +express with exaggeration, when I say it is wonderful; indeed his +labours[132] have proved it to the world; and all who have the pleasure +of his acquaintance can bear testimony to the frankness of his +communications in private society. + +It is not my intention to dwell upon each of Johnson's _Lives of the +Poets_, or attempt an analysis of their merits, which, were I able to +do it, would take up too much room in this work; yet I shall make a few +observations upon some of them, and insert a few various readings. + +The Life of COWLEY he himself considered as the best of the whole, on +account of the dissertation which it contains on the _Metaphysical +Poets_. Dryden, whose critical abilities were equal to his poetical, had +mentioned them in his excellent Dedication of his Juvenal, but had +barely mentioned them[133]. Johnson has exhibited them at large, with +such happy illustration from their writings, and in so luminous a +manner, that indeed he may be allowed the full merit of novelty, and to +have discovered to us, as it were, a new planet in the poetical +hemisphere[134]. + +It is remarked by Johnson, in considering the works of a poet[135], that +'amendments are seldom made without some token of a rent;' but I do not +find that this is applicable to prose[136]. We shall see that though his +amendments in this work are for the better, there is nothing of the +_pannus assutus_[137]; the texture is uniform: and indeed, what had been +there at first, is very seldom unfit to have remained. + +_Various Readings[138] in the Life of COWLEY._ + +'All [future votaries of] _that may hereafter pant for_ solitude. + +'To conceive and execute the [agitation or perception] _pains and the +pleasures_ of other minds. + +'The wide effulgence of [the blazing] a _summer_ noon.' + +In the Life of WALLER, Johnson gives a distinct and animated narrative +of publick affairs in that variegated period, with strong yet nice +touches of character; and having a fair opportunity to display his +political principles, does it with an unqualified manly confidence, and +satisfies his readers how nobly he might have executed a _Tory History_ +of his country. + +So easy is his style in these Lives, that I do not recollect more than +three uncommon or learned words[139]; one, when giving an account of the +approach of Waller's mortal disease, he says, 'he found his legs grow +_tumid_;' by using the expression his legs _swelled_, he would have +avoided this; and there would have been no impropriety in its being +followed by the interesting question to his physician, 'What that +_swelling_ meant?' Another, when he mentions that Pope had _emitted_ +proposals; when _published_ or _issued_ would have been more readily +understood; and a third, when he calls Orrery and Dr. Delany[140], +writers both undoubtedly _veracious_[141], when _true, honest_, or +_faithful_, might have been used. Yet, it must be owned, that none of +these are _hard_ or _too big_ words; that custom would make them seem as +easy as any others; and that a language is richer and capable of more +beauty of expression, by having a greater variety of synonimes. + +His dissertation[142] upon the unfitness of poetry for the aweful +subjects of our holy religion, though I do not entirely agree with with +him, has all the merit of originality, with uncommon force and +reasoning. + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ WALLER. + +'Consented to [the insertion of their names] _their own nomination_. + +'[After] _paying_ a fine of ten thousand pounds. + +'Congratulating Charles the Second on his [coronation] _recovered +right_. + +'He that has flattery ready for all whom the vicissitudes of the world +happen to exalt, must be [confessed to degrade his powers] _scorned as a +prostituted mind_. + +'The characters by which Waller intended to distinguish his writings are +[elegance] _sprightliness_ and dignity. + +'Blossoms to be valued only as they [fetch] _foretell_ fruits. + +'Images such as the superficies of nature [easily] _readily_ supplies. + +'[His] Some applications [are sometimes] _may be thought_ too remote and +unconsequential. + +'His images are [sometimes confused] _not always distinct_? + +Against his Life of MILTON, the hounds of Whiggism have opened in full +cry[143]. But of Milton's great excellence as a poet, where shall we +find such a blazon as by the hand of Johnson? I shall select only the +following passage concerning _Paradise Lost_[144]: + +'Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton surveyed +the silent progress of his work, and marked his reputation stealing its +way in a kind of subterraneous current, through fear and silence. I +cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at +all dejected, relying on his own merit with steady consciousness, and +waiting without impatience the vicissitudes of opinion, and the +impartiality of a future generation[145].' + +Indeed even Dr. Towers, who may be considered as one of the warmest +zealots of _The Revolution Society_[146] itself, allows, that 'Johnson +has spoken in the highest terms of the abilities of that great poet, and +has bestowed on his principal poetical compositions the most honourable +encomiums[147].' + +That a man, who venerated the Church and Monarchy as Johnson did, should +speak with a just abhorrence of Milton as a politician, or rather as a +daring foe to good polity, was surely to be expected; and to those who +censure him, I would recommend his commentary on Milton's celebrated +complaint of his situation, when by the lenity of Charles the Second, 'a +lenity of which (as Johnson well observes) the world has had perhaps no +other example, he, who had written in justification of the murder of his +Sovereign, was safe under an Act of Oblivion[148].' + +'No sooner is he safe than he finds himself in danger, _fallen on evil +days and evil tongues_, [and] _with darkness and with danger compassed +round_[149]. This darkness, had his eyes been better employed, had +undoubtedly deserved compassion; but to add the mention of danger, was +ungrateful and unjust. He was fallen, indeed, on _evil days_; the time +was come in which regicides could no longer boast their wickedness. But +of _evil tongues_ for Milton to complain, required impudence at least +equal to his other powers; Milton, whose warmest advocates must allow, +that he never spared any asperity of reproach, or brutality of +insolence[150].' + +I have, indeed, often wondered how Milton, 'an acrimonious and surly +Republican[151],'--'a man who in his domestick relations was so severe +and arbitrary[152],' and whose head was filled with the hardest and most +dismal tenets of Calvinism[153], should have been such a poet; should +not only have written with sublimity, but with beauty, and even gaiety; +should have exquisitely painted the sweetest sensations of which our +nature is capable; imaged the delicate raptures of connubial love; nay, +seemed to be animated with all the spirit of revelry. It is a proof that +in the human mind the departments of judgement and imagination, +perception and temper, may sometimes be divided by strong partitions; +and that the light and shade in the same character may be kept so +distinct as never to be blended[154]. + +In the Life of Milton, Johnson took occasion to maintain his own and the +general opinion of the excellence of rhyme over blank verse, in English +poetry[155]; and quotes this apposite illustration of it by 'an +ingenious critick,' that _it seems to be verse only to the eye_[156]. +The gentleman whom he thus characterises, is (as he told Mr. Seward) Mr. +Lock[157], of Norbury Park, in Surrey, whose knowledge and taste in the +fine arts is universally celebrated; with whose elegance of manners the +writer of the present work has felt himself much impressed, and to whose +virtues a common friend, who has known him long, and is not much +addicted to flattery, gives the highest testimony. + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ MILTON. + +'I cannot find any meaning but this which [his most bigotted advocates] +_even kindness and reverence_ can give. + +'[Perhaps no] _scarcely any_ man ever wrote so much, and praised so few. + +'A certain [rescue] _perservative_ from oblivion. + +'Let me not be censured for this digression, as [contracted] _pedantick_ +or paradoxical. + +'Socrates rather was of opinion, that what we had to learn was how to +[obtain and communicate happiness] _do good and avoid evil_. + +'Its elegance [who can exhibit?] _is less attainable._' + +I could, with pleasure, expatiate upon the masterly execution of the +Life of DRYDEN, which we have seen[158] was one of Johnson's literary +projects at an early period, and which it is remarkable, that after +desisting from it, from a supposed scantiness of materials, he should, +at an advanced age, have exhibited so amply. + +His defence[159] of that great poet against the illiberal attacks upon +him, as if his embracing the Roman Catholick communion had been a +time-serving measure, is a piece of reasoning at once able and candid. +Indeed, Dryden himself, in his _Hind and Panther_, has given such a +picture of his mind, that they who know the anxiety for repose as to the +aweful subject of our state beyond the grave, though they may think his +opinion ill-founded, must think charitably of his sentiment:-- + + 'But, gracious GOD, how well dost thou provide + For erring judgements an unerring guide! + Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light, + A blaze of glory that forbids the sight. + O! teach me to believe thee thus conceal'd, + And search no farther than thyself reveal'd; + But Her alone for my director take, + Whom thou hast promis'd never to forsake. + My thoughtless youth was wing'd with vain desires; + My manhood long misled by wand'ring fires, + Follow'd false lights; and when their glimpse was gone, + My pride struck out new sparkles of her own. + Such was I, such by Nature still I am; + Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame. + Good life be now my task: my doubts are done; + What more could shock[160] my faith than Three in One?' + +In drawing Dryden's character, Johnson has given, though I suppose +unintentionally, some touches of his own. Thus:--'The power that +predominated in his intellectual operations was rather strong reason +than quick sensibility. Upon all occasions that were presented, he +studied rather than felt; and produced sentiments not such as Nature +enforces, but meditation supplies. With the simple and elemental +passions as they spring separate in the mind, he seems not much +acquainted. He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not +often pathetick; and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions +purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others[161].' It may +indeed be observed, that in all the numerous writings of Johnson, +whether in prose or verse, and even in his Tragedy, of which the subject +is the distress of an unfortunate Princess, there is not a single +passage that ever drew a tear[162]. + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ DRYDEN. + +'The reason of this general perusal, Addison has attempted to [find in] +_derive from_ the delight which the mind feels in the investigation +of secrets. + +'His best actions are but [convenient] _inability of_ wickedness. + +'When once he had engaged himself in disputation, [matter] _thoughts_ +flowed in on either side. + +'The abyss of an un-ideal [emptiness] _vacancy_. + +'These, like [many other harlots,] _the harlots of other men_, had his +love though not his approbation. + +'He [sometimes displays] _descends to display_ his knowledge with +pedantick ostentation. + +'French words which [were then used in] _had then crept into_ +conversation.' + +The Life of POPE[163] was written by Johnson _con amore_, both from the +early possession which that writer had taken of his mind, and from the +pleasure which he must have felt, in for ever silencing all attempts to +lessen his poetical fame, by demonstrating his excellence, and +pronouncing the following triumphant eulogium[164]:--'After all this, it +is surely superfluous to answer the question that has once been asked, +Whether Pope was a poet? otherwise than by asking in return, If Pope be +not a poet, where is poetry to be found? To circumscribe poetry by a +definition, will only shew the narrowness of the definer; though a +definition which shall exclude Pope will not easily be made. Let us look +round upon the present time, and back upon the past; let us enquire to +whom the voice of mankind has decreed the wreath of poetry; let their +productions be examined, and their claims stated, and the pretensions of +Pope will be no more disputed.' + +I remember once to have heard Johnson say, 'Sir, a thousand years may +elapse before there shall appear another man with a power of +versification equal to that of Pope.' That power must undoubtedly be +allowed its due share in enhancing the value of his captivating +composition. + +Johnson, who had done liberal justice to Warburton in his edition of +_Shakspeare_[165], which was published during the life of that powerful +writer, with still greater liberality[166] took an opportunity, in the +Life of Pope, of paying the tribute due to him when he was no longer in +'high place,' but numbered with the dead[167]. + +It seems strange, that two such men as Johnson and Warburton, who lived +in the same age and country, should not only not have been in any degree +of intimacy, but been almost personally unacquainted. But such +instances, though we must wonder at them, are not rare. If I am rightly +informed, after a careful enquiry, they never met but once, which was at +the house of Mrs. French, in London, well known for her elegant +assemblies, and bringing eminent characters together. The interview +proved to be mutually agreeable[168]. + +I am well informed, that Warburton said of Johnson, 'I admire him, but I +cannot bear his style:' and that Johnson being told of this, said, 'That +is exactly my case as to him[169].' The manner in which he expressed his +admiration of the fertility of Warburton's genius and of the variety of +his materials was, 'The table is always full, Sir. He brings things from +the north, and the south, and from every quarter. In his _Divine +Legation_, you are always entertained. He carries you round and round, +without carrying you forward to the point; but then you have no wish to +be carried forward.' He said to the Reverend Mr. Strahan, 'Warburton is +perhaps the last man who has written with a mind full of reading and +reflection[170].' + +It is remarkable, that in the Life of Broome[171], Johnson takes notice +of Dr. Warburton using a mode of expression which he himself used, and +that not seldom, to the great offence of those who did not know him. +Having occasion to mention a note, stating the different parts which +were executed by the associated translators of _The Odyssey_, he says, +'Dr. Warburton told me, in his warm language, that he thought the +relation given in the note _a lie_. The language is _warm_ indeed; and, +I must own, cannot be justified in consistency with a decent regard to +the established forms of speech. Johnson had accustomed himself to use +the word _lie_[172], to express a mistake or an errour in relation; in +short, when the _thing was not so as told_, though the relator did not +_mean_ to deceive. When he thought there was intentional falsehood in +the relator, his expression was, 'He _lies_, and he _knows_ he _lies_.' + +Speaking of Pope's not having been known to excel in conversation, +Johnson observes, that 'traditional memory retains no sallies of +raillery, or[173] sentences of observation; nothing either pointed or +solid, wise or merry[174]; and that one apophthegm only is +recorded[175].' In this respect, Pope differed widely from Johnson, +whose conversation was, perhaps, more admirable than even his writings, +however excellent. Mr. Wilkes has, however, favoured me with one +repartee of Pope, of which Johnson was not informed. Johnson, after +justly censuring him for having 'nursed in his mind a foolish dis-esteem +of Kings,' tells us, 'yet a little regard shewn him by the Prince of +Wales melted his obduracy; and he had not much to say when he was asked +by his Royal Highness, _how he could love a Prince, while he disliked +Kings_[176]?' The answer which Pope made, was, 'The young lion is +harmless, and even playful; but when his claws are full grown he becomes +cruel, dreadful, and mischievous.' + +But although we have no collection of Pope's sayings, it is not +therefore to be concluded, that he was not agreeable in social +intercourse; for Johnson has been heard to say, that 'the happiest +conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a +general effect of pleasing impression.' The late Lord Somerville[177], +who saw much both of great and brilliant life, told me, that he had +dined in company with Pope, and that after dinner the _little man_, as +he called him, drank his bottle of Burgundy, and was exceedingly gay and +entertaining. + +I cannot withhold from my great friend a censure of at least culpable +inattention, to a nobleman, who, it has been shewn[178], behaved to him +with uncommon politeness. He says, 'Except Lord Bathurst, none of Pope's +noble friends were such as that a good man would wish to have his +intimacy with them known to posterity[179].' This will not apply to Lord +Mansfield, who was not ennobled in Pope's life-time; but Johnson should +have recollected, that Lord Marchmont was one of those noble friends. He +includes his Lordship along with Lord Bolingbroke, in a charge of +neglect of the papers which Pope left by his will; when, in truth, as I +myself pointed out to him, before he wrote that poet's life, the papers +were 'committed to _the sole care and judgement_ of Lord Bolingbroke, +unless he (Lord Bolingbroke) shall not survive me;' so that Lord +Marchmont had no concern whatever with them[180]. After the first +edition of the _Lives_, Mr. Malone, whose love of justice is equal to +his accuracy, made, in my hearing, the same remark to Johnson; yet he +omitted to correct the erroneous statement[181]. These particulars I +mention, in the belief that there was only forgetfulness in my friend; +but I owe this much to the Earl of Marchmont's reputation, who, were +there no other memorials, will be immortalised by that line of Pope, in +the verses on his Grotto: + + 'And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul.' + +_Various Readings in the Life of POPE._ + +'[Somewhat free] _sufficiently bold_ in his criticism. + +'All the gay [niceties] _varieties_ of diction. + +'Strikes the imagination with far [more] _greater_ force. + +'It is [probably] _certainly_ the noblest version of poetry which the +world has ever seen. + +'Every sheet enabled him to write the next with [less trouble] _more +facility_. + +'No man sympathizes with [vanity, depressed] _the sorrows of vanity_. + +'It had been [criminal] _less easily excused_. + +'When he [threatened to lay down] _talked of laying down_ his pen. + +'Society [is so named emphatically in opposition to] _politically +regulated, is a state contra-distinguished from_ a state of nature. + +'A fictitious life of an [absurd] _infatuated_ scholar. + +'A foolish [contempt, disregard,] _disesteem_ of Kings. + +'His hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows [were like those of other +mortals] _acted strongly upon his mind_. + +'Eager to pursue knowledge and attentive to [accumulate] _retain it_. + +'A mind [excursive] _active_, ambitious, and adventurous. + +'In its [noblest] _widest_ researches still longing to go forward. + +'He wrote in such a manner as might expose him to few [neglects] +_hazards_. + +'The [reasonableness] _justice_ of my determination. + +'A [favourite] _delicious_ employment of the poets. + +'More terrifick and more powerful [beings] _phantoms_ perform on the +stormy ocean. + +'The inventor of [those] _this_ petty [beings] _nation_. + +'The [mind] _heart_ naturally loves truth.' + +In the Life of ADDISON we find an unpleasing account of his having lent +Steele a hundred pounds, and 'reclaimed his loan by an execution[182].' +In the new edition of the _Biographia Britannica_, the authenticity of +this anecdote is denied. But Mr. Malone has obliged me with the +following note concerning it:-- + +'Many persons having doubts concerning this fact, I applied to Dr. +Johnson to learn on what authority he asserted it. He told me, he had it +from Savage, who lived in intimacy with Steele, and who mentioned, that +Steele told him the story with tears in his eyes.--Ben Victor[183], Dr. +Johnson said, likewise informed him of this remarkable transaction, from +the relation of Mr. Wilkes[184] the comedian, who was also an intimate +of Steele's.--Some in defence of Addison, have said, that "the act was +done with the good natured view of rousing Steele, and correcting that +profusion which always made him necessitous."--"If that were the case, +(said Johnson,) and that he only wanted to alarm Steele, he would +afterwards have _returned_ the money to his friend, which it is not +pretended he did."--"This too, (he added,) might be retorted by an +advocate for Steele, who might alledge, that he did not repay the loan +_intentionally_, merely to see whether Addison would be mean and +ungenerous enough to make use of legal process to recover it. But of +such speculations there is no end: we cannot dive into the hearts of +men; but their actions are open to observation[185]." + +'I then mentioned to him that some people thought that Mr. Addison's +character was so pure, that the fact, _though true_, ought to have been +suppressed[186]. He saw no reason for this[187]. "If nothing but the +bright side of characters should be shewn, we should sit down in +despondency, and think it utterly impossible to imitate them in _any +thing_. The sacred writers (he observed) related the vicious as well as +the virtuous actions of men; which had this moral effect, that it kept +mankind from _despair_, into which otherwise they would naturally fall, +were they not supported by the recollection that others had offended +like themselves, and by penitence and amendment of life had been +restored to the favour of Heaven." + +'E.M.' + +'March 15, 1782.' + +The last paragraph of this note is of great importance; and I request +that my readers may consider it with particular attention. It will be +afterwards referred to in this work[188]. + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ ADDISON. + +'[But he was our first great example] _He was, however, one of our +earliest examples_ of correctness. + +And [overlook] _despise_ their masters. + +His instructions were such as the [state] _character_ of his [own time] +_readers_ made [necessary] _proper_. + +His purpose was to [diffuse] _infuse_ literary curiosity by gentle and +unsuspected conveyance [among] _into_ the gay, the idle, and +the wealthy. + +Framed rather for those that [wish] _are learning_ to write. + +Domestick [manners] _scenes_.' + +In his Life of PARNELL, I wonder that Johnson omitted to insert an +Epitaph which he had long before composed for that amiable man, without +ever writing it down, but which he was so good as, at my request, to +dictate to me, by which means it has been preserved. + + '_Hic requiescit_ THOMAS PARNELL, _S.T.P. + Qui sacerdos pariter et poeta, + Utrasque partes ita implevit, + Ut neque sacerdoti suavitas poetae, + Neo poetae sacerdotis sanctitas_[189], _deesset_.' + + _Various Readings in the Life of_ PARNELL. + +'About three years [after] _afterwards_. + +[Did not much want] _was in no great need of_ improvement. + +But his prosperity _did not last long_ [was clouded by that which took +away all his powers of enjoying either profit or pleasure, the death of +his wife, whom he is said to have lamented with such sorrow, as hastened +his end[190].] His end, whatever was the cause, was now approaching. + +In the Hermit, the [composition] _narrative_, as it is less airy, is +less pleasing.' + +In the Life of BLACKMORE, we find that writer's reputation generously +cleared by Johnson from the cloud of prejudice which the malignity of +contemporary wits had raised around it[191]. In this spirited exertion +of justice, he has been imitated by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his praise +of the architecture of Vanburgh[192]. + +We trace Johnson's own character in his observations on Blackmore's +'magnanimity as an authour.' 'The incessant attacks of his enemies, +whether serious or merry, are never discovered to have disturbed his +quiet, or to have lessened his confidence in himself.' Johnson, I +recollect, once told me, laughing heartily, that he understood it had +been said of him, 'He _appears_ not to feel; but when he is _alone_, +depend upon it, he _suffers sadly_.' I am as certain as I can be of any +man's real sentiments, that he _enjoyed_ the perpetual shower of little +hostile arrows as evidences of his fame. + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ BLACKMORE. + +To [set] _engage_ poetry [on the side] _in the cause_ of virtue. + +He likewise [established] _enforced_ the truth of Revelation. + +[Kindness] _benevolence_ was ashamed to favour. + +His practice, which was once [very extensive] _invidiously great_. +There is scarcely any distemper of dreadful name [of] which he has not +[shewn] _taught his reader_ how [it is to be opposed] _to oppose_. + +Of this [contemptuous] _indecent_ arrogance. + +[He wrote] _but produced_ likewise a work of a different kind. + +At least [written] _compiled_ with integrity. + +Faults which many tongues [were desirous] _would have made haste_ to +publish. + +But though he [had not] _could not boast of_ much critical knowledge. + +He [used] _waited for_ no felicities of fancy. + +Or had ever elevated his [mind] _views_ to that ideal perfection which +every [mind] _genius_ born to excel is condemned always to pursue and +never overtake. + +The [first great] _fundamental_ principle of wisdom and of virtue.' + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ PHILIPS. + +'His dreaded [rival] _antagonist_ Pope. + +They [have not often much] _are not loaded with_ thought. + +In his translations from Pindar, he [will not be denied to have reached] +_found the art of reaching_ all the obscurity of the Theban bard.' + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ CONGREVE. + +'Congreve's conversation must surely have been _at least_ equally +pleasing with his writings. + +It apparently [requires] _pre-supposes_ a familiar knowledge of many +characters. + +Reciprocation of [similes] _conceits_. + +The dialogue is quick and [various] _sparkling_. + +Love for Love; a comedy [more drawn from life] _of nearer alliance to +life_. + +The general character of his miscellanies is, that they shew little wit +and [no] _little_ virtue. + +[Perhaps] _certainly_ he had not the fire requisite for the higher +species of lyrick poetry.' + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ TICKELL. + +'[Longed] _long wished_ to peruse it. + +At the [accession] _arrival_ of King George. + +Fiction [unnaturally] _unskilfully_ compounded of Grecian deities and +Gothick fairies.' + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ AKENSIDE. + +'For [another] _a different_ purpose. + +[A furious] _an unnecessary_ and outrageous zeal. + +[Something which] _what_ he called and thought liberty. + +A [favourer of innovation] _lover of contradiction_. + +Warburton's [censure] _objections_. + +His rage [for liberty] _of patriotism_. + +Mr. Dyson with [a zeal] _an ardour_ of friendship.' + +In the Life of LYTTELTON, Johnson seems to have been not favourably +disposed towards that nobleman[193]. Mrs. Thrale suggests that he was +offended by _Molly Aston's_[194] preference of his Lordship to him[195]. +I can by no means join in the censure bestowed by Johnson on his +Lordship, whom he calls 'poor Lyttelton,' for returning thanks to the +Critical Reviewers for having 'kindly commended' his _Dialogues of the +Dead_. Such 'acknowledgements (says my friend) never can be proper, +since they must be paid either for flattery or for justice.' In my +opinion, the most upright man, who has been tried on a false accusation, +may, when he is acquitted, make a bow to his jury. And when those who +are so much the arbiters of literary merit, as in a considerable degree +to influence the publick opinion, review an authour's work, _placido +lumine_[196], when I am afraid mankind in general are better pleased +with severity, he may surely express a grateful sense of their +civility[197]. + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ LYTTELTON. + +'He solaced [himself] _his grief_ by writing a long poem to her memory. + +The production rather [of a mind that means well than thinks vigorously] +_as it seems of leisure than of study, rather effusions than +compositions_. + +His last literary [work] _production_. + +[Found the way] _undertook_ to persuade.' + +As the introduction to his critical examination of the genius and +writings of YOUNG, he did Mr. Herbert Croft[198], then a Barrister of +Lincoln's-inn, now a clergyman, the honour to adopt[199] a _Life of +Young_ written by that gentleman, who was the friend of Dr. Young's son, +and wished to vindicate him from some very erroneous remarks to his +prejudice. Mr. Croft's performance was subjected to the revision of Dr. +Johnson, as appears from the following note to Mr. John Nichols[200]:-- + +'This _Life of Dr. Young_ was written by a friend of his son. What is +crossed with black is expunged by the authour, what is crossed with red +is expunged by me. If you find any thing more that can be well omitted, +I shall not be sorry to see it yet shorter[201]' + +It has always appeared to me to have a considerable share of merit, and +to display a pretty successful imitation of Johnson's style. When I +mentioned this to a very eminent literary character[202], he opposed me +vehemently, exclaiming, 'No, no, it is _not_ a good imitation of +Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the +nodosities of the oak without its strength.' This was an image so happy, +that one might have thought he would have been satisfied with it; but he +was not. And setting his mind again to work, he added, with exquisite +felicity, 'It has all the contortions of the Sybil, without the +inspiration.' + +Mr. Croft very properly guards us against supposing that Young was a +gloomy man[203]; and mentions, that 'his parish was indebted to the +good-humour of the authour of the _Night Thoughts_ for an Assembly and a +Bowling-Green[204].' A letter from a noble foreigner is quoted, in which +he is said to have been 'very pleasant in conversation[205].' + +Mr. Langton, who frequently visited him, informs me, that there was an +air of benevolence in his manner, but that he could obtain from him less +information than he had hoped to receive from one who had lived so much +in intercourse with the brightest men of what has been called the +Augustan age of England; and that he shewed a degree of eager curiosity +concerning the common occurrences that were then passing, which appeared +somewhat remarkable in a man of such intellectual stores, of such an +advanced age, and who had retired from life with declared disappointment +in his expectations. + +An instance at once of his pensive turn of mind, and his cheerfulness of +temper, appeared in a little story which he himself told to Mr. Langton, +when they were walking in his garden: 'Here (said he) I had put a +handsome sun-dial, with this inscription, _Eheu fugaces!_[206] which +(speaking with a smile) was sadly verified, for by the next morning my +dial had been carried off.'[207] + +'It gives me much pleasure to observe, that however Johnson may have +casually talked,[208] yet when he sits, as "an ardent judge zealous to +his trust, giving sentence" [209] upon the excellent works of Young, he +allows them the high praise to which they are justly entitled. +"The _Universal Passion_ (says he) is indeed a very great +performance,--his distichs have the weight of solid sentiment, and his +points the sharpness of resistless truth."'[210] + +But I was most anxious concerning Johnson's decision upon _Night +Thoughts_, which I esteem as a mass of the grandest and richest poetry +that human genius has ever produced; and was delighted to find this +character of that work: 'In his _Night Thoughts_, he has exhibited a +very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections +and striking allusions; a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility +of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour. This is one +of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhime but +with disadvantage.'[211] And afterwards, 'Particular lines are not to be +regarded; the power is in the whole; and in the whole there is a +magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantation[212], the +magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity.' + +But there is in this Poem not only all that Johnson so well brings in +view, but a power of the _Pathetick_ beyond almost any example that I +have seen. He who does not feel his nerves shaken, and his heart pierced +by many passages in this extraordinary work, particularly by that most +affecting one, which describes the gradual torment suffered by the +contemplation of an object of affectionate attachment, visibly and +certainly decaying into dissolution, must be of a hard and obstinate +frame[213]. + +To all the other excellencies of _Night Thoughts_ let me add the great +and peculiar one, that they contain not only the noblest sentiments of +virtue, and contemplations on immortality, but the _Christian +Sacrifice_, the _Divine Propitiation_, with all its interesting +circumstances, and consolations to 'a wounded spirit[214],' solemnly and +poetically displayed in such imagery and language, as cannot fail to +exalt, animate, and soothe the truly pious. No book whatever can be +recommended to young persons, with better hopes of seasoning their minds +with _vital religion_, than YOUNG'S _Night Thoughts_. + +In the Life of SWIFT, it appears to me that Johnson had a certain degree +of prejudice against that extraordinary man, of which I have elsewhere +had occasion to speak[215]. Mr. Thomas Sheridan imputed it to a supposed +apprehension in Johnson, that Swift had not been sufficiently active in +obtaining for him an Irish degree when it was solicited[216], but of +this there was not sufficient evidence; and let me not presume to charge +Johnson with injustice, because he did not think so highly of the +writings of this authour, as I have done from my youth upwards. Yet that +he had an unfavourable bias is evident, were it only from that passage +in which he speaks of Swift's practice of saving, as, 'first ridiculous +and at last detestable;' and yet after some examination of +circumstances, finds himself obliged to own, that 'it will perhaps +appear that he only liked one mode of expence better than another, and +saved merely that he might have something to give[217].' + +One observation which Johnson makes in Swift's life should be often +inculcated:-- + +'It may be justly supposed, that there was in his conversation what +appears so frequently in his letters, an affectation of familiarity with +the great, an ambition of momentary equality, sought and enjoyed by the +neglect of those ceremonies which custom has established as the barriers +between one order of society and another. This transgression of +regularity was by himself and his admirers termed greatness of soul; but +a great mind disdains to hold any thing by courtesy, and therefore never +usurps what a lawful claimant may take away. He that encroaches on +another's dignity puts himself in his power; he is either repelled with +helpless indignity, or endured by clemency and condescension[218].' + +_Various Readings in the Life of Swift_. + +'Charity may be persuaded to think that it might be written by a man of +_a_ peculiar [opinions] _character_, without ill intention. + +He did not [disown] _deny_ it. + +'[To] _by_ whose kindness it is not unlikely that he was [indebted for] +_advanced to_ his benefices. + +[With] _for_ this purpose he had recourse to Mr. Harley. + +Sharpe, whom he [represents] _describes_ as "the harmless tool of +others' hate." + +Harley was slow because he was [irresolute] _doubtful_. + +When [readers were not many] _we were not yet a nation of readers_. + +[Every man who] _he that could say he_ knew him. + +Every man of known influence has so many [more] petitions [than] _which_ +he [can] _cannot_ grant, that he must necessarily offend more than he +[can gratify] _gratifies_. + +Ecclesiastical [preferments] _benefices_. + +'Swift [procured] _contrived_ an interview. + +[As a writer] _In his works_ he has given very different specimens. + +On all common occasions he habitually [assumes] _affects_ a style of +[superiority] _arrogance_. + +By the [omission] _neglect_ of those ceremonies. + +That their merits filled the world [and] _or that_ there was no [room +for] _hope of_ more.' + +I have not confined myself to the order of the _Lives_, in making my few +remarks. Indeed a different order is observed in the original +publication, and in the collection of Johnson's _Works_. And should it +be objected, that many of my various readings are inconsiderable, those +who make the objection will be pleased to consider, that such small +particulars are intended for those who are nicely critical in +composition, to whom they will be an acceptable selection[219]. + +_Spence's Anecdotes_, which are frequently quoted and referred to in +Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_, are in a manuscript collection, made by +the Reverend Mr. Joseph Spence[220], containing a number of particulars +concerning eminent men. To each anecdote is marked the name of the +person on whose authority it is mentioned. This valuable collection is +the property of the Duke of Newcastle, who upon the application of Sir +Lucas Pepys, was pleased to permit it to be put into the hands of Dr. +Johnson, who I am sorry to think made but an aukward return. 'Great +assistance (says he) has been given me by Mr. Spence's Collection, of +which I consider the communication as a favour worthy of publick +acknowledgement[221];' but he has not owned to whom he was obliged; so +that the acknowledgement is unappropriated to his Grace. + +While the world in general was filled with admiration of Johnson's +_Lives of the Poets_, there were narrow circles in which prejudice and +resentment were fostered, and from which attacks of different sorts +issued against him[222]. By some violent Whigs he was arraigned of +injustice to Milton; by some Cambridge men of depreciating Gray; and his +expressing with a dignified freedom what he really thought of George, +Lord Lyttelton, gave offence to some of the friends of that nobleman, +and particularly produced a declaration of war against him from Mrs. +Montagu, the ingenious Essayist on Shakspeare, between whom and his +Lordship a commerce of reciprocal compliments had long been carried +on[223]. In this war the smaller powers in alliance with him were of +course led to engage, at least on the defensive, and thus I for one was +excluded from the enjoyment of 'A Feast of Reason,' such as Mr. +Cumberland has described, with a keen, yet just and delicate pen, in his +_Observer_[224]. These minute inconveniencies gave not the least +disturbance to Johnson. He nobly said, when I talked to him of the +feeble, though shrill outcry which had been raised, 'Sir, I considered +myself as entrusted with a certain portion of truth. I have given my +opinion sincerely; let them shew where they think me wrong[225].' + +While my friend is thus contemplated in the splendour derived from his +last and perhaps most admirable work, I introduce him with peculiar +propriety as the correspondent of WARREN HASTINGS! a man whose regard +reflects dignity even upon JOHNSON; a man, the extent of whose abilities +was equal to that of his power; and who, by those who are fortunate +enough to know him in private life, is admired for his literature and +taste, and beloved for the candour, moderation, and mildness of his +character. Were I capable of paying a suitable tribute of admiration to +him, I should certainly not withhold it at a moment[226] when it is not +possible that I should be suspected of being an interested flatterer. +But how weak would be my voice after that of the millions whom he +governed. His condescending and obliging compliance with my +solicitation, I with humble gratitude acknowledge; and while by +publishing his letter to me, accompanying the valuable communication, I +do eminent honour to my great friend, I shall entirely disregard any +invidious suggestions, that as I in some degree participate in the +honour, I have, at the same time, the gratification of my own vanity +in view. + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. Park Lane, Dec. 2, 1790. + +SIR, + +I have been fortunately spared the troublesome suspense of a long +search, to which, in performance of my promise, I had devoted this +morning, by lighting upon the objects of it among the first papers that +I laid my hands on: my veneration for your great and good friend, Dr. +Johnson, and the pride, or I hope something of a better sentiment, which +I indulged in possessing such memorials of his good will towards me, +having induced me to bind them in a parcel containing other select +papers, and labelled with the titles appertaining to them. They consist +but of three letters, which I believe were all that I ever received from +Dr. Johnson. Of these, one, which was written in quadruplicate, under +the different dates of its respective dispatches, has already been made +publick[227], but not from any communication of mine. This, however, I +have joined to the rest; and have now the pleasure of sending them to +you for the use to which you informed me it was your desire to +destine them. + +'My promise was pledged with the condition, that if the letters were +found to contain any thing which should render them improper for the +publick eye, you would dispense with the performance of it. You will +have the goodness, I am sure, to pardon my recalling this stipulation to +your recollection, as I should be both to appear negligent of that +obligation which is always implied in an epistolary confidence. In the +reservation of that right I have read them over with the most scrupulous +attention, but have not seen in them the slightest cause on that ground +to withhold them from you. But, though not on that, yet on another +ground I own I feel a little, yet but a little, reluctance to part with +them: I mean on that of my own credit, which I fear will suffer by the +information conveyed by them, that I was early in the possession of such +valuable instructions for the beneficial employment of the influence of +my late station, and (as it may seem) have so little availed myself of +them. Whether I could, if it were necessary, defend myself against such +an imputation, it little concerns the world to know. I look only to the +effect which these relicks may produce, considered as evidences of the +virtues of their authour: and believing that they will be found to +display an uncommon warmth of private friendship, and a mind ever +attentive to the improvement and extension of useful knowledge, and +solicitous for the interests of mankind, I can cheerfully submit to the +little sacrifice of my own fame, to contribute to the illustration of so +great and venerable a character. They cannot be better applied, for that +end, than by being entrusted to your hands. Allow me, with this +offering, to infer from it a proof of the very great esteem with which I +have the honour to profess myself, Sir, + + Your most obedient + And most humble servant, + 'WARREN HASTINGS.' + +'_P.S_. At some future time, and when you have no further occasion for +these papers, I shall be obliged to you if you would return them.' + +The last of the three letters thus graciously put into my hands, and +which has already appeared in publick, belongs to this year; but I shall +previously insert the first two in the order of their dates. They +altogether form a grand group in my biographical picture. + +TO THE HONOURABLE WARREN HASTINGS, ESQ. + +'SIR, + +Though I have had but little personal knowledge of you, I have had +enough to make me wish for more; and though it be now a long time since +I was honoured by your visit, I had too much pleasure from it to forget +it. By those whom we delight to remember, we are unwilling to be +forgotten; and therefore I cannot omit this opportunity of reviving +myself in your memory by a letter which you will receive from the hands +of my friend Mr. Chambers[228]; a man, whose purity of manners and +vigour of mind are sufficient to make every thing welcome that +he brings. + +That this is my only reason for writing, will be too apparent by the +uselessness of my letter to any other purpose. I have no questions to +ask; not that I want curiosity after either the ancient or present state +of regions in which have been seen all the power and splendour of +wide-extended empire; and which, as by some grant of natural +superiority, supply the rest of the world with almost all that pride +desires and luxury enjoys. But my knowledge of them is too scanty to +furnish me with proper topicks of enquiry; I can only wish for +information; and hope, that a mind comprehensive like yours will find +leisure, amidst the cares of your important station, to enquire into +many subjects of which the European world either thinks not at all, or +thinks with deficient intelligence and uncertain conjecture. I shall +hope, that he who once intended to increase the learning of his country +by the introduction of the Persian language[229], will examine nicely +the traditions and histories of the East; that he will survey the +wonders of its ancient edifices, and trace the vestiges of its ruined +cities; and that, at his return, we shall know the arts and opinions of +a race of men, from whom very little has been hitherto derived. + +You, Sir, have no need of being told by me, how much may be added by +your attention and patronage to experimental knowledge and natural +history. There are arts of manufacture practised in the countries in +which you preside, which are yet very imperfectly known here, either to +artificers or philosophers. Of the natural productions, animate and +inanimate, we yet have so little intelligence, that our books are +filled, I fear, with conjectures about things which an Indian peasant +knows by his senses. + +Many of those things my first wish is to see; my second to know, by such +accounts as a man like you will be able to give. + +As I have not skill to ask proper questions, I have likewise no such +access to great men as can enable me to send you any political +information. Of the agitations of an unsettled government, and the +struggles of a feeble ministry[230], care is doubtless taken to give you +more exact accounts than I can obtain. If you are inclined to interest +yourself much in publick transactions, it is no misfortune to you to be +so distant from them. + +That literature is not totally forsaking us, and that your favourite +language is not neglected, will appear from the book[231], which I +should have pleased myself more with sending, if I could have presented +it bound: but time was wanting. I beg, however, Sir, that you will +accept it from a man very desirous of your regard; and that if you think +me able to gratify you by any thing more important you will employ me. + +I am now going to take leave, perhaps a very long leave, of my dear Mr. +Chambers. That he is going to live where you govern, may justly +alleviate the regret of parting; and the hope of seeing both him and you +again, which I am not willing to mingle with doubt, must at present +comfort as it can, Sir, Your most humble servant, + +SAM. JOHNSON. +March 30, 1774.' + +To THE SAME. + +'SIR, +Being informed that by the departure of a ship, there is now an +opportunity of writing to Bengal, I am unwilling to slip out of your +memory by my own negligence, and therefore take the liberty of reminding +you of my existence, by sending you a book which is not yet +made publick. + +I have lately visited a region less remote, and less illustrious than +India, which afforded some occasions for speculation; what has occurred +to me, I have put into the volume[232], of which I beg your acceptance. + +Men in your station seldom have presents totally disinterested; my book +is received, let me now make my request. + +There is, Sir, somewhere within your government, a young adventurer, one +Chauncey Lawrence, whose father is one of my oldest friends. Be pleased +to shew the young man what countenance is fit, whether he wants to be +restrained by your authority, or encouraged by your favour. His father +is now President of the College of Physicians, a man venerable for his +knowledge, and more venerable for his virtue[233]. + +I wish you a prosperous government, a safe return, and a long enjoyment +of plenty and tranquillity. + + I am, Sir, + Your most obedient + And most humble servant, + + SAM. JOHNSON[234]. + +London, Dec. 20, 1774.' + +TO THE SAME. + +'Jan. 9, 1781. + +Sir, + +Amidst the importance and multiplicity of affairs in which your great +office engages you, I take the liberty of recalling your attention for a +moment to literature, and will not prolong the interruption by an +apology which your character makes needless. + +Mr. Hoole, a gentleman long known, and long esteemed in the India-House, +after having translated Tasso[235], has undertaken Ariosto. How well he +is qualified for his undertaking he has already shewn. He is desirous, +Sir, of your favour in promoting his proposals, and flatters me by +supposing that my testimony may advance his interest. + +It is a new thing for a clerk of the India-House to translate poets; +--it is new for a Governour of Bengal to patronize learning. That he may +find his ingenuity rewarded, and that learning may flourish under your +protection, is the wish of, Sir, Your most humble servant, + +SAM. JOHNSON.' + +I wrote to him in February, complaining of having been troubled by a +recurrence of the perplexing question of Liberty and Necessity;--and +mentioning that I hoped soon to meet him again in London. + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +DEAR SIR, + +I hoped you had got rid of all this hypocrisy of misery. What have you +to do with Liberty and Necessity[236]? Or what more than to hold your +tongue about it? Do not doubt but I shall be most heartily glad to see +you here again, for I love every part about you but your affectation +of distress. + +I have at last finished my _Lives_, and have laid up for you a load of +copy[237], all out of order, so that it will amuse you a long time to +set it right. Come to me, my dear Bozzy, and let us be as happy as we +can. We will go again to the Mitre, and talk old times over. + + I am, dear Sir, + Yours affectionately, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +March, 14, 1781. + +On Monday, March 19, I arrived in London, and on Tuesday, the 20th, met +him in Fleet-street, walking, or rather indeed moving along; for his +peculiar march is thus described in a very just and picturesque manner, +in a short Life[238] of him published very soon after his death:--'When +he walked the streets, what with the constant roll of his head, and the +concomitant motion of his body, he appeared to make his way by that +motion, independent of his feet.' That he was often much stared at while +he advanced in this manner, may easily be believed; but it was not safe +to make sport of one so robust as he was. Mr. Langton saw him one day, +in a fit of absence, by a sudden start, drive the load off a porter's +back, and walk forward briskly, without being conscious of what he +had done. + +The porter was very angry, but stood still, and eyed the huge figure +with much earnestness, till he was satisfied that his wisest course was +to be quiet, and take up his burthen again. + +Our accidental meeting in the street after a long separation was a +pleasing surprize to us both. He stepped aside with me into +Falcon-court, and made kind inquiries about my family, and as we were in +a hurry going different ways, I promised to call on him next day; he +said he was engaged to go out in the morning. 'Early, Sir?' said I. +JOHNSON: 'Why, Sir, a London morning does not go with the sun.' + +I waited on him next evening, and he gave me a great portion of his +original manuscript of his _Lives of the Poets_, which he had +preserved for me. + +I found on visiting his friend, Mr. Thrale, that he was now very ill, +and had removed, I suppose by the solicitation of Mrs. Thrale, to a +house in Grosvenor-square[239]. I was sorry to see him sadly changed in +his appearance. + +He told me I might now have the pleasure to see Dr. Johnson drink wine +again, for he had lately returned to it. When I mentioned this to +Johnson, he said, 'I drink it now sometimes, but not socially.' The +first evening that I was with him at Thrale's, I observed he poured a +large quantity of it into a glass, and swallowed it greedily. Every +thing about his character and manners was forcible and violent; there +never was any moderation; many a day did he fast, many a year did he +refrain from wine; but when he did eat, it was voraciously; when he did +drink wine, it was copiously. He could practise abstinence, but not +temperance[240]. + +Mrs. Thrale and I had a dispute, whether Shakspeare or Milton had drawn +the most admirable picture of a man[241]. I was for Shakspeare; Mrs. +Thrale for Milton; and after a fair hearing, Johnson decided for +my opinion. + +I told him of one of Mr. Burke's playful sallies upon Dean Marlay[242]: +'I don't like the Deanery of _Ferns_, it sounds so like a _barren_ +title.'--'Dr. Heath should have it;' said I. Johnson laughed, and +condescending to trifle in the same mode of conceit, suggested Dr. +_Moss_[243]. + +He said, 'Mrs. Montagu has dropt me. Now, Sir, there are people whom one +should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped +by[244].' He certainly was vain of the society of ladies, and could make +himself very agreeable to them, when he chose it; Sir Joshua Reynolds +agreed with me that he could. Mr. Gibbon, with his usual sneer, +controverted it, perhaps in resentment of Johnson's having talked with +some disgust of his ugliness[245], which one would think a _philosopher_ +would not mind. Dean Marlay wittily observed, 'A lady may be vain, when +she can turn a wolf-dog into a lap-dog.' + +The election for Ayrshire, my own county, was this spring tried upon a +petition, before a Committee of the House of Commons. I was one of the +Counsel for the sitting member, and took the liberty of previously +stating different points to Johnson, who never failed to see them +clearly, and to supply me with some good hints. He dictated to me the +following note upon the registration of deeds:-- + +'All laws are made for the convenience of the community: what is legally +done, should be legally recorded, that the state of things may be known, +and that wherever evidence is requisite, evidence may be had. For this +reason, the obligation to frame and establish a legal register is +enforced by a legal penalty, which penalty is the want of that +perfection and plentitude of right which a register would give. Thence +it follows, that this is not an objection merely legal: for the reason +on which the law stands being equitable, makes it an equitable +objection.' + +'This (said he) you must enlarge on, when speaking to the Committee. You +must not argue there as if you were arguing in the schools[246]; close +reasoning will not fix their attention; you must say the same thing over +and over again, in different words. If you say it but once, they miss it +in a moment of inattention. It is unjust, Sir, to censure lawyers for +multiplying words when they argue; it is often necessary for them to +multiply words[247].' His notion of the duty of a member of Parliament, +sitting upon an election-committee[248], was very high; and when he was +told of a gentleman upon one of those committees, who read the +newspapers part of the time, and slept the rest, while the merits of a +vote were examined by the counsel; and as an excuse, when challenged by +the chairman for such behaviour, bluntly answered, 'I had made up my +mind upon that case;'--Johnson, with an indignant contempt, said, 'If he +was such a rogue as to make up his mind upon a case without hearing it, +he should not have been such a fool as to tell it.' 'I think (said Mr. +Dudley Long[249], now North) the Doctor has pretty plainly made him out +to be both rogue and fool.' + +Johnson's profound reverence for the Hierarchy[250] made him expect from +bishops the highest degree of decorum; he was offended even at their +going to taverns; 'A bishop (said he) has nothing to do at a +tippling-house. It is not indeed immoral in him to go to a tavern; +neither would it be immoral in him to whip a top in Grosvenor-square. +But, if he did, I hope the boys would fall upon him, and apply +the whip to _him_. There are gradations in conduct; there is +morality,--decency,--propriety. None of these should be violated by a +bishop. A bishop should not go to a house where he may meet a young +fellow leading out a wench.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, every tavern does not +admit women.' JOHNSON. 'Depend upon it, Sir, any tavern will admit a +well-drest man and a well-drest woman; they will not perhaps admit a +woman whom they see every night walking by their door, in the street. +But a well-drest man may lead in a well-drest woman to any tavern in +London. Taverns sell meat and drink, and will sell them to any body who +can eat and can drink. You may as well say that a mercer will not sell +silks to a woman of the town.' + +He also disapproved of bishops going to routs, at least of their staying +at them longer than their presence commanded respect. He mentioned a +particular bishop. 'Poh! (said Mrs. Thrale) the Bishop of ----[251] is +never minded at a rout.' BOSWELL. 'When a bishop places himself in a +situation where he has no distinct character, and is of no consequence, +he degrades the dignity of his order.' JOHNSON. 'Mr. Boswell, Madam, has +said it as correctly as it could be.' + +Nor was it only in the dignitaries of the Church that Johnson required a +particular decorum and delicacy of behaviour; he justly considered that +the clergy, as persons set apart for the sacred office of serving at the +altar, and impressing the minds of men with the aweful concerns of a +future state, should be somewhat more serious than the generality of +mankind, and have a suitable composure of manners. A due sense of the +dignity of their profession, independent of higher motives, will ever +prevent them from losing their distinction in an indiscriminate +sociality; and did such as affect this, know how much it lessens them in +the eyes of those whom they think to please by it, they would feel +themselves much mortified. + +Johnson and his friend, Beauclerk, were once together in company with +several clergymen, who thought that they should appear to advantage, by +assuming the lax jollity of _men of the world;_ which, as it may be +observed in similar cases, they carried to noisy excess. Johnson, who +they expected would be _entertained,_ sat grave and silent for some +time; at last, turning to Beauclerk, he said, by no means in a whisper, +'This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.' + +Even the dress of a clergyman should be in character, and nothing can be +more despicable than conceited attempts at avoiding the appearance of +the clerical order; attempts, which are as ineffectual as they are +pitiful. Dr. Porteus, now Bishop of London, in his excellent charge when +presiding over the diocese of Chester, justly animadverts upon this +subject; and observes of a reverend fop, that he 'can be but _half a +beau_[252].' + +Addison, in _The Spectator_[253], has given us a fine portrait of a +clergyman, who is supposed to be a member of his _Club_; and Johnson has +exhibited a model, in the character of Mr. Mudge[254], which has escaped +the collectors of his works, but which he owned to me, and which indeed +he shewed to Sir Joshua Reynolds at the time when it was written. It +bears the genuine marks of Johnson's best manner, and is as +follows[255]:-- + +'The Reverend Mr. _Zacariah Mudge_, Prebendary of Exeter, and Vicar of +St. Andrew's in Plymouth; a man equally eminent for his virtues and +abilities, and at once beloved as a companion and reverenced as a +pastor. He had that general curiosity to which no kind of knowledge is +indifferent or superfluous; and that general benevolence by which no +order of men is hated or despised. + +His principles both of thought and action were great and comprehensive. +By a solicitous examination of objections, and judicious comparison of +opposite arguments, he attained what enquiry never gives but to industry +and perspicuity, a firm and unshaken settlement of conviction. But his +firmness was without asperity; for, knowing with how much difficulty +truth was sometimes found, he did not wonder that many missed it. + +The general course of his life was determined by his profession; he +studied the sacred volumes in the original languages; with what +diligence and success, his _Notes upon the Psalms_ give sufficient +evidence. He once endeavoured to add the knowledge of Arabick to that of +Hebrew; but finding his thoughts too much diverted from other studies, +after some time desisted from his purpose. + +His discharge of parochial duties was exemplary. How his _Sermons_[256] +were composed, may be learned from the excellent volume which he has +given to the publick; but how they were delivered, can be known only to +those that heard them; for as he appeared in the pulpit, words will not +easily describe him. His delivery, though unconstrained was not +negligent, and though forcible was not turbulent; disdaining anxious +nicety of emphasis, and laboured artifice of action, it captivated the +hearer by its natural dignity, it roused the sluggish, and fixed the +volatile, and detained the mind upon the subject, without directing it +to the speaker. + +The grandeur and solemnity of the preacher did not intrude upon his +general behaviour; at the table of his friends he was a companion +communicative and attentive, of unaffected manners, of manly +cheerfulness, willing to please, and easy to be pleased. His +acquaintance was universally solicited, and his presence obstructed no +enjoyment which religion did not forbid. Though studious he was popular; +though argumentative he was modest; though inflexible he was candid; and +though metaphysical yet orthodox[257].' + +On Friday, March 30, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, with +the Earl of Charlemont, Sir Annesley Stewart, Mr. Eliot of Port-Eliot, +Mr. Burke, Dean Marlay, Mr. Langton; a most agreeable day, of which I +regret that every circumstance is not preserved; but it is unreasonable +to require such a multiplication of felicity. + +Mr. Eliot, with whom Dr. Walter Harte had travelled[258], talked to us +of his _History of Gustavus Adolphus_, which he said was a very good +book in the German translation. JOHNSON. 'Harte was excessively vain. He +put copies of his book in manuscript into the hands of Lord Chesterfield +and Lord Granville, that they might revise it. Now how absurd was it to +suppose that two such noblemen would revise so big a manuscript. Poor +man! he left London the day of the publication of his book, that he +might be out of the way of the great praise he was to receive; and he +was ashamed to return, when he found how ill his book had succeeded. It +was unlucky in coming out on the same day with Robertson's _History of +Scotland_[259]. His husbandry[260], however, is good.' BOSWELL. 'So he +was fitter for that than for heroick history: he did well, when he +turned his sword into a plough-share.' + +Mr. Eliot mentioned a curious liquor peculiar to his country, which the +Cornish fishermen drink. They call it _Mahogany_; and it is made of two +parts gin, and one part treacle, well beaten together. I begged to have +some of it made, which was done with proper skill by Mr. Eliot. I +thought it very good liquor; and said it was a counterpart of what is +called _Athol Porridge_ in the Highlands of Scotland, which is a mixture +of whisky and honey. Johnson said, 'that must be a better liquor than +the Cornish, for both its component parts are better.' He also +observed, '_Mahogany_ must be a modern name; for it is not long since +the wood called mahogany was known in this country.' I mentioned his +scale of liquors[261];--claret for boys--port for men--brandy for +heroes. 'Then (said Mr. Burke) let me have claret: I love to be a boy; +to have the careless gaiety of boyish days.' JOHNSON. 'I should drink +claret too, if it would give me that; but it does not: it neither makes +boys men, nor men boys. You'll be drowned by it, before it has any +effect upon you.' + +I ventured to mention a ludicrous paragraph in the newspapers, that Dr. +Johnson was learning to dance of Vestris[262]. Lord Charlemont, wishing +to excite him to talk, proposed in a whisper, that he should be asked, +whether it was true. 'Shall I ask him?' said his Lordship. We were, by a +great majority, clear for the experiment. Upon which his Lordship very +gravely, and with a courteous air said, 'Pray, Sir, is it true that you +are taking lessons of Vestris?' This was risking a good deal, and +required the boldness of a General of Irish Volunteers to make the +attempt. Johnson was at first startled, and in some heat answered, 'How +can your Lordship ask so simple a question?' But immediately recovering +himself, whether from unwillingness to be deceived, or to appear +deceived, or whether from real good humour, he kept up the joke: 'Nay, +but if any body were to answer the paragraph, and contradict it, I'd +have a reply, and would say, that he who contradicted it was no friend +either to Vestris or me. For why should not Dr.[263] Johnson add to his +other powers a little corporeal agility? Socrates learnt to dance at an +advanced age, and Cato learnt Greek at an advanced age. Then it might +proceed to say, that this Johnson, not content with dancing on the +ground, might dance on the rope; and they might introduce the elephant +dancing on the rope. A nobleman[264] wrote a play, called _Love in a +hollow Tree_. He found out that it was a bad one, and therefore wished +to buy up all the copies, and burn them. The Duchess of Marlborough had +kept one; and when he was against her at an election, she had a new +edition of it printed, and prefixed to it, as a frontispiece, an +elephant dancing on a rope; to shew, that his Lordship's writing comedy +was as aukward as an elephant dancing on a rope[265].' + +On Sunday, April 1, I dined with him at Mr. Thrale's, with Sir Philip +Jennings Clerk and Mr. Perkins[266], who had the superintendence of Mr. +Thrale's brewery, with a salary of five hundred pounds a year. Sir +Philip had the appearance of a gentleman of ancient family, well +advanced in life. He wore his own white hair in a bag of goodly size, a +black velvet coat, with an embroidered waistcoat, and very rich laced +ruffles; which Mrs. Thrale said were old fashioned, but which, for that +reason, I thought the more respectable, more like a Tory; yet Sir Philip +was then in Opposition in Parliament[267]. 'Ah, Sir, (said Johnson,) +ancient ruffles and modern principles do not agree.' Sir Philip defended +the Opposition to the American war ably and with temper, and I joined +him. He said, the majority of the nation was against the ministry. +JOHNSON. '_I_, Sir, am against the ministry[268]; but it is for having +too little of that, of which Opposition thinks they have too much. Were +I minister, if any man wagged his finger against me, he should be turned +out[269]; for that which it is in the power of Government to give at +pleasure to one or to another, should be given to the supporters of +Government. If you will not oppose at the expence of losing your place, +your opposition will not be honest, you will feel no serious grievance; +and the present opposition is only a contest to get what others have. +Sir Robert Walpole acted as I would do. As to the American war, the +_sense_ of the nation is _with_ the ministry. The majority of those who +can _understand_ is with it; the majority of those who can only _hear_, +is against it; and as those who can only hear are more numerous than +those who can understand, and Opposition is always loudest, a majority +of the rabble will be for Opposition.' + +This boisterous vivacity entertained us; but the truth in my opinion +was, that those who could understand the best were against the American +war, as almost every man now is, when the question has been coolly +considered. + +Mrs. Thrale gave high praise to Mr. Dudley Long, (now North). JOHNSON. +'Nay, my dear lady, don't talk so. Mr. Long's character is very _short_. +It is nothing. He fills a chair. He is a man of genteel appearance, and +that is all[270]. I know nobody who blasts by praise as you do: for +whenever there is exaggerated praise, every body is set against a +character. They are provoked to attack it. Now there is Pepys[271]; you +praised that man with such disproportion, that I was incited to lessen +him, perhaps more than he deserves[272]. His blood is upon your +head[273]. By the same principle, your malice defeats itself; for your +censure is too violent. And yet (looking to her with a leering smile) +she is the first woman in the world, could she but restrain that wicked +tongue of hers;--she would be the only woman, could she but command that +little whirligig[274].' + +Upon the subject of exaggerated praise I took the liberty to say, that I +thought there might be very high praise given to a known character which +deserved it, and therefore it would not be exaggerated. Thus, one might +say of Mr. Edmund Burke, He is a very wonderful man. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, +you would not be safe if another man had a mind perversely to +contradict. He might answer, "Where is all the wonder? Burke is, to be +sure, a man of uncommon abilities, with a great quantity of matter in +his mind, and a great fluency of language in his mouth. But we are not +to be stunned and astonished by him." So you see, Sir, even Burke would +suffer, not from any fault of his own, but from your folly.' + +Mrs. Thrale mentioned a gentleman who had acquired a fortune of four +thousand a year in trade, but was absolutely miserable, because he could +not talk in company; so miserable, that he was impelled to lament his +situation in the street to ----[275], whom he hates, and who he knows +despises him. 'I am a most unhappy man (said he). I am invited to +conversations. I go to conversations; but, alas! I have no +conversation.' JOHNSON. 'Man commonly cannot be successful in different +ways. This gentleman has spent, in getting four thousand pounds a year, +the time in which he might have learnt to talk; and now he cannot talk.' +Mr. Perkins made a shrewd and droll remark: 'If he had got his four +thousand a year as a mountebank, he might have learnt to talk at the +same time that he was getting his fortune.' + +Some other gentlemen came in. The conversation concerning the person +whose character Dr. Johnson had treated so slightingly, as he did not +know his merit, was resumed. Mrs. Thrale said, 'You think so of him, +Sir, because he is quiet, and does not exert himself with force. You'll +be saying the same thing of Mr. ---- there, who sits as quiet--.' This +was not well-bred; and Johnson did not let it pass without correction. +'Nay, Madam, what right have you to talk thus? Both Mr. ---- and I have +reason to take it ill. _You_ may talk so of Mr. ----; but why do you +make _me_ do it. Have I said anything against Mr. ----? You have _set_ +him, that I might shoot him: but I have not shot him.' + +One of the gentlemen said, he had seen three folio volumes of Dr. +Johnson's sayings collected by me. 'I must put you right, Sir, (said I;) +for I am very exact in authenticity. You could not see folio volumes, +for I have none: you might have seen some in quarto and octavo. This is +inattention which one should guard against.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is a want +of concern about veracity. He does not know that he saw _any_ volumes. +If he had seen them he could have remembered their size[276].' + +Mr. Thrale appeared very lethargick to-day. I saw him again on Monday +evening, at which time he was not thought to be in immediate danger; but +early in the morning of Wednesday, the 4th[277], he expired[278]. +Johnson was in the house, and thus mentions the event: 'I felt almost +the last flutter of his pulse, and looked for the last time upon the +face that for fifteen years had never been turned upon me but with +respect and benignity[279].' Upon that day there was a Call of the +LITERARY CLUB; but Johnson apologised for his absence by the +following note:-- + +'MR. JOHNSON knows that Sir Joshua Reynolds and the other gentlemen will +excuse his incompliance with the call, when they are told that Mr. +Thrale died this morning.' Wednesday.' + +Mr. Thrale's death was a very essential loss to Johnson[280], who, +although he did not foresee all that afterwards happened, was +sufficiently convinced that the comforts which Mr. Thrale's family +afforded him, would now in a great measure cease. He, however continued +to shew a kind attention to his widow and children as long as it was +acceptable; and he took upon him, with a very earnest concern, the +office of one of his executors, the importance of which seemed greater +than usual to him, from his circumstances having been always such, that +he had scarcely any share in the real business of life[281]. His friends +of the CLUB were in hopes that Mr. Thrale might have made a liberal +provision for him for his life, which, as Mr. Thrale left no son, and a +very large fortune, it would have been highly to his honour to have +done; and, considering Dr. Johnson's age, could not have been of long +duration; but he bequeathed him only two hundred pounds, which was the +legacy given to each of his executors[282]. I could not but be somewhat +diverted by hearing Johnson talk in a pompous manner of his new office, +and particularly of the concerns of the brewery, which it was at last +resolved should be sold[283]. Lord Lucan[284] tells a very good story, +which, if not precisely exact, is certainly characteristic: that when +the sale of Thrale's brewery was going forward, Johnson appeared +bustling about, with an ink-horn and pen in his button-hole, like an +excise-man; and on being asked what he really considered to be the value +of the property which was to be disposed of, answered, 'We are not here +to sell a parcel of boilers and vats but the potentiality of growing +rich, beyond the dreams of avarice[285].' + +On Friday, April 6, he carried me to dine at a club, which, at his +desire, had been lately formed at the Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's +Church-yard. He told Mr. Hoole, that he wished to have a _City Club_, +and asked him to collect one; but, said he, 'Don't let them be +_patriots_[286].' The company were to-day very sensible, well-behaved +men. I have preserved only two particulars of his conversation. He said +he was glad Lord George Gordon had escaped[287], rather than that a +precedent should be established for hanging a man for _constructive +treason_; which, in consistency with his true, manly, constitutional +Toryism, he considered would be a dangerous engine of arbitrary power. +And upon its being mentioned that an opulent and very indolent Scotch +nobleman, who totally resigned the management of his affairs to a man of +knowledge and abilities, had claimed some merit by saying, 'The next +best thing to managing a man's own affairs well is being sensible of +incapacity, and not attempting it, but having full confidence in one who +can do it:' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, this is paltry. There is a middle +course. Let a man give application; and depend upon it he will soon get +above a despicable state of helplessness, and attain the power of acting +for himself.' + +On Saturday, April 7, I dined with him at Mr. Hoole's with Governour +Bouchier and Captain Orme, both of whom had been long in the +East-Indies; and being men of good sense and observation, were very +entertaining. Johnson defended the oriental regulation of different +_casts_ of men, which was objected to as totally destructive of the +hopes of rising in society by personal merit. He shewed that there was a +_principle_ in it sufficiently plausible by analogy. 'We see (said he) +in metals that there are different species; and so likewise in animals, +though one species may not differ very widely from another, as in the +species of dogs,--the cur, the spaniel, the mastiff. The Bramins are the +mastiffs of mankind.' + +On Thursday, April 12, I dined with him at a Bishop's, where were Sir +Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Berrenger, and some more company. He had dined the +day before at another Bishop's. I have unfortunately recorded none of +his conversation at the Bishop's where we dined together[288]: but I +have preserved his ingenious defence of his dining twice abroad in +Passion-week[289]; a laxity, in which I am convinced he would not have +indulged himself at the time when he wrote his solemn paper in _The +Rambler_[290], upon that aweful season. It appeared to me, that by +being much more in company, and enjoying more luxurious living, he had +contracted a keener relish of pleasure, and was consequently less +rigorous in his religious rites. This he would not acknowledge; but he +reasoned with admirable sophistry, as follows: 'Why, Sir, a Bishop's +calling company together in this week is, to use the vulgar phrase, not +_the thing_. But you must consider laxity is a bad thing; but +preciseness is also a bad thing; and your general character may be more +hurt by preciseness than by dining with a Bishop in Passion-week. There +might be a handle for reflection. It might be said, 'He refused to dine +with a Bishop in Passion-week, but was three Sundays absent from +Church.' BOSWELL. 'Very true, Sir. But suppose a man to be uniformly of +good conduct, would it not be better that he should refuse to dine with +a Bishop in this week, and so not encourage a bad practice by his +example?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, you are to consider whether you might not +do more harm by lessening the influence of a Bishop's character by your +disapprobation in refusing him, than by going to him.' + +TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'Life is full of troubles. I have just lost my dear friend Thrale. I +hope he is happy; but I have had a great loss. I am otherwise pretty +well. I require some care of myself, but that care is not ineffectual; +and when I am out of order, I think it often my own fault. + +'The spring is now making quick advances. As it is the season in which +the whole world is enlivened and invigorated, I hope that both you and I +shall partake of its benefits. My desire is to see Lichfield; but being +left executor to my friend, I know not whether I can be spared; but I +will try, for it is now long since we saw one another, and how little we +can promise ourselves many more interviews, we are taught by hourly +examples of mortality. Let us try to live so as that mortality may not +be an evil. Write to me soon, my dearest; your letters will give me +great pleasure. + +'I am sorry that Mr. Porter has not had his box; but by sending it to +Mr. Mathias, who very readily undertook its conveyance, I did the best I +could, and perhaps before now he has it. + +'Be so kind as to make my compliments to my friends; I have a great +value for their kindness, and hope to enjoy it before summer is past. Do +write to me. I am, dearest love, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, April 12, 1781.' + +On Friday, April 13, being Good-Friday, I went to St. Clement's church +with him as usual. There I saw again his old fellow-collegian, +Edwards[291], to whom I said, 'I think, Sir, Dr. Johnson and you meet +only at Church.'--'Sir, (said he,) it is the best place we can meet in, +except Heaven, and I hope we shall meet there too.' Dr. Johnson told me, +that there was very little communication between Edwards and him, after +their unexpected renewal of acquaintance. 'But (said he, smiling) he met +me once, and said, "I am told you have written a very pretty book called +_The Rambler_." I was unwilling that he should leave the world in total +darkness, and sent him a set.' + +Mr. Berrenger[292] visited him to-day, and was very pleasing. We talked +of an evening society for conversation at a house in town, of which we +were all members, but of which Johnson said, 'It will never do, Sir. +There is nothing served about there, neither tea, nor coffee, nor +lemonade, nor any thing whatever; and depend upon it, Sir, a man does +not love to go to a place from whence he comes out exactly as he went +in.' I endeavoured, for argument's sake, to maintain that men of +learning and talents might have very good intellectual society, without +the aid of any little gratifications of the senses. Berrenger joined +with Johnson, and said, that without these any meeting would be dull and +insipid. He would therefore have all the slight refreshments; nay, it +would not be amiss to have some cold meat, and a bottle of wine upon a +side-board. 'Sir, (said Johnson to me, with an air of triumph,) Mr. +Berrenger knows the world. Every body loves to have good things +furnished to them without any trouble. I told Mrs. Thrale once, that as +she did not choose to have card tables, she should have a profusion of +the best sweetmeats, and she would be sure to have company enough come +to her[293].' I agreed with my illustrious friend upon this subject; +for it has pleased GOD to make man a composite animal, and where there +is nothing to refresh the body, the mind will languish. + +On Sunday, April 15, being Easter-day, after solemn worship in St. +Paul's church, I found him alone; Dr. Scott of the Commons came in. He +talked of its having been said that Addison wrote some of his best +papers in _The Spectator_ when warm with wine[294]. Dr. Johnson did not +seem willing to admit this. Dr. Scott, as a confirmation of it, related, +that Blackstone, a sober man, composed his _Commentaries_ with a bottle +of port before him; and found his mind invigorated and supported in the +fatigue of his great work, by a temperate use of it[295]. + +I told him, that in a company where I had lately been, a desire was +expressed to know his authority for the shocking story of Addison's +sending an execution into Steele's house[296]. 'Sir, (said he,) it is +generally known, it is known to all who are acquainted with the literary +history of that period. It is as well known, as that he wrote _Cato_.' +Mr. Thomas Sheridan once defended Addison to me, by alledging that he +did it in order to cover Steele's goods from other creditors, who were +going to seize them. + +We talked of the difference between the mode of education at Oxford, +and that in those Colleges where instruction is chiefly conveyed by +lectures[297]. JOHNSON. 'Lectures were once useful; but now, when all +can read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary. If your +attention fails, and you miss a part of a lecture, it is lost; you +cannot go back as you do upon a book.' Dr. Scott agreed with him. 'But +yet (said I), Dr. Scott, you yourself gave lectures at Oxford[298].' He +smiled. 'You laughed (then said I) at those who came to you.' + +Dr. Scott left us, and soon afterwards we went to dinner. Our company +consisted of Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Desmoulins, Mr. Levett, Mr. Allen, the +printer, and Mrs. Hall[299], sister of the Reverend Mr. John Wesley, and +resembling him, as I thought, both in figure and manner. Johnson +produced now, for the first time, some handsome silver salvers, which he +told me he had bought fourteen years ago; so it was a great day. I was +not a little amused by observing Allen perpetually struggling to talk in +the manner of Johnson, like the little frog in the fable blowing himself +up to resemble the stately ox[300]. + +I mentioned a kind of religious Robinhood Society[301], which met every +Sunday evening, at Coachmakers'-hall, for free debate; and that the +subject for this night was, the text which relates, with other miracles, +which happened at our SAVIOUR'S death, 'And the graves were opened, and +many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves +after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto +many[302].' Mrs. Hall said it was a very curious subject, and she should +like to hear it discussed. JOHNSON, (somewhat warmly) 'One would not go +to such a place to hear it,--one would not be seen in such a place--to +give countenance to such a meeting.' I, however, resolved that I would +go. 'But, Sir, (said she to Johnson,) I should like to hear _you_ +discuss it.' He seemed reluctant to engage in it. She talked of the +resurrection of the human race in general, and maintained that we shall +be raised with the same bodies. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, we see that it is +not to be the same body; for the Scripture uses the illustration of +grain sown, and we know that the grain which grows is not the same with +what is sown[303]. You cannot suppose that we shall rise with a diseased +body; it is enough if there be such a sameness as to distinguish +identity of person.' She seemed desirous of knowing more, but he left +the question in obscurity. + +Of apparitions[304], he observed, 'A total disbelief of them is adverse +to the opinion of the existence of the soul between death and the last +day; the question simply is, whether departed spirits ever have the +power of making themselves perceptible to us; a man who thinks he has +seen an apparition, can only be convinced himself; his authority will +not convince another, and his conviction, if rational, must be founded +on being told something which cannot be known but by supernatural means.' + +He mentioned a thing as not unfrequent, of which I had never heard +before,--being _called_, that is, hearing one's name pronounced by the +voice of a known person at a great distance, far beyond the possibility +of being reached by any sound uttered by human organs. 'An acquaintance, +on whose veracity I can depend, told me, that walking home one evening +to Kilmarnock, he heard himself called from a wood, by the voice of a +brother who had gone to America; and the next packet brought accounts of +that brother's death.' Macbean[305] asserted that this inexplicable +_calling_ was a thing very well known. Dr. Johnson said, that one day at +Oxford, as he was turning the key of his chamber, he heard his mother +distinctly call Sam. She was then at Lichfield; but nothing ensued[306]. +This phaenomenon is, I think, as wonderful as any other mysterious +fact, which many people are very slow to believe, or rather, indeed, +reject with an obstinate contempt. + +Some time after this, upon his making a remark which escaped my +attention, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Hall were both together striving to +answer him. He grew angry, and called out loudly, 'Nay, when you both +speak at once, it is intolerable.' But checking himself, and softening, +he said, 'This one may say, though you _are_ ladies.' Then he brightened +into gay humour, and addressed them in the words of one of the songs in +_The Beggar's Opera_[307]:-- + + 'But two at a time there's no mortal can bear.' + +'What, Sir, (said I,) are you going to turn Captain Macheath?' There was +something as pleasantly ludicrous in this scene as can be imagined. The +contrast between Macheath, Polly, and Lucy--and Dr. Samuel Johnson, +blind, peevish Mrs. Williams, and lean, lank, preaching Mrs. Hall, was +exquisite. + +I stole away to Coachmakers'-hall, and heard the difficult text of which +we had talked, discussed with great decency, and some intelligence, by +several speakers. There was a difference of opinion as to the appearance +of ghosts in modern times, though the arguments for it, supported by Mr. +Addison's authority[308], preponderated. The immediate subject of debate +was embarrassed by the _bodies_ of the saints having been said to rise, +and by the question what became of them afterwards; did they return +again to their graves? or were they translated to heaven? Only one +evangelist mentions the fact[309], and the commentators whom I have +looked at, do not make the passage clear. There is, however, no occasion +for our understanding it farther, than to know that it was one of the +extraordinary manifestations of divine power, which accompanied the most +important event that ever happened. + +On Friday, April 20, I spent with him one of the happiest days that I +remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life. Mrs. Garrick, +whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I believe, as sincere as +wounded affection and admiration could produce, had this day, for the +first time since his death, a select party of his friends to dine with +her[310]. The company was Miss Hannah More, who lived with her, and whom +she called her Chaplain[311]; Mrs. Boscawen[312], Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, +Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Burney, Dr. Johnson, and myself. We found +ourselves very elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi[313], +where I have passed many a pleasing hour with him 'who gladdened +life[314].' She looked well, talked of her husband with complacency, and +while she cast her eyes on his portrait, which hung over the +chimney-piece, said, that 'death was now the most agreeable object to +her[315].' The very semblance of David Garrick was cheering. Mr. +Beauclerk, with happy propriety, inscribed under that fine portrait of +him, which by Lady Diana's kindness is now the property of my friend Mr. +Langton, the following passage from his beloved Shakspeare:-- + + 'A merrier man, + Within the limit of becoming mirth, + I never spent an hour's talk withal. + His eye begets occasion for his wit; + For every object that the one doth catch, + The other turns to a mirth-moving jest; + Which his fair tongue (Conceit's expositor) + Delivers in such apt and gracious words, + That aged ears play truant at his tales, + And younger hearings are quite ravished: + So sweet and voluble is his discourse[316].' + +We were all in fine spirits; and I whispered to Mrs. Boscawen, 'I +believe this is as much as can be made of life.' In addition to a +splendid entertainment, we were regaled with Lichfield ale[317], which +had a peculiar appropriated value. Sir Joshua, and Dr. Burney, and I, +drank cordially of it to Dr. Johnson's health; and though he would not +join us, he as cordially answered, 'Gentlemen, I wish you all as well as +you do me.' + +The general effect of this day dwells upon my mind in fond remembrance; +but I do not find much conversation recorded. What I have preserved +shall be faithfully given. + +One of the company mentioned Mr. Thomas Hollis, the strenuous Whig, who +used to send over Europe presents of democratical books, with their +boards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty. Mrs. Carter said, 'He +was a bad man. He used to talk uncharitably.' JOHNSON. 'Poh! poh! Madam; +who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably? Besides, he was a +dull poor creature as ever lived: And I believe he would not have done +harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own. +I remember once at the Society of Arts, when an advertisement was to be +drawn up, he pointed me out as the man who could do it best. This, you +will observe, was kindness to me. I however slipt away, and escaped it.' + +Mrs. Carter having said of the same person, 'I doubt he was an +Atheist[318].' JOHNSON. 'I don't know that. He might perhaps have +become one, if he had had time to ripen, (smiling.) He might have +_exuberated_ into an Atheist.' + +Sir Joshua Reynolds praised _Mudge's Sermons_[319]. JOHNSON. 'Mudge's +Sermons are good, but not practical. He grasps more sense than he can +hold; he takes more corn than he can make into meal; he opens a wide +prospect, but it is so distant, it is indistinct. I love _Blair's +Sermons_. Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a Presbyterian, and every +thing he should not be, I was the first to praise them[320]. Such was my +candour.' (smiling.) MRS. BOSCAWEN. 'Such his great merit to get the +better of all your prejudices.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Madam, let us compound +the matter; let us ascribe it to my candour, and his merit.' + +In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room, several +ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr. Percy, Mr. Chamberlayne[321], of the +Treasury, &c. &c. Somebody said the life of a mere literary man could +not be very entertaining. JOHNSON. 'But it certainly may. This is a +remark which has been made, and repeated, without justice; why should +the life of a literary man be less entertaining than the life of any +other man? Are there not as interesting varieties in such a life[322]? +As _a literary life_ it may be very entertaining.' BOSWELL. 'But it must +be better surely, when it is diversified with a little active variety-- +such as his having gone to Jamaica; or--his having gone to the +Hebrides.' Johnson was not displeased at this. + +Talking of a very respectable authour, he told us a curious circumstance +in his life, which was, that he had married a printer's devil. REYNOLDS. +'A printer's devil, Sir! Why, I thought a printer's devil was a creature +with a black face and in rags.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. But I suppose, he +had her face washed, and put clean clothes on her. (Then looking very +serious, and very earnest.) And she did not disgrace him; the woman had +a bottom of good sense. The word _bottom_ thus introduced, was so +ludicrous when contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not +forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of +Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah +More slyly hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee +with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should +excite ridicule, when he did not intend it; he therefore resolved to +assume and exercise despotick power, glanced sternly around, and called +out in a strong tone, 'Where's the merriment?' Then collecting himself, +and looking aweful, to make us feel how he could impose restraint, and +as it were searching his mind for a still more ludicrous word, he slowly +pronounced, 'I say the _woman_ was _fundamentally_ sensible;' as if he +had said, hear this now, and laugh if you dare. We all sat composed as +at a funeral[323]. + +He and I walked away together; we stopped a little while by the rails of +the Adelphi, looking on the Thames, and I said to him with some emotion +that I was now thinking of two friends we had lost, who once lived in +the buildings behind us, Beauclerk and Garrick. 'Ay, Sir, (said he, +tenderly) and two such friends as cannot be supplied[324].' + +For some time after this day I did not see him very often, and of the +conversation which I did enjoy, I am sorry to find I have preserved but +little. I was at this time engaged in a variety of other matters, which +required exertion and assiduity, and necessarily occupied almost all +my time. + +One day having spoken very freely of those who were then in power, he +said to me, 'Between ourselves, Sir, I do not like to give opposition +the satisfaction of knowing how much I disapprove of the ministry.' And +when I mentioned that Mr. Burke had boasted how quiet the nation was in +George the Second's reign, when Whigs were in power, compared with the +present reign, when Tories governed;--'Why, Sir, (said he,) you are to +consider that Tories having more reverence for government, will not +oppose with the same violence as Whigs, who being unrestrained by that +principle, will oppose by any means.' + +This month he lost not only Mr. Thrale, but another friend, Mr. William +Strahan, Junior, printer, the eldest son of his old and constant friend, +Printer to his Majesty. + +'TO MRS. STRAHAN. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'The grief which I feel for the loss of a very kind friend is sufficient +to make me know how much you suffer by the death of an amiable son; a +man, of whom I think it may truly be said, that no one knew him who does +not lament him. I look upon myself as having a friend, another friend, +taken from me. + +'Comfort, dear Madam, I would give you if I could, but I know how little +the forms of consolation can avail. Let me, however, counsel you not to +waste your health in unprofitable sorrow, but go to Bath, and endeavour +to prolong your own life; but when we have all done all that we can, one +friend must in time lose the other. + +'I am, dear Madam, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'April 23, 1781.' + +On Tuesday, May 8[325], I had the pleasure of again dining with him and +Mr. Wilkes, at Mr. Billy's[326]. No _negociation_ was now required to +bring them together; for Johnson was so well satisfied with the former +interview, that he was very glad to meet Wilkes again, who was this day +seated between Dr. Beattie and Dr. Johnson; (between _Truth_[327] and +_Reason_, as General Paoli said, when I told him of it.) WILKES. 'I have +been thinking, Dr. Johnson, that there should be a bill brought into +parliament that the controverted elections for Scotland should be tried +in that country, at their own Abbey of Holy-Rood House, and not here; +for the consequence of trying them here is, that we have an inundation +of Scotchmen, who come up and never go back again. Now here is Boswell, +who is come up upon the election for his own county, which will not last +a fortnight.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I see no reason why they should be +tried at all; for, you know, one Scotchman is as good as another.' +WILKES. 'Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year by an Advocate at +the Scotch bar?' BOSWELL. 'I believe two thousand pounds.' WlLKES. 'How +can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, +the money may be spent in England: but there is a harder question. If +one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds, what remains +for all the rest of the nation?' WILKES. 'You know, in the last war, the +immense booty which Thurot[328] carried off by the complete plunder of +seven Scotch isles; he re-embarked with _three and six-pence_.' Here +again Johnson and Wilkes joined in extravagant sportive raillery upon +the supposed poverty of Scotland, which Dr. Beattie and I did not think +it worth our while to dispute. + +The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured it as +pedantry[329]. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, it is a good thing; there is a +community of mind in it. Classical quotation is the _parole_ of literary +men all over the world.' WlLKES. 'Upon the continent they all quote the +vulgate Bible. Shakspeare is chiefly quoted here; and we quote also +Pope, Prior, Butler, Waller, and sometimes Cowley[330].' + +We talked of Letter-writing. JOHNSON. 'It is now become so much the +fashion to publish letters, that in order to avoid it, I put as little +into mine as I can.[331]' BOSWELL. 'Do what you will, Sir, you cannot +avoid it. Should you even write as ill as you can, your letters would be +published as curiosities: + + "Behold a miracle! instead of wit, + See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ[332]."' + +He gave us an entertaining account of _Bet Flint_[333], a woman of the +town, who, with some eccentrick talents and much effrontery, forced +herself upon his acquaintance. 'Bet (said he) wrote her own Life in +verse[334], which she brought to me, wishing that I would furnish her +with a Preface to it. (Laughing.) I used to say of her that she was +generally slut and drunkard; occasionally, whore and thief. She had, +however, genteel lodgings, a spinnet on which she played, and a boy that +walked before her chair. Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a +counterpane, and tried at the Old Bailey. Chief Justice ------[335], who +loved a wench, summed up favourably, and she was acquitted. After which +Bet said, with a gay and satisfied air, 'Now that the counterpane is _my +own_, I shall make a petticoat of it.' + +Talking of oratory, Mr. Wilkes described it as accompanied with all the +charms of poetical expression. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; oratory is the power +of beating down your adversary's arguments, and putting better in their +place.' WlLKES. 'But this does not move the passions.' JOHNSON. 'He must +be a weak man, who is to be so moved.' WlLKES. (naming a celebrated +orator) 'Amidst all the brilliancy of ----'s[336] imagination, and the +exuberance of his wit, there is a strange want of _taste_. It was +observed of Apelles's Venus[337], that her flesh seemed as if she had +been nourished by roses: his oratory would sometimes make one suspect +that he eats potatoes and drinks whisky.' + +Mr. Wilkes observed, how tenacious we are of forms in this country, and +gave as an instance, the vote of the House of Commons for remitting +money to pay the army in America _in Portugal pieces_[338], when, in +reality, the remittance is made not in Portugal money, but in our own +specie. JOHNSON. 'Is there not a law, Sir, against exporting the current +coin of the realm?' WlLKES. 'Yes, Sir: but might not the House of +Commons, in case of real evident necessity, order our own current coin +to be sent into our own colonies?' Here Johnson, with that quickness of +recollection which distinguished him so eminently, gave the _Middlesex +Patriot_ an admirable retort upon his own ground. 'Sure, Sir, _you_ +don't think a _resolution of the House of Commons_ equal to _the law of +the land_[339].' WlLKES. (at once perceiving the application) 'GOD +forbid, Sir.' To hear what had been treated with such violence in _The +False Alarm_, now turned into pleasant repartee, was extremely +agreeable. Johnson went on;--'Locke observes well, that a prohibition +to export the current coin is impolitick; for when the balance of trade +happens to be against a state, the current coin must be exported[340].' + +Mr. Beauclerk's great library[341] was this season sold in London by +auction. Mr. Wilkes said, he wondered to find in it such a numerous +collection of sermons; seeming to think it strange that a gentleman of +Mr. Beauclerk's character in the gay world should have chosen to have +many compositions of that kind. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, you are to consider, +that sermons make a considerable branch of English literature[342]; so +that a library must be very imperfect if it has not a numerous +collection of sermons[343]: and in all collections, Sir, the desire of +augmenting it grows stronger in proportion to the advance in +acquisition; as motion is accelerated by the continuance of the +_impetus_. Besides, Sir, (looking at Mr. Wilkes with a placid but +significant smile) a man may collect sermons with intention of making +himself better by them. I hope Mr. Beauclerk intended, that some time or +other that should be the case with him.' + +Mr. Wilkes said to me, loud enough for Dr. Johnson to hear, 'Dr. Johnson +should make me a present of his _Lives of the Poets_, as I am a poor +patriot, who cannot afford to buy them.' Johnson seemed to take no +notice of this hint; but in a little while, he called to Mr. Dilly, +'Pray, Sir, be so good as to send a set of my _Lives_ to Mr. Wilkes, +with my compliments.' This was accordingly done; and Mr. Wilkes paid Dr. +Johnson a visit, was courteously received, and sat with him a long time. + +The company gradually dropped away. Mr. Dilly himself was called down +stairs upon business; I left the room for some time; when I returned, I +was struck with observing Dr. Samuel Johnson and John Wilkes, Esq., +literally _tête-à-tête_; for they were reclined upon their chairs, with +their heads leaning almost close to each other, and talking earnestly, +in a kind of confidential whisper, of the personal quarrel between +George the Second and the King of Prussia[344]. Such a scene of +perfectly easy sociality between two such opponents in the war of +political controversy, as that which I now beheld, would have been an +excellent subject for a picture. It presented to my mind the happy days +which are foretold in Scripture, when the lion shall lie down with the +kid[345]. + +After this day there was another pretty long interval, during which Dr. +Johnson and I did not meet. When I mentioned it to him with regret, he +was pleased to say, 'Then, Sir, let us live double.' + +About this time it was much the fashion for several ladies to have +evening assemblies, where the fair sex might participate in conversation +with literary and ingenious men, animated by a desire to please. These +societies were denominated _Blue-stocking Clubs_, the origin of which +title being little known, it may be worth while to relate it. One of the +most eminent members of those societies, when they first commenced, was +Mr. Stillingfleet[346], whose dress was remarkably grave, and in +particular it was observed, that he wore blue stockings[347]. Such was +the excellence of his conversation, that his absence was felt as so +great a loss, that it used to be said, 'We can do nothing without the +_blue stockings_;' and thus by degrees the title was established. Miss +Hannah More has admirably described a _Blue-stocking Club_, in her _Bas +Bleu_[348], a poem in which many of the persons who were most +conspicuous there are mentioned. + +Johnson was prevailed with to come sometimes into these circles, and did +not think himself too grave even for the lively Miss Monckton[349] (now +Countess of Corke), who used to have the finest _bit of blue_ at the +house of her mother, Lady Galway. Her vivacity enchanted the Sage, and +they used to talk together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance +happened one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne's writings +were very pathetick. Johnson bluntly denied it. 'I am sure (said she) +they have affected _me_.' 'Why (said Johnson, smiling, and rolling +himself about,) that is, because, dearest, you're a dunce[350].' When +she some time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth +and politeness; 'Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not +have said it.' + +Another evening Johnson's kind indulgence towards me had a pretty +difficult trial. I had dined at the Duke of Montrose's with a very +agreeable party, and his Grace, according to his usual custom, had +circulated the bottle very freely. Lord Graham[351] and I went together +to Miss Monckton's, where I certainly was in extraordinary spirits, and +above all fear or awe. In the midst of a great number of persons of the +first rank, amongst whom I recollect with confusion, a noble lady of the +most stately decorum, I placed myself next to Johnson, and thinking +myself now fully his match, talked to him in a loud and boisterous +manner, desirous to let the company know how I could contend with +_Ajax_. I particularly remember pressing him upon the value of the +pleasures of the imagination, and as an illustration of my argument, +asking him, 'What, Sir, supposing I were to fancy that the--(naming the +most charming Duchess in his Majesty's dominions) were in love with me, +should I not be very happy?' My friend with much address evaded my +interrogatories, and kept me as quiet as possible; but it may easily be +conceived how he must have felt[352]. However, when a few days +afterwards I waited upon him and made an apology, he behaved with the +most friendly gentleness[353]. + +While I remained in London this year[354], Johnson and I dined together +at several places. I recollect a placid day at Dr. Butter's[355], who +had now removed from Derby to Lower Grosvenor-street, London; but of his +conversation on that and other occasions during this period, I neglected +to keep any regular record[356], and shall therefore insert here some +miscellaneous articles which I find in my Johnsonian notes. + +His disorderly habits, when 'making provision for the day that was +passing over him[357],' appear from the following anecdote, communicated +to me by Mr. John Nichols:--'In the year 1763, a young bookseller, who +was an apprentice to Mr. Whiston, waited on him with a subscription to +his _Shakspeare_: and observing that the Doctor made no entry in any +book of the subscriber's name, ventured diffidently to ask, whether he +would please to have the gentleman's address, that it might be properly +inserted in the printed list of subscribers. '_I shall print no list of +subscribers_;' said Johnson, with great abruptness: but almost +immediately recollecting himself, added, very complacently, 'Sir, I have +two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers;--one, +that I have lost all the names,--the other, that I have spent all +the money.' + +Johnson could not brook appearing to be worsted in argument, even when +he had taken the wrong side, to shew the force and dexterity of his +talents. When, therefore, he perceived that his opponent gained ground, +he had recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry. Once when I was +pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus:--'My dear +Boswell, let's have no more of this; you'll make nothing of it. I'd +rather have you whistle a Scotch tune.' + +Care, however, must be taken to distinguish between Johnson when he +'talked for victory[358],' and Johnson when he had no desire but to +inform and illustrate. 'One of Johnson's principal talents (says an +eminent friend of his)[359] was shewn in maintaining the wrong side of +an argument, and in a splendid perversion of the truth. If you could +contrive to have his fair opinion on a subject, and without any bias +from personal prejudice, or from a wish to be victorious in argument, it +was wisdom itself, not only convincing, but overpowering.' + +He had, however, all his life habituated himself to consider +conversation as a trial of intellectual vigour and skill[360]; and to +this, I think, we may venture to ascribe that unexampled richness and +brilliancy which appeared in his own. As a proof at once of his +eagerness for colloquial distinction, and his high notion of this +eminent friend, he once addressed him thus:-'----, we now have been +several hours together; and you have said but one thing for which I +envied you.' + +He disliked much all speculative desponding considerations, which tended +to discourage men from diligence and exertion. He was in this like Dr. +Shaw, the great traveller[361], who Mr. Daines Barrington[362] told me, +used to say, 'I hate a _cui bono_ man.' Upon being asked by a +friend[363] what he should think of a man who was apt to say _non est +tanti_;-'That he's a stupid fellow, Sir; (answered Johnson): What would +these _tanti_ men be doing the while?' When I in a low-spirited fit, was +talking to him with indifference of the pursuits which generally engage +us in a course of action, and inquiring a _reason_ for taking so much +trouble; 'Sir (said he, in an animated tone) it is driving on the +system of life.' + +He told me, that he was glad that I had, by General Oglethorpe's means, +become acquainted with Dr. Shebbeare. Indeed that gentleman, whatever +objections were made to him, had knowledge and abilities much above the +class of ordinary writers, and deserves to be remembered as a +respectable name in literature, were it only for his admirable _Letters +on the English Nation_, under the name of 'Battista Angeloni, a +Jesuit[364].' + +Johnson and Shebbeare[365] were frequently named together, as having in +former reigns had no predilection for the family of Hanover. The authour +of the celebrated _Heroick Epistle to Sir William Chambers_, introduces +them in one line, in a list of those 'who tasted the sweets of his +present Majesty's reign[366].' Such was Johnson's candid relish of the +merit of that satire, that he allowed Dr. Goldsmith, as he told me, to +read it to him from beginning to end, and did not refuse his praise to +its execution[367]. + +Goldsmith could sometimes take adventurous liberties with him, and +escape unpunished. Beauclerk told me that when Goldsmith talked of a +project for having a third Theatre in London, solely for the exhibition +of new plays, in order to deliver authours from the supposed tyranny of +managers, Johnson treated it slightingly; upon which Goldsmith said, +'Ay, ay, this may be nothing to you, who can now shelter yourself behind +the corner of a pension;' and that Johnson bore this with good-humour. + +Johnson praised the Earl of Carlisle's Poems[368], which his Lordship +had published with his name, as not disdaining to be a candidate for +literary fame. My friend was of opinion, that when a man of rank +appeared in that character, he deserved to have his merit handsomely +allowed[369]. In this I think he was more liberal than Mr. William +Whitehead[370], in his _Elegy to Lord Villiers_, in which under the +pretext of 'superiour toils, demanding all their care,' he discovers a +jealousy of the great paying their court to the Muses:-- + + '------to the chosen few + Who dare excel, thy fost'ring aid afford, + Their arts, their magick powers, with honours due + Exalt;--but be thyself what they record[371].' + +Johnson had called twice on the Bishop of Killaloe[372] before his +Lordship set out for Ireland, having missed him the first time. He said, +'It would have hung heavy on my heart if I had not seen him. No man ever +paid more attention to another than he has done to me[373]; and I have +neglected him, not wilfully, but from being otherwise occupied. Always, +Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination +prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love +you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.' + +Johnson told me, that he was once much pleased to find that a +carpenter, who lived near him, was very ready to shew him some things in +his business which he wished to see: 'It was paying (said he) respect to +literature.' + +I asked him if he was not dissatisfied with having so small a share of +wealth, and none of those distinctions in the state which are the +objects of ambition. He had only a pension of three hundred a year. Why +was he not in such circumstances as to keep his coach? Why had he not +some considerable office? JOHNSON, 'Sir, I have never complained of the +world[374]; nor do I think that I have reason to complain. It is rather +to be wondered at that I have so much. My pension is more out of the +usual course of things than any instance that I have known. Here, Sir, +was a man avowedly no friend to Government at the time, who got a +pension without asking for it. I never courted the great; they sent for +me; but I think they now give me up. They are satisfied; they have seen +enough of me.' Upon my observing that I could not believe this, for they +must certainly be highly pleased by his conversation; conscious of his +own superiority, he answered, 'No, Sir; great lords and great ladies +don't love to have their mouths stopped[375].' This was very expressive +of the effect which the force of his understanding and brilliancy of his +fancy could not but produce; and, to be sure, they must have found +themselves strangely diminished in his company. When I warmly declared +how happy I was at all times to hear him;--'Yes, Sir, (said he); but if +you were Lord Chancellor, it would not be so: you would then consider +your own dignity.' + +There was much truth and knowledge of human nature in this remark. But +certainly one should think, that in whatever elevated state of life a +man who _knew_ the value of the conversation of Johnson might be placed, +though he might prudently avoid a situation in which he might appear +lessened by comparison; yet he would frequently gratify himself in +private with the participation of the rich intellectual entertainment +which Johnson could furnish. Strange, however, it is, to consider how +few of the great sought his society[376]; so that if one were disposed +to take occasion for satire on that account, very conspicuous objects +present themselves. His noble friend, Lord Elibank, well observed, that +if a great man procured an interview with Johnson, and did not wish to +see him more, it shewed a mere idle curiosity, and a wretched want of +relish for extraordinary powers of mind[377]. Mrs. Thrale justly and +wittily accounted for such conduct by saying, that Johnson's +conversation was by much too strong for a person accustomed to +obsequiousness and flattery; it was _mustard in a young child's mouth!_ + +One day, when I told him that I was a zealous Tory, but not enough +'according to knowledge[378],' and should be obliged to him for 'a +reason[379],' he was so candid, and expressed himself so well, that I +begged of him to repeat what he had said, and I wrote down as follows:-- + +OF TORY AND WHIG. + +'A wise Tory and a wise Whig, I believe, will agree[380]. Their +principles are the same, though their modes of thinking are different. A +high Tory makes government unintelligible: it is lost in the clouds. A +violent Whig makes it impracticable: he is for allowing so much liberty +to every man, that there is not power enough to govern any man. The +prejudice of the Tory is for establishment; the prejudice of the Whig is +for innovation. A Tory does not wish to give more real power to +Government; but that Government should have more reverence. Then they +differ as to the Church. The Tory is not for giving more legal power to +the Clergy, but wishes they should have a considerable influence, +founded on the opinion of mankind; the Whig is for limiting and watching +them with a narrow jealousy.' + +To MR. PERKINS. + +'SIR, + +However often I have seen you, I have hitherto forgotten the note, but I +have now sent it: with my good wishes for the prosperity of you and your +partner[381], of whom, from our short conversation, I could not judge +otherwise than favourably. + +I am, Sir, + +Your most humble servant, + +SAM. JOHNSON. + +June 2, 1781.' + +On Saturday, June 2, I set out for Scotland, and had promised to pay a +visit in my way, as I sometimes did, at Southill, in Bedfordshire, at +the hospitable mansion of 'Squire Dilly, the elder brother of my worthy +friends, the booksellers, in the Poultry. Dr. Johnson agreed to be of +the party this year, with Mr. Charles Dilly and me, and to go and see +Lord Bute's seat at Luton Hoe. He talked little to us in the carriage, +being chiefly occupied in reading Dr. Watson's[382] second volume of +_Chemical Essays_[383], which he liked very well, and his own _Prince +of Abyssinia_, on which he seemed to be intensely fixed; having told us, +that he had not looked at it since it was first published. I happened to +take it out of my pocket this day, and he seized upon it with avidity. +He pointed out to me the following remarkable passage[384]:-- + +'By what means (said the prince) are the Europeans thus powerful; or +why, since they can so easily visit Asia and Africa for trade or +conquest, cannot the Asiaticks and Africans invade their coasts, plant +colonies in their ports, and give laws to their natural princes? The +same wind that carries them back would bring us thither.' 'They are more +powerful, Sir, than we, (answered Imlac,) because they are wiser. +Knowledge will always predominate over ignorance, as man governs the +other animals. But why their knowledge is more than ours, I know not +what reason can be given, but the unsearchable will of the +Supreme Being.' + +He said, 'This, Sir, no man can explain otherwise.' + +We stopped at Welwyn, where I wished much to see, in company with Dr. +Johnson, the residence of the authour of _Night Thoughts_, which was +then possessed by his son, Mr. Young. Here some address was requisite, +for I was not acquainted with Mr. Young, and had I proposed to Dr. +Johnson that we should send to him, he would have checked my wish, and +perhaps been offended. I therefore concerted with Mr. Dilly, that I +should steal away from Dr. Johnson and him, and try what reception I +could procure from Mr. Young; if unfavourable, nothing was to be said; +but if agreeable, I should return and notify it to them. I hastened to +Mr. Young's, found he was at home, sent in word that a gentleman desired +to wait upon him, and was shewn into a parlour, where he and a young +lady, his daughter, were sitting. He appeared to be a plain, civil, +country gentleman; and when I begged pardon for presuming to trouble +him, but that I wished much to see his place, if he would give me leave; +he behaved very courteously, and answered, 'By all means, Sir; we are +just going to drink tea; will you sit down?' I thanked him, but said, +that Dr. Johnson had come with me from London, and I must return to the +inn and drink tea with him; that my name was Boswell, I had travelled +with him in the Hebrides. 'Sir, (said he) I should think it a great +honour to see Dr. Johnson here. Will you allow me to send for him?' +Availing myself of this opening, I said that 'I would go myself and +bring him, when he had drunk tea; he knew nothing of my calling here.' +Having been thus successful, I hastened back to the inn, and informed +Dr. Johnson that 'Mr. Young, son of Dr. Young, the authour of _Night +Thoughts_, whom I had just left, desired to have the honour of seeing +him at the house where his father lived.' Dr. Johnson luckily made no +inquiry how this invitation had arisen, but agreed to go, and when we +entered Mr. Young's parlour, he addressed him with a very polite bow, +'Sir, I had a curiosity to come and see this place. I had the honour to +know that great man[385], your father.' We went into the garden, where +we found a gravel walk, on each side of which was a row of trees, +planted by Dr. Young, which formed a handsome Gothick arch; Dr. Johnson +called it a fine grove. I beheld it with reverence. + +We sat some time in the summer-house, on the outside wall of which was +inscribed, _'Ambulantes in horto audiebant vocem Dei_[386];' and in +reference to a brook by which it is situated, _'Vivendi rectè qui +prorogat horam_[387],' &c. I said to Mr. Young, that I had been told his +father was cheerful[388]. 'Sir, (said he) he was too well-bred a man not +to be cheerful in company; but he was gloomy when alone. He never was +cheerful after my mother's death, and he had met with many +disappointments.' Dr. Johnson observed to me afterwards, 'That this was +no favourable account of Dr. Young; for it is not becoming in a man to +have so little acquiescence in the ways of Providence, as to be gloomy +because he has not obtained as much preferment as he expected[389]; nor +to continue gloomy for the loss of his wife. Grief has its time[390].' +The last part of this censure was theoretically made. Practically, we +know that grief for the loss of a wife may be continued very long, in +proportion as affection has been sincere. No man knew this better than +Dr. Johnson. + +We went into the church, and looked at the monument erected by Mr. Young +to his father. Mr. Young mentioned an anecdote, that his father had +received several thousand pounds of subscription-money for his +_Universal Passion_, but had lost it in the South-Sea[391]. Dr. Johnson +thought this must be a mistake; for he had never seen a +subscription-book. + +Upon the road we talked of the uncertainty of profit with which authours +and booksellers engage in the publication of literary works. JOHNSON. +'My judgement I have found is no certain rule as to the sale of a book.' +BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, have you been much plagued with authours sending +you their works to revise?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; I have been thought a +sour, surly fellow.' BOSWELL. 'Very lucky for you, Sir,--in that +respect.' I must however observe, that notwithstanding what he now said, +which he no doubt imagined at the time to be the fact, there was, +perhaps, no man who more frequently yielded to the solicitations even of +very obscure authours, to read their manuscripts, or more liberally +assisted them with advice and correction[392]. + +He found himself very happy at 'Squire Dilly's, where there is always +abundance of excellent fare, and hearty welcome. + +On Sunday, June 3, we all went to Southill church, which is very near to +Mr. Dilly's house. It being the first Sunday of the month, the holy +sacrament was administered, and I staid to partake of it. When I came +afterwards into Dr. Johnson's room, he said, 'You did right to stay and +receive the communion; I had not thought of it.' This seemed to imply +that he did not choose to approach the altar without a previous +preparation, as to which good men entertain different opinions, some +holding that it is irreverent to partake of that ordinance without +considerable premeditation; others, that whoever is a sincere Christian, +and in a proper frame of mind to discharge any other ritual duty of our +religion, may, without scruple, discharge this most solemn one. A middle +notion I believe to be the just one, which is, that communicants need +not think a long train of preparatory forms indispensibly necessary; but +neither should they rashly and lightly venture upon so aweful and +mysterious an institution. Christians must judge each for himself, what +degree of retirement and self-examination is necessary upon +each occasion. + +Being in a frame of mind which, I hope for the felicity of human nature, +many experience,--in fine weather,--at the country house of a +friend,--consoled and elevated by pious exercises,--I expressed myself +with an unrestrained fervour to my 'Guide, Philosopher, and +Friend[393];' 'My dear Sir, I would fain be a good man; and I am very +good now[394]. I fear GOD, and honour the King, I wish to do no ill, and +to be benevolent to all mankind.' He looked at me with a benignant +indulgence; but took occasion to give me wise and salutary caution. 'Do +not, Sir, accustom yourself to trust to _impressions_. There is a middle +state of mind between conviction and hypocrisy, of which many are +conscious[395]. By trusting to impressions, a man may gradually come to +yield to them, and at length be subject to them, so as not to be a free +agent, or what is the same thing in effect, to _suppose_ that he is not +a free agent. A man who is in that state, should not be suffered to +live; if he declares he cannot help acting in a particular way, and is +irresistibly impelled, there can be no confidence in him, no more than +in a tyger. But, Sir, no man believes himself to be impelled +irresistibly; we know that he who says he believes it, lies. Favourable +impressions at particular moments, as to the state of our souls, may be +deceitful and dangerous. In general no man can be sure of his acceptance +with God; some, indeed, may have had it revealed to them. St. Paul, who +wrought miracles, may have had a miracle wrought on himself, and may +have obtained supernatural assurance of pardon, and mercy, and +beatitude; yet St. Paul, though he expresses strong hope, also expresses +fear, lest having preached to others, he himself should be a +cast-away[396].' + +The opinion of a learned Bishop of our acquaintance, as to there being +merit in religious faith, being mentioned;--JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, Sir, the +most licentious man, were hell open before him, would not take the most +beautiful strumpet to his arms. We must, as the Apostle says, live by +faith, not by sight[397].' + +I talked to him of original sin[398], in consequence of the fall of man, +and of the atonement made by our SAVIOUR. After some conversation, which +he desired me to remember, he, at my request, dictated to me as +follows:-- + +'With respect to original sin, the inquiry is not necessary; for +whatever is the cause of human corruption, men are evidently and +confessedly so corrupt, that all the laws of heaven and earth are +insufficient to restrain them from crimes. + +'Whatever difficulty there may be in the conception of vicarious +punishments, it is an opinion which has had possession of mankind in all +ages. There is no nation that has not used the practice of sacrifices. +Whoever, therefore, denies the propriety of vicarious punishments, holds +an opinion which the sentiments and practice of mankind have +contradicted, from the beginning of the world. The great sacrifice for +the sins of mankind was offered at the death of the MESSIAH, who is +called in scripture "The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins[399] of +the world." To judge of the reasonableness of the scheme of redemption, +it must be considered as necessary to the government of the universe, +that GOD should make known his perpetual and irreconcileable detestation +of moral evil. He might indeed punish, and punish only the offenders; +but as the end of punishment is not revenge of crimes, but propagation +of virtue, it was more becoming the Divine clemency to find another +manner of proceeding, less destructive to man, and at least equally +powerful to promote goodness. The end of punishment is to reclaim and +warn. _That_ punishment will both reclaim and warn, which shews +evidently such abhorrence of sin in GOD, as may deter us from it, or +strike us with dread of vengeance when we have committed it. This is +effected by vicarious punishment. Nothing could more testify the +opposition between the nature of GOD and moral evil, or more amply +display his justice, to men and angels, to all orders and successions of +beings, than that it was necessary for the highest and purest nature, +even for DIVINITY itself, to pacify the demands of vengeance, by a +painful death; of which the natural effect will be, that when justice is +appeased, there is a proper place for the exercise of mercy; and that +such propitiation shall supply, in some degree, the imperfections of our +obedience, and the inefficacy of our repentance: for, obedience and +repentance, such as we can perform, are still necessary. Our SAVIOUR has +told us, that he did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill; to +fulfill the typical law, by the performance of what those types had +foreshewn; and the moral law, by precepts of greater purity and higher +exaltation.' + +[Here he said, 'GOD bless you with it.' I acknowledged myself much +obliged to him; but I begged that he would go on as to the propitiation +being the chief object of our most holy faith. He then dictated this one +other paragraph.] + +'The peculiar doctrine of Christianity is, that of an universal +sacrifice, and perpetual propitiation. Other prophets only proclaimed +the will and the threatenings of GOD. CHRIST satisfied his +justice[400].' + +The Reverend Mr. Palmer[401], Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, +dined with us. He expressed a wish that a better provision were made for +parish-clerks. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, a parish-clerk should be a man who is +able to make a will, or write a letter for any body in the parish.' + +I mentioned Lord Monboddo's notion[402] that the ancient Egyptians, with +all their learning, and all their arts, were not only black, but +woolly-haired. Mr. Palmer asked how did it appear upon examining the +mummies? Dr. Johnson approved of this test[403]. + +Although upon most occasions[404] I never heard a more strenuous +advocate for the advantages of wealth, than Dr. Johnson: he this day, I +know not from what caprice, took the other side. 'I have not observed +(said he) that men of very large fortunes enjoy any thing extraordinary +that makes happiness. What has the Duke of Bedford? What has the Duke of +Devonshire? The only great instance that I have ever known of the +enjoyment of wealth was, that of Jamaica Dawkins, who, going to visit +Palmyra, and hearing that the way was infested by robbers, hired a troop +of Turkish horse to guard him[405].' + +Dr. Gibbons[406], the Dissenting minister, being mentioned, he said, 'I +took to Dr. Gibbons.' And addressing himself to Mr. Charles Dilly, +added, 'I shall be glad to see him. Tell him, if he'll call on me, and +dawdle[407] over a dish of tea in an afternoon, I shall take it kind.' + +The Reverend Mr. Smith, Vicar of Southill, a very respectable man, with +a very agreeable family, sent an invitation to us to drink tea. I +remarked Dr. Johnson's very respectful[408] politeness. Though always +fond of changing the scene, he said, 'We must have Mr. Dilly's leave. We +cannot go from your house, Sir, without your permission.' We all went, +and were well satisfied with our visit. I however remember nothing +particular, except a nice distinction which Dr. Johnson made with +respect to the power of memory, maintaining that forgetfulness was a +man's own fault[409]. 'To remember and to recollect (said he) are +different things. A man has not the power to recollect what is not in +his mind; but when a thing is in his mind he may remember it.' The +remark was occasioned by my leaning back on a chair, which a little +before I had perceived to be broken, and pleading forgetfulness as an +excuse. 'Sir, (said he,) its being broken was certainly in your +mind[410].' + +When I observed that a housebreaker was in general very timorous; +JOHNSON. 'No wonder, Sir; he is afraid of being shot getting _into_ a +house, or hanged when he has got _out_ of it.' + +He told us, that he had in one day written six sheets of a translation +from the French[411], adding, 'I should be glad to see it now. I wish +that I had copies of all the pamphlets written against me, as it is said +Pope had. Had I known that I should make so much noise in the world, I +should have been at pains to collect them. I believe there is hardly a +day in which there is not something about me in the newspapers.' + +On Monday, June 4, we all went to Luton-Hoe, to see Lord Bute's +magnificent seat[412], for which I had obtained a ticket. As we entered +the park, I talked in a high style of my old friendship with Lord +Mountstuart[413], and said, 'I shall probably be much at this place.' +The Sage, aware of human vicissitudes, gently checked me: 'Don't you be +too sure of that.' He made two or three peculiar observations; as when +shewn the botanical garden, 'Is not every garden a botanical garden?' +When told that there was a shrubbery to the extent of several miles: +'That is making a very foolish use of the ground; a little of it is very +well.' When it was proposed that we should walk on the pleasure-ground; +'Don't let us fatigue ourselves. Why should we walk there? Here's a fine +tree, let's get to the top of it.' But upon the whole, he was very much +pleased. He said, 'This is one of the places I do not regret having come +to see. It is a very stately place, indeed; in the house magnificence is +not sacrificed to convenience, nor convenience to magnificence. The +library is very splendid: the dignity of the rooms is very great; and +the quantity of pictures is beyond expectation, beyond hope.' + +It happened without any previous concert, that we visited the seat of +Lord Bute upon the King's birthday; we dined and drank his Majesty's +health at an inn, in the village of Luton. + +In the evening I put him in mind of his promise to favour me with a copy +of his celebrated Letter to the Earl of Chesterfield, and he was at last +pleased to comply with this earnest request, by dictating it to me from +his memory; for he believed that he himself had no copy[414]. There was +an animated glow in his countenance while he thus recalled his +high-minded indignation. + +He laughed heartily at a ludicrous action in the Court of Session, in +which I was Counsel. The Society of _Procurators_, or Attornies, +entitled to practise in the inferiour courts at Edinburgh, had obtained +a royal charter, in which they had taken care to have their ancient +designation of Procurators changed into that of _Solicitors_, from a +notion, as they supposed, that it was more genteel[415]; and this new +title they displayed by a publick advertisement for a _General Meeting_ +at their HALL. + +It has been said, that the Scottish nation is not distinguished for +humour; and, indeed, what happened on this occasion may in some degree +justify the remark: for although this society had contrived to make +themselves a very prominent object for the ridicule of such as might +stoop to it, the only joke to which it gave rise, was the following +paragraph, sent to the newspaper called _The Caledonian Mercury_:-- + +'A correspondent informs us, that the Worshipful Society of _Chaldeans_, +_Cadies_[416], or _Running Stationers_ of this city are resolved, in +imitation, and encouraged by the singular success of their brethren, of +an equally respectable Society, to apply for a Charter of their +Privileges, particularly of the sole privilege of PROCURING, in the most +extensive sense of the word[417], exclusive of chairmen, porters, +penny-post men, and other _inferiour_ ranks; their brethren the R--Y--L +S--LL--RS, _alias_ P--C--RS, _before the_ INFERIOUR Courts of this City, +always excepted. + +'Should the Worshipful Society be successful, they are farther resolved +not to be _puffed up_ thereby, but to demean themselves with more +equanimity and decency than their _R--y--l, learned_, and _very modest_ +brethren above mentioned have done, upon their late dignification and +exaltation.' + +A majority of the members of the Society prosecuted Mr. Robertson, the +publisher of the paper, for damages; and the first judgement of the +whole Court very wisely dismissed the action: _Solventur risu tabulae, +tu missus abibis_[418]. But a new trial or review was granted upon a +petition, according to the forms in Scotland. This petition I was +engaged to answer, and Dr. Johnson with great alacrity furnished me this +evening with what follows:-- + +'All injury is either of the person, the fortune, or the fame. Now it is +a certain thing, it is proverbially known, that _a jest breaks no +bones_. They never have gained half-a-crown less in the whole profession +since this mischievous paragraph has appeared; and, as to their +reputation, What is their reputation but an instrument of getting money? +If, therefore, they have lost no money, the question upon reputation +may be answered by a very old position,--_De minimis non curat Praetor_. + +'Whether there was, or was not, an _animus injuriandi_, is not worth +inquiring, if no _injuria_ can be proved. But the truth is, there was no +_animus injuriandi_. It was only an _animus irritandi[419]_, which, +happening to be exercised upon a _genus irritabile_, produced unexpected +violence of resentment. Their irritability arose only from an opinion of +their own importance, and their delight in their new exaltation. What +might have been borne by a _Procurator_ could not be borne by a +_Solicitor_. Your Lordships well know, that _honores mutant mores_. +Titles and dignities play strongly on the fancy. As a madman is apt to +think himself grown suddenly great, so he that grows suddenly great is +apt to borrow a little from the madman. To co-operate with their +resentment would be to promote their phrenzy; nor is it possible to +guess to what they might proceed, if to the new title of Solicitor, +should be added the elation of victory and triumph. + +'We consider your Lordships as the protectors of our rights, and the +guardians of our virtues; but believe it not included in your high +office, that you should flatter our vices, or solace our vanity: and, as +vanity only dictates this prosecution, it is humbly hoped your Lordships +will dismiss it. + +'If every attempt, however light or ludicrous, to lessen another's +reputation, is to be punished by a judicial sentence, what punishment +can be sufficiently severe for him who attempts to diminish the +reputation of the Supreme Court of Justice, by reclaiming upon a cause +already determined, without any change in the state of the question? +Does it not imply hopes that the Judges will change their opinion? Is +not uncertainty and inconstancy in the highest degree disreputable to a +Court? Does it not suppose, that the former judgement was temerarious or +negligent? Does it not lessen the confidence of the publick? Will it not +be said, that _jus est aut incognitum aut vagum?_ and will not the +consequence be drawn, _misera est servitus[420]?_ Will not the rules of +action be obscure? Will not he who knows himself wrong to-day, hope that +the Courts of Justice will think him right to-morrow? Surely, my Lords, +these are attempts of dangerous tendency, which the Solicitors, as men +versed in the law, should have foreseen and avoided. It was natural for +an ignorant printer to appeal from the Lord Ordinary; but from lawyers, +the descendants of lawyers, who have practised for three hundred years, +and have now raised themselves to a higher denomination, it might be +expected, that they should know the reverence due to a judicial +determination; and, having been once dismissed, should sit down +in silence.' + +I am ashamed to mention, that the Court, by a plurality of voices, +without having a single additional circumstance before them, reversed +their own judgement, made a serious matter of this dull and foolish +joke, and adjudged Mr. Robertson to pay to the Society five pounds +(sterling money) and costs of suit. The decision will seem strange to +English lawyers. + +On Tuesday, June 5, Johnson was to return to London. He was very +pleasant at breakfast; I mentioned a friend of mine having resolved +never to marry a pretty woman. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is a very foolish +resolution to resolve not to marry a pretty woman. Beauty is of itself +very estimable. No, Sir, I would prefer a pretty woman, unless there are +objections to her. A pretty woman may be foolish; a pretty woman may be +wicked; a pretty woman may not like me. But there is no such danger in +marrying a pretty woman as is apprehended: she will not be persecuted if +she does not invite persecution. A pretty woman, if she has a mind to be +wicked, can find a readier way than another; and that is all.' + +I accompanied him in Mr. Dilly's chaise to Shefford, where talking of +Lord Bute's never going to Scotland, he said, 'As an Englishman, I +should wish all the Scotch gentlemen should be educated in England; +Scotland would become a province; they would spend all their rents in +England.' This is a subject of much consequence, and much delicacy. The +advantage of an English education is unquestionably very great to Scotch +gentlemen of talents and ambition; and regular visits to Scotland, and +perhaps other means, might be effectually used to prevent them from +being totally estranged from their native country, any more than a +Cumberland or Northumberland gentleman who has been educated in the +South of England. I own, indeed, that it is no small misfortune for +Scotch gentlemen, who have neither talents nor ambition, to be educated +in England, where they may be perhaps distinguished only by a nick-name, +lavish their fortune in giving expensive entertainments to those who +laugh at them, and saunter about as mere idle insignificant hangers on +even upon the foolish great; when if they had been judiciously brought +up at home, they might have been comfortable and creditable members +of society. + +At Shefford I had another affectionate parting from my revered friend, +who was taken up by the Bedford coach and carried to the metropolis. I +went with Messieurs Dilly, to see some friends at Bedford; dined with +the officers of the militia of the county, and next day proceeded on +my journey. + +'To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'How welcome your account of yourself and your invitation to your new +house was to me, I need not tell you, who consider our friendship not +only as formed by choice, but as matured by time. We have been now long +enough acquainted to have many images in common, and therefore to have a +source of conversation which neither the learning nor the wit of a new +companion can supply. + +'My _Lives_ are now published; and if you will tell me whither I shall +send them, that they may come to you, I will take care that you shall +not be without them. + +'You will, perhaps, be glad to hear, that Mrs. Thrale is disencumbered +of her brewhouse; and that it seemed to the purchaser so far from an +evil, that he was content to give for it an hundred and thirty-five +thousand pounds. Is the nation ruined? + +'Please to make my respectful compliments to Lady Rothes, and keep me in +the memory of all the little dear family, particularly pretty Mrs. +Jane.[421] + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your affectionate humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Bolt-Court, June 16, 1781.' + +Johnson's charity to the poor was uniform and extensive, both from +inclination and principle. He not only bestowed liberally out of his own +purse, but what is more difficult as well as rare, would beg from +others, when he had proper objects in view. This he did judiciously as +well as humanely. Mr. Philip Metcalfe[422] tells me, that when he has +asked him for some money for persons in distress, and Mr. Metcalfe has +offered what Johnson thought too much, he insisted on taking less, +saying 'No, no, Sir; we must not _pamper_ them.' + +I am indebted to Mr. Malone, one of Sir Joshua Reynolds's executors, for +the following note, which was found among his papers after his death, +and which, we may presume, his unaffected modesty prevented him from +communicating to me with the other letters from Dr. Johnson with which +he was pleased to furnish me. However slight in itself, as it does +honour to that illustrious painter, and most amiable man, I am happy to +introduce it. + +'To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 'DEAR SIR, + +'It was not before yesterday that I received your splendid benefaction. +To a hand so liberal in distributing, I hope nobody will envy the power +of acquiring. + +'I am, dear Sir, + +Your obliged and most humble servant, SAM, JOHNSON. June 23, 1781.' + +'To THOMAS ASTLE, Esq.[423] + +'SIR, + +'I am ashamed that you have been forced to call so often for your books, +but it has been by no fault on either side. They have never been out of +my hands, nor have I ever been at home without seeing you; for to see a +man so skilful in the antiquities of my country, is an opportunity of +improvement not willingly to be missed. + +'Your notes on Alfred[424] appear to me very judicious and accurate, but +they are too few. Many things familiar to you, are unknown to me, and to +most others; and you must not think too favourably of your readers: by +supposing them knowing, you will leave them ignorant. Measure of land, +and value of money, it is of great importance to state with care. Had +the Saxons any gold coin? + +'I have much curiosity after the manners and transactions of the middle +ages, but have wanted either diligence or opportunity, or both. You, +Sir, have great opportunities, and I wish you both diligence +and success. + +'I am, Sir, &c. SAM. JOHNSON. July 17, 1781.' + +The following curious anecdote I insert in Dr. Burney's own words:-- + +'Dr. Burney related to Dr. Johnson the partiality which his writings had +excited in a friend of Dr. Burney's, the late Mr. Bewley, well known in +Norfolk by the name of the _Philosopher of Massingham_[425]: who, from +the _Ramblers_ and Plan of his _Dictionary_, and long before the +authour's fame was established by the _Dictionary_ itself, or any other +work, had conceived such a reverence for him, that he urgently begged +Dr. Burney to give him the cover of the first letter he had received +from him, as a relick of so estimable a writer. This was in 1755. In +1760[426], when Dr. Burney visited Dr. Johnson at the Temple in London, +where he had then Chambers, he happened to arrive there before he was +up; and being shewn into the room where he was to breakfast, finding +himself alone, he examined the contents of the apartment, to try whether +he could undiscovered steal any thing to send to his friend Bewley, as +another relick of the admirable Dr. Johnson. But finding nothing better +to his purpose, he cut some bristles off his hearth-broom, and enclosed +them in a letter to his country enthusiast, who received them with due +reverence. The Doctor was so sensible of the honour done him by a man of +genius and science, to whom he was an utter stranger, that he said to +Dr. Burney, "Sir, there is no man possessed of the smallest portion of +modesty, but must be flattered with the admiration of such a man. I'll +give him a set of my _Lives_, if he will do me the honour to accept of +them[427]." In this he kept his word; and Dr. Burney had not only the +pleasure of gratifying his friend with a present more worthy of his +acceptance than the segment from the hearth-broom, but soon after of +introducing him to Dr. Johnson himself in Bolt-court, with whom he had +the satisfaction of conversing a considerable time, not a fortnight +before his death; which happened in St. Martin's-street, during his +visit to Dr. Burney, in the house where the great Sir Isaac Newton had +lived and died before.' + +In one of his little memorandum-books is the following minute:-- + +'August 9, 3 P.M., aetat. 72, in the summer-house at Streatham. After +innumerable resolutions formed and neglected, I have retired hither, to +plan a life of greater diligence, in hope that I may yet be useful, and +be daily better prepared to appear before my Creator and my Judge, from +whose infinite mercy I humbly call for assistance and support. + +'My purpose is, + +'To pass eight hours every day in some serious employment. + +'Having prayed, I purpose to employ the next six weeks upon the Italian +language, for my settled study.' + +How venerably pious does he appear in these moments of solitude, and how +spirited are his resolutions for the improvement of his mind, even in +elegant literature, at a very advanced period of life, and when +afflicted with many complaints[428]. + +In autumn he went to Oxford, Birmingham, Lichfield, and Ashbourne, for +which very good reasons might be given in the conjectural yet positive +manner of writers, who are proud to account for every event which they +relate[429]. He himself, however, says, + +'The motives of my journey I hardly know; I omitted it last year, and am +not willing to miss it again[430].' + +But some good considerations arise, amongst which is the kindly +recollection of Mr. Hector, surgeon at Birmingham: + +'Hector is likewise an old friend, the only companion of my childhood +that passed through the school with me. We have always loved one +another; perhaps we may be made better by some serious conversation, of +which however I have no distinct hope.' + +He says too, + +'At Lichfield, my native place, I hope to shew a good example by +frequent attendance on publick worship.' + +My correspondence with him during the rest of this year was I know not +why very scanty, and all on my side. I wrote him one letter to introduce +Mr. Sinclair (now Sir John), the member for Caithness, to his +acquaintance; and informed him in another that my wife had again been +affected with alarming symptoms of illness. + +1782: AETAT. 73.--In 1782, his complaints increased, and the history of +his life this year, is little more than a mournful recital of the +variations of his illness, in the midst of which, however, it will +appear from his letters, that the powers of his mind were in no +degree impaired. + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I sit down to answer your letter on the same day in which I received +it, and am pleased that my first letter of the year is to you. No man +ought to be at ease while he knows himself in the wrong; and I have not +satisfied myself with my long silence. The letter relating to Mr. +Sinclair, however, was, I believe, never brought. + +'My health has been tottering this last year; and I can give no very +laudable account of my time. I am always hoping to do better than I have +ever hitherto done. + +'My journey to Ashbourne and Staffordshire was not pleasant; for what +enjoyment has a sick man visiting the sick[431]?--Shall we ever have +another frolick like our journey to the Hebrides? + +'I hope that dear Mrs. Boswell will surmount her complaints; in losing +her you would lose your anchor, and be tost, without stability, by the +waves of life[432]. I wish both her and you very many years, and +very happy. + +'For some months past I have been so withdrawn from the world, that I +can send you nothing particular. All your friends, however, are well, +and will be glad of your return to London. + +'I am, dear Sir, + +'Yours most affectionately, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'January 5, 1782.' + +At a time when he was less able than he had once been to sustain a +shock, he was suddenly deprived of Mr. Levett, which event he thus +communicated to Dr. Lawrence:-- + +'SIR, + +'Our old friend, Mr. Levett, who was last night eminently cheerful, died +this morning. The man who lay in the same room, hearing an uncommon +noise, got up and tried to make him speak, but without effect. He then +called Mr. Holder, the apothecary, who, though when he came he thought +him dead, opened a vein, but could draw no blood. So has ended the long +life of a very useful and very blameless man. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 17, 1782.' + +In one of his memorandum-books in my possession, is the following +entry:-- + +'January 20, Sunday. Robert Levett was buried in the church-yard of +Bridewell, between one and two in the afternoon. He died on Thursday 17, +about seven in the morning, by an instantaneous death. He was an old and +faithful friend; I have known him from about 46. _Commendavi_. May GOD +have mercy on him. May he have mercy on me.' + +Such was Johnson's affectionate regard for Levett[433], that he honoured +his memory with the following pathetick verses:-- + + 'Condemd'd to Hope's delusive mine, + As on we toil from day to day, + By sudden blast or slow decline + Our social comforts drop away. + + Well try'd through many a varying year, + See LEVETT to the grave descend; + Officious, innocent, sincere, + Of every friendless name the friend[434]. + + Yet still he fills affection's eye, + Obscurely wise[435], and coarsely kind; + Nor, letter'd arrogance[436], deny + Thy praise to merit unrefin'd. + + When fainting Nature call'd for aid, + And hov'ring Death prepar'd the blow, + His vigorous remedy display'd + The power of art without the show. + + In Misery's darkest caverns known, + His ready help was ever nigh, + Where hopeless Anguish pour'd his groan, + And lonely want retir'd to die[437]. + + No summons mock'd by chill delay, + No petty gains disdain'd by pride; + The modest wants of every day + The toil of every day supply'd. + + His virtues walk'd their narrow round, + Nor made a pause, nor left a void; + And sure the Eternal Master found + His single talent well employ'd. + + The busy day, the peaceful night[438], + Unfelt, uncounted, glided by; + His frame was firm, his powers were bright, + Though now his eightieth year was nigh[439]. + + Then, with no throbs of fiery pain, + No cold gradations of decay, + Death broke at once the vital chain, + And freed his soul the nearest way.' + +In one of Johnson's registers of this year, there occurs the following +curious passage:-- + +'Jan. 20[440]. The Ministry is dissolved. I prayed with Francis and gave +thanks[441].' + +It has been the subject of discussion, whether there are two distinct +particulars mentioned here? or that we are to understand the giving of +thanks to be in consequence of the dissolution of the Ministry? In +support of the last of these conjectures may be urged his mean opinion +of that Ministry, which has frequently appeared in the course of this +work[442]; and it is strongly confirmed by what he said on the subject +to Mr. Seward:--'I am glad the Ministry is removed. Such a bunch of +imbecility never disgraced a country[443]. If they sent a messenger into +the City to take up a printer, the messenger was taken up instead of +the printer, and committed by the sitting Alderman[444]. If they sent +one army to the relief of another, the first army was defeated and taken +before the second arrived[445]. I will not say that what they did was +always wrong; but it was always done at a wrong time[446].' + +'TO MRS. STRAHAN. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'Mrs. Williams shewed me your kind letter. This little habitation is now +but a melancholy place, clouded with the gloom of disease and death. Of +the four inmates, one has been suddenly snatched away; two are oppressed +by very afflictive and dangerous illness; and I tried yesterday to gain +some relief by a third bleeding, from a disorder which has for some time +distressed me, and I think myself to-day much better. + +'I am glad, dear Madam, to hear that you are so far recovered as to go +to Bath. Let me once more entreat you to stay till your health is not +only obtained, but confirmed. Your fortune is such as that no moderate +expence deserves your care; and you have a husband, who, I believe, does +not regard it. Stay, therefore, till you are quite well. I am, for my +part, very much deserted; but complaint is useless. I hope GOD will +bless you, and I desire you to form the same wish for me. + +'I am, dear Madam, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Feb. 4, 1782.' + +'To EDMOND MALONE, ESQ. + +'SIR, + +'I have for many weeks been so much out of order, that I have gone out +only in a coach to Mrs. Thrale's, where I can use all the freedom that +sickness requires. Do not, therefore, take it amiss, that I am not with +you and Dr. Farmer. I hope hereafter to see you often. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Feb. 27, 1782.' + +To THE SAME. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I hope I grow better, and shall soon be able to enjoy the kindness of +my friends. I think this wild adherence to Chatterton[447] more +unaccountable than the obstinate defence of Ossian. In Ossian there is a +national pride, which may be forgiven, though it cannot be applauded. In +Chatterton there is nothing but the resolution to say again what has +once been said. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'March 7, 1782.' + +These short letters shew the regard which Dr. Johnson entertained for +Mr. Malone, who the more he is known is the more highly valued. It is +much to be regretted that Johnson was prevented from sharing the elegant +hospitality of that gentleman's table, at which he would in every +respect have been fully gratified. Mr. Malone, who has so ably +succeeded him as an Editor of Shakspeare, has, in his Preface, done +great and just honour to Johnson's memory. + +'TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'I went away from Lichfield ill, and have had a troublesome time with my +breath; for some weeks I have been disordered by a cold, of which I +could not get the violence abated, till I had been let blood three +times. I have not, however, been so bad but that I could have written, +and am sorry that I neglected it. + +'My dwelling is but melancholy; both Williams, and Desmoulins, and +myself, are very sickly: Frank is not well; and poor Levett died in his +bed the other day, by a sudden stroke; I suppose not one minute passed +between health and death; so uncertain are human things. + +'Such is the appearance of the world about me; I hope your scenes are +more cheerful. But whatever befalls us, though it is wise to be serious, +it is useless and foolish, and perhaps sinful, to be gloomy. Let us, +therefore, keep ourselves as easy as we can; though the loss of friends +will be felt, and poor Levett had been a faithful adherent for +thirty years. + +'Forgive me, my dear love, the omission of writing; I hope to mend that +and my other faults. Let me have your prayers. + +'Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb, and Miss Adey, and Mr. Pearson, and +the whole company of my friends. + +I am, my dear, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 2, 1782.' + +TO THE SAME. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'My last was but a dull letter, and I know not that this will be much +more cheerful; I am, however, willing to write, because you are desirous +to hear from me. + +'My disorder has now begun its ninth week, for it is not yet over. I was +last Thursday blooded for the fourth time, and have since found myself +much relieved, but I am very tender and easily hurt; so that since we +parted I have had but little comfort, but I hope that the spring will +recover me; and that in the summer I shall see Lichfield again, for I +will not delay my visit another year to the end of autumn. + +'I have, by advertising, found poor Mr. Levett's brothers in Yorkshire, +who will take the little he has left: it is but little, yet it will be +welcome, for I believe they are of very low condition. + +'To be sick, and to see nothing but sickness and death, is but a gloomy +state; but I hope better times, even in this world, will come, and +whatever this world may withhold or give, we shall be happy in a better +state. Pray for me, my dear Lucy. + +'Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb, and Miss Adey, and my old friend +Hetty Baily, and to all the Lichfield ladies. + +'I am, dear Madam, + +'Yours, affectionately, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Bolt-court, Fleet-street, + +March 19, 1782.' + +On the day on which this letter was written, he thus feelingly mentions +his respected friend and physician, Dr. Lawrence:-- + +'Poor Lawrence has almost lost the sense of hearing; and I have lost the +conversation of a learned, intelligent, and communicative companion, and +a friend whom long familiarity has much endeared. Lawrence is one of the +best men whom I have known.--_Nostrum omnium miserere Deus_[448].' + +It was Dr. Johnson's custom when he wrote to Dr. Lawrence concerning his +own health, to use the Latin language[449]. I have been favoured by Miss +Lawrence with one of these letters as a specimen:-- + +'T. LAWRENCIO, _Medico, S_. + +'NOVUM _frigus, nova tussis, nova spirandi difficultas, novam sanguinis +missionem suadent, quam tamen te inconsulto nolim fieri. Ad te venire +vix possum, nec est cur ad me venias. Licere vel non licere uno verbo +dicendum est; catera mihi et Holdero[450] reliqueris. Si per te licet, +imperatur[451] nuncio Holderum ad me deducere. + +'Maiis Calendis, 1782. + +'Postquàm tu discesseris, quò me vertam[452]?'_ + +TO CAPTAIN LANGTON[453], IN ROCHESTER. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'It is now long since we saw one another; and whatever has been the +reason neither you have written to me, nor I to you. To let friendship +die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is +voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary +pilgrimage, of which when it is, as it must be, taken finally away, he +that travels on alone, will wonder how his esteem could be so little. Do +not forget me; you see that I do not forget you. It is pleasing in the +silence of solitude to think, that there is one at least, however +distant, of whose benevolence there is little doubt, and whom there is +yet hope of seeing again[454]. + +'Of my life, from the time we parted, the history is mournful. The +spring of last year deprived me of Thrale, a man whose eye for fifteen +years had scarcely been turned upon me but with respect or +tenderness[455]; for such another friend, the general course of human +things will not suffer man to hope. I passed the summer at Streatham, +but there was no Thrale; and having idled away the summer with a weakly +body and neglected mind, I made a journey to Staffordshire on the edge +of winter. The season was dreary, I was sickly, and found the friends +sickly whom I went to see. After a sorrowful sojourn, I returned to a +habitation possessed for the present by two sick women, where my dear +old friend, Mr. Levett, to whom as he used to tell me, I owe your +acquaintance[456], died a few weeks ago, suddenly in his bed; there +passed not, I believe, a minute between health and death. At night, as +at Mrs. Thrale's I was musing in my chamber, I thought with uncommon +earnestness, that however I might alter my mode of life, or +whithersoever I might remove[457], I would endeavour to retain Levett +about me; in the morning my servant brought me word that Levett was +called to another state, a state for which, I think, he was not +unprepared, for he was very useful to the poor. How much soever I valued +him, I now wish that I had valued him more[458]. + +'I have myself been ill more than eight weeks of a disorder, from which +at the expence of about fifty ounces of blood, I hope I am now +recovering. + +'You, dear Sir, have, I hope, a more cheerful scene; you see George fond +of his book, and the pretty misses airy and lively, with my own little +Jenny[459] equal to the best[460]: and in whatever can contribute to +your quiet or pleasure, you have Lady Rothes ready to concur. May +whatever you enjoy of good be encreased, and whatever you suffer of evil +be diminished. + + I am, dear Sir, + Your humble servant, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Bolt-court, Fleet-street, + March 20, 1782.' + + 'To MR. HECTOR, IN BIRMINGHAM[461]. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I hope I do not very grossly flatter myself to imagine that you and +dear Mrs. Careless[462] will be glad to hear some account of me. I +performed the journey to London with very little inconvenience, and came +safe to my habitation, where I found nothing but ill health, and, of +consequence, very little cheerfulness. I then went to visit a little way +into the country, where I got a complaint by a cold which has hung eight +weeks upon me, and from which I am, at the expence of fifty ounces of +blood, not yet free. I am afraid I must once more owe my recovery to +warm weather, which seems to make no advances towards us. + +'Such is my health, which will, I hope, soon grow better. In other +respects I have no reason to complain. I know not that I have written +any thing more generally commended than the _Lives of the Poets_; and +have found the world willing enough to caress me, if my health had +invited me to be in much company; but this season I have been almost +wholly employed in nursing myself. + +'When summer comes I hope to see you again, and will not put off my +visit to the end of the year. I have lived so long in London, that I did +not remember the difference of seasons. + +'Your health, when I saw you, was much improved. You will be prudent +enough not to put it in danger. I hope, when we meet again, we shall all +congratulate each other upon fair prospects of longer life; though what +are the pleasures of the longest life, when placed in comparison with a +happy death? + +'I am, dear Sir, + +'Yours most affectionately, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 21, 1782.' + +To THE SAME. + +[Without a date, but supposed to be about this time.][463] + +'DEAR SIR, + +'That you and dear Mrs. Careless should have care or curiosity about my +health, gives me that pleasure which every man feels from finding +himself not forgotten. In age we feel again that love of our native +place and our early friends, which in the bustle or amusements of middle +life were overborne and suspended. You and I should now naturally cling +to one another: we have outlived most of those who could pretend to +rival us in each other's kindness. In our walk through life we have +dropped our companions, and are now to pick up such as chance may offer +us, or to travel on alone[464]. You, indeed, have a sister, with whom +you can divide the day: I have no natural friend left; but Providence +has been pleased to preserve me from neglect; I have not wanted such +alleviations of life as friendship could supply. My health has been, +from my twentieth year, such as has seldom afforded me a single day of +ease[465]; but it is at least not worse: and I sometimes make myself +believe that it is better. My disorders are, however, still sufficiently +oppressive. + +'I think of seeing Staffordshire again this autumn, and intend to find +my way through Birmingham, where I hope to see you and dear Mrs. +Careless well. I am Sir, + +'Your affectionate friend, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +I wrote to him at different dates; regretted that I could not come to +London this spring, but hoped we should meet somewhere in the summer; +mentioned the state of my affairs, and suggested hopes of some +preferment; informed him, that as _The Beauties of Johnson_ had been +published in London, some obscure scribbler had published at Edinburgh +what he called _The deformities of Johnson_. + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'The pleasure which we used to receive from each other on Good-Friday +and Easter-day[466], we must be this year content to miss. Let us, +however, pray for each other, and hope to see one another yet from time +to time with mutual delight. My disorder has been a cold, which impeded +the organs of respiration, and kept me many weeks in a state of great +uneasiness; but by repeated phlebotomy it is now relieved; and next to +the recovery of Mrs. Boswell, I flatter myself, that you will rejoice +at mine. + +'What we shall do in the summer it is yet too early to consider. You +want to know what you shall do now; I do not think this time of bustle +and confusion[467] likely to produce any advantage to you. Every man has +those to reward and gratify who have contributed to his advancement. To +come hither with such expectations at the expence of borrowed money, +which, I find, you know not where to borrow, can hardly be considered as +prudent. I am sorry to find, what your solicitation seems to imply, that +you have already gone the whole length of your credit. This is to set +the quiet of your whole life at hazard. If you anticipate your +inheritance, you can at last inherit nothing; all that you receive must +pay for the past. You must get a place, or pine in penury, with the +empty name of a great estate. Poverty, my dear friend, is so great an +evil, and pregnant with so much temptation, and so much misery, that I +cannot but earnestly enjoin you to avoid it[468]. Live on what you have; +live if you can on less; do not borrow either for vanity or pleasure; +the vanity will end in shame, and the pleasure in regret: stay therefore +at home, till you have saved money for your journey hither. + +_The Beauties of Johnson_ are said to have got money to the collector; +if the _Deformities_ have the same success, I shall be still a more +extensive benefactor. + +'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, who is, I hope, reconciled to me; +and to the young people whom I never have offended. + +'You never told me the success of your plea against the Solicitors[469]. + +'I am, dear Sir, + +'Your most affectionate, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 28, 1782.' + +Notwithstanding his afflicted state of body[470] and mind this year, the +following correspondence affords a proof not only of his benevolence and +conscientious readiness to relieve a good man from errour, but by his +cloathing one of the sentiments in his _Rambler_ in different language, +not inferiour to that of the original, shews his extraordinary command +of clear and forcible expression. + +A clergyman at Bath wrote to him, that in _The Morning Chronicle_, a +passage in _The Beauties of Johnson_[471], article DEATH, had been +pointed out as supposed by some readers to recommend suicide, the words +being, 'To die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is +generally his folly;' and respectfully suggesting to him, that such an +erroneous notion of any sentence in the writings of an acknowledged +friend of religion and virtue, should not pass uncontradicted. + +Johnson thus answered the clergyman's letter:-- + + To THE REVEREND MR. ----, AT BATH. + +'SIR, + +'Being now[472] in the country in a state of recovery, as I hope, from a +very oppressive disorder, I cannot neglect the acknowledgement of your +Christian letter. The book called _The Beauties of Johnson_ is the +production of I know not whom: I never saw it but by casual inspection, +and considered myself as utterly disengaged from its consequences. Of +the passage you mention, I remember some notice in some paper; but +knowing that it must be misrepresented, I thought of it no more, nor do +I know where to find it in my own books. I am accustomed to think little +of newspapers; but an opinion so weighty and serious as yours has +determined me to do, what I should, without your seasonable admonition, +have omitted; and I will direct my thought to be shewn in its true +state[473]. If I could find the passage, I would direct you to it. I +suppose the tenour is this:--'Acute diseases are the immediate and +inevitable strokes of Heaven; but of them the pain is short, and the +conclusion speedy; chronical disorders, by which we are suspended in +tedious torture between life and death, are commonly the effect of our +own misconduct and intemperance. To die, &c.'--This, Sir, you see is +all true and all blameless. I hope, some time in the next week, to have +all rectified. My health has been lately much shaken: if you favour me +with any answer, it will be a comfort to me to know that I have +your prayers. + +'I am, &c., + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'May 15, 1782.' + +This letter, as might be expected, had its full effect, and the +clergyman acknowledged it in grateful and pious terms[474]. + +The following letters require no extracts from mine to introduce them:-- + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'The earnestness and tenderness of your letter is such, that I cannot +think myself shewing it more respect than it claims by sitting down to +answer it the day on which I received it. + +'This year has afflicted me with a very irksome and severe disorder. My +respiration has been much impeded, and much blood has been taken away. I +am now harrassed by a catarrhous cough, from which my purpose is to seek +relief by change of air; and I am, therefore, preparing to go to +Oxford[475]. + +'Whether I did right in dissuading you from coming to London this +spring, I will not determine. You have not lost much by missing my +company; I have scarcely been well for a single week. I might have +received comfort from your kindness; but you would have seen me +afflicted, and, perhaps, found me peevish. Whatever might have been your +pleasure or mine, I know not how I could have honestly advised you to +come hither with borrowed money. Do not accustom yourself to consider +debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity. Poverty +takes away so many means of doing good, and produces so much inability +to resist evil, both natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous means +to be avoided. Consider a man whose fortune is very narrow; whatever be +his rank by birth, or whatever his reputation by intellectual +excellence, what good can he do? or what evil can he prevent? That he +cannot help the needy is evident; he has nothing to spare. But, perhaps, +his advice or admonition may be useful. His poverty will destroy his +influence: many more can find that he is poor, than that he is wise; and +few will reverence the understanding that is of so little advantage to +its owner. I say nothing of the personal wretched-ness of a debtor, +which, however, has passed into a proverb[476]. Of riches, it is not +necessary to write the praise[477]. Let it, however, be remembered, that +he who has money to spare, has it always in his power to benefit others; +and of such power a good man must always be desirous. + +'I am pleased with your account of Easter[478]. We shall meet, I hope in +Autumn, both well and both cheerful; and part each the better for the +other's company. + +'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, and to the young charmers. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' 'London, June 3, 1782.' + +'To MR. PERKINS[479]. + +'DEAR SIR, + +I am much pleased that you are going a very long journey, which may by +proper conduct restore your health and prolong your life. + +'Observe these rules: + +1. Turn all care out of your head as soon as you mount the chaise. + +2. Do not think about frugality; your health is worth more than it can +cost. + +3. Do not continue any day's journey to fatigue. + +4. Take now and then a day's rest. + +5. Get a smart sea-sickness, if you can. + +6. Cast away all anxiety, and keep your mind easy. + +'This last direction is the principal; with an unquiet mind, neither +exercise, nor diet, nor physick, can be of much use. + +'I wish you, dear Sir, a prosperous journey, and a happy recovery. + +I am, dear Sir, + +'Your most affectionate, humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'July 28, 1782.' + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Being uncertain whether I should have any call this autumn into the +country, I did not immediately answer your kind letter. I have no call; +but if you desire to meet me at Ashbourne, I believe I can come thither; +if you had rather come to London, I can stay at Streatham; take +your choice. + +'This year has been very heavy. From the middle of January to the middle +of June I was battered by one disorder after another! I am now very much +recovered, and hope still to be better. What happiness it is that Mrs. +Boswell has escaped. + +'My _Lives_ are reprinting, and I have forgotten the authour of Gray's +character[480]: write immediately, and it may be perhaps yet inserted. + +'Of London or Ashbourne you have your free choice; at any place I shall +be glad to see you. I am, dear Sir, + +'Yours &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Aug. 24, 1782.' + +On the 3Oth of August, I informed him that my honoured father had died +that morning; a complaint under which he had long laboured having +suddenly come to a crisis, while I was upon a visit at the seat of Sir +Charles Preston, from whence I had hastened the day before, upon +receiving a letter by express. + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I have struggled through this year with so much infirmity of body, and +such strong impressions of the fragility of life, that death, whenever +it appears, fills me with melancholy; and I cannot hear without emotion, +of the removal of any one, whom I have known, into another state. + +'Your father's death had every circumstance that could enable you to +bear it; it was at a mature age, and it was expected; and as his general +life had been pious, his thoughts had doubtless for many years past been +turned upon eternity. That you did not find him sensible must doubtless +grieve you; his disposition towards you was undoubtedly that of a kind, +though not of a fond father. Kindness, at least actual, is in our power, +but fondness is not; and if by negligence or imprudence you had +extinguished his fondness, he could not at will rekindle it. Nothing +then remained between you but mutual forgiveness of each other's faults, +and mutual desire of each other's happiness. + +'I shall long to know his final disposition of his fortune[481]. + +'You, dear Sir, have now a new station, and have therefore new cares, +and new employments. Life, as Cowley seems to say, ought to resemble a +well-ordered poem[482]; of which one rule generally received is, that +the exordium should be simple, and should promise little. Begin your new +course of life with the least show, and the least expence possible; you +may at pleasure encrease both, but you cannot easily diminish them. Do +not think your estate your own, while any man can call upon you for +money which you cannot pay; therefore, begin with timorous parsimony. +Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt. + +'When the thoughts are extended to a future state, the present life +seems hardly worthy of all those principles of conduct, and maxims of +prudence, which one generation of men has transmitted to another; but +upon a closer view, when it is perceived how much evil is produced, and +how much good is impeded by embarrassment and distress, and how little +room the expedients of poverty leave for the exercise of virtue, it +grows manifest that the boundless importance of the next life enforces +some attention to the interests of this. + +'Be kind to the old servants, and secure the kindness of the agents and +factors; do not disgust them by asperity, or unwelcome gaiety, or +apparent suspicion. From them you must learn the real state of your +affairs, the characters of your tenants, and the value of your +lands[483]. + +'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell; I think her expectations from air +and exercise are the best that she can form. I hope she will live long +and happily. + +'I forget whether I told you that Rasay[484] has been here; we dined +cheerfully together. I entertained lately a young gentleman from +Corrichatachin[485]. + +'I received your letters only this morning. I am, dear Sir, + +'Yours &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Sept. 7, 1782.' + +In answer to my next letter, I received one from him, dissuading me from +hastening to him as I had proposed[486]; what is proper for publication +is the following paragraph, equally just and tender:-- + +'One expence, however, I would not have you to spare: let nothing be +omitted that can preserve Mrs. Boswell, though it should be necessary to +transplant her for a time into a softer climate. She is the prop and +stay of your life. How much must your children suffer by losing her.' + +My wife was now so much convinced of his sincere friendship for me, and +regard for her, that, without any suggestion on my part, she wrote him a +very polite and grateful letter:-- + +'DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. BOSWELL. + +'DEAR LADY, + +'I have not often received so much pleasure as from your invitation to +Auchinleck. The journey thither and back is, indeed, too great for the +latter part of the year; but if my health were fully recovered, I would +suffer no little heat and cold, nor a wet or a rough road to keep me +from you. I am, indeed, not without hope of seeing Auchinleck again; but +to make it a pleasant place I must see its lady well, and brisk, and +airy. For my sake, therefore, among many greater reasons, take care, +dear Madam, of your health, spare no expence, and want no attendance +that can procure ease, or preserve it. Be very careful to keep your mind +quiet; and do not think it too much to give an account of your recovery +to, Madam, + +'Yours, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Sept. 7, 1782.' + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Having passed almost this whole year in a succession of disorders, I +went in October to Brighthelmston, whither I came in a state of so much +weakness, that I rested four times in walking between the inn and the +lodging. By physick and abstinence I grew better, and am now reasonably +easy, though at a great distance from health[487]. I am afraid, however, +that health begins, after seventy, and long before, to have a meaning +different from that which it had at thirty. But it is culpable to murmur +at the established order of the creation, as it is vain to oppose it. He +that lives must grow old; and he that would rather grow old than die, +has GOD to thank for the infirmities of old age[488]. + +'At your long silence I am rather angry. You do not, since now you are +the head of your house, think it worth your while to try whether you or +your friend can live longer without writing[489], nor suspect that after +so many years of friendship, that when I do not write to you, I forget +you. Put all such useless jealousies out of your head, and disdain to +regulate your own practice by the practice of another, or by any other +principle than the desire of doing right. + +'Your oeconomy, I suppose, begins now to be settled; your expences are +adjusted to your revenue, and all your people in their proper places. +Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a +great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it +makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult. + +'Let me know the history of your life, since your accession to your +estate. How many houses, how many cows, how much land in your own hand, +and what bargains you make with your tenants. + + * * * * * + +'Of my _Lives of the Poets_, they have printed a new edition in octavo, +I hear, of three thousand. Did I give a set to Lord Hailes? If I did +not, I will do it out of these. What did you make of all your copy[490]? + +'Mrs. Thrale and the three Misses[491] are now for the winter in +Argyll-street. Sir Joshua Reynolds has been out of order, but is well +again; and I am, dear Sir, + +'Your affectionate humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Dec. 7, 1782.' + +'To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. + +'Edinburgh, Dec. 20, 1782. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I was made happy by your kind letter, which gave us the agreeable hopes +of seeing you in Scotland again. + +'I am much flattered by the concern you are pleased to take in my +recovery. I am better, and hope to have it in my power to convince you +by my attention of how much consequence I esteem your health to the +world and to myself. I remain, Sir, with grateful respect, + +'Your obliged and obedient servant, + +'MARGARET BOSWELL.' + +The death of Mr. Thrale had made a very material alteration with respect +to Johnson's reception in that family. The manly authority of the +husband no longer curbed the lively exuberance of the lady; and as her +vanity had been fully gratified, by having the Colossus of Literature +attached to her for many years, she gradually became less assiduous to +please him. Whether her attachment to him was already divided by another +object, I am unable to ascertain; but it is plain that Johnson's +penetration was alive to her neglect or forced attention; for on the eth +of October this year, we find him making a 'parting use of the +library[492]' at Streatham, and pronouncing a prayer, which he composed +on leaving Mr. Thrale's family[493]:-- + +'Almighty God, Father of all mercy, help me by thy grace, that I may, +with humble and sincere thankfulness, remember the comforts and +conveniences which I have enjoyed at this place; and that I may resign +them with holy submission, equally trusting in thy protection when thou +givest, and when thou takest away. Have mercy upon me, Lord, have +mercy upon me. + +'To thy fatherly protection, O Lord, I commend this family. Bless, +guide, and defend them, that they may so pass through this world, as +finally to enjoy in thy presence everlasting happiness, for Jesus +Christ's sake. Amen[494].' + +One cannot read this prayer, without some emotions not very favourable +to the lady whose conduct occasioned it[495]. + +In one of his memorandum-books I find, 'Sunday, went to church at +Streatham. _Templo valedixi cum osculo_[496].' + +He met Mr. Philip Metcalfe[497] often at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and +other places, and was a good deal with him at Brighthelmston[498] this +autumn, being pleased at once with his excellent table and animated +conversation. Mr. Metcalfe shewed him great respect, and sent him a note +that he might have the use of his carriage whenever he pleased. Johnson +(3d October, 1782) returned this polite answer:--'Mr. Johnson is very +much obliged by the kind offer of the carriage, but he has no desire of +using Mr. Metcalfe's carriage, except when he can have the pleasure of +Mr. Metcalfe's company.' Mr. Metcalfe could not but be highly pleased +that his company was thus valued by Johnson, and he frequently attended +him in airings. They also went together to Chichester[499], and they +visited Petworth, and Cowdry, the venerable seat of the Lords Montacute. +'Sir, (said Johnson,) I should like to stay here four-and-twenty hours. +We see here how our ancestors lived.' + +That his curiosity was still unabated, appears from two letters to Mr. +John Nichols, of the 10th and 20th[500] of October this year. In one he +says, 'I have looked into your _Anecdotes_, and you will hardly thank a +lover of literary history for telling you, that he has been much +informed and gratified. I wish you would add your own discoveries and +intelligence to those of Dr. Rawlinson, and undertake the Supplement to +Wood[501]'. Think of it.' In the other, 'I wish, Sir, you could obtain +some fuller information of Jortin[502], Markland[503], and Thirlby[504]. +They were three contemporaries of great eminence.' + +'TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I heard yesterday of your late disorder[505], and should think ill of +myself if I had heard of it without alarm. I heard likewise Of your +recovery, which I sincerely wish to be complete and permanent. Your +country has been in danger of losing one of its brightest ornaments, and +I of losing one of my oldest and kindest friends: but I hope you will +still live long, for the honour of the nation: and that more enjoyment +of your elegance, your intelligence, and your benevolence, is still +reserved for, dear Sir, your most affectionate, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Brighthelmston, + +Nov. 14, 1782.' + +The Reverend Mr. Wilson having dedicated to him his _Archaeological +Dictionary_[506], that mark of respect was thus acknowledged:-- + +'TO THE REVEREND MR. WILSON, CLITHEROE, LANCASHIRE. + +'REVEREND SIR, + +'That I have long omitted to return you thanks for the honour conferred +upon me by your Dedication, I entreat you with great earnestness not to +consider as more faulty than it is. A very importunate and oppressive +disorder has for some time debarred me from the pleasures, and +obstructed me in the duties of life. The esteem and kindness of wise and +good men is one of the last pleasures which I can be content to lose; +and gratitude to those from whom this pleasure is received, is a duty of +which I hope never to be reproached with the final neglect. I therefore +now return you thanks for the notice which I have received from you, and +which I consider as giving to my name not only more bulk, but more +weight; not only as extending its superficies, but as increasing its +value. Your book was evidently wanted, and will, I hope, find its way +into the school, to which, however, I do not mean to confine it; for no +man has so much skill in ancient rites and practices as not to want it. +As I suppose myself to owe part of your kindness to my excellent friend, +Dr. Patten, he has likewise a just claim to my acknowledgements, which I +hope you, Sir, will transmit. There will soon appear a new edition of my +Poetical Biography; if you will accept of a copy to keep me in your +mind, be pleased to let me know how it may be conveniently conveyed to +you. The present is small, but it is given with good will by, +Reverend Sir, + +'Your most, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'December 31, 1782[507].' + +1783: AETAT. 74.--In 1783, he was more severely afflicted than ever, +as will appear in the course of his correspondence[508]; but still the +same ardour for literature, the same constant piety, the same kindness +for his friends, and the same vivacity, both in conversation and +writing, distinguished him. + +Having given Dr. Johnson a full account of what I was doing at +Auchinleck, and particularly mentioned what I knew would please him,--my +having brought an old man of eighty-eight from a lonely cottage to a +comfortable habitation within my enclosures, where he had good +neighbours near to him,--I received an answer in February, of which I +extract what follows:-- + +'I am delighted with your account of your activity at Auchinleck, and +wish the old gentleman, whom you have so kindly removed, may live long +to promote your prosperity by his prayers. You have now a new character +and new duties: think on them and practise them. + +'Make an impartial estimate of your revenue, and whatever it is, live +upon less. Resolve never to be poor. Frugality is not only the basis of +quiet, but of beneficence. No man can help others that wants help +himself; we must have enough before we have to spare. + +'I am glad to find that Mrs. Boswell grows well; and hope that to keep +her well, no care nor caution will be omitted. May you long live +happily together. + +'When you come hither, pray bring with you Baxter's _Anacreon_[509]. I +cannot get that edition in London.' + +On Friday, March 31, having arrived in London the night before, I was +glad to find him at Mrs. Thrale's house, in Argyll-street, appearances +of friendship between them being still kept up. I was shewn into his +room, and after the first salutation he said, 'I am glad you are come. I +am very ill.' He looked pale, and was distressed with a difficulty of +breathing; but after the common inquiries he assumed his usual strong +animated style of conversation. Seeing me now for the first time as a +_Laird_, or proprietor of land, he began thus: 'Sir, the superiority of +a country-gentleman over the people upon his estate is very agreeable; +and he who says he does not feel it to be agreeable, lies; for it must +be agreeable to have a casual superiority over those who are by nature +equal with us[510].' BOSWELL. 'Yet, Sir, we see great proprietors of +land who prefer living in London.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the pleasure of +living in London, the intellectual superiority that is enjoyed there, +may counter-balance the other. Besides, Sir, a man may prefer the state +of the country-gentleman upon the whole, and yet there may never be a +moment when he is willing to make the change to quit London for it.' He +said, 'It is better to have five _per cent_. out of land than out of +money, because it is more secure; but the readiness of transfer, and +promptness of interest, make many people rather choose the funds. Nay, +there is another disadvantage belonging to land, compared with money. A +man is not so much afraid of being a hard creditor, as of being a hard +landlord.' BOSWELL. 'Because there is a sort of kindly connection +between a landlord and his tenants.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; many landlords +with us never see their tenants. It is because if a landlord drives away +his tenants, he may not get others; whereas the demand for money is so +great, it may always be lent.' + +He talked with regret and indignation of the factious opposition to +Government at this time[511], and imputed it in a great measure to the +Revolution. 'Sir, (said he, in a low voice, having come nearer to me, +while his old prejudices seemed to be fermenting in his mind,) this +Hanoverian family is _isolée_ here[512]. They have no friends. Now the +Stuarts had friends who stuck by them so late as 1745. When the right of +the King is not reverenced, there will not be reverence for those +appointed by the King.' + +His observation that the present royal family has no friends, has been +too much justified by the very ungrateful behaviour of many who were +under great obligations to his Majesty; at the same time there are +honourable exceptions; and the very next year after this conversation, +and ever since, the King has had as extensive and generous support as +ever was given to any monarch, and has had the satisfaction of knowing +that he was more and more endeared to his people[513]. + +He repeated to me his verses on Mr. Levett, with an emotion which gave +them full effect[514]; and then he was pleased to say, 'You must be as +much with me as you can. You have done me good. You cannot think how +much better I am since you came in.' + +He sent a message to acquaint Mrs. Thrale that I was arrived. I had not +seen her since her husband's death. She soon appeared, and favoured me +with an invitation to stay to dinner, which I accepted. There was no +other company but herself and three of her daughters, Dr. Johnson, and +I. She too said, she was very glad I was come, for she was going to +Bath, and should have been sorry to leave Dr. Johnson before I came. +This seemed to be attentive and kind; and I who had not been informed of +any change, imagined all to be as well as formerly. He was little +inclined to talk at dinner, and went to sleep after it; but when he +joined us in the drawing-room, he seemed revived, and was again himself. + +Talking of conversation, he said, 'There must, in the first place, be +knowledge, there must be materials; in the second place, there must be a +command of words; in the third place, there must be imagination, to +place things in such views as they are not commonly seen in; and in the +fourth place, there must be presence of mind, and a resolution that is +not to be overcome by failures: this last is an essential requisite; for +want of it many people do not excel in conversation. Now _I_ want it: I +throw up the game upon losing a trick.' I wondered to hear him talk thus +of himself, and said, 'I don't know, Sir, how this may be; but I am sure +you beat other people's cards out of their hands.' I doubt whether he +heard this remark. While he went on talking triumphantly, I was fixed in +admiration, and said to Mrs. Thrale, 'O, for short-hand to take this +down!' 'You'll carry it all in your head; (said she;) a long head is as +good as short-hand.' + +It has been observed and wondered at, that Mr. Charles Fox never talked +with any freedom in the presence of Dr. Johnson[515], though it is well +known, and I myself can witness, that his conversation is various, +fluent, and exceedingly agreeable. Johnson's own experience, however, of +that gentleman's reserve was a sufficient reason for his going on thus: +'Fox never talks in private company; not from any determination not to +talk, but because he has not the first motion[516]. A man who is used to +the applause of the House of Commons, has no wish for that of a private +company. A man accustomed to throw for a thousand pounds, if set down to +throw for sixpence, would not be at the pains to count his dice. Burke's +talk is the ebullition of his mind; he does not talk from a desire of +distinction, but because his mind is full[517]. + +He thus curiously characterised one of our old acquaintance: '----[518] +is a good man, Sir; but he is a vain man and a liar. He, however, only +tells lies of vanity; of victories, for instance, in conversation, which +never happened.' This alluded to a story which I had repeated from that +gentleman, to entertain Johnson with its wild bravado: 'This Johnson, +Sir, (said he,) whom you are all afraid of will shrink, if you come +close to him in argument and roar as loud as he. He once maintained the +paradox, that there is no beauty but in utility[519]. "Sir, (said I,) +what say you to the peacock's tail, which is one of the most beautiful +objects in nature, but would have as much utility if its feathers were +all of one colour." He _felt_ what I thus produced, and had recourse to +his usual expedient, ridicule; exclaiming, "A peacock has a tail, and a +fox has a tail;" and then he burst out into a laugh. "Well, Sir, (said +I, with a strong voice, looking him full in the face,) you have +unkennelled your fox; pursue him if you dare." He had not a word to say, +Sir.' Johnson told me, that this was a fiction from beginning +to end[520]. + +After musing for some time, he said, 'I wonder how I should have any +enemies; for I do harm to nobody[521].' BOSWELL. 'In the first place, +Sir, you will be pleased to recollect, that you set out with attacking +the Scotch; so you got a whole nation for your enemies.' JOHNSON. 'Why, +I own, that by my definition of _oats_[522] I meant to vex them.' +BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, can you trace the cause of your antipathy to the +Scotch.' JOHNSON. 'I cannot, Sir[523].' BOSWELL. 'Old Mr. Sheridan says, +it was because they sold Charles the First.' JOHNSON. 'Then, Sir, old +Mr. Sheridan has found out a very good reason.' + +Surely the most obstinate and sulky nationality, the most determined +aversion to this great and good man, must be cured, when he is seen thus +playing with one of his prejudices, of which he candidly admitted that +he could not tell the reason. It was, however, probably owing to his +having had in his view the worst part of the Scottish nation, the needy +adventurers, many of whom he thought were advanced above their merits by +means which he did not approve. Had he in his early life been in +Scotland, and seen the worthy, sensible, independent gentlemen, who live +rationally and hospitably at home, he never could have entertained such +unfavourable and unjust notions of his fellow-subjects. And accordingly +we find, that when he did visit Scotland, in the latter period of his +life, he was fully sensible of all that it deserved, as I have already +pointed out, when speaking of his _Journey to the Western Islands_.[524] + +Next day, Saturday, March 22, I found him still at Mrs. Thrale's, but he +told me that he was to go to his own house in the afternoon[525]. He was +better, but I perceived he was but an unruly patient, for Sir Lucas +Pepys, who visited him, while I was with him said, 'If you were +_tractable_, Sir, I should prescribe for you.' + +I related to him a remark which a respectable friend had made to me, +upon the then state of Government, when those who had been long in +opposition had attained to power, as it was supposed, against the +inclination of the Sovereign[526]. 'You need not be uneasy (said this +gentleman) about the King. He laughs at them all; he plays them one +against another.' JOHNSON. 'Don't think so, Sir. The King is as much +oppressed as a man can be. If he plays them one against another, he +_wins_ nothing.' + +I had paid a visit to General Oglethorpe in the morning, and was told by +him that Dr. Johnson saw company on Saturday evenings, and he would meet +me at Johnson's that night. When I mentioned this to Johnson, not +doubting that it would please him, as he had a great value for +Oglethorpe, the fretfulness of his disease unexpectedly shewed itself; +his anger suddenly kindled, and he said, with vehemence, 'Did not you +tell him not to come? Am I to be _hunted_ in this manner?' I satisfied +him that I could not divine that the visit would not be convenient, and +that I certainly could not take it upon me of my own accord to forbid +the General. + +I found Dr. Johnson in the evening in Mrs. Williams's room, at tea and +coffee with her and Mrs. Desmoulins, who were also both ill; it was a +sad scene, and he was not in very good humour. He said of a performance +that had lately come out, 'Sir, if you should search all the madhouses +in England, you would not find ten men who would write so, and think +it sense.' + +I was glad when General Oglethorpe's arrival was announced, and we left +the ladies. Dr. Johnson attended him in the parlour, and was as +courteous as ever. The General said he was busy reading the writers of +the middle age. Johnson said they were very curious. OGLETHORPE. 'The +House of Commons has usurped the power of the nation's money, and used +it tyrannically. Government is now carried on by corrupt influence, +instead of the inherent right in the King.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, the want of +inherent right in the King occasions all this disturbance. What we did +at the Revolution was necessary: but it broke our constitution[527].' +OGLETHORPE. 'My father did not think it necessary.' + +On Sunday, March 23, I breakfasted with Dr. Johnson, who seemed much +relieved, having taken opium the night before. He however protested +against it, as a remedy that should be given with the utmost reluctance, +and only in extreme necessity. I mentioned how commonly it was used in +Turkey, and that therefore it could not be so pernicious as he +apprehended. He grew warm and said, 'Turks take opium, and Christians +take opium; but Russel, in his _Account of Aleppo_[528], tells us, that +it is as disgraceful in Turkey to take too much opium, as it is with us +to get drunk. Sir, it is amazing how things are exaggerated. A gentleman +was lately telling in a company where I was present, that in France as +soon as a man of fashion marries, he takes an opera girl into keeping; +and this he mentioned as a general custom. 'Pray, Sir, (said I,) how +many opera girls may there be?' He answered, 'About fourscore.' Well +then, Sir, (said I,) you see there can be no more than fourscore men of +fashion who can do this[529].' + +Mrs. Desmoulins made tea; and she and I talked before him upon a topick +which he had once borne patiently from me when we were by +ourselves[530],--his not complaining of the world, because he was not +called to some great office, nor had attained to great wealth. He flew +into a violent passion, I confess with some justice, and commanded us to +have done. 'Nobody, (said he) has a right to talk in this manner, to +bring before a man his own character, and the events of his life, when +he does not choose it should be done. I never have sought the world; +the world was not to seek me. It is rather wonderful that so much has +been done for me. All the complaints which are made of the world are +unjust[531]. I never knew a man of merit neglected[532]: it was +generally by his own fault that he failed of success. A man may hide his +head in a hole: he may go into the country, and publish a book now and +then, which nobody reads, and then complain he is neglected[533]. There +is no reason why any person should exert himself for a man who has +written a good book: he has not written it for any individual. I may as +well make a present to the postman who brings me a letter. When +patronage was limited, an authour expected to find a Maecenas, and +complained if he did not find one. Why should he complain? This Maecenas +has others as good as he, or others who have got the start of him.' +BOSWELL. 'But surely, Sir, you will allow that there are men of merit at +the bar, who never get practice.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you are sure that +practice is got from an opinion that the person employed deserves it +best; so that if a man of merit at the bar does not get practice, it is +from errour, not from injustice. He is not neglected. A horse that is +brought to market may not be bought, though he is a very good horse: but +that is from ignorance, not from intention[534].' + +There was in this discourse much novelty, ingenuity, and discrimination, +such as is seldom to be found. Yet I cannot help thinking that men of +merit, who have no success in life, may be forgiven for _lamenting_, if +they are not allowed to _complain_. They may consider it as _hard_ that +their merit should not have its suitable distinction. Though there is no +intentional injustice towards them on the part of the world, their merit +not having been perceived, they may yet repine against _fortune_, or +_fate_, or by whatever name they choose to call the supposed +mythological power of _Destiny_. It has, however, occurred to me, as a +consolatory thought, that men of merit should consider thus:-How much +harder would it be if the same persons had both all the merit and all +the prosperity. Would not this be a miserable distribution for the poor +dunces? Would men of merit exchange their intellectual superiority, and +the enjoyments arising from it, for external distinction and the +pleasures of wealth? If they would not, let them not envy others, who +are poor where they are rich, a compensation which is made to them. Let +them look inwards and be satisfied; recollecting with conscious pride +what Virgil finely says of the _Corycius Senex_, and which I have, in +another place[535], with truth and sincerity applied to Mr. Burke:-- + + '_Regum aequabat opes animis[536].'_ + +On the subject of the right employment of wealth, Johnson observed, 'A +man cannot make a bad use of his money, so far as regards Society, if he +does not hoard it; for if he either spends it or lends it out, Society +has the benefit. It is in general better to spend money than to give it +away; for industry is more promoted by spending money than by giving it +away. A man who spends his money is sure he is doing good with it: he is +not so sure when he gives it away. A man who spends ten thousand a year +will do more good than a man who spends two thousand and gives away +eight[537].' + +In the evening I came to him again. He was somewhat fretful from his +illness. A gentleman[538] asked him, whether he had been abroad to-day. +'Don't talk so childishly, (said he.) You may as well ask if I hanged +myself to-day.' I mentioned politicks. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I'd as soon have a +man to break my bones as talk to me of publick affairs, internal or +external. I have lived to see things all as bad as they can be.' + +Having mentioned his friend the second Lord Southwell, he said, 'Lord +Southwell was the highest-bred man without insolence that I ever was in +company with; the most _qualified_ I ever saw. Lord Orrery[539] was not +dignified: Lord Chesterfield was, but he was insolent[540]. Lord +----[541] is a man of coarse manners, but a man of abilities and +information. I don't say he is a man I would set at the head of a +nation, though perhaps he may be as good as the next Prime Minister that +comes; but he is a man to be at the head of a Club; I don't say _our_ +CLUB; for there's no such Club.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, was he not once a +factious man?' JOHNSON. 'O yes, Sir; as factious a fellow as could be +found: one who was for sinking us all into the mob[542].' BOSWELL. 'How +then, Sir, did he get into favour with the King?' JOHNSON. 'Because, +Sir, I suppose he promised the King to do whatever the King pleased.' + +He said, 'Goldsmith's blundering speech to Lord Shelburne, which has +been so often mentioned, and which he really did make to him, was only a +blunder in emphasis: "I wonder they should call your Lordship +_Malagrida_[543], for Malagrida was a very good man;" meant, I wonder +they should use _Malagrida_ as a term of reproach[544].' + +Soon after this time I had an opportunity of seeing, by means of one of +his friends[545], a proof that his talents, as well as his obliging +service to authours, were ready as ever. He had revised _The Village_, +an admirable poem, by the Reverend Mr. Crabbe. Its sentiments as to the +false notions of rustick happiness and rustick virtue were quite +congenial with his own[546]; and he had taken the trouble not only to +suggest slight corrections and variations, but to furnish some lines, +when he thought he could give the writer's meaning better than in the +words of the manuscript[547]. + +On Sunday, March 30, I found him at home in the evening, and had the +pleasure to meet with Dr. Brocklesby[548], whose reading, and knowledge +of life, and good spirits, supply him with a never-failing source of +conversation. He mentioned a respectable gentleman, who became extremely +penurious near the close of his life. Johnson said there must have been +a degree of madness about him. 'Not at all, Sir, (said Dr. Brocklesby,) +his judgement was entire.' Unluckily, however, he mentioned that +although he had a fortune of twenty-seven thousand pounds, he denied +himself many comforts, from an apprehension that he could not afford +them. 'Nay, Sir, (cried Johnson,) when the judgement is so disturbed +that a man cannot count, that is pretty well.' + +I shall here insert a few of Johnson's sayings, without the formality of +dates, as they have no reference to any particular time or place. + +'The more a man extends and varies his acquaintance the better.' This, +however, was meant with a just restriction; for, he on another occasion +said to me, 'Sir, a man may be so much of every thing, that he is +nothing of any thing.' + +'Raising the wages of day-labourers is wrong[549]; for it does not make +them live better, but only makes them idler, and idleness is a very bad +thing for human nature.' + +'It is a very good custom to keep a journal[550] for a man's own use; he +may write upon a card a day all that is necessary to be written, after +he has had experience of life. At first there is a great deal to be +written, because there is a great deal of novelty; but when once a man +has settled his opinions, there is seldom much to be set down.' + +'There is nothing wonderful in the journal which we see Swift kept in +London, for it contains slight topicks, and it might soon be +written[551].' + +I praised the accuracy of an account-book of a lady whom I mentioned. +JOHNSON. 'Keeping accounts, Sir, is of no use when a man is spending his +own money, and has nobody to whom he is to account. You won't eat less +beef to-day, because you have written down what it cost yesterday.' I +mentioned another lady who thought as he did, so that her husband could +not get her to keep an account of the expence of the family, as she +thought it enough that she never exceeded the sum allowed her. JOHNSON. +'Sir, it is fit she should keep an account, because her husband wishes +it; but I do not see its use[552].' I maintained that keeping an account +has this advantage, that it satisfies a man that his money has not been +lost or stolen, which he might sometimes be apt to imagine, were there +no written state of his expence; and beside, a calculation of oeconomy +so as not to exceed one's income, cannot be made without a view of the +different articles in figures, that one may see how to retrench in some +particulars less necessary than others. This he did not attempt +to answer. + +Talking of an acquaintance of ours[553], whose narratives, which +abounded in curious and interesting topicks, were unhappily found to be +very fabulous; I mentioned Lord Mansfield's having said to me, 'Suppose +we believe one _half_ of what he tells.' JOHNSON. 'Ay; but we don't know +_which_ half to believe. By his lying we lose not only our reverence for +him, but all comfort in his conversation.' BOSWELL. 'May we not take it +as amusing fiction?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, the misfortune is, that you will +insensibly believe as much of it as you incline to believe.' + +It is remarkable, that notwithstanding their congeniality in politicks, +he never was acquainted with a late eminent noble judge[554], whom I +have heard speak of him as a writer, with great respect[555]. Johnson, I +know not upon what degree of investigation, entertained no exalted +opinion of his Lordship's intellectual character[556]. Talking of him to +me one day, he said, 'It is wonderful, Sir, with how little real +superiority of mind men can make an eminent figure in publick life.' He +expressed himself to the same purpose concerning another law-Lord, who, +it seems, once took a fancy to associate with the wits of London; but +with so little success, that Foote said, 'What can he mean by coming +among us? He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in +others[557].' Trying him by the test of his colloquial powers, Johnson +had found him very defective. He once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'This +man now has been ten years about town, and has made nothing of it;' +meaning as a companion[558]. He said to me, 'I never heard any thing +from him in company that was at all striking; and depend upon it, Sir, +it is when you come close to a man in conversation, that you discover +what his real abilities are; to make a speech in a publick assembly is a +knack. Now I honour Thurlow, Sir; Thurlow is a fine fellow; he fairly +puts his mind to yours[559].' + +After repeating to him some of his pointed, lively sayings, I said, 'It +is a pity, Sir, you don't always remember your own good things, that you +may have a laugh when you will.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, it is better that I +forget them, that I may be reminded of them, and have a laugh on their +being brought to my recollection.' + +When I recalled to him his having said as we sailed up Loch-lomond[560], +'That if he wore any thing fine, it should be _very_ fine;' I observed +that all his thoughts were upon a great scale. JOHNSON. 'Depend upon it, +Sir, every man will have as fine a thing as he can get; as a large +diamond for his ring.' BOSWELL. 'Pardon me, Sir: a man of a narrow mind +will not think of it, a slight trinket will satisfy him: + + "_Nee sufferre queat majoris pondera gemmae_[561]."' + +I told him I should send him some Essays which I had written[562], which +I hoped he would be so good as to read, and pick out the good ones. +JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, send me only the good ones; don't make _me_ +pick them.' + +I heard him once say, 'Though the proverb _Nullum numen abest, si sit +prudentia[563], does not always prove true, we may be certain of the +converse of it, _Nullum numen adest, si sit imprudentia_.' + +Once, when Mr. Seward was going to Bath, and asked his commands, he +said, 'Tell Dr. Harrington that I wish he would publish another volume +of the _Nugae antiquae_[564]; it is a very pretty book[565].' Mr. Seward +seconded this wish, and recommended to Dr. Harrington to dedicate it to +Johnson, and take for his motto, what Catullus says to Cornelius Nepos:-- + + '----_namque tu solebas, + Meas esse aliquid putare_ NUGAS[566].' + +As a small proof of his kindliness and delicacy of feeling, the +following circumstance may be mentioned: One evening when we were in the +street together, and I told him I was going to sup at Mr. Beauclerk's, +he said, 'I'll go with you.' After having walked part of the way, +seeming to recollect something, he suddenly stopped and said, 'I cannot +go,--but _I do not love Beauclerk the less_.' + +On the frame of his portrait, Mr. Beauclerk had inscribed,-- + + '----_Ingenium ingens + Inculto latet hoc sub corpore_[567].' + +After Mr. Beauclerk's death, when it became Mr. Langton's property, he +made the inscription be defaced. Johnson said complacently, 'It was kind +in you to take it off;' and then after a short pause, added, 'and not +unkind in him to put it on.' + +He said, 'How few of his friends' houses would a man choose to be at +when he is sick.' He mentioned one or two. I recollect only +Thrale's[568]. + +He observed, 'There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an +old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when +leaving a company, does not recollect where he laid his hat, it is +nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people +will shrug up their shoulders, and say, 'His memory is going[569].' + +When I once talked to him of some of the sayings which every body +repeats, but nobody knows where to find, such as _Quos DEUS vult +perdere, prius dementat_[570]; he told me that he was once offered ten +guineas to point out from whence _Semel insanivimus omnes_ was taken. He +could not do it; but many years afterwards met with it by chance in +_Johannes Baptista Mantuanus_[571]. + +I am very sorry that I did not take a note of an eloquent argument in +which he maintained that the situation of Prince of Wales was the +happiest of any person's in the kingdom, even beyond that of the +Sovereign. I recollect only--the enjoyment of hope[572],--the high +superiority of rank, without the anxious cares of government,--and a +great degree of power, both from natural influence wisely used, and from +the sanguine expectations of those who look forward to the chance of +future favour. + +Sir Joshua Reynolds communicated to me the following particulars:-- + +Johnson thought the poems published as translations from Ossian had so +little merit, that he said, 'Sir, a man might write such stuff for ever, +if he would _abandon_ his mind to it[573].' + +He said, 'A man should pass a part of his time with _the laughers_, by +which means any thing ridiculous or particular about him might be +presented to his view, and corrected.' I observed, he must have been a +bold laugher who would have ventured to tell Dr. Johnson of any of his +particularities[574]. + +Having observed the vain ostentatious importance of many people in +quoting the authority of Dukes and Lords, as having been in their +company, he said, he went to the other extreme, and did not mention his +authority when he should have done it, had it not been that of a Duke or +a Lord[575]. + +Dr. Goldsmith said once to Dr. Johnson, that he wished for some +additional members to the LITERARY CLUB, to give it an agreeable +variety; for (said he,) there can now be nothing new among us: we have +travelled over one another's minds. Johnson seemed a little angry, and +said, 'Sir, you have not travelled over _my_ mind, I promise you.' Sir +Joshua, however, thought Goldsmith right; observing, that 'when people +have lived a great deal together, they know what each of them will say +on every subject. A new understanding, therefore, is desirable; because +though it may only furnish the same sense upon a question which would +have been furnished by those with whom we are accustomed to live, yet +this sense will have a different colouring; and colouring is of much +effect in every thing else as well as in painting.' + +Johnson used to say that he made it a constant rule to talk as well as +he could both as to sentiment and expression, by which means, what had +been originally effort became familiar and easy[576]. The consequence of +this, Sir Joshua observed, was, that his common conversation in all +companies was such as to secure him universal attention, as something +above the usual colloquial style was expected[577]. + +Yet, though Johnson had this habit in company, when another mode was +necessary, in order to investigate truth, he could descend to a language +intelligible to the meanest capacity. An instance of this was witnessed +by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when they were present at an examination of a +little blackguard boy, by Mr. Saunders Welch[578], the late Westminster +Justice. Welch, who imagined that he was exalting himself in Dr. +Johnson's eyes by using big words, spoke in a manner that was utterly +unintelligible to the boy; Dr. Johnson perceiving it, addressed himself +to the boy, and changed the pompous phraseology into colloquial +language. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was much amused by this procedure, +which seemed a kind of reversing of what might have been expected from +the two men, took notice of it to Dr. Johnson, as they walked away by +themselves. Johnson said, that it was continually the case; and that he +was always obliged to _translate_ the Justice's swelling diction, +(smiling,) so as that his meaning might be understood by the vulgar, +from whom information was to be obtained[579]. + +Sir Joshua once observed to him, that he had talked above the capacity +of some people with whom they had been in company together. 'No matter, +Sir, (said Johnson); they consider it as a compliment to be talked to, +as if they were wiser than they are. So true is this, Sir, that Baxter +made it a rule in every sermon that he preached, to say something that +was above the capacity of his audience[580].' + +Johnson's dexterity in retort, when he seemed to be driven to an +extremity by his adversary, was very remarkable. Of his power in this +respect, our common friend, Mr. Windham, of Norfolk, has been pleased to +furnish me with an eminent instance. However unfavourable to Scotland, +he uniformly gave liberal praise to George Buchanan[581], as a writer. +In a conversation concerning the literary merits of the two countries, +in which Buchanan was introduced, a Scotchman, imagining that on this +ground he should have an undoubted triumph over him, exclaimed, 'Ah, Dr. +Johnson, what would you have said of Buchanan, had he been an +Englishman?' 'Why, Sir, (said Johnson, after a little pause,) I should +_not_ have said of Buchanan, had he been an _Englishman_, what I will +now say of him as a _Scotchman_,--that he was the only man of genius +his country ever produced.' + +And this brings to my recollection another instance of the same nature. +I once reminded him that when Dr. Adam Smith was expatiating on the +beauty of Glasgow, he had cut him short by saying, 'Pray, Sir, have you +ever seen Brentford?' and I took the liberty to add, 'My dear Sir, +surely that was _shocking_.' 'Why, then, Sir, (he replied,) YOU have +never seen Brentford.' + +Though his usual phrase for conversation was _talk_[582], yet he made a +distinction; for when he once told me that he dined the day before at a +friend's house, with 'a very pretty company;' and I asked him if there +was good conversation, he answered, 'No, Sir; we had _talk_ enough, but +no _conversation_; there was nothing _discussed_.' + +Talking of the success of the Scotch in London, he imputed it In a +considerable degree to their spirit of nationality. 'You know, Sir, +(said he,) that no Scotchman publishes a book, or has a play brought +upon the stage, but there are five hundred people ready to applaud +him.[583]' + +He gave much praise to his friend, Dr. Burney's elegant and entertaining +travels[584], and told Mr. Seward that he had them in his eye, when +writing his _Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_. + +Such was his sensibility, and so much was he affected by pathetick +poetry, that, when he was reading Dr. Beattie's _Hermit_ in my presence, +it brought tears into his eyes[585]. + +He disapproved much of mingling real facts with fiction. On this +account he censured a book entitled _Love and Madness_[586]. + +Mr. Hoole told him, he was born in Moorfields, and had received part of +his early instruction in Grub-street. 'Sir, (said Johnson, smiling) you +have been _regularly_ educated.' Having asked who was his instructor, +and Mr. Hoole having answered, 'My uncle, Sir, who was a taylor;' +Johnson, recollecting himself, said, 'Sir, I knew him; we called him the +_metaphysical taylor_. He was of a club in Old-street, with me and +George Psalmanazar, and some others[587]: but pray, Sir, was he a good +taylor?' Mr. Hoole having answered that he believed he was too +mathematical, and used to draw squares and triangles on his shop-board, +so that he did not excel in the cut of a coat;--'I am sorry for it (said +Johnson,) for I would have every man to be master of his own business.' + +In pleasant reference to himself and Mr. Hoole, as brother authours, he +often said, 'Let you and I, Sir, go together, and eat a beef-steak in +Grub-street[588].' + +Sir William Chambers, that great Architect[589], whose works shew a +sublimity of genius, and who is esteemed by all who know him for his +social, hospitable, and generous qualities, submitted the manuscript of +his _Chinese Architecture_ to Dr. Johnson's perusal. Johnson was much +pleased with it, and said, 'It wants no addition nor correction, but a +few lines of introduction;' which he furnished, and Sir William +adopted[590]. + +He said to Sir William Scott, 'The age is running mad after innovation; +all the business of the world is to be done in a new way; men are to be +hanged in a new way; Tyburn itself is not safe from the fury of +innovation[591].' It having been argued that this was an +improvement,--'No, Sir, (said he, eagerly,) it is _not_ an improvement: +they object that the old method drew together a number of spectators. +Sir, executions are intended to draw spectators. If they do not draw +spectators they don't answer their purpose. The old method was most +satisfactory to all parties; the publick was gratified by a +procession[592]; the criminal was supported by it. Why is all this to +be swept away?' I perfectly agree with Dr. Johnson upon this head, and +am persuaded that executions now, the solemn procession being +discontinued, have not nearly the effect which they formerly had[593]. +Magistrates both in London, and elsewhere, have, I am afraid, in this +had too much regard to their own ease[594]. + +Of Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, Johnson said to a friend, 'Hurd, Sir, +is one of a set of men who account for every thing systematically; for +instance, it has been a fashion to wear scarlet breeches; these men +would tell you, that according to causes and effects, no other wear +could at that time have been chosen.' He, however, said of him at +another time to the same gentleman, 'Hurd, Sir, is a man whose +acquaintance is a valuable acquisition.' + +That learned and ingenious Prelate[595] it is well known published at +one period of his life _Moral and Political Dialogues_, with a woefully +whiggish cast. Afterwards, his Lordship having thought better, came to +see his errour, and republished the work with a more constitutional +spirit. Johnson, however, was unwilling to allow him full credit for his +political conversion. I remember when his Lordship declined the honour +of being Archbishop of Canterbury, Johnson said, 'I am glad he did not +go to Lambeth; for, after all, I fear he is a Whig in his heart.' + +Johnson's attention to precision and clearness in expression was very +remarkable. He disapproved of parentheses; and I believe in all his +voluminous writings, not half a dozen of them will be found. He never +used the phrases _the former_ and _the latter_, having observed, that +they often occasioned obscurity; he therefore contrived to construct his +sentences so as not to have occasion for them, and would even rather +repeat the same words, in order to avoid them[596]. Nothing is more +common than to mistake surnames when we hear them carelessly uttered for +the first time. To prevent this, he used not only to pronounce them +slowly and distinctly, but to take the trouble of spelling them; a +practice which I have often followed; and which I wish were general. + +Such was the heat and irritability of his blood, that not only did he +pare his nails to the quick; but scraped the joints of his fingers with +a pen-knife, till they seemed quite red and raw. + +The heterogeneous composition of human nature was remarkably +exemplified in Johnson. His liberality in giving his money to persons in +distress was extraordinary. Yet there lurked about him a propensity to +paultry saving. One day I owned to him that 'I was occasionally troubled +with a fit of _narrowness_.' 'Why, Sir, (said he,) so am I. _But I do +not tell it_.' He has now and then borrowed a shilling of me; and when I +asked for it again, seemed to be rather out of humour. A droll little +circumstance once occurred: as if he meant to reprimand my minute +exactness as a creditor, he thus addressed me;--'Boswell, _lend_ me +sixpence--_not to be repaid_[597].' + +This great man's attention to small things was very remarkable. As an +instance of it, he one day said to me, 'Sir, when you get silver in +change for a guinea, look carefully at it; you may find some curious +piece of coin.' + +Though a stern _true-born Englishman_[598], and fully prejudiced against +all other nations, he had discernment enough to see, and candour enough +to censure, the cold reserve too common among Englishmen towards +strangers: 'Sir, (said he,) two men of any other nation who are shewn +into a room together, at a house where they are both visitors, will +immediately find some conversation. But two Englishmen will probably go +each to a different window, and remain in obstinate silence. Sir, we as +yet do not enough understand the common rights of humanity[599].' + +Johnson was at a certain period of his life a good deal with the Earl of +Shelburne[600], now Marquis of Lansdown, as he doubtless could not but +have a due value for that nobleman's activity of mind, and uncommon +acquisitions of important knowledge, however much he might disapprove of +other parts of his Lordship's character, which were widely different +from his own. + +Maurice Morgann, Esq., authour of the very ingenious _Essay on the +character of Falstaff_[601], being a particular friend of his Lordship, +had once an opportunity of entertaining Johnson for a day or two at +Wickham, when its Lord was absent, and by him I have been favoured with +two anecdotes. + +One is not a little to the credit of Johnson's candour. Mr. Morgann and +he had a dispute pretty late at night, in which Johnson would not give +up, though he had the wrong side, and in short, both kept the field. +Next morning, when they met in the breakfasting-room, Dr. Johnson +accosted Mr. Morgann thus:--'Sir, I have been thinking on our dispute +last night--_You were in the right_[602].' + +The other was as follows:--Johnson, for sport perhaps, or from the +spirit of contradiction, eagerly maintained that Derrick[603] had merit +as a writer. Mr. Morgann argued with him directly, in vain. At length he +had recourse to this device. 'Pray, Sir, (said he,) whether do you +reckon Derrick or Smart[604] the best poet?' Johnson at once felt +himself roused; and answered, 'Sir, there is no settling the point of +precedency between a louse and a flea.' + +Once, when checking my boasting too frequently of myself in company, he +said to me, 'Boswell, you often vaunt so much, as to provoke ridicule. +You put me in mind of a man who was standing in the kitchen of an inn +with his back to the fire, and thus accosted the person next him, "Do +you know, Sir, who I am?" "No, Sir, (said the other,) I have not that +advantage." "Sir, (said he,) I am the _great_ TWALMLEY, who invented the +New Floodgate Iron[605]."' The Bishop of Killaloe, on my repeating the +story to him, defended Twalmley, by observing, that he was entitled to +the epithet of _great_; for Virgil in his groupe of worthies in the +Elysian fields-- + + _Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi_, &c. + +mentions + + _Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes_[606]. + +He was pleased to say to me one morning when we were left alone in his +study, 'Boswell, I think I am easier with you than with almost +any body.' + +He would not allow Mr. David Hume any credit for his political +principles, though similar to his own; saying of him, 'Sir, he was a +Tory by chance[607].' + +His acute observation of human life made him remark, 'Sir, there is +nothing by which a man exasperates most people more, than by displaying +a superiour ability or brilliancy in conversation. They seem pleased at +the time; but their envy makes them curse him at their hearts[608].' + +My readers will probably be surprised to hear that the great Dr. Johnson +could amuse himself with so slight and playful a species of composition +as a _Charade_. I have recovered one which he made on Dr. _Barnard_, now +Lord Bishop of Killaloe; who has been pleased for many years to treat me +with so much intimacy and social ease, that I may presume to call him +not only my Right Reverend, but my very dear Friend. I therefore with +peculiar pleasure give to the world a just and elegant compliment thus +paid to his Lordship by Johnson[609]. + +CHARADE. + +'My _first_[610] shuts out thieves from your house or your room, + My _second_[611] expresses a Syrian perfume. + My _whole_[612] is a man in whose converse is shar'd, + The strength of a Bar and the sweetness of Nard.' + +Johnson asked Richard Owen Cambridge, Esq., if he had read the Spanish +translation of _Sallust_, said to be written by a Prince of Spain[613], +with the assistance of his tutor, who is professedly the authour of a +treatise annexed, on the Phoenician language. + +Mr. Cambridge commended the work, particularly as he thought the +Translator understood his authour better than is commonly the case with +Translators: but said, he was disappointed in the purpose for which he +borrowed the book; to see whether a Spaniard could be better furnished +with inscriptions from monuments, coins, or other antiquities which he +might more probably find on a coast, so immediately opposite to +Carthage, than the Antiquaries of any other countries. JOHNSON. 'I am +very sorry you was[614] not gratified in your expectations.' CAMBRIDGE. +'The language would have been of little use, as there is no history +existing in that tongue to balance the partial accounts which the Roman +writers have left us.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. They have not been _partial_, +they have told their own story, without shame or regard to equitable +treatment of their injured enemy; they had no compunction, no feeling +for a Carthaginian. Why, Sir, they would never have borne Virgil's +description of Aeneas's treatment of Dido, if she had not been a +Carthaginian[615].' + +I gratefully acknowledge this and other communications from Mr. +Cambridge, whom, if a beautiful villa on the banks of the Thames, a few +miles distant from London, a numerous and excellent library, which he +accurately knows and reads, a choice collection of pictures, which he +understands and relishes, an easy fortune, an amiable family, an +extensive circle of friends and acquaintance, distinguished by rank, +fashion and genius, a literary fame, various, elegant and still +increasing, colloquial talents rarely to be found[616], and with all +these means of happiness, enjoying, when well advanced in years, health +and vigour of body, serenity and animation of mind, do not entitle to be +addressed _fortunate senex!_[617] I know not to whom, in any age, that +expression could with propriety have been used. Long may he live to hear +and to feel it! + +Johnson's love of little children, which he discovered upon all +occasions, calling them 'pretty dears,' and giving them sweetmeats, was +an undoubted proof of the real humanity and gentleness of his +disposition[618]. + +His uncommon kindness to his servants, and serious concern, not only for +their comfort in this world, but their happiness in the next, was +another unquestionable evidence of what all, who were intimately +acquainted with him, knew to be true. + +Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he +shewed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never +shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for +whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having +that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, +unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am +uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a +good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day +scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, +while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and +pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, +'Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;' and +then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is +a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.' + +This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of +the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I +heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.' And then in +a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, +and said, 'But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.' + +He thought Mr. Beauclerk made a shrewd and judicious' remark to Mr. +Langton, who, after having been for the first time in company with a +well-known wit about town, was warmly admiring and praising him, 'See +him again,' said Beauclerk. + +His respect for the Hierarchy, and particularly the Dignitaries of the +Church, has been more than once exhibited in the course of this +work[619]. Mr. Seward saw him presented to the Archbishop of York[620], +and described his _Bow to an ARCH-BISHOP_, as such a studied elaboration +of homage, such an extension of limb, such a flexion of body, as have +seldom or ever been equalled. + +I cannot help mentioning with much regret, that by my own negligence I +lost an opportunity of having the history of my family from its founder +Thomas Boswell, in 1504, recorded and illustrated by Johnson's pen. Such +was his goodness to me, that when I presumed to solicit him for so great +a favour, he was pleased to say, 'Let me have all the materials you can +collect, and I will do it both in Latin and English; then let it be +printed and copies of it be deposited in various places for security and +preservation.' I can now only do the best I can to make up for this +loss, keeping my great Master steadily in view. Family histories, like +the _imagines majorum_ of the Ancients, excite to virtue; and I wish +that they who really have blood, would be more careful to trace and +ascertain its course. Some have affected to laugh at the history of the +house of Yvery[621]: it would be well if many others would transmit +their pedigrees to posterity, with the same accuracy and generous zeal +with which the Noble Lord who compiled that work has honoured and +perpetuated his ancestry. + +On Thursday, April 10[622], I introduced to him, at his house in +Bolt-court, the Honourable and Reverend William Stuart, son of the Earl +of Bute; a gentleman truly worthy of being known to Johnson; being, with +all the advantages of high birth, learning, travel, and elegant manners, +an exemplary parish priest in every respect. + +After some compliments on both sides, the tour which Johnson and I had +made to the Hebrides was mentioned. JOHNSON. 'I got an acquisition of +more ideas by it than by any thing that I remember. I saw quite a +different system of life[623].' BOSWELL. 'You would not like to make the +same journey again?' JOHNSON. 'Why no, Sir; not the same: it is a tale +told. Gravina, an Italian critick, observes, that every man desires to +see that of which he has read; but no man desires to read an account of +what he has seen: so much does description fall short of reality. +Description only excites curiosity: seeing satisfies it. Other people +may go and see the Hebrides.' BOSWELL. 'I should wish to go and see some +country totally different from what I have been used to; such as Turkey, +where religion and every thing else are different.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; +there are two objects of curiosity,--the Christian world, and the +Mahometan world. All the rest may be considered as barbarous.' BOSWELL. +'Pray, Sir, is the _Turkish Spy_[624] a genuine book?' JOHNSON. 'No, +Sir. Mrs. Manley, in her _Life_, says that her father wrote the first +two volumes[625]: and in another book, _Dunton's Life and Errours_, we +find that the rest was written by one _Sault_, at two guineas a sheet, +under the direction of Dr. Midgeley[626]. + +BOSWELL. 'This has been a very factious reign, owing to the too great +indulgence of Government.' JOHNSON. 'I think so, Sir. What at first was +lenity, grew timidity[627]. Yet this is reasoning _à posteriori_, and +may not be just. Supposing a few had at first been punished, I believe +faction would have been crushed; but it might have been said, that it +was a sanguinary reign. A man cannot tell _à priori_ what will be best +for Government to do. This reign has been very unfortunate. We have had +an unsuccessful war; but that does not prove that we have been ill +governed. One side or other must prevail in war, as one or other must +win at play. When we beat Louis we were not better governed; nor were +the French better governed when Louis beat us.' + +On Saturday, April 12, I visited him, in company with Mr. Windham, of +Norfolk, whom, though a Whig, he highly valued. One of the best things +he ever said was to this gentleman; who, before he set out for Ireland +as Secretary to Lord Northington, when Lord Lieutenant, expressed to the +Sage some modest and virtuous doubts, whether he could bring himself to +practise those arts which it is supposed a person in that situation has +occasion to employ. 'Don't be afraid, Sir, (said Johnson, with a +pleasant smile,) you will soon make a very pretty rascal[628]. + +He talked to-day a good deal of the wonderful extent and variety of +London, and observed, that men of curious enquiry might see in it such +modes of life as very few could even imagine. He in particular +recommended to us to _explore Wapping_, which we resolved to do[629]. + +Mr. Lowe, the painter, who was with him, was very much distressed that a +large picture which he had painted was refused to be received into the +Exhibition of the Royal Academy. Mrs. Thrale knew Johnson's character so +superficially, as to represent him as unwilling to do small acts of +benevolence; and mentions in particular, that he would hardly take the +trouble to write a letter in favour of his friends[630]. The truth, +however, is, that he was remarkable, in an extraordinary degree, for +what she denies to him; and, above all, for this very sort of kindness, +writing letters for those to whom his solicitations might be of service. +He now gave Mr. Lowe the following, of which I was diligent enough, with +his permission, to take copies at the next coffee-house, while Mr. +Windham was so good as to stay by me. + +TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. + +'SIR, + +'Mr. Lowe considers himself as cut off from all credit and all hope, by +the rejection of his picture from the Exhibition. Upon this work he has +exhausted all his powers, and suspended all his expectations: and, +certainly, to be refused an opportunity of taking the opinion of the +publick, is in itself a very great hardship. It is to be condemned +without a trial. + +If you could procure the revocation of this incapacitating edict, you +would deliver an unhappy man from great affliction. The Council has +sometimes reversed its own determination; and I hope, that by your +interposition this luckless picture may be got admitted. I am, &c. + +SAM. JOHNSON. + +April 12, 1783. + +To MR. BARRY. + +SIR, + +Mr. Lowe's exclusion from the exhibition gives him more trouble than you +and the other gentlemen of the Council could imagine or intend. He +considers disgrace and ruin as the inevitable consequence of your +determination. + +He says, that some pictures have been received after rejection; and if +there be any such precedent, I earnestly entreat that you will use your +interest in his favour. Of his work I can say nothing; I pretend not to +judge of painting; and this picture I never saw: but I conceive it +extremely hard to shut out any man from the possibility of success; and +therefore I repeat my request that you will propose the re-consideration +of Mr. Lowe's case; and if there be any among the Council with whom my +name can have any weight, be pleased to communicate to them the desire +of, Sir, Your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON. April 12, 1783. + +Such intercession was too powerful to be resisted; and Mr. Lowe's +performance was admitted at Somerset Place[631]. The subject, as I +recollect, was the Deluge, at that point of time when the water was +verging to the top of the last uncovered mountain. Near to the spot was +seen the last of the antediluvian race, exclusive of those who were +saved in the ark of Noah. This was one of those giants, then the +inhabitants of the earth, who had still strength to swim, and with one +of his hands held aloft his infant child. Upon the small remaining dry +spot appeared a famished lion, ready to spring at the child and devour +it. Mr. Lowe told me that Johnson said to him, 'Sir, your picture is +noble and probable.' 'A compliment, indeed, (said Mr. Lowe,) from a man +who cannot lie, and cannot be mistaken.' + +About this time he wrote to Mrs. Lucy Porter, mentioning his bad health, +and that he intended a visit to Lichfield. 'It is, (says he,) with no +great expectation of amendment that I make every year a journey into the +country; but it is pleasant to visit those whose kindness has been often +experienced.' + +On April 18, (being Good-Friday,) I found him at breakfast, in his usual +manner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and eating a cross-bun +to prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement's church, as formerly. When +we came home from church, he placed himself on one of the stone-seats at +his garden-door, and I took the other, and thus in the open air and in a +placid frame of mind, he talked away very easily. JOHNSON. 'Were I a +country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have +crowds in my house[632].' BOSWELL. 'Sir Alexander Dick[633] tells me, +that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his +house: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined +there.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is about three a day.' BOSWELL. 'How your +statement lessens the idea.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is the good of +counting[634]. It brings every thing to a certainty, which before +floated in the mind indefinitely.' BOSWELL. 'But _Omne ignotum pro +magnifico est[635]: one is sorry to have this diminished.' JOHNSON. +'Sir, you should not allow yourself to be delighted with errour.' +BOSWELL. 'Three a day seem but few.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, he who +entertains three a day, does very liberally. And if there is a large +family, the poor entertain those three, for they eat what the poor would +get: there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, or +thrown out.' BOSWELL. 'I observe in London, that the poor go about and +gather bones, which I understand are manufactured.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; +they boil them, and extract a grease from them for greasing wheels and +other purposes. Of the best pieces they make a mock ivory, which is used +for hafts to knives, and various other things; the coarser pieces they +burn and pound, and sell the ashes.' BOSWELL. 'For what purpose, Sir?' +JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, for making a furnace for the chymists for melting +iron. A paste made of burnt bones will stand a stronger heat than any +thing else. Consider, Sir; if you are to melt iron, you cannot line your +pot with brass, because it is softer than iron, and would melt sooner; +nor with iron, for though malleable iron is harder than cast iron, yet +it would not do; but a paste of burnt-bones will not melt.' BOSWELL. 'Do +you know, Sir, I have discovered a manufacture to a great extent, of +what you only piddle at,--scraping and drying the peel of oranges[636]. +At a place in Newgate-street, there is a prodigious quantity prepared, +which they sell to the distillers.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I believe they make a +higher thing out of them than a spirit; they make what is called +orange-butter, the oil of the orange inspissated, which they mix perhaps +with common pomatum, and make it fragrant. The oil does not fly off in +the drying.' + +BOSWELL. 'I wish to have a good walled garden.' JOHNSON. 'I don't think +it would be worth the expence to you. We compute in England, a park wall +at a thousand pounds a mile; now a garden-wall must cost at least as +much. You intend your trees should grow higher than a deer will leap. +Now let us see; for a hundred pounds you could only have forty-four +square yards, which is very little; for two hundred pounds, you may have +eighty-four square yards[637], which is very well. But when will you get +the value of two hundred pounds of walls, in fruit, in your climate? No, +Sir, such contention with Nature is not worth while. I would plant an +orchard, and have plenty of such fruit as ripen well in your country. My +friend, Dr. Madden[638], of Ireland, said, that "in an orchard there +should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and +enough to rot upon the ground." Cherries are an early fruit, you may +have them; and you may have the early apples and pears.' BOSWELL. 'We +cannot have nonpareils.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you can no more have nonpareils +than you can have grapes.' BOSWELL. 'We have them, Sir; but they are +very bad.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, never try to have a thing merely to shew +that you _cannot_ have it. From ground that would let for forty +shillings you may have a large orchard; and you see it costs you only +forty shillings. Nay, you may graze the ground when the trees are grown +up; you cannot while they are young.' BOSWELL. 'Is not a good garden a +very common thing in England, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Not so common, Sir, as +you imagine[639]. In Lincolnshire there is hardly an orchard; in +Staffordshire very little fruit.' BOSWELL. 'Has Langton no orchard?' +JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'How so, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, from the +general negligence of the county. He has it not, because nobody else has +it.' BOSWELL. 'A hot-house is a certain thing; I may have that.' +JOHNSON. 'A hot-house is pretty certain; but you must first build it, +then you must keep fires in it, and you must have a gardener to take +care of it.' BOSWELL. 'But if I have a gardener at any rate?--' JOHNSON. +'Why, yes.' BOSWELL.' I'd have it near my house; there is no need to +have it in the orchard.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, I'd have it near my house. I +would plant a great many currants; the fruit is good, and they make a +pretty sweetmeat.' + +I record this minute detail, which some may think trifling, in order to +shew clearly how this great man, whose mind could grasp such large and +extensive subjects, as he has shewn in his literary labours, was yet +well-informed in the common affairs of life, and loved to +illustrate them. + +Mr. Walker, the celebrated master of elocution[640], came in, and then +we went up stairs into the study. I asked him if he had taught many +clergymen. JOHNSON. 'I hope not.' WALKER. 'I have taught only one, and +he is the best reader I ever heard, not by my teaching, but by his own +natural talents.' JOHNSON. 'Were he the best reader in the world, I +would not have it told that he was taught.' Here was one of his peculiar +prejudices. Could it be any disadvantage to the clergyman to have it +known that he was taught an easy and graceful delivery? BOSWELL. 'Will +you not allow, Sir, that a man may be taught to read well?' JOHNSON. +'Why, Sir, so far as to read better than he might do without being +taught, yes. Formerly it was supposed that there was no difference in +reading, but that one read as well as another.' BOSWELL. 'It is +wonderful to see old Sheridan as enthusiastick about oratory as +ever[641],' WALKER. 'His enthusiasm as to what oratory will do, may be +too great: but he reads well.' JOHNSON. 'He reads well, but he reads +low[642]; and you know it is much easier to read low than to read high; +for when you read high, you are much more limited, your loudest note can +be but one, and so the variety is less in proportion to the loudness. +Now some people have occasion to speak to an extensive audience, and +must speak loud to be heard.' WALKER. 'The art is to read strong, +though low.' + +Talking of the origin of language; JOHNSON. 'It must have come by +inspiration. A thousand, nay, a million of children could not invent a +language. While the organs are pliable, there is not understanding +enough to form a language; by the time that there is understanding +enough, the organs are become stiff. We know that after a certain age we +cannot learn to pronounce a new language. No foreigner, who comes to +England when advanced in life, ever pronounces English tolerably well; +at least such instances are very rare. When I maintain that language +must have come by inspiration, I do not mean that inspiration is +required for rhetorick, and all the beauties of language; for when once +man has language, we can conceive that he may gradually form +modifications of it. I mean only that inspiration seems to me to be +necessary to give man the faculty of speech; to inform him that he may +have speech; which I think he could no more find out without +inspiration, than cows or hogs would think of such a faculty.' WALKER. +'Do you think, Sir, that there are any perfect synonimes in any +language?' JOHNSON. 'Originally there were not; but by using words +negligently, or in poetry, one word comes to be confounded +with another.' + +He talked of Dr. Dodd[643]. 'A friend of mine, (said he,) came to me and +told me, that a lady wished to have Dr. Dodd's picture in a bracelet, +and asked me for a motto. I said, I could think of no better than +_Currat Lex_. I was very willing to have him pardoned, that is, to have +the sentence changed to transportation: but, when he was once hanged, I +did not wish he should be made a saint.' + +Mrs. Burney, wife of his friend Dr. Burney, came in, and he seemed to be +entertained with her conversation. + +Garrick's funeral was talked of as extravagantly expensive. Johnson, +from his dislike to exaggeration, would not allow that it was +distinguished by any extraordinary pomp. 'Were there not six horses to +each coach?' said Mrs. Burney. JOHNSON. 'Madam, there were no more six +horses than six phoenixes[644].' + +Mrs. Burney wondered that some very beautiful new buildings should be +erected in Moorfields, in so shocking a situation as between Bedlam and +St. Luke's Hospital; and said she could not live there. JOHNSON. 'Nay, +Madam, you see nothing there to hurt you. You no more think of madness +by having windows that look to Bedlam, than you think of death by having +windows that look to a church-yard.' MRS. BURNEY. 'We may look to a +church-yard, Sir; for it is right that we should be kept in mind of +death.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, if you go to that, it is right that we +should be kept in mind of madness, which is occasioned by too much +indulgence of imagination. I think a very moral use may be made of these +new buildings: I would have those who have heated imaginations live +there, and take warning.' MRS. BURNEY. 'But, Sir, many of the poor +people that are mad, have become so from disease, or from distressing +events. It is, therefore, not their fault, but their misfortune; and, +therefore, to think of them is a melancholy consideration.' + +Time passed on in conversation till it was too late for the service of +the church at three o'clock. I took a walk, and left him alone for some +time; then returned, and we had coffee and conversation again by +ourselves. + +I stated the character of a noble friend of mine, as a curious case for +his opinion:--'He is the most inexplicable man to me that I ever knew. +Can you explain him, Sir? He is, I really believe, noble-minded, +generous, and princely. But his most intimate friends may be separated +from him for years, without his ever asking a question concerning them. +He will meet them with a formality, a coldness, a stately indifference; +but when they come close to him, and fairly engage him in conversation, +they find him as easy, pleasant, and kind, as they could wish. One then +supposes that what is so agreeable will soon be renewed; but stay away +from him for half a year, and he will neither call on you, nor send to +inquire about you.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I cannot ascertain his character +exactly, as I do not know him; but I should not like to have such a man +for my friend. He may love study, and wish not to be interrupted by his +friends; _Amici fures temporis_. He may be a frivolous man, and be so +much occupied with petty pursuits, that he may not want friends. Or he +may have a notion that there is a dignity in appearing indifferent, +while he in fact may not be more indifferent at his heart than another.' + +We went to evening prayers at St. Clement's, at seven, and then parted. + +On Sunday, April 20, being Easter-day, after attending solemn service at +St. Paul's, I came to Dr. Johnson, and found Mr. Lowe, the painter, +sitting with him. Mr. Lowe mentioned the great number of new buildings +of late in London, yet that Dr. Johnson had observed, that the number of +inhabitants was not increased. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the bills of +mortality prove that no more people die now than formerly; so it is +plain no more live. The register of births proves nothing, for not one +tenth of the people of London are born there.' BOSWELL. 'I believe, Sir, +a great many of the children born in London die early.' JOHNSON. 'Why, +yes, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'But those who do live, are as stout and strong +people as any[645]: Dr. Price[646] says, they must be naturally stronger +to get through.' JOHNSON. 'That is system, Sir. A great traveller +observes, that it is said there are no weak or deformed people among the +Indians; but he with much sagacity assigns the reason of this, which is, +that the hardship of their life as hunters and fishers does not allow +weak or diseased children to grow up. Now had I been an Indian, I must +have died early; my eyes would not have served me to get food. I indeed +now could fish, give me English tackle; but had I been an Indian I must +have starved, or they would have knocked me on the head, when they saw I +could do nothing.' BOSWELL. 'Perhaps they would have taken care of you: +we are told they are fond of oratory, you would have talked to them.' +JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I should not have lived long enough to be fit to +talk; I should have been dead before I was ten years old. Depend upon +it, Sir, a savage, when he is hungry, will not carry about with him a +looby of nine years old, who cannot help himself. They have no +affection, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'I believe natural affection, of which we +hear so much, is very small.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, natural affection is +nothing: but affection from principle and established duty is sometimes +wonderfully strong.' LOWE. 'A hen, Sir, will feed her chickens in +preference to herself.' JOHNSON. 'But we don't know that the hen is +hungry; let the hen be fairly hungry, and I'll warrant she'll peck the +corn herself. A cock, I believe, will feed hens instead of himself; but +we don't know that the cock is hungry.' BOSWELL. 'And that, Sir, is not +from affection but gallantry. But some of the Indians have affection.' +JOHNSON. 'Sir, that they help some of their children is plain; for some +of them live, which they could not do without being helped.' + +I dined with him; the company were, Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Desmoulins, and +Mr. Lowe. He seemed not to be well, talked little, grew drowsy soon +after dinner, and retired, upon which I went away. + +Having next day gone to Mr. Burke's seat in the country, from whence I +was recalled by an express, that a near relation of mine had killed his +antagonist in a duel, and was himself dangerously wounded[647], I saw +little of Dr. Johnson till Monday, April 28, when I spent a considerable +part of the day with him, and introduced the subject, which then chiefly +occupied my mind. JOHNSON. 'I do not see, Sir, that fighting is +absolutely forbidden in Scripture; I see revenge forbidden, but not +self-defence.' BOSWELL. 'The Quakers say it is; "Unto him that smiteth +thee on one cheek, offer him also the other[648]."' JOHNSON. 'But stay, +Sir; the text is meant only to have the effect of moderating passion; it +is plain that we are not to take it in a literal sense. We see this from +the context, where there are other recommendations, which I warrant you +the Quaker will not take literally; as, for instance, "From him that +would borrow of thee, turn thou not away[649]." Let a man whose credit +is bad, come to a Quaker, and say, "Well, Sir, lend me a hundred +pounds;" he'll find him as unwilling as any other man. No, Sir, a man +may shoot the man who invades his character, as he may shoot him who +attempts to break into his house[650]. So in 1745, my friend, Tom +Cumming the Quaker[651], said, he would not fight, but he would drive an +ammunition cart; and we know that the Quakers have sent flannel +waistcoats to our soldiers, to enable them to fight better.' BOSWELL. +'When a man is the aggressor, and by ill-usage forces on a duel in which +he is killed, have we not little ground to hope that he is gone into a +state of happiness?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, we are not to judge determinately of +the state in which a man leaves this life. He may in a moment have +repented effectually, and it is possible may have been accepted by GOD. +There is in _Camden's Remains_, an epitaph upon a very wicked man, who +was killed by a fall from his horse, in which he is supposed to say, + + '"Between the stirrup and the ground, + I mercy ask'd, I mercy found[652]."' + +BOSWELL. 'Is not the expression in the Burial-service, "in the _sure_ +and _certain_ hope of a blessed resurrection[653]," too strong to be +used indiscriminately, and, indeed, sometimes when those over whose +bodies it is said, have been notoriously profane?' JOHNSON. 'It is sure +and certain _hope_, Sir; not _belief_.' I did not insist further; +but cannot help thinking that less positive words would be more +proper[654]. + +Talking of a man who was grown very fat, so as to be incommoded with +corpulency; he said, 'He eats too much, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'I don't know, +Sir; you will see one man fat who eats moderately, and another lean who +eats a great deal.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, whatever may be the quantity +that a man eats, it is plain that if he is too fat, he has eaten more +than he should have done. One man may have a digestion that consumes +food better than common; but it is certain that solidity is encreased by +putting something to it.' BOSWELL. 'But may not solids swell and be +distended?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, they may swell and be distended; but +that is not fat.' + +We talked of the accusation against a gentleman for supposed +delinquencies in India[655]. JOHNSON. 'What foundation there is for +accusation I know not, but they will not get at him. Where bad actions +are committed at so great a distance, a delinquent can obscure the +evidence till the scent becomes cold; there is a cloud between, which +cannot be penetrated: therefore all distant power is bad. I am clear +that the best plan for the government of India is a despotick governour; +for if he be a good man, it is evidently the best government; and +supposing him to be a bad man, it is better to have one plunderer than +many. A governour whose power is checked, lets others plunder, that he +himself may be allowed to plunder; but if despotick, he sees that the +more he lets others plunder, the less there will be for himself, so he +restrains them; and though he himself plunders, the country is a gainer, +compared with being plundered by numbers.' + +I mentioned the very liberal payment which had been received for +reviewing; and, as evidence of this, that it had been proved in a trial, +that Dr. Shebbeare[656] had received six guineas a sheet for that kind +of literary labour. JOHNSON, 'Sir, he might get six guineas for a +particular sheet, but not _communibus sheetibus_[657].' BOSWELL. 'Pray, +Sir, by a sheet of review is it meant that it shall be all of the +writer's own composition? or are extracts, made from the book reviewed, +deducted.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir: it is a sheet, no matter of what.' +BOSWELL. 'I think that it is not reasonable.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, it is. +A man will more easily write a sheet all his own, than read an octavo +volume to get extracts[658].' To one of Johnson's wonderful fertility of +mind I believe writing was really easier than reading and extracting; +but with ordinary men the case is very different. A great deal, indeed, +will depend upon the care and judgement with which the extracts are +made. I can suppose the operation to be tedious and difficult: but in +many instances we must observe crude morsels cut out of books as if at +random; and when a large extract is made from one place, it surely may +be done with very little trouble. One however, I must acknowledge, might +be led, from the practice of reviewers, to suppose that they take a +pleasure in original writing; for we often find, that instead of giving +an accurate account of what has been done by the authour whose work +they are reviewing, which is surely the proper business of a literary +journal, they produce some plausible and ingenious conceits of their +own, upon the topicks which have been discussed[659]. + +Upon being told that old Mr. Sheridan, indignant at the neglect of his +oratorical plans, had threatened to go to America; JOHNSON. 'I hope he +will go to America.' BOSWELL. 'The Americans don't want oratory.' +JOHNSON. 'But we can want Sheridan[660].' + +On Monday[661], April 29, I found him at home in the forenoon, and Mr. +Seward with him. Horace having been mentioned; BOSWELL. 'There is a +great deal of thinking in his works. One finds there almost every thing +but religion.' SEWARD. 'He speaks of his returning to it, in his Ode +_Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens_[662] JOHNSON. 'Sir, he was not in +earnest: this was merely poetical.' BOSWELL. 'There are, I am afraid, +many people who have no religion at all.' SEWARD. 'And sensible people +too.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, not sensible in that respect. There must be +either a natural or a moral stupidity, if one lives in a total neglect +of so very important a concern.' SEWARD. 'I wonder that there should be +people without religion.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you need not wonder at this, +when you consider how large a proportion of almost every man's life is +passed without thinking of it. I myself was for some years totally +regardless of religion. It had dropped out of my mind. It was at an +early part of my life. Sickness brought it back, and I hope I have never +lost it since[663].' BOSWELL. 'My dear Sir, what a man must you have +been without religion! Why you must have gone on drinking, and +swearing, and--[664]' JOHNSON. (with a smile) 'I drank enough and swore +enough, to be sure.' SEWARD. 'One should think that sickness and the +view of death would make more men religious.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, they do not +know how to go about it: they have not the first notion. A man who has +never had religion before, no more grows religious when he is sick, than +a man who has never learnt figures can count when he has need of +calculation.' + +I mentioned a worthy friend of ours[665] whom we valued much, but +observed that he was too ready to introduce religious discourse upon all +occasions. JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, Sir, he will introduce religious +discourse without seeing whether it will end in instruction and +improvement, or produce some profane jest. He would introduce it in the +company of Wilkes, and twenty more such.' + +I mentioned Dr. Johnson's excellent distinction between liberty of +conscience and liberty of teaching[666]. JOHNSON. 'Consider, Sir; if you +have children whom you wish to educate in the principles of the Church +of England, and there comes a Quaker who tries to pervert them to his +principles, you would drive away the Quaker. You would not trust to the +predomination of right, which you believe is in your opinions; you would +keep wrong out of their heads. Now the vulgar are the children of the +State. If any one attempts to teach them doctrines contrary to what the +State approves, the magistrate may and ought to restrain him.' SEWARD. +'Would you restrain private conversation, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it +is difficult to say where private conversation begins, and where it +ends. If we three should discuss even the great question concerning the +existence of a Supreme Being by ourselves, we should not be restrained; +for that would be to put an end to all improvement. But if we should +discuss it in the presence of ten boarding-school girls, and as many +boys, I think the magistrate would do well to put us in the stocks, to +finish the debate there.' + +Lord Hailes had sent him a present of a curious little printed poem, on +repairing the University of Aberdeen, by David Malloch, which he +thought would please Johnson, as affording clear evidence that Mallet +had appeared even as a literary character by the name of _Malloch_; his +changing which to one of softer sound, had given Johnson occasion to +introduce him into his _Dictionary_, under the article _Alias_[667]. +This piece was, I suppose, one of Mallet's first essays. It is preserved +in his works, with several variations. Johnson having read aloud, from +the beginning of it, where there were some common-place assertions as to +the superiority of ancient times;--'How false (said he) is all this, to +say that in ancient times learning was not a disgrace to a Peer as it is +now. In ancient times a Peer was as ignorant as any one else. He would +have been angry to have it thought he could write his name[668]. Men in +ancient times dared to stand forth with a degree of ignorance with which +nobody would dare now to stand forth. I am always angry when I hear +ancient times praised at the expence of modern times. There is now a +great deal more learning in the world than there was formerly; for it is +universally diffused. You have, perhaps, no man who knows as much Greek +and Latin as Bentley[669]; no man who knows as much mathematicks as +Newton: but you have many more men who know Greek and Latin, and who +know mathematicks[670].' + +On Thursday, May 1, I visited him in the evening along with young Mr. +Burke. He said, 'It is strange that there should be so little reading in +the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, +if they can have any thing else to amuse them[671]. There must be an +external impulse; emulation, or vanity, or avarice. The progress which +the understanding makes through a book, has more pain than pleasure in +it. Language is scanty, and inadequate to express the nice gradations +and mixtures of our feelings. No man reads a book of science from pure +inclination. The books that we do read with pleasure are light +compositions, which contain a quick succession of events. However, I +have this year read all Virgil through[672]. I read a book of the +_Aeneid_ every night, so it was done in twelve nights, and I had great +delight in it. The _Georgicks_ did not give me so much pleasure, except +the fourth book. The _Eclogues_ I have almost all by heart. I do not +think the story of the _Aeneid_ interesting. I like the story of the +_Odyssey_ much better[673]; and this not on account of the wonderful +things which it contains; for there are wonderful things enough in the +_Aeneid_;--the ships of the Trojans turned to sea-nymphs,--the tree at +Polydorus's tomb dropping blood. The story of the _Odyssey_ is +interesting, as a great part of it is domestick. It has been said, there +is pleasure in writing, particularly in writing verses. I allow you may +have pleasure from writing, after it is over, if you have written well; +but you don't go willingly to it again[674]. I know when I have been +writing verses, I have run my finger down the margin, to see how many I +had made, and how few I had to make[675].' + +He seemed to be in a very placid humour, and although I have no note of +the particulars of young Mr. Burke's conversation, it is but justice to +mention in general, that it was such that Dr. Johnson said to me +afterwards, 'He did very well indeed; I have a mind to tell his +father[676].' + +'TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'The gentleman who waits on you with this, is Mr. Cruikshanks[677], who +wishes to succeed his friend Dr. Hunter[678] as Professor of Anatomy in +the Royal Academy. His qualifications are very generally known, and it +adds dignity to the institution that such men[679] are candidates. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'May 2[680], 1783.' + +I have no minute of any interview with Johnson till Thursday, May 15, +when I find what follows:--BOSWELL. 'I wish much to be in Parliament, +Sir[681].' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, unless you come resolved to support any +administration, you would be the worse for being in Parliament, because +you would be obliged to live more expensively.' BOSWELL. 'Perhaps, Sir, +I should be the less happy for being in Parliament. I never would sell +my vote, and I should be vexed if things went wrong.' JOHNSON. 'That's +cant, Sir. It would not vex you more in the house, than in the gallery: +publick affairs vex no man.' BOSWELL. 'Have not they vexed yourself a +little, Sir? Have not you been vexed by all the turbulence of this +reign, and by that absurd vote of the House of Commons, "That the +influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be +diminished[682]?"' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I have never slept an hour less, nor +eat an ounce less meat[683]. I would have knocked the factious dogs on +the head, to be sure; but I was not _vexed_.' BOSWELL. 'I declare, Sir, +upon my honour, I did imagine I was vexed, and took a pride in it; but +it _was_, perhaps, cant; for I own I neither ate less, nor slept less.' +JOHNSON. 'My dear friend, clear your _mind_ of cant[684]. You may _talk_ +as other people do: you may say to a man, "Sir, I am your most humble +servant." You are not his most humble servant. You may say, "These are +bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times." You +don't mind the times. You tell a man, "I am sorry you had such bad +weather the last day of your journey, and were so much wet." You don't +care six-pence whether he is wet or dry. You may _talk_ in this manner; +it is a mode of talking in Society[685]; but don't _think_ +foolishly[686].' + +I talked of living in the country. JOHNSON. 'Don't set up for what is +called hospitality; it is a waste of time, and a waste of money; you are +eaten up, and not the more respected for your liberality. If your house +be like an inn, nobody cares for you. A man who stays a week with +another, makes him a slave for a week.'[687] BOSWELL. 'But there are +people, Sir, who make their houses a home to their guests, and are +themselves quite easy.' JOHNSON. 'Then, Sir, home must be the same to +the guests, and they need not come.' + +Here he discovered a notion common enough in persons not much accustomed +to entertain company, that there must be a degree of elaborate +attention, otherwise company will think themselves neglected; and such +attention is no doubt very fatiguing.[688] He proceeded: 'I would not, +however, be a stranger in my own county; I would visit my neighbours, +and receive their visits; but I would not be in haste to return visits. +If a gentleman comes to see me, I tell him he does me a great deal of +honour. I do not go to see him perhaps for ten weeks; then we are very +complaisant to each other. No, Sir, you will have much more influence by +giving or lending money where it is wanted, than by hospitality[689].' + +On Saturday, May 17, I saw him for a short time. Having mentioned that I +had that morning been with old Mr. Sheridan, he remembered their former +intimacy with a cordial warmth, and said to me, 'Tell Mr. Sheridan, I +shall be glad to see him, and shake hands with him[690].' BOSWELL. 'It +is to me very wonderful that resentment should be kept up so long.' +JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is not altogether resentment that he does not +visit me; it is partly falling out of the habit,--partly disgust, as one +has at a drug that has made him sick. Besides, he knows that I laugh at +his oratory[691].' + +Another day I spoke of one of our friends, of whom he, as well as I, +had a very high opinion. He expatiated in his praise; but added, 'Sir, +he is a cursed Whig, a _bottomless_ Whig, as they all are now[692].' + +I mentioned my expectations from the interest of an eminent person[693] +then in power; adding, 'but I have no claim but the claim of friendship; +however, some people will go a great way from that motive.' JOHNSON. +'Sir, they will go all the way from that motive.' A gentleman talked of +retiring. 'Never think of that,' said Johnson. The gentleman urged, 'I +should then do no ill.' JOHNSON. Nor no good either. Sir, it would be a +civil suicide[694].' + +On Monday, May 26, I found him at tea, and the celebrated Miss Burney, +the authour of _Evelina_[695] and _Cecilia_, with him. I asked if there +would be any speakers in Parliament, if there were no places to be +obtained. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. Why do you speak here? Either to instruct +and entertain, which is a benevolent motive; or for distinction, which +is a selfish motive.' I mentioned _Cecilia_. JOHNSON. (with an air of +animated satisfaction) 'Sir, if you talk of _Cecilia_, talk on[696].' + +We talked of Mr. Barry's exhibition of his pictures. JOHNSON. 'Whatever +the hand may have done, the mind has done its part. There is a grasp of +mind there which you find nowhere else[697].' + +I asked whether a man naturally virtuous, or one who has overcome wicked +inclinations, is the best. JOHNSON. 'Sir, to _you_, the man who has +overcome wicked inclinations is not the best. He has more merit to +_himself_: I would rather trust my money to a man who has no hands, and +so a physical impossibility to steal, than to a man of the most honest +principles. There is a witty satirical story of Foote. He had a small +bust of Garrick placed upon his bureau, "You may be surprized (said he) +that I allow him to be so near my gold;--but you will observe he has +no hands."' + +On Friday, May 29[698], being to set out for Scotland next morning, I +passed a part of the day with him in more than usual earnestness; as his +health was in a more precarious state than at any time when I had parted +from him. He, however, was quick and lively, and critical as usual. I +mentioned one who was a very learned man. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, he has a +great deal of learning; but it never lies straight. There is never one +idea by the side of another; 'tis all entangled: and then he drives it +so aukwardly upon conversation.' + +I stated to him an anxious thought, by which a sincere Christian might +be disturbed, even when conscious of having lived a good life, so far as +is consistent with human infirmity; he might fear that he should +afterwards fall away, and be guilty of such crimes as would render all +his former religion vain. Could there be, upon this aweful subject, such +a thing as balancing of accounts? Suppose a man who has led a good life +for seven years, commits an act of wickedness, and instantly dies; will +his former good life have any effect in his favour? JOHNSON. 'Sir, if a +man has led a good life for seven years, and then is hurried by passion +to do what is wrong, and is suddenly carried off, depend upon it he will +have the reward of his seven years' good life; GOD will not take a catch +of him. Upon this principle Richard Baxter believes that a Suicide may +be saved. "If, (says he) it should be objected that what I maintain may +encourage suicide, I answer, I am not to tell a lie to prevent it."' +BOSWELL. 'But does not the text say, "As the tree falls, so it must +lie[699]?"' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; as the tree falls: but,--(after a +little pause)--that is meant as to the general state of the tree, not +what is the effect of a sudden blast.' In short, he interpreted the +expression as referring to condition, not to position. The common +notion, therefore, seems to be erroneous; and Shenstone's witty remark +on Divines trying to give the tree a jerk upon a death-bed, to make it +lie favourably, is not well founded[700]. + +I asked him what works of Richard Baxter's I should read. He said, 'Read +any of them; they are all good[701].' + +He said, 'Get as much force of mind as you can. Live within your income. +Always have something saved at the end of the year. Let your imports be +more than your exports, and you'll never go far wrong.' + +I assured him, that in the extensive and various range of his +acquaintance there never had been any one who had a more sincere respect +and affection for him than I had. He said, 'I believe it, Sir. Were I in +distress, there is no man to whom I should sooner come than to you. I +should like to come and have a cottage in your park, toddle about, live +mostly on milk, and be taken care of by Mrs. Boswell. She and I are good +friends now; are we not?' + +Talking of devotion, he said, 'Though it be true that "GOD dwelleth not +in temples made with hands[702]," yet in this state of being, our minds +are more piously affected in places appropriated to divine worship, than +in others. Some people have a particular room in their house, where they +say their prayers; of which I do not disapprove, as it may animate their +devotion.' + +He embraced me, and gave me his blessing, as usual when I was leaving +him for any length of time. I walked from his door to-day, with a +fearful apprehension of what might happen before I returned. + +'To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM WINDHAM. + +Sir, The bringer of this letter is the father of Miss Philips[703], a +singer, who comes to try her voice on the stage at Dublin. + +Mr. Philips is one of my old friends; and as I am of opinion that +neither he nor his daughter will do any thing that can disgrace their +benefactors, I take the liberty of entreating you to countenance and +protect them so far as may be suitable to your station[704] and +character; and shall consider myself as obliged by any favourable notice +which they shall have the honour of receiving from you. + +I am, Sir, Your most humble servant, + +SAM JOHNSON. London, May 31, 1783.' + +The following is another instance of his active benevolence:-- + +'To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. + +DEAR SIR, I have sent you some of my god-son's[705] performances, of +which I do not pretend to form any opinion. When I took the liberty of +mentioning him to you, I did not know what I have since been told, that +Mr. Moser[706] had admitted him among the Students of the Academy. What +more can be done for him I earnestly entreat you to consider; for I am +very desirous that he should derive some advantage from my connection +with him. If you are inclined to see him, I will bring him to wait on +you, at any time that you shall be pleased to appoint. + +I am, Sir, Your most humble servant, + +SAM. JOHNSON. June 2, 1783.' + +My anxious apprehensions at parting with him this year proved to be but +too well founded; for not long afterwards he had a dreadful stroke of +the palsy, of which there are very full and accurate accounts in +letters written by himself, to shew with what composure of mind, and +resignation to the Divine Will, his steady piety enabled him to behave. + +'TO MR. EDMUND ALLEN[707]. + +DEAR SIR, It has pleased GOD, this morning, to deprive me of the powers +of speech; and as I do not know but that it may be his further good +pleasure to deprive me soon of my senses, I request you will on the +receipt of this note, come to me, and act for me, as the exigencies of +my case may require. + +I am, Sincerely yours, + +SAM. JOHNSON. June 17, 1783.' + +'TO THE REVEREND DR. JOHN TAYLOR. + +'DEAR SIR, It has pleased GOD, by a Paralytick stroke in the night, to +deprive me of speech. + +I am very desirous of Dr. Heberden's[708] assistance, as I think my case +is not past remedy. Let me see you as soon as it is possible. Bring Dr. +Heberden with you, if you can; but come yourself at all events. I am +glad you are so well, when I am so dreadfully attacked. + +I think that by a speedy application of stimulants much may be done. I +question if a vomit, vigorous and rough, would not rouse the organs of +speech to action. As it is too early to send, I will try to recollect +what I can, that can be suspected to have brought on this +dreadful distress. + +I have been accustomed to bleed frequently for an asthmatick complaint; +but have forborne for some time by Dr. Pepys's persuasion, who +perceived my legs beginning to swell. I sometimes alleviate a painful, +or more properly an oppressive, constriction of my chest, by opiates; +and have lately taken opium frequently, but the last, or two last times, +in smaller quantities. My largest dose is three grains, and last night I +took but two[709]. You will suggest these things (and they are all that +I can call to mind) to Dr. Heberden. + +I am, &c. SAM. JOHNSON[710]. June 17, 1783.' + +Two days after he wrote thus to Mrs. Thrale[711]:-- + +'On Monday, the 16th, I sat for my picture[712], and walked a +considerable way with little inconvenience. In the afternoon and evening +I felt myself light and easy, and began to plan schemes of life. Thus I +went to bed, and in a short time waked and sat up, as has been long my +custom, when I felt a confusion and indistinctness in my head, which +lasted, I suppose, about half a minute. I was alarmed, and prayed God, +that however he might afflict my body, he would spare my understanding. +This prayer, that I might try the integrity of my faculties, I made in +Latin verse[713]. The lines were not very good, but I knew them not to +be very good: I made them easily, and concluded myself to be unimpaired +in my faculties. + +Soon after I perceived that I had suffered a paralytick stroke, and that +my speech was taken from me. I had no pain, and so little dejection in +this dreadful state, that I wondered at my own apathy, and considered +that perhaps death itself, when it should come, would excite less +horrour than seems now to attend it. + +In order to rouse the vocal organs, I took two drams. Wine has been +celebrated for the production of eloquence. I put myself into violent +motion, and I think repeated it; but all was vain. I then went to bed, +and strange as it may seem, I think slept. When I saw light, it was time +to contrive what I should do. Though God stopped my speech, he left me +my hand; I enjoyed a mercy which was not granted to my dear friend +Lawrence[714], who now perhaps overlooks me as I am writing, and +rejoices that I have what he wanted. My first note was necessarily to my +servant, who came in talking, and could not immediately comprehend why +he should read what I put into his hands. + +I then wrote a card to Mr. Allen, that I might have a discreet friend at +hand, to act as occasion should require. In penning this note, I had +some difficulty; my hand, I knew not how nor why, made wrong letters. I +then wrote to Dr. Taylor to come to me, and bring Dr. Heberden; and I +sent to Dr. Brocklesby, who is my neighbour. My physicians are very +friendly, and give me great hopes; but you may imagine my situation. I +have so far recovered my vocal powers, as to repeat the Lord's Prayer +with no very imperfect articulation. My memory, I hope, yet remains as +it was; but such an attack produces solicitude for the safety of +every faculty.' + +'To MR. THOMAS DAVIES. + +'DEAR SIR, I have had, indeed, a very heavy blow; but GOD, who yet +spares my life, I humbly hope will spare my understanding, and restore +my speech. As I am not at all helpless, I want no particular assistance, +but am strongly affected by Mrs. Davies's tenderness; and when I think +she can do me good, shall be very glad to call upon her. I had ordered +friends to be shut out; but one or two have found the way in; and if you +come you shall be admitted: for I know not whom I can see, that will +bring more amusement on his tongue, or more kindness in his heart. I +am, &c. + +SAM. JOHNSON. June 18, 1783.' + +It gives me great pleasure to preserve such a memorial of Johnson's +regard for Mr. Davies, to whom I was indebted for my introduction to +him[715]. He indeed loved Davies cordially, of which I shall give the +following little evidence. One day when he had treated him with too much +asperity. Tom, who was not without pride and spirit, went off in a +passion; but he had hardly reached home, when Frank, who had been sent +after him, delivered this note:--'Come, come, dear Davies, I am always +sorry when we quarrel; send me word that we are friends.' + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +DEAR SIR, Your anxiety about my health is very friendly, and very +agreeable with your general kindness. I have, indeed, had a very +frightful blow. On the 17th of last month, about three in the morning, +as near as I can guess, I perceived myself almost totally deprived of +speech. I had no pain. My organs were so obstructed, that I could say +_no_, but could scarcely say _yes_. I wrote the necessary directions, +for it pleased GOD to spare my hand, and sent for Dr. Heberden and Dr. +Brocklesby. Between the time in which I discovered my own disorder, and +that in which I sent for the doctors, I had, I believe, in spite of my +surprize and solicitude, a little sleep, and Nature began to renew its +operations. They came, and gave the directions which the disease +required, and from that time I have been continually improving in +articulation. I can now speak, but the nerves are weak, and I cannot +continue discourse long; but strength, I hope, will return. The +physicians consider me as cured. I was last Sunday at church. On Tuesday +I took an airing to Hampstead, and dined with THE CLUB[716], where Lord +Palmerston was proposed, and, against my opinion, was rejected[717]. I +designed to go next week with Mr. Langton to Rochester, where I purpose +to stay about ten days, and then try some other air. I have many kind +invitations. Your brother has very frequently enquired after me. Most of +my friends have, indeed, been very attentive[718]. Thank dear Lord +Hailes for his present. + +I hope you found at your return every thing gay and prosperous, and your +lady, in particular, quite recovered and confirmed. Pay her my respects. + +I am, dear Sir, Your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON. London, July 3, +1783.' + +'To MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. + +DEAR MADAM, The account which you give of your health is but melancholy. +May it please GOD to restore you. My disease affected my speech, and +still continues, in some degree, to obstruct my utterance; my voice is +distinct enough for a while; but the organs being still weak are quickly +weary: but in other respects I am, I think, rather better than I have +lately been; and can let you know my state without the help of any +other hand. + +In the opinion of my friends, and in my own, I am gradually mending. The +Physicians consider me as cured; and I had leave, four days ago, to wash +the cantharides from my head. Last Tuesday I dined at THE CLUB. + +I am going next week into Kent, and purpose to change the air frequently +this summer; whether I shall wander so far as Staffordshire I cannot +tell. I should be glad to come. Return my thanks to Mrs. Cobb, and Mr. +Pearson, and all that have shewn attention to me. + +Let us, my dear, pray for one another, and consider our sufferings as +notices mercifully given us to prepare ourselves for another state. + +I live now but in a melancholy way. My old friend Mr. Levett is dead, +who lived with me in the house, and was useful and companionable; Mrs. +Desmoulins is gone away[719]; and Mrs. Williams is so much decayed, that +she can add little to another's gratifications. The world passes away, +and we are passing with it; but there is, doubtless, another world, +which will endure for ever. Let us all fit ourselves for it. + +I am, &c., SAM. JOHNSON. London, July 5, 1783.' + +Such was the general vigour of his constitution, that he recovered from +this alarming and severe attack with wonderful quickness; so that in +July he was able to make a visit to Mr. Langton at Rochester[720], where +he passed about a fortnight, and made little excursions as easily as at +any time of his life[721]. In August he went as far as the neighbourhood +of Salisbury, to Heale[722], the seat of William Bowles, Esq[723]., a +gentleman whom I have heard him praise for exemplary religious order in +his family. In his diary I find a short but honourable mention of this +visit: 'August 28, I came to Heale without fatigue. 30. I am entertained +quite to my mind.' + +'To DR. BROCKLESBY. Heale, near Salisbury, Aug. 29, 1783. + +DEAR SIR, Without appearing to want a just sense of your kind attention, +I cannot omit to give an account of the day which seemed to appear in +some sort perilous. I rose at five and went out at six, and having +reached Salisbury about nine[724], went forward a few miles in my +friend's chariot. I was no more wearied with the journey, though it was +a high-hung, rough coach, than I should have been forty years ago. We +shall now see what air will do. The country is all a plain; and the +house in which I am, so far as I can judge from my window, for I write +before I have left my chamber, is sufficiently pleasant. + +Be so kind as to continue your attention to Mrs. Williams; it is great +consolation to the well, and still greater to the sick, that they find +themselves not neglected; and I know that you will be desirous of giving +comfort even where you have no great hope of giving help. + +Since I wrote the former part of the letter, I find that by the course +of the post I cannot send it before the thirty-first. + +I am, &c. SAM. JOHNSON.' + +While he was here he had a letter from Dr. Brocklesby, acquainting him +of the death of Mrs. Williams, which affected him a good deal[725]. +Though for several years her temper had not been complacent, she had +valuable qualities, and her departure left a blank in his house[726]. +Upon this occasion he, according to his habitual course of piety, +composed a prayer[727]. + +I shall here insert a few particulars concerning him, with which I have +been favoured by one of his friends[728]. + +'He had once conceived the design of writing the Life of Oliver +Cromwell[729], saying, that he thought it must be highly curious to +trace his extraordinary rise to the supreme power, from so obscure a +beginning. He at length laid aside his scheme, on discovering that all +that can be told of him is already in print; and that it is +impracticable to procure any authentick information in addition to what +the world is already possessed of[730].' + +'He had likewise projected, but at what part of his life is not known, a +work to shew how small a quantity of REAL FICTION there is in the world; +and that the same images, with very little variation, have served all +the authours who have ever written[731].' + +'His thoughts in the latter part of his life were frequently employed on +his deceased friends. He often muttered these, or such like sentences: +"Poor man! and then he died."' + +'Speaking of a certain literary friend, "He is a very pompous puzzling +fellow, (said he); he lent me a letter once that somebody had written to +him, no matter what it was about; but he wanted to have the letter back, +and expressed a mighty value for it; he hoped it was to be met with +again, he would not lose it for a thousand pounds. I layed my hand upon +it soon afterwards, and gave it him. I believe I said, I was very glad +to have met with it. O, then he did not know that it signified any +thing. So you see, when the letter was lost it was worth a thousand +pounds, and when it was found it was not worth a farthing."' + +'The style and character of his conversation is pretty generally known; +it was certainly conducted in conformity with a precept of Lord Bacon, +but it is not clear, I apprehend, that this conformity was either +perceived or intended by Johnson. The precept alluded to is as follows: +"In all kinds of speech, either pleasant, grave, severe, or ordinary, it +is convenient to speak leisurely, and rather drawingly than hastily: +because hasty speech confounds the memory, and oftentimes, besides the +unseemliness, drives the man either to stammering, a non-plus, or +harping on that which should follow; whereas a slow speech confirmeth +the memory, addeth a conceit of wisdom to the hearers, besides a +seemliness of speech and countenance[732]." Dr. Johnson's method of +conversation was certainly calculated to excite attention, and to amuse +and instruct, (as it happened,) without wearying or confusing his +company. He was always most perfectly clear and perspicuous; and his +language was so accurate, and his sentences so neatly constructed, that +his conversation might have been all printed without any correction. At +the same time, it was easy and natural; the accuracy of it had no +appearance of labour, constraint, or stiffness; he seemed more correct +than others, by the force of habit, and the customary exercises of his +powerful mind[733].' + +'He spoke often in praise of French literature. "The French are +excellent in this, (he would say,) they have a book on every +subject[734]." From what he had seen of them he denied them the praise +of superiour politeness[735], and mentioned, with very visible disgust, +the custom they have of spitting on the floors of their apartments. +"This, (said the Doctor) is as gross a thing as can well be done; and +one wonders how any man, or set of men, can persist in so offensive a +practice for a whole day together; one should expect that the first +effort towards civilization would remove it even among savages[736]."' + +'Baxter's _Reasons of the Christian Religion_, he thought contained the +best collection of the evidences of the divinity of the +Christian system.' + +'Chymistry[737] was always an interesting pursuit with Dr. Johnson. +Whilst he was in Wiltshire, he attended some experiments that were made +by a physician at Salisbury, on the new kinds of air[738]. In the +course of the experiments frequent mention being made of Dr. Priestley, +Dr. Johnson knit his brows, and in a stern manner enquired, "Why do we +hear so much of Dr. Priestley[739]?" He was very properly answered, +"Sir, because we are indebted to him for these important discoveries." +On this Dr. Johnson appeared well content; and replied, "Well, well, I +believe we are; and let every man have the honour he has merited."' + +'A friend was one day, about two years before his death, struck with +some instance of Dr. Johnson's great candour. "Well, Sir, (said he,) I +will always say that you are a very candid man." "Will you," (replied the +Doctor,) I doubt then you will be very singular. But, indeed, Sir, +(continued he,) I look upon myself to be a man very much misunderstood. +I am not an uncandid, nor am I a severe man. I sometimes say more than I +mean, in jest; and people are apt to believe me serious: however, I am +more candid than I was when I was younger. As I know more of mankind I +expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a _good man_, upon +easier terms than I was formerly[740].' + +On his return from Heale he wrote to Dr. Burney:-- + +'I came home on the 18th[741] at noon to a very disconsolate house. You +and I have lost our friends[742]; but you have more friends at home. My +domestick companion is taken from me. She is much missed, for her +acquisitions were many, and her curiosity universal; so that she partook +of every conversation[743]. I am not well enough to go much out; and to +sit, and eat, or fast alone, is very wearisome. I always mean to send my +compliments to all the ladies.' + +His fortitude and patience met with severe trials during this year. The +stroke of the palsy has been related circumstantially; but he was also +afflicted with the gout, and was besides troubled with a complaint which +not only was attended with immediate inconvenience, but threatened him +with a chirurgical operation, from which most men would shrink. The +complaint was a _sarcocele_, which Johnson bore with uncommon firmness, +and was not at all frightened while he looked forward to amputation. He +was attended by Mr. Pott and Mr. Cruikshank. I have before me a letter +of the 30th of July this year, to Mr. Cruikshank, in which he says, 'I +am going to put myself into your hands;' and another, accompanying a set +of his _Lives of the Poets_, in which he says, 'I beg your acceptance of +these volumes, as an acknowledgement of the great favours which you have +bestowed on, Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant.' I have in +my possession several more letters from him to Mr. Cruikshank, and also +to Dr. Mudge at Plymouth, which it would be improper to insert, as they +are filled with unpleasing technical details. I shall, however, extract +from his letters to Dr. Mudge such passages as shew either a felicity of +expression, or the undaunted state of his mind. + +'My conviction of your skill, and my belief of your friendship, +determine me to intreat your opinion and advice.'--'In this state I with +great earnestness desire you to tell me what is to be done. Excision is +doubtless necessary to the cure, and I know not any means of palliation. +The operation is doubtless painful; but is it dangerous? The pain I hope +to endure with decency[744]; but I am loth to put life into much +hazard.'--'By representing the gout as an antagonist to the palsy, you +have said enough to make it welcome. This is not strictly the first fit, +but I hope it is as good as the first; for it is the second that ever +confined me; and the first was ten years ago[745], much less fierce and +fiery than this.'--'Write, dear Sir, what you can to inform or encourage +me. The operation is not delayed by any fears or objections of mine.' + +To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. 'Dear Sir, You may very reasonably charge me +with insensibility of your kindness, and that of Lady Rothes, since I +have suffered so much time to pass without paying any acknowledgement. I +now, at last, return my thanks; and why I did it not sooner I ought to +tell you. I went into Wiltshire as soon as I well could, and was there +much employed in palliating my own malady. Disease produces much +selfishness. A man in pain is looking after ease; and lets most other +things go as chance shall dispose of them. In the mean time I have lost +a companion[746], to whom I have had recourse for domestick amusement +for thirty years, and whose variety of knowledge never was exhausted; +and now return to a habitation vacant and desolate. I carry about a very +troublesome and dangerous complaint, which admits no cure but by the +chirurgical knife. Let me have your prayers. I am, &c. + +SAM. JOHNSON. London, Sept. 29, 1783.' + +Happily the complaint abated without his being put to the torture of +amputation. But we must surely admire the manly resolution which he +discovered while it hung over him. + +In a letter to the same gentleman he writes, 'The gout has within these +four days come upon me with a violence which I never experienced before. +It made me helpless as an infant.' And in another, having mentioned Mrs. +Williams, he says,--'whose death following that of Levett, has now made +my house a solitude. She left her little substance to a charity-school. +She is, I hope, where there is neither darkness, nor want, nor sorrow.' + +I wrote to him, begging to know the state of his health, and mentioned +that Baxter's _Anacreon_[747], 'which is in the library at Auchinleck, +was, I find, collated by my father in 1727, with the MS. belonging to +the University of Leyden, and he has made a number of Notes upon it. +Would you advise me to publish a new edition of it?' + +His answer was dated September 30:-- + +'You should not make your letters such rarities, when you know, or might +know, the uniform state of my health. It is very long since I heard from +you; and that I have not answered is a very insufficient reason for the +silence of a friend. Your _Anacreon_ is a very uncommon book; neither +London nor Cambridge can supply a copy of that edition. Whether it +should be reprinted, you cannot do better than consult Lord +Hailes.--Besides my constant and radical disease, I have been for these +ten days much harassed with the gout; but that has now remitted. I hope +GOD will yet grant me a little longer life, and make me less unfit to +appear before him.' + +He this autumn received a visit from the celebrated Mrs. Siddons. He +gives this account of it in one of his letters[748] to Mrs. Thrale:-- + +'Mrs. Siddons, in her visit to me, behaved with great modesty and +propriety, and left nothing behind her to be censured or despised. +Neither praise nor money, the two powerful corrupters of mankind, seem +to have depraved her. I shall be glad to see her again. Her brother +Kemble calls on me, and pleases me very well. Mrs. Siddons and I talked +of plays; and she told me her intention of exhibiting this winter the +characters of Constance, Catharine, and Isabella, in Shakspeare.' + +Mr. Kemble has favoured me with the following minute of what passed at +this visit:-- + +'When Mrs. Siddons came into the room, there happened to be no chair +ready for her, which he observing, said with a smile, "Madam, you who so +often occasion a want of seats to other people, will the more easily +excuse the want of one yourself[749]." + +Having placed himself by her, he with great good-humour entered upon a +consideration of the English drama; and, among other inquiries, +particularly asked her which of Shakspeare's characters she was most +pleased with. Upon her answering that she thought the character of Queen +Catharine, in _Henry the Eighth_, the most natural:--"I think so too, +Madam, (said he;) and whenever you perform it, I will once more hobble +out to the theatre myself[750]." Mrs. Siddons promised she would do +herself the honour of acting his favourite part for him; but many +circumstances happened to prevent the representation of _King Henry the +Eighth_ during the Doctor's life. + +'In the course of the evening he thus gave his opinion upon the merits +of some of the principal performers whom he remembered to have seen upon +the stage. "Mrs. Porter,[751] in the vehemence of rage, and Mrs. Clive +in the sprightliness of humour, I have never seen equalled. What Clive +did best, she did better than Garrick; but could not do half so many +things well; she was a better romp than any I ever saw in nature[752]. +Pritchard[753], in common life, was a vulgar ideot; she would talk of +her _gownd_: but, when she appeared upon the stage, seemed to be +inspired by gentility and understanding. I once talked with Colley +Cibber[754], and thought him ignorant of the principles of his art. +Garrick, Madam, was no declaimer; there was not one of his own +scene-shifters who could not have spoken _To be, or not to be_, better +than he did[755]; yet he was the only actor I ever saw, whom I could +call a master both in tragedy and comedy[756]; though I liked him best +in comedy. A true conception of character, and natural expression of it, +were his distinguished excellencies." Having expatiated, with his usual +force and eloquence, on Mr. Garrick's extraordinary eminence as an +actor, he concluded with this compliment to his social talents: "And +after all, Madam, I thought him less to be envied on the stage than at +the head of a table."' + +Johnson, indeed, had thought more upon the subject of acting than might +be generally supposed[757]. Talking of it one day to Mr. Kemble, he +said, 'Are you, Sir, one of those enthusiasts who believe yourself +transformed into the very character you represent?' Upon Mr. Kemble's +answering that he had never felt so strong a persuasion himself[758]; +'To be sure not, Sir, (said Johnson;) the thing is impossible. And if +Garrick really believed himself to be that monster, Richard the Third, +he deserved to be hanged every time he performed it[759].' + +A pleasing instance of the generous attention of one of his friends has +been discovered by the publication of Mrs. Thrale's collection of +_Letters_. In a letter to one of the Miss Thrales[760], he writes,-- + +'A friend, whose name I will tell when your mamma has tried to guess +it, sent to my physician to enquire whether this long train of illness +had brought me into difficulties for want of money, with an invitation +to send to him for what occasion required. I shall write this night to +thank him, having no need to borrow.' + +And afterwards, in a letter to Mrs. Thrale,-- + +'Since you cannot guess, I will tell you, that the generous man was +Gerard Hamilton. I returned him a very thankful and respectful +letter[761].' + +I applied to Mr. Hamilton, by a common friend, and he has been so +obliging as to let me have Johnson's letter to him upon this occasion, +to adorn my collection. + +'To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Your kind enquiries after my affairs, and your generous offers, have +been communicated to me by Dr. Brocklesby. I return thanks with great +sincerity, having lived long enough to know what gratitude is due to +such friendship; and entreat that my refusal may not be imputed to +sullenness or pride. I am, indeed, in no want. Sickness is, by the +generosity of my physicians, of little expence to me. But if any +unexpected exigence should press me, you shall see, dear Sir, how +cheerfully I can be obliged to so much liberality. + + 'I am, Sir, + Your most obedient + And most humble servant, + SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'November, 19, 1783[762].' + +I find in this, as in former years, notices of his kind attention to +Mrs. Gardiner[763], who, though in the humble station of a +tallow-chandler upon Snow-hill, was a woman of excellent good sense, +pious, and charitable. She told me, she had been introduced to him by +Mrs. Masters[764], the poetess, whose volumes he revised, and, it is +said, illuminated here and there with a ray of his own genius. Mrs. +Gardiner was very zealous for the support of the Ladies' charity-school, +in the parish of St. Sepulchre. It is confined to females; and, I am +told, it afforded a hint for the story of _Betty Broom_ in _The +Idler_[765]. Johnson this year, I find, obtained for it a sermon from +the late Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. Shipley, whom he, in one of his +letters to Mrs. Thrale[766], characterises as 'knowing and conversible;' +and whom all who knew his Lordship, even those who differed from him in +politicks, remember with much respect[767]. + +The Earl of Carlisle having written a tragedy, entitled _The Fathers +Revenge_[768], some of his Lordship's friends applied to Mrs. +Chapone[769] to prevail on Dr. Johnson to read and give his opinion of +it[770], which he accordingly did, in a letter to that lady. Sir Joshua +Reynolds having informed me that this letter was in Lord Carlisle's +possession, though I was not fortunate enough to have the honour of +being known to his Lordship, trusting to the general courtesy of +literature, I wrote to him, requesting the favour of a copy of it, and +to be permitted to insert it in my _Life of Dr. Johnson_. His Lordship +was so good as to comply with my request, and has thus enabled me to +enrich my work with a very fine piece of writing, which displays both +the critical skill and politeness of my illustrious friend; and perhaps +the curiosity which it will excite, may induce the noble and elegant +Authour to gratify the world by the publication[771] of a performance, +of which Dr. Johnson has spoken in such terms. + +'To MRS. CHAPONE. + +'MADAM, + +'By sending the tragedy to me a second time[772], I think that a very +honourable distinction has been shewn me, and I did not delay the +perusal, of which I am now to tell the effect. + +'The construction of the play is not completely regular; the stage is +too often vacant, and the scenes are not sufficiently connected. This, +however, would be called by Dryden only a mechanical defect[773]; which +takes away little from the power of the poem, and which is seen rather +than felt. + +'A rigid examiner of the diction might, perhaps, wish some words +changed, and some lines more vigorously terminated. But from such petty +imperfections what writer was ever free? + +'The general form and force of the dialogue is of more importance. It +seems to want that quickness of reciprocation which characterises the +English drama, and is not always sufficiently fervid or animated. + +'Of the sentiments I remember not one that I wished omitted. In the +imagery I cannot forbear to distinguish the comparison of joy succeeding +grief to light rushing on the eye accustomed to darkness. It seems to +have all that can be desired to make it please. It is new, just, and +delightful[774]. + +'With the characters, either as conceived or preserved, I have no fault +to find; but was much inclined to congratulate a writer, who, in +defiance of prejudice and fashion, made the Archbishop a good man, and +scorned all thoughtless applause, which a vicious churchman would have +brought him. + +'The catastrophe is affecting. The Father and Daughter both culpable, +both wretched, and both penitent, divide between them our pity and +our sorrow. + +'Thus, Madam, I have performed what I did not willingly undertake, and +could not decently refuse. The noble writer will be pleased to remember, +that sincere criticism ought to raise no resentment, because judgement +is not under the controul of will; but involuntary criticism, as it has +still less of choice, ought to be more remote from possibility +of offence. + +'I am, &c., + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'November 28, 1783.' + +I consulted him on two questions of a very different nature: one, +whether the unconstitutional influence exercised by the Peers of +Scotland in the election of the representatives of the Commons[775], by +means of fictitious qualifications, ought not to be resisted;--the +other, What, in propriety and humanity, should be done with old horses +unable to labour. I gave him some account of my life at Auchinleck: and +expressed my satisfaction that the gentlemen of the county had, at two +publick meetings, elected me their _Praeses_ or Chairman[776]. + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Like all other men who have great friends, you begin to feel the pangs +of neglected merit; and all the comfort that I can give you is, by +telling you that you have probably more pangs to feel, and more neglect +to suffer. You have, indeed, begun to complain too soon; and I hope I +am the only confidant of your discontent. Your friends have not yet had +leisure to gratify personal kindness; they have hitherto been busy in +strengthening their ministerial interest[777]. If a vacancy happens in +Scotland, give them early intelligence; and as you can serve Government +as powerfully as any of your probable competitors, you may make in some +sort a warrantable claim. + +'Of the exaltations and depressions of your mind you delight to talk, +and I hate to hear. Drive all such fancies from you. + +'On the day when I received your letter, I think, the foregoing page was +written; to which, one disease or another has hindered me from making +any additions. I am now a little better. But sickness and solitude press +me very heavily. I could bear sickness better, if I were relieved from +solitude[778]. + +'The present dreadful confusion of the publick[779] ought to make you +wrap yourself up in your hereditary possessions, which, though less than +you may wish, are more than you can want; and in an hour of religious +retirement return thanks to GOD, who has exempted you from any strong +temptation to faction, treachery, plunder[780], and disloyalty. + +'As your neighbours distinguish you by such honours as they can bestow, +content yourself with your station, without neglecting your profession. +Your estate and the Courts will find you full employment; and your mind, +well occupied, will be quiet. + +'The usurpation of the nobility, for they apparently usurp all the +influence they gain by fraud and misrepresentation, I think it certainly +lawful, perhaps your duty, to resist. What is not their own they have +only by robbery. + +'Your question about the horses gives me more perplexity. I know not +well what advice to give you. I can only recommend a rule which you do +not want;--give as little pain as you can. I suppose that we have a +right to their service while their strength lasts; what we can do with +them afterwards I cannot so easily determine. But let us consider. +Nobody denies that man has a right first to milk the cow, and to sheer +the sheep, and then to kill them for his table. May he not, by parity of +reason, first work a horse, and then kill him the easiest way, that he +may have the means of another horse, or food for cows and sheep? Man is +influenced in both cases by different motives of self-interest. He that +rejects the one must reject the other. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Dec. 24, 1783.' + +'A happy and pious Christmas; and many happy years to you, your lady, +and children.' + +The late ingenious Mr. Mickle[781], some time before his death, wrote me +a letter concerning Dr. Johnson, in which he mentions,-- + +'I was upwards of twelve years acquainted with him, was frequently in +his company, always talked with ease to him, and can truly say, that I +never received from him one rough word.' + +In this letter he relates his having, while engaged in translating the +_Lusiad_, had a dispute of considerable length with Johnson, who, as +usual, declaimed upon the misery and corruption of a sea life, and used +this expression:--'It had been happy for the world, Sir, if your hero +Gama, Prince Henry of Portugal, and Columbus, had never been born, or +that their schemes had never gone farther than their own imaginations.' + +'This sentiment, (says Mr. Mickle,) which is to be found in his +_Introduction to the World displayed_[782], I, in my Dissertation +prefixed to the _Lusiad_, have controverted; and though authours are +said to be bad judges of their own works[783], I am not ashamed to own +to a friend, that that dissertation is my favourite above all that I +ever attempted in prose. Next year, when the Lusiad was published, I +waited on Dr. Johnson, who addressed me with one of his good-humoured +smiles:--"Well, you have remembered our dispute about Prince Henry, and +have cited me too. You have done your part very well indeed: you have +made the best of your argument; but I am not convinced yet." + +'Before publishing the _Lusiad_, I sent Mr. Hoole a proof of that part +of the introduction, in which I make mention of Dr. Johnson, yourself, +and other well-wishers to the work, begging it might be shewn to Dr. +Johnson. This was accordingly done; and in place of the simple mention +of him which I had made, he dictated to Mr. Hoole the sentence as it now +stands[784]. + +'Dr. Johnson told me in 1772, that, about twenty years before that time, +he himself had a design to translate the _Lusiad_, of the merit of which +he spoke highly, but had been prevented by a number of other +engagements.' + +Mr. Mickle reminds me in this letter of a conversation, at dinner one +day at Mr. Hoole's with Dr. Johnson, when Mr. Nicol the King's +bookseller and I attempted to controvert the maxim, 'better that ten +guilty should escape, than one innocent person suffer;' and were +answered by Dr. Johnson with great power of reasoning and eloquence. I +am very sorry that I have no record of that day[785]: but I well +recollect my illustrious friend's having ably shewn, that unless civil +institutions insure protection to the innocent, all the confidence which +mankind should have in them would be lost. + +I shall here mention what, in strict chronological arrangement, should +have appeared in my account of last year; but may more properly be +introduced here, the controversy having not been closed till this. The +Reverend Mr. Shaw[786], a native of one of the Hebrides, having +entertained doubts of the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ossian, +divested himself of national bigotry; and having travelled in the +Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and also in Ireland, in order to +furnish himself with materials for a _Gaelick Dictionary_, which he +afterwards compiled[787], was so fully satisfied that Dr. Johnson was in +the right upon the question, that he candidly published a pamphlet, +stating his conviction and the proofs and reasons on which it was +founded. A person at Edinburgh, of the name of Clark, answered this +pamphlet with much zeal, and much abuse of its authour. Johnson took Mr. +Shaw under his protection, and gave him his assistance in writing a +reply, which has been admired by the best judges, and by many been +considered as conclusive. A few paragraphs, which sufficiently mark +their great Authour, shall be selected:-- + +'My assertions are, for the most part, purely negative: I deny the +existence of Fingal, because in a long and curious peregrination through +the Gaelick regions I have never been able to find it. What I could not +see myself I suspect to be equally invisible to others; and I suspect +with the more reason, as among all those who have seen it no man +can shew it. + +'Mr. Clark compares the obstinacy of those who disbelieve the +genuineness of Ossian to a blind man, who should dispute the reality of +colours, and deny that the British troops are cloathed in red. The blind +man's doubt would be rational, if he did not know by experience that +others have a power which he himself wants: but what perspicacity has +Mr. Clark which Nature has withheld from me or the rest of mankind? + +'The true state of the parallel must be this. Suppose a man, with eyes +like his neighbours, was told by a boasting corporal, that the troops, +indeed, wore red clothes for their ordinary dress, but that every +soldier had likewise a suit of black velvet, which he put on when the +King reviews them. This he thinks strange, and desires to see the fine +clothes, but finds nobody in forty thousand men that can produce either +coat or waistcoat. One, indeed, has left them in his chest at Port +Mahon; another has always heard that he ought to have velvet clothes +somewhere; and a third has heard somebody say, that soldiers ought to +wear velvet. Can the enquirer be blamed if he goes away believing that a +soldier's red coat is all that he has? + +'But the most obdurate incredulity may be shamed or silenced by acts. To +overpower contradictions, let the soldier shew his velvet-coat, and the +Fingalist the original of Ossian[788]. + +'The difference between us and the blind man is this:--the blind man is +unconvinced, because he cannot see; and we, because though we can see, +we find that nothing can be shown.' + +Notwithstanding the complication of disorders under which Johnson now +laboured, he did not resign himself to despondency and discontent, but +with wisdom and spirit endeavoured to console and amuse his mind with as +many innocent enjoyments as he could procure. Sir John Hawkins has +mentioned the cordiality with which he insisted that such of the members +of the old club in Ivy-lane[789] as survived, should meet again and dine +together, which they did, twice at a tavern and once at his house[790]: +and in order to insure himself society in the evening for three days in +the week[791], he instituted a club at the Essex Head, in Essex-street, +then kept by Samuel Greaves, an old servant of Mr. Thrale's. + +'To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'It is inconvenient to me to come out, I should else have waited on you +with an account of a little evening Club which we are establishing in +Essex-street, in the Strand, and of which you are desired to be one. It +will be held at the Essex Head, now kept by an old servant of Thrale's. +The company is numerous, and, as you will see by the list, +miscellaneous. The terms are lax, and the expences light. Mr. Barry was +adopted by Dr. Brocklesby, who joined with me in forming the plan. We +meet thrice a week, and he who misses forfeits two-pence[792]. + +'If you are willing to become a member, draw a line under your name. +Return the list. We meet for the first time on Monday at eight.' + + 'I am, &c. + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Dec. 4, 1783.' + +It did not suit Sir Joshua to be one of this Club. But when I mention +only Mr. Daines Barrington, Dr. Brocklesby, Mr. Murphy, Mr. John +Nichols, Mr. Cooke, Mr. Joddrel, Mr. Paradise, Dr. Horsley, Mr. +Windham[793], I shall sufficiently obviate the misrepresentation of it +by Sir John Hawkins, as if it had been a low ale-house association, by +which Johnson was degraded[794]. Johnson himself, like his namesake Old +Ben[795], composed the Rules of his Club[796]. + +In the end of this year he was seized with a spasmodick asthma of such +violence, that he was confined to the house in great pain, being +sometimes obliged to sit all night in his chair, a recumbent posture +being so hurtful to his respiration, that he could not endure lying in +bed; and there came upon him at the same time that oppressive and fatal +disease, a dropsy. It was a very severe winter, which probably +aggravated his complaints; and the solitude in which Mr. Levett and Mrs. +Williams had left him, rendered his life very gloomy. Mrs. +Desmoulins[797], who still lived, was herself so very ill, that she +could contribute very little to his relief[798]. He, however, had none +of that unsocial shyness which we commonly see in people afflicted with +sickness. He did not hide his head from the world, in solitary +abstraction; he did not deny himself to the visits of his friends and +acquaintances; but at all times, when he was not overcome by sleep, was +ready for conversation as in his best days[799]. + +'To MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'You may perhaps think me negligent that I have not written to you +again[800] upon the loss of your brother; but condolences and +consolations are such common and such useless things, that the omission +of them is no great crime: and my own diseases occupy my mind, and +engage my care. My nights are miserably restless, and my days, +therefore, are heavy. I try, however, to hold up my head as high as +I can[801]. + +'I am sorry that your health is impaired; perhaps the spring and the +summer may, in some degree, restore it: but if not, we must submit to +the inconveniences of time, as to the other dispensations of Eternal +Goodness. Pray for me, and write to me, or let Mr. Pearson write +for you. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Nov. 29, 1783.' + +1784: Aetat. 75.--And now I am arrived at the last year of the life of +SAMUEL JOHNSON, a year in which, although passed in severe +indisposition, he nevertheless gave many evidences of the continuance of +those wondrous powers of mind, which raised him so high in the +intellectual world. His conversation and his letters of this year were +in no respect inferiour to those of former years. + +The following is a remarkable proof of his being alive to the most +minute curiosities of literature. + +'To MR. DILLY, BOOKSELLER, IN THE POULTRY. + +'SIR, + +'There is in the world a set of books which used to be sold by the +booksellers on the bridge[802], and which I must entreat you to procure +me. They are called _Burton's Books_[803]; the title of one is +_Admirable Curiosities, Rarities, and Wonders in England_. I believe +there are about five or six of them; they seem very proper to allure +backward readers; be so kind as to get them for me, and send me them +with the best printed edition of _Baxter's Call to the Unconverted_. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 6, 1784.' + +'To MR. PERKINS. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I was very sorry not to see you when you were so kind as to call on me; +but to disappoint friends, and if they are not very good natured, to +disoblige them, is one of the evils of sickness. If you will please to +let me know which of the afternoons in this week I shall be favoured +with another visit by you and Mrs. Perkins, and the young people, I will +take all the measures that I can to be pretty well at that time[804]. + +'I am, dear Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 21, 1784.' + +His attention to the Essex-Head Club appears from the following letter +to Mr. Alderman Clark, a gentleman for whom he deservedly entertained a +great regard. + +'To RICHARD CLARK, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'You will receive a requisition, according to the rules of the Club, to +be at the house as President of the night. This turn comes once a month, +and the member is obliged to attend, or send another in his place. You +were enrolled in the Club by my invitation, and I ought to introduce +you; but as I am hindered by sickness, Mr. Hoole will very properly +supply my place as introductor, or yours as President. I hope in milder +weather to be a very constant attendant. + +'I am, Sir, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 27, 1784.' + +'You ought to be informed that the forfeits began with the year, and +that every night of non-attendance incurs the mulct of three-pence, that +is, nine pence a week.' + +On the 8th of January I wrote to him, anxiously inquiring as to his +health, and enclosing my _Letter to the People of Scotland, on the +present state of the nation_[805]. + +'I trust, (said I,) that you will be liberal enough to make allowance +for my differing from you on two points, (the Middlesex Election, and +the American War[806]) when my general principles of government are +according to your own heart, and when, at a crisis of doubtful event, I +stand forth with honest zeal as an ancient and faithful Briton. My +reason for introducing those two points was, that as my opinions with +regard to them had been declared at the periods when they were least +favourable, I might have the credit of a man who is not a worshipper of +ministerial power.' + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I hear of many enquiries which your kindness has disposed you to make +after me[807]. I have long intended you a long letter, which perhaps the +imagination of its length hindered me from beginning. I will, therefore, +content myself with a shorter. + +'Having promoted the institution of a new Club in the neighbourhood, at +the house of an old servant of Thrale's, I went thither to meet the +company, and was seized with a spasmodick asthma so violent, that with +difficulty I got to my own house, in which I have been confined eight or +nine weeks, and from which I know not when I shall be able to go even to +church. The asthma, however, is not the worst. A dropsy gains ground +upon me; my legs and thighs are very much swollen with water, which I +should be content if I could keep there, but I am afraid that it will +soon be higher. My nights are very sleepless and very tedious. And yet I +am extremely afraid of dying. + +'My physicians try to make me hope, that much of my malady is the effect +of cold, and that some degree at least of recovery is to be expected +from vernal breezes and summer suns[808]. If my life is prolonged to +autumn, I should be glad to try a warmer climate; though how to travel +with a diseased body, without a companion to conduct me, and with very +little money, I do not well see. Ramsay has recovered his limbs in +Italy[809]; and Fielding was sent to Lisbon, where, indeed, he died; but +he was, I believe, past hope when he went. Think for me what I can do. + +'I received your pamphlet, and when I write again may perhaps tell you +some opinion about it; but you will forgive a man struggling with +disease his neglect of disputes, politicks, and pamphlets[810]. Let me +have your prayers. My compliments to your lady, and young ones. Ask +your physicians about my case: and desire Sir Alexander Dick[811] to +write me his opinion. + +'I am, dear Sir, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Feb. 11, 1784.' + +'TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. + +'MY DEAREST LOVE, + +'I have been extremely ill of an asthma and dropsy, but received, by the +mercy of GOD, sudden and unexpected relief last Thursday, by the +discharge of twenty pints of water[812]. Whether I shall continue free, +or shall fill again, cannot be told. Pray for me. + +'Death, my dear, is very dreadful; let us think nothing worth our care +but how to prepare for it: what we know amiss in ourselves let us make +haste to amend, and put our trust in the mercy of GOD, and the +intercession of our Saviour. I am, dear Madam, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Feb. 23, 1784.' + +TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I have just advanced so far towards recovery as to read a pamphlet; and +you may reasonably suppose that the first pamphlet which I read was +yours. I am very much of your opinion, and, like you, feel great +indignation at the indecency with which the King is every day treated. +Your paper contains very considerable knowledge of history and of the +constitution, very properly produced and applied. It will certainly +raise your character[813], though perhaps it may not make you a +Minister of State. + +'I desire you to see Mrs. Stewart once again, and tell her, that in the +letter-case was a letter relating to me, for which I will give her, if +she is willing to give it me, another guinea[814]. The letter is of +consequence only to me. + +'I am, dear Sir, &c. 'SAM. JOHNSON.' 'London, Feb. 27, 1784.' + +In consequence of Johnson's request that I should ask our physicians +about his case, and desire Sir Alexander Dick to send his opinion, I +transmitted him a letter from that very amiable Baronet, then in his +eighty-first year, with his faculties as entire as ever; and mentioned +his expressions to me in the note accompanying it: 'With my most +affectionate wishes for Dr. Johnson's recovery, in which his friends, +his country, and all mankind have so deep a stake:' and at the same time +a full opinion upon his case by Dr. Gillespie, who, like Dr. Cullen, had +the advantage of having passed through the gradations of surgery and +pharmacy, and by study and practice had attained to such skill, that my +father settled on him two hundred pounds a year for five years, and +fifty pounds a year during his life, as an _honorarium_ to secure his +particular attendance. The opinion was conveyed in a letter to me, +beginning, 'I am sincerely sorry for the bad state of health your very +learned and illustrious friend, Dr. Johnson, labours under at present.' + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. 'DEAR SIR, + +'Presently after I had sent away my last letter, I received your kind +medical packet. I am very much obliged both to you and your physicians +for your kind attention to my disease. Dr. Gillespie has sent me an +excellent _consilium medicum_, all solid practical experimental +knowledge. I am at present, in the opinion of my physicians, (Dr. +Heberden and Dr. Brocklesby,) as well as my own, going on very +hopefully. I have just begun to take vinegar of squills. The powder hurt +my stomach so much, that it could not be continued. + +'Return Sir Alexander Dick my sincere thanks for his kind letter; and +bring with you the rhubarb[815] which he so tenderly offers me. + +'I hope dear Mrs. Boswell is now quite well, and that no evil, either +real or imaginary, now disturbs you. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 2, 1784.' + +I also applied to three of the eminent physicians who had chairs in our +celebrated school of medicine at Edinburgh, Doctors Cullen, Hope, and +Monro, to each of whom I sent the following letter:-- + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Dr. Johnson has been very ill for some time; and in a letter of anxious +apprehension he writes to me, "Ask your physicians about my case." + +'This, you see, is not authority for a regular consultation: but I have +no doubt of your readiness to give your advice to a man so eminent, and +who, in his _Life of Garth_, has paid your profession a just and elegant +compliment: "I believe every man has found in physicians great +liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusions[816] of +beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art, where there is no +hope of lucre." + +'Dr. Johnson is aged seventy-four. Last summer he had a stroke of the +palsy, from which he recovered almost entirely. He had, before that, +been troubled with a catarrhous cough. This winter he was seized with a +spasmodick asthma, by which he has been confined to his house for about +three months. Dr. Brocklesby writes to me, that upon the least admission +of cold, there is such a constriction upon his breast, that he cannot +lie down in his bed, but is obliged to sit up all night, and gets rest +and sometimes sleep, only by means of laudanum and syrup of poppies; and +that there are oedematous tumours on his legs and thighs. Dr. Brocklesby +trusts a good deal to the return of mild weather. Dr. Johnson says, that +a dropsy gains ground upon him; and he seems to think that a warmer +climate would do him good. I understand he is now rather better, and is +using vinegar of squills. I am, with great esteem, dear Sir, + +'Your most obedient humble servant, + +'JAMES BOSWELL.' + +'March 7, 1784.' + +All of them paid the most polite attention to my letter, and its +venerable object. Dr. Cullen's words concerning him were, 'It would give +me the greatest pleasure to be of any service to a man whom the publick +properly esteem, and whom I esteem and respect as much as I do Dr. +Johnson.' Dr. Hope's, 'Few people have a better claim on me than your +friend, as hardly a day passes that I do not ask his opinion about this +or that word.' Dr. Monro's, 'I most sincerely join you in sympathizing +with that very worthy and ingenious character, from whom his country has +derived much instruction and entertainment.' + +Dr. Hope corresponded with his friend Dr. Brocklesby. Doctors Cullen and +Monro wrote their opinions and prescriptions to me, which I afterwards +carried with me to London, and, so far as they were encouraging, +communicated to Johnson. The liberality on one hand, and grateful sense +of it on the other, I have great satisfaction in recording. + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I am too much pleased with the attention which you and your dear +lady[817] show to my welfare, not to be diligent in letting you know the +progress which I make towards health. The dropsy, by GOD'S blessing, has +now run almost totally away by natural evacuation; and the asthma, if +not irritated by cold, gives me little trouble. While I am writing this, +I have not any sensation of debility or disease. But I do not yet +venture out, having been confined to the house from the thirteenth of +December, now a quarter of a year. + +'When it will be fit for me to travel as far as Auchinleck, I am not +able to guess; but such a letter as Mrs. Boswell's might draw any man, +not wholly motionless, a great way. Pray tell the dear lady how much her +civility and kindness have touched and gratified me. + +'Our parliamentary tumults have now begun to subside, and the King's +authority is in some measure re-established[818]. Mr. Pitt will have +great power: but you must remember, that what he has to give must, at +least for some time, be given to those who gave, and those who preserve, +his power. A new minister can sacrifice little to esteem or friendship; +he must, till he is settled, think only of extending his interest. + + * * * * * + +'If you come hither through Edinburgh, send for Mrs. Stewart, and give +from me another guinea for the letter in the old case, to which I shall +not be satisfied with my claim, till she gives it me. + +'Please to bring with you Baxter's _Anacreon_[819]; and if you procure +heads of _Hector Boece_[820], the historian, and _Arthur Johnston_[821], +the poet, I will put them in my room[822]; or any other of the fathers +of Scottish literature. + +'I wish you an easy and happy journey, and hope I need not tell you that +you will be welcome to, dear Sir, + +'Your most affectionate, humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 18, 1784.' + +I wrote to him, March 28, from York, informing him that I had a high +gratification in the triumph of monarchical principles over +aristocratical influence, in that great country, in an address to the +King[823]; that I was thus far on my way to him, but that news of the +dissolution of Parliament having arrived, I was to hasten back to my own +county, where I had carried an Address to his Majesty by a great +majority, and had some intention of being a candidate to represent the +county in Parliament. + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'You could do nothing so proper as to haste back when you found the +Parliament dissolved. With the influence which your Address must have +gained you, it may reasonably be expected that your presence will be of +importance, and your activity of effect. + +'Your solicitude for me gives me that pleasure which every man feels +from the kindness of such a friend: and it is with delight I relieve it +by telling, that Dr. Brocklesby's account is true, and that I am, by the +blessing of GOD, wonderfully relieved. + +'You are entering upon a transaction which requires much prudence. You +must endeavour to oppose without exasperating; to practise temporary +hostility, without producing enemies for life. This is, perhaps, hard to +be done; yet it has been done by many, and seems most likely to be +effected by opposing merely upon general principles, without descending +to personal or particular censures or objections. One thing I must +enjoin you, which is seldom observed in the conduct of elections;--I +must entreat you to be scrupulous in the use of strong liquors. One +night's drunkenness may defeat the labours of forty days well employed. +Be firm, but not clamorous; be active, but not malicious; and you may +form such an interest, as may not only exalt yourself, but dignify +your family. + +'We are, as you may suppose, all busy here. Mr. Fox resolutely stands +for Westminster, and his friends say will carry the election[824]. +However that be, he will certainly have a seat[825]. Mr. Hoole has just +told me, that the city leans towards the King. + +'Let me hear, from time to time, how you are employed, and what progress +you make. + +'Make dear Mrs. Boswell, and all the young Boswells, the sincere +compliments of, Sir, your affectionate humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 30, 1784.' + +To Mr. Langton he wrote with that cordiality which was suitable to the +long friendship which had subsisted between him and that +gentleman[826]. + +March 27. 'Since you left me, I have continued in my own opinion, and in +Dr, Brocklesby's, to grow better with respect to all my formidable and +dangerous distempers: though to a body battered and shaken as mine has +lately been, it is to be feared that weak attacks may be sometimes +mischievous. I have, indeed, by standing carelessly at an open window, +got a very troublesome cough, which it has been necessary to appease by +opium, in larger quantities than I like to take, and I have not found it +give way so readily as I expected; its obstinacy, however, seems at last +disposed to submit to the remedy, and I know not whether I should then +have a right to complain of any morbid sensation. My asthma is, I am +afraid, constitutional and incurable; but it is only occasional, and +unless it be excited by labour or by cold, gives me no molestation, nor +does it lay very close siege to life; for Sir John Floyer[827], whom the +physical race consider as authour of one of the best books upon it, +panted on to ninety, as was supposed; and why were we content with +supposing a fact so interesting, of a man so conspicuous? because he +corrupted, at perhaps seventy or eighty, the register, that he might +pass for younger than he was. He was not much less than eighty, when to +a man of rank who modestly asked his age, he answered, "Go look;" though +he was in general a man of civility and elegance. + +'The ladies, I find, are at your house all well, except Miss Langton, +who will probably soon recover her health by light suppers. Let her eat +at dinner as she will, but not take a full stomach to bed. Pay my +sincere respects to dear Miss Langton in Lincolnshire, let her know that +I mean not to break our league of friendship, and that I have a set of +_Lives_ for her, when I have the means of sending it.' + +April 8. 'I am still disturbed by my cough; but what thanks have I not +to pay, when my cough is the most painful sensation that I feel? and +from that I expect hardly to be released, while winter continues to +gripe us with so much pertinacity. The year has now advanced eighteen +days beyond the equinox, and still there is very little remission of the +cold. When warm weather comes, which surely must come at last, I hope it +will help both me and your young lady. + +'The man so busy about addresses is neither more nor less than our own +Boswell, who had come as far as York towards London, but turned back on +the dissolution, and is said now to stand for some place. Whether to +wish him success, his best friends hesitate. + +'Let me have your prayers for the completion of my recovery: I am now +better than I ever expected to have been. May GOD add to his mercies +the grace that may enable me to use them according to his will. My +compliments to all.' + +April 13. 'I had this evening a note from Lord Portmore[828], desiring +that I would give you an account of my health. You might have had it +with less circumduction. I am, by GOD'S blessing, I believe, free from +all morbid sensations, except a cough, which is only troublesome. But I +am still weak, and can have no great hope of strength till the weather +shall be softer. The summer, if it be kindly, will, I hope, enable me to +support the winter. GOD, who has so wonderfully restored me, can +preserve me in all seasons. + +'Let me enquire in my turn after the state of your family, great and +little. I hope Lady Rothes and Miss Langton are both well. That is a +good basis of content. Then how goes George on with his studies? How +does Miss Mary? And how does my own Jenny? I think I owe Jenny a letter, +which I will take care to pay. In the mean time tell her that I +acknowledge the debt. + +'Be pleased to make my compliments to the ladies. If Mrs. Langton comes +to London, she will favour me with a visit, for I am not well enough +to go out.' + +'To OZIAS HUMPHRY[829], ESQ. + +'SIR, + +'Mr. Hoole has told me with what benevolence you listened to a request +which I was almost afraid to make, of leave to a young painter[830] to +attend you from time to time in your painting-room, to see your +operations, and receive your instructions[831]. + +'The young man has perhaps good parts, but has been without a regular +education. He is my god-son, and therefore I interest myself in his +progress and success, and shall think myself much favoured if I receive +from you a permission to send him. + +'My health is, by GOD'S blessing, much restored, but I am not yet +allowed by my physicians to go abroad; nor, indeed, do I think myself +yet able to endure the weather. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'April 5, 1784.' + +To THE SAME. + +'SIR, + +'The bearer is my god-son, whom I take the liberty of recommending to +your kindness; which I hope he will deserve by his respect to your +excellence, and his gratitude for your favours. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'April 10, 1784.' + +To THE SAME. + +'SIR, + +'I am very much obliged by your civilities to my god-son, but must beg +of you to add to them the favour of permitting him to see you paint, +that he may know how a picture is begun, advanced and completed. + +'If he may attend you in a few of your operations, I hope he will shew +that the benefit has been properly conferred, both by his proficiency +and his gratitude. At least I shall consider you as enlarging your +kindness to, Sir, + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'May 31, 1784.' + +'To THE REVEREND DR. TAYLOR, ASHBOURNE, DERBYSHIRE. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'What can be the reason that I hear nothing from you? I hope nothing +disables you from writing. What I have seen, and what I have felt, gives +me reason to fear every thing. Do not omit giving me the comfort of +knowing, that after all my losses I have yet a friend left. + +'I want every comfort. My life is very solitary and very cheerless. +Though it has pleased GOD wonderfully to deliver me from the dropsy, I +am yet very weak, and have not passed the door since the 13th of +December[832]. I hope for some help from warm weather, which will surely +come in time. + +'I could not have the consent of the physicians to go to church +yesterday; I therefore received the holy sacrament at home, in the room +where I communicated with dear Mrs. Williams, a little before her death. +O! my friend, the approach of death is very dreadful. I am afraid to +think on that which I know I cannot avoid. It is vain to look round and +round for that help which cannot be had. Yet we hope and hope, and fancy +that he who has lived to-day may live to-morrow. But let us learn to +derive our hope only from GOD. + +'In the mean time, let us be kind to one another. I have no friend now +living but you and Mr. Hector, that was the friend of my youth. Do not +neglect, dear Sir, + +'Yours affectionately, + +'SAM. JOHNSON[833].' + +'London, Easter-Monday, + +April 12, 1784.' + +What follows is a beautiful specimen of his gentleness and complacency +to a young lady his god-child, one of the daughters of his friend Mr. +Langton, then I think in her seventh year. He took the trouble to write +it in a large round hand, nearly resembling printed characters, that she +might have the satisfaction of reading it herself. The original lies +before me, but shall be faithfully restored to her; and I dare say will +be preserved by her as a jewel as long as she lives[834]. + +'To Miss JANE LANGTON, IN ROCHESTER, KENT. + +'MY DEAREST MISS JENNY, + +'I am sorry that your pretty letter has been so long without being +answered; but, when I am not pretty well, I do not always write plain +enough for young ladies. I am glad, my dear, to see that you write so +well, and hope that you mind your pen, your book, and your needle, for +they are all necessary. Your books will give you knowledge, and make you +respected; and your needle will find you useful employment when you do +not care to read. When you are a little older, I hope you will be very +diligent in learning arithmetick[835], and, above all, that through your +whole life you will carefully say your prayers, and read your Bible. + +'I am, my dear, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'May 10, 1784.' + +On Wednesday, May 5, I arrived in London, and next morning had the +pleasure to find Dr. Johnson greatly recovered. I but just saw him; for +a coach was waiting to carry him to Islington, to the house of his +friend the Reverend Mr. Strahan, where he went sometimes for the benefit +of good air, which, notwithstanding his having formerly laughed at the +general opinion upon the subject, he now acknowledged was conducive +to health. + +One morning afterwards, when I found him alone, he communicated to me, +with solemn earnestness, a very remarkable circumstance which had +happened in the course of his illness, when he was much distressed by +the dropsy. He had shut himself up, and employed a day in particular +exercises of religion,--fasting, humiliation, and prayer. On a sudden he +obtained extraordinary relief, for which he looked up to Heaven with +grateful devotion. He made no direct inference from this fact; but from +his manner of telling it, I could perceive that it appeared to him as +something more than an incident in the common course of events[836]. For +my own part, I have no difficulty to avow that cast of thinking, which +by many modern pretenders to wisdom is called _superstitious_. But here +I think even men of dry rationality may believe, that there was an +intermediate[837] interposition of Divine Providence, and that 'the +fervent prayer of this righteous man[838]' availed[839]. + +On Sunday, May 9, I found Colonel Valiancy, the celebrated antiquarian +and Engineer of Ireland, with him. On Monday, the 10th, I dined with him +at Mr. Paradise's, where was a large company; Mr. Bryant, Mr. Joddrel, +Mr. Hawkins Browne, &c. On Thursday, the 13th, I dined with him at Mr. +Joddrel's, with another large company; the Bishop of Exeter, Lord +Monboddo[840], Mr. Murphy, &c. + +On Saturday, May 15[841], I dined with him at Dr. Brocklesby's, where +were Colonel Vallancy, Mr. Murphy, and that ever-cheerful companion Mr. +Devaynes, apothecary to his Majesty. Of these days, and others on which +I saw him, I have no memorials, except the general recollection of his +being able and animated in conversation, and appearing to relish society +as much as the youngest man. I find only these three small +particulars:--When a person was mentioned, who said, 'I have lived +fifty-one years in this world without having had ten minutes of +uneasiness;' he exclaimed, 'The man who says so, lies: he attempts to +impose on human credulity.' The Bishop of Exeter in vain observed, that +men were very different. His Lordship's manner was not impressive, and +I learnt afterwards that Johnson did not find out that the person who +talked to him was a Prelate; if he had, I doubt not that he would have +treated him with more respect; for once talking of George +Psalmanazar[842], whom he reverenced for his piety, he said, 'I should +as soon think of contradicting a BISHOP[843].' One of the company[844] +provoked him greatly by doing what he could least of all bear, which was +quoting something of his own writing, against what he then maintained. +'What, Sir, (cried the gentleman,) do you say to + + "The busy day, the peaceful night, + Unfelt, uncounted, glided by[845]?"'-- + +Johnson finding himself thus presented as giving an instance of a man +who had lived without uneasiness, was much offended, for he looked upon +such a quotation as unfair. His anger burst out in an unjustifiable +retort, insinuating that the gentleman's remark was a sally of ebriety; +'Sir, there is one passion I would advise you to command: when you have +drunk out that glass, don't drink another[846].' Here was exemplified +what Goldsmith said of him, with the aid of a very witty image from one +of Cibber's Comedies: 'There is no arguing with Johnson; for if his +pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it[847].' +Another was this: when a gentleman[848] of eminence in the literary +world was violently censured for attacking people by anonymous +paragraphs in newspapers; he, from the spirit of contradiction as I +thought, took up his defence, and said, 'Come, come, this is not so +terrible a crime; he means only to vex them a little. I do not say that +I should do it; but there is a great difference between him and me; what +is fit for Hephaestion is not fit for Alexander.' Another, when I told +him that a young and handsome Countess had said to me, 'I should think +that to be praised by Dr. Johnson would make one a fool all one's life;' +and that I answered, 'Madam, I shall make him a fool to-day, by +repeating this to him,' he said, 'I am too old to be made a fool; but if +you say I am made a fool, I shall not deny it. I am much pleased with a +compliment, especially from a pretty woman.' + +On the evening of Saturday, May 15, he was in fine spirits, at our +Essex-Head Club. He told us, 'I dined yesterday at Mrs. Garrick's, with +Mrs. Carter[849], Miss Hannah More, and Miss Fanny Burney. Three such +women are not to be found: I know not where I could find a fourth, +except Mrs. Lennox, who is superiour to them all[850].' BOSWELL. 'What! +had you them all to yourself, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'I had them all as much as +they were had; but it might have been better had there been more company +there.' BOSWELL. 'Might not Mrs. Montagu have been a fourth?' JOHNSON. +'Sir, Mrs. Montagu does not make a trade of her wit; but Mrs. Montagu is +a very extraordinary woman; she has a constant stream of conversation, +and it is always impregnated; it has always meaning[851].' BOSWELL. 'Mr. +Burke has a constant stream of conversation.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; if a +man were to go by chance at the same time with Burke under a shed, to +shun a shower, he would say--"this is an extraordinary man." If Burke +should go into a stable to see his horse drest, the ostler would +say--we have had an extraordinary man here[852].' BOSWELL. 'Foote was a +man who never failed in conversation. If he had gone into a stable--' +JOHNSON. 'Sir, if he had gone into a stable, the ostler would have said, +here has been a comical fellow; but he would not have respected him.' +BOSWELL. 'And, Sir, the ostler would have answered him, would have given +him as good as he brought, as the common saying is.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; +and Foote would have answered the ostler.--When Burke does not descend +to be merry, his conversation is very superiour indeed. There is no +proportion between the powers which he shews in serious talk and in +jocularity. When he lets himself down to that, he is in the +kennel[853].' I have in another place[854] opposed, and I hope with +success, Dr. Johnson's very singular and erroneous notion as to Mr. +Burke's pleasantry. Mr. Windham now said low to me, that he differed +from our great friend in this observation; for that Mr. Burke was often +very happy in his merriment. It would not have been right for either of +us to have contradicted Johnson at this time, in a Society all of whom +did not know and value Mr. Burke as much as we did. It might have +occasioned something more rough, and at any rate would probably have +checked the flow of Johnson's good-humour. He called to us with a sudden +air of exultation, as the thought started into his mind, 'O! Gentlemen, +I must tell you a very great thing. The Empress of Russia has ordered +the _Rambler_ to be translated into the Russian language[855]: so I +shall be read on the banks of the Wolga. Horace boasts that his fame +would extend as far as the banks of the Rhone[856]; now the Wolga is +farther from me than the Rhone was from Horace.' BOSWELL. 'You must +certainly be pleased with this, Sir.' JOHNSON. 'I am pleased Sir, to be +sure. A man is pleased to find he has succeeded in that which he has +endeavoured to do.' + +One of the company mentioned his having seen a noble person driving in +his carriage, and looking exceedingly well, notwithstanding his great +age. JOHNSON. 'Ah, Sir; that is nothing. Bacon observes, that a stout +healthy old man is like a tower undermined.' + +On Sunday, May 16, I found him alone; he talked of Mrs. Thrale with much +concern, saying, 'Sir, she has done every thing wrong, since Thrale's +bridle was off her neck;' and was proceeding to mention some +circumstances which have since been the subject of publick +discussion[857], when he was interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Douglas, +now Bishop of Salisbury. + +Dr. Douglas, upon this occasion, refuted a mistaken notion which is very +common in Scotland, that the ecclesiastical discipline of the Church of +England, though duly enforced, is insufficient to preserve the morals of +the clergy, inasmuch as all delinquents may be screened by appealing to +the Convocation, which being never authorized by the King to sit for +the dispatch of business, the appeal never can be heard. Dr. Douglas +observed, that this was founded upon ignorance; for that the Bishops +have sufficient power to maintain discipline, and that the sitting of +the Convocation was wholly immaterial in this respect, it being not a +Court of judicature, but like a parliament, to make Canons and +regulations as times may require. + +Johnson, talking of the fear of death, said, 'Some people are not +afraid, because they look upon salvation as the effect of an absolute +decree, and think they feel in themselves the marks of sanctification. +Others, and those the most rational in my opinion, look upon salvation +as conditional; and as they never can be sure that they have complied +with the conditions, they are afraid[858].' + +In one of his little manuscript diaries, about this time, I find a short +notice, which marks his amiable disposition more certainly than a +thousand studied declarations.--'Afternoon spent cheerfully and +elegantly, I hope without offence to GOD or man; though in no holy duty, +yet in the general exercise and cultivation of benevolence.' + +On Monday, May 17, I dined with him at Mr. Dilly's, where were Colonel +Valiancy, the Reverend Dr. Gibbons[859], and Mr. Capel Lofft, who, +though a most zealous Whig, has a mind so full of learning and +knowledge, and so much exercised in various departments, and withal so +much liberality, that the stupendous powers of the literary Goliath, +though they did not frighten this little David of popular spirit, could +not but excite his admiration[860]. There was also Mr. Braithwaite of +the Post-office, that amiable and friendly man, who, with modest and +unassuming manners, has associated with many of the wits of the age. +Johnson was very quiescent to-day. Perhaps too I was indolent. I find +nothing more of him in my notes, but that when I mentioned that I had +seen in the King's library sixty-three editions of my favourite _Thomas +à Kempis_, amongst which it was in eight languages, Latin, German, +French, Italian, Spanish, English, Arabick, and Armenian, he said, he +thought it unnecessary to collect many editions of a book, which were +all the same, except as to the paper and print; he would have the +original, and all the translations, and all the editions which had any +variations in the text. He approved of the famous collection of editions +of _Horace_ by Douglas, mentioned by Pope[861], who is said to have had +a closet filled with them; and he added, 'every man should try to +collect one book in that manner, and present it to a publick library.' + +On Tuesday, May 18, I saw him for a short time in the morning. I told +him that the mob had called out, as the King passed[862], 'No Fox--No +Fox,' which I did not like. He said, 'They were right, Sir.' I said, I +thought not; for it seemed to be making Mr. Fox the King's +competitor[863]. There being no audience, so that there could be no +triumph in a victory, he fairly agreed with me[864]. I said it might do +very well, if explained thus:--'Let us have no Fox;' understanding it as +a prayer to his Majesty not to appoint that gentleman minister. + +On Wednesday, May 19, I sat a part of the evening with him, by +ourselves. I observed, that the death of our friends might be a +consolation against the fear of our own dissolution, because we might +have more friends in the other world than in this. He perhaps felt this +as a reflection upon his apprehension as to death; and said, with heat, +'How can a man know _where_ his departed friends are, or whether they +will be his friends in the other world[865]? How many friendships have +you known formed upon principles of virtue? Most friendships are formed +by caprice or by chance, mere confederacies in vice or leagues +in folly.' + +We talked of our worthy friend Mr. Langton. He said, 'I know not who +will go to Heaven if Langton does not. Sir, I could almost say, _Sit +anima mea cum Langtono_' I mentioned a very eminent friend[866] a +virtuous man. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; but ---- has not the evangelical +virtue of Langton. ----, I am afraid, would not scruple to pick up +a wench.' + +He however charged Mr. Langton with what he thought want of judgement +upon an interesting occasion. 'When I was ill, (said he) I desired he +would tell me sincerely in what he thought my life was faulty. Sir, he +brought me a sheet of paper, on which he had written down several texts +of Scripture, recommending christian charity. And when I questioned him +what occasion I had given for such an animadversion, all that he could +say amounted to this,--that I sometimes contradicted people in +conversation. Now what harm does it do to any man to be contradicted?' +BOSWELL. 'I suppose he meant the _manner_ of doing it; roughly,--and +harshly.' JOHNSON. 'And who is the worse for that?' BOSWELL. 'It hurts +people of weak nerves.' JOHNSON. 'I know no such weak-nerved +people[867].' Mr. Burke, to whom I related this conference, said, 'It is +well, if when a man comes to die, he has nothing heavier upon his +conscience than having been a little rough in conversation.' + +Johnson, at the time when the paper was presented to him, though at +first pleased with the attention of his friend, whom he thanked in an +earnest manner, soon exclaimed, in a loud and angry tone, 'What is your +drift, Sir?' Sir Joshua Reynolds pleasantly observed, that it was a +scene for a comedy, to see a penitent get into a violent passion and +belabour his confessor[868]. + +I have preserved no more of his conversation at the times when I saw him +during the rest of this month, till Sunday, the 30th of May, when I met +him in the evening at Mr. Hoole's, where there was a large company both +of ladies and gentlemen; Sir James Johnston[869] happened to say, that +he paid no regard to the arguments of counsel at the bar of the House of +Commons, because they were paid for speaking. 'JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, +argument is argument. You cannot help paying regard to their arguments, +if they are good. If it were testimony, you might disregard it, if you +knew that it were purchased. There is a beautiful image in Bacon[870] +upon this subject: testimony is like an arrow shot from a long bow; the +force of it depends on the strength of the hand that draws it. Argument +is like an arrow from a cross-bow, which has equal force though shot +by a child.' + +He had dined that day at Mr. Hoole's, and Miss Helen Maria Williams +being expected in the evening, Mr. Hoole put into his hands her +beautiful _Ode on the Peace_[871]: Johnson read it over, and when this +elegant and accomplished young lady[872] was presented to him, he took +her by the hand in the most courteous manner, and repeated the finest +stanza of her poem; this was the most delicate and pleasing compliment +he could pay. Her respectable friend, Dr. Kippis, from whom I had this +anecdote, was standing by, and was not a little gratified. + +Miss Williams told me, that the only other time she was fortunate enough +to be in Dr. Johnson's company, he asked her to sit down by him, which +she did, and upon her enquiring how he was, he answered, 'I am very ill +indeed, Madam. I am very ill even when you are near me; what should I be +were you at a distance?'[873] + +He had now a great desire to go to Oxford, as his first jaunt after his +illness; we talked of it for some days, and I had promised to accompany +him. He was impatient, and fretful to-night, because I did not at once +agree to go with him on Thursday. When I considered how ill he had been, +and what allowance should be made for the influence of sickness upon his +temper, I resolved to indulge him, though with some inconvenience to +myself, as I wished to attend the musical meeting in honour of +Handel[874], in Westminster-Abbey, on the following Saturday. + +In the midst of his own diseases and pains, he was ever compassionate to +the distresses of others, and actively earnest in procuring them aid, as +appears from a note to Sir Joshua Reynolds, of June, in these words:--'I +am ashamed to ask for some relief for a poor man, to whom, I hope, I +have given what I can be expected to spare. The man importunes me, and +the blow goes round. I am going to try another air on Thursday.' + +On Thursday, June 3, the Oxford post-coach took us up in the morning at +Bolt-court. The other two passengers were Mrs. Beresford and her +daughter, two very agreeable ladies from America; they were going to +Worcestershire, where they then resided. Frank had been sent by his +master the day before to take places for us; and I found, from the +way-bill, that Dr. Johnson had made our names be put down. Mrs. +Beresford, who had read it, whispered me, 'Is this the great Dr. +Johnson?' I told her it was; so she was then prepared to listen. As she +soon happened to mention in a voice so low that Johnson did not hear it, +that her husband had been a member of the American Congress, I cautioned +her to beware of introducing that subject, as she must know how very +violent Johnson was against the people of that country. He talked a +great deal, but I am sorry I have preserved little of the conversation. +Miss Beresford was so much charmed, that she said to me aside, 'How he +does talk! Every sentence is an essay.' She amused herself in the coach +with knotting; he would scarcely allow this species of employment any +merit. 'Next to mere idleness (said he) I think knotting is to be +reckoned in the scale of insignificance; though I once attempted to +learn knotting. Dempster's sister (looking to me) endeavoured to teach +me it; but I made no progress[875].' + +I was surprised at his talking without reserve in the publick post-coach +of the state of his affairs; 'I have (said he) about the world I think +above a thousand pounds, which I intend shall afford Frank an annuity of +seventy pounds a year.' Indeed his openness with people at a first +interview was remarkable. He said once to Mr. Langton, 'I think I am +like Squire Richard in _The Journey to London, "I'm never strange in a +strange place_[876]."' He was truly _social_. He strongly censured what +is much too common in England among persons of condition,--maintaining +an absolute silence, when unknown to each other; as for instance, when +occasionally brought together in a room before the master or mistress of +the house has appeared. 'Sir, that is being so uncivilised as not to +understand the common rights of humanity[877].' + +At the inn where we stopped he was exceedingly dissatisfied with some +roast mutton which we had for dinner. The ladies I saw wondered to see +the great philosopher, whose wisdom and wit they had been admiring all +the way, get into ill-humour from such a cause. He scolded the waiter, +saying, 'It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, +ill-kept, and ill-drest[878].' + +He bore the journey very well, and seemed to feel himself elevated as he +approached Oxford, that magnificent and venerable seat of learning, +Orthodoxy, and Toryism. Frank came in the heavy coach, in readiness to +attend him; and we were received with the most polite hospitality at the +house of his old friend Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College, who had +given us a kind invitation. Before we were set down, I communicated to +Johnson, my having engaged to return to London directly, for the reason +I have mentioned, but that I would hasten back to him again. He was +pleased that I had made this journey merely to keep him company. He was +easy and placid, with Dr. Adams, Mrs. and Miss Adams, and Mrs. Kennicot, +widow of the learned Hebraean[879], who was here on a visit. He soon +dispatched the inquiries which were made about his illness and recovery, +by a short and distinct narrative; and then assuming a gay air, repeated +from Swift,-- + + 'Nor think on our approaching ills, + And talk of spectacles and pills[880].' + +Dr. Newton, the Bishop of Bristol, having been mentioned, Johnson, +recollecting the manner in which he had been censured by that +Prelate[881], thus retaliated:-' Tom knew he should be dead before what +he has said of me would appear. He durst not have printed it while he +was alive.' DR. ADAMS. 'I believe his _Dissertations on the Prophecies_ +is his great work.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is Tom's great work; but how +far it is great, or how much of it is Tom's, are other questions. I +fancy a considerable part of it was borrowed.' DR. ADAMS. 'He was a very +successful man.' JOHNSON. 'I don't think so, Sir. He did not get very +high. He was late in getting what he did get; and he did not get it by +the best means. I believe he was a gross flatterer[882].' + +I fulfilled my intention by going to London, and returned to Oxford on +Wednesday the 9th of June, when I was happy to find myself again in the +same agreeable circle at Pembroke College, with the comfortable prospect +of making some stay. Johnson welcomed my return with more than +ordinary glee. + +He talked with great regard of the Honourable Archibald Campbell, whose +character he had given at the Duke of Argyll's table, when we were at +Inverary[883]; and at this time wrote out for me, in his own hand, a +fuller account of that learned and venerable writer, which I have +published in its proper place. Johnson made a remark this evening which +struck me a good deal. 'I never (said he) knew a non-juror who could +reason[884].' Surely he did not mean to deny that faculty to many of +their writers; to Hickes, Brett[885], and other eminent divines of that +persuasion; and did not recollect that the seven Bishops, so justly +celebrated for their magnanimous resistance of arbitrary power, were yet +Nonjurors to the new Government[886]. The nonjuring clergy of Scotland, +indeed, who, excepting a few, have lately, by a sudden stroke, cut off +all ties of allegiance to the house of Stuart, and resolved to pray for +our present lawful Sovereign by name, may be thought to have confirmed +this remark; as it may be said, that the divine indefeasible hereditary +right which they professed to believe, if ever true, must be equally +true still. Many of my readers will be surprized when I mention, that +Johnson assured me he had never in his life been in a nonjuring +meeting-house[887]. + +Next morning at breakfast, he pointed out a passage in Savage's +_Wanderer_, saying, 'These are fine verses.' 'If (said he) I had written +with hostility of Warburton in my _Shakspeare_, I should have quoted +this couplet:-- + + "Here Learning, blinded first and then beguil'd, + Looks dark as Ignorance, as Fancy wild[888]." + +You see they'd have fitted him to a _T_,' (smiling.) DR. ADAMS. 'But you +did not write against Warburton.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, I treated him with +great respect both in my Preface and in my Notes[889].' + +Mrs. Kennicot spoke of her brother, the Reverend Mr. Chamberlayne, who +had given up great prospects in the Church of England on his conversion +to the Roman Catholick faith. Johnson, who warmly admired every man who +acted from a conscientious regard to principle, erroneous or not, +exclaimed fervently, 'GOD bless him.' + +Mrs. Kennicot, in confirmation of Dr. Johnson's opinion[890], that the +present was not worse than former ages, mentioned that her brother +assured her, there was now less infidelity on the Continent than there +had been; Voltaire and Rousseau were less read. I asserted, from good +authority, that Hume's infidelity was certainly less read. JOHNSON. 'All +infidel writers drop into oblivion, when personal connections and the +floridness of novelty are gone; though now and then a foolish fellow, +who thinks he can be witty upon them, may bring them again into notice. +There will sometimes start up a College joker, who does not consider +that what is a joke in a College will not do in the world. To such +defenders of Religion I would apply a stanza of a poem which I remember +to have seen in some old collection:-- + + "Henceforth be quiet and agree, + Each kiss his empty brother; + Religion scorns a foe like thee, + But dreads a friend like t'other." + +The point is well, though the expression is not correct; _one_, and not +_thee, should be opposed to _t'other_[891].' + +On the Roman Catholick religion he said, 'If you join the Papists +externally, they will not interrogate you strictly as to your belief in +their tenets. No reasoning Papist believes every article of their faith. +There is one side on which a good man might be persuaded to embrace it. +A good man of a timorous disposition, in great doubt of his acceptance +with GOD, and pretty credulous, might be glad to be of a church where +there, are so many helps to get to Heaven. I would be a Papist if I +could. I have fear enough; but an obstinate rationality prevents me. I +shall never be a Papist, unless on the near approach of death, of which +I have a very great terrour. I wonder that women are not all Papists.' +BOSWELL. 'They are not more afraid of death than men are.' JOHNSON. +'Because they are less wicked.' DR. ADAMS. 'They are more pious.' +JOHNSON. 'No, hang 'em, they are not more pious. A wicked fellow is the +most pious when he takes to it. He'll beat you all at piety.' + +He argued in defence of some of the peculiar tenets of the Church of +Rome. As to the giving the bread only to the laity, he said, 'They may +think, that in what is merely ritual, deviations from the primitive mode +may be admitted on the ground of convenience, and I think they are as +well warranted to make this alteration, as we are to substitute +sprinkling in the room of the ancient baptism.' As to the invocation of +saints[892], he said, 'Though I do not think it authorised, it appears +to me, that "the communion of saints" in the Creed means the communion +with the saints in Heaven, as connected with "The holy Catholick +Church[893]."' He admitted the influence of evil spirits[894] upon our +minds, and said, 'Nobody who believes the New Testament can deny it.' + +I brought a volume of Dr. Hurd the Bishop of Worcester's _Sermons_, and +read to the company some passages from one of them, upon this text, +'_Resist the Devil, and he will fly[895] from you.' James_, iv. 7. I was +happy to produce so judicious and elegant a supporter[896] of a +doctrine, which, I know not why, should, in this world of imperfect +knowledge, and, therefore, of wonder and mystery in a thousand +instances, be contested by some with an unthinking assurance and +flippancy. + +After dinner, when one of us talked of there being a great enmity +between Whig and Tory;--JOHNSON. 'Why not so much, I think, unless when +they come into competition with each other. There is none when they are +only common acquaintance, none when they are of different sexes. A Tory +will marry into a Whig family, and a Whig into a Tory family, without +any reluctance. But indeed, in a matter of much more concern than +political tenets, and that is religion, men and women do not concern +themselves much about difference of opinion; and ladies set no value on +the moral character of men who pay their addresses to them; the greatest +profligate will be as well received as the man of the greatest virtue, +and this by a very good woman, by a woman who says her prayers three +times a day.' Our ladies endeavoured to defend their sex from this +charge; but he roared them down! 'No, no, a lady will take Jonathan Wild +as readily as St. Austin, if he has three-pence more; and, what is +worse, her parents will give her to him. Women have a perpetual envy of +our vices; they are less vicious than we, not from choice, but because +we restrict them; they are the slaves of order and fashion; their virtue +is of more consequence to us than our own, so far as concerns +this world.' + +Miss Adams mentioned a gentleman of licentious character, and said, +'Suppose I had a mind to marry that gentleman, would my parents +consent?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, they'd consent, and you'd go. You'd go though +they did not consent.' MISS ADAMS. 'Perhaps their opposing might make me +go.' JOHNSON. 'O, very well; you'd take one whom you think a bad man, to +have the pleasure of vexing your parents. You put me in mind of Dr. +Barrowby[897], the physician, who was very fond of swine's flesh. One +day, when he was eating it, he said, 'I wish I was a Jew.' 'Why so? +(said somebody); the Jews are not allowed to eat your favourite meat.' +'Because, (said he,) I should then have the gust of eating it, with the +pleasure of sinning.' Johnson then proceeded in his declamation. + +Miss Adams soon afterwards made an observation that I do not recollect, +which pleased him much: he said with a good-humoured smile, 'That there +should be so much excellence united with so much _depravity_, +is strange.' + +Indeed, this lady's good qualities, merit, and accomplishments, and her +constant attention to Dr. Johnson, were not lost upon him. She happened +to tell him that a little coffee-pot, in which she had made his coffee, +was the only thing she could call her own. He turned to her with a +complacent gallantry, 'Don't say so, my dear; I hope you don't reckon my +heart as nothing.' + +I asked him if it was true as reported, that he had said lately, 'I am +for the King against Fox; but I am for Fox against Pitt.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, +Sir; the King is my master; but I do not know Pitt; and Fox is my +friend[898].' + +'Fox, (added he,) is a most extraordinary man; here is a man (describing +him in strong terms of objection in some respects according as he +apprehended, but which exalted his abilities the more) who has divided +the Kingdom with Caesar[899]; so that it, was a doubt whether the nation +should be ruled by the sceptre of George the Third, or the tongue +of Fox.' + +Dr. Wall, physician at Oxford, drank tea with us. Johnson had in +general a peculiar pleasure in the company of physicians, which was +certainly not abated by the conversation of this learned, ingenious, and +pleasing gentleman. Johnson said, 'It is wonderful how little good +Radcliffe's travelling fellowships[900] have done. I know nothing that +has been imported by them; yet many additions to our medical knowledge +might be got in foreign countries. Inoculation, for instance, has saved +more lives than war destroys[901]: and the cures performed by the +Peruvian-bark are innumerable. But it is in vain to send our travelling +physicians to France, and Italy, and Germany, for all that is known +there is known here; I'd send them out of Christendom; I'd send them +among barbarous nations.' + +On Friday, June 11, we talked at breakfast, of forms of prayer. JOHNSON. +'I know of no good prayers but those in the _Book of Common Prayer_.' +DR. ADAMS, (in a very earnest manner): 'I wish, Sir, you would compose +some family prayers.' JOHNSON. 'I will not compose prayers for you, Sir, +because you can do it for yourself. But I have thought of getting +together all the books of prayers which I could, selecting those which +should appear to me the best, putting out some, inserting others, adding +some prayers of my own, and prefixing a discourse on prayer.' We all now +gathered about him, and two or three of us at a time joined in pressing +him to execute this plan. He seemed to be a little displeased at the +manner of our importunity, and in great agitation called out, 'Do not +talk thus of what is so aweful. I know not what time GOD will allow me +in this world. There are many things which I wish to do.' Some of us +persisted, and Dr. Adams said, 'I never was more serious about any thing +in my life.' JOHNSON. 'Let me alone, let me alone; I am overpowered.' +And then he put his hands before his face, and reclined for some time +upon the table[902]. + +I mentioned Jeremy Taylor's using, in his forms of prayer, 'I am the +chief of sinners,' and other such self-condemning expressions[903]. +'Now, (said I) this cannot be said with truth by every man, and +therefore is improper for a general printed form. I myself cannot say +that I am the worst of men; I _will_ not say so.' JOHNSON. 'A man may +know, that physically, that is, in the real state of things, he is not +the worst man; but that morally he may be so. Law observes that "Every +man knows something worse of himself, than he is sure of in +others[904]." You may not have committed such crimes as some men have +done; but you do not know against what degree of light they have sinned. +Besides, Sir, "the chief of sinners" is a mode of expression for "I am a +great sinner." So St. Paul, speaking of our SAVIOUR'S having died to +save sinners, says, "of whom I am the chief[905];" yet he certainly did +not think himself so bad as Judas Iscariot.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, Taylor +means it literally, for he founds a conceit upon it. When praying for +the conversion of sinners, and of himself in particular, he says, "LORD, +thou wilt not leave thy _chief_ work undone." JOHNSON. 'I do not approve +of figurative expressions in addressing the Supreme Being; and I never +use them[906]. Taylor gives a very good advice: "Never lie in your +prayers; never confess more than you really believe; never promise more +than you mean to perform[907]." I recollected this precept in his +_Golden Grove_; but his _example_ for prayer contradicts his _precept_.' + +Dr. Johnson and I went in Dr. Adams's coach to dine with Dr. Nowell, +Principal of St. Mary Hall, at his beautiful villa at Iffley, on the +banks of the Isis, about two miles from Oxford. While we were upon the +road, I had the resolution to ask Johnson whether he thought that the +roughness of his manner had been an advantage or not, and if he would +not have done more good if he had been more gentle. I proceeded to +answer myself thus: 'Perhaps it has been of advantage, as it has given +weight to what you said: you could not, perhaps, have talked with such +authority without it.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; I have done more good as I am. +Obscenity and Impiety have always been repressed in my company[908].' +BOSWELL. 'True, Sir; and that is more than can be said of every Bishop. +Greater liberties have been taken in the presence of a Bishop, though a +very good man, from his being milder, and therefore not commanding such +awe. Yet, Sir, many people who might have been benefited by your +conversation, have been frightened away. A worthy friend of ours[909] +has told me, that he has often been afraid to talk to you.' JOHNSON. +'Sir, he need not have been afraid, if he had any thing rational to say. +If he had not, it was better he did not talk[910]. + +Dr. Nowell is celebrated for having preached a sermon before the House +of Commons, on the 3Oth of January, 1773, full of high Tory sentiments, +for which he was thanked as usual, and printed it at their request; but, +in the midst of that turbulence and faction which disgraced a part of +the present reign, the thanks were afterwards ordered to be +expunged[911]. This strange conduct sufficiently exposes itself; and Dr. +Nowell will ever have the honour which is due to a lofty friend of our +monarchical constitution. Dr. Johnson said to me, 'Sir, the Court will +be very much to blame, if he is not promoted.' I told this to Dr. +Nowell, and asserting my humbler, though not less zealous exertions in +the same cause, I suggested that whatever return we might receive, we +should still have the consolation of being like Butler's steady and +generous Royalist, + + 'True as the dial to the sun, + Although it be not shone upon[912].' + +We were well entertained and very happy at Dr. Nowell's, where was a +very agreeable company, and we drank 'Church and King' after dinner, +with true Tory cordiality. + +We talked of a certain clergyman[913] of extraordinary character, who +by exerting his talents in writing on temporary topicks, and displaying +uncommon intrepidity, had raised himself to affluence. I maintained that +we ought not to be indignant at his success; for merit of every sort was +entitled to reward. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I will not allow this man to have +merit. No, Sir; what he has is rather the contrary; I will, indeed, +allow him courage, and on this account we so far give him credit. We +have more respect for a man who robs boldly on the highway, than for a +fellow who jumps out of a ditch, and knocks you down behind your back. +Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is +always respected, even when it is associated with vice[914]. + +I censured the coarse invectives which were become fashionable in the +House of Commons[915], and said that if members of parliament must +attack each other personally in the heat of debate, it should be done +more genteely. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; that would be much worse. Abuse is not +so dangerous when there is no vehicle of wit or delicacy, no subtle +conveyance. The difference between coarse and refined abuse is as the +difference between being bruised by a club, and wounded by a poisoned +arrow.' I have since observed his position elegantly expressed by +Dr. Young:-- + + 'As the soft plume gives swiftness to the dart, + Good breeding sends the satire to the heart[916].' + +On Saturday, June 12, there drank tea with us at Dr. Adams's, Mr. John +Henderson, student of Pembroke-College, celebrated for his wonderful +acquirements in Alchymy, Judicial Astrology, and other abstruse and +curious learning[917]; and the Reverend Herbert Croft, who, I am afraid, +was somewhat mortified by Dr. Johnson's not being highly pleased with +some _Family Discourses_, which he had printed; they were in too +familiar a style to be approved of by so manly a mind. I have no note of +this evening's conversation, except a single fragment. When I mentioned +Thomas Lord Lyttelton's vision[918], the prediction of the time of his +death, and its exact fulfilment;--JOHNSON. 'It is the most extraordinary +thing that has happened in my day. I heard it with my own ears, from his +uncle, Lord Westcote. I am so glad to have every evidence of the +spiritual world, that I am willing to believe it.' DR. ADAMS. 'You have +evidence enough; good evidence, which needs not such support.' JOHNSON. +'I like to have more[919].' + +Mr. Henderson, with whom I had sauntered in the venerable walks of +Merton-College, and found him a very learned and pious man, supped with +us. Dr. Johnson surprised him not a little, by acknowledging with a look +of horrour, that he was much oppressed by the fear of death[920]. The +amiable Dr. Adams suggested that GOD was infinitely good. JOHNSON. 'That +he is infinitely good, as far as the perfection of his nature will +allow, I certainly believe; but it is necessary for good upon the whole, +that individuals should be punished. As to an _individual_, therefore, +he is not infinitely good; and as I cannot be _sure_ that I have +fulfilled the conditions on which salvation is granted, I am afraid I +may be one of those who shall be damned.' (looking dismally.) DR. ADAMS. +'What do you mean by damned?' JOHNSON. (passionately and loudly) 'Sent +to Hell, Sir, and punished everlastingly[921].' DR. ADAMS. 'I don't +believe that doctrine.' JOHNSON. 'Hold, Sir, do you believe that some +will be punished at all?' DR. ADAMS. 'Being excluded from Heaven will be +a punishment; yet there may be no great positive suffering.' JOHNSON. +'Well, Sir; but, if you admit any degree of punishment, there is an end +of your argument for infinite goodness simply considered; for, infinite +goodness would inflict no punishment whatever. There is not infinite +goodness physically considered; morally there is.' BOSWELL. 'But may not +a man attain to such a degree of hope as not to be uneasy from the fear +of death?' JOHNSON. 'A man may have such a degree of hope as to keep him +quiet. You see I am not quiet, from the vehemence with which I talk; +but I do not despair.' MRS. ADAMS. 'You seem, Sir, to forget the merits +of our Redeemer.' JOHNSON. 'Madam, I do not forget the merits of my +Redeemer; but my Redeemer has said that he will set some on his right +hand and some on his left.' He was in gloomy agitation, and said, 'I'll +have no more on't[922].' If what has now been stated should be urged by +the enemies of Christianity, as if its influence on the mind were not +benignant, let it be remembered, that Johnson's temperament was +melancholy, of which such direful apprehensions of futurity are often a +common effect. We shall presently see that when he approached nearer to +his aweful change, his mind became tranquil, and he exhibited as much +fortitude as becomes a thinking man in that situation. + +From the subject of death we passed to discourse of life, whether it was +upon the whole more happy or miserable. Johnson was decidedly for the +balance of misery[923]: in confirmation of which I maintained, that no +man would choose to lead over again the life which he had experienced. +Johnson acceded to that opinion in the strongest terms[924]. This is an +inquiry often made; and its being a subject of disquisition is a proof +that much misery presses upon human feelings; for those who are +conscious of a felicity of existence, would never hesitate to accept of +a repetition of it. I have met with very few who would. I have heard Mr. +Burke make use of a very ingenious and plausible argument on this +subject;--'Every man (said he) would lead his life over again; for, +every man is willing to go on and take an addition to his life, which, +as he grows older, he has no reason to think will be better, or even so +good as what has preceded.' I imagine, however, the truth is, that there +is a deceitful hope that the next part of life will be free from the +pains, and anxieties, and sorrows, which we have already felt[925]. We +are for wise purposes 'Condemn'd to Hope's delusive mine;' as Johnson +finely says[926]; and I may also quote the celebrated lines of Dryden, +equally philosophical and poetical:-- + + 'When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat, + Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit: + Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay; + To-morrow's falser than the former day; + Lies worse; and while it says we shall be blest + With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. + Strange cozenage! none would live past years again; + Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; + And from the dregs of life think to receive, + What the first sprightly running could not give[927].' + +It was observed to Dr. Johnson, that it seemed strange that he, who has +so often delighted his company by his lively and brilliant conversation, +should say he was miserable. JOHNSON. 'Alas! it is all outside; I may be +cracking my joke[928], and cursing the sun. _Sun, how I hate thy +beams_[929]!' I knew not well what to think of this declaration; whether +to hold it as a genuine picture of his mind[930], or as the effect of +his persuading himself contrary to fact, that the position which he had +assumed as to human unhappiness, was true. We may apply to him a +sentence in Mr. Greville's[931] _Maxims, Characters, and +Reflections_[932]; a book which is entitled to much more praise than it +has received: 'ARISTARCHUS is charming: how full of knowledge, of sense, +of sentiment. You get him with difficulty to your supper; and after +having delighted every body and himself for a few hours, he is obliged +to return home;--he is finishing his treatise, to prove that unhappiness +is the portion of man[933].' + +On Sunday, June 13, our philosopher was calm at breakfast. There was +something exceedingly pleasing in our leading a College life, without +restraint, and with superiour elegance, in consequence of our living in +the Master's house, and having the company of ladies. Mrs. Kennicot +related, in his presence, a lively saying of Dr. Johnson to Miss Hannah +More, who had expressed a wonder that the poet who had written _Paradise +Lost_ should write such poor Sonnets:--' Milton, Madam, was a genius +that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon +cherry-stones[934].' + +We talked of the casuistical question, Whether it was allowable at any +time to depart from _Truth_? JOHNSON. 'The general rule is, that Truth +should never be violated, because it is of the utmost importance to the +comfort of life, that we should have a full security by mutual faith; +and occasional inconveniences should be willingly suffered that we may +preserve it. There must, however, be some exceptions. If, for instance, +a murderer should ask you which way a man is gone, you may tell him what +is not true, because you are under a previous obligation not to betray a +man to a murderer[935].' BOSWELL. 'Supposing the person who wrote +_Junius_ were asked whether he was the authour, might he deny it?' +JOHNSON. 'I don't know what to say to this. If you were _sure_ that he +wrote _Junius_, would you, if he denied it, think as well of him +afterwards? Yet it may be urged, that what a man has no right to ask, +you may refuse to communicate[936]; and there is no other effectual mode +of preserving a secret and an important secret, the discovery of which +may be very hurtful to you, but a flat denial; for if you are silent, or +hesitate, or evade, it will be held equivalent to a confession. But +stay, Sir; here is another case. Supposing the authour had told me +confidentially that he had written _Junius_, and I were asked if he had, +I should hold myself at liberty to deny it, as being under a previous +promise, express or implied, to conceal it. Now what I ought to do for +the authour, may I not do for myself? But I deny the lawfulness of +telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him. You have no +business with consequences; you are to tell the truth. Besides, you are +not sure what effect your telling him that he is in danger may have. It +may bring his distemper to a crisis, and that may cure him. Of all +lying, I have the greatest abhorrence of this, because I believe it has +been frequently practised on myself.' + +I cannot help thinking that there is much weight in the opinion of those +who have held, that Truth, as an eternal and immutable principle, ought, +upon no account whatever, to be violated, from supposed previous or +superiour obligations, of which every man being to judge for himself, +there is great danger that we too often, from partial motives, persuade +ourselves that they exist; and probably whatever extraordinary instances +may sometimes occur, where some evil may be prevented by violating this +noble principle, it would be found that human happiness would, upon the +whole, be more perfect were Truth universally preserved. + +In the notes to the _Dunciad_[937], we find the following verses, +addressed to Pope[938]:-- + + 'While malice, Pope, denies thy page + Its own celestial fire; + While criticks, and while bards in rage + Admiring, won't admire: + + While wayward pens thy worth assail, + And envious tongues decry; + These times, though many a friend bewail, + These times bewail not I. + + But when the world's loud praise is thine, + And spleen no more shall blame; + When with thy Homer thou shalt shine + In one establish'd fame! + + When none shall rail, and every lay + Devote a wreath to thee: + That day (for come it will) that day + Shall I lament to see.' + +It is surely not a little remarkable, that they should appear without a +name. Miss Seward[939], knowing Dr. Johnson's almost universal and +minute literary information, signified a desire that I should ask him +who was the authour. He was prompt with his answer: 'Why, Sir, they were +written by one Lewis, who was either under-master or an usher of +Westminster-school, and published a Miscellany, in which _Grongar +Hill_[940] first came out[941].' Johnson praised them highly, and +repeated them with a noble animation. In the twelfth line, instead of +'one establish'd fame,' he repeated 'one unclouded flame,' which he +thought was the reading in former editions: but I believe was a flash of +his own genius. It is much more poetical than the other. + +On Monday, June 14, and Tuesday, 15, Dr. Johnson and I dined, on one of +them, I forget which, with Mr. Mickle, translator of the _Lusiad_, at +Wheatley, a very pretty country place a few miles from Oxford; and on +the other with Dr. Wetherell, Master of University-College. From Dr. +Wetherell's he went to visit Mr. Sackville Parker, the bookseller; and +when he returned to us, gave the following account of his visit, saying, +'I have been to see my old friend, Sack. Parker; I find he has married +his maid; he has done right. She had lived with him many years in great +confidence, and they had mingled minds; I do not think he could have +found any wife that would have made him so happy. The woman was very +attentive and civil to me; she pressed me to fix a day for dining with +them, and to say what I liked, and she would be sure to get it for me. +Poor Sack! He is very ill, indeed. We parted as never to meet again. It +has quite broke me down.' This pathetic narrative was strangely +diversified with the grave and earnest defence of a man's having married +his maid. I could not but feel it as in some degree ludicrous. + +In the morning of Tuesday, June 15, while we sat at Dr. Adams's, we +talked of a printed letter from the Reverend Herbert Croft[942], to a +young gentleman who had been his pupil, in which he advised him to read +to the end of whatever books he should begin to read. JOHNSON. 'This is +surely a strange advice; you may as well resolve that whatever men you +happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep to them for life. A book +may be good for nothing; or there may be only one thing in it worth +knowing; are we to read it all through[943]? These Voyages, (pointing to +the three large volumes of _Voyages to the South Sea_[944], which were +just come out) _who_ will read them through? A man had better work his +way before the mast, than read them through; they will be eaten by rats +and mice, before they are read through. There can be little +entertainment in such books; one set of Savages is like another.' +BOSWELL. 'I do not think the people of Otaheité can be reckoned +Savages.' JOHNSON. 'Don't cant in defence of Savages[945].' BOSWELL. +'They have the art of navigation.' JOHNSON. 'A dog or a cat can swim.' +BOSWELL. 'They carve very ingeniously.' JOHNSON. 'A cat can scratch, and +a child with a nail can scratch.' I perceived this was none of the +_mollia tempora fandi_[946]; so desisted. + +Upon his mentioning that when he came to College he wrote his first +exercise twice over; but never did so afterwards[947]; MISS ADAMS. 'I +suppose, Sir, you could not make them better?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Madam, to +be sure, I could make them better. Thought is better than no thought.' +MISS ADAMS. 'Do you think, Sir, you could make your _Ramblers_ better?' +JOHNSON. 'Certainly I could.' BOSWELL. 'I'll lay a bet, Sir, you +cannot.' JOHNSON. 'But I will, Sir, if I choose. I shall make the best +of them you shall pick out, better.' BOSWELL. 'But you may add to them. +I will not allow of that.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, there are three ways of +making them better;--putting out,--adding,--or correcting[948].' + +During our visit at Oxford, the following conversation passed between +him and me on the subject of my trying my fortune at the English +bar[949]: Having asked whether a very extensive acquaintance in London, +which was very valuable, and of great advantage to a man at large, might +not be prejudicial to a lawyer, by preventing him from giving sufficient +attention to his business;--JOHNSON. 'Sir, you will attend to business, +as business lays hold of you. When not actually employed, you may see +your friends as much as you do now. You may dine at a Club every day, +and sup with one of the members every night; and you may be as much at +publick places as one who has seen them all would wish to be. But you +must take care to attend constantly in Westminster-Hall; both to mind +your business, as it is almost all learnt there, (for nobody reads now;) +and to shew that you want to have business[950]. And you must not be +too often seen at publick places, that competitors may not have it to +say, 'He is always at the Playhouse or at Ranelagh, and never to be +found at his chambers.' And, Sir, there must be a kind of solemnity in +the manner of a professional man. I have nothing particular to say to +you on the subject. All this I should say to any one; I should have said +it to Lord Thurlow twenty years ago.' + +The PROFESSION may probably think this representation of what is +required in a Barrister who would hope for success, to be by much too +indulgent; but certain it is, that as + + 'The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame[951],' + +some of the lawyers of this age who have risen high, have by no means +thought it absolutely necessary to submit to that long and painful +course of study which a Plowden, a Coke, and a Hale considered as +requisite. My respected friend, Mr. Langton, has shewn me in the +hand-writing of his grandfather[952], a curious account of a +conversation which he had with Lord Chief Justice Hale, in which that +great man tells him, 'That for two years after he came to the inn of +court, he studied sixteen hours a day; however (his Lordship added) that +by this intense application he almost brought himself to his grave, +though he were of a very strong constitution, and after reduced himself +to eight hours; but that he would not advise any body to so much; that +he thought six hours a day, with attention and constancy, was +sufficient; that a man must use his body as he would his horse, and his +stomach; not tire him at once, but rise with an appetite.[953]' + +On Wednesday, June 19[954], Dr. Johnson and I returned to London; he +was not well to-day, and said very little, employing himself chiefly in +reading Euripides. He expressed some displeasure at me, for not +observing sufficiently the various objects upon the road. 'If I had your +eyes, Sir, (said he) I should count the passengers.' It was wonderful +how accurate his observation of visual objects was, notwithstanding his +imperfect eyesight, owing to a habit of attention[955]. That he was much +satisfied with the respect paid to him at Dr. Adams's is thus attested +by himself: 'I returned last night from Oxford, after a fortnight's +abode with Dr. Adams, who treated me as well as I could expect or wish; +and he that contents a sick man, a man whom it is impossible to please, +has surely done his part well[956].' + +After his return to London from this excursion, I saw him frequently, +but have few memorandums: I shall therefore here insert some particulars +which I collected at various times. + +The Reverend Mr. Astle, of Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, brother to the +learned and ingenious Thomas Astle[957], Esq., was from his early years +known to Dr. Johnson, who obligingly advised him as to his studies, and +recommended to him the following books, of which a list which he has +been pleased to communicate, lies before me in Johnson's own +hand-writing:-- + +_Universal History (ancient.)--Rollin's Ancient History.--Puffendorf's +Introduction to History.--Vertot's History of Knights of Malta.-- +Vertot's Revolution of Portugal.--Vertot's Revolutions of Sweden.-- +Carte's History of England.--Present State of England.--Geographical +Grammar.--Prideaux's Connection.--Nelson's Feasts and Fasts.--Duty of +Man.--Gentleman's Religion.--Clarendon's History.--Watts's Improvement +of the Mind.--Watts's Logick.--Nature Displayed.--Lowth's English +Grammar.--Blackwall on the Classicks.--Sherlock's Sermons.--Burnet's +Life of Hale.--Dupin's History of the Church.--Shuckford's +Connection.--Law's Serious Call.--Walton's Complete Angler.--Sandys's +Travels.--Sprat's History of the Royal Society.--England's +Gazetteer.--Goldsmith's Roman History.--Some Commentaries on the. +Bible_[958]. + +It having been mentioned to Dr. Johnson that a gentleman who had a son +whom he imagined to have an extreme degree of timidity, resolved to send +him to a publick school, that he might acquire confidence;--' Sir, (said +Johnson,) this is a preposterous expedient for removing his infirmity; +such a disposition should be cultivated in the shade. Placing him at a +publick school is forcing an owl upon day[959].' + +Speaking of a gentleman whose house was much frequented by low company; +'Rags, Sir, (said he,) will always make their appearance where they have +a right to do it.' + +Of the same gentleman's mode of living, he said, 'Sir, the servants, +instead of doing what they are bid, stand round the table in idle +clusters, gaping upon the guests; and seem as unfit to attend a company, +as to steer a man of war[960].' + +A dull country magistrate[961] gave Johnson a long tedious account of +his exercising his criminal jurisdiction, the result of which was his +having sentenced four convicts to transportation. Johnson, in an agony +of impatience to get rid of such a companion, exclaimed, 'I heartily +wish, Sir, that I were a fifth.' + +Johnson was present when a tragedy was read, in which there occurred +this line:-- + + 'Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free[962].' + +The company having admired it much, 'I cannot agree with you (said +Johnson:) It might as well be said,-- + +'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.' + +He was pleased with the kindness of Mr. Cator, who was joined with him +in Mr. Thrale's important trust, and thus describes him[963]:--'There is +much good in his character, and much usefulness in his knowledge.' He +found a cordial solace at that gentleman's seat at Beckenham, in Kent, +which is indeed one of the finest places at which I ever was a guest; +and where I find more and more a hospitable welcome. + +Johnson seldom encouraged general censure of any profession[964]; but he +was willing to allow a due share of merit to the various departments +necessary in civilised life. In a splenetick, sarcastical, or jocular +frame, however, he would sometimes utter a pointed saying of that +nature. One instance has been mentioned[965], where he gave a sudden +satirical stroke to the character of an _attorney_. The too +indiscriminate admission to that employment, which requires both +abilities and integrity, has given rise to injurious reflections, which +are totally inapplicable to many very respectable men who exercise it +with reputation and honour. + +Johnson having argued for some time with a pertinacious gentleman; his +opponent, who had talked in a very puzzling manner, happened to say, 'I +don't understand you, Sir:' upon which Johnson observed, 'Sir, I have +found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an +understanding[966].' + +Talking to me of Horry Walpole, (as Horace late Earl of Orford was +often called[967],) Johnson allowed that he got together a great many +curious little things, and told them in an elegant manner[968]. Mr. +Walpole thought Johnson a more amiable character after reading his +_Letters to Mrs. Thrale_: but never was one of the true admirers of that +great man[969]. We may suppose a prejudice conceived, if he ever heard +Johnson's account to Sir George Staunton[970], that when he made the +speeches in parliament for the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 'he always took +care to put Sir Robert Walpole in the wrong, and to say every thing he +could against the electorate of Hanover[971].' The celebrated _Heroick +Epistle_, in which Johnson is satyrically introduced, has been ascribed +both to Mr. Walpole and Mr. Mason. One day at Mr. Courtenay's, when a +gentleman expressed his opinion that there was more energy in that poem +than could be expected from Mr. Walpole; Mr. Warton, the late Laureat, +observed, 'It may have been written by Walpole, and _buckram'd_ by +Mason[972].' + +He disapproved of Lord Hailes, for having modernised the language of the +ever-memorable John Hales of Eton[973], in an edition which his Lordship +published of that writer's works. 'An authour's language, Sir, (said +he,) is a characteristical part of his composition, and is also +characteristical of the age in which he writes. Besides, Sir, when the +language is changed we are not sure that the sense is the same. No, Sir; +I am sorry Lord Hailes has done this.' + +Here it may be observed, that his frequent use of the expression, _No, +Sir_, was not always to intimate contradiction; for he would say so, +when he was about to enforce an affirmative proposition which had not +been denied, as in the instance last mentioned. I used to consider it as +a kind of flag of defiance; as if he had said, 'Any argument you may +offer against this, is not just. No, Sir, it is not.' It was like +Falstaff's 'I deny your Major[974].' + +Sir Joshua Reynolds having said that he took the altitude of a man's +taste by his stories and his wit, and of his understanding by the +remarks which he repeated; being always sure that he must be a weak man +who quotes common things with an emphasis as if they were oracles; +Johnson agreed with him; and Sir Joshua having also observed that the +real character of a man was found out by his amusements,--Johnson added, +'Yes, Sir; no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures[975].' + +I have mentioned Johnson's general aversion to a pun[976]. He once, +however, endured one of mine. When we were talking of a numerous company +in which he had distinguished himself highly, I said, 'Sir, you were a +COD surrounded by smelts. Is not this enough for you? at a time too when +you were not _fishing_ for a compliment?' He laughed at this with a +complacent approbation. Old Mr. Sheridan observed, upon my mentioning it +to him, 'He liked your compliment so well, he was willing to take it +with _pun sauce_.' For my own part, I think no innocent species of wit +or pleasantry should be suppressed; and that a good pun may be admitted +among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation. + +Had Johnson treated at large _De Claris Oratoribus_[977], he might have +given us an admirable work. When the Duke of Bedford attacked the +ministry as vehemently as he could, for having taken upon them to extend +the time for the importation of corn[978], Lord Chatham, in his first +speech in the House of Lords, boldly avowed himself to be an adviser of +that measure. 'My colleagues, (said he,) as I was confined by +indisposition, did me the signal honour of coming to the bed-side of a +sick man, to ask his opinion. But, had they not thus condescended, I +should have _taken up my bed and walked_, in order to have delivered +that opinion at the Council-Board.' Mr. Langton, who was present, +mentioned this to Johnson, who observed, 'Now, Sir, we see that he took +these words as he found them; without considering, that though the +expression in Scripture, _take up thy bed and walk_[979], strictly +suited the instance of the sick man restored to health and strength, who +would of course be supposed to carry his bed with him, it could not be +proper in the case of a man who was lying in a state of feebleness, and +who certainly would not add to the difficulty of moving at all, that of +carrying his bed.' + +When I pointed out to him in the newspaper one of Mr. Grattan's animated +and glowing speeches, in favour of the freedom of Ireland, in which this +expression occurred (I know not if accurately taken): 'We will +persevere, till there is not one link of the English chain left to clank +upon the rags of the meanest beggar in Ireland;' 'Nay, Sir, (said +Johnson,) don't you perceive that _one_ link cannot clank?' + +Mrs. Thrale has published[980], as Johnson's, a kind of parody or +counterpart of a fine poetical passage in one of Mr. Burke's speeches on +American Taxation. It is vigorously but somewhat coarsely executed; and +I am inclined to suppose, is not quite correctly exhibited. I hope he +did not use the words _'vile agents'_ for the Americans in the House of +Parliament; and if he did so, in an extempore effusion, I wish the lady +had not committed it to writing[981]. + +Mr. Burke uniformly shewed Johnson the greatest respect; and when Mr. +Townshend, now lord Sydney, at a period when he was conspicuous in +opposition, threw out some reflection in parliament upon the grant of a +pension to a man of such political principles as Johnson; Mr. Burke, +though then of the same party with Mr. Townshend, stood warmly forth in +defence of his friend, to whom, he justly observed, the pension was +granted solely on account of his eminent literary merit. I am well +assured, that Mr. Townshend's attack upon Johnson was the occasion of +his 'hitching in a rhyme[982];' for, that in the original copy of +Goldsmith's character of Mr. Burke, in his _Retaliation_, another +person's name stood in the couplet where Mr. Townshend is now +introduced[983]:-- + + 'Though fraught with all learning kept[984] straining his throat, + To persuade _Tommy Townshend_ to lend him a vote.' + +It may be worth remarking, among the _minutiae_ of my collection, that +Johnson was once drawn to serve in the militia, the Trained Bands of the +City of London, and that Mr. Rackstrow, of the Museum in Fleet-street, +was his Colonel. It may be believed he did not serve in person; but the +idea, with all its circumstances, is certainly laughable. He upon that +occasion provided himself with a musket, and with a sword and belt, +which I have seen hanging in his closet. + +He was very constant to those whom he once employed, if they gave him no +reason to be displeased. When somebody talked of being imposed on in the +purchase of tea and sugar, and such articles: 'That will not be the +case, (said he,) if you go to a _stately shop_, as I always do. In such +a shop it is not worth their while to take a petty advantage.' + +An authour of most anxious and restless vanity being mentioned, 'Sir, +(said he,) there is not a young sapling upon Parnassus more severely +blown about by every wind of criticism than that poor fellow.' + +The difference, he observed, between a well-bred and an ill-bred man is +this: 'One immediately attracts your liking, the other your aversion. +You love the one till you find reason to hate him; you hate the other +till you find reason to love him.' + +The wife of one of his acquaintance had fraudulently made a purse for +herself out of her husband's fortune. Feeling a proper compunction in +her last moments, she confessed how much she had secreted; but before +she could tell where it was placed, she was seized with a convulsive fit +and expired. Her husband said, he was more hurt by her want of +confidence in him, than by the loss of his money. 'I told him, (said +Johnson,) that he should console himself: for _perhaps_ the money might +be _found_, and he was _sure_ that his wife was gone.' + +A foppish physician once reminded Johnson of his having been in company +with him on a former occasion; 'I do not remember it, Sir.' The +physician still insisted; adding that he that day wore so fine a coat +that it must have attracted his notice. 'Sir, (said Johnson,) had you +been dipt in Pactolus[985] I should not have noticed you.' + +He seemed to take a pleasure in speaking in his own style; for when he +had carelessly missed it, he would repeat the thought translated into +it[986]. Talking of the Comedy of _The Rehearsal_[987], he said, 'It has +not wit enough to keep it sweet.' This was easy; he therefore caught +himself, and pronounced a more round sentence; 'It has not vitality +enough to preserve it from putrefaction.' + +He censured a writer of entertaining Travels[988] for assuming a feigned +character, saying, (in his sense of the word[989],) 'He carries out one +lye; we know not how many he brings back.'[990] At another time, talking +of the same person, he observed, 'Sir, your assent to a man whom you +have never known to falsify, is a debt: but after you have known a man +to falsify, your assent to him then is a favour.' + +Though he had no taste for painting, he admired much the manner in which +Sir Joshua Reynolds treated of his art, in his _Discourses to the Royal +Academy_[991]. He observed one day of a passage in them, 'I think I +might as well have said this myself: 'and once when Mr. Langton was +sitting by him, he read one of them very eagerly, and expressed himself +thus:--'Very well, Master Reynolds; very well, indeed. But it will not +be understood.' + +When I observed to him that Painting was so far inferiour to Poetry, +that the story or even emblem which it communicates must be previously +known, and mentioned as a natural and laughable instance of this, that a +little Miss on seeing a picture of Justice with the scales, had +exclaimed to me, 'See, there's a woman selling sweetmeats;' he said, +'Painting, Sir, can illustrate, but cannot inform.' + +No man was more ready to make an apology when he had censured unjustly, +than Johnson[992]. When a proof-sheet of one of his works was brought to +him, he found fault with the mode in which a part of it was arranged, +refused to read it, and in a passion[993] desired that the +compositor[994] might be sent to him. The compositor was Mr. Manning, a +decent sensible man, who had composed about one half of his +_Dictionary_, when in Mr. Strahan's printing-house; and a great part of +his _Lives of the Poets_, when in that of Mr. Nichols; and who (in his +seventy-seventh year), when in Mr. Baldwin's printing-house, composed a +part of the first edition of this work concerning him. By producing the +manuscript, he at once satisfied Dr. Johnson that he was not to blame. +Upon which Johnson candidly and earnestly said to him, 'Mr. Compositor, +I ask your pardon. Mr. Compositor, I ask your pardon, again and again.' + +His generous humanity to the miserable was almost beyond example. The +following instance is well attested:--Coming home late one night, he +found a poor woman lying in the street, so much exhausted that she could +not walk; he took her upon his back, and carried her to his house, where +he discovered that she was one of those wretched females who had fallen +into the lowest state of vice, poverty, and disease. Instead of harshly +upbraiding her, he had her taken care of with all tenderness for a long +time, at considerable expence, till she was restored to health, and +endeavoured to put her into a virtuous way of living[995]. + +He thought Mr. Caleb Whitefoord singularly happy in hitting on the +signature of _Papyrius Cursor_, to his ingenious and diverting +cross-readings of the newspapers; it being a real name of an ancient +Roman, and clearly expressive of the thing done in this lively +conceit[996]. + +He once in his life was known to have uttered what is called a _bull_: +Sir Joshua Reynolds, when they were riding together in Devonshire, +complained that he had a very bad horse, for that even when going down +hill he moved slowly step by step. 'Ay (said Johnson,) and when he +_goes_ up hill, he _stands still_.' + +He had a great aversion to gesticulating in company. He called once to +a gentleman who offended him in that point, 'Don't _attitudenise_.' And +when another gentleman thought he was giving additional force to what he +uttered, by expressive movements of his hands, Johnson fairly seized +them, and held them down[997]. + +An authour of considerable eminence[998] having engrossed a good share +of the conversation in the company of Johnson, and having said nothing +but what was trifling and insignificant; Johnson when he was gone, +observed to us, 'It is wonderful what a difference there sometimes is +between a man's powers of writing and of talking. ---- writes with great +spirit, but is a poor talker; had he held his tongue we might have +supposed him to have been restrained by modesty; but he has spoken a +great deal to-day; and you have heard what stuff it was.' + +A gentleman having said that a _congé d'élire_[999] has not, perhaps, +the force of a command, but may be considered only as a strong +recommendation; 'Sir, (replied Johnson, who overheard him,) it is such a +recommendation, as if I should throw you out of a two-pair of stairs +window, and recommend to you to fall soft[1000].' + +Mr. Steevens, who passed many a social hour with him during their long +acquaintance, which commenced when they both lived in the Temple, has +preserved a good number of particulars concerning him, most of which are +to be found in the department of Apothegms, &c. in the Collection of +_Johnson's Works_[1001]. But he has been pleased to favour me with the +following, which are original:-- + +'One evening, previous to the trial of Barretti[1002], a consultation of +his friends was held at the house of Mr. Cox, the Solicitor, in +Southampton-buildings, Chancery-lane. Among others present were, Mr. +Burke and Dr. Johnson, who differed in sentiments concerning the +tendency of some part of the defence the prisoner was to make. When the +meeting was over, Mr. Steevens observed, that the question between him +and his friend had been agitated with rather too much warmth. "It may be +so, Sir, (replied the Doctor,) for Burke and I should have been of one +opinion, if we had had no audience[1003]." + +'Dr. Johnson once assumed a character in which perhaps even Mr. Boswell +never saw him. His curiosity having been excited by the praises bestowed +on the celebrated Torré's fireworks at Marybone-Gardens, he desired Mr. +Steevens to accompany him thither. The evening had proved showery; and +soon after the few people present were assembled, publick notice was +given, that the conductors to the wheels, suns, stars, &c., were so +thoroughly water-soaked, that it was impossible any part of the +exhibition should be made. "This is a mere excuse, (says the Doctor,) to +save their crackers for a more profitable company. Let us but hold up +our sticks, and threaten to break those coloured lamps that surround the +Orchestra, and we shall soon have our wishes gratified. The core of the +fireworks cannot be injured; let the different pieces be touched in +their respective centers, and they will do their offices as well as +ever." Some young men who overheard him, immediately began the violence +he had recommended, and an attempt was speedily made to fire some of the +wheels which appeared to have received the smallest damage; but to +little purpose were they lighted, for most of them completely failed. +The authour of _The Rambler_, however, may be considered, on this +occasion, as the ringleader of a successful riot, though not as a +skilful pyrotechnist.' + +'It has been supposed that Dr. Johnson, so far as fashion was concerned, +was careless of his appearance in publick. But this is not altogether +true, as the following slight instance may show:--Goldsmith's last +Comedy was to be represented during some court-mourning[1004]: and Mr. +Steevens appointed to call on Dr. Johnson, and carry him to the tavern +where he was to dine with others of the Poet's friends. The Doctor was +ready dressed, but in coloured cloaths; yet being told that he would +find every one else in black, received the intelligence with a profusion +of thanks, hastened to change his attire, all the while repeating his +gratitude for the information that had saved him from an appearance so +improper in the front row of a front box. "I would not (added he,) for +ten pounds, have seemed so retrograde to any general observance[1005]." + +'He would sometimes found his dislikes on very slender circumstances. +Happening one day to mention Mr. Flexman, a Dissenting Minister, with +some compliment to his exact memory in chronological matters; the Doctor +replied, "Let me hear no more of him, Sir. That is the fellow who made +the Index to my _Ramblers_, and set down the name of Milton thus: +Milton, _Mr_. John[1006]."' + +Mr. Steevens adds this testimony:-- + +'It is unfortunate, however, for Johnson, that his particularities and +frailties can be more distinctly traced than his good and amiable +exertions. Could the many bounties he studiously concealed, the many +acts of humanity he performed in private, be displayed with equal +circumstantiality, his defects would be so far lost in the blaze of his +virtues, that the latter only would be regarded.' + +Though from my very high admiration of Johnson, I have wondered[1007] +that he was not courted by all the great and all the eminent persons of +his time, it ought fairly to be considered, that no man of humble birth, +who lived entirely by literature, in short no authour by profession, +ever rose in this country into that personal notice which he did. In the +course of this work a numerous variety of names has been mentioned, to +which many might be added. I cannot omit Lord and Lady Lucan, at whose +house he often enjoyed all that an elegant table and the best company +can contribute to happiness; he found hospitality united with +extraordinary accomplishments, and embellished with charms of which no +man could be insensible[1008]. + +On Tuesday, June 22, I dined with him at THE LITERARY CLUB, the last +time of his being in that respectable society. The other members present +were the Bishop of St. Asaph, Lord Eliot, Lord Palmerston, Dr. Fordyce, +and Mr. Malone. He looked ill; but had such a manly fortitude, that he +did not trouble the company with melancholy complaints. They all shewed +evident marks of kind concern about him, with which he was much pleased, +and he exerted himself to be as entertaining as his indisposition +allowed him. + +The anxiety of his friends to preserve so estimable a life, as long as +human means might be supposed to have influence, made them plan for him +a retreat from the severity of a British winter, to the mild climate of +Italy[1009]. This scheme was at last brought to a serious resolution at +General Paoli's, where I had often talked of it. One essential matter, +however, I understood was necessary to be previously settled, which was +obtaining such an addition to his income, as would be sufficient to +enable him to defray the expence in a manner becoming the first literary +character of a great nation, and, independent of all his other merits, +the Authour of THE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. The person to +whom I above all others thought I should apply to negociate this +business, was the Lord Chancellor[1010], because I knew that he highly +valued Johnson, and that Johnson highly valued his Lordship; so that it +was no degradation of my illustrious friend to solicit for him the +favour of such a man. I have mentioned[1011] what Johnson said of him to +me when he was at the bar; and after his Lordship was advanced to the +seals[1012], he said of him, 'I would prepare myself for no man in +England but Lord Thurlow. When I am to meet with him I should wish to +know a day before[1013]'. How he would have prepared himself I cannot +conjecture. Would he have selected certain topicks, and considered them +in every view so as to be in readiness to argue them at all points? and +what may we suppose those topicks to have been? I once started the +curious enquiry to the great man who was the subject of this compliment: +he smiled, but did not pursue it. + +I first consulted with Sir Joshua Reynolds, who perfectly coincided in +opinion with me; and I therefore, though personally very little known to +his Lordship, wrote to him[1014], stating the case, and requesting his +good offices for Dr. Johnson. I mentioned that I was obliged to set out +for Scotland early in the following week, so that if his Lordship should +have any commands for me as to this pious negociation, he would be +pleased to send them before that time; otherwise Sir Joshua Reynolds +would give all attention to it. + +This application was made not only without any suggestion on the part of +Johnson himself, but was utterly unknown to him, nor had he the smallest +suspicion of it. Any insinuations, therefore, which since his death have +been thrown out, as if he had stooped to ask what was superfluous, are +without any foundation. But, had he asked it, it would not have been +superfluous; for though the money he had saved proved to be more than +his friends imagined, or than I believe he himself, in his carelessness +concerning worldly matters, knew it to be, had he travelled upon the +Continent, an augmentation of his income would by no means have been +unnecessary. + +On Wednesday, June 23, I visited him in the morning, after having been +present at the shocking sight of fifteen men executed before +Newgate[1015]. I said to him, I was sure that human life was not +machinery, that is to say, a chain of fatality planned and directed by +the Supreme Being, as it had in it so much wickedness and misery, so +many instances of both, as that by which my mind was now clouded. Were +it machinery it would be better than it is in these respects, though +less noble, as not being a system of moral government. He agreed with me +now, as he always did[1016], upon the great question of the liberty of +the human will, which has been in all ages perplexed with so much +sophistry. 'But, Sir, as to the doctrine of Necessity, no man believes +it. If a man should give me arguments that I do not see, though I could +not answer them, should I believe that I do not see?' It will be +observed, that Johnson at all times made the just distinction between +doctrines _contrary_ to reason, and doctrines _above_ reason. + +Talking of the religious discipline proper for unhappy convicts, he +said, 'Sir, one of our regular clergy will probably not impress their +minds sufficiently: they should be attended by a Methodist +preacher[1017]; or a Popish priest.' Let me however observe, in justice +to the Reverend Mr. Vilette, who has been Ordinary of Newgate for no +less than eighteen years, in the course of which he has attended many +hundreds of wretched criminals, that his earnest and humane exhortations +have been very effectual. His extraordinary diligence is highly +praiseworthy, and merits a distinguished reward[1018]. + +On Thursday, June 24, I dined with him at Mr. Dilly's, where were the +Rev. Mr. (now Dr.) Knox, master of Tunbridge-school, Mr. Smith, Vicar of +Southill, Dr. Beattie, Mr. Pinkerton, authour of various literary +performances, and the Rev. Dr. Mayo. At my desire old Mr. Sheridan was +invited, as I was earnest to have Johnson and him brought together again +by chance, that a reconciliation might be effected. Mr. Sheridan +happened to come early, and having learned that Dr. Johnson was to be +there, went away[1019]; so I found, with sincere regret, that my +friendly intentions were hopeless. I recollect nothing that passed this +day, except Johnson's quickness, who, when Dr. Beattie observed, as +something remarkable which had happened to him, that he had chanced to +see both No. 1, and No. 1000, of the hackney-coaches, the first and the +last; 'Why, Sir, (said Johnson,) there is an equal chance for one's +seeing those two numbers as any other two.' He was clearly right; yet +the seeing of the two extremes, each of which is in some degree more +conspicuous than the rest, could not but strike one in a stronger manner +than the sight of any other two numbers. Though I have neglected to +preserve his conversation, it was perhaps at this interview that Dr. +Knox formed the notion of it which he has exhibited in his _Winter +Evenings_[1020]. + +On Friday, June 25, I dined with him at General Paoli's, where, he says +in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale, 'I love to dine[1021].' There was +a variety of dishes much to his taste, of all which he seemed to me to +eat so much, that I was afraid he might be hurt by it[1022]; and I +whispered to the General my fear, and begged he might not press him. +'Alas! (said the General,) see how very ill he looks; he can live but a +very short time. Would you refuse any slight gratifications to a man +under sentence of death? There is a humane custom in Italy, by which +persons in that melancholy situation are indulged with having whatever +they like best to eat and drink, even with expensive delicacies.' + +I shewed him some verses on Lichfield by Miss Seward, which I had that +day received from her, and had the pleasure to hear him approve of them. +He confirmed to me the truth of a high compliment which I had been told +he had paid to that lady, when she mentioned to him _The Colombiade_, an +epick poem, by Madame du Boccage[1023]:--'Madam, there is not any thing +equal to your description of the sea round the North Pole, in your Ode +on the death of Captain Cook[1024].' + +On Sunday, June 27, I found him rather better. I mentioned to him a +young man who was going to Jamaica with his wife and children, in +expectation of being provided for by two of her brothers settled in that +island, one a clergyman, and the other a physician. JOHNSON. 'It is a +wild scheme, Sir, unless he has a positive and deliberate invitation. +There was a poor girl, who used to come about me, who had a cousin in +Barbadoes, that, in a letter to her, expressed a wish she should come +out to that Island, and expatiated on the comforts and happiness of her +situation. The poor girl went out: her cousin was much surprised, and +asked her how she could think of coming. "Because, (said she,) you +invited me." "Not I," answered the cousin. The letter was then produced. +"I see it is true, (said she,) that I did invite you: but I did not +think you would come." They lodged her in an out-house, where she passed +her time miserably; and as soon as she had an opportunity she returned +to England. Always tell this, when you hear of people going abroad to +relations, upon a notion of being well received. In the case which you +mention, it is probable the clergyman spends all he gets, and the +physician does not know how much he is to get.' + +We this day dined at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, with General Paoli, Lord +Eliot, (formerly Mr. Eliot, of Port Eliot,) Dr. Beattie, and some other +company. Talking of Lord Chesterfield;--JOHNSON. 'His manner was +exquisitely elegant[1025], and he had more knowledge than I expected.' +BOSWELL. 'Did you find, Sir, his conversation to be of a superiour +style?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, in the conversation which I had with him I had +the best right to superiority, for it was upon philology and +literature.' Lord Eliot, who had travelled at the same time with Mr. +Stanhope[1026], Lord Chesterfield's natural son, justly observed, that +it was strange that a man who shewed he had so much affection for his +son as Lord Chesterfield did, by writing so many long and anxious +letters to him, almost all of them when he was Secretary of State[1027], +which certainly was a proof of great goodness of disposition, should +endeavour to make his son a rascal. His Lordship told us, that Foote had +intended to bring on the stage a father who had thus tutored his son, +and to shew the son an honest man to every one else, but practising his +father's maxims upon him, and cheating him[1028]. JOHNSON. 'I am much +pleased with this design; but I think there was no occasion to make the +son honest at all. No; he should be a consummate rogue: the contrast +between honesty and knavery would be the stronger. It should be +contrived so that the father should be the only sufferer by the son's +villainy, and thus there would be poetical justice.' + +He put Lord Eliot in mind of Dr. Walter Harte[1029]. 'I know (said he,) +Harte was your Lordship's tutor, and he was also tutor to the +Peterborough family. Pray, my Lord, do you recollect any particulars +that he told you of Lord Peterborough? He is a favourite of mine, and is +not enough known; his character has been only ventilated in party +pamphlets[1030].' Lord Eliot said, if Dr. Johnson would be so good as to +ask him any questions, he would tell what he could recollect. +Accordingly some things were mentioned. 'But, (said his Lordship,) the +best account of Lord Peterborough that I have happened to meet with, is +in _Captain Carleton's Memoirs_. Carleton was descended of an ancestor +who had distinguished himself at the siege of Derry[1031]. He was an +officer; and, what was rare at that time, had some knowledge of +engineering[1032].' Johnson said, he had never heard of the book. Lord +Eliot had it at Port Eliot; but, after a good deal of enquiry, procured +a copy in London, and sent it to Johnson, who told Sir Joshua Reynolds +that he was going to bed when it came, but was so much pleased with it, +that he sat up till he had read it through[1033], and found in it such +an air of truth, that he could not doubt of its authenticity[1034]; +adding, with a smile, (in allusion to Lord Eliot's having recently been +raised to the peerage,) 'I did not think a _young Lord_ could have +mentioned to me a book in the English history that was not known to +me[1035].' + +An addition to our company came after we went up to the drawing-room; +Dr. Johnson seemed to rise in spirits as his audience increased. He +said, 'He wished Lord Orford's pictures[1036], and Sir Ashton Lever's +Museum[1037], might be purchased by the publick, because both the money, +and the pictures, and the curiosities, would remain in the country; +whereas, if they were sold into another kingdom, the nation would indeed +get some money, but would lose the pictures and curiosities, which it +would be desirable we should have, for improvement in taste and natural +history. The only question was, as the nation was much in want of money, +whether it would not be better to take a large price from a +foreign State?' + +He entered upon a curious discussion of the difference between intuition +and sagacity; one being immediate in its effect, the other requiring a +circuitous process; one he observed was the _eye_ of the mind, the other +the _nose_ of the mind[1038]. + +A young gentleman[1039] present took up the argument against him, and +maintained that no man ever thinks of the _nose of the mind_, not +adverting that though that figurative sense seems strange to us, as very +unusual, it is truly not more forced than Hamlet's 'In my _mind's eye_, +Horatio[1040].' He persisted much too long, and appeared to Johnson as +putting himself forward as his antagonist with too much presumption; +upon which he called to him in a loud tone, 'What is it you are +contending for, if you _be_ contending?' And afterwards imagining that +the gentleman retorted upon him with a kind of smart drollery, he said, +'Mr. ----, it does not become you to talk so to me. Besides, ridicule is +not your talent; you have _there_ neither intuition nor sagacity.' The +gentleman protested that he had intended no improper freedom, but had +the greatest respect for Dr. Johnson. After a short pause, during which +we were somewhat uneasy,--JOHNSON. 'Give me your hand, Sir. You were +too tedious, and I was too short.' MR. ----. 'Sir, I am honoured by your +attention in any way.' JOHNSON. 'Come, Sir, let's have no more of it. We +offended one another by our contention; let us not offend the company by +our compliments.' + +He now said, 'He wished much to go to Italy, and that he dreaded passing +the winter in England.' I said nothing; but enjoyed a secret +satisfaction in thinking that I had taken the most effectual measures to +make such a scheme practicable. + +On Monday, June 28, I had the honour to receive from the Lord Chancellor +the following letter:-- + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. SIR, + +I should have answered your letter immediately, if, (being much engaged +when I received it) I had not put it in my pocket, and forgot to open it +till this morning. + +I am much obliged to you for the suggestion; and I will adopt and press +it as far as I can. The best argument, I am sure, and I hope it is not +likely to fail, is Dr. Johnson's merit. But it will be necessary, if I +should be so unfortunate as to miss seeing you, to converse with Sir +Joshua on the sum it will be proper to ask,--it short, upon the means of +setting him out. It would be a reflection on us all, if such a man +should perish for want of the means to take care of his health. + +Yours, &c. THURLOW.' + +This letter gave me a very high satisfaction; I next day went and shewed +it to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was exceedingly pleased with it. He +thought that I should now communicate the negociation to Dr. Johnson, +who might afterwards complain if the attention with which he had been +honoured, should be too long concealed from him. I intended to set out +for Scotland next morning; but Sir Joshua cordially insisted that I +should stay another day, that Johnson and I might dine with him, that we +three might talk of his Italian Tour, and, as Sir Joshua expressed +himself, 'have it all out.' I hastened to Johnson, and was told by him +that he was rather better to-day. BOSWELL. 'I am very anxious about you, +Sir, and particularly that you should go to Italy for the winter, which +I believe is your own wish.' JOHNSON. 'It is, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'You have +no objection, I presume, but the money it would require.' JOHNSON. 'Why, +no, Sir.' Upon which I gave him a particular account of what had been +done, and read to him the Lord Chancellor's letter. He listened with +much attention; then warmly said, 'This is taking prodigious pains about +a man.' 'O! Sir, (said I, with most sincere affection,) your friends +would do every thing for you.' He paused, grew more and more agitated, +till tears started into his eyes, and he exclaimed with fervent emotion, +'GOD bless you all.' I was so affected that I also shed tears. After a +short silence, he renewed and extended his grateful benediction, 'GOD +bless you all, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake.' We both remained for some time +unable to speak. He rose suddenly and quitted the room, quite melted in +tenderness. He staid but a short time, till he had recovered his +firmness; soon after he returned I left him, having first engaged him to +dine at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, next day. I never was again under that +roof which I had so long reverenced. + +On Wednesday, June 30, the friendly confidential dinner with Sir Joshua +Reynolds took place, no other company being present. Had I known that +this was the last time that I should enjoy in this world, the +conversation of a friend whom I so much respected, and from whom I +derived so much instruction and entertainment, I should have been deeply +affected. When I now look back to it, I am vexed that a single word +should have been forgotten. + +Both Sir Joshua and I were so sanguine in our expectations, that we +expatiated with confidence on the liberal provision which we were sure +would be made for him, conjecturing whether munificence would be +displayed in one large donation, or in an ample increase of his pension. +He himself catched so much of our enthusiasm, as to allow himself to +suppose it not impossible that our hopes might in one way or other be +realised. He said that he would rather have his pension doubled than a +grant of a thousand pounds; 'For, (said he,) though probably I may not +live to receive as much as a thousand pounds, a man would have the +consciousness that he should pass the remainder of his life in +splendour, how long soever it might be.' Considering what a moderate +proportion an income of six hundred pounds a year bears to innumerable +fortunes in this country, it is worthy of remark, that a man so truly +great should think it splendour[1041]. + +As an instance of extraordinary liberality of friendship, he told us, +that Dr. Brocklesby had upon this occasion offered him a hundred a year +for his life[1042]. A grateful tear started into his eye, as he spoke +this in a faultering tone. + +Sir Joshua and I endeavoured to flatter his imagination with agreeable +prospects of happiness in Italy. 'Nay, (said he,) I must not expect much +of that; when a man goes to Italy merely to feel how he breathes the +air, he can enjoy very little.' + +Our conversation turned upon living in the country, which Johnson, +whose melancholy mind required the dissipation of quick successive +variety, had habituated himself to consider as a kind of mental +imprisonment[1043]. 'Yet, Sir, (said I,) there are many people who are +content to live in the country.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is in the +intellectual world as in the physical world; we are told by natural +philosophers that a body is at rest in the place that is fit for it; +they who are content to live in the country, are _fit_ for the country.' + +Talking of various enjoyments, I argued that a refinement of taste was a +disadvantage, as they who have attained to it must be seldomer pleased +than those who have no nice discrimination, and are therefore satisfied +with every thing that comes in their way. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir; that is a +paltry notion. Endeavour to be as perfect as you can in every respect.' + +I accompanied him in Sir Joshua Reynolds's coach, to the entry of +Bolt-court. He asked me whether I would not go with him to his house; I +declined it, from an apprehension that my spirits would sink. We bade +adieu to each other affectionately in the carriage. When he had got down +upon the foot-pavement, he called out, 'Fare you well;' and without +looking back, sprung away with a kind of pathetick briskness, if I may +use that expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle to conceal +uneasiness, and impressed me with a foreboding of our long, long +separation. + +I remained one day more in town, to have the chance of talking over my +negociation with the Lord Chancellor; but the multiplicity of his +Lordship's important engagements did not allow of it; so I left the +management of the business in the hands of Sir Joshua Reynolds. + +Soon after this time Dr. Johnson had the mortification of being informed +by Mrs. Thrale, that, 'what she supposed he never believed[1044],' was +true; namely, that she was actually going to marry Signor Piozzi, an +Italian musick-master[1045]. He endeavoured to prevent it; but in vain. +If she would publish the whole of the correspondence that passed between +Dr. Johnson and her on the subject, we should have a full view of his +real sentiments. As it is, our judgement must be biassed by that +characteristick specimen which Sir John Hawkins has given us: 'Poor +Thrale! I thought that either her virtue or her vice would have +restrained her from such a marriage. She is now become a subject for her +enemies to exult over; and for her friends, if she has any left, to +forget, or pity[1046].' + +It must be admitted that Johnson derived a considerable portion of +happiness from the comforts and elegancies which he enjoyed in Mr. +Thrale's family[1047]; but Mrs. Thrale assures us he was indebted for +these to her husband alone, who certainly respected him sincerely. Her +words are,-- + +'_Veneration for his virtue, reverence for his talents_, delight _in his +conversation, and_ habitual endurance of a yoke my husband first put +upon me, _and of which he contentedly bore his share for sixteen or +seventeen years, made me go on so long with_ Mr. Johnson; _but the +perpetual confinement I will own to have been_ terrifying _in the first +years of our friendship, and_ irksome _in the last; nor could I pretend +to support _it without help, when my coadjutor was no more_[1048].' + +Alas! how different is this from the declarations which I have heard +Mrs. Thrale make in his life-time, without a single murmur against any +peculiarities, or against any one circumstance which attended their +intimacy[1049]. + +As a sincere friend of the great man whose _Life_ I am writing, I think +it necessary to guard my readers against the mistaken notion of Dr. +Johnson's character, which this lady's _Anecdotes_ of him suggest; for +from the very nature and form of her book, 'it lends deception lighter +wings to fly'.[1050] + +'Let it be remembered, (says an eminent critick[1051],) that she has +comprised in a small volume all that she could recollect of Dr. Johnson +in _twenty years_, during which period, doubtless, some severe things +were said by him; and they who read the book in _two hours_, naturally +enough suppose that his whole conversation was of this complexion. But +the fact is, I have been often in his company, and never _once_ heard +him say a severe thing to any one; and many others can attest the +same[1052]. When he did say a severe thing, it was generally extorted by +ignorance pretending to knowledge, or by extreme vanity or affectation. + +'Two instances of inaccuracy, (adds he,) are peculiarly worthy of +notice: + +'It is said, _"That natural[1053] roughness of his manner so often +mentioned, would, notwithstanding the regularity of his notions, burst +through them all from time to time; and he once bade a very celebrated +lady, who praised him with too much zeal perhaps, or perhaps too strong +an emphasis, (which always offended him,) consider what her flattery was +worth, before she choaked him with it."_ + +'Now let the genuine anecdote be contrasted with this. The person thus +represented as being harshly treated, though a very celebrated +lady[1054], was _then_ just come to London from an obscure situation in +the country. At Sir Joshua Reynolds's one evening, she met Dr. Johnson. +She very soon began to pay her court to him in the most fulsome strain. +"Spare me, I beseech you, dear Madam," was his reply. She still _laid it +on_. "Pray, Madam, let us have no more of this;" he rejoined. Not paying +any attention to these warnings, she continued still her eulogy. At +length, provoked by this indelicate and vain obtrusion of compliment, he +exclaimed, "Dearest lady, consider with yourself what your flattery is +worth, before you bestow it so freely[1055]." + +'How different does this story appear, when accompanied with all these +circumstances which really belong to it, but which Mrs. Thrale either +did not know, or has suppressed. + +'She says, in another place[1056], _"One gentleman, however, who dined +at a nobleman's house in his company, and that of_ Mr. Thrale, _to whom +I was obliged for the anecdote, was willing to enter the lists in +defence of_ King William's _character; and having opposed and +contradicted_ Johnson _two or three times, petulantly enough, the master +of the house began to feel uneasy, and expect disagreeable consequences; +to avoid which, he said, loud enough for the Doctor to hear,--'Our +friend here has no meaning now in all this, except just to relate at +club to-morrow how he teized_ Johnson _at dinner to-day; this is all to +do himself_ honour.' _No, upon my word, (replied the other,') I see no_ +honour _in it, whatever you may do. Well, Sir, (returned_ Mr. Johnson, +_sternly,) if you do not_ see _the honour, I am sure I_ feel _the +disgrace_." + +'This is all sophisticated. Mr. Thrale was _not_ in the company, though +he might have related the story to Mrs. Thrale. A friend, from whom I +had the story, was present; and it was _not_ at the house of a nobleman. +On the observation being made by the master of the house on a +gentleman's contradicting Johnson, that he had talked for the honour, +&c., the gentleman muttered in a low voice, "I see no honour in it;" and +Dr. Johnson said nothing: so all the rest, (though _bien trouvée_) is +mere garnish.' + +I have had occasion several times, in the course of this work, to point +out the incorrectness of Mrs. Thrale, as to particulars which consisted +with my own knowledge[1057]. But indeed she has, in flippant terms +enough, expressed her disapprobation of that anxious desire of +authenticity which prompts a person who is to record conversations, to +write them down _at the moment_[1058]. Unquestionably, if they are to be +recorded at all, the sooner it is done the better. This lady herself +says[1059],-- + +_'To recollect, however, and to repeat the sayings of_ Dr. Johnson, _is +almost all that can be done by the writers of his Life; as his life, at +least since my acquaintance with him, consisted in little else than +talking, when he was not [absolutely] employed in some serious piece +of work.'_ + +She boasts of her having kept a common-place book[1060]; and we find she +noted, at one time or other, in a very lively manner, specimens of the +conversation of Dr. Johnson, and of those who talked with him; but had +she done it recently, they probably would have been less erroneous; and +we should have been relieved from those disagreeable doubts of their +authenticity, with which we must now peruse them. + +She says of him[1061],-- + +_'He was the most charitable of mortals, without being what we call an_ +active friend. _Admirable at giving counsel; no man saw his way so +clearly; but he_ would not stir a finger _for the assistance of those to +whom he was willing enough to give advice.'_ And again on the same page, +_'If you wanted a slight favour, you must apply to people of other +dispositions; for_ not a step would Johnson move _to obtain a man a vote +in a society, to repay a compliment which might be useful or pleasing, +to write a letter of request, &c., or to obtain a hundred pounds a year +more for a friend who, perhaps, had already two or three. No force could +urge him to diligence, no importunity could conquer his resolution to +stand still.'_ + +It is amazing that one who had such opportunities of knowing Dr. +Johnson, should appear so little acquainted with his real character. I +am sorry this lady does not advert, that she herself contradicts the +assertion of his being obstinately defective in the _petites morales_, +in the little endearing charities of social life, in conferring smaller +favours; for she says[1062],-- + +'Dr. Johnson _was liberal enough in granting literary assistance to +others, I think; and innumerable are the Prefaces, Sermons, Lectures, +and Dedications which he used to make for people who begged of him._' + +I am certain that a _more active friend_ has rarely been found in any +age[1063]. This work, which I fondly hope will rescue his memory from +obloquy, contains a thousand instances of his benevolent exertions in +almost every way that can be conceived; and particularly in employing +his pen with a generous readiness for those to whom its aid could be +useful. Indeed his obliging activity in doing little offices of +kindness, both by letters and personal application, was one of the most +remarkable features in his character; and for the truth of this I can +appeal to a number of his respectable friends: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. +Langton, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Burke, Mr. Windham, Mr. Malone, the Bishop of +Dromore, Sir William Scott, Sir Robert Chambers. And can Mrs. Thrale +forget the advertisements which he wrote for her husband at the time of +his election contest[1064]; the epitaphs on him and her mother[1065]; +the playful and even trifling verses, for the amusement of her and her +daughters; his corresponding with her children[1066], and entering into +their minute concerns[1067], which shews him in the most amiable light? +She relates[1068],-- + +That Mr. Ch-lm-ley unexpectedly rode up to Mr. Thrale's carriage, in +which Mr. Thrale and she, and Dr. Johnson were travelling; that he paid +them all his proper compliments, but observing that Dr. Johnson, who was +reading, did not see him, _'tapt him gently on the shoulder. "'Tis_ Mr. +Ch-lm-ley;" _says my husband. "Well, Sir--and what if it is_ Mr. +Ch-lm-ley;" _says the other, sternly, just lifting his eyes a moment +from his book, and returning to it again, with renewed avidity.'_ + +This surely conveys a notion of Johnson, as if he had been grossly rude +to Mr. Cholmondeley[1069], a gentleman whom he always loved and +esteemed. If, therefore, there was an absolute necessity for mentioning +the story at all, it might have been thought that her tenderness for Dr. +Johnson's character would have disposed her to state any thing that +could soften it. Why then is there a total silence as to what Mr. +Cholmondeley told her?--that Johnson, who had known him from his +earliest years, having been made sensible of what had doubtless a +strange appearance, took occasion, when he afterwards met him, to make a +very courteous and kind apology. There is another little circumstance +which I cannot but remark. Her book was published in 1785, she had then +in her possession a letter from Dr. Johnson, dated in 1777[1070], which +begins thus:--'Cholmondeley's story shocks me, if it be true, which I +can hardly think, for I am utterly unconscious of it: I am very sorry, +and very much ashamed[1071].' Why then publish the anecdote? Or if she +did, why not add the circumstances, with which she was well acquainted! + +In his social intercourse she thus describes him[1072]:-- + +'_Ever musing till he was called out to converse, and conversing till +the fatigue of his friends, or the promptitude of his own temper to take +offence, consigned him back again to silent meditation_.' + +Yet, in the same book[1073], she tells us,-- + +'_He was, however, seldom inclined to be silent, when any moral or +literary question was started; and it was on such occasions that, like +the Sage in _"Rasselas[1074]," _he spoke, and attention watched his +lips; he reasoned, and conviction closed his periods_.' + +His conversation, indeed, was so far from ever _fatiguing_ his friends, +that they regretted when it was interrupted, or ceased, and could +exclaim in Milton's language,-- + +'With thee conversing, I forget all time[1075].' + +I certainly, then, do not claim too much in behalf of my illustrious +friend in saying, that however smart and entertaining Mrs. Thrale's +_Anecdotes_ are, they must not be held as good evidence against him; for +wherever an instance of harshness and severity is told, I beg leave to +doubt its perfect authenticity; for though there may have been _some_ +foundation for it, yet, like that of his reproof to the 'very celebrated +lady,' it may be so exhibited in the narration as to be very unlike the +real fact. + +The evident tendency of the following anecdote[1076] is to represent Dr. +Johnson as extremely deficient in affection, tenderness, or even common +civility:-- + +_'When I one day lamented the loss of a first cousin killed in_ +America,--"_Prithee, my dear, (said he,) have done with canting; how +would the world be the worse for it, I may ask, if all your relations +were at once spitted like larks, and roasted for_ Presto's +_supper?"_--Presto[1077] _was the dog that lay under the table while +we talked._' + +I suspect this too of exaggeration and distortion. I allow that he made +her an angry speech; but let the circumstances fairly appear, as told by +Mr. Baretti, who was present:-- + +'Mrs. Thrale, while supping very heartily upon larks, laid down her +knife and fork, and abruptly exclaimed, "O, my dear Mr. Johnson, do you +know what has happened? The last letters from abroad have brought us an +account that our poor cousin's head was taken off by a cannon-ball." +Johnson, who was shocked both at the fact, and her light unfeeling +manner of mentioning it, replied, "Madam, it would give _you_ very +little concern if all your relations were spitted like those larks, and +drest for Presto's supper[1078]."' + +It is with concern that I find myself obliged to animadvert on the +inaccuracies of Mrs. Piozzi's _Anecdotes_, and perhaps I may be thought +to have dwelt too long upon her little collection. But as from Johnson's +long residence under Mr. Thrale's roof, and his intimacy with her, the +account which she has given of him may have made an unfavourable and +unjust impression, my duty, as a faithful biographer, has obliged me +reluctantly to perform this unpleasing task. + +Having left the _pious negotiation_, as I called it, in the best hands, +I shall here insert what relates to it. Johnson wrote to Sir Joshua +Reynolds on July 6, as follows:-- + +'I am going, I hope, in a few days, to try the air of Derbyshire, but +hope to see you before I go. Let me, however, mention to you what I have +much at heart. If the Chancellor should continue his attention to Mr. +Boswell's request, and confer with you on the means of relieving my +languid state, I am very desirous to avoid the appearance of asking +money upon false pretences. I desire you to represent to his Lordship, +what, as soon as it is suggested, he will perceive to be +reasonable,--That, if I grow much worse, I shall be afraid to leave my +physicians, to suffer the inconveniences of travel, and pine in the +solitude of a foreign country; That, if I grow much better, of which +indeed there is now little appearance, I shall not wish to leave my +friends and my domestick comforts; for I do not travel for pleasure or +curiosity; yet if I should recover, curiosity would revive. In my +present state, I am desirous to make a struggle for a little longer +life, and hope to obtain some help from a softer climate. Do for me +what you can.' + +He wrote to me July 26:-- + +'I wish your affairs could have permitted a longer and continued +exertion of your zeal and kindness. They that have your kindness may +want your ardour. In the mean time I am very feeble and very dejected.' + +By a letter from Sir Joshua Reynolds I was informed, that the Lord +Chancellor had called on him, and acquainted him that the application +had not been successful; but that his Lordship, after speaking highly in +praise of Johnson, as a man who was an honour to his country, desired +Sir Joshua to let him know, that on granting a mortgage of his pension, +he should draw on his Lordship to the amount of five or six hundred +pounds; and that his Lordship explained the meaning of the mortgage to +be, that he wished the business to be conducted in such a manner, that +Dr. Johnson should appear to be under the least possible obligation. Sir +Joshua mentioned, that he had by the same post communicated all this to +Dr. Johnson. + +How Johnson was affected upon the occasion will appear from what he +wrote to Sir Joshua Reynolds:-- + +'Ashbourne, Sept. 9. Many words I hope are not necessary between you and +me, to convince you what gratitude is excited in my heart by the +Chancellor's liberality, and your kind offices....[1079] I have enclosed +a letter to the Chancellor, which, when you have read it, you will be +pleased to seal with a head, or any other general seal, and convey it to +him: had I sent it directly to him, I should have seemed to overlook the +favour of your intervention.' + +'To THE LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR[1080]. + +MY LORD, After a long and not inattentive observation of mankind, the +generosity of your Lordship's offer raises in me not less wonder than +gratitude[1081]. Bounty, so liberally bestowed, I should gladly receive, +if my condition made it necessary; for, to such a mind, who would not be +proud to own his obligations? But it has pleased GOD to restore me to so +great a measure of health, that if I should now appropriate so much of a +fortune destined to do good, I could not escape from myself the charge +of advancing a false claim. My journey to the continent, though I once +thought it necessary, was never much encouraged by my physicians; and I +was very desirous that your Lordship should be told of it by Sir Joshua +Reynolds, as an event very uncertain; for if I grew much better, I +should not be willing, if much worse, not able, to migrate. Your +Lordship was first solicited without my knowledge; but, when I was told +that you were pleased to honour me with your patronage, I did not expect +to hear of a refusal; yet, as I have had no long time to brood hope, and +have not rioted in imaginary opulence, this cold reception has been +scarce a disappointment; and, from your Lordship's kindness, I have +received a benefit, which only men like you are able to bestow. I shall +now live _mihi carior_, with a higher opinion of my own merit. + + 'I am, my Lord, + Your Lordship's most obliged, + Most grateful, and + Most humble servant, + SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'September, 1784.' + +Upon this unexpected failure I abstain from presuming to make any +remarks, or to offer any conjectures.[1082] + +Having after repeated reasonings[1083], brought Dr. Johnson to agree to +my removing to London, and even to furnish me with arguments in favour +of what he had opposed; I wrote to him requesting he would write them +for me; he was so good as to comply, and I shall extract that part of +his letter to me of June 11[1084], as a proof how well he could exhibit +a cautious yet encouraging view of it:-- + +'I remember, and intreat you to remember, that _virtus est vitium +fugere_[1085]; the first approach to riches is security from poverty. +The condition on which you have my consent to settle in London is, that +your expence never exceeds your annual income. Fixing this basis of +security, you cannot be hurt, and you may be very much advanced. The +loss of your Scottish business, which is all that you can lose, is not +to be reckoned as any equivalent to the hopes and possibilities that +open here upon you. If you succeed, the question of prudence is at an +end; every body will think that done right which ends happily; and +though your expectations, of which I would not advise you to talk too +much, should not be totally answered, you can hardly fail to get friends +who will do for you all that your present situation allows you to hope; +and if, after a few years, you should return to Scotland, you will +return with a mind supplied by various conversation, and many +opportunities of enquiry, with much knowledge, and materials for +reflection and instruction.' + +Let us now contemplate Johnson thirty years after the death of his wife, +still retaining for her all the tenderness of affection. + +'TO THE REVEREND MR. BAGSHAW, AT BROMLEY[1086]. + +'SIR, + +'Perhaps you may remember, that in the year 1753[1087], you committed to +the ground my dear wife. I now entreat your permission to lay a stone +upon her; and have sent the inscription, that, if you find it proper, +you may signify your allowance. + +'You will do me a great favour by showing the place where she lies, that +the stone may protect her remains. + +'Mr. Ryland[1088] will wait on you for the inscription[1089], and +procure it to be engraved. You will easily believe that I shrink from +this mournful office. When it is done, if I have strength remaining, I +will visit Bromley once again, and pay you part of the respect to which +you have a right from, Reverend Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON[1090].' + +'July 12, 1784.' + +On the same day he wrote to Mr. Langton:-- + +'I cannot but think that in my languid and anxious state, I have some +reason to complain that I receive from you neither enquiry nor +consolation. You know how much I value your friendship, and with what +confidence I expect your kindness, if I wanted any act of tenderness +that you could perform; at least, if you do not know it, I think your +ignorance is your own fault. Yet how long is it that I have lived almost +in your neighbourhood without the least notice. I do not, however, +consider this neglect as particularly shown to me; I hear two of your +most valuable friends make the same complaint. But why are all thus +overlooked? You are not oppressed by sickness, you are not distracted by +business; if you are sick, you are sick of leisure:--And allow yourself +to be told, that no disease is more to be dreaded or avoided. Rather to +do nothing than to do good, is the lowest state of a degraded mind. +Boileau says to his pupil, + + '_Que les vers ne soient pas votre éternel emploi, + Cultivez vos amis_[1091].'-- + +That voluntary debility, which modern language is content to term +indolence, will, if it is not counteracted by resolution, render in time +the strongest faculties lifeless, and turn the flame to the smoke of +virtue. I do not expect nor desire to see you, because I am much pleased +to find that your mother stays so long with you, and I should think you +neither elegant nor grateful, if you did not study her gratification. +You will pay my respects to both the ladies, and to all the young +people. I am going Northward for a while, to try what help the country +can give me; but, if you will write, the letter will come after me.' + +Next day he set out on a jaunt to Staffordshire and Derbyshire, +flattering himself that he might be in some degree relieved. + +During his absence from London he kept up a correspondence with several +of his friends, from which I shall select what appears to me proper for +publication, without attending nicely to chronological order. + +To Dr. BROCKLESBY, he writes, Ashbourne, July 20:-- + +'The kind attention which you have so long shewn to my health and +happiness, makes it as much a debt of gratitude as a call of interest, +to give you an account of what befals me, when accident recovers[1092] +me from your immediate care. The journey of the first day was performed +with very little sense of fatigue; the second day brought me to +Lichfield, without much lassitude; but I am afraid that I could not have +borne such violent agitation for many days together. Tell Dr. Heberden, +that in the coach I read _Ciceronianus_ which I concluded as I entered +Lichfield. My affection and understanding went along with Erasmus, +except that once or twice he somewhat unskilfully entangles Cicero's +civil or moral, with his rhetorical, character. I staid five days at +Lichfield, but, being unable to walk, had no great pleasure, and +yesterday (19th) I came hither, where I am to try what air and attention +can perform. Of any improvement in my health I cannot yet please myself +with the perception.--The asthma has no abatement. Opiates stop the fit, +so as that I can sit and sometimes lie easy, but they do not now procure +me the power of motion; and I am afraid that my general strength of body +does not encrease. The weather indeed is not benign; but how low is he +sunk whose strength depends upon the weather[1093]! I am now looking +into Floyer[1094] who lived with his asthma to almost his ninetieth +year. His book by want of order is obscure, and his asthma, I think, not +of the same kind with mine. Something however I may perhaps learn. My +appetite still continues keen enough; and what I consider as a symptom +of radical health, I have a voracious delight in raw summer fruit, of +which I was less eager a few years ago[1095]. You will be pleased to +communicate this account to Dr. Heberden, and if any thing is to be +done, let me have your joint opinion. Now--_abite curoe_;--let me +enquire after the Club[1096].' + +July 31. 'Not recollecting that Dr. Heberden might be at Windsor, I +thought your letter long in coming. But, you know, _nocitura +petuntur_[1097], the letter which I so much desired, tells me that I +have lost one of my best and tenderest friends[1098]. My comfort is, +that he appeared to live like a man that had always before his eyes the +fragility of our present existence, and was therefore, I hope, not +unprepared to meet his judge. Your attention, dear Sir, and that of Dr. +Heberden, to my health, is extremely kind. I am loth to think that I +grow worse; and cannot fairly prove even to my own partiality, that I +grow much better.' + +August 5. 'I return you thanks, dear Sir, for your unwearied attention, +both medicinal and friendly, and hope to prove the effect of your care +by living to acknowledge it.' + +August 12[1099]. 'Pray be so kind as to have me in your thoughts, and +mention my case to others as you have opportunity. I seem to myself +neither to gain nor lose strength. I have lately tried milk, but have +yet found no advantage, and am afraid of it merely as a liquid. My +appetite is still good, which I know is dear Dr. Heberden's criterion of +the _vis vitoe_. As we cannot now see each other, do not omit to write, +for you cannot think with what warmth of expectation I reckon the hours +of a post-day.' + +August 14. 'I have hitherto sent you only melancholy letters, you will +be glad to hear some better account. Yesterday the asthma remitted, +perceptibly remitted, and I moved with more ease than I have enjoyed for +many weeks. May GOD continue his mercy. This account I would not delay, +because I am not a lover of complaints, or complainers, and yet I have +since we parted uttered nothing till now but terrour and sorrow. Write +to me, dear Sir.' + +August 16. 'Better I hope, and better. My respiration gets more and more +ease and liberty. I went to church yesterday, after a very liberal +dinner, without any inconvenience; it is indeed no long walk, but I +never walked it without difficulty, since I came, before.--the intention +was only to overpower the seeming _vis inertioe_ of the pectoral and +pulmonary muscles. I am favoured with a degree of ease that very much +delights me, and do not despair of another race upon the stairs of the +Academy[1100]. If I were, however, of a humour to see, or to shew the +state of my body, on the dark side, I might say, + + _"Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una[1101]?"_ + +The nights are still sleepless, and the water rises, though it does not +rise very fast. Let us, however, rejoice in all the good that we have. +The remission of one disease will enable nature to combat the rest. The +squills I have not neglected; for I have taken more than a hundred drops +a day, and one day took two hundred and fifty, which, according to the +popular equivalence of a drop to a grain, is more than half an ounce. I +thank you, dear Sir, for your attention in ordering the medicines; your +attention to me has never failed. If the virtue of medicines could be +enforced by the benevolence of the prescriber, how soon should I +be well.' + +August 19. 'The relaxation of the asthma still continues, yet I do not +trust it wholly to itself, but soothe it now and then with an opiate. I +not only perform the perpetual act of respiration with less labour, but +I can walk with fewer intervals of rest, and with greater freedom of +motion. I never thought well of Dr. James's compounded medicines[1102]; +his ingredients appeared to me sometimes inefficacious and trifling, and +sometimes heterogeneous and destructive of each other. This prescription +exhibits a composition of about three hundred and thirty grains, in +which there are four grains of emetick tartar, and six drops [of] +thebaick tincture. He that writes thus, surely writes for show. The +basis of his medicine is the gum ammoniacum, which dear Dr. Lawrence +used to give, but of which I never saw any effect. We will, if you +please, let this medicine alone. The squills have every suffrage, and in +the squills we will rest for the present.' + +August 21. 'The kindness which you shew by having me in your thoughts +upon all occasions, will, I hope, always fill my heart with gratitude. +Be pleased to return my thanks to Sir George Baker[1103], for the +consideration which he has bestowed upon me. Is this the balloon that +has been so long expected, this balloon to which I subscribed, but +without payment[1104]? It is pity that philosophers have been +disappointed, and shame that they have been cheated; but I know not well +how to prevent either. Of this experiment I have read nothing; where was +it exhibited? and who was the man that ran away with so much money? +Continue, dear Sir, to write often and more at a time; for none of your +prescriptions operate to their proper uses more certainly than your +letters operate as cordials.' + +August 26. 'I suffered you to escape last post without a letter, but you +are not to expect such indulgence very often; for I write not so much +because I have any thing to say, as because I hope for an answer; and +the vacancy of my life here makes a letter of great value. I have here +little company and little amusement, and thus abandoned to the +contemplation of my own miseries, I am sometimes gloomy and depressed; +this too I resist as I can, and find opium, I think, useful, but I +seldom take more than one grain. Is not this strange weather? Winter +absorbed the spring, and now autumn is come before we have had summer. +But let not our kindness for each other imitate the inconstancy of +the seasons.' + +Sept. 2. 'Mr. Windham has been here to see me; he came, I think, forty +miles out of his way, and staid about a day and a half, perhaps I make +the time shorter than it was. Such conversation I shall not have again +till I come back to the regions of literature; and there Windham is, +_inter stellas_[1105] _Luna minores_[1106].' He then mentions the +effects of certain medicines, as taken; that 'Nature is recovering its +original powers, and the functions returning to their proper state. God +continue his mercies, and grant me to use them rightly.' + +Sept. 9. 'Do you know the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire? And have you +ever seen Chatsworth? I was at Chatsworth on Monday: I had indeed seen +it before[1107], but never when its owners were at home; I was very +kindly received, and honestly pressed to stay: but I told them that a +sick man is not a fit inmate of a great house. But I hope to go again +some time.' + +Sept. 11. 'I think nothing grows worse, but all rather better, except +sleep, and that of late has been at its old pranks. Last evening, I felt +what I had not known for a long time, an inclination to walk for +amusement; I took a short walk, and came back again neither breathless +nor fatigued. This has been a gloomy, frigid, ungenial summer, but of +late it seems to mend; I hear the heat sometimes mentioned, but I do +not feel it: + + "Praterea minimus gelido jam in corpore sanguis + Febre calet solá[1108].----" + +I hope, however, with good help, to find means of supporting a winter at +home, and to hear and tell at the Club what is doing, and what ought to +be doing in the world. I have no company here, and shall naturally come +home hungry for conversation. To wish you, dear Sir, more leisure, would +not be kind; but what leisure you have, you must bestow upon me.' + +Sept. 16. 'I have now let you alone for a long time, having indeed +little to say. You charge me somewhat unjustly with luxury. At +Chatsworth, you should remember, that I have eaten but once; and the +Doctor, with whom I live, follows a milk diet. I grow no fatter, though +my stomach, if it be not disturbed by physick, never fails me. I now +grow weary of solitude, and think of removing next week to Lichfield, a +place of more society, but otherwise of less convenience. When I am +settled, I shall write again. Of the hot weather that you mention, we +have [not] had in Derbyshire very much, and for myself I seldom feel +heat, and suppose that my frigidity is the effect of my distemper; a +supposition which naturally leads me to hope that a hotter climate may +be useful. But I hope to stand another English winter.' + +Lichfield, Sept. 29. 'On one day I had three letters about the +air-balloon[1109]: yours was far the best, and has enabled me to impart +to my friends in the country an idea of this species of amusement. In +amusement, mere amusement, I am afraid it must end, for I do not find +that its course can be directed so as that it should serve any purposes +of communication; and it can give no new intelligence of the state of +the air at different heights, till they have ascended above the height +of mountains, which they seem never likely to do. I came hither on the +27th. How long I shall stay I have not determined. My dropsy is gone, +and my asthma much remitted, but I have felt myself a little declining +these two days, or at least to-day; but such vicissitudes must be +expected. One day may be worse than another; but this last month is far +better than the former; if the next should be as much better than this, +I shall run about the town on my own legs.' + +October 6. 'The fate of the balloon I do not much lament[1110]: to make +new balloons, is to repeat the jest again. We now know a method of +mounting into the air, and, I think, are not likely to know more. The +vehicles can serve no use till we can guide them; and they can gratify +no curiosity till we mount with them to greater heights than we can +reach without; till we rise above the tops of the highest mountains, +which we have yet not done. We know the state of the air in all its +regions, to the top of Teneriffe, and therefore, learn nothing from +those who navigate a balloon below the clouds. The first experiment, +however, was bold, and deserved applause and reward. But since it has +been performed, and its event is known, I had rather now find a medicine +that can ease an asthma.' + +October 25. 'You write to me with a zeal that animates, and a tenderness +that melts me. I am not afraid either of a journey to London, or a +residence in it. I came down with little fatigue, and am now not weaker. +In the smoky atmosphere I was delivered from the dropsy, which I +consider as the original and radical disease. The town is my +element[1111]; there are my friends, there are my books, to which I +have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements. Sir Joshua told +me long ago that my vocation was to publick life, and I hope still to +keep my station, till GOD shall bid me _Go in peace_[1112].' + +To MR. HOOLE:-- + +Ashbourne, Aug. 7. 'Since I was here I have two little letters from you, +and have not had the gratitude to write. But every man is most free with +his best friends, because he does not suppose that they can suspect him +of intentional incivility. One reason for my omission is, that being in +a place to which you are wholly a stranger, I have no topicks of +correspondence. If you had any knowledge of Ashbourne, I could tell you +of two Ashbourne men, who, being last week condemned at Derby to be +hanged for a robbery, went and hanged themselves in their cell[1113]. +But this, however it may supply us with talk, is nothing to you. Your +kindness, I know, would make you glad to hear some good of me, but I +have not much good to tell; if I grow not worse, it is all that I can +say. I hope Mrs. Hoole receives more help from her migration. Make her +my compliments, and write again to, dear Sir, your affectionate servant.' + +Aug. 13. 'I thank you for your affectionate letter. I hope we shall both +be the better for each other's friendship, and I hope we shall not very +quickly be parted. Tell Mr. Nicholls that I shall be glad of his +correspondence, when his business allows him a little remission; though +to wish him less business, that I may have more pleasure, would be too +selfish. To pay for seats at the balloon is not very necessary, because +in less than a minute, they who gaze at a mile's distance will see all +that can be seen. About the wings[1114] I am of your mind; they cannot +at all assist it, nor I think regulate its motion. I am now grown +somewhat easier in my body, but my mind is sometimes depressed. About +the Club I am in no great pain. The forfeitures go on, and the house, I +hear, is improved for our future meetings. I hope we shall meet often +and sit long.' + +Sept. 4. 'Your letter was, indeed, long in coming, but it was very +welcome. Our acquaintance has now subsisted long[1115] and our +recollection of each other involves a great space, and many little +occurrences, which melt the thoughts to tenderness. Write to me, +therefore, as frequently as you can. I hear from Dr. Brocklesby and Mr. +Ryland, that the Club is not crouded. I hope we shall enliven it when +winter brings us together.' + +To DR. BURNEY:-- + +August 2. 'The weather, you know, has not been balmy; I am now reduced +to think, and am at last content to talk of the weather. Pride must have +a fall[1116]. I have lost dear Mr. Allen, and wherever I turn, the dead +or the dying meet my notice, and force my attention upon misery and +mortality. Mrs. Burney's escape from so much danger, and her ease after +so much pain, throws, however, some radiance of hope upon the gloomy +prospect. May her recovery be perfect, and her continuance long. I +struggle hard for life. I take physick, and take air; my friend's +chariot is always ready. We have run this morning twenty-four miles, and +could run forty-eight more. _But who can run the race with death?_' + +'Sept. 4. [Concerning a private transaction, in which his opinion was +asked, and after giving it he makes the following reflections, which are +applicable on other occasions.] Nothing deserves more compassion than +wrong conduct with good meaning; than loss or obloquy suffered by one +who, as he is conscious only of good intentions, wonders why he loses +that kindness which he wishes to preserve; and not knowing his own +fault, if, as may sometimes happen, nobody will tell him, goes on to +offend by his endeavours to please. I am delighted by finding that our +opinions are the same. You will do me a real kindness by continuing to +write. A post-day has now been long a day of recreation.' + +Nov. 1. 'Our correspondence paused for want of topicks. I had said what +I had to say on the matter proposed to my consideration; and nothing +remained but to tell you, that I waked or slept; that I was more or less +sick. I drew my thoughts in upon myself, and supposed yours employed +upon your book. That your book[1117] has been delayed I am glad, since +you have gained an opportunity of being more exact. Of the caution +necessary in adjusting narratives there is no end. Some tell what they +do not know, that they may not seem ignorant, and others from mere +indifference about truth. All truth is not, indeed, of equal importance; +but, if little violations are allowed, every violation will in time be +thought little; and a writer should keep himself vigilantly on his guard +against the first temptations to negligence or supineness. I had ceased +to write, because respecting you I had no more to say, and respecting +myself could say little good. I cannot boast of advancement, and in +cases of convalescence it may be said, with few exceptions, _non +progredi, est regredi_. I hope I may be excepted. My great difficulty +was with my sweet Fanny[1118], who, by her artifice of inserting her +letter in yours, had given me a precept of frugality[1119] which I was +not at liberty to neglect; and I know not who were in town under whose +cover I could send my letter[1120]. I rejoice to hear that you are all +so well, and have a delight particularly sympathetick in the recovery of +Mrs. Burney.' + +To MR. LANGTON:-- + +Aug. 25. 'The kindness of your last letter, and my omission to answer +it, begins to give you, even in my opinion, a right to recriminate, and +to charge me with forgetfulness for the absent. I will, therefore, delay +no longer to give an account of myself, and wish I could relate what +would please either myself or my friend. On July 13, I left London, +partly in hope of help from new air and change of place, and partly +excited by the sick man's impatience of the present. I got to Lichfield +in a stage vehicle, with very little fatigue, in two days, and had the +consolation[1121] to find, that since my last visit my three old +acquaintance are all dead. July 20, I went to Ashbourne, where I have +been till now; the house in which we live is repairing. I live in too +much solitude, and am often deeply dejected: I wish we were nearer, and +rejoice in your removal to London. A friend, at once cheerful and +serious, is a great acquisition. Let us not neglect one another for the +little time which Providence allows us to hope. Of my health I cannot +tell you, what my wishes persuaded me to expect, that it is much +improved by the season or by remedies. I am sleepless; my legs grow +weary with a very few steps, and the water breaks its boundaries in some +degree. The asthma, however, has remitted; my breath is still much +obstructed, but is more free than it was. Nights of watchfulness produce +torpid days; I read very little, though I am alone; for I am tempted to +supply in the day what I lost in bed. This is my history; like all other +histories, a narrative of misery. Yet am I so much better than in the +beginning of the year, that I ought to be ashamed of complaining. I now +sit and write with very little sensibility of pain or weakness; but when +I rise, I shall find my legs betraying me. Of the money which you +mentioned, I have no immediate need; keep it, however, for me, unless +some exigence requires it. Your papers I will shew you certainly when +you would see them, but I am a little angry at you for not keeping +minutes of your own _acceptum et expensum_[1122], and think a little +time might be spared from Aristophanes, for the _res familiares_. +Forgive me for I mean well. I hope, dear Sir, that you and Lady Rothes, +and all the young people, too many to enumerate, are well and happy. GOD +bless you all.' + +To MR. WINDHAM:-- + +August. 'The tenderness with which you have been pleased to treat me, +through my long illness, neither health nor sickness can, I hope, make +me forget; and you are not to suppose, that after we parted you were no +longer in my mind. But what can a sick man say, but that he is sick? His +thoughts are necessarily concentered in himself; he neither receives nor +can give delight; his enquiries are after alleviations of pain, and his +efforts are to catch some momentary comfort. Though I am now in the +neighbourhood of the Peak, you must expect no account of its wonders, of +its hills, its waters, its caverns, or its mines; but I will tell you, +dear Sir, what I hope you will not hear with less satisfaction, that, +for about a week past, my asthma has been less afflictive.' + +Lichfield. October 2[1123]. 'I believe you have been long enough +acquainted with the _phoenomena_ of sickness, not to be surprised that a +sick man wishes to be where he is not, and where it appears to every +body but himself that he might easily be, without having the resolution +to remove. I thought Ashbourne a solitary place, but did not come hither +till last Monday. I have here more company, but my health has for this +last week not advanced; and in the languor of disease how little can be +done? Whither or when I shall make my next remove I cannot tell; but I +entreat you, dear Sir, to let me know, from time to time, where you may +be found, for your residence is a very powerful attractive to, Sir, your +most humble servant.' + +'To MR. PERKINS. 'DEAR SIR, + +'I cannot but flatter myself that your kindness for me will make you +glad to know where I am, and in what state. + +'I have been struggling very hard with my diseases. My breath has been +very much obstructed, and the water has attempted to encroach upon me +again. I past the first part of the summer at Oxford, afterwards I went +to Lichfield, thence to Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, and a week ago I +returned to Lichfield. + +'My breath is now much easier, and the water is in a great measure run +away, so that I hope to see you again before winter. + +'Please to make my compliments to Mrs. Perkins, and to Mr. and Mrs. +Barclay. + +'I am, dear Sir, 'Your most humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' 'Lichfield, +Oct. 4, 1784.' + +'To THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON. 'DEAR SIR, + +'Considering what reason[1124] you gave me in the spring to conclude +that you took part in whatever good or evil might befal me, I ought not +to have omitted so long the account which I am now about to give you. My +diseases are an asthma and a dropsy, and, what is less curable, +seventy-five. Of the dropsy, in the beginning of the summer, or in the +spring, I recovered to a degree which struck with wonder both me and my +physicians: the asthma now is likewise, for a time, very much relieved. +I went to Oxford, where the asthma was very tyrannical, and the dropsy +began again to threaten me; but seasonable physick stopped the +inundation: I then returned to London, and in July took a resolution to +visit Staffordshire and Derbyshire, where I am yet struggling with my +diseases. The dropsy made another attack, and was not easily ejected, +but at last gave way. The asthma suddenly remitted in bed, on the 13th +of August, and, though now very oppressive, is, I think, still something +gentler than it was before the remission. My limbs are miserably +debilitated, and my nights are sleepless and tedious. When you read +this, dear Sir, you are not sorry that I wrote no sooner. I will not +prolong my complaints. I hope still to see you _in a happier +hour_[1125], to talk over what we have often talked, and perhaps to find +new topicks of merriment, or new incitements to curiosity. I am, dear +Sir, &c. SAM. JOHNSON. Lichfield, Oct. 20, 1784.' + +'TO JOHN PARADISE, ESQ.[1126] + +DEAR SIR, + +Though in all my summer's excursion I have given you no account of +myself, I hope you think better of me than to imagine it possible for me +to forget you, whose kindness to me has been too great and too constant +not to have made its impression on a harder breast than mine. Silence is +not very culpable when nothing pleasing is suppressed. It would have +alleviated none of your complaints to have read my vicissitudes of evil. +I have struggled hard with very formidable and obstinate maladies; and +though I cannot talk of health, think all praise due to my Creator and +Preserver for the continuance of my life. The dropsy has made two +attacks, and has given way to medicine; the asthma is very oppressive, +but that has likewise once remitted. I am very weak, and very sleepless; +but it is time to conclude the tale of misery. I hope, dear Sir, that +you grow better, for you have likewise your share of human evil, and +that your lady and the young charmers are well. + +I am, dear Sir, &c. SAM. JOHNSON. + +Lichfield, Oct. 20, 1784.' + +'To Mr. George Nicol[1127]. + +'Dear Sir, +'Since we parted, I have been much oppressed by my asthma, but it has +lately been less laborious. When I sit I am almost at ease, and I can +walk, though yet very little, with less difficulty for this week past, +than before. I hope I shall again enjoy my friends, and that you and I +shall have a little more literary conversation. Where I now am, every +thing is very liberally provided for me but conversation. My friend is +sick himself, and the reciprocation of complaints and groans affords not +much of either pleasure or instruction. What we have not at home this +town does not supply, and I shall be glad of a little imported +intelligence, and hope that you will bestow, now and then, a little time +on the relief and entertainment of, Sir, 'Yours, &c. 'Sam. Johnson.' + +'Ashbourne, Aug. 19, 1784.' + +'To Mr. Cruikshank. + +'Dear Sir, + +'Do not suppose that I forget you; I hope I shall never be accused of +forgetting my benefactors[1128]. I had, till lately, nothing to write +but complaints upon complaints, of miseries upon miseries; but within +this fortnight I have received great relief. Have your Lectures any +vacation? If you are released from the necessity of daily study, you may +find time for a letter to me. [In this letter he states the particulars +of his case.] In return for this account of my health, let me have a +good account of yours, and of your prosperity in all your undertakings. + +'I am, dear Sir, yours, &c. 'Sam. Johnson.' 'Ashbourne, Sept. 4, 1784.' + +To Mr. Thomas Davies:-- + +August 14. 'The tenderness with which you always treat me, makes me +culpable in my own eyes for having omitted to write in so long a +separation; I had, indeed, nothing to say that you could wish to hear. +All has been hitherto misery accumulated upon misery, disease +corroborating disease, till yesterday my asthma was perceptibly and +unexpectedly mitigated. I am much comforted with this short relief, and +am willing to flatter myself that it may continue and improve. I have at +present, such a degree of ease, as not only may admit the comforts, but +the duties of life. Make my compliments to Mrs. Davies. Poor dear Allen, +he was a good man.' + +To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS:-- + +Ashbourne, July 21. 'The tenderness with which I am treated by my +friends, makes it reasonable to suppose that they are desirous to know +the state of my health, and a desire so benevolent ought to be +gratified. I came to Lichfield in two days without any painful fatigue, +and on Monday came hither, where I purpose to stay: and try what air and +regularity will effect. I cannot yet persuade myself that I have made +much progress in recovery. My sleep is little, my breath is very much +encumbered, and my legs are very weak. The water has encreased a little, +but has again run off. The most distressing symptom is want of sleep.' + +August 19. 'Having had since our separation, little to say that could +please you or myself by saying, I have not been lavish of useless +letters; but I flatter myself that you will partake of the pleasure with +which I can now tell you that about a week ago, I felt suddenly a +sensible remission of my asthma, and consequently a greater lightness of +action and motion. Of this grateful alleviation I know not the cause, +nor dare depend upon its continuance, but while it lasts I endeavour to +enjoy it, and am desirous of communicating, while it lasts, my pleasure +to my friends. Hitherto, dear Sir, I had written before the post, which +stays in this town but a little while, brought me your letter. Mr. +Davies seems to have represented my little tendency to recovery in terms +too splendid. I am still restless, still weak, still watery, but the +asthma is less oppressive. Poor Ramsay[1129]! On which side soever I +turn, mortality presents its formidable frown. I left three old friends +at Lichfield when I was last there, and now found them all dead. I no +sooner lose sight of dear Allen, than I am told that I shall see him no +more. That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had sooner +remembered it. Do not think me intrusive or importunate, if I now call, +dear Sir, on you to remember it.' + +Sept. 2. 'I am glad that a little favour from the court has intercepted +your furious purposes[1130]. I could not in any case have approved such +publick violence of resentment, and should have considered any who +encouraged it, as rather seeking sport for themselves, than honour for +you. Resentment gratifies him who intended an injury, and pains him +unjustly who did not intend it. But all this is now superfluous. I still +continue by GOD'S mercy to mend. My breath is easier, my nights are +quieter, and my legs are less in bulk, and stronger in use. I have, +however, yet a great deal to overcome, before I can yet attain even an +old man's health. Write, do write to me now and then; we are now old +acquaintance, and perhaps few people have lived so much and so long +together, with less cause of complaint on either side. The retrospection +of this is very pleasant, and I hope we shall never think on each other +with less kindness.' + +Sept. 9. 'I could not answer your letter[1131] before this day, because +I went on the sixth to Chatsworth, and did not come back till the post +was gone. Many words, I hope, are not necessary between you and me, to +convince you what gratitude is excited in my heart, by the Chancellor's +liberality and your kind offices. I did not indeed expect that what was +asked by the Chancellor would have been refused[1132], but since it has, +we will not tell that any thing has been asked. I have enclosed a letter +to the Chancellor which, when you have read it, you will be pleased to +seal with a head, or other general seal, and convey it to him; had I +sent it directly to him, I should have seemed to overlook the favour of +your intervention. My last letter told you of my advance in health, +which, I think, in the whole still continues. Of the hydropick tumour +there is now very little appearance; the asthma is much less +troublesome, and seems to remit something day after day. I do not +despair of supporting an English winter. At Chatsworth, I met young Mr. +Burke, who led me very commodiously into conversation with the Duke and +Duchess. We had a very good morning. The dinner was publick[1133].' + +Sept. 18. 'I flattered myself that this week would have given me a +letter from you, but none has come. Write to me now and then, but direct +your next to Lichfield. I think, and I hope, am sure, that I still grow +better; I have sometimes good nights; but am still in my legs weak, but +so much mended, that I go to Lichfield in hope of being able to pay my +visits on foot, for there are no coaches. I have three letters this day, +all about the balloon, I could have been content with one. Do not write +about the balloon, whatever else you may think proper to say[1134].' + +October 2. 'I am always proud of your approbation, and therefore was +much pleased that you liked my letter. When you copied it[1135], you +invaded the Chancellor's right rather than mine. The refusal I did not +expect, but I had never thought much about it, for I doubted whether the +Chancellor had so much tenderness for me as to ask. He, being keeper of +the King's conscience, ought not to be supposed capable of an improper +petition. All is not gold that glitters, as we have often been told; and +the adage is verified in your place[1136] and my favour; but if what +happens does not make us richer, we must bid it welcome, if it makes us +wiser. I do not at present grow better, nor much worse; my hopes, +however, are somewhat abated, and a very great loss is the loss of hope, +but I struggle on as I can.' + +TO MR. JOHN NICHOLS:-- + +Lichfield, Oct. 20. 'When you were here, you were pleased, as I am told, +to think my absence an inconvenience. I should certainly have been very +glad to give so skilful a lover of antiquities any information about my +native place, of which, however, I know not much, and have reason to +believe that not much is known. Though I have not given you any +amusement, I have received amusement from you. At Ashbourne, where I had +very little company, I had the luck to borrow _Mr. Bowyer's Life_[1137]; +a book so full of contemporary history, that a literary man must find +some of his old friends. I thought that I could, now and then, have told +you some hints[1138] worth your notice; and perhaps we may talk a life +over. I hope we shall be much together; you must now be to me what you +were before, and what dear Mr. Allen was, besides. He was taken +unexpectedly away, but I think he was a very good man. I have made +little progress in recovery. I am very weak, and very sleepless; but I +live on and hope[1139].' + +This various mass of correspondence, which I have thus brought together, +is valuable, both as an addition to the store which the publick already +has of Johnson's writings, and as exhibiting a genuine and noble +specimen of vigour and vivacity of mind, which neither age nor sickness +could impair or diminish. + +It may be observed, that his writing in every way, whether for the +publick, or privately to his friends, was by fits and starts; for we see +frequently, that many letters are written on the same day. When he had +once overcome his aversion to begin, he was, I suppose, desirous to go +on, in order to relieve his mind from the uneasy reflection of delaying +what he ought to do[1140]. + +While in the country, notwithstanding the accumulation of illness which +he endured, his mind did not lose its powers. He translated an Ode of +Horace[1141], which is printed in his _Works_, and composed several +prayers. I shall insert one of them, which is so wise and energetick, so +philosophical and so pious, that I doubt not of its affording +consolation to many a sincere Christian, when in a state of mind to +which I believe the best are sometimes liable[1142]. + +And here I am enabled fully to refute a very unjust reflection, by Sir +John Hawkins[1143], both against Dr. Johnson, and his faithful servant, +Mr. Francis Barber[1144]; as if both of them had been guilty of culpable +neglect towards a person of the name of Heely, whom Sir John chooses to +call a _relation_ of Dr. Johnson's. The fact is, that Mr. Heely was not +his relation; he had indeed been married to one of his cousins, but she +had died without having children, and he had married another woman; so +that even the slight connection which there once had been by _alliance_ +was dissolved. Dr. Johnson, who had shewn very great liberality to this +man while his first wife was alive, as has appeared in a former part of +this work[1145], was humane and charitable enough to continue his bounty +to him occasionally; but surely there was no strong call of duty upon +him or upon his legatee, to do more. The following letter, obligingly +communicated to me by Mr. Andrew Strahan, will confirm what I +have stated:-- + +'TO MR. HEELY, No. 5, IN PYE-STREET, WESTMINSTER. + +'SIR, + +'As necessity obliges you to call so soon again upon me, you should at +least have told the smallest sum that will supply your present want; you +cannot suppose that I have much to spare. Two guineas is as much as you +ought to be behind with your creditor. If you wait on Mr. Strahan, in +New-street, Fetter-lane, or in his absence, on Mr. Andrew Strahan, shew +this, by which they are entreated to advance you two guineas, and to +keep this as a voucher. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Ashbourne, Aug. 12, 1784.' + +Indeed it is very necessary to keep in mind that Sir John Hawkins has +unaccountably viewed Johnson's character and conduct in almost every +particular, with an unhappy prejudice[1146]. + +We now behold Johnson for the last time, in his native city, for which +he ever retained a warm affection, and which, by a sudden apostrophe, +under the word _Lich_[1147], he introduces with reverence, into his +immortal Work, THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY:--_Salve, magna parens![1148] +While here, he felt a revival of all the tenderness of filial affection, +an instance of which appeared in his ordering the grave-stone and +inscription over Elizabeth Blaney[1149] to be substantially and +carefully renewed. + +To Mr. Henry White[1150], a young clergyman, with whom he now formed an +intimacy, so as to talk to him with great freedom, he mentioned that he +could not in general accuse himself of having been an undutiful son. +'Once, indeed, (said he,) I was disobedient; I refused to attend my +father to Uttoxeter-market. Pride was the source of that refusal, and +the remembrance of it was painful. A few years ago, I desired to atone +for this fault; I went to Uttoxeter in very bad weather, and stood for a +considerable time bareheaded in the rain, on the spot where my father's +stall used to stand. In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was +expiatory[1151].' + +'I told him (says Miss Seward) in one of my latest visits to him, of a +wonderful learned pig, which I had seen at Nottingham; and which did all +that we have observed exhibited by dogs and horses. The subject amused +him. 'Then, (said he,) the pigs are a race unjustly calumniated. _Pig_ +has, it seems, not been wanting to _man_, but _man_ to _pig_. We do not +allow _time_ for his education, we kill him at a year old.' Mr. Henry +White, who was present, observed that if this instance had happened in +or before Pope's time, he would not have been justified in instancing +the swine as the lowest degree of groveling instinct[1152]. Dr. Johnson +seemed pleased with the observation, while the person who made it +proceeded to remark, that great torture must have been employed, ere the +indocility of the animal could have been subdued. 'Certainly, (said the +Doctor;) but, (turning to me,) how old is your pig?' I told him, three +years old. 'Then, (said he,) the pig has no cause to complain; he would +have been killed the first year if he had not been _educated_, and +protracted existence is a good recompence for very considerable degrees +of torture[1153].' + +As Johnson had now very faint hopes of recovery, and as Mrs. Thrale was +no longer devoted to him, it might have been supposed that he would +naturally have chosen to remain in the comfortable house of his beloved +wife's daughter, and end his life where he began it. But there was in +him an animated and lofty spirit[1154], and however complicated diseases +might depress ordinary mortals, all who saw him, beheld and acknowledged +the _invictum animum Catonis_[1155]. Such was his intellectual ardour +even at this time, that he said to one friend, 'Sir, I look upon every +day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance[1156];' and to +another, when talking of his illness, 'I will be conquered; I will not +capitulate[1157].' And such was his love of London, so high a relish +had he of its magnificent extent, and variety of intellectual +entertainment, that he languished when absent from it, his mind having +become quite luxurious from the long habit of enjoying the metropolis; +and, therefore, although at Lichfield, surrounded with friends, who +loved and revered him, and for whom he had a very sincere affection, he +still found that such conversation as London affords, could be found no +where else. These feelings, joined, probably, to some flattering hopes +of aid from the eminent physicians and surgeons in London, who kindly +and generously attended him without accepting fees, made him resolve to +return to the capital. From Lichfield he came to Birmingham, where he +passed a few days with his worthy old schoolfellow, Mr. Hector, who thus +writes to me:-- + +'He was very solicitous with me to recollect some of our most early +transactions, and transmit them to him, for I perceive nothing gave him +greater pleasure than calling to mind those days of our innocence. I +complied with his request, and he only received them a few days before +his death. I have transcribed for your inspection, exactly the minutes I +wrote to him.' + +This paper having been found in his repositories after his death, Sir +John Hawkins has inserted it entire[1158], and I have made occasional +use of it and other communications from Mr. Hector[1159], in the course +of this Work. I have both visited and corresponded with him since Dr. +Johnson's death, and by my inquiries concerning a great variety of +particulars have obtained additional information. I followed the same +mode with the Reverend Dr. Taylor, in whose presence I wrote down a good +deal of what he could tell; and he, at my request, signed his name, to +give it authenticity. It is very rare to find any person who is able to +give a distinct account of the life even of one whom he has known +intimately, without questions being put to them. My friend Dr. +Kippis[1160] has told me, that on this account it is a practice with him +to draw out a biographical catechism. + +Johnson then proceeded to Oxford, where he was again kindly received by +Dr. Adams[1161], who was pleased to give me the following account in one +of his letters, (Feb. 17th, 1785):-- + +'His last visit was, I believe, to my house, which he left, after a stay +of four or five days. We had much serious talk together, for which I +ought to be the better as long as I live. You will remember some +discourse which we had in the summer upon the subject of prayer, and the +difficulty of this sort of composition[1162]. He reminded me of this, +and of my having wished him to try his hand, and to give us a specimen +of the style and manner that he approved. He added, that he was now in a +right frame of mind, and as he could not possibly employ his time +better, he would in earnest set about it. But I find upon enquiry, that +no papers of this sort were left behind him, except a few short +ejaculatory forms suitable to his present situation.' + +Dr. Adams had not then received accurate information on this subject; +for it has since appeared that various prayers had been composed by him +at different periods, which, intermingled with pious resolutions, and +some short notes of his life, were entitled by him _Prayers and +Meditations_, and have, in pursuance of his earnest requisition, in +the hopes of doing good, been published, with a judicious well-written +Preface, by the Reverend Mr. Strahan, to whom he delivered them[1163]. +This admirable collection, to which I have frequently referred in the +course of this Work, evinces, beyond all his compositions for the +publick, and all the eulogies of his friends and admirers, the sincere +virtue and piety of Johnson. It proves with unquestionable authenticity, +that amidst all his constitutional infirmities, his earnestness to +conform his practice to the precepts of Christianity was unceasing, and +that he habitually endeavoured to refer every transaction of his life to +the will of the Supreme Being. + +He arrived in London on the 16th of November, and next day sent to Dr. +Burney the following note, which I insert as the last token of his +remembrance of that ingenious and amiable man, and as another of the +many proofs of the tenderness and benignity of his heart:-- + +'MR. JOHNSON, who came home last night, sends his respects to dear Dr. +Burney, and all the dear Burneys, little and great[1164].' + +'TO MR. HECTOR, IN BIRMINGHAM. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I did not reach Oxford until Friday morning, and then I sent Francis to +see the balloon fly, but could not go myself. I staid at Oxford till +Tuesday, and then came in the common vehicle easily to London. I am as I +was, and having seen Dr. Brocklesby, am to ply the squills; but, +whatever be their efficacy, this world must soon pass away. Let us think +seriously on our duty. I send my kindest respects to dear Mrs. +Careless[1165]: let me have the prayers of both. We have all lived long, +and must soon part. GOD have mercy on us, for the sake of our Lord JESUS +CHRIST. Amen. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Nov. 17, 1784.' + +His correspondence with me, after his letter on the subject of my +settling in London, shall now, so far as is proper, be produced in +one series:-- + +July 26, he wrote to me from Ashbourne:-- + +'On the 14th I came to Lichfield, and found every body glad enough to +see me. On the 20th, I came hither, and found a house half-built, of +very uncomfortable appearance; but my own room has not been altered. +That a man worn with diseases, in his seventy-second or third year, +should condemn part of his remaining life to pass among ruins and +rubbish, and that no inconsiderable part, appears to me very strange. I +know that your kindness makes you impatient to know the state of my +health, in which I cannot boast of much improvement. I came through the +journey without much inconvenience, but when I attempt self-motion I +find my legs weak, and my breath very short; this day I have been much +disordered. I have no company; the Doctor[1166] is busy in his fields, +and goes to bed at nine, and his whole system is so different from mine, +that we seem formed for different elements[1167]; I have, therefore, +all my amusement to seek within myself.' + +Having written to him, in bad spirits, a letter filled with dejection +and fretfulness, and at the same time expressing anxious apprehensions +concerning him, on account of a dream which had disturbed me; his answer +was chiefly in terms of reproach, for a supposed charge of 'affecting +discontent, and indulging the vanity of complaint.' It, however, +proceeded,-- + +'Write to me often, and write like a man. I consider your fidelity and +tenderness as a great part of the comforts which are yet left me, and +sincerely wish we could be nearer to each other.... My dear friend, life +is very short and very uncertain; let us spend it as well as we can. My +worthy neighbour, Allen, is dead. Love me as well as you can. Pay my +respects to dear Mrs. Boswell. Nothing ailed me at that time; let your +superstition at last have an end.' + +Feeling very soon, that the manner in which he had written might hurt +me, he two days afterwards, July 28, wrote to me again, giving me an +account of his sufferings; after which, he thus proceeds:-- + +'Before this letter, you will have had one which I hope you will not +take amiss; for it contains only truth, and that truth kindly +intended.... _Spartam quam nactus es orna_[1168]; make the most and best +of your lot, and compare yourself not with the few that are above you, +but with the multitudes which are below you.... Go steadily forward with +lawful business or honest diversions. _Be_ (as Temple says of the +Dutchmen) _well when you are not ill, and pleased when you are not +angry_[1169].... This may seem but an ill return for your tenderness; +but I mean it well, for I love you with great ardour and sincerity. Pay +my respects to dear Mrs. Boswell, and teach the young ones to love me.' + +I unfortunately was so much indisposed during a considerable part of +the year, that it was not, or at least I thought it was not in my power +to write to my illustrious friend as formerly, or without expressing +such complaints as offended him. Having conjured him not to do me the +injustice of charging me with affectation, I was with much regret long +silent. His last letter to me then came, and affected me very +tenderly:-- + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I have this summer sometimes amended, and sometimes relapsed, but, upon +the whole, have lost ground, very much. My legs are extremely weak, and +my breath very short, and the water is now encreasing upon me. In this +uncomfortable state your letters used to relieve; what is the reason +that I have them no longer? Are you sick, or are you sullen? Whatever be +the reason, if it be less than necessity, drive it away; and of the +short life that we have, make the best use for yourself and for your +friends.... I am sometimes afraid that your omission to write has some +real cause, and shall be glad to know that you are not sick, and that +nothing ill has befallen dear Mrs. Boswell, or any of your family. + +'I am, Sir, your, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Lichfield, Nov. 5, 1784.' + +Yet it was not a little painful to me to find, that in a paragraph of +this letter, which I have omitted, he still persevered in arraigning me +as before, which was strange in him who had so much experience of what I +suffered. I, however, wrote to him two as kind letters as I could; the +last of which came too late to be read by him, for his illness encreased +more rapidly upon him than I had apprehended; but I had the consolation +of being informed that he spoke of me on his death-bed, with affection, +and I look forward with humble hope of renewing our friendship in a +better world. + +I now relieve the readers of this Work from any farther personal notice +of its authour, who if he should be thought to have obtruded himself too +much upon their attention, requests them to consider the peculiar plan +of his biographical undertaking. + +Soon after Johnson's return to the metropolis, both the asthma and +dropsy became more violent and distressful. He had for some time kept a +journal in Latin of the state of his illness, and the remedies which he +used, under the title of _Aegri Ephemeris_, which he began on the 6th of +July, but continued it no longer than the 8th of November; finding, I +suppose, that it was a mournful and unavailing register. It is in my +possession; and is written with great care and accuracy. + +Still his love of literature[1170] did not fail. A very few days before +his death he transmitted to his friend Mr. John Nichols, a list of the +authours of the _Universal History_, mentioning their several shares in +that work. It has, according to his direction, been deposited in the +British Museum, and is printed in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for +December, 1784. + +During his sleepless nights he amused himself by translating into Latin +verse, from the Greek, many of the epigrams in the Anthologica[1171]. +These translations, with some other poems by him in Latin, he gave to +his friend Mr. Langton, who, having added a few notes, sold them to the +booksellers for a small sum, to be given to some of Johnson's relations, +which was accordingly done; and they are printed in the collection of +his works. + +A very erroneous notion has circulated as to Johnson's deficiency in the +knowledge of the Greek language, partly owing to the modesty with which, +from knowing how much there was to be learnt, he used to mention his own +comparative acquisitions. When Mr. Cumberland[1172] talked to him of the +Greek fragments which are so well illustrated in The Observer[1173], +and of the Greek dramatists in general, he candidly acknowledged his +insufficiency in that particular branch of Greek literature. Yet it may +be said, that though not a great, he was a good Greek scholar. Dr. +Charles Burney[1174], the younger, who is universally acknowledged by +the best judges to be one of the few men of this age who are very +eminent for their skill in that noble language, has assured me, that +Johnson could give a Greek word for almost every English one; and that +although not sufficiently conversant in the niceties of the language, he +upon some occasions discovered, even in these, a considerable degree of +critical acumen. Mr. Dalzel, Professor of Greek at Edinburgh, whose +skill in it is unquestionable, mentioned to me, in very liberal terms, +the impression which was made upon him by Johnson, in a conversation +which they had in London concerning that language. As Johnson, +therefore, was undoubtedly one of the first Latin scholars in modern +times, let us not deny to his fame some additional splendour from +Greek[1175]. + +I shall now fulfil my promise[1176] of exhibiting specimens of various +sorts of imitation of Johnson's style. + +In the _Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy_, 1787, there is an +'Essay on the Style of Dr. Samuel Johnson,' by the Reverend Robert +Burrowes, whose respect for the great object of his criticism[1177] is +thus evinced in the concluding paragraph:-- + +'I have singled him out from the whole body of English writers, because +his universally-acknowledged beauties would be most apt to induce +imitation; and I have treated rather on his faults than his perfections, +because an essay might comprize all the observations I could make upon +his faults, while volumes would not be sufficient for a treatise on his +perfections.' + +Mr. BURROWES has analysed the composition of Johnson, and pointed out +its peculiarities with much acuteness; and I would recommend a careful +perusal of his Essay to those, who being captivated by the union of +perspicuity and splendour which the writings of Johnson contain, without +having a sufficient portion of his vigour of mind, may be in danger of +becoming bad copyists of his manner. I, however, cannot but observe, and +I observe it to his credit, that this learned gentleman has himself +caught no mean degree of the expansion and harmony, which, independent +of all other circumstances, characterise the sentences of Johnson. Thus, +in the Preface to the volume in which his Essay appears, we find,-- + +'If it be said that in societies of this sort, too much attention is +frequently bestowed on subjects barren and speculative, it may be +answered, that no one science is so little connected with the rest, as +not to afford many principles whose use may extend considerably beyond +the science to which they primarily belong; and that no proposition is +so purely theoretical as to be totally incapable of being applied to +practical purposes. There is no apparent connection between duration and +the cycloidal arch, the properties of which duly attended to, have +furnished us with our best regulated methods of measuring time: and he +who has made himself master of the nature and affections of the +logarithmick curve, is not aware that he has advanced considerably +towards ascertaining the proportionable density of the air at its +various distances from the surface of the earth.' + +The ludicrous imitators of Johnson's style are innumerable. Their +general method is to accumulate hard words, without considering, that, +although he was fond of introducing them occasionally, there is not a +single sentence in all his writings where they are crowded together, as +in the first verse of the following imaginary Ode by him to Mrs. +Thrale[1178], which appeared in the newspapers:-- + + '_Cervisial coctor's viduate_ dame, + _Opin'st_ thou this gigantick frame, + _Procumbing_ at thy shrine: + Shall, _catenated_ by thy charms, + A captive in thy _ambient_ arms, + _Perennially_ be thine?' + +This, and a thousand other such attempts, are totally unlike the +original, which the writers imagined they were turning into ridicule. +There is not similarity enough for burlesque, or even for caricature. + +Mr. COLMAN, in his _Prose on several occasions_, has _A Letter from +LEXIPHANES[1179]; containing Proposals for a Glossary or Vocabulary of +the Vulgar Tongue: intended as a Supplement to a larger DICTIONARY_. It +is evidently meant as a sportive sally of ridicule on Johnson, whose +style is thus imitated, without being grossly overcharged:-- + +'It is easy to foresee, that the idle and illiterate will complain that +I have increased their labours by endeavouring to diminish them; and +that I have explained what is more easy by what is more difficult-- +_ignotum per ignotius_. I expect, on the other hand, the liberal +acknowledgements of the learned. He who is buried in scholastick +retirement, secluded from the assemblies of the gay, and remote from the +circles of the polite, will at once comprehend the definitions, and be +grateful for such a seasonable and necessary elucidation of his +mother-tongue.' + +Annexed to this letter is a short specimen of the work, thrown together +in a vague and desultory manner, not even adhering to alphabetical +concatenation[1180]. + +The serious imitators of Johnson's style, whether intentionally or by +the imperceptible effect of its strength and animation, are, as I have +had already occasion to observe, so many, that I might introduce +quotations from a numerous body of writers in our language, since he +appeared in the literary world. I shall point out only the following:-- + +WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D.D.[1181] + +'In other parts of the globe, man, in his rudest state, appears as lord +of the creation, giving law to various tribes of animals which he has +tamed and reduced to subjection. The Tartar follows his prey on the +horse which he has reared, or tends his numerous herds, which furnish +him both with food and clothing; the Arab has rendered the camel docile, +and avails himself of its persevering strength; the Laplander has formed +the rein-deer to be subservient to his will; and even the people of +Kamschatka have trained their dogs to labour. This command over the +inferiour creatures is one of the noblest prerogatives of man, and among +the greatest efforts of his wisdom and power. Without this, his dominion +is incomplete. He is a monarch who has no subjects; a master without +servants; and must perform every operation by the strength of his own +arm[1182].' + +EDWARD GIBBON, Esq.[1183] + +'Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most +imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the +submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord the laws of +society lose their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of +humanity. The ardour of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of +success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, +all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of +pity[1184].' + +MISS BURNEY[1185]. + +'My family, mistaking ambition for honour, and rank for dignity, have +long planned a splendid connection for me, to which, though my +invariable repugnance has stopped any advances, their wishes and their +views immovably adhere. I am but too certain they will now listen to no +other. I dread, therefore, to make a trial where I despair of success; I +know not how to risk a prayer with those who may silence me by a +command[1186].' + +REVEREND MR. NARES[1187]. + +'In an enlightened and improving age, much perhaps is not to be +apprehended from the inroads of mere caprice; at such a period it will +generally be perceived, that needless irregularity is the worst of all +deformities, and that nothing is so truly elegant in language as the +simplicity of unviolated analogy. Rules will, therefore, be observed, so +far as they are known and acknowledged: but, at the same time, the +desire of improvement having been once excited will not remain inactive; +and its efforts, unless assisted by knowledge, as much as they are +prompted by zeal, will not unfrequently be found pernicious; so that the +very persons whose intention it is to perfect the instrument of reason, +will deprave and disorder it unknowingly. At such a time, then, it +becomes peculiarly necessary that the analogy of language should be +fully examined and understood; that its rules should be carefully laid +down; and that it should be clearly known how much it contains, which +being already right should be defended from change and violation: how +much it has that demands amendment; and how much that, for fear of +greater inconveniencies, must, perhaps, be left unaltered, though +irregular.' + +A distinguished authour in _The Mirror_[1188], a periodical paper, +published at Edinburgh, has imitated Johnson very closely. Thus, in +No. 16,-- + +'The effects of the return of spring have been frequently remarked as +well in relation to the human mind as to the animal and vegetable world. +The reviving power of this season has been traced from the fields to the +herds that inhabit them, and from the lower classes of beings up to man. +Gladness and joy are described as prevailing through universal Nature, +animating the low of the cattle, the carol of the birds, and the pipe of +the shepherd.' + +The Reverend Dr. KNOX[1189], master of Tunbridge school, appears to have +the _imitari avco_[1190] of Johnson's style perpetually in his mind; +and to his assiduous, though not servile, study of it, we may partly +ascribe the extensive popularity of his writings[1191]. + +In his _Essays, Moral and Literary_, No. 3, we find the following +passage:-- + +'The polish of external grace may indeed be deferred till the approach +of manhood. When solidity is obtained by pursuing the modes prescribed +by our fore-fathers, then may the file be used. The firm substance will +bear attrition, and the lustre then acquired will be durable.' + +There is, however, one in No. 11, which is blown up into such tumidity, +as to be truly ludicrous. The writer means to tell us, that Members of +Parliament, who have run in debt by extravagance, will sell their votes +to avoid an arrest[1192], which he thus expresses:-- + +'They who build houses and collect costly pictures and furniture with +the money of an honest artisan or mechanick, will be very glad of +emancipation from the hands of a bailiff, by a sale of their senatorial +suffrage.' + +But I think the most perfect imitation of Johnson is a professed one, +entitled _A Criticism on Gray's Elegy in a Country Church-Yard_, said to +be written by Mr. Young, Professor of Greek, at Glasgow, and of which +let him have the credit, unless a better title can be shewn. It has not +only the peculiarities of Johnson's style, but that very species of +literary discussion and illustration for which he was eminent. Having +already quoted so much from others, I shall refer the curious to this +performance, with an assurance of much entertainment[1193]. + +Yet whatever merit there may be in any imitations of Johnson's style, +every good judge must see that they are obviously different from the +original; for all of them are either deficient in its force, or +overloaded with its peculiarities; and the powerful sentiment to which +it is suited is not to be found[1194]. + +Johnson's affection for his departed relations seemed to grow warmer as +he approached nearer to the time when he might hope to see them again. +It probably appeared to him that he should upbraid himself with unkind +inattention, were he to leave the world without having paid a tribute of +respect to their memory. + +'To MR. GREEN[1195], APOTHECARY, AT LICHFIELD. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I have enclosed the Epitaph[1196] for my Father, Mother, and Brother, +to be all engraved on the large size, and laid in the middle aisle in +St. Michael's church, which I request the clergyman and churchwardens +to permit. + +'The first care must be to find the exact place of interment, that the +stone may protect the bodies[1197]. Then let the stone be deep, massy, +and hard; and do not let the difference of ten pounds, or more, defeat +our purpose. + +'I have enclosed ten pounds, and Mrs. Porter will pay you ten more, +which I gave her for the same purpose. What more is wanted shall be +sent; and I beg that all possible haste may be made, for I wish to have +it done while I am yet alive. Let me know, dear Sir, that you +receive this. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Dec. 2, 1784.' + +'To MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'I am very ill, and desire your prayers. I have sent Mr. Green the +Epitaph, and a power to call on you for ten pounds. + +'I laid this summer a stone over Tetty, in the chapel of Bromley, in +Kent[1198]. The inscription is in Latin, of which this is the English. +[Here a translation.] + +'That this is done, I thought it fit that you should know. What care +will be taken of us, who can tell? May GOD pardon and bless us, for +JESUS CHRIST'S sake. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON[1199],' + +'Dec. 2, 1784.' + +My readers are now, at last, to behold SAMUEL JOHNSON preparing himself +for that doom, from which the most exalted powers afford no exemption to +man[1200]. Death had always been to him an object of terrour; so that, +though by no means happy, he still clung to life with an eagerness at +which many have wondered. At any time when he was ill, he was very much +pleased to be told that he looked better. An ingenious member of the +_Eumelian Club_[1201], informs me, that upon one occasion when he said +to him that he saw health returning to his cheek, Johnson seized him by +the hand and exclaimed, 'Sir, you are one of the kindest friends I +ever had.' + +His own state of his views of futurity will appear truly rational; and +may, perhaps, impress the unthinking with seriousness. + +'You know, (says he,)[1202] I never thought confidence with respect to +futurity, any part of the character of a brave, a wise, or a good man. +Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing; wisdom impresses +strongly the consciousness of those faults, of which it is, perhaps, +itself an aggravation; and goodness, always wishing to be better, and +imputing every deficience to criminal negligence, and every fault to +voluntary corruption, never dares to suppose the condition of +forgiveness fulfilled, nor what is wanting in the crime supplied by +penitence. + +'This is the state of the best; but what must be the condition of him +whose heart will not suffer him to rank himself among the best, or among +the good? Such must be his dread of the approaching trial, as will leave +him little attention to the opinion of those whom he is leaving for +ever; and the serenity that is not felt, it can be no virtue to feign.' + +His great fear of death, and the strange dark manner in which Sir John +Hawkins[1203] imparts the uneasiness which he expressed on account of +offences with which he charged himself, may give occasion to injurious +suspicions, as if there had been something of more than ordinary +criminality weighing upon his conscience. On that account, therefore, as +well as from the regard to truth which he inculcated[1204], I am to +mention, (with all possible respect and delicacy, however,) that his +conduct, after he came to London, and had associated with Savage and +others, was not so strictly virtuous, in one respect, as when he was a +younger man. It was well known, that his amorous inclinations were +uncommonly strong and impetuous. He owned to many of his friends, that +he used to take women of the town to taverns, and hear them relate their +history[1205]. In short, it must not be concealed, that, like many other +good and pious men, among whom we may place the Apostle Paul upon his +own authority, Johnson was not free from propensities which were ever +'warring against the law of his mind[1206],'--and that in his combats +with them, he was sometimes overcome[1207]. + +Here let the profane and licentious pause; let them not thoughtlessly +say that Johnson was an _hypocrite_, or that his _principles_ were not +firm, because his _practice_ was not uniformly conformable to what he +professed. + +Let the question be considered independent of moral and religious +association; and no man will deny that thousands, in many instances, act +against conviction. Is a prodigal, for example, an _hypocrite_, when he +owns he is satisfied that his extravagance will bring him to ruin and +misery? We are _sure_ he _believes_ it; but immediate inclination, +strengthened by indulgence, prevails over that belief in influencing his +conduct. Why then shall credit be refused to the _sincerity_ of those +who acknowledge their persuasion of moral and religious duty, yet +sometimes fail of living as it requires? I heard Dr. Johnson once +observe, 'There is something noble in publishing truth, though it +condemns one's self[1208].' And one who said in his presence, 'he had +no notion of people being in earnest in their good professions, whose +practice was not suitable to them,' was thus reprimanded by him:--'Sir, +are you so grossly ignorant of human nature as not to know that a man +may be very sincere in good principles, without having good +practice[1209]?' + +But let no man encourage or soothe himself in 'presumptuous sin[1210],' +from knowing that Johnson was sometimes hurried into indulgences which +he thought criminal. I have exhibited this circumstance as a shade in so +great a character, both from my sacred love of truth, and to shew that +he was not so weakly scrupulous as he has been represented by those who +imagine that the sins, of which a deep sense was upon his mind, were +merely such little venial trifles as pouring milk into his tea on +Good-Friday. His understanding will be defended by my statement, if his +consistency of conduct be in some degree impaired. But what wise man +would, for momentary gratifications, deliberately subject himself to +suffer such uneasiness as we find was experienced by Johnson in +reviewing his conduct as compared with his notion of the ethicks of the +gospel? Let the following passages be kept in remembrance:-- + +'O, GOD, giver and preserver of all life, by whose power I was created, +and by whose providence I am sustained, look down upon me with +tenderness and mercy; grant that I may not have been created to be +finally destroyed; that I may not be preserved to add wickedness to +wickedness[1211].' 'O, LORD, let me not sink into total depravity; look +down upon me, and rescue me at last from the captivity of sin[1212].' +'Almighty and most merciful Father, who hast continued my life from year +to year, grant that by longer life I may become less desirous of sinful +pleasures, and more careful of eternal happiness[1213].' 'Let not my +years be multiplied to increase my guilt; but as my age advances, let me +become more pure in my thoughts, more regular in my desires, and more +obedient to thy laws[1214].' 'Forgive, O merciful LORD, whatever I have +done contrary to thy laws. Give me such a sense of my wickedness as may +produce true contrition and effectual repentance; so that when I shall +be called into another state, I may be received among the sinners to +whom whom sorrow and reformation have obtained pardon, for JESUS +CHRIST'S sake. Amen[1215].' + +Such was the distress of mind, such the penitence of Johnson, in his +hours of privacy, and in his devout approaches to his Maker. His +_sincerity_, therefore, must appear to every candid mind unquestionable. + +It is of essential consequence to keep in view, that there was in this +excellent man's conduct no false principle of _commutation_, no +_deliberate_ indulgence in sin, in consideration of a counter-balance of +duty. His offending, and his repenting, were distinct and +separate[1216]: and when we consider his almost unexampled attention to +truth, his inflexible integrity, his constant piety, who will dare to +'cast a stone at him[1217]?' Besides, let it never be forgotten, that he +cannot be charged with any offence indicating badness of _heart_, any +thing dishonest, base, or malignant; but that, on the contrary, he was +charitable in an extraordinary degree: so that even in one of his own +rigid judgements of himself, (Easter-eve, 1781,) while he says, 'I have +corrected no external habits;' he is obliged to own, 'I hope that since +my last communion I have advanced, by pious reflections, in my +submission to GOD, and my benevolence to man[1218].' + +I am conscious that this is the most difficult and dangerous part of my +biographical work, and I cannot but be very anxious concerning it. I +trust that I have got through it, preserving at once my regard to +truth,--to my friend,--and to the interests of virtue and religion. Nor +can I apprehend that more harm can ensue from the knowledge of the +irregularity of Johnson, guarded as I have stated it, than from knowing +that Addison and Parnell were intemperate in the use of wine; which he +himself, in his _Lives_ of those celebrated writers and pious men, has +not forborne to record[1219]. + +It is not my intention to give a very minute detail of the particulars +of Johnson's remaining days[1220], of whom it was now evident, that the +crisis was fast approaching, when he must '_die like men, and fall like +one of the Princes_[1221].' Yet it will be instructive, as well as +gratifying to the curiosity of my readers, to record a few +circumstances, on the authenticity of which they may perfectly rely, as +I have been at the utmost pains to obtain an accurate account of his +last illness, from the best authority[1222]. + +Dr. Heberden[1223], Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Warren[1224], and Dr. Butter, +physicians, generously attended him, without accepting any fees, as did +Mr. Cruikshank, surgeon; and all that could be done from professional +skill and ability, was tried, to prolong a life so truly valuable. He +himself, indeed, having, on account of his very bad constitution, been +perpetually applying himself to medical inquiries, united his own +efforts with those of the gentlemen who attended him; and imagining that +the dropsical collection of water which oppressed him might be drawn off +by making incisions in his body, he, with his usual resolute defiance of +pain, cut deep, when he thought that his surgeon had done it too +tenderly[1225]. + +About eight or ten days before his death, when Dr. Brocklesby paid him +his morning visit, he seemed very low and desponding, and said, 'I have +been as a dying man all night.' He then emphatically broke out in the +words of Shakspeare,-- + + 'Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseas'd; + Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; + Raze out the written troubles of the brain; + And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, + Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff, + Which weighs upon the heart?' + +To which Dr. Brocklesby readily answered, from the same great poet:-- + + '----------------therein the patient + Must minister to himself[1226].' + +Johnson expressed himself much satisfied with the application. + +On another day after this, when talking on the subject of prayer, Dr. +Brocklesby repeated from Juvenal,-- + + '_Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore Sano_[1227],' + +and so on to the end of the tenth satire; but in running it quickly +over, he happened, in the line, + + '_Qui spatium vitae; extremum inter munera ponat_,' + +to pronounce _supremum_ for _extremum_; at which Johnson's critical ear +instantly took offence, and discoursing vehemently on the unmetrical +effect of such a lapse, he shewed himself as full as ever of the spirit +of the grammarian[1228]. + +Having no near relations[1229], it had been for some time Johnson's +intention to make a liberal provision for his faithful servant, Mr. +Francis Barber, whom he looked upon as particularly under his +protection, and whom he had all along treated truly as an humble friend. +Having asked Dr. Brocklesby what would be a proper annuity to a +favourite servant, and being answered that it must depend on the +circumstances of the master; and, that in the case of a nobleman, fifty +pounds a year was considered as an adequate reward for many years' +faithful service; 'Then, (said Johnson,) shall I be _nobilissimus_, for +I mean to leave Frank seventy pounds a year, and I desire you to tell +him so[1230].' It is strange, however, to think, that Johnson was not +free from that general weakness of being averse to execute a will, so +that he delayed it from time to time[1231]; and had it not been for Sir +John Hawkins's repeatedly urging it, I think it is probable that his +kind resolution would not have been fulfilled. After making one, which, +as Sir John Hawkins informs us, extended no further than the promised +annuity, Johnson's final disposition of his property was established by +a Will and Codicil, of which copies are subjoined[1232]. + +The consideration of numerous papers of which he was possessed, seems +to have struck Johnson's mind, with a sudden anxiety, and as they were +in great confusion, it is much to be lamented that he had not entrusted +some faithful and discreet person with the care and selection of them; +instead of which, he in a precipitate manner, burnt large masses of +them, with little regard, as I apprehend, to discrimination. Not that I +suppose we have thus been deprived of any compositions which he had ever +intended for the publick eye; but, from what escaped the flames, I judge +that many curious circumstances relating both to himself and other +literary characters have perished[1233]. + +Two very valuable articles, I am sure, we have lost, which were two +quarto volumes, containing a full, fair, and most particular account of +his own life, from his earliest recollection. I owned to him, that +having accidentally seen them, I had read a great deal in them; and +apologizing for the liberty I had taken, asked him if I could help +it[1234]. He placidly answered, 'Why, Sir, I do not think you could +have helped it.' I said that I had, for once in my life, felt half an +inclination to commit theft. It had come into my mind to carry off those +two volumes, and never see him more. Upon my inquiring how this would +have affected him, 'Sir, (said he,) I believe I should have gone +mad[1235].' + +During his last illness, Johnson experienced the steady and kind +attachment of his numerous friends. Mr. Hoole has drawn up a narrative +of what passed in the visits which he paid him during that time, from +the both of November to the 13th of December, the day of his death, +inclusive, and has favoured me with a perusal of it, with permission to +make extracts, which I have done. Nobody was more attentive to him than +Mr. Langton, to whom he tenderly said, _Te teneam moriens deficiente +manu_[1237]. And I think it highly to the honour of Mr. Windham, that +his important occupations as an active statesman[1238] did not prevent +him from paying assiduous respect to the dying Sage whom he revered. Mr. +Langton informs me, that, 'one day he found Mr. Burke and four or five +more friends sitting with Johnson. Mr. Burke said to him, "I am afraid, +Sir, such a number of us may be oppressive to you." "No, Sir, (said +Johnson,) it is not so; and I must be in a wretched state, indeed, when +your company would not be a delight to me." Mr. Burke, in a tremulous +voice, expressive of being very tenderly affected, replied, "My dear +Sir, you have always been too good to me." Immediately afterwards he +went away. This was the last circumstance in the acquaintance of these +two eminent men[1239].' + +The following particulars of his conversation within a few days of his +death, I give on the authority of Mr. John Nichols[1240]:-- + +'He said, that the Parliamentary Debates were the only part of his +writings which then gave him any compunction[1241]: but that at the time +he wrote them, he had no conception he was imposing upon the world, +though they were frequently written from very slender materials, and +often from none at all,--the mere coinage of his own imagination. He +never wrote any part of his works with equal velocity. Three columns of +the _Magazine_, in an hour, was no uncommon effort, which was faster +than most persons could have transcribed that quantity. + +'Of his friend Cave, he always spoke with great affection. "Yet (said +he,) Cave, (who never looked out of his window, but with a view to the +_Gentleman's Magazine_,) was a penurious pay-master; he would contract +for lines by the hundred, and expect the long hundred; but he was a good +man, and always delighted to have his friends at his table." + +'When talking of a regular edition of his own works, he said, "that he +had power, [from the booksellers,] to print such an edition, if his +health admitted it; but had no power to assign over any edition, unless +he could add notes, and so alter them as to make them new works; which +his state of health forbade him to think of. I may possibly live, (said +he,) or rather breath, three days, or perhaps three weeks; but find +myself daily and gradually weaker." + +'He said at another time, three or four days only before his death, +speaking of the little fear he had of undergoing a chirurgical +operation, "I would give one of these legs for a year more of life, I +mean of comfortable life, not such as that which I now suffer;"--and +lamented much his inability to read during his hours of restlessness; "I +used formerly, (he added,) when sleepless in bed, _to read like a +Turk_[1242]." + +'Whilst confined by his last illness, it was his regular practice to +have the church-service read to him, by some attentive and friendly +Divine. The Rev. Mr. Hoole performed this kind office in my presence for +the last time, when, by his own desire, no more than the Litany was +read; in which his responses were in the deep and sonorous voice which +Mr. Boswell has occasionally noticed, and with the most profound +devotion that can be imagined. His hearing not being quite perfect, he +more than once interrupted Mr. Hoole, with "Louder, my dear Sir, louder, +I entreat you, or you pray in vain[1243]!"--and, when the service was +ended, he, with great earnestness, turned round to an excellent lady who +was present, saying, "I thank you, Madam, very heartily, for your +kindness in joining me in this solemn exercise. Live well, I conjure +you; and you will not feel the compunction at the last, which I now +feel[1244]." So truly humble were the thoughts which this great and good +man entertained of his own approaches to religious perfection[1245]. + +'He was earnestly invited to publish a volume of _Devotional +Exercises_[1246]; but this, (though he listened to the proposal with +much complacency, and a large sum of money was offered for it,) he +declined, from motives of the sincerest modesty. + +'He seriously entertained the thought of translating _Thuanus_[1247]. He +often talked to me on the subject; and once, in particular, when I was +rather wishing that he would favour the world, and gratify his +sovereign, by a Life of Spenser[1248], (which he said that he would +readily have done, had he been able to obtain any new materials for the +purpose,) he added, "I have been thinking again, Sir, of _Thuanus_: it +would not be the laborious task which you have supposed it. I should +have no trouble but that of dictation, which would be performed as +speedily as an amanuensis could write." + +It is to the mutual credit of Johnson and Divines of different +communions, that although he was a steady Church-of-England man, there +was, nevertheless, much agreeable intercourse between him and them. Let +me particularly name the late Mr. La Trobe, and Mr. Hutton[1249], of the +Moravian profession. His intimacy with the English Benedictines, at +Paris, has been mentioned[1250]; and as an additional proof of the +charity in which he lived with good men of the Romish Church, I am happy +in this opportunity of recording his friendship with the Reverend Thomas +Hussey[1251], D.D. His Catholick Majesty's Chaplain of Embassy at the +Court of London, that very respectable man, eminent not only for his +powerful eloquence as a preacher, but for his various abilities and +acquisitions. Nay, though Johnson loved a Presbyterian the least of all, +this did not prevent his having a long and uninterrupted social +connection with the Reverend Dr. James Fordyce, who, since his death, +hath gratefully celebrated him in a warm strain of devotional +composition[1252]. + +Amidst the melancholy clouds which hung over the dying Johnson, his +characteristical manner shewed itself on different occasions. + +When Dr. Warren, in the usual style, hoped that he was better; his +answer was, 'No, Sir; you cannot conceive with what acceleration I +advance towards death.' + +A man whom he had never seen before was employed one night to sit up +with him[1253]. Being asked next morning how he liked his attendant, his +answer was, 'Not at all, Sir: the fellow's an ideot; he is as aukward as +a turn-spit when first put into the wheel, and as sleepy as a dormouse.' + +Mr. Windham having placed a pillow conveniently to support him, he +thanked him for his kindness, and said, 'That will do,--all that a +pillow can do.' + +He repeated[1254] with great spirit a poem, consisting of several +stanzas, in four lines, in alternate rhyme, which he said he had +composed some years before, on occasion of a rich, extravagant young +gentleman's coming of age; saying he had never repeated it but once +since he composed it, and had given but one copy of it. That copy was +given to Mrs. Thrale, now Piozzi, who has published it in a Book which +she entitles _British Synonymy_[1255], but which is truly a collection +of entertaining remarks and stories, no matter whether accurate or not. +Being a piece of exquisite satire, conveyed in a strain of pointed +vivacity and humour, and in a manner of which no other instance is to be +found in Johnson's writings, I shall here insert it[1256]:-- + + Long-expected one-and-twenty, + Ling'ring year, at length is flown; + Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty, + Great --- ----[1257], are now your own. + + Loosen'd from the Minor's tether, + Free to mortgage or to sell, + Wild as wind, and light as feather, + Bid the sons of thrift farewell. + + Call the Betseys, Kates, and Jennies, + All the names that banish care; + Lavish of your grandsire's guineas, + Shew the spirit of an heir. + + All that prey on vice or folly + Joy to see their quarry fly; + There the gamester, light and jolly, + There the lender, grave and sly. + + Wealth, my lad, was made to wander, + Let it wander as it will; + Call the jockey, call the pander, + Bid them come and take their fill. + + When the bonny blade carouses, + Pockets full, and spirits high-- + What are acres? what are houses? + Only dirt, or wet or dry. + + Should the guardian friend or mother + Tell the woes of wilful waste; + Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother,-- + You can hang or drown at last. + +As he opened a note which his servant brought to him, he said, 'An odd +thought strikes me: we shall receive no letters in the grave[1258].' + +He requested three things of Sir Joshua Reynolds:--To forgive him thirty +pounds which he had borrowed of him; to read the Bible; and never to +use his pencil on a Sunday[1259]. Sir Joshua readily acquiesced[1260]. + +Indeed he shewed the greatest anxiety for the religious improvement of +his friends, to whom he discoursed of its infinite consequence. He +begged of Mr. Hoole to think of what he had said, and to commit it to +writing: and, upon being afterwards assured that this was done, pressed +his hands, and in an earnest tone thanked him. Dr. Brocklesby having +attended him with the utmost assiduity and kindness as his physician and +friend, he was peculiarly desirous that this gentleman should not +entertain any loose speculative notions, but be confirmed in the truths +of Christianity, and insisted on his writing down in his presence, as +nearly as he could collect it, the import of what passed on the subject: +and Dr. Brocklesby having complied with the request, he made him sign +the paper, and urged him to keep it in his own custody as long as he +lived[1261]. + +Johnson, with that native fortitude, which, amidst all his bodily +distress and mental sufferings, never forsook him, asked Dr. Brocklesby, +as a man in whom he had confidence, to tell him plainly whether he could +recover. 'Give me (said he) a direct answer.' The Doctor having first +asked him if he could bear the whole truth, which way soever it might +lead, and being answered that he could, declared that, in his opinion, +he could not recover without a miracle. 'Then, (said Johnson,) I will +take no more physick, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may +render up my soul to GOD unclouded.' In this resolution he persevered, +and, at the same time, used only the weakest kinds of sustenance. Being +pressed by Mr. Windham to take somewhat more generous nourishment, lest +too low a diet should have the very effect which he dreaded, by +debilitating his mind, he said, 'I will take any thing but inebriating +sustenance[1262].' + +The Reverend Mr. Strahan, who was the son of his friend, and had been +always one of his great favourites, had, during his last illness, the +satisfaction of contributing to soothe and comfort him. That gentleman's +house, at Islington, of which he is Vicar, afforded Johnson, +occasionally and easily, an agreeable change of place and fresh air; and +he attended also upon him in town in the discharge of the sacred offices +of his profession. + +Mr. Strahan has given me the agreeable assurance, that, after being in +much agitation, Johnson became quite composed, and continued so till his +death[1263]. + +Dr. Brocklesby, who will not be suspected of fanaticism, obliged me with +the following accounts:-- + +'For some time before his death, all his fears were calmed and absorbed +by the prevalence of his faith, and his trust in the merits and +_propitiation_ of JESUS CHRIST. + +'He talked often to me about the necessity of faith in the _sacrifice_ +of Jesus, as necessary beyond all good works whatever, for the salvation +of mankind. + +'He pressed me to study Dr. Clarke and to read his Sermons. I asked him +why he pressed Dr. Clarke, an Arian[1264]. "Because, (said he,) he is +fullest on the _propitiatory sacrifice_."' + +Johnson having thus in his mind the true Christian scheme, at once +rational and consolatory, uniting justice and mercy in the DIVINITY, +with the improvement of human nature, previous to his receiving the Holy +Sacrament in his apartment, composed and fervently uttered this +prayer[1265]:-- + +'Almighty and most merciful Father, I am now as to human eyes, it +seems, about to commemorate, for the last time, the death of thy Son +JESUS CHRIST, our Saviour and Redeemer. Grant, O LORD, that my whole +hope and confidence may be in his merits, and thy mercy; enforce and +accept my imperfect repentance; make this commemoration available to the +confirmation of my faith, the establishment of my hope, and the +enlargement of my charity; and make the death of thy Son JESUS CHRIST +effectual to my redemption. Have mercy upon me, and pardon the multitude +of my offences. Bless my friends; have mercy upon all men. Support me, +by thy Holy Spirit, in the days of weakness, and at the hour of death; +and receive me, at my death, to everlasting happiness, for the sake of +JESUS CHRIST. Amen.' + +Having, as has been already mentioned, made his will on the 8th and 9th +of December, and settled all his worldly affairs, he languished till +Monday, the 13th of that month, when he expired, about seven o'clock in +the evening, with so little apparent pain that his attendants hardly +perceived when his dissolution took place. + +Of his last moments, my brother, Thomas David[1266], has furnished me +with the following particulars:-- + +'The Doctor, from the time that he was certain his death was near, +appeared to be perfectly resigned[1267], was seldom or never fretful or +out of temper, and often said to his faithful servant, who gave me this +account, "Attend, Francis, to the salvation of your soul, which is the +object of greatest importance:" he also explained to him passages in the +scripture, and seemed to have pleasure in talking upon religious +subjects. + +'On Monday, the 13th of December, the day on which he died, a Miss +Morris[1268], daughter to a particular friend of his, called, and said +to Francis, that she begged to be permitted to see the Doctor, that she +might earnestly request him to give her his blessing. Francis went into +his room, followed by the young lady, and delivered the message. The +Doctor turned himself in the bed, and said, "GOD bless you, my dear!" +These were the last words he spoke. His difficulty of breathing +increased till about seven o'clock in the evening, when Mr. Barber and +Mrs. Desmoulins, who were sitting in the room, observing that the noise +he made in breathing had ceased, went to the bed, and found he was +dead[1269].' + +About two days after his death, the following very agreeable account was +communicated to Mr. Malone, in a letter by the Honourable John Byng, to +whom I am much obliged for granting me permission to introduce it in +my work. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Since I saw you, I have had a long conversation with Cawston[1270], who +sat up with Dr. Johnson, from nine o'clock, on Sunday evening, till ten +o'clock, on Monday morning. And, from what I can gather from him, it +should seem, that Dr. Johnson was perfectly composed, steady in hope, +and resigned to death. At the interval of each hour, they assisted him +to sit up in his bed, and move his legs, which were in much pain; when +he regularly addressed himself to fervent prayer; and though, sometimes, +his voice failed him, his senses never did, during that time. The only +sustenance he received, was cyder and water. He said his mind was +prepared, and the time to his dissolution seemed long. At six in the +morning, he enquired the hour, and, on being informed, said that all +went on regularly, and he felt he had but a few hours to live. + +'At ten o'clock in the morning, he parted from Cawston, saying, "You +should not detain Mr. Windham's servant:--I thank you; bear my +remembrance to your master." Cawston says, that no man could appear more +collected, more devout, or less terrified at the thoughts of the +approaching minute. + +'This account, which is so much more agreeable than, and somewhat +different from, yours, has given us the satisfaction of thinking that +that great man died as he lived, full of resignation, strengthened in +faith, and joyful in hope.' + +A few days before his death, he had asked Sir John Hawkins, as one of +his executors, where he should be buried; and on being answered, +'Doubtless, in Westminster-Abbey,' seemed to feel a satisfaction, very +natural to a Poet; and indeed in my opinion very natural to every man of +any imagination, who has no family sepulchre in which he can be laid +with his fathers. Accordingly, upon Monday, December 20, his remains +were deposited in that noble and renowned edifice; and over his grave +was placed a large blue flag-stone, with this inscription:-- + + 'SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. + _Obiit_ XIII _die Decembris_, + _Anno Domini_ + M. DCC. LXXXIV. + Aetatis suoe_ LXXV.' + +His funeral was attended by a respectable number of his friends, +particularly such of the members of the LITERARY CLUB as were then in +town; and was also honoured with the presence of several of the Reverend +Chapter of Westminster. Mr. Burke, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Windham, Mr. +Langton, Sir Charles Bunbury, and Mr. Colman, bore his pall[1271]. His +schoolfellow, Dr. Taylor, performed the mournful office of reading the +burial service[1272]. + +I trust, I shall not be accused of affectation, when I declare, that I +find myself unable to express all that I felt upon the loss of such a +'Guide[1273], Philosopher, and Friend[1274].' I shall, therefore, not +say one word of my own, but adopt those of an eminent friend[1275], +which he uttered with an abrupt felicity, superior to all studied +compositions:--'He has made a chasm, which not only nothing can fill up, +but which nothing has a tendency to fill up. Johnson is dead. Let us go +to the next best:--there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in +mind of Johnson[1276].' + +As Johnson had abundant homage paid to him during his life[1277], so no +writer in this nation ever had such an accumulation of literary honours +after his death. A sermon upon that event was preached in St. Mary's +Church, Oxford, before the University, by the Reverend Mr. Agutter, of +Magdalen College[1278]. The _Lives_, the _Memoirs_, the _Essays_, both +in prose and verse, which have been published concerning him, would make +many volumes. The numerous attacks too upon him, I consider as part of +his consequence, upon the principle which he himself so well knew and +asserted[1279]. Many who trembled at his presence, were forward in +assault, when they no longer apprehended danger. When one of his little +pragmatical foes was invidiously snarling at his fame, at Sir Joshua +Reynolds's table, the Reverend Dr. Parr exclaimed, with his usual bold +animation, 'Ay, now that the old lion is dead, every ass thinks he may +kick at him.' + +A monument for him, in Westminster Abbey, was resolved upon soon after +his death, and was supported by a most respectable contribution[1280]; +but the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's having come to a resolution of +admitting monuments there, upon a liberal and magnificent plan, that +Cathedral was afterwards fixed on, as the place in which a cenotaph +should be erected to his memory[1281]: and in the cathedral of his +native city of Lichfield, a smaller one is to be erected. To compose his +epitaph, could not but excite the warmest competition of genius[1282]. +If _laudari à laudato viro_ be praise which is highly estimable[1283], +I should not forgive myself were I to omit the following sepulchral +verses on the authour of THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY, written by the Right +Honourable Henry Flood[1284]:-- + + 'No need of Latin or of Greek to grace + Our JOHNSON'S memory, or inscribe his grave; + His native language claims this mournful space, + To pay the Immortality he gave.' + +The character of SAMUEL JOHNSON has, I trust, been so developed in the +course of this work, that they who have honoured it with a perusal, may +be considered as well acquainted with him. As, however, it may be +expected that I should collect into one view the capital and +distinguishing features of this extraordinary man, I shall endeavour to +acquit myself of that part of my biographical undertaking[1285], however +difficult it may be to do that which many of my readers will do better +for themselves. + +His figure was large and well formed, and his countenance of the cast of +an ancient statue; yet his appearance was rendered strange and somewhat +uncouth, by convulsive cramps, by the scars of that distemper which it +was once imagined the royal touch could cure, and by a slovenly mode of +dress. He had the use only of one eye; yet so much does mind govern and +even supply the deficiency of organs, that his visual perceptions, as +far as they extended, were uncommonly quick and accurate[1286]. So +morbid was his temperament, that he never knew the natural joy of a free +and vigorous use of his limbs: when he walked, it was like the +struggling gait of one in fetters; when he rode, he had no command or +direction of his horse, but was carried as if in a balloon[1287]. That +with his constitution and habits of life he should have lived +seventy-five years, is a proof that an inherent _vivida vis_[1288] is a +powerful preservative of the human frame. + +Man is, in general, made up of contradictory qualities; and these will +ever shew themselves in strange succession, where a consistency in +appearance at least, if not in reality, has not been attained by long +habits of philosophical discipline. In proportion to the native vigour +of the mind, the contradictory qualities will be the more prominent, and +more difficult to be adjusted; and, therefore, we are not to wonder, +that Johnson exhibited an eminent example of this remark which I have +made upon human nature. At different times, he seemed a different man, +in some respects; not, however, in any great or essential article, upon +which he had fully employed his mind, and settled certain principles of +duty, but only in his manners, and in the display of argument and fancy +in his talk. He was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. Though +his imagination might incline him to a belief of the marvellous and the +mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with +jealousy[1289]. He was a sincere and zealous Christian, of high +Church-of-England and monarchical principles, which he would not tamely +suffer to be questioned; and had, perhaps, at an early period, narrowed +his mind somewhat too much, both as to religion and politicks. His being +impressed with the danger of extreme latitude in either, though he was +of a very independent spirit, occasioned his appearing somewhat +unfavourable to the prevalence of that noble freedom of sentiment which +is the best possession of man. Nor can it be denied, that he had many +prejudices; which, however, frequently suggested many of his pointed +sayings, that rather shew a playfulness of fancy than any settled +malignity. He was steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations +of religion and morality; both from a regard for the order of society, +and from a veneration for the GREAT SOURCE of all order; correct, nay +stern in his taste; hard to please, and easily offended[1290]; impetuous +and irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent +heart[1291], which shewed itself not only in a most liberal charity, as +far as his circumstances would allow, but in a thousand instances of +active benevolence. He was afflicted with a bodily disease, which made +him often restless and fretful; and with a constitutional melancholy, +the clouds of which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a +gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking: we, therefore, ought not to +wonder at his sallies of impatience and passion at any time; especially +when provoked by obtrusive ignorance, or presuming petulance; and +allowance must be made for his uttering hasty and satirical sallies even +against his best friends. And, surely, when it is considered, that, +'amidst sickness and sorrow[1292],'he exerted his faculties in so many +works for the benefit of mankind, and particularly that he atchieved the +great and admirable DICTIONARY of our language, we must be astonished at +his resolution. The solemn text, 'of him to whom much is given, much +will be required[1293],' seems to have been ever present to his mind, in +a rigorous sense, and to have made him dissatisfied with his labours and +acts of goodness, however comparatively great; so that the unavoidable +consciousness of his superiority was, in that respect, a cause of +disquiet. He suffered so much from this, and from the gloom which +perpetually haunted him, and made solitude frightful, that it may be +said of him, 'If in this life only he had hope, he was of all men most +miserable[1294].' He loved praise, when it was brought to him; but was +too proud to seek for it. He was somewhat susceptible of flattery. As he +was general and unconfined in his studies, he cannot be considered as +master of any one particular science; but he had accumulated a vast and +various collection of learning and knowledge, which was so arranged in +his mind, as to be ever in readiness to be brought forth. But his +superiority over other learned men consisted chiefly in what may be +called the art of thinking, the art of using his mind; a certain +continual power of seizing the useful substance of all that he knew, and +exhibiting it in a clear and forcible manner; so that knowledge, which +we often see to be no better than lumber in men of dull understanding, +was, in him, true, evident, and actual wisdom. His moral precepts are +practical; for they are drawn from an intimate acquaintance with human +nature. His maxims carry conviction; for they are founded on the basis +of common sense, and a very attentive and minute survey of real life. +His mind was so full of imagery, that he might have been perpetually a +poet; yet it is remarkable, that, however rich his prose is in this +respect, his poetical pieces, in general, have not much of that +splendour, but are rather distinguished by strong sentiment and acute +observation, conveyed in harmonious and energetick verse, particularly +in heroick couplets. Though usually grave, and even aweful, in his +deportment, he possessed uncommon and peculiar powers of wit and humour; +he frequently indulged himself in colloquial pleasantry; and the +heartiest merriment[1295] was often enjoyed in his company; with this +great advantage, that as it was entirely free from any poisonous +tincture of vice or impiety, it was salutary to those who shared +in it. He had accustomed himself to such accuracy in his common +conversation[1296], that he at all times expressed his thoughts with +great force, and an elegant choice of language, the effect of which was +aided by his having a loud voice, and a slow deliberate utterance[1297]. +In him were united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, +which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing: for he could +reason close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. Exulting in his +intellectual strength and dexterity, he could, when he pleased, be the +greatest sophist that ever contended in the lists of declamation; and, +from a spirit of contradiction and a delight in shewing his powers, he +would often maintain the wrong side with equal warmth and ingenuity; so +that, when there was an audience, his real opinions could seldom be +gathered from his talk[1298]; though when he was in company with a +single friend, he would discuss a subject with genuine fairness: but he +was too conscientious to make errour permanent and pernicious, by +deliberately writing it; and, in all his numerous works, he earnestly +inculcated what appeared to him to be the truth; his piety being +constant, and the ruling principle of all his conduct[1299]. + +Such was SAMUEL JOHNSON, a man whose talents, acquirements, and +virtues, were so extraordinary, that the more his character is +considered, the more he will be regarded by the present age, and by +posterity, with admiration and reverence[1300]. + + + + +APPENDIX A. + +(_Page_ 115, _note_ 4.) + +There are at least three accounts of this altercation and three versions +of the lines. Two of these versions nearly agree. The earliest is found +in a letter by Richard Burke, senior, dated Jan. 6, 1773 (_Burke +Corres_. i. 403); the second in _The Annual Register_ for 1776, p. 223; +and the third in Miss Reynolds's _Recollections_ (Croker's _Boswell_, +8vo. p. 833). R. Burke places the scene in Reynolds's house. Whether he +himself was present is not clear. 'The dean,' he says, 'asserted that +after forty-five a man did not improve. "I differ with you, Sir," +answered Johnson; "a man may improve, and you yourself have great room +for improvement." The dean was confounded, and for the instant silent. +Recovering, he said, "On recollection I see no cause to alter my +opinion, except I was to call it improvement for a man to grow (which I +allow he may) positive, rude, and insolent, and save arguments by +brutality."' Neither the _Annual Register_ nor Miss Reynolds reports the +Dean's speech. But she says that 'soon after the ladies withdrew, Dr. +Johnson followed them, and sitting down by the lady of the house [that +is by herself, if they were at Sir Joshua's] he said, "I am very sorry +for having spoken so rudely to the Dean." "You very well may, Sir." +"Yes," he said, "it was highly improper to speak in that style to a +minister of the gospel, and I am the more hurt on reflecting with what +mild dignity he received it."' If Johnson really spoke of the Dean's +_mild dignity_, it is clear that Richard Burke's account is wrong. But +it was written just after the scene, and Boswell says there was 'a +pretty smart altercation.' Miss Reynolds continues:--'When the Dean came +up into the drawing-room, Dr. Johnson immediately rose from his seat, +and made him sit on the sofa by him, and with such a beseeching look for +pardon and with such fond gestures--literally smoothing down his arms +and his knees,' &c. The _Annual Register_ says that Barnard the next day +sent the verses addressed to 'Sir Joshua Reynolds & Co.' On the next +page I give Richard Burke's version of the lines, and show the various +readings. + +MISS REYNOLD'S RICHARD BURKE'S VERSION. _Annual Register_ + VERSION + I lately thought no man alive + Could e'er improve past forty-five, + And ventured to assert it; + The observation was not new, + But seem'd to me so just and true, + That none could controvert it. + + 'No, Sir,' says Johnson, ''tis not so; +'Tis _That's_ your mistake, and I can show + An instance, if you doubt it; +You who perhaps are _You, Sir, who are near_ forty-eight, +still May _much_ improve, 'tis not too late; + I wish you'd set about it.' + + Encouraged thus to mend my faults, + I turn'd his counsel in my thoughts, +could Which way I _should_ apply it: +Genius I knew was _Learning and wit seem'd_ past my reach, +what none can For who can learn _where none will_ teach? when + And wit--I could not buy it. + + Then come, my friends, and try your skill, +may You _can improve me, if you will; inform + (My books are at a distance). + With you I'll live and learn; and then + Instead of books I shall read men, + _So_ lend me your assistance. To + + Dear Knight of Plympton[1301], teach me how +unclouded To suffer with _unruffled_ brow, +as And smile serene _like_ thine, +and The jest uncouth _or_ truth severe, +Like thee to turn _To such apply_ my deafest ear, To such + And calmly drink my wine. I'll turn + + Thou say'st, not only skill is gain'd, +attained But genius too may be _obtain'd_, attained +invitation By studious _imitation_; + Thy temper mild, thy genius fine, +study I'll _copy_ till I make _them_ mine, thee +meditation By constant _application_. + + Thy art of pleasing teach me, Garrick, +reverest (_sic_) Thou who _reversest_ odes Pindarick[1302], + A second time read o'er; + Oh! could we read thee backwards too, +Past _Last_ thirty years thou shouldst review, + And charm us thirty more. + + If I have thoughts and can't express 'em, + Gibbon shall teach me how to dress 'em + In terms select and terse; + Jones teach me modesty--and Greek; + Smith how to think; _Burke_ how to speak, Burk + And Beauclerk to converse. + + Let Johnson teach me how to place + In fairest light each borrowed grace, + From him I'll learn to write; +free and easy Copy his _clear and easy_ style, clear + And from the roughness of his file, familiar +like Grow _as_ himself--polite.' like + +Horace Walpole, on Dec. 27, 1775, speaks of these verses as if they were +fresh. 'They are an answer,' he writes, 'to a gross brutality of Dr. +Johnson, to which a properer answer would have been to fling a glass of +wine in his face. I have no patience with an unfortunate monster +trusting to his helpless deformity for indemnity for any impertinence +that his arrogance suggests, and who thinks that what he has read is an +excuse for everything he says.' Horace Walpole's _Letters,_ vi. 302. It +is strange that Walpole should be so utterly ignorant of Johnson's +courage and bodily strength. The date of Walpole's letter makes me +suspect that Richard Burke dated his Jan. 6, 1775 (he should have +written 1776), and that the blunder of a copyist has changed 1775 +into 1773. + + + + +APPENDIX B. + +(_Page_ 238.) + +Had Boswell continued the quotation from Priestley's _Illustrations of +Philosophical Necessity_ he would have shown that though Priestley could +not _hate_ the rioters, he could very easily _prosecute_ them. +He says:-- + +'If as a Necessarian I cease to _blame_ men for their vices in the +ultimate sense of the word, though, in the common and proper sense of +it, I continue to do as much as other persons (for how necessarily +soever they act, they are influenced by a base and mischievous +disposition of mind, against which I must guard myself and others in +proportion as I love myself and others),' &c. Priestley's +_Works_, iii. 508. + +Of his interview with Johnson, Priestley, in his _Appeal to the Public_, +part ii, published in 1792 (_Works_, xix. 502), thus writes, answering +'the impudent falsehood that when I was at Oxford Dr. Johnson left a +company on my being introduced to it':-- + +'In fact we never were at Oxford at the same time, and the only +interview I ever had with him was at Mr. Paradise's, where we dined +together at his own request. He was particularly civil to me, and +promised to call upon me the next time he should go through Birmingham. +He behaved with the same civility to Dr. Price, when they supped +together at Dr. Adams's at Oxford. Several circumstances show that Dr. +Johnson had not so much of bigotry at the decline of life as had +distinguished him before, on which account it is well known to all our +common acquaintance, that I declined all their pressing solicitations to +be introduced to him.' + +Priestley expresses himself ill, but his meaning can be made out. Parr +answered Boswell in the March number of the _Gent. Mag._ for 1795, p. +179. But the evidence that he brings is rendered needless by Priestley's +positive statement. May peace henceforth fall on 'Priestley's injured +name.' (Mrs. Barbauld's _Poems_, ii. 243.) + +When Boswell asserts that Johnson 'was particularly resolute in not +giving countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to +society,' he forgets that that very summer of 1783 he had been willing +to dine at Wilkes's house (_ante_, p. 224, note 2). + +Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, ed. 1833, iii. 157) wrote to Dr. Price in +1784:--'It is said that scarce anybody but yourself and Dr. Priestley +possesses the art of knowing how to differ decently.' Gibbon (_Misc. +Works_, i. 304), describing in 1789 the honestest members of the French +Assembly, calls them 'a set of wild visionaries, like our Dr. Price, who +gravely debate, and dream about the establishment of a pure and perfect +democracy of five and twenty millions, the virtues of the golden age, +and the primitive rights and equality of mankind.' Admiration of Price +made Samuel Rogers, when a boy, wish to be a preacher. 'I thought there +was nothing on earth so _grand_ as to figure in a pulpit. Dr. Price +lived much in the society of Lord Lansdowne [Earl of Shelburne] and +other people of rank; and his manners were extremely polished. In the +pulpit he was great indeed.' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 3. + +The full title of the tract mentioned by Boswell is, _A small +Whole-Length of Dr. Priestley from his Printed Works_. It was published +in 1792, and is a very poor piece of writing. + +Johnson had refused to meet the Abbé Raynal, the author of the _Histoire +Philosophique et Politique du Commerce des Deux Indes_, when he was +over in England in 1777. Mrs. Chapone, writing to Mrs. Carter on June 15 +of that year, says:-- + +'I suppose you have heard a great deal of the Abbé Raynal, who is in +London. I fancy you would have served him as Dr. Johnson did, to whom +when Mrs. Vesey introduced him, he turned from him, and said he had read +his book, and would have nothing to say to him.' Mrs. Chapone's +_Posthumous Works_, i. 172. + +See Walpole's _Letters_, v. 421, and vi. 444. His book was burnt by the +common hangman in Paris. Carlyle's _French Revolution_, ed. 1857, i. 45. + + + + +APPENDIX C. + +(_Page 253_.) + +Hawkins gives the two following notes:-- + +'DEAR SIR, + +'As Mr. Ryland was talking with me of old friends and past times, we +warmed ourselves into a wish, that all who remained of the club should +meet and dine at the house which once was Horseman's, in Ivy-lane. I +have undertaken to solicit you, and therefore desire you to tell on what +day next week you can conveniently meet your old friends. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Bolt-court, Nov. 22, 1783.' + +'DEAR SIR, + +'In perambulating Ivy-lane, Mr. Ryland found neither our landlord +Horseman, nor his successor. The old house is shut up, and he liked not +the appearance of any near it; he therefore bespoke our dinner at the +Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's Church-yard, where, at half an hour after +three, your company will be desired to-day by those who remain of our +former society. + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Dec. 3.' + +Four met--Johnson, Hawkins, Ryland, and Payne (_ante_, i. 243). + +'We dined,' Hawkins continues, 'and in the evening regaled with coffee. +At ten we broke up, much to the regret of Johnson, who proposed +staying; but finding us inclined to separate, he left us with a sigh +that seemed to come from his heart, lamenting that he was retiring to +solitude and cheerless meditation.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 562. + +Hawkins is mistaken in saying that they had a second meeting at a tavern +at the end of a month; for Johnson, on March 10, 1784, wrote:-- + +'I have been confined from the fourteenth of December, and know not when +I shall get out.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 351. + +He thus describes these meetings:-- + +'Dec. 13. I dined about a fortnight ago with three old friends; we had +not met together for thirty years, and one of us thought the other grown +very old. In the thirty years two of our set have died; our meeting may +be supposed to be somewhat tender.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 339. + +'Jan. 12, 1784. I had the same old friends to dine with me on Wednesday, +and may say that since I lost sight of you I have had one pleasant day.' +Ib. p. 346. + +'April 15, 1784. Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving another dinner +to the remainder of the old club. We used to meet weekly, about the year +fifty, and we were as cheerful as in former times; only I could not make +quite so much noise, for since the paralytick affliction my voice is +sometimes weak.' Ib. p. 361. + +'April 19, 1784. The people whom I mentioned in my letter are the +remnant of a little club that used to meet in Ivy-lane about three and +thirty years ago, out of which we have lost Hawkesworth and Dyer; the +rest are yet on this side the grave. Our meetings now are serious, and I +think on all parts tender.' Ib. 363. + +See _ante_, i. 191, note 5. + + + + +APPENDIX D. + +(_Page 254_.) + +It is likely that Sir Joshua Reynolds refused to join the Essex Head +Club because he did not wish to meet Barry. Not long before this time he +had censured Barry's delay in entering upon his duties as Professor +of painting. + +'Barry answered:--"If I had no more to do in the composition of my +lectures than to produce such poor flimsy stuff as your discourses, I +should soon have done my work, and be prepared to read." It is said this +speech was delivered with his fist clenched, in a menacing posture.' +(Northcote's _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 146.) + +The Hon. Daines Barrington was the author of an _Essay on the Migration +of Birds_ (_ante_, ii. 248) and of _Observations on the Statutes_ +(_ante_, iii. 314). Horace Walpole wrote on Nov. 24, 1780 (_Letters_, +vii. 464):-- + +'I am sorry for the Dean of Exeter; if he dies I conclude the leaden +mace of the Antiquarian Society will be given to Judge Barrington.' (He +was 'second Justice of Chester.') + +For Dr. Brocklesby see _ante_, pp. 176, 230, 338, 400. + +Of Mr. John Nichols, Murphy says that 'his attachment to Dr. Johnson was +unwearied.' _Life of Johnson_, p. 66. He was the printer of _The Lives +of the Poets_ (_ante_, p. 36), and the author of _Biographical and +Literary Anecdotes of William Bowyer, Printer_, 'the last of the learned +printers,' whose apprentice he had been (_ante_, p. 369). Horace Walpole +(_Letters_, viii. 259) says:-- + +'I scarce ever saw a book so correct as Mr. Nichols's _Life of Mr. +Bowyer_. I wish it deserved the pains he has bestowed on it every way, +and that he would not dub so many men _great_. I have known several of +his _heroes_, who were very _little_ men.' + +The _Life of Bowyer_ being recast and enlarged was republished under the +title of _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_. From 1778 till +his death in 1826 the _Gentleman's Magazine_ was in great measure in his +hands. Southey, writing in 1804, says:-- + +'I have begun to take in here at Keswick the _Gentleman's Magazine_, +_alias_ the _Oldwomania_, to enlighten a Portuguese student among the +mountains; it does amuse me by its exquisite inanity, and the glorious +and intense stupidity of its correspondents; it is, in truth, a disgrace +to the age and the country.' Southey's _Life and Correspondence_, +ii. 281. + +Mr. William Cooke, 'commonly called Conversation Cooke,' wrote _Lives of +Macklin and Foote_. Forster's _Essays_, ii. 312, and _Gent. Mag._ 1824, +p. 374. Mr. Richard Paul Joddrel, or Jodrell, was the author of _The +Persian Heroine, a Tragedy_, which, in Baker's _Biog. Dram._ i. 400, is +wrongly assigned to Sir R.P. Jodrell, M.D. Nichols's _Lit. Anec._ ix. 2. + +For Mr. Paradise see _ante_, p. 364, note 2. + +Dr. Horsley was the controversialist, later on Bishop of St. David's and +next of Rochester. Gibbon makes splendid mention of him (_Misc. Works_, +i. 232) when he tells how 'Dr. Priestley's Socinian shield has +repeatedly been pierced by the mighty spear of Horsley.' Windham, +however, in his _Diary_ in one place (p. 125) speaks of him as having +his thoughts 'intent wholly on prospects of Church preferment;' and in +another place (p. 275) says that 'he often lays down with great +confidence what turns out afterwards to be wrong.' In the House of +Lords he once said that 'he did not know what the mass of the people in +any country had to do with the laws but to obey them.' _Parl. Hist_. +xxxii. 258. Thurlow rewarded him for his _Letters to Priestley_ by a +stall at Gloucester, 'saying that "those who supported the Church should +be supported by it."' Campbell's _Chancellors_, ed. 1846, v. 635. + +For Mr. Windham, see _ante_, p. 200. + +Hawkins (_Life of Johnson_, p. 567) thus writes of the formation of the +Club:-- + +'I was not made privy to this his intention, but all circumstances +considered, it was no matter of surprise to me when I heard that the +great Dr. Johnson had, in the month of December 1783, formed a sixpenny +club at an ale-house in Essex-street, and that though some of the +persons thereof were persons of note, strangers, under restrictions, for +three pence each night might three nights in a week hear him talk and +partake of his conversation.' + +Miss Hawkins (_Memoirs_, i. 103) says:-- + +'Boswell was well justified in his resentment of my father's designation +of this club as a sixpenny club, meeting at an ale-house. ... Honestly +speaking, I dare say my father did not like being passed over.' + +Sir Joshua Reynolds, writing of the club, says:-- + +'Any company was better than none; by which Johnson connected himself +with many mean persons whose presence he could command. For this purpose +he established a club at a little ale-house in Essex-street, composed of +a strange mixture of very learned and very ingenious odd people. Of the +former were Dr. Heberden, Mr. Windham, Mr. Boswell, Mr. Steevens, Mr. +Paradise. Those of the latter I do not think proper to enumerate.' +Taylor's _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 455. + +It is possible that Reynolds had never seen the Essex Head, and that the +term 'little ale-house' he had borrowed from Hawkins's account. Possibly +too his disgust at Barry here found vent. Murphy (_Life of Johnson_, p. +124) says:-- + +'The members of the club were respectable for their rank, their talents, +and their literature.' + +The 'little ale-house' club saw one of its members, Alderman Clarke +(_ante_, p. 258), Lord Mayor within a year; another, Horsley, a Bishop +within five years; and a third, Windham, Secretary at War within ten +years. Nichols (_Literary Anecdotes_, ii. 553) gives a list of the +'constant members' at the time of Johnson's death. + + + + +APPENDIX E. + +(Page 399.) + +Miss Burney's account of Johnson's last days is interesting, but her +dates are confused more even than is common with her. I have corrected +them as well as I can. + +'Dec. 9. He will not, it seems, be talked to--at least very rarely. At +times indeed he re-animates; but it is soon over and he says of +himself:--"I am now like Macbeth--question enrages me."' + +'Dec. 10. At night my father brought us the most dismal tidings of dear +Dr. Johnson. He had thanked and taken leave of all his physicians. Alas! +I shall lose him, and he will take no leave of me. My father was deeply +depressed. I hear from everyone he is now perfectly resigned to his +approaching fate, and no longer in terror of death.' + +'Dec. 11. My father in the morning saw this first of men. He was up and +very composed. He took his hand very kindly, asked after all his family, +and then in particular how Fanny did. "I hope," he said, "Fanny did not +take it amiss that I did not see her. I was very bad. Tell Fanny to pray +for me." After which, still grasping his hand, he made a prayer for +himself, the most fervent, pious, humble, eloquent, and touching, my +father says, that ever was composed. Oh! would I had heard it! He ended +it with Amen! in which my father joined, and was echoed by all present; +and again, when my father was leaving him, he brightened up, something +of his arch look returned, and he said: "I think I shall throw the ball +at Fanny yet."' + +'Dec. 12. [Miss Burney called at Bolt-court.] All the rest went away but +a Mrs. Davis, a good sort of woman, whom this truly charitable soul had +sent for to take a dinner at his house. [See _ante_, p. 239, note 2.] +Mr. Langton then came. He could not look at me, and I turned away from +him. Mrs. Davis asked how the Doctor was. "Going on to death very fast," +was his mournful answer. "Has he taken," said she, "anything?" "Nothing +at all. We carried him some bread and milk--he refused it, and +said:--'The less the better.'"' + +'Dec. 20. This day was the ever-honoured, ever-lamented Dr. Johnson +committed to the earth. Oh, how sad a day to me! My father attended. I +could not keep my eyes dry all day; nor can I now in the recollecting +it; but let me pass over what to mourn is now so vain.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, ii. 333-339. + + + + +APPENDIX F. + +(_Notes on Boswell's note on pages 403-405_.) + +[F-1] In a letter quoted in Mr. Croker's Boswell, p. 427, Dr. Johnson +calls Thomas Johnson 'cousin,' and says that in the last sixteen months +he had given him £40. He mentions his death in 1779. _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 45. + +[F-2] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 603) says that Elizabeth Herne was Johnson's +first-cousin, and that he had constantly--how long he does not +say--contributed £15 towards her maintenance. + +[F-3] For Mauritius Lowe, see _ante_, iii. 324, and iv. 201. + +[F-4] To Mr. Windham, two days earlier, he had given a copy of the _New +Testament_, saying:--'Extremum hoc munus morientis habeto.' Windham's +_Diary_, p. 28. + +[F-5] For Mrs. Gardiner see _ante_, i. 242. + +[F-6] Mr. John Desmoulins was the son of Mrs. Desmoulins (_ante_, iii. +222, 368), and the grandson of Johnson's god-father, Dr. Swinfen +(_ante_, i. 34). Johnson mentions him in a letter to Mrs. Thrale in +1778. 'Young Desmoulins is taken in an _under-something_ of Drury Lane; +he knows not, I believe, his own denomination.' _Piozzi Letters_, +ii. 25. + +[F-7] The reference is to _The Rambler_, No. 41 (not 42 as Boswell +says), where Johnson mentions 'those vexations and anxieties with which +all human enjoyments are polluted.' + +[F-8] Bishop Sanderson described his soul as 'infinitely polluted with +sin.' Walton's _Lives_, ed. 1838, p. 396. + +[F-9] Hume, writing in 1742 about his _Essays Moral and Political_, +says:-- + +'Innys, the great bookseller in Paul's Church-yard, wonders there is not +a new edition, for that he cannot find copies for his customers.' J.H. +Burton's _Hume_, i. 143. + +[F-10] Nichols (_Lit. Anec._ ii. 554) says that, on Dec. 7, + +'Johnson asked him whether any of the family of Faden the printer were +living. Being told that the geographer near Charing Cross was Faden's +son, he said, after a short pause:--"I borrowed a guinea of his father +near thirty years ago; be so good as to take this, and pay it for me."' + +[F-11] Nowhere does Hawkins more shew the malignancy of his character +than in his attacks on Johnson's black servant, and through him on +Johnson. With the passage in which this offensive _caveat_ is found he +brings his work to a close. At the first mention of Frank (_Life_, p. +328) he says:-- + +'His first master had _in great humanity_ made him a Christian, and his +last for no assignable reason, nay rather in despite of nature, and to +unfit him for being useful according to his capacity, determined to make +him a scholar.' + +But Hawkins was a brutal fellow. See _ante_, i. 27, note 2, and 28, note +1. + +[F-12] Johnson had written to Taylor on Oct. 23 of this year:-- + +'"Coming down from a very restless night I found your letter, which made +me a little angry. You tell me that recovery is in my power. This indeed +I should be glad to hear if I could once believe it. But you mean to +charge me with neglecting or opposing my own health. Tell me, therefore, +what I do that hurts me, and what I neglect that would help me." This +letter is endorsed by Taylor: "This is the last letter. My answer, which +were (_sic_) the words of advice he gave to Mr. Thrale the day he dyed, +he resented extremely from me."' Mr. Alfred Morrison's _Collection of +Autographs_, &c., ii. 343. + +'The words of advice' which were given to Mr. Thrale _the day before_ +the fatal fit seized him, were that he should abstain from full meals. +_Ante_, iv. 84, note 4. Johnson's resentment of Taylor's advice may +account for the absence of his name in his will. + +[F-13] They were sold in 650 Lots, in a four days' sale. Besides the +books there were 146 portraits, of which 61 were framed and glazed. +These prints in their frames were sold in lots of 4, 8, and even 10 +together, though certainly some of them--and perhaps many--were +engravings from Reynolds. The Catalogue of the sale is in the +Bodleian Library. + + + + +APPENDIX G. + +(_Notes on Boswell's note on page 408_.) + +[G-1] Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anecdotes_, p. 120) that Johnson told her,-- + +'When Boyse was almost perishing with hunger, and some money was +produced to purchase him a dinner, he got a bit of roast beef, but could +not eat it without ketch-up; and laid out the last half-guinea he +possessed in truffles and mushrooms, eating them in bed too, for want of +clothes, or even a shirt to sit up in.' + +Hawkins (_Life_, p. 159) gives 1740 as the year of Boyse's destitution. + +'He was,' he says, 'confined to a bed which had no sheets; here, to +procure food, he wrote; his posture sitting up in bed, his only covering +a blanket, in which a hole was made to admit of the employment of +his arm.' + +Two years later Boyse wrote the following verses to Cave from a +spunging-house:-- + + 'Hodie, teste coelo summo, + Sine pane, sine nummo, + Sorte positus infeste, + Scribo tibi dolens moeste. + Fame, bile tumet jecur: + Urbane, mitte opem, precor. + Tibi enim cor humanum + Non a malis alienum: + Mihi mens nee male grato, + Pro a te favore dato. + Ex gehenna debitoria, + Vulgo, domo spongiatoria.' + +He adds that he hopes to have his _Ode on the British Nation_ done that +day. This _Ode_, which is given in the _Gent. Mag._ 1742, p. 383, +contains the following verse, which contrasts sadly with the poor +poet's case:-- + + 'Thou, sacred isle, amidst thy ambient main, + _Enjoyst the sweets of freedom_ all thy own.' + +[G-2] It is not likely that Johnson called a sixpence 'a serious +consideration.' He who in his youth would not let his comrades say +_prodigious_ (_ante/_, in. 303) was not likely in his old age so to +misuse a word. + +[G-3] Hugh Kelly is mentioned _ante_, ii. 48, note 2, and iii. 113. + +[G-4] It was not on the return from Sky, but on the voyage from Sky to +Rasay, that the spurs were lost. _Post_, v. 163. + +[G-5] Dr. White's _Bampton Lectures_ of 1784 'became part of the +triumphant literature of the University of Oxford,' and got the preacher +a Christ Church Canonry. Of these _Lectures_ Dr. Parr had written about +one-fifth part. White, writing to Parr about a passage in the manuscript +of the last Lecture, said:--'I fear I did not clearly explain myself; I +humbly beg the favour of you to make my meaning more intelligible.' On +the death of Mr. Badcock in 1788, a note for £500 from White was found +in his pocket-book. White pretended that this was remuneration for some +other work; but it was believed on good grounds that Badcock had begun +what Parr had completed, and that these famous _Lectures_ were mainly +their work. Badcock was one of the writers in the _Monthly Review_. +Johnstone's _Life of Dr. Parr_, i. 218-278. For Badcock's correspondence +with the editor of the _Monthly Review_, see _Bodleian_ MS. _Add._ +C. 90. + +[G-6] 'Virgilium vidi tantum.' Ovid, _Tristia_, iv. 10. 51. + +[G-7] Mackintosh says of Priestley:--'Frankness and disinterestedness in +the avowal of his opinion were his point of honour.' He goes on to point +out that there was 'great mental power in him wasted and scattered.' +_Life of Mackintosh_, i. 349. See _ante_, ii. 124, and iv. 238 for +Johnson's opinion of Priestley. + +[G-8] Badcock, in using the term 'index-scholar,' was referring no doubt +to Pope's lines:-- + +'How Index-learning turns no student pale, + Yet holds the eel of science by the tail.' + +_Dunciad_, i. 279. + + + + +APPENDIX H. + +(_Notes on Boswell's note on pages 421-422_.) + +[H-1] The last lines of the inscription on this urn are borrowed, with a +slight change, from the last paragraph of the last _Rambler/_. +(Johnson's _Works_, iii. 465, and _ante_, i. 226.) Johnson visited +Colonel Myddelton on August 29, 1774, in his Tour to Wales. See +_post_, v. 453. + +[H-2] Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on Sept. 3, 1783, said:--'I sat to +Opey (sic) as long as he desired, and I think the head is finished, but +it is not much admired.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 481. Hawkins +(_Life of Johnson_, p. 569) says that in 1784 'Johnson resumed sitting +to Opie, but,' he adds, 'I believe the picture was never finished.' + +[H-3] Of this picture, which was the one painted for Beauclerk (_ante_, +p. 180), it is stated in Johnson's _Work_, ed. 1787, xi. 204, that +'there is in it that appearance of a labouring working mind, of an +indolent reposing body, which he had to a very great degree.' + +[H-4] It seems almost certain that the portrait of Johnson in the Common +Room of University College, Oxford, is this very mezzotinto. It was +given to the College by Sir William Scott, and it is a mezzotinto from +Opie's portrait. It has been reproduced for this work, and will be found +facing page 244 of volume iii. Scott's inscription on the back of the +frame is given on page 245, note 3, of the same volume. + + + + + +APPENDIX I. + +(_Page_ 424.) + +Boswell most likely never knew that in the year 1790 Mr. Seward, in the +name of Cadell the publisher, had asked Parr to write a _Life of +Johnson_. (Johnstone's _Life of Parr_, iv. 678.) Parr, in his amusing +vanity, was as proud of this _Life_ as if he had written it. '"It would +have been," he said, "the third most learned work that has ever yet +appeared. The most learned work ever published I consider Bentley _On +the Epistles of Phalaris_; the next Salmasius _On the Hellenistic +Language_." Alluding to Boswell's Life he continued, "Mine should have +been, not the droppings of his lips, but the history of his mind."' +Field's _Life of Parr_, i. 164. + +In the epitaph that he first sent in were found the words 'Probabili +Poetae.' + +'In arms,' wrote Parr, 'were all the Johnsonians: Malone, Steevens, Sir +W. Scott, Windham, and even Fox, all in arms. The epithet was cold. They +do not understand it, and I am a Scholar, not a Belles-Lettres man.' + +Parr had wished to pass over all notice of Johnson's poetical character. +To this, Malone said, none of his friends of the Literary Club would +agree. He pointed out also that Parr had not noticed 'that part of +Johnson's genius, which placed him on higher ground than perhaps any +other quality that can be named--the universality of his knowledge, the +promptness of his mind in producing it on all occasions in conversation, +and the vivid eloquence with which he clothed his thoughts, however +suddenly called upon.' Parr, regardless of Johnson's rule that 'in +lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath' (_ante_, ii. 407), +replied, that if he mentioned his conversation he should have to mention +also his roughness in contradiction, &c. As for the epithet _probabili_, +he 'never reflected upon it without almost a triumphant feeling in its +felicity.' Nevertheless he would change it into 'poetae sententiarum et +verborum ponderibus admirabili.' Yet these words, 'energetic and +sonorous' though they were, 'fill one with a secret and invincible +loathing, because they tend to introduce into the epitaph a character of +magnificence.' With every fresh objection he rose in importance. He +wrote for the approbation of real scholars of generations yet unborn. +'That the epitaph was written by such or such a man will, from the +publicity of the situation, and the popularity of the subject, be long +remembered.' Johnstone's _Life of Parr_, iv. 694-712. No objection seems +to have been raised to the five pompous lines of perplexing dates and +numerals in which no room is found even for Johnson's birth and +birth-place. + +'After I had written the epitaph,' wrote Parr to a friend, 'Sir Joshua +Reynolds told me there was a scroll. I was in a rage. A scroll! Why, +Ned, this is vile modern contrivance. I wanted one train of ideas. What +could I do with the scroll? Johnson held it, and Johnson must speak in +it. I thought of this, his favourite maxim, in the Life of Milton, +[Johnson's _Works_, vii. 77], + + "[Greek: Otti toi en megaroisi kakon t agathon te tetuktai.]." + +In Homer [_Odyssey_, iv. 392] you know--and shewing the excellence of +Moral Philosophy. There Johnson and Socrates agree. Mr. Seward, hearing +of my difficulty, and no scholar, suggested the closing line in the +_Rambler_ [_ante_, i. 226, note 1]; had I looked there I should have +anticipated the suggestion. It is the closing line in Dionysius's +_Periegesis_, + + "[Greek: Anton ek makaron antaxios eiae amoibae.]." + +I adopted it, and gave Seward the praise. "Oh," quoth Sir William Scott, +"_[Greek: makaron]_ is Heathenish, and the Dean and Chapter will +hesitate." "The more fools they," said I. But to prevent disputes I have +altered it. + + "[Greek: En makaressi ponon antaxios ein amoibae]." + Johnstone's _Life of Parr_, iv. 713. + +Though the inscription on the scroll is not strictly speaking part of +the epitaph, yet this mixture of Greek and Latin is open to the censure +Johnson passed on Pope's Epitaph on Craggs. + +'It may be proper to remark,' he said, 'the absurdity of joining in the +same inscription Latin and English, or verse and prose. If either +language be preferable to the other, let that only be used; for no +reason can be given why part of the information should be given in one +tongue and part in another on a tomb more than in any other place, or on +any other occasion.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 353. + +Bacon the sculptor was anxious, wrote Malone, 'that posterity should +know that he was entitled to annex R.A. to his name.' Parr was ready to +give his name, lest if it were omitted 'Bacon should slily put the +figure of a hog on Johnson's monument'; just as 'Saurus and Batrachus, +when Octavia would not give them leave to set their names on the Temples +they had built in Rome, scattered one of them [Greek: saurai] [lizards], +and the other [Greek: batrachoi] [frogs] on the bases and capitals of +the columns.' But as for the R.A., the sculptor 'very reluctantly had to +agree to its omission.' Johnstone's _Parr_, iv. 705 and 710. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Nothing can compensate for this want this year of all years. +Johnson's health was better than it had been for long, and his mind +happier perhaps than it had ever been. The knowledge that in his _Lives +of the Poets_, he had done, and was doing good work, no doubt was very +cheering to him. At no time had he gone more into society, and at no +time does he seem to have enjoyed it with greater relish. 'How do you +think I live?' he wrote on April 25. 'On Thursday, I dined with +Hamilton, and went thence to Mrs. Ord. On Friday, with much company at +Reynolds's. On Saturday, at Dr. Bell's. On Sunday, at Dr. Burney's; at +night, came Mrs. Ord, Mr. Greville, &c. On Monday with Reynolds, at +night with Lady Lucan; to-day with Mr. Langton; to-morrow with the +Bishop of St. Asaph; on Thursday with Mr. Bowles; Friday ----; Saturday, +at the Academy; Sunday with Mr. Ramsay.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 107. On +May 1, he wrote:--'At Mrs. Ord's, I met one Mrs. B---- [Buller], a +travelled lady, of great spirit, and some consciousness of her own +abilities. We had a contest of gallantry an hour long, so much to the +diversion of the company that at Ramsay's last night, in a crowded room, +they would have pitted us again. There were Smelt, [one of the King's +favourites] and the Bishop of St. Asaph, who comes to every place; and +Lord Monboddo, and Sir Joshua, and ladies out of tale.' _Ib_. p. 111. +The account that Langton gives of the famous evening at Mrs. Vesey's, +'when the company began to collect round Johnson till they became not +less than four, if not five deep (_ante_, May 2, 1780), is lively +enough; but 'the particulars of the conversation' which he neglects, +Boswell would have given us in full. + +[2] In 1792, Miss Burney, after recording that Boswell told some of his +Johnsonian stories, continues:--'Mr. Langton told some stories in +imitation of Dr. Johnson; but they became him less than Mr. Boswell, and +only reminded me of what Dr. Johnson himself once said to me--"Every man +has some time in his life an ambition to be a wag."' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, v. 307. + +[3] _Stephanorum Historia, vitas ipsorum ac libros complectens_. London, +1709. + +[4] _Senilia_ was published in 1742. The line to which Johnson refers +is, 'Mel, nervos, fulgur, Carteret, unus, habes,' p. 101. In another +line, the poet celebrates Colley Cibber's Muse--the _Musa Cibberi_: +'Multa Cibberum levat aura.' p. 50. See Macaulay's Essays, ed. 1843, +i. 367. + +[5] _Graecae Linguae Dialecti in Scholae Westmonast. usum_, 1738. + +[6] Giannone, an Italian historian, born 1676, died 1748. When he +published his _History of the Kingdom of Naples_, a friend +congratulating him on its success, said:--'Mon ami, vous vous êtes mis +une couronne sur la tête, mais une couronne d'épines.' His attacks on +the Church led to persecution, in the end he made a retractation, but +nevertheless he died in prison. _Nouv. Biog. Gén._ xx. 422. + +[7] See _ante_, ii. 119. + +[8] 'There is no kind of impertinence more justly censurable than his +who is always labouring to level thoughts to intellects higher than his +own; who apologises for every word which his own narrowness of converse +inclines him to think unusual; keeps the exuberance of his faculties +under visible restraint; is solicitous to anticipate inquiries by +needless explanations; and endeavours to shade his own abilities lest +weak eyes should be dazzled with their lustre.' _The Rambler_, No. 173. + +[9] Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, defines _Anfractuousness_ as _Fulness +of windings and turnings_. _Anfractuosity_ is not given. Lord Macaulay, +in the last sentence in his _Biography of Johnson_, alludes to +this passage. + +[10] See _ante_, iii. 149, note 2. + +[11] 'My purpose was to admit no testimony of living authors, that I +might not be misled by partiality, and that none of my contemporaries +might have reason to complain; nor have I departed from this resolution, +but when some performance of uncommon excellence excited my veneration, +when my memory supplied me from late books with an example that was +wanting, or when my heart, in the tenderness of friendship, solicited +admission for a favourite name.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 39. He cites +himself under _important_, Mrs. Lennox under _talent_, Garrick under +_giggler_; from Richardson's _Clarissa_, he makes frequent quotations. +In the fourth edition, published in 1773 (_ante_, ii. 203), he often +quotes Reynolds; for instance, under _vulgarism_, which word is not in +the previous editions. Beattie he quotes under _weak_, and Gray under +_bosom_. He introduces also many quotations from Law, and Young. In the +earlier editions, in his quotations from _Clarissa_, he very rarely +gives the author's name; in the fourth edition I have found it +rarely omitted. + +[12] In one of his _Hypochondriacks_ (_London Mag._ 1782, p. 233) +Boswell writes:--'I have heard it remarked by one, of whom more remarks +deserve to be remembered than of any person I ever knew, that a man is +often as narrow as he is prodigal for want of counting.' + +[13] 'Sept. 1778. We began talking of _Irene_, and Mrs. Thrale made Dr. +Johnson read some passages which I had been remarking as uncommonly +applicable to the present time. He read several speeches, and told us he +had not ever read so much of it before since it was first printed.' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 96. 'I was told,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'that a +gentleman called Pot, or some such name, was introduced to him as a +particular admirer of his. The Doctor growled and took no further +notice. "He admires in especial your _Irene_ as the finest tragedy +modern times;" to which the Doctor replied, "If Pot says so, Pot lies!" +and relapsed into his reverie.' _Croker Corres._ ii. 32. + +[14] _Scrupulosity_ was a word that Boswell had caught up from Johnson. +Sir W. Jones (_Life_, i. 177) wrote in 1776:--'You will be able to +examine with the minutest _scrupulosity_, as Johnson would call it.' +Johnson describes Addison's prose as 'pure without scrupulosity.' +_Works_, vii. 472. 'Swift,' he says, 'washed himself with oriental +scrupulosity.' _Ib._ viii. 222. Boswell (_Hebrides_, Aug. 15) writes of +'scrupulosity of conscience.' + +[15] + + 'When thou didst not, savage, + Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like + A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes + With words that made them known.' + _The Tempest_, act i. sc. 2. + +[16] Secretary to the British Herring Fishery, remarkable for an +extraordinary number of occasional verses, not of eminent merit. +BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 115, note i. Lockman was known in France as the +translator of Voltaire's _La Henriade_. See Marmontel's Preface. +Voltaire's _Works_, ed. 1819, viii. 18. + +[17] _Luke_ vii. 50. BOSWELL. + +[18] Miss Burney, describing him in 1783, says:--'He looks unformed in +his manners and awkward in his gestures. He joined not one word in the +general talk.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 237. See _ante_, ii. +41, note 1. + +[19] By Garrick. + +[20] See _ante_, i. 201. + +[21] See _post_, under Sept. 30, 1783. + +[22] The actor. Churchill introduces him in _The Rosciad_ (_Poems_, i. +16):--'Next Holland came. With truly tragic stalk, He creeps, he flies. +A Hero should not walk.' + +[23] In a letter written by Johnson to a friend in 1742-43, he says: 'I +never see Garrick.' MALONE. + +[24] See _ante_, ii. 227. + +[25] _The Wonder! A Woman keeps a Secret_, by Mrs. Centlivre. Acted at +Drury Lane in 1714. Revived by Garrick in 1757. Reed's _Biog. +Dram_. iii. 420. + +[26] In _Macbeth_. + +[27] Mr. Longley was Recorder of Rochester, and father of Archbishop +Longley. To the kindness of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Newton Smart, I owe +the following extract from his manuscript _Autobiography_:--'Dr. Johnson +and General Paoli came down to visit Mr. Langton, and I was asked to +meet them, when the conversation took place mentioned by Boswell, in +which Johnson gave me more credit for knowledge of the Greek metres than +I deserved. There was some question about anapaestics, concerning which +I happened to remember what Foster used to tell us at Eton, that the +whole line to the _Basis Anapaestica_ was considered but as one verse, +however divided in the printing, and consequently the syllables at the +end of each line were not common, as in other metres. This observation +was new to Johnson, and struck him. Had he examined me farther, I fear +he would have found me ignorant. Langton was a very good Greek scholar, +much superior to Johnson, to whom nevertheless he paid profound +deference, sometimes indeed I thought more than he deserved. The next +day I dined at Langton's with Johnson, I remember Lady Rothes [Langton's +wife] spoke of the advantage children now derived from the little books +published purposely for their instruction. Johnson controverted it, +asserting that at an early age it was better to gratify curiosity with +wonders than to attempt planting truth, before the mind was prepared to +receive it, and that therefore, _Jack the Giant-Killer, Parisenus and +Parismenus_, and _The Seven Champions of Christendom_ were fitter for +them than Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Trimmer.' Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 16) +says:--'Dr. Johnson used to condemn me for putting Newbery's books into +children's hands. "Babies do not want," said he, "to hear about babies; +they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can +stretch and stimulate their little minds." When I would urge the +numerous editions of _Tommy Prudent_ or _Goody Two Shoes_; "Remember +always," said he, "that the parents buy the books, and that the children +never read them.'" For Johnson's visit to Rochester, see _post_, +July, 1783. + +[28] See _post_, beginning of 1781, after _The Life of Swift_, and +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 15. + +[29] See _ante_, under Sept. 9, 1779. + +[30] Johnson wrote of this grotto (_Works_, viii. 270):--'It may be +frequently remarked of the studious and speculative that they are proud +of trifles, and that their amusements seem frivolous and childish.' + +[31] See _ante_, i. 332. + +[32] _Epilogue to the Satires_, i. 131. Dr. James Foster, the +Nonconformist preacher. Johnson mentions 'the reputation which he had +gained by his proper delivery.' _Works_, viii. 384. In _The +Conversations of Northcote_, p. 88, it is stated that 'Foster first +became popular from the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke stopping in the porch +of his chapel in the Old Jewry out of a shower of rain: and thinking he +might as well hear what was going on he went in, and was so well pleased +that he sent all the great folks to hear him, and he was run after as +much as Irving has been in our time.' Dr. T. Campbell (_Diary_, p. 34) +recorded in 1775, that 'when Mrs. Thrale quoted something from Foster's +_Sermons_, Johnson flew in a passion, and said that Foster was a man of +mean ability, and of no original thinking.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, v. +300) wrote of Foster:--'Wonderful! a divine preferring reason to faith, +and more afraid of vice than of heresy.' + +[33] It is believed to have been her play of _The Sister_, brought out +in 1769. 'The audience expressed their disapprobation of it with so much +appearance of prejudice that she would not suffer an attempt to exhibit +it a second time.' _Gent. Mag._ xxxix. 199. It is strange, however, if +Goldsmith was asked to hiss a play for which he wrote the epilogue. +Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, ii. 80. Johnson wrote on Oct. 28, 1779 +(_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 72):--'C---- L---- accuses ---- of making a party +against her play. I always hissed away the charge, supposing him a man +of honour; but I shall now defend him with less confidence.' Baretti, in +a marginal note, says that C---- L---- is 'Charlotte Lennox.' Perhaps +---- stands for Cumberland. Miss Burney said that 'Mr. Cumberland is +notorious for hating and envying and spiting all authors in the dramatic +line.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 272. + +[34] See _ante_, i. 255. + +[35] In _The Rambler_, No. 195, Johnson describes rascals such as this +man. 'They hurried away to the theatre, full of malignity and +denunciations against a man whose name they had never heard, and a +performance which they could not understand; for they were resolved to +judge for themselves, and would not suffer the town to be imposed upon +by scribblers. In the pit they exerted themselves with great spirit and +vivacity; called out for the tunes of obscene songs, talked loudly at +intervals of Shakespeare and Jonson,' &c. + +[36] See _ante_, ii. 469. + +[37] Dr. Percy told Malone 'that they all at the Club had such a high +opinion of Mr. Dyer's knowledge and respect for his judgment as to +appeal to him constantly, and that his sentence was final.' Malone adds +that 'he was so modest and reserved, that he frequently sat silent in +company for an hour, and seldom spoke unless appealed to. Goldsmith, who +used to rattle away upon _all_ subjects, had been talking somewhat +loosely relative to music. Some one wished for Mr. Dyer's opinion, which +he gave with his usual strength and accuracy. "Why," said Goldsmith, +turning round to Dyer, whom he had scarcely noticed before, "you seem to +know a good deal of this matter." "If I had not," replied Dyer, "I +should not, in this company, have said a word upon the subject."' Burke +described him as 'a man of profound and general erudition; his sagacity +and judgment were fully equal to the extent of his learning.' Prior's +_Malone_, pp. 419, 424. Malone in his _Life of Dryden_, p. 181, says +that Dyer was _Junius_. Johnson speaks of him as 'the late learned Mr. +Dyer.' _Works_, viii. 385. Had he been alive he was to have been the +professor of mathematics in the imaginary college at St. Andrews. +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 25. Many years after his death, Johnson +bought his portrait to hang in 'a little room that he was fitting up +with prints.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 639. + +[38] _Memoirs of Agriculture and other Oeconomical Arts_, 3 vols., by +Robert Dossie, London, 1768-82. + +[39] See _ante_, ii. 14. + +[40] Here Lord Macartney remarks, 'A Bramin or any cast of the Hindoos +will neither admit you to be of their religion, nor be converted to +yours;--a thing which struck the Portuguese with the greatest +astonishment, when they first discovered the East Indies.' BOSWELL. + +[41] See _ante_, ii. 250. + +[42] See _ante_, Aug. 30, 1780. + +[43] John, Lord Carteret, and Earl Granville, who died Jan. 2, 1763. It +is strange that he wrote so ill; for Lord Chesterfield says (_Misc. +Works_, iv. _Appendix_, p. 42) that 'he had brought away with him from +Oxford, a great stock of Greek and Latin, and had made himself master of +all the modern languages. He was one of the best speakers in the House +of Lords, both in the declamatory and argumentative way.' + +[44] Walpole describes the partiality of the members of the +court-martial that sat on Admiral Keppel in Jan. 1779. One of them +'declared frankly that he should not attend to forms of law, but to +justice.' So friendly were the judges to the prisoner that 'it required +the almost unanimous voice of the witnesses in favour of his conduct, +and the vile arts practised against him, to convince all mankind how +falsely and basely he had been accused.' Walpole, referring to the +members, speaks of 'the feelings of seamen unused to reason.' Some of +the leading politicians established themselves at Portsmouth during the +trial. _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 329 + +[45] See _ante_, ii. 240. + +[46] In all Gray's _Odes_, there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which +we wish away.... The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural +violence. "Double, double, toil and trouble." He has a kind of strutting +dignity, and is tall by walking on tip-toe. His art and his struggle are +too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease and nature.' +Johnson's _Works_, viii. 484-87. See _ante_, i. 402, and ii. 327, 335. + +[47] One evening, in the Haymarket Theatre, 'when Foote lighted the King +to his chair, his majesty asked who [sic] the piece was written by? "By +one of your Majesty's chaplains," said Foote, unable even then to +suppress his wit; "and dull enough to have been written by a bishop."' +Forster's _Essays_, ii. 435. See _ante_, i. 390, note 3. + +[48] Bk. v. ch. 1. + +[49] See _ante_, ii. 133, note 1; Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 27, and +Oct. 28. + +[50] The correspondent of _The Gentleman's Magazine_ [1792, p. 214] who +subscribes himself SCIOLUS furnishes the following supplement:-- + +'A lady of my acquaintance remembers to have heard her uncle sing those +homely stanzas more than forty-five years ago. He repeated the +second thus:-- + + She shall breed young lords and ladies fair, + And ride abroad in a coach and three pair, + And the best, &c. + And have a house, &c. + +And remembered a third which seems to have been the introductory one, +and is believed to have been the only remaining one:-- + + When the Duke of Leeds shall have made his choice + Of a charming young lady that's beautiful and wise, + She'll be the happiest young gentlewoman under the skies, + As long as the sun and moon shall rise, + And how happy shall, &c. + +It is with pleasure I add that this stanza could never be more truly +applied than at this present time. BOSWELL. This note was added to the +second edition. + +[51] See _ante_, i. 115, note 1. + +[52] See _ante_, i. 82. + +[53] Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 121, says:--'Johnson +was a real _true-born Englishman_. He hated the Scotch, the French, the +Dutch, the Hanoverians, and had the greatest contempt for all other +European nations; such were his early prejudices which he never +attempted to conquer.' Reynolds wrote of Johnson:--'The prejudices he +had to countries did not extend to individuals. In respect to Frenchmen +he rather laughed at himself, but it was insurmountable. He considered +every foreigner as a fool till they had convinced him of the contrary.' +Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 460. Garrick wrote of the French in +1769:--'Their _politesse_ has reduced their character to such a +sameness, and their humours and passions are so curbed by habit, that, +when you have seen half-a-dozen French men and women, you have seen the +whole.' _Garrick Corres_. i. 358. + +[54] 'There is not a man or woman here,' wrote Horace Walpole from Paris +(_Letters_ iv. 434), 'that is not a perfect old nurse, and who does not +talk gruel and anatomy with equal fluency and ignorance.' + +[55] '"I remember that interview well," said Dr. Parr with great +vehemence when once reminded of it; "I gave him no quarter." The subject +of our dispute was the liberty of the press. Dr. Johnson was very great. +Whilst he was arguing, I observed that he stamped. Upon this I stamped. +Dr. Johnson said, "Why did you stamp, Dr. Parr?" I replied, "Because you +stamped; and I was resolved not to give you the advantage even of a +stamp in the argument."' This, Parr said, was by no means his first +introduction to Johnson. Field's _Parr_, i. 161. Parr wrote to Romilly +in 1811:--'Pray let me ask whether you have ever read some admirable +remarks of Mr. Hutcheson upon the word _merit_. I remember a controversy +I had with Dr. Johnson upon this very term: we began with theology +fiercely, I gently carried the conversation onward to philosophy, and +after a dispute of more than three hours he lost sight of my heresy, and +came over to my opinion upon the metaphysical import of the term.' _Life +of Romilly_, ii. 365. When Parr was a candidate for the mastership of +Colchester Grammar School, Johnson wrote for him a letter of +recommendation. Johnstone's _Parr_, i. 94. + +[56] 'Somebody was praising Corneille one day in opposition to +Shakespeare. "Corneille is to Shakespeare," replied Mr. Johnson, "as a +clipped hedge is to a forest."' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 59. + +[57] Johnson, it is clear, discusses here Mrs. Montagu's _Essay on +Shakespeare_. She compared Shakespeare first with Corneille, and then +with Aeschylus. In contrasting the ghost in _Hamlet_ with the shade of +Darius in _The Persians_, she says:--'The phantom, who was to appear +ignorant of what was past, that the Athenian ear might be soothed and +flattered with the detail of their victory at Salamis, is allowed, for +the same reason, such prescience as to foretell their future triumph at +Plataea.' p. 161. + +[58] Caution is required in everything which is laid before youth, to +secure them from unjust prejudices, perverse opinions, and incongruous +combinations of images. In the romances formerly written, every +transaction and sentiment was so remote from all that passes among men, +that the reader was in very little danger of making any applications to +himself.' _The Rambler_, No. 4. + +[59] Johnson says of Pope's _Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_:--'The next +stanzas place and detain us in the dark and dismal regions of mythology, +where neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow can be found.' +_Works_, viii. 328. Of Gray's _Progress of Poetry_, he says:--'The +second stanza, exhibiting Mars' car and Jove's eagle, is unworthy of +further notice. Criticism disdains to chase a school-boy to his +common-places.' _Ib_. p. 484. + +[60] See _ante_, ii. 178. + +[61] + + 'A Wizard-Dame, the Lover's ancient friend, + With magic charm has deaft thy husband's ear, + At her command I saw the stars descend, + And winged lightnings stop in mid career, &c.' + +Hammond. _Elegy_, v. In Boswell's _Hebrides_ (Sept. 29), he said +'Hammond's _Love Elegies_ were poor things.' + +[62] Perhaps Lord Corke and Orrery. _Ante_, iii. 183. CROKER. + +[63] Colman assumed that Johnson had maintained that Shakespeare was +totally ignorant of the learned languages. He then quotes a line to +prove 'that the author of _The Taming of the Shrew_ had at least read +Ovid;' and continues:--'And what does Dr. Johnson say on this occasion? +Nothing. And what does Mr. Farmer say on this occasion? Nothing.' +Colman's _Terence_, ii. 390. For Farmer, see _ante_, iii. 38. + +[64] 'It is most likely that Shakespeare had learned Latin sufficiently +to make him acquainted with construction, but that he never advanced to +an easy perusal of the Roman authors.' Johnson's _Works_, V. 129. 'The +style of Shakespeare was in itself ungrammatical, perplexed, and +obscure.' _Ib_. p. 135. + +[65] + + 'May I govern my passion with + an absolute sway, + And grow wiser and better, as + my strength wears away, + Without gout or stone by a + gentle decay.' + +_The Old Man's Wish_ was sung to Sir Roger de Coverley by 'the fair +one,' after the collation in which she ate a couple of chickens, and +drank a full bottle of wine. _Spectator_, No. 410. 'What signifies our +wishing?' wrote Dr. Franklin. 'I have sung that _wishing song_ a +thousand times when I was young, and now find at fourscore that the +three contraries have befallen me, being subject to the gout and the +stone, and not being yet master of all my passions.' Franklin's +_Memoirs_, iii. 185. + +[66] He uses the same image in _The Life of Milton_ (_Works_, vii. +104):--'He might still be a giant among the pigmies, the one-eyed +monarch of the blind.' Cumberland (_Memoirs_, i. 39) says that Bentley, +hearing it maintained that Barnes spoke Greek almost like his mother +tongue, replied:--'Yes, I do believe that Barnes had as much Greek and +understood it about as well as an Athenian blacksmith.' See _ante_, iii +284. A passage in Wooll's _Life of Dr. Warton_ (i. 313) shews that +Barnes attempted to prove that Homer and Solomon were one and the same +man. But I. D'Israeli says that it was reported that Barnes, not having +money enough to publish his edition of _Homer_, 'wrote a poem, the +design of which is to prove that Solomon was the author of the _Iliad_, +to interest his wife, who had some property, to lend her aid towards the +publication of so divine a work.' _Calamities of Authors_, i. 250. + +[67] 'The first time Suard saw Burke, who was at Reynolds's, Johnson +touched him on the shoulder and said, "Le grand Burke."' _Boswelliana_, +p. 299. See ante, ii. 450. + +[68] Miss Hawkins (_Memoirs_, i. 279, 288) says that Langton told her +father that he meant to give his six daughters such a knowledge of +Greek, 'that while five of them employed themselves in feminine works, +the sixth should read a Greek author for the general amusement.' She +describes how 'he would get into the most fluent recitation of half a +page of Greek, breaking off for fear of wearying, by saying, "and so it +goes on," accompanying his words with a gentle wave of his hand.' + +[69] See post, p. 42. + +[70] See ante, i. 326. + +[71] This assertion concerning Johnson's insensibility to the pathetick +powers of Otway, is too _round_. I once asked him, whether he did not +think Otway frequently tender: when he answered, 'Sir, he is all +tenderness.' BURNEY. He describes Otway as 'one of the first names in +the English drama.' _Works_, vii. 173. + +[72] See ante, April 16, 1779. + +[73] Johnson; it seems, took up this study. In July, 1773, he recorded +that between Easter and Whitsuntide, he attempted to learn the Low Dutch +language. 'My application,' he continues, 'was very slight, and my +memory very fallacious, though whether more than in my earlier years, I +am not very certain.' _Pr. and Med._ p. 129, and ante, ii. 263. On his +death-bed, he said to Mr. Hoole:--'About two years since I feared that I +had neglected God, and that then I had not a _mind_ to give him; on +which I set about to read _Thomas à Kempis_ in Low Dutch, which I +accomplished, and thence I judged that my mind was not impaired, Low +Dutch having no affinity with any of the languages which I knew.' +Croker's _Boswell_, p. 844. See ante, iii. 235. + +[74] See post, under July 5, 1783. + +[75] See ante, ii. 409, and iii. 197. + +[76] One of Goldsmith's friends 'remembered his relating [about the year +1756] a strange Quixotic scheme he had in contemplation of going to +decipher the inscriptions on the _written mountains_, though he was +altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which they might be +supposed to be written.' Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, ed. 1801, i. 40. +Percy says that Goldsmith applied to the prime minister, Lord Bute, for +a salary to enable him to execute 'the visionary project' mentioned in +the text. 'To prepare the way, he drew up that ingenious essay on this +subject which was first printed in the _Ledger_, and afterwards in his +_Citizen of the World_ [No. 107].' _Ib_. p. 65. Percy adds that the Earl +of Northumberland, who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, regretted 'that +he had not been made acquainted with his plan; for he would have +procured him a sufficient salary on the Irish establishment.' Goldsmith, +in his review of Van Egmont's _Travels in Asia_, says:--'Could we see a +man set out upon this journey [to Asia] not with an intent to consider +rocks and rivers, but the manners, and the mechanic inventions, and the +imperfect learning of the inhabitants; resolved to penetrate into +countries as yet little known, and eager to pry into all their secrets, +with an heart not terrified at trifling dangers; if there could be found +a man who could unite this true courage with sound learning, from such a +character we might hope much information.' Goldsmith's _Works_, ed. +1854, iv. 225. Johnson would have gone to Constantinople, as he himself +said, had he received his pension twenty years earlier. _Post_, p. 27. + +[77] It should be remembered, that this was said twenty-five or thirty +years ago, [written in 1799,] when lace was very generally worn. MALONE. +'Greek and Latin,' said Porson, 'are only luxuries.' Rogers's _Table +Talk_, p. 325. + +[78] See _ante_, iii. 8. + +[79] Dr. Johnson, in his _Life of Cowley_, says, that these are 'the +only English verses which Bentley is known to have written.' I shall +here insert them, and hope my readers will apply them. + + 'Who strives to mount Parnassus' hill, + And thence poetick laurels bring, + Must first acquire due force and skill, + Must fly with swan's or eagle's wing. + + Who Nature's treasures would explore, + Her mysteries and arcana know; + Must high as lofty Newton soar, + Must stoop as delving Woodward low. + + Who studies ancient laws and rites, + Tongues, arts, and arms, and history; + Must drudge, like Selden, days and nights, + And in the endless labour die. + + Who travels in religious jars, + (Truth mixt with errour, shades with rays;) + Like Whiston, wanting pyx or stars, + In ocean wide or sinks or strays. + + But grant our hero's hope, long toil + And comprehensive genius crown, + All sciences, all arts his spoil, + Yet what reward, or what renown? + + Envy, innate in vulgar souls, + Envy steps in and stops his rise, + Envy with poison'd tarnish fouls + His lustre, and his worth decries. + + He lives inglorious or in want, + To college and old books confin'd; + Instead of learn'd he's call'd pedant, + Dunces advanc'd, he's left behind: + Yet left content a genuine Stoick he, + Great without patron, rich without South Sea.' BOSWELL. + +In Mr. Croker's octavo editions, _arts_ in the fifth stanza is +changed into _hearts_. J. Boswell, jun., gives the following reading of +the first four lines of the last stanza, not from _Dodsley's +Collection_, but from an earlier one, called _The Grove_. + + 'Inglorious or by wants inthralled, + To college and old books confined, + A pedant from his learning called, + Dunces advanced, he's left behind.' + +[80] Bentley, in the preface to his edition of _Paradise Lost_, says:-- + + 'Sunt et mihi carmina; me quoque dicunt + Vatem pastores: sed non ego credulus illis.' + +[81] The difference between Johnson and Smith is apparent even in this +slight instance. Smith was a man of extraordinary application, and had +his mind crowded with all manner of subjects; but the force, acuteness, +and vivacity of Johnson were not to be found there. He had book-making +so much in his thoughts, and was so chary of what might be turned to +account in that way, that he once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he +made it a rule, when in company, never to talk of what he understood. +Beauclerk had for a short time a pretty high opinion of Smith's +conversation. Garrick, after listening to him for a while, as to one of +whom his expectations had been raised, turned slyly to a friend, and +whispered him, 'What say you to this?--eh? _flabby_, I think.' BOSWELL. +Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 279), says:--'Smith's voice was harsh and +enunciation thick, approaching to stammering. His conversation was not +colloquial, but like lecturing. He was the most absent man in company +that I ever saw, moving his lips, and talking to himself, and smiling in +the midst of large companies. If you awaked him from his reverie and +made him attend to the subject of conversation, he immediately began a +harangue, and never stopped till he told you all he knew about it, with +the utmost philosophical ingenuity.' Dugald Stewart (_Life of Adam +Smith_, p. 117) says that 'his consciousness of his tendency to absence +rendered his manner somewhat embarrassed in the company of strangers.' +But 'to his intimate friends, his peculiarities added an inexpressible +charm to his conversation, while they displayed in the most interesting +light the artless simplicity of his heart.' _Ib_. p. 113. See also +Walpole's _Letters_, vi. 302, and _ante_, ii. 430, note 1. + +[82] Garrick himself was a good deal of an infidel: see _ante_, ii. 85, +note 7. + +[83] _Ante_, i. 181. + +[84] The Tempest, act iv. sc. i. In _The Rambler_, No. 127, Johnson +writes of men who have 'borne opposition down before them, and left +emulation panting behind.' He quotes (_Works_, vii. 261) the following +couplet by Dryden:-- + + 'Fate after him below with pain did move, + And victory could scarce keep pace above.' + +Young in _The Last Day_, book I, had written:-- + + 'Words all in vain pant after the distress.' + +[85] I am sorry to see in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of +Edinburgh_, vol. ii, _An Essay on the Character of Hamlet_, written, I +should suppose, by a very young man, though called 'Reverend;' who +speaks with presumptuous petulance of the first literary character of +his age. Amidst a cloudy confusion of words, (which hath of late too +often passed in Scotland for _Metaphysicks_,) he thus ventures to +criticise one of the noblest lines in our language:--'Dr. Johnson has +remarked, that "time toil'd after him in vain." But I should apprehend, +that this is _entirely to mistake the character_. Time toils after +_every great man_, as well after Shakspeare. The _workings_ of an +ordinary mind _keep pace_, indeed, with time; they move no faster; _they +have their beginning, their middle, and their end_; but superiour +natures can _reduce these into a point_. They do not, indeed, _suppress_ +them; but they _suspend_, or they _lock them up in the breast_.' The +learned Society, under whose sanction such gabble is ushered into the +world, would do well to offer a premium to any one who will discover its +meaning. BOSWELL. + +[86] 'May 29, 1662. Took boat and to Fox-hall, where I had not been a +great while. To the old Spring Garden, and there walked long.' Pepys's +_Diary_, i. 361. The place was afterwards known as Faux-hall and +Vauxhall. See _ante_, iii. 308. + +[87] 'One that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service and art nothing +but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar.' _King Lear_, +act ii. sc. 2. + +[88] Yet W.G. Hamilton said:--'Burke understands everything but gaming +and music. In the House of Commons I sometimes think him only the second +man in England; out of it he is always the first.' Prior's _Burke_, p. +484. See _ante_, ii. 450. Bismarck once 'rang the bell' to old Prince +Metternich. 'I listened quietly,' he said, 'to all his stories, merely +jogging the bell every now and then till it rang again. That pleases +these talkative old men.' DR. BUSCH, quoted in Lowe's _Prince +Bismarck_, i. 130. + +[89] See _ante_, i. 470, for his disapproval of 'studied behaviour.' + +[90] Johnson had perhaps Dr. Warton in mind. _Ante_, ii. 41, note 1. + +[91] See _ante_, i. 471, and iii. 165. + +[92] 'Oblivion is a kind of annihilation.' Sir Thomas Browne's +_Christian Morals_, sect. xxi. + +[93] 'Nec te quaesiveris extra.' Persius, _Sat_. i. 7. We may compare +Milton's line, + + 'In himself was all his state.' + _Paradise Lost_, v. 353. + +[94] See _ante,_ iii. 269. + +[95] 'A work of this kind must, in a minute examination, discover many +imperfections; but West's version, so far as I have considered it, +appears to be the product of great labour and great abilities.' +Johnson's _Works,_ viii. 398. + +[96] See Boswell's _Hebrides,_ Aug. 25, 1773. + +[97] See _ante,_ i. 82, and ii. 228. + +[98] See _ante,_ i. 242. + +[99] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11. + +[100] A literary lady has favoured me with a characteristick anecdote of +Richardson. One day at his country-house at Northend, where a large +company was assembled at dinner, a gentleman who was just returned from +Paris, willing to please Mr. Richardson, mentioned to him a very +flattering circumstance,--that he had seen his _Clarissa_ lying on the +King's brother's table. Richardson observing that part of the company +were engaged in talking to each other, affected then not to attend to +it. But by and by, when there was a general silence, and he thought that +the flattery might be fully heard, he addressed himself to the +gentleman, 'I think, Sir, you were saying something about,--' pausing in +a high flutter of expectation. The gentleman provoked at his inordinate +vanity, resolved not to indulge it, and with an exquisitely sly air of +indifference answered, 'A mere trifle Sir, not worth repeating.' The +mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten words +more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and appeared to enjoy it +much. BOSWELL. + +[101] + + 'E'en in a bishop I can spy desert; + Seeker is decent, Rundel has a heart.' + +Pope, _Epil. to Sat_. ii. 70. Horace Walpole wrote on Aug. 4,1768 +(Letters, v. 115):--'We have lost our Pope. Canterbury [Archbishop +Seeker] died yesterday. He had never been a Papist, but almost +everything else. Our Churchmen will not be Catholics; that stock seems +quite fallen.' + +[102] Perhaps the Earl of Corke. _Ante_, iii. 183. + +[103] Garrick perhaps borrowed this saying when, in his epigram on +Goldsmith, speaking of the ideas of which his head was full, he said:-- + + 'When his mouth opened all were in a pother, + Rushed to the door and tumbled o'er each other, + But rallying soon with all their force again, + In bright array they issued from his pen.' + +Fitzgerald's _Garrick_, ii. 363. See _ante_, ii. 231. + +[104] See _ante_, i. 116, and ii. 52. + +[105] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, ix. 318) writes of Boswell's _Life of +Johnson:_--'Dr. Blagden says justly, that it is a new kind of libel, by +which you may abuse anybody, by saying some dead person said so and so +of somebody alive.' + +[106] See _ante_, ii. III. In the _Gent. Mag._ 1770, p. 78, is a review +of _A Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D._, 'that is generally imputed to +Mr. Wilkes.' + +[107] 'Do you conceive the full force of the word CONSTITUENT? It has +the same relation to the House of Commons as Creator to creature.' _A +Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D._, p. 23. + +[108] His profound admiration of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE was such as to +set him above that 'Philosophy and vain deceit' [_Colossians_, ii. 8] +with which men of narrower conceptions have been infected. I have heard +him strongly maintain that 'what is right is not so from any natural +fitness, but because GOD wills it to be right;' and it is certainly so, +because he has predisposed the relations of things so as that which he +wills must be right. BOSWELL. Johnson was as much opposed as the Rev. +Mr. Thwackum to the philosopher Square, who 'measured all actions by the +unalterable rule of right and the eternal fitness of things.' _Tom +Jones_, book iii. ch. 3. + +[109] In _Rasselas_ (ch. ii.) we read that the prince's look 'discovered +him to receive some solace of the miseries of life, from consciousness +of the delicacy with which he felt, and the eloquence with which he +bewailed them.' See _ante_, April 8, 1780. + +[110] I hope the authority of the great Master of our language will stop +that curtailing innovation, by which we see _critic, public_, &c., +frequently written instead of _critick, publick_, &c. BOSWELL. Boswell +had always been nice in his spelling. In the Preface to his _Corsica_, +published twenty-four years before _The Life of Johnson_, he defends his +peculiarities, and says:--'If this work should at any future period be +reprinted, I hope that care will be taken of my orthography.' Mr. Croker +says that in a memorandum in Johnson's writing he has found +'_cubic_ feet.' + +[111] 'Disorders of intellect,' answered Imlac, 'happen much more often +than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps, if we speak +with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state.' +_Rasselas_, ch. 44. + +[112] See _ante_, i. 397, for Kit Smart's madness in praying. + +[113] Yet he gave lessons in Latin to Miss Burney and Miss Thrale. Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 243. In Skye he said, 'Depend upon it, no woman +is the worse for sense and knowledge.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 19. + +[114] See _ante_, iii, 240. + +[115] Nos. 588, 601, 626 and 635. The first number of the _Spectator_ +was written by Addison, the last by Grove. See _ante_, iii. 33, for +Johnson's praise of No. 626. + +[116] Sterne is of a direct contrary opinion. See his _Sentimental +Journey_, Article, 'The Mystery.' BOSWELL. Sterne had been of the same +opinion as Johnson, for he says that the beggar he saw 'confounded all +kind of reasoning upon him.' 'He passed by me,' he continues, 'without +asking anything--and yet he did not go five steps farther before he +asked charity of a little woman--I was much more likely to have given of +the two. He had scarce done with the woman, when he pulled his hat off +to another who was coming the same way.--An ancient gentleman came +slowly--and, after him, a young smart one--He let them both pass, and +asked nothing; I stood observing him half an hour, in which time he had +made a dozen turns backwards and forwards, and found that he invariably +pursued the same plan.' _Sentimental Journey_, ed. 1775, ii. 105. + +[117] Very likely Dr. Warton. _Ante_, ii. 41. + +[118] I differ from Mr. Croker in the explanation of this ill-turned +sentence. The _shield_ that Homer may hold up is the observation made by +Mrs. Fitzherbert. It was this observation that Johnson respected as a +very fine one. For his high opinion of that lady's understanding, see +_ante_, i. 83. + +[119] In _Boswelliana_ (p. 323) are recorded two more of Langton's +Anecdotes. 'Mr. Beauclerk told Dr. Johnson that Dr. James said to him he +knew more Greek than Mr. Walmesley. "Sir," said he, "Dr. James did not +know enough of Greek to be sensible of his ignorance of the language. +Walmesley did."' See _ante_, i. 81. 'A certain young clergyman used to +come about Dr. Johnson. The Doctor said it vexed him to be in his +company, his ignorance was so hopeless. "Sir," said Mr. Langton, "his +coming about you shows he wishes to help his ignorance." "Sir," said the +Doctor, "his ignorance is so great, I am afraid to show him the +bottom of it."' + +[120] Dr. Francklin. See _ante_, iii. 83, note 3. Churchill attacked him +in _The Rosciad_ (Poems, ii. 4). When, he says, it came to the choice +of a judge, + + 'Others for Francklin voted; but 'twas known, + He sickened at all triumphs but his own.' + +[121] See _ante_, iii. 241, note 2. + +[122] _Pr. and Med_. p.190. BOSWELL. + +[123] _Ib_. 174. BOSWELL. + +[124] 'Mr. Fowke once observed to Dr. Johnson that, in his opinion, the +Doctor's literary strength lay in writing biography, in which he +infinitely exceeded all his contemporaries. "Sir," said Johnson, "I +believe that is true. The dogs don't know how to write trifles with +dignity."'--R. Warner's _Original Letters_, p. 204. + +[125] His design is thus announced in his _Advertisement_: 'The +Booksellers having determined to publish a body of English Poetry, I was +persuaded to promise them a Preface to the works of each authour; an +undertaking, as it was then presented to my mind, not very tedious or +difficult. + +'My purpose was only to have allotted to every poet an Advertisement, +like that [in original _those_] which we find in the French +Miscellanies, containing a few dates, and a general character; but I +have been led beyond my intention, I hope by the honest desire of giving +useful pleasure.' BOSWELL. + +[126] _Institutiones_, liber i, Prooemium 3. + +[127] 'He had bargained for two hundred guineas, and the booksellers +spontaneously added a third hundred; on this occasion Dr. Johnson +observed to me, "Sir, I always said the booksellers were a generous set +of men. Nor, in the present instance, have I reason to complain. The +fact is, not that they have paid me too little, but that I have written +too much." The _Lives_ were soon published in a separate edition; when, +for a very few corrections, he was presented with another hundred +guineas.' Nichols's _Lit. Anec._ viii. 416. See _ante_, iii. 111. In Mr. +Morrison's _Collection of Autographs_ &c., vol. ii, 'is Johnson's +receipt for 100_l_., from the proprietors of _The Lives of the Poets_ +for revising the last edition of that work.' It is dated Feb. 19, 1783. +'Underneath, in Johnson's autograph, are these words: "It is great +impudence to put _Johnson's Poets_ on the back of books which Johnson +neither recommended nor revised. He recommended only Blackmore on the +Creation, and Watts. How then are they Johnson's? This is indecent."' +The poets whom Johnson recommended were Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and +Yalden. _Ante_, under Dec. 29, 1778. + +[128] Gibbon says of the last five quartos of the six that formed his +_History_:--'My first rough manuscript, without any intermediate copy, +has been sent to the press.' _Misc. Works_, i. 255. In the _Memoir of +Goldsmith_, prefixed to his _Misc. Works_, i. 113, it is said:--'In +whole quires of his _Histories_, _Animated Nature_, &c., he had seldom +occasion to correct or alter a single word.' See _ante_, i. 203. + +[129] From Waller's _Of Loving at First Sight_. Waller's _Poems, +Miscellanies_, xxxiv. + +[130] He trusted greatly to his memory. If it did not retain anything +exactly, he did not think himself bound to look it up. Thus in his +criticism on Congreve (_Works_, viii. 31) he says:--'Of his plays I +cannot speak distinctly; for since I inspected them many years have +passed.' In a note on his _Life of Rowe_, Nichols says:--'This _Life_ +is a very remarkable instance of the uncommon strength of Dr. Johnson's +memory. When I received from him the MS. he complacently observed that +the criticism was tolerably well done, considering that he had not read +one of Rowe's plays for thirty years.' _Ib_. vii. 417. + +[131] Thus:--'In the _Life of Waller_, Mr. Nichols will find a reference +to the _Parliamentary History_ from which a long quotation is to be +inserted. If Mr. Nichols cannot easily find the book, Mr. Johnson will +send it from Streatham.' + +'Clarendon is here returned.' + +'By some accident, I laid _your_ note upon Duke up so safely, that I +cannot find it. Your informations have been of great use to me. I must +beg it again; with another list of our authors, for I have laid that +with the other. I have sent Stepney's Epitaph. Let me have the revises +as soon as can be. Dec. 1778.' + +'I have sent Philips, with his Epitaphs, to be inserted. The fragment of +a preface is hardly worth the impression, but that we may seem to do +something. It may be added to the _Life of Philips_. The Latin page is +to be added to the _Life of Smith_. I shall be at home to revise the two +sheets of Milton. March 1, 1779.' + +'Please to get me the last edition of Hughes's _Letters_; and try to get +_Dennis upon Blackmore_, and upon Calo, and any thing of the same writer +against Pope. Our materials are defective.' + +'As Waller professed to have imitated Fairfax, do you think a few pages +of Fairfax would enrich our edition? Few readers have seen it, and it +may please them. But it is not necessary.' + +'An account of the Lives and works of some of the most eminent English +Poets. By, &c.--"The English Poets, biographically and critically +considered, by SAM. JOHNSON."--Let Mr. Nichols take his choice, or make +another to his mind. May, 1781.' + +'You somehow forgot the advertisement for the new edition. It was not +inclosed. Of Gay's _Letters_ I see not that any use can be made, for +they give no information of any thing. That he was a member of the +Philosophical Society is something; but surely he could be but a +corresponding member. However, not having his life here, I know not how +to put it in, and it is of little importance.' + +See several more in _The Gent. Mag._, 1785. The Editor of that +Miscellany, in which Johnson wrote for several years, seems justly to +think that every fragment of so great a man is worthy of being +preserved. BOSWELL. In the original MS. in the British Museum, _Your_ in +the third paragraph of this note is not in italics. Johnson writes his +correspondent's name _Nichols_, _Nichol_, and _Nicol_. In the fourth +paragraph he writes, first _Philips_, and next _Phillips_. His spelling +was sometimes careless, _ante_, i. 260, note 2. In the _Gent. Mag._ for +1785, p. 10, another of these notes is published:--'In reading Rowe in +your edition, which is very impudently called mine, I observed a little +piece unnaturally and odiously obscene. I was offended, but was still +more offended when I could not find it in Rowe's genuine volumes. To +admit it had been wrong; to interpolate it is surely worse. If I had +known of such a piece in the whole collection, I should have been angry. +What can be done?' In a note, Mr. Nichols says that this piece 'has not +only appeared in the _Works_ of Rowe, but has been transplanted by Pope +into the _Miscellanies_ he published in his own name and that of +Dean Swift.' + +[132] He published, in 1782, a revised edition of Baker's_ Biographia +Dramatica_. Baker was a grandson of De Foe. _Gent. Mag._ 1782, p. 77. + +[133] Dryden writing of satiric poetry, says:--'Had I time I could +enlarge on the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which are as +requisite in this as in heroic poetry itself; of which the satire is +undoubtedly a species. With these beautiful turns I confess myself to +have been unacquainted, till about twenty years ago, in a conversation +which I had with that noble wit of Scotland, Sir George Mackenzie, he +asked me why I did not imitate in my verses the turns of Mr. Waller, and +Sir John Denham. ... This hint, thus seasonably given me, first made me +sensible of my own wants, and brought me afterwards to seek for the +supply of them in other English authors. I looked over the darling of my +youth, the famous Cowley.' Dryden's _Works_, ed. 1821, xiii. III. + +[134] In one of his letters to Nichols, Johnson says:--'You have now all +Cowley. I have been drawn to a great length, but Cowley or Waller never +had any critical examination before.' _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p.9. + +[135] _Life of Sheffield_. BOSWELL. Johnson's _Works_, vii. 485. + +[136] See, however, p.11 of this volume, where the same remark is made +and Johnson is there speaking of _prose_. MALONE. + +[137] + + 'Purpureus, late qui splendeat unus et alter + Assuitur pannus.' + + '... Shreds of purple with broad lustre shine + Sewed on your poem.' + +FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poet_. 15. + +[138] The original reading is enclosed in crochets, and the present one +is printed in Italicks. BOSWELL. + +[139] I have noticed a few words which, to our ears, are more uncommon +than at least two of the three that Boswell mentions; as, 'Languages +divaricate,' _Works_, vii. 309; 'The mellifluence of Pope's numbers,' +_ib._ 337; 'A subject flux and transitory,' _ib._ 389; 'His prose is +pure without scrupulosity,' _ib._ 472; 'He received and accommodated the +ladies' (said of one serving behind the counter), _ib._ viii. 62; 'The +prevalence of this poem was gradual,' _ib._ p. 276; 'His style is +sometimes concatenated,' _ib._ p. 458. Boswell, on the next page, +supplies one more instance--'Images such as the superficies of nature +readily supplies.' + +[140] See _ante_, iii. 249. + +[141] Veracious is perhaps one of the 'four or five words' which Johnson +added, or thought that he added, to the English language. _Ante_, i. +221. He gives it in his _Dictionary_, but without any authority for it. +It is however older than his time. + +[142] See Johnson's _Works_, vii. 134, 212, and viii. 386. + +[143] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 452) writes of Johnson's +'_Billingsgate on Milton_.' A later letter shows that, like so many of +Johnson's critics, he had not read the _Life_. _Ib_. p. 508. + +[144] _Works_, vii. 108. + +[145] Thirty years earlier he had written of Milton as 'that poet whose +works may possibly be read when every other monument of British +greatness shall be obliterated.' _Ante_, i. 230. See _ante_, ii. 239. + +[146] Earl Stanhope (_Life of Pitt_, ii. 65) describes this Society in +1790, 'as a Club, till then of little note, which had a yearly festival +in commemoration of the events of 1688. It had been new-modelled, and +enlarged with a view to the transactions at Paris, but still retained +its former name to imply a close connection between the principles of +1688 in England, and the principles of 1789 in France.' The Earl +Stanhope of that day presided at the anniversary meeting on Nov. 4, +1789. Nov. 4 was the day on which William III. landed. + +[147] See _An Essay on the Life, Character, and writings of Dr. Samuel +Johnson_, London, 1787; which is very well written, making a proper +allowance for the democratical bigotry of its authour; whom I cannot +however but admire for his liberality in speaking thus of my +illustrious friend:-- + +'He possessed extraordinary powers of understanding, which were much +cultivated by study, and still more by meditation and reflection. His +memory was remarkably retentive, his imagination uncommonly vigorous, +and his judgement keen and penetrating. He had a strong sense of the +importance of religion; his piety was sincere, and sometimes ardent; and +his zeal for the interests of virtue was often manifested in his +conversation and in his writings. The same energy which was displayed in +his literary productions was exhibited also in his conversation, which +was various, striking, and instructive; and perhaps no man ever equalled +him for nervous and pointed repartees.' + +'His _Dictionary_, his moral Essays, and his productions in polite +literature, will convey useful instruction, and elegant entertainment, +as long as the language in which they are written shall be +understood.' BOSWELL. + +[148] Boswell paraphrases the following passage:--'The King, with lenity +of which the world has had perhaps no other example, declined to be the +judge or avenger of his own or his father's wrongs; and promised to +admit into the Act of Oblivion all, except those whom the Parliament +should except; and the Parliament doomed none to capital punishment but +the wretches who had immediately co-operated in the murder of the King. +Milton was certainly not one of them; he had only justified what they +had done.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 95. + +[149] + 'Though fall'n on evil days, + On evil days though fall'n and evil tongues, + In darkness, and with dangers compast round.' + _Paradise Lost_, vii. 26. + +[150] Johnson's _Works_, vii. 105. + +[151] 'His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly +republican.' _Ib_. p. 116. + +[152] 'What we know of Milton's character in domestick relations is, +that he was severe and arbitrary.' _Ib._ p. 116. + +[153] 'His theological opinions are said to have been first, +Calvinistical; and afterwards, perhaps when he began to hate the +Presbyterians, to have tended towards Arminianism.... He appears to have +been untainted by any heretical peculiarity of opinion.' _Ib._ p. 115. + +[154] Mr. Malone things it is rather a proof that he felt nothing of +those cheerful sensations which he has described: that on these topicks +it is the _poet_, and not the _man_, that writes. BOSWELL. + +[155] See _ante_, i. 427, ii. 124, and iv. 20, for Johnson's +condemnation of blank verse. This condemnations was not universal. Of +Dryden, he wrote (_Works_, vii. 249):--'He made rhyming tragedies, till, +by the prevalence of manifest propriety, he seems to have grown ashamed +of making them any longer.' His own _Irene_ is in blank verse; though +Macaulay justly remarks of it:--'He had not the slightest notion of what +blank verse should be.' (Macaulay's _Writings and Speeches_, ed. 1871, +p. 380.) Of Thomson's _Seasons_, he says (_Works_, vii. 377):--'His is one +of the works in which blank verse seems properly used.' Of Young's +_Night Thoughts_:--'This is one of the few poems in which blank verse +could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage.' _Ib_. p. 460. Of +Milton himself, he writes:--'Whatever be the advantages of rhyme, I +cannot prevail on myself to wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I +cannot wish his work to be other than it is; yet, like other heroes, he +is to be admired rather than imitated.' _Ib_. vii. 142. How much he felt +the power of Milton's blank verse is shewn by his _Rambler_, No. 90, +where, after stating that 'the noblest and most majestick pauses which +our versification admits are upon the fourth and sixth syllables,' he +adds:--' Some passages [in Milton] which conclude at this stop [the +sixth syllable] I could never read without some strong emotions of +delight or admiration.' 'If,' he continues, 'the poetry of Milton be +examined with regard to the pauses and flow of his verses into each +other, it will appear that he has performed all that our language would +admit.' Cowper was so indignant at Johnson's criticism of Milton's blank +verse that he wrote:--'Oh! I could thresh his old jacket till I made his +pension jingle in his pocket.' Southey's _Cowper_, iii. 315. + +[156] One of the most natural instances of the effect of blank verse +occurred to the late Earl of Hopeton. His Lordship observed one of his +shepherds poring in the fields upon Milton's _Paradise Lost_; and having +asked him what book it was, the man answered, 'An't please your +Lordship, this is a very odd sort of an authour: he would fain rhyme, +but cannot get at it.' BOSWELL. 'The variety of pauses, so much boasted +by the lovers of blank verse, changes the measures of an English poet to +the periods of a declaimer; and there are only a few skilful and happy +readers of Milton, who enable their audience to perceive where the lines +end or begin. "Blank verse," said an ingenious critick, "seems to be +verse only to the eye."' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 141. In the _Life of +Roscommon_ (_ib_. p. 171), he says:--'A poem frigidly didactick, without +rhyme, is so near to prose, that the reader only scorns it for +pretending to be verse.' + +[157] Mr. Locke. Often mentioned in Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_. + +[158] See vol. in. page 71. BOSWELL. + +[159] It is scarcely a defence. Whatever it was, he thus ends it:-'It is +natural to hope, that a comprehensive is likewise an elevated soul, and +that whoever is wise is also honest. I am willing to believe that +Dryden, having employed his mind, active as it was, upon different +studies, and filled it, capacious as it was, with other materials, came +unprovided to the controversy, and wanted rather skill to discover the +right than virtue to maintain it. But inquiries into the heart are not +for man; we must now leave him to his judge.' Works, vii. 279. + +[160] In the original _fright_. _The Hind and the Panther_, i. 79. + +[161] In this quotation two passages are joined. _Works_, vii. 339, 340. + +[162] 'The deep and pathetic morality of the _Vanity of Human Wishes_' +says Sir Walter Scott, 'has often extracted tears from those whose eyes +wander dry over the pages of professed sentimentality.' CROKER. It. drew +tears from Johnson himself. 'When,' says Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 50), +'he read his own satire, in which the life of a scholar is painted, he +burst into a passion of tears. The family and Mr. Scott only were +present, who, in a jocose way, clapped him on the back, and +said:--"What's all this, my dear Sir? Why you, and I, and Hercules, you +know, were all troubled with melancholy." He was a very large man, and +made out the triumvirate with Johnson and Hercules comically enough. The +Doctor was so delighted at his odd sally, that he suddenly embraced him, +and the subject was immediately changed.' + +[163] In Disraeli's _Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, iv. 180, is +given 'a memorandum of Dr. Johnson's of hints for the _Life of Pope_.' + +[164] _Works_, viii. 345. + +[165] 'Of the last editor [Warburton] it is more difficult to speak. +Respect is due to high place, tenderness to living reputation, and +veneration to genius and learning; but he cannot be justly offended at +that liberty of which he has himself so frequently given an example, nor +very solicitous what is thought of notes which he ought never to have +considered as part of his serious employments.' _Works_, v. 140. See +_post_, June 10,1784. + +[166] The liberality is certainly measured. With much praise there is +much censure. _Works_, viii. 288. See _ante_, ii. 36, and Boswell's +_Hebrides_, Aug. 23. + +[167] Of Johnson's conduct towards Warburton, a very honourable notice +is taken by the editor of _Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, not +admitted into the Collection of their respective Works_. After an able +and 'fond, though not undistinguishing,' consideration of Warburton's +character, he says, 'In two immortal works, Johnson has stood forth in +the foremost rank of his admirers. By the testimony of such a man, +impertinence must be abashed, and malignity itself must be softened. Of +literary merit, Johnson, as we all know, was a sagacious but a most +severe judge. Such was his discernment, that he pierced into the most +secret springs of human actions; and such was his integrity, that he +always weighed the moral characters of his fellow-creatures in the +"balance of the sanctuary." He was too courageous to propitiate a rival, +and too proud to truckle to a superiour. Warburton he knew, as I know +him, and as every man of sense and virtue would wish to be known,--I +mean, both from his own writings, and from the writings of those who +dissented from his principles, or who envied his reputation. But, as to +favours, he had never received or asked any from the Bishop of +Gloucester; and, if my memory fails me not, he had seen him only once, +when they met almost without design, conversed without much effort, and +parted without any lasting impressions of hatred or affection. Yet, with +all the ardour of sympathetic genius, Johnson has done that +spontaneously and ably, which, by some writers, had been before +attempted injudiciously, and which, by others, from whom more successful +attempts might have been expected, has not _hitherto_ been done at all. +He spoke well of Warburton, without insulting those whom Warburton +despised. He suppressed not the imperfections of this extraordinary man, +while he endeavoured to do justice to his numerous and transcendental +excellencies. He defended him when living, amidst the clamours of his +enemies; and praised him when dead, amidst the _silence of his +friends_.' + +Having availed myself of this editor's eulogy on my departed friend, for +which I warmly thank him, let me not suffer the lustre of his +reputation, honestly acquired by profound learning and vigorous +eloquence, to be tarnished by a charge of illiberality. He has been +accused of invidiously dragging again into light certain writings of a +person respectable by his talents, his learning, his station and his +age, which were published a great many years ago, and have since, it is +said, been silently given up by their authour. But when it is considered +that these writings were not _sins of youth_, but deliberate works of +one well-advanced in life, overflowing at once with flattery to a great +man of great interest in the Church, and with unjust and acrimonious +abuse of two men of eminent merit; and that, though it would have been +unreasonable to expect an humiliating recantation, no apology whatever +has been made in the cool of the evening, for the oppressive fervour of +the heat of the day; no slight relenting indication has appeared in any +note, or any corner of later publications; is it not fair to understand +him as superciliously persevering? When he allows the shafts to remain +in the wounds, and will not stretch forth a lenient hand, is it wrong, +is it not generous to become an indignant avenger? BOSWELL. Boswell +wrote on Feb. 16, 1789:--'There is just come out a publication which +makes a considerable noise. The celebrated Dr. Parr, of Norwich, +has--wickedly, shall we say?--but surely wantonly--published Warburton's +_Juvenile Translations and Discourse on Prodigies_, and Bishop Kurd's +attacks on Jortin and Dr. Thomas Leland, with his _Essay on the Delicacy +of Friendship_.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 275. The 'editor,' therefore, +is Parr, and the 'Warburtonian' is Hurd. Boswell had written to Parr on +Jan. 10, 1791:--'I request to hear by return of post if I may say or +guess that Dr. Parr is the editor of these tracts.' Parr's _Works_, +viii. 12. See also _ib_. iii. 405. + +[168] In Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 213, it is said, that this +meeting was 'at the Bishop of St. ----'s [Asaph's]. Boswell, by his +'careful enquiry,' no doubt meant to show that this statement was wrong. +Johnson is reported to have said:--' Dr. Warburton at first looked +surlily at me; but after we had been jostled into conversation he took +me to a window, asked me some questions, and before we parted was so +well pleased with me that he patted me.' + +[169] 'Warburton's style is copious without selection, and forcible +without neatness; he took the words that presented themselves; his +diction is coarse and impure; and his sentences are unmeasured.' +Johnson's _Works_, viii. 288. + +[170] Churchill, in _The Duellist (Poems_ ed. 1766, ii. 85), describes +Warburton as having + + 'A heart, which virtue ne'er disgraced; + A head where learning runs to waste.' + +[171] _Works_, viii. 230. + +[172] 'I never,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'heard Johnson pronounce the words, +"I beg your pardon, Sir," to any human creature but the apparently +soft and gentle Dr. Burney.' Burney had asked her whether she had +subscribed £100 to building a bridge. '"It is very comical, is it not, +Sir?" said I, turning to Dr. Johnson, "that people should tell such +unfounded stories." "It is," answered he, "neither comical nor serious, +my dear; it is only a wandering lie." This was spoken in his natural +voice, without a thought of offence, I am confident; but up bounced +Burney in a towering passion, and to my much amaze put on the hero, +surprising Dr. Johnson into a sudden request for pardon, and +protestation of not having ever intended to accuse his friend of a +falsehood.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 312. + +[173] In the original, '_nor_.' _Works_, viii. 311. + +[174] In the original, '_either_ wise or merry.' + +[175] In the original, '_stands upon record_'. + +[176] _Works_, viii. 316. Surely the words 'had not much to say' imply +that Johnson had heard the answer, but thought little of its wit. +According to Mr. Croker, the repartee is given in Ruffhead's _Life of +Pope_, and this book Johnson had seen. _Ante_, ii. 166. + +[177] Let me here express my grateful remembrance of Lord Somerville's +kindness to me, at a very early period. He was the first person of high +rank that took particular notice of me in the way most flattering to a +young man, fondly ambitious of being distinguished for his literary +talents; and by the honour of his encouragement made me think well of +myself, and aspire to deserve it better. He had a happy art of +communicating his varied knowledge of the world, in short remarks and +anecdotes, with a quiet pleasant gravity, that was exceedingly engaging. +Never shall I forget the hours which I enjoyed with him at his +apartments in the Royal Palace of Holy-Rood House, and at his seat near +Edinburgh, which he himself had formed with an elegant taste. BOSWELL. + +[178] _Ante_, iii. 392. + +[179] Boswell, I think, misunderstands Johnson. Johnson said (_Works_, +viii. 313) that 'Pope's admiration of the Great seems to have increased +in the advance of life.' His _Iliad_ he had dedicated to Congreve, but +'to his latter works he took care to annex names dignified with titles, +but was not very happy in his choice; for, except Lord Bathurst, none of +his noble friends were such as that a good man would wish to have his +intimacy with them known to posterity; he can derive little honour from +the notice of Cobham, Burlington, or Bolingbroke.' Johnson, it seems +clear, is speaking, not of the noblemen whom Pope knew in general, but +of those to whom he dedicated any of his works. Among them Lord +Marchmont is not found, so that on him no slight is cast. + +[180] Neither does Johnson actually say that Lord Marchmont had 'any +concern,' though perhaps he implies it. He writes:--'Pope left the care +of his papers to his executors; first to Lord Bolingbroke; and, if he +should not be living, to the Earl of Marchmont: undoubtedly expecting +them to be proud of the trust, and eager to extend his fame. But let no +man dream of influence beyond his life. After a decent time, Dodsley the +bookseller went to solicit preference as the publisher, and was told +that the parcel had not been yet inspected; and, whatever was the +reason, the world has been disappointed of what was "reserved for the +next age."' _Ib_. p. 306. As Bolingbroke outlived Pope by more than +seven years, it is clear, from what Johnson states, that he alone had +the care of the papers, and that he gave the answer to Dodsley. +Marchmont, however, knew the contents of the papers. _Ib_. p. 319. + +[181] This neglect did not arise from any ill-will towards Lord +Marchmont, but from inattention; just as he neglected to correct his +statement concerning the family of Thomson the poet, after it had been +shewn to be erroneous (_ante_, in. 359). MALONE. + +[182] _Works, vii. 420._ + +[183] Benjamin Victor published in 1722, a _Letter to Steele_, and in +1776, _Letters, Dramatic Pieces, and Poems_ Brit. Mus. Catalogue. + +[184] Mr. _Wilks_. See _ante_, i. 167, note 1. + +[185] See _post_, p. 91 and Macaulay's _Essay on Addison_ (ed. 1974, iv. +207). + +[186] 'A better and more Christian man scarcely ever breathed than +Joseph Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wine--why we +could scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have liked him +as we do.' Thackery's _English Humourists_, ed. 1858, p. 94. + +[187] See _ante_, i. 30, and iii. 155. + +[188] See _post_, under Dec. 2, 1784. + +[189] Parnell 'drank to excess.' _Ante_, iii. 155. + +[190] I should have thought that Johnson, who had felt the severe +affliction from which Parnell never recovered, would have preserved this +passage. BOSWELL. + +[191] Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson in May, 1780:-'Blackmore will be +rescued from the old wits who worried him much to your disliking; so, a +little for love of his Christianity, a little for love of his physic, a +little for love of his courage--and a little for love of contradiction, +you will save him from his malevolent critics, and perhaps do him the +honour to devour him yourself.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 122. See +_ante_, ii. 107. + +[192] 'This is a tribute which a painter owes to an architect who +composed like a painter; and was defrauded of the due reward of his +merit by the wits of his time, who did not understand the principles of +composition in poetry better than he did; and who knew little, or +nothing, of what he understood perfectly, the general ruling principles +of architecture and painting.' Reynolds's _Thirteenth Discourse_. + +[193] Johnson had not wished to write _Lyttelton's Life_. He wrote to +Lord Westcote, Lyttelton's brother, 'My desire is to avoid offence, and +be totally out of danger. I take the liberty of proposing to your +lordship, that the historical account should be written under your +direction by any friend you may be willing to employ, and I will only +take upon myself to examine the poetry.'--Croker's _Boswell_, p.650. + +[194] It was not _Molly Aston_ (_ante_ i. 83) but Miss Hill Boothby +(_ib_.) of whom Mrs. Thrale wrote. She says (_Anec_. p.160):--'Such was +the purity of her mind, Johnson said, and such the graces of her manner, +that Lord Lyttelton and he used to strive for her preference with an +emulation that occasioned hourly disgust, and ended in lasting +animosity.' There is surely much exaggeration in this account. + +[195] Let not my readers smile to think of Johnson's being a candidate +for female favour; Mr. Peter Garrick assured me, that he was told by a +lady, that in her opinion Johnson was 'a very _seducing man_.' +Disadvantages of person and manner may be forgotten, where intellectual +pleasure is communicated to a susceptible mind; and that Johnson was +capable of feeling the most delicate and disinterested attachment, +appears from the following letter, which is published by Mrs. Thrale +[_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 391], with some others to the same person, of +which the excellence is not so apparent:-- + +'TO MISS BOOTHBY. January, 1755. + +DEAREST MADAM, + +Though I am afraid your illness leaves you little leisure for the +reception of airy civilities, yet I cannot forbear to pay you my +congratulations on the new year; and to declare my wishes that your +years to come may be many and happy. In this wish, indeed, I include +myself, who have none but you on whom my heart reposes; yet surely I +wish your good, even though your situation were such as should permit +you to communicate no gratifications to, dearest, dearest Madam, Your, +&c. SAM JOHNSON.' (BOSWELL.) + +[196] Horace, _Odes_, iv. 3.2, quoted also _ante_, i.352, note. + +[197] The passage which Boswell quotes in part is as follows:--'When +they were first published they were kindly commended by the _Critical +Reviewers_; [i.e. the writers in the _Critical Review_. In some of the +later editions of Boswell these words have been printed, _critical +reviewers_; so as to include all the reviewers who criticised the work]; +and poor Lyttelton, with humble gratitude, returned, in a note which I +have read, acknowledgements which can never be proper, since they must +be paid either for flattery or for justice.' _Works_, viii.491. Boswell +forgets that what may be proper in one is improper in another. +Lyttelton, when he wrote this note, had long been a man of high +position. He had 'stood in the first rank of opposition,' he had been +Chancellor of the Exchequer, and when he lost his post, he had been +'recompensed with a peerage.' See _ante_, ii. 126. + +[198] See _post_, June 12 and 15, 1784. + +[199] He adopted it from indolence. Writing on Aug. 1, 1780, after +mentioning the failure of his application to Lord Westcote, he +continues:--'There is an ingenious scheme to save a day's work, or part +of a day, utterly defeated. Then what avails it to be wise? The plain +and the artful man must both do their own work.--But I think I have got +a life of Dr. Young.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 173. + +[200] _Gent. Mag._ vol. lv. p. 10. BOSWELL. + +[201] By a letter to Johnson from Croft, published in the later editions +of the _Lives_, it seems that Johnson only expunged one passage. Croft +says:--'Though I could not prevail on you to make any alteration, you +insisted on striking out one passage, because it said, that, if I did +not wish you to live long for your sake, I did for the sake of myself +and the world.' _Works_ viii.458. + +[202] The Late Mr. Burke. MALONE. + +[203] See_post_, June 2, 1781. + +[204] Johnson's _Works_, viii 440. + +[205] _Ib._ p.436 + +[206] 'Eheu! fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni.' 'How swiftly +glide our flying years!' FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, ii.14. i. + +[207] The late Mr. James Ralph told Lord Macartney, that he passed an +evening with Dr. Young at Lord Melcombe's (then Mr. Dodington) at +Hammersmith. The Doctor happening to go out into the garden, Mr. +Dodington observed to him, on his return, that it was a dreadful night, +as in truth it was, there being a violent storm of rain and wind. 'No, +Sir, (replied the Doctor) it is a very fine night. The LORD is +abroad.' BOSWELL. + +[208] See _ante_, ii.96, and iii.251; and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. +30. + +[209] 'An ardent judge, who zealous in his trust, With warmth gives +sentence, yet is always just.' Pope's _Essay on Criticism_, l.677. + +[210] _Works_, viii.459. Though the _Life of Young_ is by Croft, yet the +critical remarks are by Johnson. + +[211] _Ib._ p.460. + +[212] Johnson refers to Chambers's _Dissertation on Oriental Gardening_, +which was ridiculed in the _Heroic Epistle_. See _post_, under May 8, +1781, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 13. + +[213] Boswell refers to the death of Narcissa in the third of the _Night +Thoughts_. While he was writing the _Life of Johnson_ Mrs. Boswell was +dying of consumption in (to quote Young's words) + + The rigid north, + Her native bed, on which bleak + Boreas blew.' + +She died nearly two years before _The Life_ was published. + +[214] _Proverbs_, xviii.14. + +[215] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 16. + +[216] See vol. i. page 133. BOSWELL. + +[217] 'In his economy Swift practised a peculiar and offensive +parsimony, without disguise or apology. The practice of saving being +once necessary, became habitual, and grew first ridiculous, and at last +detestable. But his avarice, though it might exclude pleasure, was never +suffered to encroach upon his virtue. He was frugal by inclination, but +liberal by principle; and if the purpose to which he destined his little +accumulations be remembered, with his distribution of occasional +charity, it will perhaps appear, that he only liked one mode of expense +better than another, and saved merely that he might have something to +give.' _Works_, viii.222. + +[218] _Ib_. p.225. + +[219] Mr. Chalmers here records a curious literary anecdote--that when a +new and enlarged edition of the _Lives of the Poets_ was published in +1783, Mr. Nichols, in justice to the purchasers of the preceding +editions, printed the additions in a separate pamphlet, and advertised +that it might be had _gratis_. Not ten copies were called for. CROKER. + +[220] See _ante_, p.9, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 15. + +[221] _Works_, vii. Preface. + +[222] From this disreputable class, I except an ingenious though not +satisfactory defence of HAMMOND, which I did not see till lately, by the +favour of its authour, my amiable friend, the Reverend Mr. Bevill, who +published it without his name. It is a juvenile performance, but +elegantly written, with classical enthusiasm of sentiment, and yet with +a becoming modesty, and great respect for Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL. + +[223] Before the _Life of Lyttelton_ was published there was, it seems, +some coolness between Mrs. Montagu and Johnson. Miss Burney records the +following conversation in September 1778. 'Mark now,' said Dr. Johnson, +'if I contradict Mrs. Montagu to-morrow. I am determined, let her say +what she will, that I will not contradict her.' MRS. THRALE. 'Why to be +sure, Sir, you did put her a little out of countenance last time she +came.'...DR. JOHNSON. 'Why, Madam, I won't answer that I shan't +contradict her again, if she provokes me as she did then; but a less +provocation I will withstand. I believe I am not high in her good graces +already; and I begin (added he, laughing heartily) to tremble for my +admission into her new house. I doubt I shall never see the inside of +it.' Yet when they met a few days later all seemed friendly. 'When Mrs. +Montagu's new house was talked of, Dr. Johnson in a jocose manner, +desired to know if he should be invited to see it. "Ay, sure," cried +Mrs. Montagu, looking well pleased, "or else I shan't like it."' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.118, 126. 'Mrs. Montagu's dinners and assemblies,' +writes Wraxall, 'were principally supported by, and they fell with, the +giant talents of Johnson, who formed the nucleus round which all the +subordinate members revolved.' Wraxall's _Memoirs_, ed. 1815, i.160. + +[224] Described by the author as 'a body of original essays.' 'I +consider _The Observer,'_ he arrogantly continues, 'as fairly enrolled +amongst the standard classics of our native language.' Cumberland's +_Memoirs_, ii.199. In his account of this _Feast of Reason_ he quite as +much satirises Mrs. Montagu as praises her. He introduces Johnson in it, +annoyed by an impertinent fellow, and saying to him:--'Have I said +anything, good Sir, that you do not comprehend?' 'No, no,' replied he, +'I perfectly well comprehend every word you have been saying.' 'Do you +so, Sir?' said the philosopher, 'then I heartily ask pardon of the +company for misemploying their time so egregiously.' _The Observer_, +No. 25. + +[225] Miss Burney gives an account of an attack made by Johnson, at a +dinner at Streatham, in June 1781, on Mr. Pepys (_post_, p. 82), 'one of +Mrs. Montagu's steadiest abettors.' 'Never before,' she writes, 'have I +seen Dr. Johnson speak with so much passion. "Mr. Pepys," he cried, in a +voice the most enraged, "I understand you are offended by my _Life of +Lord Lyttelton_. What is it you have to say against it? Come forth, man! +Here am I, ready to answer any charge you can bring."' After the quarrel +had been carried even into the drawing-room, Mrs. Thrale, 'with great +spirit and dignity, said that she should be very glad to hear no more of +it. Everybody was silenced, and Dr. Johnson, after a pause, +said:--"Well, Madam, you _shall_ hear no more of it; yet I will defend +myself in every part and in every atom."... Thursday morning, Dr. +Johnson went to town for some days, but not before Mrs. Thrale read him +a very serious lecture upon giving way to such violence; which he bore +with a patience and quietness that even more than made his peace with +me.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 45. Two months later the quarrel was +made up. 'Mr. Pepys had desired this meeting by way of a reconciliation; +and Dr. Johnson now made amends for his former violence, as he advanced +to him, as soon as he came in, and holding out his hand to him received +him with a cordiality he had never shewn him before. Indeed he told me +himself that he thought the better of Mr. Pepys for all that had +passed.' _Ib._ p. 82. Miss Burney, in Dec. 1783, described the quarrel +to Mr. Cambridge:--'"I never saw Dr. Johnson really in a passion but +then; and dreadful indeed it was to see. I wished myself away a thousand +times. It was a frightful scene. He so red, poor Mr. Pepys so pale." "It +was behaving ill to Mrs. Thrale certainly to quarrel in her house." +"Yes, but he never repeated it; though he wished of all things to have +gone through just such another scene with Mrs. Montagu; and to refrain +was an act of heroic forbearance. She came to Streatham one morning, and +I saw he was dying to attack her." "And how did Mrs. Montagu herself +behave?" Very stately, indeed, at first. She turned from him very +stiffly, and with a most distant air, and without even courtesying to +him, and with a firm intention to keep to what she had publicly +declared--that she would never speak to him more. However, he went up to +her himself, longing to begin, and very roughly said:--"Well, Madam, +what's become of your fine new house? I hear no more of it." "But how +did she bear this?" "Why, she was obliged to answer him; and she soon +grew so frightened--as everybody does--that she was as civil as ever." +He laughed heartily at this account. But I told him Dr. Johnson was now +much softened. He had acquainted me, when I saw him last, that he had +written to her upon the death of Mrs. Williams [see _post_, Sept. 18, +1783, note], because she had allowed her something yearly, which now +ceased. "And I had a very kind answer from her," said he. "Well then, +Sir," cried I, "I hope peace now will be again proclaimed." "Why, I am +now," said he, "come to that time when I wish all bitterness and +animosity to be at an end."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 290. + +[226] January, 1791. BOSWELL. Hastings's trial had been dragging on for +more than three years when _The Life of Johnson_ was published. It began +in 1788, and ended in 1795. + +[227] _Gent. Mag_. for 1785, p. 412. + +[228] Afterwards Sir Robert Chambers, one of his Majesty's Judges in +India. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i.274. + +[229] 'He conceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might +with advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an English +gentleman; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is said that the +University of Oxford, in which Oriental learning had never, since the +revival of letters, been wholly neglected, was to be the seat of the +institution which he contemplated.' Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, +iii. 338. + +[230] Lord North's. Feeble though it was, it lasted eight years longer. + +[231] Jones's _Persian Grammar_. Boswell. It was published in 1771. + +[232] _Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_. BOSWELL. + +[233] See _ante_, ii. 296. + +[234] Macaulay wrote of Hastings's answer to this letter:--'It is a +remarkable circumstance that one of the letters of Hastings to Dr. +Johnson bears date a very few hours after the death of Nuncomar. While +the whole settlement was in commotion, while a mighty and ancient +priesthood were weeping over the remains of their chief, the conqueror +in that deadly grapple sat down, with characteristic self-possession, to +write about the _Tour to the Hebrides_, Jones's _Persian Grammar_, and +the history, traditions, arts, and natural productions of India.' +Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, iii.376. + +[235] Johnson wrote the Dedication, _Ante_, i.383. + +[236] See _ante_, ii.82, note 2. + +[237] _Copy_ is _manuscript for printing_. + +[238] Published by Kearsley, with this well-chosen motto:--'From his +cradle He was a SCHOLAR, and a ripe and good one: And to add greater +honours to his age Than man could give him, he died fearing Heaven.' +SHAKSPEARE. BOSWELL. This quotation is a patched up one from _Henry +VIII_, act iv. sc.2. The quotation in the text is found on p. 89 of this +_Life of Johnson_. + +[239] Mr. Thrale had removed, that is to say, from his winter residence +in the Borough. Mrs. Piozzi has written opposite this passage in her +copy of Boswell:--'Spiteful again! He went by direction of his +physicians where they could easiest attend to him.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, +i. 91. There was, perhaps, a good deal of truth in Boswell's +supposition, for in 1779 Johnson had told her that he saw 'with +indignation her despicable dread of living in the Borough.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii.92. Johnson had a room in the new house. 'Think,' wrote +Hannah More, 'of Johnson's having apartments in Grosvenor-square! but he +says it is not half so convenient as Bolt-court.' H. More's +_Memoirs_, i.2O7. + +[240] See _ante_, iii. 250. + +[241] Shakspeare makes Hamlet thus describe his father:-- + + 'See what a grace was seated on this brow: + Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, + An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; + A station like the herald, Mercury, + New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; + A combination, and a form, indeed, + Where every god did seem to set his seal, + To give the world assurance of a man.! + [Act iii. sc. 4.] + +Milton thus pourtrays our first parent, Adam:-- + + 'His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd + Absolute rule; and hyacinthin locks + Round from his parted forelock manly hung + Clus'tring, but not beneath his shoulders broad.' + [_P.L._ iv. 300.] BOSWELL. + +[242] 'Grattan's Uncle, Dean Marlay [afterwards Bishop of Waterford], +had a good deal of the humour of Swift. Once, when the footman was out +of the way, he ordered the coachman to fetch some water from the well. +To this the man objected, that _his_ business was to drive, not to run +on errands. "Well, then," said Marlay, "bring out the coach and four, +set the pitcher inside, and drive to the well;"--a service which was +several times repeated, to the great amusement of the village.' Rogers's +_Table-Talk_, p.176. + +[243] See _ante_, ii. 241, for Johnson's contempt of puns. + +[244] 'He left not faction, but of that was left.' _Absalom and +Achitophel_, l. 568. + +[245] Boswell wrote of Gibbon in 1779:--'He is an ugly, affected, +disgusting fellow, and poisons our Literary Club to me.' _Letters of +Boswell_, p.242. See _ante_, ii.443, note 1. + +[246] _The schools_ in this sense means a University. + +[247] See _ante_, ii.224. + +[248] Up to the year 1770, controverted elections had been tried before +a Committee of the whole House. By the _Grenville Act_ which was passed +in that year they were tried by a select committee. _Parl. Hist._ xvi. +902. Johnson, in _The False Alarm_ (1770), describing the old method of +trial, says;--'These decisions have often been apparently partial, and +sometimes tyrannically oppressive.' _Works, vi. 169._ _In The Patriot_ +(1774), he says:--'A disputed election is now tried with the same +scrupulousness and solemnity as any other title.' _Ib._ p.223. See +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov.10. + +[249] Miss Burney describes a dinner at Mr. Thrale's, about this time, +at which she met Johnson, Boswell, and Dudley Long. Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, ii. 14. + +[250] See _ante_, ii.171, _post_, two paragraphs before April 10, 1783, +and May 15, 1784. + +[251] Johnson wrote on May i, 1780:--'There was the Bishop of St. Asaph +who comes to every place.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 111. Hannah More, in +1782, describes an assembly at this Bishop's. 'Conceive to yourself 150 +or 200 people met together dressed in the extremity of the fashion, +painted as red as Bacchanals...ten or a dozen card-tables crammed with +dowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics and yellow admirals.' +_Memoirs_, i.242. He was elected a member of the Literary Club, 'with +the sincere approbation and eagerness of all present,' wrote Mr. +(afterwards Sir William) Jones; elected, too, on the same day on which +Lord Chancellor Camden was rejected (_ante_, iii. 311, note 2). Two or +three years later Sir William married the Bishop's daughter. _Life of +Sir W Jones_, pp.240, 279. + +[252] 'Trust not to looks, nor credit outward show; The villain lurks +beneath the cassocked beau.' Churchill's _Poems_ (ed. 1766), ii.41. + +[253] No. 2. + +[254] See vol. i p. 378. BOSWELL. + +[255] Northcote, according to Hazlitt, said of this character with some +truth, that 'it was like one of Kneller's portraits--it would do for +anybody.' Northcote's _Conversations_, p.86. + +[256] See _post_, p.98. + +[257] _London Chronicle_, May 2, 1769. This respectable man is there +mentioned to have died on the 3rd of April, that year, at Cofflect, the +seat of Thomas Veale, Esq., in his way to London. BOSWELL. + +[258] Dr. Harte was the tutor of Mr. Eliot and of young Stanhope, Lord +Chesterfield's illegitimate son. 'My morning hopes,' wrote Chesterfield +to his son at Rome, 'are justly placed in Mr. Harte, and the masters he +will give you; my evening ones in the Roman ladies: pray be attentive to +both.' Chesterfield's _Letters_, ii.263. See _ante_, i.163, note 1, +ii.120, and _post_, June 27, 1784. + +[259] Robertson's _Scotland_ is in the February list of books in the +_Gent. Mag_. for 1759; Harte's _Gustavus Adolphus_ and Hume's _England +under the House of Tudor_ in the March list. Perhaps it was from Hume's +competition that Harte suffered. + +[260] _Essays on Husbandry_, 1764. + +[261] See _ante_, iii. 381. + +[262] 'Christmas Day, 1780. I shall not attempt to see Vestris till the +weather is milder, though it is the universal voice that he is the only +perfect being that has dropped from the clouds, within the memory of man +or woman...When the Parliament meets he is to be thanked by the +Speaker.' Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 480. + +[263] Here Johnson uses his title of Doctor (_ante_, ii.332, note 1), +but perhaps he does so as quoting the paragraph in the newspaper. + +[264] William, the first Viscount Grimston. BOSWELL. Swift thus +introduces him in his lines _On Poetry, A Rhapsody_:-- + + 'When death had finished Blackmore's reign, + The leaden crown devolved to thee, + Great poet of the hollow tree.' + +Mr. Nichols, in a note on this, says that Grimston 'wrote the play when +a boy, to be acted by his schoolfellows.' Swift's _Works_ (1803), xi. +297. Two editions were published apparently by Grimston himself, one +bearing his name but no date, and the other the date of 1705 but no +name. By 1705 Grimston was 22 years old--no longer a boy. The former +edition was published by Bernard Lintott at the Cross Keys, +Fleet-street, and the latter by the same bookseller at the Middle Temple +Gate. The grossness of a young man of birth at this period is shewn by +the Preface. The third edition with the elephant on the tight-rope was +published in 1736. There is another illustration in which an ass is +represented bearing a coronet. Grimston's name is not given here, but +there is a dedication 'To the Right Sensible the Lord Flame.' Three or +four notes are added, one of which is very gross. The election was for +St. Alban's, for which borough he was thrice returned. + +[265] Dr. T. Campbell records (_Diary_, p. 69) that 'Boswell asked +Johnson if he had never been under the hands of a dancing master. "Aye, +and a dancing mistress too," says the Doctor; "but I own to you I never +took a lesson but one or two; my blind eyes showed me I could never make +a proficiency."' + +[266] See vol. ii. p.286. BOSWELL. + +[267] Miss Burney writes of him in Feb. 1779:--'He is a professed +minority man, and very active and zealous in the opposition. Men of such +different principles as Dr. Johnson and Sir Philip cannot have much +cordiality in their political debates; however, the very superior +abilities of the former, and the remarkable good breeding of the latter +have kept both upon good terms.' She describes a hot argument between +them, and continues:--'Dr. Johnson pursued him with unabating vigour and +dexterity, and at length, though he could not convince, he so entirely +baffled him, that Sir Philip was self-compelled to be quiet--which, with +a very good grace, he confessed. Dr. Johnson then recollecting himself, +and thinking, as he owned afterwards, that the dispute grew too serious, +with a skill all his own, suddenly and unexpectedly turned it to +burlesque.' D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 192. + +[268] See _post_, Jan. 20, 1782. + +[269] See _ante_, ii.355. + +[270] Here Johnson condescended to play upon the words _Long_ and +_short_. But little did he know that, owing to Mr. Long's reserve in his +presence, he was talking thus of a gentleman distinguised amongst his +acquaintance for acuteness of wit; one to whom I think the French +expression, '_Il pétille d'esprit_,' is particularly He has gratified me +by mentioning that he heard Dr. Johnson say, 'Sir, if I were to lose +Boswell, it would be a limb amputated.' BOSWELL. + +[271] William Weller Pepys, Esq., one of the Masters in the High Court +of Chancery, and well known in polite circles. My acquaintance with him +is not sufficient to enable me to speak of him from my own judgement. +But I know that both at Eton and Oxford he was the intimate friend of +the late Sir James Macdonald, the _Marcellus_ of Scotland [_ante_, +i.449], whose extraordinary talents, learning, and virtues, will ever be +remembered with admiration and regret. BOSWELL. + +[272] See note, _ante_, p. 65, which describes an attack made by Johnson +on Pepys more than two months after this conversation. + +[273] Johnson once said to Mrs. Thrale:--'Why, Madam, you often provoke +me to say severe things by unreasonable commendation. If you would not +call for my praise, I would not give you my censure; but it constantly +moves my indignation to be applied to, to speak well of a thing which I +think contemptible.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.132. See _ante_, +iii.225. + +[274] 'Mrs. Thrale,' wrote Miss Burney in 1780, 'is a most dear +creature, but never restrains her tongue in anything, nor, indeed, any +of her feelings. She laughs, cries, scolds, sports, reasons, makes +fun--does everything she has an inclination to do, without any study of +prudence, or thought of blame; and, pure and artless as is this +character, it often draws both herself and others into scrapes, which a +little discretion would avoid.' _Ib_. i.386. Later on she writes:--'Mrs. +Thrale, with all her excellence, can give up no occasion of making +sport, however unseasonable or even painful... I knew she was not to be +safely trusted with anything she could turn into ridicule.' _Ib_. +ii.24 and 29. + +[275] Perhaps Mr. Seward, who was constantly at the Thrales' (_ante_, +iii. 123). + +[276] See _ante_, iii.228, 404. + +[277] It was the seventh anniversary of Goldsmith's death. + +[278] 'Mrs. Garrick and I,' wrote Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 208), 'were +invited to an assembly at Mrs. Thrale's. There was to be a fine concert, +and all the fine people were to be there. Just as my hair was dressed, +came a servant to forbid our coming, for that Mr. Thrale was dead.' + +[279] _Pr. and Med._ p 191. BOSWELL. The rest of the entry should be +given:--'On Wednesday, 11, was buried my dear friend Thrale, who died on +Wednesday 4; and with him were buried many of my hopes and pleasures. +[On Sunday, 1st, the physician warned him against full meals, on Monday +I pressed him to observance of his rules, but without effect, and +Tuesday I was absent, but his wife pressed forbearance upon him again +unsuccessfully. At night I was called to him, and found him senseless in +strong convulsions. I staid in the room, except that I visited Mrs. +Thrale twice.] About five, I think, on Wednesday morning he expired; I +felt, &c. Farewell. May God that delighteth in mercy have had mercy on +thee. I had constantly prayed for him some time before his death. The +decease of him from whose friendship I had obtained many opportunities +of amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts as to a refuge from +misfortunes, has left me heavy. But my business is with myself.' The +passage enclosed in brackets I have copied from the original MS. Mr. +Strahan, the editor, omitted it, no doubt from feelings of delicacy. +What a contrast in this to the widow who published a letter in which she +had written:--'I wish that you would put in a word of your own to Mr. +Thrale about eating less!' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.130. Baretti, in a note +on _Piozzi Letters_, ii.142, says that 'nobody ever had spirit enough to +tell Mr. Thrale that his fits were apoplectic; such is the blessing of +being rich that nobody dares to speak out.' In Johnson's _Works_ (1787), +xi.203, it is recorded that 'Johnson, who attended Thrale in his last +moments, said, "His servants would have waited upon him in this awful +period, and why not his friend?"' + +[280] Johnson's letters to the widow show how much he felt Thrale's +death. 'April 5, 1781. I am not without my part of the calamity. No +death since that of my wife has ever oppressed me like this. April 7. My +part of the loss hangs upon me. I have lost a friend of boundless +kindness, at an age when it is very unlikely that I should find another. +April 9. Our sorrow has different effects; you are withdrawn into +solitude, and I am driven into company. I am afraid of thinking what I +have lost. I never had such a friend before. April 11. I feel myself +like a man beginning a new course of life. I had interwoven myself with +my dear friend.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 191-97. 'I have very often,' +wrote Miss Burney, in the following June, 'though I mention them not, +long and melancholy discourses with Dr. Johnson about our dear deceased +master, whom, indeed, he regrets incessantly.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +ii. 63. On his next birthday, he wrote:--'My first knowledge of Thrale +was in 1765. I enjoyed his favour for almost a fourth part of my life.' +_Pr. and Med._ p.191. One or two passages in Mrs. Thrale's Letters shew +her husband's affection for Johnson. On May 3, 1776, she writes:--'Mr. +Thrale says he shall not die in peace without seeing Rome, and I am sure +he will go nowhere that he can help without you.' _Piozzi Letters_, +i.317. A few days later, she speaks of 'our dear master, who cannot be +quiet without you for a week.' _Ib._ p.329. Johnson, in his fine epitaph +on Thrale (_Works_, i.153) broke through a rule which he himself had +laid down. In his _Essay on Epitaphs_ (_Ib._ v 263), he said:--'It is +improper to address the epitaph to the passenger [traveller], a custom +which an injudicious veneration for antiquity introduced again at the +revival of letters.' Yet in the monument in Streatham Church, we find +the same _Abi viator_ which he had censured in an epitaph on Henry IV +of France. + +[281] Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale shew that he had long been well +acquainted with the state of her husband's business. In the year 1772, +Mr. Thrale was in money difficulties. Johnson writes to her almost as if +he were a partner in the business. 'The first consequence of our late +trouble ought to be an endeavour to brew at a cheaper rate...Unless this +can be done, nothing can help us; and if this be done, we shall not want +help.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.57. He urges economy in the household, and +continues:--'But the fury of housewifery will soon subside; and little +effect will be produced, but by methodical attention and even +frugality.' _Ib._ p.64. In another letter he writes:--'This year will +undoubtedly be an year of struggle and difficulty; but I doubt not of +getting through it; and the difficulty will grow yearly less and less. +Supposing that our former mode of life kept us on the level, we shall, +by the present contraction of expense, gain upon fortune a thousand a +year, even though no improvements can be made in the conduct of the +trade.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 66. Four years later, he writes:--'To-day I +went to look into my places at the Borough. I called on Mr. Perkins in +the counting-house. He crows and triumphs, as we go on we shall double +our business.' _Ib._ p. 333. When the executors first met, he +wrote:--'We met to-day, and were told of mountainous difficulties, till +I was provoked to tell them, that if there were really so much to do and +suffer, there would be no executors in the world. Do not suffer yourself +to be terrified.' _Ib._ ii. 197. Boswell says (_ante_, ii. 44l):--'I +often had occasion to remark, Johnson loved business, loved to have his +wisdom actually operate on real life.' When Boswell had purchased a +farm, 'Johnson,' he writes (_ante_, iii. 207), 'made several +calculations of the expense and profit; for he delighted in exercising +his mind on the science of numbers.' The letter (_ante_, ii. 424) +about the book-trade 'exhibits,' to use Boswell's words, 'his +extraordinary precision and acuteness.' Boswell wrote to Temple:--'Dr. +Taylor has begged of Dr. Johnson to come to London, to assist him in +some interesting business; and Johnson loves much to be so consulted, +and so comes up.' _Ante_, iii. 51, note 3. + +[282] Johnson, as soon as the will was read, wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You +have, £500 for your immediate expenses, and, £2000 a year, with both the +houses and all the goods.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 192. Beattie wrote on +June 1:--'Everybody says Mr. Thrale should have left Johnson £200 a +year; which, from a fortune like his, would have been a very +inconsiderable deduction.' Beattie's _Life_, ed. 1824, p. 290. + +[283] Miss Burney thus writes of the day of the sale:--'Mrs. Thrale went +early to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr. Barclay, the Quaker, +who was the bidder. She was in great agitation of mind, and told me if +all went well she would wave a white handkerchief out of the +coach-window. Four o'clock came and dinner was ready, and no Mrs. +Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon the lawn, where we sauntered in eager +expectation, till near six, and then the coach appeared in sight, and a +white handkerchief was waved from it.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 34. +The brewery was sold for £135,000. See _post_, June 16, 1781. + +[284] See _post_, paragraph before June 22, 1784. + +[285] Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 369, says that 'the +two last years of Thrale's life his brewery brought him £30,000 a year +neat profit.' + +[286] In the fourth edition of his _Dictionary_, published in 1773, +Johnson introduced a second definition of _patriot_:--'It is sometimes +used for a factious disturber of the government.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, +ii. 77) wrote on Feb. 21, 1772:--'Charles Fox is commenced patriot, and +is already attempting to pronounce the words, _country_, _liberty_, +_corruption_, &c.; with what success time will discover.' Forty years +before Johnson begged not to meet patriots, Sir Robert Walpole said:--'A +patriot, Sir! why patriots spring up like mushrooms. I could raise fifty +of them within the four-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of them in +one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolent +demand, and up starts a patriot. I have never been afraid of making +patriots; but I disdain and despise all their efforts.' Coxe's +_Walpole_, i. 659. See _ante_, ii. 348, and iii. 66. + +[287] He was tried on Feb. 5 and 6, 1781. _Ann. Reg._ xxiv. 217. + +[288] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 210) records a dinner on a Tuesday in +this year. (Like Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, she cared nothing for +dates.) It was in the week after Thrale's death. It must have been the +dinner here mentioned by Boswell; for it was at a Bishop's (Shipley of +St. Asaph), and Sir Joshua and Boswell were among the guests. Why +Boswell recorded none of Johnson's conversation may be guessed from what +she tells. 'I was heartily disgusted,' she says, 'with Mr. Boswell, who +came up stairs after dinner much disordered with wine.' (See _post_, p. +109). The following morning Johnson called on her. 'He reproved me,' she +writes, 'with pretended sharpness for reading _Les Pensées de Pascal_, +alleging that as a good Protestant I ought to abstain from books written +by Catholics. I was beginning to stand upon my defence, when he took me +with both hands, and with a tear running down his cheeks, "Child," said +he, with the most affecting earnestness, "I am heartily glad that you +read pious books, by whomsoever they may be written.'" + +[289] On Good-Friday, in 1778, Johnson recorded:--'It has happened this +week, as it never happened in Passion-week before, that I have never +dined at home, and I have therefore neither practised abstinence nor +peculiar devotion' _Pr. and Med._ p. 163. + +[290] No. 7. + +[291] See _ante_, iii. 302. + +[292] Richard Berenger, Esq., many years Gentleman of the Horse, and +first Equerry to his present Majesty. MALONE. According to Mrs. Piozzi +(_Anec._ p. 156), he was Johnson's 'standard of true elegance.' + +[293] See _ante_, iii. 186. + +[294] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 449) thus describes Addison's 'familiar +day,' on the authority of Pope:--'He studied all morning; then dined at +a tavern; and went afterwards to Button's [coffee-house]. From the +coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late, and +drank too much wine.' Spence (_Anec._ p. 286) adds, on the authority of +Pope, that 'Addison passed each day alike, and much in the manner that +Dryden did. Dryden employed his mornings in writing; dined _en famille_; +and then went to Wills's; only he came home earlier a'nights' + +[295] Mr. Foss says of Blackstone:--'Ere he had been long on the bench +he experienced the bad effects of the studious habits in which he had +injudiciously indulged in his early life, and of his neglect to take the +necessary amount of exercise, to which he was specially averse.' He died +at the age of 56. Foss's _Judges_, viii. 250. He suffered greatly from +his corpulence. His portrait in the Bodleian shews that he was a very +fat man. Malone says that Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell) wrote to +Blackstone's family to apologise for Boswell's anecdote. Prior's +_Malone_, p. 415. Scott would not have thought any the worse of +Blackstone for his bottle of port; both he and his brother, the +Chancellor, took a great deal of it. 'Lord Eldon liked plain port; the +stronger the better.' Twiss's _Eldon_, iii. 486. Some one asked him +whether Lord Stowell took much exercise. 'None,' he said, 'but the +exercise of eating and drinking.' _Ib._ p. 302. Yet both men got through +a vast deal of hard work, and died, Eldon at the age of 86, and +Stowell of 90. + +[296] See this explained, pp. 52, 53 of this volume. BOSWELL. + +[297] See _ante_, ii. 7. + +[298] William Scott was a tutor of University College at the age of +nineteen. He held the office for ten years--to 1775. He wrote to his +father in 1772 about his younger brother John (afterwards Lord Eldon), +who had just made a run-away match:--'The business in which I am engaged +is so extremely disagreeable in itself, and so destructive to health (if +carried on with such success as can render it at all considerable in +point of profit) that I do not wonder at his unwillingness to succeed me +in it.' Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 47, 74. + +[299] The account of her marriage given By John Wesley in a letter +to his brother-in-law, Mr. Hall, is curious. He wrote on Dec. 22, +1747:--'More than twelve years ago you told me God had revealed it to you +that you should marry my youngest sister ... You asked and gained her +consent... In a few days you had a counter-revelation, that you was not +to marry her, but her sister. This last error was far worse than the +first. But you was not quite above conviction. So, in spite of her poor +astonished parents, of her brothers, of all your vows and promises, you +shortly after jilted the younger and married the elder sister.' Wesley's +_Journal_, ii. 39. Mrs. Hall suffered greatly for marrying a wretch who +had so cruelly treated her own sister, Southey's _Wesley_, i. 369. + +[300] See _ante_, iii. 269. + +[301] The original 'Robinhood' was a debating society which met near +Temple-Bar. Some twenty years before this time Goldsmith belonged to it, +and, it was said, Burke. Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 287, and Prior's +_Burke_, p. 79. The president was a baker by trade. 'Goldsmith, after +hearing him give utterance to a train of strong and ingenious reasoning, +exclaimed to Derrick, "That man was meant by nature for a Lord +Chancellor." Derrick replied, "No, no, not so high; he is only intended +for Master of the _Rolls_."' Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. 420. Fielding, in +1752, in _The Covent-Garden Journal_, Nos. 8 and 9, takes off this +Society and the baker. A fragment of a report of their discussions which +he pretends to have discovered, begins thus:--'This evenin the questin +at the Robinhood was, whether relidgin was of any youse to a sosyaty; +baken bifor mee To'mmas Whytebred, baker.' Horace Walpole (_Letters_, +iv. 288), in 1764, wrote of the visit of a French gentleman to England, +'He has _seen_ ... Jews, Quakers, Mr. Pitt, the Royal Society, the +Robinhood, Lord Chief-Justice Pratt, the Arts-and-Sciences, &c.' Romilly +(_Life_, i. 168), in a letter dated May 22, 1781, says that during the +past winter several of these Sunday religious debating societies had +been established. 'The auditors,' he was assured, 'were mostly weak, +well-meaning people, who were inclined to Methodism;' but among the +speakers were 'some designing villains, and a few coxcombs, with more +wit than understanding.' 'Nothing,' he continues, 'could raise up +panegyrists of these societies but what has lately happened, an attempt +to suppress them. The Solicitor-General has brought a bill into +Parliament for this purpose. The bill is drawn artfully enough; for, as +these societies are held on Sundays, and people pay for admittance, he +has joined them with a famous tea-drinking house [Carlisle House], +involving them both in the same fate, and entitling his bill, _A Bill to +regulate certain Abuses and Profanations of the Lord's Day_.' The Bill +was carried; on a division none being found among the Noes but the two +tellers. The penalties for holding a meeting were £200 for the master of +the house, £100 for the moderator of the meeting, and £50 for each of +the servants at the door. _Parl. Hist._ xxii. 262, 279. + +[302] _St. Matthew_, xxvii. 52. + +[303] I _Corinthians_, xv. 37. + +[304] As this subject frequently recurs in these volumes, the reader may +be led erroneously to suppose that Dr. Johnson was so fond of such +discussions, as frequently to introduce them. But the truth is, that the +authour himself delighted in talking concerning ghosts, and what he has +frequently denominated _the mysterious_; and therefore took every +opportunity of _leading_ Johnson to converse on such subjects. MALONE. +See _ante_, i. 406. + +[305] Macbean (Johnson's old amanuensis, _ante_, i. 187) is not in +Boswell's list of guests; but in the Pemb. Coll. MSS., there is the +following entry on Monday, April 16:--'Yesterday at dinner were Mrs. +Hall, Mr. Levet, Macbean, Boswel (sic), Allen. Time passed in talk after +dinner. At seven, I went with Mrs. Hall to Church, and came back +to tea.' + +[306] Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anec_. p. 192) that he said 'a long time +after my poor mother's death, I heard her voice call _Sam_.' She is so +inaccurate that most likely this is merely her version of the story that +Boswell has recorded above. See also _ante_, i. 405. Lord Macaulay made +more of this story of the voice than it could well bear--'Under the +influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his +imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand poring on the +town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another, he would +distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his +name. But this was not the worst.' Macaulay's _Writings and Speeches_, +ed. 1871, p. 374. + +[307] + + 'One wife is too much for most + husbands to bear, + But two at a time there's no + mortal can bear.' + + Act iii. sc. 4. + +[308] 'I think a person who is terrified with the imagination of ghosts +and spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the reports +of all historians, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the +traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and +groundless.' _The Spectator_, No. 110. + +[309] _St. Matthew_, chap. xxvii. vv. 52, 53. BOSWELL. + +[310] Garrick died on Jan. 20, 1779. + +[311] Garrick called her _Nine_, (the Nine Muses). 'Nine,' he said, 'you +are a _Sunday Woman_.' H. More's _Memoirs_, i. 113. + +[312] See vol. iii. p. 331. BOSWELL. + +[313] See _ante_, ii. 325, note 3. + +[314] Boswell is quoting from Johnson's eulogium on Garrick in his _Life +of Edmund Smith. Works_, vii. 380. See _ante_, i. 81. + +[315] How fond she and her husband had been is shewn in a letter, in +which, in answer to an invitation, he says:--'As I have not left Mrs. +Garrick one day since we were married, near twenty-eight years, I cannot +now leave her.' _Garrick Corres._ ii. 150. 'Garrick's widow is buried +with him. She survived him forty-three years--"a little bowed-down old +woman, who went about leaning on a gold-headed cane, dressed in deep +widow's mourning, and always talking of her dear Davy." (_Pen and Ink +Sketches_, 1864).' Stanley's _Westminster Abbey_, ed. 1868, p. 305. + +[316] _Love's Labour's Lost_, act ii. sc. i. + +[317] See _ante_, ii. 461. + +[318] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 346) describes Hollis as 'a most +excellent man, a most immaculate Whig, but as simple a poor soul as ever +existed, except his editor, who has given extracts from the good +creature's diary that are very near as anile as Ashmole's. There are +thanks to God for reaching every birthday, ... and thanks to Heaven for +her Majesty's being delivered of a third or fourth prince, and _God send +he may prove a good man_.' See also Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of +George III_, i. 287. Dr. Franklin wrote much more highly of him. +Speaking of what he had done, he said:--'It is prodigious the quantity +of good that may be done by one man, _if he will make a business of +it_.' Franklin's Memoirs, ed. 1818, iii. 135. + +[319] See p. 77 of this volume. BOSWELL. + +[320] See _ante_, iii. 97. + +[321] On April 6 of the next year this gentleman, when Secretary of the +Treasury, destroyed himself, overwhelmed, just as Cowper had been, by +the sense of the responsibility of an office which had been thrust upon +him. See Hannah More's _Memoirs_, i. 245, and Walpole's _Letters_, +viii. 206. + +[322] 'It is commonly supposed that the uniformity of a studious life +affords no matter for a narration; but the truth is, that of the most +studious life a great part passes without study. An author partakes of +the common condition of humanity; he is born and married like another +man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, griefs +and joys, and friends and enemies, like a courtier, or a statesman; nor +can I conceive why his affairs should not excite curiosity as much as +the whisper of a drawing-room or the factions of a camp.' _The +Idler_, No. 102. + +[323] Hannah More wrote of this day (_Memoirs_, i. 212):--'I accused Dr. +Johnson of not having done justice to the _Allegro_ and _Penseroso_. He +spoke disparagingly of both. I praised _Lycidas_, which he absolutely +abused, adding, "if Milton had not written the _Paradise Lost_, he would +have only ranked among the minor Poets. He was a Phidias that could cut +a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of +cherry-stones."' See _post_, June 13, 1784. The _Allegro_ and +_Penseroso_ Johnson described as 'two noble efforts of imagination.' Of +_Lycidas_ he wrote:--'Surely no man could have fancied that he read it +with pleasure, had he not known the author.' _Works_, vii. 121, 2. + +[324] Murphy (_Life of Garrick_, p. 374) says 'Shortly after Garrick's +death Johnson was told in a large company, "You are recent from the +_Lives of the Poets_; why not add your friend Garrick to the number?" +Johnson's answer was, "I do not like to be officious; but if Mrs. +Garrick will desire me to do it, I shall be very willing to pay that +last tribute to the memory of a man I loved." 'Murphy adds that he +himself took care that Mrs. Garrick was informed of what Johnson had +said, but that no answer was ever received. + +[325] Miss Burney wrote in May:--'Dr. Johnson was charming, both in +spirits and humour. I really think he grows gayer and gayer daily, and +more _ductile_ and pleasant.' In June she wrote:--'I found him in +admirable good-humour, and our journey [to Streatham] was extremely +pleasant. I thanked him for the last batch of his poets, and we talked +them over almost all the way.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 23, 44. +Beattie, a week or two later, wrote:--'Johnson grows in grace as he +grows in years. He not only has better health and a fresher complexion +than ever he had before (at least since I knew him), but he has +contracted a gentleness of manner which pleases everybody.' Beattie's +_Life_, ed. 1824, p. 289. + +[326] See _ante_, iii. 65. Wilkes was by this time City Chamberlain. 'I +think I see him at this moment,' said Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 43), +'walking through the crowded streets of the city, as Chamberlain, on his +way to Guildhall, in a scarlet coat, military boots, and a bag-wig--the +hackney-coachmen in vain calling out to him, "A coach, your honour."' + +[327] See _ante_, ii. 201, for Beattie's _Essay on Truth_. + +[328] Thurot, in the winter of 1759-60, with a small squadron made +descents on some of the Hebrides and on the north-eastern coast of +Ireland. In a sea fight off Ireland he was killed and his ships were +taken. _Gent. Mag_. xxx. 107. Horace Walpole says that in the alarm +raised by him in Ireland, 'the bankers there stopped payment.' _Memoirs +of the Reign of George II_, iii. 224. + +[329] + + 'Some for renown on scraps of learning doat, + And think they grow immortal as they quote.' + +Young's _Love of Fame_, sat. i. Cumberland (_Memoirs_, ii. 226) says +that Mr. Dilly, speaking of 'the profusion of quotations which some +writers affectedly make use of, observed that he knew a Presbyterian +parson who, for eighteenpence, would furnish any pamphleteer with as +many scraps of Greek and Latin as would pass him off for an +accomplished classic.' + +[330] Cowley was quite out of fashion. Richardson (_Corres._ ii. 229) +wrote more than thirty years earlier:--'I wonder Cowley is so absolutely +neglected.' Pope, a dozen years or so before Richardson, asked, + + 'Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet, + His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.' + +_Imitations of Horace_, Epis. ii. i. 75. + +[331] See _ante_, ii. 58, and iii. 276. + +[332] 'There was a club held at the King's Head in Pall Mall that +arrogantly called itself The World. Lord Stanhope (now Lord +Chesterfield) was a member. Epigrams were proposed to be written on the +glasses by each member after dinner. Once when Dr. Young was invited +thither, the doctor would have declined writing because he had no +diamond, Lord Stanhope lent him his, and he wrote immediately-- + + "_Accept_ a miracle," &c.' + +Spence's _Anecdotes_, p. 377. Dr. Maty (_Memoirs of Chesterfield_, i. +227) assigns the lines to Pope, and lays the scene at Lord Cobham's. +Spence, however, gives Young himself as his authority. + +[333] 'Aug. 1778. "I wonder," said Mrs. Thrale, "you bear with my +nonsense." "No, madam, you never talk nonsense; you have as much sense +and more wit than any woman I know." "Oh," cried Mrs. Thrale, blushing, +"it is my turn to go under the table this morning, Miss Burney." "And +yet," continued the doctor, with the most comical look, "I have known +all the wits from Mrs. Montagu down to Bet Flint." "Bet Flint!" cried +Mrs. Thrale. "Pray, who is she?" "Oh, a fine character, madam. She was +habitually a slut and a drunkard, and occasionally a thief and a +harlot.... Mrs. Williams," he added, "did not love Bet Flint, but Bet +Flint made herself very easy about that."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +i. 87, 90. + +[334] Johnson, whose memory was wonderfully retentive [see _ante_, i. +39], remembered the first four lines of this curious production, which +have been communicated to me by a young lady of his acquaintance:-- + + 'When first I drew my vital breath, + A little minikin I came upon + earth; + And then I came from a dark + abode, + Into this gay and gaudy world.' + BOSWELL. + +[335] The _Sessional Reports of the Old Bailey Trials_ for 1758, p. 278, +contain a report of the trial. The Chief Justice Willes was in the +Commission, but, according to the _Report_, it was before the Recorder +that Bet Flint was tried. It may easily be, however, that either the +reporter or the printer has blundered. It is only by the characters * +and ‡ that the trials before the Chief Justice and the Recorder are +distinguished. Bet had stolen not only the counterpane, but five other +articles. The prosecutrix could not prove that the articles were hers, +and not a captain's, whose servant she said she had been, and who was +now abroad. On this ground the prisoner was acquitted. Of Chief Justice +Willes, Horace Walpole writes:--'He was not wont to disguise any of his +passions. That for gaming was notorious; for women unbounded.' He +relates an anecdote of his wit and licentiousness. Walpole's _Reign of +George II_, i. 89. He had been Johnson's schoolfellow (_ante_, i. 45). + +[336] Burke is meant. See _ante_, ii. 131, where Johnson said that Burke +spoke too familiarly; and _post_, May 15, 1784, where he said that 'when +Burke lets himself down to jocularity he is in the kennel.' + +[337] Wilkes imperfectly recalled to mind the following passage in +Plutarch:--'[Greek: Euphranor ton Thaesea ton heatou to Parrhasiou +parebale, legon tor men ekeinou hroda bebrokenai, tor de eautou krea +boeia.]' 'Euphranor, comparing his own Theseus with Parrhasius's, said +that Parrhasius's had fed on roses, but his on beef.' _Plutarch_, ed. +1839, iii. 423. + +[338] Portugal, receiving from Brazil more gold than it needed for home +uses, shipped a large quantity to England. It was said, though probably +with exaggeration, that the weekly packet-boat from Lisbon, brought one +week with another, more than £50,000 in gold to England. Smith's _Wealth +of Nations_, book iv. ch. 6. Portugal pieces were current in our +colonies, and no doubt were commonly sent to them from London. It was +natural therefore that they should be selected for this legal fiction. + +[339] See _ante_, ii. III. + +[340] 'Whenever the whole of our foreign trade and consumption exceeds +our exportation of commodities, our money must go to pay our debts so +contracted, whether melted or not melted down. If the law makes the +exportation of our coin penal, it will be melted down; if it leaves the +exportation of our coin free, as in Holland, it will be carried out in +specie. One way or other, go it must, as we see in Spain.... Laws made +against exportation of money or bullion will be all in vain. Restraint +or liberty in that matter makes no country rich or poor.' Locke's +_Works_, ed. 1824, iv. 160. + +[341] 'Nov. 14, 1779. Mr. Beauclerk has built a library in Great +Russellstreet, that reaches half way to Highgate. Everybody goes to see +it; it has put the Museum's nose quite out of joint.' Walpole's +_Letters_, vii. 273. It contained upwards of 30,000 volumes, and the +sale extended over fifty days. Two days' sale were given to the works on +divinity, including, in the words of the catalogue, 'Heterodox! et +Increduli. Angl. Freethinkers and their opponents.' _Dr. Johnson: His +Friends and His Critics_, p. 315. It sold for £5,011 (ante, in. 420, +note 4). Wilkes's own library--a large one--had been sold in 1764, in a +five days' sale, as is shewn by the _Auctioneer's Catalogue_, which is +in the Bodleian. + +[342] 'Our own language has from the Reformation to the present time +been chiefly dignified and adorned by the works of our divines, who, +considered as commentators, controvertists, or preachers, have +undoubtedly left all other nations far behind them.' _The Idler_, +No. 91. + +[343] Mr. Wilkes probably did not know that there is in an English +sermon the most comprehensive and lively account of that entertaining +faculty, for which he himself is so much admired. It is in Dr. Barrow's +first volume, and fourteenth sermon, _'Against foolish Talking and +Jesting.'_ My old acquaintance, the late Corbyn Morris, in his ingenious +_Essay on Wit, Humour, and Ridicule_, calls it 'a profuse description of +Wit;' but I do not see how it could be curtailed, without leaving out +some good circumstance of discrimination. As it is not generally known, +and may perhaps dispose some to read sermons, from which they may +receive real advantage, while looking only for entertainment, I shall +here subjoin it:--'But first (says the learned preacher) it may be +demanded, what the thing we speak of is? Or what this facetiousness (or +_wit_ as he calls it before) doth import? To which questions I might +reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man, +"'Tis that which we all see and know." Any one better apprehends what it +is by acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is, indeed, +a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many +postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and +judgements, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain +notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the +figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a +known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in +forging an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, +taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of +their sound: sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression: +sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude: sometimes it is lodged in +a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd +intimation, in cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection: +sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in +a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling +of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical +representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical +look or gesture, passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity, +sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being: sometimes it riseth +only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange: sometimes from a crafty +wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows +not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are +unaccountable, and inexplicable; being answerable to the numberless +rovings of fancy, and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of +speaking out of the simple and plain way, (such as reason teacheth and +proveth things by,) which by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit +or expression, doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some +wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as +signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of +invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar; it +seeming to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote +conceits applicable; a notable skill, that he can dextrously accommodate +them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of +humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. (Whence +in Aristotle such persons are termed [Greek: _hepidexioi_], dextrous men, +and [Greek: _eustrophoi_], men of facile or versatile manners, who can +easily turn themselves to all things, or turn all things to themselves.) +It also procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness, as +semblance of difficulty: (as monsters, not for their beauty, but their +rarity; as juggling tricks, not for their use, but their abstruseness, +are beheld with pleasure:) by diverting the mind from its road of +serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit; by +provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or +complaisance; and by seasoning matters, otherwise distasteful or +insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful tang.' BOSWELL. Morris's +_Essay_ was published in 1744. Hume wrote:--'Pray do you not think +that a proper dedication may atone for what is objectionable in my +Dialogues'! I am become much of my friend Corbyn Morrice's mind, who +says that he writes all his books for the sake of the dedications.' J. +H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 147. + +[344] The quarrel arose from the destruction by George II. of George +I.'s will (_ante_, ii. 342). The King of Prussia, Frederick the Great, +was George I.'s grandson. 'Vague rumours spoke of a large legacy to the +Queen of Prussia [Frederick's mother]. Of that bequest demands were +afterwards said to have been frequently and roughly made by her son, the +great King of Prussia, between whom and his uncle subsisted much +inveteracy.' Walpole's _Letters_, i. cxx. + +[345] When I mentioned this to the Bishop of Killaloe, 'With the goat,' +said his Lordship. Such, however, is the engaging politeness and +pleasantry of Mr. Wilkes, and such the social good humour of the Bishop, +that when they dined together at Mr. Dilly's, where I also was, they +were mutually agreeable. BOSWELL. It was not the lion, but the leopard, +that shall lie down with the kid. _Isaiah_, xi. 6. + +[346] Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, authour of tracts relating to natural +history, &c. BOSWELL. + +[347] Mrs. Montagu, so early as 1757, wrote of Mr. Stillingfleet:--'I +assure you our philosopher is so much a man of pleasure, he has left off +his old friends and his blue stockings, and is at operas and other gay +assemblies every night.' Montagu's _Letters_, iv. 117. + +[348] See _ante_, in. 293, note 5. + +[349] Miss Burney thus describes her:--'She is between thirty and +forty, very short, very fat, but handsome; splendidly and fantastically +dressed, rouged not unbecomingly yet evidently, and palpably desirous of +gaining notice and admiration. She has an easy levity in her air, +manner, voice, and discourse, that speak (sic) all within to be +comfortable.... She is one of those who stand foremost in collecting all +extraordinary or curious people to her London conversaziones, which, +like those of Mrs. Vesey, mix the rank and the literature, and exclude +all beside.... Her parties are the most brilliant in town.' Miss Burney +then describes one of these parties, at which were present Johnson, +Burke, and Reynolds. 'The company in general were dressed with more +brilliancy than at any rout I ever was at, as most of them were going to +the Duchess of Cumberland's.' Miss Burney herself was 'surrounded by +strangers, all dressed superbly, and all looking saucily.... Dr. Johnson +was standing near the fire, and environed with listeners.' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 179, 186, 190. Leslie wrote of Lady Corke in +1834 (_Autobiographical Recollections_, i. 137, 243):--'Notwithstanding +her great age, she is very animated. The old lady, who was a lion-hunter +in her youth, is as much one now as ever.' She ran after a Boston negro +named Prince Saunders, who 'as he put his Christian name "Prince" on his +cards without the addition of Mr., was believed to be a native African +prince, and soon became a lion of the first magnitude in fashionable +circles.' She died in 1840. + +[350] 'A lady once ventured to ask Dr. Johnson how he liked Yorick's +[Sterne's] _Sermons_. "I know nothing about them, madam," was his reply. +But some time afterwards, forgetting himself, he severely censured them. +The lady retorted:--"I understood you to say, Sir, that you had never +read them." "No, Madam, I did read them, but it was in a stage-coach; I +should not have even deigned to look at them had I been at large." +Cradock's _Memoirs_, p. 208. + +[351] See _ante_, iii. 382, note 1. + +[352] Next day I endeavoured to give what had happened the most +ingenious turn I could, by the following verses:-- + +To THE HONOURABLE Miss MONCKTON. + + 'Not that with th' excellent Montrose + I had the happiness to dine; + Not that I late from table rose, + From Graham's wit, from generous wine. + + It was not these alone which led + On sacred manners to encroach; + And made me feel what most I dread, + JOHNSON'S just frown, and self-reproach. + + But when I enter'd, not abash'd, + From your bright eyes were shot such rays, + At once intoxication flash'd, + And all my frame was in a blaze. + + But not a brilliant blaze I own, + Of the dull smoke I'm yet asham'd; + I was a dreary ruin grown, + And not enlighten'd though inflam'd. + + Victim at once to wine and love, + I hope, MARIA, you'll forgive; + While I invoke the powers above, + That henceforth I may wiser live.' + +The lady was generously forgiving, returned me an obliging answer, and I +thus obtained an _Act of Oblivion_, and took care never to offend +again. BOSWELL. + +[353] See _ante_, ii. 436, and iv. 88, note I. + +[354] On May 22 Horace Walpole wrote (_Letters_, viii. 44):--'Boswell, +that quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was let in, +which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. After tapping +many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed oracle, he +vented his errand. "Had I seen Dr. Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_?" I +said slightly, "No, not yet;" and so overlaid his whole impertinence.' + +[355] See _ante_, iii. 1. + +[356] See _ante_, ii. 47, note 2; 352, note I; and iii. 376, for +explanations of like instances of Boswell's neglect. + +[357] See _ante_, i. 298, note 4. + +[358] 'He owned he sometimes talked for victory.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, +opening pages. + +[359] The late Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton. MALONE. + +[360] Dr. Johnson, being told of a man who was thankful for being +introduced to him, 'as he had been convinced in a long dispute that an +opinion which he had embraced as a settled truth was no better than a +vulgar error, "Nay," said he, "do not let him be thankful, for he was +right, and I was wrong." Like his Uncle Andrew in the ring at +Smithfield, Johnson, in a circle of disputants, was determined neither +to be thrown nor conquered.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 139. Johnson, in +_The Adventurer_, No. 85, seems to describe his own talk. He writes:--' +While the various opportunities of conversation invite us to try every +mode of argument, and every art of recommending our sentiments, we are +frequently betrayed to the use of such as are not in themselves strictly +defensible; a man heated in talk, and eager of victory, takes advantage +of the mistakes or ignorance of his adversary, lays hold of concessions +to which he knows he has no right, and urges proofs likely to prevail on +his opponent, though he knows himself that they have no force.' J. S. +Mill gives somewhat the same account of his own father. 'I am inclined +to think,' he writes, 'that he did injustice to his own opinions by the +unconscious exaggerations of an intellect emphatically polemical; and +that when thinking without an adversary in view, he was willing to make +room for a great portion of the truths he seemed to deny.' Mill's +_Autobiography_, p. 201. See also _ante_, ii. 100, 450, in. 23, 277, +331; and _post_, May 18, 1784, and Steevens's account of Johnson just +before June 22, 1784. + +[361] Thomas Shaw, D.D., author of _Travels to Barbary and the Levant_. + +[362] See ante, iii. 314. + +[363] The friend very likely was Boswell himself. He was one of 'these +_tanti_ men.' 'I told Paoli that in the very heat of youth I felt the +_nom est tanti_, the _omnia vanitas_ of one who has exhausted all the +sweets of his being, and is weary with dull repetition. I told him that +I had almost become for ever incapable of taking a part in active life.' +Boswell's _Corsica_, ed. 1879, p. 193. + +[364] _Letters on the English Nation: By Batista Angeloni, a Jesuit, who +resided many years in London. Translated from the original Italian by +the Author of the Marriage Act. A Novel_. 2 vols. London [no printer's +name given], 1755. Shebbeare published besides six _Letters to the +People of England_ in the years 1755-7, for the last of which he was +sentenced to the pillory. _Ante_, iii. 315, note I. Horace Walpole +(_Letters_, iii. 74) described him in 1757 as 'a broken Jacobite +physician, who has threatened to write himself into a place or +the pillory.' + +[365] I recollect a ludicrous paragraph in the newspapers, that the King +had pensioned both a _He_-bear and a _She_-bear. BOSWELL. See _ante_, +ii. 66, and _post_, April 28, 1783. + +[366] + + Witness, ye chosen train + Who breathe the sweets of his Saturnian reign; + Witness ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares, + Hark to my call, for some of you have ears.' + +_Heroic Epistle_. See _post_, under June 16, 1784. + +[367] In this he was unlike the King, who, writes Horace Walpole,' +expecting only an attack on Chambers, bought it to tease, and began +reading it to, him; but, finding it more bitter on himself, flung it +down on the floor in a passion, and would read no more.' _Journal of the +Reign of George III_, i. 187. + +[368] They were published in 1773 in a pamphlet of 16 pages, and, with +the good fortune that attends a muse in the peerage, reached a third +edition in the year. To this same earl the second edition of Byron's +_Hours of Idleness_ was 'dedicated by his obliged ward and affectionate +kinsman, the author.' In _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, he is +abused in the passage which begins:-- + + 'No muse will cheer with renovating smile, + The paralytic puling of Carlisle.' + +In a note Byron adds:--'The Earl of Carlisle has lately published an +eighteen-penny pamphlet on the state of the stage, and offers his plan +for building a new theatre. It is to be hoped his lordship will be +permitted to bring forward anything for the stage--except his own +tragedies.' In the third canto of _Childe Harold_ Byron makes amends. In +writing of the death of Lord Carlisle's youngest son at Waterloo, +he says:-- + + 'Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine; + Yet one I would select from that proud throng, + Partly because they blend me with his line, + And partly that I did his Sire some wrong.' + +For his lordship's tragedy see _post_, under Nov. 19, 1783. + +[369] Men of rank and fortune, however, should be pretty well assured of +having a real claim to the approbation of the publick, as writers, +before they venture to stand forth. Dryden, in his preface to _All for +Love_, thus expresses himself:-- + +'Men of pleasant conversation (at least esteemed so) and endued with a +trifling kind of fancy, perhaps helped out by [with] a smattering of +Latin, are ambitious to distinguish themselves from the herd of +gentlemen, by their poetry: + + _"Rarus enim fermè sensus communis in ilia + Fortuna,"----[Juvenal_, viii. 73.] + +And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what +fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates, but +they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their +nakedness to publick view? Not considering that they are not to expect +the same approbation from sober men, which they have found from their +flatterers after the third bottle: If a little glittering in discourse +has passed them on us for witty men, where was the necessity of +undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill title to an estate, +but yet is in possession of it, would he bring it of his own accord to +be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talents [talent], +yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can +be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to +scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves +ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right where he said, "That no +man is satisfied with his own condition." A poet is not pleased, because +he is not rich; and the rich are discontented because the poets will not +admit them of their number.' BOSWELL. Boswell, it should seem, had +followed Swift's advice:-- + + 'Read all the prefaces of Dryden, + For these our critics much confide in; + Though merely writ at first for filling, + To raise the volume's price a shilling.' + +Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xi. 293. + +[370] See _ante_, i. 402. + +[371] Wordsworth, it should seem, held with Johnson in this. When he +read the article in the _Edinburgh Review_ on Lord Byron's early poems, +he remarked that 'though Byron's verses were probably poor enough, yet +such an attack was abominable,--that a young nobleman, who took to +poetry, deserved to be encouraged, not ridiculed.' Rogers's +_Table-Talk_, p. 234, note. + +[372] Dr. Barnard, formerly Dean of Derry. See _ante_, iii. 84. + +[373] This gave me very great pleasure, for there had been once a pretty +smart altercation between Dr. Barnard and him, upon a question, whether +a man could improve himself after the age of forty-five; when Johnson in +a hasty humour, expressed himself in a manner not quite civil. Dr. +Barnard made it the subject of a copy of pleasant verses, in which he +supposed himself to learn different perfections from different men. They +concluded with delicate irony:-- + + 'Johnson shall teach me how to place + In fairest light each borrow'd grace; + From him I'll learn to write; + Copy his clear familiar style, + And by the roughness of his file + Grow, like _himself, polite_.' + +I know not whether Johnson ever saw the poem, but I had occasion to find +that as Dr. Barnard and he knew each other better, their mutual regard +increased. BOSWELL. See Appendix A. + +[374] See _ante_, ii. 357, iii. 309, and _post_, March 23, 1783. + +[375] 'Sir Joshua once asked Lord B---- to dine with Dr. Johnson and the +rest, but though a man of rank and also of good information, he seemed +as much alarmed at the idea as if you had tried to force him into one of +the cages at Exeter-Change.' Hazlitt's _Conversations of Northcote_, +p. 41. + +[376] Yet when he came across them he met with much respect. At Alnwick +he was, he writes, 'treated with great civility by the Duke of +Northumberland.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 108. At Inverary, the Duke and +Duchess of Argyle shewed him great attention. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. +25. In fact, all through his Scotch tour he was most politely welcomed +by 'the great.' At Chatsworth, he was 'honestly pressed to stay' by the +Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (_post_, Sept. 9, 1784). See _ante_, iii. +21. On the other hand, Mrs. Barbauld says:--'I believe it is true that +in England genius and learning obtain less personal notice than in most +other parts of Europe.' She censures 'the contemptuous manner in which +Lady Wortley Montagu mentioned Richardson:--"The doors of the Great," +she says, "were never opened to him."' _Richardson Corres._ i. clxxiv. + +[377] When Lord Elibank was seventy years old, he wrote:--'I shall be +glad to go five hundred miles to enjoy a day of his company.' Boswell's +_Hebrides_, Sept. 12. + +[378] _Romans_, x. 2. + +[379] I _Peter_, iii. 15. + +[380] Horace Walpole wrote three years earlier:--' Whig principles are +founded on sense; a Whig may be a fool, a Tory must be so.' +_Letters_, vii. 88. + +[381] Mr. Barclay, a descendant of Robert Barclay, of Ury, the +celebrated apologist of the people called Quakers, and remarkable for +maintaining the principles of his venerable progenitor, with as much of +the elegance of modern manners, as is consistent with primitive +simplicity, BOSWELL. + +[382] Now Bishop of Llandaff, one of the _poorest_ Bishopricks in this +kingdom. His Lordship has written with much zeal to show the propriety +of _equalizing_ the revenues of Bishops. He has informed us that he has +burnt all his chemical papers. The friends of our excellent +constitution, now assailed on every side by innovators and levellers, +would have less regretted the suppression of some of this Lordship's +other writings. BOSWELL. Boswell refers to _A Letter to the Archbishop +of Canterbury by Richard, Lord Bishop of Landaff_, 1782. If the revenues +were made more equal, 'the poorer Bishops,' the Bishop writes, 'would be +freed from the necessity of holding ecclesiastical preferments _in +commendam_ with their Bishopricks,' p. 8. + +[383] De Quincey says that Sir Humphry Davy told him, 'that he could +scarcely imagine a time, or a condition of the science, in which the +Bishop's _Essays_ would be superannuated.' De Quincey's _Works_, ii. +106. De Quincey describes the Bishop as being 'always a discontented +man, a railer at the government and the age, which could permit such as +his to pine away ingloriously in one of the humblest among the +Bishopricks.' _Ib_. p. 107. He was, he adds, 'a true Whig,' and would +have been made Archbishop of York had his party staid in power a little +longer in 1807.' + +[384] _Rasselas_, chap. xi. + +[385] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30. + +[386] 'They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden.' +_Genesis_, iii. 8. + +[387] + + ... 'Vivendi recte qui prorogat horam, + Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille + Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.' + + 'And sure the man who has it in his power + To practise virtue, and protracts the hour, + Waits like the rustic till the river dried; + Still glides the river, and will ever glide.' + +FRANCIS. Horace, _Epist_. i. 2. 41. + +[388] See _ante_, p. 59. + +[389] See _ante_, iii. 251. + +[390] See _ante_, iii. 136. + +[391] This assertion is disproved by a comparison of dates. The first +four satires of Young were published in 1725; The South Sea scheme +(which appears to be meant,) was in 1720. MALONE. In Croft's _Life of +Young_, which Johnson adopted, it is stated:--'By the _Universal +Passion_ he acquired no vulgar fortune, more than £3000. A considerable +sum had already been swallowed up in the South Sea.' Johnson's _Works_, +viii. 430. Some of Young's poems were published before 1720. + +[392] Crabbe got Johnson to revise his poem, _The Village_ (_post_, +under March 23, 1783). He states, that 'the Doctor did not readily +comply with requests for his opinion; not from any unwillingness to +oblige, but from a painful contention in his mind between a desire of +giving pleasure and a determination to speak truth.' Crabbe's _Works_, +ii. 12. See _ante_, ii. 51, 195, and iii. 373. + +[393] Pope's _Essay on Man_, iv. 390. See _ante_, iii. 6, note 2. + +[394] He had within the last seven weeks gone up drunk, at least twice, +to a lady's drawing-room. _Ante_, pp. 88, note 1, and 109. + +[395] Mr. Croker, though without any authority, prints _unconscious_. + +[396] I Corinthians, ix. 27. See _ante_, 295. + +[397] 'We walk by faith, not by sight.' 2 Corinthians, v. 7 + +[398] Dr. Ogden, in his second sermon _On the Articles of the Christian +Faith_, with admirable acuteness thus addresses the opposers of that +Doctrine, which accounts for the confusion, sin and misery, which we +find in this life: 'It would be severe in GOD, you think, to _degrade_ +us to such a sad state as this, for the offence of our first parents: +but you can allow him to _place_ us in it without any inducement. Are +our calamities lessened for not being ascribed to Adam? If your +condition be unhappy, is it not still unhappy, whatever was the +occasion? with the aggravation of this reflection, that if it was as +good as it was at first designed, there seems to be somewhat the less +reason to look for its amendment.' BOSWELL. + +[399] 'Which taketh away the sin' &c. St. John, i. 29. + +[400] See Boswell's Hebrides, August 22. + +[401] This unfortunate person, whose full name was Thomas Fysche Palmer, +afterwards went to Dundee, in Scotland, where he officiated as minister +to a congregation of the sect who called themselves _Unitarians_, from a +notion that they distinctively worship ONE GOD, because they _deny_ the +mysterious doctrine of the TRINITY. They do not advert that the great +body of the Christian Church, in maintaining that mystery, maintain also +the _Unity_ of the GODHEAD; the 'TRINITY in UNITY!--three persons and +ONE GOD.' The Church humbly adores the DIVINITY as exhibited in the holy +Scriptures. The Unitarian sect vainly presumes to comprehend and define +the ALMIGHTY. Mr. Palmer having heated his mind with political +speculations, became so much dissatisfied with our excellent +Constitution, as to compose, publish, and circulate writings, which were +found to be so seditious and dangerous, that upon being found guilty by +a Jury, the Court of Justiciary in Scotland sentenced him to +transportation for fourteen years. A loud clamour against this sentence +was made by some Members of both Houses of Parliament; but both Houses +approved of it by a great majority; and he was conveyed to the +settlement for convicts in New South Wales. BOSWELL. This note first +appears in the third edition. Mr. Palmer was sentenced to seven (not +fourteen) years transportation in Aug. 1793. It was his fellow prisoner, +Mr. Muir, an advocate, who was sentenced to fourteen years. _Ann. Reg._ +1793, p. 40. When these sentences were brought before the House of +Commons, Mr. Fox said that it was 'the Lord-Advocate's fervent wish that +his native principles of justice should be introduced into this country; +and that on the ruins of the common law of England should be erected the +infamous fabric of Scottish persecution. ... If that day should ever +arrive, if the tyrannical laws of Scotland should ever be introduced in +opposition to the humane laws of England, it would then be high time for +my hon. friends and myself to settle our affairs, and retire to some +happier clime, where we might at least enjoy those rights which God has +given to man, and which his nature tells him he has a right to demand.' +_Parl. Hist._ xxx. 1563. For _Unitarians_, see _ante_, ii. 408, note I. + +[402] Taken from Herodotus. [Bk. ii. ch. 104.] BOSWELL. + +[403] 'The mummies,' says Blakesley, 'have straight hair, and in the +paintings the Egyptians are represented as red, not black.' _Ib_. note. + +[404] See _ante_, i. 441, and _post_, March 28, and June 3, 1782. + +[405] Mr. Dawkins visited Palmyra in 1751. He had 'an escort of the Aga +of Hassia's best Arab horsemen.' Johnson was perhaps astonished at the +size of their caravan, 'which was increased to about 200 persons.' The +writer treats the whole matter with great brevity. Wood's _Ruins of +Palmyra_, p. 33. On their return the travellers discovered a party of +Arab horsemen, who gave them an alarm. Happily these Arabs were still +more afraid of them, and were at once plundered by the escort, 'who +laughed at our remonstrances against their injustice.' Wood's _Ruins of +Balbec_, p. 2. + +[406] He wrote a _Life of Watts_, which Johnson quoted. _Works_, viii. +382. + +[407] See _ante_, iii. 422, note 6. + +[408] In the first two editions _formal_. + +[409] Johnson maintains this in _The Idler_, No. 74. 'Few,' he says, +'have reason to complain of nature as unkindly sparing of the gifts of +memory ... The true art of memory is the art of attention.' See +_ante_, iii. 191. + +[410]The first of the definitions given by Johnson of _to remember_ is +_to bear in mind anything; not to forget. To recollect_ he defines _to +recover to memory_. We may, perhaps, assume that Boswell said, 'I did +not recollect that the chair was broken;' and that Johnson replied, 'you +mean, you did not remember. That you did not remember is your own fault. +It was in your mind that it was broken, and therefore you ought to have +remembered it. It was not a case of recollecting; for we recollect, that +is, recover to memory, what is not in our mind.' In the passage _ante_, +i. 112, which begins, 'I indeed doubt if he could have remembered,' we +find in the first two editions not _remembered_, but _recollected_. +Perhaps this change is due to euphony, as _collected_ comes a few lines +before. Horace Walpole, in one of his _Letters_ (i. 15), distinguishes +the two words, on his revisiting his old school, Eton:--'By the way, the +clock strikes the old cracked sound--I recollect so much, and remember +so little.' + +[411] He made the same boast at St. Andrews. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, +Aug. 19. He was, I believe, speaking of his translation of Courayer's +_Life of Paul Sarpi and Notes_, of which some sheets were printed off. +_Ante_, i. 135. + +[412] Horace Walpole, after mentioning that George III's mother, who +died in 1772, left but £27,000 when she was reckoned worth at least +£300,000, adds:--'It is no wonder that it became the universal belief +that she had wasted all on Lord Bute. This became still more probable as +he had made the purchase of the estate at Luton, at the price of +£114,000, before he was visibly worth £20,000; had built a palace there, +another in town, and had furnished the former in the most expensive +manner, bought pictures and books, and made a vast park and lake.' +_Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 19. + +[413] To him Boswell dedicated his _Thesis_ as _excelsae familiae de +Bute spei alterae_ (_ante_, ii. 20). In 1775, he wrote of him:--'He is +warmly my friend and has engaged to do for me.' _Letters of Boswell_, +p. 186 + +[414] He was mistaken in this. See _ante_, i. 260; also iii. 420. + +[415] In England in like manner, and perhaps for the same reason, all +Attorneys have been converted into Solicitors. + +[416] 'There is at Edinburgh a society or corporation of errand boys, +called Cawdies, who ply in the streets at night with paper lanthorns, +and are very serviceable in carrying messages.' _Humphrey Clinker_. +Letter of Aug. 8. + +[417] Their services in this sense are noticed in the same letter. + +[418] + + 'The formal process shall be turned to sport, + And you dismissed with honour by the Court.' + FRANCIS. Horace, _Satires_, ii.i.86. + +[419] Mr. Robertson altered this word to _jocandi_, he having found in +Blackstone that to irritate is actionable. BOSWELL. + +[420] Quoted by Johnson, _ante_, ii. l97. + +[421] His god-daughter. See _post_ May 10, 1784. + +[422] See _post_, under Dec. 20, 1782 + +[423] See _ante_, i. 155 + +[424] The will of King Alfred, alluded to in this letter, from the +original Saxon, in the library of Mr. Astle, has been printed at the +expense of the University of Oxford. BOSWELL. + +[425] He was a surgeon in this small Norfolk town. Dr. Burney's +_Memoirs_, i. 106. + +[426] Burney visited Johnson first in 1758, when he was living in Gough +Square. _Ante_, i. 328. + +[427] Mme. D'Arblay says that Dr. Johnson sent them to Dr. Burney's +house, directed 'For the Broom Gentleman.' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, +ii. 180. + +[428] 'Sept. 14, 1781. Dr. Johnson has been very unwell indeed. Once I +was quite frightened about him; but he continues his strange +discipline--starving, mercury, opium; and though for a time half +demolished by its severity, he always in the end rises superior both to +the disease and the remedy, which commonly is the most alarming of the +two.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 107. On Sept. 18, his birthday, he +wrote:--'As I came home [from church], I thought I had never begun any +period of life so placidly. I have always been accustomed to let this +day pass unnoticed, but it came this time into my mind that some little +festivity was not improper. I had a dinner, and invited Allen and +Levett.' _Pr. and Med._ p. 199. + +[429] This remark, I have no doubt, is aimed at Hawkins, who (_Life_, p. +553) pretends to account for this trip. + +[430] _Pr. and Med._ p. 201. BOSWELL. + +[431] He wrote from Lichfield on the previous Oct. 27:--'All here is +gloomy; a faint struggle with the tediousness of time; a doleful +confession of present misery, and the approach seen and felt of what is +most dreaded and most shunned. But such is the lot of man.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 209. + +[432] The truth of this has been proved by sad experience. BOSWELL. Mrs. +Boswell died June 4, 1789. MALONE. + +[433] See account of him in the _Gent. Mag_. Feb. 1785. BOSWELL, see +ante, i. 243, note 3. + +[434] Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonymy_, ii. 79), quoting this verse, under +_Officious_, says;--'Johnson, always thinking neglect the worst +misfortune that could befall a man, looked on a character of this +description with less aversion than I do.' + +[435] + + 'Content thyself to be _obscurely good_.' + +Addisons _Cato_, act. iv. sc. 4. + +[436] In both editions of Sir John Hawkins's _Life of Dr. Johnson_, +'letter'd _ignorance_' is printed. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker (_Boswell_, p. I) +says that 'Mr. Boswell is habitually unjust to Sir J. Hawkins.' As some +kind of balance, I suppose, to this injustice, he suppresses this note. + +[437] Johnson repeated this line to me thus:-- + + 'And Labour steals an hour to die.' + +But he afterwards altered it to the present reading. BOSWELL. This poem +is printed in the _Ann. Reg_. for 1783, p. 189, with the following +variations:--l. 18, for 'ready help' 'useful care': l. 28, 'His single +talent,' 'The single talent'; l. 33, 'no throbs of fiery pain,' 'no +throbbing fiery pain'; l. 36, 'and freed,' 'and forced.' On the next +page it is printed _John Gilpin_. + +[438] Mr. Croker says that this line shows that 'some of Gray's happy +expressions lingered in Johnson's memory' He quotes a line that comes at +the end of the _Ode on Vicissitude_--'From busy day, the peaceful +night.' This line is not Gray's, but Mason's. + +[439] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:--'If you want +events, Here is Mr. Levett just come in at fourscore from a walk to +Hampstead, eight miles, in August.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 177. + +[440] In the original, _March_ 20. On the afternoon of March 20 Lord +North announced in the House of Commons 'that his Majesty's Ministers +were no more.' _Parl. Hist_. xxii. 1215. + +[441] _Pr. and Med_. p. 209 [207]. BOSWELL. + +[442] See _ante_, ii. 355, iii. 46, iv. 81, 100. Mr. Seward records in +his _Biographiana_, p. 600--without however giving the year--that +'Johnson being asked what the Opposition meant by their flaming speeches +and violent pamphlets against Lord North's administration, answered: +"They mean, Sir, rebellion; they mean in spite to destroy that country +which they are not permitted to govern."' + +[443] In the previous December the City of London in an address, writes +Horace Walpole, 'besought the King to remove both his public and +_private_ counsellors, and used these stunning and memorable +words:--_"Your armies are captured; the wonted superiority of your +navies is annihilated, your dominions are lost."_ Words that could be +used to no other King; no King had ever lost so much without losing all. +If James II. lost his crown, yet the crown lost no dominions.' _Journal +of the Reign of George III_, ii. 483. The address is given in the _Ann. +Reg._ xxiv. 320. On Aug. 4 of this year Johnson wrote to Dr. +Taylor:--'Perhaps no nation not absolutely conquered has declined so +much in so short a time. We seem to be sinking. Suppose the Irish, +having already gotten a free trade and an independent Parliament, should +say we will have a King and ally ourselves with the House of Bourbon, +what could be done to hinder or overthrow them?' Mr. Morrison's +_Autographs_, vol. ii. + +[444] In February and March, 1771, the House of Commons ordered eight +printers to attend at the bar on a charge of breach of privilege, in +publishing reports of debates. One of the eight, Miller of the _Evening +Post_, when the messenger of the House tried to arrest him, gave the man +himself into custody on a charge of assault. The messenger was brought +before Lord Mayor Crosby and Aldermen Wilkes and Oliver, and a warrant +was made out for his commitment. Bail was thereupon offered and accepted +for his appearance at the next sessions. The Lord Mayor and Oliver were +sent to the Tower by the House. Wilkes was ordered to appear on April 8; +but the Ministry, not daring to face his appearance, adjourned the House +till the 9th. A committee was appointed by ballot to inquire into the +late obstructions to the execution of the orders of the House. It +recommended the consideration of the expediency of the House ordering +that Miller should be taken into custody. The report, when read, was +received with a roar of laughter. Nothing was done. Such was, to quote +the words of Burke in the _Annual Register_ (xiv. 70), 'the miserable +result of all the pretended vigour of the Ministry.' See _Parl. Hist._ +xvii. 58, 186. + +[445] Lord Cornwallis's army surrendered at York Town, five days before +Sir Henry Clinton's fleet and army arrived off the Chesapeak. _Ann. +Reg._ xxiv. 136. + +[446] Johnson wrote on March 30:--'The men have got in whom I have +endeavoured to keep out; but I hope they will do better than their +predecessors; it will not be easy to do worse.' Croker's _Boswell_, +p. 706. + +[447] This note was in answer to one which accompanied one of the +earliest pamphlets on the subject of Chatterton's forgery, entitled +_Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley_, &c. Mr. +Thomas Warton's very able _Inquiry_ appeared about three months +afterwards; and Mr. Tyrwhitt's admirable _Vindication of his Appendix_ +in the summer of the same hear, left the believers in this daring +imposture nothing but 'the resolution to say again what had been said +before.' MALONE. + +[448] _Pr. and Med._ p. 207. BOSWELL. + +[449] He addressed to him an Ode in Latin, entitled _Ad Thomam Laurence, +medicum doctissimum, quum filium peregre agentem desiderio nimis tristi +prosequeretur. Works_, i. 165. + +[450] Mr. Holder, in the Strand, Dr. Johnson's apothecary. BOSWELL. + +[451] 'Johnson should rather have written "imperatum est." But the +meaning of the words is perfectly clear. "If you say yes, the messenger +has orders to bring Holder to me." Mr. Croker translates the words as +follows:-"If you consent, pray tell the messenger to bring Holder to +me." If Mr. Croker is resolved to write on points of classical learning, +we would advise him to begin by giving an hour every morning to our old +friend Corderius.' Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i 366. In _The Answers +to Mr. Macaulay's Criticism_, prefixed to Croker's _Boswell_, p. 13, it +is suggested that Johnson wrote either _imperetur_ or _imperator_. The +letter may be translated: 'A fresh chill, a fresh cough, and a fresh +difficulty in breathing call for a fresh letting of blood. Without your +advice, however, I would not submit to the operation. I cannot well come +to you, nor need you come to me. Say yes or no in one word, and leave +the rest to Holder and to me. If you say yes, let the messenger be +bidden (imperetur) to bring Holder to me. May 1, 1782. When _you_ have +left, whither shall I turn?' + +[452] Soon after the above letter, Dr. Lawrence left London, but not +before the palsy had made so great a progress as to render him unable to +write for himself. The folio wing are extracts from letters addressed by +Dr. Johnson to one of his daughters:-- + +'You will easily believe with what gladness I read that you had heard +once again that voice to which we have all so often delighted to attend. +May you often hear it. If we had his mind, and his tongue, we could +spare the rest. + +'I am not vigorous, but much better than when dear Dr. Lawrence held my +pulse the last time. Be so kind as to let me know, from one little +interval to another, the state of his body. I am pleased that he +remembers me, and hope that it never can be possible for me to forget +him. July 22, 1782.' + +'I am much delighted even with the small advances which dear Dr. +Lawrence makes towards recovery. If we could have again but his mind, +and his tongue in his mind, and his right hand, we should not much +lament the rest. I should not despair of helping the swelled hand by +electricity, if it were frequently and diligently supplied. + +'Let me know from time to time whatever happens; and I hope I need not +tell you, how much I am interested in every change. Aug. 26, 1782.' + +'Though the account with which you favoured me in your last letter could +not give me the pleasure that I wished, yet I was glad to receive it; +for my affection to my dear friend makes me desirous of knowing his +state, whatever it be. I beg, therefore, that you continue to let me +know, from time to time, all that you observe. + +'Many fits of severe illness have, for about three months past, forced +my kind physician often upon my mind. I am now better; and hope +gratitude, as well as distress, can be a motive to remembrance. +Bolt-court, Fleet-street, Feb. 4, 1783.' BOSWELL. + +[453] Mr. Langton being at this time on duty at Rochester, he is +addressed by his military title. BOSWELL. + +[454] Eight days later he recorded:--'I have in ten days written to +Aston, Lucy, Hector, Langton, Boswell; perhaps to all by whom my letters +are desired.' _Pr. and Med._ 209. He had written also to Mrs. Thrale, +but her affection, it should seem from this, he was beginning to doubt. + +[455] See _ante_, p. 84. + +[456] See _ante_, i. 247. + +[457] See _post_, p. 158, note 4. + +[458] Johnson has here expressed a sentiment similar to that contained +in one of Shenstone's stanzas, to which, in his life of that poet, he +has given high praise:-- + + 'I prized every hour that went by, + Beyond all that had pleased me before; + But now they are gone [past] and I sigh, + I grieve that I prized them no more.' + +J. BOSWELL, JUN. + +[459] She was his god-daughter. See _post_, May 10, 1784. + +[460] 'Dr. Johnson gave a very droll account of the children of Mr. +Langton, "who," he said, "might be very good children, if they were let +alone; but the father is never easy when he is not making them do +something which they cannot do; they must repeat a fable, or a speech, +or the Hebrew alphabet, and they might as well count twenty for what +they know of the matter; however, the father says half, for he prompts +every other word."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 73. See _ante_, p. +20, note 2. + +[461] A part of this letter having been torn off, I have, from the +evident meaning, supplied a few words and half-words at the ends and +beginnings of lines. BOSWELL. + +[462] See vol. ii. p. 459. BOSWELL. She was Hector's widowed sister, and +Johnson's first love. In the previous October, writing of a visit to +Birmingham, he said:--'Mrs. Careless took me under her care, and told me +when I had tea enough.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 205. + +[463] This letter cannot belong to this year. In it Johnson says of his +health, 'at least it is not worse.' But 1782 found him in very bad +health; he passed almost the whole of the year 'in a succession of +disorders' (_post_, p. 156). What he says of friendship renders it +almost certain that the letter was written while he had still Thrale; +and him he lost in April, 1781. Had it been written after June, 1779, +but before Thrale's death, the account given of health would have been +even better than it is (_ante_, iii. 397). It belongs perhaps to the +year 1777 or 1778. + +[464] 'To a man who has survived all the companions of his youth ... +this full-peopled world is a dismal solitude.' _Rambler_, No. 69. + +[465] See _ante_, i. 63. + +[466] They met on these days in the years 1772, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 81, and +3. + +[467] The ministry had resigned on the 20th. _Ante_, p. 139, note 1. + +[468] Thirty-two years earlier he wrote in _The Rambler_, No. 53:-'In +the prospect of poverty there is nothing but gloom and melancholy; the +mind and body suffer together; its miseries bring no alleviation; it is +a state in which every virtue is obscured, and in which no conduct can +avoid reproach.' And again in No. 57:--'The prospect of penury in age is +so gloomy and terrifying, that every man who looks before him must +resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of +sparing.' See _ante_. 441. + +[469] See _ante_, p. 128. + +[470] Hannah More wrote in April of this year (_Memoirs_, i. +249):--'Poor Johnson is in a bad state of health. I fear his +constitution is broken up.' (Yet in one week he dined out four times. +_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 237.) At one of these dinners, 'I urged him,' she +continues (_ib_. p. 251) 'to take a _little_ wine. He replied, "I can't +drink a _little_, child; therefore, I never touch it. Abstinence is as +easy to me as temperance would be difficult." He was very good-humoured +and gay. One of the company happened to say a word about poetry, "Hush, +hush," said he, "it is dangerous to say a word of poetry before her; it +is talking of the art of war before Hannibal."' + +[471] This book was published in 1781, and, according to Lowndes, +reached its seventh edition by 1787. See _ante_, i. 214. + +[472] The clergyman's letter was dated May 4. _Gent. Mag._ 1786, p. 93. +Johnson is explaining the reason of his delay in acknowledging it. + +[473] What follows appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ of May 29, +1782:--'A correspondent having mentioned, in the _Morning Chronicle_ of +December 12, the last clause of the following paragraph, as seeming to +favour suicide; we are requested to print the whole passage, that its +true meaning may appear, which is not to recommend suicide but exercise. + +'Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are +decreed: but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the +association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be +disjoined by an easy separation. It was a principle among the ancients, +that acute diseases are from Heaven, and chronical from ourselves; the +dart of death, indeed, falls from Heaven, but we poison it by our own +misconduct: to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish +is generally his folly.' [_The Rambler_, No. 85.] BOSWELL. + +[474] The Correspondence may be seen at length in the _Gent. Mag._ Feb. +1786. BOSWELL. Johnson, advising Dr. Taylor 'to take as much exercise as +he can bear,' says:-'I take the true definition of exercise to be labour +without weariness.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 461. + +[475] Here he met Hannah More. 'You cannot imagine,' she writes +(_Memoirs_, i. 261), 'with what delight he showed me every part of his +own college. Dr. Adams had contrived a very pretty piece of gallantry. +We spent the day and evening at his house. After dinner, Johnson begged +to conduct me to see the College; he would let no one show it me but +himself. "This was my room; this Shenstone's." Then, after pointing out +all the rooms of the poets who had been of his college, "In short," said +he, "we were a nest of singing-birds." When we came into the +common-room, we spied a fine large print of Johnson, hung up that very +morning, with this motto:--_And is not Johnson ours, himself a host?_ +Under which stared you in the face--_From Miss More's "Sensibility_." +This little incident amused us; but, alas! Johnson looks very ill +indeed--spiritless and wan. However, he made an effort to be cheerful.' +Miss Adams wrote on June 14, 1782:--'On Wednesday we had here a +delightful blue-stocking party. Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott and Miss More, +Dr. Johnson, Mr. Henderson, &c., dined here. Poor Dr. Johnson is in very +bad health, but he exerted himself as much as he could, and being very +fond of Miss More, he talked a good deal, and every word he says is +worth recording. He took great delight in showing Miss More every part +of Pembroke College, and his own rooms, &c., and told us many things +about himself when here. .. June 19, 1782. We dined yesterday for the +last time in the company with Dr. Johnson; he went away to-day. A warm +dispute arose; it was about cider or wine freezing, and all the spirit +retreating to the center.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS._ + +[476] 'I never retired to rest without feeling the justness of the +Spanish proverb, "Let him who sleeps too much borrow the pillow of a +debtor."' Johnson's _Works_, iv. 14. + +[477] See _ante_, i. 441. + +[478] Which I celebrated in the Church of England chapel at Edinburgh, +founded by Lord Chief Baron Smith, of respectable and pious +memory. BOSWELL. + +[479] See _ante_, p. 80. + +[480] The Reverend Mr. Temple, Vicar of St. Gluvias, Cornwall. BOSWELL. +See _ante_, i. 436, and ii. 316. + +[481] 'He had settled on his eldest son,' says Dr. Rogers +(_Boswelliana_, p. 129), 'the ancestral estate, with an unencumbered +rental of £l,600 a year.' That the rental, whatever it was, was not +unencumbered is shewn by the passage from Johnson's letter, _post_, p. +155, note 4. Boswell wrote to Malone in 1791 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. +828):--'The clear money on which I can reckon out of my estate is +scarcely £900 a year.' + +[482] Cowley's _Ode to Liberty_, Stanza vi. + +[483] 'I do beseech all the succeeding heirs of entail,' wrote Boswell +in his will, 'to be kind to the tenants, and not to turn out old +possessors to get a little more rent.' Rogers's _Boswelliana, p. 186. + +[484] Macleod, the Laird of Rasay. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 8. + +[485] A farm in the Isle of Skye, where Johnson wrote his Latin Ode to +Mrs. Thrale. _Ib._ Sept. 6. + +[486] Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on Oct. 4:--'Boswel's (sic) father is +dead, and Boswel wrote me word that he would come to London for my +advice. [The] advice which I sent him is to stay at home, and [busy] +himself with his own affairs. He has a good es[tate], considerably +burthened by settlements, and he is himself in debt. But if his wife +lives, I think he will be prudent.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. +v. 462. + +[487] Miss Burney wrote in the first week in December:--'Dr. Johnson was +in most excellent good humour and spirits.' She describes later on a +brilliant party which he attended at Miss Monckton's on the 8th, where +the people were 'superbly dressed,' and where he was 'environed with +listeners.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 186, and 190. See _ante_, p. +108, note 4. + +[488] See _ante,_, iii. 337, where Johnson got 'heated' when Boswell +maintained this. + +[489] See _ante_, in. 395. + +[490] The greatest part of the copy, or manuscript of _The Lives of the +Poets_ had been given by Johnson to Boswell (_ante_, iv. 36). + +[491] Of her twelve children but these three were living. She was +forty-one years old. + +[492] 'The family,' writes Dr. Burney, 'lived in the library, which used +to be the parlour. There they breakfasted. Over the bookcases were hung +Sir Joshua's portraits of Mr. Thrale's friends--Baretti, Burke, Burney, +Chambers, Garrick, Goldsmith, Johnson, Murphy, Reynolds, Lord Sandys, +Lord Westcote, and in the same picture Mrs. Thrale and her eldest +daughter.' Mr. Thrale's portrait was also there. Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, +ii. 80, and Prior's _Malone_, p. 259. + +[493] _Pr. and Med._ p. 214. BOSWELL. + +[494] Boswell omits a line that follows this prayer:--'O Lord, so far +as, &c.,--Thrale.' This means, I think, 'so far as it might be lawful, +I prayed for Thrale.' The following day Johnson entered:--'I was called +early. I packed up my bundles, and used the foregoing prayer with my +morning devotions, somewhat, I think, enlarged. Being earlier than the +family, I read St. Paul's farewell in the _Acts_ [xx. 17-end], and then +read fortuitously in the gospels, which was my parting use of +the library.' + +[495] Johnson, no doubt, was leaving Streatham because Mrs. Thrale was +leaving it. 'Streatham,' wrote Miss Burney, on Aug. 12 of this year, 'my +other home, and the place where I have long thought my residence +dependent only on my own pleasure, is already let for three years to +Lord Shelburne.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.151. Johnson was not yet +leaving the Thrale family, for he joined them at Brighton, and he was +living with them the following spring in Argyll-street. Nevertheless, +if, as all Mrs. Thrale's friends strongly held, her second marriage was +blameworthy, Boswell's remark admits of defence. Miss Burney in her +diary and letters keeps the secret which Mrs. Thrale had confided to her +of her attachment to Mr. Piozzi; but in the _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, +which, as Mme. D'Arblay, she wrote long afterwards, she leaves little +doubt that Streatham was given up as a step towards the second marriage. +In 1782, on a visit there, she found that her father 'and all +others--Dr. Johnson not excepted--were cast into the same gulf of +general neglect. As Mrs. Thrale became more and more dissatisfied with +her own situation, and impatient for its relief, she slighted Johnson's +counsel, and avoided his society.' Mme. D'Arblay describes a striking +scene in which her father, utterly puzzled by 'sad and altered +Streatham,' left it one day with tears in his eyes. Another day, Johnson +accompanied her to London. 'His look was stern, though dejected, but +when his eye, which, however shortsighted, was quick to mental +perception, saw how ill at ease she appeared, all sternness subsided +into an undisguised expression of the strongest emotion, while, with a +shaking hand and pointing finger, he directed her looks to the mansion +from which they were driving; and when they faced it from the +coach-window, as they turned into Streatham Common, tremulously +exclaimed, "That house ...is lost to _me_... for ever."' Johnson's +letter to Langton of March 20, 1782 (_ante_, p. 145), in which he says +that he was 'musing in his chamber at Mrs. Thrale's,' shews that so +early as that date he foresaw that a change was coming. Boswell's +statement that 'Mrs. Thrale became less assiduous to please Johnson,' +might have been far more strongly worded. See Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, +ii. 243-253. Lord Shelburne, who as Prime Minister was negotiating peace +with the United States, France, and Spain, hired Mrs. Thrale's house 'in +order to be constantly near London.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, +iii. 242. + +[496] Mr. Croker quotes the following from the _Rose MSS_.:--'Oct. 6, +Die Dominica, 1782. Pransus sum Streathamiae agninum crus coctum cum +herbis (spinach) comminutis, farcimen farinaceum cum uvis passis, lumbos +bovillos, et pullum gallinae: Turcicae; et post carnes missas, ficus, +uvas, non admodum maturas, ita voluit anni intemperies, cum malis +Persicis, iis tamen duris. Non laetus accubui, cibum modicè sumpsi, ne +intemperantiâ ad extremum peccaretur. Si recte memini, in mentem +venerunt epulae in exequiis Hadoni celebratae. Streathamiam +quando revisam?' + +[497] 'Mr. Metcalfe is much with Dr. Johnson, but seems to have taken an +unaccountable dislike to Mrs. Thrale, to whom he never speaks.... He is +a shrewd, sensible, keen, and very clever man.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +ii. 172, 174. He, Burke, and Malone were Sir Joshua's executors. +Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 293. + +[498] Boswell should have shown, for he must have known it, that Johnson +was Mrs. Thrale's guest at Brighton. Miss Burney was also of the party. +Her account of him is a melancholy one:--'Oct. 28. Dr. Johnson +accompanied us to a ball, to the universal amazement of all who saw him +there; but he said he had found it so dull being quite alone the +preceding evening, that he determined upon going with us; "for," said +he, "it cannot be worse than being alone."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. +161. 'Oct. 29. Mr. Pepys joined Dr. Johnson, with whom he entered into +an argument, in which he was so roughly confuted, and so severely +ridiculed, that he was hurt and piqued beyond all power of disguise, +and, in the midst of the discourse, suddenly turned from him, and, +wishing Mrs. Thrale goodnight, very abruptly withdrew. Dr. Johnson was +certainly right with respect to the argument and to reason; but his +opposition was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that I +was really quite grieved to see how unamiable he appeared, and how +greatly he made himself dreaded by all, and by many abhorred.' _Ib_. p. +163. 'Oct. 30. In the evening we all went to Mrs. Hatsel's. Dr. Johnson +was not invited.' _Ib_. p. 165. 'Oct. 31. A note came to invite us all, +except Dr. Johnson, to Lady Rothes's.' _Ib_. p. 168. 'Nov. 2. We went to +Lady Shelley's. Dr. Johnson again excepted in the invitation. He is +almost constantly omitted, either from too much respect or too much +fear. I am sorry for it, as he hates being alone.' _Ib_. p. 160. 'Nov. +7. Mr. Metcalfe called upon Dr. Johnson, and took him out an airing. Mr. +Hamilton is gone, and Mr. Metcalfe is now the only person out of this +house that voluntarily communicates with the Doctor. He has been in a +terrible severe humour of late, and has really frightened all the +people, till they almost ran from him. To me only I think he is now +kind, for Mrs. Thrale fares worse than anybody.' _Ib_. p. 177. + +[499] '"Dr. Johnson has asked me," said Mr. Metcalfe, "to go with him to +Chichester, to see the cathedral, and I told him I would certainly go if +he pleased; but why I cannot imagine, for how shall a blind man see a +cathedral?" "I believe," quoth I [i.e. Miss Burney] "his blindness is as +much the effect of absence as of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at +times."' _Ib_. p. 174. For Johnson's eyesight, see _ante_, i. 41. + +[500] The second letter is dated the 28th. Johnson says:--'I have looked +_often_,' &c.; but he does not say 'he has been _much_ informed,' but +only 'informed.' Both letters are in the _Gent. Mag._ 1784, p. 893. + +[501] The reference is to Rawlinson's MS. collections for a continuation +of Wood's _Athenae_ (Macray's _Annals of the Bodleian_, p. 181). + +[502] Jortin's sermons are described by Johnson as 'very elegant.' +_Ante_, in. 248. He and Thirlby are mentioned by him in the _Life of +Pope. Works_, viii. 254. + +[503] Markland was born 1693, died 1776. His notes on some of Euripides' +_Plays_ were published at the expense of Dr. Heberden. Markland had +previously destroyed a great many other notes; writing in 1764 he +said:--'Probably it will be a long time (if ever) before this sort of +learning will revive in England; in which it is easy to foresee that +there must be a disturbance in a few years, and all public disorders are +enemies to this sort of literature.' _Gent. Mag._ 1778, P. 3l0. 'I +remember,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 252), 'when lamentation was +made of the neglect shown to Jeremiah Markland, a great philologist, as +some one ventured to call him: "He is a scholar undoubtedly, Sir," +replied Dr. Johnson, "but remember that he would run from the world, and +that it is not the world's business to run after him. I hate a fellow +whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and [who] +does nothing when he is there but sit and _growl_; let him come out as I +do, and _bark_"' A brief account of him is given in the _Ann. Reg._ +xix. 45. + +[504] Nichols published in 1784 a brief account of Thirlby, nearly half +of it being written by Johnson. Thirlby was born in 1692 and died in +1753. 'His versatility led him to try the round of what are called the +learned professions.' His life was marred by drink and insolence.' His +mind seems to have been tumultuous and desultory, and he was glad to +catch any employment that might produce attention without anxiety; such +employment, as Dr. Battie has observed, is necessary for madmen.' _Gent. +Mag._ 1784, pp. 260, 893. + +[505] He was attacked, says Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 131), 'by +a slight paralytic affection, after an almost uninterrupted course of +good health for many years.' Miss Burney wrote on Dec. 28 to one of her +sisters:--'How can you wish any wishes [matrimonial wishes] about Sir +Joshua and me? A man who has had two shakes of the palsy!' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 218. + +[506] Dr. Patten in Sept. 1781 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 699) informed +Johnson of Wilson's intended dedication. Johnson, in his reply, +said:--'What will the world do but look on and laugh when one scholar +dedicates to another?' + +[507] On the same day he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'This, my dear Sir, is the +last day of a very sickly and melancholy year. Join your prayers with +mine, that the next may be more happy to us both. I hope the happiness +which I have not found in this world will by infinite mercy be granted +in another.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 462. + +[508] 'Jan. 4, 1783. Dr. Johnson came so very late that we had all given +him up; he was very ill, and only from an extreme of kindness did he +come at all. When I went up to him to tell how sorry I was to find him +so unwell, "Ah," he cried, taking my hand and kissing it, "who shall ail +anything when Cecilia is so near? Yet you do not think how poorly I am." + +All dinner time he hardly opened his mouth but to repeat to me:--"Ah! +you little know how ill I am." He was excessively kind to me in spite of +all his pain.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 228. _Cecilia_ was the name +of her second novel (_post_, May 26, 1783). On Jan. 10 he thus ended a +letter to Mr. Nichols:--'Now I will put you in a way of shewing me more +kindness. I have been confined by ilness (sic) a long time, and sickness +and solitude make tedious evenings. Come sometimes and see, Sir, + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +_MS_. in the British Museum. + +[509] 'Dr. Johnson found here [at Auchinleck] Baxter's Anacreon, which +he told me he had long inquired for in vain, and began to suspect there +was no such book.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov.2. See _post_, under +Sept. 29, 1783. + +[510] 'The delight which men have in popularity, fame, honour, +submission, and subjection of other men's minds, wills, or affections, +although these things may be desired for other ends, seemeth to be a +thing in itself, without contemplation of consequence, grateful and +agreeable to the nature of man.' Bacon's _Nat. Hist._ Exper. No. 1000. +See _ante_, ii. 178. + +[511] In a letter to Dr. Taylor on Jan. 21 of this year, he attacked the +scheme of equal representation.' Pitt, on May 7, 1782, made his first +reform motion. Johnson thus ended his letter:--'If the scheme were more +reasonable, this is not a time for innovation. I am afraid of a civil +war. The business of every wise man seems to be now to keep his ground.' +_Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 481. + +[512] See _ante_, i. 429, _post_, 170, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. +30. + +[513] The year after this conversation the General Election of 1784 was +held, which followed on the overthrow of the Coalition Ministry and the +formation of the Pitt Ministry in December, 1783. The 'King's friends' +were in a minority of one in the last great division in the old +Parliament; in the motion on the Address in the new Parliament they had +a majority of 168. _Parl. Hist._ xxiv. 744, 843. Miss Burney, writing in +Nov. 1788, when the King was mad, says that one of his physicians 'moved +me even to tears by telling me that none of their own lives would be +safe if the King did not recover, so prodigiously high ran the tide of +affection and loyalty. All the physicians received threatening letters +daily, to answer for the safety of their monarch with their lives! Sir +G. Baker had already been stopped in his carriage by the mob, to give an +account of the King; and when he said it was a bad one, they had +furiously exclaimed, "The more shame for you."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +iv. 336. Describing in 1789 a Royal tour in the West of England, she +writes of 'the crowds, the rejoicings, the hallooing and singing, and +garlanding and decorating of all the inhabitants of this old city +[Exeter], and of all the country through which we passed.' _Ib._ v. 48. + +[514] Miss Palmer, Sir Joshua's niece, 'heard Dr. Johnson repeat these +verses with the tears falling over his cheek.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, +ii. 417. + +[515] Gibbon remarked that 'Mr. Fox was certainly very shy of saying +anything in Johnson's presence.' _Ante_, iii. 267. See _post_, under +June 9, 1784, where Johnson said 'Fox is my friend.' + +[516] Mr. Greville (_Journal_, ed. 1874, ii. 316) records the following +on the authority of Lord Holland:--'Johnson liked Fox because he +defended his pension, and said it was only to blame in not being large +enough. "Fox," he said, is a liberal man; he would always be _aut Caesar +aut nullus_; whenever I have seen him he has been _nullus_. Lord Holland +said Fox made it a rule never to talk in Johnson's presence, because he +knew all his conversations were recorded for publication, and he did not +choose to figure in them.' Fox could not have known what was not the +fact. When Boswell was by, he had reason for his silence; but otherwise +he might have spoken out. 'Mr. Fox,' writes Mackintosh (_Life_, i. 322) +'united, in a most remarkable degree, the seemingly repugnant characters +of the mildest of men and the most vehement of orators. In private life +he was so averse from parade and dogmatism as to be somewhat inactive in +conversation.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 283) tells how Fox spent a day +with him at Lausanne:--'Perhaps it never can happen again, that I should +enjoy him as I did that day, alone from ten in the morning till ten at +night. Our conversation never flagged a moment.' 'In London mixed +society,' said Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 74), 'Fox conversed little; but +at his own house in the country, with his intimate friends, he would +talk on for ever, with all the openness and simplicity of a child.' + +[517] Sec _ante_, ii. 450. + +[518] Most likely 'Old Mr. Sheridan.' + +[519] See _ante_, ii. 166. + +[520] Were I to insert all the stories which have been told of contests +boldly maintained with him, imaginary victories obtained over him, of +reducing him to silence, and of making him own that his antagonist had +the better of him in argument, my volumes would swell to an immoderate +size. One instance, I find, has circulated both in conversation and in +print; that when he would not allow the Scotch writers to have merit, +the late Dr. Rose, of Chiswick, asserted, that he could name one Scotch +writer, whom Dr. Johnson himself would allow to have written better than +any man of the age; and upon Johnson's asking who it was, answered, +'Lord Bute, when he signed the warrant for your pension.' Upon which +Johnson, struck with the repartee, acknowledged that this _was_ true. +When I mentioned it to Johnson, 'Sir, (said he,) if Rose said this, I +never heard it.' BOSWELL. + +[521] This reflection was very natural in a man of a good heart, who was +not conscious of any ill-will to mankind, though the sharp sayings which +were sometimes produced by his discrimination and vivacity, which he +perhaps did not recollect, were, I am afraid, too often remembered with +resentment. BOSWELL. When, three months later on, he was struck with +palsy, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'I have in this still scene of life +great comfort in reflecting that I have given very few reason to hate +me. I hope scarcely any man has known me closely but for his benefit, or +cursorily but to his innocent entertainment. Tell me, you that know me +best, whether this be true, that according to your answer I may continue +my practice, or try to mend it.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 287. See _post_, +May 19, 1784. Passages such as the two following might have shewn him +why he had enemies. 'For roughness, it is a needless cause of +discontent; severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth hate.' +Bacon's _Essays_, No. xi. ''Tis possible that men may be as oppressive +by their parts as their power.' _The Government of the Tongue_, sect. +vii. See _ante_, i. 388, note 2. + +[522] 'A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in +Scotland supports the people.' _Ante_, i. 294. Stockdale records +(_Memoirs_, ii. 191) that he heard a Scotch lady, after quoting this +definition, say to Johnson, 'I can assure you that in Scotland we give +oats to our horses as well as you do to yours in England.' He +replied:--'I am very glad, Madam, to find that you treat your horses as +well as you treat yourselves.' + +[523] Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote:--'The prejudices he had to countries +did not extend to individuals. The chief prejudice in which he indulged +himself was against Scotland, though he had the most cordial friendship +with individuals. This he used to vindicate as a duty. ... Against the +Irish he entertained no prejudice; he thought they united themselves +very well with us; but the Scotch, when in England, united and made a +party by employing only Scotch servants and Scotch tradesmen. He held it +right for Englishmen to oppose a party against them.' Taylor's +_Reynolds_, ii. 460. See _ante_, ii. 242, 306, and Boswell's _Hebrides, +post_, v. 20. + +[524] _Ante_, ii. 300. + +[525] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 85) says that 'Dr. Johnson, commonly +spending the middle of the week at our house, kept his numerous family +in Fleet-street upon a settled allowance; but returned to them every +Saturday to give them three good dinners and his company, before he came +back to us on the Monday night.' + +[526] Lord North's Ministry lasted from 1770, to March, 1782. It was +followed by the Rockingham Ministry, and the Shelburne Ministry, which +in its turn was at this very time giving way to the Coalition Ministry, +to be followed very soon by the Pitt Ministry. + +[527] I have, in my _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_ [p. 200, Sept. +13], fully expressed my sentiments upon this subject. The Revolution was +_necessary_, but not a subject for _glory_; because it for a long time +blasted the generous feelings of _Loyalty_. And now, when by the +benignant effect of time the present Royal Family are established in our +_affections_, how unwise it is to revive by celebrations the memory of a +shock, which it would surely have been better that our constitution had +not required. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 3, and iv. 40, note 4. + +[528] Johnson reviewed this book in 1756. _Ante_, i. 309. + +[529] Johnson, four months later, wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's +daughters:--'Never think, my sweet, that you have arithmetick enough; +when you have exhausted your master, buy books. ... A thousand stories +which the ignorant tell and believe die away at once when the computist +takes them in his gripe.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 296. See _post_, +April 18, 1783. + +[530] See _ante_, p. 116; also iii. 310, where he bore the same topic +impatiently when with Dr. Scott. + +[531] See _ante_, ii. 357. + +[532] + + 'See nations, slowly wise and meanly just, + To buried merit raise the tardy bust.' + Johnson's _Vanity of Human Wishes_. + +[533] He was perhaps, thinking of Markland. _Ante_, p. 161, note 3. + +[534] 'Dr. Johnson,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'was no complainer of +ill-usage. I never heard him even lament the disregard shown to +_Irene_.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 386. See _ante_, i. 200. + +[535] Letter to the People of Scotland against the attempt to diminish +the number of the Lords of Session, 1785. BOSWELL. 'By Mr. Burke's +removal from office the King's administration was deprived of the +assistance of that affluent mind, which is so universally rich that, as +long as British literature and British politicks shall endure, it will +be said of Edmund Burke, _Regum equabat [sic] opes animis.'_ p.71. + +[536] _Georgics_, iv. 132. + +[537] See _ante_, iii. 56, note 2. + +[538] Very likely Boswell. + +[539] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22. + +[540] Johnson had said:--'Lord Chesterfield is the proudest man this day +existing.' _Ante_, i. 265. + +[541] Lord Shelburne. At this time he was merely holding office till a +new Ministry was formed. On April 5 he was succeeded by the Duke of +Portland. His 'coarse manners' were due to a neglected childhood. In the +fragment of his _Autobiography_ he describes 'the domestic brutality and +ill-usage he experienced at home,' in the South of Ireland. 'It cost +me,' he continues, 'more to unlearn the habits, manners, and principles +which I then imbibed, than would have served to qualify me for any +_rôle_ whatever through life.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 12, 16. + +[542] Bentham, it is reported, said of of him that 'alone of his own +time, he was a "Minister who did not fear the people."' _Ib._ iii. 572. + +[543] Malagrida, a Jesuit, was put to death at Lisbon in 1761, nominally +on a charge of heresy, but in reality on a suspicion of his having +sanctioned, as confessor to one of the conspirators, an attempt to +assassinate King Joseph of Portugal. Voltaire, _Siècle de Louis XV_, ch. +xxxviii. 'His name,' writes Wraxall (_Memoirs_, ed. 1815, i. 67), 'is +become proverbial among us to express duplicity.' It was first applied +to Lord Shelburne in a squib attributed to Wilkes, which contained a +vision of a masquerade. The writer, after describing him as masquerading +as 'the heir apparent of Loyola and all the College,' continues:--'A +little more of the devil, my Lord, if you please, about the eyebrows; +that's enough, a perfect Malagrida, I protest.' Fitzmaurice's +_Shelburne_, ii. 164. 'George III. habitually spoke of Shelburne as +"Malagrida," and the "Jesuit of Berkeley Square."' _Ib._ iii. 8. The +charge of duplicity was first made against Shelburne on the retirement +of Fox (the first Lord Holland) in 1763. 'It was the tradition of +Holland House that Bute justified the conduct of Shelburne, by telling +Fox that it was "a pious fraud." "I can see the fraud plainly enough," +is said to have been Fox's retort, "but where is the piety?"' _Ib_. i. +226. Any one who has examined Reynolds's picture of Shelburne, +especially 'about the eyebrows,' at once sees how the name of Jesuit +was given. + +[544] Beauclerk wrote to Lord Charlemont on Nov. 20, 1773:-'Goldsmith +the other day put a paragraph into the newspapers in praise of Lord +Mayor Townshend. [Shelburne supported Townshend in opposition to Wilkes +in the election of the Lord Mayor. Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, ii. 287.] +The same night we happened to sit next to Lord Shelburne at Drury Lane. +I mentioned the circumstance of the paragraph to him; he said to +Goldsmith that he hoped that he had mentioned nothing about Malagrida in +it. "Do you know," answered Goldsmith, "that I never could conceive the +reason why they call you Malagrida, _for_ Malagrida was a very good sort +of man." You see plainly what he meant to say, but that happy turn of +expression is peculiar to himself. Mr. Walpole says that this story is a +picture of Goldsmith's whole life.' _Life of Charlemont_, i. 344. + +[545] Most likely Reynolds, who introduced Crabbe to Johnson. Crabbe's +_Works_, ed. 1834, ii. 11. + +[546] + + 'I paint the cot, + As truth will paint it, and as Bards will not. + Nor you, ye Poor, of lettered scorn complain, + To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain; + O'ercome by labour, and bowed down by time, + Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme? + Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread, + By winding myrtles round your ruined shed? + Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower, + Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?' + + _The Village_, book i. + +See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 6. + +[547] I shall give an instance, marking the original by Roman, and +Johnson's substitution in Italick characters:-- + + 'In fairer scenes, where peaceful pleasures spring, + Tityrus, the pride of Mantuan swains, might sing: + But charmed by him, or smitten with his views, + Shall modern poets court the Mantuan muse? + From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray, + Where Fancy leads, or Virgil led the way?' + '_On Mincio's banks, in Caesar's bounteous reign, + If Tityrus found the golden age again, + Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong, + Mechanick echoes of the Mantuan song?_ + From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray, + _Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way?._ + +Here we find Johnson's poetical and critical powers undiminished. I +must, however, observe, that the aids he gave to this poem, as to _The +Traveller_ and _Deserted Village_ of Goldsmith, were so small as by no +means to impair the distinguished merit of the authour. BOSWELL. + +[548] In the _Gent. Mag._ 1763, pp. 602, 633, is a review of his +_Observations on Diseases of the Army_. He says that the register of +deaths of military men proves that more than eight times as many men +fall by what was called the gaol fever as by battle. His suggestions are +eminently wise. Lord Seaford, in 1835, told Leslie 'that he remembered +dining in company with Dr. Johnson at Dr. Brocklesby's, when he was a +boy of twelve or thirteen. He was impressed with the superiority of +Johnson, and his knocking everybody down in argument.' C.R. Leslie's +_Recollections_, i. 146. + +[549] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 28. + +[550] See _ante_, i. 433, and ii. 217, 358. + +[551] "In his _Life of Swift_ (_Works_, viii. 205) he thus speaks of +this _Journal_:-'In the midst of his power and his politicks, he kept a +journal of his visits, his walks, his interviews with ministers, and +quarrels with his servant, and transmitted it to Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. +Dingley, to whom he knew that whatever befell him was interesting, and +no accounts could be too minute. Whether these diurnal trifles were +properly exposed to eyes which had never received any pleasure from the +presence of the dean, may be reasonably doubted: they have, however, +some odd attraction: the reader, finding frequent mention of names which +he has been used to consider as important, goes on in hope of +information; and, as there is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is +disappointed, he can hardly complain.'" + +[552] On his fifty-fifth birthday he recorded:--'I resolve to keep a +journal both of employment and of expenses. To keep accounts.' _Pr. and +Med_. 59. See _post_, Aug. 25, 1784, where he writes to Langton:--'I am +a little angry at you for not keeping minutes of your own _acceptum et +expensum_, and think a little time might be spared from Aristophanes for +the _res familiares_.' + +[553] This Mr. Chalmers thought was George Steevens. CROKER. D'Israeli +(_Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, vi. 76) describes Steevens as +guilty of 'an unparalleled series of arch deception and malicious +ingenuity.' He gives curious instances of his literary impostures. See +_ante_, iii. 281, and _post_, May 15, 1784. + +[554] If this be Lord Mansfield, Boswell must use _late_ in the sense of +_in retirement_; for Mansfield was living when the _Life of Johnson_ was +published. He retired in 1788. Johnson in 1772, said that he had never +been in his company (_ante_, ii. 158). The fact that Mansfield is +mentioned in the previous paragraph adds to the probability that he +is meant. + +[555] See _ante_, ii. 318. + +[556] In Scotland, Johnson spoke of Mansfield's 'splendid talents.' +Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11. + +[557] 'I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other +men.' 2 _ Henry IV_, act i. sc. 2. + +[558] Knowing as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory his +Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable +appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions upon him, +must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved +and stiff. If it be so, and he might be an agreeable man if he would, we +cannot be sorry that he misses his aim. BOSWELL. Wedderburne, afterwards +Lord Loughborough, is mentioned (_ante_, ii. 374), and again in Murphy's +_Life of Johnson_, p. 43, as being in company with Johnson and Foote. +Boswell also has before (_ante_, i. 387) praised the elegance of his +oratory. Henry Mackenzie (_Life of John Home_, i. 56) says that +Wedderburne belonged to a club at the British Coffee-house, of which +Garrick, Smollett, and Dr. Douglas were members. + +[559] Boswell informed the people of Scotland in the Letter that he +addressed to them in 1785 (p. 29), that 'now that Dr. Johnson is gone to +a better world, he (Boswell) bowed the intellectual knee to _Lord +Thurlow_.' See _post_, June 22, 1784. + +[560] Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 27. + +[561] + + 'Charged with light summer-rings his fingers sweat, + Unable to support a gem of weight.' + DRYDEN. Juvenal, _Satires_, i. 29. + +[562] He had published a series of seventy _Essays_ under the title of +_The Hypochondriack_ in the _London Magazine_ from 1777 to 1783. + +[563] Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 365. The common reading, however, is +'Nullum numen _habes_,' &c. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 218) records this +saying, but with a variation. '"For," says Mr. Johnson, "though I do not +quite agree with the proverb, that _Nullum numen adest si sit +prudentia_, yet we may very well say, that _Nullum numen adest, ni sit +prudentia."' + +[564] It has since appeared. BOSWELL. + +[565] Miss Burney mentions meeting Dr. Harington at Bath in 1780. 'It is +his son,' she writes, 'who published those very curious remains of his +ancestor [Sir John Harington] under the title _Nugae Antiquae_ which my +father and all of us were formerly so fond of.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, i. 341. + +[566] + + 'For though they are but trifles, thou + Some value didst to them allow.' + + Martin's _Catullus_, p. 1. + +[567] + + --Underneath this rude, uncouth disguise, + A genius of extensive knowledge lies.' + + FRANCIS. Horace, _Satires_, i. 3. 33. + +[568] He would not have been a troublesome patient anywhere, for, +according to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 275),'he required less attendance, +sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature.' + +[569] 'That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow +much excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe +that the mind grows old with the body; and that he whom we are now +forced to confess superiour is hastening daily to a level with +ourselves.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 212. + +[570] With the following elucidation of the saying-_Quos Deus_ (it +should rather be-_Quem Jupiter) vult perdere, prius dementat_-Mr. +Boswell was furnished by Mr. Pitts:--'Perhaps no scrap of Latin whatever +has been more quoted than this. It occasionally falls even from those +who are scrupulous even to pedantry in their Latinity, and will not +admit a word into their compositions, which has not the sanction of the +first age. The word _demento_ is of no authority, either as a verb +active or neuter.--After a long search for the purpose of deciding a +bet, some gentlemen of Cambridge found it among the fragments of +Euripides, in what edition I do not recollect, where it is given as a +translation of a Greek Iambick: [Greek: Ou Theos thelei apolesoi' +apophreuai.] + +'The above scrap was found in the hand-writing of a suicide of fashion, +Sir D. O., some years ago, lying on the table of the room where he had +destroyed himself. The suicide was a man of classical acquirements: he +left no other paper behind him.' + +Another of these proverbial sayings, + + _Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim,_ + +I, in a note on a passage in _The Merchant of Venice_ [act iii. sc. 5], +traced to its source. It occurs (with a slight variation) in the +_Alexandreis_ of Philip Gualtier (a poet of the thirteenth century), +which was printed at Lyons in 1558. Darius is the person addressed:-- + + --Quò tendis inertem, + Rex periture, fugam? nescis, heu! perdite, nescis + Quern fugias: hostes incurris dum fugis hostem; + _Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim._ + +A line not less frequently quoted was suggested for enquiry in a note on +_The Rape of Lucrece:-- + +Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris--_: + +But the author of this verse has not, I believe, been discovered. +MALONE. The 'Greek lambick' in the above note is not Greek. To a learned +friend I owe the following note. 'The _Quem Jupiter vult perdere_, &c., +is said to be a translation of a fragment of _Euripides_ by Joshua +Barnes. There is, I believe, no such fragment at all. In Barnes's +_Euripides_, Cantab. 1694, fol. p. 515, is a fragment of Euripides with +a note which may explain the muddle of Boswell's correspondent:-- + +"[Greek: otau de daimonn handri porsunae kaka ton noun heblapse proton,]" + +on which Barnes writes:--"Tale quid in Franciados nostrae [probably his +uncompleted poem on Edward III.] l. 3. _Certe ille deorum Arbiter +ultricem cum vult extendere dextram Dementat prius._"' See _ante_, ii. +445, note 1. Sir D. O. is, perhaps, Sir D'Anvers Osborne, whose death is +recorded in the _Gent. Mag._ 1753, p. 591. 'Sir D'Anvers Osborne, Bart., +Governor of New York, soon after his arrival there; _in his garden.' +Solamen miseris, &c._, is imitated by Swift in his _Verses on Stella's +Birthday_, 1726-7:-- + + 'The only comfort they propose, + To have companions in their woes.' + +Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xi. 22. The note on _Lucrece_ was, I +conjecture, on line 1111:-- + +'Grief best is pleased with grief's society.' + +[571] + + 'FAUSTUS-- + "Tu quoque, ut hîc video, non es ignarus amorum." + 'FORTUNATUS-- + "Id commune malum; semel insanivimus omnes."' + +Baptistae Mantuani Carmelitae _Adolescentia, seu Bucolica_. Ecloga I, +published in 1498. 'Scaliger,' says Johnson (_Works_, viii. 391), +'complained that Mantuan's Bucolicks were received into schools, and +taught as classical. ... He was read, at least in some of the inferiour +schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of the present +[eighteenth] century.' + +[572] See _ante_, i. 368. + +[573] See _ante_, i. 396. + +[574] I am happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his +enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking +particularities pointed out:--Miss Hunter, a niece of his friend +Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his extraordinary +motions, said to him, 'Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do you make such strange +gestures?' 'From bad habit,' he replied. 'Do you, my dear, take care to +guard against bad habits.' This I was told by the young lady's brother +at Margate. BOSWELL. Boswell had himself told Johnson of some of them, +at least in writing. Johnson read in manuscript his _Journal of a Tour +to the Hebrides_. Boswell says in a note on Oct. 12:--'It is remarkable +that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his own +peculiar habits, without saying anything on the subject, which I hoped +he would have done.' + +[575] See _ante_, ii. 42, note 2, and iii. 324. + +[576] Johnson, after stating that some of Milton's manuscripts prove +that 'in the early part of his life he wrote with much care,' +continues:--'Such reliques show how excellence is acquired; what we hope +ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.' +_Works_, vii. 119. Lord Chesterfield (_Letters_, iii. 146) had made the +same rule as Johnson:--'I was,' he writes, 'early convinced of the +importance and powers of eloquence; and from that moment I applied +myself to it. I resolved not to utter one word even in common +conversation that should not be the most expressive and the most elegant +that the language could supply me with for that purpose; by which means +I have acquired such a certain degree of habitual eloquence, that I must +now really take some pains if I would express myself very inelegantly.' + +[577] 'Dr. Johnson,' wrote Malone in 1783, 'is as correct and elegant in +his common conversation as in his writings. He never seems to study +either for thoughts or words. When first introduced I was very young; +yet he was as accurate in his conversation as if he had been talking to +the first scholar in England.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 92. See _post_, +under Aug. 29, 1783. + +[578] See _ante_, iii. 216. + +[579] See _ante_, ii. 323. + +[580] The justness of this remark is confirmed by the following story, +for which I am indebted to Lord Eliot:--A country parson, who was +remarkable for quoting scraps of Latin in his sermons, having died, one +of his parishioners was asked how he liked his successor. 'He is a very +good preacher,' was his answer, 'but no _latiner_.' BOSWELL. For the +original of Lord Eliot's story see Twells's _Life of Dr. E. Pocock_, ed. +1816, p. 94. Reynolds said that 'Johnson always practised on every +occasion the rule of speaking his best, whether the person to whom he +addressed himself was or was not capable of comprehending him. "If," +says he, "I am understood, my labour is not lost. If it is above their +comprehension, there is some gratification, though it is the admiration +of ignorance;" and he said those were the most sincere admirers; and +quoted Baxter, who made a rule never to preach a sermon without saying +something which he knew was beyond the comprehension of his audience, in +order to inspire their admiration.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 456. +Addison, in _The Spectator_, No. 221, tells of a preacher in a country +town who outshone a more ignorant rival, by quoting every now and then a +Latin sentence from one of the Fathers. 'The other finding his +congregation mouldering every Sunday, and hearing at length what was the +occasion of it, resolved to give his parish a little Latin in his turn; +but being unacquainted with any of the Fathers, he digested into his +sermons the whole book of _Quae Genus_, adding, however, such +explications to it as he thought might be for the benefit of his people. +He afterwards entered upon _As in praesenti_, which he converted in the +same manner to the use of his parishioners. This in a very little time +thickened his audience, filled his church, and routed his antagonist.' + +[581] See _ante_, ii. 96 + +[582] '"Well," said he, "we had good talk." BOSWELL. "Yes, Sir; you +tossed and gored several persons."' _Ante,_ ii. 66. + +[583] Dr. J. H. Burton says of Hume (_Life, ii. 31_):--'No Scotsman +could write a book of respectable talent without calling forth his loud +and warm eulogiums. Wilkie was to be the Homer, Blacklock the Pindar, +and Home the Shakespeare or something still greater of his country.' See +_ante_, ii. 121, 296, 306. + +[584] _The Present State of Music in France and Italy,_ I vol. 1771, and +_The Present State of Music in Germany, &c.,_ 2 vols. 1773. Johnson must +have skipped widely in reading these volumes, for though Dr. Burney +describes his travels, yet he writes chiefly of music. + +[585] Boswell's son James says that he heard from his father, that the +passage which excited this strong emotion was the following:-- + + 'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more: + I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you; + For morn is approaching, your charms to restore, + Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew; + Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn; + Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save: + But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn? + O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?' + +[586] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 338) mentions this book at some +length. On March 13, 1780, he wrote:--'Yesterday was published an +octavo, pretending to contain the correspondence of Hackman and Miss Ray +that he murdered.' See _ante_, iii. 383. + +[587] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 547), recording how Johnson used to meet +Psalmanazar at an ale-house, says that Johnson one day 'remarked on the +human mind, that it had a necessary tendency to improvement, and that it +would frequently anticipate instruction. "Sir," said a stranger that +overheard him, "that I deny; I am a tailor, and have had many +apprentices, but never one that could make a coat till I had taken great +pains in teaching him."' See _ante_, iii. 443. Robert Hall was +influenced in his studies by 'his intimate association in mere childhood +with a tailor, one of his father's congregation, who was an acute +metaphysician.' Hall's _Works_, vi. 5. + +[588] Johnson had never been in Grub-street. _Ante_, i. 296, note 2. + +[589] The Honourable Horace Walpole, late Earl of Orford, thus bears +testimony to this gentleman's merit as a writer:--'Mr. Chambers's +_Treatise on Civil Architecture_ is the most sensible book, and the most +exempt from prejudices, that ever was written on that science.'--Preface +to _Anecdotes of Painting in England_. BOSWELL. Chambers was the +architect of Somerset House. See _ante_, p. 60, note 7. + +[590] The introductory lines are these:--'It is difficult to avoid +praising too little or too much. The boundless panegyricks which have +been lavished upon the Chinese learning, policy, and arts, shew with +what power novelty attracts regard, and how naturally esteem swells into +admiration. I am far from desiring to be numbered among the exaggerators +of Chinese excellence. I consider them as great, or wise, only in +comparison with the nations that surround them; and have no intention to +place them in competition either with the antients or with the moderns +of this part of the world; yet they must be allowed to claim our notice +as a distinct and very singular race of men: as the inhabitants of a +region divided by its situation from all civilized countries, who have +formed their own manners, and invented their own arts, without the +assistance of example.' BOSWELL. + +[591] The last execution at Tyburn was on Nov. 7, 1783, when one man was +hanged. The first at Newgate was on the following Dec. 9, when ten were +hanged. _Gent. Mag._ 1783, pp. 974, 1060. + +[592] We may compare with this 'loose talk' Johnson's real opinion, as +set forth in _The Rambler_, No. 114, entitled:--_The necessity of +proportioning punishments to crimes_. He writes:--'The learned, the +judicious, the pious Boerhaave relates that he never saw a criminal +dragged to execution without asking himself, "Who knows whether this man +is not less culpable than me?" On the days when the prisons of this city +are emptied into the grave, let every spectator of this dreadful +procession put the same question to his own heart. Few among those that +crowd in thousands to the legal massacre, and look with carelessness, +perhaps with triumph, on the utmost exacerbations of human misery, would +then be able to return without horror and dejection.' He continues:--'It +may be observed that all but murderers have, at their last hour, the +common sensations of mankind pleading in their favour.... They who would +rejoice at the correction of a thief, are yet shocked at the thought of +destroying him. His crime shrinks to nothing compared with his misery, +and severity defeats itself by exciting pity.' + +[593] Richardson, in his _Familiar Letters_, No. 160, makes a country +gentleman in town describe the procession of five criminals to Tyburn, +and their execution. He should have heard, he said, 'the exhortation +spoken by the bell-man from the wall of St. Sepulchre's church-yard; +but the noise of the officers and the mob was so great, and the silly +curiosity of people climbing into the cart to take leave of the +criminals made such a confused noise that I could not hear them. They +are as follow: "All good people pray heartily to God for these poor +sinners, who now are going to their deaths; for whom this great bell +doth toll. You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable +tears.... Lord have mercy upon you! Christ have mercy upon you!" which +last words the bell-man repeats three times. All the way up Holborn the +crowd was so great, as at every twenty or thirty yards to obstruct the +passage; and wine, notwithstanding a late good order against that +practice, was brought the malefactors, who drank greedily of it. After +this the three thoughtless young men, who at first seemed not enough +concerned, grew most shamefully daring and wanton. They swore, laughed, +and talked obscenely. At the place of execution the scene grew still +more shocking; and the clergyman who attended was more the subject of +ridicule than of their serious attention. The psalm was sung amidst the +curses and quarrelling of hundreds of the most abandoned and profligate +of mankind. As soon as the poor creatures were half-dead, I was much +surprised to see the populace fall to haling and pulling the carcases +with so much earnestness as to occasion several warm rencounters and +broken heads. These, I was told, were the friends of the persons +executed, or such as for the sake of tumult chose to appear so; and some +persons sent by private surgeons to obtain bodies for dissection.' The +psalm is mentioned in a note on the line in _The Dunciad_, i. 4l, 'Hence +hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines:'--'It is an ancient English custom,' +says Pope, 'for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution +at Tyburn.' + +[594] The rest of these miscellaneous sayings were first given in the +_Additions to Dr. Johnson's Life_ at the beginning of vol. I of the +second edition. + +[595] Hume (_Auto_. p. 6) speaks of Hurd as attacking him 'with all the +illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility which distinguish the +Warburtonian school.' 'Hurd,' writes Walpole, 'had acquired a great name +by several works of slender merit, was a gentle, plausible man, +affecting a singular decorum that endeared him highly to devout old +ladies.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 50. He is best known +to the present generation by his impertinent notes on Addison's _Works_. +By reprinting them, Mr. Bohn did much to spoil what was otherwise an +excellent edition of that author. See _ante_, p. 47, note 2. + +[596] The Rev. T. Twining, one of Dr. Burney's friends, wrote in +1779:--'You use a form of reference that I abominate, i.e. the latter, +the former. "As long as you have the use of your tongue and your pen," +said Dr. Johnson to Dr. Burney, "never, Sir, be reduced to that shift."' +_Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIIIth +Century_, p. 72. + +[597] 'A shilling was now wanted for some purpose or other, and none of +them happened to have one; I begged that I might lend one. "Ay, do," +said the Doctor, "I will borrow of you; authors are like privateers, +always fair game for one another."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 212. + +[598] See _ante_, i. 129, note 3. + +[599] See _post_, June 3, 1784, where he uses almost the same words. + +[600] What this period was Boswell seems to leave intentionally vague. +Johnson knew Lord Shelburne at least as early as 1778 (_ante_, iii. +265). He wrote to Dr. Taylor on July 22, 1782:--'Shelburne speaks of +Burke in private with great malignity.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. +462. The company commonly gathered at his house would have been +displeasing to Johnson. Priestley, who lived with Shelburne seven years, +says (_Auto_. p. 55) that a great part of the company he saw there was +like the French philosophers, unbelievers in Christianity, and even +professed atheists: men 'who had given no proper attention to +Christianity, and did not really know what it was.' Johnson was intimate +with Lord Shelburne's brother. _Ante_, ii. 282, note 3. + +[601] Johnson being asked his opinion of this Essay, answered, 'Why, +Sir, we shall have the man come forth again; and as he has proved +Falstaff to be no coward, he may prove Iago to be a very good +character.' BOSWELL. + +[602] A writer in the _European Magazine_, xxx. 160, says that Johnson +visited Lord Shelburne at Bowood. At dinner he repeated part of his +letter to Lord Chesterfield (_ante_, i. 261). A gentleman arrived late. +Shelburne, telling him what he had missed, went on:-'I dare say the +Doctor will be kind enough to give it to us again.' 'Indeed, my Lord, I +will not. I told the circumstance first for my own amusement, but I will +not be dragged in as story-teller to a company.' In an argument he used +some strong expressions, of which his opponent took no notice, Next +morning 'he went up to the gentleman with great good-nature, and said, +"Sir, I have found out upon reflection that I was both warm and wrong in +my argument with you last night; for the first of which I beg your +pardon, and for the second, I thank you for setting me right."' It is +clear that the second of these anecdotes is the same as that told by Mr. +Morgann of Johnson and himself, and that the scene has been wrongly +transferred from Wickham to Bowood. The same writer says that it was +between Derrick and Boyce--not Derrick and Smart--that Johnson, in the +story that follows, could not settle the precedency. + +[603] See ante, i. 124, 394. + +[604] See ante, i. 397. + +[605] What the great TWALMLEY was so proud of having invented, was +neither more nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing +linen. BOSWELL. + +[606] + + 'Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi, + Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat, + Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti, + Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes.' + + _Aeneid_, vi. 660. + + 'Lo, they who in their country's fight + sword-wounded bodies bore; + Lo, priests of holy life and chaste, + while they in life had part; + Lo, God-loved poets, men who spake + things worthy Phoebus' heart, + And they who bettered life on earth + by new-found mastery.' + +MORRIS. Virgil, _Aeneids_, vi. 660. The great Twalmley might have +justified himself by _The Rambler_, No. 9:--'Every man, from the +highest to the lowest station, ought to warm his heart and animate his +endeavours with the hopes of being useful to the world, by advancing the +art which it is his lot to exercise; and for that end he must +necessarily consider the whole extent of its application, and the whole +weight of its importance.... Every man ought to endeavour at eminence, +not by pulling others down, but by raising himself, and enjoy the +pleasure of his own superiority, whether imaginary or real, without +interrupting others in the same felicity.' All this is what Twalmley +did. He adorned an art, he endeavoured at eminence, and he inoffensively +enjoyed the pleasure of his own superiority. He could also have defended +himself by the example of Aeneas, who, introducing himself, said:-- + + 'Sum pius Aeneas ..... + ... fama super aethera notus.' + +_Aeneid_, i. 378. I fear that Twalmley met with the neglect that so +commonly befalls inventors. In the _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p. 719, I find in +the list of 'B-nk-ts,' Josiah Twamley, the elder, of Warwick, +ironmonger. + +[607] 'Sir, Hume is a Tory by chance, as being a Scotchman; but not upon +a principle of duty, for he has no principle. If he is anything, he is a +Hobbist.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30. Horace Walpole's opinion was +very different. 'Are not atheism and bigotry first cousins? Was not +Charles II. an atheist and a bigot? and does Mr. Hume pluck a stone from +a church but to raise an altar to tyranny?' _Letters_, v. 444. Hume +wrote in 1756:--'My views of _things_ are more conformable to Whig +principles; my representations of _persons_ to Tory prejudices.' J.H. +Burton's _Hume_, ii. 11. Hume's Toryism increased with years. He says in +his _Autobiography/_ (p. xi.) that all the alterations which he made in +the later editions of his _History of the Stuarts_, 'he made invariably +to the Tory side.' Dr. Burton gives instances of these; _Life of Hume_, +ii. 74. Hume wrote in 1763 that he was 'too much infected with the +plaguy prejudices of Whiggism when he began the work.' _Ib_. p. 144. In +1770 he wrote:--'I either soften or expunge many villainous, seditious +Whig strokes which had crept into it.' _Ib_. p. 434. This growing hatred +of Whiggism was, perhaps, due to pique. John Home, in his notes of +Hume's talk in the last weeks of his life, says: 'He recurred to a +subject not unfrequent with him--that is, the design to ruin him as an +author, by the people that were ministers at the first publication of +his _History_, and called themselves Whigs.' _Ib_. p. 500. As regards +America, Hume was with the Whigs, as Johnson had perhaps learnt from +their common friend, Mr. Strahan. 'He was,' says Dr. Burton, 'far more +tolerant of the sway of individuals over numbers, which he looked upon +as the means of preserving order and civilization, than of the +predominance of one territory over another, which he looked upon as +subjugation.' _Ib_. p. 477. Quite at the beginning of the struggle he +foretold that the Americans would not be subdued, unless they broke in +pieces among themselves. _Ib_. p. 482. He was not frightened by the +prospect of the loss of our supremacy. He wrote to Adam Smith:--'My +notion is that the matter is not so important as is commonly imagined. +Our navigation and general commerce may suffer more than our +manufactures.' _Ib_. p. 484. Johnson's charge against Hume that he had +no principle, is, no doubt, a gross one; yet Hume's advice to a +sceptical young clergyman, who had good hope of preferment, that he +should therefore continue in orders, was unprincipled enough. 'It is,' +he wrote, 'putting too great a respect on the vulgar and on their +superstitions to pique one's self on sincerity with regard to them. Did +ever one make it a point of honour to speak truth to children or madmen? +If the thing were worthy being treated gravely, I should tell him that +the Pythian oracle, with the approbation of Xenophon, advised every one +to worship the gods--[Greek: nomo poleos]. I wish it were still in my +power to be a hypocrite in this particular. The common duties of society +usually require it; and the ecclesiastical profession only adds a little +more to an innocent dissimulation, or rather simulation, without which +it is impossible to pass through the world.' _Ib/_. p. 187. + +[608] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 48) says that Johnson told her that in +writing the story of Gelaleddin, the poor scholar (_Idler_, No. 75), who +thought to fight his way to fame by his learning and wit, 'he had his +own outset into life in his eye.' Gelaleddin describes how 'he was +sometimes admitted to the tables of the viziers, where he exerted his +wit and diffused his knowledge; but he observed that where, by endeavour +or accident he had remarkably excelled, he was seldom invited a second +time.' See _ante_, p. 116. + +[609] See ante, p. 115. + +[610] Bar. BOSWELL. + +[611] Nard. BOSWELL. + +[612] Barnard. BOSWELL. + +[613] It was reviewed in the _Gent. Mag_. 1781, p. 282, where it is said +to have been written by Don Gabriel, third son of the King of Spain. + +[614] Though 'you was' is very common in the authors of the last century +when one person was addressed, I doubt greatly whether Johnson ever so +expressed himself. + +[615] See _ante_, i. 311. + +[616] Horace Walpole (_Letters_ v. 85) says, 'Boswell, like Cambridge, +has a rage of knowing anybody that ever was talked of.' Miss Burney +records 'an old trick of Mr. Cambridge to his son George, when listening +to a dull story, in saying to the relator "Tell the rest of that to +George."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 274. See _ante_, ii. 361. + +[617] Virgil, _Eclogues_, i. 47. + +[618] 'Mr. Johnson,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 21), 'was +exceedingly disposed to the general indulgence of children, and was even +scrupulously and ceremoniously attentive not to offend them. He had +strongly persuaded himself of the difficulty people always find to erase +early impressions either of kindness or resentment.' + +[619] _Ante_, ii.171, iv.75; also _post_, May 15, 1784. + +[620] Johnson, on May 1, 1780, wrote of the exhibition dinner:--'The +apartments were truly very noble. The pictures, for the sake of a +sky-light, are at the top of the house; there we dined, and I sat over +against the Archbishop of York. See how I live when I am not under +petticoat government.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 111. It was Archbishop +Markham whom he met; he is mentioned by Boswell in his _Hebrides, post_, +v. 37. In spite of the 'elaboration of homage' Johnson could judge +freely of an archbishop. He described the Archbishop of Tuam as 'a man +coarse of voice and inelegant of language.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 300. + +[621] By Lord Perceval, afterwards Earl of Egmont. He carried, writes +Horace Walpole (_Letters_, ii. 144), 'the Westminster election at the +end of my father's ministry, which he amply described in the history of +his own family, a genealogical work called the _History of the House of +Yvery_, a work which cost him three thousand pounds; and which was so +ridiculous, that he has since tried to suppress all the copies. It +concluded with the description of the Westminster election, in these or +some such words:--"And here let us leave this young nobleman struggling +for the dying liberties of his country."' + +[622] Five days earlier Johnson made the following entry in his +Diary:--'1783, April 5. I took leave of Mrs. Thrale. I was much moved. I +had some expostulations with her. She said that she was likewise +affected. I commended the Thrales with great good-will to God; may my +petitions have been heard.' Hawkins's _Life_, p. 553. This was not 'a +formal taking of leave,' as Hawkins says. She was going to Bath (Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 264). On May-day he wrote to her on the death of +one of her little girls:--'I loved her, for she was Thrale's and yours, +and, by her dear father's appointment, in some sort mine: I love you +all, and therefore cannot without regret see the phalanx broken, and +reflect that you and my other dear girls are deprived of one that was +born your friend. To such friends every one that has them has recourse +at last, when it is discovered and discovered it seldom fails to be, +that the fortuitous friendships of inclination or vanity are at the +mercy of a thousand accidents.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 255. He was sadly +thinking how her friendship for him was rapidly passing away. + +[623] Johnson modestly ended his account of the tour by saying:--'I +cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on national manners are the +thoughts of one who has seen but little.' _Works_, ix. 161. See +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 22. + +[624] See _ib_. Oct. 21. + +[625] She says that he was 'the genuine author of the first volume. An +ingenious physician,' she continues, 'with the assistance of several +others, continued the work until the eighth volume.' Mrs. Manley's +_History of her own Life and Times_, p. 15--a gross, worthless book. +Swift satirised her in _Corinna, a Ballad_. Swift's _Works_ (1803), +x. 94. + +[626] The real authour was I. P. Marana, a Genoese, who died at Paris in +1693. John Dunton in his _Life_ says, that Mr. _William Bradshaw_ +received from Dr. Midgeley forty shillings a sheet for writing part of +the _Turkish Spy_; but I do not find that he any where mentions _Sault_ +as engaged in that work. MALONE. + +[627] See _ante_, ii. 355, iii. 46, and iv. 139. + +[628] This was in June, 1783, and I find in Mr. Windham's private diary +(which it seems this conversation induced him to keep) the following +memoranda of Dr. Johnson's advice: 'I have no great timidity in my own +disposition, and am no encourager of it in others. Never be afraid to +think yourself fit for any thing for which your friends think you fit. +_You will become an able negotiator--a very pretty rascal_. No one in +Ireland wears even the mask of incorruption; no one professes to do for +sixpence what he can get a shilling for doing. Set sail, and see where +the winds and the waves will carry you. Every day will improve another. +_Dies diem docet_, by observing at night where you failed in the day, +and by resolving to fail so no more.' CROKER. The Whigs thought he made +'a very pretty rascal' in a very different way. On his opposition to +Whitbread's bill for establishing parochial schools, Romilly wrote +(_Life_, ii. 2l6), 'that a man so enlightened as Windham should take the +same side (which he has done most earnestly) would excite great +astonishment, if one did not recollect his eager opposition a few months +ago to the abolition of the slave trade.' He was also 'most strenuous in +opposition' to Romilly's bill for repealing the act which made it a +capital offence to steal to the amount of forty shillings in a +dwelling-house, _Ib_. p. 316. + +[629] We accordingly carried our scheme into execution, in October, +1792; but whether from that uniformity which has in modern times, in a +great degree, spread through every part of the Metropolis, or from our +want of sufficient exertion, we were disappointed. BOSWELL. + +[630] Piozzi's _Anecdotes_, p. 193. See _post_, under June 30, 1784. + +[631] Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 139-143) says that the picture, +which was execrable beyond belief, was exhibited in an empty room. Lowe, +in 1769 (not in 1771 as Northcote says), gained the gold medal of the +Academy for the best historical picture. (_Gent. Mag_. 1770, p. 587.) +Northcote says that the award was not a fair one. He adds that Lowe, +being sent to Rome by the patronage of the Academy, was dissatisfied +with the sum allowed him. 'When Sir Joshua said that he knew from +experience that it was sufficient, Lowe pertly answered "that it was +possible for a man to live on guts and garbage."' He died at an obscure +lodging in Westminster, in 1793. There is, wrote Miss Burney, 'a certain +poor wretch of a villainous painter, one Mr. Lowe, whom Dr. Johnson +recommends to all the people he thinks can afford to sit for their +picture. Among these he applied to Mr. Crutchley [one of Mr. Thrale's +executors]. "But now," said Mr. Crutchley to me, "I have not a notion of +sitting for my picture--for who wants it? I may as well give the man +the money without; but no, they all said that would not do so well, and +Dr. Johnson asked me to give _him_ my picture." "And I assure you, Sir," +says he, "I shall put it in very good company, for I have portraits of +some very respectable people in my dining-room." After all I could say I +was obliged to go to the painter's. And I found him in such a condition! +a room all dirt and filth, brats squalling and wrangling... "Oh!" says +I, "Mr. Lowe, I beg your pardon for running away, but I have just +recollected another engagement; so I poked three guineas in his hand, +and told him I would come again another time, and then ran out of the +house with all my might."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.41. A +correspondent of the _Examiner_ writing on May 28, 1873, said that he +had met one of Lowe's daughters, 'who recollected,' she told him, 'when +a child, sitting on Dr. Johnson's knee and his making her repeat the +Lord's Prayer.' She was Johnson's god-daughter. By a committee +consisting of Milman, Thackeray, Dickens, Carlyle and others, an annuity +fund for her and her sister was raised. Lord Palmerston gave a large +subscription. + +[632] See _post_, May 15, 1783. + +[633] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, _post_, v. 48. + +[634] See _ante_, p. 171. + +[635] Quoted by Boswell, _ante_, iii. 324. + +[636] It is suggested to me by an anonymous Annotator on my Work, that +the reason why Dr. Johnson collected the peels of squeezed oranges may +be found in the 58th [358th] Letter in Mrs. Piozzi's _Collection_, where +it appears that he recommended 'dried orange-peel, finely powdered,' as +a medicine. BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 330. + +[637] There are two mistakes in this calculation, both perhaps due to +Boswell. _Eighty-four_ should be _eighty-eight_, and square-yards should +be _yards square_. 'If a wall cost £1000 a mile, £100 would build 176 +yards of wall, which would form a square of 44 yards, and enclose an +area of 1936 square yards; and £200 would build 352 yards of wall, which +would form a square of 88 yards, and inclose an area of 7744 square +yards. The cost of the wall in the latter case, as compared with the +space inclosed, would therefore be reduced to one half.' _Notes and +Queries_, 1st S. x. 471. + +[638] See _ante_, i. 318. + +[639] 'Davies observes, in his account of Ireland, that no Irishman had +ever planted an orchard.' Johnson's _Works_, ix.7. 'At Fochabars [in the +Highlands] there is an orchard, which in Scotland I had never seen +before.' _Ib._ p. 21. + +[640] Miss Burney this year mentions meeting 'Mr. Walker, the lecturer. +Though modest in science, he is vulgar in conversation.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, ii. 237. Johnson quotes him, _Works_, viii. 474. + +[641] 'Old Mr. Sheridan' was twelve years younger than Johnson. For his +oratory, see _ante_, i. 453, and _post_, April 28 and May 17, 1783. + +[642] See _ante_, i. 358, when Johnson said of Sheridan:--'His voice +when strained is unpleasing, and when low is not always heard.' + +[643] See _ante_, iii. 139. + +[644] 'A more magnificent funeral was never seen in London,' wrote +Murphy (_Life of Garrick_, p. 349). Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. +169), wrote on the day of the funeral:--'I do think the pomp of +Garrick's funeral perfectly ridiculous. It is confounding the immense +space between pleasing talents and national services.' He added, 'at +Lord Chatham's interment there were not half the noble coaches that +attended Garrick's.' _Ib_. p. 171. In his _Journal of the Reign of +George III_ (ii. 333), he says:--'The Court was delighted to see a more +noble and splendid appearance at the interment of a comedian than had +waited on the remains of the great Earl of Chatham.' Bishop Horne +(_Essays and Thoughts_, p. 283) has some lines on 'this grand parade of +woe,' which begin:-- + + 'Through weeping London's crowded streets, + As Garrick's funeral passed, + Contending wits and nobles strove, + Who should forsake him last. + Not so the world behaved to _him_ + Who came that world to save, + By solitary Joseph borne + Unheeded to his grave.' + +Johnson wrote on April 30, 1782: 'Poor Garrick's funeral expenses are +yet unpaid, though the undertaker is broken.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 239. +Garrick was buried on Feb. 1, 1779, and had left his widow a large +fortune. Chatham died in May, 1778. + +[645] Boswell had heard Johnson maintain this; _ante_, ii. 101. + +[646] See _post_, p. 238, note 2. + +[647] This duel was fought on April 21, between Mr. Riddell of the +Horse-Grenadiers, and Mr. Cunningham of the Scots Greys. Riddell had the +first fire, and shot Cunningham through the breast. After a pause of two +minutes Cunningham returned the fire, and gave Riddell a wound of which +he died next day. _Gent. Mag._ 1783, p. 362. Boswell's grandfather's +grandmother was a Miss Cunningham. Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 4. I do +not know that there was any nearer connection. In Scotland, I suppose, +so much kindred as this makes two men 'near relations.' + +[648] 'Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the +other.' _St. Luke_, vi. 29. Had Miss Burney thought of this text, she +might have quoted it with effect against Johnson, who, criticising her +_Evelina_, said:--'You write Scotch, you say "the one,"--my dear, +that's not English. Never use that phrase again.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, i. 84. + +[649] 'Turn not thou away.' _St. Matthew_, v. 42. + +[650] I think it necessary to caution my readers against concluding that +in this or any other conversation of Dr. Johnson, they have his serious +and deliberate opinion on the subject of duelling. In my _Journal of a +Tour to the Hebrides_, 3 ed. p. 386 [p. 366, Oct. 24], it appears that +he made this frank confession:--'Nobody at times, talks more laxly than +I do;' and, _ib_. p. 231 [Sept. 19, 1773], 'He fairly owned he could not +explain the rationality of duelling.' We may, therefore, infer, that he +could not think that justifiable, which seems so inconsistent with the +spirit of the Gospel. At the same time it must be confessed, that from +the prevalent notions of honour, a gentleman who receives a challenge is +reduced to a dreadful alternative. A remarkable instance of this is +furnished by a clause in the will of the late Colonel Thomas, of the +Guards, written the night before he fell in a duel, Sept. 3, 1783:--'In +the first place, I commit my soul to Almighty GOD, in hopes of his mercy +and pardon for the irreligious step I now (in compliance with the +unwarrantable customs of this wicked world) put myself under the +necessity of taking.' BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 179. + +[651] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24 and Sept. 20. Dr. Franklin +(_Memoirs_, i. 177) says that when the assembly at Philadelphia, the +majority of which were Quakers, was asked by New England to supply +powder for some garrison, 'they would not grant money to buy powder, +because that was an ingredient of war; but they voted an aid of £3000 to +be appropriated for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat, or _other +grain_.' The Governor interpreted _other grain_ as gunpowder, without +any objection ever being raised. + +[652] 'A gentleman falling off his horse brake his neck, which sudden +hap gave occasion of much speech of his former life, and some in this +judging world judged the worst. In which respect a good friend made this +good epitaph, remembering that of Saint Augustine, _Misericordia Domini +inter pontem et fontem_. + + "My friend judge not me, + Thou seest I judge not thee; + Betwixt the stirrop and the ground, + Mercy I askt, mercy I found."' + +_Camden's Remains_, ed. 1870, p. 420. + +[653] 'In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life.' +_Prayer-book._ + +[654] Upon this objection the Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of +Brazennose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following +satisfactory observation:--'The passage in the Burial-service does not +mean the resurrection of the person interred, but the general +resurrection; it is in sure and certain hope of _the_ resurrection; not +_his_ resurrection. Where the deceased is really spoken of, the +expression is very different, "as our hope is this our brother doth" +[rest in Christ]; a mode of speech consistent with every thing but +absolute certainty that the person departed doth _not_ rest in Christ, +which no one can be assured of, without immediate revelation from +Heaven. In the first of these places also, "eternal life" does not +necessarily mean eternity of bliss, but merely the eternity of the +state, whether in happiness or in misery, to ensue upon the +resurrection; which is probably the sense of "the life everlasting," in +the Apostles' Creed. See _Wheatly and Bennet on the Common +Prayer_.' BOSWELL. + +[655] Six days earlier the Lord-Advocate Dundas had brought in a bill +for the Regulation of the Government of India. Hastings, he said, should +be recalled. His place should be filled by 'a person of independent +fortune, who had not for object the repairing of his estate in India, +that had long been the nursery of ruined and decayed fortunes.' _Parl. +Hist_. xxiii. 757. Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on Nov. 22 of this +year:--'I believe corruption and oppression are in India at an enormous +height, but it has never appeared that they were promoted by the +Directors, who, I believe, see themselves defrauded, while the country +is plundered; but the distance puts their officers out of reach.' _Notes +and Queries_, 6th S. v. 482. See _ante_, p. 66. + +[656] See _ante_, p. 113. + +[657] Stockdale (_Memoirs_, ii. 57) says that, in 1770, the payment to +writers in the _Critical Review_ was two guineas a sheet, but that some +of the writers in _The Monthly Review_ received four guineas a sheet. As +these Reviews were octavos, each sheet contained sixteen pages. Lord +Jeffrey says that the writers in the _Edinburgh Review_ were at first +paid ten guineas a sheet. 'Not long after the _minimum_ was raised to +sixteen guineas, at which it remained during my reign, though two-thirds +of the articles were paid much higher--averaging, I should think, from +twenty to twenty-five guineas a sheet on the whole number.' Cockburn's +_Jeffrey_, i. 136. + +[658] See ante, ii. 344. + +[659] See _ante_, iii.32. + +[660] See _ante_, p. 206. + +[661] _Monday_ is no doubt put by mistake for _Tuesday_, which was the +29th. Boswell had spent a considerable part of Monday the 28th with +Johnson (_ante_, p. 211). + +[662] + + 'A fugitive from Heaven and prayer, + I mocked at all religious fear.' +FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, i.34. 1. + +[663] He told Boswell (_ante_, i. 68) that he had been a sort of lax +talker against religion for some years before he went to Oxford, but +that there he took up Law's _Serious Call_ and found it quite an +overmatch for him. 'This,' he said, 'was the first occasion of my +thinking in earnest of religion after I became capable of rational +enquiry.' During the vacation of 1729 he had a serious illness (_ante_, +i. 63), which most likely was 'the sickness that brought religion back.' + +[664] See _ante_, i. 93, 164, and _post_, under Dec. 2, 1784. + +[665] Mr. Langton. See _ante_, ii. 254. + +[666] See _ante_, ii. 249. + +[667] Malloch continued to write his name thus, _after he came to +London_. His verses prefixed to the second edition of Thomson's _Winter_ +are so subscribed. MALONE. 'Alias. A Latin word signifying otherwise; +as, Mallet, _alias_ Malloch; that is _otherwise_ Malloch.' The mention +of Mallet first comes in Johnson's own abridgment of his _Dictionary_. +In the earlier unabridged editions the definition concludes, 'often used +in the trials of criminals, whose danger has obliged them to change +their names; as Simpson _alias_ Smith, _alias_ Baker, &c.' For Mallet, +see _ante_, i. 268, and ii. 159. + +[668] Perhaps Scott had this saying of Johnson's in mind when he made +Earl Douglas exclaim:-- + + 'At first in heart it liked me ill, + When the King praised his clerkly skill. + Thanks to St. Bothan, son of mine, + Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line.' +_Marmion_, canto vi. 15. + +[669] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 10. + +[670] Johnson often maintained this diffusion of learning. Thus he +wrote:--'The call for books was not in Milton's age what it is in the +present. To read was not then a general amusement; neither traders, nor +often gentlemen, thought themselves disgraced by ignorance. The women +had not then aspired to literature nor was every house supplied with a +closet of knowledge.' _Works_, vii. 107. He goes on to mention 'that +general literature which now pervades the nation through all its ranks.' +_Works_, p. 108. 'That general knowledge which now circulates in common +talk was in Addison's time rarely to be found. Men not professing +learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and, in the female world, any +acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured.' _Ib_. +p.470. 'Of the _Essay on Criticism_, Pope declared that he did not +expect the sale to be quick, because "not one gentleman in sixty, even +of liberal education, could understand it." The gentlemen, and the +education of that time, seem to have been of a lower character than they +are of this.' _Ib_. viii. 243. See _ante_, iii. 3, 254. Yet he +maintained that 'learning has decreased in England, because learning +will not do so much for a man as formerly.' Boswell's _Hebrides, +post_, v. 80. + +[671] Malone describes a call on Johnson in the winter of this year:--'I +found him in his arm-chair by the fire-side, before which a few apples +were laid. He was reading. I asked him what book he had got. He said the +_History of Birmingham_. Local histories, I observed, were generally +dull. "It is true, Sir; but this has a peculiar merit with me; for I +passed some of my early years, and married my wife there." [See _ante_, +i. 96.] I supposed the apples were preparing as medicine. "Why, no, Sir; +I believe they are only there because I want something to do. These are +some of the solitary expedients to which we are driven by sickness. I +have been confined this week past; and here you find me roasting apples, +and reading the _History of Birmingham_."' Prior's _Malone_, p. 92. + +[672] On April 19, he wrote:--'I can apply better to books than I could +in some more vigorous parts of my life--at least than I _did_; and I +have one more reason for reading--that time has, by taking away my +companions, left me less opportunity of conversation.' Croker's +_Boswell_, p. 727. + +[673] He told Mr. Windham that he had never read the _Odyssey_ through +in the original. Windham's _Diary_, p. 17. 'Fox,' said Rogers (_Table +Talk_, p. 92), 'used to read Homer through once every year. On my asking +him, "Which poem had you rather have written, the _Iliad_ or the +_Odyssey_?" he answered, "I know which I had rather read" (meaning the +_Odyssey_).' + +[674] 'Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence +and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or +resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to +more delightful amusements.' Johnson's _Works_, iv. 145. Of Pope Johnson +wrote (_ib_. viii. 321):--'To make verses was his first labour, and to +mend them was his last. ... He was one of those few whose labour is +their pleasure.' Thomas Carlyle, in 1824, speaking of writing, says:--'I +always recoil from again engaging with it.' Froude's _Carlyle_, i. 213. +Five years later he wrote:--'Writing is a dreadful labour, yet not so +dreadful as _idleness_.' _Ib_. ii. 75. See _ante_, iii. 19. + +[675] See _ante_, ii. 15. + +[676] Miss Burney wrote to Mrs. Thrale in 1780:--'I met at Sir Joshua's +young Burke, who is made much ado about, but I saw not enough of him to +know why.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 416. Mrs. Thrale replied:--'I +congratulate myself on being quite of your opinion concerning Burke the +minor, whom I once met and could make nothing of.' _Ib_. p. 418. Miss +Hawkins (_Memoirs_, i. 304) reports, on Langton's authority, that Burke +said:--'How extraordinary it is that I, and Lord Chatham, and Lord +Holland, should each have a son so superior to ourselves.' + +[677] Cruikshank, not Cruikshanks (see _post_, under Sept. 18, 1783, and +Sept. 4 1784). He had been Dr. Hunter's partner; he was not elected +(_Gent. Mag._ 1783, p. 626). Northcote, in quoting this letter, says +that 'Sir Joshua's influence in the Academy was not always answerable to +his desire. "Those who are of some importance everywhere else," he said, +"find themselves nobody when they come to the Academy."' Northcote's +_Reynolds_, ii. 145. + +[678] William Hunter, scarcely less famous as a physician than his +youngest brother, John Hunter, as a surgeon. + +[679] Let it be remembered by those who accuse Dr. Johnson of +illiberality that both were _Scotchmen_. BOSWELL. + +[680] The following day he dined at Mrs. Garrick's. 'Poor Johnson,' +wrote Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 280), 'exerted himself exceedingly, but +he was very ill and looked so dreadfully, that it quite grieved me. He +is more mild and complacent than he used to be. His sickness seems to +have softened his mind, without having at all weakened it. I was struck +with the mild radiance of this setting sun.' + +[681] In the winter of 1788-9 Boswell began a canvass of his own county, +He also courted Lord Lonsdale, in the hope of getting one of the seats +in his gift, who first fooled him and then treated him with great +brutality, _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 270, 294, 324. + +[682] On April 6, 1780--'a day,' wrote Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. +345), 'that ought for ever to be a red-lettered day'--Mr. Dunning made +this motion. It was carried by 233 to 215. _Parl. Hist._ xxi. 340-367. + +[683] See _ante_, i. 355, and ii. 94 for Johnson's appeal to meals as a +measure of vexation. + +[684] Johnson defines _cant_ as '1. A corrupt dialect used by beggars +and vagabonds. 2. A particular form of speaking peculiar to some certain +class or body of men. 3. A whining pretension to goodness in formal and +affected terms. 4. Barbarous jargon. 5. Auction.' I have noted the +following instances of his use of the word:--'I betook myself to a +coffee-house frequented by wits, among whom I learned in a short time +the _cant_ of criticism.' _The Rambler_, No.123. 'Every class of society +has its _cant_ of lamentation.' _Ib_. No.128. 'Milton's invention +required no assistance from the common _cant_ of poetry.' _Ib_. No.140. +'We shall secure our language from being overrun with _cant_, from being +crowded with low terms, the spawn of folly or affectation.' _Works_, v. +II. 'This fugitive _cant_, which is always in a state of increase or +decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durable materials of a +language.' _Ib_. p.45. In a note on I _Henry VI_, act iii. sc.1, he +says: 'To _roam_ is supposed to be derived from the _cant_ of vagabonds, +who often pretended a pilgrimage to Rome.' See _ante_, iii. 197, for +'modern _cant_.' + +[685] 'Custom,' wrote Sir Joshua, 'or politeness, or courtly manners has +authorised such an eastern hyperbolical style of compliment, that part +of Dr. Johnson's character for rudeness of manners must be put to the +account of scrupulous adherence to truth. His obstinate silence, whilst +all the company were in raptures, vying with each other who should +pepper highest, was considered as rudeness or ill-nature.' Taylor's +_Reynolds_, ii. 458. + +[686] 'The shame is to impose words for ideas upon ourselves or others.' +Johnson's _Works_, vi. 64. See _ante_, p.122, where he says: 'There is a +middle state of mind between conviction and hypocrisy.' Bacon, in his +_Essay of Truth_, says: 'It is not the lie that passeth through the +mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth +the hurt.' + +[687] See _ante_, p. 204. + +[688] 'I dined and lay at Harrison's, where I was received with that +old-fashioned breeding which is at once so honourable and so +troublesome.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 144. Mr. Pleydell, in _Guy +Mannering_, ed. 1860, iv. 96, says: 'You'll excuse my old-fashioned +importunity. I was born in a time when a Scotchman was thought +inhospitable if he left a guest alone a moment, except when he slept.' + +[689] See _ante_, ii. 167. + +[690] See _ante_, i. 387. + +[691] In Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 197, it is recorded that +Johnson said, 'Sheridan's writings on elocution were a continual +renovation of hope, and an unvaried succession of disappointments.' +According to the _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p. 288, he continued:--'If we +should have a bad harvest this year, Mr. Sheridan would say:--"It was +owing to the neglect of oratory."' See _ante_, p. 206. + +[692] Burke, no doubt, was this 'bottomless Whig.' When Johnson said 'so +they _all_ are now,' he was perhaps thinking of the Coalition Ministry +in which Lord North and his friends had places. + +[693] No doubt Burke, who was Paymaster of the Forces. He is Boswell's +'eminent friend.' See _ante_ ii.222, and _post_, Dec. 24, 1783, and +Jan.8, 1784. In these two consecutive paragraphs, though two people seem +to be spoken of, yet only one is in reality. + +[694] I believe that Burke himself was present part of the time, and +that he was the gentleman who 'talked of _retiring_. On May 19 and 21 he +had in Parliament defended his action in restoring to office two clerks, +Powell and Bembridge, who had been dismissed by his predecessor, and he +had justified his reforms in the Paymaster's office. 'He awaited,' he +said, the 'judgement of the House. ...If they so far differed in +sentiment, he had only to say, _Nunc dimittis servum tuum.' Parl. Hist._ +xxiii.919. + +[695] A copy of _Evelina_ had been placed in the Bodleian. 'Johnson +says,' wrote Miss Burney, 'that when he goes to Oxford he will write my +name in the books, and my age when I writ them, and then,' he says, 'the +world may know that we _So mix our studies, and so joined our fame._ For +we shall go down hand in hand to posterity.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +i.429. The oldest copy of _Evelina_ now in the Bodleian is of an edition +published after Johnson's death. Miss Burney, in 1793, married General +D'Arblay, a French refugee. + +[696] Macaulay maintained that Johnson had a hand in the composition of +_Cecilia_. He quotes a passage from it, and says:--'We say with +confidence, either Sam. Johnson or the Devil.' (_Essays_, ed. 1874, iv. +157.) That he is mistaken is shown by Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_ (ii. 172). +'Ay,' cried Dr. Johnson, 'some people want to make out some credit to me +from the little rogue's book. I was told by a gentleman this morning +that it was a very fine book, if it was all her own.' "It is all her +own," said I, "for me, I am sure, for I never saw one word of it before +it was printed."' On p. 196 she records the following:--'SIR JOSHUA. +"Gibbon says he read the whole five volumes in a day." "'Tis +impossible," cried Mr. Burke, "it cost me three days; and you know I +never parted with it from the day I first opened it."' See _post_, among +the imitators of Johnson's style, under Dec. 6, 1784. + +[697] In Mr. Barry's printed analysis, or description of these pictures, +he speaks of Johnson's character in the highest terms. BOSWELL. Barry, +in one of his pictures, placed Johnson between the two beautiful +duchesses of Rutland and Devonshire, pointing to their Graces Mrs. +Montagu as an example. He expresses his 'reverence for his consistent, +manly, and well-spent life.' Barry's _Works_, ii. 339. Johnson, in his +turn, praises 'the comprehension of Barry's design.' _Piozzi Letters_, +ii. 256. He was more likely to understand it, as the pictures formed a +series, meant 'to illustrate one great maxim of moral truth, viz. that +the obtaining of happiness depends upon cultivating the human faculties. +We begin with man in a savage state full of inconvenience, imperfection, +and misery, and we follow him through several gradations of culture and +happiness, which, after our probationary state here, are finally +attended with beatitude or misery.' Barry's _Works_, ii. 323. Horace +Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 366) describes Barry's book as one 'which does +not want sense, though full of passion and self, and vulgarisms +and vanity.' + +[698] Boswell had tried to bring about a third meeting between Johnson +and Wilkes. On May 21 he wrote:--'Mr. Boswell's compliments to Mr. +Wilkes. He finds that it would not be unpleasant to Dr. Johnson to dine +at Mr. Wilkes's. The thing would be so curiously benignant, it were a +pity it should not take place. Nobody but Mr. Boswell should be asked to +meet the doctor.' An invitation was sent, but the following answer was +returned:--'May 24, 1783. Mr. Johnson returns thanks to Mr. and Miss +Wilkes for their kind invitation; but he is engaged for Tuesday to Sir +Joshua Reynolds, and for Wednesday to Mr. Paradise.' Owing to Boswell's +return to Scotland, another day could not be fixed. Almon's _Wilkes_, +iv. 314, 321. + +[699] 'If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the +place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.' _Ecclesiastes_, xi. 3. + +[700] 'When a tree is falling, I have seen the labourers, by a trivial +jerk with a rope, throw it upon the spot where they would wish it should +lie. Divines, understanding this text too literally, pretend, by a +little interposition in the article of death, to regulate a person's +everlasting happiness. I fancy the allusion will hardly countenance +their presumption.' Shenstone's _Works_, ed. 1773, ii. 255. + +[701] Hazlitt says that 'when old Baxter first went to Kidderminster to +preach, he was almost pelted by the women for maintaining from the +pulpit the then fashionable and orthodox doctrine, that "Hell was paved +with infants' skulls.'" _Conversations of Northcote_, p. 80. + +[702] _Acts_, xvii. 24. + +[703] Now the celebrated Mrs. Crouch. BOSWELL. + +[704] Mr. Windham was at this time in Dublin, Secretary to the Earl of +Northington, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. BOSWELL. See +_ante_, p.200. + +[705] Son of Mr. Samuel Paterson. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii.90, and +_post_, April 5, 1784. + +[706] The late Keeper of the Royal Academy. He died on Jan. 23 of this +year. Reynolds wrote of him:--'He may truly be said in every sense, to +have been the father of the present race of artists.' Northcote's +_Reynolds_ ii.137. + +[707] Mr. Allen was his landlord and next neighbour in Bolt-court. +_Ante_, iii. 141. + +[708] Cowper mentions him in _Retirement_:-- + + 'Virtuous and faithful Heberden! whose skill + Attempts no task it cannot well fulfill, + Gives melancholy up to nature's care, + And sends the patient into purer air.' + + Cowper's _Poems_, ed. 1786, i. 272. + +He is mentioned also by Priestley (_Auto._ ed. 1810, p.66) as one of his +chief benefactors. Lord Eldon, when almost a briefless barrister, +consulted him. 'I put my hand into my pocket, meaning to give him his +fee; but he stopped me, saying, "Are you the young gentleman who gained +the prize for the essay at Oxford?" I said I was. "I will take no fee +from you." I often consulted him; but he would never take a fee.' +Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 104. + +[709] How much he had physicked himself is shewn by a letter of May 8. +'I took on Thursday,' he writes, 'two brisk catharticks and a dose of +calomel. Little things do me no good. At night I was much better. Next +day cathartick again, and the third day opium for my cough. I lived +without flesh all the three days.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.257. He had been +bled at least four times that year and had lost about fifty ounces of +blood. _Ante_, pp.142, 146. On Aug. 3, 1779, he wrote:--'Of the last +fifty days I have taken mercurial physick, I believe, forty.' _Notes and +Queries_, 6th S. v.461. + +[710] An exact reprint of this letter is given by Professor Mayor in +_Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v.481. The omissions and the repetitions +'betray,' he says, 'the writer's agitation.' The postscript Boswell had +omitted. It is as follows:--'Dr. Brocklesby will be with me to meet Dr. +Heberden, and I shall have previously make (sic) master of the case as +well as I can.' + +[711] Vol. ii. p.268, of Mrs. Thrale's _Collection_. BOSWELL. The +beginning of the letter is very touching:--'I am sitting down in no +cheerful solitude to write a narrative which would once have affected +you with tenderness and sorrow, but which you will perhaps pass over now +with the careless glance of frigid indifference. For this diminution of +regard, however, I know not whether I ought to blame you, who may have +reasons which I cannot know, and I do not blame myself, who have for a +great part of human life done you what good I could, and have never done +you evil.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 268. 'I have loved you,' he continued, +'with virtuous affection; I have honoured you with sincere esteem. Let +not all our endearments be forgotten, but let me have in this great +distress your pity and your prayers. You see I yet turn to you with my +complaints as a settled and unalienable friend; do not, do not drive me +from you, for I have not deserved either neglect or hatred.' +_Ib._ p.271. + +[712] On Aug. 20 he wrote:--'I sat to Mrs. Reynolds yesterday for my +picture, perhaps the tenth time, and I sat near three hours with the +patience of _mortal born to bear_; at last she declared it quite +finished, and seems to think it fine. I told her it was _Johnson's +grimly ghost_. It is to be engraved, and I think _in glided_, &c., will +be a good inscription.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 302. Johnson is quoting +from Mallet's ballad of _Margaret's Ghost_:-- + + 'Twas at the silent solemn hour, + When night and morning meet; + In glided Margaret's grimly ghost, + And stood at William's feet.' + + _Percy Ballads_, in. 3, 16. + +According to Northcote, Reynolds said of his sister's oil-paintings, +'they made other people laugh and him cry.' 'She generally,' Northcote +adds, 'did them by stealth.' _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 160. + +[713] 'Nocte, inter 16 et 17 Junii, 1783. + + Summe pater, quodcunque tuum de corpore Numen + Hoc statuat, precibus Christus adesse velit: + Ingenio parcas, nee sit mihi culpa rogasse, + Qua solum potero parte placere tibi.' + + _Works_, i.159. + +[714] According to the _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p.542, Dr. Lawrence died at +Canterbury on June 13 of this year, his second son died on the 15th. +But, if we may trust Munk's _Roll of the College of Physicians_, ii.153, +on the father's tomb-stone, June 6 is given as the day of his death. Mr. +Croker gives June 17 as the date, and June 19 as the day of the son's +death, and is puzzled accordingly. + +[715] Poor Derrick, however, though he did not himself introduce me to +Dr. Johnson as he promised, had the merit of introducing me to Davies, +the immediate introductor. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i.385, 391. + +[716] Miss Burney, calling on him the next morning, offered to make his +tea. He had given her his own large arm-chair which was too heavy for +her to move to the table. '"Sir," quoth she, "I am in the wrong chair." +"It is so difficult," cried he with quickness, "for anything to be wrong +that belongs to you, that it can only be I that am in the wrong chair to +keep you from the right one."' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, ii. 345. + +[717] His Lordship was soon after chosen, and is now a member of THE +CLUB. BOSWELL. He was father of the future prime-minister, who was born +in the following year. + +[718] He wrote on June 23:--'What man can do for man has been done for +me.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.278. Murphy (_Life_, p. 121) says that, +visiting him during illness, he found him reading Dr. Watson's +_Chymistry_ (_ante_, p. 118). 'Articulating with difficulty he +said:--"From this book he who knows nothing may learn a great deal, and +he who knows will be pleased to find his knowledge recalled to his mind +in a manner highly pleasing."' + +[719] 'I have, by the migration of one of my ladies, more peace at home; +but I remember an old savage chief that says of the Romans with great +indignation-_ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant_ [_Tacitus, +Agricola_, c. xxx]. _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 259. + +[720] 'July 23. I have been thirteen days at Rochester, and am just now +returned. I came back by water in a common boat twenty miles for a +shilling, and when I landed at Billingsgate, I carried my budget myself +to Cornhill before I could get a coach, and was not much incommoded' +_Ib_. ii.294. See _ante_, iv.8, 22, for mention of Rochester. + +[721] Murphy (_Life_, p. 121) says that Johnson visited Oxford this +summer. Perhaps he was misled by a passage in the _Piozzi Letters_ (ii. +302) where Johnson is made to write:--'At Oxford I have just left +Wheeler.' For _left_ no doubt should be read _lost_. Wheeler died on +July 22 of this year. _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p. 629. + +[722] This house would be interesting to Johnson, as in it Charles II, +'for whom he had an extraordinary partiality' (_ante_, ii. 341), lay hid +for some days after the battle of Worcester. Clarendon (vi. 540) +describes it 'as a house that stood alone from neighbours and from any +highway.' Charles was lodged 'in a little room, which had been made +since the beginning of the troubles for the concealment of delinquents.' + +[723] 'I told Dr. Johnson I had heard that Mr. Bowles was very much +delighted with the expectation of seeing him, and he answered me:--"He +is so delighted that it is shocking. It is really shocking to see how +high are his expectations." I asked him why, and he said:--"Why, if any +man is expected to take a leap of twenty yards, and does actually take +one of ten, everybody will be disappointed, though ten yards may be more +than any other man ever leaped."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.260. On +Oct. 9, he wrote:--'Two nights ago Mr. Burke sat with me a long time. +We had both seen Stonehenge this summer for the first time.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii.315. + +[724] Salisbury is eighty-two miles from Cornhill by the old coach-road. +Johnson seems to have been nearly fifteen hours on the journey. + +[725] 'Aug. 13, 1783. I am now broken with disease, without the +alleviation of familiar friendship or domestic society. I have no middle +state between clamour and silence, between general conversation and +self-tormenting solitude. Levett is dead, and poor Williams is making +haste to die.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.301. 'Aug. 20. This has been a day +of great emotion; the office of the Communion of the Sick has been +performed in poor Mrs. Williams's chamber.' _Ib_. 'Sept. 22. Poor +Williams has, I hope, seen the end of her afflictions. She acted with +prudence and she bore with fortitude. She has left me. + + "Thou thy weary [worldly] task hast done, + Home art gone and ta'en thy wages." + + [_Cymbeline_, act iv. sc. 2.] + +Had she had good humour and prompt elocution, her universal curiosity +and comprehensive knowledge would have made her the delight of all that +knew her.' _Ib_. p. 311. + +[726] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 354) described in 1756 such a companion as +he found in Mrs. Williams. He quotes Pope's _Epitaph on Mrs. Corbet_, +and continues:--'I have always considered this as the most valuable of +all Pope's epitaphs; the subject of it is a character not discriminated +by any shining or eminent peculiarities; yet that which really makes, +though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every +wise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languor +of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs, weary and disgusted, +from the ostentatious, the volatile and the vain. Of such a character +which the dull overlook, and the gay despise, it was fit that the value +should be made known, and the dignity established.' See _ante_, i.232. + +[727] _Pr. and Med_. p. 226. BOSWELL. + +[728] I conjecture that Mr. Bowles is the friend. The account follows +close on the visit to his house, and contains a mention of Johnson's +attendance at a lecture at Salisbury. + +[729] A writer in _Notes and Queries_, 1st S. xii. 149, says:--'Mr. +Bowles had married a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, viz. Dinah, the +fourth daughter of Sir Thomas Frankland, and highly valued himself upon +this connection with the Protector.' He adds that Mr. Bowles was an +active Whig. + +[730] Mr. Malone observes, 'This, however, was certainly a mistake, as +appears from the _Memoirs_ published by Mr. Noble. Had Johnson been +furnished with the materials which the industry of that gentleman has +procured, and with others which, it it is believed, are yet preserved in +manuscript, he would, without doubt, have produced a most valuable and +curious history of Cromwell's life.' BOSWELL. + +[731] See _ante_, ii.358, note 3. + +[732] _Short Notes for Civil Conversation_. Spedding's _Bacon_, vii.109. + +[733] 'When I took up his _Life of Cowley_, he made me put it away to +talk. I could not help remarking how very like he is to his writing, and +how much the same thing it was to hear or to read him; but that nobody +could tell that without coming to Streatham, for his language was +generally imagined to be laboured and studied, instead of the mere +common flow of his thoughts. "Very true," said Mrs. Thrale, "he writes +and talks with the same ease, and in the same manner."' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, i. 120. What a different account is this from that given by +Macaulay:--'When he talked he clothed his wit and his sense in forcible +and natural expressions. As soon as he took his pen in his hand to write +for the public, his style became systematically vicious.' Macaulay's +_Essays_, edit. 1843, i.404. See _ante_, ii.96, note; iv.183; and +_post_, the end of the vol. + +[734] See _ante_, ii.125, iii.254, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 14. + +[735] Hume said:--'The French have more real politeness, and the English +the better method of expressing it. By real politeness I mean softness +of temper, and a sincere inclination to oblige and be serviceable, which +is very conspicuous in this nation, not only among the high, but low; in +so much that the porters and coachmen here are civil, and that, not only +to gentlemen, but likewise among themselves.' J.H. Burton's _Hume_, +i. 53. + +[736] This is the third time that Johnson's disgust at this practice is +recorded. See _ante_, ii.403, and iii.352. + +[737] See _ante_, iii.398, note 3. + +[738] 'Sept. 22, 1783. The chymical philosophers have discovered a body +(which I have forgotten, but will enquire) which, dissolved by an acid, +emits a vapour lighter than the atmospherical air. This vapour is +caught, among other means, by tying a bladder compressed upon the body +in which the dissolution is performed; the vapour rising swells the +bladder and fills it. _Piozzi Letters_, ii.310. The 'body' was +iron-filings, the acid sulphuric acid, and the vapour nitrogen. The +other 'new kinds of air' were the gases discovered by Priestley. + +[739] I do not wonder at Johnson's displeasure when the name of Dr. +Priestley was mentioned; for I know no writer who has been suffered to +publish more pernicious doctrines. I shall instance only three. First, +_Materialism_; by which _mind_ is denied to human nature; which, if +believed, must deprive us of every elevated principle. Secondly, +_Necessity_; or the doctrine that every action, whether good or bad, is +included in an unchangeable and unavoidable system; a notion utterly +subversive of moral government. Thirdly, that we have no reason to think +that the _future_ world, (which, as he is pleased to _inform_ us, will +be adapted to our _merely improved_ nature,) will be materially +different from _this_; which, if believed, would sink wretched mortals +into despair, as they could no longer hope for the 'rest that remaineth +for the people of GOD' [_Hebrews_, iv.9], or for that happiness which is +revealed to us as something beyond our present conceptions; but would +feel themselves doomed to a continuation of the uneasy state under which +they now groan. I say nothing of the petulant intemperance with which he +dares to insult the venerable establishments of his country. + +As a specimen of his writings, I shall quote the following passage, +which appears to me equally absurd and impious, and which might have +been retorted upon him by the men who were prosecuted for burning his +house. 'I cannot, (says he,) as a _necessarian_, [meaning +_necessitarian_] hate _any man_; because I consider him as _being_, in +all respects, just what GOD has _made him to be_; and also as _doing +with respect to me_, nothing but what he was _expressly designed_ and +_appointed_ to do; GOD being the _only cause_, and men nothing more than +the _instruments_ in his hands to _execute all his pleasure_.'-- +_Illustrations of Philosophical Necessity_, p. 111. + +The Reverend Dr. Parr, in a late tract, appears to suppose that _'Dr. +Johnson not only endured, but almost solicited, an interview with Dr. +Priestley_. In justice to Dr. Johnson, I declare my firm belief that he +never did. My illustrious friend was particularly resolute in not giving +countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to +society. I was present at Oxford when Dr. Price, even before he had +rendered himself so generally obnoxious by his zeal for the French +Revolution, came into a company where Johnson was, who instantly left +the room. Much more would he have reprobated Dr. Priestley. Whoever +wishes to see a perfect delineation of this _Literary Jack of all +Trades_, may find it in an ingenious tract, entitled, 'A SMALL +WHOLE-LENGTH OF DR. PRIESTLEY,' printed for Rivingtons, in St. Paul's +Church-Yard. BOSWELL. See Appendix B. + +[740] Burke said, 'I have learnt to think _better_ of mankind.' _Ante_, +iii.236. + +[741] He wrote to his servant Frank from Heale on Sept. l6:--'As +Thursday [the 18th] is my birthday I would have a little dinner got, and +would have you invite Mrs. Desmoulins, Mrs. Davis that was about Mrs. +Williams, and Mr. Allen, and Mrs. Gardiner.' Croker's _Boswell_, p.739. +See _ante_, iii.157, note 3. + +[742] Dr. Burney had just lost Mr. Bewley, 'the Broom Gentleman' +(_ante_, p. 134), and Mr. Crisp. Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, ii.323, 352. +For Mr. Crisp, see Macaulay's _Review_ of Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary. +Essays_, ed. 1874, iv.104. + +[743] He wrote of her to Mrs. Montagu:--'Her curiosity was universal, +her knowledge was very extensive, and she sustained forty years of +misery with steady fortitude. Thirty years and more she had been my +companion, and her death has left me very desolate.' Croker's _Boswell_, +p. 739. This letter brought to a close his quarrel with Mrs. Montagu +(_ante_, p. 64). + +[744] On Sept. 22 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'If excision should be +delayed, there is danger of a gangrene. You would not have me for fear +of pain perish in putrescence. I shall, I hope, with trust in eternal +mercy, lay hold of the possibility of life which yet remains.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii.312. + +[745] Rather more than seven years ago. _Ante_, ii.82, note 2. + +[746] Mrs. Anna Williams. BOSWELL. + +[747] See _ante_, p. 163, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov 2. + +[748] Dated Oct. 27. _Piozzi Letters_, ii.321. + +[749] According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Letters_, ii.387), he said to Mrs. +Siddons:--'You see, Madam, wherever you go there are no seats to be +got.' Sir Joshua also paid her a fine compliment. 'He never marked his +own name [on a picture],' says Northcote, 'except in the instance of +Mrs. Siddons's portrait as the Tragic Muse, when he wrote his name upon +the hem of her garment. "I could not lose," he said, "the honour this +opportunity offered to me for my name going down to posterity on the hem +of your garment."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 246. In Johnson's _Works_, +ed. 1787, xi. 207, we read that 'he said of Mrs. Siddons that she +appeared to him to be one of the few persons that the two great +corrupters of mankind, money and reputation, had not spoiled.' + +[750] 'Indeed, Dr. Johnson,' said Miss Monckton, 'you _must_ see Mrs. +Siddons.' 'Well, Madam, if you desire it, I will go. See her I shall +not, nor hear her; but I'll go, and that will do.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, ii. 198. + +[751] 'Mrs. Porter, the tragedian, was so much the favourite of her +time, that she was welcomed on the stage when she trod it by the help of +a stick.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 319. + +[752] He said:--'Mrs. Clive was the best player I ever saw.' Boswell's +_Hebrides, post_, v. 126. See _ante_, p. 7. She was for many years the +neighbour and friend of Horace Walpole. + +[753] She acted the heroine in _Irene. Ante_, i. 197. 'It is wonderful +how little mind she had,' he once said. _Ante_, ii. 348. See Boswell's +_Hebrides, post_, v. 126. + +[754] See _ante_, iii. 183. + +[755] See ante, iii. 184. + +[756] 'Garrick's great distinction is his universality,' Johnson said. +'He can represent all modes of life, but that of an easy, fine-bred +gentleman.' Boswell's _Hebrides, post_, v. 126. See _ante_, iii. 35. +Horace Walpole wrote of Garrick in 1765 (_Letters_, iv. 335):--'Several +actors have pleased me more, though I allow not in so many parts. Quin +in Falstaff was as excellent as Garrick in _Lear_. Old Johnson far more +natural in everything he attempted; Mrs. Porter surpassed him in +passionate tragedy. Cibber and O'Brien were what Garrick could never +reach, coxcombs and men of fashion. Mrs. Clive is at least as perfect in +low comedy.' + +[757] See _ante_, ii. 465. + +[758] Mr. Kemble told Mr. Croker that 'Mrs. Siddons's pathos in the last +scene of _The Stranger_ quite overcame him, but he always endeavoured to +restrain any impulses which might interfere with his previous study of +his part.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 742. Diderot, writing of the +qualifications of a great actor, says:--'Je lui veux beaucoup de +jugement; je le veux spectateur froid et tranquille de la nature +humaine; qu'il ait par conséquent beaucoup de finesse, mais nulle +sensibilité, ou, ce qui est la même chose, l'art de tout imiter, et une +égale aptitude à toutes sortes de caractères et de rôles; s'il était +sensible, il lui serait impossible de jouer dix fois de suite le même +rôle avec la même chaleur et le même succès; très chaud à la première +représentation, il serait épuisé et froid comme le marble à la +troisième,' &c. Diderot's _Works_ (ed. 1821), iii. 274. See Boswell's +_Hebrides, post_, v. 46. + +[759] My worthy friend, Mr. John Nichols, was present when Mr. +Henderson, the actor, paid a visit to Dr. Johnson; and was received in a +very courteous manner. See _Gent. Mag_. June, 1791. + +I found among Dr. Johnson's papers, the following letter to him, from +the celebrated Mrs. Bellamy [_ante_, i. 326]:-- + +'To DR. JOHNSON. + +'SIR, + +'The flattering remembrance of the partiality you honoured me with, some +years ago, as well as the humanity you are known to possess, has +encouraged me to solicit your patronage at my Benefit. + +'By a long Chancery suit, and a complicated train of unfortunate events, +I am reduced to the greatest distress; which obliges me, once more, to +request the indulgence of the publick. + +'Give me leave to solicit the honour of your company, and to assure you, +if you grant my request, the gratification I shall feel, from being +patronized by Dr. Johnson, will be infinitely superiour to any advantage +that may arise from the Benefit; as I am, with the profoundest +respect, Sir, + +'Your most obedient, humble servant, G. A. BELLAMY. No. 10 Duke-street, +St. James's, May 11, 1783.' + +I am happy in recording these particulars, which prove that my +illustrious friend lived to think much more favourably of Players than +he appears to have done in the early part of his life. BOSWELL. Mr. +Nichols, describing Henderson's visit to Johnson, says:--'The +conversation turning on the merits of a certain dramatic writer, Johnson +said: "I never did the man an injury; but he would persist in reading +his tragedy to me."' _Gent. Mag_: 1791, p. 500. + +[760] _Piozzi Letters_, vol. ii. p. 328. BOSWELL. + +[761] _Piozzi Letters_, vol. ii. p. 342. BOSWELL. The letter to Miss +Thrale was dated Nov. 18. Johnson wrote on Dec. l3:--'You must all guess +again at my friend. It was not till Dec. 31 that he told the name. + +[762] Miss Burney, who visited him on this day, records:--'He was, if +possible, more instructive, entertaining, good-humoured, and exquisitely +fertile than ever.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 284. The day before he +wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's little daughters:--'I live here by my own +self, and have had of late very bad nights; but then I have had a pig to +dinner which Mr. Perkins gave me. Thus life is chequered.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 327. + +[763] See _ante_, i. 242. + +[764] See _ante_, i. 242. + +[765] Nos. 26 and 29. + +[766] _Piozzi Letters_, i. 334. See _ante_, p. 75. + +[767] He strongly opposed the war with America, and was one of Dr. +Franklin's friends. Franklin's _Memoirs_, ed. 1818, iii. 108. + +[768] It was of this tragedy that the following story is told in +Rogers's _Table-Talk_, p. 177:--'Lord Shelburne could say the most +provoking things, and yet appear quite unconscious of their being so. In +one of his speeches, alluding to Lord Carlisle, he said:--"The noble +Lord has written a comedy." "No, a tragedy." "Oh, I beg pardon; I +thought it was a comedy."' See _ante_, p. 113. Pope, writing to Mr. +Cromwell on Aug. 19, 1709, says:--'One might ask the same question of a +modern life, that Rich did of a modern play: "Pray do me the favour, +Sir, to inform me is this your tragedy or your comedy?"' Pope's _Works_, +ed. 1812, vi. 81. + +[769] Mrs. Chapone, when she was Miss Mulso, had written 'four billets +in _The Rambler_, No. 10.' _Ante_, i. 203. She was one of the literary +ladies who sat at Richardson's feet. Wraxall (_Memoirs_, ed. 1815, i. +155) says that 'under one of the most repulsive exteriors that any woman +ever possessed she concealed very superior attainments and extensive +knowledge.' Just as Mrs. Carter was often called 'the learned Mrs. +Carter,' so Mrs. Chapone was known as 'the admirable Mrs. Chapone.' + +[770] See _ante_, iii. 373. + +[771] A few copies only of this tragedy have been printed, and given to +the authour's friends. BOSWELL. + +[772] Dr. Johnson having been very ill when the tragedy was first sent +to him, had declined the consideration of it. BOSWELL. + +[773] Johnson refers, I suppose, to a passage in Dryden which he quotes +in his _Dictionary_ under _mechanick_:--'Many a fair precept in poetry +is like a seeming demonstration in mathematicks, very specious in the +diagram, but failing in the mechanick operation.' + +[774] + + 'I could have borne my woes; that stranger Joy + Wounds while it smiles:--The long imprison'd wretch, + Emerging from the night of his damp cell, + Shrinks from the sun's bright beams; and that which flings + Gladness o'er all, to him is agony.' BOSWELL. + +[775] Lord Cockburn (_Life of Lord Jeffrey_, i. 74) describing the +representation of Scotland towards the close of last century, and in +fact till the Reform Bill of 1832, says:--'There were probably not above +1500 or 2000 county electors in all Scotland; a body not too large to be +held, hope included, in Government's hand. The election of either the +town or the county member was a matter of such utter indifference to the +people, that they often only knew of it by the ringing of a bell, or by +seeing it mentioned next day in a newspaper.' + +[776] Six years later, when he was _Praeses_ of the Quarter-Sessions, he +carried up to London an address to be presented to the Prince of Wales. +'This,' he wrote, 'will add something to my _conspicuousness_. Will that +word do?' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 295. + +[777] This part of this letter was written, as Johnson goes on to say, a +considerable time before the conclusion. The Coalition Ministry, which +was suddenly dismissed by the King on Dec. 19, was therefore still in +power. Among Boswell's 'friends' was Burke. See _ante_, p. 223. + +[778] On Nov. 22 he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'I feel the weight of solitude +very pressing; after a night of broken and uncomfortable slumber I rise +to a solitary breakfast, and sit down in the evening with no companion. +Sometimes, however, I try to read more and more.' _Notes and Queries_, +6th S. v. 482. On Dec. 27 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You have more than +once wondered at my complaint of solitude, when you hear that I am +crowded with visits. _Inopem me copia fecit_. Visitors are no proper +companions in the chamber of sickness. They come when I could sleep or +read, they stay till I am weary.... The amusements and consolations of +langour and depression are conferred by familiar and domestick +companions, which can be visited or called at will.... Such society I +had with Levett and Williams; such I had where I am never likely to have +it more.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 341. + +[779] The confusion arising from the sudden dismissal of a Ministry +which commanded a large majority in the House of Commons had been +increased by the resignation, on Dec. 22, of Earl Temple, three days +after his appointment as Secretary of State. _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 238. + +[780] 'News I know none,' wrote Horace Walpole on Dec. 30, 1783 +(_Letters_, viii. 447), 'but that they are crying Peerages about the +streets in barrows, and can get none off.' Thirty-three peerages were +made in the next three years. (_Whitaker's Almanac_, 1886, p. 463.) +Macaulay tells how this December 'a troop of Lords of the Bedchamber, of +Bishops who wished to be translated, and of Scotch peers who wished to +be reelected made haste to change sides.' Macaulay's _Writings and +Speeches_, ed. 1871, p. 407. + +[781] See _ante_, ii. 182. He died Oct. 28, 1788. + +[782]'Prince Henry was the first encourager of remote navigation. What +mankind has lost and gained by the genius and designs of this prince it +would be long to compare, and very difficult to estimate. Much knowledge +has been acquired, and much cruelty been committed; the belief of +religion has been very little propagated, and its laws have been +outrageously and enormously violated. The Europeans have scarcely +visited any coast but to gratify avarice, and extend corruption; to +arrogate dominion without right, and practise cruelty without incentive. +Happy had it then been for the oppressed, if the designs of Henry had +slept in his bosom, and surely more happy for the oppressors.' Johnson's +_Works_, v. 219. See _ante_, ii. 478. + +[783] 'The author himself,' wrote Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 220), 'is +the best judge of his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated on +the subject; no one is so sincerely interested in the event.' + +[784] Mickle, speaking in the third person as the Translator, says:-- +'He is happy to be enabled to add Dr. Johnson to the number of those +whose kindness for the man, and good wishes for the Translation, call +for his sincerest gratitude.' Mickle's _Lusiad_, p. ccxxv. + +[785] A brief record, it should seem, is given, _ante_, iii. 37. + +[786] See _ante_, iii. 106, 214. + +[787] The author of _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr, Johnson_ +says (p. 153) that it was Johnson who determined Shaw to undertake this +work. 'Sir,' he said, 'if you give the world a vocabulary of that +language, while the island of Great Britain stands in the Atlantic Ocean +your name will be mentioned.' On p. 156 is a letter by Johnson +introducing Shaw to a friend. + +[788] 'Why is not the original deposited in some publick library?' he +asked. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 10. + +[789] See ante, i. 190. + +[790] See Appendix C. + +[791] 'Dec. 27, 1873. The wearisome solitude of the long evenings did +indeed suggest to me the convenience of a club in my neighbourhood, but +I have been hindered from attending it by want of breath.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 340. 'Dec. 31. I have much need of entertainment; +spiritless, infirm, sleepless, and solitary, looking back with sorrow +and forward with terrour.' _Ib_, p. 343. + +[792] '"I think," said Mr. Cambridge, "it sounds more like some club +that one reads of in _The Spectator_ than like a real club in these +times; for the forfeits of a whole year will not amount to those of a +single night in other clubs."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 290. Mr. +Cambridge was thinking of the Two-penny Club. _Spectator_, No. ix. + +[793] I was in Scotland when this Club was founded, and during all the +winter. Johnson, however, declared I should be a member, and invented a +word upon the occasion: 'Boswell (said he) is a very _clubable_ man.' +When I came to town I was proposed by Mr. Barrington, and chosen. I +believe there are few societies where there is better conversation or +more decorum. Several of us resolved to continue it after our great +founder was removed by death. Other members were added; and now, above +eight years since that loss, we go on happily. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker says +'Johnson had already invented _unclubable_ for Sir J. Hawkins,' and +refers to a note by Dr. Burney (_ante_, i. 480, note I), in which +Johnson is represented as saying of Hawkins, while he was still a member +of the Literary Club:--'Sir John, Sir, is a very unclubable man.' But, +as Mr. Croker points out (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 164), 'Hawkins was not +knighted till long after he had left the club.' The anecdote, being +proved to be inaccurate in one point, may be inaccurate in another, and +may therefore belong to a much later date. + +[794] See Appendix D. + +[795] Ben Jonson wrote _Leges Convivales_ that were 'engraven in marble +over the chimney in the Apollo of the Old Devil Tavern, Temple Bar; that +being his Club Room.' Jonson's _Works_, ed. 1756, vii. 291. + +[796] RULES. + + 'To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench + In mirth, which after no repenting draws.'--MILTON. + + ['To-day deep thoughts _resolve with me_ to drench + In mirth _that_, &c.' _Sonnets_, xxi.] + +'The Club shall consist of four-and-twenty. + +'The meetings shall be on the Monday, Thursday, and Saturday of every +week; but in the week before Easter there shall be no meeting. + +'Every member is at liberty to introduce a friend once a week, but not +oftener. + +'Two members shall oblige themselves to attend in their turn every night +from eight to ten, or to procure two to attend in their room. + +'Every member present at the Club shall spend at least sixpence; and +every member who stays away shall forfeit three-pence. + +'The master of the house shall keep an account of the absent members; +and deliver to the President of the night a list of the +forfeits incurred. + +'When any member returns after absence, he shall immediately lay down +his forfeits; which if he omits to do, the President shall require. + +'There shall be no general reckoning, but every man shall adjust his own +expences. + +'The night of indispensable attendance will come to every member once a +month. Whoever shall for three months together omit to attend himself, +or by substitution, nor shall make any apology in the fourth month, +shall be considered as having abdicated the Club. + +'When a vacancy is to be filled, the name of the candidate, and of the +member recommending him, shall stand in the Club-room three nights. On +the fourth he may be chosen by ballot; six members at least being +present, and two-thirds of the ballot being in his favour; or the +majority, should the numbers not be divisible by three. + +'The master of the house shall give notice, six days before, to each of +those members whose turn of necessary attendance is come. + +'The notice may be in these words:--"Sir, On ---- the ---- of ---- -- +will be your turn of presiding at the Essex-Head. Your company is +therefore earnestly requested." + +'One penny shall be left by each member for the waiter.' + +Johnson's definition of a Club in this sense, in his _Dictionary_, is, +'An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.' BOSWELL. + +[797] She had left him in the summer (_ante_, p. 233), but perhaps she +had returned. + +[798] He received many acts of kindness from outside friends. On Dec. 31 +he wrote:--'I have now in the house pheasant, venison, turkey, and ham, +all unbought. Attention and respect give pleasure, however late or +however useless. But they are not useless when they are late; it is +reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been +spent with the approbation of mankind.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 343. + +[799] 'Dec. 16, 1783. I spent the afternoon with Dr. Johnson, who indeed +is very ill, and whom I could hardly tell how to leave. He was very, +very kind. Oh! what a cruel, heavy loss will he be! Dec. 30. I went to +Dr. Johnson, and spent the evening with him. He was very indifferent +indeed. There were some very disagreeable people with him; and he once +affected me very much by turning suddenly to me, and grasping my hand +and saying:--"The blister I have tried for my breath has betrayed some +very bad tokens; but I will not terrify myself by talking of them. Ah! +_priez Dieu pour moi_."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 293, 5. 'I +snatch,' he wrote a few weeks later, 'every lucid interval, and animate +myself with such amusements as the time offers.' _Piozzi Letters_, +ii. 349. + +[800] He had written to her on Nov. 10. See Croker's _Boswell_, p. 742. + +[801] Hawkins (_Life_, 562) says that this November Johnson said to +him:--'What a man am I, who have got the better of three diseases, the +palsy, the gout, and the asthma, and can now enjoy the conversation of +my friends, without the interruptions of weakness or pain.' + +[802] 'The street [on London Bridge], which, before the houses fell to +decay, consisted of handsome lofty edifices, pretty regularly built, was +20 feet broad, and the houses on each side generally 26-1/2 feet deep.' +After 1746 no more leases were granted, and the houses were allowed to +run to ruin. In 1756-7 they were all taken down. Dodsley's _London and +its Environs_, ed. 1761, iv. 136-143. + +[803] In Lowndes's _Bibl. Man_. i. 328 is given a list of nearly fifty +of these books. Some of them were reprinted by Stace in 1810-13 in 6 +vols. quarto. Dr. Franklin, writing of the books that he bought in his +boyhood says:--'My first acquisition was Bunyan's works in separate +little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's +_Historical Collections_; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap. +Forty volumes in all.' Franklin's _Memoirs_, i. 17. + +[804] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale this same day:--'Alas, I had no sleep last +night, and sit now panting over my paper. _Dabit Deus his quoque finem.' +['This too the Gods shall end.' MORRIS, Virgil, _Aeneids_, 1.199.] +_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 347. + +[805] Boswell's purpose in this _Letter_ was to recommend the Scotch to +address the King to express their satisfaction that the East India +Company Bill had been rejected by the House of Lords. _Ib_. p. 39. 'Let +us,' he writes, 'upon this awful occasion think only of _property_ and +_constitution_;' p. 42. 'Let me add,' he says in concluding, 'that a +dismission of the Portland Administration will probably disappoint an +object which I have most ardently at heart;' p. 42. He was thinking no +doubt of his 'expectations from the interest of an eminent person then +in power' (ante, p. 223.) + +[806] On p. 4 Boswell condemns the claim of Parliament to tax the +American colonies as 'unjust and inexpedient.' 'This claim,' he says, +'was almost universally approved of in Scotland, where due consideration +was had of the advantage of raising regiments.' He continues:--'When +pleading at the bar of the House of Commons in a question concerning +taxation, I avowed that opinion, declaring that the man in the world for +whom I have the highest respect (Dr. Johnson) had not been able to +convince me that _Taxation was no Tyranny_.' + +[807] Boswell wrote to Reynolds on Feb. 6:--'I intend to be in London +next month, chiefly to attend upon Dr. Johnson with respectful +affection.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 748. + +[808] 'I have really hope from spring,' he wrote on Jan. 21, 'and am +ready, like Almanzor, to bid the sun _fly swiftly_, and _leave weeks and +months behind him_. The sun has looked for six thousand years upon the +world to little purpose, if he does not know that a sick man is almost +as impatient as a lover.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 347. Almanzor's speech +is at the end of Dryden's _Conquest of Granada_:-- + + 'Move swiftly, Sun, and fly a lover's pace; + Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race.' + +See _ante_, i. 332, where Johnson said, 'This distinction of seasons is +produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance every +day is bright,' and _post_, Aug. 2, 1784. + +[809] He died in the following August at Dover, on his way home. +Walpole's _Letters_, viii. 494. See _ante_, iii. 250, 336, and _post_, +Aug. 19, 1784. + +[810] On the last day of the old year he wrote:--'To any man who extends +his thoughts to national consideration, the times are dismal and gloomy. +But to a sick man, what is the publick?' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 344. + +The original of the following note is in the admirable collection of +autographs belonging to my friend, Mr. M. M. Holloway:-- + +'TO THE REV. DR. TAYLOR, + +'in Ashbourne, + +'Derbyshire. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I am still confined to the house, and one of my amusements is to write +letters to my friends, though they, being busy in the common scenes of +life, are not equally diligent in writing to me. Dr. Heberden was with +me two or three days ago, and told me that nothing ailed me, which I was +glad to hear, though I knew it not to be true. My nights are restless, +my breath is difficult, and my lower parts continue tumid. + +'The struggle, you see, still continues between the two sets of +ministers: those that are _out_ and _in_ one can scarce call them, for +who is _out_ or _in_ is perhaps four times a day a new question. The +tumult in government is, I believe, excessive, and the efforts of each +party outrageously violent, with very little thought on any national +interest, at a time when we have all the world for our enemies, when the +King and parliament have lost even the titular dominion of America, and +the real power of Government every where else. Thus Empires are broken +down when the profits of administration are so great, that ambition is +satisfied with obtaining them, and he that aspires to greatness needs do +nothing more than talk himself into importance. He has then all the +power which danger and conquest used formerly to give; he can raise a +family and reward his followers. + +'Mr. Burke has just sent me his Speech upon the affairs of India, a +volume of above a hundred pages closely printed. I will look into it; +but my thoughts seldom now travel to great distances. + +'I would gladly know when you think to come hither, and whether this +year you will come or no. If my life be continued, I know not well how I +shall bestow myself. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your affectionate &c., + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Jan. 24, 1784.' + +[811] See _post_, v. 48. + +[812] See _post_, p. 271. + +[813] I sent it to Mr. Pitt, with a letter, in which I thus expressed +myself:--'My principles may appear to you too monarchical: but I know +and am persuaded, they are not inconsistent with the true principles of +liberty. Be this as it may, you, Sir, are now the Prime Minister, called +by the Sovereign to maintain the rights of the Crown, as well as those +of the people, against a violent faction. As such, you are entitled to +the warmest support of every good subject in every department.' He +answered:--'I am extremely obliged to you for the sentiments you do me +the honour to express, and have observed with great pleasure the +_zealous and able support_ given to the CAUSE OF THE PUBLICK in the work +you were so good to transmit to me.' BOSWELL. Five years later, and two +years before _The Life of Johnson_ was published, Boswell wrote to +Temple:--'As to Pitt, he is an insolent fellow, but so able, that upon +the whole I must support him against the _Coalition_; but I will _work_ +him, for he has behaved very ill to me. Can he wonder at my wishing for +preferment, when men of the first family and fortune in England struggle +for it?' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 295. Warburton said of Helvetius, whom +he disliked, that, if he had met him, 'he would have _worked_ him.' +Walpole's _Letters_, iv. 217. + +[814] Out of this offer, and one of a like nature made in 1779 (_ante_, +iii. 418), Mr. Croker weaves a vast web of ridiculous suspicions. + +[815] From his garden at Prestonfield, where he cultivated that plant +with such success, that he was presented with a gold medal by the +Society of London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and +Commerce. BOSWELL. + +[816] In the original _effusion_. Johnson's _Works_, vii. 402. + +[817] Who had written him a very kind letter. BOSWELL. + +[818] On Jan. 12 the Ministry had been in a minority of 39 in a House of +425; on March 8 the minority was reduced to one in a House of 381. +Parliament was dissolved on the 25th. In the first division in the new +Parliament the Ministry were in a majority of 97 in a House of 369. +_Parl. Hist._ xxiv. 299, 744, 829. + +[819] See _ante_, p. 241. + +[820] 'In old Aberdeen stands the King's College, of which the first +president was Hector Boece, or Boethius, who may be justly reverenced as +one of the revivers of elegant learning.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 11. + +[821] See _ante_, iii. 104. + +[822] In his dining-room, no doubt, among 'the very respectable people' +whose portraits hung there. _Ante_, p. 203, note. + +[823] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 466) wrote on March 30:--'The +nation is intoxicated, and has poured in Addresses of Thanks to the +Crown for exerting the prerogative _against_ the palladium of +the people.' + +[824] The election lasted from April 1 to May 16. Fox was returned +second on the poll. _Ann. Reg._ xxvii. 190. + +[825] He was returned also for Kirkwall, for which place he sat for +nearly a year, while the scrutiny of the Westminster election was +dragging on. _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 799. + +[826] Hannah More wrote on March 8 (_Memoirs_, i. 310):--'I am sure you +will honour Mr. Langton, when I tell you he is come on purpose to stay +with Dr. Johnson, and that during his illness. He has taken a little +lodging in Fleet-street in order to be near, to devote himself to him. +He has as much goodness as learning, and that is saying a bold thing of +one of the first Greek scholars we have.' + +[827] Floyer was the Lichfield physician on whose advice Johnson was +'_touched_' by Queen Anne. _Ante_, i. 42, 91, and _post_, July 20, 1784. + +[828] To which Johnson returned this answer:-- + +'TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL OF PORTMORE. + +'Dr. Johnson acknowledges with great respect the honour of Lord +Portmore's notice. He is better than he was; and will, as his Lordship +directs, write to Mr. Langton. + +'Bolt-court, Fleet-street, + +April 13, 1784.' + +BOSWELL. Johnson here assumes his title of Doctor, which Boswell says +(_ante_, ii. 332, note 1), so far as he knew, he never did. Perhaps the +letter has been wrongly copied, or perhaps Johnson thought that, in +writing to a man of title, he ought to assume such title as he +himself had. + +[829] The eminent painter, representative of the ancient family of +Homfrey (now Humphry) in the west of England; who, as appears from their +arms which they have invariably used, have been, (as I have seen +authenticated by the best authority,) one of those among the Knights and +Esquires of honour who are represented by Holinshed as having issued +from the Tower of London on coursers apparelled for the justes, +accompanied by ladies of honour, leading every one a Knight, with a +chain of gold, passing through the streets of London into Smithfield, on +Sunday, at three o'clock in the afternoon, being the first Sunday after +Michaelmas, in the fourteenth year of King Richard the Second. This +family once enjoyed large possessions, but, like others, have lost them +in the progress of ages. Their blood, however, remains to them well +ascertained; and they may hope in the revolution of events, to recover +that rank in society for which, in modern times, fortune seems to be an +indispensable requisite. BOSWELL. + +[830] Son of Mr. Samuel Paterson. BOSWELL. In the first two editions +after 'Paterson' is added 'eminent for his knowledge of books.' See +_ante_, iii. 90. + +[831] Humphry, on his first coming to London, poor and unfriended, was +helped by Reynolds. Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 174. + +[832] On April 21 he wrote:--'After a confinement of 129 days, more than +the third part of a year, and no inconsiderable part of human life, I +this day returned thanks to God in St. Clement's Church for my +recovery.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 365. + +[833] On April 26 he wrote:--'On Saturday I showed myself again to the +living world at the Exhibition; much and splendid was the company, but +like the Doge of Genoa at Paris [Versailles, Voltaire, _Siècle de Louis +XIV_, chap, xiv.], I admired nothing but myself. I went up the stairs to +the pictures without stopping to rest or to breathe, + + "In all the madness of superfluous health." + +[Pope's _Essay on Man_, iii. 3.] The Prince of Wales had promised to be +there; but when we had waited an hour and a half, sent us word that he +could not come.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 367. 'The first Gentleman in +Europe' was twenty-one years old when he treated men like Johnson and +Reynolds with this insolence. Mr. Forster (_Life of Goldsmith_, ii. 244) +says that it was at this very dinner that 'Johnson left his seat by +desire of the Prince of Wales, and went to the head of the table to be +introduced.' He does not give his authority for the statement. + +[834] Mr. Croker wrote in 1847 that he had 'seen it very lately framed +and glazed, in possession of the lady to whom it was addressed.' +Croker's _Boswell_, p. 753. + +[835] Shortly before he begged one of Mrs. Thrale's daughters 'never to +think that she had arithmetic enough.' _Ante_, p. 171, note 3. See +_ante_, iii. 207, note 3. + +[836] Cowper wrote on May 10 to the Rev. John Newton:--'We rejoice in +the account you give us of Dr. Johnson. His conversion will indeed be a +singular proof of the omnipotence of Grace; and the more singular, the +more decided.' Southey's _Cowper_, xv. 150. Johnson, in a prayer that he +wrote on April 11, said:--'Enable me, O Lord, to glorify Thee for that +knowledge of my corruption, and that sense of Thy wrath, which my +disease and weakness and danger awakened in my mind.' _Pr. and Med._ +p. 217. + +[837] Mr. Croker suggests _immediate_. + +[838] 'The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.' +_St. James_, v. 16. + +[839] Upon this subject there is a very fair and judicious remark in the +life of Dr. Abernethy, in the first edition of the _Biographia +Britannica_, which I should have been glad to see in his life which has +been written for the second edition of that valuable work. 'To deny the +exercise of a particular providence in the Deity's government of the +world is certainly impious: yet nothing serves the cause of the scorner +more than an incautious forward zeal in determining the particular +instances of it.' + +In confirmation of my sentiments, I am also happy to quote that sensible +and elegant writer Mr. _Melmoth_ [see _ante_, iii. 422], in Letter VIII. +of his collection, published under the name of _Fitzosborne_. 'We may +safely assert, that the belief of a particular Providence is founded +upon such probable reasons as may well justify our assent. It would +scarce, therefore, be wise to renounce an opinion which affords so firm +a support to the soul, in those seasons wherein she stands in most need +of assistance, merely because it is not possible, in questions of this +kind, to solve every difficulty which attends them.' BOSWELL. + +[840] I was sorry to observe Lord Monboddo avoid any communication with +Dr. Johnson. I flattered myself that I had made them very good friends +(see _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, third edit. p. 67, _post_, v. +80), but unhappily his Lordship had resumed and cherished a violent +prejudice against my illustrious friend, to whom I must do the justice +to say, there was on his part not the least anger, but a good-humoured +sportiveness. Nay, though he knew of his Lordship's indisposition +towards him, he was even kindly; as appeared from his inquiring of me +after him, by an abbreviation of his name, 'Well, how does _Monny_?' +BOSWELL. Boswell (_Hebrides, post_, v. 74) says:--'I knew Lord Monboddo +and Dr. Johnson did not love each other; yet I was unwilling not to +visit his lordship, and was also curious to see them together.' +Accordingly, he brought about a meeting. Four years later, in 1777 +(_ante_, iii. 102), Monboddo received from Johnson a copy of his Journey +to the Hebrides. They met again in London in 1780 (Piozzi Letters, ii. +III), and perhaps then quarrelled afresh. Dr. Seattle wrote on Feb. 28, +1785:-'Lord Monboddo's hatred of Johnson was singular; he would not +allow him to know anything but Latin grammar, "and that," says he, "I +know as well as he does." I never heard Johnson say anything severe of +him, though when he mentioned his name, he generally "grinned horribly a +ghastly smile,"' ['Grinned horrible,' &c. _Paradise Lost_, ii. 846.] +Forbes's _Beattie_, p. 333. The use of the abbreviation _Monny_ on +Johnson's part scarcely seems a proof of kindliness. See _ante_, i. 453, +where he said:--'Why, Sir, _Sherry_ is dull, naturally dull,' &c.; and +iii. 84, note 2, where he said:--'I should have thought _Mund_ Burke +would have had more sense;' see also Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 216, +where he said:--'_Derry_ [Derrick] may do very well while he can outrun +his character; but the moment that his character gets up with him he +is gone.' + +[841] On May 13 he wrote:--' Now I am broken loose, my friends seem +willing enough to see me. ... But I do not now drive the world about; +the world drives or draws me. I am very weak.' _Piozzi Letters_, +ii. 369. + +[842] See _ante,_ iii, 443. + +[843] See _ante,_ p. 197. + +[844] Boswell himself, likely enough. + +[845] Verses on the death of Mr. Levett. BOSWELL. _Ante,_ p. 138 + +[846] If it was Boswell to whom this advice was given, it is not +unlikely that he needed it. The meagreness of his record of Johnson's +talk at this season may have been due, as seems to have happened before, +to too much drinking. _Ante,_ p.88, note 1. + +[847] _Ante,_ ii. 100. + +[848] George Steevens. See _ante,_ iii. 281. + +[849] Forty-six years earlier Johnson wrote of this lady:-'I have +composed a Greek epigram to Eliza, and think she ought to be celebrated +in as many different languages as Lewis le Grand.' _Ante_, i. 122. Miss +Burney described her in 1780 as 'really a noble-looking woman; I never +saw age so graceful in the female sex yet; her whole face seems to beam +with goodness, piety, and philanthropy.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +i. 373. + +[850] 'Mrs. Thrale says that though Mrs. Lennox's books are generally +approved, nobody likes her.' _Ib._ p. 91. See _ante_, i. 255, and +iv. 10. + +[851] 'Sept. 1778. MRS. THRALE. "Mrs. Montagu is the first woman for +literary knowledge in England, and if in England, I hope I may say in +the world." DR. JOHNSON. "I believe you may, Madam. She diffuses more +knowledge in her conversation than any woman I know, or, indeed, almost +any man." MRS. THRALE. "I declare I know no man equal to her, take away +yourself and Burke, for that art."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 118. It +is curious that Mrs. Thrale and Boswell should both thus instance Burke. +Miss Burney writes of her in much more moderate terms:--'Allowing a +little for parade and ostentation, which her power in wealth and rank in +literature offer some excuse for, her conversation is very agreeable; +she is always reasonable and sensible, and sometimes instructive and +entertaining.' _Ib._ p. 325. See _ante_, ii. 88, note 3. These five +ladies all lived to a great age. Mrs. Montagu was 80 when she died; Mrs. +Lennox, 83; Miss Burney (Mme. D'Arblay), 87; Miss More and Mrs. (Miss) +Carter, 88. Their hostess, Mrs. Garrick, was 97 or 98. + +[852] Miss Burney, describing how she first saw Burke, says:--'I had +been told that Burke was not expected; yet I could conclude this +gentleman to be no other. There was an evident, a striking superiority +in his demeanour, his eye, his motions, that announced him no common +man.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 145. See _ante_, ii. 450, where +Johnson said of Burke:--'His stream of mind is perpetual;' and Boswell's +_Hebrides post,_, v. 32, and Prior's _Life of Burke_, fifth edition, +p. 58. + +[853] _Kennel_ is a strong word to apply to Burke; but, in his +jocularity, he sometimes 'let himself down' to indelicate stories. In +the House of Commons he had told one--and a very stupid one too--not a +year before. _Parl. Hist_, xxiii. 918. Horace Walpole speaks of Burke's +'pursuit of wit even to puerility.' _Journal of the Reign of George +III_, i. 443. He adds (_ib_. ii. 26):--'Burke himself always aimed at +wit, but was not equally happy in public and private. In the former, +nothing was so luminous, so striking, so abundant; in private, it was +forced, unnatural, and bombast.' See _ante_, p. 104, where Wilkes said +that in his oratory 'there was a strange want of taste.' + +[854] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, third edition, p. 20 [_post_, +v. 32.] BOSWELL. See also _ante_, i. 453, and iii. 323. + +[855] I have since heard that the report was not well founded; but the +elation discovered by Johnson in the belief that it was true, shewed a +noble ardour for literary fame. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote on Feb. 9:--'One +thing which I have just heard you will think to surpass expectation. The +chaplain of the factory at Petersburgh relates that the _Rambler_ is +now, by the command of the Empress, translating into Russian, and has +promised, when it is printed, to send me a copy.' _Piozzi Letters,_ ii. +349. Stockdale records (_Memoirs,_ ii. 98) that in 1773 the Empress of +Russia engaged 'six English literary gentlemen for instructors of her +young nobility in her Academy at St. Petersburgh.' He was offered one of +the posts. Her zeal may have gone yet further, and she may have wished +to open up English literature to those who could not read English. +Beauclerk's library was offered for sale to the Russian Ambassador. +_Ante,_ iii. 420. Miss Burney, in 1789, said that a newspaper reported +that 'Angelica Kauffmann is making drawings from _Evelina_ for the +Empress of Russia.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary,_ v. 35. + +[856] + + '--me peritus + Disect Iber, Rhodanique potor.' + + 'To him who drinks the rapid Rhone + Shall Horace, deathless bard, be known.' + + FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, ii. 20. 19. + +[857] See _ante_, iii. 49. + +[858] See _post_, June 12, 1784. + +[859] See _ante_, p. 126. + +[860] H. C. Robinson (_Diary_, i. 29) describes him as 'an author on an +infinity of subjects; his books were on Law, History, Poetry, +Antiquities, Divinity, Politics.' He adds (_ib_. p. 49l):--'Godwin, +Lofft, and Thelwall are the only three persons I know (except Hazlitt) +who grieve at the late events'--the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. He +found long after his death 'a MS. by him in these words:--"Rousseau, +Euripides, Tasso, Racine, Cicero, Virgil, Petrarch, Richardson. If I had +five millions of years to live upon this earth, these I would read daily +with increasing delight."' _Ib_. iii. 283. + +[861] Dunciad, iv. 394, note. + +[862] The King opened Parliament this day. Hannah More during the +election found the mob favourable to Fox. One night, in a Sedan chair, +she was stopped with the news that it was not safe to go through Covent +Garden. 'There were a hundred armed men,' she was told, 'who, suspecting +every chairman belonged to Brookes's, would fall upon us. A vast number +of people followed me, crying out "It is Mrs. Fox; none but Mr. Fox's +wife would dare to come into Covent Garden in a chair; she is going to +canvas in the dark."' H. More's _Memoirs_, i. 316. Horace Walpole wrote +on April 11:--'In truth Mr. Fox has all the popularity in Westminster.' +_Letters_, viii. 469. + +[863] See _post_, under June 9, 1784, where Johnson describes Fox as 'a +man who has divided the kingdom with Caesar.' + +[864] See _ante_, p. 111. + +[865] See _ante_, ii. 162. + +[866] Boswell twice speaks of W. G. Hamilton as 'an eminent friend' of +Johnson. He was not Boswell's friend. (Ante, p. 111, and _post_, under +Dec. 20, 1784.) But Boswell does not here say 'a friend _of ours_.' By +'eminent friend' Burke is generally meant, and he, possibly, is meant +here. Boswell, it is true, speaks of his 'orderly and amiable domestic +habits' (_ante_, iii. 378); but then Boswell mentions the person here +'as a virtuous man.' If Burke is meant, Johnson's suspicions would seem +to be groundless. + +[867] See _ante_, p. 168, where Johnson 'wonders why he should have any +enemies.' + +[868] After all, I cannot but be of opinion, that as Mr. Langton was +seriously requested by Dr. Johnson to mention what appeared to him +erroneous in the character of his friend, he was bound, as an honest +man, to intimate what he really thought, which he certainly did in the +most delicate manner; so that Johnson himself, when in a quiet frame of +mind, was pleased with it. The texts suggested are now before me, and I +shall quote a few of them. 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit +the earth.' _Mat._ v. 5.--'I therefore, the prisoner of the LORD, +beseech you, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are +called; with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing +one another in love.' _Ephes._ v. [iv.] 1, 2.--'And above all these +things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.' _Col._ iii. +14.--'Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not, charity +vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up: doth not behave itself unseemly, +is not easily provoked.' 1 _Cor._ xiii. 4, 5. BOSWELL. Johnson, in _The +Rambler,_ No. 28, had almost foretold what would happen. 'For escaping +these and a thousand other deceits many expedients have been proposed. +Some have recommended the frequent consultation of a wise friend, +admitted to intimacy and encouraged by sincerity. But this appears a +remedy by no means adapted to general use; for, in order to secure the +virtue of one, it pre-supposes more virtue in two than will generally be +found. In the first, such a desire of rectitude and amendment as may +incline him to hear his own accusation from the mouth of him whom he +esteems, and by whom therefore he will always hope that his faults are +not discovered; and in the second, such zeal and honesty as will make +him content for his friend's advantage to lose his kindness.' + +[869] Member for Dumfries. + +[870] Malone points out that the passage is not in Bacon, but in Boyle, +and that it is quoted in Johnson's _Dictionary_ (in the later editions +only), under _cross-bow._ It is as follows:--'Testimony is like the shot +of a long-bow, which owes its efficacy to the force of the shooter; +argument is like the shot of the cross-bow, equally forcible whether +discharged by a giant or a dwarf.' See Smollett's _Works_, ed. 1797, i. +cliv, for a somewhat fuller account by Dr. Moore of what was said by +Johnson this evening. + +[871] The Peace made by that very able statesman, the Earl of Shelburne, +now Marquis of Lansdown, which may fairly be considered as the +foundation of all the prosperity of Great Britain since that time. +BOSWELL. In the winter of 1782-83, preliminary treaties of peace were +made with the United States, France, and Spain; and a suspension of arms +with Holland. The Ode is made up of such lines as the following:-- + + 'While meek philosophy explores + Creation's vast stupendous round, + With piercing gaze sublime she soars, + And bursts the system's distant bound.' + +_Gent. Mag._; 1783. p. 245. + +[872] In the first edition of my Work, the epithet _amiable_ was given. +I was sorry to be obliged to strike it out; but I could not in justice +suffer it to remain, after this young lady had not only written in +favour of the savage Anarchy with which France has been visited, but had +(as I have been informed by good authority), walked, without horrour, +over the ground at the Thuillieries, when it was strewed with the naked +bodies of the faithful Swiss Guards, who were barbarously massacred for +having bravely defended, against a crew of ruffians, the Monarch whom +they had taken an oath to defend. From Dr. Johnson she could now expect +not endearment but repulsion. BOSWELL. + +[873] Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 50) described her as 'a very fascinating +person,' and narrated a curious anecdote which he heard from her about +the Reign of Terror. + +[874] This year, forming as it did exactly a quarter of a century since +Handel's death, and a complete century since his birth, was sought, says +the _Gent. Mag._ (1784, p. 457) as the first public periodical occasion +for bringing together musical performers in England. Dr. Burney writes +(_Ann. Reg._ 1784, p. 331):--'Foreigners must have been astonished at so +numerous a band, moving in such exact measure, without the assistance of +a Coryphaeus to beat time. Rousseau says that "the more time is beaten, +the less it is kept."' There were upwards of 500 performers. + +[875] See _ante_, iii. 242. + +[876] Lady Wronghead, whispers Mrs. Motherly, pointing to Myrtilla. + +'_Mrs. Motherly_. Only a niece of mine, Madam, that lives with me; she +will be proud to give your Ladyship any assistance in her power. + +'_Lady Wronghead_. A pretty sort of a young woman--Jenny, you two must +be acquainted. + +'_Jenny_. O Mamma! I am never strange in a strange place. _Salutes +Myrtilla_.' _The Provoked Husband; or, A Journey to London_, act ii. sc. +1, by Vanbrugh and Colley Gibber. It was not therefore Squire Richard +whom Johnson quoted, but his sister. + +[877] See _ante_, p. 191. + +[878] See Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 353, for his application of +this story. + +[879] She too was learned; for according to Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. +292) she had learnt Hebrew, merely to be useful to her husband. + +[880] + + 'This day then let us not be told, + That you are sick, and I grown old; + Nor think on our approaching ills, + And talk of spectacles and pills.' + +Swift's _Lines on Stella's Birthday_, 1726-27. Works, ed. 1803, xi. 21. + +[881] Dr. Newton, in his _Account of his own Life_, after animadverting +upon Mr. Gibbon's _History_, says, 'Dr. Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_ +afforded more amusement; but candour was much hurt and offended at the +malevolence that predominates in every part. Some passages, it must be +allowed, are judicious and well written, but make not sufficient +compensation for so much spleen and ill humour. Never was any biographer +more sparing of his praise, or more abundant in his censures. He +seemingly delights more in exposing blemishes, than in recommending +beauties; slightly passes over excellencies, enlarges upon +imperfections, and not content with his own severe reflections, revives +old scandal, and produces large quotations from the forgotten works of +former criticks. His reputation was so high in the republick of letters, +that it wanted not to be raised upon the ruins of others. But these +_Essays_, instead of raising a higher idea than was before entertained +of his understanding, have certainly given the world a worse opinion of +his temper.--The Bishop was therefore the more surprized and concerned +for his townsman, for _he respected him not only for his genius and +learning, but valued him much more for the more amiable part of his +character, his humanity and charity, his morality and religion.'_ The +last sentence we may consider as the general and permanent opinion of +Bishop Newton; the remarks which precede it must, by all who have read +Johnson's admirable work, be imputed to the disgust and peevishness of +old age. I wish they had not appeared, and that Dr. Johnson had not been +provoked by them to express himself, not in respectful terms, of a +Prelate, whose labours were certainly of considerable advantage both to +literature and religion. BOSWELL. + +[882] Newton was born Jan. 1, 1704, and was made Bishop in 1761. In his +_Account of his own Life_ (p. 65) he says:--'He was no great gainer by +his preferment; for he was obliged to give up the prebend of +Westminster, the precentorship of York, the lecturership of St. +George's, Hanover Square, and the _genteel office of sub-almoner_.' He +died in 1781. His _Works_ were published in 1782. Gibbon, defending +himself against an attack by Newton, says (_Misc. Works_, l. 24l):--'The +old man should not have indulged his zeal in a false and feeble charge +against the historian, who,' &c. + +[883] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides,_ 3rd ed. p. 371 [Oct. 25]. +BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 216. + +[884] The Rev. Mr. Agutter [_post,_ under Dec. 20] has favoured me with +a note of a dialogue between Mr. John Henderson [_post,_ June 12] and +Dr. Johnson on this topick, as related by Mr. Henderson, and it is +evidently so authentick that I shall here insert it:--HENDERSON. 'What +do you think, Sir, of William Law?' JOHNSON. 'William Law, Sir, wrote +the best piece of Parenetick Divinity; but William Law was no reasoner.' +HENDERSON. 'Jeremy Collier, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Jeremy Collier fought +without a rival, and therefore could not claim the victory.' Mr. +Henderson mentioned Kenn and Kettlewell; but some objections were made: +at last he said, 'But, Sir, what do you think of Leslie?' JOHNSON. +'Charles Leslie I had forgotten. Leslie _was_ a reasoner, and _a +reasoner who was not to be reasoned against.'_ BOSWELL. + +For the effect of Law's 'Parenetick Divinity' on Johnson, see _ante_, i. +68. 'I am surprised,' writes Macaulay, 'that Johnson should have +pronounced Law no reasoner. Law did indeed fall into great errors; but +they were errors against which logic affords no security. In mere +dialectical skill he had very few superiors.' Macaulay's _England_, ed. +1874, v. 81, note. Jeremy Collier's attack on the play-writers Johnson +describes in his _Life of Congreve_ (_Works_, viii. 28), and +continues:--'Nothing now remained for the poets but to resist or fly. +Dryden's conscience, or his prudence, angry as he was, withheld him from +the conflict: Congreve and Vanbrugh attempted answers.' Of Leslie, Lord +Bolingbroke thus writes (_Works_, in. 45):--'Let neither the polemical +skill of Leslie, nor the antique erudition of Bedford, persuade us to +put on again those old shackles of false law, false reason, and false +gospel, which were forged before the Revolution, and broken to pieces by +it.' Leslie is described by Macaulay, _History of England_, v. 81. + +[885] Burnet (_History of his own Time_, ed. 1818, iv. 303) in 1712 +speaks of Hickes and Brett as being both in the Church, but as shewing +'an inclination towards Popery.' Hickes, he says, was at the head of the +Jacobite party. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 25. + +[886] 'Only five of the seven were non-jurors; and anybody but Boswell +would have known that a man may resist arbitrary power, and yet not be a +good reasoner. Nay, the resistance which Sancroft and the other +nonjuring Bishops offered to arbitrary power, while they continued to +hold the doctrine of non-resistance, is the most decisive proof that +they were incapable of reasoning.' Macaulay's _England_, ed. 1874, +v. 81. + +[887] See _ante_, ii. 321, for Johnson's estimate of the Nonjurors, and +i. 429 for his Jacobitism. + +[888] Savage's _Works_, ed. 1777, ii. 28. + +[889] See _ante_, p. 46. + +[890] See Boswell's _Hebrides, post_, v. 77. + +[891] I have inserted the stanza as Johnson repeated it from memory; but +I have since found the poem itself, in _The Foundling Hospital for Wit_, +printed at London, 1749. It is as follows:-- + + 'EPIGRAM, _occasioned by a religious dispute at Bath_. + + 'On Reason, Faith, and Mystery high, + Two wits harangue the table; + B----y believes he knows not why. + N---- swears 'tis all a fable. + Peace, coxcombs, peach, and both agree, + N----, kiss they empty brother: + Religion laughs at foes like thee, + And dreads a friend like t'other.' + +BOSWELL. The disputants are supposed to have been Beau Nash and Bentley, +the son of the doctor, and the friend of Walpole. Croker. John Wesley in +his _Journal_, i. 186, tells how he once silences Nash. + +[892] See ante, ii. 105. + +[893] Waller, in his _Divine Poesie_, canto first, has the same thought +finely expressed:-- + + 'The Church triumphant, and the Church below, + In songs of praise their present union show; + Their joys are full; our expectation long, + In life we differ, but we join in song; + Angels and we assisted by this art, + May sing together, though we dwell apart.' + + BOSWELL. + +[894] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, post, v. 45. + +[895] In the original, _flee_. + +[896] The sermon thus opens:--'That there are angels and spirits good +and bad; that at the head of these last there is ONE more considerable +and malignant than the rest, who, in the form, or under the name of a +_serpent_, was deeply concerned in the fall of man, and whose _head_, as +the prophetick language is, the son of man was one day to _bruise_; that +this evil spirit, though that prophecy be in part completed, has not yet +received his death's wound, but is still permitted, for ends +unsearchable to us, and in ways which we cannot particularly explain, to +have a certain degree of power in this world hostile to its virtue and +happiness, and sometimes exerted with too much success; all this is so +clear from Scripture, that no believer, unless he be first of all +_spoiled by philosophy and vain deceit [Colossians_, ii. 8], can +possibly entertain a doubt of it.' + +Having treated of _possessions_, his Lordship says, 'As I have no +authority to affirm that there _are_ now any such, so neither may I +presume to say with confidence, that there are _not_ any.' + +'But then with regard to the influence of evil spirits at this day upon +the SOULS of men, I shall take leave to be a great deal more +peremptory.--(Then, having stated the various proofs, he adds,) All +this, I say, is so manifest to every one who reads the Scriptures, that, +if we respect their authority, the question concerning the reality of +the demoniack influence upon the minds of men is clearly determined.' + +Let it be remembered, that these are not the words of an antiquated or +obscure enthusiast, but of a learned and polite Prelate now alive; and +were spoken, not to a vulgar congregation, but to the Honourable Society +of Lincoln's-Inn. His Lordship in this sermon explains the words, +'deliver us from evil,' in the Lord's Prayer, as signifying a request to +be protected from 'the evil one,' that is the Devil. This is well +illustrated in a short but excellent Commentary by my late worthy +friend, the Reverend Dr. Lort, of whom it may truly be said, _Multis +ille bonis flebilis occidit_. It is remarkable that Waller, in his +_Reflections on the several Petitions, in that sacred form of devotion_, +has understood this in the same sense;-- + + 'Guard us from all temptations of the FOE.' + +BOSWELL. Dr. Lort is often mentioned in Horace Walpole's _Letters_. +Multis ille _quidem_ flebilis occidit,' comes from Horace, _Odes_, i. +xxiv. 9, translated by Francis,-- + + How did the good, the virtuous mourn.' + +For Dr. Hurd see _ante_, p. 189. + +[897] There is a curious anecdote of this physician in _Gent. Mag._ +1772, p. 467. + +[898] See _ante_, p. 166. He may have taken the more to Fox, as he had +taken to Beauclerk (_ante_, i. 248), on account of his descent from +Charles II. Fox was the great-great-grandson of that king. His Christian +names recall his Stuart ancestry. + +[899] Horace Walpole wrote on April 11 (_Letters_, viii. 469):--'In +truth Mr. Fox has all the popularity in Westminster; and, indeed, is so +amiable and winning that, could he have stood in person all over +England, I question whether he would not have carried the Parliament.' +Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 316) in the same month wrote:--'Unluckily for +my principles I met Fox canvassing the other day, and he looked so +sensible and agreeable, that if I had not turned my eyes another way, I +believe it would have been all over with me.' See _ante_, p. 279. + +[900] Dr. John Radcliffe, who died in 1714, left by his will, among +other great benefactions to the University of Oxford, '£600 yearly to +two persons, when they are Masters of Arts and entered on the +physic-line, for their maintenance for the space of ten years; the half +of which time at least they are to travel in parts beyond sea for their +better improvement.' _Radcliffe's Life and Will_, p. 123. Pope mentions +them in his _Imitations of Horace, Epistles_, ii. i. 183:-- + + 'E'en Radcliffe's doctors travel first to France, + Nor dare to practise till they've learned to dance.' + +[901] What risks were run even by inoculation is shewn in two of Dr. +Warton's letters. He wrote to his brother:--'This moment the dear +children have all been inoculated, never persons behaved better, no +whimpering at all, I hope in God for success, but cannot avoid being in +much anxiety.' A few days later he wrote:--'You may imagine I never +passed such a day as this in my life! grieved to death myself for the +loss of so sweet a child, but forced to stifle my feelings as much as +possible for the sake of my poor wife. She does not, however, hit on, or +dwell on, that most cutting circumstance of all, poor Nanny's dying, as +it were by our own means, tho' well intended indeed.' Wooll's _Warton_, +i. 289. Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, i. 155), on the other hand, bitterly +regretted that he had not had a child inoculated, whom he lost by +small-pox. + +[902] See _post_, before Nov. 17, and under Dec. 9, 1784. + +[903] 'I am the vilest of sinners and the worst of men.' Taylor's +_Works_ (ed. 1864), iii. 31. 'The best men deserve not eternal life, and +I who am the worst may have it given me.' _Ib_. p. 431--'He that hath +lived worst, even I.' _Ib_. vii. 241. 'Behold me the meanest of thy +creatures.' _Ib_. p. 296. + +[904] 'You may fairly look upon yourself to be the greatest sinner that +you know in the world. First, because you know more of the folly of your +own heart than you do of other people's; and can charge yourself with +various sins that you only know of yourself, and cannot be sure that +other people are guilty of them.' Law's _Serious Call_, chap. 23. + +[905] 1 _Timothy_, i. 15. + +[906] See _post_, v. 68, note 4. + +[907] 'Be careful thou dost not speak a lie in thy prayers, which though +not observed is frequently practised by careless persons, especially in +the forms of confession, affirming things which they have not thought, +professing sorrow which is not, making a vow they mean not.' Taylor's +_Works_, ed. 1865, vii. 622. + +[908] Reynolds wrote:--'As in Johnson's writings not a line can be found +which a saint would wish to blot, so in his life he would never suffer +the least immorality or indecency of conversation, [or anything] +contrary to virtue or piety to proceed without a severe check, which no +elevation of rank exempted them from.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 458. See +_ante_, iii. 41. + +[909] No doubt Mr. Langton. + +[910] Dr. Sheridan tells how Swift overheard a Captain Hamilton say to a +gentleman at whose house he had arrived 'that he was very sorry he had +chosen that time for his visit. "Why so?" "Because I hear Dean Swift is +with you. He is a great scholar, a wit; a plain country squire will have +but a bad time of it in his company, and I don't like to be laughed at." +Swift then stepped up and said, "Pray, Captain Hamilton, do you know how +to say _yes_ or _no_ properly?" "Yes, I think I have understanding +enough for that." "Then give me your hand--depend upon it, you and I +will agree very well."' 'The Captain told me,' continues Sheridan, 'that +he never passed two months so pleasantly in his life.' Swift's _Works_, +ed. 1803, ii. 104. + +[911] Gibbon wrote on Feb. 21, 1772 (_Misc. Works_, ii. 78):--'To day +the House of Commons was employed in a very odd way. Tommy Townshend +moved that the sermon of Dr. Nowell, who preached before the House on +the 30th of January (_id est_, before the Speaker and four members), +should be burnt by the common hangman, as containing arbitrary, Tory, +high-flown doctrines. The House was nearly agreeing to the motion, till +they recollected that they had already thanked the preacher for his +excellent discourse, and ordered it to be printed.' + +[912] + + 'Although it be not _shined_ upon.' + _Hudibras_, iii. 2, 175. + +[913] According to Mr. Croker, this was the Rev. Henry Bate, of the +_Morning Post_, who in 1784 took the name of Dudley, was created a +baronet in 1815, and died in 1824. Horace Walpole wrote on Nov. 13, 1776 +(_Letters_, vi. 39l):--'Yesterday I heard drums and trumpets in +Piccadilly: I looked out of the window and saw a procession with +streamers flying. At first I thought it a press-gang, but seeing the +corps so well-drest, like Hussars, in yellow with blue waistcoats and +breeches, and high caps, I concluded it was some new body of our allies, +or a regiment newly raised, and with new regimentals for distinction. I +was not totally mistaken, for the Colonel is _a new ally_. In short, +this was a procession set forth by Mr. Bate, Lord Lyttelton's chaplain, +and author of the old _Morning Post_, and meant as an appeal to the town +against his antagonist, the new one.' In June, 1781, Bate was sentenced +to a year's imprisonment 'for an atrocious libel on the Duke of +Richmond. He was the worst of all the scandalous libellers that had +appeared both on private persons as well as public. His life was +dissolute, and he had fought more than one duel. Yet Lord Sandwich had +procured for him a good Crown living, and he was believed to be +pensioned by the Court.' Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George +III_, ii. 464. + +[914] See _ante_, ii. 339, and iii. 265. + +[915] Three days earlier, in the debate on the Westminster Scrutiny, Fox +accused 'a person of great rank in this House'--Pitt I believe--'of +adding pertness and personal contumely to every species of rash and +inconsiderate violence.' _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 924. Pitt, in reply, +classed Fox among 'political apostates,' _ib_. p. 929. Burke, the same +evening, 'sat down saying, "he little minded the ill-treatment of a +parcel of boys."' When he was called to order, he said:--'When he used +the term "a parcel of boys," he meant to apply it to the ministry, who, +he conceived, were insulting him with their triumph; a triumph which +grey hairs ought to be allowed the privilege of expressing displeasure +at, when it was founded on the rash exultation of mere boys.' _Ib_. p. +939. Pitt, Prime-Minister though he was, in the spring of the same year, +was called to order by the Speaker, for charging a member with using +'language the most false, the most malicious, and the most slanderous.' +_Ib_. p. 763. + +[916] _Epistles to Mr. Pope_, ii. 165. + +[917] See an account of him, in a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Agutter. +BOSWELL. This sermon was published in 1788. In Hannah More's _Memoirs_ +(i. 217), Henderson is described as 'a mixture of great sense, which +discovered uncommon parts and learning, with a tincture of nonsense of +the most extravagant kind. He believes in witches and apparitions, as +well as in judicial astronomy.' Mrs. Kennicott writes (_ib_. p. +220):--'I think if Dr. Johnson had the shaking him about, he would shake +out his nonsense, and set his sense a-working. 'He never got out into the +world, says Dr. Hall, the Master of Pembroke College, having died in +College in 1788. + +[918] This was the second Lord Lyttelton, commonly known as 'the wicked +Lord Lyttelton.' Fox described him to Rogers as 'a very bad +man--downright wicked.' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 95. He died Nov. 27, +1779. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 292) wrote to Mason on Dec. 11 +of that year:--'If you can send us any stories of ghosts out of the +North, they will be very welcome. Lord Lyttelton's vision has revived +the taste; though it seems a little odd that an apparition should +despair of being able to get access to his Lordship's bed in the shape +of a young woman, without being forced to use the disguise of a +robin-red-breast.' In the _Gent. Mag._ 1815, i. 597, and 1816, ii. 421, +accounts are given of this vision. In the latter account it is said that +'he saw a bird fluttering, and afterwards a woman appeared in white +apparel, and said, "Prepare to die; you will not exist three days."' +Mrs. Piozzi also wrote a full account of it. Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 332. + +[919] See _ante_, ii. 150, and iii. 298, note 1. + +[920] See _ante_, p. 278. + +[921] 'If he who considers himself as suspended over the abyss of +eternal perdition only by the thread of life, which must soon part by +its own weakness, and which the wing of every minute may divide, can +cast his eyes round him without shuddering with horror, or panting for +security; what can he judge of himself, but that he is not yet awakened +to sufficient conviction? &c.' _The Rambler_, No. 110. In a blank leaf +in the book in which Johnson kept his diary of his journey in Wales is +written in his own hand, 'Faith in some proportion to Fear.' Duppa's +Johnson's _Diary of a Journey &c_., p. 157. See _ante_, iii. 199. + +[922] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on March 20:--'Write to me no more about +_dying with a grace_; when you feel what I have felt in approaching +eternity--in fear of soon hearing the sentence of which there is no +revocation, you will know the folly.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 354. Of him +it might have been said in Cowper's words:-- + + 'Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears.' + +_The Task: The Winter Morning Walk_, 1. 611. See _ante_, iii. 294. + +[923] The Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazen-Nose College, +Oxford, has favoured me with the following remarks on my Work, which he +is pleased to say, 'I have hitherto extolled, and cordially approve.' + +'The chief part of what I have to observe is contained in the following +transcript from a letter to a friend, which, with his concurrence, I +copied for this purpose; and, whatever may be the merit or justness of +the remarks, you may be sure that being written to a most intimate +friend, without any intention that they ever should go further, they are +the genuine and undisguised sentiments of the writer:-- + +'Jan. 6, 1792. + +'Last week, I was reading the second volume of Boswell's _Johnson_, with +increasing esteem for the worthy authour, and increasing veneration of +the wonderful and excellent man who is the subject of it. The writer +throws in, now and then, very properly some serious religious +reflections; but there is one remark, in my mind an obvious and just +one, which I think he has not made, that Johnson's "morbid melancholy," +and constitutional infirmities, were intended by Providence, like St. +Paul's thorn in the flesh, to check intellectual conceit and arrogance; +which the consciousness of his extraordinary talents, awake as he was to +the voice of praise, might otherwise have generated in a very culpable +degree. Another observation strikes me, that in consequence of the same +natural indisposition, and habitual sickliness, (for he says he scarcely +passed one day without pain after his twentieth year,) he considered and +represented human life, as a scene of much greater misery than is +generally experienced. There may be persons bowed down with affliction +all their days; and there are those, no doubt, whose iniquities rob them +of rest; but neither calamities nor crimes, I hope and believe, do so +much and so generally abound, as to justify the dark picture of life +which Johnson's imagination designed, and his strong pencil delineated. +This I am sure, the colouring is far too gloomy for what I have +experienced, though as far as I can remember, I have had more sickness +(I do not say more severe, but only more in quantity,) than falls to the +lot of most people. But then daily debility and occasional sickness were +far overbalanced by intervenient days, and, perhaps, weeks void of pain, +and overflowing with comfort. So that in short, to return to the +subject, human life, as far as I can perceive from experience or +observation, is not that state of constant wretchedness which Johnson +always insisted it was; which misrepresentation, (for such it surely +is,) his Biographer has not corrected, I suppose, because, unhappily, he +has himself a large portion of melancholy in his constitution, and +fancied the portrait a faithful copy of life.' + +The learned writer then proceeds thus in his letter to me:-- + +'I have conversed with some sensible men on this subject, who all seem +to entertain the same sentiments respecting life with those which are +expressed or implied in the foregoing paragraph. It might be added that +as the representation here spoken of, appears not consistent with fact +and experience, so neither does it seem to be countenanced by Scripture. +There is, perhaps, no part of the sacred volume which at first sight +promises so much to lend its sanction to these dark and desponding +notions as the book of _Ecclesiastes_, which so often, and so +emphatically, proclaims the vanity of things sublunary. But the design +of this whole book, (as it has been justly observed,) is not to put us +out of conceit with life, but to cure our vain expectations of a +compleat and perfect happiness in this world; to convince us, that there +is no such thing to be found in mere external enjoyments;--and to teach +us to seek for happiness in the practice of virtue, in the knowledge and +love of God, and in the hopes of a better life. For this is the +application of all; _Let us hear_, &c. xii. 13. Not only his duty, but +his happiness too; _For_ GOD, &c. ver. 14.--See _Sherlock on +Providence_, p. 299. + +'The New Testament tells us, indeed, and most truly, that "sufficient +unto the day is the evil thereof;" and, therefore, wisely forbids us to +increase our burden by forebodings of sorrows; but I think it no where +says that even our ordinary afflictions are not consistent with a very +considerable degree of positive comfort and satisfaction. And, +accordingly, one whose sufferings as well as merits were conspicuous, +assures us, that in proportion "as the sufferings of Christ abounded in +them, so their consolation also abounded by Christ." 2 _Cor_. i. 5. It +is needless to cite, as indeed it would be endless even to refer to, the +multitude of passages in both Testaments holding out, in the strongest +language, promises of blessings, even in this world, to the faithful +servants of GOD. I will only refer to _St. Luke_, xviii. 29, 30, and 1 +_Tim_. iv. 8. + +'Upon the whole, setting aside instances of great and lasting bodily +pain, of minds peculiarly oppressed by melancholy, and of severe +temporal calamities, from which extraordinary cases we surely should not +form our estimate of the general tenour and complexion of life; +excluding these from the account, I am convinced that as well the +gracious constitution of things which Providence has ordained, as the +declarations of Scripture and the actual experience of individuals, +authorize the sincere Christian to hope that his humble and constant +endeavours to perform his duty, checquered as the best life is with many +failings, will be crowned with a greater degree of present peace, +serenity, and comfort, than he could reasonably permit himself to +expect, if he measured his views and judged of life from the opinion of +Dr. Johnson, often and energetically expressed in the Memoirs of him, +without any animadversion or censure by his ingenious Biographer. If he +himself, upon reviewing the subject, shall see the matter in this light, +he will, in an octavo edition, which is eagerly expected, make such +additional remarks or correction as he shall judge fit; lest the +impressions which these discouraging passages may leave on the reader's +mind, should in any degree hinder what otherwise the whole spirit and +energy of the work tends, and, I hope, successfully, to promote,--pure +morality and true religion.' + +Though I have, in some degree, obviated any reflections against my +illustrious friend's dark views of life, when considering, in the course +of this Work, his _Rambler_ [_ante_, i. 213] and his _Rasselas_ [_ante_, +i. 343], I am obliged to Mr. Churton for complying with my request of +his permission to insert his Remarks, being conscious of the weight of +what he judiciously suggests as to the melancholy in my own +constitution. His more pleasing views of life, I hope, are just. +_Valeant quantum valere possunt_. + +Mr. Churton concludes his letter to me in these words:--'Once, and only +once, I had the satisfaction of seeing your illustrious friend; and as I +feel a particular regard for all whom he distinguished with his esteem +and friendship, so I derive much pleasure from reflecting that I once +beheld, though but transiently near our College gate, one whose works +will for ever delight and improve the world, who was a sincere and +zealous son of the Church of England, an honour to his country, and an +ornament to human nature.' + +His letter was accompanied with a present from himself of his _Sermons +at the Bampton Lecture_, and from his friend, Dr. Townson, the venerable +Rector of Malpas, in Cheshire, of his _Discourses on the Gospels_, +together with the following extract of a letter from that excellent +person, who is now gone to receive the reward of his labours:--'Mr. +Boswell is not only very entertaining in his works, but they are so +replete with moral and religious sentiments, without an instance, as far +as I know, of a contrary tendency, that I cannot help having a great +esteem for him; and if you think such a trifle as a copy of the +_Discourses, ex dono authoris_, would be acceptable to him, I should be +happy to give him this small testimony of my regard.' + +Such spontaneous testimonies of approbation from such men, without any +personal acquaintance with me, are truly valuable and encouraging. +BOSWELL. + +[924] + + 'Tout se plaint, tout gémit en cherchant le bien-etre; + Nul ne voudrait mourir, nul ne voudrait renaitre.' + +Voltaire, _Le désastre de Lisbonne. Works_, ed. 1819, x. 124. 'Johnson +said that, for his part, he never passed that week in his life which he +would wish to repeat, were an angel to make the proposal to him.' +_Ante_, ii. 125. Yet Dr. Franklin, whose life overlapped Johnson's at +both ends, said:-'I should have no objection to go over the same life +from its beginning to the end, requesting only the advantage authors +have of correcting in a second edition the faults of its first. So would +I also wish to change some incidents of it for others more favourable +Notwithstanding, if this condition was denied, I should still accept the +offer of re-commencing the same life.' Franklin's _Memoirs_, i. 2. + +[925] Mackintosh thus sums up this question:--'The truth is, that +endless fallacies must arise from the attempt to appreciate by +retrospect human life, of which the enjoyments depend on hope.' _Life of +Mackintosh_, ii. 160. See _ante_, ii. 350. + +[926] In the lines on Levett. _Ante_, p. 137. + +[927] AURENGZEBE, act iv. sc. 1. BOSWELL. According to Dr. Maxwell +(_ante_, ii. 124), Johnson frequently quoted the fourth couplet of these +lines. Boswell does not give the last-- + + 'I'm tired with waiting for this chemic gold + Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.' + +[928] Johnson, speaking of the companions of his college days, said:-- +'It was bitterness which they mistook for frolick.' _Ante_, i. 73. + +[929] + + '--to thee I call + But with no friendly voice, and add thy name + O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams.' + +Milton's _Paradise Lost_, iv. 35. + +[930] Yet there is no doubt that a man may appear very gay in company +who is sad at heart. His merriment is like the sound of drums and +trumpets in a battle, to drown the groans of the wounded and +dying. BOSWELL. + +[931] Mme. D'Arblay (_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 103) tells how Johnson +was one day invited to her father's house at the request of Mr. +Greville, 'the finest gentleman about town,' as she earlier described +him (_ib_. i. 25), who desired to make his acquaintance. This 'superb' +gentleman was afraid to begin to speak. 'Assuming his most supercilious +air of distant superiority he planted himself, immovable as a noble +statue, upon the hearth, as if a stranger to the whole set.' Johnson, +who 'never spoke till he was spoken to' (_ante_, in. 307)--this habit +the Burneys did not as yet know--'became completely absorbed in silent +rumination; very unexpectedly, however, he shewed himself alive to what +surrounded him, by one of those singular starts of vision, that made him +seem at times, though purblind to things in common, gifted with an eye +of instinct for espying any action that he thought merited reprehension; +for all at once, looking fixedly on Mr. Greville, who without much +self-denial, the night being very cold, kept his station before the +chimney-piece, he exclaimed:--"If it were not for depriving the ladies +of the fire, I should like to stand upon the hearth myself." A smile +gleamed upon every face at this pointed speech. Mr. Greville tried to +smile himself, though faintly and scoffingly. He tried also to hold his +post; and though for two or three minutes he disdained to move, the +awkwardness of a general pause impelled him ere long to glide back to +his chair; but he rang the bell with force as he passed it to order his +carriage.' + +[932] Page 139. BOSWELL. + +[933] On this same day Miss Adams wrote to a friend:--'Dr. Johnson, tho' +not in good health, is in general very talkative and infinitely +agreeable and entertaining.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS_. + +[934] Johnson said 'Milton was a _Phidias_, &c.' _Ante_, p. 99, note 1. +In his _Life of Milton_ (_Works, vii. 119) he writes:--'Milton never +learnt the art of doing little things with grace; he overlooked the +milder excellence of suavity and softness; he was a _Lion_ that had no +skill _in dandling the kid_.' + + ['Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw + Dandled the kid.' + + _Paradise Lost_, iv. 343.] + +[935] Cardinal Newman (_History of my Religious Opinions_, ed. 1865, p. +361) remarks on this:--'As to Johnson's case of a murderer asking you +which way a man had gone, I should have anticipated that, had such a +difficulty happened to him, his first act would have been to knock the +man down, and to call out for the police; and next, if he was worsted in +the conflict, he would not have given the ruffian the information he +asked, at whatever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself be +killed first. I do not think that he would have told a lie.' + +[936] See _ante_, iii. 376. + +[937] Book ii. 1. 142. + +[938] The annotator calls them 'amiable verses.' BOSWELL. The annotators +of the _Dunciad_ were Pope himself and Dr. Arbuthnot. Johnson's _Works_, +viii. 280. + +[939] Boswell was at this time corresponding with Miss Seward. See +_post_, June 25. + +[940] By John Dyer. _Ante_, ii. 453. + +[941] Lewis's Verses addressed to Pope were first published in a +Collection of Pieces on occasion of _The Dunciad_, 8vo., 1732. They do +not appear in Lewis's own _Miscellany_, printed in 1726.--_Grongar Hill_ +was first printed in Savage's _Miscellanies_ as an Ode, and was +_reprinted_ in the same year in Lewis's _Miscellany_, in the form it +now bears. + +In his _Miscellanies_, 1726, the beautiful poem,--'Away, let nought to +love displeasing,'--reprinted in Percy's _Reliques_, vol. i. book iii. +No. 13, first appeared. MALONE. + +[942] See _ante_, p. 58. + +[943] See _ante_, i. 71, and ii. 226. + +[944] Captain Cook's third voyage. The first two volumes by Captain +Cook; the last by Captain King. + +[945] See _ante_, ii. 73, 228, 248; iii. 49. + +[946] + + '--quae mollissima fandi Tempora.' + '--time wherein the word May softliest be said.' + + MORRIS. Virgil, _Aeneids_, iv. 293. + +[947] See _ante_, i. 71. + +[948] See _ante_, i. 203, note 6. + +[949] Boswell began to eat dinners in the Inner Temple so early as 1775. +_Ante_, ii. 377, note 1. He was not called till Hilary Term, 1786. +Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 143. + +[950] Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Jones wrote two years earlier +(_Life_, p. 268):--'Whether it be a wise part to live uncomfortably in +order to die wealthy, is another question; but this I know by +experience, and have heard old practitioners make the same observation, +that a lawyer who is in earnest must be chained to his chambers and the +bar for ten or twelve years together.' + +[951] Johnson's _Prologue at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre. Works, +_ i. 23. + +[952] According to Mr. Seward, who published this account in his +_Anecdotes,_ ii. 83, it was Mr. Langton's great-grandfather who drew +it up. + +[953] 'My Lord said that his rule for his, health was to be temperate +and keep himself warm. He never made breakfasts, but used in the morning +to drink a glass of some sort of ale. That he went to bed at nine, and +rose between six and seven, allowing himself a good refreshment for his +sleep. That the law will admit of no rival, nothing to go even with it; +but that sometimes one may for diversion read in the Latin historians of +England, Hoveden and Matthew Paris, &c. But after it is conquered, it +will admit of other studies. He said, a little law, a good tongue, and a +good memory, would fit a man for the Chancery.' Seward's +_Anecdotes_, ii. 92. + +[954] Wednesday was the 16th + +[955] See _ante_, i. 41. + +[956] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii. p. 372. BOSWELL. + +[957] See _ante/_, i. 155. + +[958] The recommendation in this list of so many histories little agrees +'with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance' with which, +according to Lord Macaulay, Johnson spoke of history. Macaulay's +_Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 403. + +[959] See _ante_, iii. 12. + +[960] Northcote's account of Reynolds's table suits the description of +this 'gentleman's mode of living.' 'A table prepared for seven or eight +was often compelled to contain fifteen or sixteen.' There was a +'deficiency of knives and forks, plates and glasses. The attendance was +in the same style.' There were 'two or three undisciplined domestics. +The host left every one at perfect liberty to scramble for himself.' +'Rags' is certainly a strong word to apply to any of the company; but +then strong words were what Johnson used. Northcote mentions 'the +mixture of company.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 94-6. See _ante_, iii. +375, note 2. + +[961] The Mayor of Windsor. Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 211. + +[962] The passage occurs in Brooke's _Earl of Essex_(1761) at the close +of the first act, where Queen Elizabeth says: + + 'I shall henceforth seek + For other lights to truth; for righteous monarchs, + Justly to judge, with their own eyes should see; + _To rule o'er freemen should themselves be free_.' + _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. viii. 456. + +The play was acted at Drury Lane Theatre, old Mr. Sheridan taking the +chief part. He it was who, in admiration, repeated the passage to +Johnson which provoked the parody. Murphy's _Garrick_, p. 234. + +[963] 'Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 284. BOSWELL. In a second +letter (_ib_. p. 347) he says:--'Cator has a rough, manly independent +understanding, and does not spoil it by complaisance.' Miss Burney +accuses him of emptiness, verbosity and pomposity, all of which she +describes in an amusing manner. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 47. + +[964] 'All general reflections upon nations and societies are the trite, +thread-bare jokes of those who set up for wit without having any, and so +have recourse to common-place.' Chesterfield's _Letters_, i. 231. + +[965] See vol. ii. p. 126. BOSWELL + +[966] '"That may be so," replied the lady, "for ought I know, but they +are above my comprehension." "I an't obliged to find you comprehension, +Madam, curse me," cried he,' _Roderick Random_, ch. 53. '"I protest," +cried Moses, "I don't rightly comprehend the force of your reasoning." +"O, Sir," cried the Squire, "I am your most humble servant, I find +you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too."' _Vicar +of Wakefield_, ch. 7. + +[967] In the first edition, 'as the Honourable Horace Walpole is often +called;' in the second edition, 'as Horace, now Earl of Orford, &c.' +Walpole succeeded to the title in Dec. 1791. In answer to +congratulations he wrote (_Letters_, ix. 364):--'What has happened +destroys my tranquillity.... Surely no man of seventy-four, unless +superannuated, can have the smallest pleasure in sitting at home in his +own room, as I almost always do, and being called by a new name.' He +died March 2, 1797. + +[968] In _The Rambler_, No. 83, a character of a virtuoso is given which +in many ways suits Walpole:--'It is never without grief that I find a +man capable of ratiocination or invention enlisting himself in this +secondary class of learning; for when he has once discovered a method of +gratifying his desire of eminence by expense rather than by labour, and +known the sweets of a life blest at once with the ease of idleness and +the reputation of knowledge, he will not easily be brought to undergo +again the toil of thinking, or leave his toys and trinkets for arguments +and principles.' + +[969] Walpole says:--'I do not think I ever was in a room with Johnson +six times in my days.' _Letters_, ix. 319. 'The first time, I think, was +at the Royal Academy. Sir Joshua said, "Let me present Dr. Goldsmith to +you;" he did. "Now I will present Dr. Johnson to you." "No," said I, +"Sir Joshua; for Dr. Goldsmith, pass--but you shall not present Dr. +Johnson to me."' _Journal &c. of Miss Berry_, i. 305. In his _Journal of +the Reign of George III_, he speaks of Johnson as 'one of the venal +champions of the Court,' 'a renegade' (i. 430); 'a brute,' 'an old +decrepit hireling' (_ib._ p. 472); and as 'one of the subordinate crew +whom to name is to stigmatize' (_ib._ ii. 5). In his _Memoirs of the +Reign of George III_, iv. 297, he says:--'With a lumber of learning and +some strong parts Johnson was an odious and mean character. His manners +were sordid, supercilious, and brutal; his style ridiculously bombastic +and vicious, and, in one word, with all the pedantry he had all the +gigantic littleness of a country schoolmaster.' + +[970] See _ante_, i. 367. + +[971] On May 26, 1791, Walpole wrote of Boswell's _Life of Johnson +(Letters_ ix. 3l9):--'I expected amongst the excommunicated to find +myself, but am very gently treated. I never would be in the least +acquainted with Johnson; or, as Boswell calls it, I had not a just value +for him; which the biographer imputes to my resentment for the Doctor's +putting bad arguments (purposely out of Jacobitism) into the speeches +which he wrote fifty years ago for my father in the _Gentleman's +Magazine_; which I did not read then, or ever knew Johnson wrote till +Johnson died.' Johnson said of these Debates:--'I saved appearances +tolerably well; but I took care that the Whig dogs should not have the +best of it.' _Ante_, i. 504. 'Lord Holland said that whenever Boswell +came into a company where Horace Walpole was, Walpole would throw back +his head, purse up his mouth very significantly, and not speak a word +while Boswell remained.' _Autobiographical Recollections of C. R. +Leslie_, i. 155. Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 44) says:--'Boswell, that +quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was let in, +which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. After tapping +many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed oracle, he +vented his errand.' + +[972] Walpole wrote (_Letters_, vi. 44):--'If _The School for Wives_ +and _The Christmas Tale_ were laid to me, so was _The Heroic Espistle_. +I could certainly have written the two former, but not the latter.' See +_ante_, iv. 113. + +[973] The title given by Bishop Pearson to his collection of Hales's +Writings is the _Golden Remains of the Ever Memorable John Hales of +Eaton College, &c_. It was published in 1659. + +[974] I _Henry IV_, act ii. sc. 4. 'Sir James Mackintosh remembers that, +while spending the Christmas of 1793 at Beaconsfield, Mr. Burke said to +him, 'Johnson showed more powers of mind in company than in his +writings; but he argued only for victory; and when he had neither a +paradox to defend, nor an antagonist to crush, he would preface his +assent with "Why, no, Sir."' CROKER. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 768. + +[975] + + Search then the ruling passion: There alone + The wild are constant, and the cunning known; + The fool consistent, and the false sincere; + Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.' + Pope, _Moral Essays_, i. 174. + +'The publick pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are +counterfeit.' _The Idler_, No. 18. + +[976] _Ante_, ii. 241, and iii. 325. + +[977] Boswell refers to Cicero's _Treatise on Famous Orators_. + +[978] Boswell here falls into a mistake. About harvest-time in 1766, +there were corn-riots owing to the dearness of bread. By the Act of the +15th of Charles II, corn, when under a certain price, might be legally +exported. On Sept. 26, 1766, before this price had been reached, the +Crown issued a proclamation to prohibit the exportation of grain. When +parliament met in November, a bill of indemnity was brought in for those +concerned in the late embargo. 'The necessity of the embargo was +universally allowed;' it was the exercise by the Crown of a power of +dispensing with the laws that was attacked. Some of the ministers who, +out of office, 'had set up as the patrons of liberty,' were made the +object 'of many sarcasms on the beaten subject of occasional +patriotism.' _Ann. Reg._ x. 39-48, and Dicey's _Law of the +Constitution_, p. 50. + +[979] _St. Mark_, ii. 9. + +[980] _Anecdotes_, p. 43. BOSWELL. The passage is from the _Speech on +Conciliation with the Colonies_, March 22, 1775. Payne's _Burke_, i. +173. The image of the angel and Lord Bathurst was thus, according to +Mrs. Piozzi, parodied by Johnson:--'Suppose, Mr. Speaker, that to +Wharton, or to Marlborough, or to any of the eminent Whigs of the last +age, the devil had, not with great impropriety, consented to appear.' +See _ante_, iii. 326, where Johnson said 'the first Whig was the Devil.' + +[981] Boswell was stung by what Mrs. Piozzi wrote when recording this +parody. She said that she had begged Johnson's leave to write it down +directly. 'A trick,' she continues, 'which I have seen played on common +occasions of sitting steadily [? stealthily] down at the other end of +the room to write at the moment what should be said in company, either +by Dr. Johnson or to him, I never practised myself, nor approved of in +another. There is something so ill-bred, and so inclining to treachery +in this conduct, that, were it commonly adopted, all confidence would +soon be exiled from society.' See _post_, under June 30, 1784, where +Boswell refers to this passage. + +[982] + + 'Who'er offends, at some unlucky time + Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme.' + +Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, 2 Satires, i. 78. + +[983] On March 14, 1770, in a debate on the licentiousness of the press, +Townshend joined together Johnson and Shebbeare. Burke, who followed +him, said nothing about Johnson. Fitzherbert, speaking of Johnson as 'my +friend,' defended him as 'a pattern of morality.' _Cavendish Debates_, +i.514. On Feb. 16, 1774, when Fox drew attention to a 'vile libel' +signed _A South Briton_, Townshend said 'Dr. Shebbeare and Dr. Johnson +have been pensioned, but this wretched South Briton is to be +prosecuted.' It was Fox, and not Burke, who on this occasion defended +Johnson. _Parl. Hist._ xvii.1054. As Goldsmith was writing _Retaliation_ +at the very time that this second attack was made, it is very likely +that it was the occasion, of the change in the line. + +[984] In the original _yet_. + +[985] + + 'Sis pecore et multa dives tellure licebit, + Tibique Pactolus fluat.' + 'Though wide thy land extends, and large thy fold, + Though rivers roll for thee their purest gold.' + +FRANCIS. Horace, _Epodes_, xv. 19. + +[986] See Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 404, for Macaulay's +appropriation and amplification of this passage. + +[987] See _ante_, ii. 168. + +[988] Mr. Croker suggests the Rev. Martin Sherlock, an Irish Clergyman, +'who published in 1781 his own travels under the title of _Letters of an +English Traveller translated from the French._' Croker's _Boswell, p. +770. Mason writes of him as 'Mister, or Monsieur, or Signor Sherlock, +for I am told he is both [sic] French, English, and Italian in print.' +Walpole's _Letters_, viii. 202. I think, however, that Dr. Thomas +Campbell is meant. His _Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland_ +Boswell calls 'a very entertaining book, which has, however, one +fault;--that it assumes the fictitious character of an Englishman.' +_Ante_, ii. 339. + +[989] See _ante_, iv. 49. + +[990] This anecdote is not in the first two editions. + +[991] See _ante_, in. 369. + +[992] 'I have heard,' says Hawkins (_Life_, p. 409), 'that in many +instances, and in some with tears in his eyes, he has apologised to +those whom he had offended by contradiction or roughness of behaviour.' +See _ante_, ii. 109, and 256, note 1. + +[993] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 131) describes Savage's 'superstitious +regard to the correction of his sheets ... The intrusion or omission of +a comma was sufficient to discompose him, and he would lament an errour +of a single letter as a heavy calamity.' + +[994] Compositor in the Printing-house means, the person who adjusts the +types in the order in which they are to stand for printing; and arranges +what is called the _form_, from which an impression is taken. BOSWELL. + +[995] This circumstance therefore alluded to in Mr. Courtenay's +_Poetical Character_ of him is strictly true. My informer was Mrs. +Desmoulins, who lived many years in Dr. Johnson's house. BOSWELL. The +following are Mr. Courtenay's lines:-- + + 'Soft-eyed compassion with a look benign, + His fervent vows he offered at thy shrine; + To guilt, to woe, the sacred debt was paid, + And helpless females blessed his pious aid; + Snatched from disease, and want's abandoned crew, + Despair and anguish from their victims flew; + Hope's soothing balm into their bosoms stole, + And tears of penitence restored the soul.' + +[996] The _Cross Readings_ were said to be formed 'by reading two +columns of a newspaper together onwards,' whereby 'the strangest +connections were brought about,' such as:-- + + 'This morning the Right Hon. the Speaker + was convicted of keeping a disorderly house. + Whereas the said barn was set on fire by + an incendiary letter dropped early in the morning. + By order of the Commissioners for Paving + An infallible remedy for the stone and gravel. + The sword of state was carried + before Sir John Fielding and committed to Newgate.' + +_The New Foundling Hospital for Wit_, i. 129. According to Northcote +(_Life of Reynolds_, i. 217), 'Dr. Goldsmith declared, in the heat of +his admiration of these _Cross Readings_, it would have given him more +pleasure to have been the author of them than of all the works he had +ever published of his own.' Horace Walpole (Letters, v. 30) writes:-- +'Have you seen that delightful paper composed out of scraps in the +newspapers? I laughed till I cried. I mean the paper that says:-- + +"This day his Majesty will go in great state to fifteen notorious common +prostitutes."' + +[997] One of these gentlemen was probably Mr. Musgrave (_ante_, ii. 343, +note 2), who, says Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 295), when 'once he was +singularly warm about Johnson's writing the lives of our famous prose +authors, getting up and entreating him to set about the work +immediately, he coldly replied, "Sit down, Sir."' Miss Burney says that +'the incense he paid Dr. Johnson by his solemn manner of listening, by +the earnest reverence with which he eyed him, and by a theatric start of +admiration every time he spoke, joined to the Doctor's utter +insensibility to all these tokens, made me find infinite difficulty in +keeping my countenance.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 85. The other +gentleman was perhaps Dr. Wharton. _Ante_, ii. 41, note 1. + +[998] Probably Dr. Beattie. The number of letters in his name agrees +with the asterisks given a few lines below. _Ante_, iii. 339, note 1, +and _post_, p. 330. + +[999] Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, defines _congé d'élire_ as _the +king's permission royal to a dean and chapter in time of vacation, to +choose a bishop._ When Dr. Hampden was made Bishop of Hereford in 1848, +the Dean resisted the appointment. H. C. Robinson records, on the +authority of the Bishop's Secretary (_Diary_, iii. 311), that 'at the +actual confirmation in Bow Church the scene was quite ludicrous. After +the judge had told the opposers that he could not hear them, the +citation for opposers to come forward was repeated, at which the people +present laughed out, as at a play.' + +[1000] This has been printed in other publications, 'fall _to the +ground_.' But Johnson himself gave me the true expression which he had +used as above; meaning that the recommendation left as little choice in +the one case as the other. BOSWELL. One of the 'other publications is +Hawkins's edition of Johnson's _Works_. See in it vol. xi. p. 216. + +[1001] They are published in vol. xi. of Hawkins's edition of Johnson's +_Works_. 1787, and are often quoted in my notes. It should be +remembered that Steevens is not trustworthy. See _ante_, iii. 281, +and iv. 178. + +[1002] See _ante_, ii. 96. + +[1003] See _ante_, p. iii. + +[1004] _She Stoops to Conquer_ was first acted on March 15, 1773. The +King of Sardinia had died on Feb. 20. _Gent. Mag_. 1773, pp. 149, 151. + +[1005] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 170) describes how, in 1780, she went +to one of Mrs. Ord's assemblies at a time when 'the mourning for some +foreign Wilhelmina Jaquelina was not over. Every human creature was in +deep mourning, and I, poor I, all gorgeous in scarlet. Even Jacobite +Johnson was in deep mourning.' + +[1006] In the tenth edition of the _Rambler_, published in 1784, the +entry is still found:--'Milton, Mr. John, remarks on his versification.' +In like manner we find:--'Shakspeare, Mr. William, his eminent success +in tragi-comedy;' 'Spenser, Mr. Edmund, some imitations of his diction +censured;' 'Cowley, Mr. Abraham, a passage in his writing illustrated.' + +[1007] See _ante_, p. 116. + +[1008] See _ante_, iii. 425, note 3. + +[1009] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 571) writes:--'The plan for Johnson's +visiting the Continent became so well known, that, as a lady then +resident at Rome afterwards informed me, his arrival was anxiously +expected throughout Italy.' + +[1010] Edward Lord Thurlow. BOSWELL. + +[1011] See _ante_, p. 179. + +[1012] In 1778. + +[1013] 'With Lord Thurlow, while he was at the bar, Johnson was well +acquainted. He said to Mr. Murphy twenty years ago, "Thurlow is a man of +such vigour of mind that I never knew I was to meet him, but--I was +going to tell a falsehood; I was going to say I was afraid of him, and +that would not be true, for I was never afraid of any man--but I never +knew that I was to meet Thurlow, but I knew I had something to +encounter."' _Monthly Review_ for 1787, lxxvi. 382. Murphy, no doubt, +was the writer. Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chancellors_, ed. 1846, +v.621) quotes from 'the Diary of a distinguished political character' an +account of a meeting between Thurlow and Horne Tooke, in 1801. 'Tooke +evidently came forward for a display, and as I considered his powers of +conversation as surpassing those of any person I had ever seen (in point +of skill and dexterity, and if necessary in _lying_), so I took for +granted old grumbling Thurlow would be obliged to lower his top-sail to +him--but it seemed as if the very _look_ and _voice_ of Thurlow scared +him out of his senses from the first moment. So Tooke tried to recruit +himself by wine, and, though not generally a drinker, was very drunk, +but all would not do.' + +[1014] It is strange that Sir John Hawkins should have related that the +application was made by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when he could so easily +have been informed of the truth by inquiring of Sir Joshua. Sir John's +carelessness to ascertain facts is very remarkable. BOSWELL. + +[1015] There is something dreadful in the thought of the old man quietly +going on with his daily life within a few hundred yards of this shocking +scene of slaughter, this 'legal massacre,' to use his own words (_ante_, +p. 188, note 3). England had a kind of Reign of Terror of its own; +little thought of at the time or remembered since. Twenty-four men were +sentenced to death at the Old Bailey Sessions that ended on April 28. On +June 16 nine of these had the sentence commuted; the rest were hanged +this day. Among these men was not a single murderer. Twelve of them had +committed burglary, two a street robbery, and one had personated another +man's name, with intent to receive his wages. _Ann. Reg_. xxvii, 193, +and _Gent. Mag_. liv. 379, 474. The _Gent. Mag_. recording the +sentences, remarks:--'Convicts under sentence of death in Newgate and +the gaols throughout the kingdom increase so fast, that, were they all +to be executed, England would soon be marked among the nations as the +_Bloody Country_.' In the spring assizes the returns are given for ten +towns. There were 88 capital convictions, of which 21 were at +Winchester. _Ib_. 224. In the summer assizes and at the Old Bailey +Sessions for July there were 149 capital convictions. At Maidstone a man +on being sentenced 'gave three loud cheers, upon which the judge gave +strict orders for his being chained to the floor of the dungeon.' _Ib_. +pp. 311, 633. The hangman was to grow busier yet. This increase in the +number of capital punishments was attributed by Romilly in great part to +Madan's _Thoughts on Executive Justice_; 'a small tract, in which, by a +mistaken application of the maxim "that the certainty of punishment is +more efficacious than its severity for the prevention of crimes," he +absurdly insisted on the expediency of rigidly enforcing, in every +instance, our penal code, sanguinary and barbarous as it was. In 1783, +the year before the book was published, there were executed in London +only 51 malefactors; in 1785, the year after the book was published, +there were executed 97; and it was recently after the publication of the +book that was exhibited a spectacle unseen in London for a long course +of years before, the execution of nearly 20 criminals at a time.' _Life +of Romilly_, i. 89. Madan's Tract was published in the winter of 1784-5. +Boswell's fondness for seeing executions is shewn, _ante_, ii. 93. + +[1016] See _ante_, ii. 82, 104; iii. 290; and v. 7l. + +[1017] A friend of mine happened to be passing by a _field congregation_ +in the environs of London, when a Methodist preacher quoted this passage +with triumph. BOSWELL. On Dec. 26, 1784, John Wesley preached the +condemned criminals' sermon to forty-seven who were under sentence of +death. He records:--'The power of the Lord was eminently present, and +most of the prisoners were in tears. A few days after, twenty of them +died at once, five of whom died in peace. I could not but greatly +approve of the spirit and behaviour of Mr. Villette, the Ordinary; and I +rejoiced to hear that it was the same on all similar occasions.' +Wesley's _Journal_, ed. 1827, iv. 287. + +[1018] I trust that THE CITY OF LONDON, now happily in unison with THE +COURT, will have the justice and generosity to obtain preferment for +this Reverend Gentleman, now a worthy old servant of that magnificent +Corporation. BOSWELL. In like manner, Boswell in 1768 praised the Rev. +Mr. Moore, Mr. Villette's predecessor. 'Mr. Moore, the Ordinary of +Newgate, discharged his duty with much earnestness and a fervour for +which I and all around me esteemed and loved him. Mr. Moore seems worthy +of his office, which, when justly considered, is a very important one.' +_London Mag._ 1783, p. 204. For the quarrel between the City and the +Court, see _ante_, iii. 201. + +[1019] See _ante_, i. 387. + +[1020] Knox in _Winter Evenings_, No. xi. (_Works_, ii. 348), attacks +Johnson's biographers for lowering his character by publishing his +private conversation. 'Biography,' he complains, 'is every day +descending from its dignity.' See _ante_, i. 222, note 1. + +[1021] _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 256. + +[1022] Johnson wrote on April 15:--'I am still very weak, though my +appetite is keen and my digestion potent. ... I now think and consult +to-day what I shall eat to-morrow. This disease likewise will, I hope, +be cured.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 362. Beattie, who dined with +Johnson on June 27, wrote:--'Wine, I think, would do him good, but he +cannot be prevailed on to drink it. He has, however, a voracious +appetite for food. I verily believe that on Sunday last he ate as much +to dinner as I have done in all for these ten days past.' Forbes's +_Beattie_, ed. 1824, p. 315. It was said that Beattie latterly indulged +somewhat too much in wine. _Ib_. p. 432. + +[1023] Horace Walpole wrote in April 1750 (_Letters_, ii. 206):--'There +is come from France a Madame Bocage who has translated Milton: my Lord +Chesterfield prefers the copy to the original; but that is not uncommon +for him to do, who is the patron of bad authors and bad actors. She has +written a play too, which was damned, and worthy my lord's approbation.' +It was this lady who bade her footman blow into the spout of the +tea-pot. _Ante_, ii. 403. Dr. J. H. Burton writes of her in his _Life of +Hume_, ii. 213:--'The wits must praise her bad poetry if they frequented +her house. "Elle était d'une figure aimable," says Grimm, "elle est +bonne femme; elle est riche; elle pouvait fixer chez elle les gens +d'esprit et de bonne compagnie, sans les mettre dans l'embarras de lui +parler avec peu de sincérité de sa Colombiade ou de ses Amazones."' + +[1024] It is the sea round the South Pole that she describes in her +_Elegy_ (not _Ode_). The description begins:-- + + 'While o'er the deep in many a dreadful form, + The giant Danger howls along the storm, + _Furling the iron sails with numbed hands, + Firm on the deck the great Adventurer stands;_ + Round glitt'ring mountains hear the billows rave, + And the vast ruin thunder on the wave.' + +In the _Gent. Mag._ 1793, p. 197, were given extracts abusive of Johnson +from some foolish letters that passed between Miss Seward and Hayley, a +poet her equal in feebleness. Boswell, in his _Corrections and Additions +to the First Edition_ (_ante_, i.10), corrected an error into which he +had been led by Miss Seward (_ante_, i.92, note 2). She, in the _Gent. +Mag._ for 1793, p.875, defended herself and attacked him. His reply is +found on p.1009. He says:--'As my book was to be a _real history_, and +not a _novel_, it was necessary to suppress all erroneous particulars, +however entertaining.' (_Ante_, ii 467, note 4.) He continues:--'So far +from having any hostile disposition towards this Lady, I have, in my +_Life of Dr. Johnson_...quoted a compliment paid by him to one of her +poetical pieces; and I have withheld his opinion of herself, thinking +that she might not like it. I am afraid it has reached her by some other +means; and thus we may account for various attacks by her on her +venerable townsman since his decease...What are we to think of the +scraps of letters between her and Mr. Hayley, impotently attempting to +undermine the noble pedestal on which the publick opinion has placed +Dr. Johnson?' + +[1025] See _ante_, i.265, and iv. 174. + +[1026] 'Johnson said he had once seen Mr. Stanhope at Dodsley's shop, +and was so much struck with his awkward manners and appearance that he +could not help asking Mr. Dodsley who he was.' Johnson's _Works_, +(1787) xi.209. + +[1027] Chesterfield was Secretary of State from Nov. 1746 to Feb. 1748. +His letters to his son extend from 1739 to 1768. + +[1028] Foote had taken off Lord Chesterfield in _The Cozeners_. Mrs. +Aircastle trains her son Toby in the graces. She says to her +husband:--'Nothing but grace! I wish you would read some late +_Posthumous Letters_; you would then know the true value of grace.' Act +ii. sc. 2. + +[1029] See _ante_, p.78, note 1. + +[1030] See a pamphlet entitled _Remarks on the Characters of the Court +of Queen Anne_, included in Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, vi. 163. + +[1031] Carleton, according to the _Memoirs_, made his first service in +the navy in 1672--seventeen years before the siege of Derry. There is no +mention of this siege in the book. + +[1032] 'He had obtained, by his long service, some knowledge of the +practic part of an engineer.' Preface to the _Memoirs_. + +[1033] Nearly 200 pages in Bohn's edition. See _ante_, i. 71, for +Johnson's rapid reading. + +[1034] Lord Mahon (_War of the Succession in Spain_, Appendix, p. 131) +proves that a Captain Carleton really served. 'It is not impossible,' he +says, 'that the MS. may have been intrusted to De Foe for the purpose of +correction or revision...The _Memoirs_ are most strongly marked with +internal proofs of authenticity.' Lockhart (_Life of Scott_, iii. 84) +says:--'It seems to be now pretty generally believed that Carleton's +_Memoirs_ were among the numberless fabrications of De Foe; but in this +case (if the fact indeed be so), as in that of his _Cavalier_, he no +doubt had before him the rude journal of some officer.' Dr. Burton +(_Reign of Queen Anne_ ii. 173) says that MSS. in the British Museum +disprove 'the possibility of De Foe's authorship.' + +[1035] Lord Chesterfield (_Letters_, ii. 109) writing to his son on Nov. +29, 1748, says of Mr. Eliot:--'Imitate that application of his, which +has made him know all thoroughly, and to the bottom. He does not content +himself with the surface of knowledge; but works in the mine for it, +knowing that it lies deep.' + +[1036] The Houghton Collection was sold in 1779 by the third Earl of +Orford, to the Empress of Russia for £40,555. (Walpole's _Letters_, vii. +227, note 1.) + +Horace Walpole wrote on Aug. 4 of that year (_ib_. p. 235):--'Well! +adieu to Houghton! about its mad master I shall never trouble myself +more. From the moment he came into possession, he has undermined every +act of my father that was within his reach, but, having none of that +great man's sense or virtues, he could only lay wild hands on lands and +houses; and since he has stript Houghton of its glory, I do not care a +straw what he does with the stone or the acres.' + +[1037] This museum at Alkerington near Manchester is described in the +_Gent. Mag_. 1773, p.219. A proposal was made in Parliament to buy it +for the British Museum. _Ib_. 1783, p. 919. On July 8, 1784, a bill +enabling Lever to dispose of it by lottery passed the House of Commons. +_Ib_. 1784, p.705. + +[1038] Johnson defines _intuition_ as _sight of anything; immediate +knowledge_; and _sagacity_ as _quickness of scent; acuteness of +discovery_. + +[1039] In the first edition it stands '_A gentleman_' and below instead +of Mr. ----, Mr. ----. In the second edition Mr. ---- becomes Mr. ----. +In the third edition _young_ is added. Young Mr. Burke is probably +meant. As it stood in the second edition it might have been thought that +Edmund Burke was the gentleman; the more so as Johnson often denied his +want of wit. + +[1040] _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2. + +[1041] See _ante_, i. 372, note 1. + +[1042] Windham says (_Diary_, p. 34) that when Dr. Brocklesby made this +offer 'Johnson pressed his hands and said, "God bless you through Jesus +Christ, but I will take no money but from my sovereign." This, if I +mistake not, was told the King through West.' Dr. Brocklesby wrote to +Burke, on July 2, 1788, to make him 'an instant present of £1000, +which,' he continues, 'for years past, by will, I had destined as a +testimony of my regard on my decease.' Burke, accepting the present, +said:--'I shall never be ashamed to have it known, that I am obliged to +one who never can be capable of converting his kindness into a burthen.' +Burke's _Corres._ iii.78. See _ante_, p. 263, for the just praise +bestowed by Johnson on physicians in his _Life of Garth_. + +[1043] See _ante_, ii. 194. + +[1044] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii. p 375. BOSWELL. + +[1045] Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 45) describes him as 'a very handsome, +gentlemanly, and amiable person. Mme. D'Arblay tells how one evening at +Dr. Burney's home, when Signor Piozzi was playing on the piano, 'Mrs. +Thrale stealing on tip-toe behind him, ludicrously began imitating him. +Dr. Burney whispered to her, "Because, Madam, you have no ear yourself +for music, will you destroy the attention of all who in that one point +are otherwise gifted?"' Mrs. Thrale took this rebuke very well. This was +her first meeting with Piozzi. It was in Mr. Thrale's life-time. +_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 110. + +[1046] Dr. Johnson's letter to Sir John Hawkins, _Life_, p. 570. +BOSWELL. The last time Miss Burney saw Johnson, not three weeks before +his death, he told her that the day before he had seen Miss Thrale. 'I +then said:--"Do you ever, Sir, hear from mother?" "No," cried he, "nor +write to her. I drive her quite from my mind. If I meet with one of her +letters, I burn it instantly. I have burnt all I can find. I never speak +of her, and I desire never to hear of her more. I drive her, as I said, +wholly from my mind."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 328. + +[1047] See _ante_, i. 493. + +[1048] _Anec_. p. 293. BOSWELL. + +[1049] 'The saying of the old philosopher who observes, "that he who +wants least is most like the gods who want nothing," was a favourite +sentence with Dr. Johnson, who on his own part required less attendance, +sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. Conversation was all +he required to make him happy.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p.275. Miss Burney's +account of the life at Streatham is generally very cheerful. I suspect +that the irksome confinement described by Mrs. Piozzi was not felt by +her till she became attached to Mr. Piozzi. This caused a great change +in her behaviour and much unhappiness. (_Ante_, p. 138, note 4.) He at +times treated her harshly. (_Ante_, p. 160, note.) Two passages in her +letters to Miss Burney shew a want of feeling in her for a man who for +nearly twenty years had been to her almost as a father. On Feb. 18, +1784, she writes:--'Johnson is in a sad way doubtless; yet he may still +with care last another twelve-month, and every week's existence is gain +to him, who, like good Hezekiah, wearies Heaven with entreaties for +life. I wrote him a very serious letter the other day.' On March 23 she +writes:--' My going to London would be a dreadful expense, and bring on +a thousand inquiries and inconveniences--visits to Johnson and from +Cator.' It is likely that in other letters there were like passages, but +these letters Miss Burney 'for cogent reasons destroyed.' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 305, 7, 8. + +[1050] + 'Bless'd paper credit! last and best supply! + That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!' + +Pope, _Moral Essays_, iii. 39. + +[1051] Who has been pleased to furnish me with his remarks. BOSWELL. No +doubt Malone, who says, however: 'On the whole the publick is indebted +to her for her lively, though very inaccurate and artful, account of Dr. +Johnson.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 364. + +[1052] See _ante_, iii. 81. + +[1053] _Anec._ p. 183. BOSWELL. + +[1054] Hannah More. She, with her sisters, had kept a boarding-school at +Bristol. + +[1055] She first saw Johnson in June, 1774. According to her _Memoirs_ +(i. 48) he met her 'with good humour in his countenance, and continued +in the same pleasant humour the whole of the evening.' She called on him +in Bolt Court. One of her sisters writes:--'Miss Reynolds told the +doctor of all our rapturous exclamations [about him] on the road. He +shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said, "She was a silly thing."' +_Ib_. p. 49. 'He afterwards mentioned to Miss Reynolds how much he had +been touched with the enthusiasm of the young authoress, which was +evidently genuine and unaffected.' _Ib_. p. 50. She met him again in the +spring of 1775. Her sister writes:--'The old genius was extremely +jocular, and the young one very pleasant. They indeed tried which could +"pepper the highest" [Goldsmith's _Retaliation_], and it is not clear to +me that he was really the highest seasoner.' _Ib_. p. 54. From the Mores +we know nothing of his reproof. He had himself said of 'a literary +lady'--no doubt Hannah More--'I was obliged to speak to Miss Reynolds to +let her know that I desired she would not flatter me so much.' _Ante_, +iii.293. Miss Burney records a story she had from Mrs. Thrale, 'which,' +she continues, 'exceeds, I think, in its severity all the severe things +I have yet heard of Dr. Johnson's saying. When Miss More was introduced +to him, she began singing his praise in the warmest manner. For some +time he heard her with that quietness which a long use of praise has +given him: she then redoubled her strokes, till at length he turned +suddenly to her, with a stern and angry countenance, and said, "Madam, +before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider +whether or not your flattery is worth his having."' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, i.103. Shortly afterwards Miss Burney records (_ib_. p. 121) +that Mrs. Thrale said to him:--'We have told her what you said to Miss +More, and I believe that makes her afraid.' He replied:--'Well, and if +she was to serve me as Miss More did, I should say the same thing to +her.' We have therefore three reports of what he said--one from Mrs. +Thrale indirectly, one from her directly, and the third from Malone. +However severe the reproof was, the Mores do not seem to have been much +touched by it. At all events they enjoyed the meeting with Johnson, and +Hannah More needed a second reproof that was conveyed to her through +Miss Reynolds. + +[1056] _Anec._ p. 202. BOSWELL. + +[1057] See _ante_, i. 40, 68, 92, 415, 481; ii. 188, 194; iii. 229; and +_post_, v. 245, note 2. + +[1058] _Anec._ p. 44. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 318, _note_ 1, where I +quote the passage. + +[1059] _Ib_. p. 23. BOSWELL. + +[1060] _Ib_. p. 45. Mr. Hayward says:--'She kept a copious diary and +notebook called _Thraliana_ from 1776 to 1809. It is now,' [1861] he +continues, 'in the possession of Mr. Salusbury, who deems it of too +private and delicate a character to be submitted to strangers, but has +kindly supplied me with some curious passages from it.' Hayward's +_Piozzi_, i. 6. + +[1061] _Ib_. p. 51 [192]. BOSWELL. + +[1062] _Anec._ p. 193 [51]. BOSWELL. + +[1063] Johnson, says Murphy, (_Life_, p. 96) 'felt not only kindness, +but zeal and ardour for his friends.' 'Who,' he asks (_ib_. p. 144), +'was more sincere and steady in his friendships?' 'Numbers,' he says +(_ib_. p. 146), 'still remember with gratitude the friendship which he +shewed to them with unaltered affection for a number of years.' + +[1064] See _ante_, ii. 285, and iii. 440. + +[1065] Johnson's _Works_, i. 152, 3. + +[1066] In vol. ii. of the _Piozzi Letters_ some of these letters are +given. + +[1067] He gave Miss Thrale lessons in Latin. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary,_ i. +243 and 427. + +[1068] _Anec._ p. 258. BOSWELL. + +[1069] George James Cholmondeley, Esq., grandson of George, third Earl +of Cholmondeley, and one of the Commissioners of Excise; a gentleman +respected for his abilities, and elegance of manners. BOSWELL. When I +spoke to him a few years before his death upon this point, I found him +very sore at being made the topic of such a debate, and very unwilling +to remember any thing about either the offence or the apology. CROKER. + +[1070] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale,_ vol. ii. p. 12. BOSWELL. + +[1071] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._p. 258) lays the scene of this anecdote 'in +some distant province, either Shropshire or Derbyshire, I believe.' +Johnson drove through these counties with the Thrales in 1774 (_ante_, +ii. 285). If the passage in the letter refers to the same anecdote--and +Mrs. Piozzi does not, so far as I know, deny it--more than three years +passed before Johnson was told of his rudeness. Baretti, in a MS. note +on _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 12, says that the story was 'Mr. Cholmondeley's +running away from his creditors.' In this he is certainly wrong; yet if +Mr. Cholmondeley had run away, and others gave the same explanation of +the passage, his soreness is easily accounted for. + +[1072] _Anec_. p. 23. BOSWELL. + +[1073] _Ib_. p. 302. BOSWELL. + +[1074] _Rasselas_, chap, xvii + +[1075] _Paradise Lost_, iv. 639. + +[1076] _Anec_. p. 63. BOSWELL. + +[1077] 'Johnson one day, on seeing an old terrier lie asleep by the +fire-side at Streatham, said, "Presto, you are, if possible, a more lazy +dog that I am."' Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 203. + +[1078] Upon mentioning this to my friend Mr. Wilkes, he, with his usual +readiness, pleasantly matched it with the following _sentimental +anecdote_. He was invited by a young man of fashion at Paris, to sup +with him and a lady, who had been for some time his mistress, but with +whom he was going to part. He said to Mr. Wilkes that he really felt +very much for her, she was in such distress; and that he meant to make +her a present of two hundred louis-d'ors. Mr. Wilkes observed the +behaviour of Mademoiselle, who sighed indeed very piteously, and assumed +every pathetick air of grief; but eat no less than three French pigeons, +which are as large as English partridges, besides other things. Mr. +Wilkes whispered the gentleman, 'We often say in England, _Excessive +sorrow is exceeding dry_, but I never heard _Excessive sorrow is +exceeding hungry_. Perhaps _one_ hundred will do.' The gentleman took +the hint. BOSWELL. + +[1079] See _post_, p. 367, for the passage omitted. + +[1080] Sir Joshua Reynolds, on account of the excellence both of the +sentiment and expression of this letter, took a copy of it which he +shewed to some of his friends; one of whom, who admired it, being +allowed to peruse it leisurely at home, a copy was made, and found its +way into the newspapers and magazines. It was transcribed with some +inaccuracies. I print it from the original draft in Johnson's own +hand-writing. BOSWELL. Hawkins writes (_Life_, p. 574):--'Johnson, upon +being told that it was in print, exclaimed in my hearing, "I am +betrayed," but soon after forgot, as he was ever ready to do all real or +supposed injuries, the error that made the publication possible.' + +[1081] Cowper wrote of Thurlow:--'I know well the Chancellor's +benevolence of heart, and how much he is misunderstood by the world. +When he was young he would do the kindest things, and at an expense to +himself which at that time he could ill afford, and he would do them too +in the most secret manner.' Southey's _Cowper_, vii. 128. Yet Thurlow +did not keep his promise made to Cowper when they were fellow-clerks in +an attorney's office. 'Thurlow, I am nobody, and shall be always nobody, +and you will be chancellor. You shall provide for me when you are.' He +smiled, and replied, 'I surely will.' _Ib._ i. 41. When Cowper sent him +the first volume of his poems, 'he thought it not worth his while,' the +poet writes, 'to return me any answer, or to take the least notice of my +present.' _Ib._ xv. 176. Mr. (afterwards Sir) W. Jones, in two letters +to Burke, speaks of Thurlow as the [Greek: thaerion] (beast). 'I heard +last night, with surprise and affliction,' he wrote on Feb. 15, +1783,'that the [Greek: thaerion] was to continue in office. Now I can +assure you from my own positive knowledge (and I know him well), that +although he hates _our_ species in general, yet his particular hatred is +directed against none more virulently than against Lord North, and the +friends of the late excellent Marquis.' Burke's _Corres._ ii. 488, +and iii. 10. + +[1082] 'Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of unbounded power when an +aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by his +writings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of infirmities +and sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to enable him, during the +winter or two which might still remain to him, to draw his breath more +easily in the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained; +and before Christmas the author of the _English Dictionary_ and of the +_Lives of the Poets_ had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke +of Fleet-street.' _Macaulay's Writings and Speeches,_ ed. 1871, p. 413. +Just before Macaulay, with monstrous exaggeration, says that Gibbon, +'forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on +the shores of Lake Leman.' This poverty of Gibbon would have been +'splendour' to Johnson. Debrett's Royal Kalendar, for 1795 (p. 88), +shews that there were twelve Lords of the King's Bedchamber receiving +each £1000 a year, and fourteen Grooms of the Bedchamber receiving each, +£500 a year. As Burns was made a gauger, so Johnson might have been made +a Lord, or at least a Groom of the Bedchamber. It is not certain that +Pitt heard of the application for an increased pension. Mr. Croker +quotes from Thurlow's letter to Reynolds of Nov. 18, 1784:--'It was +impossible for me to take the King's pleasure on the suggestion I +presumed to move. I am an untoward solicitor.' Whether he consulted Pitt +cannot be known. Mr. Croker notices a curious obliteration in this +letter. The Chancellor had written:--'It would have suited the purpose +better, if nobody had heard of it, except Dr. Johnson, you and J. +Boswell.' _Boswell_ has been erased--'artfully' too, says--Mr. Croker-so +that 'the sentence appears to run, "except Dr. Johnson, you, and I."' +Mr. Croker, with his usual suspiciousness, suspects 'an uncandid trick.' +But it is very likely that Thurlow himself made the obliteration, +regardless of grammar. He might easily have thought that it would have +been better still had Boswell not been in the secret. + +[1083] See _ante_, iii. 176. + +[1084] On June 11 Boswell and Johnson were together (_ante_, p. 293). +The date perhaps should be July 11. The letter that follows next is +dated July 12. + +[1085] 'Even in our flight from vice some virtue lies.' FRANCIS. Horace, +i. _Epistles_, I. 41. + +[1086] See vol. ii. p. 258. BOSWELL. + +[1087] Mrs. Johnson died in 1752. See _ante_, i. 241, note 2. + +[1088] See Appendix. + +[1089] Printed in his _Works_ [i. 150]. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 241, +note 2. + +[1090] He wrote to Mr. Ryland on the same day:--'Be pleased to let the +whole be done with privacy that I may elude the vigilance of the +papers.' _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. vii. 381. + +[1091] Boileau, _Art Poétique_, chant iv. + +[1092] This is probably an errour either of the transcript or the press. +_Removes_ seems to be the word intended. MALONE. + +[1093] See _ante_, i. 332, and _post_ p. 360. + +[1094] See _ante_, p. 267. + +[1095] I have heard Dr. Johnson protest that he never had quite as much +as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life.' Piozzi's +_Anec_. p. 103. + +[1096] At the Essex Head, Essex-street. BOSWELL. + +[1097] Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 8:-- + + 'Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart.' + +_Vanity of Human Wishes_, l. 15. + +[1098] Mr. Allen, the printer. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 141, 269. + +[1099] It was on this day that he wrote the prayer given below (p. 370) +in which is found that striking line--'this world where much is to be +done and little to be known.' + +[1100] His letter to Dr. Heberden (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 789) shews +that he had gone with Dr. Brocklesby to the last Academy dinner, when, +as he boasted, 'he went up all the stairs to the pictures without +stopping to rest or to breathe.' _Ante_, p. 270, note 2. + +[1101] + + Quid te exempta _levat_ spinis de pluribus una? + 'Pluck out one thorn to mitigate thy pain, + What boots it while so many more remain?' + +FRANCIS. Horace, 2 _Epistles_, ii. 212. + +[1102] See _ante_, iii. 4, note 2. + +[1103] Sir Joshua's physician. He is mentioned by Goldsmith in his +verses to the Miss Hornecks. Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 149. + +[1104] How much balloons filled people's minds at this time is shewn by +such entries as the following in Windham's _Diary_:-'Feb 7, 1784. Did +not rise till past nine; from that time till eleven, did little more +than indulge in idle reveries about balloons.' p. 3. 'July 20. The +greater part of the time, till now, one o'clock, spent in foolish +reveries about balloons.' p. 12. Horace Walpole wrote on Sept. 30 +(_Letters_, viii. 505):--'I cannot fill my paper, as the newspapers do, +with air-balloons; which though ranked with the invention of navigation, +appear to me as childish as the flying kites of school-boys.' 'Do not +write about the balloon,' wrote Johnson to Reynolds (_post_, p. 368), +'whatever else you may think proper to say.' In the beginning of the +year he had written:--'It is very seriously true that a subscription of +£800 has been raised for the wire and workmanship of iron wings.' +_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 345. + +[1105] It is remarkable that so good a Latin scholar as Johnson, should +have been so inattentive to the metre, as by mistake to have written +_stellas_ instead of _ignes_. BOSWELL. + +[1106] + + 'Micat inter omnes + Julium sidus, velut inter ignes Luna minores.' + 'And like the Moon, the feebler fires among, + Conspicuous shines the Julian star.' + + FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, i. 12. 46. + +[1107] See _ante_, iii. 209. + +[1108] + + 'The little blood that creeps within his veins + Is but just warmed in a hot fever's pains.' + + DRYDEN. Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 217. + +[1109] Lunardi had made, on Sept. 15, the first balloon ascent in +England. _Gent. Mag_. 1784, p. 711. Johnson wrote to Mr. Ryland on Sept. +18:--'I had this day in three letters three histories of the Flying Man +in the great Balloon.' He adds:--'I live in dismal solitude.' _Notes and +Queries_, 5th S. vii. 381. + +[1110] 'Sept. 27, 1784. Went to see Blanchard's balloon. Met Burke and +D. Burke; walked with them to Pantheon to see Lunardi's. Sept. 29. About +nine came to Brookes's, where I heard that the balloon had been burnt +about four o'clock.' Windham's _Diary_, p. 24. + +[1111] His love of London continually appears. In a letter from him to +Mrs. Smart, wife of his friend the Poet, which is published in a +well-written life of him, prefixed to an edition of his Poems, in 1791, +there is the following sentence:-'To one that has passed so many years +in the pleasures and opulence of London, there are few places that can +give much delight.' + +Once, upon reading that line in the curious epitaph quoted in _The +Spectator;_ + + 'Born in New-England, did in London die;' + +he laughed and said, 'I do not wonder at this. It would have been +strange, if born in London, he had died in New-England.' BOSWELL. Mrs. +Smart was in Dublin when Johnson wrote to her. After the passage quoted +by Boswell he continued:--'I think, Madam, you may look upon your +expedition as a proper preparative to the voyage which we have often +talked of. Dublin, though a place much worse than London, is not so bad +as Iceland.' Smart's _Poems_, i. xxi. For Iceland see _ante_, i. 242. +The epitaph, quoted in _The Spectator_, No. 518, begins-- + + Here Thomas Sapper lies interred. Ah why! + Born in New-England, did in London die.' + +[1112] _St. Mark_, v. 34. + +[1113] There is no record of this in the _Gent. Mag_. Among the 149 +persons who that summer had been sentenced to death (_ante_, p. 328) who +would notice these two? + +[1114] See _ante_, p. 356, note 1 + +[1115] Johnson wrote for him a Dedication of his _Tasso_ in 1763. +_Ante_, i. 383. + +[1116] There was no information for which Dr. Johnson was less grateful +that than for that which concerned the weather. It was in allusion to +his impatience with those who were reduced to keep conversation alive by +observations on the weather, that he applied the old proverb to himself. +If any one of his intimate acquaintance told him it was hot or cold, wet +or dry, windy or calm, he would stop them, by saying, 'Poh! poh! you are +telling us that of which none but men in a mine or a dungeon can be +ignorant. Let us bear with patience, or enjoy in quiet, elementary +changes, whether for the better or the worse, as they are never +secrets.' BURNEY. In _The Idler_, No. II, Johnson shews that 'an +Englishman's notice of the weather is the natural consequence of +changeable skies and uncertain seasons... In our island every man goes +to sleep unable to guess whether he shall behold in the morning a bright +or cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, or +broken by a tempest. We therefore rejoice mutually at good weather, as +at an escape from something that we feared; and mutually complain of +bad, as of the loss of something that we hoped.' See _ante_, i. +332, and iv. 353. + +[1117] His _Account of the Musical Performances in Commemoration of +Handel_. See _ante_, p. 283. + +[1118] The celebrated Miss Fanny Burney. BOSWELL. + +[1119] Dr. Burney's letter must have been franked; otherwise there would +have been no frugality, for each enclosure was charged as a +separate letter. + +[1120] He does not know, that is to say, what people of his acquaintance +were in town, privileged to receive letters post free; such as members +of either House of Parliament. + +[1121] _Consolation_ is clearly a blunder, Malone's conjecture +_mortification_ seems absurd. + +[1122] See _ante_, iii. 48, and iv. 177. + +[1123] Windham visited him at Ashbourne in the end of August, after the +former of these letters was written. See _ante_, p. 356. + +[1124] This may refer, as Mr. Croker says, to Hamilton's generous offer, +mentioned _ante_, p. 244. Yet Johnson, with his accurate mind, was not +likely to assign to the spring an event of the previous November. + +[1125] Johnson refers to Pope's lines on Walpole:-- + + 'Seen him I have but in his _happier hour_ + Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power.' + + _Satires. Epilogue_, i. 29. + +[1126] Son of the late Peter Paradise, Esq. his Britannick Majesty's +Consul at Salonica, in Macedonia, by his lady, a native of that country. +He studied at Oxford, and has been honoured by that University with the +degree of LL.D. He is distinguished not only by his learning and +talents, but by an amiable disposition, gentleness of manners, and a +very general acquaintance with well-informed and accomplished persons of +almost all nations. BOSWELL. + +[1127] Bookseller to his Majesty. BOSWELL. + +[1128] Mr. Cruikshank attended him as a surgeon the year before. _Ante_, +p. 239. + +[1129]Allan Ramsay, Esq. painter to his Majesty, who died Aug. 10, 1784, +in the 71st year of his age, much regretted by his friends. BOSWELL. See +_ante_, p. 260. + +[1130] Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 187) says that Johnson 'most +probably refers to Sir Joshua's becoming painter to the King. 'I know,' +he continues, 'that Sir Joshua expected the appointment would be offered +to him on the death of Ramsay, and expressed his disapprobation with +regard to soliciting for it; but he was informed that it was a necessary +point of etiquette, with which at last he complied.' His 'furious +purposes' should seem to have been his intention to resign the +Presidency of the Academy, on finding that the place was not at once +given him, and in the knowledge that in the Academy there was a party +against him. Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 448. + +[1131] See _ante_, p. 348. + +[1132] The Chancellor had not, it should seem, asked the King. See +_ante_, p. 350, note. + +[1133] The Duke of Devonshire has kindly given me the following +explanation of this term:--'It was formerly the custom at some (I +believe several) of the large country-houses to have dinners at which +any of the neighbouring gentry and clergy might present themselves as +guests without invitation. The custom had been discontinued at +Chatsworth before my recollection, and so far as I am aware is now only +kept-up at Wentworth, Lord Fitzwilliam's house in Yorkshire, where a few +public dinners are still given annually. I believe, however, that all +persons intending to be present on such occasions are now expected to +give notice some days previously. Public dinners were also given +formerly by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and if I am not mistaken also +by the Archbishop of York. I have myself been present at a public dinner +at Lambeth Palace within the last fifty years or thereabouts, and I have +been at one or more such dinners at Wentworth.' Since receiving this +explanation I have read the following in the second part of the +_Greville Memoirs_, i. 99:--'June 1, 1838. I dined yesterday at +Lambeth, at the Archbishop's public dinner, the handsomest entertainment +I ever saw. There were nearly a hundred people present, all full-dressed +or in uniform. Nothing can be more dignified and splendid than the whole +arrangement.' + +[1134] Six weeks later he was willing to hear even of balloons, so long +as he got a letter. 'You,' he wrote to Mr. Sastres, 'may always have +something to tell: you live among the various orders of mankind, and may +make a letter from the exploits, sometimes of the philosopher, and +sometimes of the pickpocket. You see some balloons succeed and some +miscarry, and a thousand strange and a thousand foolish things.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 412. + +[1135] See _ante_, p. 349, note. + +[1136] 'He alludes probably to the place of King's Painter; which, since +Burke's reforming the King's household expenses, had been reduced from +£200 to £50 per annum.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 188. The place was +more profitable than Johnson thought. 'It was worth having from the +harvest it brought in by the multiplication of the faces of King and +Queen as presents for ambassadors and potentates.' This is shewn by the +following note in Sir Joshua's price-book:--'Nov. 28, 1789, remain in +the Academy five Kings, four Queens; in the house two Kings and one +Queen.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 449. + +[1137] Mr. Nichols published in 1782 _Anecdotes of William Bowyer, +Printer_. In 1812-15 he brought out this work, recast and enlarged, +under the title of _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_. See +_ante_, p. 161. + +[1138] In the original (which is in the British Museum) not _hints_ but +_names_. + +[1139] On Nov. 4, he wrote to Mr. Ryland:--'I have just received a +letter in which you tell me that you love to hear from me, and I value +such a declaration too much to neglect it. To have a friend, and a +friend like you, may be numbered amongst the first felicities of life; +at a time when weakness either of body or mind loses the pride and the +confidence of self-sufficiency, and looks round for that help which +perhaps human kindness cannot give, and which we yet are willing to +expect from one another. I am at this time very much dejected.... I am +now preparing myself for my return, and do not despair of some more +monthly meetings [_post_, Appendix C]. To hear that dear Payne is better +gives me great delight. I saw the draught of the stone [over Mrs. +Johnson's grave, _ante_, p. 351]. Shall I ever be able to bear the sight +of this stone? In your company I hope I shall.' Mr. Morrison's +_Autographs_, vol. ii. + +[1140] To him as a writer might be generally applied what he said of +Rochester:--'His pieces are commonly short, such as one fit of +resolution would produce.' _Works_, vii. 159. + +[1141] _Odes_, iv.7. _Works_, i. 137. + +[1142] _Against inqitisitive and perplexing thoughts_. 'O LORD, my Maker +and Protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world to work out +my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing +thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties +which Thou hast required. When I behold the works of thy hands, and +consider the course of thy providence, give me grace always to remember +that thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways. And while +it shall please Thee to continue me in this world, where much is to be +done, and little to be known, teach me by thy Holy Spirit, to withdraw +my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties +vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in +the light which Thou hast imparted, let me serve Thee with active zeal +and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in +which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge. +Grant this, O LORD, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen.' BOSWELL. _Pr. and +Med._ p. 219. + +[1143] _Life of Johnson_, p. 599. + +[1144] Porson with admirable humour satirised Hawkins for his attack on +Barber. _Gent. Mag._ 1787, p. 752, and _Porson Tracts_, p. 358. Baretti +in his _Tolondron_, p. 149, says that 'Barber from his earliest youth +served Johnson with the greatest affection and disinterestedness.' + +[1145] Vol. ii. p. 30. BOSWELL. + +[1146] I shall add one instance only to those which I have thought it +incumbent on me to point out. Talking of Mr. Garrick's having signified +his willingness to let Johnson have the loan of any of his books to +assist him in his edition of Shakspeare [_ante_, ii. 192]; Sir John +says, (p. 444,) 'Mr. Garrick knew not what risque he ran by this offer. +Johnson had so strange a forgetfulness of obligations of this sort, that +few who lent him books ever saw them again.' This surely conveys a most +unfavourable insinuation, and has been so understood. Sir John mentions +the single case of a curious edition of Politian [_ante_, i. 90], which +he tells us, 'appeared to belong to Pembroke College, and which, +probably, had been considered by Johnson as his own, for upwards of +fifty years.' Would it not be fairer to consider this as an +inadvertence, and draw no general inference? The truth is, that Johnson +was so attentive, that in one of his manuscripts in my possession, he +has marked in two columns, books borrowed, and books lent. + +In Sir John Hawkins's compilation, there are, however, some passages +concerning Johnson which have unquestionable merit. One of them I shall +transcribe, in justice to a writer whom I have had too much occasion to +censure, and to shew my fairness as the biographer of my illustrious +friend: 'There was wanting in his conduct and behaviour, that dignity +which results from a regular and orderly course of action, and by an +irresistible power commands esteem. He could not be said to be a stayed +man, nor so to have adjusted in his mind the balance of reason and +passion, as to give occasion to say what may be observed of some men, +that all they do is just, fit, and right.' [Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. +409.] Yet a judicious friend well suggests, 'It might, however, have +been added, that such men are often merely just, and rigidly correct, +while their hearts are cold and unfeeling; and that Johnson's virtues +were of a much higher tone than those of the _stayed, orderly man_, here +described.' BOSWELL. + +[1147] 'Lich, a dead carcase; whence Lichfield, the field of the dead, a +city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians. _Salve magna +parens.'_ It is curious that in the Abridgment of the _Dictionary_ he +struck out this salutation, though he left the rest of the article. +_Salve magna parens_, (Hail, mighty parent) is from Virgil's _Georgics_, +ii. 173. The Rev. T. Twining, when at Lichfield in 1797, says:--'I +visited the famous large old willow-tree, which Johnson, they say, used +to kiss when he came to Lichfield.' _Recreations and Studies of a +Country Clergyman of the XVIII Century_, p. 227. + +[1148] The following circumstance, mutually to the honour of Johnson, +and the corporation of his native city, has been communicated to me by +the Reverend Dr. Vyse, from the Town-Clerk:--'Mr. Simpson has now before +him, a record of the respect and veneration which the Corporation of +Lichfield, in the year 1767, had for the merits and learning of Dr. +Johnson. His father built the corner-house in the Market-place, the two +fronts of which, towards Market and Broad-market-street, stood upon +waste land of the Corporation, under a forty years' lease, which was +then expired. On the 15th of August, 1767, at a common-hall of the +bailiffs and citizens, it was ordered (and that without any +solicitation,) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson, Doctor +of Laws, of the encroachments at his house, for the term of ninety-nine +years, at the old rent, which was five shillings. Of which, as +Town-Clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure of informing him, +and that he was desired to accept it, without paying any fine on the +occasion, which lease was afterwards granted, and the Doctor died +possessed of this property.' BOSWELL. + +[1149] See vol. i. p. 37. BOSWELL. + +[1150] According to Miss Seward, who was Mr. White's cousin, 'Johnson +once called him "the rising strength of Lichfield."' Seward's +_Letters_, i. 335. + +[1151] The Rev. R. Warner, who visited Lichfield in 1801, gives in his +_Tour through the Northern Counties_, i. 105, a fuller account. He is +clearly wrong in the date of its occurrence, and in one other matter, +yet his story may in the main be true. He says that Johnson's friends at +Lichfield missed him one morning; the servants said that he had set off +at a very early hour, whither they knew not. Just before supper he +returned. He informed his hostess of his breach of filial duty, which +had happened just fifty years before on that very day. 'To do away the +sin of this disobedience, I this day went,' he said, 'in a chaise +to--, and going into the market at the time of high business uncovered +my head, and stood with it bare an hour, before the stall which my +father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the standers-by, and +the inclemency of the weather.' This penance may recall Dante's lines,-- + + 'Quando vivea più glorioso, disse, + Liberamente nel campo di Siena, + Ogni vergogna deposta, s'affisse.' + '"When at his glory's topmost height," said he, + "Respect of dignity all cast aside, + Freely he fix'd him on Sienna's plain."' + + CARY. Dante, _Purgatory_. Cant. xi. l. 133. + +[1152] + + 'How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, + Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine.' + + Pope, _Essay on Man_, i. 221. + +[1153] See _ante_, iii. 153, 296. + +[1154] Mr. Burke suggested to me as applicable to Johnson, what Cicero, +in his CATO MAJOR, says of _Appius:--'Intentum enim animum tanquam arcum +habebat, nec languescens succumbebat senectuti_;' repeating, at the same +time, the following noble words in the same passage:--_'Ita enim +senectus honesta est, si se ipsa defendit, si jus suum retinet, si +nemini emancipata est, si usque ad extremum vitae spiritum vindicet jus +suum_.' BOSWELL. The last line runs in the original:-'si usque ad +ultimum spiritum dominatur in suos.' _Cato Major_, xi. 38. + +[1155] + + '_atrocem_ animum Catonis.' + 'Cato-- + Of spirit unsubdued.' + + FRANCIS. Horace, 2 _Odes_, i. 24. + +[1156] Yet Baretti, who knew Johnson well, in a MS. note on _Piozzi +Letters_, i.315, says:--'If ever Johnson took any delight in anything it +was to converse with some old acquaintance. New people he never loved to +be in company with, except ladies, when disposed to caress and +flatter him.' + +[1157] Johnson, thirty-four years earlier, wrote:--'I think there is +some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not so +proportioned that the one can bear all that can be inflicted on the +other; whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as life, and +whether a soul well principled will not be separated sooner than +subdued.' _The Rambler_, No. 32. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, +1780:--'But what if I am seventy-two; I remember Sulpitius says of Saint +Martin (now that's above your reading), _Est animus victor annorum, et +senectuti cedere nescius_. Match me that among your young folks.' +_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 177. On Sept. 2, 1784, he wrote to Mr. Sastres the +Italian master:--'I have hope of standing the English winter, and of +seeing you, and reading _Petrarch_ at Bolt-court.' _Ib_. p. 407. + +[1158] _Life of Johnson_, p. 7. + +[1159] It is a most agreeable circumstance attending the publication of +this Work, that Mr. Hector has survived his illustrious schoolfellow so +many years; that he still retains his health and spirits; and has +gratified me with the following acknowledgement: 'I thank you, most +sincerely thank you, for the great and long continued entertainment your +_Life of Dr. Johnson_ has afforded me, and others, of my particular +friends.' Mr. Hector, besides setting me right as to the verses on a +sprig of Myrtle, (see vol. i. p. 92, note,) has favoured me with two +English odes, written by Dr. Johnson, at an early period of his life, +which will appear in my edition of his poems. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. +16, note 1. + +[1160] The editor of the _Biographia Britannica. Ante_, iii. 174. + +[1161] On Dec. 23, Miss Adams wrote to a friend:--'We are all under the +sincerest grief for the loss of poor Dr. Johnson. He spent three or four +days with my father at Oxford, and promised to come again; as he was, he +said, nowhere so happy.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS._ + +[1162] See _ante_, p. 293. + +[1163] Mr. Strahan says (Preface, p. iv.) that Johnson, being hindered +by illness from revising these prayers, 'determined to give the MSS., +without revision, in charge to me. Accordingly one morning, on my +visiting him by desire at an early hour, he put these papers into my +hands, with instructions for committing them to the press, and with a +promise to prepare a sketch of his own life to accompany them.' Whatever +Johnson wished about the prayers, it passes belief that he ever meant +for the eye of the world these minute accounts of his health and his +feelings. Some parts indeed Mr. Strahan himself suppressed, as the Pemb. +Coll. MSS. shew (_ante_, p. 84, note 4). It is curious that one portion +at least fell into other hands (_ante_, ii. 476). There are other +apparent gaps in the diary which raise the suspicion that it was only +fragments that Mr. Strahan obtained. On the other hand Mr. Strahan had +nothing to gain by the publication beyond notoriety (see his Preface, p. +vi.). Dr. Adams, whose name is mentioned in the preface, expressed in a +letter to the _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p. 755, his disapproval of the +publication. Mr. Courtenay (_Poetical Review_, ed. 1786, p. 7), thus +attacked Mr. Strahan:-- + + 'Let priestly S--h--n in a godly fit + The tale relate, in aid of Holy Writ; + Though candid Adams, by whom David fell [A], + Who ancient miracles sustained so well, + To recent wonders may deny his aid, + Nor own a pious brother of the trade.' + +[A] The Rev. Dr. Adams of Oxford, distinguished for his answer to David +Hume's _Essay on Miracles_. + +[1164] Johnson once said to Miss Burney of her brother Charles:--'I +should be glad to see him if he were not your brother; but were he a +dog, a cat, a rat, a frog, and belonged to you, I must needs be glad to +see him.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 233. On Nov. 25 she called on +him. 'He let me in, though very ill. He told me he was going to try what +sleeping out of town might do for him. "I remember," said he, "that my +wife, when she was near her end, poor woman, was also advised to sleep +out of town; and when she was carried to the lodgings that had been +prepared for her, she complained that the staircase was in very bad +condition, for the plaster was beaten off the walls in many places." +"Oh!" said the man of the house, "that's nothing but by the knocks +against it of the coffins of the poor souls that have died in the +lodgings." He laughed, though not without apparent secret anguish, in +telling me this.' Miss Burney continues:--'How delightfully bright are +his faculties, though the poor and infirm machine that contains them +seems alarmingly giving way. Yet, all brilliant as he was, I saw him +growing worse, and offered to go, which, for the first time I ever +remember, he did not oppose; but most kindly pressing both my hands, "Be +not," he said, in a voice of even tenderness, "be not longer in coming +again for my letting you go now." I assured him I would be the sooner, +and was running off, but he called me back in a solemn voice, and in a +manner the most energetic, said:--"Remember me in your prayers."' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 327. See _ante_, iii. 367, note 4. + +[1165] Mr. Hector's sister and Johnson's first love. _Ante_, ii. 459. + +[1166] The Rev. Dr. Taylor. BOSWELL. + +[1167] See _ante_, ii. 474, and iii. 180. + +[1168] 'Reliquum est, _[Greek: Sphartan elaches, tahutan khusmei].'_ +Cicero, _Epistolae ad Atticum_, iv. 6. 'Spartam nactus es, hanc orna.' +Erasmus, _Adagiorum Chiliades_, ed. 1559, p. 485. + +[1169] Temple says of the spleen that it is a disease too refined for +this country and people, who are well when they are not ill, and pleased +when they are not troubled; are content, because they think little of +it, and seek their happiness in the common eases and commodities of +life, or the increase of riches; not amusing themselves with the more +speculative contrivances of passion, or refinements of pleasure.' +Temple's _Works_, ed. 1757, i. 170. + +[1170] It is truly wonderful to consider the extent and constancy of +Johnson's literary ardour, notwithstanding the melancholy which clouded +and embittered his existence. Besides the numerous and various works +which he executed, he had, at different times, formed schemes of a great +many more, of which the following catalogue was given by him to Mr. +Langton, and by that gentleman presented to his Majesty: + +'DIVINITY. + +'A small book of precepts and directions for piety; the hint taken from +the directions in Morton's exercise. + +'PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, and LITERATURE in general. + +'_History of Criticism_, as it relates to judging of authours, from +Aristotle to the present age. An account of the rise and improvements of +that art; of the different opinions of authours, ancient and modern. + +'Translation of the _History of Herodian_. + +'New edition of Fairfax's Translation of _Tasso_, with notes, glossary, +&c. + +'Chaucer, a new edition of him, from manuscripts and old editions, with +various readings, conjectures, remarks on his language, and the changes +it had undergone from the earliest times to his age, and from his to the +present: with notes explanatory of customs, &c., and references to +Boccace, and other authours from whom he has borrowed, with an account +of the liberties he has taken in telling the stories; his life, and an +exact etymological glossary. + +'Aristotle's _Rhetorick_, a translation of it into English. + +'A Collection of Letters, translated from the modern writers, with some +account of the several authours. + +'Oldham's Poems, with notes, historical and critical. + +'Roscommon's Poems, with notes. + +'Lives of the Philosophers, written with a polite air, in such a manner +as may divert as well as instruct. + +'History of the Heathen Mythology, with an explication of the fables, +both allegorical and historical; with references to the poets. + +'History of the State of Venice, in a compendious manner. + +'Aristotle's _Ethicks_, an English translation of them, with notes. + +'Geographical Dictionary, from the French. + +'Hierocles upon Pythagoras, translated into English, perhaps with notes. +This is done by Norris. + +'A book of Letters, upon all kinds of subjects. + +'Claudian, a new edition of his works, _cum notis variorum_, in the +manner of Burman. + +'Tully's Tusculan Questions, a translation of them. + +'Tully's De Naturâ Deorum, a translation of those books. + +'Benzo's New History of the New World, to be translated. + +'Machiavel's History of Florence, to be translated. + +'History of the Revival of Learning in Europe, containing an account of +whatever contributed to the restoration of literature; such as +controversies, printing, the destruction of the Greek empire, the +encouragement of great men, with the lives of the most eminent patrons +and most eminent early professors of all kinds of learning in different +countries. + +'A Body of Chronology, in verse, with historical notes. + +'A Table of the Spectators, Tatlers, and Guardians, distinguished by +figures into six degrees of value, with notes, giving the reasons of +preference or degradation. + +'A Collection of Letters from English authours, with a preface giving +some account of the writers; with reasons for selection, and criticism +upon styles; remarks on each letter, if needful. + +'A Collection of Proverbs from various languages. Jan. 6,--53. + +'A Dictionary to the Common Prayer, in imitation of Calmet's _Dictionary +of the Bible_. March, 52. + +'A Collection of Stories and Examples, like those of Valerius Maximus. +Jan. 10,--53. + +'From Aelian, a volume of select Stories, perhaps from others. Jan. +28,-53. + +'Collection of Travels, Voyages, Adventures, and Descriptions of +Countries. + +'Dictionary of Ancient History and Mythology. + +'Treatise on the Study of Polite Literature, containing the history of +learning, directions for editions, commentaries, &c. + +'Maxims, Characters, and Sentiments, after the manner of Bruyère, +collected out of ancient authours, particularly the Greek, with +Apophthegms. + +'Classical Miscellanies, Select Translations from ancient Greek and +Latin authours. + +'Lives of Illustrious Persons, as well of the active as the learned, in +imitation of Plutarch. + +'Judgement of the learned upon English authours. + +'Poetical Dictionary of the English tongue. + +'Considerations upon the present state of London. + +'Collection of Epigrams, with notes and observations. + +'Observations on the English language, relating to words, phrases, and +modes of Speech. + +'Minutiae Literariae, Miscellaneous reflections, criticisms, +emendations, notes. + +'History of the Constitution. + +'Comparison of Philosophical and Christian Morality, by sentences +collected from the moralists and fathers. + +'Plutarch's Lives, in English, with notes. + +'POETRY and works of IMAGINATION. + +'Hymn to Ignorance. + +'The Palace of Sloth,--a vision. + +'Coluthus, to be translated. + +'Prejudice,--a poetical essay. + +'The Palace of Nonsense,--a vision.' + +Johnson's extraordinary facility of composition, when he shook off his +constitutional indolence, and resolutely sat down to write, is admirably +described by Mr. Courtenay, in his Poetical Review, which I have several +times quoted: + + 'While through life's maze he sent a piercing view, + His mind expansive to the object grew. + With various stores of erudition fraught, + The lively image, the deep-searching thought, + Slept in repose;--but when the moment press'd, + The bright ideas stood at once confess'd; + Instant his genius sped its vigorous rays, + And o'er the letter'd world diffus'd a blaze: + As womb'd with fire the cloud electrick flies, + And calmly o'er th' horizon seems to rise; + Touch'd by the pointed steel, the lightning flows, + And all th' expanse with rich effulgence glows.' + +We shall in vain endeavour to know with exact precision every production +of Johnson's pen. He owned to me, that he had written about forty +sermons; but as I understood that he had given or sold them to different +persons, who were to preach them as their own, he did not consider +himself at liberty to acknowledge them. Would those who were thus aided +by him, who are still alive, and the friends of those who are dead, +fairly inform the world, it would be obligingly gratifying a reasonable +curiosity, to which there should, I think, now be no objection. Two +volumes of them, published since his death, are sufficiently +ascertained; see vol. iii. p. 181. I have before me, in his +hand-writing, a fragment of twenty quarto leaves, of a translation into +English of Sallust, _De Bella Catilinario_. When it was done I have no +notion; but it seems to have no very superior merit to mark it as his. +Beside the publications heretofore mentioned, I am satisfied, from +internal evidence, to admit also as genuine the following, which, +notwithstanding all my chronological care, escaped me in the course of +this work: + +'Considerations on the Case of Dr. Trapp's Sermons,' + published in +1739, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_. [These Considerations were +published, not in 1739, but in 1787. _Ante_, i. 140, note 5.] It is a +very ingenious defence of the right of _abridging_ an authour's work, +without being held as infringing his property. This is one of the nicest +questions in the _Law of Literature_; and I cannot help thinking, that +the indulgence of abridging is often exceedingly injurious to authours +and booksellers, and should in very few cases be permitted. At any rate, +to prevent difficult and uncertain discussion, and give an absolute +security to authours in the property of their labours, no abridgement +whatever should be permitted, till after the expiration of such a number +of years as the Legislature may be pleased to fix. + +But, though it has been confidently ascribed to him, I cannot allow that +he wrote a Dedication to both Houses of Parliament of a book entitled +_The Evangelical History Harmonized_. He was no _croaker_; no declaimer +against _the times_. [See _ante_, ii. 357.] He would not have written, +'That we are fallen upon an age in which corruption is not barely +universal, is universally confessed.' Nor 'Rapine preys on the publick +without opposition, and perjury betrays it without inquiry.' Nor would +he, to excite a speedy reformation, have conjured up such phantoms of +terrour as these: 'A few years longer, and perhaps all endeavours will +be in vain. We may be swallowed by an earthquake: we may be delivered to +our enemies.' This is not Johnsonian. + +There are, indeed, in this Dedication, several sentences constructed +upon the model of those of Johnson. But the imitation of the form, +without the spirit of his style, has been so general, that this of +itself is not sufficient evidence. Even our newspaper writers aspire to +it. In an account of the funeral of Edwin, the comedian, in _The Diary_ +of Nov. 9, 1790, that son of drollery is thus described: 'A man who had +so often cheered the sullenness of vacancy, and suspended the approaches +of sorrow.' And in _The Dublin Evening Post_, August 16, 1791, there is +the following paragraph: 'It is a singular circumstance, that, in a city +like this, containing 200,000 people, there are three months in the year +during which no place of publick amusement is open. Long vacation is +here a vacation from pleasure, as well as business; nor is there any +mode of passing the listless evenings of declining summer, but in the +riots of a tavern, or the stupidity of a coffee-house.' + +I have not thought it necessary to specify every copy of verses written +by Johnson, it being my intention to, publish an authentick edition of +all his Poetry, with notes. BOSWELL. This _Catalogue_, as Mr. Boswell +calls it, is by Dr. Johnson intitled _Designs_. It seems from the hand +that it was written early in life: from the marginal dates it appears +that some portions were added in 1752 and 1753. CROKER. + +[1171] On April 19 of this year he wrote: 'When I lay sleepless, I used +to drive the night along by turning Greek epigrams into Latin. I know +not if I have not turned a hundred.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 364. +Forty-five years earlier he described how Boerhaave, 'when he lay whole +days and nights without sleep, found no method of diverting his thoughts +so effectual as meditation upon his studies, and often relieved and +mitigated the sense of his torments by the recollection of what he had +read, and by reviewing those stores of knowledge which he had reposited +in his memory.' _Works_, vi. 284. + +[1172] Mr. Cumberland assures me, that he was always treated with great +courtesy by Dr. Johnson, who, in his _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii. +p. 68 thus speaks of that learned, ingenious, and accomplished +gentleman: 'The want of company is an inconvenience: but Mr. Cumberland +is a million.' BOSWELL. Northcote, according to Hazlitt (_Conversations +of Northcote_, p. 275), said that Johnson and his friends 'never +admitted C----[Cumberland] as one of the set; Sir Joshua did not invite +him to dinner. If he had been in the room, Goldsmith would have flown +out of it as if a dragon had been there. I remember Garrick once saying, +"D--n his _dish-clout_ face; his plays would never do, if it were not +for my patching them up and acting in them."' + +[1173] See _ante_, p. 64, note 2. + +[1174] Dr. Parr said, "There are three great Grecians in England: Porson +is the first; Burney is the third; and who is the second I need not +tell"' Field's _Parr_, ii. 215. + +[1175] 'Dr. Johnson,' said Parr, 'was an admirable scholar.... The +classical scholar was forgotten in the great original contributor to the +literature of his country.' _Ib._ i. 164. 'Upon his correct and profound +knowledge of the Latin language,' he wrote, 'I have always spoken with +unusual zeal and unusual confidence.' Johnson's _Parr_, iv. 679. Mrs. +Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 54) recounts a 'triumph' gained by Johnson in a talk +on Greek literature. + +[1176] _Ante_, iii. 172. + +[1177] We must smile at a little inaccuracy of metaphor in the Preface +to the _Transactions_, which is written by Mr. Burrowes. The _critick of +the style of_ JOHNSON having, with a just zeal for literature, observed, +that the whole nation are called on to exert themselves, afterwards +says: 'They are _called on_ by every _tye_ which can have a laudable +influence on the heart of man.' BOSWELL. + +[1178] Johnson's wishing to unite himself with this rich widow, was much +talked of, but I believe without foundation. The report, however, gave +occasion to a poem, not without characteristical merit, entitled, 'Ode +to Mrs. Thrale, by Samuel Johnson, LL.D. on their supposed approaching +Nuptials; printed for Mr. Faulder in Bond-street.' I shall quote as a +specimen the first three stanzas:-- + + 'If e'er my fingers touch'd the lyre, + In satire fierce, in pleasure gay; + Shall not my THRALIA'S smiles inspire? + Shall Sam refuse the sportive lay? + My dearest Lady! view your slave, + Behold him as your very _Scrub_; + Eager to write, as authour grave, + Or govern well, the brewing-tub. + To rich felicity thus raised, + My bosom glows with amorous fire; + Porter no longer shall be praised, + 'Tis I MYSELF am _Thrale's Entire_' + +[1179] See _ante_, ii. 44. + +[1180] '_Higledy piggledy_,--Conglomeration and confusion. + +'_Hodge-podge_,--A culinary mixture of heterogeneous ingredients: +applied metaphorically to all discordant combinations. + +'_Tit for Tat_,--Adequate retaliation. + +'_Shilly Shally_,--Hesitation and irresolution. + +'_Fee! fau! fum!--Gigantic intonations. + +_Rigmarole_,-Discourse, incoherent and rhapsodical. + +'_Crincum-crancum_,--Lines of irregularity and involution. + +'_Dingdong_--Tintinabulary chimes, used metaphorically to signify +dispatch and vehemence.' BOSWELL. In all the editions that I have +examined the sentence in the text beginning with 'annexed,' and ending +with 'concatenation,' is printed as if it were Boswell's. It is a +quotation from vol. ii. p. 93 of Colman's book. For _Scrub_, see _ante_, +iii. 70, note 2. + +[1181] See _ante_, iii. 173. + +[1182] _History of America_, vol. i. quarto, p. 332. BOSWELL. + +[1183] Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 219) thus writes of his own +style:--'The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the +choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many +experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull +chronicle and a rhetorical declamation; three times did I compose the +first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably +satisfied with their effect.' See _ante_, p. 36, note 1. + +[1184] _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vol. i. chap. iv. +BOSWELL. + +[1185] Macaulay (_Essays_, ed. 1874, iv. 157) gives a yet better example +of her Johnsonian style, though, as I have shewn (_ante_, p. 223, note +5), he is wrong in saying that Johnson's hand can be seen. + +[1186] _Cecilia_, Book. vii. chap. i. [v.] BOSWELL. + +[1187] The passage which I quote is taken from that gentleman's +_Elements of Orthoepy_; containing a distinct View of the whole Analogy +of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, so far as relates to _Pronunciation, Accent, +and Quantity_, London, 1784. I beg leave to offer my particular +acknowledgements to the authour of a work of uncommon merit and great +utility. I know no book which contains, in the same compass, more +learning, polite literature, sound sense, accuracy of arrangement, and +perspicuity of expression. BOSWELL. + +[1188] That collection was presented to Dr. Johnson, I believe by its +authours; and I heard him speak very well of it. BOSWELL. _The Mirror_ +was published in 1779-80; by 1793 it reached its ninth edition. For an +account of it see Appendix DD. to Forbes's _Beattie_. Henry Mackenzie, +the author of _The Man of Feeling_, was the chief contributor as well as +the conductor of the paper. He is given as the author of No. 16 in +Lynam's edition, p. 1. + +[1189] The name of Vicesimus Knox is now scarcely known. Yet so late as +1824 his collected _Works_ were published in seven octavo volumes. The +editor says of his _Essays_ (i. iii):--'In no department of the _Belles +Lettres_ has any publication, excepting the _Spectator_, been so +extensively circulated. It has been translated into most of the European +languages.' See _ante_, i. 222, note 1; iii. 13, note 3; and iv. 330. + +[1190] _Lucretius_, iii. 6. + +[1191] It were to be wished, that he had imitated that great man in +every respect, and had not followed the example of Dr. Adam Smith +[_ante_, iii. 13, note 1] in ungraciously attacking his venerable _Alma +Mater_ Oxford. It must, however, be observed, that he is much less to +blame than Smith: he only objects to certain particulars; Smith to the +whole institution; though indebted for much of his learning to an +exhibition which he enjoyed for many years at Baliol College. Neither of +them, however, will do any hurt to the noblest university in the world. +While I animadvert on what appears to me exceptionable in some of the +works of Dr. Knox, I cannot refuse due praise to others of his +productions; particularly his sermons, and to the spirit with which he +maintains, against presumptuous hereticks, the consolatory doctrines +peculiar to the Christian Revelation. This he has done in a manner +equally strenuous and conciliating. Neither ought I to omit mentioning a +remarkable instance of his candour: Notwithstanding the wide difference +of our opinions, upon the important subject of University education, in +a letter to me concerning this Work, he thus expresses himself: 'I thank +you for the very great entertainment your _Life of Johnson_ gives me. It +is a most valuable work. Yours is a new species of biography. Happy for +Johnson, that he had so able a recorder of his wit and wisdom.' BOSWELL. + +[1192] Dr. Knox, in his _Moral and Literary_ abstraction, may be excused +for not knowing the political regulations of his country. No senator can +be in the hands of a bailiff. BOSWELL. + +[1193] It is entitled _A Continuation of Dr. J--n's Criticism on the +Poems of Gray_. The following is perhaps the best passage:--'On some +fine evening Gray had seen the moon shining on a tower such as is here +described. An owl might be peeping out from the ivy with which it was +clad. Of the observer the station might be such that the owl, now +emerged from the mantling, presented itself to his eye in profile, +skirting with the Moon's limb. All this is well. The perspective is +striking; and the picture well defined. But the poet was not contented. +He felt a desire to enlarge it; and in executing his purpose gave it +accumulation without improvement. The idea of the Owl's _complaining_ is +an artificial one; and the views on which it proceeds absurd. Gray +should have seen, that it but ill befitted the _Bird of Wisdom_ to +complain to the Moon of an intrusion which the Moon could no more help +than herself.' p. 17. Johnson wrote of this book:--'I know little of +it, for though it was sent me I never cut the leaves open. I had a +letter with it representing it to me as my own work; in such an account +to the publick there may be humour, but to myself it was neither serious +nor comical. I suspect the writer to be wrong-headed.' _Piozzi Letters_, +ii. 289. 'I was told,' wrote Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 376), 'it would +divert me, that it seems to criticise Gray, but really laughs at +Johnson. I sent for it and skimmed it over, but am not at all clear what +it means--no recommendation of anything. I rather think the author +wishes to be taken by Gray's admirers for a ridiculer of Johnson, and by +the tatter's for a censurer of Gray.' '"The cleverest parody of the +Doctor's style of criticism," wrote Sir Walter Scott, "is by John Young +of Glasgow, and is very capital."' _Croker Corres_, ii. 34. + +[1194] See _ante_, iv. 59, for Burke's description of Croft's imitation. + +[1195] See _ante_, ii. 465. + +[1196] H.S.E. + +MICHAEL JOHNSON, + +Vir impavidus, constans, animosus, periculorum immemor, laborum +patientissimus; fiducia christiana fortis, fervidusque; paterfamilias +apprime strenuus; bibliopola admodum peritus; mente et libris et +negotiis exculta; animo ita firmo, ut, rebus adversis diu conflictatus, +nec sibi nec suis defuerit; lingua sic temperata, ut ei nihil quod aures +vel pias, vel castas laesisset, aut dolor, vel voluptas unquam +expresserit. + +Natus Cubleiae, in agro Derbiensi, + +Anno MDCLVI. + +Obiit MDCCXXXI. + +Apposita est SARA, conjux, + +Antiqua FORDORUM gente oriunda; quam domi sedulam, foris paucis notam; +nulli molestam, mentis acumine et judicii subtilitate praecellentem; +aliis multum, sibi parum indulgentem: aeternitati semper attentam, omne +fere virtutis nomen commendavit. + +Nata Nortoniae Regis, in agro Varvicensi, Anno MDCLXIX; + +Obiit MDCCLIX. + +Cum NATHANAELE, illorum filio, qui natus MDCCXII, cum vires et animi et +corporis multa pollicerentur, anno MDCCXXXVII, vitam brevem pia morte +finivit. Johnson's _Works_, i. 150. + +[1197] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 590) says that he asked that the stone over +his own grave 'might be so placed as to protect his body from injury.' +Harwood (_History of Lichfield_, p. 520) says that the stone in St. +Michael's was removed in 1796, when the church was paved. A fresh one +with the old inscriptions was placed in the church on the hundredth +anniversary of Johnson's death by Robert Thorp, Esq., of Buxton Road +House, Macclesfield. The Rev. James Serjeantson, Rector of St. +Michael's, suggests to me that the first stone was never set up. It is, +he says, unlikely that such a memorial within a dozen years was treated +so unworthily. Moreover in 1841 and again in 1883, during reparations of +the church, a very careful search was made for it, but without result. +There may have been, he thinks, some difficulty in finding the exact +place of interment. The matter may have stood over till it was +forgotten, and the mason, whose receipted bill shews that he was paid +for the stone, may have used it for some other purpose. + +[1198] See _ante_, i. 241, and iv. 351. + +[1199] 'He would also,' says Hawkins (_Life_, p. 579), 'have written in +Latin verse an epitaph for Mr. Garrick, but found himself unequal to the +task of original poetic composition in that language.' + +[1200] In his _Life of Browne_, Johnson wrote:--'The time will come to +every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die; and +it has appeared that our author's fortitude did not desert him in the +great hour of trial.' _Works_, vi. 499. + +[1201] A Club in London, founded by the learned and ingenious physician, +Dr. Ash, in honour of whose name it was called Eumelian, from the Greek +[Greek: Eumelias]; though it was warmly contended, and even put to a +vote, that it should have the more obvious appellation of _Fraxinean_, +from the Latin. BOSWELL. This club, founded in 1788, met at the Blenheim +Tavern, Bond-street. Reynolds, Boswell, Burney, and Windham were +members. Rose's _Biog. Dict._ ii. 240. [Greek: Eummeliaes] means _armed +with good ashen spear_. + +[1202] Mrs. Thrale's _Collection_, March 10,1784. Vol. ii. p. 350. +BOSWELL. + +[1203] Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 583. + +[1204] See what he said to Mr. Malone, p. 53 of this volume. BOSWELL. + +[1205] See _ante_, i. 223, note 2. + +[1206] _Epistle to the Romans_, vii. 23. + +[1207] 'Johnson's passions,' wrote Reynolds, 'were like those of other +men, the difference only lay in his keeping a stricter watch over +himself. In petty circumstances this [? his] wayward disposition +appeared, but in greater things he thought it worth while to summon his +recollection and be always on his guard.... [To them that loved him not] +as rough as winter; to those who sought his love as mild as summer--many +instances will readily occur to those who knew him intimately of the +guard which he endeavoured always to keep over himself.' Taylor's +_Reynolds_, ii. 460. See _ante_, i. 94, 164, 201, and iv. 215. + +[1208] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3d ed. p. 209. [_Post_, v. +211.] On the same subject, in his Letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated Nov. 29, +1783, he makes the following just observation:--'Life, to be worthy of a +rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to +do more or better than in time past. The mind is enlarged and elevated +by mere purposes, though they end as they began [in the original, +_begin_], by airy contemplation. We compare and judge, though we do not +practise.' BOSWELL. + +[1209] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, p. 374. [_Post_, v. 359.] +BOSWELL. + +[1210] _Psalm_ xix. 13. + +[1211] _Pr. and Med._ p.47. BOSWELL. + +[1212] _Ib._ p. 68 BOSWELL + +[1213] _Ib._ p. 84 BOSWELL + +[1214] _Ib._ p. 120. BOSWELL. + +[1215] Pr. and Med. p. 130. BOSWELL. + +[1216] Dr. Johnson related, with very earnest approbation, a story of a +gentleman, who, in an impulse of passion, overcame the virtue of a young +woman. When she said to him, 'I am afraid we have done wrong!' he +answered, 'Yes, we have done wrong;--for I would not _debauch her +mind_.' BOSWELL. + +[1217] _St. John_, viii. 7. + +[1218] _Pr. and Med._ p. 192. BOSWELL. + +[1219] See _ante_, iii. 155. + +[1220] Boswell, on Feb. 10, 1791, describing to Malone the progress of +his book, says:--'I have now before me p. 488 [of vol. ii.] in print; +and 923 pages of the copy [MS.] only is exhausted, and there remains 80, +besides the _death_; as to which I shall be concise, though solemn. Pray +how shall I wind up? Shall I give the _character_ from my _Tour_ +somewhat enlarged?' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 829. Mr. Croker is clearly in +error in saying (_ib._ p. 800) that 'Mr. Boswell's absence and the +jealousy between him and some of Johnson's other friends prevented his +being able to give the particulars which he (Mr. Croker) has supplied in +the Appendix.' In this Appendix is Mr. Hoole's narrative which Boswell +had seen and used (_post_, p. 406). + +[1221] _Psalm_ lxxxii. 7. + +[1222] See Appendix E. + +[1223] 'On being asked in his last illness what physician he had sent +for, "Dr. Heberden," replied he, "_ultimus Romanorum_, the last of the +learned physicians."' Seward's _Biographiana_, p. 601. + +[1224] Mr. Green related that when some of Johnson's friends desired +that Dr. Warren should be called in, he said they might call in whom +they pleased; and when Warren was called, at his going away Johnson +said, 'You have come in at the eleventh hour, but you shall be paid the +same with your fellow-labourers. Francis, put into Dr. Warren's coach a +copy of the _English Poets_.' CROKER. Dr. Warren ten years later +attended Boswell in his last illness. _Letters of Boswell_, p. 355. He +was the great-grandfather of Col. Sir Charles Warren, G.C.M.G., F.R.S., +Chief Commissioner of Police. + +[1225] This bold experiment, Sir John Hawkins has related in such a +manner as to suggest a charge against Johnson of intentionally hastening +his end; a charge so very inconsistent with his character in every +respect, that it is injurious even to refute it, as Sir John has thought +it necessary to do. It is evident, that what Johnson did in hopes of +relief, indicated an extraordinary eagerness to retard his dissolution. +BOSWELL. Murphy (_Life_, p. 122) says that 'for many years, when Johnson +was not disposed to enter into the conversation going forward, whoever +sat near his chair might hear him repeating from Shakespeare [_Measure +for Measure_, act iii. sc. i]:-- + + "Ay, but to die and go we know not where; + To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; + This sensible warm motion to become + A kneaded clot; and the delighted spirit + To bathe in fiery floods." + +And from Milton [_Paradise Lost_, ii. 146]:-- + + "Who would lose + Though full of pain this intellectual being?"' + +Johnson, the year before, at a time when he thought that he must submit +to the surgeon's knife (_ante_, p. 240), wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You +would not have me for fear of pain perish in putrescence. I shall, I +hope, with trust in eternal mercy lay hold of the possibility of life +which yet remains.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 312. Hawkins records (_Life_, +p. 588) that one day Johnson said to his doctor:--'How many men in a +year die through the timidity of those whom they consult for health! I +want length of life, and you fear giving me pain, which I care not for.' +Another day, 'when Mr. Cruikshank scarified his leg, he cried out, +"Deeper, deeper. I will abide the consequence; you are afraid of your +reputation, but that is nothing to me." To those about him, he said, +"You all pretend to love me, but you do not love me so well as I myself +do." '_Ib_. p. 592. Windham (_Diary_, p. 32) says that he reproached +Heberden with being _timidorum timidissimus_. Throughout he acted up to +what he had said:--'I will be conquered, I will not capitulate.' +_Ante_, P. 374. + +[1226] Macbeth, act v. sc. 3. + +[1227] Satires, x. 356. Paraphrased by Johnson in The Vanity of Human +Wishes, at the lines beginning:-- + + 'Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, + Obedient passions and a will resigned.' + +[1228] Johnson, three days after his stroke of palsy (ante, p. 230), +wrote:--'When I waked, I found Dr. Brocklesby sitting by me. He fell to +repeating Juvenal's ninth satire; but I let him see that the province +was mine.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 274. + +[1229] Johnson, on his way to Scotland, 'changed horses,' he wrote, 'at +Darlington, where Mr. Cornelius Harrison, a cousin-german of mine, was +perpetual curate. He was the only one of my relations who ever rose in +fortune above penury, or in character above neglect.' _Piozzi Letters_, +i. 105. Malone, in a note to later editions, shews that Johnson shortly +before his death was trying to discover some of his poor relations. + +[1230] Mr. Windham records (_Diary_, p. 28) that the day before Johnson +made his will 'he recommended Frank to him as to one who had will and +power to protect him.' He continues, 'Having obtained my assent to this, +he proposed that Frank should be called in; and desiring me to take him +by the hand in token of the promise, repeated before him the +recommendation he had just made of him, and the promise I had given to +attend to it. + +[1231] Johnson wrote five years earlier to Mrs. Thrale about her +husband's will:--'Do not let those fears prevail which you know to be +unreasonable; a will brings the end of life no nearer.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 72. + +[1232] 'IN THE NAME OF GOD. AMEN. I, SAMUEL JOHNSON, being in full +possession of my faculties, but fearing this night may put an end to my +life, do ordain this my last Will and Testament. I bequeath to GOD, a +soul polluted with many sins, but I hope purified by JESUS CHRIST. I +leave seven hundred and fifty pounds in the hands of Bennet Langton, +Esq.; three hundred pounds in the hands of Mr. Barclay and Mr. Perkins, +brewers; one hundred and fifty pounds in the hands of Dr. Percy, Bishop +of Dromore; one thousand pounds, three _per cent._ annuities, in the +publick funds; and one hundred pounds now lying by me in ready money: +all these before-mentioned sums and property I leave, I say, to Sir +Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, of Doctors +Commons, in trust for the following uses:--That is to say, to pay to the +representatives of the late William Innys, bookseller, in St, Paul's +Church-yard, the sum of two hundred pounds; to Mrs. White, my female +servant, one hundred pounds stock in the three _per cent_. annuitites +aforesaid. The rest of the aforesaid sums of money and property, +together with my books, plate, and household furniture, I leave to the +before-mentioned Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William +Scott, also in trust, to the use of Francis Barber, my man-servant, a +negro, in such a manner as they shall judge most fit and available to +his benefit. And I appoint the aforesaid Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John +Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, sole executors of this my last will and +testament, hereby revoking all former wills and testaments whatever. In +witness whereof I hereunto subscribe my name, and affix my seal, this +eighth day of December, 1784. + +'Sam Johnson, (L.S.) + + 'Signed, scaled, published, declared, + and delivered, by the + said testator, as his last will + and testament, in the presence + of us, the word two being first + inserted in the opposite page. + + 'GEORGE STRAHAN + + 'JOHN DESMOULINS + +'By way of Codicil to my last Will and Testament, I, SAMUEL JOHNSON, +give, devise, and bequeath, my messuage or tenement situate at +Litchfield, in the county of Stafford, with the appertenances, in the +tenure or occupation of Mrs. Bond, of Lichfield aforesaid, or of Mr. +Hinchman, her under-tenant, to my executors, in trust, to sell and +dispose of the same; and the money arising from such sale I give and +bequeath as follows, viz. to Thomas and Benjamin, the sons of Fisher +Johnson, late of Leicester, and ----- Whiting, daughter of Thomas +Johnson [F-1], late of Coventry, and the grand-daughter of the said +Thomas Johnson, one full and equal fourth part each; but in case there +shall be more grand-daughters than one of the said Thomas Johnson, +living at the time of my decease, I give and bequeath the part or share +of that one to and equally between such grand-daughters. I give and +bequeath to the Rev. Mr. Rogers, of Berkley, near Froom, in the county +of Somerset, the sum of one hundred pounds, requesting him to apply the +same towards the maintenance of Elizabeth Herne, a lunatick [F-2]. I also +give and bequeath to my god-children, the son and daughter of Mauritius +Lowe [F-3], painter, each of them, one hundred pounds of my stock in the +three _per cent_, consolidated annuities, to be applied and disposed of +by and at the discretion of my Executors, in the education or settlement +in the world of them my said legatees. Also I give and bequeath to Sir +John Hawkins, one of my Executors, the Annales Ecclesiastici of +Baronius, and Holinshed's and Stowe's Chronicles, and also an octavo +Common Prayer-Book. To Bennet Langton, Esq. I give and bequeath my +Polyglot Bible. To Sir Joshua Reynolds, my great French Dictionary, by +Martiniere, and my own copy of my folio English Dictionary, of the last +revision. To Dr. William Scott, one of my Executors, the Dictionnaire de +Commerce, and Lectius's edition of the Greek poets. To Mr. Windham [F-4], +Poetae Graeci Heroici per Henricum Stephanum. To the Rev. Mr. Strahan, +vicar of Islington, in Middlesex, Mill's Greek Testament, Beza's Greek +Testament, by Stephens, all my Latin Bibles, and my Greek Bible, by +Wechelius. To Dr. Heberden, Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Butter, and Mr. +Cruikshank, the surgeon who attended me, Mr. Holder, my apothecary, +Gerard Hamilton, Esq., Mrs. Gardiner [F-5], of Snow-hill, Mrs. Frances +Reynolds, Mr. Hoole, and the Reverend Mr. Hoole, his son, each a book at +their election, to keep as a token of remembrance. I also give and +bequeath to Mr. John Desmoulins [F-6], two hundred pounds consolidated +three _per cent_, annuities: and to Mr. Sastres, the Italian +master [F-7], the sum of five pounds, to be laid out in books of piety +for his own use. And whereas the said Bennet Langton hath agreed, in +consideration of the sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds, mentioned in +my Will to be in his hands, to grant and secure an annuity of seventy +pounds payable during the life of me and my servant, Francis Barber, and +the life of the survivor of us, to Mr. George Stubbs, in trust for us; +my mind and will is, that in case of my decease before the said +agreement shall be perfected, the said sum of seven hundred and fifty +pounds, and the bond for securing the said sum, shall go to the said +Francis Barber; and I hereby give and bequeath to him the same, in lieu +of the bequest in his favour, contained in my said Will. And I hereby +empower my Executors to deduct and retain all expences that shall or may +be incurred in the execution of my said Will, or of this Codicil +thereto, out of such estate and effects as I shall die possessed of. All +the rest, residue, and remainder, of my estate and effects, I give and +bequeath to my said Executors, in trust for the said Francis Barber, his +Executors and Administrators. Witness my hand and seal, this ninth day +of December, 1784. + +'SAM. JOHNSON, (L. S.) + + 'Signed, sealed, published, declared, + and delivered, by the + said Samuel Johnson, as, and + for a Codicil to his last Will and + Testament, in the presence of + us, who, in his presence, and at + his request, and also in the + presence of each other, have + hereto subscribed our names as + witnesses. + + 'JOHN COPLEY. + + 'WILLIAM GIBSON. + + 'HENRY COLE.' + +Upon these testamentary deeds it is proper to make a few observations. + +His express declaration with his dying breath as a Christian, as it had +been often practised in such solemn writings, was of real consequence +from this great man; for the conviction of a mind equally acute and +strong, might well overbalance the doubts of others, who were his +contemporaries. The expression _polluted_, may, to some, convey an +impression of more than ordinary contamination; but that is not +warranted by its genuine meaning, as appears from _The Rambler_, No. +42[F-8]. The same word is used in the will of Dr. Sanderson, Bishop of +Lincoln [F-9], who was piety itself. + +His legacy of two hundred pounds to the representatives of Mr. Innys, +bookseller, in St. Paul's Church-yard [F-10], proceeded from a very +worthy motive. He told Sir John Hawkins, that his father having become a +bankrupt, Mr. Innys had assisted him with money or credit to continue +his business. 'This, (said he,) I consider as an obligation on me to be +grateful to his descendants [F-11].' + +The amount of his property proved to be considerably more than he had +supposed it to be. Sir John Hawkins estimates the bequest to Francis +Barber at a sum little short of fifteen hundred pounds, including an +annuity of seventy pounds to be paid to him by Mr. Langton, in +consideration of seven hundred and fifty pounds, which Johnson had lent +to that gentleman. Sir John seems not a little angry at this bequest, +and mutters 'a caveat against ostentatious bounty and favour to +negroes [F-12].' But surely when a man has money entirely of his own +acquisition, especially when he has no near relations, he may, without +blame, dispose of it as he pleases, and with great propriety to a +faithful servant. Mr. Barber, by the recommendation of his master, +retired to Lichfield, where he might pass the rest of his days +in comfort. + +It has been objected that Johnson has omitted many of his best friends, +when leaving books to several as tokens of his last remembrance. The +names of Dr. Adams, Dr. Taylor [F-13], Dr. Burney, Mr. Hector, Mr. +Murphy, the Authour of this Work, and others who were intimate with him, +are not to be found in his Will. This may be accounted for by +considering, that as he was very near his dissolution at the time, he +probably mentioned such as happened to occur to him; and that he may +have recollected, that he had formerly shewn others such proofs of his +regard, that it was not necessary to crowd his Will with their names. +Mrs. Lucy Porter was much displeased that nothing was left to her; but +besides what I have now stated, she should have considered, that she had +left nothing to Johnson by her Will, which was made during his +life-time, as appeared at her decease. + +His enumerating several persons in one group, and leaving them 'each a +book at their election,' might possibly have given occasion to a curious +question as to the order of choice, had they not luckily fixed on +different books. His library, though by no means handsome in its +appearance, was sold by Mr. Christie, for two hundred and forty-seven +pounds, nine shillings [F-14]; many people being desirous to have a book +which had belonged to Johnson. In many of them he had written little +notes: sometimes tender memorials of his departed wife; as, 'This was +dear Tetty's book:' sometimes occasional remarks of different sorts. Mr. +Lysons, of Clifford's Inn, has favoured me with the two following: + +In _Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion_, by Bryan Duppa, Lord Bishop of +Winton, '_Preces quidam (? quidem) videtur diligenter tractasse; spero +non inauditus (? inauditas).'_ + +In _The Rosicrucian infallible Axiomata_, by John Heydon, Gent., +prefixed to which are some verses addressed to the authour, signed Ambr. +Waters, A.M. Coll. Ex. Oxon. '_These Latin verses were written to Hobbes +by Bathurst, upon his Treatise on Human Nature, and have no relation to +the book.--An odd fraud_.'--BOSWELL. [Note: See Appendix F for notes on +this footnote.] + +[1233] 'He burned,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'many letters in the last week, +I am told, and those written by his mother drew from him a flood of +tears. Mr. Sastres saw him cast a melancholy look upon their ashes, +which he took up and examined to see if a word was still +legible.'--_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 383. + +[1234] Boswell in his _Hebrides_ (_post_, v. 53) says that Johnson, +starting northwards on his tour, left in a drawer in Boswell's house +'one volume of a pretty full and curious _Diary of his Life_, of which I +have,' he continues, 'a few fragments.' The other volume, we may +conjecture, Johnson took with him, for Boswell had seen both, and +apparently seen them only once. He mentions (_ante_, i. 27) that these +'few fragments' had been transferred to him by the residuary legatee +(Francis Barber). One large fragment, which was published after Barber's +death, he could never have seen, for he never quotes from it (_ante_, i. +35, note 1). + +[1235] One of these volumes, Sir John Hawkins informs us, he put into +his pocket; for which the excuse he states is, that he meant to preserve +it from falling into the hands of a person whom he describes so as to +make it sufficiently clear who is meant; 'having strong reasons (said +he,) to suspect that this man might find and make an ill use of the +book.' Why Sir John should suppose that the gentleman alluded to would +act in this manner, he has not thought fit to explain. But what he did +was not approved of by Johnson; who, upon being acquainted of it without +delay by a friend, expressed great indignation, and warmly insisted on +the book being delivered up; and, afterwards, in the supposition of his +missing it, without knowing by whom it had been taken, he said, 'Sir, I +should have gone out of the world distrusting half mankind.' Sir John +next day wrote a letter to Johnson, assigning reasons for his conduct; +upon which Johnson observed to Mr. Langton, 'Bishop Sanderson could not +have dictated a better letter. I could almost say, _Melius est sic +penituisse quam non errâsse_.' The agitation into which Johnson was +thrown by this incident, probably made him hastily burn those precious +records which must ever be regretted. BOSWELL. According to Mr. Croker, +Steevens was the man whom Hawkins said that he suspected. Porson, in his +witty _Panegyrical Epistle on Hawkins v. Johnson_ (_Gent. Mag._ 1787, +pp. 751-3, and _Porson Tracts_, p. 341), says:--'I shall attempt a +translation [of _Melius est_, &c.] for the benefit of your mere English +readers:--_There is more joy over a sinner that repenteth than over a +just person that needeth no repentance_. And we know from an authority +not to be disputed (Hawkins's _Life_, p. 406) that _Johnson was a great +lover of penitents_. + + "God put it in the mind to take it hence, + That thou might'st win the more thy [Johnson's] love, + Pleading so wisely in excuse of it." + +[1236] _Henry IV_, act iv. sc. 5. + +[1237] 'Tibullus addressed Cynthia in this manner:-- + + "_Te spectem, suprema, mihi cum venerit hora, + Te teneam moriens deficiente mamu. + Lib. i. El. I. 73. + + Before my closing eyes dear Cynthia stand, + Held weakly by my fainting, trembling hand."' + Johnson's Works, iv. 35. + + +[1238] Windham was scarcely a statesman as yet, though for a few months +of the year before he had been Chief Secretary for Ireland (_ante_, p +200). He was in Parliament, but he had never spoken. His _Diary_ shews +that he had no 'important occupations.' On Dec. 12, for instance, he +records (p. 30):--'Came down about ten; read reviews, wrote to Mrs. +Siddons, and then went to the ice; came home only in time to dress and +go to my mother's to dinner.' See _ante_, p. 356, for his interest +in balloons. + +[1239] 'My father,' writes Miss Burney, 'saw him once while I was away, +and carried Mr. Burke with him, who was desirous of paying his respects +to him once more in person. He rallied a little while they were there; +and Mr. Burke, when they left him, said to my father:--"His work is +almost done, and well has he done it."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. +333. Burke, in 1792, said in Parliament that 'Dr. Johnson's virtues were +equal to his transcendent talents, and his friendship he valued as the +greatest consolation and happiness of his life.' _Parl. Debates_, +xxx. 109. + +[1240] On the same undoubted authority, I give a few articles, which +should have been inserted in chronological order; but which, now that +they are before me, I should be sorry to omit:-- + +'In 1736, Dr. Johnson had a particular inclination to have been engaged +as an assistant to the Reverend Mr. Budworth, then head master of the +Grammar-school, at Brewood, in Staffordshire, "an excellent person, who +possessed every talent of a perfect instructor of youth, in a degree +which, (to use the words of one of the brightest ornaments of +literature, the Reverend Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester,) has been rarely +found in any of that profession since the days of Quintilian." Mr. +Budworth, "who was less known in his life-time, from that obscure +situation to which the caprice of fortune oft condemns the most +accomplished characters, than his highest merit deserved," had been bred +under Mr. Blackwell [Blackwall], at Market Bosworth, where Johnson was +some time an usher [_ante_, i. 84]; which might naturally lead to the +application. Mr. Budworth was certainly no stranger to the learning or +abilities of Johnson; as he more than once lamented his having been +under the necessity of declining the engagement, from an apprehension +that the paralytick affection, under which our great Philologist +laboured through life, might become the object of imitation or of +ridicule, among his pupils.' Captain Budworth, his grandson, has +confirmed to me this anecdote. + +'Among the early associates of Johnson, at St. John's Gate, was Samuel +Boyse [G-1], well known by his ingenious productions; and not less noted +for his imprudence. It was not unusual for Boyse to be a customer to the +pawnbroker. On one of these occasions, Dr. Johnson collected a sum of +money to redeem his friend's clothes, which in two days after were +pawned again. "The sum, (said Johnson,) was collected by sixpences, at a +time when to me sixpence was a serious consideration [G-2]." + +'Speaking one day of a person for whom he had a real friendship, but in +whom vanity was somewhat too predominant, he observed, that "Kelly [G-3] +was so fond of displaying on his side-board the plate which he possessed, +that he added to it his spurs. For my part, (said he,) I never was +master of a pair of spurs, but once; and they are now at the bottom of +the ocean. By the carelessness of Boswell's servant, they were dropped +from the end of the boat, on our return from the Isle of Sky [G-4]."' + +The late Reverend Mr. Samuel Badcock [G-5], having been introduced to Dr. +Johnson, by Mr. Nichols, some years before his death, thus expressed +himself in a letter to that gentleman:-- + +'How much I am obliged to you for the favour you did me in introducing +me to Dr. Johnson! _Tantùm vìdi Virgilium_ [G-6]. But to have seen him, +and to have received a testimony of respect from him, was enough. I +recollect all the conversation, and shall never forget one of his +expressions. Speaking of Dr. P---- [Priestley], (whose writings, I +saw, he estimated at a low rate,) he said, "You have proved him as +deficient in _probity_ as he is in learning [G-7]." I called him an +"Index-scholar [G-8];" but he was not willing to allow him a claim even +to that merit. He said, that "he borrowed from those who had been +borrowers themselves, and did not know that the mistakes he adopted had +been answered by others." I often think of our short, but precious, +visit to this great man. I shall consider it as a kind of an _aera_ in +my life.' BOSWELL. [Note: See Appendix G for notes on this footnote.] + +[1241] See _ante_, i. 152, 501. + +[1242] He wrote to Dr. Taylor on Feb. 17, 1776:--'Keep yourself +cheerful. Lie in bed with a lamp, and when you cannot sleep and are +beginning to think, light your candle and read. At least light your +candle; a man is perhaps never so much harrassed (_sic_) by his own mind +in the light as in the dark.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 423. + +[1243] Mr. Croker records 'the following communication from Mr. Hoole +himself':--'I must mention an incident which shews how ready Johnson was +to make amends for any little incivility. When I called upon him, the +morning after he had pressed me rather roughly to read _louder_, he +said, "I was peevish yesterday; you must forgive me: when you are as old +and as sick as I am, perhaps you may be peevish too." I have heard him +make many apologies of this kind.' + +[1244] 'To his friend Dr. Burney he said a few hours before he died, +taking the Doctor's hands within his, and casting his eyes towards +Heaven with a look of the most fervent piety, "My dear friend, while you +live do all the good you can." Seward's _Biographiana,_ p. 601 + +[1245] Mr. Hoole, senior, records of this day:--'Dr. Johnson exhorted me +to lead a better life than he had done. "A better life than you, my dear +Sir:" I repeated. He replied warmly, "Don't compliment not." Croker's +_Boswell_, p. 844 + +[1246] See _ ante_, p. 293 + +[1247] The French historian, Jacques-Auguste de Thou, 1553-1617, author +of _Historia sui Temporis_ in 138 books. + +[1248] See _ante,_ ii. 42, note 2. + +[1249] Mr. Hutton was occasionally admitted to the royal breakfast-table. +"Hutton," said the King to him one morning, "is it true that you +Moravians marry without any previous knowledge of each other?" "Yes, may +it please your majesty," returned Hutton; "our marriages are quite +royal" Hannah More's _Memoirs_, i. 318. One of his female-missionaries +for North American said to Dr. Johnson:--'Whether my Saviour's service +may be best carried on here, or on the coast of Labrador, 'tis Mr. +Hutton's business to settle. I will do my part either in a brick-house +or a snow-house with equal alacrity.' Piozzi's _Synonymy_, ii. 120. He +is described also in the _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 251, 291. + +[1250] _Ante_, ii. 402. + +[1251] Burke said of Hussey, who was his friend and correspondent, that +in his character he had made 'that very rare union of the enlightened +statesman with the ecclesiastic.' Burke's _Corres_. iv. 270. + +[1252] Boswell refers, I believe, to Fordyce's epitaph on Johnson in the +_Gent. Mag._ 1785, p. 412, or possibly to an _Ode_ on p. 50 of +his poems. + +[1253] 'Being become very weak and helpless it was thought necessary +that a man should watch with him all night; and one was found in the +neighbourhood for half a crown a night.' Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, +p. 589. + +[1254] It was on Nov. 30 that he repeated these lines. See Croker's +_Boswell_, p. 843. + +[1255] _British Synonymy_, i. 359. Mrs. Piozzi, to add to the wonder, +says that these verses were 'improviso,' forgetting that Johnson wrote +to her on Aug 8, 1780 (_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 175):--'You have heard in +the papers how --- is come to age. I have enclosed a short song of +congratulation which you must not shew to anybody. It is odd that it +should come into anybody's head. I hope you will read it with candour; +it is, I believe, one of the author's first essays in that way of +writing, and a beginner is always to be treated with tenderness.' That +it was Sir John Lade who had come of age is shewn by the entry of his +birth, Aug. 1, 1759, in the _Gent. Mag._ 1759, p. 392. He was the nephew +and ward of Mr. Thrale, who seemed to think that Miss Burney would make +him a good wife. (Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 79.) According to Mr. +Hayward (_Life of Piozzi_, i. 69) it was Lade who having asked Johnson +whether he advised him to marry, received as answer: 'I would advise no +man to marry, Sir, who is not likely to propagate understanding.' See +_ante_, ii. 109, note 2. Mr. Hayward adds that 'he married a woman of +the town, became a celebrated member of the Four-in-Hand Club, and +contrived to waste the whole of a fine fortune before he died.' In +Campbell's _Chancellors_ (ed. 1846, v. 628) a story is told of Sir John +Ladd, who is, I suppose, the same man. The Prince of Wales in 1805 asked +Lord Thurlow to dinner, and also Ladd. 'When "the old Lion" arrived the +Prince went into the ante-room to meet him, and apologised for the party +being larger than he had intended, but added, "that Sir John was an old +friend of his, and he could not avoid asking him to dinner," to which +Thurlow, in his growling voice, answered, "I have no objection, Sir, to +Sir John Ladd in his proper place, which I take to be your Royal +Highness's coach-box, and not your table."' + +[1256] _British Synonymy_ was published in 1794, later therefore than +Boswell's first and second editions. In both these the latter half of +this paragraph ran as follows:--"From the specimen which Mrs. Piozzi has +exhibited of it (_Anecdotes_, p. 196) it is much to be wished that the +world could see the whole. Indeed I can speak from my own knowledge; for +having had the pleasure to read it, I found it to be a piece of +exquisite satire conveyed in a strain of pointed vivacity and humour, +and in a manner of which no other instance is to be found in Johnson's +writings. After describing the ridiculous and ruinous career of a wild +spendthrift he _consoles_ him with this reflection:-- + + "You may hang or drown at last."' + +[1257] Sir John. + +[1258]'"Les morts n'écrivent point," says Madame de Maintenon.' Hannah +More's _Memoirs_, i. 233. The note that Johnson received 'was,' says Mr. +Hoole, 'from Mr. Davies, the bookseller, and mentioned a present of some +pork; upon which the Doctor said, in a manner that seemed as if he +thought it ill-timed, "too much of this," or some such expression.' +Croker's _Boswell_, p. 844. + +[1259] Sir Walter Scott says that 'Reynolds observed the charge given +him by Johnson on his death-bed not to use his pencil of a Sunday for a +considerable time, but afterwards broke it, being persuaded by some +person who was impatient for a sitting that the Doctor had no title to +exact such a promise.' Croker's _Corres_. ii. 34. 'Reynolds used to say +that "the pupil in art who looks for the Sunday with pleasure as an idle +day will never make a painter."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 119. 'Dr. +Johnson,' said Lord Eldon, 'sent me a message on his death-bed, to +request that I would attend public worship every Sunday.' Twiss's +_Eldon_, i. 168. The advice was not followed, for 'when a lawyer, a warm +partisan of the Chancellor, called him one of the pillars of the Church; +"No," said another lawyer, "he may be one of its buttresses; but +certainly not one of its pillars, for he is never found within it."' +_Ib_. iii. 488. Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chancellors_, vii. 716) +says:--Lord Eldon was never present at public worship in London from one +year's end to the other. Pleading in mitigation before Lord Ellenborough +that he attended public worship in the country, he received the rebuke, +"as if there were no God in town.'" + +[1260] Reynolds records:--'During his last illness, when all hope was at +an end, he appeared to be quieter and more resigned. His approaching +dissolution was always present to his mind. A few days before he died, +Mr. Langton and myself only present, he said he had been a great sinner, +but he hoped he had given no bad example to his friends; that he had +some consolation in reflecting that he had never denied Christ, and +repeated the text, "Whoever denies me, &c." [_St. Matthew_ x. 33.] We +were both very ready to assure him that we were conscious that we were +better and wiser from his life and conversation; and that so far from +denying Christ, he had been, in this age, his greatest champion.' +Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 459. + +[1261] Hannah More (_Memoirs_ i. 393) says that Johnson, having put up a +fervent prayer that Brocklesby might become a sincere Christian, 'caught +hold of his hand with great earnestness, and cried, "Doctor, you do not +say _Amen_." The Doctor looked foolishly, but after a pause cried +"_Amen_"' Her account, however, is often not accurate. + +[1262] Windham records (_Diary_, p. 30) that on the night of the 12th he +urged him to take some sustenance, 'and desisted only upon his +exclaiming, "It is all very childish; let us hear no more of it."' On +his pressing him a second time, he answered that 'he refused no +sustenance but inebriating sustenance.' Windham thereupon asked him to +take some milk, but 'he recurred to his general refusal, and begged that +there might be an end of it. I then said that I hoped he would forgive +my earnestness; when he replied eagerly, "that from me nothing would be +necessary by way of apology;" adding with great fervour, in words which +I shall (I hope) never forget--"God bless you, my dear Windham, through +Jesus Christ;" and concluding with a wish that we might meet in some +humble portion of that happiness which God might finally vouchsafe to +repentant sinners. These were the last words I ever heard him speak. I +hurried out of the room with tears in my eyes, and more affected than I +had been on any former occasion.' It was at a later hour in this same +night that Johnson 'scarified himself in three places. On Mr. Desmoulins +making a difficulty of giving him the lancet he said, "Don't you, if you +have any scruples; but I will compel Frank," and on Mr. Desmoulins +attempting to prevent Frank from giving it to him, and at last to +restrain his hands, he grew very outrageous, so much so as to call Frank +"scoundrel" and to threaten Mr. Desmoulins that he would stab him.' +_Ib_. p. 32. + +[1263] Mr. Strahan, mentioning 'the anxious fear', which seized Johnson, +says, that 'his friends who knew his integrity observed it with equal +astonishment and concern.' He adds that 'his foreboding dread of the +Divine justice by degrees subsided into a pious trust and humble hope in +the Divine mercy.' _Pr. and Med._ preface, p. xv. + +[1264] The change of his sentiments with regard to Dr. Clarke, is thus +mentioned to me in a letter from the late Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke +College, Oxford:--'The Doctor's prejudices were the strongest, and +certainly in another sense the weakest, that ever possessed a sensible +man. You know his extreme zeal for orthodoxy. But did you ever hear what +he told me himself? That he had made it a rule not to admit Dr. Clarke's +name in his _Dictionary_. This, however, wore off. At some distance of +time he advised with me what books he should read in defence of the +Christian Religion. I recommended Clarke's _Evidences of Natural and +Revealed Religion_, as the best of the kind; and I find in what is +called his _Prayers and Meditations_, that he was frequently employed in +the latter part of his time in reading Clarke's _Sermons_. BOSWELL. See +_ante_, i. 398. + +[1265] The Reverend Mr. Strahan took care to have it preserved, and has +inserted it in _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 216. BOSWELL. + +[1266] See _ante_, iii. 433. + +[1267] The counterpart of Johnson's end and of one striking part of his +character may be found in Mr. Fearing in _The Pilgrim's Progress_, part +ii. '"Mr. Fearing was," said Honesty, "a very zealous man. Difficulty, +lions, or Vanity Fair he feared not at all; it was only sin, death, and +hell that were to him a terror, because he had some doubts about his +interest in that celestial country." "I dare believe," Greatheart +replied, "that, as the proverb is, he could have bit a firebrand, had it +stood in his way; but the things with which he was oppressed no man ever +yet could shake off with ease."' See _ante_, ii. 298, note 4. + +[1268] Her sister's likeness as Hope nursing Love was painted by +Reynolds. Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 185. + +[1269] The following letter, written with an agitated hand, from the +very chamber of death, by Mr. Langton, and obviously interrupted by his +feelings, will not unaptly close the story of so long a friendship. The +letter is not addressed, but Mr. Langton's family believe it was +intended for Mr. Boswell. + +'MY DEAR SIR,--After many conflicting hopes and fears respecting the +event of this heavy return of illness which has assailed our honoured +friend, Dr. Johnson, since his arrival from Lichfield, about four days +ago the appearances grew more and more awful, and this afternoon at +eight o'clock, when I arrived at his house to see how he should be going +on, I was acquainted at the door, that about three quarters of an hour +before, he breathed his last. I am now writing in the room where his +venerable remains exhibit a spectacle, the interesting solemnity of +which, difficult as it would be in any sort to find terms to express, so +to you, my dear Sir, whose own sensations will paint it so strongly, it +would be of all men the most superfluous to attempt to--.'--CROKER. +The interruption of the note was perhaps due to a discovery made by +Langton. Hawkins says, 'at eleven, the evening of Johnson's death, Mr. +Langton came to me, and in an agony of mind gave me to understand that +our friend had wounded himself in several parts of the body.' Hawkins's +_Life_, p. 590. To the dying man, 'on the last day of his existence on +this side the grave the desire of life,' to use Murphy's words (_Life_, +p. 135), 'had returned with all its former vehemence.' In the hope of +drawing off the dropsical water he gave himself these wounds (see +_ante_, p. 399). He lost a good deal of blood, and no doubt hastened his +end. Langton must have suspected that Johnson intentionally +shortened his life. + +[1270] Servant to the Right Honourable William Windham. BOSWELL. + +[1271] Sir Joshua Reynolds and Paoli were among the mourners. Among the +Nichols papers in the British Museum is preserved an invitation card to +the funeral. + +[1272] Dr. Burney wrote to the Rev. T. Twining on Christmas Day, +1784:--'The Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey lay all the blame on +Sir John Hawkins for suffering Johnson to be so unworthily interred. The +Knight's first inquiry at the Abbey in giving orders, as the most acting +executor, was--"What would be the difference in the expense between a +public and private funeral?" and was told only a few pounds to the +prebendaries, and about ninety pairs of gloves to the choir and +attendants; and he then determined that, "as Dr. Johnson had no music in +him, he should choose the cheapest manner of interment." And for this +reason there was no organ heard, or burial service sung; for which he +suffers the Dean and Chapter to be abused in all the newspapers, and +joins in their abuse when the subject is mentioned in conversation.' +Burney mentions a report that Hawkins had been slandering Johnson. +_Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIII Century_, +p. 129. Dr. Charles Burney, jun., had written the day after the +funeral:--'The executor, Sir John Hawkins, did not manage things well, +for there was no anthem or choir service performed--no lesson--but +merely what is read over every old woman that is buried by the parish. +Dr. Taylor read the service but so-so.' Johnstone's _Parr_, i. 535. + +[1273] Pope's _Essay on Man_, iv. 390. See _ante_, iii. 6, and iv. 122. + +[1274] On the subject of Johnson I may adopt the words of Sir John +Harrington, concerning his venerable Tutor and Diocesan, Dr. John Still, +Bishop of Bath and Wells; 'who hath given me some helps, more hopes, all +encouragements in my best studies: to whom I never came but I grew more +religious; from whom I never went, but I parted better instructed. Of +him therefore, my acquaintance, my friend, my instructor, if I speak +much, it were not to be marvelled; if I speak frankly, it is not to be +blamed; and though I speak partially, it were to be pardoned.' _Nugoe +Antiquoe_, vol. i. p. 136. There is one circumstance in Sir John's +character of Bishop Still, which is peculiarly applicable to Johnson: +'He became so famous a disputer, that the learnedest were even afraid to +dispute with him; and he finding his own strength, could not stick to +warn them in their arguments to take heed to their answers, like a +perfect fencer that will tell aforehand in which button he will give the +venew, or like a cunning chess-player that will appoint aforehand with +which pawn and in what place he will give the mate.' _Ibid_. BOSWELL. + +[1275] The late Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton. MALONE. + +[1276] 'His death,' writes Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 394), 'makes a +kind of era in literature.' 'One who had long known him said of +him:--'In general you may tell what the man to whom you are speaking +will say next. This you can never do of Johnson.' Johnson's _Works_ +(1787), xi. 211. + +[1277] Beside the Dedications to him by Dr. Goldsmith [_ante_, ii. 216], +the Reverend Dr. Francklin [_ante_, iv. 34], and the Reverend Mr. Wilson +[_ante_, iv. 162], which I have mentioned according to their dates, +there was one by a lady, of a versification of _Aningait and Ajut_, and +one by the ingenious Mr. Walker [_ante_, iv. 206], of his _Rhetorical +Grammar_. I have introduced into this work several compliments paid to +him in the writings of his contemporaries; but the number of them is so +great, that we may fairly say that there was almost a general tribute. + +Let me not be forgetful of the honour done to him by Colonel Myddleton, +of Gwaynynog, near Denbigh; who, on the banks of a rivulet in his park, +where Johnson delighted to stand and repeat verses, erected an urn with +the following inscription: + + 'This spot was often dignified by the presence of + SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. + Whose moral writings, exactly conformable to the + precepts of Christianity, + Gave ardour to Virtue and confidence to Truth [H-1].' + +As no inconsiderable circumstance of his fame, we must reckon the +extraordinary zeal of the artists to extend and perpetuate his image. I +can enumerate a bust by Mr. Nollekens, and the many casts which are made +from it; several pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds, from one of which, in +the possession of the Duke of Dorset, Mr. Humphry executed a beautiful +miniature in enamel; one by Mrs. Frances Reynolds, Sir Joshua's sister; +one by Mr. Zoffani; and one by Mr. Opie [H-2]; and the following +engravings of his portrait: 1. One by Cooke, from Sir Joshua, for the +Proprietors' edition of his folio _Dictionary_.--2. One from ditto, by +ditto, for their quarto edition.--3. One from Opie, by Heath, for +Harrison's edition of his _Dictionary_.--4. One from Nollekens' bust of +him, by Bartolozzi, for Fielding's quarto edition of his +_Dictionary_.--5. One small, from Harding, by Trotter, for his +_Beauties_.--6. One small, from Sir Joshua, by Trotter, for his _Lives +of the Poets_.--7. One small, from Sir Joshua, by Hall, for _The +Rambler_.--8. One small, from an original drawing, in the possession of +Mr. John Simco, etched by Trotter, for another edition of his _Lives of +the Poets_.--9. One small, no painter's name, etched by Taylor, for his +_Johnsoniana_.--10. One folio whole-length, with his oak-stick, as +described in Boswell's _Tour_, drawn and etched by Trotter.--11. One +large mezzotinto, from Sir Joshua, by Doughty [H-3].--l2. One large Roman +head, from Sir Joshua, by Marchi.--13. One octavo, holding a book to his +eye, from Sir Joshua, by Hall, for his _Works_.--14. One small, from a +drawing from the life, and engraved by Trotter, for his _Life_ published +by Kearsley.--15. One large, from Opie, by Mr. Townley, (brother of Mr. +Townley, of the Commons,) an ingenious artist, who resided some time at +Berlin, and has the honour of being engraver to his Majesty the King of +Prussia. This is one of the finest mezzotintos that ever was executed; +and what renders it of extraordinary value, the plate was destroyed +after four or five impressions only were taken off. One of them is in +the possession of Sir William Scott [H-4]. Mr. Townley has lately been +prevailed with to execute and publish another of the same, that it may +be more generally circulated among the admirers of Dr. Johnson.--16. One +large, from Sir Joshua's first picture of him, by Heath, for this work, +in quarto.--17. One octavo, by Baker, for the octavo edition.--18. And +one for Lavater's _Essay on Physiognomy_, in which Johnson's countenance +is analysed upon the principles of that fanciful writer.--There are also +several seals with his head cut on them, particularly a very fine one by +that eminent artist, Edward Burch, Esq. R.A. in the possession of the +younger Dr. Charles Burney. + +Let me add, as a proof of the popularity of his character, that there +are copper pieces struck at Birmingham, with his head impressed on them, +which pass current as half-pence there, and in the neighbouring parts of +the country. BOSWELL. [Note: See Appendix H for notes on this footnote.] + +[1278] It is not yet published.--In a letter to me, Mr. Agutter says, +'My sermon before the University was more engaged with Dr. Johnson's +_moral_ than his _intellectual_ character. It particularly examined his +fear of death, and suggested several reasons for the apprehension of the +good, and the indifference of the infidel in their last hours; this was +illustrated by contrasting the death of Dr. Johnson and Mr. Hume: the +text was Job xxi. 22-26.' BOSWELL. It was preached on July 23, 1786, and +not at Johnson's death. It is entitled _On the Difference between the +Deaths of the Righteous and the Wicked. Illustrated in the Instance of +Dr. Samuel Johnson and David Hume, Esq._ The text is from Job xxi. 23 +(not 22)-26. It was published in 1800. Neither Johnson nor Hume is +mentioned in the sermon itself by name. Its chief, perhaps its sole, +merit is its brevity. + +[1279] See _ante_, ii. 335, and iii. 375. + +[1280] 'May 26, 1791. After the Doctor's death, Burke, Sir Joshua +Reynolds, and Boswell sent an ambling circular-letter to me begging +subscriptions for a monument for him. I would not deign to write an +answer; but sent down word by my footman, as I would have done to parish +officers, with a brief, that I would not subscribe.' Horace Walpole's +_Letters_, ix. 319. In Malone's correspondence are complaints of the +backwardness of the members of the Literary Club 'to pay the amounts +nominally subscribed by them.' Prior's _Goldsmith_, ii. 226. + +[1281] It was, says Malone, owing to Reynolds that the monument was +erected in St. Paul's. In his _Journey to Flanders_he had lamented that +sculpture languished in England, and was almost confined to monuments to +eminent men. But even in these it had not fair play, for Westminster +Abbey was so full, that the recent monuments appeared ridiculous being +stuck up in odd holes and corners. On the other hand St. Paul's looked +forlorn and desolate. Here monuments should be erected, under the +direction of the Royal Academy. He took advantage of Johnson's death to +make a beginning with the plan which he had here sketched, and induced +his friends to give up their intention of setting up the monument in the +Abbey. Reynolds's _Works_, ed. 1824, ii. 248. 'He asked Dr. Parr--but in +vain--to include in the epitaph Johnson's title of Professor of Ancient +Literature to the Royal Academy; as it was on this pretext that he +persuaded the Academicians to subscribe a hundred guineas.' Johnstone's +_Parr_, iv. 686. See _ante_, ii. 239, where the question was raised +whose monument should be first erected in St. Paul's, and Johnson +proposed Milton's. + +[1282] The Reverend Dr. Parr, on being requested to undertake it, thus +expressed himself in a letter to William Seward, Esq.: + +'I leave this mighty task to some hardier and some abler writer. The +variety and splendour of Johnson's attainments, the peculiarities of his +character, his private virtues, and his literary publications, fill me +with confusion and dismay, when I reflect upon the confined and +difficult species of composition, in which alone they can be expressed, +with propriety, upon his monument.' + +But I understand that this great scholar, and warm admirer of Johnson, +has yielded to repeated solicitations, and executed the very difficult +undertaking. BOSWELL. Dr. Johnson's Monument, consisting of a colossal +figure leaning against a column, has since the death of our authour been +placed in St. Paul's Cathedral. The Epitaph was written by the Rev. Dr. +Parr, and is as follows: + + SAMVELI IOHNSON + GRAMMATICO ET CRITICO + SCRIPTORVM ANGLICORVM LITTERATE PERITO + POETAE LVMINIBVS SENTENTIARVM + ET PONDERIBVS VERBORVM ADMIRABILI + MAGISTRO VIRTVTIS GRAVISSIMO + HOMINI OPTIMO ET SINGVLARIS EXEMPLI + QVI VIXIT ANN LXXV MENS IL. DIEB XIII + DECESSIT IDIB DECEMBR ANN CHRIST cIo Iocc LXXXIIII + SEPVLT IN AED SANCT PETR WESTMONASTERIENS + XIII KAL IANVAR ANN CHRIST cIo Iocc LXXXV + AMICI ET SODALES LITTERARII + PECVNIA CONLATA + H M FACIVND CVRAVER. + +On a scroll in his hand are the following words: +[Greek: ENMAKARESSIPONONANTAXIOSEIHAMOIBH]. + +On one side of the Monument--- FACIEBAT JOHANNES BACON SCVLPTOR ANN. +CHRIST. M.DCC.-LXXXXV. + +The Subscription for this monument, which cost eleven hundred guineas, +was begun by the LITERARY CLUB. MALONE. See Appendix I. + +[1283] '"Laetus sum laudari me," inquit Hector, opinor apud Naevium, +"abs te, pater, a laudato viro."' Cicero, _Ep. ad Fam_. xv. 6. + +[1284] To prevent any misconception on this subject, Mr. Malone, by whom +these lines were obligingly communicated, requests me to add the +following remark:-- + +'In justice to the late Mr. Flood, now himself wanting, and highly +meriting, an epitaph from his country, to which his transcendent talents +did the highest honour, as well as the most important service; it should +be observed that these lines were by no means intended as a regular +monumental inscription for Dr. Johnson. Had he undertaken to write an +appropriated and discriminative epitaph for that excellent and +extraordinary man, those who knew Mr. Flood's vigour of mind, will have +no doubt that he would have produced one worthy of his illustrious +subject. But the fact was merely this: In Dec. 1789, after a large +subscription had been made for Dr. Johnson's monument, to which Mr. +Flood liberally contributed, Mr. Malone happened to call on him at his +house, in Berners-street, and the conversation turning on the proposed +monument, Mr. Malone maintained that the epitaph, by whomsoever it +should be written, ought to be in Latin. Mr. Flood thought differently. +The next morning, in the postscript to a note on another subject, he +mentioned that he continued of the same opinion as on the preceding day, +and subjoined the lines above given.' BOSWELL. Cowper also composed an +epitaph for Johnson--though not one of much merit. See Southey's +_Cowper_, v. 119. + +[1285] As I do not see any reason to give a different character of my +illustrious friend now, from what I formerly gave, the greatest part of +the sketch of him in my _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, is here +adopted. BOSWELL. + +[1286] See _ante_, i. 41. + +[1287] For his fox-hunting see _ante_, i. 446, note I. + +[1288] _Lucretius_, i. 72. + +[1289] See ante, i. 406. + +[1290] 'He was always indulgent to the young, he never attacked the +unassuming, nor meant to terrify the diffident.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_ ii. 343. + +[1291] In the _Olla Podrida_, a collection of Essays published at +Oxford, there is an admirable paper upon the character of Johnson, +written by the Reverend Dr. Home, the last excellent Bishop of Norwich. +The following passage is eminently happy: 'To reject wisdom, because the +person of him who communicates it is uncouth, and his manners are +inelegant;--what is it, but to throw away a pine-apple, and assign for a +reason the roughness of its coat?' BOSWELL. The _Olla Podrida_ was +published in weekly numbers in 1787 8. Boswell's quotation is from +No. 13. + +[1292] 'The _English Dictionary_ was written ... amidst inconvenience +distraction, in sickness and in sorrow.' Preface to Johnson's +_Dictionary, Works_, v. 51. + +[1293] 'For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much +required.' _Luke_, xii. 48. + +[1294] 'If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men +most miserable.' I _Corinthians_, xv. 19. + +[1295] See ante, ii. 262, note 2. + +[1296] Though a perfect resemblance of Johnson is not to be found in any +age, parts of his character are admirably expressed by Clarendon in +drawing that of Lord Falkland, whom the noble and masterly historian +describes at his seat near Oxford;--'Such an immenseness of wit, such a +solidity of judgement, so infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical +ratiocination.--His acquaintance was cultivated by the most polite and +accurate men, so that his house was an University in less volume, +whither they came, not so much for repose as study, and to examine and +refine those grosser propositions, which laziness and consent made +current in conversation.' + +Bayle's account of Menage may also be quoted as exceedingly applicable +to the great subject of this work:--'His illustrious friends erected a +very glorious monument to him in the collection entitled Menagiana. +Those who judge of things aright, will confess that this collection is +very proper to shew the extent of genius and learning which was the +character of Menage. And I may be bold to say, that _the excellent works +he published will not distinguish him from other learned men so +advantageously as this_. To publish books of great learning, to make +Greek and Latin verses exceedingly well turned, is not a common talent, +I own; neither is it extremely rare, It is incomparably more difficult +to find men who can furnish discourse about an infinite number of +things, and who can diversify them an hundred ways. How many authours +are there, who are admired for their works, on account of the vast +learning that is displayed in them, who are not able to sustain a +conversation. Those who know Menage only by his books, might think he +resembled those learned men; but if you shew the MENAGIANA, you +distinguish him from them, and make him known by a talent which is given +to very few learned men. There it appears that he was a man who spoke +off-hand a thousand good things. His memory extended to what was ancient +and modern; to the court and to the city; to the dead and to the living +languages; to things serious and things jocose; in a word, to a thousand +sorts of subjects. That which appeared a trifle to some readers of the +_Menagiana_, who did not consider circumstances, caused admiration in +other readers, who minded the difference between what a man speaks +without preparation, and that which he prepares for the press. And, +therefore, we cannot sufficiently commend the care which his illustrious +friends took to erect a monument so capable of giving him immortal +glory. They were not obliged to rectify what they had heard him say; +for, in so doing, they had not been faithful historians of his +conversations.' BOSWELL. Boswell's quotation from Clarendon (ed. 1826, +iv. 242) differs somewhat from the original. + +[1297] See _ante_, ii. 326, and iv. 236. + +[1298] See _ante_, p. iii. + +[1299] To this finely-drawn character we may add the noble testimony of +Sir Joshua Reynolds:--'His pride had no meanness in it; there was +nothing little or mean about him.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 457. + +[1300] In Johnson's character of Boerhaave there is much that applies +equally well to himself. 'Thus died Boerhaave, a man formed by nature +for great designs, and guided by religion in the exertion of his +abilities. He was of a robust and athletick constitution of body, so +hardened by early severities and wholesome fatigue that he was +insensible of any sharpness of air, or inclemency of weather. He was +tall, and remarkable for extraordinary strength. There was in his air +and motion something rough and artless, but so majestick and great at +the same time, that no man ever looked upon him without veneration, and +a kind of tacit submission to the superiority of his genius.... He was +never soured by calumny and detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to +confute them; "for they are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow +them, will go out of themselves."... He was not to be overawed or +depressed by the presence, frowns, or insolence of great men; but +persisted, on all occasions, in the right with a resolution always +present and always calm.... Nor was he unacquainted with the art of +recommending truth by elegance, and embellishing the philosopher with +polite literature.... He knew the importance of his own writings to +mankind, and lest he might by a roughness and barbarity of style, too +frequent among men of great learning, disappoint his own intentions, and +make his labours less useful, he did not neglect the politer arts of +eloquence and poetry. Thus was his learning at once various and exact, +profound and agreeable.... He asserted on all occasions the divine +authority and sacred efficacy of the holy Scriptures; and maintained +that they alone taught the way of salvation, and that they only could +give peace of mind.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 288. + +[1301] Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was born at Plympton. + +[1302] See _ante,_ iii. 43, note 3. + + +THE END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6), by Boswell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHNSON, VOLUME 4 (OF 6) *** + +***** This file should be named 10357-8.txt or 10357-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/5/10357/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) + +Author: Boswell + +Release Date: December 1, 2003 [EBook #10357] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHNSON, VOLUME 4 (OF 6) *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger, Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Kirschner +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<h2>BOSWELL'S</h2> +<h1>LIFE OF JOHNSON</h1> + +<br /><br /> +<center>INCLUDING BOSWELL'S JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES <br>AND +JOHNSON'S DIARY OF A JOURNEY INTO NORTH WALES</center> +<center>EDITED BY</center> +<center>GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L.</center> +<center>PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD</center> +<center>IN SIX VOLUMES</center> +<center>VOLUME IV.—LIFE (1780-1784)</center> +<br /><br /> +<hr> +<br /><br /> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_TOC">CONTENTS OF VOL. IV.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2H_4_1"><i>THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, +LL.D.</i></a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HAPP3">APPENDIX A.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HAPP4">APPENDIX B.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HAPP5">APPENDIX C.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HAPP6">APPENDIX D.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HAPP7">APPENDIX E.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HAPP8">APPENDIX F.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HAPP9">APPENDIX G.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HAPP10">APPENDIX H.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HAPP11">APPENDIX I.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HFOO12">FOOTNOTES:</a></p> + + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + +<br /><br /> +<hr> + + +<a name="2H_TOC"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>CONTENTS OF VOL. IV.</h2> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + +LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (1780-DEC. 13, 1784)<br> +<br> +APPENDICES:<br> +A. ALTERCATION BETWEEN DR. JOHNSON AND DEAN BARNARD.<br> +B. JOHNSON AND PRIESTLEY.<br> +C. THE CLUB IN IVY-LANE. <br> +D. THE ESSEX HEAD CLUB. <br> +E.MISS BURNEY'S ACCOUNT OF JOHNSON'S LAST DAYS. <br> +F. NOTES ON JOHNSON'S WILL, ETC. <br> +G. NOTES ON BOSWELL'S NOTE. <br> +H. NOTES ON BOSWELL'S NOTE. <br> +I. PARR'S EPITAPH ON JOHNSON. <br> +<br> +FOOTNOTES. <br> + + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + + +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +<a name= +"2H_4_1"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2><i>THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.</i></h2> +<br /> +<p>Being disappointed in my hopes of meeting Johnson this year, +so that I could hear none of his admirable sayings, I shall +compensate for this want<a href= +"#note-1">[1]</a> by inserting a +collection of them, for which I am indebted to my worthy friend +Mr. Langton, whose kind communications have been separately +interwoven in many parts of this work. Very few articles of this +collection were committed to writing by himself, he not having +that habit; which he regrets, and which those who know the +numerous opportunities he had of gathering the rich fruits of +<i>Johnsonian</i> wit and wisdom, must ever regret. I however +found, in conversations with him, that a good store of +<i>Johnsoniana</i> treasured in his mind<a href= +"#note-2">[2]</a>; and I compared it to +Herculaneum, or some old Roman field, which when dug, fully +rewards the labour employed. The authenticity of every article is +unquestionable. For the expression, I, who wrote them down in his +presence, am partly answerable.</p> +<p>'Theocritus is not deserving of very high respect as a writer; +as to the pastoral part, Virgil is very evidently superiour. He +wrote when there had been a larger influx of knowledge into the +world than when Theocritus lived. Theocritus does not abound in +description, though living in a beautiful country: the manners +painted are coarse and gross. Virgil has much more description, +more sentiment, more of Nature, and more of art. Some of the most +excellent parts of Theocritus are, where Castor and Pollux, going +with the other Argonauts, land on the Bebrycian coast, and there +fall into a dispute with Amycus, the King of that country; which +is as well conducted as Euripides could have done it; and the +battle is well related. Afterwards they carry off a woman, whose +two brothers come to recover her, and expostulate with Castor and +Pollux on their injustice; but they pay no regard to the +brothers, and a battle ensues, where Castor and his brother are +triumphant. Theocritus seems not to have seen that the brothers +have the advantage in their argument over his Argonaut heroes. +<i>The Sicilian Gossips</i> is a piece of merit.'</p> +<p>'Callimachus is a writer of little excellence. The chief thing +to be learned from him is his account of Rites and Mythology; +which, though desirable to be known for the sake of understanding +other parts of ancient authours, is the least pleasing or +valuable part of their writings.'</p> +<p>'Mattaire's account of the Stephani<a href= +"#note-3">[3]</a> is a heavy book. He +seems to have been a puzzle-headed man, with a large share of +scholarship, but with little geometry or logick in his head, +without method, and possessed of little genius. He wrote Latin +verses from time to time, and published a set in his old age, +which he called '<i>Senilia</i>;' in which he shews so little +learning or taste in writing, as to make <i>Carteret</i> a +dactyl<a href="#note-4">[4]</a>. In +matters of genealogy it is necessary to give the bare names as +they are; but in poetry, and in prose of any elegance in the +writing, they require to have inflection given to them. His book +of the Dialects<a href="#note-5">[5]</a> +is a sad heap of confusion; the only way to write on them is to +tabulate them with Notes, added at the bottom of the page, and +references.'</p> +<p>'It may be questioned, whether there is not some mistake as to +the methods of employing the poor, seemingly on a supposition +that there is a certain portion of work left undone for want of +persons to do it; but if that is otherwise, and all the materials +we have are actually worked up, or all the manufactures we can +use or dispose of are already executed, then what is given to the +poor, who are to be set at work, must be taken from some who now +have it; as time must be taken for learning, according to Sir +William Petty's observation, a certain part of those very +materials that, as it is, are properly worked up, must be spoiled +by the unskilfulness of novices. We may apply to well-meaning, +but misjudging persons in particulars of this nature, what +Giannone<a href="#note-6">[6]</a> said to +a monk, who wanted what he called to <i>convert</i> him: <i>"Tu +sei santo, ma tu non sei filosofo"</i>—It is an unhappy +circumstance that one might give away five hundred pounds in a +year to those that importune in the streets, and not do any +good<a href="#note-7">[7]</a>.'</p> +<p>'There is nothing more likely to betray a man into absurdity +than <i>condescension</i>; when he seems to suppose his +understanding too powerful for his company<a href= +"#note-8">[8]</a>.'</p> +<p>'Having asked Mr. Langton if his father and mother had sat for +their pictures, which he thought it right for each generation of +a family to do, and being told they had opposed it, he said, +"Sir, among the anfractuosities<a href= +"#note-9">[9]</a> of the human mind, I +know not if it may not be one, that there is a superstitious +reluctance to sit for a picture."'</p> +<p>'John Gilbert Cooper<a href= +"#note-10">[10]</a> related, that soon +after the publication of his <i>Dictionary</i>, Garrick being +asked by Johnson what people said of it, told him, that among +other animadversions, it was objected that he cited authorities +which were beneath the dignity of such a work, and mentioned +Richardson. "Nay, (said Johnson,) I have done worse than that: I +have cited <i>thee</i>, David<a href= +"#note-11">[11]</a>."'</p> +<p>'Talking of expence, he observed, with what munificence a +great merchant will spend his money, both from his having it at +command, and from his enlarged views by calculation of a good +effect upon the whole. "Whereas (said he) you will hardly ever +find a country gentleman who is not a good deal disconcerted at +an unexpected occasion for his being obliged to lay out ten +pounds<a href="#note-12">[12]</a>."'</p> +<p>'When in good humour he would talk of his own writings with a +wonderful frankness and candour, and would even criticise them +with the closest severity. One day, having read over one of his +Ramblers, Mr. Langton asked him, how he liked that paper; he +shook his head, and answered, "too wordy." At another time, when +one was reading his tragedy of <i>Irene</i> to a company at a +house in the country, he left the room; and somebody having asked +him the reason of this, he replied, Sir, I thought it had been +better<a href="#note-13">[13]</a>.'</p> +<p>'Talking of a point of delicate scrupulosity<a href= +"#note-14">[14]</a> of moral conduct, he +said to Mr. Langton, "Men of harder minds than ours will do many +things from which you and I would shrink; yet, Sir, they will +perhaps do more good in life than we. But let us try to help one +another. If there be a wrong twist it may be set right. It is not +probable that two people can be wrong the same way."'</p> +<p>'Of the Preface to Capel's <i>Shakspeare</i>, he said, "If the +man would have come to me, I would have endeavoured to endow his +purposes with words; for as it is, he doth gabble monstrously<a +href="#note-15">[15]</a>."'</p> +<p>'He related, that he had once in a dream a contest of wit with +some other person, and that he was very much mortified by +imagining that his opponent had the better of him. "Now, (said +he,) one may mark here the effect of sleep in weakening the power +of reflection; for had not my judgement failed me, I should have +seen, that the wit of this supposed antagonist, by whose +superiority I felt myself depressed, was as much furnished by me, +as that which I thought I had been uttering in my own +character."'</p> +<p>'One evening in company, an ingenious and learned gentleman +read to him a letter of compliment which he had received from one +of the Professors of a foreign University. Johnson, in an +irritable fit, thinking there was too much ostentation, said, "I +never receive any of these tributes of applause from abroad. One +instance I recollect of a foreign publication, in which mention +is made of <i>l'illustre Lockman</i><a href= +"#note-16">[16]</a>."'</p> +<p>'Of Sir Joshua Reynolds, he said, "Sir, I know no man who has +passed through life with more observation than Reynolds."'</p> +<p>'He repeated to Mr. Langton, with great energy, in the Greek, +our SAVIOUR'S gracious expression concerning the forgiveness of +Mary Magdalen, "[Greek: Ae pistis sou sesoke se poreuou eis +eiraeuaeu.] Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace<a href= +"#note-17">[17]</a>." He said, "the +manner of this dismission is exceedingly affecting."'</p> +<p>'He thus defined the difference between physical and moral +truth; "Physical truth, is, when you tell a thing as it actually +is. Moral truth, is, when you tell a thing sincerely and +precisely as it appears to you. I say such a one walked across +the street; if he really did so, I told a physical truth. If I +thought so, though I should have been mistaken, I told a moral +truth."'</p> +<p>'Huggins, the translator of Ariosto, and Mr. Thomas Warton, in +the early part of his literary life, had a dispute concerning +that poet, of whom Mr. Warton in his <i>Observations on Spenser's +Fairy Queen</i>, gave some account, which Huggins attempted to +answer with violence, and said, "I will <i>militate</i> no longer +against his <i>nescience</i>." Huggins was master of the subject, +but wanted expression. Mr. Warton's knowledge of it was then +imperfect, but his manner lively and elegant<a href= +"#note-18">[18]</a>. Johnson said, "It +appears to me, that Huggins has ball without powder, and Warton +powder without ball."'</p> +<p>'Talking of the Farce of <i>High Life below Stairs</i><a href= +"#note-19">[19]</a>, he said, "Here is a +Farce, which is really very diverting when you see it acted; and +yet one may read it, and not know that one has been reading any +thing at all."'</p> +<p>'He used at one time to go occasionally to the green room of +Drury-lane Theatre<a href= +"#note-20">[20]</a>, where he was much +regarded by the players, and was very easy and facetious with +them. He had a very high opinion of Mrs. Clive's comick powers, +and conversed more with her than with any of them. He said, +"Clive, Sir, is a good thing to sit by; she always understands +what you say<a href="#note-21">[21]</a>." +And she said of him, "I love to sit by Dr. Johnson; he always +entertains me." One night, when <i>The Recruiting Officer</i> was +acted, he said to Mr. Holland<a href= +"#note-22">[22]</a>, who had been +expressing an apprehension that Dr. Johnson would disdain the +works of Farquhar; "No, Sir, I think Farquhar a man whose +writings have considerable merit."'</p> +<p>'His friend Garrick was so busy in conducting the drama, that +they could not have so much intercourse as Mr. Garrick used to +profess an anxious wish that there should be<a href= +"#note-23">[23]</a>. There might, indeed, +be something in the contemptuous severity as to the merit of +acting, which his old preceptor nourished in himself, that would +mortify Garrick after the great applause which he received from +the audience. For though Johnson said of him, "Sir, a man who has +a nation to admire him every night, may well be expected to be +somewhat elated<a href= +"#note-24">[24]</a>;" yet he would treat +theatrical matters with a ludicrous slight. He mentioned one +evening, "I met David coming off the stage, drest in a woman's +riding-hood, when he acted in <i>The Wonder</i><a href= +"#note-25">[25]</a>; I came full upon +him, and I believe he was not pleased."'</p> +<p>'Once he asked Tom Davies, whom he saw drest in a fine suit of +clothes, "And what art thou to-night?" Tom answered, "The Thane +of Ross<a href="#note-26">[26]</a>;" +(which it will be recollected is a very inconsiderable +character.) "O brave!" said Johnson.'</p> +<p>'Of Mr. Longley, at Rochester, a gentleman of very +considerable learning, whom Dr. Johnson met there, he said, "My +heart warms towards him. I was surprised to find in him such a +nice acquaintance with the metre in the learned languages; though +I was somewhat mortified that I had it not so much to myself, as +I should have thought<a href= +"#note-27">[27]</a>."'</p> +<p>'Talking of the minuteness with which people will record the +sayings of eminent persons, a story was told, that when Pope was +on a visit to Spence<a href= +"#note-28">[28]</a> at Oxford, as they +looked from the window they saw a Gentleman Commoner, who was +just come in from riding, amusing himself with whipping at a +post. Pope took occasion to say, "That young gentleman seems to +have little to do." Mr. Beauclerk observed, "Then, to be sure, +Spence turned round and wrote that down;" and went on to say to +Dr. Johnson, "Pope, Sir, would have said the same of you, if he +had seen you distilling<a href= +"#note-29">[29]</a>." JOHNSON. "Sir, if +Pope had told me of my distilling, I would have told him of his +grotto<a href="#note-30">[30]</a>."'</p> +<p>'He would allow no settled indulgence of idleness upon +principle, and always repelled every attempt to urge excuses for +it, A friend one day suggested, that it was not wholesome to +study soon after dinner. JOHNSON. "Ah, Sir, don't give way to +such a fancy. At one time of my life I had taken it into my head +that it was not wholesome to study between breakfast and dinner<a +href="#note-31">[31]</a>."'</p> +<p>'Mr. Beauclerk one day repeated to Dr. Johnson Pope's +lines,</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "Let modest Foster, if he will, excel + Ten metropolitans in preaching well:" <a href= +"#note-32">32</a> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Then asked the Doctor, "Why did Pope say this?" JOHNSON. 'Sir, +he hoped it would vex somebody.'</p> +<p>'Dr. Goldsmith, upon occasion of Mrs. Lennox's bringing out a +play<a href="#note-33">[33]</a>, said to +Dr. Johnson at the CLUB, that a person had advised him to go and +hiss it, because she had attacked Shakspeare in her book called +<i>Shakspeare Illustrated</i><a href= +"#note-34">[34]</a>. JOHNSON. "And did +not you tell him he was a rascal<a href= +"#note-35">[35]</a>?" GOLDSMITH. "No, +Sir, I did not. Perhaps he might not mean what he said." JOHNSON. +"Nay, Sir, if he lied, it is a different thing." Colman slily +said, (but it is believed Dr. Johnson did not hear him,) "Then +the proper expression should have been,—Sir, if you don't +lie, you're a rascal."'</p> +<p>'His affection for Topham Beauclerk was so great, that when +Beauclerk was labouring under that severe illness which at last +occasioned his death, Johnson said, (with a voice faultering with +emotion,) "Sir, I would walk to the extent of the diameter of the +earth to save Beauclerk<a href= +"#note-36">[36]</a>."'</p> +<p>'One night at the CLUB he produced a translation of an Epitaph +which Lord Elibank had written in English, for his Lady, and +requested of Johnson to turn into Latin for him. Having read +<i>Domina de North et Gray</i>, he said to Dyer, "You see, Sir, +what barbarisms we are compelled to make use of, when modern +titles are to be specifically mentioned in Latin inscriptions." +When he had read it once aloud, and there had been a general +approbation expressed by the company, he addressed himself to Mr. +Dyer in particular, and said, "Sir, I beg to have your judgement, +for I know your nicety<a href= +"#note-37">[37]</a>." Dyer then very +properly desired to read it over again; which having done, he +pointed out an incongruity in one of the sentences. Johnson +immediately assented to the observation, and said, "Sir, this is +owing to an alteration of a part of the sentence, from the form +in which I had first written it; and I believe, Sir, you may have +remarked, that the making a partial change, without a due regard +to the general structure of the sentence, is a very frequent +cause of errour in composition."'</p> +<p>'Johnson was well acquainted with Mr. Dossie, authour of a +treatise on Agriculture<a href= +"#note-38">[38]</a>; and said of him, +"Sir, of the objects which the Society of Arts have chiefly in +view, the chymical effects of bodies operating upon other bodies, +he knows more than almost any man." Johnson, in order to give Mr. +Dossie his vote to be a member of this Society, paid up an arrear +which had run on for two years. On this occasion he mentioned a +circumstance as characteristick of the Scotch. One of that +nation, (said he,) who had been a candidate, against whom I had +voted, came up to me with a civil salutation. Now, Sir, this is +their way. An Englishman would have stomached it, and been sulky, +and never have taken further notice of you; but a Scotchman, Sir, +though you vote nineteen times against him, will accost you with +equal complaisance after each time, and the twentieth time, Sir, +he will get your vote.'</p> +<p>'Talking on the subject of toleration, one day when some +friends were with him in his study, he made his usual remark, +that the State has a right to regulate the religion of the +people, who are the children of the State<a href= +"#note-39">[39]</a>. A clergyman having +readily acquiesced in this, Johnson, who loved discussion, +observed, "But, Sir, you must go round to other States than our +own. You do not know what a Bramin has to say for himself<a href= +"#note-40">[40]</a>. In short, Sir, I +have got no further than this: Every man has a right to utter +what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock +him down for it. Martyrdom is the test<a href= +"#note-41">[41]</a>."'</p> +<p>'A man, he observed, should begin to write soon; for, if he +waits till his judgement is matured, his inability, through want +of practice to express his conceptions, will make the +disproportion so great between what he sees, and what he can +attain, that he will probably be discouraged from writing at +all<a href="#note-42">[42]</a>. As a +proof of the justness of this remark, we may instance what is +related of the great Lord Granville<a href= +"#note-43">[43]</a>; that after he had +written his letter, giving an account of the battle of Dettingen, +he said, "Here is a letter, expressed in terms not good enough +for a tallow-chandler to have used.'"</p> +<p>'Talking of a Court-martial that was sitting upon a very +momentous publick occasion, he expressed much doubt of an +enlightened decision; and said, that perhaps there was not a +member of it, who in the whole course of his life, had ever spent +an hour by himself in balancing probabilities<a href= +"#note-44">[44]</a>.'</p> +<p>'Goldsmith one day brought to the CLUB a printed Ode, which +he, with others, had been hearing read by its authour in a +publick room at the rate of five shillings each for admission<a +href="#note-45">[45]</a>. One of the +company having read it aloud, Dr. Johnson said, "Bolder words and +more timorous meaning, I think never were brought together."'</p> +<p>'Talking of Gray's <i>Odes</i>, he said, "They are forced +plants raised in a hot-bed<a href= +"#note-46">[46]</a>; and they are poor +plants; they are but cucumbers after all." A gentleman present, +who had been running down Ode-writing in general, as a bad +species of poetry, unluckily said, "Had they been literally +cucumbers, they had been better things than Odes."—"Yes, +Sir, (said Johnson,) for a <i>hog</i>."'</p> +<p>'His distinction of the different degrees of attainment of +learning was thus marked upon two occasions. Of Queen Elizabeth +he said, "She had learning enough to have given dignity to a +bishop;" and of Mr. Thomas Davies he said, "Sir, Davies has +learning enough to give credit to a clergyman<a href= +"#note-47">[47]</a>."'</p> +<p>'He used to quote, with great warmth, the saying of Aristotle +recorded by Diogenes Laertius<a href= +"#note-48">[48]</a>; that there was the +same difference between one learned and unlearned, as between the +living and the dead.'</p> +<p>'It is very remarkable, that he retained in his memory very +slight and trivial, as well as important things<a href= +"#note-49">[49]</a>. As an instance of +this, it seems that an inferiour domestick of the Duke of Leeds +had attempted to celebrate his Grace's marriage in such homely +rhimes as he could make; and this curious composition having been +sung to Dr. Johnson he got it by heart, and used to repeat it in +a very pleasant manner. Two of the stanzas were these:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "When the Duke of Leeds shall married be + To a fine young lady of high quality, + How happy will that gentlewoman be + In his Grace of Leeds's good company. + She shall have all that's fine and fair, + And the best of silk and sattin shall wear; + And ride in a coach to take the air, + And have a house in St. James's-square<a href= +"#note-50">50</a>." +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>To hear a man, of the weight and dignity of Johnson, repeating +such humble attempts at poetry, had a very amusing effect. He, +however, seriously observed of the last stanza repeated by him, +that it nearly comprized all the advantages that wealth can +give.'</p> +<p>'An eminent foreigner, when he was shewn the British Museum, +was very troublesome with many absurd inquiries. "Now there, Sir, +(said he,) is the difference between an Englishman and a +Frenchman. A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows +any thing of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say +nothing, when he has nothing to say."'</p> +<p>'His unjust contempt for foreigners was, indeed, extreme. One +evening, at old Slaughter's coffee-house<a href= +"#note-51">[51]</a>, when a number of +them were talking loud about little matters, he said, "Does not +this confirm old Meynell's<a href= +"#note-52">[52]</a> +observation—<i>For any thing I see, foreigners are +fools</i><a href= +"#note-53">[53]</a>."'</p> +<p>'He said, that once, when he had a violent tooth-ach, a +Frenchman accosted him thus:—<i>Ah, Monsieur vous etudiez +trop</i><a href="#note-54">[54]</a>.'</p> +<p>'Having spent an evening at Mr. Langton's with the Reverend +Dr. Parr, he was much pleased with the conversation of that +learned gentleman; and after he was gone, said to Mr. Langton, +"Sir, I am obliged to you for having asked me this evening. Parr +is a fair man. I do not know when I have had an occasion of such +free controversy. It is remarkable how much of a man's life may +pass without meeting with any instance of this kind of open +discussion<a href= +"#note-55">[55]</a>."'</p> +<p>'We may fairly institute a criticism between Shakspeare and +Corneille<a href="#note-56">[56]</a>, as +they both had, though in a different degree, the lights of a +latter age. It is not so just between the Greek dramatick writers +and Shakspeare. It may be replied to what is said by one of the +remarkers on Shakspeare, that though Darius's shade<a href= +"#note-57">[57]</a> had +<i>prescience</i>, it does not necessarily follow that he had all +<i>past</i> particulars revealed to him.'</p> +<p>'Spanish plays, being wildly and improbably farcical, would +please children here, as children are entertained with stories +full of prodigies; their experience not being sufficient to cause +them to be so readily startled at deviations from the natural +course of life<a href= +"#note-58">[58]</a>. The machinery of the +Pagans is uninteresting to us<a href= +"#note-59">[59]</a>: when a Goddess +appears in Homer or Virgil, we grow weary; still more so in the +Grecian tragedies, as in that kind of composition a nearer +approach to Nature is intended. Yet there are good reasons for +reading romances; as—the fertility of invention, the beauty +of style and expression, the curiosity of seeing with what kind +of performances the age and country in which they were written +was delighted: for it is to be apprehended, that at the time when +very wild improbable tales were well received, the people were in +a barbarous state, and so on the footing of children, as has been +explained.'</p> +<p>'It is evident enough that no one who writes now can use the +Pagan deities and mythology; the only machinery, therefore, seems +that of ministering spirits, the ghosts of the departed, +witches<a href="#note-60">[60]</a>, and +fairies, though these latter, as the vulgar superstition +concerning them (which, while in its force, infected at least the +imagination of those that had more advantage in education, though +their reason set them free from it,) is every day wearing out, +seem likely to be of little further assistance in the machinery +of poetry. As I recollect, Hammond introduces a hag or witch into +one of his love elegies, where the effect is unmeaning and +disgusting<a href= +"#note-61">[61]</a>.'</p> +<p>'The man who uses his talent of ridicule in creating or +grossly exaggerating the instances he gives, who imputes +absurdities that did not happen, or when a man was a little +ridiculous describes him as having been very much so, abuses his +talents greatly. The great use of delineating absurdities is, +that we may know how far human folly can go; the account, +therefore, ought of absolute necessity to be faithful. A certain +character (naming the person) as to the general cast of it, is +well described by Garrick, but a great deal of the phraseology he +uses in it, is quite his own, particularly in the proverbial +comparisons, "obstinate as a pig," &c., but I don't know +whether it might not be true of Lord ———<a +href="#note-62">[62]</a>, that from a too +great eagerness of praise and popularity, and a politeness +carried to a ridiculous excess, he was likely, after asserting a +thing in general, to give it up again in parts. For instance, if +he had said Reynolds was the first of painters, he was capable +enough of giving up, as objections might happen to be severally +made, first his outline,—then the grace in form,—then +the colouring,—and lastly, to have owned that he was such a +mannerist, that the disposition of his pictures was all +alike.'</p> +<p>'For hospitality, as formerly practised, there is no longer +the same reason; heretofore the poorer people were more numerous, +and from want of commerce, their means of getting a livelihood +more difficult; therefore the supporting them was an act of great +benevolence; now that the poor can find maintenance for +themselves, and their labour is wanted, a general undiscerning +hospitality tends to ill, by withdrawing them from their work to +idleness and drunkenness. Then, formerly rents were received in +kind, so that there was a great abundance of provisions in +possession of the owners of the lands, which, since the plenty of +money afforded by commerce, is no longer the case.'</p> +<p>'Hospitality to strangers and foreigners in our country is now +almost at an end, since, from the increase of them that come to +us, there have been a sufficient number of people that have found +an interest in providing inns and proper accommodations, which is +in general a more expedient method for the entertainment of +travellers. Where the travellers and strangers are few, more of +that hospitality subsists, as it has not been worth while to +provide places of accommodation. In Ireland there is still +hospitality to strangers, in some degree; in Hungary and Poland +probably more.'</p> +<p>'Colman, in a note on his translation of <i>Terence</i>, +talking of Shakspeare's learning, asks, "What says Farmer to +this? What says Johnson<a href= +"#note-63">[63]</a>?" Upon this he +observed, "Sir, let Farmer answer for himself: <i>I</i> never +engaged in this controversy. I always said, Shakspeare had Latin +enough to grammaticise his English<a href= +"#note-64">[64]</a>."'</p> +<p>'A clergyman, whom he characterised as one who loved to say +little oddities, was affecting one day, at a Bishop's table, a +sort of slyness and freedom not in character, and repeated, as if +part of <i>The Old Mans Wish</i>, a song by Dr. Walter Pope, a +verse bordering on licentiousness. Johnson rebuked him in the +finest manner, by first shewing him that he did not know the +passage he was aiming at, and thus humbling him: "Sir, that is +not the song: it is thus." And he gave it right. Then looking +stedfastly on him, "Sir, there is a part of that song which I +should wish to exemplify in my own life:—</p> +<p>"May I govern my passions with absolute sway<a href= +"#note-65">[65]</a>!"'</p> +<p>'Being asked if Barnes knew a good deal of Greek, he answered, +"I doubt, Sir, he was <i>unoculus inter caecos<a href= +"#note-66">[66]</a></i>."'</p> +<p>'He used frequently to observe, that men might be very eminent +in a profession, without our perceiving any particular power of +mind in them in conversation. "It seems strange (said he) that a +man should see so far to the right, who sees so short a way to +the left. Burke is the only man whose common conversation +corresponds with the general fame which he has in the world. Take +up whatever topick you please, he is ready to meet you<a href= +"#note-67">[67]</a>."'</p> +<p>'A gentleman, by no means deficient in literature, having +discovered less acquaintance with one of the Classicks than +Johnson expected, when the gentleman left the room, he observed, +"You see, now, how little any body reads." Mr. Langton happening +to mention his having read a good deal in Clenardus's <i>Greek +Grammar</i>, "Why, Sir, (said he,) who is there in this town who +knows any thing of Clenardus but you and I?" And upon Mr. +Langton's mentioning that he had taken the pains to learn by +heart the Epistle of St. Basil, which is given in that Grammar as +a praxis, "Sir, (said he,) I never made such an effort to attain +Greek<a href="#note-68">[68]</a>."'</p> +<p>'Of Dodsley's <i>Publick Virtue, a Poem</i>, he said, "It was +fine <i>blank</i> (meaning to express his usual contempt for +blank verse<a href="#note-69">[69]</a>); +however, this miserable poem did not sell, and my poor friend +Doddy said, Publick Virtue was not a subject to interest the +age."'</p> +<p>'Mr. Langton, when a very young man, read Dodsley's <i>Cleone +a Tragedy</i><a href="#note-70">[70]</a>, +to him, not aware of his extreme impatience to be read to. As it +went on he turned his face to the back of his chair, and put +himself into various attitudes, which marked his uneasiness. At +the end of an act, however, he said, "Come let's have some more, +let's go into the slaughter-house again, Lanky. But I am afraid +there is more blood than brains." Yet he afterwards said, "When I +heard you read it, I thought higher of its power of language: +when I read it myself, I was more sensible of its pathetick +effect;" and then he paid it a compliment which many will think +very extravagant. "Sir, (said he,) if Otway had written this +play, no other of his pieces would have been remembered." Dodsley +himself, upon this being repeated to him, said, "It was too +much:" it must be remembered, that Johnson always appeared not to +be sufficiently sensible of the merit of Otway<a href= +"#note-71">[71]</a>.'</p> +<p>'Snatches of reading (said he) will not make a Bentley or a +Clarke. They are, however, in a certain degree advantageous. I +would put a child into a library (where no unfit books are) and +let him read at his choice. A child should not be discouraged +from reading any thing that he takes a liking to, from a notion +that it is above his reach. If that be the case, the child will +soon find it out and desist; if not, he of course gains the +instruction; which is so much the more likely to come, from the +inclination with which he takes up the study<a href= +"#note-72">[72]</a>.'</p> +<p>'Though he used to censure carelessness with great vehemence, +he owned, that he once, to avoid the trouble of locking up five +guineas, hid them, he forgot where, so that he could not find +them.'</p> +<p>'A gentleman who introduced his brother to Dr. Johnson was +earnest to recommend him to the Doctor's notice, which he did by +saying, "When we have sat together some time, you'll find my +brother grow very entertaining."—"Sir, (said Johnson,) I +can wait."'</p> +<p>'When the rumour was strong that we should have a war, because +the French would assist the Americans, he rebuked a friend with +some asperity for supposing it, saying, "No, Sir, national faith +is not yet sunk so low."'</p> +<p>'In the latter part of his life, in order to satisfy himself +whether his mental faculties were impaired, he resolved that he +would try to learn a new language, and fixed upon the Low Dutch, +for that purpose, and this he continued till he had read about +one half of <i>Thomas à Kempis</i>; and finding that there +appeared no abatement of his power of acquisition, he then +desisted, as thinking the experiment had been duly tried<a href= +"#note-73">[73]</a>. Mr. Burke justly +observed, that this was not the most vigorous trial, Low Dutch +being a language so near to our own; had it been one of the +languages entirely different, he might have been very soon +satisfied.'</p> +<p>'Mr. Langton and he having gone to see a Freemason's funeral +procession, when they were at Rochester<a href= +"#note-74">[74]</a>, and some solemn +musick being played on French horns, he said, "This is the first +time that I have ever been affected by musical sounds;" adding, +"that the impression made upon him was of a melancholy kind." Mr. +Langton saying, that this effect was a fine one,—JOHNSON. +"Yes, if it softens the mind, so as to prepare it for the +reception of salutary feelings, it may be good: but inasmuch as +it is melancholy <i>per se</i>, it is bad<a href= +"#note-75">[75]</a>."'</p> +<p>'Goldsmith had long a visionary project, that some time or +other when his circumstances should be easier, he would go to +Aleppo, in order to acquire a knowledge as far as might be of any +arts peculiar to the East, and introduce them into Britain. When +this was talked of in Dr. Johnson's company, he said, "Of all men +Goldsmith is the most unfit to go out upon such an inquiry; for +he is utterly ignorant of such arts as we already possess, and +consequently could not know what would be accessions to our +present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir, he would bring home a +grinding barrow, which you see in every street in London, and +think that he had furnished a wonderful improvement<a href= +"#note-76">[76]</a>."'</p> +<p>'Greek, Sir, (said he,) is like lace; every man gets as much +of it as he can<a href= +"#note-77">[77]</a>.'</p> +<p>'When Lord Charles Hay<a href= +"#note-78">[78]</a>, after his return +from America, was preparing his defence to be offered to the +Court-Martial which he had demanded, having heard Mr. Langton as +high in expressions of admiration of Johnson, as he usually was, +he requested that Dr. Johnson might be introduced to him; and Mr. +Langton having mentioned it to Johnson, he very kindly and +readily agreed; and being presented by Mr. Langton to his +Lordship, while under arrest, he saw him several times; upon one +of which occasions Lord Charles read to him what he had prepared, +which Johnson signified his approbation of, saying, "It is a very +good soldierly defence." Johnson said, that he had advised his +Lordship, that as it was in vain to contend with those who were +in possession of power, if they would offer him the rank of +Lieutenant-General, and a government, it would be better judged +to desist from urging his complaints. It is well known that his +Lordship died before the sentence was made known.'</p> +<p>'Johnson one day gave high praise to Dr. Bentley's verses<a +href="#note-79">[79]</a> in Dodsley's +<i>Collection</i>, which he recited with his usual energy. Dr. +Adam Smith, who was present, observed in his decisive +professorial manner, "Very well—Very well." Johnson however +added, "Yes, they <i>are</i> very well, Sir; but you may observe +in what manner they are well. They are the forcible verses of a +man of a strong mind, but not accustomed to write verse<a href= +"#note-80">[80]</a>; for there is some +uncouthness in the expression[81]."'</p> +<p>'Drinking tea one day at Garrick's with Mr. Langton, he was +questioned if he was not somewhat of a heretick as to Shakspeare; +said Garrick, "I doubt he is a little of an infidel<a href= +"#note-82">[82]</a>."—"Sir, (said +Johnson) I will stand by the lines I have written on Shakspeare +in my Prologue at the opening of your Theatre<a href= +"#note-83">[83]</a>." Mr. Langton +suggested, that in the line</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "And panting Time toil'd after him in vain," +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Johnson might have had in his eye the passage in <i>The +Tempest</i>, where Prospero says of Miranda,</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "———-She will outstrip all praise, + And make it halt behind her<a href= +"#note-84">84</a>." +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Johnson said nothing. Garrick then ventured to observe, "I do +not think that the happiest line in the praise of Shakspeare." +Johnson exclaimed (smiling,) "Prosaical rogues! next time I +write, I'll make both time and space pant<a href= +"#note-85">[85]</a>."'</p> +<p>'It is well known that there was formerly a rude custom for +those who were sailing upon the Thames, to accost each other as +they passed, in the most abusive language they could invent, +generally, however, with as much satirical humour as they were +capable of producing. Addison gives a specimen of this ribaldry, +in Number 383 of <i>The Spectator</i>, when Sir Roger de Coverly +and he are going to Spring-garden<a href= +"#note-86">[86]</a>. Johnson was once +eminently successful in this species of contest; a fellow having +attacked him with some coarse raillery, Johnson answered him +thus, "Sir, your wife, <i>under pretence of keeping a +bawdy-house</i>, is a receiver of stolen goods<a href= +"#note-87">[87]</a>." One evening when he +and Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton were in company together, and the +admirable scolding of Timon of Athens was mentioned, this +instance of Johnson's was quoted, and thought to have at least +equal excellence.'</p> +<p>'As Johnson always allowed the extraordinary talents of Mr. +Burke, so Mr. Burke was fully sensible of the wonderful powers of +Johnson. Mr. Langton recollects having passed an evening with +both of them, when Mr. Burke repeatedly entered upon topicks +which it was evident he would have illustrated with extensive +knowledge and richness of expression; but Johnson always seized +upon the conversation, in which, however, he acquitted himself in +a most masterly manner. As Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton were walking +home, Mr. Burke observed that Johnson had been very great that +night; Mr. Langton joined in this, but added, he could have +wished to hear more from another person; (plainly intimating that +he meant Mr. Burke.) "O, no (said Mr. Burke) it is enough for me +to have rung the bell to him<a href= +"#note-88">[88]</a>."'</p> +<p>'Beauclerk having observed to him of one of their friends, +that he was aukward at counting money, "Why, Sir, said Johnson, I +am likewise aukward at counting money. But then, Sir, the reason +is plain; I have had very little money to count."'</p> +<p>'He had an abhorrence of affectation<a href= +"#note-89">[89]</a>. Talking of old Mr. +Langton, of whom he said, "Sir, you will seldom see such a +gentleman, such are his stores of literature, such his knowledge +in divinity, and such his exemplary life;" he added, "and Sir, he +has no grimace, no gesticulation, no bursts of admiration on +trivial occasions; he never embraces you with an overacted +cordiality<a href= +"#note-90">[90]</a>."'</p> +<p>'Being in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain +Dr. Berkeley's ingenious philosophy, that nothing exists but as +perceived by some mind<a href= +"#note-91">[91]</a>; when the gentleman +was going away, Johnson said to him, "Pray, Sir, don't leave us; +for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will +cease to exist<a href= +"#note-92">[92]</a>."'</p> +<p>'Goldsmith, upon being visited by Johnson one day in the +Temple, said to him with a little jealousy of the appearance of +his accommodation, "I shall soon be in better chambers than +these." Johnson at the same time checked him and paid him a +handsome compliment, implying that a man of his talents should be +above attention to such distinctions,—'Nay, Sir, never mind +that. <i>Nil te quaesiveris extra</i><a href= +"#note-93">[93]</a>.'</p> +<p>'At the time when his pension was granted to him, he said, +with a noble literary ambition, "Had this happened twenty years +years ago, I should have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabick, +as Pococke did<a href= +"#note-94">[94]</a>."'</p> +<p>'As an instance of the niceness of his taste, though he +praised West's translation of Pindar, he pointed out the +following passage as faulty, by expressing a circumstance so +minute as to detract from the general dignity which should +prevail:</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "Down then from thy glittering nail, + Take, O Muse, thy Dorian <i>lyre</i><a href= +"#note-95">95</a>.'" +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>'When Mr. Vesey<a href= +"#note-96">[96]</a> was proposed as a +member of the LITERARY CLUB, Mr. Burke began by saying that he +was a man of gentle manners. "Sir, said Johnson, you need say no +more. When you have said a man of gentle manners; you have said +enough."'</p> +<p>'The late Mr. Fitzherbert<a href= +"#note-97">[97]</a> told Mr. Langton that +Johnson said to him, "Sir, a man has no more right to <i>say</i> +an uncivil thing, than to <i>act</i> one; no more right to say a +rude thing to another than to knock him down."'</p> +<p>'My dear friend Dr. Bathurst<a href= +"#note-98">[98]</a>, (said he with a +warmth of approbation) declared he was glad that his father, who +was a West-Indian planter, had left his affairs in total ruin, +because having no estate, he was not under the temptation of +having slaves.'</p> +<p>'Richardson had little conversation<a href= +"#note-99">[99]</a>, except about his own +works, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds said he was always willing to +talk, and glad to have them introduced. Johnson when he carried +Mr. Langton to see him, professed that he could bring him out +into conversation, and used this allusive expression, "Sir, I can +make him <i>rear.</i>" But he failed; for in that interview +Richardson said little else than that there lay in the room a +translation of his <i>Clarissa</i> into German<a href= +"#note-100">[100]</a>.'</p> +<p>'Once when somebody produced a newspaper in which there was a +letter of stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of which Johnson +himself came in for a share,—"Pray," said he, "let us have +it read aloud from beginning to end;" which being done, he with a +ludicrous earnestness, and not directing his look to any +particular person, called out, "Are we alive after all this +satire!"'</p> +<p>'He had a strong prejudice against the political character of +Seeker<a href="#note-101">[101]</a>, one +instance of which appeared at Oxford, where he expressed great +dissatisfaction at his varying the old established toast, "Church +and King." "The Archbishop of Canterbury, said he (with an +affected smooth smiling grimace) drinks,' Constitution in Church +and State.'" Being asked what difference there was between the +two toasts, he said, "Why, Sir, you may be sure he meant +something." Yet when the life of that prelate, prefixed to his +sermons by Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton his chaplains, first came +out, he read it with the utmost avidity, and said, "It is a life +well written, and that well deserves to be recorded."'</p> +<p>'Of a certain noble Lord, he said, "Respect him, you could +not; for he had no mind of his own. Love him you could not; for +that which you could do with him, every one else could<a href= +"#note-102">[102]</a>."'</p> +<p>'Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, "No man was more foolish when he +had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had<a href= +"#note-103">[103]</a>."'</p> +<p>'He told in his lively manner the following literary anecdote: +"Green and Guthrie<a href= +"#note-104">[104]</a>, an Irishman and a +Scotchman, undertook a translation of Duhalde's <i>History of +China</i>. Green said of Guthrie, that he knew no English, and +Guthrie of Green, that he knew no French; and these two undertook +to translate Duhalde's <i>History of China</i>. In this +translation there was found 'the twenty-sixth day of the new +moon.' Now as the whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days, +the moon instead of being new, was nearly as old as it could be. +Their blunder arose from their mistaking the word +<i>neuvième</i> ninth, for <i>nouvelle</i> or +<i>neuve</i>, new."'</p> +<p>'Talking of Dr. Blagden's copiousness and precision of +communication, Dr. Johnson said, "Blagden, Sir, is a delightful +fellow<a href= +"#note-105">[105]</a>."'</p> +<p>'On occasion of Dr. Johnson's publishing his pamphlet of +<i>The False Alarm</i><a href= +"#note-106">[106]</a>, there came out a +very angry answer (by many supposed to be by Mr. Wilkes). Dr. +Johnson determined on not answering it; but, in conversation with +Mr. Langton, mentioned a particular or two, which if he +<i>had</i> replied to it, he might perhaps have inserted. In the +answerer's pamphlet, it had been said with solemnity, "Do you +consider, Sir, that a House of Commons is to the people as a +Creature is to its Creator<a href= +"#note-107">[107]</a>?" To this question, +said Dr. Johnson, I could have replied, that—in the first +place—the idea of a CREATOR must be such as that he has a +power to unmake or annihilate his creature.'</p> +<p>'Then it cannot be conceived that a creature can make laws for +its</p> +<center>CREATOR<a href= +"#note-108">[108]</a>.'</center> +<p>'Depend upon it, said he, that if a man <i>talks</i> of his +misfortunes, there is something in them that is not disagreeable +to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never +is any recourse to the mention of it<a href= +"#note-109">[109]</a>.'</p> +<p>'A man must be a poor beast that should <i>read</i> no more in +quantity than he could <i>utter</i> aloud.'</p> +<p>'Imlac in <i>Rasselas</i>, I spelt with a <i>c</i> at the end, +because it is less like English, which should always have the +Saxon <i>k</i> added to the <i>c</i><a href= +"#note-110">[110]</a>.'</p> +<p>'Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life +without having it perceived<a href= +"#note-111">[111]</a>: for example, a +madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged +literally to pray continually<a href= +"#note-112">[112]</a>—had the +madness turned the opposite way and the person thought it a crime +ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued +unobserved.'</p> +<p>'He apprehended that the delineation of <i>characters</i> in +the end of the first Book of the <i>Retreat of the Ten +Thousand</i> was the first instance of the kind that was +known.'</p> +<p>'Supposing (said he) a wife to be of a studious or +argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome<a href= +"#note-113">[113]</a>: for +instance,—if a woman should continually dwell upon the +subject of the Arian heresy.'</p> +<p>'No man speaks concerning another, even suppose it be in his +praise, if he thinks he does not hear him, exactly as he would, +if he thought he was within hearing.'</p> +<p>'The applause of a single human being is of great +consequence<a href="#note-114">[114]</a>: +This he said to me with great earnestness of manner, very near +the time of his decease, on occasion of having desired me to read +a letter addressed to him from some person in the North of +England; which when I had done, and he asked me what the contents +were, as I thought being particular upon it might fatigue him, it +being of great length, I only told him in general that it was +highly in his praise;—and then he expressed himself as +above.'</p> +<p>'He mentioned with an air of satisfaction what Baretti had +told him; that, meeting, in the course of his studying English, +with an excellent paper in the <i>Spectator</i>, one of four<a +href="#note-115">[115]</a> that were +written by the respectable Dissenting Minister, Mr. Grove of +Taunton, and observing the genius and energy of mind that it +exhibits, it greatly quickened his curiosity to visit our +country; as he thought if such were the lighter periodical essays +of our authours, their productions on more weighty occasions must +be wonderful indeed!'</p> +<p>'He observed once, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, that a beggar in +the street will more readily ask alms from a <i>man</i>, though +there should be no marks of wealth in his appearance, than from +even a well-dressed woman<a href= +"#note-116">[116]</a>; which he accounted +for from the greater degree of carefulness as to money that is to +be found in women; saying farther upon it, that the opportunities +in general that they possess of improving their condition are +much fewer than men have; and adding, as he looked round the +company, which consisted of men only,—there is not one of +us who does not think he might be richer if he would use his +endeavour.'</p> +<p>'He thus characterised an ingenious writer of his +acquaintance: "Sir, he is an enthusiast by rule<a href= +"#note-117">[117]</a>."'</p> +<p>'<i>He may hold up that SHIELD against all his +enemies</i>;'—was an observation on Homer, in reference to +his description of the shield of Achilles, made by Mrs. +Fitzherbert, wife to his friend Mr. Fitzherbert of Derbyshire, +and respected by Dr. Johnson as a very fine one<a href= +"#note-118">[118]</a>. He had in general +a very high opinion of that lady's understanding.'</p> +<p>'An observation of Bathurst's may be mentioned, which Johnson +repeated, appearing to acknowledge it to be well founded, namely, +it was somewhat remarkable how seldom, on occasion of coming into +the company of any new person, one felt any wish or inclination +to see him again<a href= +"#note-119">[119]</a>.'</p> +<p>This year the Reverend Dr. Franklin<a href= +"#note-120">[120]</a> having published a +translation of <i>Lucian</i>, inscribed to him the <i>Demonax</i> +thus:—</p> +<p>'To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, the Demonax of the present age, this +piece is inscribed by a sincere admirer of his respectable<a +href="#note-121">[121]</a> talents,</p> +<center>'THE TRANSLATOR.'</center> +<p>Though upon a particular comparison of Demonax and Johnson, +there does not seem to be a great deal of similarity between +them, this Dedication is a just compliment from the general +character given by Lucian of the ancient Sage, '[Greek: ariston +on oida ego philosophon genomenon], the best philosopher whom I +have ever seen or known.'</p> +<p>1781: AETAT. 72.—In 1781 Johnson at last completed his +<i>Lives of the Poets</i>, of which he gives this account: 'Some +time in March I finished the <i>Lives of the Poets</i>, which I +wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, +and working with vigour and haste<a href= +"#note-122">[122]</a>.' In a memorandum +previous to this, he says of them: 'Written, I hope, in such a +manner as may tend to the promotion of piety<a href= +"#note-123">[123]</a>.'</p> +<p>This is the work which of all Dr. Johnson's writings will +perhaps be read most generally, and with most pleasure. Philology +and biography<a href= +"#note-124">[124]</a> were his favourite +pursuits, and those who lived most in intimacy with him, heard +him upon all occasions, when there was a proper opportunity, take +delight in expatiating upon the various merits of the English +Poets: upon the niceties of their characters, and the events of +their progress through the world which they contributed to +illuminate. His mind was so full of that kind of information, and +it was so well arranged in his memory, that in performing what he +had undertaken in this way, he had little more to do than to put +his thoughts upon paper, exhibiting first each Poet's life, and +then subjoining a critical examination of his genius and works. +But when he began to write, the subject swelled in such a manner, +that instead of prefaces to each poet, of no more than a few +pages, as he had originally intended<a href= +"#note-125">[125]</a>, he produced an +ample, rich, and most entertaining view of them in every respect. +In this he resembled Quintilian, who tells us, that in the +composition of his <i>Institutions of Oratory<a href= +"#note-126">[126]</a>, Latiùs se +tamen aperiente materiâ, plus quàm imponebatur +oneris sponte suscepi.</i> The booksellers, justly sensible of +the great additional value of the copy-right, presented him with +another hundred pounds, over and above two hundred, for which his +agreement was to furnish such prefaces as he thought fit<a href= +"#note-127">[127]</a>.</p> +<p>This was, however, but a small recompense for such a +collection of biography, and such principles and illustrations of +criticism, as, if digested and arranged in one system, by some +modern Aristotle or Longinus, might form a code upon that +subject, such as no other nation can shew. As he was so good as +to make me a present of the greatest part of the original and +indeed only<a href="#note-128">[128]</a> +manuscript of this admirable work, I have an opportunity of +observing with wonder, the correctness with which he rapidly +struck off such glowing composition. He may be assimilated to the +Lady in Waller, who could impress with 'Love at first sight:'</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Some other nymphs with colours faint, + And pencil slow may Cupid paint, + And a weak heart in time destroy; + She has a stamp, and prints the boy<a href= +"#note-129">129</a>.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>That he, however, had a good deal of trouble, and some anxiety +in carrying on the work<a href= +"#note-130">[130]</a>, we see from a +series of letters to Mr. Nichols the printer<a href= +"#note-131">[131]</a>, whose variety of +literary inquiry and obliging disposition, rendered him useful to +Johnson. Mr. Steevens appears, from the papers in my possession, +to have supplied him with some anecdotes and quotations; and I +observe the fair hand of Mrs. Thrale as one of his copyists of +select passages. But he was principally indebted to my steady +friend Mr. Isaac Reed, of Staple-inn, whose extensive and +accurate knowledge of English literary history I do not express +with exaggeration, when I say it is wonderful; indeed his +labours<a href="#note-132">[132]</a> have +proved it to the world; and all who have the pleasure of his +acquaintance can bear testimony to the frankness of his +communications in private society.</p> +<p>It is not my intention to dwell upon each of Johnson's +<i>Lives of the Poets</i>, or attempt an analysis of their +merits, which, were I able to do it, would take up too much room +in this work; yet I shall make a few observations upon some of +them, and insert a few various readings.</p> +<p>The Life of COWLEY he himself considered as the best of the +whole, on account of the dissertation which it contains on the +<i>Metaphysical Poets</i>. Dryden, whose critical abilities were +equal to his poetical, had mentioned them in his excellent +Dedication of his Juvenal, but had barely mentioned them<a href= +"#note-133">[133]</a>. Johnson has +exhibited them at large, with such happy illustration from their +writings, and in so luminous a manner, that indeed he may be +allowed the full merit of novelty, and to have discovered to us, +as it were, a new planet in the poetical hemisphere<a href= +"#note-134">[134]</a>.</p> +<p>It is remarked by Johnson, in considering the works of a +poet<a href="#note-135">[135]</a>, that +'amendments are seldom made without some token of a rent;' but I +do not find that this is applicable to prose<a href= +"#note-136">[136]</a>. We shall see that +though his amendments in this work are for the better, there is +nothing of the <i>pannus assutus</i><a href= +"#note-137">[137]</a>; the texture is +uniform: and indeed, what had been there at first, is very seldom +unfit to have remained.</p> +<p><i>Various Readings<a href= +"#note-138">[138]</a> in the Life of +COWLEY.</i></p> +<p>'All [future votaries of] <i>that may hereafter pant for</i> +solitude.</p> +<p>'To conceive and execute the [agitation or perception] +<i>pains and the pleasures</i> of other minds.</p> +<p>'The wide effulgence of [the blazing] a <i>summer</i> +noon.'</p> +<p>In the Life of WALLER, Johnson gives a distinct and animated +narrative of publick affairs in that variegated period, with +strong yet nice touches of character; and having a fair +opportunity to display his political principles, does it with an +unqualified manly confidence, and satisfies his readers how nobly +he might have executed a <i>Tory History</i> of his country.</p> +<p>So easy is his style in these Lives, that I do not recollect +more than three uncommon or learned words<a href= +"#note-139">[139]</a>; one, when giving +an account of the approach of Waller's mortal disease, he says, +'he found his legs grow <i>tumid</i>;' by using the expression +his legs <i>swelled</i>, he would have avoided this; and there +would have been no impropriety in its being followed by the +interesting question to his physician, 'What that <i>swelling</i> +meant?' Another, when he mentions that Pope had <i>emitted</i> +proposals; when <i>published</i> or <i>issued</i> would have been +more readily understood; and a third, when he calls Orrery and +Dr. Delany<a href="#note-140">[140]</a>, +writers both undoubtedly <i>veracious</i><a href= +"#note-141">[141]</a>, when <i>true, +honest</i>, or <i>faithful</i>, might have been used. Yet, it +must be owned, that none of these are <i>hard</i> or <i>too +big</i> words; that custom would make them seem as easy as any +others; and that a language is richer and capable of more beauty +of expression, by having a greater variety of synonimes.</p> +<p>His dissertation<a href= +"#note-142">[142]</a> upon the unfitness +of poetry for the aweful subjects of our holy religion, though I +do not entirely agree with with him, has all the merit of +originality, with uncommon force and reasoning.</p> +<p><i>Various Readings in the Life of</i> WALLER.</p> +<p>'Consented to [the insertion of their names] <i>their own +nomination</i>.</p> +<p>'[After] <i>paying</i> a fine of ten thousand pounds.</p> +<p>'Congratulating Charles the Second on his [coronation] +<i>recovered right</i>.</p> +<p>'He that has flattery ready for all whom the vicissitudes of +the world happen to exalt, must be [confessed to degrade his +powers] <i>scorned as a prostituted mind</i>.</p> +<p>'The characters by which Waller intended to distinguish his +writings are [elegance] <i>sprightliness</i> and dignity.</p> +<p>'Blossoms to be valued only as they [fetch] <i>foretell</i> +fruits.</p> +<p>'Images such as the superficies of nature [easily] +<i>readily</i> supplies.</p> +<p>'[His] Some applications [are sometimes] <i>may be thought</i> +too remote and unconsequential.</p> +<p>'His images are [sometimes confused] <i>not always +distinct</i>?</p> +<p>Against his Life of MILTON, the hounds of Whiggism have opened +in full cry<a href="#note-143">[143]</a>. +But of Milton's great excellence as a poet, where shall we find +such a blazon as by the hand of Johnson? I shall select only the +following passage concerning <i>Paradise Lost</i><a href= +"#note-144">[144]</a>:</p> +<p>'Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper +Milton surveyed the silent progress of his work, and marked his +reputation stealing its way in a kind of subterraneous current, +through fear and silence. I cannot but conceive him calm and +confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on +his own merit with steady consciousness, and waiting without +impatience the vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a +future generation<a href= +"#note-145">[145]</a>.'</p> +<p>Indeed even Dr. Towers, who may be considered as one of the +warmest zealots of <i>The Revolution Society</i><a href= +"#note-146">[146]</a> itself, allows, +that 'Johnson has spoken in the highest terms of the abilities of +that great poet, and has bestowed on his principal poetical +compositions the most honourable encomiums<a href= +"#note-147">[147]</a>.'</p> +<p>That a man, who venerated the Church and Monarchy as Johnson +did, should speak with a just abhorrence of Milton as a +politician, or rather as a daring foe to good polity, was surely +to be expected; and to those who censure him, I would recommend +his commentary on Milton's celebrated complaint of his situation, +when by the lenity of Charles the Second, 'a lenity of which (as +Johnson well observes) the world has had perhaps no other +example, he, who had written in justification of the murder of +his Sovereign, was safe under an Act of Oblivion<a href= +"#note-148">[148]</a>.'</p> +<p>'No sooner is he safe than he finds himself in danger, +<i>fallen on evil days and evil tongues</i>, [and] <i>with +darkness and with danger compassed round</i><a href= +"#note-149">[149]</a>. This darkness, had +his eyes been better employed, had undoubtedly deserved +compassion; but to add the mention of danger, was ungrateful and +unjust. He was fallen, indeed, on <i>evil days</i>; the time was +come in which regicides could no longer boast their wickedness. +But of <i>evil tongues</i> for Milton to complain, required +impudence at least equal to his other powers; Milton, whose +warmest advocates must allow, that he never spared any asperity +of reproach, or brutality of insolence<a href= +"#note-150">[150]</a>.'</p> +<p>I have, indeed, often wondered how Milton, 'an acrimonious and +surly Republican<a href= +"#note-151">[151]</a>,'—'a man who +in his domestick relations was so severe and arbitrary<a href= +"#note-152">[152]</a>,' and whose head +was filled with the hardest and most dismal tenets of Calvinism<a +href="#note-153">[153]</a>, should have +been such a poet; should not only have written with sublimity, +but with beauty, and even gaiety; should have exquisitely painted +the sweetest sensations of which our nature is capable; imaged +the delicate raptures of connubial love; nay, seemed to be +animated with all the spirit of revelry. It is a proof that in +the human mind the departments of judgement and imagination, +perception and temper, may sometimes be divided by strong +partitions; and that the light and shade in the same character +may be kept so distinct as never to be blended<a href= +"#note-154">[154]</a>.</p> +<p>In the Life of Milton, Johnson took occasion to maintain his +own and the general opinion of the excellence of rhyme over blank +verse, in English poetry<a href= +"#note-155">[155]</a>; and quotes this +apposite illustration of it by 'an ingenious critick,' that <i>it +seems to be verse only to the eye</i><a href= +"#note-156">[156]</a>. The gentleman whom +he thus characterises, is (as he told Mr. Seward) Mr. Lock<a +href="#note-157">[157]</a>, of Norbury +Park, in Surrey, whose knowledge and taste in the fine arts is +universally celebrated; with whose elegance of manners the writer +of the present work has felt himself much impressed, and to whose +virtues a common friend, who has known him long, and is not much +addicted to flattery, gives the highest testimony.</p> +<p><i>Various Readings in the Life of</i> MILTON.</p> +<p>'I cannot find any meaning but this which [his most bigotted +advocates] <i>even kindness and reverence</i> can give.</p> +<p>'[Perhaps no] <i>scarcely any</i> man ever wrote so much, and +praised so few.</p> +<p>'A certain [rescue] <i>perservative</i> from oblivion.</p> +<p>'Let me not be censured for this digression, as [contracted] +<i>pedantick</i> or paradoxical.</p> +<p>'Socrates rather was of opinion, that what we had to learn was +how to [obtain and communicate happiness] <i>do good and avoid +evil</i>.</p> +<p>'Its elegance [who can exhibit?] <i>is less +attainable.</i>'</p> +<p>I could, with pleasure, expatiate upon the masterly execution +of the Life of DRYDEN, which we have seen<a href= +"#note-158">[158]</a> was one of +Johnson's literary projects at an early period, and which it is +remarkable, that after desisting from it, from a supposed +scantiness of materials, he should, at an advanced age, have +exhibited so amply.</p> +<p>His defence<a href= +"#note-159">[159]</a> of that great poet +against the illiberal attacks upon him, as if his embracing the +Roman Catholick communion had been a time-serving measure, is a +piece of reasoning at once able and candid. Indeed, Dryden +himself, in his <i>Hind and Panther</i>, has given such a picture +of his mind, that they who know the anxiety for repose as to the +aweful subject of our state beyond the grave, though they may +think his opinion ill-founded, must think charitably of his +sentiment:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'But, gracious GOD, how well dost thou provide + For erring judgements an unerring guide! + Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light, + A blaze of glory that forbids the sight. + O! teach me to believe thee thus conceal'd, + And search no farther than thyself reveal'd; + But Her alone for my director take, + Whom thou hast promis'd never to forsake. + My thoughtless youth was wing'd with vain desires; + My manhood long misled by wand'ring fires, + Follow'd false lights; and when their glimpse was gone, + My pride struck out new sparkles of her own. + Such was I, such by Nature still I am; + Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame. + Good life be now my task: my doubts are done; + What more could shock<a href= +"#note-160">160</a> my faith than Three in One?' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>In drawing Dryden's character, Johnson has given, though I +suppose unintentionally, some touches of his own. +Thus:—'The power that predominated in his intellectual +operations was rather strong reason than quick sensibility. Upon +all occasions that were presented, he studied rather than felt; +and produced sentiments not such as Nature enforces, but +meditation supplies. With the simple and elemental passions as +they spring separate in the mind, he seems not much acquainted. +He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often +pathetick; and had so little sensibility of the power of +effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others<a +href="#note-161">[161]</a>.' It may +indeed be observed, that in all the numerous writings of Johnson, +whether in prose or verse, and even in his Tragedy, of which the +subject is the distress of an unfortunate Princess, there is not +a single passage that ever drew a tear<a href= +"#note-162">[162]</a>.</p> +<p><i>Various Readings in the Life of</i> DRYDEN.</p> +<p>'The reason of this general perusal, Addison has attempted to +[find in] <i>derive from</i> the delight which the mind feels in +the investigation of secrets.</p> +<p>'His best actions are but [convenient] <i>inability of</i> +wickedness.</p> +<p>'When once he had engaged himself in disputation, [matter] +<i>thoughts</i> flowed in on either side.</p> +<p>'The abyss of an un-ideal [emptiness] <i>vacancy</i>.</p> +<p>'These, like [many other harlots,] <i>the harlots of other +men</i>, had his love though not his approbation.</p> +<p>'He [sometimes displays] <i>descends to display</i> his +knowledge with pedantick ostentation.</p> +<p>'French words which [were then used in] <i>had then crept +into</i> conversation.'</p> +<p>The Life of POPE<a href= +"#note-163">[163]</a> was written by +Johnson <i>con amore</i>, both from the early possession which +that writer had taken of his mind, and from the pleasure which he +must have felt, in for ever silencing all attempts to lessen his +poetical fame, by demonstrating his excellence, and pronouncing +the following triumphant eulogium<a href= +"#note-164">[164]</a>:—'After all +this, it is surely superfluous to answer the question that has +once been asked, Whether Pope was a poet? otherwise than by +asking in return, If Pope be not a poet, where is poetry to be +found? To circumscribe poetry by a definition, will only shew the +narrowness of the definer; though a definition which shall +exclude Pope will not easily be made. Let us look round upon the +present time, and back upon the past; let us enquire to whom the +voice of mankind has decreed the wreath of poetry; let their +productions be examined, and their claims stated, and the +pretensions of Pope will be no more disputed.'</p> +<p>I remember once to have heard Johnson say, 'Sir, a thousand +years may elapse before there shall appear another man with a +power of versification equal to that of Pope.' That power must +undoubtedly be allowed its due share in enhancing the value of +his captivating composition.</p> +<p>Johnson, who had done liberal justice to Warburton in his +edition of <i>Shakspeare</i><a href= +"#note-165">[165]</a>, which was +published during the life of that powerful writer, with still +greater liberality<a href= +"#note-166">[166]</a> took an +opportunity, in the Life of Pope, of paying the tribute due to +him when he was no longer in 'high place,' but numbered with the +dead<a href="#note-167">[167]</a>.</p> +<p>It seems strange, that two such men as Johnson and Warburton, +who lived in the same age and country, should not only not have +been in any degree of intimacy, but been almost personally +unacquainted. But such instances, though we must wonder at them, +are not rare. If I am rightly informed, after a careful enquiry, +they never met but once, which was at the house of Mrs. French, +in London, well known for her elegant assemblies, and bringing +eminent characters together. The interview proved to be mutually +agreeable<a href= +"#note-168">[168]</a>.</p> +<p>I am well informed, that Warburton said of Johnson, 'I admire +him, but I cannot bear his style:' and that Johnson being told of +this, said, 'That is exactly my case as to him<a href= +"#note-169">[169]</a>.' The manner in +which he expressed his admiration of the fertility of Warburton's +genius and of the variety of his materials was, 'The table is +always full, Sir. He brings things from the north, and the south, +and from every quarter. In his <i>Divine Legation</i>, you are +always entertained. He carries you round and round, without +carrying you forward to the point; but then you have no wish to +be carried forward.' He said to the Reverend Mr. Strahan, +'Warburton is perhaps the last man who has written with a mind +full of reading and reflection<a href= +"#note-170">[170]</a>.'</p> +<p>It is remarkable, that in the Life of Broome<a href= +"#note-171">[171]</a>, Johnson takes +notice of Dr. Warburton using a mode of expression which he +himself used, and that not seldom, to the great offence of those +who did not know him. Having occasion to mention a note, stating +the different parts which were executed by the associated +translators of <i>The Odyssey</i>, he says, 'Dr. Warburton told +me, in his warm language, that he thought the relation given in +the note <i>a lie</i>. The language is <i>warm</i> indeed; and, I +must own, cannot be justified in consistency with a decent regard +to the established forms of speech. Johnson had accustomed +himself to use the word <i>lie</i><a href= +"#note-172">[172]</a>, to express a +mistake or an errour in relation; in short, when the <i>thing was +not so as told</i>, though the relator did not <i>mean</i> to +deceive. When he thought there was intentional falsehood in the +relator, his expression was, 'He <i>lies</i>, and he <i>knows</i> +he <i>lies</i>.'</p> +<p>Speaking of Pope's not having been known to excel in +conversation, Johnson observes, that 'traditional memory retains +no sallies of raillery, or<a href= +"#note-173">[173]</a> sentences of +observation; nothing either pointed or solid, wise or merry<a +href="#note-174">[174]</a>; and that one +apophthegm only is recorded<a href= +"#note-175">[175]</a>.' In this respect, +Pope differed widely from Johnson, whose conversation was, +perhaps, more admirable than even his writings, however +excellent. Mr. Wilkes has, however, favoured me with one repartee +of Pope, of which Johnson was not informed. Johnson, after justly +censuring him for having 'nursed in his mind a foolish dis-esteem +of Kings,' tells us, 'yet a little regard shewn him by the Prince +of Wales melted his obduracy; and he had not much to say when he +was asked by his Royal Highness, <i>how he could love a Prince, +while he disliked Kings</i><a href= +"#note-176">[176]</a>?' The answer which +Pope made, was, 'The young lion is harmless, and even playful; +but when his claws are full grown he becomes cruel, dreadful, and +mischievous.'</p> +<p>But although we have no collection of Pope's sayings, it is +not therefore to be concluded, that he was not agreeable in +social intercourse; for Johnson has been heard to say, that 'the +happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly +remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression.' The late +Lord Somerville<a href= +"#note-177">[177]</a>, who saw much both +of great and brilliant life, told me, that he had dined in +company with Pope, and that after dinner the <i>little man</i>, +as he called him, drank his bottle of Burgundy, and was +exceedingly gay and entertaining.</p> +<p>I cannot withhold from my great friend a censure of at least +culpable inattention, to a nobleman, who, it has been shewn<a +href="#note-178">[178]</a>, behaved to +him with uncommon politeness. He says, 'Except Lord Bathurst, +none of Pope's noble friends were such as that a good man would +wish to have his intimacy with them known to posterity<a href= +"#note-179">[179]</a>.' This will not +apply to Lord Mansfield, who was not ennobled in Pope's +life-time; but Johnson should have recollected, that Lord +Marchmont was one of those noble friends. He includes his +Lordship along with Lord Bolingbroke, in a charge of neglect of +the papers which Pope left by his will; when, in truth, as I +myself pointed out to him, before he wrote that poet's life, the +papers were 'committed to <i>the sole care and judgement</i> of +Lord Bolingbroke, unless he (Lord Bolingbroke) shall not survive +me;' so that Lord Marchmont had no concern whatever with them<a +href="#note-180">[180]</a>. After the +first edition of the <i>Lives</i>, Mr. Malone, whose love of +justice is equal to his accuracy, made, in my hearing, the same +remark to Johnson; yet he omitted to correct the erroneous +statement<a href="#note-181">[181]</a>. +These particulars I mention, in the belief that there was only +forgetfulness in my friend; but I owe this much to the Earl of +Marchmont's reputation, who, were there no other memorials, will +be immortalised by that line of Pope, in the verses on his +Grotto:</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><i>Various Readings in the Life of POPE.</i></p> +<p>'[Somewhat free] <i>sufficiently bold</i> in his +criticism.</p> +<p>'All the gay [niceties] <i>varieties</i> of diction.</p> +<p>'Strikes the imagination with far [more] <i>greater</i> +force.</p> +<p>'It is [probably] <i>certainly</i> the noblest version of +poetry which the world has ever seen.</p> +<p>'Every sheet enabled him to write the next with [less trouble] +<i>more facility</i>.</p> +<p>'No man sympathizes with [vanity, depressed] <i>the sorrows of +vanity</i>.</p> +<p>'It had been [criminal] <i>less easily excused</i>.</p> +<p>'When he [threatened to lay down] <i>talked of laying down</i> +his pen.</p> +<p>'Society [is so named emphatically in opposition to] +<i>politically regulated, is a state contra-distinguished +from</i> a state of nature.</p> +<p>'A fictitious life of an [absurd] <i>infatuated</i> +scholar.</p> +<p>'A foolish [contempt, disregard,] <i>disesteem</i> of +Kings.</p> +<p>'His hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows [were like those of +other mortals] <i>acted strongly upon his mind</i>.</p> +<p>'Eager to pursue knowledge and attentive to [accumulate] +<i>retain it</i>.</p> +<p>'A mind [excursive] <i>active</i>, ambitious, and +adventurous.</p> +<p>'In its [noblest] <i>widest</i> researches still longing to go +forward.</p> +<p>'He wrote in such a manner as might expose him to few +[neglects] <i>hazards</i>.</p> +<p>'The [reasonableness] <i>justice</i> of my determination.</p> +<p>'A [favourite] <i>delicious</i> employment of the poets.</p> +<p>'More terrifick and more powerful [beings] <i>phantoms</i> +perform on the stormy ocean.</p> +<p>'The inventor of [those] <i>this</i> petty [beings] +<i>nation</i>.</p> +<p>'The [mind] <i>heart</i> naturally loves truth.'</p> +<p>In the Life of ADDISON we find an unpleasing account of his +having lent Steele a hundred pounds, and 'reclaimed his loan by +an execution<a href= +"#note-182">[182]</a>.' In the new +edition of the <i>Biographia Britannica</i>, the authenticity of +this anecdote is denied. But Mr. Malone has obliged me with the +following note concerning it:—</p> +<p>'Many persons having doubts concerning this fact, I applied to +Dr. Johnson to learn on what authority he asserted it. He told +me, he had it from Savage, who lived in intimacy with Steele, and +who mentioned, that Steele told him the story with tears in his +eyes.—Ben Victor<a href= +"#note-183">[183]</a>, Dr. Johnson said, +likewise informed him of this remarkable transaction, from the +relation of Mr. Wilkes<a href= +"#note-184">[184]</a> the comedian, who +was also an intimate of Steele's.—Some in defence of +Addison, have said, that "the act was done with the good natured +view of rousing Steele, and correcting that profusion which +always made him necessitous."—"If that were the case, (said +Johnson,) and that he only wanted to alarm Steele, he would +afterwards have <i>returned</i> the money to his friend, which it +is not pretended he did."—"This too, (he added,) might be +retorted by an advocate for Steele, who might alledge, that he +did not repay the loan <i>intentionally</i>, merely to see +whether Addison would be mean and ungenerous enough to make use +of legal process to recover it. But of such speculations there is +no end: we cannot dive into the hearts of men; but their actions +are open to observation<a href= +"#note-185">[185]</a>."</p> +<p>'I then mentioned to him that some people thought that Mr. +Addison's character was so pure, that the fact, <i>though +true</i>, ought to have been suppressed<a href= +"#note-186">[186]</a>. He saw no reason +for this[187]. "If nothing but the bright side of characters +should be shewn, we should sit down in despondency, and think it +utterly impossible to imitate them in <i>any thing</i>. The +sacred writers (he observed) related the vicious as well as the +virtuous actions of men; which had this moral effect, that it +kept mankind from <i>despair</i>, into which otherwise they would +naturally fall, were they not supported by the recollection that +others had offended like themselves, and by penitence and +amendment of life had been restored to the favour of Heaven."</p> +<center>'E.M.'</center> +<p>'March 15, 1782.'</p> +<p>The last paragraph of this note is of great importance; and I +request that my readers may consider it with particular +attention. It will be afterwards referred to in this work<a href= +"#note-188">[188]</a>.</p> +<p><i>Various Readings in the Life of</i> ADDISON.</p> +<p>'[But he was our first great example] <i>He was, however, one +of our earliest examples</i> of correctness.</p> +<p>And [overlook] <i>despise</i> their masters.</p> +<p>His instructions were such as the [state] <i>character</i> of +his [own time] <i>readers</i> made [necessary] <i>proper</i>.</p> +<p>His purpose was to [diffuse] <i>infuse</i> literary curiosity +by gentle and unsuspected conveyance [among] <i>into</i> the gay, +the idle, and the wealthy.</p> +<p>Framed rather for those that [wish] <i>are learning</i> to +write.</p> +<p>Domestick [manners] <i>scenes</i>.'</p> +<p>In his Life of PARNELL, I wonder that Johnson omitted to +insert an Epitaph which he had long before composed for that +amiable man, without ever writing it down, but which he was so +good as, at my request, to dictate to me, by which means it has +been preserved.</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + '<i>Hic requiescit</i> THOMAS PARNELL, <i>S.T.P. + Qui sacerdos pariter et poeta, + Utrasque partes ita implevit, + Ut neque sacerdoti suavitas poetae, + Neo poetae sacerdotis sanctitas</i><a href= +"#note-189">189</a>, <i>deesset</i>.' + <i>Various Readings in the Life of</i> PARNELL. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>'About three years [after] <i>afterwards</i>.</p> +<p>[Did not much want] <i>was in no great need of</i> +improvement.</p> +<p>But his prosperity <i>did not last long</i> [was clouded by +that which took away all his powers of enjoying either profit or +pleasure, the death of his wife, whom he is said to have lamented +with such sorrow, as hastened his end<a href= +"#note-190">[190]</a>.] His end, whatever +was the cause, was now approaching.</p> +<p>In the Hermit, the [composition] <i>narrative</i>, as it is +less airy, is less pleasing.'</p> +<p>In the Life of BLACKMORE, we find that writer's reputation +generously cleared by Johnson from the cloud of prejudice which +the malignity of contemporary wits had raised around it<a href= +"#note-191">[191]</a>. In this spirited +exertion of justice, he has been imitated by Sir Joshua Reynolds, +in his praise of the architecture of Vanburgh<a href= +"#note-192">[192]</a>.</p> +<p>We trace Johnson's own character in his observations on +Blackmore's 'magnanimity as an authour.' 'The incessant attacks +of his enemies, whether serious or merry, are never discovered to +have disturbed his quiet, or to have lessened his confidence in +himself.' Johnson, I recollect, once told me, laughing heartily, +that he understood it had been said of him, 'He <i>appears</i> +not to feel; but when he is <i>alone</i>, depend upon it, he +<i>suffers sadly</i>.' I am as certain as I can be of any man's +real sentiments, that he <i>enjoyed</i> the perpetual shower of +little hostile arrows as evidences of his fame.</p> +<p><i>Various Readings in the Life of</i> BLACKMORE.</p> +<p>To [set] <i>engage</i> poetry [on the side] <i>in the +cause</i> of virtue.</p> +<p>He likewise [established] <i>enforced</i> the truth of +Revelation.</p> +<p>[Kindness] <i>benevolence</i> was ashamed to favour.</p> +<p>His practice, which was once [very extensive] <i>invidiously +great</i>. There is scarcely any distemper of dreadful name [of] +which he has not [shewn] <i>taught his reader</i> how [it is to +be opposed] <i>to oppose</i>.</p> +<p>Of this [contemptuous] <i>indecent</i> arrogance.</p> +<p>[He wrote] <i>but produced</i> likewise a work of a different +kind.</p> +<p>At least [written] <i>compiled</i> with integrity.</p> +<p>Faults which many tongues [were desirous] <i>would have made +haste</i> to publish.</p> +<p>But though he [had not] <i>could not boast of</i> much +critical knowledge.</p> +<p>He [used] <i>waited for</i> no felicities of fancy.</p> +<p>Or had ever elevated his [mind] <i>views</i> to that ideal +perfection which every [mind] <i>genius</i> born to excel is +condemned always to pursue and never overtake.</p> +<p>The [first great] <i>fundamental</i> principle of wisdom and +of virtue.'</p> +<p><i>Various Readings in the Life of</i> PHILIPS.</p> +<p>'His dreaded [rival] <i>antagonist</i> Pope.</p> +<p>They [have not often much] <i>are not loaded with</i> +thought.</p> +<p>In his translations from Pindar, he [will not be denied to +have reached] <i>found the art of reaching</i> all the obscurity +of the Theban bard.'</p> +<p><i>Various Readings in the Life of</i> CONGREVE.</p> +<p>'Congreve's conversation must surely have been <i>at least</i> +equally pleasing with his writings.</p> +<p>It apparently [requires] <i>pre-supposes</i> a familiar +knowledge of many characters.</p> +<p>Reciprocation of [similes] <i>conceits</i>.</p> +<p>The dialogue is quick and [various] <i>sparkling</i>.</p> +<p>Love for Love; a comedy [more drawn from life] <i>of nearer +alliance to life</i>.</p> +<p>The general character of his miscellanies is, that they shew +little wit and [no] <i>little</i> virtue.</p> +<p>[Perhaps] <i>certainly</i> he had not the fire requisite for +the higher species of lyrick poetry.'</p> +<p><i>Various Readings in the Life of</i> TICKELL.</p> +<p>'[Longed] <i>long wished</i> to peruse it.</p> +<p>At the [accession] <i>arrival</i> of King George.</p> +<p>Fiction [unnaturally] <i>unskilfully</i> compounded of Grecian +deities and Gothick fairies.'</p> +<p><i>Various Readings in the Life of</i> AKENSIDE.</p> +<p>'For [another] <i>a different</i> purpose.</p> +<p>[A furious] <i>an unnecessary</i> and outrageous zeal.</p> +<p>[Something which] <i>what</i> he called and thought +liberty.</p> +<p>A [favourer of innovation] <i>lover of contradiction</i>.</p> +<p>Warburton's [censure] <i>objections</i>.</p> +<p>His rage [for liberty] <i>of patriotism</i>.</p> +<p>Mr. Dyson with [a zeal] <i>an ardour</i> of friendship.'</p> +<p>In the Life of LYTTELTON, Johnson seems to have been not +favourably disposed towards that nobleman<a href= +"#note-193">[193]</a>. Mrs. Thrale +suggests that he was offended by <i>Molly Aston's</i><a href= +"#note-194">[194]</a> preference of his +Lordship to him[195]. I can by no means join in the censure +bestowed by Johnson on his Lordship, whom he calls 'poor +Lyttelton,' for returning thanks to the Critical Reviewers for +having 'kindly commended' his <i>Dialogues of the Dead</i>. Such +'acknowledgements (says my friend) never can be proper, since +they must be paid either for flattery or for justice.' In my +opinion, the most upright man, who has been tried on a false +accusation, may, when he is acquitted, make a bow to his jury. +And when those who are so much the arbiters of literary merit, as +in a considerable degree to influence the publick opinion, review +an authour's work, <i>placido lumine</i><a href= +"#note-196">[196]</a>, when I am afraid +mankind in general are better pleased with severity, he may +surely express a grateful sense of their civility<a href= +"#note-197">[197]</a>.</p> +<p><i>Various Readings in the Life of</i> LYTTELTON.</p> +<p>'He solaced [himself] <i>his grief</i> by writing a long poem +to her memory.</p> +<p>The production rather [of a mind that means well than thinks +vigorously] <i>as it seems of leisure than of study, rather +effusions than compositions</i>.</p> +<p>His last literary [work] <i>production</i>.</p> +<p>[Found the way] <i>undertook</i> to persuade.'</p> +<p>As the introduction to his critical examination of the genius +and writings of YOUNG, he did Mr. Herbert Croft<a href= +"#note-198">[198]</a>, then a Barrister +of Lincoln's-inn, now a clergyman, the honour to adopt<a href= +"#note-199">[199]</a> a <i>Life of +Young</i> written by that gentleman, who was the friend of Dr. +Young's son, and wished to vindicate him from some very erroneous +remarks to his prejudice. Mr. Croft's performance was subjected +to the revision of Dr. Johnson, as appears from the following +note to Mr. John Nichols<a href= +"#note-200">[200]</a>:—</p> +<p>'This <i>Life of Dr. Young</i> was written by a friend of his +son. What is crossed with black is expunged by the authour, what +is crossed with red is expunged by me. If you find any thing more +that can be well omitted, I shall not be sorry to see it yet +shorter<a href="#note-201">[201]</a>'</p> +<p>It has always appeared to me to have a considerable share of +merit, and to display a pretty successful imitation of Johnson's +style. When I mentioned this to a very eminent literary +character<a href="#note-202">[202]</a>, +he opposed me vehemently, exclaiming, 'No, no, it is <i>not</i> a +good imitation of Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; +it has all the nodosities of the oak without its strength.' This +was an image so happy, that one might have thought he would have +been satisfied with it; but he was not. And setting his mind +again to work, he added, with exquisite felicity, 'It has all the +contortions of the Sybil, without the inspiration.'</p> +<p>Mr. Croft very properly guards us against supposing that Young +was a gloomy man<a href= +"#note-203">[203]</a>; and mentions, that +'his parish was indebted to the good-humour of the authour of the +<i>Night Thoughts</i> for an Assembly and a Bowling-Green<a href= +"#note-204">[204]</a>.' A letter from a +noble foreigner is quoted, in which he is said to have been 'very +pleasant in conversation<a href= +"#note-205">[205]</a>.'</p> +<p>Mr. Langton, who frequently visited him, informs me, that +there was an air of benevolence in his manner, but that he could +obtain from him less information than he had hoped to receive +from one who had lived so much in intercourse with the brightest +men of what has been called the Augustan age of England; and that +he shewed a degree of eager curiosity concerning the common +occurrences that were then passing, which appeared somewhat +remarkable in a man of such intellectual stores, of such an +advanced age, and who had retired from life with declared +disappointment in his expectations.</p> +<p>An instance at once of his pensive turn of mind, and his +cheerfulness of temper, appeared in a little story which he +himself told to Mr. Langton, when they were walking in his +garden: 'Here (said he) I had put a handsome sun-dial, with this +inscription, <i>Eheu fugaces!</i><a href= +"#note-206">[206]</a> which (speaking +with a smile) was sadly verified, for by the next morning my dial +had been carried off.'<a href= +"#note-207">[207]</a></p> +<p>'It gives me much pleasure to observe, that however Johnson +may have casually talked,<a href= +"#note-208">[208]</a> yet when he sits, +as "an ardent judge zealous to his trust, giving sentence" <a +href="#note-209">[209]</a> upon the +excellent works of Young, he allows them the high praise to which +they are justly entitled. "The <i>Universal Passion</i> (says he) +is indeed a very great performance,—his distichs have the +weight of solid sentiment, and his points the sharpness of +resistless truth."'<a href= +"#note-210">[210]</a></p> +<p>But I was most anxious concerning Johnson's decision upon +<i>Night Thoughts</i>, which I esteem as a mass of the grandest +and richest poetry that human genius has ever produced; and was +delighted to find this character of that work: 'In his <i>Night +Thoughts</i>, he has exhibited a very wide display of original +poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions; +a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters +flowers of every hue and of every odour. This is one of the few +poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhime but +with disadvantage.'<a href= +"#note-211">[211]</a> And afterwards, +'Particular lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the +whole; and in the whole there is a magnificence like that +ascribed to Chinese plantation<a href= +"#note-212">[212]</a>, the magnificence +of vast extent and endless diversity.'</p> +<p>But there is in this Poem not only all that Johnson so well +brings in view, but a power of the <i>Pathetick</i> beyond almost +any example that I have seen. He who does not feel his nerves +shaken, and his heart pierced by many passages in this +extraordinary work, particularly by that most affecting one, +which describes the gradual torment suffered by the contemplation +of an object of affectionate attachment, visibly and certainly +decaying into dissolution, must be of a hard and obstinate +frame<a href="#note-213">[213]</a>.</p> +<p>To all the other excellencies of <i>Night Thoughts</i> let me +add the great and peculiar one, that they contain not only the +noblest sentiments of virtue, and contemplations on immortality, +but the <i>Christian Sacrifice</i>, the <i>Divine +Propitiation</i>, with all its interesting circumstances, and +consolations to 'a wounded spirit<a href= +"#note-214">[214]</a>,' solemnly and +poetically displayed in such imagery and language, as cannot fail +to exalt, animate, and soothe the truly pious. No book whatever +can be recommended to young persons, with better hopes of +seasoning their minds with <i>vital religion</i>, than YOUNG'S +<i>Night Thoughts</i>.</p> +<p>In the Life of SWIFT, it appears to me that Johnson had a +certain degree of prejudice against that extraordinary man, of +which I have elsewhere had occasion to speak<a href= +"#note-215">[215]</a>. Mr. Thomas +Sheridan imputed it to a supposed apprehension in Johnson, that +Swift had not been sufficiently active in obtaining for him an +Irish degree when it was solicited<a href= +"#note-216">[216]</a>, but of this there +was not sufficient evidence; and let me not presume to charge +Johnson with injustice, because he did not think so highly of the +writings of this authour, as I have done from my youth upwards. +Yet that he had an unfavourable bias is evident, were it only +from that passage in which he speaks of Swift's practice of +saving, as, 'first ridiculous and at last detestable;' and yet +after some examination of circumstances, finds himself obliged to +own, that 'it will perhaps appear that he only liked one mode of +expence better than another, and saved merely that he might have +something to give<a href= +"#note-217">[217]</a>.'</p> +<p>One observation which Johnson makes in Swift's life should be +often inculcated:—</p> +<p>'It may be justly supposed, that there was in his conversation +what appears so frequently in his letters, an affectation of +familiarity with the great, an ambition of momentary equality, +sought and enjoyed by the neglect of those ceremonies which +custom has established as the barriers between one order of +society and another. This transgression of regularity was by +himself and his admirers termed greatness of soul; but a great +mind disdains to hold any thing by courtesy, and therefore never +usurps what a lawful claimant may take away. He that encroaches +on another's dignity puts himself in his power; he is either +repelled with helpless indignity, or endured by clemency and +condescension<a href= +"#note-218">[218]</a>.'</p> +<p><i>Various Readings in the Life of Swift</i>.</p> +<p>'Charity may be persuaded to think that it might be written by +a man of <i>a</i> peculiar [opinions] <i>character</i>, without +ill intention.</p> +<p>He did not [disown] <i>deny</i> it.</p> +<p>'[To] <i>by</i> whose kindness it is not unlikely that he was +[indebted for] <i>advanced to</i> his benefices.</p> +<p>[With] <i>for</i> this purpose he had recourse to Mr. +Harley.</p> +<p>Sharpe, whom he [represents] <i>describes</i> as "the harmless +tool of others' hate."</p> +<p>Harley was slow because he was [irresolute] +<i>doubtful</i>.</p> +<p>When [readers were not many] <i>we were not yet a nation of +readers</i>.</p> +<p>[Every man who] <i>he that could say he</i> knew him.</p> +<p>Every man of known influence has so many [more] petitions +[than] <i>which</i> he [can] <i>cannot</i> grant, that he must +necessarily offend more than he [can gratify] +<i>gratifies</i>.</p> +<p>Ecclesiastical [preferments] <i>benefices</i>.</p> +<p>'Swift [procured] <i>contrived</i> an interview.</p> +<p>[As a writer] <i>In his works</i> he has given very different +specimens.</p> +<p>On all common occasions he habitually [assumes] <i>affects</i> +a style of [superiority] <i>arrogance</i>.</p> +<p>By the [omission] <i>neglect</i> of those ceremonies.</p> +<p>That their merits filled the world [and] <i>or that</i> there +was no [room for] <i>hope of</i> more.'</p> +<p>I have not confined myself to the order of the <i>Lives</i>, +in making my few remarks. Indeed a different order is observed in +the original publication, and in the collection of Johnson's +<i>Works</i>. And should it be objected, that many of my various +readings are inconsiderable, those who make the objection will be +pleased to consider, that such small particulars are intended for +those who are nicely critical in composition, to whom they will +be an acceptable selection<a href= +"#note-219">[219]</a>.</p> +<p><i>Spence's Anecdotes</i>, which are frequently quoted and +referred to in Johnson's <i>Lives of the Poets</i>, are in a +manuscript collection, made by the Reverend Mr. Joseph Spence<a +href="#note-220">[220]</a>, containing a +number of particulars concerning eminent men. To each anecdote is +marked the name of the person on whose authority it is mentioned. +This valuable collection is the property of the Duke of +Newcastle, who upon the application of Sir Lucas Pepys, was +pleased to permit it to be put into the hands of Dr. Johnson, who +I am sorry to think made but an aukward return. 'Great assistance +(says he) has been given me by Mr. Spence's Collection, of which +I consider the communication as a favour worthy of publick +acknowledgement<a href= +"#note-221">[221]</a>;' but he has not +owned to whom he was obliged; so that the acknowledgement is +unappropriated to his Grace.</p> +<p>While the world in general was filled with admiration of +Johnson's <i>Lives of the Poets</i>, there were narrow circles in +which prejudice and resentment were fostered, and from which +attacks of different sorts issued against him<a href= +"#note-222">[222]</a>. By some violent +Whigs he was arraigned of injustice to Milton; by some Cambridge +men of depreciating Gray; and his expressing with a dignified +freedom what he really thought of George, Lord Lyttelton, gave +offence to some of the friends of that nobleman, and particularly +produced a declaration of war against him from Mrs. Montagu, the +ingenious Essayist on Shakspeare, between whom and his Lordship a +commerce of reciprocal compliments had long been carried on<a +href="#note-223">[223]</a>. In this war +the smaller powers in alliance with him were of course led to +engage, at least on the defensive, and thus I for one was +excluded from the enjoyment of 'A Feast of Reason,' such as Mr. +Cumberland has described, with a keen, yet just and delicate pen, +in his <i>Observer</i><a href= +"#note-224">[224]</a>. These minute +inconveniencies gave not the least disturbance to Johnson. He +nobly said, when I talked to him of the feeble, though shrill +outcry which had been raised, 'Sir, I considered myself as +entrusted with a certain portion of truth. I have given my +opinion sincerely; let them shew where they think me wrong<a +href="#note-225">[225]</a>.'</p> +<p>While my friend is thus contemplated in the splendour derived +from his last and perhaps most admirable work, I introduce him +with peculiar propriety as the correspondent of WARREN HASTINGS! +a man whose regard reflects dignity even upon JOHNSON; a man, the +extent of whose abilities was equal to that of his power; and +who, by those who are fortunate enough to know him in private +life, is admired for his literature and taste, and beloved for +the candour, moderation, and mildness of his character. Were I +capable of paying a suitable tribute of admiration to him, I +should certainly not withhold it at a moment<a href= +"#note-226">[226]</a> when it is not +possible that I should be suspected of being an interested +flatterer. But how weak would be my voice after that of the +millions whom he governed. His condescending and obliging +compliance with my solicitation, I with humble gratitude +acknowledge; and while by publishing his letter to me, +accompanying the valuable communication, I do eminent honour to +my great friend, I shall entirely disregard any invidious +suggestions, that as I in some degree participate in the honour, +I have, at the same time, the gratification of my own vanity in +view.</p> +<p>'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. Park Lane, Dec. 2, 1790.</p> +<center>SIR,</center> +<p>I have been fortunately spared the troublesome suspense of a +long search, to which, in performance of my promise, I had +devoted this morning, by lighting upon the objects of it among +the first papers that I laid my hands on: my veneration for your +great and good friend, Dr. Johnson, and the pride, or I hope +something of a better sentiment, which I indulged in possessing +such memorials of his good will towards me, having induced me to +bind them in a parcel containing other select papers, and +labelled with the titles appertaining to them. They consist but +of three letters, which I believe were all that I ever received +from Dr. Johnson. Of these, one, which was written in +quadruplicate, under the different dates of its respective +dispatches, has already been made publick<a href= +"#note-227">[227]</a>, but not from any +communication of mine. This, however, I have joined to the rest; +and have now the pleasure of sending them to you for the use to +which you informed me it was your desire to destine them.</p> +<p>'My promise was pledged with the condition, that if the +letters were found to contain any thing which should render them +improper for the publick eye, you would dispense with the +performance of it. You will have the goodness, I am sure, to +pardon my recalling this stipulation to your recollection, as I +should be both to appear negligent of that obligation which is +always implied in an epistolary confidence. In the reservation of +that right I have read them over with the most scrupulous +attention, but have not seen in them the slightest cause on that +ground to withhold them from you. But, though not on that, yet on +another ground I own I feel a little, yet but a little, +reluctance to part with them: I mean on that of my own credit, +which I fear will suffer by the information conveyed by them, +that I was early in the possession of such valuable instructions +for the beneficial employment of the influence of my late +station, and (as it may seem) have so little availed myself of +them. Whether I could, if it were necessary, defend myself +against such an imputation, it little concerns the world to know. +I look only to the effect which these relicks may produce, +considered as evidences of the virtues of their authour: and +believing that they will be found to display an uncommon warmth +of private friendship, and a mind ever attentive to the +improvement and extension of useful knowledge, and solicitous for +the interests of mankind, I can cheerfully submit to the little +sacrifice of my own fame, to contribute to the illustration of so +great and venerable a character. They cannot be better applied, +for that end, than by being entrusted to your hands. Allow me, +with this offering, to infer from it a proof of the very great +esteem with which I have the honour to profess myself, Sir,</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + Your most obedient + And most humble servant, + 'WARREN HASTINGS.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>'<i>P.S</i>. At some future time, and when you have no further +occasion for these papers, I shall be obliged to you if you would +return them.'</p> +<p>The last of the three letters thus graciously put into my +hands, and which has already appeared in publick, belongs to this +year; but I shall previously insert the first two in the order of +their dates. They altogether form a grand group in my +biographical picture.</p> +<center>TO THE HONOURABLE WARREN HASTINGS, ESQ.</center> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>Though I have had but little personal knowledge of you, I have +had enough to make me wish for more; and though it be now a long +time since I was honoured by your visit, I had too much pleasure +from it to forget it. By those whom we delight to remember, we +are unwilling to be forgotten; and therefore I cannot omit this +opportunity of reviving myself in your memory by a letter which +you will receive from the hands of my friend Mr. Chambers<a href= +"#note-228">[228]</a>; a man, whose +purity of manners and vigour of mind are sufficient to make every +thing welcome that he brings.</p> +<p>That this is my only reason for writing, will be too apparent +by the uselessness of my letter to any other purpose. I have no +questions to ask; not that I want curiosity after either the +ancient or present state of regions in which have been seen all +the power and splendour of wide-extended empire; and which, as by +some grant of natural superiority, supply the rest of the world +with almost all that pride desires and luxury enjoys. But my +knowledge of them is too scanty to furnish me with proper topicks +of enquiry; I can only wish for information; and hope, that a +mind comprehensive like yours will find leisure, amidst the cares +of your important station, to enquire into many subjects of which +the European world either thinks not at all, or thinks with +deficient intelligence and uncertain conjecture. I shall hope, +that he who once intended to increase the learning of his country +by the introduction of the Persian language<a href= +"#note-229">[229]</a>, will examine +nicely the traditions and histories of the East; that he will +survey the wonders of its ancient edifices, and trace the +vestiges of its ruined cities; and that, at his return, we shall +know the arts and opinions of a race of men, from whom very +little has been hitherto derived.</p> +<p>You, Sir, have no need of being told by me, how much may be +added by your attention and patronage to experimental knowledge +and natural history. There are arts of manufacture practised in +the countries in which you preside, which are yet very +imperfectly known here, either to artificers or philosophers. Of +the natural productions, animate and inanimate, we yet have so +little intelligence, that our books are filled, I fear, with +conjectures about things which an Indian peasant knows by his +senses.</p> +<p>Many of those things my first wish is to see; my second to +know, by such accounts as a man like you will be able to +give.</p> +<p>As I have not skill to ask proper questions, I have likewise +no such access to great men as can enable me to send you any +political information. Of the agitations of an unsettled +government, and the struggles of a feeble ministry<a href= +"#note-230">[230]</a>, care is doubtless +taken to give you more exact accounts than I can obtain. If you +are inclined to interest yourself much in publick transactions, +it is no misfortune to you to be so distant from them.</p> +<p>That literature is not totally forsaking us, and that your +favourite language is not neglected, will appear from the book<a +href="#note-231">[231]</a>, which I +should have pleased myself more with sending, if I could have +presented it bound: but time was wanting. I beg, however, Sir, +that you will accept it from a man very desirous of your regard; +and that if you think me able to gratify you by any thing more +important you will employ me.</p> +<p>I am now going to take leave, perhaps a very long leave, of my +dear Mr. Chambers. That he is going to live where you govern, may +justly alleviate the regret of parting; and the hope of seeing +both him and you again, which I am not willing to mingle with +doubt, must at present comfort as it can, Sir, Your most humble +servant,</p> +<center>SAM. JOHNSON.</center> +<p>March 30, 1774.'</p> +<p>To THE SAME.</p> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>Being informed that by the departure of a ship, there is now +an opportunity of writing to Bengal, I am unwilling to slip out +of your memory by my own negligence, and therefore take the +liberty of reminding you of my existence, by sending you a book +which is not yet made publick.</p> +<p>I have lately visited a region less remote, and less +illustrious than India, which afforded some occasions for +speculation; what has occurred to me, I have put into the +volume<a href="#note-232">[232]</a>, of +which I beg your acceptance.</p> +<p>Men in your station seldom have presents totally +disinterested; my book is received, let me now make my +request.</p> +<p>There is, Sir, somewhere within your government, a young +adventurer, one Chauncey Lawrence, whose father is one of my +oldest friends. Be pleased to shew the young man what countenance +is fit, whether he wants to be restrained by your authority, or +encouraged by your favour. His father is now President of the +College of Physicians, a man venerable for his knowledge, and +more venerable for his virtue<a href= +"#note-233">[233]</a>.</p> +<p>I wish you a prosperous government, a safe return, and a long +enjoyment of plenty and tranquillity.</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + I am, Sir, + Your most obedient + And most humble servant, + SAM. JOHNSON<a href= +"#note-234">234</a>. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>London, Dec. 20, 1774.'</p> +<center>TO THE SAME.</center> +<p>'Jan. 9, 1781.</p> +<p>Sir,</p> +<p>Amidst the importance and multiplicity of affairs in which +your great office engages you, I take the liberty of recalling +your attention for a moment to literature, and will not prolong +the interruption by an apology which your character makes +needless.</p> +<p>Mr. Hoole, a gentleman long known, and long esteemed in the +India-House, after having translated Tasso<a href= +"#note-235">[235]</a>, has undertaken +Ariosto. How well he is qualified for his undertaking he has +already shewn. He is desirous, Sir, of your favour in promoting +his proposals, and flatters me by supposing that my testimony may +advance his interest.</p> +<p>It is a new thing for a clerk of the India-House to translate +poets; —it is new for a Governour of Bengal to patronize +learning. That he may find his ingenuity rewarded, and that +learning may flourish under your protection, is the wish of, Sir, +Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>I wrote to him in February, complaining of having been +troubled by a recurrence of the perplexing question of Liberty +and Necessity;—and mentioning that I hoped soon to meet him +again in London.</p> +<p>'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</p> +<center>DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>I hoped you had got rid of all this hypocrisy of misery. What +have you to do with Liberty and Necessity<a href= +"#note-236">[236]</a>? Or what more than +to hold your tongue about it? Do not doubt but I shall be most +heartily glad to see you here again, for I love every part about +you but your affectation of distress.</p> +<p>I have at last finished my <i>Lives</i>, and have laid up for +you a load of copy<a href= +"#note-237">[237]</a>, all out of order, +so that it will amuse you a long time to set it right. Come to +me, my dear Bozzy, and let us be as happy as we can. We will go +again to the Mitre, and talk old times over.</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + I am, dear Sir, + Yours affectionately, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>March, 14, 1781.</p> +<p>On Monday, March 19, I arrived in London, and on Tuesday, the +20th, met him in Fleet-street, walking, or rather indeed moving +along; for his peculiar march is thus described in a very just +and picturesque manner, in a short Life<a href= +"#note-238">[238]</a> of him published +very soon after his death:—'When he walked the streets, +what with the constant roll of his head, and the concomitant +motion of his body, he appeared to make his way by that motion, +independent of his feet.' That he was often much stared at while +he advanced in this manner, may easily be believed; but it was +not safe to make sport of one so robust as he was. Mr. Langton +saw him one day, in a fit of absence, by a sudden start, drive +the load off a porter's back, and walk forward briskly, without +being conscious of what he had done.</p> +<p>The porter was very angry, but stood still, and eyed the huge +figure with much earnestness, till he was satisfied that his +wisest course was to be quiet, and take up his burthen again.</p> +<p>Our accidental meeting in the street after a long separation +was a pleasing surprize to us both. He stepped aside with me into +Falcon-court, and made kind inquiries about my family, and as we +were in a hurry going different ways, I promised to call on him +next day; he said he was engaged to go out in the morning. +'Early, Sir?' said I. JOHNSON: 'Why, Sir, a London morning does +not go with the sun.'</p> +<p>I waited on him next evening, and he gave me a great portion +of his original manuscript of his <i>Lives of the Poets</i>, +which he had preserved for me.</p> +<p>I found on visiting his friend, Mr. Thrale, that he was now +very ill, and had removed, I suppose by the solicitation of Mrs. +Thrale, to a house in Grosvenor-square<a href= +"#note-239">[239]</a>. I was sorry to see +him sadly changed in his appearance.</p> +<p>He told me I might now have the pleasure to see Dr. Johnson +drink wine again, for he had lately returned to it. When I +mentioned this to Johnson, he said, 'I drink it now sometimes, +but not socially.' The first evening that I was with him at +Thrale's, I observed he poured a large quantity of it into a +glass, and swallowed it greedily. Every thing about his character +and manners was forcible and violent; there never was any +moderation; many a day did he fast, many a year did he refrain +from wine; but when he did eat, it was voraciously; when he did +drink wine, it was copiously. He could practise abstinence, but +not temperance<a href= +"#note-240">[240]</a>.</p> +<p>Mrs. Thrale and I had a dispute, whether Shakspeare or Milton +had drawn the most admirable picture of a man<a href= +"#note-241">[241]</a>. I was for +Shakspeare; Mrs. Thrale for Milton; and after a fair hearing, +Johnson decided for my opinion.</p> +<p>I told him of one of Mr. Burke's playful sallies upon Dean +Marlay<a href="#note-242">[242]</a>: 'I +don't like the Deanery of <i>Ferns</i>, it sounds so like a +<i>barren</i> title.'—'Dr. Heath should have it;' said I. +Johnson laughed, and condescending to trifle in the same mode of +conceit, suggested Dr. <i>Moss</i><a href= +"#note-243">[243]</a>.</p> +<p>He said, 'Mrs. Montagu has dropt me. Now, Sir, there are +people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish +to be dropped by<a href= +"#note-244">[244]</a>.' He certainly was +vain of the society of ladies, and could make himself very +agreeable to them, when he chose it; Sir Joshua Reynolds agreed +with me that he could. Mr. Gibbon, with his usual sneer, +controverted it, perhaps in resentment of Johnson's having talked +with some disgust of his ugliness<a href= +"#note-245">[245]</a>, which one would +think a <i>philosopher</i> would not mind. Dean Marlay wittily +observed, 'A lady may be vain, when she can turn a wolf-dog into +a lap-dog.'</p> +<p>The election for Ayrshire, my own county, was this spring +tried upon a petition, before a Committee of the House of +Commons. I was one of the Counsel for the sitting member, and +took the liberty of previously stating different points to +Johnson, who never failed to see them clearly, and to supply me +with some good hints. He dictated to me the following note upon +the registration of deeds:—</p> +<p>'All laws are made for the convenience of the community: what +is legally done, should be legally recorded, that the state of +things may be known, and that wherever evidence is requisite, +evidence may be had. For this reason, the obligation to frame and +establish a legal register is enforced by a legal penalty, which +penalty is the want of that perfection and plentitude of right +which a register would give. Thence it follows, that this is not +an objection merely legal: for the reason on which the law stands +being equitable, makes it an equitable objection.'</p> +<p>'This (said he) you must enlarge on, when speaking to the +Committee. You must not argue there as if you were arguing in the +schools<a href="#note-246">[246]</a>; +close reasoning will not fix their attention; you must say the +same thing over and over again, in different words. If you say it +but once, they miss it in a moment of inattention. It is unjust, +Sir, to censure lawyers for multiplying words when they argue; it +is often necessary for them to multiply words<a href= +"#note-247">[247]</a>.' His notion of the +duty of a member of Parliament, sitting upon an +election-committee<a href= +"#note-248">[248]</a>, was very high; and +when he was told of a gentleman upon one of those committees, who +read the newspapers part of the time, and slept the rest, while +the merits of a vote were examined by the counsel; and as an +excuse, when challenged by the chairman for such behaviour, +bluntly answered, 'I had made up my mind upon that +case;'—Johnson, with an indignant contempt, said, 'If he +was such a rogue as to make up his mind upon a case without +hearing it, he should not have been such a fool as to tell it.' +'I think (said Mr. Dudley Long<a href= +"#note-249">[249]</a>, now North) the +Doctor has pretty plainly made him out to be both rogue and +fool.'</p> +<p>Johnson's profound reverence for the Hierarchy<a href= +"#note-250">[250]</a> made him expect +from bishops the highest degree of decorum; he was offended even +at their going to taverns; 'A bishop (said he) has nothing to do +at a tippling-house. It is not indeed immoral in him to go to a +tavern; neither would it be immoral in him to whip a top in +Grosvenor-square. But, if he did, I hope the boys would fall upon +him, and apply the whip to <i>him</i>. There are gradations in +conduct; there is morality,—decency,—propriety. None +of these should be violated by a bishop. A bishop should not go +to a house where he may meet a young fellow leading out a wench.' +BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, every tavern does not admit women.' JOHNSON. +'Depend upon it, Sir, any tavern will admit a well-drest man and +a well-drest woman; they will not perhaps admit a woman whom they +see every night walking by their door, in the street. But a +well-drest man may lead in a well-drest woman to any tavern in +London. Taverns sell meat and drink, and will sell them to any +body who can eat and can drink. You may as well say that a mercer +will not sell silks to a woman of the town.'</p> +<p>He also disapproved of bishops going to routs, at least of +their staying at them longer than their presence commanded +respect. He mentioned a particular bishop. 'Poh! (said Mrs. +Thrale) the Bishop of ——<a href= +"#note-251">[251]</a> is never minded at +a rout.' BOSWELL. 'When a bishop places himself in a situation +where he has no distinct character, and is of no consequence, he +degrades the dignity of his order.' JOHNSON. 'Mr. Boswell, Madam, +has said it as correctly as it could be.'</p> +<p>Nor was it only in the dignitaries of the Church that Johnson +required a particular decorum and delicacy of behaviour; he +justly considered that the clergy, as persons set apart for the +sacred office of serving at the altar, and impressing the minds +of men with the aweful concerns of a future state, should be +somewhat more serious than the generality of mankind, and have a +suitable composure of manners. A due sense of the dignity of +their profession, independent of higher motives, will ever +prevent them from losing their distinction in an indiscriminate +sociality; and did such as affect this, know how much it lessens +them in the eyes of those whom they think to please by it, they +would feel themselves much mortified.</p> +<p>Johnson and his friend, Beauclerk, were once together in +company with several clergymen, who thought that they should +appear to advantage, by assuming the lax jollity of <i>men of the +world;</i> which, as it may be observed in similar cases, they +carried to noisy excess. Johnson, who they expected would be +<i>entertained,</i> sat grave and silent for some time; at last, +turning to Beauclerk, he said, by no means in a whisper, 'This +merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.'</p> +<p>Even the dress of a clergyman should be in character, and +nothing can be more despicable than conceited attempts at +avoiding the appearance of the clerical order; attempts, which +are as ineffectual as they are pitiful. Dr. Porteus, now Bishop +of London, in his excellent charge when presiding over the +diocese of Chester, justly animadverts upon this subject; and +observes of a reverend fop, that he 'can be but <i>half a +beau</i><a href= +"#note-252">[252]</a>.'</p> +<p>Addison, in <i>The Spectator</i><a href= +"#note-253">[253]</a>, has given us a +fine portrait of a clergyman, who is supposed to be a member of +his <i>Club</i>; and Johnson has exhibited a model, in the +character of Mr. Mudge<a href= +"#note-254">[254]</a>, which has escaped +the collectors of his works, but which he owned to me, and which +indeed he shewed to Sir Joshua Reynolds at the time when it was +written. It bears the genuine marks of Johnson's best manner, and +is as follows<a href= +"#note-255">[255]</a>:—</p> +<p>'The Reverend Mr. <i>Zacariah Mudge</i>, Prebendary of Exeter, +and Vicar of St. Andrew's in Plymouth; a man equally eminent for +his virtues and abilities, and at once beloved as a companion and +reverenced as a pastor. He had that general curiosity to which no +kind of knowledge is indifferent or superfluous; and that general +benevolence by which no order of men is hated or despised.</p> +<p>His principles both of thought and action were great and +comprehensive. By a solicitous examination of objections, and +judicious comparison of opposite arguments, he attained what +enquiry never gives but to industry and perspicuity, a firm and +unshaken settlement of conviction. But his firmness was without +asperity; for, knowing with how much difficulty truth was +sometimes found, he did not wonder that many missed it.</p> +<p>The general course of his life was determined by his +profession; he studied the sacred volumes in the original +languages; with what diligence and success, his <i>Notes upon the +Psalms</i> give sufficient evidence. He once endeavoured to add +the knowledge of Arabick to that of Hebrew; but finding his +thoughts too much diverted from other studies, after some time +desisted from his purpose.</p> +<p>His discharge of parochial duties was exemplary. How his +<i>Sermons</i><a href= +"#note-256">[256]</a> were composed, may +be learned from the excellent volume which he has given to the +publick; but how they were delivered, can be known only to those +that heard them; for as he appeared in the pulpit, words will not +easily describe him. His delivery, though unconstrained was not +negligent, and though forcible was not turbulent; disdaining +anxious nicety of emphasis, and laboured artifice of action, it +captivated the hearer by its natural dignity, it roused the +sluggish, and fixed the volatile, and detained the mind upon the +subject, without directing it to the speaker.</p> +<p>The grandeur and solemnity of the preacher did not intrude +upon his general behaviour; at the table of his friends he was a +companion communicative and attentive, of unaffected manners, of +manly cheerfulness, willing to please, and easy to be pleased. +His acquaintance was universally solicited, and his presence +obstructed no enjoyment which religion did not forbid. Though +studious he was popular; though argumentative he was modest; +though inflexible he was candid; and though metaphysical yet +orthodox<a href= +"#note-257">[257]</a>.'</p> +<p>On Friday, March 30, I dined with him at Sir Joshua +Reynolds's, with the Earl of Charlemont, Sir Annesley Stewart, +Mr. Eliot of Port-Eliot, Mr. Burke, Dean Marlay, Mr. Langton; a +most agreeable day, of which I regret that every circumstance is +not preserved; but it is unreasonable to require such a +multiplication of felicity.</p> +<p>Mr. Eliot, with whom Dr. Walter Harte had travelled<a href= +"#note-258">[258]</a>, talked to us of +his <i>History of Gustavus Adolphus</i>, which he said was a very +good book in the German translation. JOHNSON. 'Harte was +excessively vain. He put copies of his book in manuscript into +the hands of Lord Chesterfield and Lord Granville, that they +might revise it. Now how absurd was it to suppose that two such +noblemen would revise so big a manuscript. Poor man! he left +London the day of the publication of his book, that he might be +out of the way of the great praise he was to receive; and he was +ashamed to return, when he found how ill his book had succeeded. +It was unlucky in coming out on the same day with Robertson's +<i>History of Scotland</i><a href= +"#note-259">[259]</a>. His +husbandry[260], however, is good.' BOSWELL. 'So he was fitter for +that than for heroick history: he did well, when he turned his +sword into a plough-share.'</p> +<p>Mr. Eliot mentioned a curious liquor peculiar to his country, +which the Cornish fishermen drink. They call it <i>Mahogany</i>; +and it is made of two parts gin, and one part treacle, well +beaten together. I begged to have some of it made, which was done +with proper skill by Mr. Eliot. I thought it very good liquor; +and said it was a counterpart of what is called <i>Athol +Porridge</i> in the Highlands of Scotland, which is a mixture of +whisky and honey. Johnson said, 'that must be a better liquor +than the Cornish, for both its component parts are better.' He +also observed, '<i>Mahogany</i> must be a modern name; for it is +not long since the wood called mahogany was known in this +country.' I mentioned his scale of liquors<a href= +"#note-261">[261]</a>;—claret for +boys—port for men—brandy for heroes. 'Then (said Mr. +Burke) let me have claret: I love to be a boy; to have the +careless gaiety of boyish days.' JOHNSON. 'I should drink claret +too, if it would give me that; but it does not: it neither makes +boys men, nor men boys. You'll be drowned by it, before it has +any effect upon you.'</p> +<p>I ventured to mention a ludicrous paragraph in the newspapers, +that Dr. Johnson was learning to dance of Vestris<a href= +"#note-262">[262]</a>. Lord Charlemont, +wishing to excite him to talk, proposed in a whisper, that he +should be asked, whether it was true. 'Shall I ask him?' said his +Lordship. We were, by a great majority, clear for the experiment. +Upon which his Lordship very gravely, and with a courteous air +said, 'Pray, Sir, is it true that you are taking lessons of +Vestris?' This was risking a good deal, and required the boldness +of a General of Irish Volunteers to make the attempt. Johnson was +at first startled, and in some heat answered, 'How can your +Lordship ask so simple a question?' But immediately recovering +himself, whether from unwillingness to be deceived, or to appear +deceived, or whether from real good humour, he kept up the joke: +'Nay, but if any body were to answer the paragraph, and +contradict it, I'd have a reply, and would say, that he who +contradicted it was no friend either to Vestris or me. For why +should not Dr.<a href= +"#note-263">[263]</a> Johnson add to his +other powers a little corporeal agility? Socrates learnt to dance +at an advanced age, and Cato learnt Greek at an advanced age. +Then it might proceed to say, that this Johnson, not content with +dancing on the ground, might dance on the rope; and they might +introduce the elephant dancing on the rope. A nobleman<a href= +"#note-264">[264]</a> wrote a play, +called <i>Love in a hollow Tree</i>. He found out that it was a +bad one, and therefore wished to buy up all the copies, and burn +them. The Duchess of Marlborough had kept one; and when he was +against her at an election, she had a new edition of it printed, +and prefixed to it, as a frontispiece, an elephant dancing on a +rope; to shew, that his Lordship's writing comedy was as aukward +as an elephant dancing on a rope<a href= +"#note-265">[265]</a>.'</p> +<p>On Sunday, April 1, I dined with him at Mr. Thrale's, with Sir +Philip Jennings Clerk and Mr. Perkins<a href= +"#note-266">[266]</a>, who had the +superintendence of Mr. Thrale's brewery, with a salary of five +hundred pounds a year. Sir Philip had the appearance of a +gentleman of ancient family, well advanced in life. He wore his +own white hair in a bag of goodly size, a black velvet coat, with +an embroidered waistcoat, and very rich laced ruffles; which Mrs. +Thrale said were old fashioned, but which, for that reason, I +thought the more respectable, more like a Tory; yet Sir Philip +was then in Opposition in Parliament<a href= +"#note-267">[267]</a>. 'Ah, Sir, (said +Johnson,) ancient ruffles and modern principles do not agree.' +Sir Philip defended the Opposition to the American war ably and +with temper, and I joined him. He said, the majority of the +nation was against the ministry. JOHNSON. '<i>I</i>, Sir, am +against the ministry<a href= +"#note-268">[268]</a>; but it is for +having too little of that, of which Opposition thinks they have +too much. Were I minister, if any man wagged his finger against +me, he should be turned out<a href= +"#note-269">[269]</a>; for that which it +is in the power of Government to give at pleasure to one or to +another, should be given to the supporters of Government. If you +will not oppose at the expence of losing your place, your +opposition will not be honest, you will feel no serious +grievance; and the present opposition is only a contest to get +what others have. Sir Robert Walpole acted as I would do. As to +the American war, the <i>sense</i> of the nation is <i>with</i> +the ministry. The majority of those who can <i>understand</i> is +with it; the majority of those who can only <i>hear</i>, is +against it; and as those who can only hear are more numerous than +those who can understand, and Opposition is always loudest, a +majority of the rabble will be for Opposition.'</p> +<p>This boisterous vivacity entertained us; but the truth in my +opinion was, that those who could understand the best were +against the American war, as almost every man now is, when the +question has been coolly considered.</p> +<p>Mrs. Thrale gave high praise to Mr. Dudley Long, (now North). +JOHNSON. 'Nay, my dear lady, don't talk so. Mr. Long's character +is very <i>short</i>. It is nothing. He fills a chair. He is a +man of genteel appearance, and that is all<a href= +"#note-270">[270]</a>. I know nobody who +blasts by praise as you do: for whenever there is exaggerated +praise, every body is set against a character. They are provoked +to attack it. Now there is Pepys<a href= +"#note-271">[271]</a>; you praised that +man with such disproportion, that I was incited to lessen him, +perhaps more than he deserves<a href= +"#note-272">[272]</a>. His blood is upon +your head<a href="#note-273">[273]</a>. +By the same principle, your malice defeats itself; for your +censure is too violent. And yet (looking to her with a leering +smile) she is the first woman in the world, could she but +restrain that wicked tongue of hers;—she would be the only +woman, could she but command that little whirligig<a href= +"#note-274">[274]</a>.'</p> +<p>Upon the subject of exaggerated praise I took the liberty to +say, that I thought there might be very high praise given to a +known character which deserved it, and therefore it would not be +exaggerated. Thus, one might say of Mr. Edmund Burke, He is a +very wonderful man. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, you would not be safe if +another man had a mind perversely to contradict. He might answer, +"Where is all the wonder? Burke is, to be sure, a man of uncommon +abilities, with a great quantity of matter in his mind, and a +great fluency of language in his mouth. But we are not to be +stunned and astonished by him." So you see, Sir, even Burke would +suffer, not from any fault of his own, but from your folly.'</p> +<p>Mrs. Thrale mentioned a gentleman who had acquired a fortune +of four thousand a year in trade, but was absolutely miserable, +because he could not talk in company; so miserable, that he was +impelled to lament his situation in the street to +——<a href= +"#note-275">[275]</a>, whom he hates, and +who he knows despises him. 'I am a most unhappy man (said he). I +am invited to conversations. I go to conversations; but, alas! I +have no conversation.' JOHNSON. 'Man commonly cannot be +successful in different ways. This gentleman has spent, in +getting four thousand pounds a year, the time in which he might +have learnt to talk; and now he cannot talk.' Mr. Perkins made a +shrewd and droll remark: 'If he had got his four thousand a year +as a mountebank, he might have learnt to talk at the same time +that he was getting his fortune.'</p> +<p>Some other gentlemen came in. The conversation concerning the +person whose character Dr. Johnson had treated so slightingly, as +he did not know his merit, was resumed. Mrs. Thrale said, 'You +think so of him, Sir, because he is quiet, and does not exert +himself with force. You'll be saying the same thing of Mr. +—— there, who sits as quiet—.' This was not +well-bred; and Johnson did not let it pass without correction. +'Nay, Madam, what right have you to talk thus? Both Mr. +—— and I have reason to take it ill. <i>You</i> may +talk so of Mr. ——; but why do you make <i>me</i> do +it. Have I said anything against Mr. ——? You have +<i>set</i> him, that I might shoot him: but I have not shot +him.'</p> +<p>One of the gentlemen said, he had seen three folio volumes of +Dr. Johnson's sayings collected by me. 'I must put you right, +Sir, (said I;) for I am very exact in authenticity. You could not +see folio volumes, for I have none: you might have seen some in +quarto and octavo. This is inattention which one should guard +against.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is a want of concern about veracity. +He does not know that he saw <i>any</i> volumes. If he had seen +them he could have remembered their size<a href= +"#note-276">[276]</a>.'</p> +<p>Mr. Thrale appeared very lethargick to-day. I saw him again on +Monday evening, at which time he was not thought to be in +immediate danger; but early in the morning of Wednesday, the +4th<a href="#note-277">[277]</a>, he +expired[278]. Johnson was in the house, and thus mentions the +event: 'I felt almost the last flutter of his pulse, and looked +for the last time upon the face that for fifteen years had never +been turned upon me but with respect and benignity<a href= +"#note-279">[279]</a>.' Upon that day +there was a Call of the LITERARY CLUB; but Johnson apologised for +his absence by the following note:—</p> +<p>'MR. JOHNSON knows that Sir Joshua Reynolds and the other +gentlemen will excuse his incompliance with the call, when they +are told that Mr. Thrale died this morning.' Wednesday.'</p> +<p>Mr. Thrale's death was a very essential loss to Johnson<a +href="#note-280">[280]</a>, who, although +he did not foresee all that afterwards happened, was sufficiently +convinced that the comforts which Mr. Thrale's family afforded +him, would now in a great measure cease. He, however continued to +shew a kind attention to his widow and children as long as it was +acceptable; and he took upon him, with a very earnest concern, +the office of one of his executors, the importance of which +seemed greater than usual to him, from his circumstances having +been always such, that he had scarcely any share in the real +business of life<a href= +"#note-281">[281]</a>. His friends of the +CLUB were in hopes that Mr. Thrale might have made a liberal +provision for him for his life, which, as Mr. Thrale left no son, +and a very large fortune, it would have been highly to his honour +to have done; and, considering Dr. Johnson's age, could not have +been of long duration; but he bequeathed him only two hundred +pounds, which was the legacy given to each of his executors<a +href="#note-282">[282]</a>. I could not +but be somewhat diverted by hearing Johnson talk in a pompous +manner of his new office, and particularly of the concerns of the +brewery, which it was at last resolved should be sold<a href= +"#note-283">[283]</a>. Lord Lucan[284] +tells a very good story, which, if not precisely exact, is +certainly characteristic: that when the sale of Thrale's brewery +was going forward, Johnson appeared bustling about, with an +ink-horn and pen in his button-hole, like an excise-man; and on +being asked what he really considered to be the value of the +property which was to be disposed of, answered, 'We are not here +to sell a parcel of boilers and vats but the potentiality of +growing rich, beyond the dreams of avarice<a href= +"#note-285">[285]</a>.'</p> +<p>On Friday, April 6, he carried me to dine at a club, which, at +his desire, had been lately formed at the Queen's Arms, in St. +Paul's Church-yard. He told Mr. Hoole, that he wished to have a +<i>City Club</i>, and asked him to collect one; but, said he, +'Don't let them be <i>patriots</i><a href= +"#note-286">[286]</a>.' The company were +to-day very sensible, well-behaved men. I have preserved only two +particulars of his conversation. He said he was glad Lord George +Gordon had escaped<a href= +"#note-287">[287]</a>, rather than that a +precedent should be established for hanging a man for +<i>constructive treason</i>; which, in consistency with his true, +manly, constitutional Toryism, he considered would be a dangerous +engine of arbitrary power. And upon its being mentioned that an +opulent and very indolent Scotch nobleman, who totally resigned +the management of his affairs to a man of knowledge and +abilities, had claimed some merit by saying, 'The next best thing +to managing a man's own affairs well is being sensible of +incapacity, and not attempting it, but having full confidence in +one who can do it:' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, this is paltry. There is +a middle course. Let a man give application; and depend upon it +he will soon get above a despicable state of helplessness, and +attain the power of acting for himself.'</p> +<p>On Saturday, April 7, I dined with him at Mr. Hoole's with +Governour Bouchier and Captain Orme, both of whom had been long +in the East-Indies; and being men of good sense and observation, +were very entertaining. Johnson defended the oriental regulation +of different <i>casts</i> of men, which was objected to as +totally destructive of the hopes of rising in society by personal +merit. He shewed that there was a <i>principle</i> in it +sufficiently plausible by analogy. 'We see (said he) in metals +that there are different species; and so likewise in animals, +though one species may not differ very widely from another, as in +the species of dogs,—the cur, the spaniel, the mastiff. The +Bramins are the mastiffs of mankind.'</p> +<p>On Thursday, April 12, I dined with him at a Bishop's, where +were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Berrenger, and some more company. +He had dined the day before at another Bishop's. I have +unfortunately recorded none of his conversation at the Bishop's +where we dined together<a href= +"#note-288">[288]</a>: but I have +preserved his ingenious defence of his dining twice abroad in +Passion-week<a href= +"#note-289">[289]</a>; a laxity, in which +I am convinced he would not have indulged himself at the time +when he wrote his solemn paper in <i>The Rambler</i><a href= +"#note-290">[290]</a>, upon that aweful +season. It appeared to me, that by being much more in company, +and enjoying more luxurious living, he had contracted a keener +relish of pleasure, and was consequently less rigorous in his +religious rites. This he would not acknowledge; but he reasoned +with admirable sophistry, as follows: 'Why, Sir, a Bishop's +calling company together in this week is, to use the vulgar +phrase, not <i>the thing</i>. But you must consider laxity is a +bad thing; but preciseness is also a bad thing; and your general +character may be more hurt by preciseness than by dining with a +Bishop in Passion-week. There might be a handle for reflection. +It might be said, 'He refused to dine with a Bishop in +Passion-week, but was three Sundays absent from Church.' BOSWELL. +'Very true, Sir. But suppose a man to be uniformly of good +conduct, would it not be better that he should refuse to dine +with a Bishop in this week, and so not encourage a bad practice +by his example?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, you are to consider whether +you might not do more harm by lessening the influence of a +Bishop's character by your disapprobation in refusing him, than +by going to him.'</p> +<center>TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.</center> +<center>'DEAR MADAM,</center> +<p>'Life is full of troubles. I have just lost my dear friend +Thrale. I hope he is happy; but I have had a great loss. I am +otherwise pretty well. I require some care of myself, but that +care is not ineffectual; and when I am out of order, I think it +often my own fault.</p> +<p>'The spring is now making quick advances. As it is the season +in which the whole world is enlivened and invigorated, I hope +that both you and I shall partake of its benefits. My desire is +to see Lichfield; but being left executor to my friend, I know +not whether I can be spared; but I will try, for it is now long +since we saw one another, and how little we can promise ourselves +many more interviews, we are taught by hourly examples of +mortality. Let us try to live so as that mortality may not be an +evil. Write to me soon, my dearest; your letters will give me +great pleasure.</p> +<p>'I am sorry that Mr. Porter has not had his box; but by +sending it to Mr. Mathias, who very readily undertook its +conveyance, I did the best I could, and perhaps before now he has +it.</p> +<p>'Be so kind as to make my compliments to my friends; I have a +great value for their kindness, and hope to enjoy it before +summer is past. Do write to me. I am, dearest love,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, April 12, 1781.'</p> +<p>On Friday, April 13, being Good-Friday, I went to St. +Clement's church with him as usual. There I saw again his old +fellow-collegian, Edwards<a href= +"#note-291">[291]</a>, to whom I said, 'I +think, Sir, Dr. Johnson and you meet only at Church.'—'Sir, +(said he,) it is the best place we can meet in, except Heaven, +and I hope we shall meet there too.' Dr. Johnson told me, that +there was very little communication between Edwards and him, +after their unexpected renewal of acquaintance. 'But (said he, +smiling) he met me once, and said, "I am told you have written a +very pretty book called <i>The Rambler</i>." I was unwilling that +he should leave the world in total darkness, and sent him a +set.'</p> +<p>Mr. Berrenger<a href= +"#note-292">[292]</a> visited him to-day, +and was very pleasing. We talked of an evening society for +conversation at a house in town, of which we were all members, +but of which Johnson said, 'It will never do, Sir. There is +nothing served about there, neither tea, nor coffee, nor +lemonade, nor any thing whatever; and depend upon it, Sir, a man +does not love to go to a place from whence he comes out exactly +as he went in.' I endeavoured, for argument's sake, to maintain +that men of learning and talents might have very good +intellectual society, without the aid of any little +gratifications of the senses. Berrenger joined with Johnson, and +said, that without these any meeting would be dull and insipid. +He would therefore have all the slight refreshments; nay, it +would not be amiss to have some cold meat, and a bottle of wine +upon a side-board. 'Sir, (said Johnson to me, with an air of +triumph,) Mr. Berrenger knows the world. Every body loves to have +good things furnished to them without any trouble. I told Mrs. +Thrale once, that as she did not choose to have card tables, she +should have a profusion of the best sweetmeats, and she would be +sure to have company enough come to her<a href= +"#note-293">[293]</a>.' I agreed with my +illustrious friend upon this subject; for it has pleased GOD to +make man a composite animal, and where there is nothing to +refresh the body, the mind will languish.</p> +<p>On Sunday, April 15, being Easter-day, after solemn worship in +St. Paul's church, I found him alone; Dr. Scott of the Commons +came in. He talked of its having been said that Addison wrote +some of his best papers in <i>The Spectator</i> when warm with +wine<a href="#note-294">[294]</a>. Dr. +Johnson did not seem willing to admit this. Dr. Scott, as a +confirmation of it, related, that Blackstone, a sober man, +composed his <i>Commentaries</i> with a bottle of port before +him; and found his mind invigorated and supported in the fatigue +of his great work, by a temperate use of it<a href= +"#note-295">[295]</a>.</p> +<p>I told him, that in a company where I had lately been, a +desire was expressed to know his authority for the shocking story +of Addison's sending an execution into Steele's house<a href= +"#note-296">[296]</a>. 'Sir, (said he,) +it is generally known, it is known to all who are acquainted with +the literary history of that period. It is as well known, as that +he wrote <i>Cato</i>.' Mr. Thomas Sheridan once defended Addison +to me, by alledging that he did it in order to cover Steele's +goods from other creditors, who were going to seize them.</p> +<p>We talked of the difference between the mode of education at +Oxford, and that in those Colleges where instruction is chiefly +conveyed by lectures<a href= +"#note-297">[297]</a>. JOHNSON. 'Lectures +were once useful; but now, when all can read, and books are so +numerous, lectures are unnecessary. If your attention fails, and +you miss a part of a lecture, it is lost; you cannot go back as +you do upon a book.' Dr. Scott agreed with him. 'But yet (said +I), Dr. Scott, you yourself gave lectures at Oxford<a href= +"#note-298">[298]</a>.' He smiled. 'You +laughed (then said I) at those who came to you.'</p> +<p>Dr. Scott left us, and soon afterwards we went to dinner. Our +company consisted of Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Desmoulins, Mr. Levett, +Mr. Allen, the printer, and Mrs. Hall<a href= +"#note-299">[299]</a>, sister of the +Reverend Mr. John Wesley, and resembling him, as I thought, both +in figure and manner. Johnson produced now, for the first time, +some handsome silver salvers, which he told me he had bought +fourteen years ago; so it was a great day. I was not a little +amused by observing Allen perpetually struggling to talk in the +manner of Johnson, like the little frog in the fable blowing +himself up to resemble the stately ox<a href= +"#note-300">[300]</a>.</p> +<p>I mentioned a kind of religious Robinhood Society<a href= +"#note-301">[301]</a>, which met every +Sunday evening, at Coachmakers'-hall, for free debate; and that +the subject for this night was, the text which relates, with +other miracles, which happened at our SAVIOUR'S death, 'And the +graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept +arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and +went into the holy city, and appeared unto many<a href= +"#note-302">[302]</a>.' Mrs. Hall said it +was a very curious subject, and she should like to hear it +discussed. JOHNSON, (somewhat warmly) 'One would not go to such a +place to hear it,—one would not be seen in such a +place—to give countenance to such a meeting.' I, however, +resolved that I would go. 'But, Sir, (said she to Johnson,) I +should like to hear <i>you</i> discuss it.' He seemed reluctant +to engage in it. She talked of the resurrection of the human race +in general, and maintained that we shall be raised with the same +bodies. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, we see that it is not to be the +same body; for the Scripture uses the illustration of grain sown, +and we know that the grain which grows is not the same with what +is sown<a href="#note-303">[303]</a>. You +cannot suppose that we shall rise with a diseased body; it is +enough if there be such a sameness as to distinguish identity of +person.' She seemed desirous of knowing more, but he left the +question in obscurity.</p> +<p>Of apparitions<a href= +"#note-304">[304]</a>, he observed, 'A +total disbelief of them is adverse to the opinion of the +existence of the soul between death and the last day; the +question simply is, whether departed spirits ever have the power +of making themselves perceptible to us; a man who thinks he has +seen an apparition, can only be convinced himself; his authority +will not convince another, and his conviction, if rational, must +be founded on being told something which cannot be known but by +supernatural means.'</p> +<p>He mentioned a thing as not unfrequent, of which I had never +heard before,—being <i>called</i>, that is, hearing one's +name pronounced by the voice of a known person at a great +distance, far beyond the possibility of being reached by any +sound uttered by human organs. 'An acquaintance, on whose +veracity I can depend, told me, that walking home one evening to +Kilmarnock, he heard himself called from a wood, by the voice of +a brother who had gone to America; and the next packet brought +accounts of that brother's death.' Macbean<a href= +"#note-305">[305]</a> asserted that this +inexplicable <i>calling</i> was a thing very well known. Dr. +Johnson said, that one day at Oxford, as he was turning the key +of his chamber, he heard his mother distinctly call Sam. She was +then at Lichfield; but nothing ensued<a href= +"#note-306">[306]</a>. This phaenomenon +is, I think, as wonderful as any other mysterious fact, which +many people are very slow to believe, or rather, indeed, reject +with an obstinate contempt.</p> +<p>Some time after this, upon his making a remark which escaped +my attention, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Hall were both together +striving to answer him. He grew angry, and called out loudly, +'Nay, when you both speak at once, it is intolerable.' But +checking himself, and softening, he said, 'This one may say, +though you <i>are</i> ladies.' Then he brightened into gay +humour, and addressed them in the words of one of the songs in +<i>The Beggar's Opera</i><a href= +"#note-307">[307]</a>:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'But two at a time there's no mortal can bear.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>'What, Sir, (said I,) are you going to turn Captain Macheath?' +There was something as pleasantly ludicrous in this scene as can +be imagined. The contrast between Macheath, Polly, and +Lucy—and Dr. Samuel Johnson, blind, peevish Mrs. Williams, +and lean, lank, preaching Mrs. Hall, was exquisite.</p> +<p>I stole away to Coachmakers'-hall, and heard the difficult +text of which we had talked, discussed with great decency, and +some intelligence, by several speakers. There was a difference of +opinion as to the appearance of ghosts in modern times, though +the arguments for it, supported by Mr. Addison's authority<a +href="#note-308">[308]</a>, +preponderated. The immediate subject of debate was embarrassed by +the <i>bodies</i> of the saints having been said to rise, and by +the question what became of them afterwards; did they return +again to their graves? or were they translated to heaven? Only +one evangelist mentions the fact<a href= +"#note-309">[309]</a>, and the +commentators whom I have looked at, do not make the passage +clear. There is, however, no occasion for our understanding it +farther, than to know that it was one of the extraordinary +manifestations of divine power, which accompanied the most +important event that ever happened.</p> +<p>On Friday, April 20, I spent with him one of the happiest days +that I remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life. +Mrs. Garrick, whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I +believe, as sincere as wounded affection and admiration could +produce, had this day, for the first time since his death, a +select party of his friends to dine with her<a href= +"#note-310">[310]</a>. The company was +Miss Hannah More, who lived with her, and whom she called her +Chaplain<a href="#note-311">[311]</a>; +Mrs. Boscawen[312], Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, +Dr. Burney, Dr. Johnson, and myself. We found ourselves very +elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi<a href= +"#note-313">[313]</a>, where I have +passed many a pleasing hour with him 'who gladdened life<a href= +"#note-314">[314]</a>.' She looked well, +talked of her husband with complacency, and while she cast her +eyes on his portrait, which hung over the chimney-piece, said, +that 'death was now the most agreeable object to her<a href= +"#note-315">[315]</a>.' The very +semblance of David Garrick was cheering. Mr. Beauclerk, with +happy propriety, inscribed under that fine portrait of him, which +by Lady Diana's kindness is now the property of my friend Mr. +Langton, the following passage from his beloved +Shakspeare:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'A merrier man, + Within the limit of becoming mirth, + I never spent an hour's talk withal. + His eye begets occasion for his wit; + For every object that the one doth catch, + The other turns to a mirth-moving jest; + Which his fair tongue (Conceit's expositor) + Delivers in such apt and gracious words, + That aged ears play truant at his tales, + And younger hearings are quite ravished: + So sweet and voluble is his discourse<a href= +"#note-316">316</a>.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>We were all in fine spirits; and I whispered to Mrs. Boscawen, +'I believe this is as much as can be made of life.' In addition +to a splendid entertainment, we were regaled with Lichfield ale<a +href="#note-317">[317]</a>, which had a +peculiar appropriated value. Sir Joshua, and Dr. Burney, and I, +drank cordially of it to Dr. Johnson's health; and though he +would not join us, he as cordially answered, 'Gentlemen, I wish +you all as well as you do me.'</p> +<p>The general effect of this day dwells upon my mind in fond +remembrance; but I do not find much conversation recorded. What I +have preserved shall be faithfully given.</p> +<p>One of the company mentioned Mr. Thomas Hollis, the strenuous +Whig, who used to send over Europe presents of democratical +books, with their boards stamped with daggers and caps of +liberty. Mrs. Carter said, 'He was a bad man. He used to talk +uncharitably.' JOHNSON. 'Poh! poh! Madam; who is the worse for +being talked of uncharitably? Besides, he was a dull poor +creature as ever lived: And I believe he would not have done harm +to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his +own. I remember once at the Society of Arts, when an +advertisement was to be drawn up, he pointed me out as the man +who could do it best. This, you will observe, was kindness to me. +I however slipt away, and escaped it.'</p> +<p>Mrs. Carter having said of the same person, 'I doubt he was an +Atheist<a href="#note-318">[318]</a>.' +JOHNSON. 'I don't know that. He might perhaps have become one, if +he had had time to ripen, (smiling.) He might have +<i>exuberated</i> into an Atheist.'</p> +<p>Sir Joshua Reynolds praised <i>Mudge's Sermons</i><a href= +"#note-319">[319]</a>. JOHNSON. 'Mudge's +Sermons are good, but not practical. He grasps more sense than he +can hold; he takes more corn than he can make into meal; he opens +a wide prospect, but it is so distant, it is indistinct. I love +<i>Blair's Sermons</i>. Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a +Presbyterian, and every thing he should not be, I was the first +to praise them<a href= +"#note-320">[320]</a>. Such was my +candour.' (smiling.) MRS. BOSCAWEN. 'Such his great merit to get +the better of all your prejudices.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Madam, let us +compound the matter; let us ascribe it to my candour, and his +merit.'</p> +<p>In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room, +several ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr. Percy, Mr. +Chamberlayne<a href= +"#note-321">[321]</a>, of the Treasury, +&c. &c. Somebody said the life of a mere literary man +could not be very entertaining. JOHNSON. 'But it certainly may. +This is a remark which has been made, and repeated, without +justice; why should the life of a literary man be less +entertaining than the life of any other man? Are there not as +interesting varieties in such a life<a href= +"#note-322">[322]</a>? As <i>a literary +life</i> it may be very entertaining.' BOSWELL. 'But it must be +better surely, when it is diversified with a little active +variety— such as his having gone to Jamaica; or—his +having gone to the Hebrides.' Johnson was not displeased at +this.</p> +<p>Talking of a very respectable authour, he told us a curious +circumstance in his life, which was, that he had married a +printer's devil. REYNOLDS. 'A printer's devil, Sir! Why, I +thought a printer's devil was a creature with a black face and in +rags.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. But I suppose, he had her face washed, +and put clean clothes on her. (Then looking very serious, and +very earnest.) And she did not disgrace him; the woman had a +bottom of good sense. The word <i>bottom</i> thus introduced, was +so ludicrous when contrasted with his gravity, that most of us +could not forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that +the Bishop of Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect +steadiness, while Miss Hannah More slyly hid her face behind a +lady's back who sat on the same settee with her. His pride could +not bear that any expression of his should excite ridicule, when +he did not intend it; he therefore resolved to assume and +exercise despotick power, glanced sternly around, and called out +in a strong tone, 'Where's the merriment?' Then collecting +himself, and looking aweful, to make us feel how he could impose +restraint, and as it were searching his mind for a still more +ludicrous word, he slowly pronounced, 'I say the <i>woman</i> was +<i>fundamentally</i> sensible;' as if he had said, hear this now, +and laugh if you dare. We all sat composed as at a funeral<a +href="#note-323">[323]</a>.</p> +<p>He and I walked away together; we stopped a little while by +the rails of the Adelphi, looking on the Thames, and I said to +him with some emotion that I was now thinking of two friends we +had lost, who once lived in the buildings behind us, Beauclerk +and Garrick. 'Ay, Sir, (said he, tenderly) and two such friends +as cannot be supplied<a href= +"#note-324">[324]</a>.'</p> +<p>For some time after this day I did not see him very often, and +of the conversation which I did enjoy, I am sorry to find I have +preserved but little. I was at this time engaged in a variety of +other matters, which required exertion and assiduity, and +necessarily occupied almost all my time.</p> +<p>One day having spoken very freely of those who were then in +power, he said to me, 'Between ourselves, Sir, I do not like to +give opposition the satisfaction of knowing how much I disapprove +of the ministry.' And when I mentioned that Mr. Burke had boasted +how quiet the nation was in George the Second's reign, when Whigs +were in power, compared with the present reign, when Tories +governed;—'Why, Sir, (said he,) you are to consider that +Tories having more reverence for government, will not oppose with +the same violence as Whigs, who being unrestrained by that +principle, will oppose by any means.'</p> +<p>This month he lost not only Mr. Thrale, but another friend, +Mr. William Strahan, Junior, printer, the eldest son of his old +and constant friend, Printer to his Majesty.</p> +<center>'TO MRS. STRAHAN.</center> +<center>'DEAR MADAM,</center> +<p>'The grief which I feel for the loss of a very kind friend is +sufficient to make me know how much you suffer by the death of an +amiable son; a man, of whom I think it may truly be said, that no +one knew him who does not lament him. I look upon myself as +having a friend, another friend, taken from me.</p> +<p>'Comfort, dear Madam, I would give you if I could, but I know +how little the forms of consolation can avail. Let me, however, +counsel you not to waste your health in unprofitable sorrow, but +go to Bath, and endeavour to prolong your own life; but when we +have all done all that we can, one friend must in time lose the +other.</p> +<p>'I am, dear Madam,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'April 23, 1781.'</p> +<p>On Tuesday, May 8<a href= +"#note-325">[325]</a>, I had the pleasure +of again dining with him and Mr. Wilkes, at Mr. Billy's<a href= +"#note-326">[326]</a>. No +<i>negociation</i> was now required to bring them together; for +Johnson was so well satisfied with the former interview, that he +was very glad to meet Wilkes again, who was this day seated +between Dr. Beattie and Dr. Johnson; (between <i>Truth</i><a +href="#note-327">[327]</a> and +<i>Reason</i>, as General Paoli said, when I told him of it.) +WILKES. 'I have been thinking, Dr. Johnson, that there should be +a bill brought into parliament that the controverted elections +for Scotland should be tried in that country, at their own Abbey +of Holy-Rood House, and not here; for the consequence of trying +them here is, that we have an inundation of Scotchmen, who come +up and never go back again. Now here is Boswell, who is come up +upon the election for his own county, which will not last a +fortnight.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I see no reason why they should +be tried at all; for, you know, one Scotchman is as good as +another.' WILKES. 'Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year +by an Advocate at the Scotch bar?' BOSWELL. 'I believe two +thousand pounds.' WlLKES. 'How can it be possible to spend that +money in Scotland?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the money may be spent in +England: but there is a harder question. If one man in Scotland +gets possession of two thousand pounds, what remains for all the +rest of the nation?' WILKES. 'You know, in the last war, the +immense booty which Thurot<a href= +"#note-328">[328]</a> carried off by the +complete plunder of seven Scotch isles; he re-embarked with +<i>three and six-pence</i>.' Here again Johnson and Wilkes joined +in extravagant sportive raillery upon the supposed poverty of +Scotland, which Dr. Beattie and I did not think it worth our +while to dispute.</p> +<p>The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured +it as pedantry<a href= +"#note-329">[329]</a>. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, +it is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it. Classical +quotation is the <i>parole</i> of literary men all over the +world.' WlLKES. 'Upon the continent they all quote the vulgate +Bible. Shakspeare is chiefly quoted here; and we quote also Pope, +Prior, Butler, Waller, and sometimes Cowley<a href= +"#note-330">[330]</a>.'</p> +<p>We talked of Letter-writing. JOHNSON. 'It is now become so +much the fashion to publish letters, that in order to avoid it, I +put as little into mine as I can.<a href= +"#note-331">[331]</a>' BOSWELL. 'Do what +you will, Sir, you cannot avoid it. Should you even write as ill +as you can, your letters would be published as curiosities:</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "Behold a miracle! instead of wit, + See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ<a href= +"#note-332">332</a>."' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>He gave us an entertaining account of <i>Bet Flint</i><a href= +"#note-333">[333]</a>, a woman of the +town, who, with some eccentrick talents and much effrontery, +forced herself upon his acquaintance. 'Bet (said he) wrote her +own Life in verse<a href= +"#note-334">[334]</a>, which she brought +to me, wishing that I would furnish her with a Preface to it. +(Laughing.) I used to say of her that she was generally slut and +drunkard; occasionally, whore and thief. She had, however, +genteel lodgings, a spinnet on which she played, and a boy that +walked before her chair. Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of +stealing a counterpane, and tried at the Old Bailey. Chief +Justice ———<a href= +"#note-335">[335]</a>, who loved a wench, +summed up favourably, and she was acquitted. After which Bet +said, with a gay and satisfied air, 'Now that the counterpane is +<i>my own</i>, I shall make a petticoat of it.'</p> +<p>Talking of oratory, Mr. Wilkes described it as accompanied +with all the charms of poetical expression. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; +oratory is the power of beating down your adversary's arguments, +and putting better in their place.' WlLKES. 'But this does not +move the passions.' JOHNSON. 'He must be a weak man, who is to be +so moved.' WlLKES. (naming a celebrated orator) 'Amidst all the +brilliancy of ——'s<a href= +"#note-336">[336]</a> imagination, and +the exuberance of his wit, there is a strange want of +<i>taste</i>. It was observed of Apelles's Venus<a href= +"#note-337">[337]</a>, that her flesh +seemed as if she had been nourished by roses: his oratory would +sometimes make one suspect that he eats potatoes and drinks +whisky.'</p> +<p>Mr. Wilkes observed, how tenacious we are of forms in this +country, and gave as an instance, the vote of the House of +Commons for remitting money to pay the army in America <i>in +Portugal pieces</i><a href= +"#note-338">[338]</a>, when, in reality, +the remittance is made not in Portugal money, but in our own +specie. JOHNSON. 'Is there not a law, Sir, against exporting the +current coin of the realm?' WlLKES. 'Yes, Sir: but might not the +House of Commons, in case of real evident necessity, order our +own current coin to be sent into our own colonies?' Here Johnson, +with that quickness of recollection which distinguished him so +eminently, gave the <i>Middlesex Patriot</i> an admirable retort +upon his own ground. 'Sure, Sir, <i>you</i> don't think a +<i>resolution of the House of Commons</i> equal to <i>the law of +the land</i><a href= +"#note-339">[339]</a>.' WlLKES. (at once +perceiving the application) 'GOD forbid, Sir.' To hear what had +been treated with such violence in <i>The False Alarm</i>, now +turned into pleasant repartee, was extremely agreeable. Johnson +went on;—'Locke observes well, that a prohibition to export +the current coin is impolitick; for when the balance of trade +happens to be against a state, the current coin must be +exported<a href= +"#note-340">[340]</a>.'</p> +<p>Mr. Beauclerk's great library<a href= +"#note-341">[341]</a> was this season +sold in London by auction. Mr. Wilkes said, he wondered to find +in it such a numerous collection of sermons; seeming to think it +strange that a gentleman of Mr. Beauclerk's character in the gay +world should have chosen to have many compositions of that kind. +JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, you are to consider, that sermons make a +considerable branch of English literature<a href= +"#note-342">[342]</a>; so that a library +must be very imperfect if it has not a numerous collection of +sermons<a href="#note-343">[343]</a>: and +in all collections, Sir, the desire of augmenting it grows +stronger in proportion to the advance in acquisition; as motion +is accelerated by the continuance of the <i>impetus</i>. Besides, +Sir, (looking at Mr. Wilkes with a placid but significant smile) +a man may collect sermons with intention of making himself better +by them. I hope Mr. Beauclerk intended, that some time or other +that should be the case with him.'</p> +<p>Mr. Wilkes said to me, loud enough for Dr. Johnson to hear, +'Dr. Johnson should make me a present of his <i>Lives of the +Poets</i>, as I am a poor patriot, who cannot afford to buy +them.' Johnson seemed to take no notice of this hint; but in a +little while, he called to Mr. Dilly, 'Pray, Sir, be so good as +to send a set of my <i>Lives</i> to Mr. Wilkes, with my +compliments.' This was accordingly done; and Mr. Wilkes paid Dr. +Johnson a visit, was courteously received, and sat with him a +long time.</p> +<p>The company gradually dropped away. Mr. Dilly himself was +called down stairs upon business; I left the room for some time; +when I returned, I was struck with observing Dr. Samuel Johnson +and John Wilkes, Esq., literally +<i>tête-à-tête</i>; for they were reclined +upon their chairs, with their heads leaning almost close to each +other, and talking earnestly, in a kind of confidential whisper, +of the personal quarrel between George the Second and the King of +Prussia<a href="#note-344">[344]</a>. +Such a scene of perfectly easy sociality between two such +opponents in the war of political controversy, as that which I +now beheld, would have been an excellent subject for a picture. +It presented to my mind the happy days which are foretold in +Scripture, when the lion shall lie down with the kid<a href= +"#note-345">[345]</a>.</p> +<p>After this day there was another pretty long interval, during +which Dr. Johnson and I did not meet. When I mentioned it to him +with regret, he was pleased to say, 'Then, Sir, let us live +double.'</p> +<p>About this time it was much the fashion for several ladies to +have evening assemblies, where the fair sex might participate in +conversation with literary and ingenious men, animated by a +desire to please. These societies were denominated +<i>Blue-stocking Clubs</i>, the origin of which title being +little known, it may be worth while to relate it. One of the most +eminent members of those societies, when they first commenced, +was Mr. Stillingfleet<a href= +"#note-346">[346]</a>, whose dress was +remarkably grave, and in particular it was observed, that he wore +blue stockings<a href= +"#note-347">[347]</a>. Such was the +excellence of his conversation, that his absence was felt as so +great a loss, that it used to be said, 'We can do nothing without +the <i>blue stockings</i>;' and thus by degrees the title was +established. Miss Hannah More has admirably described a +<i>Blue-stocking Club</i>, in her <i>Bas Bleu</i><a href= +"#note-348">[348]</a>, a poem in which +many of the persons who were most conspicuous there are +mentioned.</p> +<p>Johnson was prevailed with to come sometimes into these +circles, and did not think himself too grave even for the lively +Miss Monckton<a href= +"#note-349">[349]</a> (now Countess of +Corke), who used to have the finest <i>bit of blue</i> at the +house of her mother, Lady Galway. Her vivacity enchanted the +Sage, and they used to talk together with all imaginable ease. A +singular instance happened one evening, when she insisted that +some of Sterne's writings were very pathetick. Johnson bluntly +denied it. 'I am sure (said she) they have affected <i>me</i>.' +'Why (said Johnson, smiling, and rolling himself about,) that is, +because, dearest, you're a dunce<a href= +"#note-350">[350]</a>.' When she some +time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth +and politeness; 'Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should +not have said it.'</p> +<p>Another evening Johnson's kind indulgence towards me had a +pretty difficult trial. I had dined at the Duke of Montrose's +with a very agreeable party, and his Grace, according to his +usual custom, had circulated the bottle very freely. Lord +Graham<a href="#note-351">[351]</a> and I +went together to Miss Monckton's, where I certainly was in +extraordinary spirits, and above all fear or awe. In the midst of +a great number of persons of the first rank, amongst whom I +recollect with confusion, a noble lady of the most stately +decorum, I placed myself next to Johnson, and thinking myself now +fully his match, talked to him in a loud and boisterous manner, +desirous to let the company know how I could contend with +<i>Ajax</i>. I particularly remember pressing him upon the value +of the pleasures of the imagination, and as an illustration of my +argument, asking him, 'What, Sir, supposing I were to fancy that +the—(naming the most charming Duchess in his Majesty's +dominions) were in love with me, should I not be very happy?' My +friend with much address evaded my interrogatories, and kept me +as quiet as possible; but it may easily be conceived how he must +have felt<a href="#note-352">[352]</a>. +However, when a few days afterwards I waited upon him and made an +apology, he behaved with the most friendly gentleness<a href= +"#note-353">[353]</a>.</p> +<p>While I remained in London this year<a href= +"#note-354">[354]</a>, Johnson and I +dined together at several places. I recollect a placid day at Dr. +Butter's<a href="#note-355">[355]</a>, +who had now removed from Derby to Lower Grosvenor-street, London; +but of his conversation on that and other occasions during this +period, I neglected to keep any regular record<a href= +"#note-356">[356]</a>, and shall +therefore insert here some miscellaneous articles which I find in +my Johnsonian notes.</p> +<p>His disorderly habits, when 'making provision for the day that +was passing over him<a href= +"#note-357">[357]</a>,' appear from the +following anecdote, communicated to me by Mr. John +Nichols:—'In the year 1763, a young bookseller, who was an +apprentice to Mr. Whiston, waited on him with a subscription to +his <i>Shakspeare</i>: and observing that the Doctor made no +entry in any book of the subscriber's name, ventured diffidently +to ask, whether he would please to have the gentleman's address, +that it might be properly inserted in the printed list of +subscribers. '<i>I shall print no list of subscribers</i>;' said +Johnson, with great abruptness: but almost immediately +recollecting himself, added, very complacently, 'Sir, I have two +very cogent reasons for not printing any list of +subscribers;—one, that I have lost all the names,—the +other, that I have spent all the money.'</p> +<p>Johnson could not brook appearing to be worsted in argument, +even when he had taken the wrong side, to shew the force and +dexterity of his talents. When, therefore, he perceived that his +opponent gained ground, he had recourse to some sudden mode of +robust sophistry. Once when I was pressing upon him with visible +advantage, he stopped me thus:—'My dear Boswell, let's have +no more of this; you'll make nothing of it. I'd rather have you +whistle a Scotch tune.'</p> +<p>Care, however, must be taken to distinguish between Johnson +when he 'talked for victory<a href= +"#note-358">[358]</a>,' and Johnson when +he had no desire but to inform and illustrate. 'One of Johnson's +principal talents (says an eminent friend of his)<a href= +"#note-359">[359]</a> was shewn in +maintaining the wrong side of an argument, and in a splendid +perversion of the truth. If you could contrive to have his fair +opinion on a subject, and without any bias from personal +prejudice, or from a wish to be victorious in argument, it was +wisdom itself, not only convincing, but overpowering.'</p> +<p>He had, however, all his life habituated himself to consider +conversation as a trial of intellectual vigour and skill<a href= +"#note-360">[360]</a>; and to this, I +think, we may venture to ascribe that unexampled richness and +brilliancy which appeared in his own. As a proof at once of his +eagerness for colloquial distinction, and his high notion of this +eminent friend, he once addressed him thus:-'——, we +now have been several hours together; and you have said but one +thing for which I envied you.'</p> +<p>He disliked much all speculative desponding considerations, +which tended to discourage men from diligence and exertion. He +was in this like Dr. Shaw, the great traveller<a href= +"#note-361">[361]</a>, who Mr. Daines +Barrington[362] told me, used to say, 'I hate a <i>cui bono</i> +man.' Upon being asked by a friend<a href= +"#note-363">[363]</a> what he should +think of a man who was apt to say <i>non est tanti</i>;-'That +he's a stupid fellow, Sir; (answered Johnson): What would these +<i>tanti</i> men be doing the while?' When I in a low-spirited +fit, was talking to him with indifference of the pursuits which +generally engage us in a course of action, and inquiring a +<i>reason</i> for taking so much trouble; 'Sir (said he, in an +animated tone) it is driving on the system of life.'</p> +<p>He told me, that he was glad that I had, by General +Oglethorpe's means, become acquainted with Dr. Shebbeare. Indeed +that gentleman, whatever objections were made to him, had +knowledge and abilities much above the class of ordinary writers, +and deserves to be remembered as a respectable name in +literature, were it only for his admirable <i>Letters on the +English Nation</i>, under the name of 'Battista Angeloni, a +Jesuit<a href="#note-364">[364]</a>.'</p> +<p>Johnson and Shebbeare<a href= +"#note-365">[365]</a> were frequently +named together, as having in former reigns had no predilection +for the family of Hanover. The authour of the celebrated +<i>Heroick Epistle to Sir William Chambers</i>, introduces them +in one line, in a list of those 'who tasted the sweets of his +present Majesty's reign<a href= +"#note-366">[366]</a>.' Such was +Johnson's candid relish of the merit of that satire, that he +allowed Dr. Goldsmith, as he told me, to read it to him from +beginning to end, and did not refuse his praise to its +execution<a href= +"#note-367">[367]</a>.</p> +<p>Goldsmith could sometimes take adventurous liberties with him, +and escape unpunished. Beauclerk told me that when Goldsmith +talked of a project for having a third Theatre in London, solely +for the exhibition of new plays, in order to deliver authours +from the supposed tyranny of managers, Johnson treated it +slightingly; upon which Goldsmith said, 'Ay, ay, this may be +nothing to you, who can now shelter yourself behind the corner of +a pension;' and that Johnson bore this with good-humour.</p> +<p>Johnson praised the Earl of Carlisle's Poems<a href= +"#note-368">[368]</a>, which his Lordship +had published with his name, as not disdaining to be a candidate +for literary fame. My friend was of opinion, that when a man of +rank appeared in that character, he deserved to have his merit +handsomely allowed<a href= +"#note-369">[369]</a>. In this I think he +was more liberal than Mr. William Whitehead<a href= +"#note-370">[370]</a>, in his <i>Elegy to +Lord Villiers</i>, in which under the pretext of 'superiour +toils, demanding all their care,' he discovers a jealousy of the +great paying their court to the Muses:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + '———to the chosen few + Who dare excel, thy fost'ring aid afford, + Their arts, their magick powers, with honours due + Exalt;—but be thyself what they record<a href= +"#note-371">371</a>.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Johnson had called twice on the Bishop of Killaloe<a href= +"#note-372">[372]</a> before his Lordship +set out for Ireland, having missed him the first time. He said, +'It would have hung heavy on my heart if I had not seen him. No +man ever paid more attention to another than he has done to me<a +href="#note-373">[373]</a>; and I have +neglected him, not wilfully, but from being otherwise occupied. +Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose +inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own +accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains +to attach to you.'</p> +<p>Johnson told me, that he was once much pleased to find that a +carpenter, who lived near him, was very ready to shew him some +things in his business which he wished to see: 'It was paying +(said he) respect to literature.'</p> +<p>I asked him if he was not dissatisfied with having so small a +share of wealth, and none of those distinctions in the state +which are the objects of ambition. He had only a pension of three +hundred a year. Why was he not in such circumstances as to keep +his coach? Why had he not some considerable office? JOHNSON, +'Sir, I have never complained of the world<a href= +"#note-374">[374]</a>; nor do I think +that I have reason to complain. It is rather to be wondered at +that I have so much. My pension is more out of the usual course +of things than any instance that I have known. Here, Sir, was a +man avowedly no friend to Government at the time, who got a +pension without asking for it. I never courted the great; they +sent for me; but I think they now give me up. They are satisfied; +they have seen enough of me.' Upon my observing that I could not +believe this, for they must certainly be highly pleased by his +conversation; conscious of his own superiority, he answered, 'No, +Sir; great lords and great ladies don't love to have their mouths +stopped<a href="#note-375">[375]</a>.' +This was very expressive of the effect which the force of his +understanding and brilliancy of his fancy could not but produce; +and, to be sure, they must have found themselves strangely +diminished in his company. When I warmly declared how happy I was +at all times to hear him;—'Yes, Sir, (said he); but if you +were Lord Chancellor, it would not be so: you would then consider +your own dignity.'</p> +<p>There was much truth and knowledge of human nature in this +remark. But certainly one should think, that in whatever elevated +state of life a man who <i>knew</i> the value of the conversation +of Johnson might be placed, though he might prudently avoid a +situation in which he might appear lessened by comparison; yet he +would frequently gratify himself in private with the +participation of the rich intellectual entertainment which +Johnson could furnish. Strange, however, it is, to consider how +few of the great sought his society<a href= +"#note-376">[376]</a>; so that if one +were disposed to take occasion for satire on that account, very +conspicuous objects present themselves. His noble friend, Lord +Elibank, well observed, that if a great man procured an interview +with Johnson, and did not wish to see him more, it shewed a mere +idle curiosity, and a wretched want of relish for extraordinary +powers of mind<a href= +"#note-377">[377]</a>. Mrs. Thrale justly +and wittily accounted for such conduct by saying, that Johnson's +conversation was by much too strong for a person accustomed to +obsequiousness and flattery; it was <i>mustard in a young child's +mouth!</i></p> +<p>One day, when I told him that I was a zealous Tory, but not +enough 'according to knowledge<a href= +"#note-378">[378]</a>,' and should be +obliged to him for 'a reason<a href= +"#note-379">[379]</a>,' he was so candid, +and expressed himself so well, that I begged of him to repeat +what he had said, and I wrote down as follows:—</p> +<center>OF TORY AND WHIG.</center> +<p>'A wise Tory and a wise Whig, I believe, will agree<a href= +"#note-380">[380]</a>. Their principles +are the same, though their modes of thinking are different. A +high Tory makes government unintelligible: it is lost in the +clouds. A violent Whig makes it impracticable: he is for allowing +so much liberty to every man, that there is not power enough to +govern any man. The prejudice of the Tory is for establishment; +the prejudice of the Whig is for innovation. A Tory does not wish +to give more real power to Government; but that Government should +have more reverence. Then they differ as to the Church. The Tory +is not for giving more legal power to the Clergy, but wishes they +should have a considerable influence, founded on the opinion of +mankind; the Whig is for limiting and watching them with a narrow +jealousy.'</p> +<p>To MR. PERKINS.</p> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>However often I have seen you, I have hitherto forgotten the +note, but I have now sent it: with my good wishes for the +prosperity of you and your partner<a href= +"#note-381">[381]</a>, of whom, from our +short conversation, I could not judge otherwise than +favourably.</p> +<p>I am, Sir,</p> +<p>Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>SAM. JOHNSON.</center> +<p>June 2, 1781.'</p> +<p>On Saturday, June 2, I set out for Scotland, and had promised +to pay a visit in my way, as I sometimes did, at Southill, in +Bedfordshire, at the hospitable mansion of 'Squire Dilly, the +elder brother of my worthy friends, the booksellers, in the +Poultry. Dr. Johnson agreed to be of the party this year, with +Mr. Charles Dilly and me, and to go and see Lord Bute's seat at +Luton Hoe. He talked little to us in the carriage, being chiefly +occupied in reading Dr. Watson's<a href= +"#note-382">[382]</a> second volume of +<i>Chemical Essays</i><a href= +"#note-383">[383]</a>, which he liked +very well, and his own <i>Prince of Abyssinia</i>, on which he +seemed to be intensely fixed; having told us, that he had not +looked at it since it was first published. I happened to take it +out of my pocket this day, and he seized upon it with avidity. He +pointed out to me the following remarkable passage<a href= +"#note-384">[384]</a>:—</p> +<p>'By what means (said the prince) are the Europeans thus +powerful; or why, since they can so easily visit Asia and Africa +for trade or conquest, cannot the Asiaticks and Africans invade +their coasts, plant colonies in their ports, and give laws to +their natural princes? The same wind that carries them back would +bring us thither.' 'They are more powerful, Sir, than we, +(answered Imlac,) because they are wiser. Knowledge will always +predominate over ignorance, as man governs the other animals. But +why their knowledge is more than ours, I know not what reason can +be given, but the unsearchable will of the Supreme Being.'</p> +<p>He said, 'This, Sir, no man can explain otherwise.'</p> +<p>We stopped at Welwyn, where I wished much to see, in company +with Dr. Johnson, the residence of the authour of <i>Night +Thoughts</i>, which was then possessed by his son, Mr. Young. +Here some address was requisite, for I was not acquainted with +Mr. Young, and had I proposed to Dr. Johnson that we should send +to him, he would have checked my wish, and perhaps been offended. +I therefore concerted with Mr. Dilly, that I should steal away +from Dr. Johnson and him, and try what reception I could procure +from Mr. Young; if unfavourable, nothing was to be said; but if +agreeable, I should return and notify it to them. I hastened to +Mr. Young's, found he was at home, sent in word that a gentleman +desired to wait upon him, and was shewn into a parlour, where he +and a young lady, his daughter, were sitting. He appeared to be a +plain, civil, country gentleman; and when I begged pardon for +presuming to trouble him, but that I wished much to see his +place, if he would give me leave; he behaved very courteously, +and answered, 'By all means, Sir; we are just going to drink tea; +will you sit down?' I thanked him, but said, that Dr. Johnson had +come with me from London, and I must return to the inn and drink +tea with him; that my name was Boswell, I had travelled with him +in the Hebrides. 'Sir, (said he) I should think it a great honour +to see Dr. Johnson here. Will you allow me to send for him?' +Availing myself of this opening, I said that 'I would go myself +and bring him, when he had drunk tea; he knew nothing of my +calling here.' Having been thus successful, I hastened back to +the inn, and informed Dr. Johnson that 'Mr. Young, son of Dr. +Young, the authour of <i>Night Thoughts</i>, whom I had just +left, desired to have the honour of seeing him at the house where +his father lived.' Dr. Johnson luckily made no inquiry how this +invitation had arisen, but agreed to go, and when we entered Mr. +Young's parlour, he addressed him with a very polite bow, 'Sir, I +had a curiosity to come and see this place. I had the honour to +know that great man<a href= +"#note-385">[385]</a>, your father.' We +went into the garden, where we found a gravel walk, on each side +of which was a row of trees, planted by Dr. Young, which formed a +handsome Gothick arch; Dr. Johnson called it a fine grove. I +beheld it with reverence.</p> +<p>We sat some time in the summer-house, on the outside wall of +which was inscribed, <i>'Ambulantes in horto audiebant vocem +Dei</i><a href="#note-386">[386]</a>;' +and in reference to a brook by which it is situated, <i>'Vivendi +rectè qui prorogat horam</i><a href= +"#note-387">[387]</a>,' &c. I said to +Mr. Young, that I had been told his father was cheerful<a href= +"#note-388">[388]</a>. 'Sir, (said he) he +was too well-bred a man not to be cheerful in company; but he was +gloomy when alone. He never was cheerful after my mother's death, +and he had met with many disappointments.' Dr. Johnson observed +to me afterwards, 'That this was no favourable account of Dr. +Young; for it is not becoming in a man to have so little +acquiescence in the ways of Providence, as to be gloomy because +he has not obtained as much preferment as he expected<a href= +"#note-389">[389]</a>; nor to continue +gloomy for the loss of his wife. Grief has its time<a href= +"#note-390">[390]</a>.' The last part of +this censure was theoretically made. Practically, we know that +grief for the loss of a wife may be continued very long, in +proportion as affection has been sincere. No man knew this better +than Dr. Johnson.</p> +<p>We went into the church, and looked at the monument erected by +Mr. Young to his father. Mr. Young mentioned an anecdote, that +his father had received several thousand pounds of +subscription-money for his <i>Universal Passion</i>, but had lost +it in the South-Sea<a href= +"#note-391">[391]</a>. Dr. Johnson +thought this must be a mistake; for he had never seen a +subscription-book.</p> +<p>Upon the road we talked of the uncertainty of profit with +which authours and booksellers engage in the publication of +literary works. JOHNSON. 'My judgement I have found is no certain +rule as to the sale of a book.' BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, have you +been much plagued with authours sending you their works to +revise?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; I have been thought a sour, surly +fellow.' BOSWELL. 'Very lucky for you, Sir,—in that +respect.' I must however observe, that notwithstanding what he +now said, which he no doubt imagined at the time to be the fact, +there was, perhaps, no man who more frequently yielded to the +solicitations even of very obscure authours, to read their +manuscripts, or more liberally assisted them with advice and +correction<a href= +"#note-392">[392]</a>.</p> +<p>He found himself very happy at 'Squire Dilly's, where there is +always abundance of excellent fare, and hearty welcome.</p> +<p>On Sunday, June 3, we all went to Southill church, which is +very near to Mr. Dilly's house. It being the first Sunday of the +month, the holy sacrament was administered, and I staid to +partake of it. When I came afterwards into Dr. Johnson's room, he +said, 'You did right to stay and receive the communion; I had not +thought of it.' This seemed to imply that he did not choose to +approach the altar without a previous preparation, as to which +good men entertain different opinions, some holding that it is +irreverent to partake of that ordinance without considerable +premeditation; others, that whoever is a sincere Christian, and +in a proper frame of mind to discharge any other ritual duty of +our religion, may, without scruple, discharge this most solemn +one. A middle notion I believe to be the just one, which is, that +communicants need not think a long train of preparatory forms +indispensibly necessary; but neither should they rashly and +lightly venture upon so aweful and mysterious an institution. +Christians must judge each for himself, what degree of retirement +and self-examination is necessary upon each occasion.</p> +<p>Being in a frame of mind which, I hope for the felicity of +human nature, many experience,—in fine weather,—at +the country house of a friend,—consoled and elevated by +pious exercises,—I expressed myself with an unrestrained +fervour to my 'Guide, Philosopher, and Friend<a href= +"#note-393">[393]</a>;' 'My dear Sir, I +would fain be a good man; and I am very good now<a href= +"#note-394">[394]</a>. I fear GOD, and +honour the King, I wish to do no ill, and to be benevolent to all +mankind.' He looked at me with a benignant indulgence; but took +occasion to give me wise and salutary caution. 'Do not, Sir, +accustom yourself to trust to <i>impressions</i>. There is a +middle state of mind between conviction and hypocrisy, of which +many are conscious<a href= +"#note-395">[395]</a>. By trusting to +impressions, a man may gradually come to yield to them, and at +length be subject to them, so as not to be a free agent, or what +is the same thing in effect, to <i>suppose</i> that he is not a +free agent. A man who is in that state, should not be suffered to +live; if he declares he cannot help acting in a particular way, +and is irresistibly impelled, there can be no confidence in him, +no more than in a tyger. But, Sir, no man believes himself to be +impelled irresistibly; we know that he who says he believes it, +lies. Favourable impressions at particular moments, as to the +state of our souls, may be deceitful and dangerous. In general no +man can be sure of his acceptance with God; some, indeed, may +have had it revealed to them. St. Paul, who wrought miracles, may +have had a miracle wrought on himself, and may have obtained +supernatural assurance of pardon, and mercy, and beatitude; yet +St. Paul, though he expresses strong hope, also expresses fear, +lest having preached to others, he himself should be a +cast-away<a href= +"#note-396">[396]</a>.'</p> +<p>The opinion of a learned Bishop of our acquaintance, as to +there being merit in religious faith, being +mentioned;—JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, Sir, the most licentious +man, were hell open before him, would not take the most beautiful +strumpet to his arms. We must, as the Apostle says, live by +faith, not by sight<a href= +"#note-397">[397]</a>.'</p> +<p>I talked to him of original sin<a href= +"#note-398">[398]</a>, in consequence of +the fall of man, and of the atonement made by our SAVIOUR. After +some conversation, which he desired me to remember, he, at my +request, dictated to me as follows:—</p> +<p>'With respect to original sin, the inquiry is not necessary; +for whatever is the cause of human corruption, men are evidently +and confessedly so corrupt, that all the laws of heaven and earth +are insufficient to restrain them from crimes.</p> +<p>'Whatever difficulty there may be in the conception of +vicarious punishments, it is an opinion which has had possession +of mankind in all ages. There is no nation that has not used the +practice of sacrifices. Whoever, therefore, denies the propriety +of vicarious punishments, holds an opinion which the sentiments +and practice of mankind have contradicted, from the beginning of +the world. The great sacrifice for the sins of mankind was +offered at the death of the MESSIAH, who is called in scripture +"The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins<a href= +"#note-399">[399]</a> of the world." To +judge of the reasonableness of the scheme of redemption, it must +be considered as necessary to the government of the universe, +that GOD should make known his perpetual and irreconcileable +detestation of moral evil. He might indeed punish, and punish +only the offenders; but as the end of punishment is not revenge +of crimes, but propagation of virtue, it was more becoming the +Divine clemency to find another manner of proceeding, less +destructive to man, and at least equally powerful to promote +goodness. The end of punishment is to reclaim and warn. +<i>That</i> punishment will both reclaim and warn, which shews +evidently such abhorrence of sin in GOD, as may deter us from it, +or strike us with dread of vengeance when we have committed it. +This is effected by vicarious punishment. Nothing could more +testify the opposition between the nature of GOD and moral evil, +or more amply display his justice, to men and angels, to all +orders and successions of beings, than that it was necessary for +the highest and purest nature, even for DIVINITY itself, to +pacify the demands of vengeance, by a painful death; of which the +natural effect will be, that when justice is appeased, there is a +proper place for the exercise of mercy; and that such +propitiation shall supply, in some degree, the imperfections of +our obedience, and the inefficacy of our repentance: for, +obedience and repentance, such as we can perform, are still +necessary. Our SAVIOUR has told us, that he did not come to +destroy the law, but to fulfill; to fulfill the typical law, by +the performance of what those types had foreshewn; and the moral +law, by precepts of greater purity and higher exaltation.'</p> +<p>[Here he said, 'GOD bless you with it.' I acknowledged myself +much obliged to him; but I begged that he would go on as to the +propitiation being the chief object of our most holy faith. He +then dictated this one other paragraph.]</p> +<p>'The peculiar doctrine of Christianity is, that of an +universal sacrifice, and perpetual propitiation. Other prophets +only proclaimed the will and the threatenings of GOD. CHRIST +satisfied his justice<a href= +"#note-400">[400]</a>.'</p> +<p>The Reverend Mr. Palmer<a href= +"#note-401">[401]</a>, Fellow of Queen's +College, Cambridge, dined with us. He expressed a wish that a +better provision were made for parish-clerks. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, +a parish-clerk should be a man who is able to make a will, or +write a letter for any body in the parish.'</p> +<p>I mentioned Lord Monboddo's notion<a href= +"#note-402">[402]</a> that the ancient +Egyptians, with all their learning, and all their arts, were not +only black, but woolly-haired. Mr. Palmer asked how did it appear +upon examining the mummies? Dr. Johnson approved of this test<a +href="#note-403">[403]</a>.</p> +<p>Although upon most occasions<a href= +"#note-404">[404]</a> I never heard a +more strenuous advocate for the advantages of wealth, than Dr. +Johnson: he this day, I know not from what caprice, took the +other side. 'I have not observed (said he) that men of very large +fortunes enjoy any thing extraordinary that makes happiness. What +has the Duke of Bedford? What has the Duke of Devonshire? The +only great instance that I have ever known of the enjoyment of +wealth was, that of Jamaica Dawkins, who, going to visit Palmyra, +and hearing that the way was infested by robbers, hired a troop +of Turkish horse to guard him<a href= +"#note-405">[405]</a>.'</p> +<p>Dr. Gibbons<a href= +"#note-406">[406]</a>, the Dissenting +minister, being mentioned, he said, 'I took to Dr. Gibbons.' And +addressing himself to Mr. Charles Dilly, added, 'I shall be glad +to see him. Tell him, if he'll call on me, and dawdle<a href= +"#note-407">[407]</a> over a dish of tea +in an afternoon, I shall take it kind.'</p> +<p>The Reverend Mr. Smith, Vicar of Southill, a very respectable +man, with a very agreeable family, sent an invitation to us to +drink tea. I remarked Dr. Johnson's very respectful<a href= +"#note-408">[408]</a> politeness. Though +always fond of changing the scene, he said, 'We must have Mr. +Dilly's leave. We cannot go from your house, Sir, without your +permission.' We all went, and were well satisfied with our visit. +I however remember nothing particular, except a nice distinction +which Dr. Johnson made with respect to the power of memory, +maintaining that forgetfulness was a man's own fault<a href= +"#note-409">[409]</a>. 'To remember and +to recollect (said he) are different things. A man has not the +power to recollect what is not in his mind; but when a thing is +in his mind he may remember it.' The remark was occasioned by my +leaning back on a chair, which a little before I had perceived to +be broken, and pleading forgetfulness as an excuse. 'Sir, (said +he,) its being broken was certainly in your mind<a href= +"#note-410">[410]</a>.'</p> +<p>When I observed that a housebreaker was in general very +timorous; JOHNSON. 'No wonder, Sir; he is afraid of being shot +getting <i>into</i> a house, or hanged when he has got <i>out</i> +of it.'</p> +<p>He told us, that he had in one day written six sheets of a +translation from the French<a href= +"#note-411">[411]</a>, adding, 'I should +be glad to see it now. I wish that I had copies of all the +pamphlets written against me, as it is said Pope had. Had I known +that I should make so much noise in the world, I should have been +at pains to collect them. I believe there is hardly a day in +which there is not something about me in the newspapers.'</p> +<p>On Monday, June 4, we all went to Luton-Hoe, to see Lord +Bute's magnificent seat<a href= +"#note-412">[412]</a>, for which I had +obtained a ticket. As we entered the park, I talked in a high +style of my old friendship with Lord Mountstuart<a href= +"#note-413">[413]</a>, and said, 'I shall +probably be much at this place.' The Sage, aware of human +vicissitudes, gently checked me: 'Don't you be too sure of that.' +He made two or three peculiar observations; as when shewn the +botanical garden, 'Is not every garden a botanical garden?' When +told that there was a shrubbery to the extent of several miles: +'That is making a very foolish use of the ground; a little of it +is very well.' When it was proposed that we should walk on the +pleasure-ground; 'Don't let us fatigue ourselves. Why should we +walk there? Here's a fine tree, let's get to the top of it.' But +upon the whole, he was very much pleased. He said, 'This is one +of the places I do not regret having come to see. It is a very +stately place, indeed; in the house magnificence is not +sacrificed to convenience, nor convenience to magnificence. The +library is very splendid: the dignity of the rooms is very great; +and the quantity of pictures is beyond expectation, beyond +hope.'</p> +<p>It happened without any previous concert, that we visited the +seat of Lord Bute upon the King's birthday; we dined and drank +his Majesty's health at an inn, in the village of Luton.</p> +<p>In the evening I put him in mind of his promise to favour me +with a copy of his celebrated Letter to the Earl of Chesterfield, +and he was at last pleased to comply with this earnest request, +by dictating it to me from his memory; for he believed that he +himself had no copy<a href= +"#note-414">[414]</a>. There was an +animated glow in his countenance while he thus recalled his +high-minded indignation.</p> +<p>He laughed heartily at a ludicrous action in the Court of +Session, in which I was Counsel. The Society of +<i>Procurators</i>, or Attornies, entitled to practise in the +inferiour courts at Edinburgh, had obtained a royal charter, in +which they had taken care to have their ancient designation of +Procurators changed into that of <i>Solicitors</i>, from a +notion, as they supposed, that it was more genteel<a href= +"#note-415">[415]</a>; and this new title +they displayed by a publick advertisement for a <i>General +Meeting</i> at their HALL.</p> +<p>It has been said, that the Scottish nation is not +distinguished for humour; and, indeed, what happened on this +occasion may in some degree justify the remark: for although this +society had contrived to make themselves a very prominent object +for the ridicule of such as might stoop to it, the only joke to +which it gave rise, was the following paragraph, sent to the +newspaper called <i>The Caledonian Mercury</i>:—</p> +<p>'A correspondent informs us, that the Worshipful Society of +<i>Chaldeans</i>, <i>Cadies</i><a href= +"#note-416">[416]</a>, or <i>Running +Stationers</i> of this city are resolved, in imitation, and +encouraged by the singular success of their brethren, of an +equally respectable Society, to apply for a Charter of their +Privileges, particularly of the sole privilege of PROCURING, in +the most extensive sense of the word<a href= +"#note-417">[417]</a>, exclusive of +chairmen, porters, penny-post men, and other <i>inferiour</i> +ranks; their brethren the R—Y—L S—LL—RS, +<i>alias</i> P—C—RS, <i>before the</i> INFERIOUR +Courts of this City, always excepted.</p> +<p>'Should the Worshipful Society be successful, they are farther +resolved not to be <i>puffed up</i> thereby, but to demean +themselves with more equanimity and decency than their +<i>R—y—l, learned</i>, and <i>very modest</i> +brethren above mentioned have done, upon their late dignification +and exaltation.'</p> +<p>A majority of the members of the Society prosecuted Mr. +Robertson, the publisher of the paper, for damages; and the first +judgement of the whole Court very wisely dismissed the action: +<i>Solventur risu tabulae, tu missus abibis</i><a href= +"#note-418">[418]</a>. But a new trial or +review was granted upon a petition, according to the forms in +Scotland. This petition I was engaged to answer, and Dr. Johnson +with great alacrity furnished me this evening with what +follows:—</p> +<p>'All injury is either of the person, the fortune, or the fame. +Now it is a certain thing, it is proverbially known, that <i>a +jest breaks no bones</i>. They never have gained half-a-crown +less in the whole profession since this mischievous paragraph has +appeared; and, as to their reputation, What is their reputation +but an instrument of getting money? If, therefore, they have lost +no money, the question upon reputation may be answered by a very +old position,—<i>De minimis non curat Praetor</i>.</p> +<p>'Whether there was, or was not, an <i>animus injuriandi</i>, +is not worth inquiring, if no <i>injuria</i> can be proved. But +the truth is, there was no <i>animus injuriandi</i>. It was only +an <i>animus irritandi<a href= +"#note-419">[419]</a></i>, which, +happening to be exercised upon a <i>genus irritabile</i>, +produced unexpected violence of resentment. Their irritability +arose only from an opinion of their own importance, and their +delight in their new exaltation. What might have been borne by a +<i>Procurator</i> could not be borne by a <i>Solicitor</i>. Your +Lordships well know, that <i>honores mutant mores</i>. Titles and +dignities play strongly on the fancy. As a madman is apt to think +himself grown suddenly great, so he that grows suddenly great is +apt to borrow a little from the madman. To co-operate with their +resentment would be to promote their phrenzy; nor is it possible +to guess to what they might proceed, if to the new title of +Solicitor, should be added the elation of victory and +triumph.</p> +<p>'We consider your Lordships as the protectors of our rights, +and the guardians of our virtues; but believe it not included in +your high office, that you should flatter our vices, or solace +our vanity: and, as vanity only dictates this prosecution, it is +humbly hoped your Lordships will dismiss it.</p> +<p>'If every attempt, however light or ludicrous, to lessen +another's reputation, is to be punished by a judicial sentence, +what punishment can be sufficiently severe for him who attempts +to diminish the reputation of the Supreme Court of Justice, by +reclaiming upon a cause already determined, without any change in +the state of the question? Does it not imply hopes that the +Judges will change their opinion? Is not uncertainty and +inconstancy in the highest degree disreputable to a Court? Does +it not suppose, that the former judgement was temerarious or +negligent? Does it not lessen the confidence of the publick? Will +it not be said, that <i>jus est aut incognitum aut vagum?</i> and +will not the consequence be drawn, <i>misera est servitus<a href= +"#note-420">[420]</a>?</i> Will not the +rules of action be obscure? Will not he who knows himself wrong +to-day, hope that the Courts of Justice will think him right +to-morrow? Surely, my Lords, these are attempts of dangerous +tendency, which the Solicitors, as men versed in the law, should +have foreseen and avoided. It was natural for an ignorant printer +to appeal from the Lord Ordinary; but from lawyers, the +descendants of lawyers, who have practised for three hundred +years, and have now raised themselves to a higher denomination, +it might be expected, that they should know the reverence due to +a judicial determination; and, having been once dismissed, should +sit down in silence.'</p> +<p>I am ashamed to mention, that the Court, by a plurality of +voices, without having a single additional circumstance before +them, reversed their own judgement, made a serious matter of this +dull and foolish joke, and adjudged Mr. Robertson to pay to the +Society five pounds (sterling money) and costs of suit. The +decision will seem strange to English lawyers.</p> +<p>On Tuesday, June 5, Johnson was to return to London. He was +very pleasant at breakfast; I mentioned a friend of mine having +resolved never to marry a pretty woman. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is a +very foolish resolution to resolve not to marry a pretty woman. +Beauty is of itself very estimable. No, Sir, I would prefer a +pretty woman, unless there are objections to her. A pretty woman +may be foolish; a pretty woman may be wicked; a pretty woman may +not like me. But there is no such danger in marrying a pretty +woman as is apprehended: she will not be persecuted if she does +not invite persecution. A pretty woman, if she has a mind to be +wicked, can find a readier way than another; and that is +all.'</p> +<p>I accompanied him in Mr. Dilly's chaise to Shefford, where +talking of Lord Bute's never going to Scotland, he said, 'As an +Englishman, I should wish all the Scotch gentlemen should be +educated in England; Scotland would become a province; they would +spend all their rents in England.' This is a subject of much +consequence, and much delicacy. The advantage of an English +education is unquestionably very great to Scotch gentlemen of +talents and ambition; and regular visits to Scotland, and perhaps +other means, might be effectually used to prevent them from being +totally estranged from their native country, any more than a +Cumberland or Northumberland gentleman who has been educated in +the South of England. I own, indeed, that it is no small +misfortune for Scotch gentlemen, who have neither talents nor +ambition, to be educated in England, where they may be perhaps +distinguished only by a nick-name, lavish their fortune in giving +expensive entertainments to those who laugh at them, and saunter +about as mere idle insignificant hangers on even upon the foolish +great; when if they had been judiciously brought up at home, they +might have been comfortable and creditable members of +society.</p> +<p>At Shefford I had another affectionate parting from my revered +friend, who was taken up by the Bedford coach and carried to the +metropolis. I went with Messieurs Dilly, to see some friends at +Bedford; dined with the officers of the militia of the county, +and next day proceeded on my journey.</p> +<p>'To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'How welcome your account of yourself and your invitation to +your new house was to me, I need not tell you, who consider our +friendship not only as formed by choice, but as matured by time. +We have been now long enough acquainted to have many images in +common, and therefore to have a source of conversation which +neither the learning nor the wit of a new companion can +supply.</p> +<p>'My <i>Lives</i> are now published; and if you will tell me +whither I shall send them, that they may come to you, I will take +care that you shall not be without them.</p> +<p>'You will, perhaps, be glad to hear, that Mrs. Thrale is +disencumbered of her brewhouse; and that it seemed to the +purchaser so far from an evil, that he was content to give for it +an hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds. Is the nation +ruined?</p> +<p>'Please to make my respectful compliments to Lady Rothes, and +keep me in the memory of all the little dear family, particularly +pretty Mrs. Jane.<a href= +"#note-421">[421]</a></p> +<p>'I am, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your affectionate humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.'</p> +<p>'Bolt-Court, June 16, 1781.'</p> +<p>Johnson's charity to the poor was uniform and extensive, both +from inclination and principle. He not only bestowed liberally +out of his own purse, but what is more difficult as well as rare, +would beg from others, when he had proper objects in view. This +he did judiciously as well as humanely. Mr. Philip Metcalfe<a +href="#note-422">[422]</a> tells me, that +when he has asked him for some money for persons in distress, and +Mr. Metcalfe has offered what Johnson thought too much, he +insisted on taking less, saying 'No, no, Sir; we must not +<i>pamper</i> them.'</p> +<p>I am indebted to Mr. Malone, one of Sir Joshua Reynolds's +executors, for the following note, which was found among his +papers after his death, and which, we may presume, his unaffected +modesty prevented him from communicating to me with the other +letters from Dr. Johnson with which he was pleased to furnish me. +However slight in itself, as it does honour to that illustrious +painter, and most amiable man, I am happy to introduce it.</p> +<p>'To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 'DEAR SIR,</p> +<p>'It was not before yesterday that I received your splendid +benefaction. To a hand so liberal in distributing, I hope nobody +will envy the power of acquiring.</p> +<p>'I am, dear Sir,</p> +<p>Your obliged and most humble servant, SAM, JOHNSON. June 23, +1781.'</p> +<p>'To THOMAS ASTLE, Esq.<a href= +"#note-423">[423]</a></p> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>'I am ashamed that you have been forced to call so often for +your books, but it has been by no fault on either side. They have +never been out of my hands, nor have I ever been at home without +seeing you; for to see a man so skilful in the antiquities of my +country, is an opportunity of improvement not willingly to be +missed.</p> +<p>'Your notes on Alfred<a href= +"#note-424">[424]</a> appear to me very +judicious and accurate, but they are too few. Many things +familiar to you, are unknown to me, and to most others; and you +must not think too favourably of your readers: by supposing them +knowing, you will leave them ignorant. Measure of land, and value +of money, it is of great importance to state with care. Had the +Saxons any gold coin?</p> +<p>'I have much curiosity after the manners and transactions of +the middle ages, but have wanted either diligence or opportunity, +or both. You, Sir, have great opportunities, and I wish you both +diligence and success.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir, &c. SAM. JOHNSON. July 17, 1781.'</p> +<p>The following curious anecdote I insert in Dr. Burney's own +words:—</p> +<p>'Dr. Burney related to Dr. Johnson the partiality which his +writings had excited in a friend of Dr. Burney's, the late Mr. +Bewley, well known in Norfolk by the name of the <i>Philosopher +of Massingham</i><a href= +"#note-425">[425]</a>: who, from the +<i>Ramblers</i> and Plan of his <i>Dictionary</i>, and long +before the authour's fame was established by the +<i>Dictionary</i> itself, or any other work, had conceived such a +reverence for him, that he urgently begged Dr. Burney to give him +the cover of the first letter he had received from him, as a +relick of so estimable a writer. This was in 1755. In 1760<a +href="#note-426">[426]</a>, when Dr. +Burney visited Dr. Johnson at the Temple in London, where he had +then Chambers, he happened to arrive there before he was up; and +being shewn into the room where he was to breakfast, finding +himself alone, he examined the contents of the apartment, to try +whether he could undiscovered steal any thing to send to his +friend Bewley, as another relick of the admirable Dr. Johnson. +But finding nothing better to his purpose, he cut some bristles +off his hearth-broom, and enclosed them in a letter to his +country enthusiast, who received them with due reverence. The +Doctor was so sensible of the honour done him by a man of genius +and science, to whom he was an utter stranger, that he said to +Dr. Burney, "Sir, there is no man possessed of the smallest +portion of modesty, but must be flattered with the admiration of +such a man. I'll give him a set of my <i>Lives</i>, if he will do +me the honour to accept of them<a href= +"#note-427">[427]</a>." In this he kept +his word; and Dr. Burney had not only the pleasure of gratifying +his friend with a present more worthy of his acceptance than the +segment from the hearth-broom, but soon after of introducing him +to Dr. Johnson himself in Bolt-court, with whom he had the +satisfaction of conversing a considerable time, not a fortnight +before his death; which happened in St. Martin's-street, during +his visit to Dr. Burney, in the house where the great Sir Isaac +Newton had lived and died before.'</p> +<p>In one of his little memorandum-books is the following +minute:—</p> +<p>'August 9, 3 P.M., aetat. 72, in the summer-house at +Streatham. After innumerable resolutions formed and neglected, I +have retired hither, to plan a life of greater diligence, in hope +that I may yet be useful, and be daily better prepared to appear +before my Creator and my Judge, from whose infinite mercy I +humbly call for assistance and support.</p> +<p>'My purpose is,</p> +<p>'To pass eight hours every day in some serious employment.</p> +<p>'Having prayed, I purpose to employ the next six weeks upon +the Italian language, for my settled study.'</p> +<p>How venerably pious does he appear in these moments of +solitude, and how spirited are his resolutions for the +improvement of his mind, even in elegant literature, at a very +advanced period of life, and when afflicted with many +complaints<a href= +"#note-428">[428]</a>.</p> +<p>In autumn he went to Oxford, Birmingham, Lichfield, and +Ashbourne, for which very good reasons might be given in the +conjectural yet positive manner of writers, who are proud to +account for every event which they relate<a href= +"#note-429">[429]</a>. He himself, +however, says,</p> +<p>'The motives of my journey I hardly know; I omitted it last +year, and am not willing to miss it again<a href= +"#note-430">[430]</a>.'</p> +<p>But some good considerations arise, amongst which is the +kindly recollection of Mr. Hector, surgeon at Birmingham:</p> +<p>'Hector is likewise an old friend, the only companion of my +childhood that passed through the school with me. We have always +loved one another; perhaps we may be made better by some serious +conversation, of which however I have no distinct hope.'</p> +<p>He says too,</p> +<p>'At Lichfield, my native place, I hope to shew a good example +by frequent attendance on publick worship.'</p> +<p>My correspondence with him during the rest of this year was I +know not why very scanty, and all on my side. I wrote him one +letter to introduce Mr. Sinclair (now Sir John), the member for +Caithness, to his acquaintance; and informed him in another that +my wife had again been affected with alarming symptoms of +illness.</p> +<p>1782: AETAT. 73.—In 1782, his complaints increased, and +the history of his life this year, is little more than a mournful +recital of the variations of his illness, in the midst of which, +however, it will appear from his letters, that the powers of his +mind were in no degree impaired.</p> +<center>'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</center> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I sit down to answer your letter on the same day in which I +received it, and am pleased that my first letter of the year is +to you. No man ought to be at ease while he knows himself in the +wrong; and I have not satisfied myself with my long silence. The +letter relating to Mr. Sinclair, however, was, I believe, never +brought.</p> +<p>'My health has been tottering this last year; and I can give +no very laudable account of my time. I am always hoping to do +better than I have ever hitherto done.</p> +<p>'My journey to Ashbourne and Staffordshire was not pleasant; +for what enjoyment has a sick man visiting the sick<a href= +"#note-431">[431]</a>?—Shall we +ever have another frolick like our journey to the Hebrides?</p> +<p>'I hope that dear Mrs. Boswell will surmount her complaints; +in losing her you would lose your anchor, and be tost, without +stability, by the waves of life<a href= +"#note-432">[432]</a>. I wish both her +and you very many years, and very happy.</p> +<p>'For some months past I have been so withdrawn from the world, +that I can send you nothing particular. All your friends, +however, are well, and will be glad of your return to London.</p> +<p>'I am, dear Sir,</p> +<p>'Yours most affectionately,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'January 5, 1782.'</p> +<p>At a time when he was less able than he had once been to +sustain a shock, he was suddenly deprived of Mr. Levett, which +event he thus communicated to Dr. Lawrence:—</p> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>'Our old friend, Mr. Levett, who was last night eminently +cheerful, died this morning. The man who lay in the same room, +hearing an uncommon noise, got up and tried to make him speak, +but without effect. He then called Mr. Holder, the apothecary, +who, though when he came he thought him dead, opened a vein, but +could draw no blood. So has ended the long life of a very useful +and very blameless man.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Jan. 17, 1782.'</p> +<p>In one of his memorandum-books in my possession, is the +following entry:—</p> +<p>'January 20, Sunday. Robert Levett was buried in the +church-yard of Bridewell, between one and two in the afternoon. +He died on Thursday 17, about seven in the morning, by an +instantaneous death. He was an old and faithful friend; I have +known him from about 46. <i>Commendavi</i>. May GOD have mercy on +him. May he have mercy on me.'</p> +<p>Such was Johnson's affectionate regard for Levett<a href= +"#note-433">[433]</a>, that he honoured +his memory with the following pathetick verses:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Condemd'd to Hope's delusive mine, + As on we toil from day to day, + By sudden blast or slow decline + Our social comforts drop away. + Well try'd through many a varying year, + See LEVETT to the grave descend; + Officious, innocent, sincere, + Of every friendless name the friend<a href= +"#note-434">434</a>. + Yet still he fills affection's eye, + Obscurely wise<a href= +"#note-435">435</a>, and coarsely kind; + Nor, letter'd arrogance<a href= +"#note-436">436</a>, deny + Thy praise to merit unrefin'd. + When fainting Nature call'd for aid, + And hov'ring Death prepar'd the blow, + His vigorous remedy display'd + The power of art without the show. + In Misery's darkest caverns known, + His ready help was ever nigh, + Where hopeless Anguish pour'd his groan, + And lonely want retir'd to die<a href= +"#note-437">437</a>. + No summons mock'd by chill delay, + No petty gains disdain'd by pride; + The modest wants of every day + The toil of every day supply'd. + His virtues walk'd their narrow round, + Nor made a pause, nor left a void; + And sure the Eternal Master found + His single talent well employ'd. + The busy day, the peaceful night<a href= +"#note-438">438</a>, + Unfelt, uncounted, glided by; + His frame was firm, his powers were bright, + Though now his eightieth year was nigh<a href= +"#note-439">439</a>. + Then, with no throbs of fiery pain, + No cold gradations of decay, + Death broke at once the vital chain, + And freed his soul the nearest way.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>In one of Johnson's registers of this year, there occurs the +following curious passage:—</p> +<p>'Jan. 20<a href="#note-440">[440]</a>. +The Ministry is dissolved. I prayed with Francis and gave +thanks<a href="#note-441">[441]</a>.'</p> +<p>It has been the subject of discussion, whether there are two +distinct particulars mentioned here? or that we are to understand +the giving of thanks to be in consequence of the dissolution of +the Ministry? In support of the last of these conjectures may be +urged his mean opinion of that Ministry, which has frequently +appeared in the course of this work<a href= +"#note-442">[442]</a>; and it is strongly +confirmed by what he said on the subject to Mr. Seward:—'I +am glad the Ministry is removed. Such a bunch of imbecility never +disgraced a country<a href= +"#note-443">[443]</a>. If they sent a +messenger into the City to take up a printer, the messenger was +taken up instead of the printer, and committed by the sitting +Alderman<a href="#note-444">[444]</a>. If +they sent one army to the relief of another, the first army was +defeated and taken before the second arrived<a href= +"#note-445">[445]</a>. I will not say +that what they did was always wrong; but it was always done at a +wrong time<a href= +"#note-446">[446]</a>.'</p> +<center>'TO MRS. STRAHAN.</center> +<center>'DEAR MADAM,</center> +<p>'Mrs. Williams shewed me your kind letter. This little +habitation is now but a melancholy place, clouded with the gloom +of disease and death. Of the four inmates, one has been suddenly +snatched away; two are oppressed by very afflictive and dangerous +illness; and I tried yesterday to gain some relief by a third +bleeding, from a disorder which has for some time distressed me, +and I think myself to-day much better.</p> +<p>'I am glad, dear Madam, to hear that you are so far recovered +as to go to Bath. Let me once more entreat you to stay till your +health is not only obtained, but confirmed. Your fortune is such +as that no moderate expence deserves your care; and you have a +husband, who, I believe, does not regard it. Stay, therefore, +till you are quite well. I am, for my part, very much deserted; +but complaint is useless. I hope GOD will bless you, and I desire +you to form the same wish for me.</p> +<p>'I am, dear Madam,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Feb. 4, 1782.'</p> +<p>'To EDMOND MALONE, ESQ.</p> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>'I have for many weeks been so much out of order, that I have +gone out only in a coach to Mrs. Thrale's, where I can use all +the freedom that sickness requires. Do not, therefore, take it +amiss, that I am not with you and Dr. Farmer. I hope hereafter to +see you often.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Feb. 27, 1782.'</p> +<p>To THE SAME.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I hope I grow better, and shall soon be able to enjoy the +kindness of my friends. I think this wild adherence to +Chatterton<a href="#note-447">[447]</a> +more unaccountable than the obstinate defence of Ossian. In +Ossian there is a national pride, which may be forgiven, though +it cannot be applauded. In Chatterton there is nothing but the +resolution to say again what has once been said.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'March 7, 1782.'</p> +<p>These short letters shew the regard which Dr. Johnson +entertained for Mr. Malone, who the more he is known is the more +highly valued. It is much to be regretted that Johnson was +prevented from sharing the elegant hospitality of that +gentleman's table, at which he would in every respect have been +fully gratified. Mr. Malone, who has so ably succeeded him as an +Editor of Shakspeare, has, in his Preface, done great and just +honour to Johnson's memory.</p> +<center>'TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.</center> +<center>'DEAR MADAM,</center> +<p>'I went away from Lichfield ill, and have had a troublesome +time with my breath; for some weeks I have been disordered by a +cold, of which I could not get the violence abated, till I had +been let blood three times. I have not, however, been so bad but +that I could have written, and am sorry that I neglected it.</p> +<p>'My dwelling is but melancholy; both Williams, and Desmoulins, +and myself, are very sickly: Frank is not well; and poor Levett +died in his bed the other day, by a sudden stroke; I suppose not +one minute passed between health and death; so uncertain are +human things.</p> +<p>'Such is the appearance of the world about me; I hope your +scenes are more cheerful. But whatever befalls us, though it is +wise to be serious, it is useless and foolish, and perhaps +sinful, to be gloomy. Let us, therefore, keep ourselves as easy +as we can; though the loss of friends will be felt, and poor +Levett had been a faithful adherent for thirty years.</p> +<p>'Forgive me, my dear love, the omission of writing; I hope to +mend that and my other faults. Let me have your prayers.</p> +<p>'Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb, and Miss Adey, and Mr. +Pearson, and the whole company of my friends.</p> +<p>I am, my dear,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, March 2, 1782.'</p> +<center>TO THE SAME.</center> +<center>'DEAR MADAM,</center> +<p>'My last was but a dull letter, and I know not that this will +be much more cheerful; I am, however, willing to write, because +you are desirous to hear from me.</p> +<p>'My disorder has now begun its ninth week, for it is not yet +over. I was last Thursday blooded for the fourth time, and have +since found myself much relieved, but I am very tender and easily +hurt; so that since we parted I have had but little comfort, but +I hope that the spring will recover me; and that in the summer I +shall see Lichfield again, for I will not delay my visit another +year to the end of autumn.</p> +<p>'I have, by advertising, found poor Mr. Levett's brothers in +Yorkshire, who will take the little he has left: it is but +little, yet it will be welcome, for I believe they are of very +low condition.</p> +<p>'To be sick, and to see nothing but sickness and death, is but +a gloomy state; but I hope better times, even in this world, will +come, and whatever this world may withhold or give, we shall be +happy in a better state. Pray for me, my dear Lucy.</p> +<p>'Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb, and Miss Adey, and my old +friend Hetty Baily, and to all the Lichfield ladies.</p> +<p>'I am, dear Madam,</p> +<p>'Yours, affectionately,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Bolt-court, Fleet-street,</p> +<p>March 19, 1782.'</p> +<p>On the day on which this letter was written, he thus feelingly +mentions his respected friend and physician, Dr. +Lawrence:—</p> +<p>'Poor Lawrence has almost lost the sense of hearing; and I +have lost the conversation of a learned, intelligent, and +communicative companion, and a friend whom long familiarity has +much endeared. Lawrence is one of the best men whom I have +known.—<i>Nostrum omnium miserere Deus</i><a href= +"#note-448">[448]</a>.'</p> +<p>It was Dr. Johnson's custom when he wrote to Dr. Lawrence +concerning his own health, to use the Latin language<a href= +"#note-449">[449]</a>. I have been +favoured by Miss Lawrence with one of these letters as a +specimen:—</p> +<p>'T. LAWRENCIO, <i>Medico, S</i>.</p> +<p>'NOVUM <i>frigus, nova tussis, nova spirandi difficultas, +novam sanguinis missionem suadent, quam tamen te inconsulto nolim +fieri. Ad te venire vix possum, nec est cur ad me venias. Licere +vel non licere uno verbo dicendum est; catera mihi et Holdero<a +href="#note-450">[450]</a> reliqueris. Si +per te licet, imperatur<a href= +"#note-451">[451]</a> nuncio Holderum ad +me deducere.</i></p> +<p>'Maiis Calendis, 1782.</p> +<p>'Postquàm tu discesseris, quò me vertam<a href= +"#note-452">[452]</a>?'</p> +<center>TO CAPTAIN LANGTON<a href= +"#note-453">[453]</a>, IN +ROCHESTER.</center> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'It is now long since we saw one another; and whatever has +been the reason neither you have written to me, nor I to you. To +let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly +not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest +comforts of this weary pilgrimage, of which when it is, as it +must be, taken finally away, he that travels on alone, will +wonder how his esteem could be so little. Do not forget me; you +see that I do not forget you. It is pleasing in the silence of +solitude to think, that there is one at least, however distant, +of whose benevolence there is little doubt, and whom there is yet +hope of seeing again<a href= +"#note-454">[454]</a>.</p> +<p>'Of my life, from the time we parted, the history is mournful. +The spring of last year deprived me of Thrale, a man whose eye +for fifteen years had scarcely been turned upon me but with +respect or tenderness<a href= +"#note-455">[455]</a>; for such another +friend, the general course of human things will not suffer man to +hope. I passed the summer at Streatham, but there was no Thrale; +and having idled away the summer with a weakly body and neglected +mind, I made a journey to Staffordshire on the edge of winter. +The season was dreary, I was sickly, and found the friends sickly +whom I went to see. After a sorrowful sojourn, I returned to a +habitation possessed for the present by two sick women, where my +dear old friend, Mr. Levett, to whom as he used to tell me, I owe +your acquaintance<a href= +"#note-456">[456]</a>, died a few weeks +ago, suddenly in his bed; there passed not, I believe, a minute +between health and death. At night, as at Mrs. Thrale's I was +musing in my chamber, I thought with uncommon earnestness, that +however I might alter my mode of life, or whithersoever I might +remove<a href="#note-457">[457]</a>, I +would endeavour to retain Levett about me; in the morning my +servant brought me word that Levett was called to another state, +a state for which, I think, he was not unprepared, for he was +very useful to the poor. How much soever I valued him, I now wish +that I had valued him more<a href= +"#note-458">[458]</a>.</p> +<p>'I have myself been ill more than eight weeks of a disorder, +from which at the expence of about fifty ounces of blood, I hope +I am now recovering.</p> +<p>'You, dear Sir, have, I hope, a more cheerful scene; you see +George fond of his book, and the pretty misses airy and lively, +with my own little Jenny<a href= +"#note-459">[459]</a> equal to the +best[460]: and in whatever can contribute to your quiet or +pleasure, you have Lady Rothes ready to concur. May whatever you +enjoy of good be encreased, and whatever you suffer of evil be +diminished.</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + I am, dear Sir, + Your humble servant, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> +'Bolt-court, Fleet-street, + March 20, 1782.' + 'To MR. HECTOR, IN BIRMINGHAM<a href= +"#note-461">461</a>. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I hope I do not very grossly flatter myself to imagine that +you and dear Mrs. Careless<a href= +"#note-462">[462]</a> will be glad to +hear some account of me. I performed the journey to London with +very little inconvenience, and came safe to my habitation, where +I found nothing but ill health, and, of consequence, very little +cheerfulness. I then went to visit a little way into the country, +where I got a complaint by a cold which has hung eight weeks upon +me, and from which I am, at the expence of fifty ounces of blood, +not yet free. I am afraid I must once more owe my recovery to +warm weather, which seems to make no advances towards us.</p> +<p>'Such is my health, which will, I hope, soon grow better. In +other respects I have no reason to complain. I know not that I +have written any thing more generally commended than the <i>Lives +of the Poets</i>; and have found the world willing enough to +caress me, if my health had invited me to be in much company; but +this season I have been almost wholly employed in nursing +myself.</p> +<p>'When summer comes I hope to see you again, and will not put +off my visit to the end of the year. I have lived so long in +London, that I did not remember the difference of seasons.</p> +<p>'Your health, when I saw you, was much improved. You will be +prudent enough not to put it in danger. I hope, when we meet +again, we shall all congratulate each other upon fair prospects +of longer life; though what are the pleasures of the longest +life, when placed in comparison with a happy death?</p> +<p>'I am, dear Sir,</p> +<p>'Yours most affectionately,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, March 21, 1782.'</p> +<p>To THE SAME.</p> +<p>[Without a date, but supposed to be about this time.][463]</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'That you and dear Mrs. Careless should have care or curiosity +about my health, gives me that pleasure which every man feels +from finding himself not forgotten. In age we feel again that +love of our native place and our early friends, which in the +bustle or amusements of middle life were overborne and suspended. +You and I should now naturally cling to one another: we have +outlived most of those who could pretend to rival us in each +other's kindness. In our walk through life we have dropped our +companions, and are now to pick up such as chance may offer us, +or to travel on alone<a href= +"#note-464">[464]</a>. You, indeed, have +a sister, with whom you can divide the day: I have no natural +friend left; but Providence has been pleased to preserve me from +neglect; I have not wanted such alleviations of life as +friendship could supply. My health has been, from my twentieth +year, such as has seldom afforded me a single day of ease<a href= +"#note-465">[465]</a>; but it is at least +not worse: and I sometimes make myself believe that it is better. +My disorders are, however, still sufficiently oppressive.</p> +<p>'I think of seeing Staffordshire again this autumn, and intend +to find my way through Birmingham, where I hope to see you and +dear Mrs. Careless well. I am Sir,</p> +<p>'Your affectionate friend,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>I wrote to him at different dates; regretted that I could not +come to London this spring, but hoped we should meet somewhere in +the summer; mentioned the state of my affairs, and suggested +hopes of some preferment; informed him, that as <i>The Beauties +of Johnson</i> had been published in London, some obscure +scribbler had published at Edinburgh what he called <i>The +deformities of Johnson</i>.</p> +<p>'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'The pleasure which we used to receive from each other on +Good-Friday and Easter-day<a href= +"#note-466">[466]</a>, we must be this +year content to miss. Let us, however, pray for each other, and +hope to see one another yet from time to time with mutual +delight. My disorder has been a cold, which impeded the organs of +respiration, and kept me many weeks in a state of great +uneasiness; but by repeated phlebotomy it is now relieved; and +next to the recovery of Mrs. Boswell, I flatter myself, that you +will rejoice at mine.</p> +<p>'What we shall do in the summer it is yet too early to +consider. You want to know what you shall do now; I do not think +this time of bustle and confusion<a href= +"#note-467">[467]</a> likely to produce +any advantage to you. Every man has those to reward and gratify +who have contributed to his advancement. To come hither with such +expectations at the expence of borrowed money, which, I find, you +know not where to borrow, can hardly be considered as prudent. I +am sorry to find, what your solicitation seems to imply, that you +have already gone the whole length of your credit. This is to set +the quiet of your whole life at hazard. If you anticipate your +inheritance, you can at last inherit nothing; all that you +receive must pay for the past. You must get a place, or pine in +penury, with the empty name of a great estate. Poverty, my dear +friend, is so great an evil, and pregnant with so much +temptation, and so much misery, that I cannot but earnestly +enjoin you to avoid it<a href= +"#note-468">[468]</a>. Live on what you +have; live if you can on less; do not borrow either for vanity or +pleasure; the vanity will end in shame, and the pleasure in +regret: stay therefore at home, till you have saved money for +your journey hither.</p> +<p><i>The Beauties of Johnson</i> are said to have got money to +the collector; if the <i>Deformities</i> have the same success, I +shall be still a more extensive benefactor.</p> +<p>'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, who is, I hope, +reconciled to me; and to the young people whom I never have +offended.</p> +<p>'You never told me the success of your plea against the +Solicitors<a href= +"#note-469">[469]</a>.</p> +<p>'I am, dear Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most affectionate,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, March 28, 1782.'</p> +<p>Notwithstanding his afflicted state of body<a href= +"#note-470">[470]</a> and mind this year, +the following correspondence affords a proof not only of his +benevolence and conscientious readiness to relieve a good man +from errour, but by his cloathing one of the sentiments in his +<i>Rambler</i> in different language, not inferiour to that of +the original, shews his extraordinary command of clear and +forcible expression.</p> +<p>A clergyman at Bath wrote to him, that in <i>The Morning +Chronicle</i>, a passage in <i>The Beauties of Johnson</i><a +href="#note-471">[471]</a>, article +DEATH, had been pointed out as supposed by some readers to +recommend suicide, the words being, 'To die is the fate of man; +but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly;' and +respectfully suggesting to him, that such an erroneous notion of +any sentence in the writings of an acknowledged friend of +religion and virtue, should not pass uncontradicted.</p> +<p>Johnson thus answered the clergyman's letter:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + To THE REVEREND MR. ——, AT BATH. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>'Being now<a href= +"#note-472">[472]</a> in the country in a +state of recovery, as I hope, from a very oppressive disorder, I +cannot neglect the acknowledgement of your Christian letter. The +book called <i>The Beauties of Johnson</i> is the production of I +know not whom: I never saw it but by casual inspection, and +considered myself as utterly disengaged from its consequences. Of +the passage you mention, I remember some notice in some paper; +but knowing that it must be misrepresented, I thought of it no +more, nor do I know where to find it in my own books. I am +accustomed to think little of newspapers; but an opinion so +weighty and serious as yours has determined me to do, what I +should, without your seasonable admonition, have omitted; and I +will direct my thought to be shewn in its true state<a href= +"#note-473">[473]</a>. If I could find +the passage, I would direct you to it. I suppose the tenour is +this:—'Acute diseases are the immediate and inevitable +strokes of Heaven; but of them the pain is short, and the +conclusion speedy; chronical disorders, by which we are suspended +in tedious torture between life and death, are commonly the +effect of our own misconduct and intemperance. To die, +&c.'—This, Sir, you see is all true and all blameless. +I hope, some time in the next week, to have all rectified. My +health has been lately much shaken: if you favour me with any +answer, it will be a comfort to me to know that I have your +prayers.</p> +<p>'I am, &c.,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'May 15, 1782.'</p> +<p>This letter, as might be expected, had its full effect, and +the clergyman acknowledged it in grateful and pious terms<a href= +"#note-474">[474]</a>.</p> +<p>The following letters require no extracts from mine to +introduce them:—</p> +<center>'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</center> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'The earnestness and tenderness of your letter is such, that I +cannot think myself shewing it more respect than it claims by +sitting down to answer it the day on which I received it.</p> +<p>'This year has afflicted me with a very irksome and severe +disorder. My respiration has been much impeded, and much blood +has been taken away. I am now harrassed by a catarrhous cough, +from which my purpose is to seek relief by change of air; and I +am, therefore, preparing to go to Oxford<a href= +"#note-475">[475]</a>.</p> +<p>'Whether I did right in dissuading you from coming to London +this spring, I will not determine. You have not lost much by +missing my company; I have scarcely been well for a single week. +I might have received comfort from your kindness; but you would +have seen me afflicted, and, perhaps, found me peevish. Whatever +might have been your pleasure or mine, I know not how I could +have honestly advised you to come hither with borrowed money. Do +not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; +you will find it a calamity. Poverty takes away so many means of +doing good, and produces so much inability to resist evil, both +natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous means to be +avoided. Consider a man whose fortune is very narrow; whatever be +his rank by birth, or whatever his reputation by intellectual +excellence, what good can he do? or what evil can he prevent? +That he cannot help the needy is evident; he has nothing to +spare. But, perhaps, his advice or admonition may be useful. His +poverty will destroy his influence: many more can find that he is +poor, than that he is wise; and few will reverence the +understanding that is of so little advantage to its owner. I say +nothing of the personal wretched-ness of a debtor, which, +however, has passed into a proverb<a href= +"#note-476">[476]</a>. Of riches, it is +not necessary to write the praise<a href= +"#note-477">[477]</a>. Let it, however, +be remembered, that he who has money to spare, has it always in +his power to benefit others; and of such power a good man must +always be desirous.</p> +<p>'I am pleased with your account of Easter<a href= +"#note-478">[478]</a>. We shall meet, I +hope in Autumn, both well and both cheerful; and part each the +better for the other's company.</p> +<p>'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, and to the young +charmers.</p> +<p>'I am, &c.</p> +<p>'SAM. JOHNSON.' 'London, June 3, 1782.'</p> +<p>'To MR. PERKINS<a href= +"#note-479">[479]</a>.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>I am much pleased that you are going a very long journey, +which may by proper conduct restore your health and prolong your +life.</p> +<p>'Observe these rules:</p> +<p>1. Turn all care out of your head as soon as you mount the +chaise.</p> +<p>2. Do not think about frugality; your health is worth more +than it can cost.</p> +<p>3. Do not continue any day's journey to fatigue.</p> +<p>4. Take now and then a day's rest.</p> +<p>5. Get a smart sea-sickness, if you can.</p> +<p>6. Cast away all anxiety, and keep your mind easy.</p> +<p>'This last direction is the principal; with an unquiet mind, +neither exercise, nor diet, nor physick, can be of much use.</p> +<p>'I wish you, dear Sir, a prosperous journey, and a happy +recovery.</p> +<p>I am, dear Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most affectionate, humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'July 28, 1782.'</p> +<p>'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'Being uncertain whether I should have any call this autumn +into the country, I did not immediately answer your kind letter. +I have no call; but if you desire to meet me at Ashbourne, I +believe I can come thither; if you had rather come to London, I +can stay at Streatham; take your choice.</p> +<p>'This year has been very heavy. From the middle of January to +the middle of June I was battered by one disorder after another! +I am now very much recovered, and hope still to be better. What +happiness it is that Mrs. Boswell has escaped.</p> +<p>'My <i>Lives</i> are reprinting, and I have forgotten the +authour of Gray's character<a href= +"#note-480">[480]</a>: write immediately, +and it may be perhaps yet inserted.</p> +<p>'Of London or Ashbourne you have your free choice; at any +place I shall be glad to see you. I am, dear Sir,</p> +<p>'Yours &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Aug. 24, 1782.'</p> +<p>On the 3Oth of August, I informed him that my honoured father +had died that morning; a complaint under which he had long +laboured having suddenly come to a crisis, while I was upon a +visit at the seat of Sir Charles Preston, from whence I had +hastened the day before, upon receiving a letter by express.</p> +<center>'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</center> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I have struggled through this year with so much infirmity of +body, and such strong impressions of the fragility of life, that +death, whenever it appears, fills me with melancholy; and I +cannot hear without emotion, of the removal of any one, whom I +have known, into another state.</p> +<p>'Your father's death had every circumstance that could enable +you to bear it; it was at a mature age, and it was expected; and +as his general life had been pious, his thoughts had doubtless +for many years past been turned upon eternity. That you did not +find him sensible must doubtless grieve you; his disposition +towards you was undoubtedly that of a kind, though not of a fond +father. Kindness, at least actual, is in our power, but fondness +is not; and if by negligence or imprudence you had extinguished +his fondness, he could not at will rekindle it. Nothing then +remained between you but mutual forgiveness of each other's +faults, and mutual desire of each other's happiness.</p> +<p>'I shall long to know his final disposition of his fortune<a +href="#note-481">[481]</a>.</p> +<p>'You, dear Sir, have now a new station, and have therefore new +cares, and new employments. Life, as Cowley seems to say, ought +to resemble a well-ordered poem<a href= +"#note-482">[482]</a>; of which one rule +generally received is, that the exordium should be simple, and +should promise little. Begin your new course of life with the +least show, and the least expence possible; you may at pleasure +encrease both, but you cannot easily diminish them. Do not think +your estate your own, while any man can call upon you for money +which you cannot pay; therefore, begin with timorous parsimony. +Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt.</p> +<p>'When the thoughts are extended to a future state, the present +life seems hardly worthy of all those principles of conduct, and +maxims of prudence, which one generation of men has transmitted +to another; but upon a closer view, when it is perceived how much +evil is produced, and how much good is impeded by embarrassment +and distress, and how little room the expedients of poverty leave +for the exercise of virtue, it grows manifest that the boundless +importance of the next life enforces some attention to the +interests of this.</p> +<p>'Be kind to the old servants, and secure the kindness of the +agents and factors; do not disgust them by asperity, or unwelcome +gaiety, or apparent suspicion. From them you must learn the real +state of your affairs, the characters of your tenants, and the +value of your lands<a href= +"#note-483">[483]</a>.</p> +<p>'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell; I think her expectations +from air and exercise are the best that she can form. I hope she +will live long and happily.</p> +<p>'I forget whether I told you that Rasay<a href= +"#note-484">[484]</a> has been here; we +dined cheerfully together. I entertained lately a young gentleman +from Corrichatachin<a href= +"#note-485">[485]</a>.</p> +<p>'I received your letters only this morning. I am, dear +Sir,</p> +<p>'Yours &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, Sept. 7, 1782.'</p> +<p>In answer to my next letter, I received one from him, +dissuading me from hastening to him as I had proposed<a href= +"#note-486">[486]</a>; what is proper for +publication is the following paragraph, equally just and +tender:—</p> +<p>'One expence, however, I would not have you to spare: let +nothing be omitted that can preserve Mrs. Boswell, though it +should be necessary to transplant her for a time into a softer +climate. She is the prop and stay of your life. How much must +your children suffer by losing her.'</p> +<p>My wife was now so much convinced of his sincere friendship +for me, and regard for her, that, without any suggestion on my +part, she wrote him a very polite and grateful letter:—</p> +<center>'DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. BOSWELL.</center> +<center>'DEAR LADY,</center> +<p>'I have not often received so much pleasure as from your +invitation to Auchinleck. The journey thither and back is, +indeed, too great for the latter part of the year; but if my +health were fully recovered, I would suffer no little heat and +cold, nor a wet or a rough road to keep me from you. I am, +indeed, not without hope of seeing Auchinleck again; but to make +it a pleasant place I must see its lady well, and brisk, and +airy. For my sake, therefore, among many greater reasons, take +care, dear Madam, of your health, spare no expence, and want no +attendance that can procure ease, or preserve it. Be very careful +to keep your mind quiet; and do not think it too much to give an +account of your recovery to, Madam,</p> +<p>'Yours, &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, Sept. 7, 1782.'</p> +<p>'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'Having passed almost this whole year in a succession of +disorders, I went in October to Brighthelmston, whither I came in +a state of so much weakness, that I rested four times in walking +between the inn and the lodging. By physick and abstinence I grew +better, and am now reasonably easy, though at a great distance +from health<a href="#note-487">[487]</a>. +I am afraid, however, that health begins, after seventy, and long +before, to have a meaning different from that which it had at +thirty. But it is culpable to murmur at the established order of +the creation, as it is vain to oppose it. He that lives must grow +old; and he that would rather grow old than die, has GOD to thank +for the infirmities of old age<a href= +"#note-488">[488]</a>.</p> +<p>'At your long silence I am rather angry. You do not, since now +you are the head of your house, think it worth your while to try +whether you or your friend can live longer without writing<a +href="#note-489">[489]</a>, nor suspect +that after so many years of friendship, that when I do not write +to you, I forget you. Put all such useless jealousies out of your +head, and disdain to regulate your own practice by the practice +of another, or by any other principle than the desire of doing +right.</p> +<p>'Your oeconomy, I suppose, begins now to be settled; your +expences are adjusted to your revenue, and all your people in +their proper places. Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, +spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it +certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues +impracticable, and others extremely difficult.</p> +<p>'Let me know the history of your life, since your accession to +your estate. How many houses, how many cows, how much land in +your own hand, and what bargains you make with your tenants.</p> +<hr> +<p>'Of my <i>Lives of the Poets</i>, they have printed a new +edition in octavo, I hear, of three thousand. Did I give a set to +Lord Hailes? If I did not, I will do it out of these. What did +you make of all your copy<a href= +"#note-490">[490]</a>?</p> +<p>'Mrs. Thrale and the three Misses<a href= +"#note-491">[491]</a> are now for the +winter in Argyll-street. Sir Joshua Reynolds has been out of +order, but is well again; and I am, dear Sir,</p> +<p>'Your affectionate humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, Dec. 7, 1782.'</p> +<p>'To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.</p> +<p>'Edinburgh, Dec. 20, 1782.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I was made happy by your kind letter, which gave us the +agreeable hopes of seeing you in Scotland again.</p> +<p>'I am much flattered by the concern you are pleased to take in +my recovery. I am better, and hope to have it in my power to +convince you by my attention of how much consequence I esteem +your health to the world and to myself. I remain, Sir, with +grateful respect,</p> +<p>'Your obliged and obedient servant,</p> +<center>'MARGARET BOSWELL.'</center> +<p>The death of Mr. Thrale had made a very material alteration +with respect to Johnson's reception in that family. The manly +authority of the husband no longer curbed the lively exuberance +of the lady; and as her vanity had been fully gratified, by +having the Colossus of Literature attached to her for many years, +she gradually became less assiduous to please him. Whether her +attachment to him was already divided by another object, I am +unable to ascertain; but it is plain that Johnson's penetration +was alive to her neglect or forced attention; for on the eth of +October this year, we find him making a 'parting use of the +library<a href="#note-492">[492]</a>' at +Streatham, and pronouncing a prayer, which he composed on leaving +Mr. Thrale's family<a href= +"#note-493">[493]</a>:—</p> +<p>'Almighty God, Father of all mercy, help me by thy grace, that +I may, with humble and sincere thankfulness, remember the +comforts and conveniences which I have enjoyed at this place; and +that I may resign them with holy submission, equally trusting in +thy protection when thou givest, and when thou takest away. Have +mercy upon me, Lord, have mercy upon me.</p> +<p>'To thy fatherly protection, O Lord, I commend this family. +Bless, guide, and defend them, that they may so pass through this +world, as finally to enjoy in thy presence everlasting happiness, +for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen<a href= +"#note-494">[494]</a>.'</p> +<p>One cannot read this prayer, without some emotions not very +favourable to the lady whose conduct occasioned it<a href= +"#note-495">[495]</a>.</p> +<p>In one of his memorandum-books I find, 'Sunday, went to church +at Streatham. <i>Templo valedixi cum osculo</i><a href= +"#note-496">[496]</a>.'</p> +<p>He met Mr. Philip Metcalfe<a href= +"#note-497">[497]</a> often at Sir Joshua +Reynolds's, and other places, and was a good deal with him at +Brighthelmston<a href= +"#note-498">[498]</a> this autumn, being +pleased at once with his excellent table and animated +conversation. Mr. Metcalfe shewed him great respect, and sent him +a note that he might have the use of his carriage whenever he +pleased. Johnson (3d October, 1782) returned this polite +answer:—'Mr. Johnson is very much obliged by the kind offer +of the carriage, but he has no desire of using Mr. Metcalfe's +carriage, except when he can have the pleasure of Mr. Metcalfe's +company.' Mr. Metcalfe could not but be highly pleased that his +company was thus valued by Johnson, and he frequently attended +him in airings. They also went together to Chichester<a href= +"#note-499">[499]</a>, and they visited +Petworth, and Cowdry, the venerable seat of the Lords Montacute. +'Sir, (said Johnson,) I should like to stay here four-and-twenty +hours. We see here how our ancestors lived.'</p> +<p>That his curiosity was still unabated, appears from two +letters to Mr. John Nichols, of the 10th and 20th<a href= +"#note-500">[500]</a> of October this +year. In one he says, 'I have looked into your <i>Anecdotes</i>, +and you will hardly thank a lover of literary history for telling +you, that he has been much informed and gratified. I wish you +would add your own discoveries and intelligence to those of Dr. +Rawlinson, and undertake the Supplement to Wood<a href= +"#note-501">[501]</a>'. Think of it.' In +the other, 'I wish, Sir, you could obtain some fuller information +of Jortin<a href="#note-502">[502]</a>, +Markland[503], and Thirlby[504]. They were three contemporaries +of great eminence.'</p> +<center>'TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.</center> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I heard yesterday of your late disorder<a href= +"#note-505">[505]</a>, and should think +ill of myself if I had heard of it without alarm. I heard +likewise Of your recovery, which I sincerely wish to be complete +and permanent. Your country has been in danger of losing one of +its brightest ornaments, and I of losing one of my oldest and +kindest friends: but I hope you will still live long, for the +honour of the nation: and that more enjoyment of your elegance, +your intelligence, and your benevolence, is still reserved for, +dear Sir, your most affectionate, &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Brighthelmston,</p> +<p>Nov. 14, 1782.'</p> +<p>The Reverend Mr. Wilson having dedicated to him his +<i>Archaeological Dictionary</i><a href= +"#note-506">[506]</a>, that mark of +respect was thus acknowledged:—</p> +<center>'TO THE REVEREND MR. WILSON, CLITHEROE, +LANCASHIRE.</center> +<center>'REVEREND SIR,</center> +<p>'That I have long omitted to return you thanks for the honour +conferred upon me by your Dedication, I entreat you with great +earnestness not to consider as more faulty than it is. A very +importunate and oppressive disorder has for some time debarred me +from the pleasures, and obstructed me in the duties of life. The +esteem and kindness of wise and good men is one of the last +pleasures which I can be content to lose; and gratitude to those +from whom this pleasure is received, is a duty of which I hope +never to be reproached with the final neglect. I therefore now +return you thanks for the notice which I have received from you, +and which I consider as giving to my name not only more bulk, but +more weight; not only as extending its superficies, but as +increasing its value. Your book was evidently wanted, and will, I +hope, find its way into the school, to which, however, I do not +mean to confine it; for no man has so much skill in ancient rites +and practices as not to want it. As I suppose myself to owe part +of your kindness to my excellent friend, Dr. Patten, he has +likewise a just claim to my acknowledgements, which I hope you, +Sir, will transmit. There will soon appear a new edition of my +Poetical Biography; if you will accept of a copy to keep me in +your mind, be pleased to let me know how it may be conveniently +conveyed to you. The present is small, but it is given with good +will by, Reverend Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most, &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'December 31, 1782<a href= +"#note-507">[507]</a>.'</p> +<p>1783: AETAT. 74.—In 1783, he was more severely afflicted +than ever, as will appear in the course of his correspondence<a +href="#note-508">[508]</a>; but still the +same ardour for literature, the same constant piety, the same +kindness for his friends, and the same vivacity, both in +conversation and writing, distinguished him.</p> +<p>Having given Dr. Johnson a full account of what I was doing at +Auchinleck, and particularly mentioned what I knew would please +him,—my having brought an old man of eighty-eight from a +lonely cottage to a comfortable habitation within my enclosures, +where he had good neighbours near to him,—I received an +answer in February, of which I extract what follows:—</p> +<p>'I am delighted with your account of your activity at +Auchinleck, and wish the old gentleman, whom you have so kindly +removed, may live long to promote your prosperity by his prayers. +You have now a new character and new duties: think on them and +practise them.</p> +<p>'Make an impartial estimate of your revenue, and whatever it +is, live upon less. Resolve never to be poor. Frugality is not +only the basis of quiet, but of beneficence. No man can help +others that wants help himself; we must have enough before we +have to spare.</p> +<p>'I am glad to find that Mrs. Boswell grows well; and hope that +to keep her well, no care nor caution will be omitted. May you +long live happily together.</p> +<p>'When you come hither, pray bring with you Baxter's +<i>Anacreon</i><a href= +"#note-509">[509]</a>. I cannot get that +edition in London.'</p> +<p>On Friday, March 31, having arrived in London the night +before, I was glad to find him at Mrs. Thrale's house, in +Argyll-street, appearances of friendship between them being still +kept up. I was shewn into his room, and after the first +salutation he said, 'I am glad you are come. I am very ill.' He +looked pale, and was distressed with a difficulty of breathing; +but after the common inquiries he assumed his usual strong +animated style of conversation. Seeing me now for the first time +as a <i>Laird</i>, or proprietor of land, he began thus: 'Sir, +the superiority of a country-gentleman over the people upon his +estate is very agreeable; and he who says he does not feel it to +be agreeable, lies; for it must be agreeable to have a casual +superiority over those who are by nature equal with us<a href= +"#note-510">[510]</a>.' BOSWELL. 'Yet, +Sir, we see great proprietors of land who prefer living in +London.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the pleasure of living in London, +the intellectual superiority that is enjoyed there, may +counter-balance the other. Besides, Sir, a man may prefer the +state of the country-gentleman upon the whole, and yet there may +never be a moment when he is willing to make the change to quit +London for it.' He said, 'It is better to have five <i>per +cent</i>. out of land than out of money, because it is more +secure; but the readiness of transfer, and promptness of +interest, make many people rather choose the funds. Nay, there is +another disadvantage belonging to land, compared with money. A +man is not so much afraid of being a hard creditor, as of being a +hard landlord.' BOSWELL. 'Because there is a sort of kindly +connection between a landlord and his tenants.' JOHNSON. 'No, +Sir; many landlords with us never see their tenants. It is +because if a landlord drives away his tenants, he may not get +others; whereas the demand for money is so great, it may always +be lent.'</p> +<p>He talked with regret and indignation of the factious +opposition to Government at this time<a href= +"#note-511">[511]</a>, and imputed it in +a great measure to the Revolution. 'Sir, (said he, in a low +voice, having come nearer to me, while his old prejudices seemed +to be fermenting in his mind,) this Hanoverian family is +<i>isolée</i> here<a href= +"#note-512">[512]</a>. They have no +friends. Now the Stuarts had friends who stuck by them so late as +1745. When the right of the King is not reverenced, there will +not be reverence for those appointed by the King.'</p> +<p>His observation that the present royal family has no friends, +has been too much justified by the very ungrateful behaviour of +many who were under great obligations to his Majesty; at the same +time there are honourable exceptions; and the very next year +after this conversation, and ever since, the King has had as +extensive and generous support as ever was given to any monarch, +and has had the satisfaction of knowing that he was more and more +endeared to his people<a href= +"#note-513">[513]</a>.</p> +<p>He repeated to me his verses on Mr. Levett, with an emotion +which gave them full effect<a href= +"#note-514">[514]</a>; and then he was +pleased to say, 'You must be as much with me as you can. You have +done me good. You cannot think how much better I am since you +came in.'</p> +<p>He sent a message to acquaint Mrs. Thrale that I was arrived. +I had not seen her since her husband's death. She soon appeared, +and favoured me with an invitation to stay to dinner, which I +accepted. There was no other company but herself and three of her +daughters, Dr. Johnson, and I. She too said, she was very glad I +was come, for she was going to Bath, and should have been sorry +to leave Dr. Johnson before I came. This seemed to be attentive +and kind; and I who had not been informed of any change, imagined +all to be as well as formerly. He was little inclined to talk at +dinner, and went to sleep after it; but when he joined us in the +drawing-room, he seemed revived, and was again himself.</p> +<p>Talking of conversation, he said, 'There must, in the first +place, be knowledge, there must be materials; in the second +place, there must be a command of words; in the third place, +there must be imagination, to place things in such views as they +are not commonly seen in; and in the fourth place, there must be +presence of mind, and a resolution that is not to be overcome by +failures: this last is an essential requisite; for want of it +many people do not excel in conversation. Now <i>I</i> want it: I +throw up the game upon losing a trick.' I wondered to hear him +talk thus of himself, and said, 'I don't know, Sir, how this may +be; but I am sure you beat other people's cards out of their +hands.' I doubt whether he heard this remark. While he went on +talking triumphantly, I was fixed in admiration, and said to Mrs. +Thrale, 'O, for short-hand to take this down!' 'You'll carry it +all in your head; (said she;) a long head is as good as +short-hand.'</p> +<p>It has been observed and wondered at, that Mr. Charles Fox +never talked with any freedom in the presence of Dr. Johnson<a +href="#note-515">[515]</a>, though it is +well known, and I myself can witness, that his conversation is +various, fluent, and exceedingly agreeable. Johnson's own +experience, however, of that gentleman's reserve was a sufficient +reason for his going on thus: 'Fox never talks in private +company; not from any determination not to talk, but because he +has not the first motion<a href= +"#note-516">[516]</a>. A man who is used +to the applause of the House of Commons, has no wish for that of +a private company. A man accustomed to throw for a thousand +pounds, if set down to throw for sixpence, would not be at the +pains to count his dice. Burke's talk is the ebullition of his +mind; he does not talk from a desire of distinction, but because +his mind is full<a href= +"#note-517">[517]</a>.</p> +<p>He thus curiously characterised one of our old acquaintance: +'——<a href= +"#note-518">[518]</a> is a good man, Sir; +but he is a vain man and a liar. He, however, only tells lies of +vanity; of victories, for instance, in conversation, which never +happened.' This alluded to a story which I had repeated from that +gentleman, to entertain Johnson with its wild bravado: 'This +Johnson, Sir, (said he,) whom you are all afraid of will shrink, +if you come close to him in argument and roar as loud as he. He +once maintained the paradox, that there is no beauty but in +utility<a href="#note-519">[519]</a>. +"Sir, (said I,) what say you to the peacock's tail, which is one +of the most beautiful objects in nature, but would have as much +utility if its feathers were all of one colour." He <i>felt</i> +what I thus produced, and had recourse to his usual expedient, +ridicule; exclaiming, "A peacock has a tail, and a fox has a +tail;" and then he burst out into a laugh. "Well, Sir, (said I, +with a strong voice, looking him full in the face,) you have +unkennelled your fox; pursue him if you dare." He had not a word +to say, Sir.' Johnson told me, that this was a fiction from +beginning to end<a href= +"#note-520">[520]</a>.</p> +<p>After musing for some time, he said, 'I wonder how I should +have any enemies; for I do harm to nobody<a href= +"#note-521">[521]</a>.' BOSWELL. 'In the +first place, Sir, you will be pleased to recollect, that you set +out with attacking the Scotch; so you got a whole nation for your +enemies.' JOHNSON. 'Why, I own, that by my definition of +<i>oats</i><a href="#note-522">[522]</a> +I meant to vex them.' BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, can you trace the +cause of your antipathy to the Scotch.' JOHNSON. 'I cannot, Sir<a +href="#note-523">[523]</a>.' BOSWELL. +'Old Mr. Sheridan says, it was because they sold Charles the +First.' JOHNSON. 'Then, Sir, old Mr. Sheridan has found out a +very good reason.'</p> +<p>Surely the most obstinate and sulky nationality, the most +determined aversion to this great and good man, must be cured, +when he is seen thus playing with one of his prejudices, of which +he candidly admitted that he could not tell the reason. It was, +however, probably owing to his having had in his view the worst +part of the Scottish nation, the needy adventurers, many of whom +he thought were advanced above their merits by means which he did +not approve. Had he in his early life been in Scotland, and seen +the worthy, sensible, independent gentlemen, who live rationally +and hospitably at home, he never could have entertained such +unfavourable and unjust notions of his fellow-subjects. And +accordingly we find, that when he did visit Scotland, in the +latter period of his life, he was fully sensible of all that it +deserved, as I have already pointed out, when speaking of his +<i>Journey to the Western Islands</i>.<a href= +"#note-524">[524]</a></p> +<p>Next day, Saturday, March 22, I found him still at Mrs. +Thrale's, but he told me that he was to go to his own house in +the afternoon<a href= +"#note-525">[525]</a>. He was better, but +I perceived he was but an unruly patient, for Sir Lucas Pepys, +who visited him, while I was with him said, 'If you were +<i>tractable</i>, Sir, I should prescribe for you.'</p> +<p>I related to him a remark which a respectable friend had made +to me, upon the then state of Government, when those who had been +long in opposition had attained to power, as it was supposed, +against the inclination of the Sovereign<a href= +"#note-526">[526]</a>. 'You need not be +uneasy (said this gentleman) about the King. He laughs at them +all; he plays them one against another.' JOHNSON. 'Don't think +so, Sir. The King is as much oppressed as a man can be. If he +plays them one against another, he <i>wins</i> nothing.'</p> +<p>I had paid a visit to General Oglethorpe in the morning, and +was told by him that Dr. Johnson saw company on Saturday +evenings, and he would meet me at Johnson's that night. When I +mentioned this to Johnson, not doubting that it would please him, +as he had a great value for Oglethorpe, the fretfulness of his +disease unexpectedly shewed itself; his anger suddenly kindled, +and he said, with vehemence, 'Did not you tell him not to come? +Am I to be <i>hunted</i> in this manner?' I satisfied him that I +could not divine that the visit would not be convenient, and that +I certainly could not take it upon me of my own accord to forbid +the General.</p> +<p>I found Dr. Johnson in the evening in Mrs. Williams's room, at +tea and coffee with her and Mrs. Desmoulins, who were also both +ill; it was a sad scene, and he was not in very good humour. He +said of a performance that had lately come out, 'Sir, if you +should search all the madhouses in England, you would not find +ten men who would write so, and think it sense.'</p> +<p>I was glad when General Oglethorpe's arrival was announced, +and we left the ladies. Dr. Johnson attended him in the parlour, +and was as courteous as ever. The General said he was busy +reading the writers of the middle age. Johnson said they were +very curious. OGLETHORPE. 'The House of Commons has usurped the +power of the nation's money, and used it tyrannically. Government +is now carried on by corrupt influence, instead of the inherent +right in the King.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, the want of inherent right in +the King occasions all this disturbance. What we did at the +Revolution was necessary: but it broke our constitution<a href= +"#note-527">[527]</a>.' OGLETHORPE. 'My +father did not think it necessary.'</p> +<p>On Sunday, March 23, I breakfasted with Dr. Johnson, who +seemed much relieved, having taken opium the night before. He +however protested against it, as a remedy that should be given +with the utmost reluctance, and only in extreme necessity. I +mentioned how commonly it was used in Turkey, and that therefore +it could not be so pernicious as he apprehended. He grew warm and +said, 'Turks take opium, and Christians take opium; but Russel, +in his <i>Account of Aleppo</i><a href= +"#note-528">[528]</a>, tells us, that it +is as disgraceful in Turkey to take too much opium, as it is with +us to get drunk. Sir, it is amazing how things are exaggerated. A +gentleman was lately telling in a company where I was present, +that in France as soon as a man of fashion marries, he takes an +opera girl into keeping; and this he mentioned as a general +custom. 'Pray, Sir, (said I,) how many opera girls may there be?' +He answered, 'About fourscore.' Well then, Sir, (said I,) you see +there can be no more than fourscore men of fashion who can do +this<a href="#note-529">[529]</a>.'</p> +<p>Mrs. Desmoulins made tea; and she and I talked before him upon +a topick which he had once borne patiently from me when we were +by ourselves<a href= +"#note-530">[530]</a>,—his not +complaining of the world, because he was not called to some great +office, nor had attained to great wealth. He flew into a violent +passion, I confess with some justice, and commanded us to have +done. 'Nobody, (said he) has a right to talk in this manner, to +bring before a man his own character, and the events of his life, +when he does not choose it should be done. I never have sought +the world; the world was not to seek me. It is rather wonderful +that so much has been done for me. All the complaints which are +made of the world are unjust<a href= +"#note-531">[531]</a>. I never knew a man +of merit neglected[532]: it was generally by his own fault that +he failed of success. A man may hide his head in a hole: he may +go into the country, and publish a book now and then, which +nobody reads, and then complain he is neglected<a href= +"#note-533">[533]</a>. There is no reason +why any person should exert himself for a man who has written a +good book: he has not written it for any individual. I may as +well make a present to the postman who brings me a letter. When +patronage was limited, an authour expected to find a Maecenas, +and complained if he did not find one. Why should he complain? +This Maecenas has others as good as he, or others who have got +the start of him.' BOSWELL. 'But surely, Sir, you will allow that +there are men of merit at the bar, who never get practice.' +JOHNSON. 'Sir, you are sure that practice is got from an opinion +that the person employed deserves it best; so that if a man of +merit at the bar does not get practice, it is from errour, not +from injustice. He is not neglected. A horse that is brought to +market may not be bought, though he is a very good horse: but +that is from ignorance, not from intention<a href= +"#note-534">[534]</a>.'</p> +<p>There was in this discourse much novelty, ingenuity, and +discrimination, such as is seldom to be found. Yet I cannot help +thinking that men of merit, who have no success in life, may be +forgiven for <i>lamenting</i>, if they are not allowed to +<i>complain</i>. They may consider it as <i>hard</i> that their +merit should not have its suitable distinction. Though there is +no intentional injustice towards them on the part of the world, +their merit not having been perceived, they may yet repine +against <i>fortune</i>, or <i>fate</i>, or by whatever name they +choose to call the supposed mythological power of <i>Destiny</i>. +It has, however, occurred to me, as a consolatory thought, that +men of merit should consider thus:-How much harder would it be if +the same persons had both all the merit and all the prosperity. +Would not this be a miserable distribution for the poor dunces? +Would men of merit exchange their intellectual superiority, and +the enjoyments arising from it, for external distinction and the +pleasures of wealth? If they would not, let them not envy others, +who are poor where they are rich, a compensation which is made to +them. Let them look inwards and be satisfied; recollecting with +conscious pride what Virgil finely says of the <i>Corycius +Senex</i>, and which I have, in another place<a href= +"#note-535">[535]</a>, with truth and +sincerity applied to Mr. Burke:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + '<i>Regum aequabat opes animis<a href= +"#note-536">536</a>.'</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>On the subject of the right employment of wealth, Johnson +observed, 'A man cannot make a bad use of his money, so far as +regards Society, if he does not hoard it; for if he either spends +it or lends it out, Society has the benefit. It is in general +better to spend money than to give it away; for industry is more +promoted by spending money than by giving it away. A man who +spends his money is sure he is doing good with it: he is not so +sure when he gives it away. A man who spends ten thousand a year +will do more good than a man who spends two thousand and gives +away eight<a href= +"#note-537">[537]</a>.'</p> +<p>In the evening I came to him again. He was somewhat fretful +from his illness. A gentleman<a href= +"#note-538">[538]</a> asked him, whether +he had been abroad to-day. 'Don't talk so childishly, (said he.) +You may as well ask if I hanged myself to-day.' I mentioned +politicks. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I'd as soon have a man to break my +bones as talk to me of publick affairs, internal or external. I +have lived to see things all as bad as they can be.'</p> +<p>Having mentioned his friend the second Lord Southwell, he +said, 'Lord Southwell was the highest-bred man without insolence +that I ever was in company with; the most <i>qualified</i> I ever +saw. Lord Orrery<a href= +"#note-539">[539]</a> was not dignified: +Lord Chesterfield was, but he was insolent<a href= +"#note-540">[540]</a>. Lord +——<a href= +"#note-541">[541]</a> is a man of coarse +manners, but a man of abilities and information. I don't say he +is a man I would set at the head of a nation, though perhaps he +may be as good as the next Prime Minister that comes; but he is a +man to be at the head of a Club; I don't say <i>our</i> CLUB; for +there's no such Club.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, was he not once a +factious man?' JOHNSON. 'O yes, Sir; as factious a fellow as +could be found: one who was for sinking us all into the mob<a +href="#note-542">[542]</a>.' BOSWELL. +'How then, Sir, did he get into favour with the King?' JOHNSON. +'Because, Sir, I suppose he promised the King to do whatever the +King pleased.'</p> +<p>He said, 'Goldsmith's blundering speech to Lord Shelburne, +which has been so often mentioned, and which he really did make +to him, was only a blunder in emphasis: "I wonder they should +call your Lordship <i>Malagrida</i><a href= +"#note-543">[543]</a>, for Malagrida was +a very good man;" meant, I wonder they should use +<i>Malagrida</i> as a term of reproach<a href= +"#note-544">[544]</a>.'</p> +<p>Soon after this time I had an opportunity of seeing, by means +of one of his friends<a href= +"#note-545">[545]</a>, a proof that his +talents, as well as his obliging service to authours, were ready +as ever. He had revised <i>The Village</i>, an admirable poem, by +the Reverend Mr. Crabbe. Its sentiments as to the false notions +of rustick happiness and rustick virtue were quite congenial with +his own<a href="#note-546">[546]</a>; and +he had taken the trouble not only to suggest slight corrections +and variations, but to furnish some lines, when he thought he +could give the writer's meaning better than in the words of the +manuscript<a href= +"#note-547">[547]</a>.</p> +<p>On Sunday, March 30, I found him at home in the evening, and +had the pleasure to meet with Dr. Brocklesby<a href= +"#note-548">[548]</a>, whose reading, and +knowledge of life, and good spirits, supply him with a +never-failing source of conversation. He mentioned a respectable +gentleman, who became extremely penurious near the close of his +life. Johnson said there must have been a degree of madness about +him. 'Not at all, Sir, (said Dr. Brocklesby,) his judgement was +entire.' Unluckily, however, he mentioned that although he had a +fortune of twenty-seven thousand pounds, he denied himself many +comforts, from an apprehension that he could not afford them. +'Nay, Sir, (cried Johnson,) when the judgement is so disturbed +that a man cannot count, that is pretty well.'</p> +<p>I shall here insert a few of Johnson's sayings, without the +formality of dates, as they have no reference to any particular +time or place.</p> +<p>'The more a man extends and varies his acquaintance the +better.' This, however, was meant with a just restriction; for, +he on another occasion said to me, 'Sir, a man may be so much of +every thing, that he is nothing of any thing.'</p> +<p>'Raising the wages of day-labourers is wrong<a href= +"#note-549">[549]</a>; for it does not +make them live better, but only makes them idler, and idleness is +a very bad thing for human nature.'</p> +<p>'It is a very good custom to keep a journal<a href= +"#note-550">[550]</a> for a man's own +use; he may write upon a card a day all that is necessary to be +written, after he has had experience of life. At first there is a +great deal to be written, because there is a great deal of +novelty; but when once a man has settled his opinions, there is +seldom much to be set down.'</p> +<p>'There is nothing wonderful in the journal which we see Swift +kept in London, for it contains slight topicks, and it might soon +be written<a href= +"#note-551">[551]</a>.'</p> +<p>I praised the accuracy of an account-book of a lady whom I +mentioned. JOHNSON. 'Keeping accounts, Sir, is of no use when a +man is spending his own money, and has nobody to whom he is to +account. You won't eat less beef to-day, because you have written +down what it cost yesterday.' I mentioned another lady who +thought as he did, so that her husband could not get her to keep +an account of the expence of the family, as she thought it enough +that she never exceeded the sum allowed her. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is +fit she should keep an account, because her husband wishes it; +but I do not see its use<a href= +"#note-552">[552]</a>.' I maintained that +keeping an account has this advantage, that it satisfies a man +that his money has not been lost or stolen, which he might +sometimes be apt to imagine, were there no written state of his +expence; and beside, a calculation of oeconomy so as not to +exceed one's income, cannot be made without a view of the +different articles in figures, that one may see how to retrench +in some particulars less necessary than others. This he did not +attempt to answer.</p> +<p>Talking of an acquaintance of ours<a href= +"#note-553">[553]</a>, whose narratives, +which abounded in curious and interesting topicks, were unhappily +found to be very fabulous; I mentioned Lord Mansfield's having +said to me, 'Suppose we believe one <i>half</i> of what he +tells.' JOHNSON. 'Ay; but we don't know <i>which</i> half to +believe. By his lying we lose not only our reverence for him, but +all comfort in his conversation.' BOSWELL. 'May we not take it as +amusing fiction?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, the misfortune is, that you will +insensibly believe as much of it as you incline to believe.'</p> +<p>It is remarkable, that notwithstanding their congeniality in +politicks, he never was acquainted with a late eminent noble +judge<a href="#note-554">[554]</a>, whom +I have heard speak of him as a writer, with great respect<a href= +"#note-555">[555]</a>. Johnson, I know +not upon what degree of investigation, entertained no exalted +opinion of his Lordship's intellectual character<a href= +"#note-556">[556]</a>. Talking of him to +me one day, he said, 'It is wonderful, Sir, with how little real +superiority of mind men can make an eminent figure in publick +life.' He expressed himself to the same purpose concerning +another law-Lord, who, it seems, once took a fancy to associate +with the wits of London; but with so little success, that Foote +said, 'What can he mean by coming among us? He is not only dull +himself, but the cause of dullness in others<a href= +"#note-557">[557]</a>.' Trying him by the +test of his colloquial powers, Johnson had found him very +defective. He once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'This man now has +been ten years about town, and has made nothing of it;' meaning +as a companion<a href= +"#note-558">[558]</a>. He said to me, 'I +never heard any thing from him in company that was at all +striking; and depend upon it, Sir, it is when you come close to a +man in conversation, that you discover what his real abilities +are; to make a speech in a publick assembly is a knack. Now I +honour Thurlow, Sir; Thurlow is a fine fellow; he fairly puts his +mind to yours<a href= +"#note-559">[559]</a>.'</p> +<p>After repeating to him some of his pointed, lively sayings, I +said, 'It is a pity, Sir, you don't always remember your own good +things, that you may have a laugh when you will.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, +Sir, it is better that I forget them, that I may be reminded of +them, and have a laugh on their being brought to my +recollection.'</p> +<p>When I recalled to him his having said as we sailed up +Loch-lomond<a href="#note-560">[560]</a>, +'That if he wore any thing fine, it should be <i>very</i> fine;' +I observed that all his thoughts were upon a great scale. +JOHNSON. 'Depend upon it, Sir, every man will have as fine a +thing as he can get; as a large diamond for his ring.' BOSWELL. +'Pardon me, Sir: a man of a narrow mind will not think of it, a +slight trinket will satisfy him:</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "<i>Nee sufferre queat majoris pondera gemmae</i><a href= +"#note-561">561</a>."' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>I told him I should send him some Essays which I had written<a +href="#note-562">[562]</a>, which I hoped +he would be so good as to read, and pick out the good ones. +JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, send me only the good ones; don't make +<i>me</i> pick them.'</p> +<p>I heard him once say, 'Though the proverb <i>Nullum numen +abest, si sit prudentia<a href= +"#note-563">[563]</a>, does not always +prove true, we may be certain of the converse of it,</i> Nullum +numen adest, si sit imprudentia<i>.'</i></p> +<p>Once, when Mr. Seward was going to Bath, and asked his +commands, he said, 'Tell Dr. Harrington that I wish he would +publish another volume of the Nugae antiquae<i><a href= +"#note-564">[564]</a>; it is a very +pretty book[565].' Mr. Seward seconded this wish, and recommended +to Dr. Harrington to dedicate it to Johnson, and take for his +motto, what Catullus says to Cornelius Nepos:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + '——namque tu solebas, + Meas esse aliquid putare<i> NUGAS<a href= +"#note-566">566</a>.' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>As a small proof of his kindliness and delicacy of feeling, +the following circumstance may be mentioned: One evening when we +were in the street together, and I told him I was going to sup at +Mr. Beauclerk's, he said, 'I'll go with you.' After having walked +part of the way, seeming to recollect something, he suddenly +stopped and said, 'I cannot go,—but I do not love Beauclerk +the less<i>.'</i></p> +<p>On the frame of his portrait, Mr. Beauclerk had +inscribed,—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + '——Ingenium ingens + Inculto latet hoc sub corpore<i><a href= +"#note-567">567</a>.' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>After Mr. Beauclerk's death, when it became Mr. Langton's +property, he made the inscription be defaced. Johnson said +complacently, 'It was kind in you to take it off;' and then after +a short pause, added, 'and not unkind in him to put it on.'</p> +<p>He said, 'How few of his friends' houses would a man choose to +be at when he is sick.' He mentioned one or two. I recollect only +Thrale's<a href= +"#note-568">[568]</a>.</p> +<p>He observed, 'There is a wicked inclination in most people to +suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or +middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not recollect where +he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is +discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, +and say, 'His memory is going<a href= +"#note-569">[569]</a>.'</p> +<p>When I once talked to him of some of the sayings which every +body repeats, but nobody knows where to find, such as Quos DEUS +vult perdere, prius dementat<i><a href= +"#note-570">[570]</a>; he told me that he +was once offered ten guineas to point out from whence</i> Semel +insanivimus omnes <i>was taken. He could not do it; but many +years afterwards met with it by chance in</i> Johannes Baptista +Mantuanus<i><a href= +"#note-571">[571]</a>.</i></p> +<p>I am very sorry that I did not take a note of an eloquent +argument in which he maintained that the situation of Prince of +Wales was the happiest of any person's in the kingdom, even +beyond that of the Sovereign. I recollect only—the +enjoyment of hope<a href= +"#note-572">[572]</a>,—the high +superiority of rank, without the anxious cares of +government,—and a great degree of power, both from natural +influence wisely used, and from the sanguine expectations of +those who look forward to the chance of future favour.</p> +<p>Sir Joshua Reynolds communicated to me the following +particulars:—</p> +<p>Johnson thought the poems published as translations from +Ossian had so little merit, that he said, 'Sir, a man might write +such stuff for ever, if he would abandon <i>his mind to it<a +href="#note-573">[573]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>He said, 'A man should pass a part of his time with the +laughers<i>, by which means any thing ridiculous or particular +about him might be presented to his view, and corrected.' I +observed, he must have been a bold laugher who would have +ventured to tell Dr. Johnson of any of his particularities<a +href="#note-574">[574]</a>.</i></p> +<p>Having observed the vain ostentatious importance of many +people in quoting the authority of Dukes and Lords, as having +been in their company, he said, he went to the other extreme, and +did not mention his authority when he should have done it, had it +not been that of a Duke or a Lord<a href= +"#note-575">[575]</a>.</p> +<p>Dr. Goldsmith said once to Dr. Johnson, that he wished for +some additional members to the LITERARY CLUB, to give it an +agreeable variety; for (said he,) there can now be nothing new +among us: we have travelled over one another's minds. Johnson +seemed a little angry, and said, 'Sir, you have not travelled +over my <i>mind, I promise you.' Sir Joshua, however, thought +Goldsmith right; observing, that 'when people have lived a great +deal together, they know what each of them will say on every +subject. A new understanding, therefore, is desirable; because +though it may only furnish the same sense upon a question which +would have been furnished by those with whom we are accustomed to +live, yet this sense will have a different colouring; and +colouring is of much effect in every thing else as well as in +painting.'</i></p> +<p>Johnson used to say that he made it a constant rule to talk as +well as he could both as to sentiment and expression, by which +means, what had been originally effort became familiar and easy<a +href="#note-576">[576]</a>. The +consequence of this, Sir Joshua observed, was, that his common +conversation in all companies was such as to secure him universal +attention, as something above the usual colloquial style was +expected<a href= +"#note-577">[577]</a>.</p> +<p>Yet, though Johnson had this habit in company, when another +mode was necessary, in order to investigate truth, he could +descend to a language intelligible to the meanest capacity. An +instance of this was witnessed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when they +were present at an examination of a little blackguard boy, by Mr. +Saunders Welch<a href= +"#note-578">[578]</a>, the late +Westminster Justice. Welch, who imagined that he was exalting +himself in Dr. Johnson's eyes by using big words, spoke in a +manner that was utterly unintelligible to the boy; Dr. Johnson +perceiving it, addressed himself to the boy, and changed the +pompous phraseology into colloquial language. Sir Joshua +Reynolds, who was much amused by this procedure, which seemed a +kind of reversing of what might have been expected from the two +men, took notice of it to Dr. Johnson, as they walked away by +themselves. Johnson said, that it was continually the case; and +that he was always obliged to translate <i>the Justice's swelling +diction, (smiling,) so as that his meaning might be understood by +the vulgar, from whom information was to be obtained<a href= +"#note-579">[579]</a>.</i></p> +<p>Sir Joshua once observed to him, that he had talked above the +capacity of some people with whom they had been in company +together. 'No matter, Sir, (said Johnson); they consider it as a +compliment to be talked to, as if they were wiser than they are. +So true is this, Sir, that Baxter made it a rule in every sermon +that he preached, to say something that was above the capacity of +his audience<a href= +"#note-580">[580]</a>.'</p> +<p>Johnson's dexterity in retort, when he seemed to be driven to +an extremity by his adversary, was very remarkable. Of his power +in this respect, our common friend, Mr. Windham, of Norfolk, has +been pleased to furnish me with an eminent instance. However +unfavourable to Scotland, he uniformly gave liberal praise to +George Buchanan<a href= +"#note-581">[581]</a>, as a writer. In a +conversation concerning the literary merits of the two countries, +in which Buchanan was introduced, a Scotchman, imagining that on +this ground he should have an undoubted triumph over him, +exclaimed, 'Ah, Dr. Johnson, what would you have said of +Buchanan, had he been an Englishman?' 'Why, Sir, (said Johnson, +after a little pause,) I should not <i>have said of Buchanan, had +he been an</i> Englishman<i>, what I will now say of him as a</i> +Scotchman<i>,—that he was the only man of genius his +country ever produced.'</i></p> +<p>And this brings to my recollection another instance of the +same nature. I once reminded him that when Dr. Adam Smith was +expatiating on the beauty of Glasgow, he had cut him short by +saying, 'Pray, Sir, have you ever seen Brentford?' and I took the +liberty to add, 'My dear Sir, surely that was shocking<i>.' 'Why, +then, Sir, (he replied,) YOU have never seen Brentford.'</i></p> +<p>Though his usual phrase for conversation was talk<i><a href= +"#note-582">[582]</a>, yet he made a +distinction; for when he once told me that he dined the day +before at a friend's house, with 'a very pretty company;' and I +asked him if there was good conversation, he answered, 'No, Sir; +we had</i> talk <i>enough, but no</i> conversation<i>; there was +nothing</i> discussed<i>.'</i></p> +<p>Talking of the success of the Scotch in London, he imputed it +In a considerable degree to their spirit of nationality. 'You +know, Sir, (said he,) that no Scotchman publishes a book, or has +a play brought upon the stage, but there are five hundred people +ready to applaud him.<a href= +"#note-583">[583]</a>'</p> +<p>He gave much praise to his friend, Dr. Burney's elegant and +entertaining travels<a href= +"#note-584">[584]</a>, and told Mr. +Seward that he had them in his eye, when writing his Journey to +the Western Islands of Scotland<i>.</i></p> +<p>Such was his sensibility, and so much was he affected by +pathetick poetry, that, when he was reading Dr. Beattie's Hermit +<i>in my presence, it brought tears into his eyes<a href= +"#note-585">[585]</a>.</i></p> +<p>He disapproved much of mingling real facts with fiction. On +this account he censured a book entitled Love and Madness<i><a +href="#note-586">[586]</a>.</i></p> +<p>Mr. Hoole told him, he was born in Moorfields, and had +received part of his early instruction in Grub-street. 'Sir, +(said Johnson, smiling) you have been regularly <i>educated.' +Having asked who was his instructor, and Mr. Hoole having +answered, 'My uncle, Sir, who was a taylor;' Johnson, +recollecting himself, said, 'Sir, I knew him; we called him +the</i> metaphysical taylor<i>. He was of a club in Old-street, +with me and George Psalmanazar, and some others<a href= +"#note-587">[587]</a>: but pray, Sir, was +he a good taylor?' Mr. Hoole having answered that he believed he +was too mathematical, and used to draw squares and triangles on +his shop-board, so that he did not excel in the cut of a +coat;—'I am sorry for it (said Johnson,) for I would have +every man to be master of his own business.'</i></p> +<p>In pleasant reference to himself and Mr. Hoole, as brother +authours, he often said, 'Let you and I, Sir, go together, and +eat a beef-steak in Grub-street<a href= +"#note-588">[588]</a>.'</p> +<p>Sir William Chambers, that great Architect<a href= +"#note-589">[589]</a>, whose works shew a +sublimity of genius, and who is esteemed by all who know him for +his social, hospitable, and generous qualities, submitted the +manuscript of his Chinese Architecture <i>to Dr. Johnson's +perusal. Johnson was much pleased with it, and said, 'It wants no +addition nor correction, but a few lines of introduction;' which +he furnished, and Sir William adopted<a href= +"#note-590">[590]</a>.</i></p> +<p>He said to Sir William Scott, 'The age is running mad after +innovation; all the business of the world is to be done in a new +way; men are to be hanged in a new way; Tyburn itself is not safe +from the fury of innovation<a href= +"#note-591">[591]</a>.' It having been +argued that this was an improvement,—'No, Sir, (said he, +eagerly,) it is not <i>an improvement: they object that the old +method drew together a number of spectators. Sir, executions are +intended to draw spectators. If they do not draw spectators they +don't answer their purpose. The old method was most satisfactory +to all parties; the publick was gratified by a procession<a href= +"#note-592">[592]</a>; the criminal was +supported by it. Why is all this to be swept away?' I perfectly +agree with Dr. Johnson upon this head, and am persuaded that +executions now, the solemn procession being discontinued, have +not nearly the effect which they formerly had<a href= +"#note-593">[593]</a>. Magistrates both +in London, and elsewhere, have, I am afraid, in this had too much +regard to their own ease<a href= +"#note-594">[594]</a>.</i></p> +<p>Of Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, Johnson said to a friend, +'Hurd, Sir, is one of a set of men who account for every thing +systematically; for instance, it has been a fashion to wear +scarlet breeches; these men would tell you, that according to +causes and effects, no other wear could at that time have been +chosen.' He, however, said of him at another time to the same +gentleman, 'Hurd, Sir, is a man whose acquaintance is a valuable +acquisition.'</p> +<p>That learned and ingenious Prelate<a href= +"#note-595">[595]</a> it is well known +published at one period of his life Moral and Political +Dialogues<i>, with a woefully whiggish cast. Afterwards, his +Lordship having thought better, came to see his errour, and +republished the work with a more constitutional spirit. Johnson, +however, was unwilling to allow him full credit for his political +conversion. I remember when his Lordship declined the honour of +being Archbishop of Canterbury, Johnson said, 'I am glad he did +not go to Lambeth; for, after all, I fear he is a Whig in his +heart.'</i></p> +<p>Johnson's attention to precision and clearness in expression +was very remarkable. He disapproved of parentheses; and I believe +in all his voluminous writings, not half a dozen of them will be +found. He never used the phrases the former <i>and</i> the +latter<i>, having observed, that they often occasioned obscurity; +he therefore contrived to construct his sentences so as not to +have occasion for them, and would even rather repeat the same +words, in order to avoid them<a href= +"#note-596">[596]</a>. Nothing is more +common than to mistake surnames when we hear them carelessly +uttered for the first time. To prevent this, he used not only to +pronounce them slowly and distinctly, but to take the trouble of +spelling them; a practice which I have often followed; and which +I wish were general.</i></p> +<p>Such was the heat and irritability of his blood, that not only +did he pare his nails to the quick; but scraped the joints of his +fingers with a pen-knife, till they seemed quite red and raw.</p> +<p>The heterogeneous composition of human nature was remarkably +exemplified in Johnson. His liberality in giving his money to +persons in distress was extraordinary. Yet there lurked about him +a propensity to paultry saving. One day I owned to him that 'I +was occasionally troubled with a fit of narrowness<i>.' 'Why, +Sir, (said he,) so am I.</i> But I do not tell it<i>.' He has now +and then borrowed a shilling of me; and when I asked for it +again, seemed to be rather out of humour. A droll little +circumstance once occurred: as if he meant to reprimand my minute +exactness as a creditor, he thus addressed +me;—'Boswell,</i> lend <i>me sixpence—</i>not to be +repaid<i><a href= +"#note-597">[597]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>This great man's attention to small things was very +remarkable. As an instance of it, he one day said to me, 'Sir, +when you get silver in change for a guinea, look carefully at it; +you may find some curious piece of coin.'</p> +<p>Though a stern true-born Englishman<i><a href= +"#note-598">[598]</a>, and fully +prejudiced against all other nations, he had discernment enough +to see, and candour enough to censure, the cold reserve too +common among Englishmen towards strangers: 'Sir, (said he,) two +men of any other nation who are shewn into a room together, at a +house where they are both visitors, will immediately find some +conversation. But two Englishmen will probably go each to a +different window, and remain in obstinate silence. Sir, we as yet +do not enough understand the common rights of humanity<a href= +"#note-599">[599]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>Johnson was at a certain period of his life a good deal with +the Earl of Shelburne<a href= +"#note-600">[600]</a>, now Marquis of +Lansdown, as he doubtless could not but have a due value for that +nobleman's activity of mind, and uncommon acquisitions of +important knowledge, however much he might disapprove of other +parts of his Lordship's character, which were widely different +from his own.</p> +<p>Maurice Morgann, Esq., authour of the very ingenious Essay on +the character of Falstaff<i><a href= +"#note-601">[601]</a>, being a particular +friend of his Lordship, had once an opportunity of entertaining +Johnson for a day or two at Wickham, when its Lord was absent, +and by him I have been favoured with two anecdotes.</i></p> +<p>One is not a little to the credit of Johnson's candour. Mr. +Morgann and he had a dispute pretty late at night, in which +Johnson would not give up, though he had the wrong side, and in +short, both kept the field. Next morning, when they met in the +breakfasting-room, Dr. Johnson accosted Mr. Morgann +thus:—'Sir, I have been thinking on our dispute last +night—You were in the right<i><a href= +"#note-602">[602]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>The other was as follows:—Johnson, for sport perhaps, or +from the spirit of contradiction, eagerly maintained that +Derrick<a href="#note-603">[603]</a> had +merit as a writer. Mr. Morgann argued with him directly, in vain. +At length he had recourse to this device. 'Pray, Sir, (said he,) +whether do you reckon Derrick or Smart<a href= +"#note-604">[604]</a> the best poet?' +Johnson at once felt himself roused; and answered, 'Sir, there is +no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a +flea.'</p> +<p>Once, when checking my boasting too frequently of myself in +company, he said to me, 'Boswell, you often vaunt so much, as to +provoke ridicule. You put me in mind of a man who was standing in +the kitchen of an inn with his back to the fire, and thus +accosted the person next him, "Do you know, Sir, who I am?" "No, +Sir, (said the other,) I have not that advantage." "Sir, (said +he,) I am the great <i>TWALMLEY, who invented the New Floodgate +Iron<a href="#note-605">[605]</a>."' The +Bishop of Killaloe, on my repeating the story to him, defended +Twalmley, by observing, that he was entitled to the epithet +of</i> great<i>; for Virgil in his groupe of worthies in the +Elysian fields—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi<i>, &c. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>mentions</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes<i><a href= +"#note-606">606</a>. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>He was pleased to say to me one morning when we were left +alone in his study, 'Boswell, I think I am easier with you than +with almost any body.'</p> +<p>He would not allow Mr. David Hume any credit for his political +principles, though similar to his own; saying of him, 'Sir, he +was a Tory by chance<a href= +"#note-607">[607]</a>.'</p> +<p>His acute observation of human life made him remark, 'Sir, +there is nothing by which a man exasperates most people more, +than by displaying a superiour ability or brilliancy in +conversation. They seem pleased at the time; but their envy makes +them curse him at their hearts<a href= +"#note-608">[608]</a>.'</p> +<p>My readers will probably be surprised to hear that the great +Dr. Johnson could amuse himself with so slight and playful a +species of composition as a Charade<i>. I have recovered one +which he made on Dr.</i> Barnard<i>, now Lord Bishop of Killaloe; +who has been pleased for many years to treat me with so much +intimacy and social ease, that I may presume to call him not only +my Right Reverend, but my very dear Friend. I therefore with +peculiar pleasure give to the world a just and elegant compliment +thus paid to his Lordship by Johnson<a href= +"#note-609">[609]</a>.</i></p> +<center>CHARADE.</center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> +'My first<i><a href= +"#note-610">610</a> shuts out thieves from your house or your room, + My</i> second<i><a href= +"#note-611">611</a> expresses a Syrian perfume. + My</i> whole<i><a href= +"#note-612">612</a> is a man in whose converse is shar'd, + The strength of a Bar and the sweetness of Nard.' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Johnson asked Richard Owen Cambridge, Esq., if he had read the +Spanish translation of Sallust<i>, said to be written by a Prince +of Spain<a href="#note-613">[613]</a>, +with the assistance of his tutor, who is professedly the authour +of a treatise annexed, on the Phoenician language.</i></p> +<p>Mr. Cambridge commended the work, particularly as he thought +the Translator understood his authour better than is commonly the +case with Translators: but said, he was disappointed in the +purpose for which he borrowed the book; to see whether a Spaniard +could be better furnished with inscriptions from monuments, +coins, or other antiquities which he might more probably find on +a coast, so immediately opposite to Carthage, than the +Antiquaries of any other countries. JOHNSON. 'I am very sorry you +was<a href="#note-614">[614]</a> not +gratified in your expectations.' CAMBRIDGE. 'The language would +have been of little use, as there is no history existing in that +tongue to balance the partial accounts which the Roman writers +have left us.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. They have not been partial<i>, +they have told their own story, without shame or regard to +equitable treatment of their injured enemy; they had no +compunction, no feeling for a Carthaginian. Why, Sir, they would +never have borne Virgil's description of Aeneas's treatment of +Dido, if she had not been a Carthaginian<a href= +"#note-615">[615]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>I gratefully acknowledge this and other communications from +Mr. Cambridge, whom, if a beautiful villa on the banks of the +Thames, a few miles distant from London, a numerous and excellent +library, which he accurately knows and reads, a choice collection +of pictures, which he understands and relishes, an easy fortune, +an amiable family, an extensive circle of friends and +acquaintance, distinguished by rank, fashion and genius, a +literary fame, various, elegant and still increasing, colloquial +talents rarely to be found<a href= +"#note-616">[616]</a>, and with all these +means of happiness, enjoying, when well advanced in years, health +and vigour of body, serenity and animation of mind, do not +entitle to be addressed fortunate senex!<i><a href= +"#note-617">[617]</a> I know not to whom, +in any age, that expression could with propriety have been used. +Long may he live to hear and to feel it!</i></p> +<p>Johnson's love of little children, which he discovered upon +all occasions, calling them 'pretty dears,' and giving them +sweetmeats, was an undoubted proof of the real humanity and +gentleness of his disposition<a href= +"#note-618">[618]</a>.</p> +<p>His uncommon kindness to his servants, and serious concern, +not only for their comfort in this world, but their happiness in +the next, was another unquestionable evidence of what all, who +were intimately acquainted with him, knew to be true.</p> +<p>Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness +which he shewed for animals which he had taken under his +protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he +treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and +buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a +dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who +have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room +with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the +presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling +up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while +my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and +pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, +saying, 'Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better +than this;' and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of +countenance, adding, 'but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat +indeed.'</p> +<p>This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. +Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good +family. 'Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town +shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he +bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, 'But Hodge +shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'</p> +<p>He thought Mr. Beauclerk made a shrewd and judicious' remark +to Mr. Langton, who, after having been for the first time in +company with a well-known wit about town, was warmly admiring and +praising him, 'See him again,' said Beauclerk.</p> +<p>His respect for the Hierarchy, and particularly the +Dignitaries of the Church, has been more than once exhibited in +the course of this work<a href= +"#note-619">[619]</a>. Mr. Seward saw him +presented to the Archbishop of York[620], and described his Bow +to an ARCH-BISHOP<i>, as such a studied elaboration of homage, +such an extension of limb, such a flexion of body, as have seldom +or ever been equalled.</i></p> +<p>I cannot help mentioning with much regret, that by my own +negligence I lost an opportunity of having the history of my +family from its founder Thomas Boswell, in 1504, recorded and +illustrated by Johnson's pen. Such was his goodness to me, that +when I presumed to solicit him for so great a favour, he was +pleased to say, 'Let me have all the materials you can collect, +and I will do it both in Latin and English; then let it be +printed and copies of it be deposited in various places for +security and preservation.' I can now only do the best I can to +make up for this loss, keeping my great Master steadily in view. +Family histories, like the imagines majorum <i>of the Ancients, +excite to virtue; and I wish that they who really have blood, +would be more careful to trace and ascertain its course. Some +have affected to laugh at the history of the house of Yvery<a +href="#note-621">[621]</a>: it would be +well if many others would transmit their pedigrees to posterity, +with the same accuracy and generous zeal with which the Noble +Lord who compiled that work has honoured and perpetuated his +ancestry.</i></p> +<p>On Thursday, April 10<a href= +"#note-622">[622]</a>, I introduced to +him, at his house in Bolt-court, the Honourable and Reverend +William Stuart, son of the Earl of Bute; a gentleman truly worthy +of being known to Johnson; being, with all the advantages of high +birth, learning, travel, and elegant manners, an exemplary parish +priest in every respect.</p> +<p>After some compliments on both sides, the tour which Johnson +and I had made to the Hebrides was mentioned. JOHNSON. 'I got an +acquisition of more ideas by it than by any thing that I +remember. I saw quite a different system of life<a href= +"#note-623">[623]</a>.' BOSWELL. 'You +would not like to make the same journey again?' JOHNSON. 'Why no, +Sir; not the same: it is a tale told. Gravina, an Italian +critick, observes, that every man desires to see that of which he +has read; but no man desires to read an account of what he has +seen: so much does description fall short of reality. Description +only excites curiosity: seeing satisfies it. Other people may go +and see the Hebrides.' BOSWELL. 'I should wish to go and see some +country totally different from what I have been used to; such as +Turkey, where religion and every thing else are different.' +JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; there are two objects of curiosity,—the +Christian world, and the Mahometan world. All the rest may be +considered as barbarous.' BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, is the Turkish +Spy<i><a href="#note-624">[624]</a> a +genuine book?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. Mrs. Manley, in her</i> +Life<i>, says that her father wrote the first two volumes<a href= +"#note-625">[625]</a>: and in another +book,</i> Dunton's Life and Errours<i>, we find that the rest was +written by one</i> Sault<i>, at two guineas a sheet, under the +direction of Dr. Midgeley<a href= +"#note-626">[626]</a>.</i></p> +<p>BOSWELL. 'This has been a very factious reign, owing to the +too great indulgence of Government.' JOHNSON. 'I think so, Sir. +What at first was lenity, grew timidity<a href= +"#note-627">[627]</a>. Yet this is +reasoning à posteriori<i>, and may not be just. Supposing +a few had at first been punished, I believe faction would have +been crushed; but it might have been said, that it was a +sanguinary reign. A man cannot tell</i> à priori <i>what +will be best for Government to do. This reign has been very +unfortunate. We have had an unsuccessful war; but that does not +prove that we have been ill governed. One side or other must +prevail in war, as one or other must win at play. When we beat +Louis we were not better governed; nor were the French better +governed when Louis beat us.'</i></p> +<p>On Saturday, April 12, I visited him, in company with Mr. +Windham, of Norfolk, whom, though a Whig, he highly valued. One +of the best things he ever said was to this gentleman; who, +before he set out for Ireland as Secretary to Lord Northington, +when Lord Lieutenant, expressed to the Sage some modest and +virtuous doubts, whether he could bring himself to practise those +arts which it is supposed a person in that situation has occasion +to employ. 'Don't be afraid, Sir, (said Johnson, with a pleasant +smile,) you will soon make a very pretty rascal<a href= +"#note-628">[628]</a>.</p> +<p>He talked to-day a good deal of the wonderful extent and +variety of London, and observed, that men of curious enquiry +might see in it such modes of life as very few could even +imagine. He in particular recommended to us to explore +Wapping<i>, which we resolved to do<a href= +"#note-629">[629]</a>.</i></p> +<p>Mr. Lowe, the painter, who was with him, was very much +distressed that a large picture which he had painted was refused +to be received into the Exhibition of the Royal Academy. Mrs. +Thrale knew Johnson's character so superficially, as to represent +him as unwilling to do small acts of benevolence; and mentions in +particular, that he would hardly take the trouble to write a +letter in favour of his friends<a href= +"#note-630">[630]</a>. The truth, +however, is, that he was remarkable, in an extraordinary degree, +for what she denies to him; and, above all, for this very sort of +kindness, writing letters for those to whom his solicitations +might be of service. He now gave Mr. Lowe the following, of which +I was diligent enough, with his permission, to take copies at the +next coffee-house, while Mr. Windham was so good as to stay by +me.</p> +<center>TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.</center> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>'Mr. Lowe considers himself as cut off from all credit and all +hope, by the rejection of his picture from the Exhibition. Upon +this work he has exhausted all his powers, and suspended all his +expectations: and, certainly, to be refused an opportunity of +taking the opinion of the publick, is in itself a very great +hardship. It is to be condemned without a trial.</p> +<p>If you could procure the revocation of this incapacitating +edict, you would deliver an unhappy man from great affliction. +The Council has sometimes reversed its own determination; and I +hope, that by your interposition this luckless picture may be got +admitted. I am, &c.</p> +<center>SAM. JOHNSON.</center> +<p>April 12, 1783.</p> +<p>To MR. BARRY.</p> +<center>SIR,</center> +<p>Mr. Lowe's exclusion from the exhibition gives him more +trouble than you and the other gentlemen of the Council could +imagine or intend. He considers disgrace and ruin as the +inevitable consequence of your determination.</p> +<p>He says, that some pictures have been received after +rejection; and if there be any such precedent, I earnestly +entreat that you will use your interest in his favour. Of his +work I can say nothing; I pretend not to judge of painting; and +this picture I never saw: but I conceive it extremely hard to +shut out any man from the possibility of success; and therefore I +repeat my request that you will propose the re-consideration of +Mr. Lowe's case; and if there be any among the Council with whom +my name can have any weight, be pleased to communicate to them +the desire of, Sir, Your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON. April +12, 1783.</p> +<p>Such intercession was too powerful to be resisted; and Mr. +Lowe's performance was admitted at Somerset Place<a href= +"#note-631">[631]</a>. The subject, as I +recollect, was the Deluge, at that point of time when the water +was verging to the top of the last uncovered mountain. Near to +the spot was seen the last of the antediluvian race, exclusive of +those who were saved in the ark of Noah. This was one of those +giants, then the inhabitants of the earth, who had still strength +to swim, and with one of his hands held aloft his infant child. +Upon the small remaining dry spot appeared a famished lion, ready +to spring at the child and devour it. Mr. Lowe told me that +Johnson said to him, 'Sir, your picture is noble and probable.' +'A compliment, indeed, (said Mr. Lowe,) from a man who cannot +lie, and cannot be mistaken.'</p> +<p>About this time he wrote to Mrs. Lucy Porter, mentioning his +bad health, and that he intended a visit to Lichfield. 'It is, +(says he,) with no great expectation of amendment that I make +every year a journey into the country; but it is pleasant to +visit those whose kindness has been often experienced.'</p> +<p>On April 18, (being Good-Friday,) I found him at breakfast, in +his usual manner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and +eating a cross-bun to prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement's +church, as formerly. When we came home from church, he placed +himself on one of the stone-seats at his garden-door, and I took +the other, and thus in the open air and in a placid frame of +mind, he talked away very easily. JOHNSON. 'Were I a country +gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have +crowds in my house<a href= +"#note-632">[632]</a>.' BOSWELL. 'Sir +Alexander Dick[633] tells me, that he remembers having a thousand +people in a year to dine at his house: that is, reckoning each +person as one, each time that he dined there.' JOHNSON. 'That, +Sir, is about three a day.' BOSWELL. 'How your statement lessens +the idea.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is the good of counting<a href= +"#note-634">[634]</a>. It brings every +thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind +indefinitely.' BOSWELL. 'But Omne ignotum pro magnifico est<a +href="#note-635">[635]</a>: one is sorry +to have this diminished.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you should not allow +yourself to be delighted with errour.' BOSWELL. 'Three a day seem +but few.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, he who entertains three a day, does +very liberally. And if there is a large family, the poor +entertain those three, for they eat what the poor would get: +there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, or +thrown out.' BOSWELL. 'I observe in London, that the poor go +about and gather bones, which I understand are manufactured.' +JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; they boil them, and extract a grease from +them for greasing wheels and other purposes. Of the best pieces +they make a mock ivory, which is used for hafts to knives, and +various other things; the coarser pieces they burn and pound, and +sell the ashes.' BOSWELL. 'For what purpose, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, +Sir, for making a furnace for the chymists for melting iron. A +paste made of burnt bones will stand a stronger heat than any +thing else. Consider, Sir; if you are to melt iron, you cannot +line your pot with brass, because it is softer than iron, and +would melt sooner; nor with iron, for though malleable iron is +harder than cast iron, yet it would not do; but a paste of +burnt-bones will not melt.' BOSWELL. 'Do you know, Sir, I have +discovered a manufacture to a great extent, of what you only +piddle at,—scraping and drying the peel of oranges<a href= +"#note-636">[636]</a>. At a place in +Newgate-street, there is a prodigious quantity prepared, which +they sell to the distillers.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I believe they make +a higher thing out of them than a spirit; they make what is +called orange-butter, the oil of the orange inspissated, which +they mix perhaps with common pomatum, and make it fragrant. The +oil does not fly off in the drying.'</p> +<p>BOSWELL. 'I wish to have a good walled garden.' JOHNSON. 'I +don't think it would be worth the expence to you. We compute in +England, a park wall at a thousand pounds a mile; now a +garden-wall must cost at least as much. You intend your trees +should grow higher than a deer will leap. Now let us see; for a +hundred pounds you could only have forty-four square yards, which +is very little; for two hundred pounds, you may have eighty-four +square yards<a href= +"#note-637">[637]</a>, which is very +well. But when will you get the value of two hundred pounds of +walls, in fruit, in your climate? No, Sir, such contention with +Nature is not worth while. I would plant an orchard, and have +plenty of such fruit as ripen well in your country. My friend, +Dr. Madden<a href="#note-638">[638]</a>, +of Ireland, said, that "in an orchard there should be enough to +eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot +upon the ground." Cherries are an early fruit, you may have them; +and you may have the early apples and pears.' BOSWELL. 'We cannot +have nonpareils.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you can no more have nonpareils +than you can have grapes.' BOSWELL. 'We have them, Sir; but they +are very bad.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, never try to have a thing +merely to shew that you <i>cannot</i> have it. From ground that +would let for forty shillings you may have a large orchard; and +you see it costs you only forty shillings. Nay, you may graze the +ground when the trees are grown up; you cannot while they are +young.' BOSWELL. 'Is not a good garden a very common thing in +England, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Not so common, Sir, as you imagine<a +href="#note-639">[639]</a>. In +Lincolnshire there is hardly an orchard; in Staffordshire very +little fruit.' BOSWELL. 'Has Langton no orchard?' JOHNSON. 'No, +Sir.' BOSWELL. 'How so, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, from the +general negligence of the county. He has it not, because nobody +else has it.' BOSWELL. 'A hot-house is a certain thing; I may +have that.' JOHNSON. 'A hot-house is pretty certain; but you must +first build it, then you must keep fires in it, and you must have +a gardener to take care of it.' BOSWELL. 'But if I have a +gardener at any rate?—' JOHNSON. 'Why, yes.' BOSWELL.' I'd +have it near my house; there is no need to have it in the +orchard.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, I'd have it near my house. I would plant +a great many currants; the fruit is good, and they make a pretty +sweetmeat.'</p> +<p>I record this minute detail, which some may think trifling, in +order to shew clearly how this great man, whose mind could grasp +such large and extensive subjects, as he has shewn in his +literary labours, was yet well-informed in the common affairs of +life, and loved to illustrate them.</p> +<p>Mr. Walker, the celebrated master of elocution<a href= +"#note-640">[640]</a>, came in, and then +we went up stairs into the study. I asked him if he had taught +many clergymen. JOHNSON. 'I hope not.' WALKER. 'I have taught +only one, and he is the best reader I ever heard, not by my +teaching, but by his own natural talents.' JOHNSON. 'Were he the +best reader in the world, I would not have it told that he was +taught.' Here was one of his peculiar prejudices. Could it be any +disadvantage to the clergyman to have it known that he was taught +an easy and graceful delivery? BOSWELL. 'Will you not allow, Sir, +that a man may be taught to read well?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, so +far as to read better than he might do without being taught, yes. +Formerly it was supposed that there was no difference in reading, +but that one read as well as another.' BOSWELL. 'It is wonderful +to see old Sheridan as enthusiastick about oratory as ever<a +href="#note-641">[641]</a>,' WALKER. 'His +enthusiasm as to what oratory will do, may be too great: but he +reads well.' JOHNSON. 'He reads well, but he reads low<a href= +"#note-642">[642]</a>; and you know it is +much easier to read low than to read high; for when you read +high, you are much more limited, your loudest note can be but +one, and so the variety is less in proportion to the loudness. +Now some people have occasion to speak to an extensive audience, +and must speak loud to be heard.' WALKER. 'The art is to read +strong, though low.'</p> +<p>Talking of the origin of language; JOHNSON. 'It must have come +by inspiration. A thousand, nay, a million of children could not +invent a language. While the organs are pliable, there is not +understanding enough to form a language; by the time that there +is understanding enough, the organs are become stiff. We know +that after a certain age we cannot learn to pronounce a new +language. No foreigner, who comes to England when advanced in +life, ever pronounces English tolerably well; at least such +instances are very rare. When I maintain that language must have +come by inspiration, I do not mean that inspiration is required +for rhetorick, and all the beauties of language; for when once +man has language, we can conceive that he may gradually form +modifications of it. I mean only that inspiration seems to me to +be necessary to give man the faculty of speech; to inform him +that he may have speech; which I think he could no more find out +without inspiration, than cows or hogs would think of such a +faculty.' WALKER. 'Do you think, Sir, that there are any perfect +synonimes in any language?' JOHNSON. 'Originally there were not; +but by using words negligently, or in poetry, one word comes to +be confounded with another.'</p> +<p>He talked of Dr. Dodd<a href= +"#note-643">[643]</a>. 'A friend of mine, +(said he,) came to me and told me, that a lady wished to have Dr. +Dodd's picture in a bracelet, and asked me for a motto. I said, I +could think of no better than <i>Currat Lex</i>. I was very +willing to have him pardoned, that is, to have the sentence +changed to transportation: but, when he was once hanged, I did +not wish he should be made a saint.'</p> +<p>Mrs. Burney, wife of his friend Dr. Burney, came in, and he +seemed to be entertained with her conversation.</p> +<p>Garrick's funeral was talked of as extravagantly expensive. +Johnson, from his dislike to exaggeration, would not allow that +it was distinguished by any extraordinary pomp. 'Were there not +six horses to each coach?' said Mrs. Burney. JOHNSON. 'Madam, +there were no more six horses than six phoenixes<a href= +"#note-644">[644]</a>.'</p> +<p>Mrs. Burney wondered that some very beautiful new buildings +should be erected in Moorfields, in so shocking a situation as +between Bedlam and St. Luke's Hospital; and said she could not +live there. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, you see nothing there to hurt +you. You no more think of madness by having windows that look to +Bedlam, than you think of death by having windows that look to a +church-yard.' MRS. BURNEY. 'We may look to a church-yard, Sir; +for it is right that we should be kept in mind of death.' +JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, if you go to that, it is right that we +should be kept in mind of madness, which is occasioned by too +much indulgence of imagination. I think a very moral use may be +made of these new buildings: I would have those who have heated +imaginations live there, and take warning.' MRS. BURNEY. 'But, +Sir, many of the poor people that are mad, have become so from +disease, or from distressing events. It is, therefore, not their +fault, but their misfortune; and, therefore, to think of them is +a melancholy consideration.'</p> +<p>Time passed on in conversation till it was too late for the +service of the church at three o'clock. I took a walk, and left +him alone for some time; then returned, and we had coffee and +conversation again by ourselves.</p> +<p>I stated the character of a noble friend of mine, as a curious +case for his opinion:—'He is the most inexplicable man to +me that I ever knew. Can you explain him, Sir? He is, I really +believe, noble-minded, generous, and princely. But his most +intimate friends may be separated from him for years, without his +ever asking a question concerning them. He will meet them with a +formality, a coldness, a stately indifference; but when they come +close to him, and fairly engage him in conversation, they find +him as easy, pleasant, and kind, as they could wish. One then +supposes that what is so agreeable will soon be renewed; but stay +away from him for half a year, and he will neither call on you, +nor send to inquire about you.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I cannot +ascertain his character exactly, as I do not know him; but I +should not like to have such a man for my friend. He may love +study, and wish not to be interrupted by his friends; <i>Amici +fures temporis</i>. He may be a frivolous man, and be so much +occupied with petty pursuits, that he may not want friends. Or he +may have a notion that there is a dignity in appearing +indifferent, while he in fact may not be more indifferent at his +heart than another.'</p> +<p>We went to evening prayers at St. Clement's, at seven, and +then parted.</p> +<p>On Sunday, April 20, being Easter-day, after attending solemn +service at St. Paul's, I came to Dr. Johnson, and found Mr. Lowe, +the painter, sitting with him. Mr. Lowe mentioned the great +number of new buildings of late in London, yet that Dr. Johnson +had observed, that the number of inhabitants was not increased. +JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the bills of mortality prove that no more +people die now than formerly; so it is plain no more live. The +register of births proves nothing, for not one tenth of the +people of London are born there.' BOSWELL. 'I believe, Sir, a +great many of the children born in London die early.' JOHNSON. +'Why, yes, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'But those who do live, are as stout +and strong people as any<a href= +"#note-645">[645]</a>: Dr. Price[646] +says, they must be naturally stronger to get through.' JOHNSON. +'That is system, Sir. A great traveller observes, that it is said +there are no weak or deformed people among the Indians; but he +with much sagacity assigns the reason of this, which is, that the +hardship of their life as hunters and fishers does not allow weak +or diseased children to grow up. Now had I been an Indian, I must +have died early; my eyes would not have served me to get food. I +indeed now could fish, give me English tackle; but had I been an +Indian I must have starved, or they would have knocked me on the +head, when they saw I could do nothing.' BOSWELL. 'Perhaps they +would have taken care of you: we are told they are fond of +oratory, you would have talked to them.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I +should not have lived long enough to be fit to talk; I should +have been dead before I was ten years old. Depend upon it, Sir, a +savage, when he is hungry, will not carry about with him a looby +of nine years old, who cannot help himself. They have no +affection, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'I believe natural affection, of which +we hear so much, is very small.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, natural affection +is nothing: but affection from principle and established duty is +sometimes wonderfully strong.' LOWE. 'A hen, Sir, will feed her +chickens in preference to herself.' JOHNSON. 'But we don't know +that the hen is hungry; let the hen be fairly hungry, and I'll +warrant she'll peck the corn herself. A cock, I believe, will +feed hens instead of himself; but we don't know that the cock is +hungry.' BOSWELL. 'And that, Sir, is not from affection but +gallantry. But some of the Indians have affection.' JOHNSON. +'Sir, that they help some of their children is plain; for some of +them live, which they could not do without being helped.'</p> +<p>I dined with him; the company were, Mrs. Williams, Mrs. +Desmoulins, and Mr. Lowe. He seemed not to be well, talked +little, grew drowsy soon after dinner, and retired, upon which I +went away.</p> +<p>Having next day gone to Mr. Burke's seat in the country, from +whence I was recalled by an express, that a near relation of mine +had killed his antagonist in a duel, and was himself dangerously +wounded<a href="#note-647">[647]</a>, I +saw little of Dr. Johnson till Monday, April 28, when I spent a +considerable part of the day with him, and introduced the +subject, which then chiefly occupied my mind. JOHNSON. 'I do not +see, Sir, that fighting is absolutely forbidden in Scripture; I +see revenge forbidden, but not self-defence.' BOSWELL. 'The +Quakers say it is; "Unto him that smiteth thee on one cheek, +offer him also the other<a href= +"#note-648">[648]</a>."' JOHNSON. 'But +stay, Sir; the text is meant only to have the effect of +moderating passion; it is plain that we are not to take it in a +literal sense. We see this from the context, where there are +other recommendations, which I warrant you the Quaker will not +take literally; as, for instance, "From him that would borrow of +thee, turn thou not away<a href= +"#note-649">[649]</a>." Let a man whose +credit is bad, come to a Quaker, and say, "Well, Sir, lend me a +hundred pounds;" he'll find him as unwilling as any other man. +No, Sir, a man may shoot the man who invades his character, as he +may shoot him who attempts to break into his house<a href= +"#note-650">[650]</a>. So in 1745, my +friend, Tom Cumming the Quaker<a href= +"#note-651">[651]</a>, said, he would not +fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart; and we know that +the Quakers have sent flannel waistcoats to our soldiers, to +enable them to fight better.' BOSWELL. 'When a man is the +aggressor, and by ill-usage forces on a duel in which he is +killed, have we not little ground to hope that he is gone into a +state of happiness?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, we are not to judge +determinately of the state in which a man leaves this life. He +may in a moment have repented effectually, and it is possible may +have been accepted by GOD. There is in <i>Camden's Remains</i>, +an epitaph upon a very wicked man, who was killed by a fall from +his horse, in which he is supposed to say,</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + '"Between the stirrup and the ground, + I mercy ask'd, I mercy found<a href= +"#note-652">652</a>."' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>BOSWELL. 'Is not the expression in the Burial-service, "in the +<i>sure</i> and <i>certain</i> hope of a blessed resurrection<a +href="#note-653">[653]</a>," too strong +to be used indiscriminately, and, indeed, sometimes when those +over whose bodies it is said, have been notoriously profane?' +JOHNSON. 'It is sure and certain <i>hope</i>, Sir; not +<i>belief</i>.' I did not insist further; but cannot help +thinking that less positive words would be more proper<a href= +"#note-654">[654]</a>.</p> +<p>Talking of a man who was grown very fat, so as to be +incommoded with corpulency; he said, 'He eats too much, Sir.' +BOSWELL. 'I don't know, Sir; you will see one man fat who eats +moderately, and another lean who eats a great deal.' JOHNSON. +'Nay, Sir, whatever may be the quantity that a man eats, it is +plain that if he is too fat, he has eaten more than he should +have done. One man may have a digestion that consumes food better +than common; but it is certain that solidity is encreased by +putting something to it.' BOSWELL. 'But may not solids swell and +be distended?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, they may swell and be +distended; but that is not fat.'</p> +<p>We talked of the accusation against a gentleman for supposed +delinquencies in India<a href= +"#note-655">[655]</a>. JOHNSON. 'What +foundation there is for accusation I know not, but they will not +get at him. Where bad actions are committed at so great a +distance, a delinquent can obscure the evidence till the scent +becomes cold; there is a cloud between, which cannot be +penetrated: therefore all distant power is bad. I am clear that +the best plan for the government of India is a despotick +governour; for if he be a good man, it is evidently the best +government; and supposing him to be a bad man, it is better to +have one plunderer than many. A governour whose power is checked, +lets others plunder, that he himself may be allowed to plunder; +but if despotick, he sees that the more he lets others plunder, +the less there will be for himself, so he restrains them; and +though he himself plunders, the country is a gainer, compared +with being plundered by numbers.'</p> +<p>I mentioned the very liberal payment which had been received +for reviewing; and, as evidence of this, that it had been proved +in a trial, that Dr. Shebbeare<a href= +"#note-656">[656]</a> had received six +guineas a sheet for that kind of literary labour. JOHNSON, 'Sir, +he might get six guineas for a particular sheet, but not +<i>communibus sheetibus</i><a href= +"#note-657">[657]</a>.' BOSWELL. 'Pray, +Sir, by a sheet of review is it meant that it shall be all of the +writer's own composition? or are extracts, made from the book +reviewed, deducted.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir: it is a sheet, no matter +of what.' BOSWELL. 'I think that it is not reasonable.' JOHNSON. +'Yes, Sir, it is. A man will more easily write a sheet all his +own, than read an octavo volume to get extracts<a href= +"#note-658">[658]</a>.' To one of +Johnson's wonderful fertility of mind I believe writing was +really easier than reading and extracting; but with ordinary men +the case is very different. A great deal, indeed, will depend +upon the care and judgement with which the extracts are made. I +can suppose the operation to be tedious and difficult: but in +many instances we must observe crude morsels cut out of books as +if at random; and when a large extract is made from one place, it +surely may be done with very little trouble. One however, I must +acknowledge, might be led, from the practice of reviewers, to +suppose that they take a pleasure in original writing; for we +often find, that instead of giving an accurate account of what +has been done by the authour whose work they are reviewing, which +is surely the proper business of a literary journal, they produce +some plausible and ingenious conceits of their own, upon the +topicks which have been discussed<a href= +"#note-659">[659]</a>.</p> +<p>Upon being told that old Mr. Sheridan, indignant at the +neglect of his oratorical plans, had threatened to go to America; +JOHNSON. 'I hope he will go to America.' BOSWELL. 'The Americans +don't want oratory.' JOHNSON. 'But we can want Sheridan<a href= +"#note-660">[660]</a>.'</p> +<p>On Monday<a href= +"#note-661">[661]</a>, April 29, I found +him at home in the forenoon, and Mr. Seward with him. Horace +having been mentioned; BOSWELL. 'There is a great deal of +thinking in his works. One finds there almost every thing but +religion.' SEWARD. 'He speaks of his returning to it, in his Ode +<i>Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens</i><a href= +"#note-662">[662]</a> JOHNSON. 'Sir, he +was not in earnest: this was merely poetical.' BOSWELL. 'There +are, I am afraid, many people who have no religion at all.' +SEWARD. 'And sensible people too.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, not +sensible in that respect. There must be either a natural or a +moral stupidity, if one lives in a total neglect of so very +important a concern.' SEWARD. 'I wonder that there should be +people without religion.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you need not wonder at +this, when you consider how large a proportion of almost every +man's life is passed without thinking of it. I myself was for +some years totally regardless of religion. It had dropped out of +my mind. It was at an early part of my life. Sickness brought it +back, and I hope I have never lost it since<a href= +"#note-663">[663]</a>.' BOSWELL. 'My dear +Sir, what a man must you have been without religion! Why you must +have gone on drinking, and swearing, and—<a href= +"#note-664">[664]</a>' JOHNSON. (with a +smile) 'I drank enough and swore enough, to be sure.' SEWARD. +'One should think that sickness and the view of death would make +more men religious.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, they do not know how to go +about it: they have not the first notion. A man who has never had +religion before, no more grows religious when he is sick, than a +man who has never learnt figures can count when he has need of +calculation.'</p> +<p>I mentioned a worthy friend of ours<a href= +"#note-665">[665]</a> whom we valued +much, but observed that he was too ready to introduce religious +discourse upon all occasions. JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, Sir, he will +introduce religious discourse without seeing whether it will end +in instruction and improvement, or produce some profane jest. He +would introduce it in the company of Wilkes, and twenty more +such.'</p> +<p>I mentioned Dr. Johnson's excellent distinction between +liberty of conscience and liberty of teaching<a href= +"#note-666">[666]</a>. JOHNSON. +'Consider, Sir; if you have children whom you wish to educate in +the principles of the Church of England, and there comes a Quaker +who tries to pervert them to his principles, you would drive away +the Quaker. You would not trust to the predomination of right, +which you believe is in your opinions; you would keep wrong out +of their heads. Now the vulgar are the children of the State. If +any one attempts to teach them doctrines contrary to what the +State approves, the magistrate may and ought to restrain him.' +SEWARD. 'Would you restrain private conversation, Sir?' JOHNSON. +'Why, Sir, it is difficult to say where private conversation +begins, and where it ends. If we three should discuss even the +great question concerning the existence of a Supreme Being by +ourselves, we should not be restrained; for that would be to put +an end to all improvement. But if we should discuss it in the +presence of ten boarding-school girls, and as many boys, I think +the magistrate would do well to put us in the stocks, to finish +the debate there.'</p> +<p>Lord Hailes had sent him a present of a curious little printed +poem, on repairing the University of Aberdeen, by David Malloch, +which he thought would please Johnson, as affording clear +evidence that Mallet had appeared even as a literary character by +the name of <i>Malloch</i>; his changing which to one of softer +sound, had given Johnson occasion to introduce him into his +<i>Dictionary</i>, under the article <i>Alias</i><a href= +"#note-667">[667]</a>. This piece was, I +suppose, one of Mallet's first essays. It is preserved in his +works, with several variations. Johnson having read aloud, from +the beginning of it, where there were some common-place +assertions as to the superiority of ancient times;—'How +false (said he) is all this, to say that in ancient times +learning was not a disgrace to a Peer as it is now. In ancient +times a Peer was as ignorant as any one else. He would have been +angry to have it thought he could write his name<a href= +"#note-668">[668]</a>. Men in ancient +times dared to stand forth with a degree of ignorance with which +nobody would dare now to stand forth. I am always angry when I +hear ancient times praised at the expence of modern times. There +is now a great deal more learning in the world than there was +formerly; for it is universally diffused. You have, perhaps, no +man who knows as much Greek and Latin as Bentley<a href= +"#note-669">[669]</a>; no man who knows +as much mathematicks as Newton: but you have many more men who +know Greek and Latin, and who know mathematicks<a href= +"#note-670">[670]</a>.'</p> +<p>On Thursday, May 1, I visited him in the evening along with +young Mr. Burke. He said, 'It is strange that there should be so +little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in +general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to +amuse them<a href="#note-671">[671]</a>. +There must be an external impulse; emulation, or vanity, or +avarice. The progress which the understanding makes through a +book, has more pain than pleasure in it. Language is scanty, and +inadequate to express the nice gradations and mixtures of our +feelings. No man reads a book of science from pure inclination. +The books that we do read with pleasure are light compositions, +which contain a quick succession of events. However, I have this +year read all Virgil through<a href= +"#note-672">[672]</a>. I read a book of +the <i>Aeneid</i> every night, so it was done in twelve nights, +and I had great delight in it. The <i>Georgicks</i> did not give +me so much pleasure, except the fourth book. The <i>Eclogues</i> +I have almost all by heart. I do not think the story of the +<i>Aeneid</i> interesting. I like the story of the <i>Odyssey</i> +much better<a href="#note-673">[673]</a>; +and this not on account of the wonderful things which it +contains; for there are wonderful things enough in the +<i>Aeneid</i>;—the ships of the Trojans turned to +sea-nymphs,—the tree at Polydorus's tomb dropping blood. +The story of the <i>Odyssey</i> is interesting, as a great part +of it is domestick. It has been said, there is pleasure in +writing, particularly in writing verses. I allow you may have +pleasure from writing, after it is over, if you have written +well; but you don't go willingly to it again<a href= +"#note-674">[674]</a>. I know when I have +been writing verses, I have run my finger down the margin, to see +how many I had made, and how few I had to make<a href= +"#note-675">[675]</a>.'</p> +<p>He seemed to be in a very placid humour, and although I have +no note of the particulars of young Mr. Burke's conversation, it +is but justice to mention in general, that it was such that Dr. +Johnson said to me afterwards, 'He did very well indeed; I have a +mind to tell his father<a href= +"#note-676">[676]</a>.'</p> +<center>'TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.</center> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'The gentleman who waits on you with this, is Mr. +Cruikshanks<a href="#note-677">[677]</a>, +who wishes to succeed his friend Dr. Hunter<a href= +"#note-678">[678]</a> as Professor of +Anatomy in the Royal Academy. His qualifications are very +generally known, and it adds dignity to the institution that such +men<a href="#note-679">[679]</a> are +candidates.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'May 2<a href="#note-680">[680]</a>, +1783.'</p> +<p>I have no minute of any interview with Johnson till Thursday, +May 15, when I find what follows:—BOSWELL. 'I wish much to +be in Parliament, Sir<a href= +"#note-681">[681]</a>.' JOHNSON. 'Why, +Sir, unless you come resolved to support any administration, you +would be the worse for being in Parliament, because you would be +obliged to live more expensively.' BOSWELL. 'Perhaps, Sir, I +should be the less happy for being in Parliament. I never would +sell my vote, and I should be vexed if things went wrong.' +JOHNSON. 'That's cant, Sir. It would not vex you more in the +house, than in the gallery: publick affairs vex no man.' BOSWELL. +'Have not they vexed yourself a little, Sir? Have not you been +vexed by all the turbulence of this reign, and by that absurd +vote of the House of Commons, "That the influence of the Crown +has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished<a href= +"#note-682">[682]</a>?"' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I +have never slept an hour less, nor eat an ounce less meat<a href= +"#note-683">[683]</a>. I would have +knocked the factious dogs on the head, to be sure; but I was not +<i>vexed</i>.' BOSWELL. 'I declare, Sir, upon my honour, I did +imagine I was vexed, and took a pride in it; but it <i>was</i>, +perhaps, cant; for I own I neither ate less, nor slept less.' +JOHNSON. 'My dear friend, clear your <i>mind</i> of cant<a href= +"#note-684">[684]</a>. You may +<i>talk</i> as other people do: you may say to a man, "Sir, I am +your most humble servant." You are not his most humble servant. +You may say, "These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be +reserved to such times." You don't mind the times. You tell a +man, "I am sorry you had such bad weather the last day of your +journey, and were so much wet." You don't care six-pence whether +he is wet or dry. You may <i>talk</i> in this manner; it is a +mode of talking in Society<a href= +"#note-685">[685]</a>; but don't +<i>think</i> foolishly<a href= +"#note-686">[686]</a>.'</p> +<p>I talked of living in the country. JOHNSON. 'Don't set up for +what is called hospitality; it is a waste of time, and a waste of +money; you are eaten up, and not the more respected for your +liberality. If your house be like an inn, nobody cares for you. A +man who stays a week with another, makes him a slave for a +week.'<a href="#note-687">[687]</a> +BOSWELL. 'But there are people, Sir, who make their houses a home +to their guests, and are themselves quite easy.' JOHNSON. 'Then, +Sir, home must be the same to the guests, and they need not +come.'</p> +<p>Here he discovered a notion common enough in persons not much +accustomed to entertain company, that there must be a degree of +elaborate attention, otherwise company will think themselves +neglected; and such attention is no doubt very fatiguing.<a href= +"#note-688">[688]</a> He proceeded: 'I +would not, however, be a stranger in my own county; I would visit +my neighbours, and receive their visits; but I would not be in +haste to return visits. If a gentleman comes to see me, I tell +him he does me a great deal of honour. I do not go to see him +perhaps for ten weeks; then we are very complaisant to each +other. No, Sir, you will have much more influence by giving or +lending money where it is wanted, than by hospitality<a href= +"#note-689">[689]</a>.'</p> +<p>On Saturday, May 17, I saw him for a short time. Having +mentioned that I had that morning been with old Mr. Sheridan, he +remembered their former intimacy with a cordial warmth, and said +to me, 'Tell Mr. Sheridan, I shall be glad to see him, and shake +hands with him<a href= +"#note-690">[690]</a>.' BOSWELL. 'It is +to me very wonderful that resentment should be kept up so long.' +JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is not altogether resentment that he does +not visit me; it is partly falling out of the habit,—partly +disgust, as one has at a drug that has made him sick. Besides, he +knows that I laugh at his oratory<a href= +"#note-691">[691]</a>.'</p> +<p>Another day I spoke of one of our friends, of whom he, as well +as I, had a very high opinion. He expatiated in his praise; but +added, 'Sir, he is a cursed Whig, a <i>bottomless</i> Whig, as +they all are now<a href= +"#note-692">[692]</a>.'</p> +<p>I mentioned my expectations from the interest of an eminent +person<a href="#note-693">[693]</a> then +in power; adding, 'but I have no claim but the claim of +friendship; however, some people will go a great way from that +motive.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, they will go all the way from that +motive.' A gentleman talked of retiring. 'Never think of that,' +said Johnson. The gentleman urged, 'I should then do no ill.' +JOHNSON. Nor no good either. Sir, it would be a civil suicide<a +href="#note-694">[694]</a>.'</p> +<p>On Monday, May 26, I found him at tea, and the celebrated Miss +Burney, the authour of <i>Evelina</i><a href= +"#note-695">[695]</a> and <i>Cecilia</i>, +with him. I asked if there would be any speakers in Parliament, +if there were no places to be obtained. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. Why +do you speak here? Either to instruct and entertain, which is a +benevolent motive; or for distinction, which is a selfish +motive.' I mentioned <i>Cecilia</i>. JOHNSON. (with an air of +animated satisfaction) 'Sir, if you talk of <i>Cecilia</i>, talk +on<a href="#note-696">[696]</a>.'</p> +<p>We talked of Mr. Barry's exhibition of his pictures. JOHNSON. +'Whatever the hand may have done, the mind has done its part. +There is a grasp of mind there which you find nowhere else<a +href="#note-697">[697]</a>.'</p> +<p>I asked whether a man naturally virtuous, or one who has +overcome wicked inclinations, is the best. JOHNSON. 'Sir, to +<i>you</i>, the man who has overcome wicked inclinations is not +the best. He has more merit to <i>himself</i>: I would rather +trust my money to a man who has no hands, and so a physical +impossibility to steal, than to a man of the most honest +principles. There is a witty satirical story of Foote. He had a +small bust of Garrick placed upon his bureau, "You may be +surprized (said he) that I allow him to be so near my +gold;—but you will observe he has no hands."'</p> +<p>On Friday, May 29<a href= +"#note-698">[698]</a>, being to set out +for Scotland next morning, I passed a part of the day with him in +more than usual earnestness; as his health was in a more +precarious state than at any time when I had parted from him. He, +however, was quick and lively, and critical as usual. I mentioned +one who was a very learned man. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, he has a +great deal of learning; but it never lies straight. There is +never one idea by the side of another; 'tis all entangled: and +then he drives it so aukwardly upon conversation.'</p> +<p>I stated to him an anxious thought, by which a sincere +Christian might be disturbed, even when conscious of having lived +a good life, so far as is consistent with human infirmity; he +might fear that he should afterwards fall away, and be guilty of +such crimes as would render all his former religion vain. Could +there be, upon this aweful subject, such a thing as balancing of +accounts? Suppose a man who has led a good life for seven years, +commits an act of wickedness, and instantly dies; will his former +good life have any effect in his favour? JOHNSON. 'Sir, if a man +has led a good life for seven years, and then is hurried by +passion to do what is wrong, and is suddenly carried off, depend +upon it he will have the reward of his seven years' good life; +GOD will not take a catch of him. Upon this principle Richard +Baxter believes that a Suicide may be saved. "If, (says he) it +should be objected that what I maintain may encourage suicide, I +answer, I am not to tell a lie to prevent it."' BOSWELL. 'But +does not the text say, "As the tree falls, so it must lie<a href= +"#note-699">[699]</a>?"' JOHNSON. 'Yes, +Sir; as the tree falls: but,—(after a little +pause)—that is meant as to the general state of the tree, +not what is the effect of a sudden blast.' In short, he +interpreted the expression as referring to condition, not to +position. The common notion, therefore, seems to be erroneous; +and Shenstone's witty remark on Divines trying to give the tree a +jerk upon a death-bed, to make it lie favourably, is not well +founded<a href="#note-700">[700]</a>.</p> +<p>I asked him what works of Richard Baxter's I should read. He +said, 'Read any of them; they are all good<a href= +"#note-701">[701]</a>.'</p> +<p>He said, 'Get as much force of mind as you can. Live within +your income. Always have something saved at the end of the year. +Let your imports be more than your exports, and you'll never go +far wrong.'</p> +<p>I assured him, that in the extensive and various range of his +acquaintance there never had been any one who had a more sincere +respect and affection for him than I had. He said, 'I believe it, +Sir. Were I in distress, there is no man to whom I should sooner +come than to you. I should like to come and have a cottage in +your park, toddle about, live mostly on milk, and be taken care +of by Mrs. Boswell. She and I are good friends now; are we +not?'</p> +<p>Talking of devotion, he said, 'Though it be true that "GOD +dwelleth not in temples made with hands<a href= +"#note-702">[702]</a>," yet in this state +of being, our minds are more piously affected in places +appropriated to divine worship, than in others. Some people have +a particular room in their house, where they say their prayers; +of which I do not disapprove, as it may animate their +devotion.'</p> +<p>He embraced me, and gave me his blessing, as usual when I was +leaving him for any length of time. I walked from his door +to-day, with a fearful apprehension of what might happen before I +returned.</p> +<p>'To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM WINDHAM.</p> +<p>Sir, The bringer of this letter is the father of Miss +Philips<a href="#note-703">[703]</a>, a +singer, who comes to try her voice on the stage at Dublin.</p> +<p>Mr. Philips is one of my old friends; and as I am of opinion +that neither he nor his daughter will do any thing that can +disgrace their benefactors, I take the liberty of entreating you +to countenance and protect them so far as may be suitable to your +station<a href="#note-704">[704]</a> and +character; and shall consider myself as obliged by any favourable +notice which they shall have the honour of receiving from +you.</p> +<p>I am, Sir, Your most humble servant,</p> +<p>SAM JOHNSON. London, May 31, 1783.'</p> +<p>The following is another instance of his active +benevolence:—</p> +<p>'To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.</p> +<p>DEAR SIR, I have sent you some of my god-son's<a href= +"#note-705">[705]</a> performances, of +which I do not pretend to form any opinion. When I took the +liberty of mentioning him to you, I did not know what I have +since been told, that Mr. Moser<a href= +"#note-706">[706]</a> had admitted him +among the Students of the Academy. What more can be done for him +I earnestly entreat you to consider; for I am very desirous that +he should derive some advantage from my connection with him. If +you are inclined to see him, I will bring him to wait on you, at +any time that you shall be pleased to appoint.</p> +<p>I am, Sir, Your most humble servant,</p> +<p>SAM. JOHNSON. June 2, 1783.'</p> +<p>My anxious apprehensions at parting with him this year proved +to be but too well founded; for not long afterwards he had a +dreadful stroke of the palsy, of which there are very full and +accurate accounts in letters written by himself, to shew with +what composure of mind, and resignation to the Divine Will, his +steady piety enabled him to behave.</p> +<center>'TO MR. EDMUND ALLEN<a href= +"#note-707">[707]</a>.</center> +<p>DEAR SIR, It has pleased GOD, this morning, to deprive me of +the powers of speech; and as I do not know but that it may be his +further good pleasure to deprive me soon of my senses, I request +you will on the receipt of this note, come to me, and act for me, +as the exigencies of my case may require.</p> +<p>I am, Sincerely yours,</p> +<p>SAM. JOHNSON. June 17, 1783.'</p> +<center>'TO THE REVEREND DR. JOHN TAYLOR.</center> +<p>'DEAR SIR, It has pleased GOD, by a Paralytick stroke in the +night, to deprive me of speech.</p> +<p>I am very desirous of Dr. Heberden's<a href= +"#note-708">[708]</a> assistance, as I +think my case is not past remedy. Let me see you as soon as it is +possible. Bring Dr. Heberden with you, if you can; but come +yourself at all events. I am glad you are so well, when I am so +dreadfully attacked.</p> +<p>I think that by a speedy application of stimulants much may be +done. I question if a vomit, vigorous and rough, would not rouse +the organs of speech to action. As it is too early to send, I +will try to recollect what I can, that can be suspected to have +brought on this dreadful distress.</p> +<p>I have been accustomed to bleed frequently for an asthmatick +complaint; but have forborne for some time by Dr. Pepys's +persuasion, who perceived my legs beginning to swell. I sometimes +alleviate a painful, or more properly an oppressive, constriction +of my chest, by opiates; and have lately taken opium frequently, +but the last, or two last times, in smaller quantities. My +largest dose is three grains, and last night I took but two<a +href="#note-709">[709]</a>. You will +suggest these things (and they are all that I can call to mind) +to Dr. Heberden.</p> +<p>I am, &c. SAM. JOHNSON<a href= +"#note-710">[710]</a>. June 17, +1783.'</p> +<p>Two days after he wrote thus to Mrs. Thrale<a href= +"#note-711">[711]</a>:—</p> +<p>'On Monday, the 16th, I sat for my picture<a href= +"#note-712">[712]</a>, and walked a +considerable way with little inconvenience. In the afternoon and +evening I felt myself light and easy, and began to plan schemes +of life. Thus I went to bed, and in a short time waked and sat +up, as has been long my custom, when I felt a confusion and +indistinctness in my head, which lasted, I suppose, about half a +minute. I was alarmed, and prayed God, that however he might +afflict my body, he would spare my understanding. This prayer, +that I might try the integrity of my faculties, I made in Latin +verse<a href="#note-713">[713]</a>. The +lines were not very good, but I knew them not to be very good: I +made them easily, and concluded myself to be unimpaired in my +faculties.</p> +<p>Soon after I perceived that I had suffered a paralytick +stroke, and that my speech was taken from me. I had no pain, and +so little dejection in this dreadful state, that I wondered at my +own apathy, and considered that perhaps death itself, when it +should come, would excite less horrour than seems now to attend +it.</p> +<p>In order to rouse the vocal organs, I took two drams. Wine has +been celebrated for the production of eloquence. I put myself +into violent motion, and I think repeated it; but all was vain. I +then went to bed, and strange as it may seem, I think slept. When +I saw light, it was time to contrive what I should do. Though God +stopped my speech, he left me my hand; I enjoyed a mercy which +was not granted to my dear friend Lawrence<a href= +"#note-714">[714]</a>, who now perhaps +overlooks me as I am writing, and rejoices that I have what he +wanted. My first note was necessarily to my servant, who came in +talking, and could not immediately comprehend why he should read +what I put into his hands.</p> +<p>I then wrote a card to Mr. Allen, that I might have a discreet +friend at hand, to act as occasion should require. In penning +this note, I had some difficulty; my hand, I knew not how nor +why, made wrong letters. I then wrote to Dr. Taylor to come to +me, and bring Dr. Heberden; and I sent to Dr. Brocklesby, who is +my neighbour. My physicians are very friendly, and give me great +hopes; but you may imagine my situation. I have so far recovered +my vocal powers, as to repeat the Lord's Prayer with no very +imperfect articulation. My memory, I hope, yet remains as it was; +but such an attack produces solicitude for the safety of every +faculty.'</p> +<p>'To MR. THOMAS DAVIES.</p> +<p>'DEAR SIR, I have had, indeed, a very heavy blow; but GOD, who +yet spares my life, I humbly hope will spare my understanding, +and restore my speech. As I am not at all helpless, I want no +particular assistance, but am strongly affected by Mrs. Davies's +tenderness; and when I think she can do me good, shall be very +glad to call upon her. I had ordered friends to be shut out; but +one or two have found the way in; and if you come you shall be +admitted: for I know not whom I can see, that will bring more +amusement on his tongue, or more kindness in his heart. I am, +&c.</p> +<p>SAM. JOHNSON. June 18, 1783.'</p> +<p>It gives me great pleasure to preserve such a memorial of +Johnson's regard for Mr. Davies, to whom I was indebted for my +introduction to him<a href= +"#note-715">[715]</a>. He indeed loved +Davies cordially, of which I shall give the following little +evidence. One day when he had treated him with too much asperity. +Tom, who was not without pride and spirit, went off in a passion; +but he had hardly reached home, when Frank, who had been sent +after him, delivered this note:—'Come, come, dear Davies, I +am always sorry when we quarrel; send me word that we are +friends.'</p> +<p>'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</p> +<p>DEAR SIR, Your anxiety about my health is very friendly, and +very agreeable with your general kindness. I have, indeed, had a +very frightful blow. On the 17th of last month, about three in +the morning, as near as I can guess, I perceived myself almost +totally deprived of speech. I had no pain. My organs were so +obstructed, that I could say <i>no</i>, but could scarcely say +<i>yes</i>. I wrote the necessary directions, for it pleased GOD +to spare my hand, and sent for Dr. Heberden and Dr. Brocklesby. +Between the time in which I discovered my own disorder, and that +in which I sent for the doctors, I had, I believe, in spite of my +surprize and solicitude, a little sleep, and Nature began to +renew its operations. They came, and gave the directions which +the disease required, and from that time I have been continually +improving in articulation. I can now speak, but the nerves are +weak, and I cannot continue discourse long; but strength, I hope, +will return. The physicians consider me as cured. I was last +Sunday at church. On Tuesday I took an airing to Hampstead, and +dined with THE CLUB<a href= +"#note-716">[716]</a>, where Lord +Palmerston was proposed, and, against my opinion, was rejected<a +href="#note-717">[717]</a>. I designed to +go next week with Mr. Langton to Rochester, where I purpose to +stay about ten days, and then try some other air. I have many +kind invitations. Your brother has very frequently enquired after +me. Most of my friends have, indeed, been very attentive<a href= +"#note-718">[718]</a>. Thank dear Lord +Hailes for his present.</p> +<p>I hope you found at your return every thing gay and +prosperous, and your lady, in particular, quite recovered and +confirmed. Pay her my respects.</p> +<p>I am, dear Sir, Your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON. +London, July 3,</p> +<center>1783.'</center> +<p>'To MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.</p> +<p>DEAR MADAM, The account which you give of your health is but +melancholy. May it please GOD to restore you. My disease affected +my speech, and still continues, in some degree, to obstruct my +utterance; my voice is distinct enough for a while; but the +organs being still weak are quickly weary: but in other respects +I am, I think, rather better than I have lately been; and can let +you know my state without the help of any other hand.</p> +<p>In the opinion of my friends, and in my own, I am gradually +mending. The Physicians consider me as cured; and I had leave, +four days ago, to wash the cantharides from my head. Last Tuesday +I dined at THE CLUB.</p> +<p>I am going next week into Kent, and purpose to change the air +frequently this summer; whether I shall wander so far as +Staffordshire I cannot tell. I should be glad to come. Return my +thanks to Mrs. Cobb, and Mr. Pearson, and all that have shewn +attention to me.</p> +<p>Let us, my dear, pray for one another, and consider our +sufferings as notices mercifully given us to prepare ourselves +for another state.</p> +<p>I live now but in a melancholy way. My old friend Mr. Levett +is dead, who lived with me in the house, and was useful and +companionable; Mrs. Desmoulins is gone away<a href= +"#note-719">[719]</a>; and Mrs. Williams +is so much decayed, that she can add little to another's +gratifications. The world passes away, and we are passing with +it; but there is, doubtless, another world, which will endure for +ever. Let us all fit ourselves for it.</p> +<p>I am, &c., SAM. JOHNSON. London, July 5, 1783.'</p> +<p>Such was the general vigour of his constitution, that he +recovered from this alarming and severe attack with wonderful +quickness; so that in July he was able to make a visit to Mr. +Langton at Rochester<a href= +"#note-720">[720]</a>, where he passed +about a fortnight, and made little excursions as easily as at any +time of his life<a href= +"#note-721">[721]</a>. In August he went +as far as the neighbourhood of Salisbury, to Heale<a href= +"#note-722">[722]</a>, the seat of +William Bowles, Esq[723]., a gentleman whom I have heard him +praise for exemplary religious order in his family. In his diary +I find a short but honourable mention of this visit: 'August 28, +I came to Heale without fatigue. 30. I am entertained quite to my +mind.'</p> +<p>'To DR. BROCKLESBY. Heale, near Salisbury, Aug. 29, 1783.</p> +<p>DEAR SIR, Without appearing to want a just sense of your kind +attention, I cannot omit to give an account of the day which +seemed to appear in some sort perilous. I rose at five and went +out at six, and having reached Salisbury about nine<a href= +"#note-724">[724]</a>, went forward a few +miles in my friend's chariot. I was no more wearied with the +journey, though it was a high-hung, rough coach, than I should +have been forty years ago. We shall now see what air will do. The +country is all a plain; and the house in which I am, so far as I +can judge from my window, for I write before I have left my +chamber, is sufficiently pleasant.</p> +<p>Be so kind as to continue your attention to Mrs. Williams; it +is great consolation to the well, and still greater to the sick, +that they find themselves not neglected; and I know that you will +be desirous of giving comfort even where you have no great hope +of giving help.</p> +<p>Since I wrote the former part of the letter, I find that by +the course of the post I cannot send it before the +thirty-first.</p> +<p>I am, &c. SAM. JOHNSON.'</p> +<p>While he was here he had a letter from Dr. Brocklesby, +acquainting him of the death of Mrs. Williams, which affected him +a good deal<a href="#note-725">[725]</a>. +Though for several years her temper had not been complacent, she +had valuable qualities, and her departure left a blank in his +house<a href="#note-726">[726]</a>. Upon +this occasion he, according to his habitual course of piety, +composed a prayer<a href= +"#note-727">[727]</a>.</p> +<p>I shall here insert a few particulars concerning him, with +which I have been favoured by one of his friends<a href= +"#note-728">[728]</a>.</p> +<p>'He had once conceived the design of writing the Life of +Oliver Cromwell<a href= +"#note-729">[729]</a>, saying, that he +thought it must be highly curious to trace his extraordinary rise +to the supreme power, from so obscure a beginning. He at length +laid aside his scheme, on discovering that all that can be told +of him is already in print; and that it is impracticable to +procure any authentick information in addition to what the world +is already possessed of<a href= +"#note-730">[730]</a>.'</p> +<p>'He had likewise projected, but at what part of his life is +not known, a work to shew how small a quantity of REAL FICTION +there is in the world; and that the same images, with very little +variation, have served all the authours who have ever written<a +href="#note-731">[731]</a>.'</p> +<p>'His thoughts in the latter part of his life were frequently +employed on his deceased friends. He often muttered these, or +such like sentences: "Poor man! and then he died."'</p> +<p>'Speaking of a certain literary friend, "He is a very pompous +puzzling fellow, (said he); he lent me a letter once that +somebody had written to him, no matter what it was about; but he +wanted to have the letter back, and expressed a mighty value for +it; he hoped it was to be met with again, he would not lose it +for a thousand pounds. I layed my hand upon it soon afterwards, +and gave it him. I believe I said, I was very glad to have met +with it. O, then he did not know that it signified any thing. So +you see, when the letter was lost it was worth a thousand pounds, +and when it was found it was not worth a farthing."'</p> +<p>'The style and character of his conversation is pretty +generally known; it was certainly conducted in conformity with a +precept of Lord Bacon, but it is not clear, I apprehend, that +this conformity was either perceived or intended by Johnson. The +precept alluded to is as follows: "In all kinds of speech, either +pleasant, grave, severe, or ordinary, it is convenient to speak +leisurely, and rather drawingly than hastily: because hasty +speech confounds the memory, and oftentimes, besides the +unseemliness, drives the man either to stammering, a non-plus, or +harping on that which should follow; whereas a slow speech +confirmeth the memory, addeth a conceit of wisdom to the hearers, +besides a seemliness of speech and countenance<a href= +"#note-732">[732]</a>." Dr. Johnson's +method of conversation was certainly calculated to excite +attention, and to amuse and instruct, (as it happened,) without +wearying or confusing his company. He was always most perfectly +clear and perspicuous; and his language was so accurate, and his +sentences so neatly constructed, that his conversation might have +been all printed without any correction. At the same time, it was +easy and natural; the accuracy of it had no appearance of labour, +constraint, or stiffness; he seemed more correct than others, by +the force of habit, and the customary exercises of his powerful +mind<a href="#note-733">[733]</a>.'</p> +<p>'He spoke often in praise of French literature. "The French +are excellent in this, (he would say,) they have a book on every +subject<a href="#note-734">[734]</a>." +From what he had seen of them he denied them the praise of +superiour politeness<a href= +"#note-735">[735]</a>, and mentioned, +with very visible disgust, the custom they have of spitting on +the floors of their apartments. "This, (said the Doctor) is as +gross a thing as can well be done; and one wonders how any man, +or set of men, can persist in so offensive a practice for a whole +day together; one should expect that the first effort towards +civilization would remove it even among savages<a href= +"#note-736">[736]</a>."'</p> +<p>'Baxter's <i>Reasons of the Christian Religion</i>, he thought +contained the best collection of the evidences of the divinity of +the Christian system.'</p> +<p>'Chymistry<a href= +"#note-737">[737]</a> was always an +interesting pursuit with Dr. Johnson. Whilst he was in Wiltshire, +he attended some experiments that were made by a physician at +Salisbury, on the new kinds of air<a href= +"#note-738">[738]</a>. In the course of +the experiments frequent mention being made of Dr. Priestley, Dr. +Johnson knit his brows, and in a stern manner enquired, "Why do +we hear so much of Dr. Priestley<a href= +"#note-739">[739]</a>?" He was very +properly answered, "Sir, because we are indebted to him for these +important discoveries." On this Dr. Johnson appeared well +content; and replied, "Well, well, I believe we are; and let +every man have the honour he has merited."'</p> +<p>'A friend was one day, about two years before his death, +struck with some instance of Dr. Johnson's great candour. "Well, +Sir, (said he,) I will always say that you are a very candid +man." "Will you," (replied the Doctor,) I doubt then you will be +very singular. But, indeed, Sir, (continued he,) I look upon +myself to be a man very much misunderstood. I am not an uncandid, +nor am I a severe man. I sometimes say more than I mean, in jest; +and people are apt to believe me serious: however, I am more +candid than I was when I was younger. As I know more of mankind I +expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a <i>good +man</i>, upon easier terms than I was formerly<a href= +"#note-740">[740]</a>.'</p> +<p>On his return from Heale he wrote to Dr. Burney:—</p> +<p>'I came home on the 18th<a href= +"#note-741">[741]</a> at noon to a very +disconsolate house. You and I have lost our friends<a href= +"#note-742">[742]</a>; but you have more +friends at home. My domestick companion is taken from me. She is +much missed, for her acquisitions were many, and her curiosity +universal; so that she partook of every conversation<a href= +"#note-743">[743]</a>. I am not well +enough to go much out; and to sit, and eat, or fast alone, is +very wearisome. I always mean to send my compliments to all the +ladies.'</p> +<p>His fortitude and patience met with severe trials during this +year. The stroke of the palsy has been related circumstantially; +but he was also afflicted with the gout, and was besides troubled +with a complaint which not only was attended with immediate +inconvenience, but threatened him with a chirurgical operation, +from which most men would shrink. The complaint was a +<i>sarcocele</i>, which Johnson bore with uncommon firmness, and +was not at all frightened while he looked forward to amputation. +He was attended by Mr. Pott and Mr. Cruikshank. I have before me +a letter of the 30th of July this year, to Mr. Cruikshank, in +which he says, 'I am going to put myself into your hands;' and +another, accompanying a set of his <i>Lives of the Poets</i>, in +which he says, 'I beg your acceptance of these volumes, as an +acknowledgement of the great favours which you have bestowed on, +Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant.' I have in my +possession several more letters from him to Mr. Cruikshank, and +also to Dr. Mudge at Plymouth, which it would be improper to +insert, as they are filled with unpleasing technical details. I +shall, however, extract from his letters to Dr. Mudge such +passages as shew either a felicity of expression, or the +undaunted state of his mind.</p> +<p>'My conviction of your skill, and my belief of your +friendship, determine me to intreat your opinion and +advice.'—'In this state I with great earnestness desire you +to tell me what is to be done. Excision is doubtless necessary to +the cure, and I know not any means of palliation. The operation +is doubtless painful; but is it dangerous? The pain I hope to +endure with decency<a href= +"#note-744">[744]</a>; but I am loth to +put life into much hazard.'—'By representing the gout as an +antagonist to the palsy, you have said enough to make it welcome. +This is not strictly the first fit, but I hope it is as good as +the first; for it is the second that ever confined me; and the +first was ten years ago<a href= +"#note-745">[745]</a>, much less fierce +and fiery than this.'—'Write, dear Sir, what you can to +inform or encourage me. The operation is not delayed by any fears +or objections of mine.'</p> +<p>To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. 'Dear Sir, You may very reasonably +charge me with insensibility of your kindness, and that of Lady +Rothes, since I have suffered so much time to pass without paying +any acknowledgement. I now, at last, return my thanks; and why I +did it not sooner I ought to tell you. I went into Wiltshire as +soon as I well could, and was there much employed in palliating +my own malady. Disease produces much selfishness. A man in pain +is looking after ease; and lets most other things go as chance +shall dispose of them. In the mean time I have lost a companion<a +href="#note-746">[746]</a>, to whom I +have had recourse for domestick amusement for thirty years, and +whose variety of knowledge never was exhausted; and now return to +a habitation vacant and desolate. I carry about a very +troublesome and dangerous complaint, which admits no cure but by +the chirurgical knife. Let me have your prayers. I am, +&c.</p> +<p>SAM. JOHNSON. London, Sept. 29, 1783.'</p> +<p>Happily the complaint abated without his being put to the +torture of amputation. But we must surely admire the manly +resolution which he discovered while it hung over him.</p> +<p>In a letter to the same gentleman he writes, 'The gout has +within these four days come upon me with a violence which I never +experienced before. It made me helpless as an infant.' And in +another, having mentioned Mrs. Williams, he says,—'whose +death following that of Levett, has now made my house a solitude. +She left her little substance to a charity-school. She is, I +hope, where there is neither darkness, nor want, nor sorrow.'</p> +<p>I wrote to him, begging to know the state of his health, and +mentioned that Baxter's <i>Anacreon</i><a href= +"#note-747">[747]</a>, 'which is in the +library at Auchinleck, was, I find, collated by my father in +1727, with the MS. belonging to the University of Leyden, and he +has made a number of Notes upon it. Would you advise me to +publish a new edition of it?'</p> +<p>His answer was dated September 30:—</p> +<p>'You should not make your letters such rarities, when you +know, or might know, the uniform state of my health. It is very +long since I heard from you; and that I have not answered is a +very insufficient reason for the silence of a friend. Your +<i>Anacreon</i> is a very uncommon book; neither London nor +Cambridge can supply a copy of that edition. Whether it should be +reprinted, you cannot do better than consult Lord +Hailes.—Besides my constant and radical disease, I have +been for these ten days much harassed with the gout; but that has +now remitted. I hope GOD will yet grant me a little longer life, +and make me less unfit to appear before him.'</p> +<p>He this autumn received a visit from the celebrated Mrs. +Siddons. He gives this account of it in one of his letters<a +href="#note-748">[748]</a> to Mrs. +Thrale:—</p> +<p>'Mrs. Siddons, in her visit to me, behaved with great modesty +and propriety, and left nothing behind her to be censured or +despised. Neither praise nor money, the two powerful corrupters +of mankind, seem to have depraved her. I shall be glad to see her +again. Her brother Kemble calls on me, and pleases me very well. +Mrs. Siddons and I talked of plays; and she told me her intention +of exhibiting this winter the characters of Constance, Catharine, +and Isabella, in Shakspeare.'</p> +<p>Mr. Kemble has favoured me with the following minute of what +passed at this visit:—</p> +<p>'When Mrs. Siddons came into the room, there happened to be no +chair ready for her, which he observing, said with a smile, +"Madam, you who so often occasion a want of seats to other +people, will the more easily excuse the want of one yourself<a +href="#note-749">[749]</a>."</p> +<p>Having placed himself by her, he with great good-humour +entered upon a consideration of the English drama; and, among +other inquiries, particularly asked her which of Shakspeare's +characters she was most pleased with. Upon her answering that she +thought the character of Queen Catharine, in <i>Henry the +Eighth</i>, the most natural:—"I think so too, Madam, (said +he;) and whenever you perform it, I will once more hobble out to +the theatre myself<a href= +"#note-750">[750]</a>." Mrs. Siddons +promised she would do herself the honour of acting his favourite +part for him; but many circumstances happened to prevent the +representation of <i>King Henry the Eighth</i> during the +Doctor's life.</p> +<p>'In the course of the evening he thus gave his opinion upon +the merits of some of the principal performers whom he remembered +to have seen upon the stage. "Mrs. Porter,<a href= +"#note-751">[751]</a> in the vehemence of +rage, and Mrs. Clive in the sprightliness of humour, I have never +seen equalled. What Clive did best, she did better than Garrick; +but could not do half so many things well; she was a better romp +than any I ever saw in nature<a href= +"#note-752">[752]</a>. Pritchard<a href= +"#note-753">[753]</a>, in common life, +was a vulgar ideot; she would talk of her <i>gownd</i>: but, when +she appeared upon the stage, seemed to be inspired by gentility +and understanding. I once talked with Colley Cibber<a href= +"#note-754">[754]</a>, and thought him +ignorant of the principles of his art. Garrick, Madam, was no +declaimer; there was not one of his own scene-shifters who could +not have spoken <i>To be, or not to be</i>, better than he did<a +href="#note-755">[755]</a>; yet he was +the only actor I ever saw, whom I could call a master both in +tragedy and comedy<a href= +"#note-756">[756]</a>; though I liked him +best in comedy. A true conception of character, and natural +expression of it, were his distinguished excellencies." Having +expatiated, with his usual force and eloquence, on Mr. Garrick's +extraordinary eminence as an actor, he concluded with this +compliment to his social talents: "And after all, Madam, I +thought him less to be envied on the stage than at the head of a +table."'</p> +<p>Johnson, indeed, had thought more upon the subject of acting +than might be generally supposed<a href= +"#note-757">[757]</a>. Talking of it one +day to Mr. Kemble, he said, 'Are you, Sir, one of those +enthusiasts who believe yourself transformed into the very +character you represent?' Upon Mr. Kemble's answering that he had +never felt so strong a persuasion himself<a href= +"#note-758">[758]</a>; 'To be sure not, +Sir, (said Johnson;) the thing is impossible. And if Garrick +really believed himself to be that monster, Richard the Third, he +deserved to be hanged every time he performed it<a href= +"#note-759">[759]</a>.'</p> +<p>A pleasing instance of the generous attention of one of his +friends has been discovered by the publication of Mrs. Thrale's +collection of <i>Letters</i>. In a letter to one of the Miss +Thrales<a href="#note-760">[760]</a>, he +writes,—</p> +<p>'A friend, whose name I will tell when your mamma has tried to +guess it, sent to my physician to enquire whether this long train +of illness had brought me into difficulties for want of money, +with an invitation to send to him for what occasion required. I +shall write this night to thank him, having no need to +borrow.'</p> +<p>And afterwards, in a letter to Mrs. Thrale,—</p> +<p>'Since you cannot guess, I will tell you, that the generous +man was Gerard Hamilton. I returned him a very thankful and +respectful letter<a href= +"#note-761">[761]</a>.'</p> +<p>I applied to Mr. Hamilton, by a common friend, and he has been +so obliging as to let me have Johnson's letter to him upon this +occasion, to adorn my collection.</p> +<p>'To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'Your kind enquiries after my affairs, and your generous +offers, have been communicated to me by Dr. Brocklesby. I return +thanks with great sincerity, having lived long enough to know +what gratitude is due to such friendship; and entreat that my +refusal may not be imputed to sullenness or pride. I am, indeed, +in no want. Sickness is, by the generosity of my physicians, of +little expence to me. But if any unexpected exigence should press +me, you shall see, dear Sir, how cheerfully I can be obliged to +so much liberality.</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'I am, Sir, + Your most obedient + And most humble servant, + SAM. JOHNSON.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>'November, 19, 1783<a href= +"#note-762">[762]</a>.'</p> +<p>I find in this, as in former years, notices of his kind +attention to Mrs. Gardiner<a href= +"#note-763">[763]</a>, who, though in the +humble station of a tallow-chandler upon Snow-hill, was a woman +of excellent good sense, pious, and charitable. She told me, she +had been introduced to him by Mrs. Masters<a href= +"#note-764">[764]</a>, the poetess, whose +volumes he revised, and, it is said, illuminated here and there +with a ray of his own genius. Mrs. Gardiner was very zealous for +the support of the Ladies' charity-school, in the parish of St. +Sepulchre. It is confined to females; and, I am told, it afforded +a hint for the story of <i>Betty Broom</i> in <i>The Idler</i><a +href="#note-765">[765]</a>. Johnson this +year, I find, obtained for it a sermon from the late Bishop of +St. Asaph, Dr. Shipley, whom he, in one of his letters to Mrs. +Thrale<a href="#note-766">[766]</a>, +characterises as 'knowing and conversible;' and whom all who knew +his Lordship, even those who differed from him in politicks, +remember with much respect<a href= +"#note-767">[767]</a>.</p> +<p>The Earl of Carlisle having written a tragedy, entitled <i>The +Fathers Revenge</i><a href= +"#note-768">[768]</a>, some of his +Lordship's friends applied to Mrs. Chapone<a href= +"#note-769">[769]</a> to prevail on Dr. +Johnson to read and give his opinion of it<a href= +"#note-770">[770]</a>, which he +accordingly did, in a letter to that lady. Sir Joshua Reynolds +having informed me that this letter was in Lord Carlisle's +possession, though I was not fortunate enough to have the honour +of being known to his Lordship, trusting to the general courtesy +of literature, I wrote to him, requesting the favour of a copy of +it, and to be permitted to insert it in my <i>Life of Dr. +Johnson</i>. His Lordship was so good as to comply with my +request, and has thus enabled me to enrich my work with a very +fine piece of writing, which displays both the critical skill and +politeness of my illustrious friend; and perhaps the curiosity +which it will excite, may induce the noble and elegant Authour to +gratify the world by the publication<a href= +"#note-771">[771]</a> of a performance, +of which Dr. Johnson has spoken in such terms.</p> +<p>'To MRS. CHAPONE.</p> +<center>'MADAM,</center> +<p>'By sending the tragedy to me a second time<a href= +"#note-772">[772]</a>, I think that a +very honourable distinction has been shewn me, and I did not +delay the perusal, of which I am now to tell the effect.</p> +<p>'The construction of the play is not completely regular; the +stage is too often vacant, and the scenes are not sufficiently +connected. This, however, would be called by Dryden only a +mechanical defect<a href= +"#note-773">[773]</a>; which takes away +little from the power of the poem, and which is seen rather than +felt.</p> +<p>'A rigid examiner of the diction might, perhaps, wish some +words changed, and some lines more vigorously terminated. But +from such petty imperfections what writer was ever free?</p> +<p>'The general form and force of the dialogue is of more +importance. It seems to want that quickness of reciprocation +which characterises the English drama, and is not always +sufficiently fervid or animated.</p> +<p>'Of the sentiments I remember not one that I wished omitted. +In the imagery I cannot forbear to distinguish the comparison of +joy succeeding grief to light rushing on the eye accustomed to +darkness. It seems to have all that can be desired to make it +please. It is new, just, and delightful<a href= +"#note-774">[774]</a>.</p> +<p>'With the characters, either as conceived or preserved, I have +no fault to find; but was much inclined to congratulate a writer, +who, in defiance of prejudice and fashion, made the Archbishop a +good man, and scorned all thoughtless applause, which a vicious +churchman would have brought him.</p> +<p>'The catastrophe is affecting. The Father and Daughter both +culpable, both wretched, and both penitent, divide between them +our pity and our sorrow.</p> +<p>'Thus, Madam, I have performed what I did not willingly +undertake, and could not decently refuse. The noble writer will +be pleased to remember, that sincere criticism ought to raise no +resentment, because judgement is not under the controul of will; +but involuntary criticism, as it has still less of choice, ought +to be more remote from possibility of offence.</p> +<p>'I am, &c.,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'November 28, 1783.'</p> +<p>I consulted him on two questions of a very different nature: +one, whether the unconstitutional influence exercised by the +Peers of Scotland in the election of the representatives of the +Commons<a href="#note-775">[775]</a>, by +means of fictitious qualifications, ought not to be +resisted;—the other, What, in propriety and humanity, +should be done with old horses unable to labour. I gave him some +account of my life at Auchinleck: and expressed my satisfaction +that the gentlemen of the county had, at two publick meetings, +elected me their <i>Praeses</i> or Chairman<a href= +"#note-776">[776]</a>.</p> +<p>'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'Like all other men who have great friends, you begin to feel +the pangs of neglected merit; and all the comfort that I can give +you is, by telling you that you have probably more pangs to feel, +and more neglect to suffer. You have, indeed, begun to complain +too soon; and I hope I am the only confidant of your discontent. +Your friends have not yet had leisure to gratify personal +kindness; they have hitherto been busy in strengthening their +ministerial interest<a href= +"#note-777">[777]</a>. If a vacancy +happens in Scotland, give them early intelligence; and as you can +serve Government as powerfully as any of your probable +competitors, you may make in some sort a warrantable claim.</p> +<p>'Of the exaltations and depressions of your mind you delight +to talk, and I hate to hear. Drive all such fancies from you.</p> +<p>'On the day when I received your letter, I think, the +foregoing page was written; to which, one disease or another has +hindered me from making any additions. I am now a little better. +But sickness and solitude press me very heavily. I could bear +sickness better, if I were relieved from solitude<a href= +"#note-778">[778]</a>.</p> +<p>'The present dreadful confusion of the publick<a href= +"#note-779">[779]</a> ought to make you +wrap yourself up in your hereditary possessions, which, though +less than you may wish, are more than you can want; and in an +hour of religious retirement return thanks to GOD, who has +exempted you from any strong temptation to faction, treachery, +plunder<a href="#note-780">[780]</a>, and +disloyalty.</p> +<p>'As your neighbours distinguish you by such honours as they +can bestow, content yourself with your station, without +neglecting your profession. Your estate and the Courts will find +you full employment; and your mind, well occupied, will be +quiet.</p> +<p>'The usurpation of the nobility, for they apparently usurp all +the influence they gain by fraud and misrepresentation, I think +it certainly lawful, perhaps your duty, to resist. What is not +their own they have only by robbery.</p> +<p>'Your question about the horses gives me more perplexity. I +know not well what advice to give you. I can only recommend a +rule which you do not want;—give as little pain as you can. +I suppose that we have a right to their service while their +strength lasts; what we can do with them afterwards I cannot so +easily determine. But let us consider. Nobody denies that man has +a right first to milk the cow, and to sheer the sheep, and then +to kill them for his table. May he not, by parity of reason, +first work a horse, and then kill him the easiest way, that he +may have the means of another horse, or food for cows and sheep? +Man is influenced in both cases by different motives of +self-interest. He that rejects the one must reject the other.</p> +<p>'I am, &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, Dec. 24, 1783.'</p> +<p>'A happy and pious Christmas; and many happy years to you, +your lady, and children.'</p> +<p>The late ingenious Mr. Mickle<a href= +"#note-781">[781]</a>, some time before +his death, wrote me a letter concerning Dr. Johnson, in which he +mentions,—</p> +<p>'I was upwards of twelve years acquainted with him, was +frequently in his company, always talked with ease to him, and +can truly say, that I never received from him one rough +word.'</p> +<p>In this letter he relates his having, while engaged in +translating the <i>Lusiad</i>, had a dispute of considerable +length with Johnson, who, as usual, declaimed upon the misery and +corruption of a sea life, and used this expression:—'It had +been happy for the world, Sir, if your hero Gama, Prince Henry of +Portugal, and Columbus, had never been born, or that their +schemes had never gone farther than their own imaginations.'</p> +<p>'This sentiment, (says Mr. Mickle,) which is to be found in +his <i>Introduction to the World displayed</i><a href= +"#note-782">[782]</a>, I, in my +Dissertation prefixed to the <i>Lusiad</i>, have controverted; +and though authours are said to be bad judges of their own +works<a href="#note-783">[783]</a>, I am +not ashamed to own to a friend, that that dissertation is my +favourite above all that I ever attempted in prose. Next year, +when the Lusiad was published, I waited on Dr. Johnson, who +addressed me with one of his good-humoured smiles:—"Well, +you have remembered our dispute about Prince Henry, and have +cited me too. You have done your part very well indeed: you have +made the best of your argument; but I am not convinced yet."</p> +<p>'Before publishing the <i>Lusiad</i>, I sent Mr. Hoole a proof +of that part of the introduction, in which I make mention of Dr. +Johnson, yourself, and other well-wishers to the work, begging it +might be shewn to Dr. Johnson. This was accordingly done; and in +place of the simple mention of him which I had made, he dictated +to Mr. Hoole the sentence as it now stands<a href= +"#note-784">[784]</a>.</p> +<p>'Dr. Johnson told me in 1772, that, about twenty years before +that time, he himself had a design to translate the +<i>Lusiad</i>, of the merit of which he spoke highly, but had +been prevented by a number of other engagements.'</p> +<p>Mr. Mickle reminds me in this letter of a conversation, at +dinner one day at Mr. Hoole's with Dr. Johnson, when Mr. Nicol +the King's bookseller and I attempted to controvert the maxim, +'better that ten guilty should escape, than one innocent person +suffer;' and were answered by Dr. Johnson with great power of +reasoning and eloquence. I am very sorry that I have no record of +that day<a href="#note-785">[785]</a>: +but I well recollect my illustrious friend's having ably shewn, +that unless civil institutions insure protection to the innocent, +all the confidence which mankind should have in them would be +lost.</p> +<p>I shall here mention what, in strict chronological +arrangement, should have appeared in my account of last year; but +may more properly be introduced here, the controversy having not +been closed till this. The Reverend Mr. Shaw<a href= +"#note-786">[786]</a>, a native of one of +the Hebrides, having entertained doubts of the authenticity of +the poems ascribed to Ossian, divested himself of national +bigotry; and having travelled in the Highlands and Islands of +Scotland, and also in Ireland, in order to furnish himself with +materials for a <i>Gaelick Dictionary</i>, which he afterwards +compiled<a href="#note-787">[787]</a>, +was so fully satisfied that Dr. Johnson was in the right upon the +question, that he candidly published a pamphlet, stating his +conviction and the proofs and reasons on which it was founded. A +person at Edinburgh, of the name of Clark, answered this pamphlet +with much zeal, and much abuse of its authour. Johnson took Mr. +Shaw under his protection, and gave him his assistance in writing +a reply, which has been admired by the best judges, and by many +been considered as conclusive. A few paragraphs, which +sufficiently mark their great Authour, shall be +selected:—</p> +<p>'My assertions are, for the most part, purely negative: I deny +the existence of Fingal, because in a long and curious +peregrination through the Gaelick regions I have never been able +to find it. What I could not see myself I suspect to be equally +invisible to others; and I suspect with the more reason, as among +all those who have seen it no man can shew it.</p> +<p>'Mr. Clark compares the obstinacy of those who disbelieve the +genuineness of Ossian to a blind man, who should dispute the +reality of colours, and deny that the British troops are cloathed +in red. The blind man's doubt would be rational, if he did not +know by experience that others have a power which he himself +wants: but what perspicacity has Mr. Clark which Nature has +withheld from me or the rest of mankind?</p> +<p>'The true state of the parallel must be this. Suppose a man, +with eyes like his neighbours, was told by a boasting corporal, +that the troops, indeed, wore red clothes for their ordinary +dress, but that every soldier had likewise a suit of black +velvet, which he put on when the King reviews them. This he +thinks strange, and desires to see the fine clothes, but finds +nobody in forty thousand men that can produce either coat or +waistcoat. One, indeed, has left them in his chest at Port Mahon; +another has always heard that he ought to have velvet clothes +somewhere; and a third has heard somebody say, that soldiers +ought to wear velvet. Can the enquirer be blamed if he goes away +believing that a soldier's red coat is all that he has?</p> +<p>'But the most obdurate incredulity may be shamed or silenced +by acts. To overpower contradictions, let the soldier shew his +velvet-coat, and the Fingalist the original of Ossian<a href= +"#note-788">[788]</a>.</p> +<p>'The difference between us and the blind man is +this:—the blind man is unconvinced, because he cannot see; +and we, because though we can see, we find that nothing can be +shown.'</p> +<p>Notwithstanding the complication of disorders under which +Johnson now laboured, he did not resign himself to despondency +and discontent, but with wisdom and spirit endeavoured to console +and amuse his mind with as many innocent enjoyments as he could +procure. Sir John Hawkins has mentioned the cordiality with which +he insisted that such of the members of the old club in +Ivy-lane<a href="#note-789">[789]</a> as +survived, should meet again and dine together, which they did, +twice at a tavern and once at his house<a href= +"#note-790">[790]</a>: and in order to +insure himself society in the evening for three days in the +week<a href="#note-791">[791]</a>, he +instituted a club at the Essex Head, in Essex-street, then kept +by Samuel Greaves, an old servant of Mr. Thrale's.</p> +<p>'To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'It is inconvenient to me to come out, I should else have +waited on you with an account of a little evening Club which we +are establishing in Essex-street, in the Strand, and of which you +are desired to be one. It will be held at the Essex Head, now +kept by an old servant of Thrale's. The company is numerous, and, +as you will see by the list, miscellaneous. The terms are lax, +and the expences light. Mr. Barry was adopted by Dr. Brocklesby, +who joined with me in forming the plan. We meet thrice a week, +and he who misses forfeits two-pence<a href= +"#note-792">[792]</a>.</p> +<p>'If you are willing to become a member, draw a line under your +name. Return the list. We meet for the first time on Monday at +eight.'</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'I am, &c. + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>'Dec. 4, 1783.'</p> +<p>It did not suit Sir Joshua to be one of this Club. But when I +mention only Mr. Daines Barrington, Dr. Brocklesby, Mr. Murphy, +Mr. John Nichols, Mr. Cooke, Mr. Joddrel, Mr. Paradise, Dr. +Horsley, Mr. Windham<a href= +"#note-793">[793]</a>, I shall +sufficiently obviate the misrepresentation of it by Sir John +Hawkins, as if it had been a low ale-house association, by which +Johnson was degraded<a href= +"#note-794">[794]</a>. Johnson himself, +like his namesake Old Ben<a href= +"#note-795">[795]</a>, composed the Rules +of his Club[796].</p> +<p>In the end of this year he was seized with a spasmodick asthma +of such violence, that he was confined to the house in great +pain, being sometimes obliged to sit all night in his chair, a +recumbent posture being so hurtful to his respiration, that he +could not endure lying in bed; and there came upon him at the +same time that oppressive and fatal disease, a dropsy. It was a +very severe winter, which probably aggravated his complaints; and +the solitude in which Mr. Levett and Mrs. Williams had left him, +rendered his life very gloomy. Mrs. Desmoulins<a href= +"#note-797">[797]</a>, who still lived, +was herself so very ill, that she could contribute very little to +his relief<a href="#note-798">[798]</a>. +He, however, had none of that unsocial shyness which we commonly +see in people afflicted with sickness. He did not hide his head +from the world, in solitary abstraction; he did not deny himself +to the visits of his friends and acquaintances; but at all times, +when he was not overcome by sleep, was ready for conversation as +in his best days<a href= +"#note-799">[799]</a>.</p> +<p>'To MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.</p> +<center>'DEAR MADAM,</center> +<p>'You may perhaps think me negligent that I have not written to +you again<a href="#note-800">[800]</a> +upon the loss of your brother; but condolences and consolations +are such common and such useless things, that the omission of +them is no great crime: and my own diseases occupy my mind, and +engage my care. My nights are miserably restless, and my days, +therefore, are heavy. I try, however, to hold up my head as high +as I can<a href= +"#note-801">[801]</a>.</p> +<p>'I am sorry that your health is impaired; perhaps the spring +and the summer may, in some degree, restore it: but if not, we +must submit to the inconveniences of time, as to the other +dispensations of Eternal Goodness. Pray for me, and write to me, +or let Mr. Pearson write for you.</p> +<p>'I am, &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, Nov. 29, 1783.'</p> +<p>1784: Aetat. 75.—And now I am arrived at the last year +of the life of SAMUEL JOHNSON, a year in which, although passed +in severe indisposition, he nevertheless gave many evidences of +the continuance of those wondrous powers of mind, which raised +him so high in the intellectual world. His conversation and his +letters of this year were in no respect inferiour to those of +former years.</p> +<p>The following is a remarkable proof of his being alive to the +most minute curiosities of literature.</p> +<p>'To MR. DILLY, BOOKSELLER, IN THE POULTRY.</p> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>'There is in the world a set of books which used to be sold by +the booksellers on the bridge<a href= +"#note-802">[802]</a>, and which I must +entreat you to procure me. They are called <i>Burton's +Books</i><a href="#note-803">[803]</a>; +the title of one is <i>Admirable Curiosities, Rarities, and +Wonders in England</i>. I believe there are about five or six of +them; they seem very proper to allure backward readers; be so +kind as to get them for me, and send me them with the best +printed edition of <i>Baxter's Call to the Unconverted</i>.</p> +<p>'I am, &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Jan. 6, 1784.'</p> +<p>'To MR. PERKINS.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I was very sorry not to see you when you were so kind as to +call on me; but to disappoint friends, and if they are not very +good natured, to disoblige them, is one of the evils of sickness. +If you will please to let me know which of the afternoons in this +week I shall be favoured with another visit by you and Mrs. +Perkins, and the young people, I will take all the measures that +I can to be pretty well at that time<a href= +"#note-804">[804]</a>.</p> +<p>'I am, dear Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Jan. 21, 1784.'</p> +<p>His attention to the Essex-Head Club appears from the +following letter to Mr. Alderman Clark, a gentleman for whom he +deservedly entertained a great regard.</p> +<p>'To RICHARD CLARK, ESQ.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'You will receive a requisition, according to the rules of the +Club, to be at the house as President of the night. This turn +comes once a month, and the member is obliged to attend, or send +another in his place. You were enrolled in the Club by my +invitation, and I ought to introduce you; but as I am hindered by +sickness, Mr. Hoole will very properly supply my place as +introductor, or yours as President. I hope in milder weather to +be a very constant attendant.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir, &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Jan. 27, 1784.'</p> +<p>'You ought to be informed that the forfeits began with the +year, and that every night of non-attendance incurs the mulct of +three-pence, that is, nine pence a week.'</p> +<p>On the 8th of January I wrote to him, anxiously inquiring as +to his health, and enclosing my <i>Letter to the People of +Scotland, on the present state of the nation</i><a href= +"#note-805">[805]</a>.</p> +<p>'I trust, (said I,) that you will be liberal enough to make +allowance for my differing from you on two points, (the Middlesex +Election, and the American War<a href= +"#note-806">[806]</a>) when my general +principles of government are according to your own heart, and +when, at a crisis of doubtful event, I stand forth with honest +zeal as an ancient and faithful Briton. My reason for introducing +those two points was, that as my opinions with regard to them had +been declared at the periods when they were least favourable, I +might have the credit of a man who is not a worshipper of +ministerial power.'</p> +<p>'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I hear of many enquiries which your kindness has disposed you +to make after me<a href= +"#note-807">[807]</a>. I have long +intended you a long letter, which perhaps the imagination of its +length hindered me from beginning. I will, therefore, content +myself with a shorter.</p> +<p>'Having promoted the institution of a new Club in the +neighbourhood, at the house of an old servant of Thrale's, I went +thither to meet the company, and was seized with a spasmodick +asthma so violent, that with difficulty I got to my own house, in +which I have been confined eight or nine weeks, and from which I +know not when I shall be able to go even to church. The asthma, +however, is not the worst. A dropsy gains ground upon me; my legs +and thighs are very much swollen with water, which I should be +content if I could keep there, but I am afraid that it will soon +be higher. My nights are very sleepless and very tedious. And yet +I am extremely afraid of dying.</p> +<p>'My physicians try to make me hope, that much of my malady is +the effect of cold, and that some degree at least of recovery is +to be expected from vernal breezes and summer suns<a href= +"#note-808">[808]</a>. If my life is +prolonged to autumn, I should be glad to try a warmer climate; +though how to travel with a diseased body, without a companion to +conduct me, and with very little money, I do not well see. Ramsay +has recovered his limbs in Italy<a href= +"#note-809">[809]</a>; and Fielding was +sent to Lisbon, where, indeed, he died; but he was, I believe, +past hope when he went. Think for me what I can do.</p> +<p>'I received your pamphlet, and when I write again may perhaps +tell you some opinion about it; but you will forgive a man +struggling with disease his neglect of disputes, politicks, and +pamphlets<a href="#note-810">[810]</a>. +Let me have your prayers. My compliments to your lady, and young +ones. Ask your physicians about my case: and desire Sir Alexander +Dick<a href="#note-811">[811]</a> to +write me his opinion.</p> +<p>'I am, dear Sir, &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Feb. 11, 1784.'</p> +<center>'TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.</center> +<center>'MY DEAREST LOVE,</center> +<p>'I have been extremely ill of an asthma and dropsy, but +received, by the mercy of GOD, sudden and unexpected relief last +Thursday, by the discharge of twenty pints of water<a href= +"#note-812">[812]</a>. Whether I shall +continue free, or shall fill again, cannot be told. Pray for +me.</p> +<p>'Death, my dear, is very dreadful; let us think nothing worth +our care but how to prepare for it: what we know amiss in +ourselves let us make haste to amend, and put our trust in the +mercy of GOD, and the intercession of our Saviour. I am, dear +Madam,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Feb. 23, 1784.'</p> +<center>TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</center> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I have just advanced so far towards recovery as to read a +pamphlet; and you may reasonably suppose that the first pamphlet +which I read was yours. I am very much of your opinion, and, like +you, feel great indignation at the indecency with which the King +is every day treated. Your paper contains very considerable +knowledge of history and of the constitution, very properly +produced and applied. It will certainly raise your character<a +href="#note-813">[813]</a>, though +perhaps it may not make you a Minister of State.</p> +<p>'I desire you to see Mrs. Stewart once again, and tell her, +that in the letter-case was a letter relating to me, for which I +will give her, if she is willing to give it me, another guinea<a +href="#note-814">[814]</a>. The letter is +of consequence only to me.</p> +<p>'I am, dear Sir, &c. 'SAM. JOHNSON.' 'London, Feb. 27, +1784.'</p> +<p>In consequence of Johnson's request that I should ask our +physicians about his case, and desire Sir Alexander Dick to send +his opinion, I transmitted him a letter from that very amiable +Baronet, then in his eighty-first year, with his faculties as +entire as ever; and mentioned his expressions to me in the note +accompanying it: 'With my most affectionate wishes for Dr. +Johnson's recovery, in which his friends, his country, and all +mankind have so deep a stake:' and at the same time a full +opinion upon his case by Dr. Gillespie, who, like Dr. Cullen, had +the advantage of having passed through the gradations of surgery +and pharmacy, and by study and practice had attained to such +skill, that my father settled on him two hundred pounds a year +for five years, and fifty pounds a year during his life, as an +<i>honorarium</i> to secure his particular attendance. The +opinion was conveyed in a letter to me, beginning, 'I am +sincerely sorry for the bad state of health your very learned and +illustrious friend, Dr. Johnson, labours under at present.'</p> +<center>'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. 'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'Presently after I had sent away my last letter, I received +your kind medical packet. I am very much obliged both to you and +your physicians for your kind attention to my disease. Dr. +Gillespie has sent me an excellent <i>consilium medicum</i>, all +solid practical experimental knowledge. I am at present, in the +opinion of my physicians, (Dr. Heberden and Dr. Brocklesby,) as +well as my own, going on very hopefully. I have just begun to +take vinegar of squills. The powder hurt my stomach so much, that +it could not be continued.</p> +<p>'Return Sir Alexander Dick my sincere thanks for his kind +letter; and bring with you the rhubarb<a href= +"#note-815">[815]</a> which he so +tenderly offers me.</p> +<p>'I hope dear Mrs. Boswell is now quite well, and that no evil, +either real or imaginary, now disturbs you.</p> +<p>'I am, &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, March 2, 1784.'</p> +<p>I also applied to three of the eminent physicians who had +chairs in our celebrated school of medicine at Edinburgh, Doctors +Cullen, Hope, and Monro, to each of whom I sent the following +letter:—</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'Dr. Johnson has been very ill for some time; and in a letter +of anxious apprehension he writes to me, "Ask your physicians +about my case."</p> +<p>'This, you see, is not authority for a regular consultation: +but I have no doubt of your readiness to give your advice to a +man so eminent, and who, in his <i>Life of Garth</i>, has paid +your profession a just and elegant compliment: "I believe every +man has found in physicians great liberality and dignity of +sentiment, very prompt effusions<a href= +"#note-816">[816]</a> of beneficence, and +willingness to exert a lucrative art, where there is no hope of +lucre."</p> +<p>'Dr. Johnson is aged seventy-four. Last summer he had a stroke +of the palsy, from which he recovered almost entirely. He had, +before that, been troubled with a catarrhous cough. This winter +he was seized with a spasmodick asthma, by which he has been +confined to his house for about three months. Dr. Brocklesby +writes to me, that upon the least admission of cold, there is +such a constriction upon his breast, that he cannot lie down in +his bed, but is obliged to sit up all night, and gets rest and +sometimes sleep, only by means of laudanum and syrup of poppies; +and that there are oedematous tumours on his legs and thighs. Dr. +Brocklesby trusts a good deal to the return of mild weather. Dr. +Johnson says, that a dropsy gains ground upon him; and he seems +to think that a warmer climate would do him good. I understand he +is now rather better, and is using vinegar of squills. I am, with +great esteem, dear Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most obedient humble servant,</p> +<center>'JAMES BOSWELL.'</center> +<p>'March 7, 1784.'</p> +<p>All of them paid the most polite attention to my letter, and +its venerable object. Dr. Cullen's words concerning him were, 'It +would give me the greatest pleasure to be of any service to a man +whom the publick properly esteem, and whom I esteem and respect +as much as I do Dr. Johnson.' Dr. Hope's, 'Few people have a +better claim on me than your friend, as hardly a day passes that +I do not ask his opinion about this or that word.' Dr. Monro's, +'I most sincerely join you in sympathizing with that very worthy +and ingenious character, from whom his country has derived much +instruction and entertainment.'</p> +<p>Dr. Hope corresponded with his friend Dr. Brocklesby. Doctors +Cullen and Monro wrote their opinions and prescriptions to me, +which I afterwards carried with me to London, and, so far as they +were encouraging, communicated to Johnson. The liberality on one +hand, and grateful sense of it on the other, I have great +satisfaction in recording.</p> +<center>'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</center> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I am too much pleased with the attention which you and your +dear lady<a href="#note-817">[817]</a> +show to my welfare, not to be diligent in letting you know the +progress which I make towards health. The dropsy, by GOD'S +blessing, has now run almost totally away by natural evacuation; +and the asthma, if not irritated by cold, gives me little +trouble. While I am writing this, I have not any sensation of +debility or disease. But I do not yet venture out, having been +confined to the house from the thirteenth of December, now a +quarter of a year.</p> +<p>'When it will be fit for me to travel as far as Auchinleck, I +am not able to guess; but such a letter as Mrs. Boswell's might +draw any man, not wholly motionless, a great way. Pray tell the +dear lady how much her civility and kindness have touched and +gratified me.</p> +<p>'Our parliamentary tumults have now begun to subside, and the +King's authority is in some measure re-established<a href= +"#note-818">[818]</a>. Mr. Pitt will have +great power: but you must remember, that what he has to give +must, at least for some time, be given to those who gave, and +those who preserve, his power. A new minister can sacrifice +little to esteem or friendship; he must, till he is settled, +think only of extending his interest.</p> +<hr> +<p>'If you come hither through Edinburgh, send for Mrs. Stewart, +and give from me another guinea for the letter in the old case, +to which I shall not be satisfied with my claim, till she gives +it me.</p> +<p>'Please to bring with you Baxter's <i>Anacreon</i><a href= +"#note-819">[819]</a>; and if you procure +heads of <i>Hector Boece</i><a href= +"#note-820">[820]</a>, the historian, and +<i>Arthur Johnston</i>[821], the poet, I will put them in my +room<a href="#note-822">[822]</a>; or any +other of the fathers of Scottish literature.</p> +<p>'I wish you an easy and happy journey, and hope I need not +tell you that you will be welcome to, dear Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most affectionate, humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, March 18, 1784.'</p> +<p>I wrote to him, March 28, from York, informing him that I had +a high gratification in the triumph of monarchical principles +over aristocratical influence, in that great country, in an +address to the King<a href= +"#note-823">[823]</a>; that I was thus +far on my way to him, but that news of the dissolution of +Parliament having arrived, I was to hasten back to my own county, +where I had carried an Address to his Majesty by a great +majority, and had some intention of being a candidate to +represent the county in Parliament.</p> +<p>'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'You could do nothing so proper as to haste back when you +found the Parliament dissolved. With the influence which your +Address must have gained you, it may reasonably be expected that +your presence will be of importance, and your activity of +effect.</p> +<p>'Your solicitude for me gives me that pleasure which every man +feels from the kindness of such a friend: and it is with delight +I relieve it by telling, that Dr. Brocklesby's account is true, +and that I am, by the blessing of GOD, wonderfully relieved.</p> +<p>'You are entering upon a transaction which requires much +prudence. You must endeavour to oppose without exasperating; to +practise temporary hostility, without producing enemies for life. +This is, perhaps, hard to be done; yet it has been done by many, +and seems most likely to be effected by opposing merely upon +general principles, without descending to personal or particular +censures or objections. One thing I must enjoin you, which is +seldom observed in the conduct of elections;—I must entreat +you to be scrupulous in the use of strong liquors. One night's +drunkenness may defeat the labours of forty days well employed. +Be firm, but not clamorous; be active, but not malicious; and you +may form such an interest, as may not only exalt yourself, but +dignify your family.</p> +<p>'We are, as you may suppose, all busy here. Mr. Fox resolutely +stands for Westminster, and his friends say will carry the +election<a href="#note-824">[824]</a>. +However that be, he will certainly have a seat<a href= +"#note-825">[825]</a>. Mr. Hoole has just +told me, that the city leans towards the King.</p> +<p>'Let me hear, from time to time, how you are employed, and +what progress you make.</p> +<p>'Make dear Mrs. Boswell, and all the young Boswells, the +sincere compliments of, Sir, your affectionate humble +servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, March 30, 1784.'</p> +<p>To Mr. Langton he wrote with that cordiality which was +suitable to the long friendship which had subsisted between him +and that gentleman<a href= +"#note-826">[826]</a>.</p> +<p>March 27. 'Since you left me, I have continued in my own +opinion, and in Dr, Brocklesby's, to grow better with respect to +all my formidable and dangerous distempers: though to a body +battered and shaken as mine has lately been, it is to be feared +that weak attacks may be sometimes mischievous. I have, indeed, +by standing carelessly at an open window, got a very troublesome +cough, which it has been necessary to appease by opium, in larger +quantities than I like to take, and I have not found it give way +so readily as I expected; its obstinacy, however, seems at last +disposed to submit to the remedy, and I know not whether I should +then have a right to complain of any morbid sensation. My asthma +is, I am afraid, constitutional and incurable; but it is only +occasional, and unless it be excited by labour or by cold, gives +me no molestation, nor does it lay very close siege to life; for +Sir John Floyer<a href= +"#note-827">[827]</a>, whom the physical +race consider as authour of one of the best books upon it, panted +on to ninety, as was supposed; and why were we content with +supposing a fact so interesting, of a man so conspicuous? because +he corrupted, at perhaps seventy or eighty, the register, that he +might pass for younger than he was. He was not much less than +eighty, when to a man of rank who modestly asked his age, he +answered, "Go look;" though he was in general a man of civility +and elegance.</p> +<p>'The ladies, I find, are at your house all well, except Miss +Langton, who will probably soon recover her health by light +suppers. Let her eat at dinner as she will, but not take a full +stomach to bed. Pay my sincere respects to dear Miss Langton in +Lincolnshire, let her know that I mean not to break our league of +friendship, and that I have a set of <i>Lives</i> for her, when I +have the means of sending it.'</p> +<p>April 8. 'I am still disturbed by my cough; but what thanks +have I not to pay, when my cough is the most painful sensation +that I feel? and from that I expect hardly to be released, while +winter continues to gripe us with so much pertinacity. The year +has now advanced eighteen days beyond the equinox, and still +there is very little remission of the cold. When warm weather +comes, which surely must come at last, I hope it will help both +me and your young lady.</p> +<p>'The man so busy about addresses is neither more nor less than +our own Boswell, who had come as far as York towards London, but +turned back on the dissolution, and is said now to stand for some +place. Whether to wish him success, his best friends +hesitate.</p> +<p>'Let me have your prayers for the completion of my recovery: I +am now better than I ever expected to have been. May GOD add to +his mercies the grace that may enable me to use them according to +his will. My compliments to all.'</p> +<p>April 13. 'I had this evening a note from Lord Portmore<a +href="#note-828">[828]</a>, desiring that +I would give you an account of my health. You might have had it +with less circumduction. I am, by GOD'S blessing, I believe, free +from all morbid sensations, except a cough, which is only +troublesome. But I am still weak, and can have no great hope of +strength till the weather shall be softer. The summer, if it be +kindly, will, I hope, enable me to support the winter. GOD, who +has so wonderfully restored me, can preserve me in all +seasons.</p> +<p>'Let me enquire in my turn after the state of your family, +great and little. I hope Lady Rothes and Miss Langton are both +well. That is a good basis of content. Then how goes George on +with his studies? How does Miss Mary? And how does my own Jenny? +I think I owe Jenny a letter, which I will take care to pay. In +the mean time tell her that I acknowledge the debt.</p> +<p>'Be pleased to make my compliments to the ladies. If Mrs. +Langton comes to London, she will favour me with a visit, for I +am not well enough to go out.'</p> +<p>'To OZIAS HUMPHRY<a href= +"#note-829">[829]</a>, ESQ.</p> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>'Mr. Hoole has told me with what benevolence you listened to a +request which I was almost afraid to make, of leave to a young +painter<a href="#note-830">[830]</a> to +attend you from time to time in your painting-room, to see your +operations, and receive your instructions<a href= +"#note-831">[831]</a>.</p> +<p>'The young man has perhaps good parts, but has been without a +regular education. He is my god-son, and therefore I interest +myself in his progress and success, and shall think myself much +favoured if I receive from you a permission to send him.</p> +<p>'My health is, by GOD'S blessing, much restored, but I am not +yet allowed by my physicians to go abroad; nor, indeed, do I +think myself yet able to endure the weather.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'April 5, 1784.'</p> +<p>To THE SAME.</p> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>'The bearer is my god-son, whom I take the liberty of +recommending to your kindness; which I hope he will deserve by +his respect to your excellence, and his gratitude for your +favours.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'April 10, 1784.'</p> +<p>To THE SAME.</p> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>'I am very much obliged by your civilities to my god-son, but +must beg of you to add to them the favour of permitting him to +see you paint, that he may know how a picture is begun, advanced +and completed.</p> +<p>'If he may attend you in a few of your operations, I hope he +will shew that the benefit has been properly conferred, both by +his proficiency and his gratitude. At least I shall consider you +as enlarging your kindness to, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'May 31, 1784.'</p> +<p>'To THE REVEREND DR. TAYLOR, ASHBOURNE, DERBYSHIRE.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'What can be the reason that I hear nothing from you? I hope +nothing disables you from writing. What I have seen, and what I +have felt, gives me reason to fear every thing. Do not omit +giving me the comfort of knowing, that after all my losses I have +yet a friend left.</p> +<p>'I want every comfort. My life is very solitary and very +cheerless. Though it has pleased GOD wonderfully to deliver me +from the dropsy, I am yet very weak, and have not passed the door +since the 13th of December<a href= +"#note-832">[832]</a>. I hope for some +help from warm weather, which will surely come in time.</p> +<p>'I could not have the consent of the physicians to go to +church yesterday; I therefore received the holy sacrament at +home, in the room where I communicated with dear Mrs. Williams, a +little before her death. O! my friend, the approach of death is +very dreadful. I am afraid to think on that which I know I cannot +avoid. It is vain to look round and round for that help which +cannot be had. Yet we hope and hope, and fancy that he who has +lived to-day may live to-morrow. But let us learn to derive our +hope only from GOD.</p> +<p>'In the mean time, let us be kind to one another. I have no +friend now living but you and Mr. Hector, that was the friend of +my youth. Do not neglect, dear Sir,</p> +<p>'Yours affectionately,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON<a href= +"#note-833">[833]</a>.'</center> +<p>'London, Easter-Monday,</p> +<p>April 12, 1784.'</p> +<p>What follows is a beautiful specimen of his gentleness and +complacency to a young lady his god-child, one of the daughters +of his friend Mr. Langton, then I think in her seventh year. He +took the trouble to write it in a large round hand, nearly +resembling printed characters, that she might have the +satisfaction of reading it herself. The original lies before me, +but shall be faithfully restored to her; and I dare say will be +preserved by her as a jewel as long as she lives<a href= +"#note-834">[834]</a>.</p> +<p>'To Miss JANE LANGTON, IN ROCHESTER, KENT.</p> +<center>'MY DEAREST MISS JENNY,</center> +<p>'I am sorry that your pretty letter has been so long without +being answered; but, when I am not pretty well, I do not always +write plain enough for young ladies. I am glad, my dear, to see +that you write so well, and hope that you mind your pen, your +book, and your needle, for they are all necessary. Your books +will give you knowledge, and make you respected; and your needle +will find you useful employment when you do not care to read. +When you are a little older, I hope you will be very diligent in +learning arithmetick<a href= +"#note-835">[835]</a>, and, above all, +that through your whole life you will carefully say your prayers, +and read your Bible.</p> +<p>'I am, my dear,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'May 10, 1784.'</p> +<p>On Wednesday, May 5, I arrived in London, and next morning had +the pleasure to find Dr. Johnson greatly recovered. I but just +saw him; for a coach was waiting to carry him to Islington, to +the house of his friend the Reverend Mr. Strahan, where he went +sometimes for the benefit of good air, which, notwithstanding his +having formerly laughed at the general opinion upon the subject, +he now acknowledged was conducive to health.</p> +<p>One morning afterwards, when I found him alone, he +communicated to me, with solemn earnestness, a very remarkable +circumstance which had happened in the course of his illness, +when he was much distressed by the dropsy. He had shut himself +up, and employed a day in particular exercises of +religion,—fasting, humiliation, and prayer. On a sudden he +obtained extraordinary relief, for which he looked up to Heaven +with grateful devotion. He made no direct inference from this +fact; but from his manner of telling it, I could perceive that it +appeared to him as something more than an incident in the common +course of events<a href= +"#note-836">[836]</a>. For my own part, I +have no difficulty to avow that cast of thinking, which by many +modern pretenders to wisdom is called <i>superstitious</i>. But +here I think even men of dry rationality may believe, that there +was an intermediate<a href= +"#note-837">[837]</a> interposition of +Divine Providence, and that 'the fervent prayer of this righteous +man<a href="#note-838">[838]</a>' +availed[839].</p> +<p>On Sunday, May 9, I found Colonel Valiancy, the celebrated +antiquarian and Engineer of Ireland, with him. On Monday, the +10th, I dined with him at Mr. Paradise's, where was a large +company; Mr. Bryant, Mr. Joddrel, Mr. Hawkins Browne, &c. On +Thursday, the 13th, I dined with him at Mr. Joddrel's, with +another large company; the Bishop of Exeter, Lord Monboddo<a +href="#note-840">[840]</a>, Mr. Murphy, +&c.</p> +<p>On Saturday, May 15<a href= +"#note-841">[841]</a>, I dined with him +at Dr. Brocklesby's, where were Colonel Vallancy, Mr. Murphy, and +that ever-cheerful companion Mr. Devaynes, apothecary to his +Majesty. Of these days, and others on which I saw him, I have no +memorials, except the general recollection of his being able and +animated in conversation, and appearing to relish society as much +as the youngest man. I find only these three small +particulars:—When a person was mentioned, who said, 'I have +lived fifty-one years in this world without having had ten +minutes of uneasiness;' he exclaimed, 'The man who says so, lies: +he attempts to impose on human credulity.' The Bishop of Exeter +in vain observed, that men were very different. His Lordship's +manner was not impressive, and I learnt afterwards that Johnson +did not find out that the person who talked to him was a Prelate; +if he had, I doubt not that he would have treated him with more +respect; for once talking of George Psalmanazar<a href= +"#note-842">[842]</a>, whom he reverenced +for his piety, he said, 'I should as soon think of contradicting +a BISHOP<a href="#note-843">[843]</a>.' +One of the company[844] provoked him greatly by doing what he +could least of all bear, which was quoting something of his own +writing, against what he then maintained. 'What, Sir, (cried the +gentleman,) do you say to</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "The busy day, the peaceful night, + Unfelt, uncounted, glided by<a href= +"#note-845">845</a>?"'— +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Johnson finding himself thus presented as giving an instance +of a man who had lived without uneasiness, was much offended, for +he looked upon such a quotation as unfair. His anger burst out in +an unjustifiable retort, insinuating that the gentleman's remark +was a sally of ebriety; 'Sir, there is one passion I would advise +you to command: when you have drunk out that glass, don't drink +another<a href="#note-846">[846]</a>.' +Here was exemplified what Goldsmith said of him, with the aid of +a very witty image from one of Cibber's Comedies: 'There is no +arguing with Johnson; for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks +you down with the butt end of it<a href= +"#note-847">[847]</a>.' Another was this: +when a gentleman<a href= +"#note-848">[848]</a> of eminence in the +literary world was violently censured for attacking people by +anonymous paragraphs in newspapers; he, from the spirit of +contradiction as I thought, took up his defence, and said, 'Come, +come, this is not so terrible a crime; he means only to vex them +a little. I do not say that I should do it; but there is a great +difference between him and me; what is fit for Hephaestion is not +fit for Alexander.' Another, when I told him that a young and +handsome Countess had said to me, 'I should think that to be +praised by Dr. Johnson would make one a fool all one's life;' and +that I answered, 'Madam, I shall make him a fool to-day, by +repeating this to him,' he said, 'I am too old to be made a fool; +but if you say I am made a fool, I shall not deny it. I am much +pleased with a compliment, especially from a pretty woman.'</p> +<p>On the evening of Saturday, May 15, he was in fine spirits, at +our Essex-Head Club. He told us, 'I dined yesterday at Mrs. +Garrick's, with Mrs. Carter<a href= +"#note-849">[849]</a>, Miss Hannah More, +and Miss Fanny Burney. Three such women are not to be found: I +know not where I could find a fourth, except Mrs. Lennox, who is +superiour to them all<a href= +"#note-850">[850]</a>.' BOSWELL. 'What! +had you them all to yourself, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'I had them all as +much as they were had; but it might have been better had there +been more company there.' BOSWELL. 'Might not Mrs. Montagu have +been a fourth?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, Mrs. Montagu does not make a trade +of her wit; but Mrs. Montagu is a very extraordinary woman; she +has a constant stream of conversation, and it is always +impregnated; it has always meaning<a href= +"#note-851">[851]</a>.' BOSWELL. 'Mr. +Burke has a constant stream of conversation.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; +if a man were to go by chance at the same time with Burke under a +shed, to shun a shower, he would say—"this is an +extraordinary man." If Burke should go into a stable to see his +horse drest, the ostler would say—we have had an +extraordinary man here<a href= +"#note-852">[852]</a>.' BOSWELL. 'Foote +was a man who never failed in conversation. If he had gone into a +stable—' JOHNSON. 'Sir, if he had gone into a stable, the +ostler would have said, here has been a comical fellow; but he +would not have respected him.' BOSWELL. 'And, Sir, the ostler +would have answered him, would have given him as good as he +brought, as the common saying is.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; and Foote +would have answered the ostler.—When Burke does not descend +to be merry, his conversation is very superiour indeed. There is +no proportion between the powers which he shews in serious talk +and in jocularity. When he lets himself down to that, he is in +the kennel<a href="#note-853">[853]</a>.' +I have in another place[854] opposed, and I hope with success, +Dr. Johnson's very singular and erroneous notion as to Mr. +Burke's pleasantry. Mr. Windham now said low to me, that he +differed from our great friend in this observation; for that Mr. +Burke was often very happy in his merriment. It would not have +been right for either of us to have contradicted Johnson at this +time, in a Society all of whom did not know and value Mr. Burke +as much as we did. It might have occasioned something more rough, +and at any rate would probably have checked the flow of Johnson's +good-humour. He called to us with a sudden air of exultation, as +the thought started into his mind, 'O! Gentlemen, I must tell you +a very great thing. The Empress of Russia has ordered the +<i>Rambler</i> to be translated into the Russian language<a href= +"#note-855">[855]</a>: so I shall be read +on the banks of the Wolga. Horace boasts that his fame would +extend as far as the banks of the Rhone<a href= +"#note-856">[856]</a>; now the Wolga is +farther from me than the Rhone was from Horace.' BOSWELL. 'You +must certainly be pleased with this, Sir.' JOHNSON. 'I am pleased +Sir, to be sure. A man is pleased to find he has succeeded in +that which he has endeavoured to do.'</p> +<p>One of the company mentioned his having seen a noble person +driving in his carriage, and looking exceedingly well, +notwithstanding his great age. JOHNSON. 'Ah, Sir; that is +nothing. Bacon observes, that a stout healthy old man is like a +tower undermined.'</p> +<p>On Sunday, May 16, I found him alone; he talked of Mrs. Thrale +with much concern, saying, 'Sir, she has done every thing wrong, +since Thrale's bridle was off her neck;' and was proceeding to +mention some circumstances which have since been the subject of +publick discussion<a href= +"#note-857">[857]</a>, when he was +interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of +Salisbury.</p> +<p>Dr. Douglas, upon this occasion, refuted a mistaken notion +which is very common in Scotland, that the ecclesiastical +discipline of the Church of England, though duly enforced, is +insufficient to preserve the morals of the clergy, inasmuch as +all delinquents may be screened by appealing to the Convocation, +which being never authorized by the King to sit for the dispatch +of business, the appeal never can be heard. Dr. Douglas observed, +that this was founded upon ignorance; for that the Bishops have +sufficient power to maintain discipline, and that the sitting of +the Convocation was wholly immaterial in this respect, it being +not a Court of judicature, but like a parliament, to make Canons +and regulations as times may require.</p> +<p>Johnson, talking of the fear of death, said, 'Some people are +not afraid, because they look upon salvation as the effect of an +absolute decree, and think they feel in themselves the marks of +sanctification. Others, and those the most rational in my +opinion, look upon salvation as conditional; and as they never +can be sure that they have complied with the conditions, they are +afraid<a href="#note-858">[858]</a>.'</p> +<p>In one of his little manuscript diaries, about this time, I +find a short notice, which marks his amiable disposition more +certainly than a thousand studied declarations.—'Afternoon +spent cheerfully and elegantly, I hope without offence to GOD or +man; though in no holy duty, yet in the general exercise and +cultivation of benevolence.'</p> +<p>On Monday, May 17, I dined with him at Mr. Dilly's, where were +Colonel Valiancy, the Reverend Dr. Gibbons<a href= +"#note-859">[859]</a>, and Mr. Capel +Lofft, who, though a most zealous Whig, has a mind so full of +learning and knowledge, and so much exercised in various +departments, and withal so much liberality, that the stupendous +powers of the literary Goliath, though they did not frighten this +little David of popular spirit, could not but excite his +admiration<a href="#note-860">[860]</a>. +There was also Mr. Braithwaite of the Post-office, that amiable +and friendly man, who, with modest and unassuming manners, has +associated with many of the wits of the age. Johnson was very +quiescent to-day. Perhaps too I was indolent. I find nothing more +of him in my notes, but that when I mentioned that I had seen in +the King's library sixty-three editions of my favourite <i>Thomas +à Kempis</i>, amongst which it was in eight languages, +Latin, German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, Arabick, and +Armenian, he said, he thought it unnecessary to collect many +editions of a book, which were all the same, except as to the +paper and print; he would have the original, and all the +translations, and all the editions which had any variations in +the text. He approved of the famous collection of editions of +<i>Horace</i> by Douglas, mentioned by Pope<a href= +"#note-861">[861]</a>, who is said to +have had a closet filled with them; and he added, 'every man +should try to collect one book in that manner, and present it to +a publick library.'</p> +<p>On Tuesday, May 18, I saw him for a short time in the morning. +I told him that the mob had called out, as the King passed<a +href="#note-862">[862]</a>, 'No +Fox—No Fox,' which I did not like. He said, 'They were +right, Sir.' I said, I thought not; for it seemed to be making +Mr. Fox the King's competitor<a href= +"#note-863">[863]</a>. There being no +audience, so that there could be no triumph in a victory, he +fairly agreed with me<a href= +"#note-864">[864]</a>. I said it might do +very well, if explained thus:—'Let us have no Fox;' +understanding it as a prayer to his Majesty not to appoint that +gentleman minister.</p> +<p>On Wednesday, May 19, I sat a part of the evening with him, by +ourselves. I observed, that the death of our friends might be a +consolation against the fear of our own dissolution, because we +might have more friends in the other world than in this. He +perhaps felt this as a reflection upon his apprehension as to +death; and said, with heat, 'How can a man know <i>where</i> his +departed friends are, or whether they will be his friends in the +other world<a href="#note-865">[865]</a>? +How many friendships have you known formed upon principles of +virtue? Most friendships are formed by caprice or by chance, mere +confederacies in vice or leagues in folly.'</p> +<p>We talked of our worthy friend Mr. Langton. He said, 'I know +not who will go to Heaven if Langton does not. Sir, I could +almost say, <i>Sit anima mea cum Langtono</i>' I mentioned a very +eminent friend<a href= +"#note-866">[866]</a> a virtuous man. +JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; but —— has not the evangelical +virtue of Langton. ——, I am afraid, would not scruple +to pick up a wench.'</p> +<p>He however charged Mr. Langton with what he thought want of +judgement upon an interesting occasion. 'When I was ill, (said +he) I desired he would tell me sincerely in what he thought my +life was faulty. Sir, he brought me a sheet of paper, on which he +had written down several texts of Scripture, recommending +christian charity. And when I questioned him what occasion I had +given for such an animadversion, all that he could say amounted +to this,—that I sometimes contradicted people in +conversation. Now what harm does it do to any man to be +contradicted?' BOSWELL. 'I suppose he meant the <i>manner</i> of +doing it; roughly,—and harshly.' JOHNSON. 'And who is the +worse for that?' BOSWELL. 'It hurts people of weak nerves.' +JOHNSON. 'I know no such weak-nerved people<a href= +"#note-867">[867]</a>.' Mr. Burke, to +whom I related this conference, said, 'It is well, if when a man +comes to die, he has nothing heavier upon his conscience than +having been a little rough in conversation.'</p> +<p>Johnson, at the time when the paper was presented to him, +though at first pleased with the attention of his friend, whom he +thanked in an earnest manner, soon exclaimed, in a loud and angry +tone, 'What is your drift, Sir?' Sir Joshua Reynolds pleasantly +observed, that it was a scene for a comedy, to see a penitent get +into a violent passion and belabour his confessor<a href= +"#note-868">[868]</a>.</p> +<p>I have preserved no more of his conversation at the times when +I saw him during the rest of this month, till Sunday, the 30th of +May, when I met him in the evening at Mr. Hoole's, where there +was a large company both of ladies and gentlemen; Sir James +Johnston<a href="#note-869">[869]</a> +happened to say, that he paid no regard to the arguments of +counsel at the bar of the House of Commons, because they were +paid for speaking. 'JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, argument is argument. You +cannot help paying regard to their arguments, if they are good. +If it were testimony, you might disregard it, if you knew that it +were purchased. There is a beautiful image in Bacon<a href= +"#note-870">[870]</a> upon this subject: +testimony is like an arrow shot from a long bow; the force of it +depends on the strength of the hand that draws it. Argument is +like an arrow from a cross-bow, which has equal force though shot +by a child.'</p> +<p>He had dined that day at Mr. Hoole's, and Miss Helen Maria +Williams being expected in the evening, Mr. Hoole put into his +hands her beautiful <i>Ode on the Peace</i><a href= +"#note-871">[871]</a>: Johnson read it +over, and when this elegant and accomplished young lady<a href= +"#note-872">[872]</a> was presented to +him, he took her by the hand in the most courteous manner, and +repeated the finest stanza of her poem; this was the most +delicate and pleasing compliment he could pay. Her respectable +friend, Dr. Kippis, from whom I had this anecdote, was standing +by, and was not a little gratified.</p> +<p>Miss Williams told me, that the only other time she was +fortunate enough to be in Dr. Johnson's company, he asked her to +sit down by him, which she did, and upon her enquiring how he +was, he answered, 'I am very ill indeed, Madam. I am very ill +even when you are near me; what should I be were you at a +distance?'<a href= +"#note-873">[873]</a></p> +<p>He had now a great desire to go to Oxford, as his first jaunt +after his illness; we talked of it for some days, and I had +promised to accompany him. He was impatient, and fretful +to-night, because I did not at once agree to go with him on +Thursday. When I considered how ill he had been, and what +allowance should be made for the influence of sickness upon his +temper, I resolved to indulge him, though with some inconvenience +to myself, as I wished to attend the musical meeting in honour of +Handel<a href="#note-874">[874]</a>, in +Westminster-Abbey, on the following Saturday.</p> +<p>In the midst of his own diseases and pains, he was ever +compassionate to the distresses of others, and actively earnest +in procuring them aid, as appears from a note to Sir Joshua +Reynolds, of June, in these words:—'I am ashamed to ask for +some relief for a poor man, to whom, I hope, I have given what I +can be expected to spare. The man importunes me, and the blow +goes round. I am going to try another air on Thursday.'</p> +<p>On Thursday, June 3, the Oxford post-coach took us up in the +morning at Bolt-court. The other two passengers were Mrs. +Beresford and her daughter, two very agreeable ladies from +America; they were going to Worcestershire, where they then +resided. Frank had been sent by his master the day before to take +places for us; and I found, from the way-bill, that Dr. Johnson +had made our names be put down. Mrs. Beresford, who had read it, +whispered me, 'Is this the great Dr. Johnson?' I told her it was; +so she was then prepared to listen. As she soon happened to +mention in a voice so low that Johnson did not hear it, that her +husband had been a member of the American Congress, I cautioned +her to beware of introducing that subject, as she must know how +very violent Johnson was against the people of that country. He +talked a great deal, but I am sorry I have preserved little of +the conversation. Miss Beresford was so much charmed, that she +said to me aside, 'How he does talk! Every sentence is an essay.' +She amused herself in the coach with knotting; he would scarcely +allow this species of employment any merit. 'Next to mere +idleness (said he) I think knotting is to be reckoned in the +scale of insignificance; though I once attempted to learn +knotting. Dempster's sister (looking to me) endeavoured to teach +me it; but I made no progress<a href= +"#note-875">[875]</a>.'</p> +<p>I was surprised at his talking without reserve in the publick +post-coach of the state of his affairs; 'I have (said he) about +the world I think above a thousand pounds, which I intend shall +afford Frank an annuity of seventy pounds a year.' Indeed his +openness with people at a first interview was remarkable. He said +once to Mr. Langton, 'I think I am like Squire Richard in <i>The +Journey to London, "I'm never strange in a strange place</i><a +href="#note-876">[876]</a>."' He was +truly <i>social</i>. He strongly censured what is much too common +in England among persons of condition,—maintaining an +absolute silence, when unknown to each other; as for instance, +when occasionally brought together in a room before the master or +mistress of the house has appeared. 'Sir, that is being so +uncivilised as not to understand the common rights of humanity<a +href="#note-877">[877]</a>.'</p> +<p>At the inn where we stopped he was exceedingly dissatisfied +with some roast mutton which we had for dinner. The ladies I saw +wondered to see the great philosopher, whose wisdom and wit they +had been admiring all the way, get into ill-humour from such a +cause. He scolded the waiter, saying, 'It is as bad as bad can +be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest<a href= +"#note-878">[878]</a>.'</p> +<p>He bore the journey very well, and seemed to feel himself +elevated as he approached Oxford, that magnificent and venerable +seat of learning, Orthodoxy, and Toryism. Frank came in the heavy +coach, in readiness to attend him; and we were received with the +most polite hospitality at the house of his old friend Dr. Adams, +Master of Pembroke College, who had given us a kind invitation. +Before we were set down, I communicated to Johnson, my having +engaged to return to London directly, for the reason I have +mentioned, but that I would hasten back to him again. He was +pleased that I had made this journey merely to keep him company. +He was easy and placid, with Dr. Adams, Mrs. and Miss Adams, and +Mrs. Kennicot, widow of the learned Hebraean<a href= +"#note-879">[879]</a>, who was here on a +visit. He soon dispatched the inquiries which were made about his +illness and recovery, by a short and distinct narrative; and then +assuming a gay air, repeated from Swift,—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Nor think on our approaching ills, + And talk of spectacles and pills<a href= +"#note-880">880</a>.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Dr. Newton, the Bishop of Bristol, having been mentioned, +Johnson, recollecting the manner in which he had been censured by +that Prelate<a href= +"#note-881">[881]</a>, thus retaliated:-' +Tom knew he should be dead before what he has said of me would +appear. He durst not have printed it while he was alive.' DR. +ADAMS. 'I believe his <i>Dissertations on the Prophecies</i> is +his great work.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is Tom's great work; but +how far it is great, or how much of it is Tom's, are other +questions. I fancy a considerable part of it was borrowed.' DR. +ADAMS. 'He was a very successful man.' JOHNSON. 'I don't think +so, Sir. He did not get very high. He was late in getting what he +did get; and he did not get it by the best means. I believe he +was a gross flatterer<a href= +"#note-882">[882]</a>.'</p> +<p>I fulfilled my intention by going to London, and returned to +Oxford on Wednesday the 9th of June, when I was happy to find +myself again in the same agreeable circle at Pembroke College, +with the comfortable prospect of making some stay. Johnson +welcomed my return with more than ordinary glee.</p> +<p>He talked with great regard of the Honourable Archibald +Campbell, whose character he had given at the Duke of Argyll's +table, when we were at Inverary<a href= +"#note-883">[883]</a>; and at this time +wrote out for me, in his own hand, a fuller account of that +learned and venerable writer, which I have published in its +proper place. Johnson made a remark this evening which struck me +a good deal. 'I never (said he) knew a non-juror who could +reason<a href="#note-884">[884]</a>.' +Surely he did not mean to deny that faculty to many of their +writers; to Hickes, Brett<a href= +"#note-885">[885]</a>, and other eminent +divines of that persuasion; and did not recollect that the seven +Bishops, so justly celebrated for their magnanimous resistance of +arbitrary power, were yet Nonjurors to the new Government<a href= +"#note-886">[886]</a>. The nonjuring +clergy of Scotland, indeed, who, excepting a few, have lately, by +a sudden stroke, cut off all ties of allegiance to the house of +Stuart, and resolved to pray for our present lawful Sovereign by +name, may be thought to have confirmed this remark; as it may be +said, that the divine indefeasible hereditary right which they +professed to believe, if ever true, must be equally true still. +Many of my readers will be surprized when I mention, that Johnson +assured me he had never in his life been in a nonjuring +meeting-house<a href= +"#note-887">[887]</a>.</p> +<p>Next morning at breakfast, he pointed out a passage in +Savage's <i>Wanderer</i>, saying, 'These are fine verses.' 'If +(said he) I had written with hostility of Warburton in my +<i>Shakspeare</i>, I should have quoted this couplet:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "Here Learning, blinded first and then beguil'd, + Looks dark as Ignorance, as Fancy wild<a href= +"#note-888">888</a>." +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>You see they'd have fitted him to a <i>T</i>,' (smiling.) DR. +ADAMS. 'But you did not write against Warburton.' JOHNSON. 'No, +Sir, I treated him with great respect both in my Preface and in +my Notes<a href= +"#note-889">[889]</a>.'</p> +<p>Mrs. Kennicot spoke of her brother, the Reverend Mr. +Chamberlayne, who had given up great prospects in the Church of +England on his conversion to the Roman Catholick faith. Johnson, +who warmly admired every man who acted from a conscientious +regard to principle, erroneous or not, exclaimed fervently, 'GOD +bless him.'</p> +<p>Mrs. Kennicot, in confirmation of Dr. Johnson's opinion<a +href="#note-890">[890]</a>, that the +present was not worse than former ages, mentioned that her +brother assured her, there was now less infidelity on the +Continent than there had been; Voltaire and Rousseau were less +read. I asserted, from good authority, that Hume's infidelity was +certainly less read. JOHNSON. 'All infidel writers drop into +oblivion, when personal connections and the floridness of novelty +are gone; though now and then a foolish fellow, who thinks he can +be witty upon them, may bring them again into notice. There will +sometimes start up a College joker, who does not consider that +what is a joke in a College will not do in the world. To such +defenders of Religion I would apply a stanza of a poem which I +remember to have seen in some old collection:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "Henceforth be quiet and agree, + Each kiss his empty brother; + Religion scorns a foe like thee, + But dreads a friend like t'other." +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>The point is well, though the expression is not correct; +<i>one</i>, and not <i>thee, should be opposed to</i> +t'other<i><a href= +"#note-891">[891]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>On the Roman Catholick religion he said, 'If you join the +Papists externally, they will not interrogate you strictly as to +your belief in their tenets. No reasoning Papist believes every +article of their faith. There is one side on which a good man +might be persuaded to embrace it. A good man of a timorous +disposition, in great doubt of his acceptance with GOD, and +pretty credulous, might be glad to be of a church where there, +are so many helps to get to Heaven. I would be a Papist if I +could. I have fear enough; but an obstinate rationality prevents +me. I shall never be a Papist, unless on the near approach of +death, of which I have a very great terrour. I wonder that women +are not all Papists.' BOSWELL. 'They are not more afraid of death +than men are.' JOHNSON. 'Because they are less wicked.' DR. +ADAMS. 'They are more pious.' JOHNSON. 'No, hang 'em, they are +not more pious. A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes +to it. He'll beat you all at piety.'</p> +<p>He argued in defence of some of the peculiar tenets of the +Church of Rome. As to the giving the bread only to the laity, he +said, 'They may think, that in what is merely ritual, deviations +from the primitive mode may be admitted on the ground of +convenience, and I think they are as well warranted to make this +alteration, as we are to substitute sprinkling in the room of the +ancient baptism.' As to the invocation of saints<a href= +"#note-892">[892]</a>, he said, 'Though I +do not think it authorised, it appears to me, that "the communion +of saints" in the Creed means the communion with the saints in +Heaven, as connected with "The holy Catholick Church<a href= +"#note-893">[893]</a>."' He admitted the +influence of evil spirits[894] upon our minds, and said, 'Nobody +who believes the New Testament can deny it.'</p> +<p>I brought a volume of Dr. Hurd the Bishop of Worcester's +Sermons<i>, and read to the company some passages from one of +them, upon this text, '</i>Resist the Devil, and he will fly<a +href="#note-895">[895]</a> from you.' +James<i>, iv. 7. I was happy to produce so judicious and elegant +a supporter<a href="#note-896">[896]</a> +of a doctrine, which, I know not why, should, in this world of +imperfect knowledge, and, therefore, of wonder and mystery in a +thousand instances, be contested by some with an unthinking +assurance and flippancy.</i></p> +<p>After dinner, when one of us talked of there being a great +enmity between Whig and Tory;—JOHNSON. 'Why not so much, I +think, unless when they come into competition with each other. +There is none when they are only common acquaintance, none when +they are of different sexes. A Tory will marry into a Whig +family, and a Whig into a Tory family, without any reluctance. +But indeed, in a matter of much more concern than political +tenets, and that is religion, men and women do not concern +themselves much about difference of opinion; and ladies set no +value on the moral character of men who pay their addresses to +them; the greatest profligate will be as well received as the man +of the greatest virtue, and this by a very good woman, by a woman +who says her prayers three times a day.' Our ladies endeavoured +to defend their sex from this charge; but he roared them down! +'No, no, a lady will take Jonathan Wild as readily as St. Austin, +if he has three-pence more; and, what is worse, her parents will +give her to him. Women have a perpetual envy of our vices; they +are less vicious than we, not from choice, but because we +restrict them; they are the slaves of order and fashion; their +virtue is of more consequence to us than our own, so far as +concerns this world.'</p> +<p>Miss Adams mentioned a gentleman of licentious character, and +said, 'Suppose I had a mind to marry that gentleman, would my +parents consent?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, they'd consent, and you'd go. +You'd go though they did not consent.' MISS ADAMS. 'Perhaps their +opposing might make me go.' JOHNSON. 'O, very well; you'd take +one whom you think a bad man, to have the pleasure of vexing your +parents. You put me in mind of Dr. Barrowby<a href= +"#note-897">[897]</a>, the physician, who +was very fond of swine's flesh. One day, when he was eating it, +he said, 'I wish I was a Jew.' 'Why so? (said somebody); the Jews +are not allowed to eat your favourite meat.' 'Because, (said he,) +I should then have the gust of eating it, with the pleasure of +sinning.' Johnson then proceeded in his declamation.</p> +<p>Miss Adams soon afterwards made an observation that I do not +recollect, which pleased him much: he said with a good-humoured +smile, 'That there should be so much excellence united with so +much depravity<i>, is strange.'</i></p> +<p>Indeed, this lady's good qualities, merit, and +accomplishments, and her constant attention to Dr. Johnson, were +not lost upon him. She happened to tell him that a little +coffee-pot, in which she had made his coffee, was the only thing +she could call her own. He turned to her with a complacent +gallantry, 'Don't say so, my dear; I hope you don't reckon my +heart as nothing.'</p> +<p>I asked him if it was true as reported, that he had said +lately, 'I am for the King against Fox; but I am for Fox against +Pitt.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; the King is my master; but I do not +know Pitt; and Fox is my friend<a href= +"#note-898">[898]</a>.'</p> +<p>'Fox, (added he,) is a most extraordinary man; here is a man +(describing him in strong terms of objection in some respects +according as he apprehended, but which exalted his abilities the +more) who has divided the Kingdom with Caesar<a href= +"#note-899">[899]</a>; so that it, was a +doubt whether the nation should be ruled by the sceptre of George +the Third, or the tongue of Fox.'</p> +<p>Dr. Wall, physician at Oxford, drank tea with us. Johnson had +in general a peculiar pleasure in the company of physicians, +which was certainly not abated by the conversation of this +learned, ingenious, and pleasing gentleman. Johnson said, 'It is +wonderful how little good Radcliffe's travelling fellowships<a +href="#note-900">[900]</a> have done. I +know nothing that has been imported by them; yet many additions +to our medical knowledge might be got in foreign countries. +Inoculation, for instance, has saved more lives than war +destroys<a href="#note-901">[901]</a>: +and the cures performed by the Peruvian-bark are innumerable. But +it is in vain to send our travelling physicians to France, and +Italy, and Germany, for all that is known there is known here; +I'd send them out of Christendom; I'd send them among barbarous +nations.'</p> +<p>On Friday, June 11, we talked at breakfast, of forms of +prayer. JOHNSON. 'I know of no good prayers but those in the Book +of Common Prayer<i>.' DR. ADAMS, (in a very earnest manner): 'I +wish, Sir, you would compose some family prayers.' JOHNSON. 'I +will not compose prayers for you, Sir, because you can do it for +yourself. But I have thought of getting together all the books of +prayers which I could, selecting those which should appear to me +the best, putting out some, inserting others, adding some prayers +of my own, and prefixing a discourse on prayer.' We all now +gathered about him, and two or three of us at a time joined in +pressing him to execute this plan. He seemed to be a little +displeased at the manner of our importunity, and in great +agitation called out, 'Do not talk thus of what is so aweful. I +know not what time GOD will allow me in this world. There are +many things which I wish to do.' Some of us persisted, and Dr. +Adams said, 'I never was more serious about any thing in my +life.' JOHNSON. 'Let me alone, let me alone; I am overpowered.' +And then he put his hands before his face, and reclined for some +time upon the table<a href= +"#note-902">[902]</a>.</i></p> +<p>I mentioned Jeremy Taylor's using, in his forms of prayer, 'I +am the chief of sinners,' and other such self-condemning +expressions<a href="#note-903">[903]</a>. +'Now, (said I) this cannot be said with truth by every man, and +therefore is improper for a general printed form. I myself cannot +say that I am the worst of men; I will <i>not say so.' JOHNSON. +'A man may know, that physically, that is, in the real state of +things, he is not the worst man; but that morally he may be so. +Law observes that "Every man knows something worse of himself, +than he is sure of in others<a href= +"#note-904">[904]</a>." You may not have +committed such crimes as some men have done; but you do not know +against what degree of light they have sinned. Besides, Sir, "the +chief of sinners" is a mode of expression for "I am a great +sinner." So St. Paul, speaking of our SAVIOUR'S having died to +save sinners, says, "of whom I am the chief<a href= +"#note-905">[905]</a>;" yet he certainly +did not think himself so bad as Judas Iscariot.' BOSWELL. 'But, +Sir, Taylor means it literally, for he founds a conceit upon it. +When praying for the conversion of sinners, and of himself in +particular, he says, "LORD, thou wilt not leave thy</i> chief +<i>work undone." JOHNSON. 'I do not approve of figurative +expressions in addressing the Supreme Being; and I never use +them<a href="#note-906">[906]</a>. Taylor +gives a very good advice: "Never lie in your prayers; never +confess more than you really believe; never promise more than you +mean to perform<a href= +"#note-907">[907]</a>." I recollected +this precept in his</i> Golden Grove<i>; but his</i> example +<i>for prayer contradicts his</i> precept<i>.'</i></p> +<p>Dr. Johnson and I went in Dr. Adams's coach to dine with Dr. +Nowell, Principal of St. Mary Hall, at his beautiful villa at +Iffley, on the banks of the Isis, about two miles from Oxford. +While we were upon the road, I had the resolution to ask Johnson +whether he thought that the roughness of his manner had been an +advantage or not, and if he would not have done more good if he +had been more gentle. I proceeded to answer myself thus: 'Perhaps +it has been of advantage, as it has given weight to what you +said: you could not, perhaps, have talked with such authority +without it.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; I have done more good as I am. +Obscenity and Impiety have always been repressed in my company<a +href="#note-908">[908]</a>.' BOSWELL. +'True, Sir; and that is more than can be said of every Bishop. +Greater liberties have been taken in the presence of a Bishop, +though a very good man, from his being milder, and therefore not +commanding such awe. Yet, Sir, many people who might have been +benefited by your conversation, have been frightened away. A +worthy friend of ours<a href= +"#note-909">[909]</a> has told me, that +he has often been afraid to talk to you.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, he need +not have been afraid, if he had any thing rational to say. If he +had not, it was better he did not talk<a href= +"#note-910">[910]</a>.</p> +<p>Dr. Nowell is celebrated for having preached a sermon before +the House of Commons, on the 3Oth of January, 1773, full of high +Tory sentiments, for which he was thanked as usual, and printed +it at their request; but, in the midst of that turbulence and +faction which disgraced a part of the present reign, the thanks +were afterwards ordered to be expunged<a href= +"#note-911">[911]</a>. This strange +conduct sufficiently exposes itself; and Dr. Nowell will ever +have the honour which is due to a lofty friend of our monarchical +constitution. Dr. Johnson said to me, 'Sir, the Court will be +very much to blame, if he is not promoted.' I told this to Dr. +Nowell, and asserting my humbler, though not less zealous +exertions in the same cause, I suggested that whatever return we +might receive, we should still have the consolation of being like +Butler's steady and generous Royalist,</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'True as the dial to the sun, + Although it be not shone upon<a href= +"#note-912">912</a>.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>We were well entertained and very happy at Dr. Nowell's, where +was a very agreeable company, and we drank 'Church and King' +after dinner, with true Tory cordiality.</p> +<p>We talked of a certain clergyman<a href= +"#note-913">[913]</a> of extraordinary +character, who by exerting his talents in writing on temporary +topicks, and displaying uncommon intrepidity, had raised himself +to affluence. I maintained that we ought not to be indignant at +his success; for merit of every sort was entitled to reward. +JOHNSON. 'Sir, I will not allow this man to have merit. No, Sir; +what he has is rather the contrary; I will, indeed, allow him +courage, and on this account we so far give him credit. We have +more respect for a man who robs boldly on the highway, than for a +fellow who jumps out of a ditch, and knocks you down behind your +back. Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, +that it is always respected, even when it is associated with +vice<a href="#note-914">[914]</a>.</p> +<p>I censured the coarse invectives which were become fashionable +in the House of Commons<a href= +"#note-915">[915]</a>, and said that if +members of parliament must attack each other personally in the +heat of debate, it should be done more genteely. JOHNSON. 'No, +Sir; that would be much worse. Abuse is not so dangerous when +there is no vehicle of wit or delicacy, no subtle conveyance. The +difference between coarse and refined abuse is as the difference +between being bruised by a club, and wounded by a poisoned +arrow.' I have since observed his position elegantly expressed by +Dr. Young:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'As the soft plume gives swiftness to the dart, + Good breeding sends the satire to the heart<a href= +"#note-916">916</a>.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>On Saturday, June 12, there drank tea with us at Dr. Adams's, +Mr. John Henderson, student of Pembroke-College, celebrated for +his wonderful acquirements in Alchymy, Judicial Astrology, and +other abstruse and curious learning<a href= +"#note-917">[917]</a>; and the Reverend +Herbert Croft, who, I am afraid, was somewhat mortified by Dr. +Johnson's not being highly pleased with some Family +Discourses<i>, which he had printed; they were in too familiar a +style to be approved of by so manly a mind. I have no note of +this evening's conversation, except a single fragment. When I +mentioned Thomas Lord Lyttelton's vision<a href= +"#note-918">[918]</a>, the prediction of +the time of his death, and its exact fulfilment;—JOHNSON. +'It is the most extraordinary thing that has happened in my day. +I heard it with my own ears, from his uncle, Lord Westcote. I am +so glad to have every evidence of the spiritual world, that I am +willing to believe it.' DR. ADAMS. 'You have evidence enough; +good evidence, which needs not such support.' JOHNSON. 'I like to +have more<a href= +"#note-919">[919]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>Mr. Henderson, with whom I had sauntered in the venerable +walks of Merton-College, and found him a very learned and pious +man, supped with us. Dr. Johnson surprised him not a little, by +acknowledging with a look of horrour, that he was much oppressed +by the fear of death<a href= +"#note-920">[920]</a>. The amiable Dr. +Adams suggested that GOD was infinitely good. JOHNSON. 'That he +is infinitely good, as far as the perfection of his nature will +allow, I certainly believe; but it is necessary for good upon the +whole, that individuals should be punished. As to an +individual<i>, therefore, he is not infinitely good; and as I +cannot be</i> sure <i>that I have fulfilled the conditions on +which salvation is granted, I am afraid I may be one of those who +shall be damned.' (looking dismally.) DR. ADAMS. 'What do you +mean by damned?' JOHNSON. (passionately and loudly) 'Sent to +Hell, Sir, and punished everlastingly<a href= +"#note-921">[921]</a>.' DR. ADAMS. 'I +don't believe that doctrine.' JOHNSON. 'Hold, Sir, do you believe +that some will be punished at all?' DR. ADAMS. 'Being excluded +from Heaven will be a punishment; yet there may be no great +positive suffering.' JOHNSON. 'Well, Sir; but, if you admit any +degree of punishment, there is an end of your argument for +infinite goodness simply considered; for, infinite goodness would +inflict no punishment whatever. There is not infinite goodness +physically considered; morally there is.' BOSWELL. 'But may not a +man attain to such a degree of hope as not to be uneasy from the +fear of death?' JOHNSON. 'A man may have such a degree of hope as +to keep him quiet. You see I am not quiet, from the vehemence +with which I talk; but I do not despair.' MRS. ADAMS. 'You seem, +Sir, to forget the merits of our Redeemer.' JOHNSON. 'Madam, I do +not forget the merits of my Redeemer; but my Redeemer has said +that he will set some on his right hand and some on his left.' He +was in gloomy agitation, and said, 'I'll have no more on't<a +href="#note-922">[922]</a>.' If what has +now been stated should be urged by the enemies of Christianity, +as if its influence on the mind were not benignant, let it be +remembered, that Johnson's temperament was melancholy, of which +such direful apprehensions of futurity are often a common effect. +We shall presently see that when he approached nearer to his +aweful change, his mind became tranquil, and he exhibited as much +fortitude as becomes a thinking man in that situation.</i></p> +<p>From the subject of death we passed to discourse of life, +whether it was upon the whole more happy or miserable. Johnson +was decidedly for the balance of misery<a href= +"#note-923">[923]</a>: in confirmation of +which I maintained, that no man would choose to lead over again +the life which he had experienced. Johnson acceded to that +opinion in the strongest terms<a href= +"#note-924">[924]</a>. This is an inquiry +often made; and its being a subject of disquisition is a proof +that much misery presses upon human feelings; for those who are +conscious of a felicity of existence, would never hesitate to +accept of a repetition of it. I have met with very few who would. +I have heard Mr. Burke make use of a very ingenious and plausible +argument on this subject;—'Every man (said he) would lead +his life over again; for, every man is willing to go on and take +an addition to his life, which, as he grows older, he has no +reason to think will be better, or even so good as what has +preceded.' I imagine, however, the truth is, that there is a +deceitful hope that the next part of life will be free from the +pains, and anxieties, and sorrows, which we have already felt<a +href="#note-925">[925]</a>. We are for +wise purposes 'Condemn'd to Hope's delusive mine;' as Johnson +finely says<a href="#note-926">[926]</a>; +and I may also quote the celebrated lines of Dryden, equally +philosophical and poetical:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat, + Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit: + Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay; + To-morrow's falser than the former day; + Lies worse; and while it says we shall be blest + With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. + Strange cozenage! none would live past years again; + Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; + And from the dregs of life think to receive, + What the first sprightly running could not give<a href= +"#note-927">927</a>.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>It was observed to Dr. Johnson, that it seemed strange that +he, who has so often delighted his company by his lively and +brilliant conversation, should say he was miserable. JOHNSON. +'Alas! it is all outside; I may be cracking my joke<a href= +"#note-928">[928]</a>, and cursing the +sun. Sun, how I hate thy beams<i><a href= +"#note-929">[929]</a>!' I knew not well +what to think of this declaration; whether to hold it as a +genuine picture of his mind<a href= +"#note-930">[930]</a>, or as the effect +of his persuading himself contrary to fact, that the position +which he had assumed as to human unhappiness, was true. We may +apply to him a sentence in Mr. Greville's<a href= +"#note-931">[931]</a></i> Maxims, +Characters, and Reflections<i><a href= +"#note-932">[932]</a>; a book which is +entitled to much more praise than it has received: 'ARISTARCHUS +is charming: how full of knowledge, of sense, of sentiment. You +get him with difficulty to your supper; and after having +delighted every body and himself for a few hours, he is obliged +to return home;—he is finishing his treatise, to prove that +unhappiness is the portion of man<a href= +"#note-933">[933]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>On Sunday, June 13, our philosopher was calm at breakfast. +There was something exceedingly pleasing in our leading a College +life, without restraint, and with superiour elegance, in +consequence of our living in the Master's house, and having the +company of ladies. Mrs. Kennicot related, in his presence, a +lively saying of Dr. Johnson to Miss Hannah More, who had +expressed a wonder that the poet who had written Paradise Lost +<i>should write such poor Sonnets:—' Milton, Madam, was a +genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve +heads upon cherry-stones<a href= +"#note-934">[934]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>We talked of the casuistical question, Whether it was +allowable at any time to depart from Truth<i>? JOHNSON. 'The +general rule is, that Truth should never be violated, because it +is of the utmost importance to the comfort of life, that we +should have a full security by mutual faith; and occasional +inconveniences should be willingly suffered that we may preserve +it. There must, however, be some exceptions. If, for instance, a +murderer should ask you which way a man is gone, you may tell him +what is not true, because you are under a previous obligation not +to betray a man to a murderer<a href= +"#note-935">[935]</a>.' BOSWELL. +'Supposing the person who wrote</i> Junius <i>were asked whether +he was the authour, might he deny it?' JOHNSON. 'I don't know +what to say to this. If you were</i> sure <i>that he wrote</i> +Junius<i>, would you, if he denied it, think as well of him +afterwards? Yet it may be urged, that what a man has no right to +ask, you may refuse to communicate<a href= +"#note-936">[936]</a>; and there is no +other effectual mode of preserving a secret and an important +secret, the discovery of which may be very hurtful to you, but a +flat denial; for if you are silent, or hesitate, or evade, it +will be held equivalent to a confession. But stay, Sir; here is +another case. Supposing the authour had told me confidentially +that he had written</i> Junius<i>, and I were asked if he had, I +should hold myself at liberty to deny it, as being under a +previous promise, express or implied, to conceal it. Now what I +ought to do for the authour, may I not do for myself? But I deny +the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of +alarming him. You have no business with consequences; you are to +tell the truth. Besides, you are not sure what effect your +telling him that he is in danger may have. It may bring his +distemper to a crisis, and that may cure him. Of all lying, I +have the greatest abhorrence of this, because I believe it has +been frequently practised on myself.'</i></p> +<p>I cannot help thinking that there is much weight in the +opinion of those who have held, that Truth, as an eternal and +immutable principle, ought, upon no account whatever, to be +violated, from supposed previous or superiour obligations, of +which every man being to judge for himself, there is great danger +that we too often, from partial motives, persuade ourselves that +they exist; and probably whatever extraordinary instances may +sometimes occur, where some evil may be prevented by violating +this noble principle, it would be found that human happiness +would, upon the whole, be more perfect were Truth universally +preserved.</p> +<p>In the notes to the Dunciad<i><a href= +"#note-937">[937]</a>, we find the +following verses, addressed to Pope<a href= +"#note-938">[938]</a>:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'While malice, Pope, denies thy page + Its own celestial fire; + While criticks, and while bards in rage + Admiring, won't admire: + While wayward pens thy worth assail, + And envious tongues decry; + These times, though many a friend bewail, + These times bewail not I. + But when the world's loud praise is thine, + And spleen no more shall blame; + When with thy Homer thou shalt shine + In one establish'd fame! + When none shall rail, and every lay + Devote a wreath to thee: + That day (for come it will) that day + Shall I lament to see.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>It is surely not a little remarkable, that they should appear +without a name. Miss Seward<a href= +"#note-939">[939]</a>, knowing Dr. +Johnson's almost universal and minute literary information, +signified a desire that I should ask him who was the authour. He +was prompt with his answer: 'Why, Sir, they were written by one +Lewis, who was either under-master or an usher of +Westminster-school, and published a Miscellany, in which Grongar +Hill<i><a href="#note-940">[940]</a> +first came out[941].' Johnson praised them highly, and repeated +them with a noble animation. In the twelfth line, instead of 'one +establish'd fame,' he repeated 'one unclouded flame,' which he +thought was the reading in former editions: but I believe was a +flash of his own genius. It is much more poetical than the +other.</i></p> +<p>On Monday, June 14, and Tuesday, 15, Dr. Johnson and I dined, +on one of them, I forget which, with Mr. Mickle, translator of +the Lusiad<i>, at Wheatley, a very pretty country place a few +miles from Oxford; and on the other with Dr. Wetherell, Master of +University-College. From Dr. Wetherell's he went to visit Mr. +Sackville Parker, the bookseller; and when he returned to us, +gave the following account of his visit, saying, 'I have been to +see my old friend, Sack. Parker; I find he has married his maid; +he has done right. She had lived with him many years in great +confidence, and they had mingled minds; I do not think he could +have found any wife that would have made him so happy. The woman +was very attentive and civil to me; she pressed me to fix a day +for dining with them, and to say what I liked, and she would be +sure to get it for me. Poor Sack! He is very ill, indeed. We +parted as never to meet again. It has quite broke me down.' This +pathetic narrative was strangely diversified with the grave and +earnest defence of a man's having married his maid. I could not +but feel it as in some degree ludicrous.</i></p> +<p>In the morning of Tuesday, June 15, while we sat at Dr. +Adams's, we talked of a printed letter from the Reverend Herbert +Croft<a href="#note-942">[942]</a>, to a +young gentleman who had been his pupil, in which he advised him +to read to the end of whatever books he should begin to read. +JOHNSON. 'This is surely a strange advice; you may as well +resolve that whatever men you happen to get acquainted with, you +are to keep to them for life. A book may be good for nothing; or +there may be only one thing in it worth knowing; are we to read +it all through<a href= +"#note-943">[943]</a>? These Voyages, +(pointing to the three large volumes of Voyages to the South +Sea<i><a href="#note-944">[944]</a>, +which were just come out)</i> who <i>will read them through? A +man had better work his way before the mast, than read them +through; they will be eaten by rats and mice, before they are +read through. There can be little entertainment in such books; +one set of Savages is like another.' BOSWELL. 'I do not think the +people of Otaheité can be reckoned Savages.' JOHNSON. +'Don't cant in defence of Savages<a href= +"#note-945">[945]</a>.' BOSWELL. 'They +have the art of navigation.' JOHNSON. 'A dog or a cat can swim.' +BOSWELL. 'They carve very ingeniously.' JOHNSON. 'A cat can +scratch, and a child with a nail can scratch.' I perceived this +was none of the</i> mollia tempora fandi<i><a href= +"#note-946">[946]</a>; so +desisted.</i></p> +<p>Upon his mentioning that when he came to College he wrote his +first exercise twice over; but never did so afterwards<a href= +"#note-947">[947]</a>; MISS ADAMS. 'I +suppose, Sir, you could not make them better?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, +Madam, to be sure, I could make them better. Thought is better +than no thought.' MISS ADAMS. 'Do you think, Sir, you could make +your Ramblers <i>better?' JOHNSON. 'Certainly I could.' BOSWELL. +'I'll lay a bet, Sir, you cannot.' JOHNSON. 'But I will, Sir, if +I choose. I shall make the best of them you shall pick out, +better.' BOSWELL. 'But you may add to them. I will not allow of +that.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, there are three ways of making them +better;—putting out,—adding,—or correcting<a +href="#note-948">[948]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>During our visit at Oxford, the following conversation passed +between him and me on the subject of my trying my fortune at the +English bar<a href="#note-949">[949]</a>: +Having asked whether a very extensive acquaintance in London, +which was very valuable, and of great advantage to a man at +large, might not be prejudicial to a lawyer, by preventing him +from giving sufficient attention to his business;—JOHNSON. +'Sir, you will attend to business, as business lays hold of you. +When not actually employed, you may see your friends as much as +you do now. You may dine at a Club every day, and sup with one of +the members every night; and you may be as much at publick places +as one who has seen them all would wish to be. But you must take +care to attend constantly in Westminster-Hall; both to mind your +business, as it is almost all learnt there, (for nobody reads +now;) and to shew that you want to have business<a href= +"#note-950">[950]</a>. And you must not +be too often seen at publick places, that competitors may not +have it to say, 'He is always at the Playhouse or at Ranelagh, +and never to be found at his chambers.' And, Sir, there must be a +kind of solemnity in the manner of a professional man. I have +nothing particular to say to you on the subject. All this I +should say to any one; I should have said it to Lord Thurlow +twenty years ago.'</p> +<p>The PROFESSION may probably think this representation of what +is required in a Barrister who would hope for success, to be by +much too indulgent; but certain it is, that as</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame<a href= +"#note-951">951</a>,' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>some of the lawyers of this age who have risen high, have by +no means thought it absolutely necessary to submit to that long +and painful course of study which a Plowden, a Coke, and a Hale +considered as requisite. My respected friend, Mr. Langton, has +shewn me in the hand-writing of his grandfather<a href= +"#note-952">[952]</a>, a curious account +of a conversation which he had with Lord Chief Justice Hale, in +which that great man tells him, 'That for two years after he came +to the inn of court, he studied sixteen hours a day; however (his +Lordship added) that by this intense application he almost +brought himself to his grave, though he were of a very strong +constitution, and after reduced himself to eight hours; but that +he would not advise any body to so much; that he thought six +hours a day, with attention and constancy, was sufficient; that a +man must use his body as he would his horse, and his stomach; not +tire him at once, but rise with an appetite.<a href= +"#note-953">[953]</a>'</p> +<p>On Wednesday, June 19<a href= +"#note-954">[954]</a>, Dr. Johnson and I +returned to London; he was not well to-day, and said very little, +employing himself chiefly in reading Euripides. He expressed some +displeasure at me, for not observing sufficiently the various +objects upon the road. 'If I had your eyes, Sir, (said he) I +should count the passengers.' It was wonderful how accurate his +observation of visual objects was, notwithstanding his imperfect +eyesight, owing to a habit of attention<a href= +"#note-955">[955]</a>. That he was much +satisfied with the respect paid to him at Dr. Adams's is thus +attested by himself: 'I returned last night from Oxford, after a +fortnight's abode with Dr. Adams, who treated me as well as I +could expect or wish; and he that contents a sick man, a man whom +it is impossible to please, has surely done his part well<a href= +"#note-956">[956]</a>.'</p> +<p>After his return to London from this excursion, I saw him +frequently, but have few memorandums: I shall therefore here +insert some particulars which I collected at various times.</p> +<p>The Reverend Mr. Astle, of Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, brother +to the learned and ingenious Thomas Astle<a href= +"#note-957">[957]</a>, Esq., was from his +early years known to Dr. Johnson, who obligingly advised him as +to his studies, and recommended to him the following books, of +which a list which he has been pleased to communicate, lies +before me in Johnson's own hand-writing:—</p> +<p>Universal History (ancient.)—Rollin's Ancient +History.—Puffendorf's Introduction to +History.—Vertot's History of Knights of Malta.— +Vertot's Revolution of Portugal.—Vertot's Revolutions of +Sweden.— Carte's History of England.—Present State of +England.—Geographical Grammar.—Prideaux's +Connection.—Nelson's Feasts and Fasts.—Duty of +Man.—Gentleman's Religion.—Clarendon's +History.—Watts's Improvement of the Mind.—Watts's +Logick.—Nature Displayed.—Lowth's English +Grammar.—Blackwall on the Classicks.—Sherlock's +Sermons.—Burnet's Life of Hale.—Dupin's History of +the Church.—Shuckford's Connection.—Law's Serious +Call.—Walton's Complete Angler.—Sandys's +Travels.—Sprat's History of the Royal +Society.—England's Gazetteer.—Goldsmith's Roman +History.—Some Commentaries on the. Bible<i><a href= +"#note-958">[958]</a>.</i></p> +<p>It having been mentioned to Dr. Johnson that a gentleman who +had a son whom he imagined to have an extreme degree of timidity, +resolved to send him to a publick school, that he might acquire +confidence;—' Sir, (said Johnson,) this is a preposterous +expedient for removing his infirmity; such a disposition should +be cultivated in the shade. Placing him at a publick school is +forcing an owl upon day<a href= +"#note-959">[959]</a>.'</p> +<p>Speaking of a gentleman whose house was much frequented by low +company; 'Rags, Sir, (said he,) will always make their appearance +where they have a right to do it.'</p> +<p>Of the same gentleman's mode of living, he said, 'Sir, the +servants, instead of doing what they are bid, stand round the +table in idle clusters, gaping upon the guests; and seem as unfit +to attend a company, as to steer a man of war<a href= +"#note-960">[960]</a>.'</p> +<p>A dull country magistrate<a href= +"#note-961">[961]</a> gave Johnson a long +tedious account of his exercising his criminal jurisdiction, the +result of which was his having sentenced four convicts to +transportation. Johnson, in an agony of impatience to get rid of +such a companion, exclaimed, 'I heartily wish, Sir, that I were a +fifth.'</p> +<p>Johnson was present when a tragedy was read, in which there +occurred this line:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free<a href= +"#note-962">962</a>.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>The company having admired it much, 'I cannot agree with you +(said Johnson:) It might as well be said,—</p> +<p>'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'</p> +<p>He was pleased with the kindness of Mr. Cator, who was joined +with him in Mr. Thrale's important trust, and thus describes +him<a href= +"#note-963">[963]</a>:—'There is +much good in his character, and much usefulness in his +knowledge.' He found a cordial solace at that gentleman's seat at +Beckenham, in Kent, which is indeed one of the finest places at +which I ever was a guest; and where I find more and more a +hospitable welcome.</p> +<p>Johnson seldom encouraged general censure of any profession<a +href="#note-964">[964]</a>; but he was +willing to allow a due share of merit to the various departments +necessary in civilised life. In a splenetick, sarcastical, or +jocular frame, however, he would sometimes utter a pointed saying +of that nature. One instance has been mentioned<a href= +"#note-965">[965]</a>, where he gave a +sudden satirical stroke to the character of an attorney<i>. The +too indiscriminate admission to that employment, which requires +both abilities and integrity, has given rise to injurious +reflections, which are totally inapplicable to many very +respectable men who exercise it with reputation and +honour.</i></p> +<p>Johnson having argued for some time with a pertinacious +gentleman; his opponent, who had talked in a very puzzling +manner, happened to say, 'I don't understand you, Sir:' upon +which Johnson observed, 'Sir, I have found you an argument; but I +am not obliged to find you an understanding<a href= +"#note-966">[966]</a>.'</p> +<p>Talking to me of Horry Walpole, (as Horace late Earl of Orford +was often called<a href= +"#note-967">[967]</a>,) Johnson allowed +that he got together a great many curious little things, and told +them in an elegant manner<a href= +"#note-968">[968]</a>. Mr. Walpole +thought Johnson a more amiable character after reading his +Letters to Mrs. Thrale<i>: but never was one of the true admirers +of that great man<a href= +"#note-969">[969]</a>. We may suppose a +prejudice conceived, if he ever heard Johnson's account to Sir +George Staunton<a href= +"#note-970">[970]</a>, that when he made +the speeches in parliament for the</i> Gentleman's Magazine<i>, +'he always took care to put Sir Robert Walpole in the wrong, and +to say every thing he could against the electorate of Hanover<a +href="#note-971">[971]</a>.' The +celebrated</i> Heroick Epistle<i>, in which Johnson is +satyrically introduced, has been ascribed both to Mr. Walpole and +Mr. Mason. One day at Mr. Courtenay's, when a gentleman expressed +his opinion that there was more energy in that poem than could be +expected from Mr. Walpole; Mr. Warton, the late Laureat, +observed, 'It may have been written by Walpole, and</i> buckram'd +<i>by Mason<a href= +"#note-972">[972]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>He disapproved of Lord Hailes, for having modernised the +language of the ever-memorable John Hales of Eton<a href= +"#note-973">[973]</a>, in an edition +which his Lordship published of that writer's works. 'An +authour's language, Sir, (said he,) is a characteristical part of +his composition, and is also characteristical of the age in which +he writes. Besides, Sir, when the language is changed we are not +sure that the sense is the same. No, Sir; I am sorry Lord Hailes +has done this.'</p> +<p>Here it may be observed, that his frequent use of the +expression, No, Sir<i>, was not always to intimate contradiction; +for he would say so, when he was about to enforce an affirmative +proposition which had not been denied, as in the instance last +mentioned. I used to consider it as a kind of flag of defiance; +as if he had said, 'Any argument you may offer against this, is +not just. No, Sir, it is not.' It was like Falstaff's 'I deny +your Major<a href= +"#note-974">[974]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>Sir Joshua Reynolds having said that he took the altitude of a +man's taste by his stories and his wit, and of his understanding +by the remarks which he repeated; being always sure that he must +be a weak man who quotes common things with an emphasis as if +they were oracles; Johnson agreed with him; and Sir Joshua having +also observed that the real character of a man was found out by +his amusements,—Johnson added, 'Yes, Sir; no man is a +hypocrite in his pleasures<a href= +"#note-975">[975]</a>.'</p> +<p>I have mentioned Johnson's general aversion to a pun<a href= +"#note-976">[976]</a>. He once, however, +endured one of mine. When we were talking of a numerous company +in which he had distinguished himself highly, I said, 'Sir, you +were a COD surrounded by smelts. Is not this enough for you? at a +time too when you were not fishing <i>for a compliment?' He +laughed at this with a complacent approbation. Old Mr. Sheridan +observed, upon my mentioning it to him, 'He liked your compliment +so well, he was willing to take it with</i> pun sauce<i>.' For my +own part, I think no innocent species of wit or pleasantry should +be suppressed; and that a good pun may be admitted among the +smaller excellencies of lively conversation.</i></p> +<p>Had Johnson treated at large De Claris Oratoribus<i><a href= +"#note-977">[977]</a>, he might have +given us an admirable work. When the Duke of Bedford attacked the +ministry as vehemently as he could, for having taken upon them to +extend the time for the importation of corn<a href= +"#note-978">[978]</a>, Lord Chatham, in +his first speech in the House of Lords, boldly avowed himself to +be an adviser of that measure. 'My colleagues, (said he,) as I +was confined by indisposition, did me the signal honour of coming +to the bed-side of a sick man, to ask his opinion. But, had they +not thus condescended, I should have</i> taken up my bed and +walked<i>, in order to have delivered that opinion at the +Council-Board.' Mr. Langton, who was present, mentioned this to +Johnson, who observed, 'Now, Sir, we see that he took these words +as he found them; without considering, that though the expression +in Scripture,</i> take up thy bed and walk<i><a href= +"#note-979">[979]</a>, strictly suited +the instance of the sick man restored to health and strength, who +would of course be supposed to carry his bed with him, it could +not be proper in the case of a man who was lying in a state of +feebleness, and who certainly would not add to the difficulty of +moving at all, that of carrying his bed.'</i></p> +<p>When I pointed out to him in the newspaper one of Mr. +Grattan's animated and glowing speeches, in favour of the freedom +of Ireland, in which this expression occurred (I know not if +accurately taken): 'We will persevere, till there is not one link +of the English chain left to clank upon the rags of the meanest +beggar in Ireland;' 'Nay, Sir, (said Johnson,) don't you perceive +that one <i>link cannot clank?'</i></p> +<p>Mrs. Thrale has published<a href= +"#note-980">[980]</a>, as Johnson's, a +kind of parody or counterpart of a fine poetical passage in one +of Mr. Burke's speeches on American Taxation. It is vigorously +but somewhat coarsely executed; and I am inclined to suppose, is +not quite correctly exhibited. I hope he did not use the words +'vile agents' <i>for the Americans in the House of Parliament; +and if he did so, in an extempore effusion, I wish the lady had +not committed it to writing<a href= +"#note-981">[981]</a>.</i></p> +<p>Mr. Burke uniformly shewed Johnson the greatest respect; and +when Mr. Townshend, now lord Sydney, at a period when he was +conspicuous in opposition, threw out some reflection in +parliament upon the grant of a pension to a man of such political +principles as Johnson; Mr. Burke, though then of the same party +with Mr. Townshend, stood warmly forth in defence of his friend, +to whom, he justly observed, the pension was granted solely on +account of his eminent literary merit. I am well assured, that +Mr. Townshend's attack upon Johnson was the occasion of his +'hitching in a rhyme<a href= +"#note-982">[982]</a>;' for, that in the +original copy of Goldsmith's character of Mr. Burke, in his +Retaliation<i>, another person's name stood in the couplet where +Mr. Townshend is now introduced<a href= +"#note-983">[983]</a>:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Though fraught with all learning kept<a href= +"#note-984">984</a> straining his throat, + To persuade Tommy Townshend<i> to lend him a vote.' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>It may be worth remarking, among the minutiae <i>of my +collection, that Johnson was once drawn to serve in the militia, +the Trained Bands of the City of London, and that Mr. Rackstrow, +of the Museum in Fleet-street, was his Colonel. It may be +believed he did not serve in person; but the idea, with all its +circumstances, is certainly laughable. He upon that occasion +provided himself with a musket, and with a sword and belt, which +I have seen hanging in his closet.</i></p> +<p>He was very constant to those whom he once employed, if they +gave him no reason to be displeased. When somebody talked of +being imposed on in the purchase of tea and sugar, and such +articles: 'That will not be the case, (said he,) if you go to a +stately shop<i>, as I always do. In such a shop it is not worth +their while to take a petty advantage.'</i></p> +<p>An authour of most anxious and restless vanity being +mentioned, 'Sir, (said he,) there is not a young sapling upon +Parnassus more severely blown about by every wind of criticism +than that poor fellow.'</p> +<p>The difference, he observed, between a well-bred and an +ill-bred man is this: 'One immediately attracts your liking, the +other your aversion. You love the one till you find reason to +hate him; you hate the other till you find reason to love +him.'</p> +<p>The wife of one of his acquaintance had fraudulently made a +purse for herself out of her husband's fortune. Feeling a proper +compunction in her last moments, she confessed how much she had +secreted; but before she could tell where it was placed, she was +seized with a convulsive fit and expired. Her husband said, he +was more hurt by her want of confidence in him, than by the loss +of his money. 'I told him, (said Johnson,) that he should console +himself: for perhaps <i>the money might be</i> found<i>, and he +was</i> sure <i>that his wife was gone.'</i></p> +<p>A foppish physician once reminded Johnson of his having been +in company with him on a former occasion; 'I do not remember it, +Sir.' The physician still insisted; adding that he that day wore +so fine a coat that it must have attracted his notice. 'Sir, +(said Johnson,) had you been dipt in Pactolus<a href= +"#note-985">[985]</a> I should not have +noticed you.'</p> +<p>He seemed to take a pleasure in speaking in his own style; for +when he had carelessly missed it, he would repeat the thought +translated into it<a href= +"#note-986">[986]</a>. Talking of the +Comedy of The Rehearsal<i>[987], he said, 'It has not wit enough +to keep it sweet.' This was easy; he therefore caught himself, +and pronounced a more round sentence; 'It has not vitality enough +to preserve it from putrefaction.'</i></p> +<p>He censured a writer of entertaining Travels<a href= +"#note-988">[988]</a> for assuming a +feigned character, saying, (in his sense of the word<a href= +"#note-989">[989]</a>,) 'He carries out +one lye; we know not how many he brings back.'<a href= +"#note-990">[990]</a> At another time, +talking of the same person, he observed, 'Sir, your assent to a +man whom you have never known to falsify, is a debt: but after +you have known a man to falsify, your assent to him then is a +favour.'</p> +<p>Though he had no taste for painting, he admired much the +manner in which Sir Joshua Reynolds treated of his art, in his +Discourses to the Royal Academy<i><a href= +"#note-991">[991]</a>. He observed one +day of a passage in them, 'I think I might as well have said this +myself: 'and once when Mr. Langton was sitting by him, he read +one of them very eagerly, and expressed himself thus:—'Very +well, Master Reynolds; very well, indeed. But it will not be +understood.'</i></p> +<p>When I observed to him that Painting was so far inferiour to +Poetry, that the story or even emblem which it communicates must +be previously known, and mentioned as a natural and laughable +instance of this, that a little Miss on seeing a picture of +Justice with the scales, had exclaimed to me, 'See, there's a +woman selling sweetmeats;' he said, 'Painting, Sir, can +illustrate, but cannot inform.'</p> +<p>No man was more ready to make an apology when he had censured +unjustly, than Johnson<a href= +"#note-992">[992]</a>. When a proof-sheet +of one of his works was brought to him, he found fault with the +mode in which a part of it was arranged, refused to read it, and +in a passion<a href="#note-993">[993]</a> +desired that the compositor<a href= +"#note-994">[994]</a> might be sent to +him. The compositor was Mr. Manning, a decent sensible man, who +had composed about one half of his Dictionary<i>, when in Mr. +Strahan's printing-house; and a great part of his</i> Lives of +the Poets<i>, when in that of Mr. Nichols; and who (in his +seventy-seventh year), when in Mr. Baldwin's printing-house, +composed a part of the first edition of this work concerning him. +By producing the manuscript, he at once satisfied Dr. Johnson +that he was not to blame. Upon which Johnson candidly and +earnestly said to him, 'Mr. Compositor, I ask your pardon. Mr. +Compositor, I ask your pardon, again and again.'</i></p> +<p>His generous humanity to the miserable was almost beyond +example. The following instance is well attested:—Coming +home late one night, he found a poor woman lying in the street, +so much exhausted that she could not walk; he took her upon his +back, and carried her to his house, where he discovered that she +was one of those wretched females who had fallen into the lowest +state of vice, poverty, and disease. Instead of harshly +upbraiding her, he had her taken care of with all tenderness for +a long time, at considerable expence, till she was restored to +health, and endeavoured to put her into a virtuous way of +living<a href="#note-995">[995]</a>.</p> +<p>He thought Mr. Caleb Whitefoord singularly happy in hitting on +the signature of Papyrius Cursor<i>, to his ingenious and +diverting cross-readings of the newspapers; it being a real name +of an ancient Roman, and clearly expressive of the thing done in +this lively conceit<a href= +"#note-996">[996]</a>.</i></p> +<p>He once in his life was known to have uttered what is called a +bull<i>: Sir Joshua Reynolds, when they were riding together in +Devonshire, complained that he had a very bad horse, for that +even when going down hill he moved slowly step by step. 'Ay (said +Johnson,) and when he</i> goes <i>up hill, he</i> stands +still<i>.'</i></p> +<p>He had a great aversion to gesticulating in company. He called +once to a gentleman who offended him in that point, 'Don't +attitudenise<i>.' And when another gentleman thought he was +giving additional force to what he uttered, by expressive +movements of his hands, Johnson fairly seized them, and held them +down<a href= +"#note-997">[997]</a>.</i></p> +<p>An authour of considerable eminence<a href= +"#note-998">[998]</a> having engrossed a +good share of the conversation in the company of Johnson, and +having said nothing but what was trifling and insignificant; +Johnson when he was gone, observed to us, 'It is wonderful what a +difference there sometimes is between a man's powers of writing +and of talking. —— writes with great spirit, but is a +poor talker; had he held his tongue we might have supposed him to +have been restrained by modesty; but he has spoken a great deal +to-day; and you have heard what stuff it was.'</p> +<p>A gentleman having said that a congé +d'élire<i><a href= +"#note-999">[999]</a> has not, perhaps, +the force of a command, but may be considered only as a strong +recommendation; 'Sir, (replied Johnson, who overheard him,) it is +such a recommendation, as if I should throw you out of a two-pair +of stairs window, and recommend to you to fall soft<a href= +"#note-1000">[1000]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>Mr. Steevens, who passed many a social hour with him during +their long acquaintance, which commenced when they both lived in +the Temple, has preserved a good number of particulars concerning +him, most of which are to be found in the department of +Apothegms, &c. in the Collection of Johnson's Works<i><a +href="#note-1001">[1001]</a>. But he has +been pleased to favour me with the following, which are +original:—</i></p> +<p>'One evening, previous to the trial of Barretti<a href= +"#note-1002">[1002]</a>, a consultation +of his friends was held at the house of Mr. Cox, the Solicitor, +in Southampton-buildings, Chancery-lane. Among others present +were, Mr. Burke and Dr. Johnson, who differed in sentiments +concerning the tendency of some part of the defence the prisoner +was to make. When the meeting was over, Mr. Steevens observed, +that the question between him and his friend had been agitated +with rather too much warmth. "It may be so, Sir, (replied the +Doctor,) for Burke and I should have been of one opinion, if we +had had no audience<a href= +"#note-1003">[1003]</a>."</p> +<p>'Dr. Johnson once assumed a character in which perhaps even +Mr. Boswell never saw him. His curiosity having been excited by +the praises bestowed on the celebrated Torré's fireworks +at Marybone-Gardens, he desired Mr. Steevens to accompany him +thither. The evening had proved showery; and soon after the few +people present were assembled, publick notice was given, that the +conductors to the wheels, suns, stars, &c., were so +thoroughly water-soaked, that it was impossible any part of the +exhibition should be made. "This is a mere excuse, (says the +Doctor,) to save their crackers for a more profitable company. +Let us but hold up our sticks, and threaten to break those +coloured lamps that surround the Orchestra, and we shall soon +have our wishes gratified. The core of the fireworks cannot be +injured; let the different pieces be touched in their respective +centers, and they will do their offices as well as ever." Some +young men who overheard him, immediately began the violence he +had recommended, and an attempt was speedily made to fire some of +the wheels which appeared to have received the smallest damage; +but to little purpose were they lighted, for most of them +completely failed. The authour of The Rambler<i>, however, may be +considered, on this occasion, as the ringleader of a successful +riot, though not as a skilful pyrotechnist.'</i></p> +<p>'It has been supposed that Dr. Johnson, so far as fashion was +concerned, was careless of his appearance in publick. But this is +not altogether true, as the following slight instance may +show:—Goldsmith's last Comedy was to be represented during +some court-mourning<a href= +"#note-1004">[1004]</a>: and Mr. Steevens +appointed to call on Dr. Johnson, and carry him to the tavern +where he was to dine with others of the Poet's friends. The +Doctor was ready dressed, but in coloured cloaths; yet being told +that he would find every one else in black, received the +intelligence with a profusion of thanks, hastened to change his +attire, all the while repeating his gratitude for the information +that had saved him from an appearance so improper in the front +row of a front box. "I would not (added he,) for ten pounds, have +seemed so retrograde to any general observance<a href= +"#note-1005">[1005]</a>."</p> +<p>'He would sometimes found his dislikes on very slender +circumstances. Happening one day to mention Mr. Flexman, a +Dissenting Minister, with some compliment to his exact memory in +chronological matters; the Doctor replied, "Let me hear no more +of him, Sir. That is the fellow who made the Index to my +Ramblers<i>, and set down the name of Milton thus: Milton,</i> +Mr<i>. John<a href= +"#note-1006">[1006]</a>."'</i></p> +<p>Mr. Steevens adds this testimony:—</p> +<p>'It is unfortunate, however, for Johnson, that his +particularities and frailties can be more distinctly traced than +his good and amiable exertions. Could the many bounties he +studiously concealed, the many acts of humanity he performed in +private, be displayed with equal circumstantiality, his defects +would be so far lost in the blaze of his virtues, that the latter +only would be regarded.'</p> +<p>Though from my very high admiration of Johnson, I have +wondered<a href="#note-1007">[1007]</a> +that he was not courted by all the great and all the eminent +persons of his time, it ought fairly to be considered, that no +man of humble birth, who lived entirely by literature, in short +no authour by profession, ever rose in this country into that +personal notice which he did. In the course of this work a +numerous variety of names has been mentioned, to which many might +be added. I cannot omit Lord and Lady Lucan, at whose house he +often enjoyed all that an elegant table and the best company can +contribute to happiness; he found hospitality united with +extraordinary accomplishments, and embellished with charms of +which no man could be insensible<a href= +"#note-1008">[1008]</a>.</p> +<p>On Tuesday, June 22, I dined with him at THE LITERARY CLUB, +the last time of his being in that respectable society. The other +members present were the Bishop of St. Asaph, Lord Eliot, Lord +Palmerston, Dr. Fordyce, and Mr. Malone. He looked ill; but had +such a manly fortitude, that he did not trouble the company with +melancholy complaints. They all shewed evident marks of kind +concern about him, with which he was much pleased, and he exerted +himself to be as entertaining as his indisposition allowed +him.</p> +<p>The anxiety of his friends to preserve so estimable a life, as +long as human means might be supposed to have influence, made +them plan for him a retreat from the severity of a British +winter, to the mild climate of Italy<a href= +"#note-1009">[1009]</a>. This scheme was +at last brought to a serious resolution at General Paoli's, where +I had often talked of it. One essential matter, however, I +understood was necessary to be previously settled, which was +obtaining such an addition to his income, as would be sufficient +to enable him to defray the expence in a manner becoming the +first literary character of a great nation, and, independent of +all his other merits, the Authour of THE DICTIONARY OF THE +ENGLISH LANGUAGE. The person to whom I above all others thought I +should apply to negociate this business, was the Lord +Chancellor<a href= +"#note-1010">[1010]</a>, because I knew +that he highly valued Johnson, and that Johnson highly valued his +Lordship; so that it was no degradation of my illustrious friend +to solicit for him the favour of such a man. I have mentioned<a +href="#note-1011">[1011]</a> what Johnson +said of him to me when he was at the bar; and after his Lordship +was advanced to the seals<a href= +"#note-1012">[1012]</a>, he said of him, +'I would prepare myself for no man in England but Lord Thurlow. +When I am to meet with him I should wish to know a day before<a +href="#note-1013">[1013]</a>'. How he +would have prepared himself I cannot conjecture. Would he have +selected certain topicks, and considered them in every view so as +to be in readiness to argue them at all points? and what may we +suppose those topicks to have been? I once started the curious +enquiry to the great man who was the subject of this compliment: +he smiled, but did not pursue it.</p> +<p>I first consulted with Sir Joshua Reynolds, who perfectly +coincided in opinion with me; and I therefore, though personally +very little known to his Lordship, wrote to him<a href= +"#note-1014">[1014]</a>, stating the +case, and requesting his good offices for Dr. Johnson. I +mentioned that I was obliged to set out for Scotland early in the +following week, so that if his Lordship should have any commands +for me as to this pious negociation, he would be pleased to send +them before that time; otherwise Sir Joshua Reynolds would give +all attention to it.</p> +<p>This application was made not only without any suggestion on +the part of Johnson himself, but was utterly unknown to him, nor +had he the smallest suspicion of it. Any insinuations, therefore, +which since his death have been thrown out, as if he had stooped +to ask what was superfluous, are without any foundation. But, had +he asked it, it would not have been superfluous; for though the +money he had saved proved to be more than his friends imagined, +or than I believe he himself, in his carelessness concerning +worldly matters, knew it to be, had he travelled upon the +Continent, an augmentation of his income would by no means have +been unnecessary.</p> +<p>On Wednesday, June 23, I visited him in the morning, after +having been present at the shocking sight of fifteen men executed +before Newgate<a href= +"#note-1015">[1015]</a>. I said to him, I +was sure that human life was not machinery, that is to say, a +chain of fatality planned and directed by the Supreme Being, as +it had in it so much wickedness and misery, so many instances of +both, as that by which my mind was now clouded. Were it machinery +it would be better than it is in these respects, though less +noble, as not being a system of moral government. He agreed with +me now, as he always did<a href= +"#note-1016">[1016]</a>, upon the great +question of the liberty of the human will, which has been in all +ages perplexed with so much sophistry. 'But, Sir, as to the +doctrine of Necessity, no man believes it. If a man should give +me arguments that I do not see, though I could not answer them, +should I believe that I do not see?' It will be observed, that +Johnson at all times made the just distinction between doctrines +contrary <i>to reason, and doctrines</i> above <i>reason.</i></p> +<p>Talking of the religious discipline proper for unhappy +convicts, he said, 'Sir, one of our regular clergy will probably +not impress their minds sufficiently: they should be attended by +a Methodist preacher<a href= +"#note-1017">[1017]</a>; or a Popish +priest.' Let me however observe, in justice to the Reverend Mr. +Vilette, who has been Ordinary of Newgate for no less than +eighteen years, in the course of which he has attended many +hundreds of wretched criminals, that his earnest and humane +exhortations have been very effectual. His extraordinary +diligence is highly praiseworthy, and merits a distinguished +reward<a href= +"#note-1018">[1018]</a>.</p> +<p>On Thursday, June 24, I dined with him at Mr. Dilly's, where +were the Rev. Mr. (now Dr.) Knox, master of Tunbridge-school, Mr. +Smith, Vicar of Southill, Dr. Beattie, Mr. Pinkerton, authour of +various literary performances, and the Rev. Dr. Mayo. At my +desire old Mr. Sheridan was invited, as I was earnest to have +Johnson and him brought together again by chance, that a +reconciliation might be effected. Mr. Sheridan happened to come +early, and having learned that Dr. Johnson was to be there, went +away<a href="#note-1019">[1019]</a>; so I +found, with sincere regret, that my friendly intentions were +hopeless. I recollect nothing that passed this day, except +Johnson's quickness, who, when Dr. Beattie observed, as something +remarkable which had happened to him, that he had chanced to see +both No. 1, and No. 1000, of the hackney-coaches, the first and +the last; 'Why, Sir, (said Johnson,) there is an equal chance for +one's seeing those two numbers as any other two.' He was clearly +right; yet the seeing of the two extremes, each of which is in +some degree more conspicuous than the rest, could not but strike +one in a stronger manner than the sight of any other two numbers. +Though I have neglected to preserve his conversation, it was +perhaps at this interview that Dr. Knox formed the notion of it +which he has exhibited in his Winter Evenings<i><a href= +"#note-1020">[1020]</a>.</i></p> +<p>On Friday, June 25, I dined with him at General Paoli's, +where, he says in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale, 'I love to +dine<a href="#note-1021">[1021]</a>.' +There was a variety of dishes much to his taste, of all which he +seemed to me to eat so much, that I was afraid he might be hurt +by it<a href="#note-1022">[1022]</a>; and +I whispered to the General my fear, and begged he might not press +him. 'Alas! (said the General,) see how very ill he looks; he can +live but a very short time. Would you refuse any slight +gratifications to a man under sentence of death? There is a +humane custom in Italy, by which persons in that melancholy +situation are indulged with having whatever they like best to eat +and drink, even with expensive delicacies.'</p> +<p>I shewed him some verses on Lichfield by Miss Seward, which I +had that day received from her, and had the pleasure to hear him +approve of them. He confirmed to me the truth of a high +compliment which I had been told he had paid to that lady, when +she mentioned to him The Colombiade<i>, an epick poem, by Madame +du Boccage<a href= +"#note-1023">[1023]</a>:—'Madam, +there is not any thing equal to your description of the sea round +the North Pole, in your Ode on the death of Captain Cook<a href= +"#note-1024">[1024]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>On Sunday, June 27, I found him rather better. I mentioned to +him a young man who was going to Jamaica with his wife and +children, in expectation of being provided for by two of her +brothers settled in that island, one a clergyman, and the other a +physician. JOHNSON. 'It is a wild scheme, Sir, unless he has a +positive and deliberate invitation. There was a poor girl, who +used to come about me, who had a cousin in Barbadoes, that, in a +letter to her, expressed a wish she should come out to that +Island, and expatiated on the comforts and happiness of her +situation. The poor girl went out: her cousin was much surprised, +and asked her how she could think of coming. "Because, (said +she,) you invited me." "Not I," answered the cousin. The letter +was then produced. "I see it is true, (said she,) that I did +invite you: but I did not think you would come." They lodged her +in an out-house, where she passed her time miserably; and as soon +as she had an opportunity she returned to England. Always tell +this, when you hear of people going abroad to relations, upon a +notion of being well received. In the case which you mention, it +is probable the clergyman spends all he gets, and the physician +does not know how much he is to get.'</p> +<p>We this day dined at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, with General +Paoli, Lord Eliot, (formerly Mr. Eliot, of Port Eliot,) Dr. +Beattie, and some other company. Talking of Lord +Chesterfield;—JOHNSON. 'His manner was exquisitely +elegant<a href="#note-1025">[1025]</a>, +and he had more knowledge than I expected.' BOSWELL. 'Did you +find, Sir, his conversation to be of a superiour style?' JOHNSON. +'Sir, in the conversation which I had with him I had the best +right to superiority, for it was upon philology and literature.' +Lord Eliot, who had travelled at the same time with Mr. +Stanhope<a href="#note-1026">[1026]</a>, +Lord Chesterfield's natural son, justly observed, that it was +strange that a man who shewed he had so much affection for his +son as Lord Chesterfield did, by writing so many long and anxious +letters to him, almost all of them when he was Secretary of +State<a href="#note-1027">[1027]</a>, +which certainly was a proof of great goodness of disposition, +should endeavour to make his son a rascal. His Lordship told us, +that Foote had intended to bring on the stage a father who had +thus tutored his son, and to shew the son an honest man to every +one else, but practising his father's maxims upon him, and +cheating him<a href= +"#note-1028">[1028]</a>. JOHNSON. 'I am +much pleased with this design; but I think there was no occasion +to make the son honest at all. No; he should be a consummate +rogue: the contrast between honesty and knavery would be the +stronger. It should be contrived so that the father should be the +only sufferer by the son's villainy, and thus there would be +poetical justice.'</p> +<p>He put Lord Eliot in mind of Dr. Walter Harte<a href= +"#note-1029">[1029]</a>. 'I know (said +he,) Harte was your Lordship's tutor, and he was also tutor to +the Peterborough family. Pray, my Lord, do you recollect any +particulars that he told you of Lord Peterborough? He is a +favourite of mine, and is not enough known; his character has +been only ventilated in party pamphlets<a href= +"#note-1030">[1030]</a>.' Lord Eliot +said, if Dr. Johnson would be so good as to ask him any +questions, he would tell what he could recollect. Accordingly +some things were mentioned. 'But, (said his Lordship,) the best +account of Lord Peterborough that I have happened to meet with, +is in Captain Carleton's Memoirs<i>. Carleton was descended of an +ancestor who had distinguished himself at the siege of Derry<a +href="#note-1031">[1031]</a>. He was an +officer; and, what was rare at that time, had some knowledge of +engineering<a href= +"#note-1032">[1032]</a>.' Johnson said, +he had never heard of the book. Lord Eliot had it at Port Eliot; +but, after a good deal of enquiry, procured a copy in London, and +sent it to Johnson, who told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he was +going to bed when it came, but was so much pleased with it, that +he sat up till he had read it through<a href= +"#note-1033">[1033]</a>, and found in it +such an air of truth, that he could not doubt of its +authenticity<a href= +"#note-1034">[1034]</a>; adding, with a +smile, (in allusion to Lord Eliot's having recently been raised +to the peerage,) 'I did not think a</i> young Lord <i>could have +mentioned to me a book in the English history that was not known +to me<a href= +"#note-1035">[1035]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>An addition to our company came after we went up to the +drawing-room; Dr. Johnson seemed to rise in spirits as his +audience increased. He said, 'He wished Lord Orford's pictures<a +href="#note-1036">[1036]</a>, and Sir +Ashton Lever's Museum<a href= +"#note-1037">[1037]</a>, might be +purchased by the publick, because both the money, and the +pictures, and the curiosities, would remain in the country; +whereas, if they were sold into another kingdom, the nation would +indeed get some money, but would lose the pictures and +curiosities, which it would be desirable we should have, for +improvement in taste and natural history. The only question was, +as the nation was much in want of money, whether it would not be +better to take a large price from a foreign State?'</p> +<p>He entered upon a curious discussion of the difference between +intuition and sagacity; one being immediate in its effect, the +other requiring a circuitous process; one he observed was the eye +<i>of the mind, the other the</i> nose <i>of the mind<a href= +"#note-1038">[1038]</a>.</i></p> +<p>A young gentleman<a href= +"#note-1039">[1039]</a> present took up +the argument against him, and maintained that no man ever thinks +of the nose of the mind<i>, not adverting that though that +figurative sense seems strange to us, as very unusual, it is +truly not more forced than Hamlet's 'In my</i> mind's eye<i>, +Horatio<a href="#note-1040">[1040]</a>.' +He persisted much too long, and appeared to Johnson as putting +himself forward as his antagonist with too much presumption; upon +which he called to him in a loud tone, 'What is it you are +contending for, if you</i> be <i>contending?' And afterwards +imagining that the gentleman retorted upon him with a kind of +smart drollery, he said, 'Mr. ——, it does not become +you to talk so to me. Besides, ridicule is not your talent; you +have</i> there <i>neither intuition nor sagacity.' The gentleman +protested that he had intended no improper freedom, but had the +greatest respect for Dr. Johnson. After a short pause, during +which we were somewhat uneasy,—JOHNSON. 'Give me your hand, +Sir. You were too tedious, and I was too short.' MR. +——. 'Sir, I am honoured by your attention in any +way.' JOHNSON. 'Come, Sir, let's have no more of it. We offended +one another by our contention; let us not offend the company by +our compliments.'</i></p> +<p>He now said, 'He wished much to go to Italy, and that he +dreaded passing the winter in England.' I said nothing; but +enjoyed a secret satisfaction in thinking that I had taken the +most effectual measures to make such a scheme practicable.</p> +<p>On Monday, June 28, I had the honour to receive from the Lord +Chancellor the following letter:—</p> +<center>'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. SIR,</center> +<p>I should have answered your letter immediately, if, (being +much engaged when I received it) I had not put it in my pocket, +and forgot to open it till this morning.</p> +<p>I am much obliged to you for the suggestion; and I will adopt +and press it as far as I can. The best argument, I am sure, and I +hope it is not likely to fail, is Dr. Johnson's merit. But it +will be necessary, if I should be so unfortunate as to miss +seeing you, to converse with Sir Joshua on the sum it will be +proper to ask,—it short, upon the means of setting him out. +It would be a reflection on us all, if such a man should perish +for want of the means to take care of his health.</p> +<p>Yours, &c. THURLOW.'</p> +<p>This letter gave me a very high satisfaction; I next day went +and shewed it to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was exceedingly pleased +with it. He thought that I should now communicate the negociation +to Dr. Johnson, who might afterwards complain if the attention +with which he had been honoured, should be too long concealed +from him. I intended to set out for Scotland next morning; but +Sir Joshua cordially insisted that I should stay another day, +that Johnson and I might dine with him, that we three might talk +of his Italian Tour, and, as Sir Joshua expressed himself, 'have +it all out.' I hastened to Johnson, and was told by him that he +was rather better to-day. BOSWELL. 'I am very anxious about you, +Sir, and particularly that you should go to Italy for the winter, +which I believe is your own wish.' JOHNSON. 'It is, Sir.' +BOSWELL. 'You have no objection, I presume, but the money it +would require.' JOHNSON. 'Why, no, Sir.' Upon which I gave him a +particular account of what had been done, and read to him the +Lord Chancellor's letter. He listened with much attention; then +warmly said, 'This is taking prodigious pains about a man.' 'O! +Sir, (said I, with most sincere affection,) your friends would do +every thing for you.' He paused, grew more and more agitated, +till tears started into his eyes, and he exclaimed with fervent +emotion, 'GOD bless you all.' I was so affected that I also shed +tears. After a short silence, he renewed and extended his +grateful benediction, 'GOD bless you all, for JESUS CHRIST'S +sake.' We both remained for some time unable to speak. He rose +suddenly and quitted the room, quite melted in tenderness. He +staid but a short time, till he had recovered his firmness; soon +after he returned I left him, having first engaged him to dine at +Sir Joshua Reynolds's, next day. I never was again under that +roof which I had so long reverenced.</p> +<p>On Wednesday, June 30, the friendly confidential dinner with +Sir Joshua Reynolds took place, no other company being present. +Had I known that this was the last time that I should enjoy in +this world, the conversation of a friend whom I so much +respected, and from whom I derived so much instruction and +entertainment, I should have been deeply affected. When I now +look back to it, I am vexed that a single word should have been +forgotten.</p> +<p>Both Sir Joshua and I were so sanguine in our expectations, +that we expatiated with confidence on the liberal provision which +we were sure would be made for him, conjecturing whether +munificence would be displayed in one large donation, or in an +ample increase of his pension. He himself catched so much of our +enthusiasm, as to allow himself to suppose it not impossible that +our hopes might in one way or other be realised. He said that he +would rather have his pension doubled than a grant of a thousand +pounds; 'For, (said he,) though probably I may not live to +receive as much as a thousand pounds, a man would have the +consciousness that he should pass the remainder of his life in +splendour, how long soever it might be.' Considering what a +moderate proportion an income of six hundred pounds a year bears +to innumerable fortunes in this country, it is worthy of remark, +that a man so truly great should think it splendour<a href= +"#note-1041">[1041]</a>.</p> +<p>As an instance of extraordinary liberality of friendship, he +told us, that Dr. Brocklesby had upon this occasion offered him a +hundred a year for his life<a href= +"#note-1042">[1042]</a>. A grateful tear +started into his eye, as he spoke this in a faultering tone.</p> +<p>Sir Joshua and I endeavoured to flatter his imagination with +agreeable prospects of happiness in Italy. 'Nay, (said he,) I +must not expect much of that; when a man goes to Italy merely to +feel how he breathes the air, he can enjoy very little.'</p> +<p>Our conversation turned upon living in the country, which +Johnson, whose melancholy mind required the dissipation of quick +successive variety, had habituated himself to consider as a kind +of mental imprisonment<a href= +"#note-1043">[1043]</a>. 'Yet, Sir, (said +I,) there are many people who are content to live in the +country.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is in the intellectual world as in +the physical world; we are told by natural philosophers that a +body is at rest in the place that is fit for it; they who are +content to live in the country, are fit <i>for the +country.'</i></p> +<p>Talking of various enjoyments, I argued that a refinement of +taste was a disadvantage, as they who have attained to it must be +seldomer pleased than those who have no nice discrimination, and +are therefore satisfied with every thing that comes in their way. +JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir; that is a paltry notion. Endeavour to be as +perfect as you can in every respect.'</p> +<p>I accompanied him in Sir Joshua Reynolds's coach, to the entry +of Bolt-court. He asked me whether I would not go with him to his +house; I declined it, from an apprehension that my spirits would +sink. We bade adieu to each other affectionately in the carriage. +When he had got down upon the foot-pavement, he called out, 'Fare +you well;' and without looking back, sprung away with a kind of +pathetick briskness, if I may use that expression, which seemed +to indicate a struggle to conceal uneasiness, and impressed me +with a foreboding of our long, long separation.</p> +<p>I remained one day more in town, to have the chance of talking +over my negociation with the Lord Chancellor; but the +multiplicity of his Lordship's important engagements did not +allow of it; so I left the management of the business in the +hands of Sir Joshua Reynolds.</p> +<p>Soon after this time Dr. Johnson had the mortification of +being informed by Mrs. Thrale, that, 'what she supposed he never +believed<a href="#note-1044">[1044]</a>,' +was true; namely, that she was actually going to marry Signor +Piozzi, an Italian musick-master<a href= +"#note-1045">[1045]</a>. He endeavoured +to prevent it; but in vain. If she would publish the whole of the +correspondence that passed between Dr. Johnson and her on the +subject, we should have a full view of his real sentiments. As it +is, our judgement must be biassed by that characteristick +specimen which Sir John Hawkins has given us: 'Poor Thrale! I +thought that either her virtue or her vice would have restrained +her from such a marriage. She is now become a subject for her +enemies to exult over; and for her friends, if she has any left, +to forget, or pity<a href= +"#note-1046">[1046]</a>.'</p> +<p>It must be admitted that Johnson derived a considerable +portion of happiness from the comforts and elegancies which he +enjoyed in Mr. Thrale's family<a href= +"#note-1047">[1047]</a>; but Mrs. Thrale +assures us he was indebted for these to her husband alone, who +certainly respected him sincerely. Her words are,—</p> +<p>'Veneration for his virtue, reverence for his talents<i>, +delight</i> in his conversation, and <i>habitual endurance of a +yoke my husband first put upon me,</i> and of which he +contentedly bore his share for sixteen or seventeen years, made +me go on so long with <i>Mr. Johnson;</i> but the perpetual +confinement I will own to have been <i>terrifying</i> in the +first years of our friendship, and <i>irksome</i> in the last; +nor could I pretend to support <i>it without help, when my +coadjutor was no more</i><a href= +"#note-1048">[1048]</a>.'</p> +<p>Alas! how different is this from the declarations which I have +heard Mrs. Thrale make in his life-time, without a single murmur +against any peculiarities, or against any one circumstance which +attended their intimacy<a href= +"#note-1049">[1049]</a>.</p> +<p>As a sincere friend of the great man whose <i>Life</i> I am +writing, I think it necessary to guard my readers against the +mistaken notion of Dr. Johnson's character, which this lady's +<i>Anecdotes</i> of him suggest; for from the very nature and +form of her book, 'it lends deception lighter wings to fly'.<a +href="#note-1050">[1050]</a></p> +<p>'Let it be remembered, (says an eminent critick<a href= +"#note-1051">[1051]</a>,) that she has +comprised in a small volume all that she could recollect of Dr. +Johnson in <i>twenty years</i>, during which period, doubtless, +some severe things were said by him; and they who read the book +in <i>two hours</i>, naturally enough suppose that his whole +conversation was of this complexion. But the fact is, I have been +often in his company, and never <i>once</i> heard him say a +severe thing to any one; and many others can attest the same<a +href="#note-1052">[1052]</a>. When he did +say a severe thing, it was generally extorted by ignorance +pretending to knowledge, or by extreme vanity or affectation.</p> +<p>'Two instances of inaccuracy, (adds he,) are peculiarly worthy +of notice:</p> +<p>'It is said, <i>"That natural<a href= +"#note-1053">[1053]</a> roughness of his +manner so often mentioned, would, notwithstanding the regularity +of his notions, burst through them all from time to time; and he +once bade a very celebrated lady, who praised him with too much +zeal perhaps, or perhaps too strong an emphasis, (which always +offended him,) consider what her flattery was worth, before she +choaked him with it."</i></p> +<p>'Now let the genuine anecdote be contrasted with this. The +person thus represented as being harshly treated, though a very +celebrated lady<a href= +"#note-1054">[1054]</a>, was <i>then</i> +just come to London from an obscure situation in the country. At +Sir Joshua Reynolds's one evening, she met Dr. Johnson. She very +soon began to pay her court to him in the most fulsome strain. +"Spare me, I beseech you, dear Madam," was his reply. She still +<i>laid it on</i>. "Pray, Madam, let us have no more of this;" he +rejoined. Not paying any attention to these warnings, she +continued still her eulogy. At length, provoked by this +indelicate and vain obtrusion of compliment, he exclaimed, +"Dearest lady, consider with yourself what your flattery is +worth, before you bestow it so freely<a href= +"#note-1055">[1055]</a>."</p> +<p>'How different does this story appear, when accompanied with +all these circumstances which really belong to it, but which Mrs. +Thrale either did not know, or has suppressed.</p> +<p>'She says, in another place<a href= +"#note-1056">[1056]</a>, <i>"One +gentleman, however, who dined at a nobleman's house in his +company, and that of</i> Mr. Thrale, <i>to whom I was obliged for +the anecdote, was willing to enter the lists in defence of</i> +King William's <i>character; and having opposed and +contradicted</i> Johnson <i>two or three times, petulantly +enough, the master of the house began to feel uneasy, and expect +disagreeable consequences; to avoid which, he said, loud enough +for the Doctor to hear,—'Our friend here has no meaning now +in all this, except just to relate at club to-morrow how he +teized</i> Johnson <i>at dinner to-day; this is all to do +himself</i> honour.' <i>No, upon my word, (replied the other,') I +see no</i> honour <i>in it, whatever you may do. Well, Sir, +(returned</i> Mr. Johnson, <i>sternly,) if you do not</i> see +<i>the honour, I am sure I</i> feel <i>the disgrace</i>."</p> +<p>'This is all sophisticated. Mr. Thrale was <i>not</i> in the +company, though he might have related the story to Mrs. Thrale. A +friend, from whom I had the story, was present; and it was +<i>not</i> at the house of a nobleman. On the observation being +made by the master of the house on a gentleman's contradicting +Johnson, that he had talked for the honour, &c., the +gentleman muttered in a low voice, "I see no honour in it;" and +Dr. Johnson said nothing: so all the rest, (though <i>bien +trouvée</i>) is mere garnish.'</p> +<p>I have had occasion several times, in the course of this work, +to point out the incorrectness of Mrs. Thrale, as to particulars +which consisted with my own knowledge<a href= +"#note-1057">[1057]</a>. But indeed she +has, in flippant terms enough, expressed her disapprobation of +that anxious desire of authenticity which prompts a person who is +to record conversations, to write them down <i>at the +moment</i><a href= +"#note-1058">[1058]</a>. Unquestionably, +if they are to be recorded at all, the sooner it is done the +better. This lady herself says<a href= +"#note-1059">[1059]</a>,—</p> +<p><i>'To recollect, however, and to repeat the sayings of</i> +Dr. Johnson, <i>is almost all that can be done by the writers of +his Life; as his life, at least since my acquaintance with him, +consisted in little else than talking, when he was not +[absolutely] employed in some serious piece of work.'</i></p> +<p>She boasts of her having kept a common-place book<a href= +"#note-1060">[1060]</a>; and we find she +noted, at one time or other, in a very lively manner, specimens +of the conversation of Dr. Johnson, and of those who talked with +him; but had she done it recently, they probably would have been +less erroneous; and we should have been relieved from those +disagreeable doubts of their authenticity, with which we must now +peruse them.</p> +<p>She says of him<a href= +"#note-1061">[1061]</a>,—</p> +<p><i>'He was the most charitable of mortals, without being what +we call an</i> active friend. <i>Admirable at giving counsel; no +man saw his way so clearly; but he</i> would not stir a finger +<i>for the assistance of those to whom he was willing enough to +give advice.'</i> And again on the same page, <i>'If you wanted a +slight favour, you must apply to people of other dispositions; +for</i> not a step would Johnson move <i>to obtain a man a vote +in a society, to repay a compliment which might be useful or +pleasing, to write a letter of request, &c., or to obtain a +hundred pounds a year more for a friend who, perhaps, had already +two or three. No force could urge him to diligence, no +importunity could conquer his resolution to stand still.'</i></p> +<p>It is amazing that one who had such opportunities of knowing +Dr. Johnson, should appear so little acquainted with his real +character. I am sorry this lady does not advert, that she herself +contradicts the assertion of his being obstinately defective in +the <i>petites morales</i>, in the little endearing charities of +social life, in conferring smaller favours; for she says<a href= +"#note-1062">[1062]</a>,—</p> +<p>'Dr. Johnson <i>was liberal enough in granting literary +assistance to others, I think; and innumerable are the Prefaces, +Sermons, Lectures, and Dedications which he used to make for +people who begged of him.</i>'</p> +<p>I am certain that a <i>more active friend</i> has rarely been +found in any age<a href= +"#note-1063">[1063]</a>. This work, which +I fondly hope will rescue his memory from obloquy, contains a +thousand instances of his benevolent exertions in almost every +way that can be conceived; and particularly in employing his pen +with a generous readiness for those to whom its aid could be +useful. Indeed his obliging activity in doing little offices of +kindness, both by letters and personal application, was one of +the most remarkable features in his character; and for the truth +of this I can appeal to a number of his respectable friends: Sir +Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Langton, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Burke, Mr. +Windham, Mr. Malone, the Bishop of Dromore, Sir William Scott, +Sir Robert Chambers. And can Mrs. Thrale forget the +advertisements which he wrote for her husband at the time of his +election contest<a href= +"#note-1064">[1064]</a>; the epitaphs on +him and her mother[1065]; the playful and even trifling verses, +for the amusement of her and her daughters; his corresponding +with her children<a href= +"#note-1066">[1066]</a>, and entering +into their minute concerns<a href= +"#note-1067">[1067]</a>, which shews him +in the most amiable light? She relates<a href= +"#note-1068">[1068]</a>,—</p> +<p>That Mr. Ch-lm-ley unexpectedly rode up to Mr. Thrale's +carriage, in which Mr. Thrale and she, and Dr. Johnson were +travelling; that he paid them all his proper compliments, but +observing that Dr. Johnson, who was reading, did not see him, +<i>'tapt him gently on the shoulder. "'Tis</i> Mr. Ch-lm-ley;" +<i>says my husband. "Well, Sir—and what if it is</i> Mr. +Ch-lm-ley;" <i>says the other, sternly, just lifting his eyes a +moment from his book, and returning to it again, with renewed +avidity.'</i></p> +<p>This surely conveys a notion of Johnson, as if he had been +grossly rude to Mr. Cholmondeley<a href= +"#note-1069">[1069]</a>, a gentleman whom +he always loved and esteemed. If, therefore, there was an +absolute necessity for mentioning the story at all, it might have +been thought that her tenderness for Dr. Johnson's character +would have disposed her to state any thing that could soften it. +Why then is there a total silence as to what Mr. Cholmondeley +told her?—that Johnson, who had known him from his earliest +years, having been made sensible of what had doubtless a strange +appearance, took occasion, when he afterwards met him, to make a +very courteous and kind apology. There is another little +circumstance which I cannot but remark. Her book was published in +1785, she had then in her possession a letter from Dr. Johnson, +dated in 1777<a href= +"#note-1070">[1070]</a>, which begins +thus:—'Cholmondeley's story shocks me, if it be true, which +I can hardly think, for I am utterly unconscious of it: I am very +sorry, and very much ashamed<a href= +"#note-1071">[1071]</a>.' Why then +publish the anecdote? Or if she did, why not add the +circumstances, with which she was well acquainted!</p> +<p>In his social intercourse she thus describes him<a href= +"#note-1072">[1072]</a>:—</p> +<p>'<i>Ever musing till he was called out to converse, and +conversing till the fatigue of his friends, or the promptitude of +his own temper to take offence, consigned him back again to +silent meditation</i>.'</p> +<p>Yet, in the same book<a href= +"#note-1073">[1073]</a>, she tells +us,—</p> +<p>'<i>He was, however, seldom inclined to be silent, when any +moral or literary question was started; and it was on such +occasions that, like the Sage in</i> "Rasselas<a href= +"#note-1074">[1074]</a>," <i>he spoke, +and attention watched his lips; he reasoned, and conviction +closed his periods</i>.'</p> +<p>His conversation, indeed, was so far from ever +<i>fatiguing</i> his friends, that they regretted when it was +interrupted, or ceased, and could exclaim in Milton's +language,—</p> +<p>'With thee conversing, I forget all time<a href= +"#note-1075">[1075]</a>.'</p> +<p>I certainly, then, do not claim too much in behalf of my +illustrious friend in saying, that however smart and entertaining +Mrs. Thrale's <i>Anecdotes</i> are, they must not be held as good +evidence against him; for wherever an instance of harshness and +severity is told, I beg leave to doubt its perfect authenticity; +for though there may have been <i>some</i> foundation for it, +yet, like that of his reproof to the 'very celebrated lady,' it +may be so exhibited in the narration as to be very unlike the +real fact.</p> +<p>The evident tendency of the following anecdote<a href= +"#note-1076">[1076]</a> is to represent +Dr. Johnson as extremely deficient in affection, tenderness, or +even common civility:—</p> +<p><i>'When I one day lamented the loss of a first cousin killed +in</i> America,—"<i>Prithee, my dear, (said he,) have done +with canting; how would the world be the worse for it, I may ask, +if all your relations were at once spitted like larks, and +roasted for</i> Presto's <i>supper?"</i>—Presto<a href= +"#note-1077">[1077]</a> <i>was the dog +that lay under the table while we talked.</i>'</p> +<p>I suspect this too of exaggeration and distortion. I allow +that he made her an angry speech; but let the circumstances +fairly appear, as told by Mr. Baretti, who was +present:—</p> +<p>'Mrs. Thrale, while supping very heartily upon larks, laid +down her knife and fork, and abruptly exclaimed, "O, my dear Mr. +Johnson, do you know what has happened? The last letters from +abroad have brought us an account that our poor cousin's head was +taken off by a cannon-ball." Johnson, who was shocked both at the +fact, and her light unfeeling manner of mentioning it, replied, +"Madam, it would give <i>you</i> very little concern if all your +relations were spitted like those larks, and drest for Presto's +supper<a href= +"#note-1078">[1078]</a>."'</p> +<p>It is with concern that I find myself obliged to animadvert on +the inaccuracies of Mrs. Piozzi's <i>Anecdotes</i>, and perhaps I +may be thought to have dwelt too long upon her little collection. +But as from Johnson's long residence under Mr. Thrale's roof, and +his intimacy with her, the account which she has given of him may +have made an unfavourable and unjust impression, my duty, as a +faithful biographer, has obliged me reluctantly to perform this +unpleasing task.</p> +<p>Having left the <i>pious negotiation</i>, as I called it, in +the best hands, I shall here insert what relates to it. Johnson +wrote to Sir Joshua Reynolds on July 6, as follows:—</p> +<p>'I am going, I hope, in a few days, to try the air of +Derbyshire, but hope to see you before I go. Let me, however, +mention to you what I have much at heart. If the Chancellor +should continue his attention to Mr. Boswell's request, and +confer with you on the means of relieving my languid state, I am +very desirous to avoid the appearance of asking money upon false +pretences. I desire you to represent to his Lordship, what, as +soon as it is suggested, he will perceive to be +reasonable,—That, if I grow much worse, I shall be afraid +to leave my physicians, to suffer the inconveniences of travel, +and pine in the solitude of a foreign country; That, if I grow +much better, of which indeed there is now little appearance, I +shall not wish to leave my friends and my domestick comforts; for +I do not travel for pleasure or curiosity; yet if I should +recover, curiosity would revive. In my present state, I am +desirous to make a struggle for a little longer life, and hope to +obtain some help from a softer climate. Do for me what you +can.'</p> +<p>He wrote to me July 26:—</p> +<p>'I wish your affairs could have permitted a longer and +continued exertion of your zeal and kindness. They that have your +kindness may want your ardour. In the mean time I am very feeble +and very dejected.'</p> +<p>By a letter from Sir Joshua Reynolds I was informed, that the +Lord Chancellor had called on him, and acquainted him that the +application had not been successful; but that his Lordship, after +speaking highly in praise of Johnson, as a man who was an honour +to his country, desired Sir Joshua to let him know, that on +granting a mortgage of his pension, he should draw on his +Lordship to the amount of five or six hundred pounds; and that +his Lordship explained the meaning of the mortgage to be, that he +wished the business to be conducted in such a manner, that Dr. +Johnson should appear to be under the least possible obligation. +Sir Joshua mentioned, that he had by the same post communicated +all this to Dr. Johnson.</p> +<p>How Johnson was affected upon the occasion will appear from +what he wrote to Sir Joshua Reynolds:—</p> +<p>'Ashbourne, Sept. 9. Many words I hope are not necessary +between you and me, to convince you what gratitude is excited in +my heart by the Chancellor's liberality, and your kind +offices....<a href= +"#note-1079">[1079]</a> I have enclosed a +letter to the Chancellor, which, when you have read it, you will +be pleased to seal with a head, or any other general seal, and +convey it to him: had I sent it directly to him, I should have +seemed to overlook the favour of your intervention.'</p> +<p>'To THE LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR<a href= +"#note-1080">[1080]</a>.</p> +<p>MY LORD, After a long and not inattentive observation of +mankind, the generosity of your Lordship's offer raises in me not +less wonder than gratitude<a href= +"#note-1081">[1081]</a>. Bounty, so +liberally bestowed, I should gladly receive, if my condition made +it necessary; for, to such a mind, who would not be proud to own +his obligations? But it has pleased GOD to restore me to so great +a measure of health, that if I should now appropriate so much of +a fortune destined to do good, I could not escape from myself the +charge of advancing a false claim. My journey to the continent, +though I once thought it necessary, was never much encouraged by +my physicians; and I was very desirous that your Lordship should +be told of it by Sir Joshua Reynolds, as an event very uncertain; +for if I grew much better, I should not be willing, if much +worse, not able, to migrate. Your Lordship was first solicited +without my knowledge; but, when I was told that you were pleased +to honour me with your patronage, I did not expect to hear of a +refusal; yet, as I have had no long time to brood hope, and have +not rioted in imaginary opulence, this cold reception has been +scarce a disappointment; and, from your Lordship's kindness, I +have received a benefit, which only men like you are able to +bestow. I shall now live <i>mihi carior</i>, with a higher +opinion of my own merit.</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'I am, my Lord, + Your Lordship's most obliged, + Most grateful, and + Most humble servant, + SAM. JOHNSON.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>'September, 1784.'</p> +<p>Upon this unexpected failure I abstain from presuming to make +any remarks, or to offer any conjectures.<a href= +"#note-1082">[1082]</a></p> +<p>Having after repeated reasonings<a href= +"#note-1083">[1083]</a>, brought Dr. +Johnson to agree to my removing to London, and even to furnish me +with arguments in favour of what he had opposed; I wrote to him +requesting he would write them for me; he was so good as to +comply, and I shall extract that part of his letter to me of June +11<a href="#note-1084">[1084]</a>, as a +proof how well he could exhibit a cautious yet encouraging view +of it:—</p> +<p>'I remember, and intreat you to remember, that <i>virtus est +vitium fugere</i><a href= +"#note-1085">[1085]</a>; the first +approach to riches is security from poverty. The condition on +which you have my consent to settle in London is, that your +expence never exceeds your annual income. Fixing this basis of +security, you cannot be hurt, and you may be very much advanced. +The loss of your Scottish business, which is all that you can +lose, is not to be reckoned as any equivalent to the hopes and +possibilities that open here upon you. If you succeed, the +question of prudence is at an end; every body will think that +done right which ends happily; and though your expectations, of +which I would not advise you to talk too much, should not be +totally answered, you can hardly fail to get friends who will do +for you all that your present situation allows you to hope; and +if, after a few years, you should return to Scotland, you will +return with a mind supplied by various conversation, and many +opportunities of enquiry, with much knowledge, and materials for +reflection and instruction.'</p> +<p>Let us now contemplate Johnson thirty years after the death of +his wife, still retaining for her all the tenderness of +affection.</p> +<center>'TO THE REVEREND MR. BAGSHAW, AT BROMLEY<a href= +"#note-1086">[1086]</a>.</center> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>'Perhaps you may remember, that in the year 1753<a href= +"#note-1087">[1087]</a>, you committed to +the ground my dear wife. I now entreat your permission to lay a +stone upon her; and have sent the inscription, that, if you find +it proper, you may signify your allowance.</p> +<p>'You will do me a great favour by showing the place where she +lies, that the stone may protect her remains.</p> +<p>'Mr. Ryland<a href= +"#note-1088">[1088]</a> will wait on you +for the inscription[1089], and procure it to be engraved. You +will easily believe that I shrink from this mournful office. When +it is done, if I have strength remaining, I will visit Bromley +once again, and pay you part of the respect to which you have a +right from, Reverend Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON<a href= +"#note-1090">[1090]</a>.'</center> +<p>'July 12, 1784.'</p> +<p>On the same day he wrote to Mr. Langton:—</p> +<p>'I cannot but think that in my languid and anxious state, I +have some reason to complain that I receive from you neither +enquiry nor consolation. You know how much I value your +friendship, and with what confidence I expect your kindness, if I +wanted any act of tenderness that you could perform; at least, if +you do not know it, I think your ignorance is your own fault. Yet +how long is it that I have lived almost in your neighbourhood +without the least notice. I do not, however, consider this +neglect as particularly shown to me; I hear two of your most +valuable friends make the same complaint. But why are all thus +overlooked? You are not oppressed by sickness, you are not +distracted by business; if you are sick, you are sick of +leisure:—And allow yourself to be told, that no disease is +more to be dreaded or avoided. Rather to do nothing than to do +good, is the lowest state of a degraded mind. Boileau says to his +pupil,</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + '<i>Que les vers ne soient pas votre éternel emploi, + Cultivez vos amis</i><a href= +"#note-1091">1091</a>.'— +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>That voluntary debility, which modern language is content to +term indolence, will, if it is not counteracted by resolution, +render in time the strongest faculties lifeless, and turn the +flame to the smoke of virtue. I do not expect nor desire to see +you, because I am much pleased to find that your mother stays so +long with you, and I should think you neither elegant nor +grateful, if you did not study her gratification. You will pay my +respects to both the ladies, and to all the young people. I am +going Northward for a while, to try what help the country can +give me; but, if you will write, the letter will come after +me.'</p> +<p>Next day he set out on a jaunt to Staffordshire and +Derbyshire, flattering himself that he might be in some degree +relieved.</p> +<p>During his absence from London he kept up a correspondence +with several of his friends, from which I shall select what +appears to me proper for publication, without attending nicely to +chronological order.</p> +<p>To Dr. BROCKLESBY, he writes, Ashbourne, July 20:—</p> +<p>'The kind attention which you have so long shewn to my health +and happiness, makes it as much a debt of gratitude as a call of +interest, to give you an account of what befals me, when accident +recovers<a href="#note-1092">[1092]</a> +me from your immediate care. The journey of the first day was +performed with very little sense of fatigue; the second day +brought me to Lichfield, without much lassitude; but I am afraid +that I could not have borne such violent agitation for many days +together. Tell Dr. Heberden, that in the coach I read +<i>Ciceronianus</i> which I concluded as I entered Lichfield. My +affection and understanding went along with Erasmus, except that +once or twice he somewhat unskilfully entangles Cicero's civil or +moral, with his rhetorical, character. I staid five days at +Lichfield, but, being unable to walk, had no great pleasure, and +yesterday (19th) I came hither, where I am to try what air and +attention can perform. Of any improvement in my health I cannot +yet please myself with the perception.—The asthma has no +abatement. Opiates stop the fit, so as that I can sit and +sometimes lie easy, but they do not now procure me the power of +motion; and I am afraid that my general strength of body does not +encrease. The weather indeed is not benign; but how low is he +sunk whose strength depends upon the weather<a href= +"#note-1093">[1093]</a>! I am now looking +into Floyer<a href= +"#note-1094">[1094]</a> who lived with +his asthma to almost his ninetieth year. His book by want of +order is obscure, and his asthma, I think, not of the same kind +with mine. Something however I may perhaps learn. My appetite +still continues keen enough; and what I consider as a symptom of +radical health, I have a voracious delight in raw summer fruit, +of which I was less eager a few years ago<a href= +"#note-1095">[1095]</a>. You will be +pleased to communicate this account to Dr. Heberden, and if any +thing is to be done, let me have your joint opinion. +Now—<i>abite curoe</i>;—let me enquire after the +Club<a href="#note-1096">[1096]</a>.'</p> +<p>July 31. 'Not recollecting that Dr. Heberden might be at +Windsor, I thought your letter long in coming. But, you know, +<i>nocitura petuntur</i><a href= +"#note-1097">[1097]</a>, the letter which +I so much desired, tells me that I have lost one of my best and +tenderest friends<a href= +"#note-1098">[1098]</a>. My comfort is, +that he appeared to live like a man that had always before his +eyes the fragility of our present existence, and was therefore, I +hope, not unprepared to meet his judge. Your attention, dear Sir, +and that of Dr. Heberden, to my health, is extremely kind. I am +loth to think that I grow worse; and cannot fairly prove even to +my own partiality, that I grow much better.'</p> +<p>August 5. 'I return you thanks, dear Sir, for your unwearied +attention, both medicinal and friendly, and hope to prove the +effect of your care by living to acknowledge it.'</p> +<p>August 12<a href= +"#note-1099">[1099]</a>. 'Pray be so kind +as to have me in your thoughts, and mention my case to others as +you have opportunity. I seem to myself neither to gain nor lose +strength. I have lately tried milk, but have yet found no +advantage, and am afraid of it merely as a liquid. My appetite is +still good, which I know is dear Dr. Heberden's criterion of the +<i>vis vitoe</i>. As we cannot now see each other, do not omit to +write, for you cannot think with what warmth of expectation I +reckon the hours of a post-day.'</p> +<p>August 14. 'I have hitherto sent you only melancholy letters, +you will be glad to hear some better account. Yesterday the +asthma remitted, perceptibly remitted, and I moved with more ease +than I have enjoyed for many weeks. May GOD continue his mercy. +This account I would not delay, because I am not a lover of +complaints, or complainers, and yet I have since we parted +uttered nothing till now but terrour and sorrow. Write to me, +dear Sir.'</p> +<p>August 16. 'Better I hope, and better. My respiration gets +more and more ease and liberty. I went to church yesterday, after +a very liberal dinner, without any inconvenience; it is indeed no +long walk, but I never walked it without difficulty, since I +came, before.—the intention was only to overpower the +seeming <i>vis inertioe</i> of the pectoral and pulmonary +muscles. I am favoured with a degree of ease that very much +delights me, and do not despair of another race upon the stairs +of the Academy<a href= +"#note-1100">[1100]</a>. If I were, +however, of a humour to see, or to shew the state of my body, on +the dark side, I might say,</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + <i>"Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una<a href= +"#note-1101">1101</a>?"</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>The nights are still sleepless, and the water rises, though it +does not rise very fast. Let us, however, rejoice in all the good +that we have. The remission of one disease will enable nature to +combat the rest. The squills I have not neglected; for I have +taken more than a hundred drops a day, and one day took two +hundred and fifty, which, according to the popular equivalence of +a drop to a grain, is more than half an ounce. I thank you, dear +Sir, for your attention in ordering the medicines; your attention +to me has never failed. If the virtue of medicines could be +enforced by the benevolence of the prescriber, how soon should I +be well.'</p> +<p>August 19. 'The relaxation of the asthma still continues, yet +I do not trust it wholly to itself, but soothe it now and then +with an opiate. I not only perform the perpetual act of +respiration with less labour, but I can walk with fewer intervals +of rest, and with greater freedom of motion. I never thought well +of Dr. James's compounded medicines<a href= +"#note-1102">[1102]</a>; his ingredients +appeared to me sometimes inefficacious and trifling, and +sometimes heterogeneous and destructive of each other. This +prescription exhibits a composition of about three hundred and +thirty grains, in which there are four grains of emetick tartar, +and six drops [of] thebaick tincture. He that writes thus, surely +writes for show. The basis of his medicine is the gum ammoniacum, +which dear Dr. Lawrence used to give, but of which I never saw +any effect. We will, if you please, let this medicine alone. The +squills have every suffrage, and in the squills we will rest for +the present.'</p> +<p>August 21. 'The kindness which you shew by having me in your +thoughts upon all occasions, will, I hope, always fill my heart +with gratitude. Be pleased to return my thanks to Sir George +Baker<a href="#note-1103">[1103]</a>, for +the consideration which he has bestowed upon me. Is this the +balloon that has been so long expected, this balloon to which I +subscribed, but without payment<a href= +"#note-1104">[1104]</a>? It is pity that +philosophers have been disappointed, and shame that they have +been cheated; but I know not well how to prevent either. Of this +experiment I have read nothing; where was it exhibited? and who +was the man that ran away with so much money? Continue, dear Sir, +to write often and more at a time; for none of your prescriptions +operate to their proper uses more certainly than your letters +operate as cordials.'</p> +<p>August 26. 'I suffered you to escape last post without a +letter, but you are not to expect such indulgence very often; for +I write not so much because I have any thing to say, as because I +hope for an answer; and the vacancy of my life here makes a +letter of great value. I have here little company and little +amusement, and thus abandoned to the contemplation of my own +miseries, I am sometimes gloomy and depressed; this too I resist +as I can, and find opium, I think, useful, but I seldom take more +than one grain. Is not this strange weather? Winter absorbed the +spring, and now autumn is come before we have had summer. But let +not our kindness for each other imitate the inconstancy of the +seasons.'</p> +<p>Sept. 2. 'Mr. Windham has been here to see me; he came, I +think, forty miles out of his way, and staid about a day and a +half, perhaps I make the time shorter than it was. Such +conversation I shall not have again till I come back to the +regions of literature; and there Windham is, <i>inter +stellas</i><a href= +"#note-1105">[1105]</a> <i>Luna +minores</i>[1106].' He then mentions the effects of certain +medicines, as taken; that 'Nature is recovering its original +powers, and the functions returning to their proper state. God +continue his mercies, and grant me to use them rightly.'</p> +<p>Sept. 9. 'Do you know the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire? And +have you ever seen Chatsworth? I was at Chatsworth on Monday: I +had indeed seen it before<a href= +"#note-1107">[1107]</a>, but never when +its owners were at home; I was very kindly received, and honestly +pressed to stay: but I told them that a sick man is not a fit +inmate of a great house. But I hope to go again some time.'</p> +<p>Sept. 11. 'I think nothing grows worse, but all rather better, +except sleep, and that of late has been at its old pranks. Last +evening, I felt what I had not known for a long time, an +inclination to walk for amusement; I took a short walk, and came +back again neither breathless nor fatigued. This has been a +gloomy, frigid, ungenial summer, but of late it seems to mend; I +hear the heat sometimes mentioned, but I do not feel it:</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "Praterea minimus gelido jam in corpore sanguis + Febre calet solá<a href= +"#note-1108">1108</a>.——" +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>I hope, however, with good help, to find means of supporting a +winter at home, and to hear and tell at the Club what is doing, +and what ought to be doing in the world. I have no company here, +and shall naturally come home hungry for conversation. To wish +you, dear Sir, more leisure, would not be kind; but what leisure +you have, you must bestow upon me.'</p> +<p>Sept. 16. 'I have now let you alone for a long time, having +indeed little to say. You charge me somewhat unjustly with +luxury. At Chatsworth, you should remember, that I have eaten but +once; and the Doctor, with whom I live, follows a milk diet. I +grow no fatter, though my stomach, if it be not disturbed by +physick, never fails me. I now grow weary of solitude, and think +of removing next week to Lichfield, a place of more society, but +otherwise of less convenience. When I am settled, I shall write +again. Of the hot weather that you mention, we have [not] had in +Derbyshire very much, and for myself I seldom feel heat, and +suppose that my frigidity is the effect of my distemper; a +supposition which naturally leads me to hope that a hotter +climate may be useful. But I hope to stand another English +winter.'</p> +<p>Lichfield, Sept. 29. 'On one day I had three letters about the +air-balloon<a href= +"#note-1109">[1109]</a>: yours was far +the best, and has enabled me to impart to my friends in the +country an idea of this species of amusement. In amusement, mere +amusement, I am afraid it must end, for I do not find that its +course can be directed so as that it should serve any purposes of +communication; and it can give no new intelligence of the state +of the air at different heights, till they have ascended above +the height of mountains, which they seem never likely to do. I +came hither on the 27th. How long I shall stay I have not +determined. My dropsy is gone, and my asthma much remitted, but I +have felt myself a little declining these two days, or at least +to-day; but such vicissitudes must be expected. One day may be +worse than another; but this last month is far better than the +former; if the next should be as much better than this, I shall +run about the town on my own legs.'</p> +<p>October 6. 'The fate of the balloon I do not much lament<a +href="#note-1110">[1110]</a>: to make new +balloons, is to repeat the jest again. We now know a method of +mounting into the air, and, I think, are not likely to know more. +The vehicles can serve no use till we can guide them; and they +can gratify no curiosity till we mount with them to greater +heights than we can reach without; till we rise above the tops of +the highest mountains, which we have yet not done. We know the +state of the air in all its regions, to the top of Teneriffe, and +therefore, learn nothing from those who navigate a balloon below +the clouds. The first experiment, however, was bold, and deserved +applause and reward. But since it has been performed, and its +event is known, I had rather now find a medicine that can ease an +asthma.'</p> +<p>October 25. 'You write to me with a zeal that animates, and a +tenderness that melts me. I am not afraid either of a journey to +London, or a residence in it. I came down with little fatigue, +and am now not weaker. In the smoky atmosphere I was delivered +from the dropsy, which I consider as the original and radical +disease. The town is my element<a href= +"#note-1111">[1111]</a>; there are my +friends, there are my books, to which I have not yet bid +farewell, and there are my amusements. Sir Joshua told me long +ago that my vocation was to publick life, and I hope still to +keep my station, till GOD shall bid me <i>Go in peace</i><a href= +"#note-1112">[1112]</a>.'</p> +<p>To MR. HOOLE:—</p> +<p>Ashbourne, Aug. 7. 'Since I was here I have two little letters +from you, and have not had the gratitude to write. But every man +is most free with his best friends, because he does not suppose +that they can suspect him of intentional incivility. One reason +for my omission is, that being in a place to which you are wholly +a stranger, I have no topicks of correspondence. If you had any +knowledge of Ashbourne, I could tell you of two Ashbourne men, +who, being last week condemned at Derby to be hanged for a +robbery, went and hanged themselves in their cell<a href= +"#note-1113">[1113]</a>. But this, +however it may supply us with talk, is nothing to you. Your +kindness, I know, would make you glad to hear some good of me, +but I have not much good to tell; if I grow not worse, it is all +that I can say. I hope Mrs. Hoole receives more help from her +migration. Make her my compliments, and write again to, dear Sir, +your affectionate servant.'</p> +<p>Aug. 13. 'I thank you for your affectionate letter. I hope we +shall both be the better for each other's friendship, and I hope +we shall not very quickly be parted. Tell Mr. Nicholls that I +shall be glad of his correspondence, when his business allows him +a little remission; though to wish him less business, that I may +have more pleasure, would be too selfish. To pay for seats at the +balloon is not very necessary, because in less than a minute, +they who gaze at a mile's distance will see all that can be seen. +About the wings<a href= +"#note-1114">[1114]</a> I am of your +mind; they cannot at all assist it, nor I think regulate its +motion. I am now grown somewhat easier in my body, but my mind is +sometimes depressed. About the Club I am in no great pain. The +forfeitures go on, and the house, I hear, is improved for our +future meetings. I hope we shall meet often and sit long.'</p> +<p>Sept. 4. 'Your letter was, indeed, long in coming, but it was +very welcome. Our acquaintance has now subsisted long<a href= +"#note-1115">[1115]</a> and our +recollection of each other involves a great space, and many +little occurrences, which melt the thoughts to tenderness. Write +to me, therefore, as frequently as you can. I hear from Dr. +Brocklesby and Mr. Ryland, that the Club is not crouded. I hope +we shall enliven it when winter brings us together.'</p> +<p>To DR. BURNEY:—</p> +<p>August 2. 'The weather, you know, has not been balmy; I am now +reduced to think, and am at last content to talk of the weather. +Pride must have a fall<a href= +"#note-1116">[1116]</a>. I have lost dear +Mr. Allen, and wherever I turn, the dead or the dying meet my +notice, and force my attention upon misery and mortality. Mrs. +Burney's escape from so much danger, and her ease after so much +pain, throws, however, some radiance of hope upon the gloomy +prospect. May her recovery be perfect, and her continuance long. +I struggle hard for life. I take physick, and take air; my +friend's chariot is always ready. We have run this morning +twenty-four miles, and could run forty-eight more. <i>But who can +run the race with death?</i>'</p> +<p>'Sept. 4. [Concerning a private transaction, in which his +opinion was asked, and after giving it he makes the following +reflections, which are applicable on other occasions.] Nothing +deserves more compassion than wrong conduct with good meaning; +than loss or obloquy suffered by one who, as he is conscious only +of good intentions, wonders why he loses that kindness which he +wishes to preserve; and not knowing his own fault, if, as may +sometimes happen, nobody will tell him, goes on to offend by his +endeavours to please. I am delighted by finding that our opinions +are the same. You will do me a real kindness by continuing to +write. A post-day has now been long a day of recreation.'</p> +<p>Nov. 1. 'Our correspondence paused for want of topicks. I had +said what I had to say on the matter proposed to my +consideration; and nothing remained but to tell you, that I waked +or slept; that I was more or less sick. I drew my thoughts in +upon myself, and supposed yours employed upon your book. That +your book<a href="#note-1117">[1117]</a> +has been delayed I am glad, since you have gained an opportunity +of being more exact. Of the caution necessary in adjusting +narratives there is no end. Some tell what they do not know, that +they may not seem ignorant, and others from mere indifference +about truth. All truth is not, indeed, of equal importance; but, +if little violations are allowed, every violation will in time be +thought little; and a writer should keep himself vigilantly on +his guard against the first temptations to negligence or +supineness. I had ceased to write, because respecting you I had +no more to say, and respecting myself could say little good. I +cannot boast of advancement, and in cases of convalescence it may +be said, with few exceptions, <i>non progredi, est regredi</i>. I +hope I may be excepted. My great difficulty was with my sweet +Fanny<a href="#note-1118">[1118]</a>, +who, by her artifice of inserting her letter in yours, had given +me a precept of frugality<a href= +"#note-1119">[1119]</a> which I was not +at liberty to neglect; and I know not who were in town under +whose cover I could send my letter<a href= +"#note-1120">[1120]</a>. I rejoice to +hear that you are all so well, and have a delight particularly +sympathetick in the recovery of Mrs. Burney.'</p> +<p>To MR. LANGTON:—</p> +<p>Aug. 25. 'The kindness of your last letter, and my omission to +answer it, begins to give you, even in my opinion, a right to +recriminate, and to charge me with forgetfulness for the absent. +I will, therefore, delay no longer to give an account of myself, +and wish I could relate what would please either myself or my +friend. On July 13, I left London, partly in hope of help from +new air and change of place, and partly excited by the sick man's +impatience of the present. I got to Lichfield in a stage vehicle, +with very little fatigue, in two days, and had the consolation<a +href="#note-1121">[1121]</a> to find, +that since my last visit my three old acquaintance are all dead. +July 20, I went to Ashbourne, where I have been till now; the +house in which we live is repairing. I live in too much solitude, +and am often deeply dejected: I wish we were nearer, and rejoice +in your removal to London. A friend, at once cheerful and +serious, is a great acquisition. Let us not neglect one another +for the little time which Providence allows us to hope. Of my +health I cannot tell you, what my wishes persuaded me to expect, +that it is much improved by the season or by remedies. I am +sleepless; my legs grow weary with a very few steps, and the +water breaks its boundaries in some degree. The asthma, however, +has remitted; my breath is still much obstructed, but is more +free than it was. Nights of watchfulness produce torpid days; I +read very little, though I am alone; for I am tempted to supply +in the day what I lost in bed. This is my history; like all other +histories, a narrative of misery. Yet am I so much better than in +the beginning of the year, that I ought to be ashamed of +complaining. I now sit and write with very little sensibility of +pain or weakness; but when I rise, I shall find my legs betraying +me. Of the money which you mentioned, I have no immediate need; +keep it, however, for me, unless some exigence requires it. Your +papers I will shew you certainly when you would see them, but I +am a little angry at you for not keeping minutes of your own +<i>acceptum et expensum</i><a href= +"#note-1122">[1122]</a>, and think a +little time might be spared from Aristophanes, for the <i>res +familiares</i>. Forgive me for I mean well. I hope, dear Sir, +that you and Lady Rothes, and all the young people, too many to +enumerate, are well and happy. GOD bless you all.'</p> +<p>To MR. WINDHAM:—</p> +<p>August. 'The tenderness with which you have been pleased to +treat me, through my long illness, neither health nor sickness +can, I hope, make me forget; and you are not to suppose, that +after we parted you were no longer in my mind. But what can a +sick man say, but that he is sick? His thoughts are necessarily +concentered in himself; he neither receives nor can give delight; +his enquiries are after alleviations of pain, and his efforts are +to catch some momentary comfort. Though I am now in the +neighbourhood of the Peak, you must expect no account of its +wonders, of its hills, its waters, its caverns, or its mines; but +I will tell you, dear Sir, what I hope you will not hear with +less satisfaction, that, for about a week past, my asthma has +been less afflictive.'</p> +<p>Lichfield. October 2<a href= +"#note-1123">[1123]</a>. 'I believe you +have been long enough acquainted with the <i>phoenomena</i> of +sickness, not to be surprised that a sick man wishes to be where +he is not, and where it appears to every body but himself that he +might easily be, without having the resolution to remove. I +thought Ashbourne a solitary place, but did not come hither till +last Monday. I have here more company, but my health has for this +last week not advanced; and in the languor of disease how little +can be done? Whither or when I shall make my next remove I cannot +tell; but I entreat you, dear Sir, to let me know, from time to +time, where you may be found, for your residence is a very +powerful attractive to, Sir, your most humble servant.'</p> +<p>'To MR. PERKINS. 'DEAR SIR,</p> +<p>'I cannot but flatter myself that your kindness for me will +make you glad to know where I am, and in what state.</p> +<p>'I have been struggling very hard with my diseases. My breath +has been very much obstructed, and the water has attempted to +encroach upon me again. I past the first part of the summer at +Oxford, afterwards I went to Lichfield, thence to Ashbourne, in +Derbyshire, and a week ago I returned to Lichfield.</p> +<p>'My breath is now much easier, and the water is in a great +measure run away, so that I hope to see you again before +winter.</p> +<p>'Please to make my compliments to Mrs. Perkins, and to Mr. and +Mrs. Barclay.</p> +<p>'I am, dear Sir, 'Your most humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' +'Lichfield, Oct. 4, 1784.'</p> +<p>'To THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON. 'DEAR SIR,</p> +<p>'Considering what reason<a href= +"#note-1124">[1124]</a> you gave me in +the spring to conclude that you took part in whatever good or +evil might befal me, I ought not to have omitted so long the +account which I am now about to give you. My diseases are an +asthma and a dropsy, and, what is less curable, seventy-five. Of +the dropsy, in the beginning of the summer, or in the spring, I +recovered to a degree which struck with wonder both me and my +physicians: the asthma now is likewise, for a time, very much +relieved. I went to Oxford, where the asthma was very tyrannical, +and the dropsy began again to threaten me; but seasonable physick +stopped the inundation: I then returned to London, and in July +took a resolution to visit Staffordshire and Derbyshire, where I +am yet struggling with my diseases. The dropsy made another +attack, and was not easily ejected, but at last gave way. The +asthma suddenly remitted in bed, on the 13th of August, and, +though now very oppressive, is, I think, still something gentler +than it was before the remission. My limbs are miserably +debilitated, and my nights are sleepless and tedious. When you +read this, dear Sir, you are not sorry that I wrote no sooner. I +will not prolong my complaints. I hope still to see you <i>in a +happier hour</i><a href= +"#note-1125">[1125]</a>, to talk over +what we have often talked, and perhaps to find new topicks of +merriment, or new incitements to curiosity. I am, dear Sir, +&c. SAM. JOHNSON. Lichfield, Oct. 20, 1784.'</p> +<center>'TO JOHN PARADISE, ESQ.<a href= +"#note-1126">[1126]</a></center> +<center>DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>Though in all my summer's excursion I have given you no +account of myself, I hope you think better of me than to imagine +it possible for me to forget you, whose kindness to me has been +too great and too constant not to have made its impression on a +harder breast than mine. Silence is not very culpable when +nothing pleasing is suppressed. It would have alleviated none of +your complaints to have read my vicissitudes of evil. I have +struggled hard with very formidable and obstinate maladies; and +though I cannot talk of health, think all praise due to my +Creator and Preserver for the continuance of my life. The dropsy +has made two attacks, and has given way to medicine; the asthma +is very oppressive, but that has likewise once remitted. I am +very weak, and very sleepless; but it is time to conclude the +tale of misery. I hope, dear Sir, that you grow better, for you +have likewise your share of human evil, and that your lady and +the young charmers are well.</p> +<p>I am, dear Sir, &c. SAM. JOHNSON.</p> +<p>Lichfield, Oct. 20, 1784.'</p> +<p>'To Mr. George Nicol<a href= +"#note-1127">[1127]</a>.</p> +<p>'Dear Sir, 'Since we parted, I have been much oppressed by my +asthma, but it has lately been less laborious. When I sit I am +almost at ease, and I can walk, though yet very little, with less +difficulty for this week past, than before. I hope I shall again +enjoy my friends, and that you and I shall have a little more +literary conversation. Where I now am, every thing is very +liberally provided for me but conversation. My friend is sick +himself, and the reciprocation of complaints and groans affords +not much of either pleasure or instruction. What we have not at +home this town does not supply, and I shall be glad of a little +imported intelligence, and hope that you will bestow, now and +then, a little time on the relief and entertainment of, Sir, +'Yours, &c. 'Sam. Johnson.'</p> +<p>'Ashbourne, Aug. 19, 1784.'</p> +<p>'To Mr. Cruikshank.</p> +<p>'Dear Sir,</p> +<p>'Do not suppose that I forget you; I hope I shall never be +accused of forgetting my benefactors<a href= +"#note-1128">[1128]</a>. I had, till +lately, nothing to write but complaints upon complaints, of +miseries upon miseries; but within this fortnight I have received +great relief. Have your Lectures any vacation? If you are +released from the necessity of daily study, you may find time for +a letter to me. [In this letter he states the particulars of his +case.] In return for this account of my health, let me have a +good account of yours, and of your prosperity in all your +undertakings.</p> +<p>'I am, dear Sir, yours, &c. 'Sam. Johnson.' 'Ashbourne, +Sept. 4, 1784.'</p> +<p>To Mr. Thomas Davies:—</p> +<p>August 14. 'The tenderness with which you always treat me, +makes me culpable in my own eyes for having omitted to write in +so long a separation; I had, indeed, nothing to say that you +could wish to hear. All has been hitherto misery accumulated upon +misery, disease corroborating disease, till yesterday my asthma +was perceptibly and unexpectedly mitigated. I am much comforted +with this short relief, and am willing to flatter myself that it +may continue and improve. I have at present, such a degree of +ease, as not only may admit the comforts, but the duties of life. +Make my compliments to Mrs. Davies. Poor dear Allen, he was a +good man.'</p> +<p>To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS:—</p> +<p>Ashbourne, July 21. 'The tenderness with which I am treated by +my friends, makes it reasonable to suppose that they are desirous +to know the state of my health, and a desire so benevolent ought +to be gratified. I came to Lichfield in two days without any +painful fatigue, and on Monday came hither, where I purpose to +stay: and try what air and regularity will effect. I cannot yet +persuade myself that I have made much progress in recovery. My +sleep is little, my breath is very much encumbered, and my legs +are very weak. The water has encreased a little, but has again +run off. The most distressing symptom is want of sleep.'</p> +<p>August 19. 'Having had since our separation, little to say +that could please you or myself by saying, I have not been lavish +of useless letters; but I flatter myself that you will partake of +the pleasure with which I can now tell you that about a week ago, +I felt suddenly a sensible remission of my asthma, and +consequently a greater lightness of action and motion. Of this +grateful alleviation I know not the cause, nor dare depend upon +its continuance, but while it lasts I endeavour to enjoy it, and +am desirous of communicating, while it lasts, my pleasure to my +friends. Hitherto, dear Sir, I had written before the post, which +stays in this town but a little while, brought me your letter. +Mr. Davies seems to have represented my little tendency to +recovery in terms too splendid. I am still restless, still weak, +still watery, but the asthma is less oppressive. Poor Ramsay<a +href="#note-1129">[1129]</a>! On which +side soever I turn, mortality presents its formidable frown. I +left three old friends at Lichfield when I was last there, and +now found them all dead. I no sooner lose sight of dear Allen, +than I am told that I shall see him no more. That we must all +die, we always knew; I wish I had sooner remembered it. Do not +think me intrusive or importunate, if I now call, dear Sir, on +you to remember it.'</p> +<p>Sept. 2. 'I am glad that a little favour from the court has +intercepted your furious purposes<a href= +"#note-1130">[1130]</a>. I could not in +any case have approved such publick violence of resentment, and +should have considered any who encouraged it, as rather seeking +sport for themselves, than honour for you. Resentment gratifies +him who intended an injury, and pains him unjustly who did not +intend it. But all this is now superfluous. I still continue by +GOD'S mercy to mend. My breath is easier, my nights are quieter, +and my legs are less in bulk, and stronger in use. I have, +however, yet a great deal to overcome, before I can yet attain +even an old man's health. Write, do write to me now and then; we +are now old acquaintance, and perhaps few people have lived so +much and so long together, with less cause of complaint on either +side. The retrospection of this is very pleasant, and I hope we +shall never think on each other with less kindness.'</p> +<p>Sept. 9. 'I could not answer your letter<a href= +"#note-1131">[1131]</a> before this day, +because I went on the sixth to Chatsworth, and did not come back +till the post was gone. Many words, I hope, are not necessary +between you and me, to convince you what gratitude is excited in +my heart, by the Chancellor's liberality and your kind offices. I +did not indeed expect that what was asked by the Chancellor would +have been refused<a href= +"#note-1132">[1132]</a>, but since it +has, we will not tell that any thing has been asked. I have +enclosed a letter to the Chancellor which, when you have read it, +you will be pleased to seal with a head, or other general seal, +and convey it to him; had I sent it directly to him, I should +have seemed to overlook the favour of your intervention. My last +letter told you of my advance in health, which, I think, in the +whole still continues. Of the hydropick tumour there is now very +little appearance; the asthma is much less troublesome, and seems +to remit something day after day. I do not despair of supporting +an English winter. At Chatsworth, I met young Mr. Burke, who led +me very commodiously into conversation with the Duke and Duchess. +We had a very good morning. The dinner was publick<a href= +"#note-1133">[1133]</a>.'</p> +<p>Sept. 18. 'I flattered myself that this week would have given +me a letter from you, but none has come. Write to me now and +then, but direct your next to Lichfield. I think, and I hope, am +sure, that I still grow better; I have sometimes good nights; but +am still in my legs weak, but so much mended, that I go to +Lichfield in hope of being able to pay my visits on foot, for +there are no coaches. I have three letters this day, all about +the balloon, I could have been content with one. Do not write +about the balloon, whatever else you may think proper to say<a +href="#note-1134">[1134]</a>.'</p> +<p>October 2. 'I am always proud of your approbation, and +therefore was much pleased that you liked my letter. When you +copied it<a href="#note-1135">[1135]</a>, +you invaded the Chancellor's right rather than mine. The refusal +I did not expect, but I had never thought much about it, for I +doubted whether the Chancellor had so much tenderness for me as +to ask. He, being keeper of the King's conscience, ought not to +be supposed capable of an improper petition. All is not gold that +glitters, as we have often been told; and the adage is verified +in your place<a href= +"#note-1136">[1136]</a> and my favour; +but if what happens does not make us richer, we must bid it +welcome, if it makes us wiser. I do not at present grow better, +nor much worse; my hopes, however, are somewhat abated, and a +very great loss is the loss of hope, but I struggle on as I +can.'</p> +<center>TO MR. JOHN NICHOLS:—</center> +<p>Lichfield, Oct. 20. 'When you were here, you were pleased, as +I am told, to think my absence an inconvenience. I should +certainly have been very glad to give so skilful a lover of +antiquities any information about my native place, of which, +however, I know not much, and have reason to believe that not +much is known. Though I have not given you any amusement, I have +received amusement from you. At Ashbourne, where I had very +little company, I had the luck to borrow <i>Mr. Bowyer's +Life</i><a href="#note-1137">[1137]</a>; +a book so full of contemporary history, that a literary man must +find some of his old friends. I thought that I could, now and +then, have told you some hints<a href= +"#note-1138">[1138]</a> worth your +notice; and perhaps we may talk a life over. I hope we shall be +much together; you must now be to me what you were before, and +what dear Mr. Allen was, besides. He was taken unexpectedly away, +but I think he was a very good man. I have made little progress +in recovery. I am very weak, and very sleepless; but I live on +and hope<a href= +"#note-1139">[1139]</a>.'</p> +<p>This various mass of correspondence, which I have thus brought +together, is valuable, both as an addition to the store which the +publick already has of Johnson's writings, and as exhibiting a +genuine and noble specimen of vigour and vivacity of mind, which +neither age nor sickness could impair or diminish.</p> +<p>It may be observed, that his writing in every way, whether for +the publick, or privately to his friends, was by fits and starts; +for we see frequently, that many letters are written on the same +day. When he had once overcome his aversion to begin, he was, I +suppose, desirous to go on, in order to relieve his mind from the +uneasy reflection of delaying what he ought to do<a href= +"#note-1140">[1140]</a>.</p> +<p>While in the country, notwithstanding the accumulation of +illness which he endured, his mind did not lose its powers. He +translated an Ode of Horace<a href= +"#note-1141">[1141]</a>, which is printed +in his <i>Works</i>, and composed several prayers. I shall insert +one of them, which is so wise and energetick, so philosophical +and so pious, that I doubt not of its affording consolation to +many a sincere Christian, when in a state of mind to which I +believe the best are sometimes liable<a href= +"#note-1142">[1142]</a>.</p> +<p>And here I am enabled fully to refute a very unjust +reflection, by Sir John Hawkins<a href= +"#note-1143">[1143]</a>, both against Dr. +Johnson, and his faithful servant, Mr. Francis Barber<a href= +"#note-1144">[1144]</a>; as if both of +them had been guilty of culpable neglect towards a person of the +name of Heely, whom Sir John chooses to call a <i>relation</i> of +Dr. Johnson's. The fact is, that Mr. Heely was not his relation; +he had indeed been married to one of his cousins, but she had +died without having children, and he had married another woman; +so that even the slight connection which there once had been by +<i>alliance</i> was dissolved. Dr. Johnson, who had shewn very +great liberality to this man while his first wife was alive, as +has appeared in a former part of this work<a href= +"#note-1145">[1145]</a>, was humane and +charitable enough to continue his bounty to him occasionally; but +surely there was no strong call of duty upon him or upon his +legatee, to do more. The following letter, obligingly +communicated to me by Mr. Andrew Strahan, will confirm what I +have stated:—</p> +<p>'TO MR. HEELY, No. 5, IN PYE-STREET, WESTMINSTER.</p> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>'As necessity obliges you to call so soon again upon me, you +should at least have told the smallest sum that will supply your +present want; you cannot suppose that I have much to spare. Two +guineas is as much as you ought to be behind with your creditor. +If you wait on Mr. Strahan, in New-street, Fetter-lane, or in his +absence, on Mr. Andrew Strahan, shew this, by which they are +entreated to advance you two guineas, and to keep this as a +voucher.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Ashbourne, Aug. 12, 1784.'</p> +<p>Indeed it is very necessary to keep in mind that Sir John +Hawkins has unaccountably viewed Johnson's character and conduct +in almost every particular, with an unhappy prejudice<a href= +"#note-1146">[1146]</a>.</p> +<p>We now behold Johnson for the last time, in his native city, +for which he ever retained a warm affection, and which, by a +sudden apostrophe, under the word <i>Lich</i><a href= +"#note-1147">[1147]</a>, he introduces +with reverence, into his immortal Work, THE ENGLISH +DICTIONARY:—<i>Salve, magna parens!<a href= +"#note-1148">[1148]</a> While here, he +felt a revival of all the tenderness of filial affection, an +instance of which appeared in his ordering the grave-stone and +inscription over Elizabeth Blaney<a href= +"#note-1149">[1149]</a> to be +substantially and carefully renewed.</i></p> +<p>To Mr. Henry White<a href= +"#note-1150">[1150]</a>, a young +clergyman, with whom he now formed an intimacy, so as to talk to +him with great freedom, he mentioned that he could not in general +accuse himself of having been an undutiful son. 'Once, indeed, +(said he,) I was disobedient; I refused to attend my father to +Uttoxeter-market. Pride was the source of that refusal, and the +remembrance of it was painful. A few years ago, I desired to +atone for this fault; I went to Uttoxeter in very bad weather, +and stood for a considerable time bareheaded in the rain, on the +spot where my father's stall used to stand. In contrition I +stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory<a href= +"#note-1151">[1151]</a>.'</p> +<p>'I told him (says Miss Seward) in one of my latest visits to +him, of a wonderful learned pig, which I had seen at Nottingham; +and which did all that we have observed exhibited by dogs and +horses. The subject amused him. 'Then, (said he,) the pigs are a +race unjustly calumniated. Pig <i>has, it seems, not been wanting +to</i> man<i>, but</i> man <i>to</i> pig<i>. We do not allow</i> +time <i>for his education, we kill him at a year old.' Mr. Henry +White, who was present, observed that if this instance had +happened in or before Pope's time, he would not have been +justified in instancing the swine as the lowest degree of +groveling instinct<a href= +"#note-1152">[1152]</a>. Dr. Johnson +seemed pleased with the observation, while the person who made it +proceeded to remark, that great torture must have been employed, +ere the indocility of the animal could have been subdued. +'Certainly, (said the Doctor;) but, (turning to me,) how old is +your pig?' I told him, three years old. 'Then, (said he,) the pig +has no cause to complain; he would have been killed the first +year if he had not been</i> educated<i>, and protracted existence +is a good recompence for very considerable degrees of torture<a +href="#note-1153">[1153]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>As Johnson had now very faint hopes of recovery, and as Mrs. +Thrale was no longer devoted to him, it might have been supposed +that he would naturally have chosen to remain in the comfortable +house of his beloved wife's daughter, and end his life where he +began it. But there was in him an animated and lofty spirit<a +href="#note-1154">[1154]</a>, and however +complicated diseases might depress ordinary mortals, all who saw +him, beheld and acknowledged the invictum animum Catonis<i><a +href="#note-1155">[1155]</a>. Such was +his intellectual ardour even at this time, that he said to one +friend, 'Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not +make a new acquaintance<a href= +"#note-1156">[1156]</a>;' and to another, +when talking of his illness, 'I will be conquered; I will not +capitulate<a href= +"#note-1157">[1157]</a>.' And such was +his love of London, so high a relish had he of its magnificent +extent, and variety of intellectual entertainment, that he +languished when absent from it, his mind having become quite +luxurious from the long habit of enjoying the metropolis; and, +therefore, although at Lichfield, surrounded with friends, who +loved and revered him, and for whom he had a very sincere +affection, he still found that such conversation as London +affords, could be found no where else. These feelings, joined, +probably, to some flattering hopes of aid from the eminent +physicians and surgeons in London, who kindly and generously +attended him without accepting fees, made him resolve to return +to the capital. From Lichfield he came to Birmingham, where he +passed a few days with his worthy old schoolfellow, Mr. Hector, +who thus writes to me:—</i></p> +<p>'He was very solicitous with me to recollect some of our most +early transactions, and transmit them to him, for I perceive +nothing gave him greater pleasure than calling to mind those days +of our innocence. I complied with his request, and he only +received them a few days before his death. I have transcribed for +your inspection, exactly the minutes I wrote to him.'</p> +<p>This paper having been found in his repositories after his +death, Sir John Hawkins has inserted it entire<a href= +"#note-1158">[1158]</a>, and I have made +occasional use of it and other communications from Mr. Hector<a +href="#note-1159">[1159]</a>, in the +course of this Work. I have both visited and corresponded with +him since Dr. Johnson's death, and by my inquiries concerning a +great variety of particulars have obtained additional +information. I followed the same mode with the Reverend Dr. +Taylor, in whose presence I wrote down a good deal of what he +could tell; and he, at my request, signed his name, to give it +authenticity. It is very rare to find any person who is able to +give a distinct account of the life even of one whom he has known +intimately, without questions being put to them. My friend Dr. +Kippis<a href="#note-1160">[1160]</a> has +told me, that on this account it is a practice with him to draw +out a biographical catechism.</p> +<p>Johnson then proceeded to Oxford, where he was again kindly +received by Dr. Adams<a href= +"#note-1161">[1161]</a>, who was pleased +to give me the following account in one of his letters, (Feb. +17th, 1785):—</p> +<p>'His last visit was, I believe, to my house, which he left, +after a stay of four or five days. We had much serious talk +together, for which I ought to be the better as long as I live. +You will remember some discourse which we had in the summer upon +the subject of prayer, and the difficulty of this sort of +composition<a href= +"#note-1162">[1162]</a>. He reminded me +of this, and of my having wished him to try his hand, and to give +us a specimen of the style and manner that he approved. He added, +that he was now in a right frame of mind, and as he could not +possibly employ his time better, he would in earnest set about +it. But I find upon enquiry, that no papers of this sort were +left behind him, except a few short ejaculatory forms suitable to +his present situation.'</p> +<p>Dr. Adams had not then received accurate information on this +subject; for it has since appeared that various prayers had been +composed by him at different periods, which, intermingled with +pious resolutions, and some short notes of his life, were +entitled by him Prayers and Meditations<i>, and have, in +pursuance of his earnest requisition, in the hopes of doing good, +been published, with a judicious well-written Preface, by the +Reverend Mr. Strahan, to whom he delivered them<a href= +"#note-1163">[1163]</a>. This admirable +collection, to which I have frequently referred in the course of +this Work, evinces, beyond all his compositions for the publick, +and all the eulogies of his friends and admirers, the sincere +virtue and piety of Johnson. It proves with unquestionable +authenticity, that amidst all his constitutional infirmities, his +earnestness to conform his practice to the precepts of +Christianity was unceasing, and that he habitually endeavoured to +refer every transaction of his life to the will of the Supreme +Being.</i></p> +<p>He arrived in London on the 16th of November, and next day +sent to Dr. Burney the following note, which I insert as the last +token of his remembrance of that ingenious and amiable man, and +as another of the many proofs of the tenderness and benignity of +his heart:—</p> +<p>'MR. JOHNSON, who came home last night, sends his respects to +dear Dr. Burney, and all the dear Burneys, little and great<a +href="#note-1164">[1164]</a>.'</p> +<center>'TO MR. HECTOR, IN BIRMINGHAM.</center> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I did not reach Oxford until Friday morning, and then I sent +Francis to see the balloon fly, but could not go myself. I staid +at Oxford till Tuesday, and then came in the common vehicle +easily to London. I am as I was, and having seen Dr. Brocklesby, +am to ply the squills; but, whatever be their efficacy, this +world must soon pass away. Let us think seriously on our duty. I +send my kindest respects to dear Mrs. Careless<a href= +"#note-1165">[1165]</a>: let me have the +prayers of both. We have all lived long, and must soon part. GOD +have mercy on us, for the sake of our Lord JESUS CHRIST. +Amen.</p> +<p>'I am, &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, Nov. 17, 1784.'</p> +<p>His correspondence with me, after his letter on the subject of +my settling in London, shall now, so far as is proper, be +produced in one series:—</p> +<p>July 26, he wrote to me from Ashbourne:—</p> +<p>'On the 14th I came to Lichfield, and found every body glad +enough to see me. On the 20th, I came hither, and found a house +half-built, of very uncomfortable appearance; but my own room has +not been altered. That a man worn with diseases, in his +seventy-second or third year, should condemn part of his +remaining life to pass among ruins and rubbish, and that no +inconsiderable part, appears to me very strange. I know that your +kindness makes you impatient to know the state of my health, in +which I cannot boast of much improvement. I came through the +journey without much inconvenience, but when I attempt +self-motion I find my legs weak, and my breath very short; this +day I have been much disordered. I have no company; the Doctor<a +href="#note-1166">[1166]</a> is busy in +his fields, and goes to bed at nine, and his whole system is so +different from mine, that we seem formed for different elements<a +href="#note-1167">[1167]</a>; I have, +therefore, all my amusement to seek within myself.'</p> +<p>Having written to him, in bad spirits, a letter filled with +dejection and fretfulness, and at the same time expressing +anxious apprehensions concerning him, on account of a dream which +had disturbed me; his answer was chiefly in terms of reproach, +for a supposed charge of 'affecting discontent, and indulging the +vanity of complaint.' It, however, proceeded,—</p> +<p>'Write to me often, and write like a man. I consider your +fidelity and tenderness as a great part of the comforts which are +yet left me, and sincerely wish we could be nearer to each +other.... My dear friend, life is very short and very uncertain; +let us spend it as well as we can. My worthy neighbour, Allen, is +dead. Love me as well as you can. Pay my respects to dear Mrs. +Boswell. Nothing ailed me at that time; let your superstition at +last have an end.'</p> +<p>Feeling very soon, that the manner in which he had written +might hurt me, he two days afterwards, July 28, wrote to me +again, giving me an account of his sufferings; after which, he +thus proceeds:—</p> +<p>'Before this letter, you will have had one which I hope you +will not take amiss; for it contains only truth, and that truth +kindly intended.... Spartam quam nactus es orna<i><a href= +"#note-1168">[1168]</a>; make the most +and best of your lot, and compare yourself not with the few that +are above you, but with the multitudes which are below you.... Go +steadily forward with lawful business or honest diversions.</i> +Be <i>(as Temple says of the Dutchmen)</i> well when you are not +ill, and pleased when you are not angry<i><a href= +"#note-1169">[1169]</a>.... This may seem +but an ill return for your tenderness; but I mean it well, for I +love you with great ardour and sincerity. Pay my respects to dear +Mrs. Boswell, and teach the young ones to love me.'</i></p> +<p>I unfortunately was so much indisposed during a considerable +part of the year, that it was not, or at least I thought it was +not in my power to write to my illustrious friend as formerly, or +without expressing such complaints as offended him. Having +conjured him not to do me the injustice of charging me with +affectation, I was with much regret long silent. His last letter +to me then came, and affected me very tenderly:—</p> +<center>'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.</center> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I have this summer sometimes amended, and sometimes relapsed, +but, upon the whole, have lost ground, very much. My legs are +extremely weak, and my breath very short, and the water is now +encreasing upon me. In this uncomfortable state your letters used +to relieve; what is the reason that I have them no longer? Are +you sick, or are you sullen? Whatever be the reason, if it be +less than necessity, drive it away; and of the short life that we +have, make the best use for yourself and for your friends.... I +am sometimes afraid that your omission to write has some real +cause, and shall be glad to know that you are not sick, and that +nothing ill has befallen dear Mrs. Boswell, or any of your +family.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir, your, &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Lichfield, Nov. 5, 1784.'</p> +<p>Yet it was not a little painful to me to find, that in a +paragraph of this letter, which I have omitted, he still +persevered in arraigning me as before, which was strange in him +who had so much experience of what I suffered. I, however, wrote +to him two as kind letters as I could; the last of which came too +late to be read by him, for his illness encreased more rapidly +upon him than I had apprehended; but I had the consolation of +being informed that he spoke of me on his death-bed, with +affection, and I look forward with humble hope of renewing our +friendship in a better world.</p> +<p>I now relieve the readers of this Work from any farther +personal notice of its authour, who if he should be thought to +have obtruded himself too much upon their attention, requests +them to consider the peculiar plan of his biographical +undertaking.</p> +<p>Soon after Johnson's return to the metropolis, both the asthma +and dropsy became more violent and distressful. He had for some +time kept a journal in Latin of the state of his illness, and the +remedies which he used, under the title of Aegri Ephemeris<i>, +which he began on the 6th of July, but continued it no longer +than the 8th of November; finding, I suppose, that it was a +mournful and unavailing register. It is in my possession; and is +written with great care and accuracy.</i></p> +<p>Still his love of literature<a href= +"#note-1170">[1170]</a> did not fail. A +very few days before his death he transmitted to his friend Mr. +John Nichols, a list of the authours of the Universal History<i>, +mentioning their several shares in that work. It has, according +to his direction, been deposited in the British Museum, and is +printed in the</i> Gentleman's Magazine <i>for December, +1784.</i></p> +<p>During his sleepless nights he amused himself by translating +into Latin verse, from the Greek, many of the epigrams in the +Anthologica<a href= +"#note-1171">[1171]</a>. These +translations, with some other poems by him in Latin, he gave to +his friend Mr. Langton, who, having added a few notes, sold them +to the booksellers for a small sum, to be given to some of +Johnson's relations, which was accordingly done; and they are +printed in the collection of his works.</p> +<p>A very erroneous notion has circulated as to Johnson's +deficiency in the knowledge of the Greek language, partly owing +to the modesty with which, from knowing how much there was to be +learnt, he used to mention his own comparative acquisitions. When +Mr. Cumberland<a href= +"#note-1172">[1172]</a> talked to him of +the Greek fragments which are so well illustrated in The +Observer<a href="#note-1173">[1173]</a>, +and of the Greek dramatists in general, he candidly acknowledged +his insufficiency in that particular branch of Greek literature. +Yet it may be said, that though not a great, he was a good Greek +scholar. Dr. Charles Burney<a href= +"#note-1174">[1174]</a>, the younger, who +is universally acknowledged by the best judges to be one of the +few men of this age who are very eminent for their skill in that +noble language, has assured me, that Johnson could give a Greek +word for almost every English one; and that although not +sufficiently conversant in the niceties of the language, he upon +some occasions discovered, even in these, a considerable degree +of critical acumen. Mr. Dalzel, Professor of Greek at Edinburgh, +whose skill in it is unquestionable, mentioned to me, in very +liberal terms, the impression which was made upon him by Johnson, +in a conversation which they had in London concerning that +language. As Johnson, therefore, was undoubtedly one of the first +Latin scholars in modern times, let us not deny to his fame some +additional splendour from Greek<a href= +"#note-1175">[1175]</a>.</p> +<p>I shall now fulfil my promise<a href= +"#note-1176">[1176]</a> of exhibiting +specimens of various sorts of imitation of Johnson's style.</p> +<p>In the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy<i>, 1787, there +is an 'Essay on the Style of Dr. Samuel Johnson,' by the Reverend +Robert Burrowes, whose respect for the great object of his +criticism<a href="#note-1177">[1177]</a> +is thus evinced in the concluding paragraph:—</i></p> +<p>'I have singled him out from the whole body of English +writers, because his universally-acknowledged beauties would be +most apt to induce imitation; and I have treated rather on his +faults than his perfections, because an essay might comprize all +the observations I could make upon his faults, while volumes +would not be sufficient for a treatise on his perfections.'</p> +<p>Mr. BURROWES has analysed the composition of Johnson, and +pointed out its peculiarities with much acuteness; and I would +recommend a careful perusal of his Essay to those, who being +captivated by the union of perspicuity and splendour which the +writings of Johnson contain, without having a sufficient portion +of his vigour of mind, may be in danger of becoming bad copyists +of his manner. I, however, cannot but observe, and I observe it +to his credit, that this learned gentleman has himself caught no +mean degree of the expansion and harmony, which, independent of +all other circumstances, characterise the sentences of Johnson. +Thus, in the Preface to the volume in which his Essay appears, we +find,—</p> +<p>'If it be said that in societies of this sort, too much +attention is frequently bestowed on subjects barren and +speculative, it may be answered, that no one science is so little +connected with the rest, as not to afford many principles whose +use may extend considerably beyond the science to which they +primarily belong; and that no proposition is so purely +theoretical as to be totally incapable of being applied to +practical purposes. There is no apparent connection between +duration and the cycloidal arch, the properties of which duly +attended to, have furnished us with our best regulated methods of +measuring time: and he who has made himself master of the nature +and affections of the logarithmick curve, is not aware that he +has advanced considerably towards ascertaining the proportionable +density of the air at its various distances from the surface of +the earth.'</p> +<p>The ludicrous imitators of Johnson's style are innumerable. +Their general method is to accumulate hard words, without +considering, that, although he was fond of introducing them +occasionally, there is not a single sentence in all his writings +where they are crowded together, as in the first verse of the +following imaginary Ode by him to Mrs. Thrale<a href= +"#note-1178">[1178]</a>, which appeared +in the newspapers:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Cervisial coctor's viduate <i>dame, + </i> Opin'st <i>thou this gigantick frame, + </i> Procumbing <i>at thy shrine: + Shall,</i> catenated <i>by thy charms, + A captive in thy</i> ambient <i>arms, + </i> Perennially<i> be thine?' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>This, and a thousand other such attempts, are totally unlike +the original, which the writers imagined they were turning into +ridicule. There is not similarity enough for burlesque, or even +for caricature.</p> +<p>Mr. COLMAN, in his Prose on several occasions<i>, has</i> A +Letter from LEXIPHANES<a href= +"#note-1179">[1179]</a>; containing +Proposals for a Glossary or Vocabulary of the Vulgar Tongue: +intended as a Supplement to a larger DICTIONARY<i>. It is +evidently meant as a sportive sally of ridicule on Johnson, whose +style is thus imitated, without being grossly +overcharged:—</i></p> +<p>'It is easy to foresee, that the idle and illiterate will +complain that I have increased their labours by endeavouring to +diminish them; and that I have explained what is more easy by +what is more difficult— ignotum per ignotius<i>. I expect, +on the other hand, the liberal acknowledgements of the learned. +He who is buried in scholastick retirement, secluded from the +assemblies of the gay, and remote from the circles of the polite, +will at once comprehend the definitions, and be grateful for such +a seasonable and necessary elucidation of his +mother-tongue.'</i></p> + +<p>Annexed to this letter is a short specimen of the work, +thrown together</p> +<p>in a vague and desultory manner, not even adhering to +alphabetical concatenation<a href= +"#note-1180">[1180]</a>.</p> +<p>The serious imitators of Johnson's style, whether +intentionally or by the imperceptible effect of its strength and +animation, are, as I have had already occasion to observe, so +many, that I might introduce quotations from a numerous body of +writers in our language, since he appeared in the literary world. +I shall point out only the following:—</p> +<center>WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D.D.<a href= +"#note-1181">[1181]</a></center> +<p>'In other parts of the globe, man, in his rudest state, +appears as lord of the creation, giving law to various tribes of +animals which he has tamed and reduced to subjection. The Tartar +follows his prey on the horse which he has reared, or tends his +numerous herds, which furnish him both with food and clothing; +the Arab has rendered the camel docile, and avails himself of its +persevering strength; the Laplander has formed the rein-deer to +be subservient to his will; and even the people of Kamschatka +have trained their dogs to labour. This command over the +inferiour creatures is one of the noblest prerogatives of man, +and among the greatest efforts of his wisdom and power. Without +this, his dominion is incomplete. He is a monarch who has no +subjects; a master without servants; and must perform every +operation by the strength of his own arm<a href= +"#note-1182">[1182]</a>.'</p> +<p>EDWARD GIBBON, Esq.<a href= +"#note-1183">[1183]</a></p> +<p>'Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of +the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one +man requires the submission of the multitude. In the tumult of +civil discord the laws of society lose their force, and their +place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The ardour of +contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success, the +memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, all +contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of +pity<a href="#note-1184">[1184]</a>.'</p> +<center>MISS BURNEY<a href= +"#note-1185">[1185]</a>.</center> +<p>'My family, mistaking ambition for honour, and rank for +dignity, have long planned a splendid connection for me, to +which, though my invariable repugnance has stopped any advances, +their wishes and their views immovably adhere. I am but too +certain they will now listen to no other. I dread, therefore, to +make a trial where I despair of success; I know not how to risk a +prayer with those who may silence me by a command<a href= +"#note-1186">[1186]</a>.'</p> +<center>REVEREND MR. NARES<a href= +"#note-1187">[1187]</a>.</center> +<p>'In an enlightened and improving age, much perhaps is not to +be apprehended from the inroads of mere caprice; at such a period +it will generally be perceived, that needless irregularity is the +worst of all deformities, and that nothing is so truly elegant in +language as the simplicity of unviolated analogy. Rules will, +therefore, be observed, so far as they are known and +acknowledged: but, at the same time, the desire of improvement +having been once excited will not remain inactive; and its +efforts, unless assisted by knowledge, as much as they are +prompted by zeal, will not unfrequently be found pernicious; so +that the very persons whose intention it is to perfect the +instrument of reason, will deprave and disorder it unknowingly. +At such a time, then, it becomes peculiarly necessary that the +analogy of language should be fully examined and understood; that +its rules should be carefully laid down; and that it should be +clearly known how much it contains, which being already right +should be defended from change and violation: how much it has +that demands amendment; and how much that, for fear of greater +inconveniencies, must, perhaps, be left unaltered, though +irregular.'</p> +<p>A distinguished authour in The Mirror<i><a href= +"#note-1188">[1188]</a>, a periodical +paper, published at Edinburgh, has imitated Johnson very closely. +Thus, in No. 16,—</i></p> +<p>'The effects of the return of spring have been frequently +remarked as well in relation to the human mind as to the animal +and vegetable world. The reviving power of this season has been +traced from the fields to the herds that inhabit them, and from +the lower classes of beings up to man. Gladness and joy are +described as prevailing through universal Nature, animating the +low of the cattle, the carol of the birds, and the pipe of the +shepherd.'</p> +<p>The Reverend Dr. KNOX<a href= +"#note-1189">[1189]</a>, master of +Tunbridge school, appears to have the imitari avco<i><a href= +"#note-1190">[1190]</a> of Johnson's +style perpetually in his mind; and to his assiduous, though not +servile, study of it, we may partly ascribe the extensive +popularity of his writings<a href= +"#note-1191">[1191]</a>.</i></p> +<p>In his Essays, Moral and Literary<i>, No. 3, we find the +following passage:—</i></p> +<p>'The polish of external grace may indeed be deferred till the +approach of manhood. When solidity is obtained by pursuing the +modes prescribed by our fore-fathers, then may the file be used. +The firm substance will bear attrition, and the lustre then +acquired will be durable.'</p> +<p>There is, however, one in No. 11, which is blown up into such +tumidity, as to be truly ludicrous. The writer means to tell us, +that Members of Parliament, who have run in debt by extravagance, +will sell their votes to avoid an arrest<a href= +"#note-1192">[1192]</a>, which he thus +expresses:—</p> +<p>'They who build houses and collect costly pictures and +furniture with the money of an honest artisan or mechanick, will +be very glad of emancipation from the hands of a bailiff, by a +sale of their senatorial suffrage.'</p> +<p>But I think the most perfect imitation of Johnson is a +professed one, entitled A Criticism on Gray's Elegy in a Country +Church-Yard<i>, said to be written by Mr. Young, Professor of +Greek, at Glasgow, and of which let him have the credit, unless a +better title can be shewn. It has not only the peculiarities of +Johnson's style, but that very species of literary discussion and +illustration for which he was eminent. Having already quoted so +much from others, I shall refer the curious to this performance, +with an assurance of much entertainment<a href= +"#note-1193">[1193]</a>.</i></p> +<p>Yet whatever merit there may be in any imitations of Johnson's +style, every good judge must see that they are obviously +different from the original; for all of them are either deficient +in its force, or overloaded with its peculiarities; and the +powerful sentiment to which it is suited is not to be found<a +href="#note-1194">[1194]</a>.</p> +<p>Johnson's affection for his departed relations seemed to grow +warmer as he approached nearer to the time when he might hope to +see them again. It probably appeared to him that he should +upbraid himself with unkind inattention, were he to leave the +world without having paid a tribute of respect to their +memory.</p> +<p>'To MR. GREEN<a href= +"#note-1195">[1195]</a>, APOTHECARY, AT +LICHFIELD.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I have enclosed the Epitaph<a href= +"#note-1196">[1196]</a> for my Father, +Mother, and Brother, to be all engraved on the large size, and +laid in the middle aisle in St. Michael's church, which I request +the clergyman and churchwardens to permit.</p> +<p>'The first care must be to find the exact place of interment, +that the stone may protect the bodies<a href= +"#note-1197">[1197]</a>. Then let the +stone be deep, massy, and hard; and do not let the difference of +ten pounds, or more, defeat our purpose.</p> +<p>'I have enclosed ten pounds, and Mrs. Porter will pay you ten +more, which I gave her for the same purpose. What more is wanted +shall be sent; and I beg that all possible haste may be made, for +I wish to have it done while I am yet alive. Let me know, dear +Sir, that you receive this.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Dec. 2, 1784.'</p> +<p>'To MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.</p> +<center>'DEAR MADAM,</center> +<p>'I am very ill, and desire your prayers. I have sent Mr. Green +the Epitaph, and a power to call on you for ten pounds.</p> +<p>'I laid this summer a stone over Tetty, in the chapel of +Bromley, in Kent<a href= +"#note-1198">[1198]</a>. The inscription +is in Latin, of which this is the English. [Here a +translation.]</p> +<p>'That this is done, I thought it fit that you should know. +What care will be taken of us, who can tell? May GOD pardon and +bless us, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake.</p> +<p>'I am, &c.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON<a href= +"#note-1199">[1199]</a>,'</center> +<p>'Dec. 2, 1784.'</p> +<p>My readers are now, at last, to behold SAMUEL JOHNSON +preparing himself for that doom, from which the most exalted +powers afford no exemption to man<a href= +"#note-1200">[1200]</a>. Death had always +been to him an object of terrour; so that, though by no means +happy, he still clung to life with an eagerness at which many +have wondered. At any time when he was ill, he was very much +pleased to be told that he looked better. An ingenious member of +the Eumelian Club<i><a href= +"#note-1201">[1201]</a>, informs me, that +upon one occasion when he said to him that he saw health +returning to his cheek, Johnson seized him by the hand and +exclaimed, 'Sir, you are one of the kindest friends I ever +had.'</i></p> +<p>His own state of his views of futurity will appear truly +rational; and may, perhaps, impress the unthinking with +seriousness.</p> +<p>'You know, (says he,)<a href= +"#note-1202">[1202]</a> I never thought +confidence with respect to futurity, any part of the character of +a brave, a wise, or a good man. Bravery has no place where it can +avail nothing; wisdom impresses strongly the consciousness of +those faults, of which it is, perhaps, itself an aggravation; and +goodness, always wishing to be better, and imputing every +deficience to criminal negligence, and every fault to voluntary +corruption, never dares to suppose the condition of forgiveness +fulfilled, nor what is wanting in the crime supplied by +penitence.</p> +<p>'This is the state of the best; but what must be the condition +of him whose heart will not suffer him to rank himself among the +best, or among the good? Such must be his dread of the +approaching trial, as will leave him little attention to the +opinion of those whom he is leaving for ever; and the serenity +that is not felt, it can be no virtue to feign.'</p> +<p>His great fear of death, and the strange dark manner in which +Sir John Hawkins<a href= +"#note-1203">[1203]</a> imparts the +uneasiness which he expressed on account of offences with which +he charged himself, may give occasion to injurious suspicions, as +if there had been something of more than ordinary criminality +weighing upon his conscience. On that account, therefore, as well +as from the regard to truth which he inculcated<a href= +"#note-1204">[1204]</a>, I am to mention, +(with all possible respect and delicacy, however,) that his +conduct, after he came to London, and had associated with Savage +and others, was not so strictly virtuous, in one respect, as when +he was a younger man. It was well known, that his amorous +inclinations were uncommonly strong and impetuous. He owned to +many of his friends, that he used to take women of the town to +taverns, and hear them relate their history<a href= +"#note-1205">[1205]</a>. In short, it +must not be concealed, that, like many other good and pious men, +among whom we may place the Apostle Paul upon his own authority, +Johnson was not free from propensities which were ever 'warring +against the law of his mind<a href= +"#note-1206">[1206]</a>,'—and that +in his combats with them, he was sometimes overcome<a href= +"#note-1207">[1207]</a>.</p> +<p>Here let the profane and licentious pause; let them not +thoughtlessly say that Johnson was an hypocrite<i>, or that +his</i> principles <i>were not firm, because his</i> practice +<i>was not uniformly conformable to what he professed.</i></p> +<p>Let the question be considered independent of moral and +religious association; and no man will deny that thousands, in +many instances, act against conviction. Is a prodigal, for +example, an hypocrite<i>, when he owns he is satisfied that his +extravagance will bring him to ruin and misery? We are</i> sure +<i>he</i> believes <i>it; but immediate inclination, strengthened +by indulgence, prevails over that belief in influencing his +conduct. Why then shall credit be refused to the</i> sincerity +<i>of those who acknowledge their persuasion of moral and +religious duty, yet sometimes fail of living as it requires? I +heard Dr. Johnson once observe, 'There is something noble in +publishing truth, though it condemns one's self<a href= +"#note-1208">[1208]</a>.' And one who +said in his presence, 'he had no notion of people being in +earnest in their good professions, whose practice was not +suitable to them,' was thus reprimanded by him:—'Sir, are +you so grossly ignorant of human nature as not to know that a man +may be very sincere in good principles, without having good +practice<a href= +"#note-1209">[1209]</a>?'</i></p> +<p>But let no man encourage or soothe himself in 'presumptuous +sin<a href="#note-1210">[1210]</a>,' from +knowing that Johnson was sometimes hurried into indulgences which +he thought criminal. I have exhibited this circumstance as a +shade in so great a character, both from my sacred love of truth, +and to shew that he was not so weakly scrupulous as he has been +represented by those who imagine that the sins, of which a deep +sense was upon his mind, were merely such little venial trifles +as pouring milk into his tea on Good-Friday. His understanding +will be defended by my statement, if his consistency of conduct +be in some degree impaired. But what wise man would, for +momentary gratifications, deliberately subject himself to suffer +such uneasiness as we find was experienced by Johnson in +reviewing his conduct as compared with his notion of the ethicks +of the gospel? Let the following passages be kept in +remembrance:—</p> +<p>'O, GOD, giver and preserver of all life, by whose power I was +created, and by whose providence I am sustained, look down upon +me with tenderness and mercy; grant that I may not have been +created to be finally destroyed; that I may not be preserved to +add wickedness to wickedness<a href= +"#note-1211">[1211]</a>.' 'O, LORD, let +me not sink into total depravity; look down upon me, and rescue +me at last from the captivity of sin<a href= +"#note-1212">[1212]</a>.' 'Almighty and +most merciful Father, who hast continued my life from year to +year, grant that by longer life I may become less desirous of +sinful pleasures, and more careful of eternal happiness<a href= +"#note-1213">[1213]</a>.' 'Let not my +years be multiplied to increase my guilt; but as my age advances, +let me become more pure in my thoughts, more regular in my +desires, and more obedient to thy laws<a href= +"#note-1214">[1214]</a>.' 'Forgive, O +merciful LORD, whatever I have done contrary to thy laws. Give me +such a sense of my wickedness as may produce true contrition and +effectual repentance; so that when I shall be called into another +state, I may be received among the sinners to whom whom sorrow +and reformation have obtained pardon, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. +Amen<a href="#note-1215">[1215]</a>.'</p> +<p>Such was the distress of mind, such the penitence of Johnson, +in his hours of privacy, and in his devout approaches to his +Maker. His sincerity<i>, therefore, must appear to every candid +mind unquestionable.</i></p> +<p>It is of essential consequence to keep in view, that there was +in this excellent man's conduct no false principle of +commutation<i>, no</i> deliberate <i>indulgence in sin, in +consideration of a counter-balance of duty. His offending, and +his repenting, were distinct and separate<a href= +"#note-1216">[1216]</a>: and when we +consider his almost unexampled attention to truth, his inflexible +integrity, his constant piety, who will dare to 'cast a stone at +him<a href="#note-1217">[1217]</a>?' +Besides, let it never be forgotten, that he cannot be charged +with any offence indicating badness of</i> heart<i>, any thing +dishonest, base, or malignant; but that, on the contrary, he was +charitable in an extraordinary degree: so that even in one of his +own rigid judgements of himself, (Easter-eve, 1781,) while he +says, 'I have corrected no external habits;' he is obliged to +own, 'I hope that since my last communion I have advanced, by +pious reflections, in my submission to GOD, and my benevolence to +man<a href= +"#note-1218">[1218]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>I am conscious that this is the most difficult and dangerous +part of my biographical work, and I cannot but be very anxious +concerning it. I trust that I have got through it, preserving at +once my regard to truth,—to my friend,—and to the +interests of virtue and religion. Nor can I apprehend that more +harm can ensue from the knowledge of the irregularity of Johnson, +guarded as I have stated it, than from knowing that Addison and +Parnell were intemperate in the use of wine; which he himself, in +his Lives <i>of those celebrated writers and pious men, has not +forborne to record<a href= +"#note-1219">[1219]</a>.</i></p> +<p>It is not my intention to give a very minute detail of the +particulars of Johnson's remaining days<a href= +"#note-1220">[1220]</a>, of whom it was +now evident, that the crisis was fast approaching, when he must +'die like men, and fall like one of the Princes<i><a href= +"#note-1221">[1221]</a>.' Yet it will be +instructive, as well as gratifying to the curiosity of my +readers, to record a few circumstances, on the authenticity of +which they may perfectly rely, as I have been at the utmost pains +to obtain an accurate account of his last illness, from the best +authority<a href= +"#note-1222">[1222]</a>.</i></p> +<p>Dr. Heberden<a href= +"#note-1223">[1223]</a>, Dr. Brocklesby, +Dr. Warren[1224], and Dr. Butter, physicians, generously attended +him, without accepting any fees, as did Mr. Cruikshank, surgeon; +and all that could be done from professional skill and ability, +was tried, to prolong a life so truly valuable. He himself, +indeed, having, on account of his very bad constitution, been +perpetually applying himself to medical inquiries, united his own +efforts with those of the gentlemen who attended him; and +imagining that the dropsical collection of water which oppressed +him might be drawn off by making incisions in his body, he, with +his usual resolute defiance of pain, cut deep, when he thought +that his surgeon had done it too tenderly<a href= +"#note-1225">[1225]</a>.</p> +<p>About eight or ten days before his death, when Dr. Brocklesby +paid him his morning visit, he seemed very low and desponding, +and said, 'I have been as a dying man all night.' He then +emphatically broke out in the words of Shakspeare,—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseas'd; + Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; + Raze out the written troubles of the brain; + And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, + Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff, + Which weighs upon the heart?' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>To which Dr. Brocklesby readily answered, from the same great +poet:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + '————————therein the patient + Must minister to himself<a href= +"#note-1226">1226</a>.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Johnson expressed himself much satisfied with the +application.</p> +<p>On another day after this, when talking on the subject of +prayer, Dr. Brocklesby repeated from Juvenal,—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore Sano<i><a href= +"#note-1227">1227</a>,' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>and so on to the end of the tenth satire; but in running it +quickly over, he happened, in the line,</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Qui spatium vitae; extremum inter munera ponat<i>,' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>to pronounce supremum <i>for</i> extremum<i>; at which +Johnson's critical ear instantly took offence, and discoursing +vehemently on the unmetrical effect of such a lapse, he shewed +himself as full as ever of the spirit of the grammarian<a href= +"#note-1228">[1228]</a>.</i></p> +<p>Having no near relations<a href= +"#note-1229">[1229]</a>, it had been for +some time Johnson's intention to make a liberal provision for his +faithful servant, Mr. Francis Barber, whom he looked upon as +particularly under his protection, and whom he had all along +treated truly as an humble friend. Having asked Dr. Brocklesby +what would be a proper annuity to a favourite servant, and being +answered that it must depend on the circumstances of the master; +and, that in the case of a nobleman, fifty pounds a year was +considered as an adequate reward for many years' faithful +service; 'Then, (said Johnson,) shall I be nobilissimus<i>, for I +mean to leave Frank seventy pounds a year, and I desire you to +tell him so<a href= +"#note-1230">[1230]</a>.' It is strange, +however, to think, that Johnson was not free from that general +weakness of being averse to execute a will, so that he delayed it +from time to time<a href= +"#note-1231">[1231]</a>; and had it not +been for Sir John Hawkins's repeatedly urging it, I think it is +probable that his kind resolution would not have been fulfilled. +After making one, which, as Sir John Hawkins informs us, extended +no further than the promised annuity, Johnson's final disposition +of his property was established by a Will and Codicil, of which +copies are subjoined<a href= +"#note-1232">[1232]</a>.</i></p> +<p>The consideration of numerous papers of which he was +possessed, seems to have struck Johnson's mind, with a sudden +anxiety, and as they were in great confusion, it is much to be +lamented that he had not entrusted some faithful and discreet +person with the care and selection of them; instead of which, he +in a precipitate manner, burnt large masses of them, with little +regard, as I apprehend, to discrimination. Not that I suppose we +have thus been deprived of any compositions which he had ever +intended for the publick eye; but, from what escaped the flames, +I judge that many curious circumstances relating both to himself +and other literary characters have perished<a href= +"#note-1233">[1233]</a>.</p> +<p>Two very valuable articles, I am sure, we have lost, which +were two quarto volumes, containing a full, fair, and most +particular account of his own life, from his earliest +recollection. I owned to him, that having accidentally seen them, +I had read a great deal in them; and apologizing for the liberty +I had taken, asked him if I could help it<a href= +"#note-1234">[1234]</a>. He placidly +answered, 'Why, Sir, I do not think you could have helped it.' I +said that I had, for once in my life, felt half an inclination to +commit theft. It had come into my mind to carry off those two +volumes, and never see him more. Upon my inquiring how this would +have affected him, 'Sir, (said he,) I believe I should have gone +mad<a href="#note-1235">[1235]</a>.'</p> +<p>During his last illness, Johnson experienced the steady and +kind attachment of his numerous friends. Mr. Hoole has drawn up a +narrative of what passed in the visits which he paid him during +that time, from the both of November to the 13th of December, the +day of his death, inclusive, and has favoured me with a perusal +of it, with permission to make extracts, which I have done. +Nobody was more attentive to him than Mr. Langton, to whom he +tenderly said, Te teneam moriens deficiente manu<i><a href= +"#note-1237">[1237]</a>. And I think it +highly to the honour of Mr. Windham, that his important +occupations as an active statesman<a href= +"#note-1238">[1238]</a> did not prevent +him from paying assiduous respect to the dying Sage whom he +revered. Mr. Langton informs me, that, 'one day he found Mr. +Burke and four or five more friends sitting with Johnson. Mr. +Burke said to him, "I am afraid, Sir, such a number of us may be +oppressive to you." "No, Sir, (said Johnson,) it is not so; and I +must be in a wretched state, indeed, when your company would not +be a delight to me." Mr. Burke, in a tremulous voice, expressive +of being very tenderly affected, replied, "My dear Sir, you have +always been too good to me." Immediately afterwards he went away. +This was the last circumstance in the acquaintance of these two +eminent men<a href= +"#note-1239">[1239]</a>.'</i></p> +<p>The following particulars of his conversation within a few +days of his death, I give on the authority of Mr. John Nichols<a +href="#note-1240">[1240]</a>:—</p> +<p>'He said, that the Parliamentary Debates were the only part of +his writings which then gave him any compunction<a href= +"#note-1241">[1241]</a>: but that at the +time he wrote them, he had no conception he was imposing upon the +world, though they were frequently written from very slender +materials, and often from none at all,—the mere coinage of +his own imagination. He never wrote any part of his works with +equal velocity. Three columns of the Magazine<i>, in an hour, was +no uncommon effort, which was faster than most persons could have +transcribed that quantity.</i></p> +<p>'Of his friend Cave, he always spoke with great affection. +"Yet (said he,) Cave, (who never looked out of his window, but +with a view to the Gentleman's Magazine<i>,) was a penurious +pay-master; he would contract for lines by the hundred, and +expect the long hundred; but he was a good man, and always +delighted to have his friends at his table."</i></p> +<p>'When talking of a regular edition of his own works, he said, +"that he had power, [from the booksellers,] to print such an +edition, if his health admitted it; but had no power to assign +over any edition, unless he could add notes, and so alter them as +to make them new works; which his state of health forbade him to +think of. I may possibly live, (said he,) or rather breath, three +days, or perhaps three weeks; but find myself daily and gradually +weaker."</p> +<p>'He said at another time, three or four days only before his +death, speaking of the little fear he had of undergoing a +chirurgical operation, "I would give one of these legs for a year +more of life, I mean of comfortable life, not such as that which +I now suffer;"—and lamented much his inability to read +during his hours of restlessness; "I used formerly, (he added,) +when sleepless in bed, to read like a Turk<i><a href= +"#note-1242">[1242]</a>."</i></p> +<p>'Whilst confined by his last illness, it was his regular +practice to have the church-service read to him, by some +attentive and friendly Divine. The Rev. Mr. Hoole performed this +kind office in my presence for the last time, when, by his own +desire, no more than the Litany was read; in which his responses +were in the deep and sonorous voice which Mr. Boswell has +occasionally noticed, and with the most profound devotion that +can be imagined. His hearing not being quite perfect, he more +than once interrupted Mr. Hoole, with "Louder, my dear Sir, +louder, I entreat you, or you pray in vain<a href= +"#note-1243">[1243]</a>!"—and, when +the service was ended, he, with great earnestness, turned round +to an excellent lady who was present, saying, "I thank you, +Madam, very heartily, for your kindness in joining me in this +solemn exercise. Live well, I conjure you; and you will not feel +the compunction at the last, which I now feel<a href= +"#note-1244">[1244]</a>." So truly humble +were the thoughts which this great and good man entertained of +his own approaches to religious perfection<a href= +"#note-1245">[1245]</a>.</p> +<p>'He was earnestly invited to publish a volume of Devotional +Exercises<i><a href= +"#note-1246">[1246]</a>; but this, +(though he listened to the proposal with much complacency, and a +large sum of money was offered for it,) he declined, from motives +of the sincerest modesty.</i></p> +<p>'He seriously entertained the thought of translating +Thuanus<i><a href= +"#note-1247">[1247]</a>. He often talked +to me on the subject; and once, in particular, when I was rather +wishing that he would favour the world, and gratify his +sovereign, by a Life of Spenser<a href= +"#note-1248">[1248]</a>, (which he said +that he would readily have done, had he been able to obtain any +new materials for the purpose,) he added, "I have been thinking +again, Sir, of</i> Thuanus<i>: it would not be the laborious task +which you have supposed it. I should have no trouble but that of +dictation, which would be performed as speedily as an amanuensis +could write."</i></p> +<p>It is to the mutual credit of Johnson and Divines of different +communions, that although he was a steady Church-of-England man, +there was, nevertheless, much agreeable intercourse between him +and them. Let me particularly name the late Mr. La Trobe, and Mr. +Hutton<a href="#note-1249">[1249]</a>, of +the Moravian profession. His intimacy with the English +Benedictines, at Paris, has been mentioned<a href= +"#note-1250">[1250]</a>; and as an +additional proof of the charity in which he lived with good men +of the Romish Church, I am happy in this opportunity of recording +his friendship with the Reverend Thomas Hussey<a href= +"#note-1251">[1251]</a>, D.D. His +Catholick Majesty's Chaplain of Embassy at the Court of London, +that very respectable man, eminent not only for his powerful +eloquence as a preacher, but for his various abilities and +acquisitions. Nay, though Johnson loved a Presbyterian the least +of all, this did not prevent his having a long and uninterrupted +social connection with the Reverend Dr. James Fordyce, who, since +his death, hath gratefully celebrated him in a warm strain of +devotional composition<a href= +"#note-1252">[1252]</a>.</p> +<p>Amidst the melancholy clouds which hung over the dying +Johnson, his characteristical manner shewed itself on different +occasions.</p> +<p>When Dr. Warren, in the usual style, hoped that he was better; +his answer was, 'No, Sir; you cannot conceive with what +acceleration I advance towards death.'</p> +<p>A man whom he had never seen before was employed one night to +sit up with him<a href= +"#note-1253">[1253]</a>. Being asked next +morning how he liked his attendant, his answer was, 'Not at all, +Sir: the fellow's an ideot; he is as aukward as a turn-spit when +first put into the wheel, and as sleepy as a dormouse.'</p> +<p>Mr. Windham having placed a pillow conveniently to support +him, he thanked him for his kindness, and said, 'That will +do,—all that a pillow can do.'</p> +<p>He repeated<a href= +"#note-1254">[1254]</a> with great spirit +a poem, consisting of several stanzas, in four lines, in +alternate rhyme, which he said he had composed some years before, +on occasion of a rich, extravagant young gentleman's coming of +age; saying he had never repeated it but once since he composed +it, and had given but one copy of it. That copy was given to Mrs. +Thrale, now Piozzi, who has published it in a Book which she +entitles British Synonymy<i><a href= +"#note-1255">[1255]</a>, but which is +truly a collection of entertaining remarks and stories, no matter +whether accurate or not. Being a piece of exquisite satire, +conveyed in a strain of pointed vivacity and humour, and in a +manner of which no other instance is to be found in Johnson's +writings, I shall here insert it<a href= +"#note-1256">[1256]</a>:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + Long-expected one-and-twenty, + Ling'ring year, at length is flown; + Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty, + Great —- ——<a href= +"#note-1257">1257</a>, are now your own. + Loosen'd from the Minor's tether, + Free to mortgage or to sell, + Wild as wind, and light as feather, + Bid the sons of thrift farewell. + Call the Betseys, Kates, and Jennies, + All the names that banish care; + Lavish of your grandsire's guineas, + Shew the spirit of an heir. + All that prey on vice or folly + Joy to see their quarry fly; + There the gamester, light and jolly, + There the lender, grave and sly. + Wealth, my lad, was made to wander, + Let it wander as it will; + Call the jockey, call the pander, + Bid them come and take their fill. + When the bonny blade carouses, + Pockets full, and spirits high— + What are acres? what are houses? + Only dirt, or wet or dry. + Should the guardian friend or mother + Tell the woes of wilful waste; + Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother,— + You can hang or drown at last. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>As he opened a note which his servant brought to him, he said, +'An odd thought strikes me: we shall receive no letters in the +grave<a href= +"#note-1258">[1258]</a>.'</p> +<p>He requested three things of Sir Joshua Reynolds:—To +forgive him thirty pounds which he had borrowed of him; to read +the Bible; and never to use his pencil on a Sunday<a href= +"#note-1259">[1259]</a>. Sir Joshua +readily acquiesced[1260].</p> +<p>Indeed he shewed the greatest anxiety for the religious +improvement of his friends, to whom he discoursed of its infinite +consequence. He begged of Mr. Hoole to think of what he had said, +and to commit it to writing: and, upon being afterwards assured +that this was done, pressed his hands, and in an earnest tone +thanked him. Dr. Brocklesby having attended him with the utmost +assiduity and kindness as his physician and friend, he was +peculiarly desirous that this gentleman should not entertain any +loose speculative notions, but be confirmed in the truths of +Christianity, and insisted on his writing down in his presence, +as nearly as he could collect it, the import of what passed on +the subject: and Dr. Brocklesby having complied with the request, +he made him sign the paper, and urged him to keep it in his own +custody as long as he lived<a href= +"#note-1261">[1261]</a>.</p> +<p>Johnson, with that native fortitude, which, amidst all his +bodily distress and mental sufferings, never forsook him, asked +Dr. Brocklesby, as a man in whom he had confidence, to tell him +plainly whether he could recover. 'Give me (said he) a direct +answer.' The Doctor having first asked him if he could bear the +whole truth, which way soever it might lead, and being answered +that he could, declared that, in his opinion, he could not +recover without a miracle. 'Then, (said Johnson,) I will take no +more physick, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may +render up my soul to GOD unclouded.' In this resolution he +persevered, and, at the same time, used only the weakest kinds of +sustenance. Being pressed by Mr. Windham to take somewhat more +generous nourishment, lest too low a diet should have the very +effect which he dreaded, by debilitating his mind, he said, 'I +will take any thing but inebriating sustenance<a href= +"#note-1262">[1262]</a>.'</p> +<p>The Reverend Mr. Strahan, who was the son of his friend, and +had been always one of his great favourites, had, during his last +illness, the satisfaction of contributing to soothe and comfort +him. That gentleman's house, at Islington, of which he is Vicar, +afforded Johnson, occasionally and easily, an agreeable change of +place and fresh air; and he attended also upon him in town in the +discharge of the sacred offices of his profession.</p> +<p>Mr. Strahan has given me the agreeable assurance, that, after +being in much agitation, Johnson became quite composed, and +continued so till his death<a href= +"#note-1263">[1263]</a>.</p> +<p>Dr. Brocklesby, who will not be suspected of fanaticism, +obliged me with the following accounts:—</p> +<p>'For some time before his death, all his fears were calmed and +absorbed by the prevalence of his faith, and his trust in the +merits and propitiation <i>of JESUS CHRIST.</i></p> +<p>'He talked often to me about the necessity of faith in the +sacrifice <i>of Jesus, as necessary beyond all good works +whatever, for the salvation of mankind.</i></p> +<p>'He pressed me to study Dr. Clarke and to read his Sermons. I +asked him why he pressed Dr. Clarke, an Arian<a href= +"#note-1264">[1264]</a>. "Because, (said +he,) he is fullest on the propitiatory sacrifice<i>."'</i></p> +<p>Johnson having thus in his mind the true Christian scheme, at +once rational and consolatory, uniting justice and mercy in the +DIVINITY, with the improvement of human nature, previous to his +receiving the Holy Sacrament in his apartment, composed and +fervently uttered this prayer<a href= +"#note-1265">[1265]</a>:—</p> +<p>'Almighty and most merciful Father, I am now as to human eyes, +it seems, about to commemorate, for the last time, the death of +thy Son JESUS CHRIST, our Saviour and Redeemer. Grant, O LORD, +that my whole hope and confidence may be in his merits, and thy +mercy; enforce and accept my imperfect repentance; make this +commemoration available to the confirmation of my faith, the +establishment of my hope, and the enlargement of my charity; and +make the death of thy Son JESUS CHRIST effectual to my +redemption. Have mercy upon me, and pardon the multitude of my +offences. Bless my friends; have mercy upon all men. Support me, +by thy Holy Spirit, in the days of weakness, and at the hour of +death; and receive me, at my death, to everlasting happiness, for +the sake of JESUS CHRIST. Amen.'</p> +<p>Having, as has been already mentioned, made his will on the +8th and 9th of December, and settled all his worldly affairs, he +languished till Monday, the 13th of that month, when he expired, +about seven o'clock in the evening, with so little apparent pain +that his attendants hardly perceived when his dissolution took +place.</p> +<p>Of his last moments, my brother, Thomas David<a href= +"#note-1266">[1266]</a>, has furnished me +with the following particulars:—</p> +<p>'The Doctor, from the time that he was certain his death was +near, appeared to be perfectly resigned<a href= +"#note-1267">[1267]</a>, was seldom or +never fretful or out of temper, and often said to his faithful +servant, who gave me this account, "Attend, Francis, to the +salvation of your soul, which is the object of greatest +importance:" he also explained to him passages in the scripture, +and seemed to have pleasure in talking upon religious +subjects.</p> +<p>'On Monday, the 13th of December, the day on which he died, a +Miss Morris<a href= +"#note-1268">[1268]</a>, daughter to a +particular friend of his, called, and said to Francis, that she +begged to be permitted to see the Doctor, that she might +earnestly request him to give her his blessing. Francis went into +his room, followed by the young lady, and delivered the message. +The Doctor turned himself in the bed, and said, "GOD bless you, +my dear!" These were the last words he spoke. His difficulty of +breathing increased till about seven o'clock in the evening, when +Mr. Barber and Mrs. Desmoulins, who were sitting in the room, +observing that the noise he made in breathing had ceased, went to +the bed, and found he was dead<a href= +"#note-1269">[1269]</a>.'</p> +<p>About two days after his death, the following very agreeable +account was communicated to Mr. Malone, in a letter by the +Honourable John Byng, to whom I am much obliged for granting me +permission to introduce it in my work.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'Since I saw you, I have had a long conversation with +Cawston<a href="#note-1270">[1270]</a>, +who sat up with Dr. Johnson, from nine o'clock, on Sunday +evening, till ten o'clock, on Monday morning. And, from what I +can gather from him, it should seem, that Dr. Johnson was +perfectly composed, steady in hope, and resigned to death. At the +interval of each hour, they assisted him to sit up in his bed, +and move his legs, which were in much pain; when he regularly +addressed himself to fervent prayer; and though, sometimes, his +voice failed him, his senses never did, during that time. The +only sustenance he received, was cyder and water. He said his +mind was prepared, and the time to his dissolution seemed long. +At six in the morning, he enquired the hour, and, on being +informed, said that all went on regularly, and he felt he had but +a few hours to live.</p> +<p>'At ten o'clock in the morning, he parted from Cawston, +saying, "You should not detain Mr. Windham's servant:—I +thank you; bear my remembrance to your master." Cawston says, +that no man could appear more collected, more devout, or less +terrified at the thoughts of the approaching minute.</p> +<p>'This account, which is so much more agreeable than, and +somewhat different from, yours, has given us the satisfaction of +thinking that that great man died as he lived, full of +resignation, strengthened in faith, and joyful in hope.'</p> +<p>A few days before his death, he had asked Sir John Hawkins, as +one of his executors, where he should be buried; and on being +answered, 'Doubtless, in Westminster-Abbey,' seemed to feel a +satisfaction, very natural to a Poet; and indeed in my opinion +very natural to every man of any imagination, who has no family +sepulchre in which he can be laid with his fathers. Accordingly, +upon Monday, December 20, his remains were deposited in that +noble and renowned edifice; and over his grave was placed a large +blue flag-stone, with this inscription:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. + Obiit <i>XIII</i> die Decembris<i>, + </i> Anno Domini <i> M. DCC. LXXXIV. + Aetatis suoe</i> LXXV.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>His funeral was attended by a respectable number of his +friends, particularly such of the members of the LITERARY CLUB as +were then in town; and was also honoured with the presence of +several of the Reverend Chapter of Westminster. Mr. Burke, Sir +Joseph Banks, Mr. Windham, Mr. Langton, Sir Charles Bunbury, and +Mr. Colman, bore his pall<a href= +"#note-1271">[1271]</a>. His +schoolfellow, Dr. Taylor, performed the mournful office of +reading the burial service<a href= +"#note-1272">[1272]</a>.</p> +<p>I trust, I shall not be accused of affectation, when I +declare, that I find myself unable to express all that I felt +upon the loss of such a 'Guide<a href= +"#note-1273">[1273]</a>, Philosopher, and +Friend[1274].' I shall, therefore, not say one word of my own, +but adopt those of an eminent friend<a href= +"#note-1275">[1275]</a>, which he uttered +with an abrupt felicity, superior to all studied +compositions:—'He has made a chasm, which not only nothing +can fill up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up. Johnson +is dead. Let us go to the next best:—there is nobody; no +man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson<a href= +"#note-1276">[1276]</a>.'</p> +<p>As Johnson had abundant homage paid to him during his life<a +href="#note-1277">[1277]</a>, so no +writer in this nation ever had such an accumulation of literary +honours after his death. A sermon upon that event was preached in +St. Mary's Church, Oxford, before the University, by the Reverend +Mr. Agutter, of Magdalen College<a href= +"#note-1278">[1278]</a>. The +<i>Lives</i>, the <i>Memoirs</i>, the <i>Essays</i>, both in +prose and verse, which have been published concerning him, would +make many volumes. The numerous attacks too upon him, I consider +as part of his consequence, upon the principle which he himself +so well knew and asserted<a href= +"#note-1279">[1279]</a>. Many who +trembled at his presence, were forward in assault, when they no +longer apprehended danger. When one of his little pragmatical +foes was invidiously snarling at his fame, at Sir Joshua +Reynolds's table, the Reverend Dr. Parr exclaimed, with his usual +bold animation, 'Ay, now that the old lion is dead, every ass +thinks he may kick at him.'</p> +<p>A monument for him, in Westminster Abbey, was resolved upon +soon after his death, and was supported by a most respectable +contribution<a href= +"#note-1280">[1280]</a>; but the Dean and +Chapter of St. Paul's having come to a resolution of admitting +monuments there, upon a liberal and magnificent plan, that +Cathedral was afterwards fixed on, as the place in which a +cenotaph should be erected to his memory<a href= +"#note-1281">[1281]</a>: and in the +cathedral of his native city of Lichfield, a smaller one is to be +erected. To compose his epitaph, could not but excite the warmest +competition of genius<a href= +"#note-1282">[1282]</a>. If <i>laudari +à laudato viro</i> be praise which is highly estimable<a +href="#note-1283">[1283]</a>, I should +not forgive myself were I to omit the following sepulchral verses +on the authour of THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY, written by the Right +Honourable Henry Flood<a href= +"#note-1284">[1284]</a>:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'No need of Latin or of Greek to grace + Our JOHNSON'S memory, or inscribe his grave; + His native language claims this mournful space, + To pay the Immortality he gave.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>The character of SAMUEL JOHNSON has, I trust, been so +developed in the course of this work, that they who have honoured +it with a perusal, may be considered as well acquainted with him. +As, however, it may be expected that I should collect into one +view the capital and distinguishing features of this +extraordinary man, I shall endeavour to acquit myself of that +part of my biographical undertaking<a href= +"#note-1285">[1285]</a>, however +difficult it may be to do that which many of my readers will do +better for themselves.</p> +<p>His figure was large and well formed, and his countenance of +the cast of an ancient statue; yet his appearance was rendered +strange and somewhat uncouth, by convulsive cramps, by the scars +of that distemper which it was once imagined the royal touch +could cure, and by a slovenly mode of dress. He had the use only +of one eye; yet so much does mind govern and even supply the +deficiency of organs, that his visual perceptions, as far as they +extended, were uncommonly quick and accurate<a href= +"#note-1286">[1286]</a>. So morbid was +his temperament, that he never knew the natural joy of a free and +vigorous use of his limbs: when he walked, it was like the +struggling gait of one in fetters; when he rode, he had no +command or direction of his horse, but was carried as if in a +balloon<a href="#note-1287">[1287]</a>. +That with his constitution and habits of life he should have +lived seventy-five years, is a proof that an inherent <i>vivida +vis</i><a href="#note-1288">[1288]</a> is +a powerful preservative of the human frame.</p> +<p>Man is, in general, made up of contradictory qualities; and +these will ever shew themselves in strange succession, where a +consistency in appearance at least, if not in reality, has not +been attained by long habits of philosophical discipline. In +proportion to the native vigour of the mind, the contradictory +qualities will be the more prominent, and more difficult to be +adjusted; and, therefore, we are not to wonder, that Johnson +exhibited an eminent example of this remark which I have made +upon human nature. At different times, he seemed a different man, +in some respects; not, however, in any great or essential +article, upon which he had fully employed his mind, and settled +certain principles of duty, but only in his manners, and in the +display of argument and fancy in his talk. He was prone to +superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might +incline him to a belief of the marvellous and the mysterious, his +vigorous reason examined the evidence with jealousy<a href= +"#note-1289">[1289]</a>. He was a sincere +and zealous Christian, of high Church-of-England and monarchical +principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be questioned; +and had, perhaps, at an early period, narrowed his mind somewhat +too much, both as to religion and politicks. His being impressed +with the danger of extreme latitude in either, though he was of a +very independent spirit, occasioned his appearing somewhat +unfavourable to the prevalence of that noble freedom of sentiment +which is the best possession of man. Nor can it be denied, that +he had many prejudices; which, however, frequently suggested many +of his pointed sayings, that rather shew a playfulness of fancy +than any settled malignity. He was steady and inflexible in +maintaining the obligations of religion and morality; both from a +regard for the order of society, and from a veneration for the +GREAT SOURCE of all order; correct, nay stern in his taste; hard +to please, and easily offended<a href= +"#note-1290">[1290]</a>; impetuous and +irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent +heart<a href="#note-1291">[1291]</a>, +which shewed itself not only in a most liberal charity, as far as +his circumstances would allow, but in a thousand instances of +active benevolence. He was afflicted with a bodily disease, which +made him often restless and fretful; and with a constitutional +melancholy, the clouds of which darkened the brightness of his +fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking: +we, therefore, ought not to wonder at his sallies of impatience +and passion at any time; especially when provoked by obtrusive +ignorance, or presuming petulance; and allowance must be made for +his uttering hasty and satirical sallies even against his best +friends. And, surely, when it is considered, that, 'amidst +sickness and sorrow<a href= +"#note-1292">[1292]</a>,'he exerted his +faculties in so many works for the benefit of mankind, and +particularly that he atchieved the great and admirable DICTIONARY +of our language, we must be astonished at his resolution. The +solemn text, 'of him to whom much is given, much will be +required<a href="#note-1293">[1293]</a>,' +seems to have been ever present to his mind, in a rigorous sense, +and to have made him dissatisfied with his labours and acts of +goodness, however comparatively great; so that the unavoidable +consciousness of his superiority was, in that respect, a cause of +disquiet. He suffered so much from this, and from the gloom which +perpetually haunted him, and made solitude frightful, that it may +be said of him, 'If in this life only he had hope, he was of all +men most miserable<a href= +"#note-1294">[1294]</a>.' He loved +praise, when it was brought to him; but was too proud to seek for +it. He was somewhat susceptible of flattery. As he was general +and unconfined in his studies, he cannot be considered as master +of any one particular science; but he had accumulated a vast and +various collection of learning and knowledge, which was so +arranged in his mind, as to be ever in readiness to be brought +forth. But his superiority over other learned men consisted +chiefly in what may be called the art of thinking, the art of +using his mind; a certain continual power of seizing the useful +substance of all that he knew, and exhibiting it in a clear and +forcible manner; so that knowledge, which we often see to be no +better than lumber in men of dull understanding, was, in him, +true, evident, and actual wisdom. His moral precepts are +practical; for they are drawn from an intimate acquaintance with +human nature. His maxims carry conviction; for they are founded +on the basis of common sense, and a very attentive and minute +survey of real life. His mind was so full of imagery, that he +might have been perpetually a poet; yet it is remarkable, that, +however rich his prose is in this respect, his poetical pieces, +in general, have not much of that splendour, but are rather +distinguished by strong sentiment and acute observation, conveyed +in harmonious and energetick verse, particularly in heroick +couplets. Though usually grave, and even aweful, in his +deportment, he possessed uncommon and peculiar powers of wit and +humour; he frequently indulged himself in colloquial pleasantry; +and the heartiest merriment<a href= +"#note-1295">[1295]</a> was often enjoyed +in his company; with this great advantage, that as it was +entirely free from any poisonous tincture of vice or impiety, it +was salutary to those who shared in it. He had accustomed himself +to such accuracy in his common conversation<a href= +"#note-1296">[1296]</a>, that he at all +times expressed his thoughts with great force, and an elegant +choice of language, the effect of which was aided by his having a +loud voice, and a slow deliberate utterance<a href= +"#note-1297">[1297]</a>. In him were +united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, which +gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing: for he could +reason close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. Exulting in +his intellectual strength and dexterity, he could, when he +pleased, be the greatest sophist that ever contended in the lists +of declamation; and, from a spirit of contradiction and a delight +in shewing his powers, he would often maintain the wrong side +with equal warmth and ingenuity; so that, when there was an +audience, his real opinions could seldom be gathered from his +talk<a href="#note-1298">[1298]</a>; +though when he was in company with a single friend, he would +discuss a subject with genuine fairness: but he was too +conscientious to make errour permanent and pernicious, by +deliberately writing it; and, in all his numerous works, he +earnestly inculcated what appeared to him to be the truth; his +piety being constant, and the ruling principle of all his +conduct<a href= +"#note-1299">[1299]</a>.</p> +<p>Such was SAMUEL JOHNSON, a man whose talents, acquirements, +and virtues, were so extraordinary, that the more his character +is considered, the more he will be regarded by the present age, +and by posterity, with admiration and reverence<a href= +"#note-1300">[1300]</a>.</p> +<a name="2HAPP3"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>APPENDIX A.</h2> +<p>(<i>Page</i> 115, <i>note</i> 4.)</p> +<p>There are at least three accounts of this altercation and +three versions of the lines. Two of these versions nearly agree. +The earliest is found in a letter by Richard Burke, senior, dated +Jan. 6, 1773 (<i>Burke Corres</i>. i. 403); the second in <i>The +Annual Register</i> for 1776, p. 223; and the third in Miss +Reynolds's <i>Recollections</i> (Croker's <i>Boswell</i>, 8vo. p. +833). R. Burke places the scene in Reynolds's house. Whether he +himself was present is not clear. 'The dean,' he says, 'asserted +that after forty-five a man did not improve. "I differ with you, +Sir," answered Johnson; "a man may improve, and you yourself have +great room for improvement." The dean was confounded, and for the +instant silent. Recovering, he said, "On recollection I see no +cause to alter my opinion, except I was to call it improvement +for a man to grow (which I allow he may) positive, rude, and +insolent, and save arguments by brutality."' Neither the +<i>Annual Register</i> nor Miss Reynolds reports the Dean's +speech. But she says that 'soon after the ladies withdrew, Dr. +Johnson followed them, and sitting down by the lady of the house +[that is by herself, if they were at Sir Joshua's] he said, "I am +very sorry for having spoken so rudely to the Dean." "You very +well may, Sir." "Yes," he said, "it was highly improper to speak +in that style to a minister of the gospel, and I am the more hurt +on reflecting with what mild dignity he received it."' If Johnson +really spoke of the Dean's <i>mild dignity</i>, it is clear that +Richard Burke's account is wrong. But it was written just after +the scene, and Boswell says there was 'a pretty smart +altercation.' Miss Reynolds continues:—'When the Dean came +up into the drawing-room, Dr. Johnson immediately rose from his +seat, and made him sit on the sofa by him, and with such a +beseeching look for pardon and with such fond +gestures—literally smoothing down his arms and his knees,' +&c. The <i>Annual Register</i> says that Barnard the next day +sent the verses addressed to 'Sir Joshua Reynolds & Co.' On +the next page I give Richard Burke's version of the lines, and +show the various readings.</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> +MISS REYNOLD'S RICHARD BURKE'S VERSION. <i>Annual Register</i> + VERSION + I lately thought no man alive + Could e'er improve past forty-five, + And ventured to assert it; + The observation was not new, + But seem'd to me so just and true, + That none could controvert it. + 'No, Sir,' says Johnson, ''tis not so; +'Tis <i>That's</i> your mistake, and I can show + An instance, if you doubt it; +You who perhaps are <i>You, Sir, who are near</i> forty-eight, +still May <i>much</i> improve, 'tis not too late; + I wish you'd set about it.' + Encouraged thus to mend my faults, + I turn'd his counsel in my thoughts, +could Which way I <i>should</i> apply it: +Genius I knew was <i>Learning and wit seem'd</i> past my reach, +what none can For who can learn <i>where none will</i> teach? when + And wit—I could not buy it. + Then come, my friends, and try your skill, +may You <i>can improve me, if you will; inform + (My books are at a distance). + With you I'll live and learn; and then + Instead of books I shall read men, + </i> So <i>lend me your assistance. To + Dear Knight of Plympton<a href= +"#note-1301">1301</a>, teach me how +unclouded To suffer with</i> unruffled <i>brow, +as And smile serene</i> like <i>thine, +and The jest uncouth</i> or <i>truth severe, +Like thee to turn </i> To such apply <i>my deafest ear, To such + And calmly drink my wine. I'll turn + Thou say'st, not only skill is gain'd, +attained But genius too may be</i> obtain'd<i>, attained +invitation By studious</i> imitation<i>; + Thy temper mild, thy genius fine, +study I'll</i> copy <i>till I make</i> them <i>mine, thee +meditation By constant</i> application<i>. + Thy art of pleasing teach me, Garrick, +reverest (</i>sic<i>) Thou who</i> reversest <i>odes Pindarick<a + href="#note-1302">1302</a>, + A second time read o'er; + Oh! could we read thee backwards too, +Past </i> Last <i>thirty years thou shouldst review, + And charm us thirty more. + If I have thoughts and can't express 'em, + Gibbon shall teach me how to dress 'em + In terms select and terse; + Jones teach me modesty—and Greek; + Smith how to think;</i> Burke <i>how to speak, Burk + And Beauclerk to converse. + Let Johnson teach me how to place + In fairest light each borrowed grace, + From him I'll learn to write; +free and easy Copy his</i> clear and easy <i>style, clear + And from the roughness of his file, familiar +like Grow</i> as<i> himself—polite.' like +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Horace Walpole, on Dec. 27, 1775, speaks of these verses as if +they were fresh. 'They are an answer,' he writes, 'to a gross +brutality of Dr. Johnson, to which a properer answer would have +been to fling a glass of wine in his face. I have no patience +with an unfortunate monster trusting to his helpless deformity +for indemnity for any impertinence that his arrogance suggests, +and who thinks that what he has read is an excuse for everything +he says.' Horace Walpole's Letters, <i>vi. 302. It is strange +that Walpole should be so utterly ignorant of Johnson's courage +and bodily strength. The date of Walpole's letter makes me +suspect that Richard Burke dated his Jan. 6, 1775 (he should have +written 1776), and that the blunder of a copyist has changed 1775 +into 1773.</i></p> +<a name="2HAPP4"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>APPENDIX B.</h2> +<p>(Page <i>238.)</i></p> +<p>Had Boswell continued the quotation from Priestley's +Illustrations of Philosophical Necessity <i>he would have shown +that though Priestley could not</i> hate <i>the rioters, he could +very easily</i> prosecute <i>them. He says:—</i></p> +<p>'If as a Necessarian I cease to blame <i>men for their vices +in the ultimate sense of the word, though, in the common and +proper sense of it, I continue to do as much as other persons +(for how necessarily soever they act, they are influenced by a +base and mischievous disposition of mind, against which I must +guard myself and others in proportion as I love myself and +others),' &c. Priestley's</i> Works<i>, iii. 508.</i></p> +<p>Of his interview with Johnson, Priestley, in his Appeal to the +Public<i>, part ii, published in 1792 (</i>Works<i>, xix. 502), +thus writes, answering 'the impudent falsehood that when I was at +Oxford Dr. Johnson left a company on my being introduced to +it':—</i></p> +<p>'In fact we never were at Oxford at the same time, and the +only interview I ever had with him was at Mr. Paradise's, where +we dined together at his own request. He was particularly civil +to me, and promised to call upon me the next time he should go +through Birmingham. He behaved with the same civility to Dr. +Price, when they supped together at Dr. Adams's at Oxford. +Several circumstances show that Dr. Johnson had not so much of +bigotry at the decline of life as had distinguished him before, +on which account it is well known to all our common acquaintance, +that I declined all their pressing solicitations to be introduced +to him.'</p> +<p>Priestley expresses himself ill, but his meaning can be made +out. Parr answered Boswell in the March number of the Gent. Mag. +<i>for 1795, p. 179. But the evidence that he brings is rendered +needless by Priestley's positive statement. May peace henceforth +fall on 'Priestley's injured name.' (Mrs. Barbauld's</i> +Poems<i>, ii. 243.)</i></p> +<p>When Boswell asserts that Johnson 'was particularly resolute +in not giving countenance to men whose writings he considered as +pernicious to society,' he forgets that that very summer of 1783 +he had been willing to dine at Wilkes's house (ante<i>, p. 224, +note 2).</i></p> +<p>Dr. Franklin (Memoirs<i>, ed. 1833, iii. 157) wrote to Dr. +Price in 1784:—'It is said that scarce anybody but yourself +and Dr. Priestley possesses the art of knowing how to differ +decently.' Gibbon (</i>Misc. Works<i>, i. 304), describing in +1789 the honestest members of the French Assembly, calls them 'a +set of wild visionaries, like our Dr. Price, who gravely debate, +and dream about the establishment of a pure and perfect democracy +of five and twenty millions, the virtues of the golden age, and +the primitive rights and equality of mankind.' Admiration of +Price made Samuel Rogers, when a boy, wish to be a preacher. 'I +thought there was nothing on earth so</i> grand <i>as to figure +in a pulpit. Dr. Price lived much in the society of Lord +Lansdowne [Earl of Shelburne] and other people of rank; and his +manners were extremely polished. In the pulpit he was great +indeed.' Rogers's</i> Table Talk<i>, p. 3.</i></p> +<p>The full title of the tract mentioned by Boswell is, A small +Whole-Length of Dr. Priestley from his Printed Works<i>. It was +published in 1792, and is a very poor piece of writing.</i></p> +<p>Johnson had refused to meet the Abbé Raynal, the author +of the Histoire Philosophique et Politique du Commerce des Deux +Indes<i>, when he was over in England in 1777. Mrs. Chapone, +writing to Mrs. Carter on June 15 of that year, +says:—</i></p> +<p>'I suppose you have heard a great deal of the Abbé +Raynal, who is in London. I fancy you would have served him as +Dr. Johnson did, to whom when Mrs. Vesey introduced him, he +turned from him, and said he had read his book, and would have +nothing to say to him.' Mrs. Chapone's Posthumous Works<i>, i. +172.</i></p> +<p>See Walpole's Letters<i>, v. 421, and vi. 444. His book was +burnt by the common hangman in Paris. Carlyle's</i> French +Revolution<i>, ed. 1857, i. 45.</i></p> +<a name="2HAPP5"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>APPENDIX C.</h2> +<p>(Page 253<i>.)</i></p> +<p>Hawkins gives the two following notes:—</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'As Mr. Ryland was talking with me of old friends and past +times, we warmed ourselves into a wish, that all who remained of +the club should meet and dine at the house which once was +Horseman's, in Ivy-lane. I have undertaken to solicit you, and +therefore desire you to tell on what day next week you can +conveniently meet your old friends.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Bolt-court, Nov. 22, 1783.'</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'In perambulating Ivy-lane, Mr. Ryland found neither our +landlord Horseman, nor his successor. The old house is shut up, +and he liked not the appearance of any near it; he therefore +bespoke our dinner at the Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's +Church-yard, where, at half an hour after three, your company +will be desired to-day by those who remain of our former +society.</p> +<p>'Your humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'Dec. 3.'</p> +<p>Four met—Johnson, Hawkins, Ryland, and Payne (ante<i>, +i. 243).</i></p> +<p>'We dined,' Hawkins continues, 'and in the evening regaled +with coffee. At ten we broke up, much to the regret of Johnson, +who proposed staying; but finding us inclined to separate, he +left us with a sigh that seemed to come from his heart, lamenting +that he was retiring to solitude and cheerless meditation.' +Hawkins's Johnson<i>, p. 562.</i></p> +<p>Hawkins is mistaken in saying that they had a second meeting +at a tavern at the end of a month; for Johnson, on March 10, +1784, wrote:—</p> +<p>'I have been confined from the fourteenth of December, and +know not when I shall get out.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. +351.</i></p> +<p>He thus describes these meetings:—</p> +<p>'Dec. 13. I dined about a fortnight ago with three old +friends; we had not met together for thirty years, and one of us +thought the other grown very old. In the thirty years two of our +set have died; our meeting may be supposed to be somewhat +tender.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 339.</i></p> +<p>'Jan. 12, 1784. I had the same old friends to dine with me on +Wednesday, and may say that since I lost sight of you I have had +one pleasant day.' Ib. p. 346.</p> +<p>'April 15, 1784. Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving +another dinner to the remainder of the old club. We used to meet +weekly, about the year fifty, and we were as cheerful as in +former times; only I could not make quite so much noise, for +since the paralytick affliction my voice is sometimes weak.' Ib. +p. 361.</p> +<p>'April 19, 1784. The people whom I mentioned in my letter are +the remnant of a little club that used to meet in Ivy-lane about +three and thirty years ago, out of which we have lost Hawkesworth +and Dyer; the rest are yet on this side the grave. Our meetings +now are serious, and I think on all parts tender.' Ib. 363.</p> +<p>See ante<i>, i. 191, note 5.</i></p> +<a name="2HAPP6"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>APPENDIX D.</h2> +<p>(Page 254<i>.)</i></p> +<p>It is likely that Sir Joshua Reynolds refused to join the +Essex Head Club because he did not wish to meet Barry. Not long +before this time he had censured Barry's delay in entering upon +his duties as Professor of painting.</p> +<p>'Barry answered:—"If I had no more to do in the +composition of my lectures than to produce such poor flimsy stuff +as your discourses, I should soon have done my work, and be +prepared to read." It is said this speech was delivered with his +fist clenched, in a menacing posture.' (Northcote's Life of +Reynolds<i>, ii. 146.)</i></p> +<p>The Hon. Daines Barrington was the author of an Essay on the +Migration of Birds <i>(</i>ante<i>, ii. 248) and of</i> +Observations on the Statutes <i>(</i>ante<i>, iii. 314). Horace +Walpole wrote on Nov. 24, 1780 (</i>Letters<i>, vii. +464):—</i></p> +<p>'I am sorry for the Dean of Exeter; if he dies I conclude the +leaden mace of the Antiquarian Society will be given to Judge +Barrington.' (He was 'second Justice of Chester.')</p> +<p>For Dr. Brocklesby see ante<i>, pp. 176, 230, 338, +400.</i></p> +<p>Of Mr. John Nichols, Murphy says that 'his attachment to Dr. +Johnson was unwearied.' Life of Johnson<i>, p. 66. He was the +printer of</i> The Lives of the Poets <i>(</i>ante<i>, p. 36), +and the author of</i> Biographical and Literary Anecdotes of +William Bowyer, Printer<i>, 'the last of the learned printers,' +whose apprentice he had been (</i>ante<i>, p. 369). Horace +Walpole (</i>Letters<i>, viii. 259) says:—</i></p> +<p>'I scarce ever saw a book so correct as Mr. Nichols's Life of +Mr. Bowyer<i>. I wish it deserved the pains he has bestowed on it +every way, and that he would not dub so many men</i> great<i>. I +have known several of his</i> heroes<i>, who were very</i> little +<i>men.'</i></p> +<p>The Life of Bowyer <i>being recast and enlarged was +republished under the title of</i> Literary Anecdotes of the +Eighteenth Century<i>. From 1778 till his death in 1826 the</i> +Gentleman's Magazine <i>was in great measure in his hands. +Southey, writing in 1804, says:—</i></p> +<p>'I have begun to take in here at Keswick the Gentleman's +Magazine<i>,</i> alias <i>the</i> Oldwomania<i>, to enlighten a +Portuguese student among the mountains; it does amuse me by its +exquisite inanity, and the glorious and intense stupidity of its +correspondents; it is, in truth, a disgrace to the age and the +country.' Southey's</i> Life and Correspondence<i>, ii. +281.</i></p> +<p>Mr. William Cooke, 'commonly called Conversation Cooke,' wrote +Lives of Macklin and Foote<i>. Forster's</i> Essays<i>, ii. 312, +and</i> Gent. Mag. <i>1824, p. 374. Mr. Richard Paul Joddrel, or +Jodrell, was the author of</i> The Persian Heroine, a Tragedy<i>, +which, in Baker's</i> Biog. Dram. <i>i. 400, is wrongly assigned +to Sir R.P. Jodrell, M.D. Nichols's</i> Lit. Anec. <i>ix. +2.</i></p> +<p>For Mr. Paradise see ante<i>, p. 364, note 2.</i></p> +<p>Dr. Horsley was the controversialist, later on Bishop of St. +David's and next of Rochester. Gibbon makes splendid mention of +him (Misc. Works<i>, i. 232) when he tells how 'Dr. Priestley's +Socinian shield has repeatedly been pierced by the mighty spear +of Horsley.' Windham, however, in his</i> Diary <i>in one place +(p. 125) speaks of him as having his thoughts 'intent wholly on +prospects of Church preferment;' and in another place (p. 275) +says that 'he often lays down with great confidence what turns +out afterwards to be wrong.' In the House of Lords he once said +that 'he did not know what the mass of the people in any country +had to do with the laws but to obey them.'</i> Parl. Hist<i>. +xxxii. 258. Thurlow rewarded him for his</i> Letters to Priestley +<i>by a stall at Gloucester, 'saying that "those who supported +the Church should be supported by it."' Campbell's</i> +Chancellors<i>, ed. 1846, v. 635.</i></p> +<p>For Mr. Windham, see ante<i>, p. 200.</i></p> +<p>Hawkins (Life of Johnson<i>, p. 567) thus writes of the +formation of the Club:—</i></p> +<p>'I was not made privy to this his intention, but all +circumstances considered, it was no matter of surprise to me when +I heard that the great Dr. Johnson had, in the month of December +1783, formed a sixpenny club at an ale-house in Essex-street, and +that though some of the persons thereof were persons of note, +strangers, under restrictions, for three pence each night might +three nights in a week hear him talk and partake of his +conversation.'</p> +<p>Miss Hawkins (Memoirs<i>, i. 103) says:—</i></p> +<p>'Boswell was well justified in his resentment of my father's +designation of this club as a sixpenny club, meeting at an +ale-house. ... Honestly speaking, I dare say my father did not +like being passed over.'</p> +<p>Sir Joshua Reynolds, writing of the club, says:—</p> +<p>'Any company was better than none; by which Johnson connected +himself with many mean persons whose presence he could command. +For this purpose he established a club at a little ale-house in +Essex-street, composed of a strange mixture of very learned and +very ingenious odd people. Of the former were Dr. Heberden, Mr. +Windham, Mr. Boswell, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Paradise. Those of the +latter I do not think proper to enumerate.' Taylor's Life of +Reynolds<i>, ii. 455.</i></p> +<p>It is possible that Reynolds had never seen the Essex Head, +and that the term 'little ale-house' he had borrowed from +Hawkins's account. Possibly too his disgust at Barry here found +vent. Murphy (Life of Johnson<i>, p. 124) says:—</i></p> +<p>'The members of the club were respectable for their rank, +their talents, and their literature.'</p> +<p>The 'little ale-house' club saw one of its members, Alderman +Clarke (ante<i>, p. 258), Lord Mayor within a year; another, +Horsley, a Bishop within five years; and a third, Windham, +Secretary at War within ten years. Nichols (</i>Literary +Anecdotes<i>, ii. 553) gives a list of the 'constant members' at +the time of Johnson's death.</i></p> +<a name="2HAPP7"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>APPENDIX E.</h2> +<p>(Page 399.)</p> +<p>Miss Burney's account of Johnson's last days is interesting, +but her dates are confused more even than is common with her. I +have corrected them as well as I can.</p> +<p>'Dec. 9. He will not, it seems, be talked to—at least +very rarely. At times indeed he re-animates; but it is soon over +and he says of himself:—"I am now like +Macbeth—question enrages me."'</p> +<p>'Dec. 10. At night my father brought us the most dismal +tidings of dear Dr. Johnson. He had thanked and taken leave of +all his physicians. Alas! I shall lose him, and he will take no +leave of me. My father was deeply depressed. I hear from everyone +he is now perfectly resigned to his approaching fate, and no +longer in terror of death.'</p> +<p>'Dec. 11. My father in the morning saw this first of men. He +was up and very composed. He took his hand very kindly, asked +after all his family, and then in particular how Fanny did. "I +hope," he said, "Fanny did not take it amiss that I did not see +her. I was very bad. Tell Fanny to pray for me." After which, +still grasping his hand, he made a prayer for himself, the most +fervent, pious, humble, eloquent, and touching, my father says, +that ever was composed. Oh! would I had heard it! He ended it +with Amen! in which my father joined, and was echoed by all +present; and again, when my father was leaving him, he brightened +up, something of his arch look returned, and he said: "I think I +shall throw the ball at Fanny yet."'</p> +<p>'Dec. 12. [Miss Burney called at Bolt-court.] All the rest +went away but a Mrs. Davis, a good sort of woman, whom this truly +charitable soul had sent for to take a dinner at his house. [See +ante<i>, p. 239, note 2.] Mr. Langton then came. He could not +look at me, and I turned away from him. Mrs. Davis asked how the +Doctor was. "Going on to death very fast," was his mournful +answer. "Has he taken," said she, "anything?" "Nothing at all. We +carried him some bread and milk—he refused it, and +said:—'The less the better.'"'</i></p> +<p>'Dec. 20. This day was the ever-honoured, ever-lamented Dr. +Johnson committed to the earth. Oh, how sad a day to me! My +father attended. I could not keep my eyes dry all day; nor can I +now in the recollecting it; but let me pass over what to mourn is +now so vain.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, ii. 333-339.</i></p> +<a name="2HAPP8"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>APPENDIX F.</h2> +<p>(Notes on Boswell's note on pages 403-405<i>.)</i></p> +<p>[F-1] In a letter quoted in Mr. Croker's Boswell, p. 427, Dr. +Johnson calls Thomas Johnson 'cousin,' and says that in the last +sixteen months he had given him £40. He mentions his death +in 1779. Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 45.</i></p> +<p>[F-2] Hawkins (Life<i>, p. 603) says that Elizabeth Herne was +Johnson's first-cousin, and that he had constantly—how long +he does not say—contributed £15 towards her +maintenance.</i></p> +<p>[F-3] For Mauritius Lowe, see ante<i>, iii. 324, and iv. +201.</i></p> +<p>[F-4] To Mr. Windham, two days earlier, he had given a copy of +the New Testament<i>, saying:—'Extremum hoc munus morientis +habeto.' Windham's</i> Diary<i>, p. 28.</i></p> +<p>[F-5] For Mrs. Gardiner see ante<i>, i. 242.</i></p> +<p>[F-6] Mr. John Desmoulins was the son of Mrs. Desmoulins +(ante<i>, iii. 222, 368), and the grandson of Johnson's +god-father, Dr. Swinfen (</i>ante<i>, i. 34). Johnson mentions +him in a letter to Mrs. Thrale in 1778. 'Young Desmoulins is +taken in an</i> under-something <i>of Drury Lane; he knows not, I +believe, his own denomination.'</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. +25.</i></p> +<p>[F-7] The reference is to The Rambler<i>, No. 41 (not 42 as +Boswell says), where Johnson mentions 'those vexations and +anxieties with which all human enjoyments are polluted.'</i></p> +<p>[F-8] Bishop Sanderson described his soul as 'infinitely +polluted with sin.' Walton's Lives<i>, ed. 1838, p. 396.</i></p> +<p>[F-9] Hume, writing in 1742 about his Essays Moral and +Political<i>, says:—</i></p> +<p>'Innys, the great bookseller in Paul's Church-yard, wonders +there is not a new edition, for that he cannot find copies for +his customers.' J.H. Burton's Hume<i>, i. 143.</i></p> +<p>[F-10] Nichols (Lit. Anec. <i>ii. 554) says that, on Dec. +7,</i></p> +<p>'Johnson asked him whether any of the family of Faden the +printer were living. Being told that the geographer near Charing +Cross was Faden's son, he said, after a short pause:—"I +borrowed a guinea of his father near thirty years ago; be so good +as to take this, and pay it for me."'</p> +<p>[F-11] Nowhere does Hawkins more shew the malignancy of his +character than in his attacks on Johnson's black servant, and +through him on Johnson. With the passage in which this offensive +caveat <i>is found he brings his work to a close. At the first +mention of Frank (</i>Life<i>, p. 328) he says:—</i></p> +<p>'His first master had in great humanity <i>made him a +Christian, and his last for no assignable reason, nay rather in +despite of nature, and to unfit him for being useful according to +his capacity, determined to make him a scholar.'</i></p> +<p>But Hawkins was a brutal fellow. See ante<i>, i. 27, note 2, +and 28, note</i></p> +<center>1.</center> +<p>[F-12] Johnson had written to Taylor on Oct. 23 of this +year:—</p> +<p>'"Coming down from a very restless night I found your letter, +which made me a little angry. You tell me that recovery is in my +power. This indeed I should be glad to hear if I could once +believe it. But you mean to charge me with neglecting or opposing +my own health. Tell me, therefore, what I do that hurts me, and +what I neglect that would help me." This letter is endorsed by +Taylor: "This is the last letter. My answer, which were (sic<i>) +the words of advice he gave to Mr. Thrale the day he dyed, he +resented extremely from me."' Mr. Alfred Morrison's</i> +Collection of Autographs<i>, &c., ii. 343.</i></p> +<p>'The words of advice' which were given to Mr. Thrale the day +before <i>the fatal fit seized him, were that he should abstain +from full meals.</i> Ante<i>, iv. 84, note 4. Johnson's +resentment of Taylor's advice may account for the absence of his +name in his will.</i></p> +<p>[F-13] They were sold in 650 Lots, in a four days' sale. +Besides the books there were 146 portraits, of which 61 were +framed and glazed. These prints in their frames were sold in lots +of 4, 8, and even 10 together, though certainly some of +them—and perhaps many—were engravings from Reynolds. +The Catalogue of the sale is in the Bodleian Library.</p> +<a name="2HAPP9"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>APPENDIX G.</h2> +<p>(Notes on Boswell's note on page 408<i>.)</i></p> +<p>[G-1] Mrs. Piozzi records (Anecdotes<i>, p. 120) that Johnson +told her,—</i></p> +<p>'When Boyse was almost perishing with hunger, and some money +was produced to purchase him a dinner, he got a bit of roast +beef, but could not eat it without ketch-up; and laid out the +last half-guinea he possessed in truffles and mushrooms, eating +them in bed too, for want of clothes, or even a shirt to sit up +in.'</p> +<p>Hawkins (Life<i>, p. 159) gives 1740 as the year of Boyse's +destitution.</i></p> +<p>'He was,' he says, 'confined to a bed which had no sheets; +here, to procure food, he wrote; his posture sitting up in bed, +his only covering a blanket, in which a hole was made to admit of +the employment of his arm.'</p> +<p>Two years later Boyse wrote the following verses to Cave from +a spunging-house:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Hodie, teste coelo summo, + Sine pane, sine nummo, + Sorte positus infeste, + Scribo tibi dolens moeste. + Fame, bile tumet jecur: + Urbane, mitte opem, precor. + Tibi enim cor humanum + Non a malis alienum: + Mihi mens nee male grato, + Pro a te favore dato. + Ex gehenna debitoria, + Vulgo, domo spongiatoria.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>He adds that he hopes to have his Ode on the British Nation +<i>done that day. This</i> Ode<i>, which is given in the</i> +Gent. Mag. <i>1742, p. 383, contains the following verse, which +contrasts sadly with the poor poet's case:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Thou, sacred isle, amidst thy ambient main, + Enjoyst the sweets of freedom<i> all thy own.' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>[G-2] It is not likely that Johnson called a sixpence 'a +serious consideration.' He who in his youth would not let his +comrades say prodigious <i>(</i>ante/<i>, in. 303) was not likely +in his old age so to misuse a word.</i></p> +<p>[G-3] Hugh Kelly is mentioned ante<i>, ii. 48, note 2, and +iii. 113.</i></p> +<p>[G-4] It was not on the return from Sky, but on the voyage +from Sky to Rasay, that the spurs were lost. Post<i>, v. +163.</i></p> +<p>[G-5] Dr. White's Bampton Lectures <i>of 1784 'became part of +the triumphant literature of the University of Oxford,' and got +the preacher a Christ Church Canonry. Of these</i> Lectures +<i>Dr. Parr had written about one-fifth part. White, writing to +Parr about a passage in the manuscript of the last Lecture, +said:—'I fear I did not clearly explain myself; I humbly +beg the favour of you to make my meaning more intelligible.' On +the death of Mr. Badcock in 1788, a note for £500 from +White was found in his pocket-book. White pretended that this was +remuneration for some other work; but it was believed on good +grounds that Badcock had begun what Parr had completed, and that +these famous</i> Lectures <i>were mainly their work. Badcock was +one of the writers in the</i> Monthly Review<i>. Johnstone's</i> +Life of Dr. Parr<i>, i. 218-278. For Badcock's correspondence +with the editor of the</i> Monthly Review<i>, see</i> Bodleian +<i>MS.</i> Add.</p> +<center>C. 90.</center> +<p>[G-6] 'Virgilium vidi tantum.' Ovid, Tristia<i>, iv. 10. +51.</i></p> +<p>[G-7] Mackintosh says of Priestley:—'Frankness and +disinterestedness in the avowal of his opinion were his point of +honour.' He goes on to point out that there was 'great mental +power in him wasted and scattered.' Life of Mackintosh<i>, i. +349. See</i> ante<i>, ii. 124, and iv. 238 for Johnson's opinion +of Priestley.</i></p> +<p>[G-8] Badcock, in using the term 'index-scholar,' was +referring no doubt to Pope's lines:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> +'How Index-learning turns no student pale, + Yet holds the eel of science by the tail.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Dunciad<i>, i. 279.</i></p> +<a name="2HAPP10"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>APPENDIX H.</h2> +<p>(Notes on Boswell's note on pages 421-422<i>.)</i></p> +<p>[H-1] The last lines of the inscription on this urn are +borrowed, with a slight change, from the last paragraph of the +last Rambler/<i>. (Johnson's</i> Works<i>, iii. 465, and</i> +ante<i>, i. 226.) Johnson visited Colonel Myddelton on August 29, +1774, in his Tour to Wales. See</i> post<i>, v. 453.</i></p> +<p>[H-2] Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on Sept. 3, 1783, +said:—'I sat to Opey (sic) as long as he desired, and I +think the head is finished, but it is not much admired.' Notes +and Queries<i>, 6th S. v. 481. Hawkins (</i>Life of Johnson<i>, +p. 569) says that in 1784 'Johnson resumed sitting to Opie, but,' +he adds, 'I believe the picture was never finished.'</i></p> +<p>[H-3] Of this picture, which was the one painted for Beauclerk +(ante<i>, p. 180), it is stated in Johnson's</i> Work<i>, ed. +1787, xi. 204, that 'there is in it that appearance of a +labouring working mind, of an indolent reposing body, which he +had to a very great degree.'</i></p> +<p>[H-4] It seems almost certain that the portrait of Johnson in +the Common Room of University College, Oxford, is this very +mezzotinto. It was given to the College by Sir William Scott, and +it is a mezzotinto from Opie's portrait. It has been reproduced +for this work, and will be found facing page 244 of volume iii. +Scott's inscription on the back of the frame is given on page +245, note 3, of the same volume.</p> +<a name="2HAPP11"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>APPENDIX I.</h2> +<p>(Page <i>424.)</i></p> +<p>Boswell most likely never knew that in the year 1790 Mr. +Seward, in the name of Cadell the publisher, had asked Parr to +write a Life of Johnson<i>. (Johnstone's</i> Life of Parr<i>, iv. +678.) Parr, in his amusing vanity, was as proud of this</i> Life +<i>as if he had written it. '"It would have been," he said, "the +third most learned work that has ever yet appeared. The most +learned work ever published I consider Bentley</i> On the +Epistles of Phalaris<i>; the next Salmasius</i> On the +Hellenistic Language<i>." Alluding to Boswell's Life he +continued, "Mine should have been, not the droppings of his lips, +but the history of his mind."' Field's</i> Life of Parr<i>, i. +164.</i></p> +<p>In the epitaph that he first sent in were found the words +'Probabili Poetae.'</p> +<p>'In arms,' wrote Parr, 'were all the Johnsonians: Malone, +Steevens, Sir W. Scott, Windham, and even Fox, all in arms. The +epithet was cold. They do not understand it, and I am a Scholar, +not a Belles-Lettres man.'</p> +<p>Parr had wished to pass over all notice of Johnson's poetical +character. To this, Malone said, none of his friends of the +Literary Club would agree. He pointed out also that Parr had not +noticed 'that part of Johnson's genius, which placed him on +higher ground than perhaps any other quality that can be +named—the universality of his knowledge, the promptness of +his mind in producing it on all occasions in conversation, and +the vivid eloquence with which he clothed his thoughts, however +suddenly called upon.' Parr, regardless of Johnson's rule that +'in lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath' (ante<i>, ii. +407), replied, that if he mentioned his conversation he should +have to mention also his roughness in contradiction, &c. As +for the epithet</i> probabili<i>, he 'never reflected upon it +without almost a triumphant feeling in its felicity.' +Nevertheless he would change it into 'poetae sententiarum et +verborum ponderibus admirabili.' Yet these words, 'energetic and +sonorous' though they were, 'fill one with a secret and +invincible loathing, because they tend to introduce into the +epitaph a character of magnificence.' With every fresh objection +he rose in importance. He wrote for the approbation of real +scholars of generations yet unborn. 'That the epitaph was written +by such or such a man will, from the publicity of the situation, +and the popularity of the subject, be long remembered.' +Johnstone's</i> Life of Parr<i>, iv. 694-712. No objection seems +to have been raised to the five pompous lines of perplexing dates +and numerals in which no room is found even for Johnson's birth +and birth-place.</i></p> +<p>'After I had written the epitaph,' wrote Parr to a friend, +'Sir Joshua Reynolds told me there was a scroll. I was in a rage. +A scroll! Why, Ned, this is vile modern contrivance. I wanted one +train of ideas. What could I do with the scroll? Johnson held it, +and Johnson must speak in it. I thought of this, his favourite +maxim, in the Life of Milton, [Johnson's Works<i>, vii. +77],</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "[Greek: Otti toi en megaroisi kakon t agathon te tetuktai.]." +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>In Homer [Odyssey<i>, iv. 392] you know—and shewing the +excellence of Moral Philosophy. There Johnson and Socrates agree. +Mr. Seward, hearing of my difficulty, and no scholar, suggested +the closing line in the</i> Rambler <i>[</i>ante<i>, i. 226, note +1]; had I looked there I should have anticipated the suggestion. +It is the closing line in Dionysius's</i> Periegesis<i>,</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "[Greek: Anton ek makaron antaxios eiae amoibae.]." +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>I adopted it, and gave Seward the praise. "Oh," quoth Sir +William Scott, "[Greek: makaron] <i>is Heathenish, and the Dean +and Chapter will hesitate." "The more fools they," said I. But to +prevent disputes I have altered it.</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "[Greek: En makaressi ponon antaxios ein amoibae]." + Johnstone's Life of Parr<i>, iv. 713. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Though the inscription on the scroll is not strictly speaking +part of the epitaph, yet this mixture of Greek and Latin is open +to the censure Johnson passed on Pope's Epitaph on Craggs.</p> +<p>'It may be proper to remark,' he said, 'the absurdity of +joining in the same inscription Latin and English, or verse and +prose. If either language be preferable to the other, let that +only be used; for no reason can be given why part of the +information should be given in one tongue and part in another on +a tomb more than in any other place, or on any other occasion.' +Johnson's Works<i>, viii. 353.</i></p> +<p>Bacon the sculptor was anxious, wrote Malone, 'that posterity +should know that he was entitled to annex R.A. to his name.' Parr +was ready to give his name, lest if it were omitted 'Bacon should +slily put the figure of a hog on Johnson's monument'; just as +'Saurus and Batrachus, when Octavia would not give them leave to +set their names on the Temples they had built in Rome, scattered +one of them [Greek: saurai] [lizards], and the other [Greek: +batrachoi] [frogs] on the bases and capitals of the columns.' But +as for the R.A., the sculptor 'very reluctantly had to agree to +its omission.' Johnstone's Parr<i>, iv. 705 and 710.</i></p> +<a name="2HFOO12"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> +<p><a name="note-1">[1]</a> Nothing can +compensate for this want this year of all years. Johnson's health +was better than it had been for long, and his mind happier +perhaps than it had ever been. The knowledge that in his Lives of +the Poets<i>, he had done, and was doing good work, no doubt was +very cheering to him. At no time had he gone more into society, +and at no time does he seem to have enjoyed it with greater +relish. 'How do you think I live?' he wrote on April 25. 'On +Thursday, I dined with Hamilton, and went thence to Mrs. Ord. On +Friday, with much company at Reynolds's. On Saturday, at Dr. +Bell's. On Sunday, at Dr. Burney's; at night, came Mrs. Ord, Mr. +Greville, &c. On Monday with Reynolds, at night with Lady +Lucan; to-day with Mr. Langton; to-morrow with the Bishop of St. +Asaph; on Thursday with Mr. Bowles; Friday ——; +Saturday, at the Academy; Sunday with Mr. Ramsay.'</i> Piozzi +Letters<i>, ii. 107. On May 1, he wrote:—'At Mrs. Ord's, I +met one Mrs. B—— [Buller], a travelled lady, of great +spirit, and some consciousness of her own abilities. We had a +contest of gallantry an hour long, so much to the diversion of +the company that at Ramsay's last night, in a crowded room, they +would have pitted us again. There were Smelt, [one of the King's +favourites] and the Bishop of St. Asaph, who comes to every +place; and Lord Monboddo, and Sir Joshua, and ladies out of +tale.'</i> Ib<i>. p. 111. The account that Langton gives of the +famous evening at Mrs. Vesey's, 'when the company began to +collect round Johnson till they became not less than four, if not +five deep (</i>ante<i>, May 2, 1780), is lively enough; but 'the +particulars of the conversation' which he neglects, Boswell would +have given us in full.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-2">[2]</a> In 1792, +Miss Burney, after recording that Boswell told some of his +Johnsonian stories, continues:—'Mr. Langton told some +stories in imitation of Dr. Johnson; but they became him less +than Mr. Boswell, and only reminded me of what Dr. Johnson +himself once said to me—"Every man has some time in his +life an ambition to be a wag."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, v. +307.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-3">[3]</a> Stephanorum +Historia, vitas ipsorum ac libros complectens<i>. London,</i></p> +<center>1709.</center> +<p><a name="note-4">[4]</a> Senilia +<i>was published in 1742. The line to which Johnson refers is, +'Mel, nervos, fulgur, Carteret, unus, habes,' p. 101. In another +line, the poet celebrates Colley Cibber's Muse—the</i> Musa +Cibberi<i>: 'Multa Cibberum levat aura.' p. 50. See Macaulay's +Essays, ed. 1843, i. 367.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-5">[5]</a> Graecae +Linguae Dialecti in Scholae Westmonast. usum<i>, 1738.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-6">[6]</a> Giannone, an +Italian historian, born 1676, died 1748. When he published his +History of the Kingdom of Naples<i>, a friend congratulating him +on its success, said:—'Mon ami, vous vous êtes mis +une couronne sur la tête, mais une couronne +d'épines.' His attacks on the Church led to persecution, +in the end he made a retractation, but nevertheless he died in +prison.</i> Nouv. Biog. Gén. <i>xx. 422.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-7">[7]</a> See ante<i>, +ii. 119.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-8">[8]</a> 'There is no +kind of impertinence more justly censurable than his who is +always labouring to level thoughts to intellects higher than his +own; who apologises for every word which his own narrowness of +converse inclines him to think unusual; keeps the exuberance of +his faculties under visible restraint; is solicitous to +anticipate inquiries by needless explanations; and endeavours to +shade his own abilities lest weak eyes should be dazzled with +their lustre.' The Rambler<i>, No. 173.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-9">[9]</a> Johnson, in +his Dictionary<i>, defines</i> Anfractuousness <i>as</i> Fulness +of windings and turnings<i>.</i> Anfractuosity <i>is not given. +Lord Macaulay, in the last sentence in his</i> Biography of +Johnson<i>, alludes to this passage.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-10">[10]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 149, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-11">[11]</a> 'My +purpose was to admit no testimony of living authors, that I might +not be misled by partiality, and that none of my contemporaries +might have reason to complain; nor have I departed from this +resolution, but when some performance of uncommon excellence +excited my veneration, when my memory supplied me from late books +with an example that was wanting, or when my heart, in the +tenderness of friendship, solicited admission for a favourite +name.' Johnson's Works<i>, v. 39. He cites himself under</i> +important<i>, Mrs. Lennox under</i> talent<i>, Garrick under</i> +giggler<i>; from Richardson's</i> Clarissa<i>, he makes frequent +quotations. In the fourth edition, published in 1773 +(</i>ante<i>, ii. 203), he often quotes Reynolds; for instance, +under</i> vulgarism<i>, which word is not in the previous +editions. Beattie he quotes under</i> weak<i>, and Gray under</i> +bosom<i>. He introduces also many quotations from Law, and Young. +In the earlier editions, in his quotations from</i> Clarissa<i>, +he very rarely gives the author's name; in the fourth edition I +have found it rarely omitted.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-12">[12]</a> In one of +his Hypochondriacks <i>(</i>London Mag. <i>1782, p. 233) Boswell +writes:—'I have heard it remarked by one, of whom more +remarks deserve to be remembered than of any person I ever knew, +that a man is often as narrow as he is prodigal for want of +counting.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-13">[13]</a> 'Sept. +1778. We began talking of Irene<i>, and Mrs. Thrale made Dr. +Johnson read some passages which I had been remarking as +uncommonly applicable to the present time. He read several +speeches, and told us he had not ever read so much of it before +since it was first printed.' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, i. 96. +'I was told,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'that a gentleman called +Pot, or some such name, was introduced to him as a particular +admirer of his. The Doctor growled and took no further notice. +"He admires in especial your</i> Irene <i>as the finest tragedy +modern times;" to which the Doctor replied, "If Pot says so, Pot +lies!" and relapsed into his reverie.'</i> Croker Corres. <i>ii. +32.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-14">[14]</a> +Scrupulosity <i>was a word that Boswell had caught up from +Johnson. Sir W. Jones (</i>Life<i>, i. 177) wrote in +1776:—'You will be able to examine with the minutest</i> +scrupulosity<i>, as Johnson would call it.' Johnson describes +Addison's prose as 'pure without scrupulosity.'</i> Works<i>, +vii. 472. 'Swift,' he says, 'washed himself with oriental +scrupulosity.'</i> Ib. <i>viii. 222. Boswell (</i>Hebrides<i>, +Aug. 15) writes of 'scrupulosity of conscience.'</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-15">[15]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'When thou didst not, savage, + Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like + A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes + With words that made them known.' + The Tempest<i>, act i. sc. 2. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-16">[16]</a> Secretary +to the British Herring Fishery, remarkable for an extraordinary +number of occasional verses, not of eminent merit. BOSWELL. See +ante<i>, i. 115, note i. Lockman was known in France as the +translator of Voltaire's</i> La Henriade<i>. See Marmontel's +Preface. Voltaire's</i> Works<i>, ed. 1819, viii. 18.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-17">[17]</a> Luke +<i>vii. 50. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-18">[18]</a> Miss +Burney, describing him in 1783, says:—'He looks unformed in +his manners and awkward in his gestures. He joined not one word +in the general talk.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, ii. 237. See</i> +ante<i>, ii. 41, note 1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-19">[19]</a> By +Garrick.</p> +<p><a name="note-20">[20]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 201.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-21">[21]</a> See +post<i>, under Sept. 30, 1783.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-22">[22]</a> The actor. +Churchill introduces him in The Rosciad <i>(</i>Poems<i>, i. +16):—'Next Holland came. With truly tragic stalk, He +creeps, he flies. A Hero should not walk.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-23">[23]</a> In a +letter written by Johnson to a friend in 1742-43, he says: 'I +never see Garrick.' MALONE.</p> +<p><a name="note-24">[24]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 227.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-25">[25]</a> The +Wonder! A Woman keeps a Secret<i>, by Mrs. Centlivre. Acted at +Drury Lane in 1714. Revived by Garrick in 1757. Reed's</i> Biog. +Dram<i>. iii. 420.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-26">[26]</a> In +Macbeth<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-27">[27]</a> Mr. +Longley was Recorder of Rochester, and father of Archbishop +Longley. To the kindness of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Newton +Smart, I owe the following extract from his manuscript +Autobiography<i>:—'Dr. Johnson and General Paoli came down +to visit Mr. Langton, and I was asked to meet them, when the +conversation took place mentioned by Boswell, in which Johnson +gave me more credit for knowledge of the Greek metres than I +deserved. There was some question about anapaestics, concerning +which I happened to remember what Foster used to tell us at Eton, +that the whole line to the</i> Basis Anapaestica <i>was +considered but as one verse, however divided in the printing, and +consequently the syllables at the end of each line were not +common, as in other metres. This observation was new to Johnson, +and struck him. Had he examined me farther, I fear he would have +found me ignorant. Langton was a very good Greek scholar, much +superior to Johnson, to whom nevertheless he paid profound +deference, sometimes indeed I thought more than he deserved. The +next day I dined at Langton's with Johnson, I remember Lady +Rothes [Langton's wife] spoke of the advantage children now +derived from the little books published purposely for their +instruction. Johnson controverted it, asserting that at an early +age it was better to gratify curiosity with wonders than to +attempt planting truth, before the mind was prepared to receive +it, and that therefore,</i> Jack the Giant-Killer, Parisenus and +Parismenus<i>, and</i> The Seven Champions of Christendom <i>were +fitter for them than Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Trimmer.' Mrs. Piozzi +(</i>Anec<i>. p. 16) says:—'Dr. Johnson used to condemn me +for putting Newbery's books into children's hands. "Babies do not +want," said he, "to hear about babies; they like to be told of +giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and +stimulate their little minds." When I would urge the numerous +editions of</i> Tommy Prudent <i>or</i> Goody Two Shoes<i>; +"Remember always," said he, "that the parents buy the books, and +that the children never read them.'" For Johnson's visit to +Rochester, see</i> post<i>, July, 1783.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-28">[28]</a> See +post<i>, beginning of 1781, after</i> The Life of Swift<i>, and +Boswell's</i> Hebrides<i>, Oct. 15.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-29">[29]</a> See +ante<i>, under Sept. 9, 1779.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-30">[30]</a> Johnson +wrote of this grotto (Works<i>, viii. 270):—'It may be +frequently remarked of the studious and speculative that they are +proud of trifles, and that their amusements seem frivolous and +childish.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-31">[31]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 332.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-32">[32]</a> Epilogue +to the Satires<i>, i. 131. Dr. James Foster, the Nonconformist +preacher. Johnson mentions 'the reputation which he had gained by +his proper delivery.'</i> Works<i>, viii. 384. In</i> The +Conversations of Northcote<i>, p. 88, it is stated that 'Foster +first became popular from the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke stopping +in the porch of his chapel in the Old Jewry out of a shower of +rain: and thinking he might as well hear what was going on he +went in, and was so well pleased that he sent all the great folks +to hear him, and he was run after as much as Irving has been in +our time.' Dr. T. Campbell (</i>Diary<i>, p. 34) recorded in +1775, that 'when Mrs. Thrale quoted something from Foster's</i> +Sermons<i>, Johnson flew in a passion, and said that Foster was a +man of mean ability, and of no original thinking.' Gibbon +(</i>Misc. Works<i>, v. 300) wrote of Foster:—'Wonderful! a +divine preferring reason to faith, and more afraid of vice than +of heresy.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-33">[33]</a> It is +believed to have been her play of The Sister<i>, brought out in +1769. 'The audience expressed their disapprobation of it with so +much appearance of prejudice that she would not suffer an attempt +to exhibit it a second time.'</i> Gent. Mag. <i>xxxix. 199. It is +strange, however, if Goldsmith was asked to hiss a play for which +he wrote the epilogue. Goldsmith's</i> Misc. Works<i>, ii. 80. +Johnson wrote on Oct. 28, 1779 (</i>Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. +72):—'C—— L—— accuses +—— of making a party against her play. I always +hissed away the charge, supposing him a man of honour; but I +shall now defend him with less confidence.' Baretti, in a +marginal note, says that C—— L—— is +'Charlotte Lennox.' Perhaps —— stands for Cumberland. +Miss Burney said that 'Mr. Cumberland is notorious for hating and +envying and spiting all authors in the dramatic line.' Mme. +D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, i. 272.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-34">[34]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 255.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-35">[35]</a> In The +Rambler<i>, No. 195, Johnson describes rascals such as this man. +'They hurried away to the theatre, full of malignity and +denunciations against a man whose name they had never heard, and +a performance which they could not understand; for they were +resolved to judge for themselves, and would not suffer the town +to be imposed upon by scribblers. In the pit they exerted +themselves with great spirit and vivacity; called out for the +tunes of obscene songs, talked loudly at intervals of Shakespeare +and Jonson,' &c.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-36">[36]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 469.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-37">[37]</a> Dr. Percy +told Malone 'that they all at the Club had such a high opinion of +Mr. Dyer's knowledge and respect for his judgment as to appeal to +him constantly, and that his sentence was final.' Malone adds +that 'he was so modest and reserved, that he frequently sat +silent in company for an hour, and seldom spoke unless appealed +to. Goldsmith, who used to rattle away upon all <i>subjects, had +been talking somewhat loosely relative to music. Some one wished +for Mr. Dyer's opinion, which he gave with his usual strength and +accuracy. "Why," said Goldsmith, turning round to Dyer, whom he +had scarcely noticed before, "you seem to know a good deal of +this matter." "If I had not," replied Dyer, "I should not, in +this company, have said a word upon the subject."' Burke +described him as 'a man of profound and general erudition; his +sagacity and judgment were fully equal to the extent of his +learning.' Prior's</i> Malone<i>, pp. 419, 424. Malone in his</i> +Life of Dryden<i>, p. 181, says that Dyer was</i> Junius<i>. +Johnson speaks of him as 'the late learned Mr. Dyer.'</i> +Works<i>, viii. 385. Had he been alive he was to have been the +professor of mathematics in the imaginary college at St. Andrews. +Boswell's</i> Hebrides<i>, Aug. 25. Many years after his death, +Johnson bought his portrait to hang in 'a little room that he was +fitting up with prints.' Croker's</i> Boswell<i>, p. 639.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-38">[38]</a> Memoirs of +Agriculture and other Oeconomical Arts<i>, 3 vols., by Robert +Dossie, London, 1768-82.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-39">[39]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 14.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-40">[40]</a> Here Lord +Macartney remarks, 'A Bramin or any cast of the Hindoos will +neither admit you to be of their religion, nor be converted to +yours;—a thing which struck the Portuguese with the +greatest astonishment, when they first discovered the East +Indies.' BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-41">[41]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 250.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-42">[42]</a> See +ante<i>, Aug. 30, 1780.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-43">[43]</a> John, Lord +Carteret, and Earl Granville, who died Jan. 2, 1763. It is +strange that he wrote so ill; for Lord Chesterfield says (Misc. +Works<i>, iv.</i> Appendix<i>, p. 42) that 'he had brought away +with him from Oxford, a great stock of Greek and Latin, and had +made himself master of all the modern languages. He was one of +the best speakers in the House of Lords, both in the declamatory +and argumentative way.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-44">[44]</a> Walpole +describes the partiality of the members of the court-martial that +sat on Admiral Keppel in Jan. 1779. One of them 'declared frankly +that he should not attend to forms of law, but to justice.' So +friendly were the judges to the prisoner that 'it required the +almost unanimous voice of the witnesses in favour of his conduct, +and the vile arts practised against him, to convince all mankind +how falsely and basely he had been accused.' Walpole, referring +to the members, speaks of 'the feelings of seamen unused to +reason.' Some of the leading politicians established themselves +at Portsmouth during the trial. Journal of the Reign of George +III<i>, ii. 329</i></p> +<p><a name="note-45">[45]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 240.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-46">[46]</a> In all +Gray's Odes<i>, there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which we +wish away.... The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural +violence. "Double, double, toil and trouble." He has a kind of +strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tip-toe. His art and +his struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance +of ease and nature.' Johnson's</i> Works<i>, viii. 484-87. +See</i> ante<i>, i. 402, and ii. 327, 335.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-47">[47]</a> One +evening, in the Haymarket Theatre, 'when Foote lighted the King +to his chair, his majesty asked who [sic] the piece was written +by? "By one of your Majesty's chaplains," said Foote, unable even +then to suppress his wit; "and dull enough to have been written +by a bishop."' Forster's Essays<i>, ii. 435. See</i> ante<i>, i. +390, note 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-48">[48]</a> Bk. v. ch. +1.</p> +<p><a name="note-49">[49]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 133, note 1; Boswell's</i> Hebrides<i>, Aug. 27, and +Oct. 28.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-50">[50]</a> The +correspondent of The Gentleman's Magazine <i>[1792, p. 214] who +subscribes himself SCIOLUS furnishes the following +supplement:—</i></p> +<p>'A lady of my acquaintance remembers to have heard her uncle +sing those homely stanzas more than forty-five years ago. He +repeated the second thus:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + She shall breed young lords and ladies fair, + And ride abroad in a coach and three pair, + And the best, &c. + And have a house, &c. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>And remembered a third which seems to have been the +introductory one, and is believed to have been the only remaining +one:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + When the Duke of Leeds shall have made his choice + Of a charming young lady that's beautiful and wise, + She'll be the happiest young gentlewoman under the skies, + As long as the sun and moon shall rise, + And how happy shall, &c. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>It is with pleasure I add that this stanza could never be more +truly applied than at this present time. BOSWELL. This note was +added to the second edition.</p> +<p><a name="note-51">[51]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 115, note 1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-52">[52]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 82.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-53">[53]</a> Baretti, +in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters<i>, i. 121, says:—'Johnson +was a real</i> true-born Englishman<i>. He hated the Scotch, the +French, the Dutch, the Hanoverians, and had the greatest contempt +for all other European nations; such were his early prejudices +which he never attempted to conquer.' Reynolds wrote of +Johnson:—'The prejudices he had to countries did not extend +to individuals. In respect to Frenchmen he rather laughed at +himself, but it was insurmountable. He considered every foreigner +as a fool till they had convinced him of the contrary.' +Taylor's</i> Reynolds<i>, ii. 460. Garrick wrote of the French in +1769:—'Their</i> politesse <i>has reduced their character +to such a sameness, and their humours and passions are so curbed +by habit, that, when you have seen half-a-dozen French men and +women, you have seen the whole.'</i> Garrick Corres<i>. i. +358.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-54">[54]</a> 'There is +not a man or woman here,' wrote Horace Walpole from Paris +(Letters <i>iv. 434), 'that is not a perfect old nurse, and who +does not talk gruel and anatomy with equal fluency and +ignorance.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-55">[55]</a> '"I +remember that interview well," said Dr. Parr with great vehemence +when once reminded of it; "I gave him no quarter." The subject of +our dispute was the liberty of the press. Dr. Johnson was very +great. Whilst he was arguing, I observed that he stamped. Upon +this I stamped. Dr. Johnson said, "Why did you stamp, Dr. Parr?" +I replied, "Because you stamped; and I was resolved not to give +you the advantage even of a stamp in the argument."' This, Parr +said, was by no means his first introduction to Johnson. Field's +Parr<i>, i. 161. Parr wrote to Romilly in 1811:—'Pray let +me ask whether you have ever read some admirable remarks of Mr. +Hutcheson upon the word</i> merit<i>. I remember a controversy I +had with Dr. Johnson upon this very term: we began with theology +fiercely, I gently carried the conversation onward to philosophy, +and after a dispute of more than three hours he lost sight of my +heresy, and came over to my opinion upon the metaphysical import +of the term.'</i> Life of Romilly<i>, ii. 365. When Parr was a +candidate for the mastership of Colchester Grammar School, +Johnson wrote for him a letter of recommendation. Johnstone's</i> +Parr<i>, i. 94.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-56">[56]</a> 'Somebody +was praising Corneille one day in opposition to Shakespeare. +"Corneille is to Shakespeare," replied Mr. Johnson, "as a clipped +hedge is to a forest."' Piozzi's Anec<i>. p. 59.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-57">[57]</a> Johnson, +it is clear, discusses here Mrs. Montagu's Essay on +Shakespeare<i>. She compared Shakespeare first with Corneille, +and then with Aeschylus. In contrasting the ghost in</i> Hamlet +<i>with the shade of Darius in</i> The Persians<i>, she +says:—'The phantom, who was to appear ignorant of what was +past, that the Athenian ear might be soothed and flattered with +the detail of their victory at Salamis, is allowed, for the same +reason, such prescience as to foretell their future triumph at +Plataea.' p. 161.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-58">[58]</a> Caution is +required in everything which is laid before youth, to secure them +from unjust prejudices, perverse opinions, and incongruous +combinations of images. In the romances formerly written, every +transaction and sentiment was so remote from all that passes +among men, that the reader was in very little danger of making +any applications to himself.' The Rambler<i>, No. 4.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-59">[59]</a> Johnson +says of Pope's Ode for St. Cecilia's Day<i>:—'The next +stanzas place and detain us in the dark and dismal regions of +mythology, where neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow +can be found.'</i> Works<i>, viii. 328. Of Gray's</i> Progress of +Poetry<i>, he says:—'The second stanza, exhibiting Mars' +car and Jove's eagle, is unworthy of further notice. Criticism +disdains to chase a school-boy to his common-places.'</i> Ib<i>. +p. 484.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-60">[60]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 178.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-61">[61]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'A Wizard-Dame, the Lover's ancient friend, + With magic charm has deaft thy husband's ear, + At her command I saw the stars descend, + And winged lightnings stop in mid career, &c.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Hammond. Elegy<i>, v. In Boswell's</i> Hebrides <i>(Sept. 29), +he said 'Hammond's</i> Love Elegies <i>were poor things.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-62">[62]</a> Perhaps +Lord Corke and Orrery. Ante<i>, iii. 183. CROKER.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-63">[63]</a> Colman +assumed that Johnson had maintained that Shakespeare was totally +ignorant of the learned languages. He then quotes a line to prove +'that the author of The Taming of the Shrew <i>had at least read +Ovid;' and continues:—'And what does Dr. Johnson say on +this occasion? Nothing. And what does Mr. Farmer say on this +occasion? Nothing.' Colman's</i> Terence<i>, ii. 390. For Farmer, +see</i> ante<i>, iii. 38.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-64">[64]</a> 'It is +most likely that Shakespeare had learned Latin sufficiently to +make him acquainted with construction, but that he never advanced +to an easy perusal of the Roman authors.' Johnson's Works<i>, V. +129. 'The style of Shakespeare was in itself ungrammatical, +perplexed, and obscure.'</i> Ib<i>. p. 135.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-65">[65]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'May I govern my passion with + an absolute sway, + And grow wiser and better, as + my strength wears away, + Without gout or stone by a + gentle decay.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>The Old Man's Wish <i>was sung to Sir Roger de Coverley by +'the fair one,' after the collation in which she ate a couple of +chickens, and drank a full bottle of wine.</i> Spectator<i>, No. +410. 'What signifies our wishing?' wrote Dr. Franklin. 'I have +sung that</i> wishing song <i>a thousand times when I was young, +and now find at fourscore that the three contraries have befallen +me, being subject to the gout and the stone, and not being yet +master of all my passions.' Franklin's</i> Memoirs<i>, iii. +185.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-66">[66]</a> He uses +the same image in The Life of Milton <i>(</i>Works<i>, vii. +104):—'He might still be a giant among the pigmies, the +one-eyed monarch of the blind.' Cumberland (</i>Memoirs<i>, i. +39) says that Bentley, hearing it maintained that Barnes spoke +Greek almost like his mother tongue, replied:—'Yes, I do +believe that Barnes had as much Greek and understood it about as +well as an Athenian blacksmith.' See</i> ante<i>, iii 284. A +passage in Wooll's</i> Life of Dr. Warton <i>(i. 313) shews that +Barnes attempted to prove that Homer and Solomon were one and the +same man. But I. D'Israeli says that it was reported that Barnes, +not having money enough to publish his edition of</i> Homer<i>, +'wrote a poem, the design of which is to prove that Solomon was +the author of the</i> Iliad<i>, to interest his wife, who had +some property, to lend her aid towards the publication of so +divine a work.'</i> Calamities of Authors<i>, i. 250.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-67">[67]</a> 'The first +time Suard saw Burke, who was at Reynolds's, Johnson touched him +on the shoulder and said, "Le grand Burke."' Boswelliana<i>, p. +299. See ante, ii. 450.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-68">[68]</a> Miss +Hawkins (Memoirs<i>, i. 279, 288) says that Langton told her +father that he meant to give his six daughters such a knowledge +of Greek, 'that while five of them employed themselves in +feminine works, the sixth should read a Greek author for the +general amusement.' She describes how 'he would get into the most +fluent recitation of half a page of Greek, breaking off for fear +of wearying, by saying, "and so it goes on," accompanying his +words with a gentle wave of his hand.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-69">[69]</a> See post, +p. 42.</p> +<p><a name="note-70">[70]</a> See ante, +i. 326.</p> +<p><a name="note-71">[71]</a> This +assertion concerning Johnson's insensibility to the pathetick +powers of Otway, is too round<i>. I once asked him, whether he +did not think Otway frequently tender: when he answered, 'Sir, he +is all tenderness.' BURNEY. He describes Otway as 'one of the +first names in the English drama.'</i> Works<i>, vii. +173.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-72">[72]</a> See ante, +April 16, 1779.</p> +<p><a name="note-73">[73]</a> Johnson; +it seems, took up this study. In July, 1773, he recorded that +between Easter and Whitsuntide, he attempted to learn the Low +Dutch language. 'My application,' he continues, 'was very slight, +and my memory very fallacious, though whether more than in my +earlier years, I am not very certain.' Pr. and Med. <i>p. 129, +and ante, ii. 263. On his death-bed, he said to Mr. +Hoole:—'About two years since I feared that I had neglected +God, and that then I had not a</i> mind <i>to give him; on which +I set about to read</i> Thomas à Kempis <i>in Low Dutch, +which I accomplished, and thence I judged that my mind was not +impaired, Low Dutch having no affinity with any of the languages +which I knew.' Croker's</i> Boswell<i>, p. 844. See ante, iii. +235.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-74">[74]</a> See post, +under July 5, 1783.</p> +<p><a name="note-75">[75]</a> See ante, +ii. 409, and iii. 197.</p> +<p><a name="note-76">[76]</a> One of +Goldsmith's friends 'remembered his relating [about the year +1756] a strange Quixotic scheme he had in contemplation of going +to decipher the inscriptions on the written mountains<i>, though +he was altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which +they might be supposed to be written.' Goldsmith's</i> Misc. +Works<i>, ed. 1801, i. 40. Percy says that Goldsmith applied to +the prime minister, Lord Bute, for a salary to enable him to +execute 'the visionary project' mentioned in the text. 'To +prepare the way, he drew up that ingenious essay on this subject +which was first printed in the</i> Ledger<i>, and afterwards in +his</i> Citizen of the World <i>[No. 107].'</i> Ib<i>. p. 65. +Percy adds that the Earl of Northumberland, who was Lord +Lieutenant of Ireland, regretted 'that he had not been made +acquainted with his plan; for he would have procured him a +sufficient salary on the Irish establishment.' Goldsmith, in his +review of Van Egmont's</i> Travels in Asia<i>, says:—'Could +we see a man set out upon this journey [to Asia] not with an +intent to consider rocks and rivers, but the manners, and the +mechanic inventions, and the imperfect learning of the +inhabitants; resolved to penetrate into countries as yet little +known, and eager to pry into all their secrets, with an heart not +terrified at trifling dangers; if there could be found a man who +could unite this true courage with sound learning, from such a +character we might hope much information.' Goldsmith's</i> +Works<i>, ed. 1854, iv. 225. Johnson would have gone to +Constantinople, as he himself said, had he received his pension +twenty years earlier.</i> Post<i>, p. 27.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-77">[77]</a> It should +be remembered, that this was said twenty-five or thirty years +ago, [written in 1799,] when lace was very generally worn. +MALONE. 'Greek and Latin,' said Porson, 'are only luxuries.' +Rogers's Table Talk<i>, p. 325.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-78">[78]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 8.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-79">[79]</a> Dr. +Johnson, in his Life of Cowley<i>, says, that these are 'the only +English verses which Bentley is known to have written.' I shall +here insert them, and hope my readers will apply them.</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Who strives to mount Parnassus' hill, + And thence poetick laurels bring, + Must first acquire due force and skill, + Must fly with swan's or eagle's wing. + Who Nature's treasures would explore, + Her mysteries and arcana know; + Must high as lofty Newton soar, + Must stoop as delving Woodward low. + Who studies ancient laws and rites, + Tongues, arts, and arms, and history; + Must drudge, like Selden, days and nights, + And in the endless labour die. + Who travels in religious jars, + (Truth mixt with errour, shades with rays;) + Like Whiston, wanting pyx or stars, + In ocean wide or sinks or strays. + But grant our hero's hope, long toil + And comprehensive genius crown, + All sciences, all arts his spoil, + Yet what reward, or what renown? + Envy, innate in vulgar souls, + Envy steps in and stops his rise, + Envy with poison'd tarnish fouls + His lustre, and his worth decries. + He lives inglorious or in want, + To college and old books confin'd; + Instead of learn'd he's call'd pedant, + Dunces advanc'd, he's left behind: + Yet left content a genuine Stoick he, + Great without patron, rich without South Sea.' BOSWELL. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>In Mr. Croker's octavo editions, arts <i>in the fifth stanza +is changed into</i> hearts<i>. J. Boswell, jun., gives the +following reading of the first four lines of the last stanza, not +from</i> Dodsley's Collection<i>, but from an earlier one, +called</i> The Grove<i>.</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Inglorious or by wants inthralled, + To college and old books confined, + A pedant from his learning called, + Dunces advanced, he's left behind.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-80">[80]</a> Bentley, +in the preface to his edition of Paradise Lost<i>, +says:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Sunt et mihi carmina; me quoque dicunt + Vatem pastores: sed non ego credulus illis.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-81">[81]</a> The +difference between Johnson and Smith is apparent even in this +slight instance. Smith was a man of extraordinary application, +and had his mind crowded with all manner of subjects; but the +force, acuteness, and vivacity of Johnson were not to be found +there. He had book-making so much in his thoughts, and was so +chary of what might be turned to account in that way, that he +once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he made it a rule, when in +company, never to talk of what he understood. Beauclerk had for a +short time a pretty high opinion of Smith's conversation. +Garrick, after listening to him for a while, as to one of whom +his expectations had been raised, turned slyly to a friend, and +whispered him, 'What say you to this?—eh? flabby<i>, I +think.' BOSWELL. Dr. A. Carlyle (</i>Auto<i>. p. 279), +says:—'Smith's voice was harsh and enunciation thick, +approaching to stammering. His conversation was not colloquial, +but like lecturing. He was the most absent man in company that I +ever saw, moving his lips, and talking to himself, and smiling in +the midst of large companies. If you awaked him from his reverie +and made him attend to the subject of conversation, he +immediately began a harangue, and never stopped till he told you +all he knew about it, with the utmost philosophical ingenuity.' +Dugald Stewart (</i>Life of Adam Smith<i>, p. 117) says that 'his +consciousness of his tendency to absence rendered his manner +somewhat embarrassed in the company of strangers.' But 'to his +intimate friends, his peculiarities added an inexpressible charm +to his conversation, while they displayed in the most interesting +light the artless simplicity of his heart.'</i> Ib<i>. p. 113. +See also Walpole's</i> Letters<i>, vi. 302, and</i> ante<i>, ii. +430, note 1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-82">[82]</a> Garrick +himself was a good deal of an infidel: see ante<i>, ii. 85, note +7.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-83">[83]</a> Ante<i>, +i. 181.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-84">[84]</a> The +Tempest, act iv. sc. i. In The Rambler<i>, No. 127, Johnson +writes of men who have 'borne opposition down before them, and +left emulation panting behind.' He quotes (</i>Works<i>, vii. +261) the following couplet by Dryden:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Fate after him below with pain did move, + And victory could scarce keep pace above.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Young in The Last Day<i>, book I, had written:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Words all in vain pant after the distress.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-85">[85]</a> I am sorry +to see in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh<i>, +vol. ii,</i> An Essay on the Character of Hamlet<i>, written, I +should suppose, by a very young man, though called 'Reverend;' +who speaks with presumptuous petulance of the first literary +character of his age. Amidst a cloudy confusion of words, (which +hath of late too often passed in Scotland for</i> +Metaphysicks<i>,) he thus ventures to criticise one of the +noblest lines in our language:—'Dr. Johnson has remarked, +that "time toil'd after him in vain." But I should apprehend, +that this is</i> entirely to mistake the character<i>. Time toils +after</i> every great man<i>, as well after Shakspeare. The</i> +workings <i>of an ordinary mind</i> keep pace<i>, indeed, with +time; they move no faster;</i> they have their beginning, their +middle, and their end<i>; but superiour natures can</i> reduce +these into a point<i>. They do not, indeed,</i> suppress <i>them; +but they</i> suspend<i>, or they</i> lock them up in the +breast<i>.' The learned Society, under whose sanction such gabble +is ushered into the world, would do well to offer a premium to +any one who will discover its meaning. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-86">[86]</a> 'May 29, +1662. Took boat and to Fox-hall, where I had not been a great +while. To the old Spring Garden, and there walked long.' Pepys's +Diary<i>, i. 361. The place was afterwards known as Faux-hall and +Vauxhall. See</i> ante<i>, iii. 308.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-87">[87]</a> 'One that +wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service and art nothing but the +composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar.' King Lear<i>, +act ii. sc. 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-88">[88]</a> Yet W.G. +Hamilton said:—'Burke understands everything but gaming and +music. In the House of Commons I sometimes think him only the +second man in England; out of it he is always the first.' Prior's +Burke<i>, p. 484. See</i> ante<i>, ii. 450. Bismarck once 'rang +the bell' to old Prince Metternich. 'I listened quietly,' he +said, 'to all his stories, merely jogging the bell every now and +then till it rang again. That pleases these talkative old men.' +DR. BUSCH, quoted in Lowe's</i> Prince Bismarck<i>, i. +130.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-89">[89]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 470, for his disapproval of 'studied +behaviour.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-90">[90]</a> Johnson +had perhaps Dr. Warton in mind. Ante<i>, ii. 41, note 1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-91">[91]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 471, and iii. 165.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-92">[92]</a> 'Oblivion +is a kind of annihilation.' Sir Thomas Browne's Christian +Morals<i>, sect. xxi.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-93">[93]</a> 'Nec te +quaesiveris extra.' Persius, Sat<i>. i. 7. We may compare +Milton's line,</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'In himself was all his state.' + Paradise Lost<i>, v. 353. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-94">[94]</a> See ante, +<i>iii. 269.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-95">[95]</a> 'A work of +this kind must, in a minute examination, discover many +imperfections; but West's version, so far as I have considered +it, appears to be the product of great labour and great +abilities.' Johnson's Works, <i>viii. 398.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-96">[96]</a> See +Boswell's Hebrides, <i>Aug. 25, 1773.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-97">[97]</a> See ante, +<i>i. 82, and ii. 228.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-98">[98]</a> See ante, +<i>i. 242.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-99">[99]</a> See +Boswell's Hebrides<i>, under Nov. 11.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-100">[100]</a> A +literary lady has favoured me with a characteristick anecdote of +Richardson. One day at his country-house at Northend, where a +large company was assembled at dinner, a gentleman who was just +returned from Paris, willing to please Mr. Richardson, mentioned +to him a very flattering circumstance,—that he had seen his +Clarissa <i>lying on the King's brother's table. Richardson +observing that part of the company were engaged in talking to +each other, affected then not to attend to it. But by and by, +when there was a general silence, and he thought that the +flattery might be fully heard, he addressed himself to the +gentleman, 'I think, Sir, you were saying something +about,—' pausing in a high flutter of expectation. The +gentleman provoked at his inordinate vanity, resolved not to +indulge it, and with an exquisitely sly air of indifference +answered, 'A mere trifle Sir, not worth repeating.' The +mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten +words more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and appeared +to enjoy it much. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-101">[101]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'E'en in a bishop I can spy desert; + Seeker is decent, Rundel has a heart.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Pope, Epil. to Sat<i>. ii. 70. Horace Walpole wrote on Aug. +4,1768 (Letters, v. 115):—'We have lost our Pope. +Canterbury [Archbishop Seeker] died yesterday. He had never been +a Papist, but almost everything else. Our Churchmen will not be +Catholics; that stock seems quite fallen.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-102">[102]</a> Perhaps +the Earl of Corke. Ante<i>, iii. 183.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-103">[103]</a> Garrick +perhaps borrowed this saying when, in his epigram on Goldsmith, +speaking of the ideas of which his head was full, he +said:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'When his mouth opened all were in a pother, + Rushed to the door and tumbled o'er each other, + But rallying soon with all their force again, + In bright array they issued from his pen.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Fitzgerald's Garrick<i>, ii. 363. See</i> ante<i>, ii. +231.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-104">[104]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 116, and ii. 52.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-105">[105]</a> Horace +Walpole (Letters<i>, ix. 318) writes of Boswell's</i> Life of +Johnson:<i>—'Dr. Blagden says justly, that it is a new kind +of libel, by which you may abuse anybody, by saying some dead +person said so and so of somebody alive.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-106">[106]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. III. In the</i> Gent. Mag. <i>1770, p. 78, is a +review of</i> A Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D.<i>, 'that is +generally imputed to Mr. Wilkes.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-107">[107]</a> 'Do you +conceive the full force of the word CONSTITUENT? It has the same +relation to the House of Commons as Creator to creature.' A +Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D.<i>, p. 23.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-108">[108]</a> His +profound admiration of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE was such as to set +him above that 'Philosophy and vain deceit' [Colossians<i>, ii. +8] with which men of narrower conceptions have been infected. I +have heard him strongly maintain that 'what is right is not so +from any natural fitness, but because GOD wills it to be right;' +and it is certainly so, because he has predisposed the relations +of things so as that which he wills must be right. BOSWELL. +Johnson was as much opposed as the Rev. Mr. Thwackum to the +philosopher Square, who 'measured all actions by the unalterable +rule of right and the eternal fitness of things.'</i> Tom +Jones<i>, book iii. ch. 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-109">[109]</a> In +Rasselas <i>(ch. ii.) we read that the prince's look 'discovered +him to receive some solace of the miseries of life, from +consciousness of the delicacy with which he felt, and the +eloquence with which he bewailed them.' See</i> ante<i>, April 8, +1780.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-110">[110]</a> I hope +the authority of the great Master of our language will stop that +curtailing innovation, by which we see critic, public<i>, +&c., frequently written instead of</i> critick, publick<i>, +&c. BOSWELL. Boswell had always been nice in his spelling. In +the Preface to his</i> Corsica<i>, published twenty-four years +before</i> The Life of Johnson<i>, he defends his peculiarities, +and says:—'If this work should at any future period be +reprinted, I hope that care will be taken of my orthography.' Mr. +Croker says that in a memorandum in Johnson's writing he has +found '</i>cubic <i>feet.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-111">[111]</a> +'Disorders of intellect,' answered Imlac, 'happen much more often +than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps, if we +speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right +state.' Rasselas<i>, ch. 44.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-112">[112]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 397, for Kit Smart's madness in praying.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-113">[113]</a> Yet he +gave lessons in Latin to Miss Burney and Miss Thrale. Mme. +D'Arblay's Diary<i>, i. 243. In Skye he said, 'Depend upon it, no +woman is the worse for sense and knowledge.' Boswell's</i> +Hebrides<i>, Sept. 19.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-114">[114]</a> See +ante<i>, iii, 240.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-115">[115]</a> Nos. +588, 601, 626 and 635. The first number of the Spectator <i>was +written by Addison, the last by Grove. See</i> ante<i>, iii. 33, +for Johnson's praise of No. 626.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-116">[116]</a> Sterne +is of a direct contrary opinion. See his Sentimental Journey<i>, +Article, 'The Mystery.' BOSWELL. Sterne had been of the same +opinion as Johnson, for he says that the beggar he saw +'confounded all kind of reasoning upon him.' 'He passed by me,' +he continues, 'without asking anything—and yet he did not +go five steps farther before he asked charity of a little +woman—I was much more likely to have given of the two. He +had scarce done with the woman, when he pulled his hat off to +another who was coming the same way.—An ancient gentleman +came slowly—and, after him, a young smart one—He let +them both pass, and asked nothing; I stood observing him half an +hour, in which time he had made a dozen turns backwards and +forwards, and found that he invariably pursued the same +plan.'</i> Sentimental Journey<i>, ed. 1775, ii. 105.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-117">[117]</a> Very +likely Dr. Warton. Ante<i>, ii. 41.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-118">[118]</a> I differ +from Mr. Croker in the explanation of this ill-turned sentence. +The shield <i>that Homer may hold up is the observation made by +Mrs. Fitzherbert. It was this observation that Johnson respected +as a very fine one. For his high opinion of that lady's +understanding, see</i> ante<i>, i. 83.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-119">[119]</a> In +Boswelliana <i>(p. 323) are recorded two more of Langton's +Anecdotes. 'Mr. Beauclerk told Dr. Johnson that Dr. James said to +him he knew more Greek than Mr. Walmesley. "Sir," said he, "Dr. +James did not know enough of Greek to be sensible of his +ignorance of the language. Walmesley did."' See</i> ante<i>, i. +81. 'A certain young clergyman used to come about Dr. Johnson. +The Doctor said it vexed him to be in his company, his ignorance +was so hopeless. "Sir," said Mr. Langton, "his coming about you +shows he wishes to help his ignorance." "Sir," said the Doctor, +"his ignorance is so great, I am afraid to show him the bottom of +it."'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-120">[120]</a> Dr. +Francklin. See ante<i>, iii. 83, note 3. Churchill attacked him +in</i> The Rosciad <i>(Poems, ii. 4). When, he says, it came to +the choice of a judge,</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Others for Francklin voted; but 'twas known, + He sickened at all triumphs but his own.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-121">[121]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 241, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-122">[122]</a> Pr. and +Med<i>. p.190. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-123">[123]</a> Ib<i>. +174. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-124">[124]</a> 'Mr. +Fowke once observed to Dr. Johnson that, in his opinion, the +Doctor's literary strength lay in writing biography, in which he +infinitely exceeded all his contemporaries. "Sir," said Johnson, +"I believe that is true. The dogs don't know how to write trifles +with dignity."'—R. Warner's Original Letters<i>, p. +204.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-125">[125]</a> His +design is thus announced in his Advertisement<i>: 'The +Booksellers having determined to publish a body of English +Poetry, I was persuaded to promise them a Preface to the works of +each authour; an undertaking, as it was then presented to my +mind, not very tedious or difficult.</i></p> +<p>'My purpose was only to have allotted to every poet an +Advertisement, like that [in original those<i>] which we find in +the French Miscellanies, containing a few dates, and a general +character; but I have been led beyond my intention, I hope by the +honest desire of giving useful pleasure.' BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-126">[126]</a> +Institutiones<i>, liber i, Prooemium 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-127">[127]</a> 'He had +bargained for two hundred guineas, and the booksellers +spontaneously added a third hundred; on this occasion Dr. Johnson +observed to me, "Sir, I always said the booksellers were a +generous set of men. Nor, in the present instance, have I reason +to complain. The fact is, not that they have paid me too little, +but that I have written too much." The Lives <i>were soon +published in a separate edition; when, for a very few +corrections, he was presented with another hundred guineas.' +Nichols's</i> Lit. Anec. <i>viii. 416. See</i> ante<i>, iii. 111. +In Mr. Morrison's</i> Collection of Autographs <i>&c., vol. +ii, 'is Johnson's receipt for 100</i>l<i>., from the proprietors +of</i> The Lives of the Poets <i>for revising the last edition of +that work.' It is dated Feb. 19, 1783. 'Underneath, in Johnson's +autograph, are these words: "It is great impudence to put</i> +Johnson's Poets <i>on the back of books which Johnson neither +recommended nor revised. He recommended only Blackmore on the +Creation, and Watts. How then are they Johnson's? This is +indecent."' The poets whom Johnson recommended were Blackmore, +Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden.</i> Ante<i>, under Dec. 29, +1778.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-128">[128]</a> Gibbon +says of the last five quartos of the six that formed his +History<i>:—'My first rough manuscript, without any +intermediate copy, has been sent to the press.'</i> Misc. +Works<i>, i. 255. In the</i> Memoir of Goldsmith<i>, prefixed to +his</i> Misc. Works<i>, i. 113, it is said:—'In whole +quires of his</i> Histories<i>,</i> Animated Nature<i>, &c., +he had seldom occasion to correct or alter a single word.' +See</i> ante<i>, i. 203.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-129">[129]</a> From +Waller's Of Loving at First Sight<i>. Waller's</i> Poems, +Miscellanies<i>, xxxiv.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-130">[130]</a> He +trusted greatly to his memory. If it did not retain anything +exactly, he did not think himself bound to look it up. Thus in +his criticism on Congreve (Works<i>, viii. 31) he says:—'Of +his plays I cannot speak distinctly; for since I inspected them +many years have passed.' In a note on his</i> Life of Rowe<i>, +Nichols says:—'This</i> Life <i>is a very remarkable +instance of the uncommon strength of Dr. Johnson's memory. When I +received from him the MS. he complacently observed that the +criticism was tolerably well done, considering that he had not +read one of Rowe's plays for thirty years.'</i> Ib<i>. vii. +417.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-131">[131]</a> +Thus:—'In the Life of Waller<i>, Mr. Nichols will find a +reference to the</i> Parliamentary History <i>from which a long +quotation is to be inserted. If Mr. Nichols cannot easily find +the book, Mr. Johnson will send it from Streatham.'</i></p> +<p>'Clarendon is here returned.'</p> +<p>'By some accident, I laid your <i>note upon Duke up so safely, +that I cannot find it. Your informations have been of great use +to me. I must beg it again; with another list of our authors, for +I have laid that with the other. I have sent Stepney's Epitaph. +Let me have the revises as soon as can be. Dec. 1778.'</i></p> +<p>'I have sent Philips, with his Epitaphs, to be inserted. The +fragment of a preface is hardly worth the impression, but that we +may seem to do something. It may be added to the Life of +Philips<i>. The Latin page is to be added to the</i> Life of +Smith<i>. I shall be at home to revise the two sheets of Milton. +March 1, 1779.'</i></p> +<p>'Please to get me the last edition of Hughes's Letters<i>; and +try to get</i> Dennis upon Blackmore<i>, and upon Calo, and any +thing of the same writer against Pope. Our materials are +defective.'</i></p> +<p>'As Waller professed to have imitated Fairfax, do you think a +few pages of Fairfax would enrich our edition? Few readers have +seen it, and it may please them. But it is not necessary.'</p> +<p>'An account of the Lives and works of some of the most eminent +English Poets. By, &c.—"The English Poets, +biographically and critically considered, by SAM. +JOHNSON."—Let Mr. Nichols take his choice, or make another +to his mind. May, 1781.'</p> +<p>'You somehow forgot the advertisement for the new edition. It +was not inclosed. Of Gay's Letters <i>I see not that any use can +be made, for they give no information of any thing. That he was a +member of the Philosophical Society is something; but surely he +could be but a corresponding member. However, not having his life +here, I know not how to put it in, and it is of little +importance.'</i></p> +<p>See several more in The Gent. Mag.<i>, 1785. The Editor of +that Miscellany, in which Johnson wrote for several years, seems +justly to think that every fragment of so great a man is worthy +of being preserved. BOSWELL. In the original MS. in the British +Museum,</i> Your <i>in the third paragraph of this note is not in +italics. Johnson writes his correspondent's name</i> +Nichols<i>,</i> Nichol<i>, and</i> Nicol<i>. In the fourth +paragraph he writes, first</i> Philips<i>, and next</i> +Phillips<i>. His spelling was sometimes careless,</i> ante<i>, i. +260, note 2. In the</i> Gent. Mag. <i>for 1785, p. 10, another of +these notes is published:—'In reading Rowe in your edition, +which is very impudently called mine, I observed a little piece +unnaturally and odiously obscene. I was offended, but was still +more offended when I could not find it in Rowe's genuine volumes. +To admit it had been wrong; to interpolate it is surely worse. If +I had known of such a piece in the whole collection, I should +have been angry. What can be done?' In a note, Mr. Nichols says +that this piece 'has not only appeared in the</i> Works <i>of +Rowe, but has been transplanted by Pope into the</i> Miscellanies +<i>he published in his own name and that of Dean Swift.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-132">[132]</a> He +published, in 1782, a revised edition of Baker's Biographia +Dramatica<i>. Baker was a grandson of De Foe.</i> Gent. Mag. +<i>1782, p. 77.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-133">[133]</a> Dryden +writing of satiric poetry, says:—'Had I time I could +enlarge on the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which are +as requisite in this as in heroic poetry itself; of which the +satire is undoubtedly a species. With these beautiful turns I +confess myself to have been unacquainted, till about twenty years +ago, in a conversation which I had with that noble wit of +Scotland, Sir George Mackenzie, he asked me why I did not imitate +in my verses the turns of Mr. Waller, and Sir John Denham. ... +This hint, thus seasonably given me, first made me sensible of my +own wants, and brought me afterwards to seek for the supply of +them in other English authors. I looked over the darling of my +youth, the famous Cowley.' Dryden's Works<i>, ed. 1821, xiii. +III.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-134">[134]</a> In one +of his letters to Nichols, Johnson says:—'You have now all +Cowley. I have been drawn to a great length, but Cowley or Waller +never had any critical examination before.' Gent. Mag. <i>1785, +p.9.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-135">[135]</a> Life of +Sheffield<i>. BOSWELL. Johnson's</i> Works<i>, vii. 485.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-136">[136]</a> See, +however, p.11 of this volume, where the same remark is made and +Johnson is there speaking of prose<i>. MALONE.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-137">[137]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Purpureus, late qui splendeat unus et alter + Assuitur pannus.' + '... Shreds of purple with broad lustre shine + Sewed on your poem.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>FRANCIS. Horace, Ars Poet<i>. 15.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-138">[138]</a> The +original reading is enclosed in crochets, and the present one is +printed in Italicks. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-139">[139]</a> I have +noticed a few words which, to our ears, are more uncommon than at +least two of the three that Boswell mentions; as, 'Languages +divaricate,' Works<i>, vii. 309; 'The mellifluence of Pope's +numbers,'</i> ib. <i>337; 'A subject flux and transitory,'</i> +ib. <i>389; 'His prose is pure without scrupulosity,'</i> ib. +<i>472; 'He received and accommodated the ladies' (said of one +serving behind the counter),</i> ib. <i>viii. 62; 'The prevalence +of this poem was gradual,'</i> ib. <i>p. 276; 'His style is +sometimes concatenated,'</i> ib. <i>p. 458. Boswell, on the next +page, supplies one more instance—'Images such as the +superficies of nature readily supplies.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-140">[140]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 249.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-141">[141]</a> +Veracious is perhaps one of the 'four or five words' which +Johnson added, or thought that he added, to the English language. +Ante<i>, i. 221. He gives it in his</i> Dictionary<i>, but +without any authority for it. It is however older than his +time.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-142">[142]</a> See +Johnson's Works<i>, vii. 134, 212, and viii. 386.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-143">[143]</a> Horace +Walpole (Letters<i>, vii. 452) writes of Johnson's +'</i>Billingsgate on Milton<i>.' A later letter shows that, like +so many of Johnson's critics, he had not read the</i> +Life<i>.</i> Ib<i>. p. 508.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-144">[144]</a> +Works<i>, vii. 108.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-145">[145]</a> Thirty +years earlier he had written of Milton as 'that poet whose works +may possibly be read when every other monument of British +greatness shall be obliterated.' Ante<i>, i. 230. See</i> +ante<i>, ii. 239.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-146">[146]</a> Earl +Stanhope (Life of Pitt<i>, ii. 65) describes this Society in +1790, 'as a Club, till then of little note, which had a yearly +festival in commemoration of the events of 1688. It had been +new-modelled, and enlarged with a view to the transactions at +Paris, but still retained its former name to imply a close +connection between the principles of 1688 in England, and the +principles of 1789 in France.' The Earl Stanhope of that day +presided at the anniversary meeting on Nov. 4, 1789. Nov. 4 was +the day on which William III. landed.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-147">[147]</a> See An +Essay on the Life, Character, and writings of Dr. Samuel +Johnson<i>, London, 1787; which is very well written, making a +proper allowance for the democratical bigotry of its authour; +whom I cannot however but admire for his liberality in speaking +thus of my illustrious friend:—</i></p> +<p>'He possessed extraordinary powers of understanding, which +were much cultivated by study, and still more by meditation and +reflection. His memory was remarkably retentive, his imagination +uncommonly vigorous, and his judgement keen and penetrating. He +had a strong sense of the importance of religion; his piety was +sincere, and sometimes ardent; and his zeal for the interests of +virtue was often manifested in his conversation and in his +writings. The same energy which was displayed in his literary +productions was exhibited also in his conversation, which was +various, striking, and instructive; and perhaps no man ever +equalled him for nervous and pointed repartees.'</p> +<p>'His Dictionary<i>, his moral Essays, and his productions in +polite literature, will convey useful instruction, and elegant +entertainment, as long as the language in which they are written +shall be understood.' BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-148">[148]</a> Boswell +paraphrases the following passage:—'The King, with lenity +of which the world has had perhaps no other example, declined to +be the judge or avenger of his own or his father's wrongs; and +promised to admit into the Act of Oblivion all, except those whom +the Parliament should except; and the Parliament doomed none to +capital punishment but the wretches who had immediately +co-operated in the murder of the King. Milton was certainly not +one of them; he had only justified what they had done.' Johnson's +Works<i>, vii. 95.</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> +<a name="note-149">149</a> + 'Though fall'n on evil days, + On evil days though fall'n and evil tongues, + In darkness, and with dangers compast round.' + Paradise Lost<i>, vii. 26. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-150">[150]</a> +Johnson's Works<i>, vii. 105.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-151">[151]</a> 'His +political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly +republican.' Ib<i>. p. 116.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-152">[152]</a> 'What we +know of Milton's character in domestick relations is, that he was +severe and arbitrary.' Ib. <i>p. 116.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-153">[153]</a> 'His +theological opinions are said to have been first, Calvinistical; +and afterwards, perhaps when he began to hate the Presbyterians, +to have tended towards Arminianism.... He appears to have been +untainted by any heretical peculiarity of opinion.' Ib. <i>p. +115.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-154">[154]</a> Mr. +Malone things it is rather a proof that he felt nothing of those +cheerful sensations which he has described: that on these topicks +it is the poet<i>, and not the</i> man<i>, that writes. +BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-155">[155]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 427, ii. 124, and iv. 20, for Johnson's condemnation +of blank verse. This condemnations was not universal. Of Dryden, +he wrote (</i>Works<i>, vii. 249):—'He made rhyming +tragedies, till, by the prevalence of manifest propriety, he +seems to have grown ashamed of making them any longer.' His +own</i> Irene <i>is in blank verse; though Macaulay justly +remarks of it:—'He had not the slightest notion of what +blank verse should be.' (Macaulay's</i> Writings and Speeches<i>, +ed. 1871, p. 380.) Of Thomson's</i> Seasons<i>, he says +(</i>Works<i>, vii. 377):—'His is one of the works in which +blank verse seems properly used.' Of Young's</i> Night +Thoughts<i>:—'This is one of the few poems in which blank +verse could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage.'</i> +Ib<i>. p. 460. Of Milton himself, he writes:—'Whatever be +the advantages of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myself to wish that +Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish his work to be other +than it is; yet, like other heroes, he is to be admired rather +than imitated.'</i> Ib<i>. vii. 142. How much he felt the power +of Milton's blank verse is shewn by his</i> Rambler<i>, No. 90, +where, after stating that 'the noblest and most majestick pauses +which our versification admits are upon the fourth and sixth +syllables,' he adds:—' Some passages [in Milton] which +conclude at this stop [the sixth syllable] I could never read +without some strong emotions of delight or admiration.' 'If,' he +continues, 'the poetry of Milton be examined with regard to the +pauses and flow of his verses into each other, it will appear +that he has performed all that our language would admit.' Cowper +was so indignant at Johnson's criticism of Milton's blank verse +that he wrote:—'Oh! I could thresh his old jacket till I +made his pension jingle in his pocket.' Southey's</i> Cowper<i>, +iii. 315.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-156">[156]</a> One of +the most natural instances of the effect of blank verse occurred +to the late Earl of Hopeton. His Lordship observed one of his +shepherds poring in the fields upon Milton's Paradise Lost<i>; +and having asked him what book it was, the man answered, 'An't +please your Lordship, this is a very odd sort of an authour: he +would fain rhyme, but cannot get at it.' BOSWELL. 'The variety of +pauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verse, changes the +measures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer; and +there are only a few skilful and happy readers of Milton, who +enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or begin. +"Blank verse," said an ingenious critick, "seems to be verse only +to the eye."' Johnson's</i> Works<i>, vii. 141. In the</i> Life +of Roscommon <i>(</i>ib<i>. p. 171), he says:—'A poem +frigidly didactick, without rhyme, is so near to prose, that the +reader only scorns it for pretending to be verse.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-157">[157]</a> Mr. +Locke. Often mentioned in Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-158">[158]</a> See vol. +in. page 71. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-159">[159]</a> It is +scarcely a defence. Whatever it was, he thus ends it:-'It is +natural to hope, that a comprehensive is likewise an elevated +soul, and that whoever is wise is also honest. I am willing to +believe that Dryden, having employed his mind, active as it was, +upon different studies, and filled it, capacious as it was, with +other materials, came unprovided to the controversy, and wanted +rather skill to discover the right than virtue to maintain it. +But inquiries into the heart are not for man; we must now leave +him to his judge.' Works, vii. 279.</p> +<p><a name="note-160">[160]</a> In the +original fright<i>.</i> The Hind and the Panther<i>, i. +79.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-161">[161]</a> In this +quotation two passages are joined. Works<i>, vii. 339, +340.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-162">[162]</a> 'The +deep and pathetic morality of the Vanity of Human Wishes<i>' says +Sir Walter Scott, 'has often extracted tears from those whose +eyes wander dry over the pages of professed sentimentality.' +CROKER. It. drew tears from Johnson himself. 'When,' says Mrs. +Piozzi (</i>Anec<i>. p. 50), 'he read his own satire, in which +the life of a scholar is painted, he burst into a passion of +tears. The family and Mr. Scott only were present, who, in a +jocose way, clapped him on the back, and said:—"What's all +this, my dear Sir? Why you, and I, and Hercules, you know, were +all troubled with melancholy." He was a very large man, and made +out the triumvirate with Johnson and Hercules comically enough. +The Doctor was so delighted at his odd sally, that he suddenly +embraced him, and the subject was immediately changed.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-163">[163]</a> In +Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature<i>, ed. 1834, iv. 180, is +given 'a memorandum of Dr. Johnson's of hints for the</i> Life of +Pope<i>.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-164">[164]</a> +Works<i>, viii. 345.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-165">[165]</a> 'Of the +last editor [Warburton] it is more difficult to speak. Respect is +due to high place, tenderness to living reputation, and +veneration to genius and learning; but he cannot be justly +offended at that liberty of which he has himself so frequently +given an example, nor very solicitous what is thought of notes +which he ought never to have considered as part of his serious +employments.' Works<i>, v. 140. See</i> post<i>, June +10,1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-166">[166]</a> The +liberality is certainly measured. With much praise there is much +censure. Works<i>, viii. 288. See</i> ante<i>, ii. 36, and +Boswell's</i> Hebrides<i>, Aug. 23.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-167">[167]</a> Of +Johnson's conduct towards Warburton, a very honourable notice is +taken by the editor of Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, +not admitted into the Collection of their respective Works<i>. +After an able and 'fond, though not undistinguishing,' +consideration of Warburton's character, he says, 'In two immortal +works, Johnson has stood forth in the foremost rank of his +admirers. By the testimony of such a man, impertinence must be +abashed, and malignity itself must be softened. Of literary +merit, Johnson, as we all know, was a sagacious but a most severe +judge. Such was his discernment, that he pierced into the most +secret springs of human actions; and such was his integrity, that +he always weighed the moral characters of his fellow-creatures in +the "balance of the sanctuary." He was too courageous to +propitiate a rival, and too proud to truckle to a superiour. +Warburton he knew, as I know him, and as every man of sense and +virtue would wish to be known,—I mean, both from his own +writings, and from the writings of those who dissented from his +principles, or who envied his reputation. But, as to favours, he +had never received or asked any from the Bishop of Gloucester; +and, if my memory fails me not, he had seen him only once, when +they met almost without design, conversed without much effort, +and parted without any lasting impressions of hatred or +affection. Yet, with all the ardour of sympathetic genius, +Johnson has done that spontaneously and ably, which, by some +writers, had been before attempted injudiciously, and which, by +others, from whom more successful attempts might have been +expected, has not</i> hitherto <i>been done at all. He spoke well +of Warburton, without insulting those whom Warburton despised. He +suppressed not the imperfections of this extraordinary man, while +he endeavoured to do justice to his numerous and transcendental +excellencies. He defended him when living, amidst the clamours of +his enemies; and praised him when dead, amidst the</i> silence of +his friends<i>.'</i></p> +<p>Having availed myself of this editor's eulogy on my departed +friend, for which I warmly thank him, let me not suffer the +lustre of his reputation, honestly acquired by profound learning +and vigorous eloquence, to be tarnished by a charge of +illiberality. He has been accused of invidiously dragging again +into light certain writings of a person respectable by his +talents, his learning, his station and his age, which were +published a great many years ago, and have since, it is said, +been silently given up by their authour. But when it is +considered that these writings were not sins of youth<i>, but +deliberate works of one well-advanced in life, overflowing at +once with flattery to a great man of great interest in the +Church, and with unjust and acrimonious abuse of two men of +eminent merit; and that, though it would have been unreasonable +to expect an humiliating recantation, no apology whatever has +been made in the cool of the evening, for the oppressive fervour +of the heat of the day; no slight relenting indication has +appeared in any note, or any corner of later publications; is it +not fair to understand him as superciliously persevering? When he +allows the shafts to remain in the wounds, and will not stretch +forth a lenient hand, is it wrong, is it not generous to become +an indignant avenger? BOSWELL. Boswell wrote on Feb. 16, +1789:—'There is just come out a publication which makes a +considerable noise. The celebrated Dr. Parr, of Norwich, +has—wickedly, shall we say?—but surely +wantonly—published Warburton's</i> Juvenile Translations +and Discourse on Prodigies<i>, and Bishop Kurd's attacks on +Jortin and Dr. Thomas Leland, with his</i> Essay on the Delicacy +of Friendship<i>.'</i> Letters of Boswell<i>, p. 275. The +'editor,' therefore, is Parr, and the 'Warburtonian' is Hurd. +Boswell had written to Parr on Jan. 10, 1791:—'I request to +hear by return of post if I may say or guess that Dr. Parr is the +editor of these tracts.' Parr's</i> Works<i>, viii. 12. See +also</i> ib<i>. iii. 405.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-168">[168]</a> In +Johnson's Works <i>(1787), xi. 213, it is said, that this meeting +was 'at the Bishop of St. ——'s [Asaph's]. Boswell, by +his 'careful enquiry,' no doubt meant to show that this statement +was wrong. Johnson is reported to have said:—' Dr. +Warburton at first looked surlily at me; but after we had been +jostled into conversation he took me to a window, asked me some +questions, and before we parted was so well pleased with me that +he patted me.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-169">[169]</a> +'Warburton's style is copious without selection, and forcible +without neatness; he took the words that presented themselves; +his diction is coarse and impure; and his sentences are +unmeasured.' Johnson's Works<i>, viii. 288.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-170">[170]</a> +Churchill, in The Duellist (Poems <i>ed. 1766, ii. 85), describes +Warburton as having</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'A heart, which virtue ne'er disgraced; + A head where learning runs to waste.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-171">[171]</a> +Works<i>, viii. 230.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-172">[172]</a> 'I +never,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'heard Johnson pronounce the words, +"I beg your pardon, Sir," to any human creature but the +apparently soft and gentle Dr. Burney.' Burney had asked her +whether she had subscribed £100 to building a bridge. '"It +is very comical, is it not, Sir?" said I, turning to Dr. Johnson, +"that people should tell such unfounded stories." "It is," +answered he, "neither comical nor serious, my dear; it is only a +wandering lie." This was spoken in his natural voice, without a +thought of offence, I am confident; but up bounced Burney in a +towering passion, and to my much amaze put on the hero, +surprising Dr. Johnson into a sudden request for pardon, and +protestation of not having ever intended to accuse his friend of +a falsehood.' Hayward's Piozzi<i>, i. 312.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-173">[173]</a> In the +original, 'nor<i>.'</i> Works<i>, viii. 311.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-174">[174]</a> In the +original, 'either <i>wise or merry.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-175">[175]</a> In the +original, 'stands upon record<i>'.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-176">[176]</a> +Works<i>, viii. 316. Surely the words 'had not much to say' imply +that Johnson had heard the answer, but thought little of its wit. +According to Mr. Croker, the repartee is given in Ruffhead's</i> +Life of Pope<i>, and this book Johnson had seen.</i> Ante<i>, ii. +166.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-177">[177]</a> Let me +here express my grateful remembrance of Lord Somerville's +kindness to me, at a very early period. He was the first person +of high rank that took particular notice of me in the way most +flattering to a young man, fondly ambitious of being +distinguished for his literary talents; and by the honour of his +encouragement made me think well of myself, and aspire to deserve +it better. He had a happy art of communicating his varied +knowledge of the world, in short remarks and anecdotes, with a +quiet pleasant gravity, that was exceedingly engaging. Never +shall I forget the hours which I enjoyed with him at his +apartments in the Royal Palace of Holy-Rood House, and at his +seat near Edinburgh, which he himself had formed with an elegant +taste. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-178">[178]</a> Ante<i>, +iii. 392.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-179">[179]</a> Boswell, +I think, misunderstands Johnson. Johnson said (Works<i>, viii. +313) that 'Pope's admiration of the Great seems to have increased +in the advance of life.' His</i> Iliad <i>he had dedicated to +Congreve, but 'to his latter works he took care to annex names +dignified with titles, but was not very happy in his choice; for, +except Lord Bathurst, none of his noble friends were such as that +a good man would wish to have his intimacy with them known to +posterity; he can derive little honour from the notice of Cobham, +Burlington, or Bolingbroke.' Johnson, it seems clear, is +speaking, not of the noblemen whom Pope knew in general, but of +those to whom he dedicated any of his works. Among them Lord +Marchmont is not found, so that on him no slight is cast.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-180">[180]</a> Neither +does Johnson actually say that Lord Marchmont had 'any concern,' +though perhaps he implies it. He writes:—'Pope left the +care of his papers to his executors; first to Lord Bolingbroke; +and, if he should not be living, to the Earl of Marchmont: +undoubtedly expecting them to be proud of the trust, and eager to +extend his fame. But let no man dream of influence beyond his +life. After a decent time, Dodsley the bookseller went to solicit +preference as the publisher, and was told that the parcel had not +been yet inspected; and, whatever was the reason, the world has +been disappointed of what was "reserved for the next age."' +Ib<i>. p. 306. As Bolingbroke outlived Pope by more than seven +years, it is clear, from what Johnson states, that he alone had +the care of the papers, and that he gave the answer to Dodsley. +Marchmont, however, knew the contents of the papers.</i> Ib<i>. +p. 319.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-181">[181]</a> This +neglect did not arise from any ill-will towards Lord Marchmont, +but from inattention; just as he neglected to correct his +statement concerning the family of Thomson the poet, after it had +been shewn to be erroneous (ante<i>, in. 359). MALONE.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-182">[182]</a> Works, +vii. 420.</p> +<p><a name="note-183">[183]</a> Benjamin +Victor published in 1722, a Letter to Steele<i>, and in 1776,</i> +Letters, Dramatic Pieces, and Poems <i>Brit. Mus. +Catalogue.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-184">[184]</a> Mr. +Wilks<i>. See</i> ante<i>, i. 167, note 1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-185">[185]</a> See +post<i>, p. 91 and Macaulay's</i> Essay on Addison <i>(ed. 1974, +iv.</i></p> +<center>207).</center> +<p><a name="note-186">[186]</a> 'A +better and more Christian man scarcely ever breathed than Joseph +Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wine—why we +could scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have +liked him as we do.' Thackery's English Humourists<i>, ed. 1858, +p. 94.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-187">[187]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 30, and iii. 155.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-188">[188]</a> See +post<i>, under Dec. 2, 1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-189">[189]</a> Parnell +'drank to excess.' Ante<i>, iii. 155.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-190">[190]</a> I should +have thought that Johnson, who had felt the severe affliction +from which Parnell never recovered, would have preserved this +passage. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-191">[191]</a> Mrs. +Thrale wrote to Johnson in May, 1780:-'Blackmore will be rescued +from the old wits who worried him much to your disliking; so, a +little for love of his Christianity, a little for love of his +physic, a little for love of his courage—and a little for +love of contradiction, you will save him from his malevolent +critics, and perhaps do him the honour to devour him yourself.' +Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 122. See</i> ante<i>, ii. 107.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-192">[192]</a> 'This is +a tribute which a painter owes to an architect who composed like +a painter; and was defrauded of the due reward of his merit by +the wits of his time, who did not understand the principles of +composition in poetry better than he did; and who knew little, or +nothing, of what he understood perfectly, the general ruling +principles of architecture and painting.' Reynolds's Thirteenth +Discourse<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-193">[193]</a> Johnson +had not wished to write Lyttelton's Life<i>. He wrote to Lord +Westcote, Lyttelton's brother, 'My desire is to avoid offence, +and be totally out of danger. I take the liberty of proposing to +your lordship, that the historical account should be written +under your direction by any friend you may be willing to employ, +and I will only take upon myself to examine the +poetry.'—Croker's</i> Boswell<i>, p.650.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-194">[194]</a> It was +not Molly Aston <i>(</i>ante <i>i. 83) but Miss Hill Boothby +(</i>ib<i>.) of whom Mrs. Thrale wrote. She says (</i>Anec<i>. +p.160):—'Such was the purity of her mind, Johnson said, and +such the graces of her manner, that Lord Lyttelton and he used to +strive for her preference with an emulation that occasioned +hourly disgust, and ended in lasting animosity.' There is surely +much exaggeration in this account.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-195">[195]</a> Let not +my readers smile to think of Johnson's being a candidate for +female favour; Mr. Peter Garrick assured me, that he was told by +a lady, that in her opinion Johnson was 'a very seducing man<i>.' +Disadvantages of person and manner may be forgotten, where +intellectual pleasure is communicated to a susceptible mind; and +that Johnson was capable of feeling the most delicate and +disinterested attachment, appears from the following letter, +which is published by Mrs. Thrale [</i>Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. +391], with some others to the same person, of which the +excellence is not so apparent:—</i></p> +<p>'TO MISS BOOTHBY. January, 1755.</p> +<center>DEAREST MADAM,</center> +<p>Though I am afraid your illness leaves you little leisure for +the reception of airy civilities, yet I cannot forbear to pay you +my congratulations on the new year; and to declare my wishes that +your years to come may be many and happy. In this wish, indeed, I +include myself, who have none but you on whom my heart reposes; +yet surely I wish your good, even though your situation were such +as should permit you to communicate no gratifications to, +dearest, dearest Madam, Your, &c. SAM JOHNSON.' +(BOSWELL.)</p> +<p><a name="note-196">[196]</a> Horace, +Odes<i>, iv. 3.2, quoted also</i> ante<i>, i.352, note.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-197">[197]</a> The +passage which Boswell quotes in part is as follows:—'When +they were first published they were kindly commended by the +Critical Reviewers<i>; [i.e. the writers in the</i> Critical +Review<i>. In some of the later editions of Boswell these words +have been printed,</i> critical reviewers<i>; so as to include +all the reviewers who criticised the work]; and poor Lyttelton, +with humble gratitude, returned, in a note which I have read, +acknowledgements which can never be proper, since they must be +paid either for flattery or for justice.'</i> Works<i>, viii.491. +Boswell forgets that what may be proper in one is improper in +another. Lyttelton, when he wrote this note, had long been a man +of high position. He had 'stood in the first rank of opposition,' +he had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and when he lost his +post, he had been 'recompensed with a peerage.' See</i> ante<i>, +ii. 126.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-198">[198]</a> See +post<i>, June 12 and 15, 1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-199">[199]</a> He +adopted it from indolence. Writing on Aug. 1, 1780, after +mentioning the failure of his application to Lord Westcote, he +continues:—'There is an ingenious scheme to save a day's +work, or part of a day, utterly defeated. Then what avails it to +be wise? The plain and the artful man must both do their own +work.—But I think I have got a life of Dr. Young.' Piozzi +Letters<i>, ii. 173.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-200">[200]</a> Gent. +Mag. <i>vol. lv. p. 10. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-201">[201]</a> By a +letter to Johnson from Croft, published in the later editions of +the Lives<i>, it seems that Johnson only expunged one passage. +Croft says:—'Though I could not prevail on you to make any +alteration, you insisted on striking out one passage, because it +said, that, if I did not wish you to live long for your sake, I +did for the sake of myself and the world.'</i> Works +<i>viii.458.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-202">[202]</a> The Late +Mr. Burke. MALONE.</p> +<p><a name="note-203">[203]</a> +Seepost<i>, June 2, 1781.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-204">[204]</a> +Johnson's Works<i>, viii 440.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-205">[205]</a> Ib. +<i>p.436</i></p> +<p><a name="note-206">[206]</a> 'Eheu! +fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni.' 'How swiftly glide our +flying years!' FRANCIS. Horace, Odes<i>, ii.14. i.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-207">[207]</a> The late +Mr. James Ralph told Lord Macartney, that he passed an evening +with Dr. Young at Lord Melcombe's (then Mr. Dodington) at +Hammersmith. The Doctor happening to go out into the garden, Mr. +Dodington observed to him, on his return, that it was a dreadful +night, as in truth it was, there being a violent storm of rain +and wind. 'No, Sir, (replied the Doctor) it is a very fine night. +The LORD is abroad.' BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-208">[208]</a> See +ante<i>, ii.96, and iii.251; and Boswell's</i> Hebrides<i>, +Sept.</i></p> +<center>30.</center> +<p><a name="note-209">[209]</a> 'An +ardent judge, who zealous in his trust, With warmth gives +sentence, yet is always just.' Pope's Essay on Criticism<i>, +l.677.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-210">[210]</a> +Works<i>, viii.459. Though the</i> Life of Young <i>is by Croft, +yet the critical remarks are by Johnson.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-211">[211]</a> Ib. +<i>p.460.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-212">[212]</a> Johnson +refers to Chambers's Dissertation on Oriental Gardening<i>, which +was ridiculed in the</i> Heroic Epistle<i>. See</i> post<i>, +under May 8, 1781, and Boswell's</i> Hebrides<i>, Sept. +13.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-213">[213]</a> Boswell +refers to the death of Narcissa in the third of the Night +Thoughts<i>. While he was writing the</i> Life of Johnson <i>Mrs. +Boswell was dying of consumption in (to quote Young's +words)</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + The rigid north, + Her native bed, on which bleak + Boreas blew.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>She died nearly two years before The Life <i>was +published.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-214">[214]</a> +Proverbs<i>, xviii.14.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-215">[215]</a> See +Boswell's Hebrides<i>, Aug. 16.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-216">[216]</a> See vol. +i. page 133. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-217">[217]</a> 'In his +economy Swift practised a peculiar and offensive parsimony, +without disguise or apology. The practice of saving being once +necessary, became habitual, and grew first ridiculous, and at +last detestable. But his avarice, though it might exclude +pleasure, was never suffered to encroach upon his virtue. He was +frugal by inclination, but liberal by principle; and if the +purpose to which he destined his little accumulations be +remembered, with his distribution of occasional charity, it will +perhaps appear, that he only liked one mode of expense better +than another, and saved merely that he might have something to +give.' Works<i>, viii.222.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-218">[218]</a> Ib<i>. +p.225.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-219">[219]</a> Mr. +Chalmers here records a curious literary anecdote—that when +a new and enlarged edition of the Lives of the Poets <i>was +published in 1783, Mr. Nichols, in justice to the purchasers of +the preceding editions, printed the additions in a separate +pamphlet, and advertised that it might be had</i> gratis<i>. Not +ten copies were called for. CROKER.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-220">[220]</a> See +ante<i>, p.9, and Boswell's</i> Hebrides<i>, Oct. 15.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-221">[221]</a> +Works<i>, vii. Preface.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-222">[222]</a> From +this disreputable class, I except an ingenious though not +satisfactory defence of HAMMOND, which I did not see till lately, +by the favour of its authour, my amiable friend, the Reverend Mr. +Bevill, who published it without his name. It is a juvenile +performance, but elegantly written, with classical enthusiasm of +sentiment, and yet with a becoming modesty, and great respect for +Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-223">[223]</a> Before +the Life of Lyttelton <i>was published there was, it seems, some +coolness between Mrs. Montagu and Johnson. Miss Burney records +the following conversation in September 1778. 'Mark now,' said +Dr. Johnson, 'if I contradict Mrs. Montagu to-morrow. I am +determined, let her say what she will, that I will not contradict +her.' MRS. THRALE. 'Why to be sure, Sir, you did put her a little +out of countenance last time she came.'...DR. JOHNSON. 'Why, +Madam, I won't answer that I shan't contradict her again, if she +provokes me as she did then; but a less provocation I will +withstand. I believe I am not high in her good graces already; +and I begin (added he, laughing heartily) to tremble for my +admission into her new house. I doubt I shall never see the +inside of it.' Yet when they met a few days later all seemed +friendly. 'When Mrs. Montagu's new house was talked of, Dr. +Johnson in a jocose manner, desired to know if he should be +invited to see it. "Ay, sure," cried Mrs. Montagu, looking well +pleased, "or else I shan't like it."' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> +Diary<i>, i.118, 126. 'Mrs. Montagu's dinners and assemblies,' +writes Wraxall, 'were principally supported by, and they fell +with, the giant talents of Johnson, who formed the nucleus round +which all the subordinate members revolved.' Wraxall's</i> +Memoirs<i>, ed. 1815, i.160.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-224">[224]</a> +Described by the author as 'a body of original essays.' 'I +consider The Observer,' <i>he arrogantly continues, 'as fairly +enrolled amongst the standard classics of our native language.' +Cumberland's</i> Memoirs<i>, ii.199. In his account of this</i> +Feast of Reason <i>he quite as much satirises Mrs. Montagu as +praises her. He introduces Johnson in it, annoyed by an +impertinent fellow, and saying to him:—'Have I said +anything, good Sir, that you do not comprehend?' 'No, no,' +replied he, 'I perfectly well comprehend every word you have been +saying.' 'Do you so, Sir?' said the philosopher, 'then I heartily +ask pardon of the company for misemploying their time so +egregiously.'</i> The Observer<i>, No. 25.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-225">[225]</a> Miss +Burney gives an account of an attack made by Johnson, at a dinner +at Streatham, in June 1781, on Mr. Pepys (post<i>, p. 82), 'one +of Mrs. Montagu's steadiest abettors.' 'Never before,' she +writes, 'have I seen Dr. Johnson speak with so much passion. "Mr. +Pepys," he cried, in a voice the most enraged, "I understand you +are offended by my</i> Life of Lord Lyttelton<i>. What is it you +have to say against it? Come forth, man! Here am I, ready to +answer any charge you can bring."' After the quarrel had been +carried even into the drawing-room, Mrs. Thrale, 'with great +spirit and dignity, said that she should be very glad to hear no +more of it. Everybody was silenced, and Dr. Johnson, after a +pause, said:—"Well, Madam, you</i> shall <i>hear no more of +it; yet I will defend myself in every part and in every atom."... +Thursday morning, Dr. Johnson went to town for some days, but not +before Mrs. Thrale read him a very serious lecture upon giving +way to such violence; which he bore with a patience and quietness +that even more than made his peace with me.' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> +Diary<i>, ii. 45. Two months later the quarrel was made up. 'Mr. +Pepys had desired this meeting by way of a reconciliation; and +Dr. Johnson now made amends for his former violence, as he +advanced to him, as soon as he came in, and holding out his hand +to him received him with a cordiality he had never shewn him +before. Indeed he told me himself that he thought the better of +Mr. Pepys for all that had passed.'</i> Ib. <i>p. 82. Miss +Burney, in Dec. 1783, described the quarrel to Mr. +Cambridge:—'"I never saw Dr. Johnson really in a passion +but then; and dreadful indeed it was to see. I wished myself away +a thousand times. It was a frightful scene. He so red, poor Mr. +Pepys so pale." "It was behaving ill to Mrs. Thrale certainly to +quarrel in her house." "Yes, but he never repeated it; though he +wished of all things to have gone through just such another scene +with Mrs. Montagu; and to refrain was an act of heroic +forbearance. She came to Streatham one morning, and I saw he was +dying to attack her." "And how did Mrs. Montagu herself behave?" +Very stately, indeed, at first. She turned from him very stiffly, +and with a most distant air, and without even courtesying to him, +and with a firm intention to keep to what she had publicly +declared—that she would never speak to him more. However, +he went up to her himself, longing to begin, and very roughly +said:—"Well, Madam, what's become of your fine new house? I +hear no more of it." "But how did she bear this?" "Why, she was +obliged to answer him; and she soon grew so frightened—as +everybody does—that she was as civil as ever." He laughed +heartily at this account. But I told him Dr. Johnson was now much +softened. He had acquainted me, when I saw him last, that he had +written to her upon the death of Mrs. Williams [see</i> post<i>, +Sept. 18, 1783, note], because she had allowed her something +yearly, which now ceased. "And I had a very kind answer from +her," said he. "Well then, Sir," cried I, "I hope peace now will +be again proclaimed." "Why, I am now," said he, "come to that +time when I wish all bitterness and animosity to be at an end."' +Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, ii. 290.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-226">[226]</a> January, +1791. BOSWELL. Hastings's trial had been dragging on for more +than three years when The Life of Johnson <i>was published. It +began in 1788, and ended in 1795.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-227">[227]</a> Gent. +Mag<i>. for 1785, p. 412.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-228">[228]</a> +Afterwards Sir Robert Chambers, one of his Majesty's Judges in +India. BOSWELL. See ante<i>, i.274.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-229">[229]</a> 'He +conceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might with +advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an English +gentleman; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is said that +the University of Oxford, in which Oriental learning had never, +since the revival of letters, been wholly neglected, was to be +the seat of the institution which he contemplated.' Macaulay's +Essays<i>, ed. 1843, iii. 338.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-230">[230]</a> Lord +North's. Feeble though it was, it lasted eight years longer.</p> +<p><a name="note-231">[231]</a> Jones's +Persian Grammar<i>. Boswell. It was published in 1771.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-232">[232]</a> Journey +to the Western Islands of Scotland<i>. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-233">[233]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 296.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-234">[234]</a> Macaulay +wrote of Hastings's answer to this letter:—'It is a +remarkable circumstance that one of the letters of Hastings to +Dr. Johnson bears date a very few hours after the death of +Nuncomar. While the whole settlement was in commotion, while a +mighty and ancient priesthood were weeping over the remains of +their chief, the conqueror in that deadly grapple sat down, with +characteristic self-possession, to write about the Tour to the +Hebrides<i>, Jones's</i> Persian Grammar<i>, and the history, +traditions, arts, and natural productions of India.' +Macaulay's</i> Essays<i>, ed. 1843, iii.376.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-235">[235]</a> Johnson +wrote the Dedication, Ante<i>, i.383.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-236">[236]</a> See +ante<i>, ii.82, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-237">[237]</a> Copy +<i>is</i> manuscript for printing<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-238">[238]</a> +Published by Kearsley, with this well-chosen motto:—'From +his cradle He was a SCHOLAR, and a ripe and good one: And to add +greater honours to his age Than man could give him, he died +fearing Heaven.' SHAKSPEARE. BOSWELL. This quotation is a patched +up one from Henry VIII<i>, act iv. sc.2. The quotation in the +text is found on p. 89 of this</i> Life of Johnson<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-239">[239]</a> Mr. +Thrale had removed, that is to say, from his winter residence in +the Borough. Mrs. Piozzi has written opposite this passage in her +copy of Boswell:—'Spiteful again! He went by direction of +his physicians where they could easiest attend to him.' Hayward's +Piozzi<i>, i. 91. There was, perhaps, a good deal of truth in +Boswell's supposition, for in 1779 Johnson had told her that he +saw 'with indignation her despicable dread of living in the +Borough.'</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii.92. Johnson had a room in the +new house. 'Think,' wrote Hannah More, 'of Johnson's having +apartments in Grosvenor-square! but he says it is not half so +convenient as Bolt-court.' H. More's</i> Memoirs<i>, +i.2O7.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-240">[240]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 250.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-241">[241]</a> +Shakspeare makes Hamlet thus describe his father:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'See what a grace was seated on this brow: + Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, + An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; + A station like the herald, Mercury, + New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; + A combination, and a form, indeed, + Where every god did seem to set his seal, + To give the world assurance of a man.! + [Act iii. sc. 4.] +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Milton thus pourtrays our first parent, Adam:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd + Absolute rule; and hyacinthin locks + Round from his parted forelock manly hung + Clus'tring, but not beneath his shoulders broad.' + [P.L.<i> iv. 300.] BOSWELL. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-242">[242]</a> +'Grattan's Uncle, Dean Marlay [afterwards Bishop of Waterford], +had a good deal of the humour of Swift. Once, when the footman +was out of the way, he ordered the coachman to fetch some water +from the well. To this the man objected, that his <i>business was +to drive, not to run on errands. "Well, then," said Marlay, +"bring out the coach and four, set the pitcher inside, and drive +to the well;"—a service which was several times repeated, +to the great amusement of the village.' Rogers's</i> +Table-Talk<i>, p.176.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-243">[243]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 241, for Johnson's contempt of puns.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-244">[244]</a> 'He left +not faction, but of that was left.' Absalom and Achitophel<i>, l. +568.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-245">[245]</a> Boswell +wrote of Gibbon in 1779:—'He is an ugly, affected, +disgusting fellow, and poisons our Literary Club to me.' Letters +of Boswell<i>, p.242. See</i> ante<i>, ii.443, note 1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-246">[246]</a> The +schools <i>in this sense means a University.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-247">[247]</a> See +ante<i>, ii.224.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-248">[248]</a> Up to +the year 1770, controverted elections had been tried before a +Committee of the whole House. By the Grenville Act <i>which was +passed in that year they were tried by a select committee.</i> +Parl. Hist. <i>xvi. 902. Johnson, in</i> The False Alarm +<i>(1770), describing the old method of trial, says;—'These +decisions have often been apparently partial, and sometimes +tyrannically oppressive.'</i> Works, vi. 169. In The Patriot +<i>(1774), he says:—'A disputed election is now tried with +the same scrupulousness and solemnity as any other title.'</i> +Ib. <i>p.223. See Boswell's</i> Hebrides<i>, Nov.10.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-249">[249]</a> Miss +Burney describes a dinner at Mr. Thrale's, about this time, at +which she met Johnson, Boswell, and Dudley Long. Mme. D'Arblay's +Diary<i>, ii. 14.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-250">[250]</a> See +ante<i>, ii.171,</i> post<i>, two paragraphs before April 10, +1783, and May 15, 1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-251">[251]</a> Johnson +wrote on May i, 1780:—'There was the Bishop of St. Asaph +who comes to every place.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 111. Hannah +More, in 1782, describes an assembly at this Bishop's. 'Conceive +to yourself 150 or 200 people met together dressed in the +extremity of the fashion, painted as red as Bacchanals...ten or a +dozen card-tables crammed with dowagers of quality, grave +ecclesiastics and yellow admirals.'</i> Memoirs<i>, i.242. He was +elected a member of the Literary Club, 'with the sincere +approbation and eagerness of all present,' wrote Mr. (afterwards +Sir William) Jones; elected, too, on the same day on which Lord +Chancellor Camden was rejected (</i>ante<i>, iii. 311, note 2). +Two or three years later Sir William married the Bishop's +daughter.</i> Life of Sir W Jones<i>, pp.240, 279.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-252">[252]</a> 'Trust +not to looks, nor credit outward show; The villain lurks beneath +the cassocked beau.' Churchill's Poems <i>(ed. 1766), +ii.41.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-253">[253]</a> No. +2.</p> +<p><a name="note-254">[254]</a> See vol. +i p. 378. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-255">[255]</a> +Northcote, according to Hazlitt, said of this character with some +truth, that 'it was like one of Kneller's portraits—it +would do for anybody.' Northcote's Conversations<i>, +p.86.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-256">[256]</a> See +post<i>, p.98.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-257">[257]</a> London +Chronicle<i>, May 2, 1769. This respectable man is there +mentioned to have died on the 3rd of April, that year, at +Cofflect, the seat of Thomas Veale, Esq., in his way to London. +BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-258">[258]</a> Dr. +Harte was the tutor of Mr. Eliot and of young Stanhope, Lord +Chesterfield's illegitimate son. 'My morning hopes,' wrote +Chesterfield to his son at Rome, 'are justly placed in Mr. Harte, +and the masters he will give you; my evening ones in the Roman +ladies: pray be attentive to both.' Chesterfield's Letters<i>, +ii.263. See</i> ante<i>, i.163, note 1, ii.120, and</i> post<i>, +June 27, 1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-259">[259]</a> +Robertson's Scotland <i>is in the February list of books in +the</i> Gent. Mag<i>. for 1759; Harte's</i> Gustavus Adolphus +<i>and Hume's</i> England under the House of Tudor <i>in the +March list. Perhaps it was from Hume's competition that Harte +suffered.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-260">[260]</a> Essays +on Husbandry<i>, 1764.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-261">[261]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 381.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-262">[262]</a> +'Christmas Day, 1780. I shall not attempt to see Vestris till the +weather is milder, though it is the universal voice that he is +the only perfect being that has dropped from the clouds, within +the memory of man or woman...When the Parliament meets he is to +be thanked by the Speaker.' Walpole's Letters<i>, vii. +480.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-263">[263]</a> Here +Johnson uses his title of Doctor (ante<i>, ii.332, note 1), but +perhaps he does so as quoting the paragraph in the +newspaper.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-264">[264]</a> William, +the first Viscount Grimston. BOSWELL. Swift thus introduces him +in his lines On Poetry, A Rhapsody<i>:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'When death had finished Blackmore's reign, + The leaden crown devolved to thee, + Great poet of the hollow tree.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Mr. Nichols, in a note on this, says that Grimston 'wrote the +play when a boy, to be acted by his schoolfellows.' Swift's Works +<i>(1803), xi. 297. Two editions were published apparently by +Grimston himself, one bearing his name but no date, and the other +the date of 1705 but no name. By 1705 Grimston was 22 years +old—no longer a boy. The former edition was published by +Bernard Lintott at the Cross Keys, Fleet-street, and the latter +by the same bookseller at the Middle Temple Gate. The grossness +of a young man of birth at this period is shewn by the Preface. +The third edition with the elephant on the tight-rope was +published in 1736. There is another illustration in which an ass +is represented bearing a coronet. Grimston's name is not given +here, but there is a dedication 'To the Right Sensible the Lord +Flame.' Three or four notes are added, one of which is very +gross. The election was for St. Alban's, for which borough he was +thrice returned.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-265">[265]</a> Dr. T. +Campbell records (Diary<i>, p. 69) that 'Boswell asked Johnson if +he had never been under the hands of a dancing master. "Aye, and +a dancing mistress too," says the Doctor; "but I own to you I +never took a lesson but one or two; my blind eyes showed me I +could never make a proficiency."'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-266">[266]</a> See vol. +ii. p.286. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-267">[267]</a> Miss +Burney writes of him in Feb. 1779:—'He is a professed +minority man, and very active and zealous in the opposition. Men +of such different principles as Dr. Johnson and Sir Philip cannot +have much cordiality in their political debates; however, the +very superior abilities of the former, and the remarkable good +breeding of the latter have kept both upon good terms.' She +describes a hot argument between them, and continues:—'Dr. +Johnson pursued him with unabating vigour and dexterity, and at +length, though he could not convince, he so entirely baffled him, +that Sir Philip was self-compelled to be quiet—which, with +a very good grace, he confessed. Dr. Johnson then recollecting +himself, and thinking, as he owned afterwards, that the dispute +grew too serious, with a skill all his own, suddenly and +unexpectedly turned it to burlesque.' D'Arblay's Diary<i>, i. +192.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-268">[268]</a> See +post<i>, Jan. 20, 1782.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-269">[269]</a> See +ante<i>, ii.355.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-270">[270]</a> Here +Johnson condescended to play upon the words Long <i>and</i> +short<i>. But little did he know that, owing to Mr. Long's +reserve in his presence, he was talking thus of a gentleman +distinguised amongst his acquaintance for acuteness of wit; one +to whom I think the French expression, '</i>Il pétille +d'esprit<i>,' is particularly He has gratified me by mentioning +that he heard Dr. Johnson say, 'Sir, if I were to lose Boswell, +it would be a limb amputated.' BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-271">[271]</a> William +Weller Pepys, Esq., one of the Masters in the High Court of +Chancery, and well known in polite circles. My acquaintance with +him is not sufficient to enable me to speak of him from my own +judgement. But I know that both at Eton and Oxford he was the +intimate friend of the late Sir James Macdonald, the Marcellus +<i>of Scotland [</i>ante<i>, i.449], whose extraordinary talents, +learning, and virtues, will ever be remembered with admiration +and regret. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-272">[272]</a> See +note, ante<i>, p. 65, which describes an attack made by Johnson +on Pepys more than two months after this conversation.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-273">[273]</a> Johnson +once said to Mrs. Thrale:—'Why, Madam, you often provoke me +to say severe things by unreasonable commendation. If you would +not call for my praise, I would not give you my censure; but it +constantly moves my indignation to be applied to, to speak well +of a thing which I think contemptible.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, +i.132. See</i> ante<i>, iii.225.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-274">[274]</a> 'Mrs. +Thrale,' wrote Miss Burney in 1780, 'is a most dear creature, but +never restrains her tongue in anything, nor, indeed, any of her +feelings. She laughs, cries, scolds, sports, reasons, makes +fun—does everything she has an inclination to do, without +any study of prudence, or thought of blame; and, pure and artless +as is this character, it often draws both herself and others into +scrapes, which a little discretion would avoid.' Ib<i>. i.386. +Later on she writes:—'Mrs. Thrale, with all her excellence, +can give up no occasion of making sport, however unseasonable or +even painful... I knew she was not to be safely trusted with +anything she could turn into ridicule.'</i> Ib<i>. ii.24 and +29.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-275">[275]</a> Perhaps +Mr. Seward, who was constantly at the Thrales' (ante<i>, iii. +123).</i></p> +<p><a name="note-276">[276]</a> See +ante<i>, iii.228, 404.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-277">[277]</a> It was +the seventh anniversary of Goldsmith's death.</p> +<p><a name="note-278">[278]</a> 'Mrs. +Garrick and I,' wrote Hannah More (Memoirs<i>, i. 208), 'were +invited to an assembly at Mrs. Thrale's. There was to be a fine +concert, and all the fine people were to be there. Just as my +hair was dressed, came a servant to forbid our coming, for that +Mr. Thrale was dead.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-279">[279]</a> Pr. and +Med. <i>p 191. BOSWELL. The rest of the entry should be +given:—'On Wednesday, 11, was buried my dear friend Thrale, +who died on Wednesday 4; and with him were buried many of my +hopes and pleasures. [On Sunday, 1st, the physician warned him +against full meals, on Monday I pressed him to observance of his +rules, but without effect, and Tuesday I was absent, but his wife +pressed forbearance upon him again unsuccessfully. At night I was +called to him, and found him senseless in strong convulsions. I +staid in the room, except that I visited Mrs. Thrale twice.] +About five, I think, on Wednesday morning he expired; I felt, +&c. Farewell. May God that delighteth in mercy have had mercy +on thee. I had constantly prayed for him some time before his +death. The decease of him from whose friendship I had obtained +many opportunities of amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts +as to a refuge from misfortunes, has left me heavy. But my +business is with myself.' The passage enclosed in brackets I have +copied from the original MS. Mr. Strahan, the editor, omitted it, +no doubt from feelings of delicacy. What a contrast in this to +the widow who published a letter in which she had +written:—'I wish that you would put in a word of your own +to Mr. Thrale about eating less!'</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii.130. +Baretti, in a note on</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii.142, says that +'nobody ever had spirit enough to tell Mr. Thrale that his fits +were apoplectic; such is the blessing of being rich that nobody +dares to speak out.' In Johnson's</i> Works <i>(1787), xi.203, it +is recorded that 'Johnson, who attended Thrale in his last +moments, said, "His servants would have waited upon him in this +awful period, and why not his friend?"'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-280">[280]</a> +Johnson's letters to the widow show how much he felt Thrale's +death. 'April 5, 1781. I am not without my part of the calamity. +No death since that of my wife has ever oppressed me like this. +April 7. My part of the loss hangs upon me. I have lost a friend +of boundless kindness, at an age when it is very unlikely that I +should find another. April 9. Our sorrow has different effects; +you are withdrawn into solitude, and I am driven into company. I +am afraid of thinking what I have lost. I never had such a friend +before. April 11. I feel myself like a man beginning a new course +of life. I had interwoven myself with my dear friend.' Piozzi +Letters<i>, ii. 191-97. 'I have very often,' wrote Miss Burney, +in the following June, 'though I mention them not, long and +melancholy discourses with Dr. Johnson about our dear deceased +master, whom, indeed, he regrets incessantly.' Mme. +D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, ii. 63. On his next birthday, he +wrote:—'My first knowledge of Thrale was in 1765. I enjoyed +his favour for almost a fourth part of my life.'</i> Pr. and Med. +<i>p.191. One or two passages in Mrs. Thrale's Letters shew her +husband's affection for Johnson. On May 3, 1776, she +writes:—'Mr. Thrale says he shall not die in peace without +seeing Rome, and I am sure he will go nowhere that he can help +without you.'</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, i.317. A few days later, she +speaks of 'our dear master, who cannot be quiet without you for a +week.'</i> Ib. <i>p.329. Johnson, in his fine epitaph on Thrale +(</i>Works<i>, i.153) broke through a rule which he himself had +laid down. In his</i> Essay on Epitaphs <i>(</i>Ib. <i>v 263), he +said:—'It is improper to address the epitaph to the +passenger [traveller], a custom which an injudicious veneration +for antiquity introduced again at the revival of letters.' Yet in +the monument in Streatham Church, we find the same</i> Abi viator +<i>which he had censured in an epitaph on Henry IV of +France.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-281">[281]</a> +Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale shew that he had long been well +acquainted with the state of her husband's business. In the year +1772, Mr. Thrale was in money difficulties. Johnson writes to her +almost as if he were a partner in the business. 'The first +consequence of our late trouble ought to be an endeavour to brew +at a cheaper rate...Unless this can be done, nothing can help us; +and if this be done, we shall not want help.' Piozzi Letters<i>, +i.57. He urges economy in the household, and +continues:—'But the fury of housewifery will soon subside; +and little effect will be produced, but by methodical attention +and even frugality.'</i> Ib. <i>p.64. In another letter he +writes:—'This year will undoubtedly be an year of struggle +and difficulty; but I doubt not of getting through it; and the +difficulty will grow yearly less and less. Supposing that our +former mode of life kept us on the level, we shall, by the +present contraction of expense, gain upon fortune a thousand a +year, even though no improvements can be made in the conduct of +the trade.'</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, i. 66. Four years later, he +writes:—'To-day I went to look into my places at the +Borough. I called on Mr. Perkins in the counting-house. He crows +and triumphs, as we go on we shall double our business.'</i> Ib. +<i>p. 333. When the executors first met, he wrote:—'We met +to-day, and were told of mountainous difficulties, till I was +provoked to tell them, that if there were really so much to do +and suffer, there would be no executors in the world. Do not +suffer yourself to be terrified.'</i> Ib. <i>ii. 197. Boswell +says (</i>ante<i>, ii. 44l):—'I often had occasion to +remark, Johnson loved business, loved to have his wisdom actually +operate on real life.' When Boswell had purchased a farm, +'Johnson,' he writes (</i>ante<i>, iii. 207), 'made several +calculations of the expense and profit; for he delighted in +exercising his mind on the science of numbers.' The letter +(</i>ante<i>, ii. 424) about the book-trade 'exhibits,' to use +Boswell's words, 'his extraordinary precision and acuteness.' +Boswell wrote to Temple:—'Dr. Taylor has begged of Dr. +Johnson to come to London, to assist him in some interesting +business; and Johnson loves much to be so consulted, and so comes +up.'</i> Ante<i>, iii. 51, note 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-282">[282]</a> Johnson, +as soon as the will was read, wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'You +have, £500 for your immediate expenses, and, £2000 a +year, with both the houses and all the goods.' Piozzi Letters<i>, +ii. 192. Beattie wrote on June 1:—'Everybody says Mr. +Thrale should have left Johnson £200 a year; which, from a +fortune like his, would have been a very inconsiderable +deduction.' Beattie's</i> Life<i>, ed. 1824, p. 290.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-283">[283]</a> Miss +Burney thus writes of the day of the sale:—'Mrs. Thrale +went early to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr. Barclay, +the Quaker, who was the bidder. She was in great agitation of +mind, and told me if all went well she would wave a white +handkerchief out of the coach-window. Four o'clock came and +dinner was ready, and no Mrs. Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon +the lawn, where we sauntered in eager expectation, till near six, +and then the coach appeared in sight, and a white handkerchief +was waved from it.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, ii. 34. The brewery +was sold for £135,000. See</i> post<i>, June 16, +1781.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-284">[284]</a> See +post<i>, paragraph before June 22, 1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-285">[285]</a> Baretti, +in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters<i>, i. 369, says that 'the two +last years of Thrale's life his brewery brought him £30,000 +a year neat profit.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-286">[286]</a> In the +fourth edition of his Dictionary<i>, published in 1773, Johnson +introduced a second definition of</i> patriot<i>:—'It is +sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government.' +Gibbon (</i>Misc. Works<i>, ii. 77) wrote on Feb. 21, +1772:—'Charles Fox is commenced patriot, and is already +attempting to pronounce the words,</i> country<i>,</i> +liberty<i>,</i> corruption<i>, &c.; with what success time +will discover.' Forty years before Johnson begged not to meet +patriots, Sir Robert Walpole said:—'A patriot, Sir! why +patriots spring up like mushrooms. I could raise fifty of them +within the four-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of them in +one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an +insolent demand, and up starts a patriot. I have never been +afraid of making patriots; but I disdain and despise all their +efforts.' Coxe's</i> Walpole<i>, i. 659. See</i> ante<i>, ii. +348, and iii. 66.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-287">[287]</a> He was +tried on Feb. 5 and 6, 1781. Ann. Reg. <i>xxiv. 217.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-288">[288]</a> Hannah +More (Memoirs<i>, i. 210) records a dinner on a Tuesday in this +year. (Like Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, she cared nothing for +dates.) It was in the week after Thrale's death. It must have +been the dinner here mentioned by Boswell; for it was at a +Bishop's (Shipley of St. Asaph), and Sir Joshua and Boswell were +among the guests. Why Boswell recorded none of Johnson's +conversation may be guessed from what she tells. 'I was heartily +disgusted,' she says, 'with Mr. Boswell, who came up stairs after +dinner much disordered with wine.' (See</i> post<i>, p. 109). The +following morning Johnson called on her. 'He reproved me,' she +writes, 'with pretended sharpness for reading</i> Les +Pensées de Pascal<i>, alleging that as a good Protestant I +ought to abstain from books written by Catholics. I was beginning +to stand upon my defence, when he took me with both hands, and +with a tear running down his cheeks, "Child," said he, with the +most affecting earnestness, "I am heartily glad that you read +pious books, by whomsoever they may be written.'"</i></p> +<p><a name="note-289">[289]</a> On +Good-Friday, in 1778, Johnson recorded:—'It has happened +this week, as it never happened in Passion-week before, that I +have never dined at home, and I have therefore neither practised +abstinence nor peculiar devotion' Pr. and Med. <i>p. 163.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-290">[290]</a> No. +7.</p> +<p><a name="note-291">[291]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 302.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-292">[292]</a> Richard +Berenger, Esq., many years Gentleman of the Horse, and first +Equerry to his present Majesty. MALONE. According to Mrs. Piozzi +(Anec. <i>p. 156), he was Johnson's 'standard of true +elegance.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-293">[293]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 186.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-294">[294]</a> Johnson +(Works<i>, vii. 449) thus describes Addison's 'familiar day,' on +the authority of Pope:—'He studied all morning; then dined +at a tavern; and went afterwards to Button's [coffee-house]. From +the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat +late, and drank too much wine.' Spence (</i>Anec. <i>p. 286) +adds, on the authority of Pope, that 'Addison passed each day +alike, and much in the manner that Dryden did. Dryden employed +his mornings in writing; dined</i> en famille<i>; and then went +to Wills's; only he came home earlier a'nights'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-295">[295]</a> Mr. Foss +says of Blackstone:—'Ere he had been long on the bench he +experienced the bad effects of the studious habits in which he +had injudiciously indulged in his early life, and of his neglect +to take the necessary amount of exercise, to which he was +specially averse.' He died at the age of 56. Foss's Judges<i>, +viii. 250. He suffered greatly from his corpulence. His portrait +in the Bodleian shews that he was a very fat man. Malone says +that Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell) wrote to Blackstone's family +to apologise for Boswell's anecdote. Prior's</i> Malone<i>, p. +415. Scott would not have thought any the worse of Blackstone for +his bottle of port; both he and his brother, the Chancellor, took +a great deal of it. 'Lord Eldon liked plain port; the stronger +the better.' Twiss's</i> Eldon<i>, iii. 486. Some one asked him +whether Lord Stowell took much exercise. 'None,' he said, 'but +the exercise of eating and drinking.'</i> Ib. <i>p. 302. Yet both +men got through a vast deal of hard work, and died, Eldon at the +age of 86, and Stowell of 90.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-296">[296]</a> See this +explained, pp. 52, 53 of this volume. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-297">[297]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 7.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-298">[298]</a> William +Scott was a tutor of University College at the age of nineteen. +He held the office for ten years—to 1775. He wrote to his +father in 1772 about his younger brother John (afterwards Lord +Eldon), who had just made a run-away match:—'The business +in which I am engaged is so extremely disagreeable in itself, and +so destructive to health (if carried on with such success as can +render it at all considerable in point of profit) that I do not +wonder at his unwillingness to succeed me in it.' Twiss's +Eldon<i>, i. 47, 74.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-299">[299]</a> The +account of her marriage given By John Wesley in a letter to his +brother-in-law, Mr. Hall, is curious. He wrote on Dec. 22, +1747:—'More than twelve years ago you told me God had +revealed it to you that you should marry my youngest sister ... +You asked and gained her consent... In a few days you had a +counter-revelation, that you was not to marry her, but her +sister. This last error was far worse than the first. But you was +not quite above conviction. So, in spite of her poor astonished +parents, of her brothers, of all your vows and promises, you +shortly after jilted the younger and married the elder sister.' +Wesley's Journal<i>, ii. 39. Mrs. Hall suffered greatly for +marrying a wretch who had so cruelly treated her own sister, +Southey's</i> Wesley<i>, i. 369.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-300">[300]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 269.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-301">[301]</a> The +original 'Robinhood' was a debating society which met near +Temple-Bar. Some twenty years before this time Goldsmith belonged +to it, and, it was said, Burke. Forster's Goldsmith<i>, i. 287, +and Prior's</i> Burke<i>, p. 79. The president was a baker by +trade. 'Goldsmith, after hearing him give utterance to a train of +strong and ingenious reasoning, exclaimed to Derrick, "That man +was meant by nature for a Lord Chancellor." Derrick replied, "No, +no, not so high; he is only intended for Master of the</i> +Rolls<i>."' Prior's</i> Goldsmith<i>, i. 420. Fielding, in 1752, +in</i> The Covent-Garden Journal<i>, Nos. 8 and 9, takes off this +Society and the baker. A fragment of a report of their +discussions which he pretends to have discovered, begins +thus:—'This evenin the questin at the Robinhood was, +whether relidgin was of any youse to a sosyaty; baken bifor mee +To'mmas Whytebred, baker.' Horace Walpole (</i>Letters<i>, iv. +288), in 1764, wrote of the visit of a French gentleman to +England, 'He has</i> seen <i>... Jews, Quakers, Mr. Pitt, the +Royal Society, the Robinhood, Lord Chief-Justice Pratt, the +Arts-and-Sciences, &c.' Romilly (</i>Life<i>, i. 168), in a +letter dated May 22, 1781, says that during the past winter +several of these Sunday religious debating societies had been +established. 'The auditors,' he was assured, 'were mostly weak, +well-meaning people, who were inclined to Methodism;' but among +the speakers were 'some designing villains, and a few coxcombs, +with more wit than understanding.' 'Nothing,' he continues, +'could raise up panegyrists of these societies but what has +lately happened, an attempt to suppress them. The +Solicitor-General has brought a bill into Parliament for this +purpose. The bill is drawn artfully enough; for, as these +societies are held on Sundays, and people pay for admittance, he +has joined them with a famous tea-drinking house [Carlisle +House], involving them both in the same fate, and entitling his +bill,</i> A Bill to regulate certain Abuses and Profanations of +the Lord's Day<i>.' The Bill was carried; on a division none +being found among the Noes but the two tellers. The penalties for +holding a meeting were £200 for the master of the house, +£100 for the moderator of the meeting, and £50 for +each of the servants at the door.</i> Parl. Hist. <i>xxii. 262, +279.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-302">[302]</a> St. +Matthew<i>, xxvii. 52.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-303">[303]</a> I +Corinthians<i>, xv. 37.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-304">[304]</a> As this +subject frequently recurs in these volumes, the reader may be led +erroneously to suppose that Dr. Johnson was so fond of such +discussions, as frequently to introduce them. But the truth is, +that the authour himself delighted in talking concerning ghosts, +and what he has frequently denominated the mysterious<i>; and +therefore took every opportunity of</i> leading <i>Johnson to +converse on such subjects. MALONE. See</i> ante<i>, i. +406.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-305">[305]</a> Macbean +(Johnson's old amanuensis, ante<i>, i. 187) is not in Boswell's +list of guests; but in the Pemb. Coll. MSS., there is the +following entry on Monday, April 16:—'Yesterday at dinner +were Mrs. Hall, Mr. Levet, Macbean, Boswel (sic), Allen. Time +passed in talk after dinner. At seven, I went with Mrs. Hall to +Church, and came back to tea.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-306">[306]</a> Mrs. +Piozzi records (Anec<i>. p. 192) that he said 'a long time after +my poor mother's death, I heard her voice call</i> Sam<i>.' She +is so inaccurate that most likely this is merely her version of +the story that Boswell has recorded above. See also</i> ante<i>, +i. 405. Lord Macaulay made more of this story of the voice than +it could well bear—'Under the influence of his disease, his +senses became morbidly torpid, and his imagination morbidly +active. At one time he would stand poring on the town clock +without being able to tell the hour. At another, he would +distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him +by his name. But this was not the worst.' Macaulay's</i> Writings +and Speeches<i>, ed. 1871, p. 374.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-307">[307]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'One wife is too much for most + husbands to bear, + But two at a time there's no + mortal can bear.' + Act iii. sc. 4. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-308">[308]</a> 'I think +a person who is terrified with the imagination of ghosts and +spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the +reports of all historians, sacred and profane, ancient and +modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the +appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless.' The Spectator<i>, +No. 110.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-309">[309]</a> St. +Matthew<i>, chap. xxvii. vv. 52, 53. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-310">[310]</a> Garrick +died on Jan. 20, 1779.</p> +<p><a name="note-311">[311]</a> Garrick +called her Nine<i>, (the Nine Muses). 'Nine,' he said, 'you are +a</i> Sunday Woman<i>.' H. More's</i> Memoirs<i>, i. 113.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-312">[312]</a> See vol. +iii. p. 331. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-313">[313]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 325, note 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-314">[314]</a> Boswell +is quoting from Johnson's eulogium on Garrick in his Life of +Edmund Smith. Works<i>, vii. 380. See</i> ante<i>, i. 81.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-315">[315]</a> How fond +she and her husband had been is shewn in a letter, in which, in +answer to an invitation, he says:—'As I have not left Mrs. +Garrick one day since we were married, near twenty-eight years, I +cannot now leave her.' Garrick Corres. <i>ii. 150. 'Garrick's +widow is buried with him. She survived him forty-three +years—"a little bowed-down old woman, who went about +leaning on a gold-headed cane, dressed in deep widow's mourning, +and always talking of her dear Davy." (</i>Pen and Ink +Sketches<i>, 1864).' Stanley's</i> Westminster Abbey<i>, ed. +1868, p. 305.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-316">[316]</a> Love's +Labour's Lost<i>, act ii. sc. i.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-317">[317]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 461.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-318">[318]</a> Horace +Walpole (Letters<i>, vii. 346) describes Hollis as 'a most +excellent man, a most immaculate Whig, but as simple a poor soul +as ever existed, except his editor, who has given extracts from +the good creature's diary that are very near as anile as +Ashmole's. There are thanks to God for reaching every birthday, +... and thanks to Heaven for her Majesty's being delivered of a +third or fourth prince, and</i> God send he may prove a good +man<i>.' See also Walpole's</i> Journal of the Reign of George +III<i>, i. 287. Dr. Franklin wrote much more highly of him. +Speaking of what he had done, he said:—'It is prodigious +the quantity of good that may be done by one man,</i> if he will +make a business of it<i>.' Franklin's Memoirs, ed. 1818, iii. +135.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-319">[319]</a> See p. +77 of this volume. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-320">[320]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 97.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-321">[321]</a> On April +6 of the next year this gentleman, when Secretary of the +Treasury, destroyed himself, overwhelmed, just as Cowper had +been, by the sense of the responsibility of an office which had +been thrust upon him. See Hannah More's Memoirs<i>, i. 245, and +Walpole's</i> Letters<i>, viii. 206.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-322">[322]</a> 'It is +commonly supposed that the uniformity of a studious life affords +no matter for a narration; but the truth is, that of the most +studious life a great part passes without study. An author +partakes of the common condition of humanity; he is born and +married like another man; he has hopes and fears, expectations +and disappointments, griefs and joys, and friends and enemies, +like a courtier, or a statesman; nor can I conceive why his +affairs should not excite curiosity as much as the whisper of a +drawing-room or the factions of a camp.' The Idler<i>, No. +102.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-323">[323]</a> Hannah +More wrote of this day (Memoirs<i>, i. 212):—'I accused Dr. +Johnson of not having done justice to the</i> Allegro <i>and</i> +Penseroso<i>. He spoke disparagingly of both. I praised</i> +Lycidas<i>, which he absolutely abused, adding, "if Milton had +not written the</i> Paradise Lost<i>, he would have only ranked +among the minor Poets. He was a Phidias that could cut a Colossus +out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of cherry-stones."' +See</i> post<i>, June 13, 1784. The</i> Allegro <i>and</i> +Penseroso <i>Johnson described as 'two noble efforts of +imagination.' Of</i> Lycidas <i>he wrote:—'Surely no man +could have fancied that he read it with pleasure, had he not +known the author.'</i> Works<i>, vii. 121, 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-324">[324]</a> Murphy +(Life of Garrick<i>, p. 374) says 'Shortly after Garrick's death +Johnson was told in a large company, "You are recent from the</i> +Lives of the Poets<i>; why not add your friend Garrick to the +number?" Johnson's answer was, "I do not like to be officious; +but if Mrs. Garrick will desire me to do it, I shall be very +willing to pay that last tribute to the memory of a man I loved." +'Murphy adds that he himself took care that Mrs. Garrick was +informed of what Johnson had said, but that no answer was ever +received.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-325">[325]</a> Miss +Burney wrote in May:—'Dr. Johnson was charming, both in +spirits and humour. I really think he grows gayer and gayer +daily, and more ductile <i>and pleasant.' In June she +wrote:—'I found him in admirable good-humour, and our +journey [to Streatham] was extremely pleasant. I thanked him for +the last batch of his poets, and we talked them over almost all +the way.' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, ii. 23, 44. Beattie, a +week or two later, wrote:—'Johnson grows in grace as he +grows in years. He not only has better health and a fresher +complexion than ever he had before (at least since I knew him), +but he has contracted a gentleness of manner which pleases +everybody.' Beattie's</i> Life<i>, ed. 1824, p. 289.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-326">[326]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 65. Wilkes was by this time City Chamberlain. 'I +think I see him at this moment,' said Rogers (</i>Table-Talk<i>, +p. 43), 'walking through the crowded streets of the city, as +Chamberlain, on his way to Guildhall, in a scarlet coat, military +boots, and a bag-wig—the hackney-coachmen in vain calling +out to him, "A coach, your honour."'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-327">[327]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 201, for Beattie's</i> Essay on Truth<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-328">[328]</a> Thurot, +in the winter of 1759-60, with a small squadron made descents on +some of the Hebrides and on the north-eastern coast of Ireland. +In a sea fight off Ireland he was killed and his ships were +taken. Gent. Mag<i>. xxx. 107. Horace Walpole says that in the +alarm raised by him in Ireland, 'the bankers there stopped +payment.'</i> Memoirs of the Reign of George II<i>, iii. +224.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-329">[329]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Some for renown on scraps of learning doat, + And think they grow immortal as they quote.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Young's Love of Fame<i>, sat. i. Cumberland (</i>Memoirs<i>, +ii. 226) says that Mr. Dilly, speaking of 'the profusion of +quotations which some writers affectedly make use of, observed +that he knew a Presbyterian parson who, for eighteenpence, would +furnish any pamphleteer with as many scraps of Greek and Latin as +would pass him off for an accomplished classic.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-330">[330]</a> Cowley +was quite out of fashion. Richardson (Corres. <i>ii. 229) wrote +more than thirty years earlier:—'I wonder Cowley is so +absolutely neglected.' Pope, a dozen years or so before +Richardson, asked,</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet, + His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Imitations of Horace<i>, Epis. ii. i. 75.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-331">[331]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 58, and iii. 276.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-332">[332]</a> 'There +was a club held at the King's Head in Pall Mall that arrogantly +called itself The World. Lord Stanhope (now Lord Chesterfield) +was a member. Epigrams were proposed to be written on the glasses +by each member after dinner. Once when Dr. Young was invited +thither, the doctor would have declined writing because he had no +diamond, Lord Stanhope lent him his, and he wrote +immediately—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "Accept<i> a miracle," &c.' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Spence's Anecdotes<i>, p. 377. Dr. Maty (</i>Memoirs of +Chesterfield<i>, i. 227) assigns the lines to Pope, and lays the +scene at Lord Cobham's. Spence, however, gives Young himself as +his authority.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-333">[333]</a> 'Aug. +1778. "I wonder," said Mrs. Thrale, "you bear with my nonsense." +"No, madam, you never talk nonsense; you have as much sense and +more wit than any woman I know." "Oh," cried Mrs. Thrale, +blushing, "it is my turn to go under the table this morning, Miss +Burney." "And yet," continued the doctor, with the most comical +look, "I have known all the wits from Mrs. Montagu down to Bet +Flint." "Bet Flint!" cried Mrs. Thrale. "Pray, who is she?" "Oh, +a fine character, madam. She was habitually a slut and a +drunkard, and occasionally a thief and a harlot.... Mrs. +Williams," he added, "did not love Bet Flint, but Bet Flint made +herself very easy about that."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, i. 87, +90.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-334">[334]</a> Johnson, +whose memory was wonderfully retentive [see ante<i>, i. 39], +remembered the first four lines of this curious production, which +have been communicated to me by a young lady of his +acquaintance:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'When first I drew my vital breath, + A little minikin I came upon + earth; + And then I came from a dark + abode, + Into this gay and gaudy world.' + BOSWELL. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-335">[335]</a> The +Sessional Reports of the Old Bailey Trials <i>for 1758, p. 278, +contain a report of the trial. The Chief Justice Willes was in +the Commission, but, according to the</i> Report<i>, it was +before the Recorder that Bet Flint was tried. It may easily be, +however, that either the reporter or the printer has blundered. +It is only by the characters * and ‡ that the trials +before the Chief Justice and the Recorder are distinguished. Bet +had stolen not only the counterpane, but five other articles. The +prosecutrix could not prove that the articles were hers, and not +a captain's, whose servant she said she had been, and who was now +abroad. On this ground the prisoner was acquitted. Of Chief +Justice Willes, Horace Walpole writes:—'He was not wont to +disguise any of his passions. That for gaming was notorious; for +women unbounded.' He relates an anecdote of his wit and +licentiousness. Walpole's</i> Reign of George II<i>, i. 89. He +had been Johnson's schoolfellow (</i>ante<i>, i. 45).</i></p> +<p><a name="note-336">[336]</a> Burke is +meant. See ante<i>, ii. 131, where Johnson said that Burke spoke +too familiarly; and</i> post<i>, May 15, 1784, where he said that +'when Burke lets himself down to jocularity he is in the +kennel.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-337">[337]</a> Wilkes +imperfectly recalled to mind the following passage in +Plutarch:—'[Greek: Euphranor ton Thaesea ton heatou to +Parrhasiou parebale, legon tor men ekeinou hroda bebrokenai, tor +de eautou krea boeia.]' 'Euphranor, comparing his own Theseus +with Parrhasius's, said that Parrhasius's had fed on roses, but +his on beef.' Plutarch<i>, ed. 1839, iii. 423.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-338">[338]</a> +Portugal, receiving from Brazil more gold than it needed for home +uses, shipped a large quantity to England. It was said, though +probably with exaggeration, that the weekly packet-boat from +Lisbon, brought one week with another, more than £50,000 in +gold to England. Smith's Wealth of Nations<i>, book iv. ch. 6. +Portugal pieces were current in our colonies, and no doubt were +commonly sent to them from London. It was natural therefore that +they should be selected for this legal fiction.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-339">[339]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. III.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-340">[340]</a> +'Whenever the whole of our foreign trade and consumption exceeds +our exportation of commodities, our money must go to pay our +debts so contracted, whether melted or not melted down. If the +law makes the exportation of our coin penal, it will be melted +down; if it leaves the exportation of our coin free, as in +Holland, it will be carried out in specie. One way or other, go +it must, as we see in Spain.... Laws made against exportation of +money or bullion will be all in vain. Restraint or liberty in +that matter makes no country rich or poor.' Locke's Works<i>, ed. +1824, iv. 160.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-341">[341]</a> 'Nov. +14, 1779. Mr. Beauclerk has built a library in Great +Russellstreet, that reaches half way to Highgate. Everybody goes +to see it; it has put the Museum's nose quite out of joint.' +Walpole's Letters<i>, vii. 273. It contained upwards of 30,000 +volumes, and the sale extended over fifty days. Two days' sale +were given to the works on divinity, including, in the words of +the catalogue, 'Heterodox! et Increduli. Angl. Freethinkers and +their opponents.'</i> Dr. Johnson: His Friends and His +Critics<i>, p. 315. It sold for £5,011 (ante, in. 420, note +4). Wilkes's own library—a large one—had been sold in +1764, in a five days' sale, as is shewn by the</i> Auctioneer's +Catalogue<i>, which is in the Bodleian.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-342">[342]</a> 'Our own +language has from the Reformation to the present time been +chiefly dignified and adorned by the works of our divines, who, +considered as commentators, controvertists, or preachers, have +undoubtedly left all other nations far behind them.' The +Idler<i>, No. 91.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-343">[343]</a> Mr. +Wilkes probably did not know that there is in an English sermon +the most comprehensive and lively account of that entertaining +faculty, for which he himself is so much admired. It is in Dr. +Barrow's first volume, and fourteenth sermon, 'Against foolish +Talking and Jesting.' <i>My old acquaintance, the late Corbyn +Morris, in his ingenious</i> Essay on Wit, Humour, and +Ridicule<i>, calls it 'a profuse description of Wit;' but I do +not see how it could be curtailed, without leaving out some good +circumstance of discrimination. As it is not generally known, and +may perhaps dispose some to read sermons, from which they may +receive real advantage, while looking only for entertainment, I +shall here subjoin it:—'But first (says the learned +preacher) it may be demanded, what the thing we speak of is? Or +what this facetiousness (or</i> wit <i>as he calls it before) +doth import? To which questions I might reply, as Democritus did +to him that asked the definition of a man, "'Tis that which we +all see and know." Any one better apprehends what it is by +acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is, +indeed, a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many +shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended +by several eyes and judgements, that it seemeth no less hard to +settle a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a +portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting air. +Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in +seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an +apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking +advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of +their sound: sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous +expression: sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude: +sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a +quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting +or cleverly retorting an objection: sometimes it is couched in a +bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in +a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of +contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical +representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a +mimical look or gesture, passeth for it: sometimes an affected +simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being: +sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is +strange: sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the +purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth +up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable, and +inexplicable; being answerable to the numberless rovings of +fancy, and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of +speaking out of the simple and plain way, (such as reason +teacheth and proveth things by,) which by a pretty surprising +uncouthness in conceit or expression, doth affect and amuse the +fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight +thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity +of apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of +spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar; it seeming to argue a +rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits +applicable; a notable skill, that he can dextrously accommodate +them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness +of humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. +(Whence in Aristotle such persons are termed [Greek:</i> +hepidexioi<i>], dextrous men, and [Greek:</i> eustrophoi<i>], men +of facile or versatile manners, who can easily turn themselves to +all things, or turn all things to themselves.) It also procureth +delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness, as semblance +of difficulty: (as monsters, not for their beauty, but their +rarity; as juggling tricks, not for their use, but their +abstruseness, are beheld with pleasure:) by diverting the mind +from its road of serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and +airiness of spirit; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit +in way of emulation or complaisance; and by seasoning matters, +otherwise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual and thence +grateful tang.' BOSWELL. Morris's</i> Essay <i>was published in +1744. Hume wrote:—'Pray do you not think that a proper +dedication may atone for what is objectionable in my Dialogues'! +I am become much of my friend Corbyn Morrice's mind, who says +that he writes all his books for the sake of the dedications.' J. +H. Burton's</i> Hume<i>, ii. 147.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-344">[344]</a> The +quarrel arose from the destruction by George II. of George I.'s +will (ante<i>, ii. 342). The King of Prussia, Frederick the +Great, was George I.'s grandson. 'Vague rumours spoke of a large +legacy to the Queen of Prussia [Frederick's mother]. Of that +bequest demands were afterwards said to have been frequently and +roughly made by her son, the great King of Prussia, between whom +and his uncle subsisted much inveteracy.' Walpole's</i> +Letters<i>, i. cxx.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-345">[345]</a> When I +mentioned this to the Bishop of Killaloe, 'With the goat,' said +his Lordship. Such, however, is the engaging politeness and +pleasantry of Mr. Wilkes, and such the social good humour of the +Bishop, that when they dined together at Mr. Dilly's, where I +also was, they were mutually agreeable. BOSWELL. It was not the +lion, but the leopard, that shall lie down with the kid. +Isaiah<i>, xi. 6.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-346">[346]</a> Mr. +Benjamin Stillingfleet, authour of tracts relating to natural +history, &c. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-347">[347]</a> Mrs. +Montagu, so early as 1757, wrote of Mr. Stillingfleet:—'I +assure you our philosopher is so much a man of pleasure, he has +left off his old friends and his blue stockings, and is at operas +and other gay assemblies every night.' Montagu's Letters<i>, iv. +117.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-348">[348]</a> See +ante<i>, in. 293, note 5.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-349">[349]</a> Miss +Burney thus describes her:—'She is between thirty and +forty, very short, very fat, but handsome; splendidly and +fantastically dressed, rouged not unbecomingly yet evidently, and +palpably desirous of gaining notice and admiration. She has an +easy levity in her air, manner, voice, and discourse, that speak +(sic) all within to be comfortable.... She is one of those who +stand foremost in collecting all extraordinary or curious people +to her London conversaziones, which, like those of Mrs. Vesey, +mix the rank and the literature, and exclude all beside.... Her +parties are the most brilliant in town.' Miss Burney then +describes one of these parties, at which were present Johnson, +Burke, and Reynolds. 'The company in general were dressed with +more brilliancy than at any rout I ever was at, as most of them +were going to the Duchess of Cumberland's.' Miss Burney herself +was 'surrounded by strangers, all dressed superbly, and all +looking saucily.... Dr. Johnson was standing near the fire, and +environed with listeners.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, ii. 179, +186, 190. Leslie wrote of Lady Corke in 1834 +(</i>Autobiographical Recollections<i>, i. 137, +243):—'Notwithstanding her great age, she is very animated. +The old lady, who was a lion-hunter in her youth, is as much one +now as ever.' She ran after a Boston negro named Prince Saunders, +who 'as he put his Christian name "Prince" on his cards without +the addition of Mr., was believed to be a native African prince, +and soon became a lion of the first magnitude in fashionable +circles.' She died in 1840.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-350">[350]</a> 'A lady +once ventured to ask Dr. Johnson how he liked Yorick's [Sterne's] +Sermons<i>. "I know nothing about them, madam," was his reply. +But some time afterwards, forgetting himself, he severely +censured them. The lady retorted:—"I understood you to say, +Sir, that you had never read them." "No, Madam, I did read them, +but it was in a stage-coach; I should not have even deigned to +look at them had I been at large." Cradock's</i> Memoirs<i>, p. +208.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-351">[351]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 382, note 1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-352">[352]</a> Next day +I endeavoured to give what had happened the most ingenious turn I +could, by the following verses:—</p> +<p>To THE HONOURABLE Miss MONCKTON.</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Not that with th' excellent Montrose + I had the happiness to dine; + Not that I late from table rose, + From Graham's wit, from generous wine. + It was not these alone which led + On sacred manners to encroach; + And made me feel what most I dread, + JOHNSON'S just frown, and self-reproach. + But when I enter'd, not abash'd, + From your bright eyes were shot such rays, + At once intoxication flash'd, + And all my frame was in a blaze. + But not a brilliant blaze I own, + Of the dull smoke I'm yet asham'd; + I was a dreary ruin grown, + And not enlighten'd though inflam'd. + Victim at once to wine and love, + I hope, MARIA, you'll forgive; + While I invoke the powers above, + That henceforth I may wiser live.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>The lady was generously forgiving, returned me an obliging +answer, and I thus obtained an Act of Oblivion<i>, and took care +never to offend again. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-353">[353]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 436, and iv. 88, note I.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-354">[354]</a> On May +22 Horace Walpole wrote (Letters<i>, viii. 44):—'Boswell, +that quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was +let in, which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. +After tapping many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an +unbribed oracle, he vented his errand. "Had I seen Dr. +Johnson's</i> Lives of the Poets<i>?" I said slightly, "No, not +yet;" and so overlaid his whole impertinence.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-355">[355]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-356">[356]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 47, note 2; 352, note I; and iii. 376, for +explanations of like instances of Boswell's neglect.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-357">[357]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 298, note 4.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-358">[358]</a> 'He +owned he sometimes talked for victory.' Boswell's Hebrides<i>, +opening pages.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-359">[359]</a> The late +Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton. MALONE.</p> +<p><a name="note-360">[360]</a> Dr. +Johnson, being told of a man who was thankful for being +introduced to him, 'as he had been convinced in a long dispute +that an opinion which he had embraced as a settled truth was no +better than a vulgar error, "Nay," said he, "do not let him be +thankful, for he was right, and I was wrong." Like his Uncle +Andrew in the ring at Smithfield, Johnson, in a circle of +disputants, was determined neither to be thrown nor conquered.' +Murphy's Johnson<i>, p. 139. Johnson, in</i> The Adventurer<i>, +No. 85, seems to describe his own talk. He writes:—' While +the various opportunities of conversation invite us to try every +mode of argument, and every art of recommending our sentiments, +we are frequently betrayed to the use of such as are not in +themselves strictly defensible; a man heated in talk, and eager +of victory, takes advantage of the mistakes or ignorance of his +adversary, lays hold of concessions to which he knows he has no +right, and urges proofs likely to prevail on his opponent, though +he knows himself that they have no force.' J. S. Mill gives +somewhat the same account of his own father. 'I am inclined to +think,' he writes, 'that he did injustice to his own opinions by +the unconscious exaggerations of an intellect emphatically +polemical; and that when thinking without an adversary in view, +he was willing to make room for a great portion of the truths he +seemed to deny.' Mill's</i> Autobiography<i>, p. 201. See +also</i> ante<i>, ii. 100, 450, in. 23, 277, 331; and</i> +post<i>, May 18, 1784, and Steevens's account of Johnson just +before June 22, 1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-361">[361]</a> Thomas +Shaw, D.D., author of Travels to Barbary and the +Levant<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-362">[362]</a> See +ante, iii. 314.</p> +<p><a name="note-363">[363]</a> The +friend very likely was Boswell himself. He was one of 'these +tanti <i>men.' 'I told Paoli that in the very heat of youth I +felt the</i> nom est tanti<i>, the</i> omnia vanitas <i>of one +who has exhausted all the sweets of his being, and is weary with +dull repetition. I told him that I had almost become for ever +incapable of taking a part in active life.' Boswell's</i> +Corsica<i>, ed. 1879, p. 193.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-364">[364]</a> Letters +on the English Nation: By Batista Angeloni, a Jesuit, who resided +many years in London. Translated from the original Italian by the +Author of the Marriage Act. A Novel<i>. 2 vols. London [no +printer's name given], 1755. Shebbeare published besides six</i> +Letters to the People of England <i>in the years 1755-7, for the +last of which he was sentenced to the pillory.</i> Ante<i>, iii. +315, note I. Horace Walpole (</i>Letters<i>, iii. 74) described +him in 1757 as 'a broken Jacobite physician, who has threatened +to write himself into a place or the pillory.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-365">[365]</a> I +recollect a ludicrous paragraph in the newspapers, that the King +had pensioned both a He<i>-bear and a</i> She<i>-bear. BOSWELL. +See</i> ante<i>, ii. 66, and</i> post<i>, April 28, 1783.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-366">[366]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + Witness, ye chosen train + Who breathe the sweets of his Saturnian reign; + Witness ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares, + Hark to my call, for some of you have ears.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Heroic Epistle<i>. See</i> post<i>, under June 16, +1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-367">[367]</a> In this +he was unlike the King, who, writes Horace Walpole,' expecting +only an attack on Chambers, bought it to tease, and began reading +it to, him; but, finding it more bitter on himself, flung it down +on the floor in a passion, and would read no more.' Journal of +the Reign of George III<i>, i. 187.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-368">[368]</a> They +were published in 1773 in a pamphlet of 16 pages, and, with the +good fortune that attends a muse in the peerage, reached a third +edition in the year. To this same earl the second edition of +Byron's Hours of Idleness <i>was 'dedicated by his obliged ward +and affectionate kinsman, the author.' In</i> English Bards and +Scotch Reviewers<i>, he is abused in the passage which +begins:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'No muse will cheer with renovating smile, + The paralytic puling of Carlisle.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>In a note Byron adds:—'The Earl of Carlisle has lately +published an eighteen-penny pamphlet on the state of the stage, +and offers his plan for building a new theatre. It is to be hoped +his lordship will be permitted to bring forward anything for the +stage—except his own tragedies.' In the third canto of +Childe Harold <i>Byron makes amends. In writing of the death of +Lord Carlisle's youngest son at Waterloo, he says:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine; + Yet one I would select from that proud throng, + Partly because they blend me with his line, + And partly that I did his Sire some wrong.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>For his lordship's tragedy see post<i>, under Nov. 19, +1783.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-369">[369]</a> Men of +rank and fortune, however, should be pretty well assured of +having a real claim to the approbation of the publick, as +writers, before they venture to stand forth. Dryden, in his +preface to All for Love<i>, thus expresses +himself:—</i></p> +<p>'Men of pleasant conversation (at least esteemed so) and +endued with a trifling kind of fancy, perhaps helped out by +[with] a smattering of Latin, are ambitious to distinguish +themselves from the herd of gentlemen, by their poetry:</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "Rarus enim fermè sensus communis in ilia + Fortuna,"——[Juvenal<i>, viii. 73.] +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented +with what fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with +their estates, but they must call their wits in question, and +needlessly expose their nakedness to publick view? Not +considering that they are not to expect the same approbation from +sober men, which they have found from their flatterers after the +third bottle: If a little glittering in discourse has passed them +on us for witty men, where was the necessity of undeceiving the +world? Would a man who has an ill title to an estate, but yet is +in possession of it, would he bring it of his own accord to be +tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talents +[talent], yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor +subsistence; but what can be urged in their defence, who, not +having the vocation of poverty to scribble, out of mere +wantonness take pains to make themselves ridiculous? Horace was +certainly in the right where he said, "That no man is satisfied +with his own condition." A poet is not pleased, because he is not +rich; and the rich are discontented because the poets will not +admit them of their number.' BOSWELL. Boswell, it should seem, +had followed Swift's advice:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Read all the prefaces of Dryden, + For these our critics much confide in; + Though merely writ at first for filling, + To raise the volume's price a shilling.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Swift's Works<i>, ed. 1803, xi. 293.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-370">[370]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 402.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-371">[371]</a> +Wordsworth, it should seem, held with Johnson in this. When he +read the article in the Edinburgh Review <i>on Lord Byron's early +poems, he remarked that 'though Byron's verses were probably poor +enough, yet such an attack was abominable,—that a young +nobleman, who took to poetry, deserved to be encouraged, not +ridiculed.' Rogers's</i> Table-Talk<i>, p. 234, note.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-372">[372]</a> Dr. +Barnard, formerly Dean of Derry. See ante<i>, iii. 84.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-373">[373]</a> This +gave me very great pleasure, for there had been once a pretty +smart altercation between Dr. Barnard and him, upon a question, +whether a man could improve himself after the age of forty-five; +when Johnson in a hasty humour, expressed himself in a manner not +quite civil. Dr. Barnard made it the subject of a copy of +pleasant verses, in which he supposed himself to learn different +perfections from different men. They concluded with delicate +irony:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Johnson shall teach me how to place + In fairest light each borrow'd grace; + From him I'll learn to write; + Copy his clear familiar style, + And by the roughness of his file + Grow, like himself, polite<i>.' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>I know not whether Johnson ever saw the poem, but I had +occasion to find that as Dr. Barnard and he knew each other +better, their mutual regard increased. BOSWELL. See Appendix +A.</p> +<p><a name="note-374">[374]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 357, iii. 309, and</i> post<i>, March 23, +1783.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-375">[375]</a> 'Sir +Joshua once asked Lord B—— to dine with Dr. Johnson +and the rest, but though a man of rank and also of good +information, he seemed as much alarmed at the idea as if you had +tried to force him into one of the cages at Exeter-Change.' +Hazlitt's Conversations of Northcote<i>, p. 41.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-376">[376]</a> Yet when +he came across them he met with much respect. At Alnwick he was, +he writes, 'treated with great civility by the Duke of +Northumberland.' Piozzi Letters<i>, i. 108. At Inverary, the Duke +and Duchess of Argyle shewed him great attention. Boswell's</i> +Hebrides<i>, Oct. 25. In fact, all through his Scotch tour he was +most politely welcomed by 'the great.' At Chatsworth, he was +'honestly pressed to stay' by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire +(</i>post<i>, Sept. 9, 1784). See</i> ante<i>, iii. 21. On the +other hand, Mrs. Barbauld says:—'I believe it is true that +in England genius and learning obtain less personal notice than +in most other parts of Europe.' She censures 'the contemptuous +manner in which Lady Wortley Montagu mentioned +Richardson:—"The doors of the Great," she says, "were never +opened to him."'</i> Richardson Corres. <i>i. clxxiv.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-377">[377]</a> When +Lord Elibank was seventy years old, he wrote:—'I shall be +glad to go five hundred miles to enjoy a day of his company.' +Boswell's Hebrides<i>, Sept. 12.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-378">[378]</a> +Romans<i>, x. 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-379">[379]</a> I +Peter<i>, iii. 15.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-380">[380]</a> Horace +Walpole wrote three years earlier:—' Whig principles are +founded on sense; a Whig may be a fool, a Tory must be so.' +Letters<i>, vii. 88.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-381">[381]</a> Mr. +Barclay, a descendant of Robert Barclay, of Ury, the celebrated +apologist of the people called Quakers, and remarkable for +maintaining the principles of his venerable progenitor, with as +much of the elegance of modern manners, as is consistent with +primitive simplicity, BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-382">[382]</a> Now +Bishop of Llandaff, one of the poorest <i>Bishopricks in this +kingdom. His Lordship has written with much zeal to show the +propriety of</i> equalizing <i>the revenues of Bishops. He has +informed us that he has burnt all his chemical papers. The +friends of our excellent constitution, now assailed on every side +by innovators and levellers, would have less regretted the +suppression of some of this Lordship's other writings. BOSWELL. +Boswell refers to</i> A Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury by +Richard, Lord Bishop of Landaff<i>, 1782. If the revenues were +made more equal, 'the poorer Bishops,' the Bishop writes, 'would +be freed from the necessity of holding ecclesiastical +preferments</i> in commendam <i>with their Bishopricks,' p. +8.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-383">[383]</a> De +Quincey says that Sir Humphry Davy told him, 'that he could +scarcely imagine a time, or a condition of the science, in which +the Bishop's Essays <i>would be superannuated.' De Quincey's</i> +Works<i>, ii. 106. De Quincey describes the Bishop as being +'always a discontented man, a railer at the government and the +age, which could permit such as his to pine away ingloriously in +one of the humblest among the Bishopricks.'</i> Ib<i>. p. 107. He +was, he adds, 'a true Whig,' and would have been made Archbishop +of York had his party staid in power a little longer in +1807.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-384">[384]</a> +Rasselas<i>, chap. xi.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-385">[385]</a> See +Boswell's Hebrides<i>, Sept. 30.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-386">[386]</a> 'They +heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden.' +Genesis<i>, iii. 8.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-387">[387]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + ... 'Vivendi recte qui prorogat horam, + Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille + Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.' + 'And sure the man who has it in his power + To practise virtue, and protracts the hour, + Waits like the rustic till the river dried; + Still glides the river, and will ever glide.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>FRANCIS. Horace, Epist<i>. i. 2. 41.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-388">[388]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 59.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-389">[389]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 251.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-390">[390]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 136.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-391">[391]</a> This +assertion is disproved by a comparison of dates. The first four +satires of Young were published in 1725; The South Sea scheme +(which appears to be meant,) was in 1720. MALONE. In Croft's Life +of Young<i>, which Johnson adopted, it is stated:—'By +the</i> Universal Passion <i>he acquired no vulgar fortune, more +than £3000. A considerable sum had already been swallowed +up in the South Sea.' Johnson's</i> Works<i>, viii. 430. Some of +Young's poems were published before 1720.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-392">[392]</a> Crabbe +got Johnson to revise his poem, The Village <i>(</i>post<i>, +under March 23, 1783). He states, that 'the Doctor did not +readily comply with requests for his opinion; not from any +unwillingness to oblige, but from a painful contention in his +mind between a desire of giving pleasure and a determination to +speak truth.' Crabbe's</i> Works<i>, ii. 12. See</i> ante<i>, ii. +51, 195, and iii. 373.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-393">[393]</a> Pope's +Essay on Man<i>, iv. 390. See</i> ante<i>, iii. 6, note +2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-394">[394]</a> He had +within the last seven weeks gone up drunk, at least twice, to a +lady's drawing-room. Ante<i>, pp. 88, note 1, and 109.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-395">[395]</a> Mr. +Croker, though without any authority, prints +unconscious<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-396">[396]</a> I +Corinthians, ix. 27. See ante<i>, 295.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-397">[397]</a> 'We walk +by faith, not by sight.' 2 Corinthians, v. 7</p> +<p><a name="note-398">[398]</a> Dr. +Ogden, in his second sermon On the Articles of the Christian +Faith<i>, with admirable acuteness thus addresses the opposers of +that Doctrine, which accounts for the confusion, sin and misery, +which we find in this life: 'It would be severe in GOD, you +think, to</i> degrade <i>us to such a sad state as this, for the +offence of our first parents: but you can allow him to</i> place +<i>us in it without any inducement. Are our calamities lessened +for not being ascribed to Adam? If your condition be unhappy, is +it not still unhappy, whatever was the occasion? with the +aggravation of this reflection, that if it was as good as it was +at first designed, there seems to be somewhat the less reason to +look for its amendment.' BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-399">[399]</a> 'Which +taketh away the sin' &c. St. John, i. 29.</p> +<p><a name="note-400">[400]</a> See +Boswell's Hebrides, August 22.</p> +<p><a name="note-401">[401]</a> This +unfortunate person, whose full name was Thomas Fysche Palmer, +afterwards went to Dundee, in Scotland, where he officiated as +minister to a congregation of the sect who called themselves +Unitarians<i>, from a notion that they distinctively worship ONE +GOD, because they</i> deny <i>the mysterious doctrine of the +TRINITY. They do not advert that the great body of the Christian +Church, in maintaining that mystery, maintain also the</i> Unity +<i>of the GODHEAD; the 'TRINITY in UNITY!—three persons and +ONE GOD.' The Church humbly adores the DIVINITY as exhibited in +the holy Scriptures. The Unitarian sect vainly presumes to +comprehend and define the ALMIGHTY. Mr. Palmer having heated his +mind with political speculations, became so much dissatisfied +with our excellent Constitution, as to compose, publish, and +circulate writings, which were found to be so seditious and +dangerous, that upon being found guilty by a Jury, the Court of +Justiciary in Scotland sentenced him to transportation for +fourteen years. A loud clamour against this sentence was made by +some Members of both Houses of Parliament; but both Houses +approved of it by a great majority; and he was conveyed to the +settlement for convicts in New South Wales. BOSWELL. This note +first appears in the third edition. Mr. Palmer was sentenced to +seven (not fourteen) years transportation in Aug. 1793. It was +his fellow prisoner, Mr. Muir, an advocate, who was sentenced to +fourteen years.</i> Ann. Reg. <i>1793, p. 40. When these +sentences were brought before the House of Commons, Mr. Fox said +that it was 'the Lord-Advocate's fervent wish that his native +principles of justice should be introduced into this country; and +that on the ruins of the common law of England should be erected +the infamous fabric of Scottish persecution. ... If that day +should ever arrive, if the tyrannical laws of Scotland should +ever be introduced in opposition to the humane laws of England, +it would then be high time for my hon. friends and myself to +settle our affairs, and retire to some happier clime, where we +might at least enjoy those rights which God has given to man, and +which his nature tells him he has a right to demand.'</i> Parl. +Hist. <i>xxx. 1563. For</i> Unitarians<i>, see</i> ante<i>, ii. +408, note I.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-402">[402]</a> Taken +from Herodotus. [Bk. ii. ch. 104.] BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-403">[403]</a> 'The +mummies,' says Blakesley, 'have straight hair, and in the +paintings the Egyptians are represented as red, not black.' +Ib<i>. note.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-404">[404]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 441, and</i> post<i>, March 28, and June 3, +1782.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-405">[405]</a> Mr. +Dawkins visited Palmyra in 1751. He had 'an escort of the Aga of +Hassia's best Arab horsemen.' Johnson was perhaps astonished at +the size of their caravan, 'which was increased to about 200 +persons.' The writer treats the whole matter with great brevity. +Wood's Ruins of Palmyra<i>, p. 33. On their return the travellers +discovered a party of Arab horsemen, who gave them an alarm. +Happily these Arabs were still more afraid of them, and were at +once plundered by the escort, 'who laughed at our remonstrances +against their injustice.' Wood's</i> Ruins of Balbec<i>, p. +2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-406">[406]</a> He wrote +a Life of Watts<i>, which Johnson quoted.</i> Works<i>, +viii.</i></p> +<center>382.</center> +<p><a name="note-407">[407]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 422, note 6.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-408">[408]</a> In the +first two editions formal<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-409">[409]</a> Johnson +maintains this in The Idler<i>, No. 74. 'Few,' he says, 'have +reason to complain of nature as unkindly sparing of the gifts of +memory ... The true art of memory is the art of attention.' +See</i> ante<i>, iii. 191.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-410">[410]</a>The first +of the definitions given by Johnson of to remember <i>is</i> to +bear in mind anything; not to forget. To recollect <i>he +defines</i> to recover to memory<i>. We may, perhaps, assume that +Boswell said, 'I did not recollect that the chair was broken;' +and that Johnson replied, 'you mean, you did not remember. That +you did not remember is your own fault. It was in your mind that +it was broken, and therefore you ought to have remembered it. It +was not a case of recollecting; for we recollect, that is, +recover to memory, what is not in our mind.' In the passage</i> +ante<i>, i. 112, which begins, 'I indeed doubt if he could have +remembered,' we find in the first two editions not</i> +remembered<i>, but</i> recollected<i>. Perhaps this change is due +to euphony, as</i> collected <i>comes a few lines before. Horace +Walpole, in one of his</i> Letters <i>(i. 15), distinguishes the +two words, on his revisiting his old school, Eton:—'By the +way, the clock strikes the old cracked sound—I recollect so +much, and remember so little.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-411">[411]</a> He made +the same boast at St. Andrews. See Boswell's Hebrides<i>, Aug. +19. He was, I believe, speaking of his translation of +Courayer's</i> Life of Paul Sarpi and Notes<i>, of which some +sheets were printed off.</i> Ante<i>, i. 135.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-412">[412]</a> Horace +Walpole, after mentioning that George III's mother, who died in +1772, left but £27,000 when she was reckoned worth at least +£300,000, adds:—'It is no wonder that it became the +universal belief that she had wasted all on Lord Bute. This +became still more probable as he had made the purchase of the +estate at Luton, at the price of £114,000, before he was +visibly worth £20,000; had built a palace there, another in +town, and had furnished the former in the most expensive manner, +bought pictures and books, and made a vast park and lake.' +Journal of the Reign of George III<i>, i. 19.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-413">[413]</a> To him +Boswell dedicated his Thesis <i>as</i> excelsae familiae de Bute +spei alterae <i>(</i>ante<i>, ii. 20). In 1775, he wrote of +him:—'He is warmly my friend and has engaged to do for +me.'</i> Letters of Boswell<i>, p. 186</i></p> +<p><a name="note-414">[414]</a> He was +mistaken in this. See ante<i>, i. 260; also iii. 420.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-415">[415]</a> In +England in like manner, and perhaps for the same reason, all +Attorneys have been converted into Solicitors.</p> +<p><a name="note-416">[416]</a> 'There +is at Edinburgh a society or corporation of errand boys, called +Cawdies, who ply in the streets at night with paper lanthorns, +and are very serviceable in carrying messages.' Humphrey +Clinker<i>. Letter of Aug. 8.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-417">[417]</a> Their +services in this sense are noticed in the same letter.</p> +<center><a name= +"note-418">[418]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'The formal process shall be turned to sport, + And you dismissed with honour by the Court.' + FRANCIS. Horace, Satires<i>, ii.i.86. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-419">[419]</a> Mr. +Robertson altered this word to jocandi<i>, he having found in +Blackstone that to irritate is actionable. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-420">[420]</a> Quoted +by Johnson, ante<i>, ii. l97.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-421">[421]</a> His +god-daughter. See post <i>May 10, 1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-422">[422]</a> See +post<i>, under Dec. 20, 1782</i></p> +<p><a name="note-423">[423]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 155</i></p> +<p><a name="note-424">[424]</a> The will +of King Alfred, alluded to in this letter, from the original +Saxon, in the library of Mr. Astle, has been printed at the +expense of the University of Oxford. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-425">[425]</a> He was a +surgeon in this small Norfolk town. Dr. Burney's Memoirs<i>, i. +106.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-426">[426]</a> Burney +visited Johnson first in 1758, when he was living in Gough +Square. Ante<i>, i. 328.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-427">[427]</a> Mme. +D'Arblay says that Dr. Johnson sent them to Dr. Burney's house, +directed 'For the Broom Gentleman.' Dr. Burney's Memoirs<i>, ii. +180.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-428">[428]</a> 'Sept. +14, 1781. Dr. Johnson has been very unwell indeed. Once I was +quite frightened about him; but he continues his strange +discipline—starving, mercury, opium; and though for a time +half demolished by its severity, he always in the end rises +superior both to the disease and the remedy, which commonly is +the most alarming of the two.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, ii. 107. +On Sept. 18, his birthday, he wrote:—'As I came home [from +church], I thought I had never begun any period of life so +placidly. I have always been accustomed to let this day pass +unnoticed, but it came this time into my mind that some little +festivity was not improper. I had a dinner, and invited Allen and +Levett.'</i> Pr. and Med. <i>p. 199.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-429">[429]</a> This +remark, I have no doubt, is aimed at Hawkins, who (Life<i>, p. +553) pretends to account for this trip.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-430">[430]</a> Pr. and +Med. <i>p. 201. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-431">[431]</a> He wrote +from Lichfield on the previous Oct. 27:—'All here is +gloomy; a faint struggle with the tediousness of time; a doleful +confession of present misery, and the approach seen and felt of +what is most dreaded and most shunned. But such is the lot of +man.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 209.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-432">[432]</a> The +truth of this has been proved by sad experience. BOSWELL. Mrs. +Boswell died June 4, 1789. MALONE.</p> +<p><a name="note-433">[433]</a> See +account of him in the Gent. Mag<i>. Feb. 1785. BOSWELL, see ante, +i. 243, note 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-434">[434]</a> Mrs. +Piozzi (Synonymy<i>, ii. 79), quoting this verse, under</i> +Officious<i>, says;—'Johnson, always thinking neglect the +worst misfortune that could befall a man, looked on a character +of this description with less aversion than I do.'</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-435">[435]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Content thyself to be obscurely good<i>.' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Addisons Cato<i>, act. iv. sc. 4.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-436">[436]</a> In both +editions of Sir John Hawkins's Life of Dr. Johnson<i>, +'letter'd</i> ignorance<i>' is printed. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker +(</i>Boswell<i>, p. I) says that 'Mr. Boswell is habitually +unjust to Sir J. Hawkins.' As some kind of balance, I suppose, to +this injustice, he suppresses this note.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-437">[437]</a> Johnson +repeated this line to me thus:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'And Labour steals an hour to die.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>But he afterwards altered it to the present reading. BOSWELL. +This poem is printed in the Ann. Reg<i>. for 1783, p. 189, with +the following variations:—l. 18, for 'ready help' 'useful +care': l. 28, 'His single talent,' 'The single talent'; l. 33, +'no throbs of fiery pain,' 'no throbbing fiery pain'; l. 36, 'and +freed,' 'and forced.' On the next page it is printed</i> John +Gilpin<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-438">[438]</a> Mr. +Croker says that this line shows that 'some of Gray's happy +expressions lingered in Johnson's memory' He quotes a line that +comes at the end of the Ode on Vicissitude<i>—'From busy +day, the peaceful night.' This line is not Gray's, but +Mason's.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-439">[439]</a> Johnson +wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:—'If you want events, +Here is Mr. Levett just come in at fourscore from a walk to +Hampstead, eight miles, in August.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. +177.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-440">[440]</a> In the +original, March <i>20. On the afternoon of March 20 Lord North +announced in the House of Commons 'that his Majesty's Ministers +were no more.'</i> Parl. Hist<i>. xxii. 1215.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-441">[441]</a> Pr. and +Med<i>. p. 209 [207]. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-442">[442]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 355, iii. 46, iv. 81, 100. Mr. Seward records in +his</i> Biographiana<i>, p. 600—without however giving the +year—that 'Johnson being asked what the Opposition meant by +their flaming speeches and violent pamphlets against Lord North's +administration, answered: "They mean, Sir, rebellion; they mean +in spite to destroy that country which they are not permitted to +govern."'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-443">[443]</a> In the +previous December the City of London in an address, writes Horace +Walpole, 'besought the King to remove both his public and private +<i>counsellors, and used these stunning and memorable +words:—</i>"Your armies are captured; the wonted +superiority of your navies is annihilated, your dominions are +lost." <i>Words that could be used to no other King; no King had +ever lost so much without losing all. If James II. lost his +crown, yet the crown lost no dominions.'</i> Journal of the Reign +of George III<i>, ii. 483. The address is given in the</i> Ann. +Reg. <i>xxiv. 320. On Aug. 4 of this year Johnson wrote to Dr. +Taylor:—'Perhaps no nation not absolutely conquered has +declined so much in so short a time. We seem to be sinking. +Suppose the Irish, having already gotten a free trade and an +independent Parliament, should say we will have a King and ally +ourselves with the House of Bourbon, what could be done to hinder +or overthrow them?' Mr. Morrison's</i> Autographs<i>, vol. +ii.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-444">[444]</a> In +February and March, 1771, the House of Commons ordered eight +printers to attend at the bar on a charge of breach of privilege, +in publishing reports of debates. One of the eight, Miller of the +Evening Post<i>, when the messenger of the House tried to arrest +him, gave the man himself into custody on a charge of assault. +The messenger was brought before Lord Mayor Crosby and Aldermen +Wilkes and Oliver, and a warrant was made out for his commitment. +Bail was thereupon offered and accepted for his appearance at the +next sessions. The Lord Mayor and Oliver were sent to the Tower +by the House. Wilkes was ordered to appear on April 8; but the +Ministry, not daring to face his appearance, adjourned the House +till the 9th. A committee was appointed by ballot to inquire into +the late obstructions to the execution of the orders of the +House. It recommended the consideration of the expediency of the +House ordering that Miller should be taken into custody. The +report, when read, was received with a roar of laughter. Nothing +was done. Such was, to quote the words of Burke in the</i> Annual +Register <i>(xiv. 70), 'the miserable result of all the pretended +vigour of the Ministry.' See</i> Parl. Hist. <i>xvii. 58, +186.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-445">[445]</a> Lord +Cornwallis's army surrendered at York Town, five days before Sir +Henry Clinton's fleet and army arrived off the Chesapeak. Ann. +Reg. <i>xxiv. 136.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-446">[446]</a> Johnson +wrote on March 30:—'The men have got in whom I have +endeavoured to keep out; but I hope they will do better than +their predecessors; it will not be easy to do worse.' Croker's +Boswell<i>, p. 706.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-447">[447]</a> This +note was in answer to one which accompanied one of the earliest +pamphlets on the subject of Chatterton's forgery, entitled +Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley<i>, +&c. Mr. Thomas Warton's very able</i> Inquiry <i>appeared +about three months afterwards; and Mr. Tyrwhitt's admirable</i> +Vindication of his Appendix <i>in the summer of the same hear, +left the believers in this daring imposture nothing but 'the +resolution to say again what had been said before.' +MALONE.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-448">[448]</a> Pr. and +Med. <i>p. 207. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-449">[449]</a> He +addressed to him an Ode in Latin, entitled Ad Thomam Laurence, +medicum doctissimum, quum filium peregre agentem desiderio nimis +tristi prosequeretur. Works<i>, i. 165.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-450">[450]</a> Mr. +Holder, in the Strand, Dr. Johnson's apothecary. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-451">[451]</a> 'Johnson +should rather have written "imperatum est." But the meaning of +the words is perfectly clear. "If you say yes, the messenger has +orders to bring Holder to me." Mr. Croker translates the words as +follows:-"If you consent, pray tell the messenger to bring Holder +to me." If Mr. Croker is resolved to write on points of classical +learning, we would advise him to begin by giving an hour every +morning to our old friend Corderius.' Macaulay's Essays<i>, ed. +1843, i 366. In</i> The Answers to Mr. Macaulay's Criticism<i>, +prefixed to Croker's</i> Boswell<i>, p. 13, it is suggested that +Johnson wrote either</i> imperetur <i>or</i> imperator<i>. The +letter may be translated: 'A fresh chill, a fresh cough, and a +fresh difficulty in breathing call for a fresh letting of blood. +Without your advice, however, I would not submit to the +operation. I cannot well come to you, nor need you come to me. +Say yes or no in one word, and leave the rest to Holder and to +me. If you say yes, let the messenger be bidden (imperetur) to +bring Holder to me. May 1, 1782. When</i> you <i>have left, +whither shall I turn?'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-452">[452]</a> Soon +after the above letter, Dr. Lawrence left London, but not before +the palsy had made so great a progress as to render him unable to +write for himself. The folio wing are extracts from letters +addressed by Dr. Johnson to one of his daughters:—</p> +<p>'You will easily believe with what gladness I read that you +had heard once again that voice to which we have all so often +delighted to attend. May you often hear it. If we had his mind, +and his tongue, we could spare the rest.</p> +<p>'I am not vigorous, but much better than when dear Dr. +Lawrence held my pulse the last time. Be so kind as to let me +know, from one little interval to another, the state of his body. +I am pleased that he remembers me, and hope that it never can be +possible for me to forget him. July 22, 1782.'</p> +<p>'I am much delighted even with the small advances which dear +Dr. Lawrence makes towards recovery. If we could have again but +his mind, and his tongue in his mind, and his right hand, we +should not much lament the rest. I should not despair of helping +the swelled hand by electricity, if it were frequently and +diligently supplied.</p> +<p>'Let me know from time to time whatever happens; and I hope I +need not tell you, how much I am interested in every change. Aug. +26, 1782.'</p> +<p>'Though the account with which you favoured me in your last +letter could not give me the pleasure that I wished, yet I was +glad to receive it; for my affection to my dear friend makes me +desirous of knowing his state, whatever it be. I beg, therefore, +that you continue to let me know, from time to time, all that you +observe.</p> +<p>'Many fits of severe illness have, for about three months +past, forced my kind physician often upon my mind. I am now +better; and hope gratitude, as well as distress, can be a motive +to remembrance. Bolt-court, Fleet-street, Feb. 4, 1783.' +BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-453">[453]</a> Mr. +Langton being at this time on duty at Rochester, he is addressed +by his military title. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-454">[454]</a> Eight +days later he recorded:—'I have in ten days written to +Aston, Lucy, Hector, Langton, Boswell; perhaps to all by whom my +letters are desired.' Pr. and Med. <i>209. He had written also to +Mrs. Thrale, but her affection, it should seem from this, he was +beginning to doubt.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-455">[455]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 84.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-456">[456]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 247.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-457">[457]</a> See +post<i>, p. 158, note 4.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-458">[458]</a> Johnson +has here expressed a sentiment similar to that contained in one +of Shenstone's stanzas, to which, in his life of that poet, he +has given high praise:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'I prized every hour that went by, + Beyond all that had pleased me before; + But now they are gone [past] and I sigh, + I grieve that I prized them no more.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<center>J. BOSWELL, JUN.</center> +<p><a name="note-459">[459]</a> She was +his god-daughter. See post<i>, May 10, 1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-460">[460]</a> 'Dr. +Johnson gave a very droll account of the children of Mr. Langton, +"who," he said, "might be very good children, if they were let +alone; but the father is never easy when he is not making them do +something which they cannot do; they must repeat a fable, or a +speech, or the Hebrew alphabet, and they might as well count +twenty for what they know of the matter; however, the father says +half, for he prompts every other word."' Mme. D'Arblay's +Diary<i>, i. 73. See</i> ante<i>, p. 20, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-461">[461]</a> A part +of this letter having been torn off, I have, from the evident +meaning, supplied a few words and half-words at the ends and +beginnings of lines. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-462">[462]</a> See vol. +ii. p. 459. BOSWELL. She was Hector's widowed sister, and +Johnson's first love. In the previous October, writing of a visit +to Birmingham, he said:—'Mrs. Careless took me under her +care, and told me when I had tea enough.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. +205.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-463">[463]</a> This +letter cannot belong to this year. In it Johnson says of his +health, 'at least it is not worse.' But 1782 found him in very +bad health; he passed almost the whole of the year 'in a +succession of disorders' (post<i>, p. 156). What he says of +friendship renders it almost certain that the letter was written +while he had still Thrale; and him he lost in April, 1781. Had it +been written after June, 1779, but before Thrale's death, the +account given of health would have been even better than it is +(</i>ante<i>, iii. 397). It belongs perhaps to the year 1777 or +1778.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-464">[464]</a> 'To a +man who has survived all the companions of his youth ... this +full-peopled world is a dismal solitude.' Rambler<i>, No. +69.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-465">[465]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 63.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-466">[466]</a> They met +on these days in the years 1772, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 81, and</p> +<center>3.</center> +<p><a name="note-467">[467]</a> The +ministry had resigned on the 20th. Ante<i>, p. 139, note +1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-468">[468]</a> +Thirty-two years earlier he wrote in The Rambler<i>, No. 53:-'In +the prospect of poverty there is nothing but gloom and +melancholy; the mind and body suffer together; its miseries bring +no alleviation; it is a state in which every virtue is obscured, +and in which no conduct can avoid reproach.' And again in No. +57:—'The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and +terrifying, that every man who looks before him must resolve to +avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of +sparing.' See</i> ante<i>. 441.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-469">[469]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 128.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-470">[470]</a> Hannah +More wrote in April of this year (Memoirs<i>, i. +249):—'Poor Johnson is in a bad state of health. I fear his +constitution is broken up.' (Yet in one week he dined out four +times.</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 237.) At one of these dinners, +'I urged him,' she continues (</i>ib<i>. p. 251) 'to take a</i> +little <i>wine. He replied, "I can't drink a</i> little<i>, +child; therefore, I never touch it. Abstinence is as easy to me +as temperance would be difficult." He was very good-humoured and +gay. One of the company happened to say a word about poetry, +"Hush, hush," said he, "it is dangerous to say a word of poetry +before her; it is talking of the art of war before +Hannibal."'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-471">[471]</a> This +book was published in 1781, and, according to Lowndes, reached +its seventh edition by 1787. See ante<i>, i. 214.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-472">[472]</a> The +clergyman's letter was dated May 4. Gent. Mag. <i>1786, p. 93. +Johnson is explaining the reason of his delay in acknowledging +it.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-473">[473]</a> What +follows appeared in the Morning Chronicle <i>of May 29, +1782:—'A correspondent having mentioned, in the</i> Morning +Chronicle <i>of December 12, the last clause of the following +paragraph, as seeming to favour suicide; we are requested to +print the whole passage, that its true meaning may appear, which +is not to recommend suicide but exercise.</i></p> +<p>'Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we +are decreed: but while the soul and body continue united, it can +make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they +shall be disjoined by an easy separation. It was a principle +among the ancients, that acute diseases are from Heaven, and +chronical from ourselves; the dart of death, indeed, falls from +Heaven, but we poison it by our own misconduct: to die is the +fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his +folly.' [The Rambler<i>, No. 85.] BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-474">[474]</a> The +Correspondence may be seen at length in the Gent. Mag. <i>Feb. +1786. BOSWELL. Johnson, advising Dr. Taylor 'to take as much +exercise as he can bear,' says:-'I take the true definition of +exercise to be labour without weariness.'</i> Notes and +Queries<i>, 6th S. v. 461.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-475">[475]</a> Here he +met Hannah More. 'You cannot imagine,' she writes (Memoirs<i>, i. +261), 'with what delight he showed me every part of his own +college. Dr. Adams had contrived a very pretty piece of +gallantry. We spent the day and evening at his house. After +dinner, Johnson begged to conduct me to see the College; he would +let no one show it me but himself. "This was my room; this +Shenstone's." Then, after pointing out all the rooms of the poets +who had been of his college, "In short," said he, "we were a nest +of singing-birds." When we came into the common-room, we spied a +fine large print of Johnson, hung up that very morning, with this +motto:—</i>And is not Johnson ours, himself a host? +<i>Under which stared you in the face—</i>From Miss More's +"Sensibility<i>." This little incident amused us; but, alas! +Johnson looks very ill indeed—spiritless and wan. However, +he made an effort to be cheerful.' Miss Adams wrote on June 14, +1782:—'On Wednesday we had here a delightful blue-stocking +party. Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott and Miss More, Dr. Johnson, Mr. +Henderson, &c., dined here. Poor Dr. Johnson is in very bad +health, but he exerted himself as much as he could, and being +very fond of Miss More, he talked a good deal, and every word he +says is worth recording. He took great delight in showing Miss +More every part of Pembroke College, and his own rooms, &c., +and told us many things about himself when here. .. June 19, +1782. We dined yesterday for the last time in the company with +Dr. Johnson; he went away to-day. A warm dispute arose; it was +about cider or wine freezing, and all the spirit retreating to +the center.'</i> Pemb. Coll. MSS.</p> +<p><a name="note-476">[476]</a> 'I never +retired to rest without feeling the justness of the Spanish +proverb, "Let him who sleeps too much borrow the pillow of a +debtor."' Johnson's Works<i>, iv. 14.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-477">[477]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 441.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-478">[478]</a> Which I +celebrated in the Church of England chapel at Edinburgh, founded +by Lord Chief Baron Smith, of respectable and pious memory. +BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-479">[479]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 80.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-480">[480]</a> The +Reverend Mr. Temple, Vicar of St. Gluvias, Cornwall. BOSWELL. See +ante<i>, i. 436, and ii. 316.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-481">[481]</a> 'He had +settled on his eldest son,' says Dr. Rogers (Boswelliana<i>, p. +129), 'the ancestral estate, with an unencumbered rental of +£l,600 a year.' That the rental, whatever it was, was not +unencumbered is shewn by the passage from Johnson's letter,</i> +post<i>, p. 155, note 4. Boswell wrote to Malone in 1791 +(Croker's</i> Boswell<i>, p. 828):—'The clear money on +which I can reckon out of my estate is scarcely £900 a +year.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-482">[482]</a> Cowley's +Ode to Liberty<i>, Stanza vi.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-483">[483]</a> 'I do +beseech all the succeeding heirs of entail,' wrote Boswell in his +will, 'to be kind to the tenants, and not to turn out old +possessors to get a little more rent.' Rogers's Boswelliana, p. +186.</p> +<p><a name="note-484">[484]</a> Macleod, +the Laird of Rasay. See Boswell's <i>Hebrides</i>, Sept. 8.</p> +<p><a name="note-485">[485]</a> A farm +in the Isle of Skye, where Johnson wrote his Latin Ode to Mrs. +Thrale. <i>Ib.</i> Sept. 6.</p> +<p><a name="note-486">[486]</a> Johnson +wrote to Dr. Taylor on Oct. 4:—'Boswel's (sic) father is +dead, and Boswel wrote me word that he would come to London for +my advice. [The] advice which I sent him is to stay at home, and +[busy] himself with his own affairs. He has a good es[tate], +considerably burthened by settlements, and he is himself in debt. +But if his wife lives, I think he will be prudent.' <i>Notes and +Queries</i>, 6th S. v. 462.</p> +<p><a name="note-487">[487]</a> Miss +Burney wrote in the first week in December:—'Dr. Johnson +was in most excellent good humour and spirits.' She describes +later on a brilliant party which he attended at Miss Monckton's +on the 8th, where the people were 'superbly dressed,' and where +he was 'environed with listeners.' Mme. D'Arblay's <i>Diary</i>, +ii. 186, and 190. See <i>ante</i>, p. 108, note 4.</p> +<p><a name="note-488">[488]</a> See +<i>ante,</i>, iii. 337, where Johnson got 'heated' when Boswell +maintained this.</p> +<p><a name="note-489">[489]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, in. 395.</p> +<p><a name="note-490">[490]</a> The +greatest part of the copy, or manuscript of <i>The Lives of the +Poets</i> had been given by Johnson to Boswell (<i>ante</i>, iv. +36).</p> +<p><a name="note-491">[491]</a> Of her +twelve children but these three were living. She was forty-one +years old.</p> +<p><a name="note-492">[492]</a> 'The +family,' writes Dr. Burney, 'lived in the library, which used to +be the parlour. There they breakfasted. Over the bookcases were +hung Sir Joshua's portraits of Mr. Thrale's +friends—Baretti, Burke, Burney, Chambers, Garrick, +Goldsmith, Johnson, Murphy, Reynolds, Lord Sandys, Lord Westcote, +and in the same picture Mrs. Thrale and her eldest daughter.' Mr. +Thrale's portrait was also there. Dr. Burney's <i>Memoirs</i>, +ii. 80, and Prior's <i>Malone</i>, p. 259.</p> +<p><a name="note-493">[493]</a> <i>Pr. +and Med.</i> p. 214. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-494">[494]</a> Boswell +omits a line that follows this prayer:—'O Lord, so far as, +&c.,—Thrale.' This means, I think, 'so far as it might +be lawful, I prayed for Thrale.' The following day Johnson +entered:—'I was called early. I packed up my bundles, and +used the foregoing prayer with my morning devotions, somewhat, I +think, enlarged. Being earlier than the family, I read St. Paul's +farewell in the <i>Acts</i> [xx. 17-end], and then read +fortuitously in the gospels, which was my parting use of the +library.'</p> +<p><a name="note-495">[495]</a> Johnson, +no doubt, was leaving Streatham because Mrs. Thrale was leaving +it. 'Streatham,' wrote Miss Burney, on Aug. 12 of this year, 'my +other home, and the place where I have long thought my residence +dependent only on my own pleasure, is already let for three years +to Lord Shelburne.' Mme. D'Arblay's <i>Diary</i>, ii.151. Johnson +was not yet leaving the Thrale family, for he joined them at +Brighton, and he was living with them the following spring in +Argyll-street. Nevertheless, if, as all Mrs. Thrale's friends +strongly held, her second marriage was blameworthy, Boswell's +remark admits of defence. Miss Burney in her diary and letters +keeps the secret which Mrs. Thrale had confided to her of her +attachment to Mr. Piozzi; but in the <i>Memoirs of Dr. +Burney</i>, which, as Mme. D'Arblay, she wrote long afterwards, +she leaves little doubt that Streatham was given up as a step +towards the second marriage. In 1782, on a visit there, she found +that her father 'and all others—Dr. Johnson not +excepted—were cast into the same gulf of general neglect. +As Mrs. Thrale became more and more dissatisfied with her own +situation, and impatient for its relief, she slighted Johnson's +counsel, and avoided his society.' Mme. D'Arblay describes a +striking scene in which her father, utterly puzzled by 'sad and +altered Streatham,' left it one day with tears in his eyes. +Another day, Johnson accompanied her to London. 'His look was +stern, though dejected, but when his eye, which, however +shortsighted, was quick to mental perception, saw how ill at ease +she appeared, all sternness subsided into an undisguised +expression of the strongest emotion, while, with a shaking hand +and pointing finger, he directed her looks to the mansion from +which they were driving; and when they faced it from the +coach-window, as they turned into Streatham Common, tremulously +exclaimed, "That house ...is lost to <i>me</i>... for ever."' +Johnson's letter to Langton of March 20, 1782 (<i>ante</i>, p. +145), in which he says that he was 'musing in his chamber at Mrs. +Thrale's,' shews that so early as that date he foresaw that a +change was coming. Boswell's statement that 'Mrs. Thrale became +less assiduous to please Johnson,' might have been far more +strongly worded. See Dr. Burney's <i>Memoirs</i>, ii. 243-253. +Lord Shelburne, who as Prime Minister was negotiating peace with +the United States, France, and Spain, hired Mrs. Thrale's house +'in order to be constantly near London.' Fitzmaurice's +<i>Shelburne</i>, iii. 242.</p> +<p><a name="note-496">[496]</a> Mr. +Croker quotes the following from the <i>Rose +MSS</i>.:—'Oct. 6, Die Dominica, 1782. Pransus sum +Streathamiae agninum crus coctum cum herbis (spinach) comminutis, +farcimen farinaceum cum uvis passis, lumbos bovillos, et pullum +gallinae: Turcicae; et post carnes missas, ficus, uvas, non +admodum maturas, ita voluit anni intemperies, cum malis Persicis, +iis tamen duris. Non laetus accubui, cibum modicè sumpsi, +ne intemperantiâ ad extremum peccaretur. Si recte memini, +in mentem venerunt epulae in exequiis Hadoni celebratae. +Streathamiam quando revisam?'</p> +<p><a name="note-497">[497]</a> 'Mr. +Metcalfe is much with Dr. Johnson, but seems to have taken an +unaccountable dislike to Mrs. Thrale, to whom he never speaks.... +He is a shrewd, sensible, keen, and very clever man.' Mme. +D'Arblay's <i>Diary</i>, ii. 172, 174. He, Burke, and Malone were +Sir Joshua's executors. Northcote's <i>Reynolds</i>, ii. 293.</p> +<p><a name="note-498">[498]</a> Boswell +should have shown, for he must have known it, that Johnson was +Mrs. Thrale's guest at Brighton. Miss Burney was also of the +party. Her account of him is a melancholy one:—'Oct. 28. +Dr. Johnson accompanied us to a ball, to the universal amazement +of all who saw him there; but he said he had found it so dull +being quite alone the preceding evening, that he determined upon +going with us; "for," said he, "it cannot be worse than being +alone."' Mme. D'Arblay's <i>Diary</i>, ii. 161. 'Oct. 29. Mr. +Pepys joined Dr. Johnson, with whom he entered into an argument, +in which he was so roughly confuted, and so severely ridiculed, +that he was hurt and piqued beyond all power of disguise, and, in +the midst of the discourse, suddenly turned from him, and, +wishing Mrs. Thrale goodnight, very abruptly withdrew. Dr. +Johnson was certainly right with respect to the argument and to +reason; but his opposition was so warm, and his wit so satirical +and exulting, that I was really quite grieved to see how +unamiable he appeared, and how greatly he made himself dreaded by +all, and by many abhorred.' <i>Ib</i>. p. 163. 'Oct. 30. In the +evening we all went to Mrs. Hatsel's. Dr. Johnson was not +invited.' <i>Ib</i>. p. 165. 'Oct. 31. A note came to invite us +all, except Dr. Johnson, to Lady Rothes's.' <i>Ib</i>. p. 168. +'Nov. 2. We went to Lady Shelley's. Dr. Johnson again excepted in +the invitation. He is almost constantly omitted, either from too +much respect or too much fear. I am sorry for it, as he hates +being alone.' <i>Ib</i>. p. 160. 'Nov. 7. Mr. Metcalfe called +upon Dr. Johnson, and took him out an airing. Mr. Hamilton is +gone, and Mr. Metcalfe is now the only person out of this house +that voluntarily communicates with the Doctor. He has been in a +terrible severe humour of late, and has really frightened all the +people, till they almost ran from him. To me only I think he is +now kind, for Mrs. Thrale fares worse than anybody.' <i>Ib</i>. +p. 177.</p> +<p><a name="note-499">[499]</a> '"Dr. +Johnson has asked me," said Mr. Metcalfe, "to go with him to +Chichester, to see the cathedral, and I told him I would +certainly go if he pleased; but why I cannot imagine, for how +shall a blind man see a cathedral?" "I believe," quoth I [i.e. +Miss Burney] "his blindness is as much the effect of absence as +of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at times."' <i>Ib</i>. p. +174. For Johnson's eyesight, see <i>ante</i>, i. 41.</p> +<p><a name="note-500">[500]</a> The +second letter is dated the 28th. Johnson says:—'I have +looked <i>often</i>,' &c.; but he does not say 'he has been +<i>much</i> informed,' but only 'informed.' Both letters are in +the <i>Gent. Mag.</i> 1784, p. 893.</p> +<p><a name="note-501">[501]</a> The +reference is to Rawlinson's MS. collections for a continuation of +Wood's <i>Athenae</i> (Macray's <i>Annals of the Bodleian</i>, p. +181).</p> +<p><a name="note-502">[502]</a> Jortin's +sermons are described by Johnson as 'very elegant.' <i>Ante</i>, +in. 248. He and Thirlby are mentioned by him in the <i>Life of +Pope. Works</i>, viii. 254.</p> +<p><a name="note-503">[503]</a> Markland +was born 1693, died 1776. His notes on some of Euripides' +<i>Plays</i> were published at the expense of Dr. Heberden. +Markland had previously destroyed a great many other notes; +writing in 1764 he said:—'Probably it will be a long time +(if ever) before this sort of learning will revive in England; in +which it is easy to foresee that there must be a disturbance in a +few years, and all public disorders are enemies to this sort of +literature.' <i>Gent. Mag.</i> 1778, P. 3l0. 'I remember,' writes +Mrs. Piozzi (<i>Anec</i>. p. 252), 'when lamentation was made of +the neglect shown to Jeremiah Markland, a great philologist, as +some one ventured to call him: "He is a scholar undoubtedly, +Sir," replied Dr. Johnson, "but remember that he would run from +the world, and that it is not the world's business to run after +him. I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives +into a corner, and [who] does nothing when he is there but sit +and <i>growl</i>; let him come out as I do, and <i>bark</i>"' A +brief account of him is given in the <i>Ann. Reg.</i> xix. +45.</p> +<p><a name="note-504">[504]</a> Nichols +published in 1784 a brief account of Thirlby, nearly half of it +being written by Johnson. Thirlby was born in 1692 and died in +1753. 'His versatility led him to try the round of what are +called the learned professions.' His life was marred by drink and +insolence.' His mind seems to have been tumultuous and desultory, +and he was glad to catch any employment that might produce +attention without anxiety; such employment, as Dr. Battie has +observed, is necessary for madmen.' <i>Gent. Mag.</i> 1784, pp. +260, 893.</p> +<p><a name="note-505">[505]</a> He was +attacked, says Northcote (<i>Life of Reynolds</i>, ii. 131), 'by +a slight paralytic affection, after an almost uninterrupted +course of good health for many years.' Miss Burney wrote on Dec. +28 to one of her sisters:—'How can you wish any wishes +[matrimonial wishes] about Sir Joshua and me? A man who has had +two shakes of the palsy!' Mme. D'Arblay's <i>Diary</i>, ii. +218.</p> +<p><a name="note-506">[506]</a> Dr. +Patten in Sept. 1781 (Croker's <i>Boswell</i>, p. 699) informed +Johnson of Wilson's intended dedication. Johnson, in his reply, +said:—'What will the world do but look on and laugh when +one scholar dedicates to another?'</p> +<p><a name="note-507">[507]</a> On the +same day he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'This, my dear Sir, is the last +day of a very sickly and melancholy year. Join your prayers with +mine, that the next may be more happy to us both. I hope the +happiness which I have not found in this world will by infinite +mercy be granted in another.' <i>Notes and Queries</i>, 6th S. v. +462.</p> +<p><a name="note-508">[508]</a> 'Jan. 4, +1783. Dr. Johnson came so very late that we had all given him up; +he was very ill, and only from an extreme of kindness did he come +at all. When I went up to him to tell how sorry I was to find him +so unwell, "Ah," he cried, taking my hand and kissing it, "who +shall ail anything when Cecilia is so near? Yet you do not think +how poorly I am."</p> +<p>All dinner time he hardly opened his mouth but to repeat to +me:—"Ah! you little know how ill I am." He was excessively +kind to me in spite of all his pain.' Mme. D'Arblay's +<i>Diary</i>, ii. 228. <i>Cecilia</i> was the name of her second +novel (<i>post</i>, May 26, 1783). On Jan. 10 he thus ended a +letter to Mr. Nichols:—'Now I will put you in a way of +shewing me more kindness. I have been confined by ilness (sic) a +long time, and sickness and solitude make tedious evenings. Come +sometimes and see, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your humble servant,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p><i>MS</i>. in the British Museum.</p> +<p><a name="note-509">[509]</a> 'Dr. +Johnson found here [at Auchinleck] Baxter's Anacreon, which he +told me he had long inquired for in vain, and began to suspect +there was no such book.' Boswell's <i>Hebrides</i>, Nov.2. See +<i>post</i>, under Sept. 29, 1783.</p> +<p><a name="note-510">[510]</a> 'The +delight which men have in popularity, fame, honour, submission, +and subjection of other men's minds, wills, or affections, +although these things may be desired for other ends, seemeth to +be a thing in itself, without contemplation of consequence, +grateful and agreeable to the nature of man.' Bacon's <i>Nat. +Hist.</i> Exper. No. 1000. See <i>ante</i>, ii. 178.</p> +<p><a name="note-511">[511]</a> In a +letter to Dr. Taylor on Jan. 21 of this year, he attacked the +scheme of equal representation.' Pitt, on May 7, 1782, made his +first reform motion. Johnson thus ended his letter:—'If the +scheme were more reasonable, this is not a time for innovation. I +am afraid of a civil war. The business of every wise man seems to +be now to keep his ground.' <i>Notes and Queries</i>, 6th S. v. +481.</p> +<p><a name="note-512">[512]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, i. 429, <i>post</i>, 170, and Boswell's +<i>Hebrides</i>, Sept.</p> +<center>30.</center> +<p><a name="note-513">[513]</a> The year +after this conversation the General Election of 1784 was held, +which followed on the overthrow of the Coalition Ministry and the +formation of the Pitt Ministry in December, 1783. The 'King's +friends' were in a minority of one in the last great division in +the old Parliament; in the motion on the Address in the new +Parliament they had a majority of 168. <i>Parl. Hist.</i> xxiv. +744, 843. Miss Burney, writing in Nov. 1788, when the King was +mad, says that one of his physicians 'moved me even to tears by +telling me that none of their own lives would be safe if the King +did not recover, so prodigiously high ran the tide of affection +and loyalty. All the physicians received threatening letters +daily, to answer for the safety of their monarch with their +lives! Sir G. Baker had already been stopped in his carriage by +the mob, to give an account of the King; and when he said it was +a bad one, they had furiously exclaimed, "The more shame for +you."' Mme. D'Arblay's <i>Diary</i>, iv. 336. Describing in 1789 +a Royal tour in the West of England, she writes of 'the crowds, +the rejoicings, the hallooing and singing, and garlanding and +decorating of all the inhabitants of this old city [Exeter], and +of all the country through which we passed.' <i>Ib.</i> v. +48.</p> +<p><a name="note-514">[514]</a> Miss +Palmer, Sir Joshua's niece, 'heard Dr. Johnson repeat these +verses with the tears falling over his cheek.' Taylor's +<i>Reynolds</i>, ii. 417.</p> +<p><a name="note-515">[515]</a> Gibbon +remarked that 'Mr. Fox was certainly very shy of saying anything +in Johnson's presence.' <i>Ante</i>, iii. 267. See <i>post</i>, +under June 9, 1784, where Johnson said 'Fox is my friend.'</p> +<p><a name="note-516">[516]</a> Mr. +Greville (<i>Journal</i>, ed. 1874, ii. 316) records the +following on the authority of Lord Holland:—'Johnson liked +Fox because he defended his pension, and said it was only to +blame in not being large enough. "Fox," he said, is a liberal +man; he would always be <i>aut Caesar aut nullus</i>; whenever I +have seen him he has been <i>nullus</i>. Lord Holland said Fox +made it a rule never to talk in Johnson's presence, because he +knew all his conversations were recorded for publication, and he +did not choose to figure in them.' Fox could not have known what +was not the fact. When Boswell was by, he had reason for his +silence; but otherwise he might have spoken out. 'Mr. Fox,' +writes Mackintosh (<i>Life</i>, i. 322) 'united, in a most +remarkable degree, the seemingly repugnant characters of the +mildest of men and the most vehement of orators. In private life +he was so averse from parade and dogmatism as to be somewhat +inactive in conversation.' Gibbon (<i>Misc. Works</i>, i. 283) +tells how Fox spent a day with him at Lausanne:—'Perhaps it +never can happen again, that I should enjoy him as I did that +day, alone from ten in the morning till ten at night. Our +conversation never flagged a moment.' 'In London mixed society,' +said Rogers (<i>Table-Talk</i>, p. 74), 'Fox conversed little; +but at his own house in the country, with his intimate friends, +he would talk on for ever, with all the openness and simplicity +of a child.'</p> +<p><a name="note-517">[517]</a> Sec +<i>ante</i>, ii. 450.</p> +<p><a name="note-518">[518]</a> Most +likely 'Old Mr. Sheridan.'</p> +<p><a name="note-519">[519]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, ii. 166.</p> +<p><a name="note-520">[520]</a> Were I +to insert all the stories which have been told of contests boldly +maintained with him, imaginary victories obtained over him, of +reducing him to silence, and of making him own that his +antagonist had the better of him in argument, my volumes would +swell to an immoderate size. One instance, I find, has circulated +both in conversation and in print; that when he would not allow +the Scotch writers to have merit, the late Dr. Rose, of Chiswick, +asserted, that he could name one Scotch writer, whom Dr. Johnson +himself would allow to have written better than any man of the +age; and upon Johnson's asking who it was, answered, 'Lord Bute, +when he signed the warrant for your pension.' Upon which Johnson, +struck with the repartee, acknowledged that this <i>was</i> true. +When I mentioned it to Johnson, 'Sir, (said he,) if Rose said +this, I never heard it.' BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-521">[521]</a> This +reflection was very natural in a man of a good heart, who was not +conscious of any ill-will to mankind, though the sharp sayings +which were sometimes produced by his discrimination and vivacity, +which he perhaps did not recollect, were, I am afraid, too often +remembered with resentment. BOSWELL. When, three months later on, +he was struck with palsy, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'I have +in this still scene of life great comfort in reflecting that I +have given very few reason to hate me. I hope scarcely any man +has known me closely but for his benefit, or cursorily but to his +innocent entertainment. Tell me, you that know me best, whether +this be true, that according to your answer I may continue my +practice, or try to mend it.' <i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. 287. See +<i>post</i>, May 19, 1784. Passages such as the two following +might have shewn him why he had enemies. 'For roughness, it is a +needless cause of discontent; severity breedeth fear, but +roughness breedeth hate.' Bacon's <i>Essays</i>, No. xi. ''Tis +possible that men may be as oppressive by their parts as their +power.' <i>The Government of the Tongue</i>, sect. vii. See +<i>ante</i>, i. 388, note 2.</p> +<p><a name="note-522">[522]</a> 'A grain +which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland +supports the people.' <i>Ante</i>, i. 294. Stockdale records +(<i>Memoirs</i>, ii. 191) that he heard a Scotch lady, after +quoting this definition, say to Johnson, 'I can assure you that +in Scotland we give oats to our horses as well as you do to yours +in England.' He replied:—'I am very glad, Madam, to find +that you treat your horses as well as you treat yourselves.'</p> +<p><a name="note-523">[523]</a> Sir +Joshua Reynolds wrote:—'The prejudices he had to countries +did not extend to individuals. The chief prejudice in which he +indulged himself was against Scotland, though he had the most +cordial friendship with individuals. This he used to vindicate as +a duty. ... Against the Irish he entertained no prejudice; he +thought they united themselves very well with us; but the Scotch, +when in England, united and made a party by employing only Scotch +servants and Scotch tradesmen. He held it right for Englishmen to +oppose a party against them.' Taylor's <i>Reynolds</i>, ii. 460. +See <i>ante</i>, ii. 242, 306, and Boswell's <i>Hebrides, +post</i>, v. 20.</p> +<p><a name="note-524">[524]</a> +<i>Ante</i>, ii. 300.</p> +<p><a name="note-525">[525]</a> Mrs. +Piozzi (<i>Anec</i>. p. 85) says that 'Dr. Johnson, commonly +spending the middle of the week at our house, kept his numerous +family in Fleet-street upon a settled allowance; but returned to +them every Saturday to give them three good dinners and his +company, before he came back to us on the Monday night.'</p> +<p><a name="note-526">[526]</a> Lord +North's Ministry lasted from 1770, to March, 1782. It was +followed by the Rockingham Ministry, and the Shelburne Ministry, +which in its turn was at this very time giving way to the +Coalition Ministry, to be followed very soon by the Pitt +Ministry.</p> +<p><a name="note-527">[527]</a> I have, +in my <i>Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides</i> [p. 200, Sept. +13], fully expressed my sentiments upon this subject. The +Revolution was <i>necessary</i>, but not a subject for +<i>glory</i>; because it for a long time blasted the generous +feelings of <i>Loyalty</i>. And now, when by the benignant effect +of time the present Royal Family are established in our +<i>affections</i>, how unwise it is to revive by celebrations the +memory of a shock, which it would surely have been better that +our constitution had not required. BOSWELL. See <i>ante</i>, iii. +3, and iv. 40, note 4.</p> +<p><a name="note-528">[528]</a> Johnson +reviewed this book in 1756. <i>Ante</i>, i. 309.</p> +<p><a name="note-529">[529]</a> Johnson, +four months later, wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's +daughters:—'Never think, my sweet, that you have +arithmetick enough; when you have exhausted your master, buy +books. ... A thousand stories which the ignorant tell and believe +die away at once when the computist takes them in his gripe.' +<i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. 296. See <i>post</i>, April 18, +1783.</p> +<p><a name="note-530">[530]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, p. 116; also iii. 310, where he bore the same topic +impatiently when with Dr. Scott.</p> +<p><a name="note-531">[531]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, ii. 357.</p> +<center><a name= +"note-532">[532]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'See nations, slowly wise and meanly just, + To buried merit raise the tardy bust.' + Johnson's <i>Vanity of Human Wishes</i>. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-533">[533]</a> He was +perhaps, thinking of Markland. <i>Ante</i>, p. 161, note 3.</p> +<p><a name="note-534">[534]</a> 'Dr. +Johnson,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'was no complainer of ill-usage. I +never heard him even lament the disregard shown to <i>Irene</i>.' +<i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. 386. See <i>ante</i>, i. 200.</p> +<p><a name="note-535">[535]</a> Letter +to the People of Scotland against the attempt to diminish the +number of the Lords of Session, 1785. BOSWELL. 'By Mr. Burke's +removal from office the King's administration was deprived of the +assistance of that affluent mind, which is so universally rich +that, as long as British literature and British politicks shall +endure, it will be said of Edmund Burke, <i>Regum equabat [sic] +opes animis.'</i> p.71.</p> +<p><a name="note-536">[536]</a> +<i>Georgics</i>, iv. 132.</p> +<p><a name="note-537">[537]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, iii. 56, note 2.</p> +<p><a name="note-538">[538]</a> Very +likely Boswell.</p> +<p><a name="note-539">[539]</a> See +Boswell's <i>Hebrides</i>, Sept. 22.</p> +<p><a name="note-540">[540]</a> Johnson +had said:—'Lord Chesterfield is the proudest man this day +existing.' <i>Ante</i>, i. 265.</p> +<p><a name="note-541">[541]</a> Lord +Shelburne. At this time he was merely holding office till a new +Ministry was formed. On April 5 he was succeeded by the Duke of +Portland. His 'coarse manners' were due to a neglected childhood. +In the fragment of his <i>Autobiography</i> he describes 'the +domestic brutality and ill-usage he experienced at home,' in the +South of Ireland. 'It cost me,' he continues, 'more to unlearn +the habits, manners, and principles which I then imbibed, than +would have served to qualify me for any <i>rôle</i> +whatever through life.' Fitzmaurice's <i>Shelburne</i>, i. 12, +16.</p> +<p><a name="note-542">[542]</a> Bentham, +it is reported, said of of him that 'alone of his own time, he +was a "Minister who did not fear the people."' <i>Ib.</i> iii. +572.</p> +<p><a name="note-543">[543]</a> +Malagrida, a Jesuit, was put to death at Lisbon in 1761, +nominally on a charge of heresy, but in reality on a suspicion of +his having sanctioned, as confessor to one of the conspirators, +an attempt to assassinate King Joseph of Portugal. Voltaire, +<i>Siècle de Louis XV</i>, ch. xxxviii. 'His name,' writes +Wraxall (<i>Memoirs</i>, ed. 1815, i. 67), 'is become proverbial +among us to express duplicity.' It was first applied to Lord +Shelburne in a squib attributed to Wilkes, which contained a +vision of a masquerade. The writer, after describing him as +masquerading as 'the heir apparent of Loyola and all the +College,' continues:—'A little more of the devil, my Lord, +if you please, about the eyebrows; that's enough, a perfect +Malagrida, I protest.' Fitzmaurice's <i>Shelburne</i>, ii. 164. +'George III. habitually spoke of Shelburne as "Malagrida," and +the "Jesuit of Berkeley Square."' <i>Ib.</i> iii. 8. The charge +of duplicity was first made against Shelburne on the retirement +of Fox (the first Lord Holland) in 1763. 'It was the tradition of +Holland House that Bute justified the conduct of Shelburne, by +telling Fox that it was "a pious fraud." "I can see the fraud +plainly enough," is said to have been Fox's retort, "but where is +the piety?"' <i>Ib</i>. i. 226. Any one who has examined +Reynolds's picture of Shelburne, especially 'about the eyebrows,' +at once sees how the name of Jesuit was given.</p> +<p><a name="note-544">[544]</a> +Beauclerk wrote to Lord Charlemont on Nov. 20, 1773:-'Goldsmith +the other day put a paragraph into the newspapers in praise of +Lord Mayor Townshend. [Shelburne supported Townshend in +opposition to Wilkes in the election of the Lord Mayor. +Fitzmaurice's <i>Shelburne</i>, ii. 287.] The same night we +happened to sit next to Lord Shelburne at Drury Lane. I mentioned +the circumstance of the paragraph to him; he said to Goldsmith +that he hoped that he had mentioned nothing about Malagrida in +it. "Do you know," answered Goldsmith, "that I never could +conceive the reason why they call you Malagrida, <i>for</i> +Malagrida was a very good sort of man." You see plainly what he +meant to say, but that happy turn of expression is peculiar to +himself. Mr. Walpole says that this story is a picture of +Goldsmith's whole life.' <i>Life of Charlemont</i>, i. 344.</p> +<p><a name="note-545">[545]</a> Most +likely Reynolds, who introduced Crabbe to Johnson. Crabbe's +<i>Works</i>, ed. 1834, ii. 11.</p> +<center><a name= +"note-546">[546]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'I paint the cot, + As truth will paint it, and as Bards will not. + Nor you, ye Poor, of lettered scorn complain, + To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain; + O'ercome by labour, and bowed down by time, + Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme? + Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread, + By winding myrtles round your ruined shed? + Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower, + Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?' + <i>The Village</i>, book i. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>See Boswell's <i>Hebrides</i>, Oct. 6.</p> +<p><a name="note-547">[547]</a> I shall +give an instance, marking the original by Roman, and Johnson's +substitution in Italick characters:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'In fairer scenes, where peaceful pleasures spring, + Tityrus, the pride of Mantuan swains, might sing: + But charmed by him, or smitten with his views, + Shall modern poets court the Mantuan muse? + From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray, + Where Fancy leads, or Virgil led the way?' + '<i>On Mincio's banks, in Caesar's bounteous reign, + If Tityrus found the golden age again, + Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong, + Mechanick echoes of the Mantuan song?</i> + From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray, + <i>Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way?.</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Here we find Johnson's poetical and critical powers +undiminished. I must, however, observe, that the aids he gave to +this poem, as to <i>The Traveller</i> and <i>Deserted Village</i> +of Goldsmith, were so small as by no means to impair the +distinguished merit of the authour. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-548">[548]</a> In the +<i>Gent. Mag.</i> 1763, pp. 602, 633, is a review of his +<i>Observations on Diseases of the Army</i>. He says that the +register of deaths of military men proves that more than eight +times as many men fall by what was called the gaol fever as by +battle. His suggestions are eminently wise. Lord Seaford, in +1835, told Leslie 'that he remembered dining in company with Dr. +Johnson at Dr. Brocklesby's, when he was a boy of twelve or +thirteen. He was impressed with the superiority of Johnson, and +his knocking everybody down in argument.' C.R. Leslie's +<i>Recollections</i>, i. 146.</p> +<p><a name="note-549">[549]</a> See +Boswell's <i>Hebrides</i>, Sept. 28.</p> +<p><a name="note-550">[550]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, i. 433, and ii. 217, 358.</p> +<p><a name="note-551">[551]</a> "In his +<i>Life of Swift</i> (<i>Works</i>, viii. 205) he thus speaks of +this <i>Journal</i>:-'In the midst of his power and his +politicks, he kept a journal of his visits, his walks, his +interviews with ministers, and quarrels with his servant, and +transmitted it to Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Dingley, to whom he knew +that whatever befell him was interesting, and no accounts could +be too minute. Whether these diurnal trifles were properly +exposed to eyes which had never received any pleasure from the +presence of the dean, may be reasonably doubted: they have, +however, some odd attraction: the reader, finding frequent +mention of names which he has been used to consider as important, +goes on in hope of information; and, as there is nothing to +fatigue attention, if he is disappointed, he can hardly +complain.'"</p> +<p><a name="note-552">[552]</a> On his +fifty-fifth birthday he recorded:—'I resolve to keep a +journal both of employment and of expenses. To keep accounts.' +<i>Pr. and Med</i>. 59. See <i>post</i>, Aug. 25, 1784, where he +writes to Langton:—'I am a little angry at you for not +keeping minutes of your own <i>acceptum et expensum</i>, and +think a little time might be spared from Aristophanes for the +<i>res familiares</i>.'</p> +<p><a name="note-553">[553]</a> This Mr. +Chalmers thought was George Steevens. CROKER. D'Israeli +(<i>Curiosities of Literature</i>, ed. 1834, vi. 76) describes +Steevens as guilty of 'an unparalleled series of arch deception +and malicious ingenuity.' He gives curious instances of his +literary impostures. See <i>ante</i>, iii. 281, and <i>post</i>, +May 15, 1784.</p> +<p><a name="note-554">[554]</a> If this +be Lord Mansfield, Boswell must use <i>late</i> in the sense of +<i>in retirement</i>; for Mansfield was living when the <i>Life +of Johnson</i> was published. He retired in 1788. Johnson in +1772, said that he had never been in his company (<i>ante</i>, +ii. 158). The fact that Mansfield is mentioned in the previous +paragraph adds to the probability that he is meant.</p> +<p><a name="note-555">[555]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, ii. 318.</p> +<p><a name="note-556">[556]</a> In +Scotland, Johnson spoke of Mansfield's 'splendid talents.' +Boswell's <i>Hebrides</i>, under Nov. 11.</p> +<p><a name="note-557">[557]</a> 'I am +not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other +men.' 2 <i>Henry IV</i>, act i. sc. 2.</p> +<p><a name="note-558">[558]</a> Knowing +as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory his +Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable +appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions +upon him, must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence, +from being reserved and stiff. If it be so, and he might be an +agreeable man if he would, we cannot be sorry that he misses his +aim. BOSWELL. Wedderburne, afterwards Lord Loughborough, is +mentioned (<i>ante</i>, ii. 374), and again in Murphy's <i>Life +of Johnson</i>, p. 43, as being in company with Johnson and +Foote. Boswell also has before (<i>ante</i>, i. 387) praised the +elegance of his oratory. Henry Mackenzie (<i>Life of John +Home</i>, i. 56) says that Wedderburne belonged to a club at the +British Coffee-house, of which Garrick, Smollett, and Dr. Douglas +were members.</p> +<p><a name="note-559">[559]</a> Boswell +informed the people of Scotland in the Letter that he addressed +to them in 1785 (p. 29), that 'now that Dr. Johnson is gone to a +better world, he (Boswell) bowed the intellectual knee to <i>Lord +Thurlow</i>.' See <i>post</i>, June 22, 1784.</p> +<p><a name="note-560">[560]</a> +Boswell's <i>Hebrides</i>, Oct. 27.</p> +<center><a name= +"note-561">[561]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Charged with light summer-rings his fingers sweat, + Unable to support a gem of weight.' + DRYDEN. Juvenal, <i>Satires</i>, i. 29. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-562">[562]</a> He had +published a series of seventy <i>Essays</i> under the title of +<i>The Hypochondriack</i> in the <i>London Magazine</i> from 1777 +to 1783.</p> +<p><a name="note-563">[563]</a> Juvenal, +<i>Satires</i>, x. 365. The common reading, however, is 'Nullum +numen <i>habes</i>,' &c. Mrs. Piozzi (<i>Anec.</i> p. 218) +records this saying, but with a variation. '"For," says Mr. +Johnson, "though I do not quite agree with the proverb, that +<i>Nullum numen adest si sit prudentia</i>, yet we may very well +say, that <i>Nullum numen adest, ni sit prudentia."'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-564">[564]</a> It has +since appeared. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-565">[565]</a> Miss +Burney mentions meeting Dr. Harington at Bath in 1780. 'It is his +son,' she writes, 'who published those very curious remains of +his ancestor [Sir John Harington] under the title Nugae Antiquae +<i>which my father and all of us were formerly so fond of.' Mme. +D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, i. 341.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-566">[566]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'For though they are but trifles, thou + Some value didst to them allow.' + Martin's Catullus<i>, p. 1. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<center><a name= +"note-567">[567]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + —Underneath this rude, uncouth disguise, + A genius of extensive knowledge lies.' + FRANCIS. Horace, Satires<i>, i. 3. 33. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-568">[568]</a> He would +not have been a troublesome patient anywhere, for, according to +Mrs. Piozzi (Anec<i>. p. 275),'he required less attendance, sick +or well, than ever I saw any human creature.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-569">[569]</a> 'That +natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow much +excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe +that the mind grows old with the body; and that he whom we are +now forced to confess superiour is hastening daily to a level +with ourselves.' Johnson's Works<i>, vii. 212.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-570">[570]</a> With the +following elucidation of the saying-Quos Deus <i>(it should +rather be-</i>Quem Jupiter) vult perdere, prius dementat<i>-Mr. +Boswell was furnished by Mr. Pitts:—'Perhaps no scrap of +Latin whatever has been more quoted than this. It occasionally +falls even from those who are scrupulous even to pedantry in +their Latinity, and will not admit a word into their +compositions, which has not the sanction of the first age. The +word</i> demento <i>is of no authority, either as a verb active +or neuter.—After a long search for the purpose of deciding +a bet, some gentlemen of Cambridge found it among the fragments +of Euripides, in what edition I do not recollect, where it is +given as a translation of a Greek Iambick: [Greek: Ou Theos +thelei apolesoi' apophreuai.]</i></p> +<p>'The above scrap was found in the hand-writing of a suicide of +fashion, Sir D. O., some years ago, lying on the table of the +room where he had destroyed himself. The suicide was a man of +classical acquirements: he left no other paper behind him.'</p> +<p>Another of these proverbial sayings,</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim, +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>I, in a note on a passage in The Merchant of Venice <i>[act +iii. sc. 5], traced to its source. It occurs (with a slight +variation) in the</i> Alexandreis <i>of Philip Gualtier (a poet +of the thirteenth century), which was printed at Lyons in 1558. +Darius is the person addressed:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + —Quò tendis inertem, + Rex periture, fugam? nescis, heu! perdite, nescis + Quern fugias: hostes incurris dum fugis hostem; + Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>A line not less frequently quoted was suggested for enquiry in +a note on The Rape of Lucrece:—</p> +<p>Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris—<i>:</i></p> +<p>But the author of this verse has not, I believe, been +discovered. MALONE. The 'Greek lambick' in the above note is not +Greek. To a learned friend I owe the following note. 'The Quem +Jupiter vult perdere<i>, &c., is said to be a translation of +a fragment of</i> Euripides <i>by Joshua Barnes. There is, I +believe, no such fragment at all. In Barnes's</i> Euripides<i>, +Cantab. 1694, fol. p. 515, is a fragment of Euripides with a note +which may explain the muddle of Boswell's +correspondent:—</i></p> +<p>"[Greek: otau de daimonn handri porsunae kaka ton noun +heblapse proton,]"</p> +<p>on which Barnes writes:—"Tale quid in Franciados nostrae +[probably his uncompleted poem on Edward III.] l. 3. Certe ille +deorum Arbiter ultricem cum vult extendere dextram Dementat +prius.<i>"' See</i> ante<i>, ii. 445, note 1. Sir D. O. is, +perhaps, Sir D'Anvers Osborne, whose death is recorded in the</i> +Gent. Mag. <i>1753, p. 591. 'Sir D'Anvers Osborne, Bart., +Governor of New York, soon after his arrival there;</i> in his +garden.' Solamen miseris, &c.<i>, is imitated by Swift in +his</i> Verses on Stella's Birthday<i>, 1726-7:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'The only comfort they propose, + To have companions in their woes.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Swift's Works<i>, ed. 1803, xi. 22. The note on</i> Lucrece +<i>was, I conjecture, on line 1111:—</i></p> +<p>'Grief best is pleased with grief's society.'</p> +<center><a name= +"note-571">[571]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'FAUSTUS— + "Tu quoque, ut hîc video, non es ignarus amorum." + 'FORTUNATUS— + "Id commune malum; semel insanivimus omnes."' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Baptistae Mantuani Carmelitae Adolescentia, seu Bucolica<i>. +Ecloga I, published in 1498. 'Scaliger,' says Johnson +(</i>Works<i>, viii. 391), 'complained that Mantuan's Bucolicks +were received into schools, and taught as classical. ... He was +read, at least in some of the inferiour schools of this kingdom, +to the beginning of the present [eighteenth] century.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-572">[572]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 368.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-573">[573]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 396.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-574">[574]</a> I am +happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his enduring +with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking +particularities pointed out:—Miss Hunter, a niece of his +friend Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his +extraordinary motions, said to him, 'Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do +you make such strange gestures?' 'From bad habit,' he replied. +'Do you, my dear, take care to guard against bad habits.' This I +was told by the young lady's brother at Margate. BOSWELL. Boswell +had himself told Johnson of some of them, at least in writing. +Johnson read in manuscript his Journal of a Tour to the +Hebrides<i>. Boswell says in a note on Oct. 12:—'It is +remarkable that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some +of his own peculiar habits, without saying anything on the +subject, which I hoped he would have done.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-575">[575]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 42, note 2, and iii. 324.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-576">[576]</a> Johnson, +after stating that some of Milton's manuscripts prove that 'in +the early part of his life he wrote with much care,' +continues:—'Such reliques show how excellence is acquired; +what we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with +diligence.' Works<i>, vii. 119. Lord Chesterfield +(</i>Letters<i>, iii. 146) had made the same rule as +Johnson:—'I was,' he writes, 'early convinced of the +importance and powers of eloquence; and from that moment I +applied myself to it. I resolved not to utter one word even in +common conversation that should not be the most expressive and +the most elegant that the language could supply me with for that +purpose; by which means I have acquired such a certain degree of +habitual eloquence, that I must now really take some pains if I +would express myself very inelegantly.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-577">[577]</a> 'Dr. +Johnson,' wrote Malone in 1783, 'is as correct and elegant in his +common conversation as in his writings. He never seems to study +either for thoughts or words. When first introduced I was very +young; yet he was as accurate in his conversation as if he had +been talking to the first scholar in England.' Prior's Malone<i>, +p. 92. See</i> post<i>, under Aug. 29, 1783.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-578">[578]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 216.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-579">[579]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 323.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-580">[580]</a> The +justness of this remark is confirmed by the following story, for +which I am indebted to Lord Eliot:—A country parson, who +was remarkable for quoting scraps of Latin in his sermons, having +died, one of his parishioners was asked how he liked his +successor. 'He is a very good preacher,' was his answer, 'but no +latiner<i>.' BOSWELL. For the original of Lord Eliot's story see +Twells's</i> Life of Dr. E. Pocock<i>, ed. 1816, p. 94. Reynolds +said that 'Johnson always practised on every occasion the rule of +speaking his best, whether the person to whom he addressed +himself was or was not capable of comprehending him. "If," says +he, "I am understood, my labour is not lost. If it is above their +comprehension, there is some gratification, though it is the +admiration of ignorance;" and he said those were the most sincere +admirers; and quoted Baxter, who made a rule never to preach a +sermon without saying something which he knew was beyond the +comprehension of his audience, in order to inspire their +admiration.' Taylor's</i> Reynolds<i>, ii. 456. Addison, in</i> +The Spectator<i>, No. 221, tells of a preacher in a country town +who outshone a more ignorant rival, by quoting every now and then +a Latin sentence from one of the Fathers. 'The other finding his +congregation mouldering every Sunday, and hearing at length what +was the occasion of it, resolved to give his parish a little +Latin in his turn; but being unacquainted with any of the +Fathers, he digested into his sermons the whole book of</i> Quae +Genus<i>, adding, however, such explications to it as he thought +might be for the benefit of his people. He afterwards entered +upon</i> As in praesenti<i>, which he converted in the same +manner to the use of his parishioners. This in a very little time +thickened his audience, filled his church, and routed his +antagonist.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-581">[581]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 96</i></p> +<p><a name="note-582">[582]</a> '"Well," +said he, "we had good talk." BOSWELL. "Yes, Sir; you tossed and +gored several persons."' Ante, <i>ii. 66.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-583">[583]</a> Dr. J. +H. Burton says of Hume (Life, ii. 31<i>):—'No Scotsman +could write a book of respectable talent without calling forth +his loud and warm eulogiums. Wilkie was to be the Homer, +Blacklock the Pindar, and Home the Shakespeare or something still +greater of his country.' See</i> ante<i>, ii. 121, 296, +306.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-584">[584]</a> The +Present State of Music in France and Italy, <i>I vol. 1771, +and</i> The Present State of Music in Germany, &c., <i>2 +vols. 1773. Johnson must have skipped widely in reading these +volumes, for though Dr. Burney describes his travels, yet he +writes chiefly of music.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-585">[585]</a> +Boswell's son James says that he heard from his father, that the +passage which excited this strong emotion was the +following:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more: + I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you; + For morn is approaching, your charms to restore, + Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew; + Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn; + Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save: + But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn? + O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-586">[586]</a> Horace +Walpole (Letters<i>, vii. 338) mentions this book at some length. +On March 13, 1780, he wrote:—'Yesterday was published an +octavo, pretending to contain the correspondence of Hackman and +Miss Ray that he murdered.' See</i> ante<i>, iii. 383.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-587">[587]</a> Hawkins +(Life<i>, p. 547), recording how Johnson used to meet Psalmanazar +at an ale-house, says that Johnson one day 'remarked on the human +mind, that it had a necessary tendency to improvement, and that +it would frequently anticipate instruction. "Sir," said a +stranger that overheard him, "that I deny; I am a tailor, and +have had many apprentices, but never one that could make a coat +till I had taken great pains in teaching him."' See</i> ante<i>, +iii. 443. Robert Hall was influenced in his studies by 'his +intimate association in mere childhood with a tailor, one of his +father's congregation, who was an acute metaphysician.' +Hall's</i> Works<i>, vi. 5.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-588">[588]</a> Johnson +had never been in Grub-street. Ante<i>, i. 296, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-589">[589]</a> The +Honourable Horace Walpole, late Earl of Orford, thus bears +testimony to this gentleman's merit as a writer:—'Mr. +Chambers's Treatise on Civil Architecture <i>is the most sensible +book, and the most exempt from prejudices, that ever was written +on that science.'—Preface to</i> Anecdotes of Painting in +England<i>. BOSWELL. Chambers was the architect of Somerset +House. See</i> ante<i>, p. 60, note 7.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-590">[590]</a> The +introductory lines are these:—'It is difficult to avoid +praising too little or too much. The boundless panegyricks which +have been lavished upon the Chinese learning, policy, and arts, +shew with what power novelty attracts regard, and how naturally +esteem swells into admiration. I am far from desiring to be +numbered among the exaggerators of Chinese excellence. I consider +them as great, or wise, only in comparison with the nations that +surround them; and have no intention to place them in competition +either with the antients or with the moderns of this part of the +world; yet they must be allowed to claim our notice as a distinct +and very singular race of men: as the inhabitants of a region +divided by its situation from all civilized countries, who have +formed their own manners, and invented their own arts, without +the assistance of example.' BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-591">[591]</a> The last +execution at Tyburn was on Nov. 7, 1783, when one man was hanged. +The first at Newgate was on the following Dec. 9, when ten were +hanged. Gent. Mag. <i>1783, pp. 974, 1060.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-592">[592]</a> We may +compare with this 'loose talk' Johnson's real opinion, as set +forth in The Rambler<i>, No. 114, entitled:—</i>The +necessity of proportioning punishments to crimes<i>. He +writes:—'The learned, the judicious, the pious Boerhaave +relates that he never saw a criminal dragged to execution without +asking himself, "Who knows whether this man is not less culpable +than me?" On the days when the prisons of this city are emptied +into the grave, let every spectator of this dreadful procession +put the same question to his own heart. Few among those that +crowd in thousands to the legal massacre, and look with +carelessness, perhaps with triumph, on the utmost exacerbations +of human misery, would then be able to return without horror and +dejection.' He continues:—'It may be observed that all but +murderers have, at their last hour, the common sensations of +mankind pleading in their favour.... They who would rejoice at +the correction of a thief, are yet shocked at the thought of +destroying him. His crime shrinks to nothing compared with his +misery, and severity defeats itself by exciting pity.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-593">[593]</a> +Richardson, in his Familiar Letters<i>, No. 160, makes a country +gentleman in town describe the procession of five criminals to +Tyburn, and their execution. He should have heard, he said, 'the +exhortation spoken by the bell-man from the wall of St. +Sepulchre's church-yard; but the noise of the officers and the +mob was so great, and the silly curiosity of people climbing into +the cart to take leave of the criminals made such a confused +noise that I could not hear them. They are as follow: "All good +people pray heartily to God for these poor sinners, who now are +going to their deaths; for whom this great bell doth toll. You +that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears.... Lord +have mercy upon you! Christ have mercy upon you!" which last +words the bell-man repeats three times. All the way up Holborn +the crowd was so great, as at every twenty or thirty yards to +obstruct the passage; and wine, notwithstanding a late good order +against that practice, was brought the malefactors, who drank +greedily of it. After this the three thoughtless young men, who +at first seemed not enough concerned, grew most shamefully daring +and wanton. They swore, laughed, and talked obscenely. At the +place of execution the scene grew still more shocking; and the +clergyman who attended was more the subject of ridicule than of +their serious attention. The psalm was sung amidst the curses and +quarrelling of hundreds of the most abandoned and profligate of +mankind. As soon as the poor creatures were half-dead, I was much +surprised to see the populace fall to haling and pulling the +carcases with so much earnestness as to occasion several warm +rencounters and broken heads. These, I was told, were the friends +of the persons executed, or such as for the sake of tumult chose +to appear so; and some persons sent by private surgeons to obtain +bodies for dissection.' The psalm is mentioned in a note on the +line in</i> The Dunciad<i>, i. 4l, 'Hence hymning Tyburn's +elegiac lines:'—'It is an ancient English custom,' says +Pope, 'for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution at +Tyburn.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-594">[594]</a> The rest +of these miscellaneous sayings were first given in the Additions +to Dr. Johnson's Life <i>at the beginning of vol. I of the second +edition.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-595">[595]</a> Hume +(Auto<i>. p. 6) speaks of Hurd as attacking him 'with all the +illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility which distinguish +the Warburtonian school.' 'Hurd,' writes Walpole, 'had acquired a +great name by several works of slender merit, was a gentle, +plausible man, affecting a singular decorum that endeared him +highly to devout old ladies.'</i> Journal of the Reign of George +III<i>, ii. 50. He is best known to the present generation by his +impertinent notes on Addison's</i> Works<i>. By reprinting them, +Mr. Bohn did much to spoil what was otherwise an excellent +edition of that author. See</i> ante<i>, p. 47, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-596">[596]</a> The Rev. +T. Twining, one of Dr. Burney's friends, wrote in +1779:—'You use a form of reference that I abominate, i.e. +the latter, the former. "As long as you have the use of your +tongue and your pen," said Dr. Johnson to Dr. Burney, "never, +Sir, be reduced to that shift."' Recreations and Studies of a +Country Clergyman of the XVIIIth Century<i>, p. 72.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-597">[597]</a> 'A +shilling was now wanted for some purpose or other, and none of +them happened to have one; I begged that I might lend one. "Ay, +do," said the Doctor, "I will borrow of you; authors are like +privateers, always fair game for one another."' Mme. D'Arblay's +Diary<i>, ii. 212.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-598">[598]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 129, note 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-599">[599]</a> See +post<i>, June 3, 1784, where he uses almost the same +words.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-600">[600]</a> What +this period was Boswell seems to leave intentionally vague. +Johnson knew Lord Shelburne at least as early as 1778 (ante<i>, +iii. 265). He wrote to Dr. Taylor on July 22, +1782:—'Shelburne speaks of Burke in private with great +malignity.'</i> Notes and Queries<i>, 6th S. v. 462. The company +commonly gathered at his house would have been displeasing to +Johnson. Priestley, who lived with Shelburne seven years, says +(</i>Auto<i>. p. 55) that a great part of the company he saw +there was like the French philosophers, unbelievers in +Christianity, and even professed atheists: men 'who had given no +proper attention to Christianity, and did not really know what it +was.' Johnson was intimate with Lord Shelburne's brother.</i> +Ante<i>, ii. 282, note 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-601">[601]</a> Johnson +being asked his opinion of this Essay, answered, 'Why, Sir, we +shall have the man come forth again; and as he has proved +Falstaff to be no coward, he may prove Iago to be a very good +character.' BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-602">[602]</a> A writer +in the European Magazine<i>, xxx. 160, says that Johnson visited +Lord Shelburne at Bowood. At dinner he repeated part of his +letter to Lord Chesterfield (</i>ante<i>, i. 261). A gentleman +arrived late. Shelburne, telling him what he had missed, went +on:-'I dare say the Doctor will be kind enough to give it to us +again.' 'Indeed, my Lord, I will not. I told the circumstance +first for my own amusement, but I will not be dragged in as +story-teller to a company.' In an argument he used some strong +expressions, of which his opponent took no notice, Next morning +'he went up to the gentleman with great good-nature, and said, +"Sir, I have found out upon reflection that I was both warm and +wrong in my argument with you last night; for the first of which +I beg your pardon, and for the second, I thank you for setting me +right."' It is clear that the second of these anecdotes is the +same as that told by Mr. Morgann of Johnson and himself, and that +the scene has been wrongly transferred from Wickham to Bowood. +The same writer says that it was between Derrick and +Boyce—not Derrick and Smart—that Johnson, in the +story that follows, could not settle the precedency.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-603">[603]</a> See +ante, i. 124, 394.</p> +<p><a name="note-604">[604]</a> See +ante, i. 397.</p> +<p><a name="note-605">[605]</a> What the +great TWALMLEY was so proud of having invented, was neither more +nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing linen. +BOSWELL.</p> +<center><a name= +"note-606">[606]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi, + Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat, + Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti, + Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes.' + Aeneid<i>, vi. 660. + 'Lo, they who in their country's fight + sword-wounded bodies bore; + Lo, priests of holy life and chaste, + while they in life had part; + Lo, God-loved poets, men who spake + things worthy Phoebus' heart, + And they who bettered life on earth + by new-found mastery.' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>MORRIS. Virgil, Aeneids<i>, vi. 660. The great Twalmley might +have justified himself by</i> The Rambler<i>, No. 9:—'Every +man, from the highest to the lowest station, ought to warm his +heart and animate his endeavours with the hopes of being useful +to the world, by advancing the art which it is his lot to +exercise; and for that end he must necessarily consider the whole +extent of its application, and the whole weight of its +importance.... Every man ought to endeavour at eminence, not by +pulling others down, but by raising himself, and enjoy the +pleasure of his own superiority, whether imaginary or real, +without interrupting others in the same felicity.' All this is +what Twalmley did. He adorned an art, he endeavoured at eminence, +and he inoffensively enjoyed the pleasure of his own superiority. +He could also have defended himself by the example of Aeneas, +who, introducing himself, said:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Sum pius Aeneas ..... + ... fama super aethera notus.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Aeneid<i>, i. 378. I fear that Twalmley met with the neglect +that so commonly befalls inventors. In the</i> Gent. Mag<i>. +1783, p. 719, I find in the list of 'B-nk-ts,' Josiah Twamley, +the elder, of Warwick, ironmonger.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-607">[607]</a> 'Sir, +Hume is a Tory by chance, as being a Scotchman; but not upon a +principle of duty, for he has no principle. If he is anything, he +is a Hobbist.' Boswell's Hebrides<i>, Sept. 30. Horace Walpole's +opinion was very different. 'Are not atheism and bigotry first +cousins? Was not Charles II. an atheist and a bigot? and does Mr. +Hume pluck a stone from a church but to raise an altar to +tyranny?'</i> Letters<i>, v. 444. Hume wrote in 1756:—'My +views of</i> things <i>are more conformable to Whig principles; +my representations of</i> persons <i>to Tory prejudices.' J.H. +Burton's</i> Hume<i>, ii. 11. Hume's Toryism increased with +years. He says in his</i> Autobiography/ <i>(p. xi.) that all the +alterations which he made in the later editions of his</i> +History of the Stuarts<i>, 'he made invariably to the Tory side.' +Dr. Burton gives instances of these;</i> Life of Hume<i>, ii. 74. +Hume wrote in 1763 that he was 'too much infected with the plaguy +prejudices of Whiggism when he began the work.'</i> Ib<i>. p. +144. In 1770 he wrote:—'I either soften or expunge many +villainous, seditious Whig strokes which had crept into it.'</i> +Ib<i>. p. 434. This growing hatred of Whiggism was, perhaps, due +to pique. John Home, in his notes of Hume's talk in the last +weeks of his life, says: 'He recurred to a subject not unfrequent +with him—that is, the design to ruin him as an author, by +the people that were ministers at the first publication of +his</i> History<i>, and called themselves Whigs.'</i> Ib<i>. p. +500. As regards America, Hume was with the Whigs, as Johnson had +perhaps learnt from their common friend, Mr. Strahan. 'He was,' +says Dr. Burton, 'far more tolerant of the sway of individuals +over numbers, which he looked upon as the means of preserving +order and civilization, than of the predominance of one territory +over another, which he looked upon as subjugation.'</i> Ib<i>. p. +477. Quite at the beginning of the struggle he foretold that the +Americans would not be subdued, unless they broke in pieces among +themselves.</i> Ib<i>. p. 482. He was not frightened by the +prospect of the loss of our supremacy. He wrote to Adam +Smith:—'My notion is that the matter is not so important as +is commonly imagined. Our navigation and general commerce may +suffer more than our manufactures.'</i> Ib<i>. p. 484. Johnson's +charge against Hume that he had no principle, is, no doubt, a +gross one; yet Hume's advice to a sceptical young clergyman, who +had good hope of preferment, that he should therefore continue in +orders, was unprincipled enough. 'It is,' he wrote, 'putting too +great a respect on the vulgar and on their superstitions to pique +one's self on sincerity with regard to them. Did ever one make it +a point of honour to speak truth to children or madmen? If the +thing were worthy being treated gravely, I should tell him that +the Pythian oracle, with the approbation of Xenophon, advised +every one to worship the gods—[Greek: nomo poleos]. I wish +it were still in my power to be a hypocrite in this particular. +The common duties of society usually require it; and the +ecclesiastical profession only adds a little more to an innocent +dissimulation, or rather simulation, without which it is +impossible to pass through the world.'</i> Ib/<i>. p. +187.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-608">[608]</a> Mrs. +Piozzi (Anec<i>. p. 48) says that Johnson told her that in +writing the story of Gelaleddin, the poor scholar (</i>Idler<i>, +No. 75), who thought to fight his way to fame by his learning and +wit, 'he had his own outset into life in his eye.' Gelaleddin +describes how 'he was sometimes admitted to the tables of the +viziers, where he exerted his wit and diffused his knowledge; but +he observed that where, by endeavour or accident he had +remarkably excelled, he was seldom invited a second time.' +See</i> ante<i>, p. 116.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-609">[609]</a> See +ante, p. 115.</p> +<p><a name="note-610">[610]</a> Bar. +BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-611">[611]</a> Nard. +BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-612">[612]</a> Barnard. +BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-613">[613]</a> It was +reviewed in the Gent. Mag<i>. 1781, p. 282, where it is said to +have been written by Don Gabriel, third son of the King of +Spain.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-614">[614]</a> Though +'you was' is very common in the authors of the last century when +one person was addressed, I doubt greatly whether Johnson ever so +expressed himself.</p> +<p><a name="note-615">[615]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 311.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-616">[616]</a> Horace +Walpole (Letters <i>v. 85) says, 'Boswell, like Cambridge, has a +rage of knowing anybody that ever was talked of.' Miss Burney +records 'an old trick of Mr. Cambridge to his son George, when +listening to a dull story, in saying to the relator "Tell the +rest of that to George."' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, ii. 274. +See</i> ante<i>, ii. 361.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-617">[617]</a> Virgil, +Eclogues<i>, i. 47.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-618">[618]</a> 'Mr. +Johnson,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (Anec<i>. p. 21), 'was exceedingly +disposed to the general indulgence of children, and was even +scrupulously and ceremoniously attentive not to offend them. He +had strongly persuaded himself of the difficulty people always +find to erase early impressions either of kindness or +resentment.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-619">[619]</a> Ante<i>, +ii.171, iv.75; also</i> post<i>, May 15, 1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-620">[620]</a> Johnson, +on May 1, 1780, wrote of the exhibition dinner:—'The +apartments were truly very noble. The pictures, for the sake of a +sky-light, are at the top of the house; there we dined, and I sat +over against the Archbishop of York. See how I live when I am not +under petticoat government.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 111. It was +Archbishop Markham whom he met; he is mentioned by Boswell in +his</i> Hebrides, post<i>, v. 37. In spite of the 'elaboration of +homage' Johnson could judge freely of an archbishop. He described +the Archbishop of Tuam as 'a man coarse of voice and inelegant of +language.'</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 300.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-621">[621]</a> By Lord +Perceval, afterwards Earl of Egmont. He carried, writes Horace +Walpole (Letters<i>, ii. 144), 'the Westminster election at the +end of my father's ministry, which he amply described in the +history of his own family, a genealogical work called the</i> +History of the House of Yvery<i>, a work which cost him three +thousand pounds; and which was so ridiculous, that he has since +tried to suppress all the copies. It concluded with the +description of the Westminster election, in these or some such +words:—"And here let us leave this young nobleman +struggling for the dying liberties of his country."'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-622">[622]</a> Five +days earlier Johnson made the following entry in his +Diary:—'1783, April 5. I took leave of Mrs. Thrale. I was +much moved. I had some expostulations with her. She said that she +was likewise affected. I commended the Thrales with great +good-will to God; may my petitions have been heard.' Hawkins's +Life<i>, p. 553. This was not 'a formal taking of leave,' as +Hawkins says. She was going to Bath (Mme. D'Arblay's</i> +Diary<i>, ii. 264). On May-day he wrote to her on the death of +one of her little girls:—'I loved her, for she was Thrale's +and yours, and, by her dear father's appointment, in some sort +mine: I love you all, and therefore cannot without regret see the +phalanx broken, and reflect that you and my other dear girls are +deprived of one that was born your friend. To such friends every +one that has them has recourse at last, when it is discovered and +discovered it seldom fails to be, that the fortuitous friendships +of inclination or vanity are at the mercy of a thousand +accidents.'</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 255. He was sadly thinking +how her friendship for him was rapidly passing away.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-623">[623]</a> Johnson +modestly ended his account of the tour by saying:—'I cannot +but be conscious that my thoughts on national manners are the +thoughts of one who has seen but little.' Works<i>, ix. 161. See +Boswell's</i> Hebrides<i>, Nov. 22.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-624">[624]</a> See +ib<i>. Oct. 21.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-625">[625]</a> She says +that he was 'the genuine author of the first volume. An ingenious +physician,' she continues, 'with the assistance of several +others, continued the work until the eighth volume.' Mrs. +Manley's History of her own Life and Times<i>, p. 15—a +gross, worthless book. Swift satirised her in</i> Corinna, a +Ballad<i>. Swift's</i> Works <i>(1803), x. 94.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-626">[626]</a> The real +authour was I. P. Marana, a Genoese, who died at Paris in 1693. +John Dunton in his Life <i>says, that Mr.</i> William Bradshaw +<i>received from Dr. Midgeley forty shillings a sheet for writing +part of the</i> Turkish Spy<i>; but I do not find that he any +where mentions</i> Sault <i>as engaged in that work. +MALONE.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-627">[627]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 355, iii. 46, and iv. 139.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-628">[628]</a> This was +in June, 1783, and I find in Mr. Windham's private diary (which +it seems this conversation induced him to keep) the following +memoranda of Dr. Johnson's advice: 'I have no great timidity in +my own disposition, and am no encourager of it in others. Never +be afraid to think yourself fit for any thing for which your +friends think you fit. You will become an able negotiator—a +very pretty rascal<i>. No one in Ireland wears even the mask of +incorruption; no one professes to do for sixpence what he can get +a shilling for doing. Set sail, and see where the winds and the +waves will carry you. Every day will improve another.</i> Dies +diem docet<i>, by observing at night where you failed in the day, +and by resolving to fail so no more.' CROKER. The Whigs thought +he made 'a very pretty rascal' in a very different way. On his +opposition to Whitbread's bill for establishing parochial +schools, Romilly wrote (</i>Life<i>, ii. 2l6), 'that a man so +enlightened as Windham should take the same side (which he has +done most earnestly) would excite great astonishment, if one did +not recollect his eager opposition a few months ago to the +abolition of the slave trade.' He was also 'most strenuous in +opposition' to Romilly's bill for repealing the act which made it +a capital offence to steal to the amount of forty shillings in a +dwelling-house,</i> Ib<i>. p. 316.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-629">[629]</a> We +accordingly carried our scheme into execution, in October, 1792; +but whether from that uniformity which has in modern times, in a +great degree, spread through every part of the Metropolis, or +from our want of sufficient exertion, we were disappointed. +BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-630">[630]</a> Piozzi's +Anecdotes<i>, p. 193. See</i> post<i>, under June 30, +1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-631">[631]</a> +Northcote (Life of Reynolds<i>, ii. 139-143) says that the +picture, which was execrable beyond belief, was exhibited in an +empty room. Lowe, in 1769 (not in 1771 as Northcote says), gained +the gold medal of the Academy for the best historical picture. +(</i>Gent. Mag<i>. 1770, p. 587.) Northcote says that the award +was not a fair one. He adds that Lowe, being sent to Rome by the +patronage of the Academy, was dissatisfied with the sum allowed +him. 'When Sir Joshua said that he knew from experience that it +was sufficient, Lowe pertly answered "that it was possible for a +man to live on guts and garbage."' He died at an obscure lodging +in Westminster, in 1793. There is, wrote Miss Burney, 'a certain +poor wretch of a villainous painter, one Mr. Lowe, whom Dr. +Johnson recommends to all the people he thinks can afford to sit +for their picture. Among these he applied to Mr. Crutchley [one +of Mr. Thrale's executors]. "But now," said Mr. Crutchley to me, +"I have not a notion of sitting for my picture—for who +wants it? I may as well give the man the money without; but no, +they all said that would not do so well, and Dr. Johnson asked me +to give</i> him <i>my picture." "And I assure you, Sir," says he, +"I shall put it in very good company, for I have portraits of +some very respectable people in my dining-room." After all I +could say I was obliged to go to the painter's. And I found him +in such a condition! a room all dirt and filth, brats squalling +and wrangling... "Oh!" says I, "Mr. Lowe, I beg your pardon for +running away, but I have just recollected another engagement; so +I poked three guineas in his hand, and told him I would come +again another time, and then ran out of the house with all my +might."' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, ii.41. A correspondent of +the</i> Examiner <i>writing on May 28, 1873, said that he had met +one of Lowe's daughters, 'who recollected,' she told him, 'when a +child, sitting on Dr. Johnson's knee and his making her repeat +the Lord's Prayer.' She was Johnson's god-daughter. By a +committee consisting of Milman, Thackeray, Dickens, Carlyle and +others, an annuity fund for her and her sister was raised. Lord +Palmerston gave a large subscription.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-632">[632]</a> See +post<i>, May 15, 1783.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-633">[633]</a> See +Boswell's Hebrides<i>,</i> post<i>, v. 48.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-634">[634]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 171.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-635">[635]</a> Quoted +by Boswell, ante<i>, iii. 324.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-636">[636]</a> It is +suggested to me by an anonymous Annotator on my Work, that the +reason why Dr. Johnson collected the peels of squeezed oranges +may be found in the 58th [358th] Letter in Mrs. Piozzi's +Collection<i>, where it appears that he recommended 'dried +orange-peel, finely powdered,' as a medicine. BOSWELL. See</i> +ante<i>, ii. 330.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-637">[637]</a> There +are two mistakes in this calculation, both perhaps due to +Boswell. Eighty-four <i>should be</i> eighty-eight<i>, and +square-yards should be</i> yards square<i>. 'If a wall cost +£1000 a mile, £100 would build 176 yards of wall, +which would form a square of 44 yards, and enclose an area of +1936 square yards; and £200 would build 352 yards of wall, +which would form a square of 88 yards, and inclose an area of +7744 square yards. The cost of the wall in the latter case, as +compared with the space inclosed, would therefore be reduced to +one half.'</i> Notes and Queries<i>, 1st S. x. 471.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-638">[638]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 318.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-639">[639]</a> 'Davies +observes, in his account of Ireland, that no Irishman had ever +planted an orchard.' Johnson's Works<i>, ix.7. 'At Fochabars [in +the Highlands] there is an orchard, which in Scotland I had never +seen before.'</i> Ib. <i>p. 21.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-640">[640]</a> Miss +Burney this year mentions meeting 'Mr. Walker, the lecturer. +Though modest in science, he is vulgar in conversation.' Mme. +D'Arblay's Diary<i>, ii. 237. Johnson quotes him,</i> Works<i>, +viii. 474.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-641">[641]</a> 'Old Mr. +Sheridan' was twelve years younger than Johnson. For his oratory, +see ante<i>, i. 453, and</i> post<i>, April 28 and May 17, +1783.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-642">[642]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 358, when Johnson said of Sheridan:—'His voice +when strained is unpleasing, and when low is not always +heard.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-643">[643]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 139.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-644">[644]</a> 'A more +magnificent funeral was never seen in London,' wrote Murphy (Life +of Garrick<i>, p. 349). Horace Walpole (</i>Letters<i>, vii. +169), wrote on the day of the funeral:—'I do think the pomp +of Garrick's funeral perfectly ridiculous. It is confounding the +immense space between pleasing talents and national services.' He +added, 'at Lord Chatham's interment there were not half the noble +coaches that attended Garrick's.'</i> Ib<i>. p. 171. In his</i> +Journal of the Reign of George III <i>(ii. 333), he +says:—'The Court was delighted to see a more noble and +splendid appearance at the interment of a comedian than had +waited on the remains of the great Earl of Chatham.' Bishop Horne +(</i>Essays and Thoughts<i>, p. 283) has some lines on 'this +grand parade of woe,' which begin:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Through weeping London's crowded streets, + As Garrick's funeral passed, + Contending wits and nobles strove, + Who should forsake him last. + Not so the world behaved to him<i> Who came that world to save, + By solitary Joseph borne + Unheeded to his grave.' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Johnson wrote on April 30, 1782: 'Poor Garrick's funeral +expenses are yet unpaid, though the undertaker is broken.' Piozzi +Letters<i>, ii. 239. Garrick was buried on Feb. 1, 1779, and had +left his widow a large fortune. Chatham died in May, +1778.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-645">[645]</a> Boswell +had heard Johnson maintain this; ante<i>, ii. 101.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-646">[646]</a> See +post<i>, p. 238, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-647">[647]</a> This +duel was fought on April 21, between Mr. Riddell of the +Horse-Grenadiers, and Mr. Cunningham of the Scots Greys. Riddell +had the first fire, and shot Cunningham through the breast. After +a pause of two minutes Cunningham returned the fire, and gave +Riddell a wound of which he died next day. Gent. Mag. <i>1783, p. +362. Boswell's grandfather's grandmother was a Miss Cunningham. +Rogers's</i> Boswelliana<i>, p. 4. I do not know that there was +any nearer connection. In Scotland, I suppose, so much kindred as +this makes two men 'near relations.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-648">[648]</a> 'Unto +him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other.' St. +Luke<i>, vi. 29. Had Miss Burney thought of this text, she might +have quoted it with effect against Johnson, who, criticising +her</i> Evelina<i>, said:—'You write Scotch, you say "the +one,"—my dear, that's not English. Never use that phrase +again.' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, i. 84.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-649">[649]</a> 'Turn +not thou away.' St. Matthew<i>, v. 42.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-650">[650]</a> I think +it necessary to caution my readers against concluding that in +this or any other conversation of Dr. Johnson, they have his +serious and deliberate opinion on the subject of duelling. In my +Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides<i>, 3 ed. p. 386 [p. 366, Oct. +24], it appears that he made this frank confession:—'Nobody +at times, talks more laxly than I do;' and,</i> ib<i>. p. 231 +[Sept. 19, 1773], 'He fairly owned he could not explain the +rationality of duelling.' We may, therefore, infer, that he could +not think that justifiable, which seems so inconsistent with the +spirit of the Gospel. At the same time it must be confessed, that +from the prevalent notions of honour, a gentleman who receives a +challenge is reduced to a dreadful alternative. A remarkable +instance of this is furnished by a clause in the will of the late +Colonel Thomas, of the Guards, written the night before he fell +in a duel, Sept. 3, 1783:—'In the first place, I commit my +soul to Almighty GOD, in hopes of his mercy and pardon for the +irreligious step I now (in compliance with the unwarrantable +customs of this wicked world) put myself under the necessity of +taking.' BOSWELL. See</i> ante<i>, ii. 179.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-651">[651]</a> See +Boswell's Hebrides<i>, Aug. 24 and Sept. 20. Dr. Franklin +(</i>Memoirs<i>, i. 177) says that when the assembly at +Philadelphia, the majority of which were Quakers, was asked by +New England to supply powder for some garrison, 'they would not +grant money to buy powder, because that was an ingredient of war; +but they voted an aid of £3000 to be appropriated for the +purchase of bread, flour, wheat, or</i> other grain<i>.' The +Governor interpreted</i> other grain <i>as gunpowder, without any +objection ever being raised.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-652">[652]</a> 'A +gentleman falling off his horse brake his neck, which sudden hap +gave occasion of much speech of his former life, and some in this +judging world judged the worst. In which respect a good friend +made this good epitaph, remembering that of Saint Augustine, +Misericordia Domini inter pontem et fontem<i>.</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "My friend judge not me, + Thou seest I judge not thee; + Betwixt the stirrop and the ground, + Mercy I askt, mercy I found."' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Camden's Remains<i>, ed. 1870, p. 420.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-653">[653]</a> 'In sure +and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life.' +Prayer-book.</p> +<p><a name="note-654">[654]</a> Upon +this objection the Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of +Brazennose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following +satisfactory observation:—'The passage in the +Burial-service does not mean the resurrection of the person +interred, but the general resurrection; it is in sure and certain +hope of the <i>resurrection; not</i> his <i>resurrection. Where +the deceased is really spoken of, the expression is very +different, "as our hope is this our brother doth" [rest in +Christ]; a mode of speech consistent with every thing but +absolute certainty that the person departed doth</i> not <i>rest +in Christ, which no one can be assured of, without immediate +revelation from Heaven. In the first of these places also, +"eternal life" does not necessarily mean eternity of bliss, but +merely the eternity of the state, whether in happiness or in +misery, to ensue upon the resurrection; which is probably the +sense of "the life everlasting," in the Apostles' Creed. See</i> +Wheatly and Bennet on the Common Prayer<i>.' BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-655">[655]</a> Six days +earlier the Lord-Advocate Dundas had brought in a bill for the +Regulation of the Government of India. Hastings, he said, should +be recalled. His place should be filled by 'a person of +independent fortune, who had not for object the repairing of his +estate in India, that had long been the nursery of ruined and +decayed fortunes.' Parl. Hist<i>. xxiii. 757. Johnson wrote to +Dr. Taylor on Nov. 22 of this year:—'I believe corruption +and oppression are in India at an enormous height, but it has +never appeared that they were promoted by the Directors, who, I +believe, see themselves defrauded, while the country is +plundered; but the distance puts their officers out of +reach.'</i> Notes and Queries<i>, 6th S. v. 482. See</i> ante<i>, +p. 66.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-656">[656]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 113.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-657">[657]</a> +Stockdale (Memoirs<i>, ii. 57) says that, in 1770, the payment to +writers in the</i> Critical Review <i>was two guineas a sheet, +but that some of the writers in</i> The Monthly Review +<i>received four guineas a sheet. As these Reviews were octavos, +each sheet contained sixteen pages. Lord Jeffrey says that the +writers in the</i> Edinburgh Review <i>were at first paid ten +guineas a sheet. 'Not long after the</i> minimum <i>was raised to +sixteen guineas, at which it remained during my reign, though +two-thirds of the articles were paid much higher—averaging, +I should think, from twenty to twenty-five guineas a sheet on the +whole number.' Cockburn's</i> Jeffrey<i>, i. 136.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-658">[658]</a> See +ante, ii. 344.</p> +<p><a name="note-659">[659]</a> See +ante<i>, iii.32.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-660">[660]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 206.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-661">[661]</a> Monday +<i>is no doubt put by mistake for</i> Tuesday<i>, which was the +29th. Boswell had spent a considerable part of Monday the 28th +with Johnson (</i>ante<i>, p. 211).</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-662">[662]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'A fugitive from Heaven and prayer, + I mocked at all religious fear.' +FRANCIS. Horace, Odes<i>, i.34. 1. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-663">[663]</a> He told +Boswell (ante<i>, i. 68) that he had been a sort of lax talker +against religion for some years before he went to Oxford, but +that there he took up Law's</i> Serious Call <i>and found it +quite an overmatch for him. 'This,' he said, 'was the first +occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion after I became +capable of rational enquiry.' During the vacation of 1729 he had +a serious illness (</i>ante<i>, i. 63), which most likely was +'the sickness that brought religion back.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-664">[664]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 93, 164, and</i> post<i>, under Dec. 2, 1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-665">[665]</a> Mr. +Langton. See ante<i>, ii. 254.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-666">[666]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 249.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-667">[667]</a> Malloch +continued to write his name thus, after he came to London<i>. His +verses prefixed to the second edition of Thomson's</i> Winter +<i>are so subscribed. MALONE. 'Alias. A Latin word signifying +otherwise; as, Mallet,</i> alias <i>Malloch; that is</i> +otherwise <i>Malloch.' The mention of Mallet first comes in +Johnson's own abridgment of his</i> Dictionary<i>. In the earlier +unabridged editions the definition concludes, 'often used in the +trials of criminals, whose danger has obliged them to change +their names; as Simpson</i> alias <i>Smith,</i> alias <i>Baker, +&c.' For Mallet, see</i> ante<i>, i. 268, and ii. +159.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-668">[668]</a> Perhaps +Scott had this saying of Johnson's in mind when he made Earl +Douglas exclaim:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'At first in heart it liked me ill, + When the King praised his clerkly skill. + Thanks to St. Bothan, son of mine, + Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line.' +Marmion<i>, canto vi. 15. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-669">[669]</a> See +Boswell's Hebrides<i>, Sept. 10.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-670">[670]</a> Johnson +often maintained this diffusion of learning. Thus he +wrote:—'The call for books was not in Milton's age what it +is in the present. To read was not then a general amusement; +neither traders, nor often gentlemen, thought themselves +disgraced by ignorance. The women had not then aspired to +literature nor was every house supplied with a closet of +knowledge.' Works<i>, vii. 107. He goes on to mention 'that +general literature which now pervades the nation through all its +ranks.'</i> Works<i>, p. 108. 'That general knowledge which now +circulates in common talk was in Addison's time rarely to be +found. Men not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; +and, in the female world, any acquaintance with books was +distinguished only to be censured.'</i> Ib<i>. p.470. 'Of the</i> +Essay on Criticism<i>, Pope declared that he did not expect the +sale to be quick, because "not one gentleman in sixty, even of +liberal education, could understand it." The gentlemen, and the +education of that time, seem to have been of a lower character +than they are of this.'</i> Ib<i>. viii. 243. See</i> ante<i>, +iii. 3, 254. Yet he maintained that 'learning has decreased in +England, because learning will not do so much for a man as +formerly.' Boswell's</i> Hebrides, post<i>, v. 80.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-671">[671]</a> Malone +describes a call on Johnson in the winter of this year:—'I +found him in his arm-chair by the fire-side, before which a few +apples were laid. He was reading. I asked him what book he had +got. He said the History of Birmingham<i>. Local histories, I +observed, were generally dull. "It is true, Sir; but this has a +peculiar merit with me; for I passed some of my early years, and +married my wife there." [See</i> ante<i>, i. 96.] I supposed the +apples were preparing as medicine. "Why, no, Sir; I believe they +are only there because I want something to do. These are some of +the solitary expedients to which we are driven by sickness. I +have been confined this week past; and here you find me roasting +apples, and reading the</i> History of Birmingham<i>."' +Prior's</i> Malone<i>, p. 92.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-672">[672]</a> On April +19, he wrote:—'I can apply better to books than I could in +some more vigorous parts of my life—at least than I did<i>; +and I have one more reason for reading—that time has, by +taking away my companions, left me less opportunity of +conversation.' Croker's</i> Boswell<i>, p. 727.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-673">[673]</a> He told +Mr. Windham that he had never read the Odyssey <i>through in the +original. Windham's</i> Diary<i>, p. 17. 'Fox,' said Rogers +(</i>Table Talk<i>, p. 92), 'used to read Homer through once +every year. On my asking him, "Which poem had you rather have +written, the</i> Iliad <i>or the</i> Odyssey<i>?" he answered, "I +know which I had rather read" (meaning the</i> +Odyssey<i>).'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-674">[674]</a> +'Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence +and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by +necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every +moment starting to more delightful amusements.' Johnson's +Works<i>, iv. 145. Of Pope Johnson wrote (</i>ib<i>. viii. +321):—'To make verses was his first labour, and to mend +them was his last. ... He was one of those few whose labour is +their pleasure.' Thomas Carlyle, in 1824, speaking of writing, +says:—'I always recoil from again engaging with it.' +Froude's</i> Carlyle<i>, i. 213. Five years later he +wrote:—'Writing is a dreadful labour, yet not so dreadful +as</i> idleness<i>.'</i> Ib<i>. ii. 75. See</i> ante<i>, iii. +19.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-675">[675]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 15.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-676">[676]</a> Miss +Burney wrote to Mrs. Thrale in 1780:—'I met at Sir Joshua's +young Burke, who is made much ado about, but I saw not enough of +him to know why.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, i. 416. Mrs. Thrale +replied:—'I congratulate myself on being quite of your +opinion concerning Burke the minor, whom I once met and could +make nothing of.'</i> Ib<i>. p. 418. Miss Hawkins +(</i>Memoirs<i>, i. 304) reports, on Langton's authority, that +Burke said:—'How extraordinary it is that I, and Lord +Chatham, and Lord Holland, should each have a son so superior to +ourselves.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-677">[677]</a> +Cruikshank, not Cruikshanks (see post<i>, under Sept. 18, 1783, +and Sept. 4 1784). He had been Dr. Hunter's partner; he was not +elected (</i>Gent. Mag. <i>1783, p. 626). Northcote, in quoting +this letter, says that 'Sir Joshua's influence in the Academy was +not always answerable to his desire. "Those who are of some +importance everywhere else," he said, "find themselves nobody +when they come to the Academy."' Northcote's</i> Reynolds<i>, ii. +145.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-678">[678]</a> William +Hunter, scarcely less famous as a physician than his youngest +brother, John Hunter, as a surgeon.</p> +<p><a name="note-679">[679]</a> Let it +be remembered by those who accuse Dr. Johnson of illiberality +that both were Scotchmen<i>. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-680">[680]</a> The +following day he dined at Mrs. Garrick's. 'Poor Johnson,' wrote +Hannah More (Memoirs<i>, i. 280), 'exerted himself exceedingly, +but he was very ill and looked so dreadfully, that it quite +grieved me. He is more mild and complacent than he used to be. +His sickness seems to have softened his mind, without having at +all weakened it. I was struck with the mild radiance of this +setting sun.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-681">[681]</a> In the +winter of 1788-9 Boswell began a canvass of his own county, He +also courted Lord Lonsdale, in the hope of getting one of the +seats in his gift, who first fooled him and then treated him with +great brutality, Letters of Boswell<i>, pp. 270, 294, +324.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-682">[682]</a> On April +6, 1780—'a day,' wrote Horace Walpole (Letters<i>, vii. +345), 'that ought for ever to be a red-lettered day'—Mr. +Dunning made this motion. It was carried by 233 to 215.</i> Parl. +Hist. <i>xxi. 340-367.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-683">[683]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 355, and ii. 94 for Johnson's appeal to meals as a +measure of vexation.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-684">[684]</a> Johnson +defines cant <i>as '1. A corrupt dialect used by beggars and +vagabonds. 2. A particular form of speaking peculiar to some +certain class or body of men. 3. A whining pretension to goodness +in formal and affected terms. 4. Barbarous jargon. 5. Auction.' I +have noted the following instances of his use of the +word:—'I betook myself to a coffee-house frequented by +wits, among whom I learned in a short time the</i> cant <i>of +criticism.'</i> The Rambler<i>, No.123. 'Every class of society +has its</i> cant <i>of lamentation.'</i> Ib<i>. No.128. 'Milton's +invention required no assistance from the common</i> cant <i>of +poetry.'</i> Ib<i>. No.140. 'We shall secure our language from +being overrun with</i> cant<i>, from being crowded with low +terms, the spawn of folly or affectation.'</i> Works<i>, v. II. +'This fugitive</i> cant<i>, which is always in a state of +increase or decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durable +materials of a language.'</i> Ib<i>. p.45. In a note on I</i> +Henry VI<i>, act iii. sc.1, he says: 'To</i> roam <i>is supposed +to be derived from the</i> cant <i>of vagabonds, who often +pretended a pilgrimage to Rome.' See</i> ante<i>, iii. 197, for +'modern</i> cant<i>.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-685">[685]</a> +'Custom,' wrote Sir Joshua, 'or politeness, or courtly manners +has authorised such an eastern hyperbolical style of compliment, +that part of Dr. Johnson's character for rudeness of manners must +be put to the account of scrupulous adherence to truth. His +obstinate silence, whilst all the company were in raptures, vying +with each other who should pepper highest, was considered as +rudeness or ill-nature.' Taylor's Reynolds<i>, ii. 458.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-686">[686]</a> 'The +shame is to impose words for ideas upon ourselves or others.' +Johnson's Works<i>, vi. 64. See</i> ante<i>, p.122, where he +says: 'There is a middle state of mind between conviction and +hypocrisy.' Bacon, in his</i> Essay of Truth<i>, says: 'It is not +the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh +in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-687">[687]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 204.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-688">[688]</a> 'I dined +and lay at Harrison's, where I was received with that +old-fashioned breeding which is at once so honourable and so +troublesome.' Gibbon's Misc. Works<i>, i. 144. Mr. Pleydell, +in</i> Guy Mannering<i>, ed. 1860, iv. 96, says: 'You'll excuse +my old-fashioned importunity. I was born in a time when a +Scotchman was thought inhospitable if he left a guest alone a +moment, except when he slept.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-689">[689]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 167.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-690">[690]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 387.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-691">[691]</a> In +Johnson's Works<i>, ed. 1787, xi. 197, it is recorded that +Johnson said, 'Sheridan's writings on elocution were a continual +renovation of hope, and an unvaried succession of +disappointments.' According to the</i> Gent. Mag. <i>1785, p. +288, he continued:—'If we should have a bad harvest this +year, Mr. Sheridan would say:—"It was owing to the neglect +of oratory."' See</i> ante<i>, p. 206.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-692">[692]</a> Burke, +no doubt, was this 'bottomless Whig.' When Johnson said 'so they +all <i>are now,' he was perhaps thinking of the Coalition +Ministry in which Lord North and his friends had places.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-693">[693]</a> No doubt +Burke, who was Paymaster of the Forces. He is Boswell's 'eminent +friend.' See ante <i>ii.222, and</i> post<i>, Dec. 24, 1783, and +Jan.8, 1784. In these two consecutive paragraphs, though two +people seem to be spoken of, yet only one is in reality.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-694">[694]</a> I +believe that Burke himself was present part of the time, and that +he was the gentleman who 'talked of retiring<i>. On May 19 and 21 +he had in Parliament defended his action in restoring to office +two clerks, Powell and Bembridge, who had been dismissed by his +predecessor, and he had justified his reforms in the Paymaster's +office. 'He awaited,' he said, the 'judgement of the House. ...If +they so far differed in sentiment, he had only to say,</i> Nunc +dimittis servum tuum.' Parl. Hist. <i>xxiii.919.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-695">[695]</a> A copy +of Evelina <i>had been placed in the Bodleian. 'Johnson says,' +wrote Miss Burney, 'that when he goes to Oxford he will write my +name in the books, and my age when I writ them, and then,' he +says, 'the world may know that we</i> So mix our studies, and so +joined our fame. <i>For we shall go down hand in hand to +posterity.' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, i.429. The oldest copy +of</i> Evelina <i>now in the Bodleian is of an edition published +after Johnson's death. Miss Burney, in 1793, married General +D'Arblay, a French refugee.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-696">[696]</a> Macaulay +maintained that Johnson had a hand in the composition of +Cecilia<i>. He quotes a passage from it, and says:—'We say +with confidence, either Sam. Johnson or the Devil.' +(</i>Essays<i>, ed. 1874, iv. 157.) That he is mistaken is shown +by Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary <i>(ii. 172). 'Ay,' cried Dr. +Johnson, 'some people want to make out some credit to me from the +little rogue's book. I was told by a gentleman this morning that +it was a very fine book, if it was all her own.' "It is all her +own," said I, "for me, I am sure, for I never saw one word of it +before it was printed."' On p. 196 she records the +following:—'SIR JOSHUA. "Gibbon says he read the whole five +volumes in a day." "'Tis impossible," cried Mr. Burke, "it cost +me three days; and you know I never parted with it from the day I +first opened it."' See</i> post<i>, among the imitators of +Johnson's style, under Dec. 6, 1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-697">[697]</a> In Mr. +Barry's printed analysis, or description of these pictures, he +speaks of Johnson's character in the highest terms. BOSWELL. +Barry, in one of his pictures, placed Johnson between the two +beautiful duchesses of Rutland and Devonshire, pointing to their +Graces Mrs. Montagu as an example. He expresses his 'reverence +for his consistent, manly, and well-spent life.' Barry's +Works<i>, ii. 339. Johnson, in his turn, praises 'the +comprehension of Barry's design.'</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 256. +He was more likely to understand it, as the pictures formed a +series, meant 'to illustrate one great maxim of moral truth, viz. +that the obtaining of happiness depends upon cultivating the +human faculties. We begin with man in a savage state full of +inconvenience, imperfection, and misery, and we follow him +through several gradations of culture and happiness, which, after +our probationary state here, are finally attended with beatitude +or misery.' Barry's</i> Works<i>, ii. 323. Horace Walpole +(</i>Letters<i>, viii. 366) describes Barry's book as one 'which +does not want sense, though full of passion and self, and +vulgarisms and vanity.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-698">[698]</a> Boswell +had tried to bring about a third meeting between Johnson and +Wilkes. On May 21 he wrote:—'Mr. Boswell's compliments to +Mr. Wilkes. He finds that it would not be unpleasant to Dr. +Johnson to dine at Mr. Wilkes's. The thing would be so curiously +benignant, it were a pity it should not take place. Nobody but +Mr. Boswell should be asked to meet the doctor.' An invitation +was sent, but the following answer was returned:—'May 24, +1783. Mr. Johnson returns thanks to Mr. and Miss Wilkes for their +kind invitation; but he is engaged for Tuesday to Sir Joshua +Reynolds, and for Wednesday to Mr. Paradise.' Owing to Boswell's +return to Scotland, another day could not be fixed. Almon's +Wilkes<i>, iv. 314, 321.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-699">[699]</a> 'If the +tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place +where the tree falleth, there it shall be.' Ecclesiastes<i>, xi. +3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-700">[700]</a> 'When a +tree is falling, I have seen the labourers, by a trivial jerk +with a rope, throw it upon the spot where they would wish it +should lie. Divines, understanding this text too literally, +pretend, by a little interposition in the article of death, to +regulate a person's everlasting happiness. I fancy the allusion +will hardly countenance their presumption.' Shenstone's Works<i>, +ed. 1773, ii. 255.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-701">[701]</a> Hazlitt +says that 'when old Baxter first went to Kidderminster to preach, +he was almost pelted by the women for maintaining from the pulpit +the then fashionable and orthodox doctrine, that "Hell was paved +with infants' skulls.'" Conversations of Northcote<i>, p. +80.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-702">[702]</a> Acts<i>, +xvii. 24.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-703">[703]</a> Now the +celebrated Mrs. Crouch. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-704">[704]</a> Mr. +Windham was at this time in Dublin, Secretary to the Earl of +Northington, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. BOSWELL. See +ante<i>, p.200.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-705">[705]</a> Son of +Mr. Samuel Paterson. BOSWELL. See ante<i>, iii.90, and</i> +post<i>, April 5, 1784.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-706">[706]</a> The late +Keeper of the Royal Academy. He died on Jan. 23 of this year. +Reynolds wrote of him:—'He may truly be said in every +sense, to have been the father of the present race of artists.' +Northcote's Reynolds <i>ii.137.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-707">[707]</a> Mr. +Allen was his landlord and next neighbour in Bolt-court. Ante<i>, +iii. 141.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-708">[708]</a> Cowper +mentions him in Retirement<i>:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Virtuous and faithful Heberden! whose skill + Attempts no task it cannot well fulfill, + Gives melancholy up to nature's care, + And sends the patient into purer air.' + Cowper's Poems<i>, ed. 1786, i. 272. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>He is mentioned also by Priestley (Auto. <i>ed. 1810, p.66) as +one of his chief benefactors. Lord Eldon, when almost a briefless +barrister, consulted him. 'I put my hand into my pocket, meaning +to give him his fee; but he stopped me, saying, "Are you the +young gentleman who gained the prize for the essay at Oxford?" I +said I was. "I will take no fee from you." I often consulted him; +but he would never take a fee.' Twiss's</i> Eldon<i>, i. +104.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-709">[709]</a> How much +he had physicked himself is shewn by a letter of May 8. 'I took +on Thursday,' he writes, 'two brisk catharticks and a dose of +calomel. Little things do me no good. At night I was much better. +Next day cathartick again, and the third day opium for my cough. +I lived without flesh all the three days.' Piozzi Letters<i>, +ii.257. He had been bled at least four times that year and had +lost about fifty ounces of blood.</i> Ante<i>, pp.142, 146. On +Aug. 3, 1779, he wrote:—'Of the last fifty days I have +taken mercurial physick, I believe, forty.'</i> Notes and +Queries<i>, 6th S. v.461.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-710">[710]</a> An exact +reprint of this letter is given by Professor Mayor in Notes and +Queries<i>, 6th S. v.481. The omissions and the repetitions +'betray,' he says, 'the writer's agitation.' The postscript +Boswell had omitted. It is as follows:—'Dr. Brocklesby will +be with me to meet Dr. Heberden, and I shall have previously make +(sic) master of the case as well as I can.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-711">[711]</a> Vol. ii. +p.268, of Mrs. Thrale's Collection<i>. BOSWELL. The beginning of +the letter is very touching:—'I am sitting down in no +cheerful solitude to write a narrative which would once have +affected you with tenderness and sorrow, but which you will +perhaps pass over now with the careless glance of frigid +indifference. For this diminution of regard, however, I know not +whether I ought to blame you, who may have reasons which I cannot +know, and I do not blame myself, who have for a great part of +human life done you what good I could, and have never done you +evil.'</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 268. 'I have loved you,' he +continued, 'with virtuous affection; I have honoured you with +sincere esteem. Let not all our endearments be forgotten, but let +me have in this great distress your pity and your prayers. You +see I yet turn to you with my complaints as a settled and +unalienable friend; do not, do not drive me from you, for I have +not deserved either neglect or hatred.'</i> Ib. <i>p.271.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-712">[712]</a> On Aug. +20 he wrote:—'I sat to Mrs. Reynolds yesterday for my +picture, perhaps the tenth time, and I sat near three hours with +the patience of mortal born to bear<i>; at last she declared it +quite finished, and seems to think it fine. I told her it was</i> +Johnson's grimly ghost<i>. It is to be engraved, and I think</i> +in glided<i>, &c., will be a good inscription.'</i> Piozzi +Letters<i>, ii. 302. Johnson is quoting from Mallet's ballad +of</i> Margaret's Ghost<i>:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Twas at the silent solemn hour, + When night and morning meet; + In glided Margaret's grimly ghost, + And stood at William's feet.' + Percy Ballads<i>, in. 3, 16. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>According to Northcote, Reynolds said of his sister's +oil-paintings, 'they made other people laugh and him cry.' 'She +generally,' Northcote adds, 'did them by stealth.' Life of +Reynolds<i>, ii. 160.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-713">[713]</a> 'Nocte, +inter 16 et 17 Junii, 1783.</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + Summe pater, quodcunque tuum de corpore Numen + Hoc statuat, precibus Christus adesse velit: + Ingenio parcas, nee sit mihi culpa rogasse, + Qua solum potero parte placere tibi.' + Works<i>, i.159. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-714">[714]</a> +According to the Gent. Mag<i>. 1783, p.542, Dr. Lawrence died at +Canterbury on June 13 of this year, his second son died on the +15th. But, if we may trust Munk's</i> Roll of the College of +Physicians<i>, ii.153, on the father's tomb-stone, June 6 is +given as the day of his death. Mr. Croker gives June 17 as the +date, and June 19 as the day of the son's death, and is puzzled +accordingly.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-715">[715]</a> Poor +Derrick, however, though he did not himself introduce me to Dr. +Johnson as he promised, had the merit of introducing me to +Davies, the immediate introductor. BOSWELL. See ante<i>, i.385, +391.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-716">[716]</a> Miss +Burney, calling on him the next morning, offered to make his tea. +He had given her his own large arm-chair which was too heavy for +her to move to the table. '"Sir," quoth she, "I am in the wrong +chair." "It is so difficult," cried he with quickness, "for +anything to be wrong that belongs to you, that it can only be I +that am in the wrong chair to keep you from the right one."' Dr. +Burney's Memoirs<i>, ii. 345.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-717">[717]</a> His +Lordship was soon after chosen, and is now a member of THE CLUB. +BOSWELL. He was father of the future prime-minister, who was born +in the following year.</p> +<p><a name="note-718">[718]</a> He wrote +on June 23:—'What man can do for man has been done for me.' +Piozzi Letters<i>, ii.278. Murphy (</i>Life<i>, p. 121) says +that, visiting him during illness, he found him reading Dr. +Watson's</i> Chymistry <i>(</i>ante<i>, p. 118). 'Articulating +with difficulty he said:—"From this book he who knows +nothing may learn a great deal, and he who knows will be pleased +to find his knowledge recalled to his mind in a manner highly +pleasing."'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-719">[719]</a> 'I have, +by the migration of one of my ladies, more peace at home; but I +remember an old savage chief that says of the Romans with great +indignation-ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant +<i>[</i>Tacitus, Agricola<i>, c. xxx].</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. +259.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-720">[720]</a> 'July +23. I have been thirteen days at Rochester, and am just now +returned. I came back by water in a common boat twenty miles for +a shilling, and when I landed at Billingsgate, I carried my +budget myself to Cornhill before I could get a coach, and was not +much incommoded' Ib<i>. ii.294. See</i> ante<i>, iv.8, 22, for +mention of Rochester.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-721">[721]</a> Murphy +(Life<i>, p. 121) says that Johnson visited Oxford this summer. +Perhaps he was misled by a passage in the</i> Piozzi Letters +<i>(ii. 302) where Johnson is made to write:—'At Oxford I +have just left Wheeler.' For</i> left <i>no doubt should be +read</i> lost<i>. Wheeler died on July 22 of this year.</i> Gent. +Mag<i>. 1783, p. 629.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-722">[722]</a> This +house would be interesting to Johnson, as in it Charles II, 'for +whom he had an extraordinary partiality' (ante<i>, ii. 341), lay +hid for some days after the battle of Worcester. Clarendon (vi. +540) describes it 'as a house that stood alone from neighbours +and from any highway.' Charles was lodged 'in a little room, +which had been made since the beginning of the troubles for the +concealment of delinquents.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-723">[723]</a> 'I told +Dr. Johnson I had heard that Mr. Bowles was very much delighted +with the expectation of seeing him, and he answered me:—"He +is so delighted that it is shocking. It is really shocking to see +how high are his expectations." I asked him why, and he +said:—"Why, if any man is expected to take a leap of twenty +yards, and does actually take one of ten, everybody will be +disappointed, though ten yards may be more than any other man +ever leaped."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, ii.260. On Oct. 9, he +wrote:—'Two nights ago Mr. Burke sat with me a long time. +We had both seen Stonehenge this summer for the first time.'</i> +Piozzi Letters<i>, ii.315.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-724">[724]</a> +Salisbury is eighty-two miles from Cornhill by the old +coach-road. Johnson seems to have been nearly fifteen hours on +the journey.</p> +<p><a name="note-725">[725]</a> 'Aug. +13, 1783. I am now broken with disease, without the alleviation +of familiar friendship or domestic society. I have no middle +state between clamour and silence, between general conversation +and self-tormenting solitude. Levett is dead, and poor Williams +is making haste to die.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii.301. 'Aug. 20. +This has been a day of great emotion; the office of the Communion +of the Sick has been performed in poor Mrs. Williams's +chamber.'</i> Ib<i>. 'Sept. 22. Poor Williams has, I hope, seen +the end of her afflictions. She acted with prudence and she bore +with fortitude. She has left me.</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "Thou thy weary [worldly] task hast done, + Home art gone and ta'en thy wages." + [Cymbeline<i>, act iv. sc. 2.] +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Had she had good humour and prompt elocution, her universal +curiosity and comprehensive knowledge would have made her the +delight of all that knew her.' Ib<i>. p. 311.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-726">[726]</a> Johnson +(Works<i>, viii. 354) described in 1756 such a companion as he +found in Mrs. Williams. He quotes Pope's</i> Epitaph on Mrs. +Corbet<i>, and continues:—'I have always considered this as +the most valuable of all Pope's epitaphs; the subject of it is a +character not discriminated by any shining or eminent +peculiarities; yet that which really makes, though not the +splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every wise man +will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languor of +age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs, weary and +disgusted, from the ostentatious, the volatile and the vain. Of +such a character which the dull overlook, and the gay despise, it +was fit that the value should be made known, and the dignity +established.' See</i> ante<i>, i.232.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-727">[727]</a> Pr. and +Med<i>. p. 226. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-728">[728]</a> I +conjecture that Mr. Bowles is the friend. The account follows +close on the visit to his house, and contains a mention of +Johnson's attendance at a lecture at Salisbury.</p> +<p><a name="note-729">[729]</a> A writer +in Notes and Queries<i>, 1st S. xii. 149, says:—'Mr. Bowles +had married a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, viz. Dinah, the +fourth daughter of Sir Thomas Frankland, and highly valued +himself upon this connection with the Protector.' He adds that +Mr. Bowles was an active Whig.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-730">[730]</a> Mr. +Malone observes, 'This, however, was certainly a mistake, as +appears from the Memoirs <i>published by Mr. Noble. Had Johnson +been furnished with the materials which the industry of that +gentleman has procured, and with others which, it it is believed, +are yet preserved in manuscript, he would, without doubt, have +produced a most valuable and curious history of Cromwell's life.' +BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-731">[731]</a> See +ante<i>, ii.358, note 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-732">[732]</a> Short +Notes for Civil Conversation<i>. Spedding's</i> Bacon<i>, +vii.109.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-733">[733]</a> 'When I +took up his Life of Cowley<i>, he made me put it away to talk. I +could not help remarking how very like he is to his writing, and +how much the same thing it was to hear or to read him; but that +nobody could tell that without coming to Streatham, for his +language was generally imagined to be laboured and studied, +instead of the mere common flow of his thoughts. "Very true," +said Mrs. Thrale, "he writes and talks with the same ease, and in +the same manner."' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, i. 120. What a +different account is this from that given by +Macaulay:—'When he talked he clothed his wit and his sense +in forcible and natural expressions. As soon as he took his pen +in his hand to write for the public, his style became +systematically vicious.' Macaulay's</i> Essays<i>, edit. 1843, +i.404. See</i> ante<i>, ii.96, note; iv.183; and</i> post<i>, the +end of the vol.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-734">[734]</a> See +ante<i>, ii.125, iii.254, and Boswell's</i> Hebrides<i>, Oct. +14.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-735">[735]</a> Hume +said:—'The French have more real politeness, and the +English the better method of expressing it. By real politeness I +mean softness of temper, and a sincere inclination to oblige and +be serviceable, which is very conspicuous in this nation, not +only among the high, but low; in so much that the porters and +coachmen here are civil, and that, not only to gentlemen, but +likewise among themselves.' J.H. Burton's Hume<i>, i. 53.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-736">[736]</a> This is +the third time that Johnson's disgust at this practice is +recorded. See ante<i>, ii.403, and iii.352.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-737">[737]</a> See +ante<i>, iii.398, note 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-738">[738]</a> 'Sept. +22, 1783. The chymical philosophers have discovered a body (which +I have forgotten, but will enquire) which, dissolved by an acid, +emits a vapour lighter than the atmospherical air. This vapour is +caught, among other means, by tying a bladder compressed upon the +body in which the dissolution is performed; the vapour rising +swells the bladder and fills it. Piozzi Letters<i>, ii.310. The +'body' was iron-filings, the acid sulphuric acid, and the vapour +nitrogen. The other 'new kinds of air' were the gases discovered +by Priestley.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-739">[739]</a> I do not +wonder at Johnson's displeasure when the name of Dr. Priestley +was mentioned; for I know no writer who has been suffered to +publish more pernicious doctrines. I shall instance only three. +First, Materialism<i>; by which</i> mind <i>is denied to human +nature; which, if believed, must deprive us of every elevated +principle. Secondly,</i> Necessity<i>; or the doctrine that every +action, whether good or bad, is included in an unchangeable and +unavoidable system; a notion utterly subversive of moral +government. Thirdly, that we have no reason to think that the</i> +future <i>world, (which, as he is pleased to</i> inform <i>us, +will be adapted to our</i> merely improved <i>nature,) will be +materially different from</i> this<i>; which, if believed, would +sink wretched mortals into despair, as they could no longer hope +for the 'rest that remaineth for the people of GOD' +[</i>Hebrews<i>, iv.9], or for that happiness which is revealed +to us as something beyond our present conceptions; but would feel +themselves doomed to a continuation of the uneasy state under +which they now groan. I say nothing of the petulant intemperance +with which he dares to insult the venerable establishments of his +country.</i></p> +<p>As a specimen of his writings, I shall quote the following +passage, which appears to me equally absurd and impious, and +which might have been retorted upon him by the men who were +prosecuted for burning his house. 'I cannot, (says he,) as a +necessarian<i>, [meaning</i> necessitarian<i>] hate</i> any +man<i>; because I consider him as</i> being<i>, in all respects, +just what GOD has</i> made him to be<i>; and also as</i> doing +with respect to me<i>, nothing but what he was</i> expressly +designed <i>and</i> appointed <i>to do; GOD being the</i> only +cause<i>, and men nothing more than the</i> instruments <i>in his +hands to</i> execute all his pleasure<i>.'—</i> +Illustrations of Philosophical Necessity<i>, p. 111.</i></p> +<p>The Reverend Dr. Parr, in a late tract, appears to suppose +that 'Dr. Johnson not only endured, but almost solicited, an +interview with Dr. Priestley<i>. In justice to Dr. Johnson, I +declare my firm belief that he never did. My illustrious friend +was particularly resolute in not giving countenance to men whose +writings he considered as pernicious to society. I was present at +Oxford when Dr. Price, even before he had rendered himself so +generally obnoxious by his zeal for the French Revolution, came +into a company where Johnson was, who instantly left the room. +Much more would he have reprobated Dr. Priestley. Whoever wishes +to see a perfect delineation of this</i> Literary Jack of all +Trades<i>, may find it in an ingenious tract, entitled, 'A SMALL +WHOLE-LENGTH OF DR. PRIESTLEY,' printed for Rivingtons, in St. +Paul's Church-Yard. BOSWELL. See Appendix B.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-740">[740]</a> Burke +said, 'I have learnt to think better <i>of mankind.'</i> Ante<i>, +iii.236.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-741">[741]</a> He wrote +to his servant Frank from Heale on Sept. l6:—'As Thursday +[the 18th] is my birthday I would have a little dinner got, and +would have you invite Mrs. Desmoulins, Mrs. Davis that was about +Mrs. Williams, and Mr. Allen, and Mrs. Gardiner.' Croker's +Boswell<i>, p.739. See</i> ante<i>, iii.157, note 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-742">[742]</a> Dr. +Burney had just lost Mr. Bewley, 'the Broom Gentleman' (ante<i>, +p. 134), and Mr. Crisp. Dr. Burney's</i> Memoirs<i>, ii.323, 352. +For Mr. Crisp, see Macaulay's</i> Review <i>of Mme. +D'Arblay's</i> Diary. Essays<i>, ed. 1874, iv.104.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-743">[743]</a> He wrote +of her to Mrs. Montagu:—'Her curiosity was universal, her +knowledge was very extensive, and she sustained forty years of +misery with steady fortitude. Thirty years and more she had been +my companion, and her death has left me very desolate.' Croker's +Boswell<i>, p. 739. This letter brought to a close his quarrel +with Mrs. Montagu (</i>ante<i>, p. 64).</i></p> +<p><a name="note-744">[744]</a> On Sept. +22 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'If excision should be delayed, +there is danger of a gangrene. You would not have me for fear of +pain perish in putrescence. I shall, I hope, with trust in +eternal mercy, lay hold of the possibility of life which yet +remains.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii.312.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-745">[745]</a> Rather +more than seven years ago. Ante<i>, ii.82, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-746">[746]</a> Mrs. +Anna Williams. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-747">[747]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 163, and Boswell's</i> Hebrides<i>, Nov 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-748">[748]</a> Dated +Oct. 27. Piozzi Letters<i>, ii.321.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-749">[749]</a> +According to Mrs. Piozzi (Letters<i>, ii.387), he said to Mrs. +Siddons:—'You see, Madam, wherever you go there are no +seats to be got.' Sir Joshua also paid her a fine compliment. 'He +never marked his own name [on a picture],' says Northcote, +'except in the instance of Mrs. Siddons's portrait as the Tragic +Muse, when he wrote his name upon the hem of her garment. "I +could not lose," he said, "the honour this opportunity offered to +me for my name going down to posterity on the hem of your +garment."' Northcote's</i> Reynolds<i>, i. 246. In Johnson's</i> +Works<i>, ed. 1787, xi. 207, we read that 'he said of Mrs. +Siddons that she appeared to him to be one of the few persons +that the two great corrupters of mankind, money and reputation, +had not spoiled.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-750">[750]</a> 'Indeed, +Dr. Johnson,' said Miss Monckton, 'you must <i>see Mrs. Siddons.' +'Well, Madam, if you desire it, I will go. See her I shall not, +nor hear her; but I'll go, and that will do.' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> +Diary<i>, ii. 198.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-751">[751]</a> 'Mrs. +Porter, the tragedian, was so much the favourite of her time, +that she was welcomed on the stage when she trod it by the help +of a stick.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 319.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-752">[752]</a> He +said:—'Mrs. Clive was the best player I ever saw.' +Boswell's Hebrides, post<i>, v. 126. See</i> ante<i>, p. 7. She +was for many years the neighbour and friend of Horace +Walpole.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-753">[753]</a> She +acted the heroine in Irene. Ante<i>, i. 197. 'It is wonderful how +little mind she had,' he once said.</i> Ante<i>, ii. 348. See +Boswell's</i> Hebrides, post<i>, v. 126.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-754">[754]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 183.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-755">[755]</a> See +ante, iii. 184.</p> +<p><a name="note-756">[756]</a> +'Garrick's great distinction is his universality,' Johnson said. +'He can represent all modes of life, but that of an easy, +fine-bred gentleman.' Boswell's Hebrides, post<i>, v. 126. +See</i> ante<i>, iii. 35. Horace Walpole wrote of Garrick in 1765 +(</i>Letters<i>, iv. 335):—'Several actors have pleased me +more, though I allow not in so many parts. Quin in Falstaff was +as excellent as Garrick in</i> Lear<i>. Old Johnson far more +natural in everything he attempted; Mrs. Porter surpassed him in +passionate tragedy. Cibber and O'Brien were what Garrick could +never reach, coxcombs and men of fashion. Mrs. Clive is at least +as perfect in low comedy.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-757">[757]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 465.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-758">[758]</a> Mr. +Kemble told Mr. Croker that 'Mrs. Siddons's pathos in the last +scene of The Stranger <i>quite overcame him, but he always +endeavoured to restrain any impulses which might interfere with +his previous study of his part.' Croker's</i> Boswell<i>, p. 742. +Diderot, writing of the qualifications of a great actor, +says:—'Je lui veux beaucoup de jugement; je le veux +spectateur froid et tranquille de la nature humaine; qu'il ait +par conséquent beaucoup de finesse, mais nulle +sensibilité, ou, ce qui est la même chose, l'art de +tout imiter, et une égale aptitude à toutes sortes +de caractères et de rôles; s'il était +sensible, il lui serait impossible de jouer dix fois de suite le +même rôle avec la même chaleur et le même +succès; très chaud à la première +représentation, il serait épuisé et froid +comme le marble à la troisième,' &c. +Diderot's</i> Works <i>(ed. 1821), iii. 274. See Boswell's</i> +Hebrides, post<i>, v. 46.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-759">[759]</a> My +worthy friend, Mr. John Nichols, was present when Mr. Henderson, +the actor, paid a visit to Dr. Johnson; and was received in a +very courteous manner. See Gent. Mag<i>. June, 1791.</i></p> +<p>I found among Dr. Johnson's papers, the following letter to +him, from the celebrated Mrs. Bellamy [ante<i>, i. +326]:—</i></p> +<p>'To DR. JOHNSON.</p> +<center>'SIR,</center> +<p>'The flattering remembrance of the partiality you honoured me +with, some years ago, as well as the humanity you are known to +possess, has encouraged me to solicit your patronage at my +Benefit.</p> +<p>'By a long Chancery suit, and a complicated train of +unfortunate events, I am reduced to the greatest distress; which +obliges me, once more, to request the indulgence of the +publick.</p> +<p>'Give me leave to solicit the honour of your company, and to +assure you, if you grant my request, the gratification I shall +feel, from being patronized by Dr. Johnson, will be infinitely +superiour to any advantage that may arise from the Benefit; as I +am, with the profoundest respect, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your most obedient, humble servant, G. A. BELLAMY. No. 10 +Duke-street, St. James's, May 11, 1783.'</p> +<p>I am happy in recording these particulars, which prove that my +illustrious friend lived to think much more favourably of Players +than he appears to have done in the early part of his life. +BOSWELL. Mr. Nichols, describing Henderson's visit to Johnson, +says:—'The conversation turning on the merits of a certain +dramatic writer, Johnson said: "I never did the man an injury; +but he would persist in reading his tragedy to me."' Gent. +Mag<i>: 1791, p. 500.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-760">[760]</a> Piozzi +Letters<i>, vol. ii. p. 328. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-761">[761]</a> Piozzi +Letters<i>, vol. ii. p. 342. BOSWELL. The letter to Miss Thrale +was dated Nov. 18. Johnson wrote on Dec. l3:—'You must all +guess again at my friend. It was not till Dec. 31 that he told +the name.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-762">[762]</a> Miss +Burney, who visited him on this day, records:—'He was, if +possible, more instructive, entertaining, good-humoured, and +exquisitely fertile than ever.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, ii. +284. The day before he wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's little +daughters:—'I live here by my own self, and have had of +late very bad nights; but then I have had a pig to dinner which +Mr. Perkins gave me. Thus life is chequered.'</i> Piozzi +Letters<i>, ii. 327.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-763">[763]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 242.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-764">[764]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 242.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-765">[765]</a> Nos. 26 +and 29.</p> +<p><a name="note-766">[766]</a> Piozzi +Letters<i>, i. 334. See</i> ante<i>, p. 75.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-767">[767]</a> He +strongly opposed the war with America, and was one of Dr. +Franklin's friends. Franklin's Memoirs<i>, ed. 1818, iii. +108.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-768">[768]</a> It was +of this tragedy that the following story is told in Rogers's +Table-Talk<i>, p. 177:—'Lord Shelburne could say the most +provoking things, and yet appear quite unconscious of their being +so. In one of his speeches, alluding to Lord Carlisle, he +said:—"The noble Lord has written a comedy." "No, a +tragedy." "Oh, I beg pardon; I thought it was a comedy."' See</i> +ante<i>, p. 113. Pope, writing to Mr. Cromwell on Aug. 19, 1709, +says:—'One might ask the same question of a modern life, +that Rich did of a modern play: "Pray do me the favour, Sir, to +inform me is this your tragedy or your comedy?"' Pope's</i> +Works<i>, ed. 1812, vi. 81.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-769">[769]</a> Mrs. +Chapone, when she was Miss Mulso, had written 'four billets in +The Rambler<i>, No. 10.'</i> Ante<i>, i. 203. She was one of the +literary ladies who sat at Richardson's feet. Wraxall +(</i>Memoirs<i>, ed. 1815, i. 155) says that 'under one of the +most repulsive exteriors that any woman ever possessed she +concealed very superior attainments and extensive knowledge.' +Just as Mrs. Carter was often called 'the learned Mrs. Carter,' +so Mrs. Chapone was known as 'the admirable Mrs. +Chapone.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-770">[770]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 373.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-771">[771]</a> A few +copies only of this tragedy have been printed, and given to the +authour's friends. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-772">[772]</a> Dr. +Johnson having been very ill when the tragedy was first sent to +him, had declined the consideration of it. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-773">[773]</a> Johnson +refers, I suppose, to a passage in Dryden which he quotes in his +Dictionary <i>under</i> mechanick<i>:—'Many a fair precept +in poetry is like a seeming demonstration in mathematicks, very +specious in the diagram, but failing in the mechanick +operation.'</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-774">[774]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'I could have borne my woes; that stranger Joy + Wounds while it smiles:—The long imprison'd wretch, + Emerging from the night of his damp cell, + Shrinks from the sun's bright beams; and that which flings + Gladness o'er all, to him is agony.' BOSWELL. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-775">[775]</a> Lord +Cockburn (Life of Lord Jeffrey<i>, i. 74) describing the +representation of Scotland towards the close of last century, and +in fact till the Reform Bill of 1832, says:—'There were +probably not above 1500 or 2000 county electors in all Scotland; +a body not too large to be held, hope included, in Government's +hand. The election of either the town or the county member was a +matter of such utter indifference to the people, that they often +only knew of it by the ringing of a bell, or by seeing it +mentioned next day in a newspaper.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-776">[776]</a> Six +years later, when he was Praeses <i>of the Quarter-Sessions, he +carried up to London an address to be presented to the Prince of +Wales. 'This,' he wrote, 'will add something to my</i> +conspicuousness<i>. Will that word do?'</i> Letters of +Boswell<i>, p. 295.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-777">[777]</a> This +part of this letter was written, as Johnson goes on to say, a +considerable time before the conclusion. The Coalition Ministry, +which was suddenly dismissed by the King on Dec. 19, was +therefore still in power. Among Boswell's 'friends' was Burke. +See ante<i>, p. 223.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-778">[778]</a> On Nov. +22 he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'I feel the weight of solitude very +pressing; after a night of broken and uncomfortable slumber I +rise to a solitary breakfast, and sit down in the evening with no +companion. Sometimes, however, I try to read more and more.' +Notes and Queries<i>, 6th S. v. 482. On Dec. 27 he wrote to Mrs. +Thrale:—'You have more than once wondered at my complaint +of solitude, when you hear that I am crowded with visits.</i> +Inopem me copia fecit<i>. Visitors are no proper companions in +the chamber of sickness. They come when I could sleep or read, +they stay till I am weary.... The amusements and consolations of +langour and depression are conferred by familiar and domestick +companions, which can be visited or called at will.... Such +society I had with Levett and Williams; such I had where I am +never likely to have it more.'</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. +341.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-779">[779]</a> The +confusion arising from the sudden dismissal of a Ministry which +commanded a large majority in the House of Commons had been +increased by the resignation, on Dec. 22, of Earl Temple, three +days after his appointment as Secretary of State. Parl. Hist<i>. +xxiv. 238.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-780">[780]</a> 'News I +know none,' wrote Horace Walpole on Dec. 30, 1783 (Letters<i>, +viii. 447), 'but that they are crying Peerages about the streets +in barrows, and can get none off.' Thirty-three peerages were +made in the next three years. (</i>Whitaker's Almanac<i>, 1886, +p. 463.) Macaulay tells how this December 'a troop of Lords of +the Bedchamber, of Bishops who wished to be translated, and of +Scotch peers who wished to be reelected made haste to change +sides.' Macaulay's</i> Writings and Speeches<i>, ed. 1871, p. +407.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-781">[781]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 182. He died Oct. 28, 1788.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-782">[782]</a>'Prince +Henry was the first encourager of remote navigation. What mankind +has lost and gained by the genius and designs of this prince it +would be long to compare, and very difficult to estimate. Much +knowledge has been acquired, and much cruelty been committed; the +belief of religion has been very little propagated, and its laws +have been outrageously and enormously violated. The Europeans +have scarcely visited any coast but to gratify avarice, and +extend corruption; to arrogate dominion without right, and +practise cruelty without incentive. Happy had it then been for +the oppressed, if the designs of Henry had slept in his bosom, +and surely more happy for the oppressors.' Johnson's Works<i>, v. +219. See</i> ante<i>, ii. 478.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-783">[783]</a> 'The +author himself,' wrote Gibbon (Misc. Works<i>, i. 220), 'is the +best judge of his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated +on the subject; no one is so sincerely interested in the +event.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-784">[784]</a> Mickle, +speaking in the third person as the Translator, says:— 'He +is happy to be enabled to add Dr. Johnson to the number of those +whose kindness for the man, and good wishes for the Translation, +call for his sincerest gratitude.' Mickle's Lusiad<i>, p. +ccxxv.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-785">[785]</a> A brief +record, it should seem, is given, ante<i>, iii. 37.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-786">[786]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 106, 214.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-787">[787]</a> The +author of Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr, Johnson <i>says +(p. 153) that it was Johnson who determined Shaw to undertake +this work. 'Sir,' he said, 'if you give the world a vocabulary of +that language, while the island of Great Britain stands in the +Atlantic Ocean your name will be mentioned.' On p. 156 is a +letter by Johnson introducing Shaw to a friend.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-788">[788]</a> 'Why is +not the original deposited in some publick library?' he asked. +Boswell's Hebrides<i>, Nov. 10.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-789">[789]</a> See +ante, i. 190.</p> +<p><a name="note-790">[790]</a> See +Appendix C.</p> +<p><a name="note-791">[791]</a> 'Dec. +27, 1873. The wearisome solitude of the long evenings did indeed +suggest to me the convenience of a club in my neighbourhood, but +I have been hindered from attending it by want of breath.' Piozzi +Letters<i>, ii. 340. 'Dec. 31. I have much need of entertainment; +spiritless, infirm, sleepless, and solitary, looking back with +sorrow and forward with terrour.'</i> Ib<i>, p. 343.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-792">[792]</a> '"I +think," said Mr. Cambridge, "it sounds more like some club that +one reads of in The Spectator <i>than like a real club in these +times; for the forfeits of a whole year will not amount to those +of a single night in other clubs."' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, +ii. 290. Mr. Cambridge was thinking of the Two-penny Club.</i> +Spectator<i>, No. ix.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-793">[793]</a> I was in +Scotland when this Club was founded, and during all the winter. +Johnson, however, declared I should be a member, and invented a +word upon the occasion: 'Boswell (said he) is a very clubable +<i>man.' When I came to town I was proposed by Mr. Barrington, +and chosen. I believe there are few societies where there is +better conversation or more decorum. Several of us resolved to +continue it after our great founder was removed by death. Other +members were added; and now, above eight years since that loss, +we go on happily. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker says 'Johnson had already +invented</i> unclubable <i>for Sir J. Hawkins,' and refers to a +note by Dr. Burney (</i>ante<i>, i. 480, note I), in which +Johnson is represented as saying of Hawkins, while he was still a +member of the Literary Club:—'Sir John, Sir, is a very +unclubable man.' But, as Mr. Croker points out (Croker's</i> +Boswell<i>, p. 164), 'Hawkins was not knighted till long after he +had left the club.' The anecdote, being proved to be inaccurate +in one point, may be inaccurate in another, and may therefore +belong to a much later date.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-794">[794]</a> See +Appendix D.</p> +<p><a name="note-795">[795]</a> Ben +Jonson wrote Leges Convivales <i>that were 'engraven in marble +over the chimney in the Apollo of the Old Devil Tavern, Temple +Bar; that being his Club Room.' Jonson's</i> Works<i>, ed. 1756, +vii. 291.</i></p> +<center><a name="note-796">[796]</a> +RULES.</center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench + In mirth, which after no repenting draws.'—MILTON. + ['To-day deep thoughts resolve with me <i>to drench + In mirth</i> that<i>, &c.'</i> Sonnets<i>, xxi.] +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>'The Club shall consist of four-and-twenty.</p> +<p>'The meetings shall be on the Monday, Thursday, and Saturday +of every week; but in the week before Easter there shall be no +meeting.</p> +<p>'Every member is at liberty to introduce a friend once a week, +but not oftener.</p> +<p>'Two members shall oblige themselves to attend in their turn +every night from eight to ten, or to procure two to attend in +their room.</p> +<p>'Every member present at the Club shall spend at least +sixpence; and every member who stays away shall forfeit +three-pence.</p> +<p>'The master of the house shall keep an account of the absent +members; and deliver to the President of the night a list of the +forfeits incurred.</p> +<p>'When any member returns after absence, he shall immediately +lay down his forfeits; which if he omits to do, the President +shall require.</p> +<p>'There shall be no general reckoning, but every man shall +adjust his own expences.</p> +<p>'The night of indispensable attendance will come to every +member once a month. Whoever shall for three months together omit +to attend himself, or by substitution, nor shall make any apology +in the fourth month, shall be considered as having abdicated the +Club.</p> +<p>'When a vacancy is to be filled, the name of the candidate, +and of the member recommending him, shall stand in the Club-room +three nights. On the fourth he may be chosen by ballot; six +members at least being present, and two-thirds of the ballot +being in his favour; or the majority, should the numbers not be +divisible by three.</p> +<p>'The master of the house shall give notice, six days before, +to each of those members whose turn of necessary attendance is +come.</p> +<p>'The notice may be in these words:—"Sir, On +—— the —— of —— — will +be your turn of presiding at the Essex-Head. Your company is +therefore earnestly requested."</p> +<p>'One penny shall be left by each member for the waiter.'</p> +<p>Johnson's definition of a Club in this sense, in his +Dictionary<i>, is, 'An assembly of good fellows, meeting under +certain conditions.' BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-797">[797]</a> She had +left him in the summer (ante<i>, p. 233), but perhaps she had +returned.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-798">[798]</a> He +received many acts of kindness from outside friends. On Dec. 31 +he wrote:—'I have now in the house pheasant, venison, +turkey, and ham, all unbought. Attention and respect give +pleasure, however late or however useless. But they are not +useless when they are late; it is reasonable to rejoice, as the +day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation +of mankind.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 343.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-799">[799]</a> 'Dec. +16, 1783. I spent the afternoon with Dr. Johnson, who indeed is +very ill, and whom I could hardly tell how to leave. He was very, +very kind. Oh! what a cruel, heavy loss will he be! Dec. 30. I +went to Dr. Johnson, and spent the evening with him. He was very +indifferent indeed. There were some very disagreeable people with +him; and he once affected me very much by turning suddenly to me, +and grasping my hand and saying:—"The blister I have tried +for my breath has betrayed some very bad tokens; but I will not +terrify myself by talking of them. Ah! priez Dieu pour moi<i>."' +Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, ii. 293, 5. 'I snatch,' he wrote a +few weeks later, 'every lucid interval, and animate myself with +such amusements as the time offers.'</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. +349.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-800">[800]</a> He had +written to her on Nov. 10. See Croker's Boswell<i>, p. +742.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-801">[801]</a> Hawkins +(Life<i>, 562) says that this November Johnson said to +him:—'What a man am I, who have got the better of three +diseases, the palsy, the gout, and the asthma, and can now enjoy +the conversation of my friends, without the interruptions of +weakness or pain.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-802">[802]</a> 'The +street [on London Bridge], which, before the houses fell to +decay, consisted of handsome lofty edifices, pretty regularly +built, was 20 feet broad, and the houses on each side generally +26-1/2 feet deep.' After 1746 no more leases were granted, and +the houses were allowed to run to ruin. In 1756-7 they were all +taken down. Dodsley's London and its Environs<i>, ed. 1761, iv. +136-143.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-803">[803]</a> In +Lowndes's Bibl. Man<i>. i. 328 is given a list of nearly fifty of +these books. Some of them were reprinted by Stace in 1810-13 in 6 +vols. quarto. Dr. Franklin, writing of the books that he bought +in his boyhood says:—'My first acquisition was Bunyan's +works in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to +enable me to buy R. Burton's</i> Historical Collections<i>; they +were small chapmen's books, and cheap. Forty volumes in all.' +Franklin's</i> Memoirs<i>, i. 17.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-804">[804]</a> He wrote +to Mrs. Thrale this same day:—'Alas, I had no sleep last +night, and sit now panting over my paper. Dabit Deus his quoque +finem.' ['This too the Gods shall end.' MORRIS, Virgil, +<i>Aeneids</i>, 1.199.] <i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. 347.</p> +<p><a name="note-805">[805]</a> +Boswell's purpose in this <i>Letter</i> was to recommend the +Scotch to address the King to express their satisfaction that the +East India Company Bill had been rejected by the House of Lords. +<i>Ib</i>. p. 39. 'Let us,' he writes, 'upon this awful occasion +think only of <i>property</i> and <i>constitution</i>;' p. 42. +'Let me add,' he says in concluding, 'that a dismission of the +Portland Administration will probably disappoint an object which +I have most ardently at heart;' p. 42. He was thinking no doubt +of his 'expectations from the interest of an eminent person then +in power' (ante, p. 223.)</p> +<p><a name="note-806">[806]</a> On p. 4 +Boswell condemns the claim of Parliament to tax the American +colonies as 'unjust and inexpedient.' 'This claim,' he says, 'was +almost universally approved of in Scotland, where due +consideration was had of the advantage of raising regiments.' He +continues:—'When pleading at the bar of the House of +Commons in a question concerning taxation, I avowed that opinion, +declaring that the man in the world for whom I have the highest +respect (Dr. Johnson) had not been able to convince me that +<i>Taxation was no Tyranny</i>.'</p> +<p><a name="note-807">[807]</a> Boswell +wrote to Reynolds on Feb. 6:—'I intend to be in London next +month, chiefly to attend upon Dr. Johnson with respectful +affection.' Croker's <i>Boswell</i>, p. 748.</p> +<p><a name="note-808">[808]</a> 'I have +really hope from spring,' he wrote on Jan. 21, 'and am ready, +like Almanzor, to bid the sun <i>fly swiftly</i>, and <i>leave +weeks and months behind him</i>. The sun has looked for six +thousand years upon the world to little purpose, if he does not +know that a sick man is almost as impatient as a lover.' +<i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. 347. Almanzor's speech is at the end +of Dryden's <i>Conquest of Granada</i>:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Move swiftly, Sun, and fly a lover's pace; + Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>See <i>ante</i>, i. 332, where Johnson said, 'This distinction +of seasons is produced only by imagination operating on luxury. +To temperance every day is bright,' and <i>post</i>, Aug. 2, +1784.</p> +<p><a name="note-809">[809]</a> He died +in the following August at Dover, on his way home. Walpole's +<i>Letters</i>, viii. 494. See <i>ante</i>, iii. 250, 336, and +<i>post</i>, Aug. 19, 1784.</p> +<p><a name="note-810">[810]</a> On the +last day of the old year he wrote:—'To any man who extends +his thoughts to national consideration, the times are dismal and +gloomy. But to a sick man, what is the publick?' <i>Piozzi +Letters</i>, ii. 344.</p> +<p>The original of the following note is in the admirable +collection of autographs belonging to my friend, Mr. M. M. +Holloway:—</p> +<center>'TO THE REV. DR. TAYLOR,</center> +<p>'in Ashbourne,</p> +<p>'Derbyshire.</p> +<center>'DEAR SIR,</center> +<p>'I am still confined to the house, and one of my amusements is +to write letters to my friends, though they, being busy in the +common scenes of life, are not equally diligent in writing to me. +Dr. Heberden was with me two or three days ago, and told me that +nothing ailed me, which I was glad to hear, though I knew it not +to be true. My nights are restless, my breath is difficult, and +my lower parts continue tumid.</p> +<p>'The struggle, you see, still continues between the two sets +of ministers: those that are <i>out</i> and <i>in</i> one can +scarce call them, for who is <i>out</i> or <i>in</i> is perhaps +four times a day a new question. The tumult in government is, I +believe, excessive, and the efforts of each party outrageously +violent, with very little thought on any national interest, at a +time when we have all the world for our enemies, when the King +and parliament have lost even the titular dominion of America, +and the real power of Government every where else. Thus Empires +are broken down when the profits of administration are so great, +that ambition is satisfied with obtaining them, and he that +aspires to greatness needs do nothing more than talk himself into +importance. He has then all the power which danger and conquest +used formerly to give; he can raise a family and reward his +followers.</p> +<p>'Mr. Burke has just sent me his Speech upon the affairs of +India, a volume of above a hundred pages closely printed. I will +look into it; but my thoughts seldom now travel to great +distances.</p> +<p>'I would gladly know when you think to come hither, and +whether this year you will come or no. If my life be continued, I +know not well how I shall bestow myself.</p> +<p>'I am, Sir,</p> +<p>'Your affectionate &c.,</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center> +<p>'London, Jan. 24, 1784.'</p> +<p><a name="note-811">[811]</a> See +<i>post</i>, v. 48.</p> +<p><a name="note-812">[812]</a> See +<i>post</i>, p. 271.</p> +<p><a name="note-813">[813]</a> I sent +it to Mr. Pitt, with a letter, in which I thus expressed +myself:—'My principles may appear to you too monarchical: +but I know and am persuaded, they are not inconsistent with the +true principles of liberty. Be this as it may, you, Sir, are now +the Prime Minister, called by the Sovereign to maintain the +rights of the Crown, as well as those of the people, against a +violent faction. As such, you are entitled to the warmest support +of every good subject in every department.' He answered:—'I +am extremely obliged to you for the sentiments you do me the +honour to express, and have observed with great pleasure the +<i>zealous and able support</i> given to the CAUSE OF THE PUBLICK +in the work you were so good to transmit to me.' BOSWELL. Five +years later, and two years before <i>The Life of Johnson</i> was +published, Boswell wrote to Temple:—'As to Pitt, he is an +insolent fellow, but so able, that upon the whole I must support +him against the <i>Coalition</i>; but I will <i>work</i> him, for +he has behaved very ill to me. Can he wonder at my wishing for +preferment, when men of the first family and fortune in England +struggle for it?' <i>Letters of Boswell</i>, p. 295. Warburton +said of Helvetius, whom he disliked, that, if he had met him, 'he +would have <i>worked</i> him.' Walpole's <i>Letters</i>, iv. +217.</p> +<p><a name="note-814">[814]</a> Out of +this offer, and one of a like nature made in 1779 (<i>ante</i>, +iii. 418), Mr. Croker weaves a vast web of ridiculous +suspicions.</p> +<p><a name="note-815">[815]</a> From his +garden at Prestonfield, where he cultivated that plant with such +success, that he was presented with a gold medal by the Society +of London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and +Commerce. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-816">[816]</a> In the +original <i>effusion</i>. Johnson's <i>Works</i>, vii. 402.</p> +<p><a name="note-817">[817]</a> Who had +written him a very kind letter. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-818">[818]</a> On Jan. +12 the Ministry had been in a minority of 39 in a House of 425; +on March 8 the minority was reduced to one in a House of 381. +Parliament was dissolved on the 25th. In the first division in +the new Parliament the Ministry were in a majority of 97 in a +House of 369. <i>Parl. Hist.</i> xxiv. 299, 744, 829.</p> +<p><a name="note-819">[819]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, p. 241.</p> +<p><a name="note-820">[820]</a> 'In old +Aberdeen stands the King's College, of which the first president +was Hector Boece, or Boethius, who may be justly reverenced as +one of the revivers of elegant learning.' Johnson's <i>Works</i>, +ix. 11.</p> +<p><a name="note-821">[821]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, iii. 104.</p> +<p><a name="note-822">[822]</a> In his +dining-room, no doubt, among 'the very respectable people' whose +portraits hung there. <i>Ante</i>, p. 203, note.</p> +<p><a name="note-823">[823]</a> Horace +Walpole (<i>Letters</i>, viii. 466) wrote on March 30:—'The +nation is intoxicated, and has poured in Addresses of Thanks to +the Crown for exerting the prerogative <i>against</i> the +palladium of the people.'</p> +<p><a name="note-824">[824]</a> The +election lasted from April 1 to May 16. Fox was returned second +on the poll. <i>Ann. Reg.</i> xxvii. 190.</p> +<p><a name="note-825">[825]</a> He was +returned also for Kirkwall, for which place he sat for nearly a +year, while the scrutiny of the Westminster election was dragging +on. <i>Parl. Hist</i>. xxiv. 799.</p> +<p><a name="note-826">[826]</a> Hannah +More wrote on March 8 (<i>Memoirs</i>, i. 310):—'I am sure +you will honour Mr. Langton, when I tell you he is come on +purpose to stay with Dr. Johnson, and that during his illness. He +has taken a little lodging in Fleet-street in order to be near, +to devote himself to him. He has as much goodness as learning, +and that is saying a bold thing of one of the first Greek +scholars we have.'</p> +<p><a name="note-827">[827]</a> Floyer +was the Lichfield physician on whose advice Johnson was +'<i>touched</i>' by Queen Anne. <i>Ante</i>, i. 42, 91, and +<i>post</i>, July 20, 1784.</p> +<p><a name="note-828">[828]</a> To which +Johnson returned this answer:—</p> +<center>'TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL OF PORTMORE.</center> +<p>'Dr. Johnson acknowledges with great respect the honour of +Lord Portmore's notice. He is better than he was; and will, as +his Lordship directs, write to Mr. Langton.</p> +<p>'Bolt-court, Fleet-street,</p> +<p>April 13, 1784.'</p> +<p>BOSWELL. Johnson here assumes his title of Doctor, which +Boswell says (<i>ante</i>, ii. 332, note 1), so far as he knew, +he never did. Perhaps the letter has been wrongly copied, or +perhaps Johnson thought that, in writing to a man of title, he +ought to assume such title as he himself had.</p> +<p><a name="note-829">[829]</a> The +eminent painter, representative of the ancient family of Homfrey +(now Humphry) in the west of England; who, as appears from their +arms which they have invariably used, have been, (as I have seen +authenticated by the best authority,) one of those among the +Knights and Esquires of honour who are represented by Holinshed +as having issued from the Tower of London on coursers apparelled +for the justes, accompanied by ladies of honour, leading every +one a Knight, with a chain of gold, passing through the streets +of London into Smithfield, on Sunday, at three o'clock in the +afternoon, being the first Sunday after Michaelmas, in the +fourteenth year of King Richard the Second. This family once +enjoyed large possessions, but, like others, have lost them in +the progress of ages. Their blood, however, remains to them well +ascertained; and they may hope in the revolution of events, to +recover that rank in society for which, in modern times, fortune +seems to be an indispensable requisite. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-830">[830]</a> Son of +Mr. Samuel Paterson. BOSWELL. In the first two editions after +'Paterson' is added 'eminent for his knowledge of books.' See +<i>ante</i>, iii. 90.</p> +<p><a name="note-831">[831]</a> Humphry, +on his first coming to London, poor and unfriended, was helped by +Reynolds. Northcote's <i>Reynolds</i>, ii. 174.</p> +<p><a name="note-832">[832]</a> On April +21 he wrote:—'After a confinement of 129 days, more than +the third part of a year, and no inconsiderable part of human +life, I this day returned thanks to God in St. Clement's Church +for my recovery.' <i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. 365.</p> +<p><a name="note-833">[833]</a> On April +26 he wrote:—'On Saturday I showed myself again to the +living world at the Exhibition; much and splendid was the +company, but like the Doge of Genoa at Paris [Versailles, +Voltaire, <i>Siècle de Louis XIV</i>, chap, xiv.], I +admired nothing but myself. I went up the stairs to the pictures +without stopping to rest or to breathe,</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "In all the madness of superfluous health." +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>[Pope's <i>Essay on Man</i>, iii. 3.] The Prince of Wales had +promised to be there; but when we had waited an hour and a half, +sent us word that he could not come.' <i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. +367. 'The first Gentleman in Europe' was twenty-one years old +when he treated men like Johnson and Reynolds with this +insolence. Mr. Forster (<i>Life of Goldsmith</i>, ii. 244) says +that it was at this very dinner that 'Johnson left his seat by +desire of the Prince of Wales, and went to the head of the table +to be introduced.' He does not give his authority for the +statement.</p> +<p><a name="note-834">[834]</a> Mr. +Croker wrote in 1847 that he had 'seen it very lately framed and +glazed, in possession of the lady to whom it was addressed.' +Croker's <i>Boswell</i>, p. 753.</p> +<p><a name="note-835">[835]</a> Shortly +before he begged one of Mrs. Thrale's daughters 'never to think +that she had arithmetic enough.' <i>Ante</i>, p. 171, note 3. See +<i>ante</i>, iii. 207, note 3.</p> +<p><a name="note-836">[836]</a> Cowper +wrote on May 10 to the Rev. John Newton:—'We rejoice in the +account you give us of Dr. Johnson. His conversion will indeed be +a singular proof of the omnipotence of Grace; and the more +singular, the more decided.' Southey's <i>Cowper</i>, xv. 150. +Johnson, in a prayer that he wrote on April 11, +said:—'Enable me, O Lord, to glorify Thee for that +knowledge of my corruption, and that sense of Thy wrath, which my +disease and weakness and danger awakened in my mind.' <i>Pr. and +Med.</i> p. 217.</p> +<p><a name="note-837">[837]</a> Mr. +Croker suggests <i>immediate</i>.</p> +<p><a name="note-838">[838]</a> 'The +effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.' +<i>St. James</i>, v. 16.</p> +<p><a name="note-839">[839]</a> Upon +this subject there is a very fair and judicious remark in the +life of Dr. Abernethy, in the first edition of the <i>Biographia +Britannica</i>, which I should have been glad to see in his life +which has been written for the second edition of that valuable +work. 'To deny the exercise of a particular providence in the +Deity's government of the world is certainly impious: yet nothing +serves the cause of the scorner more than an incautious forward +zeal in determining the particular instances of it.'</p> +<p>In confirmation of my sentiments, I am also happy to quote +that sensible and elegant writer Mr. <i>Melmoth</i> [see +<i>ante</i>, iii. 422], in Letter VIII. of his collection, +published under the name of <i>Fitzosborne</i>. 'We may safely +assert, that the belief of a particular Providence is founded +upon such probable reasons as may well justify our assent. It +would scarce, therefore, be wise to renounce an opinion which +affords so firm a support to the soul, in those seasons wherein +she stands in most need of assistance, merely because it is not +possible, in questions of this kind, to solve every difficulty +which attends them.' BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-840">[840]</a> I was +sorry to observe Lord Monboddo avoid any communication with Dr. +Johnson. I flattered myself that I had made them very good +friends (see <i>Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides</i>, third +edit. p. 67, <i>post</i>, v. 80), but unhappily his Lordship had +resumed and cherished a violent prejudice against my illustrious +friend, to whom I must do the justice to say, there was on his +part not the least anger, but a good-humoured sportiveness. Nay, +though he knew of his Lordship's indisposition towards him, he +was even kindly; as appeared from his inquiring of me after him, +by an abbreviation of his name, 'Well, how does <i>Monny</i>?' +BOSWELL. Boswell (<i>Hebrides, post</i>, v. 74) says:—'I +knew Lord Monboddo and Dr. Johnson did not love each other; yet I +was unwilling not to visit his lordship, and was also curious to +see them together.' Accordingly, he brought about a meeting. Four +years later, in 1777 (<i>ante</i>, iii. 102), Monboddo received +from Johnson a copy of his Journey to the Hebrides. They met +again in London in 1780 (Piozzi Letters, ii. III), and perhaps +then quarrelled afresh. Dr. Seattle wrote on Feb. 28, 1785:-'Lord +Monboddo's hatred of Johnson was singular; he would not allow him +to know anything but Latin grammar, "and that," says he, "I know +as well as he does." I never heard Johnson say anything severe of +him, though when he mentioned his name, he generally "grinned +horribly a ghastly smile,"' ['Grinned horrible,' &c. +<i>Paradise Lost</i>, ii. 846.] Forbes's <i>Beattie</i>, p. 333. +The use of the abbreviation <i>Monny</i> on Johnson's part +scarcely seems a proof of kindliness. See <i>ante</i>, i. 453, +where he said:--'Why, Sir, _Sherry_ is dull, naturally dull,' +&c.; and iii. 84, note 2, where he said:—'I should have +thought <i>Mund</i> Burke would have had more sense;' see also +Rogers's <i>Boswelliana</i>, p. 216, where he +said:—'<i>Derry</i> [Derrick] may do very well while he can +outrun his character; but the moment that his character gets up +with him he is gone.'</p> +<p><a name="note-841">[841]</a> On May +13 he wrote:—' Now I am broken loose, my friends seem +willing enough to see me. ... But I do not now drive the world +about; the world drives or draws me. I am very weak.' <i>Piozzi +Letters</i>, ii. 369.</p> +<p><a name="note-842">[842]</a> See +<i>ante,</i> iii, 443.</p> +<p><a name="note-843">[843]</a> See +<i>ante,</i> p. 197.</p> +<p><a name="note-844">[844]</a> Boswell +himself, likely enough.</p> +<p><a name="note-845">[845]</a> Verses +on the death of Mr. Levett. BOSWELL. <i>Ante,</i> p. 138</p> +<p><a name="note-846">[846]</a> If it +was Boswell to whom this advice was given, it is not unlikely +that he needed it. The meagreness of his record of Johnson's talk +at this season may have been due, as seems to have happened +before, to too much drinking. <i>Ante,</i> p.88, note 1.</p> +<p><a name="note-847">[847]</a> +<i>Ante,</i> ii. 100.</p> +<p><a name="note-848">[848]</a> George +Steevens. See <i>ante,</i> iii. 281.</p> +<p><a name="note-849">[849]</a> +Forty-six years earlier Johnson wrote of this lady:-'I have +composed a Greek epigram to Eliza, and think she ought to be +celebrated in as many different languages as Lewis le Grand.' +<i>Ante</i>, i. 122. Miss Burney described her in 1780 as 'really +a noble-looking woman; I never saw age so graceful in the female +sex yet; her whole face seems to beam with goodness, piety, and +philanthropy.' Mme. D'Arblay's <i>Diary</i>, i. 373.</p> +<p><a name="note-850">[850]</a> 'Mrs. +Thrale says that though Mrs. Lennox's books are generally +approved, nobody likes her.' <i>Ib.</i> p. 91. See <i>ante</i>, +i. 255, and iv. 10.</p> +<p><a name="note-851">[851]</a> 'Sept. +1778. MRS. THRALE. "Mrs. Montagu is the first woman for literary +knowledge in England, and if in England, I hope I may say in the +world." DR. JOHNSON. "I believe you may, Madam. She diffuses more +knowledge in her conversation than any woman I know, or, indeed, +almost any man." MRS. THRALE. "I declare I know no man equal to +her, take away yourself and Burke, for that art."' Mme. +D'Arblay's <i>Diary</i>, i. 118. It is curious that Mrs. Thrale +and Boswell should both thus instance Burke. Miss Burney writes +of her in much more moderate terms:—'Allowing a little for +parade and ostentation, which her power in wealth and rank in +literature offer some excuse for, her conversation is very +agreeable; she is always reasonable and sensible, and sometimes +instructive and entertaining.' <i>Ib.</i> p. 325. See +<i>ante</i>, ii. 88, note 3. These five ladies all lived to a +great age. Mrs. Montagu was 80 when she died; Mrs. Lennox, 83; +Miss Burney (Mme. D'Arblay), 87; Miss More and Mrs. (Miss) +Carter, 88. Their hostess, Mrs. Garrick, was 97 or 98.</p> +<p><a name="note-852">[852]</a> Miss +Burney, describing how she first saw Burke, says:—'I had +been told that Burke was not expected; yet I could conclude this +gentleman to be no other. There was an evident, a striking +superiority in his demeanour, his eye, his motions, that +announced him no common man.' Mme. D'Arblay's <i>Diary</i>, ii. +145. See <i>ante</i>, ii. 450, where Johnson said of +Burke:—'His stream of mind is perpetual;' and Boswell's +<i>Hebrides post,</i>, v. 32, and Prior's <i>Life of Burke</i>, +fifth edition, p. 58.</p> +<p><a name="note-853">[853]</a> +<i>Kennel</i> is a strong word to apply to Burke; but, in his +jocularity, he sometimes 'let himself down' to indelicate +stories. In the House of Commons he had told one—and a very +stupid one too—not a year before. <i>Parl. Hist</i>, xxiii. +918. Horace Walpole speaks of Burke's 'pursuit of wit even to +puerility.' <i>Journal of the Reign of George III</i>, i. 443. He +adds (<i>ib</i>. ii. 26):—'Burke himself always aimed at +wit, but was not equally happy in public and private. In the +former, nothing was so luminous, so striking, so abundant; in +private, it was forced, unnatural, and bombast.' See <i>ante</i>, +p. 104, where Wilkes said that in his oratory 'there was a +strange want of taste.'</p> +<p><a name="note-854">[854]</a> +<i>Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides</i>, third edition, p. 20 +[<i>post</i>, v. 32.] BOSWELL. See also <i>ante</i>, i. 453, and +iii. 323.</p> +<p><a name="note-855">[855]</a> I have +since heard that the report was not well founded; but the elation +discovered by Johnson in the belief that it was true, shewed a +noble ardour for literary fame. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote on Feb. +9:—'One thing which I have just heard you will think to +surpass expectation. The chaplain of the factory at Petersburgh +relates that the <i>Rambler</i> is now, by the command of the +Empress, translating into Russian, and has promised, when it is +printed, to send me a copy.' <i>Piozzi Letters,</i> ii. 349. +Stockdale records (<i>Memoirs,</i> ii. 98) that in 1773 the +Empress of Russia engaged 'six English literary gentlemen for +instructors of her young nobility in her Academy at St. +Petersburgh.' He was offered one of the posts. Her zeal may have +gone yet further, and she may have wished to open up English +literature to those who could not read English. Beauclerk's +library was offered for sale to the Russian Ambassador. +<i>Ante,</i> iii. 420. Miss Burney, in 1789, said that a +newspaper reported that 'Angelica Kauffmann is making drawings +from <i>Evelina</i> for the Empress of Russia.' Mme. D'Arblay's +<i>Diary,</i> v. 35.</p> +<center><a name= +"note-856">[856]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + '—me peritus + Disect Iber, Rhodanique potor.' + 'To him who drinks the rapid Rhone + Shall Horace, deathless bard, be known.' + FRANCIS. Horace, <i>Odes</i>, ii. 20. 19. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-857">[857]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, iii. 49.</p> +<p><a name="note-858">[858]</a> See +<i>post</i>, June 12, 1784.</p> +<p><a name="note-859">[859]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, p. 126.</p> +<p><a name="note-860">[860]</a> H. C. +Robinson (<i>Diary</i>, i. 29) describes him as 'an author on an +infinity of subjects; his books were on Law, History, Poetry, +Antiquities, Divinity, Politics.' He adds (<i>ib</i>. p. +49l):—'Godwin, Lofft, and Thelwall are the only three +persons I know (except Hazlitt) who grieve at the late +events'—the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. He found long +after his death 'a MS. by him in these words:—"Rousseau, +Euripides, Tasso, Racine, Cicero, Virgil, Petrarch, Richardson. +If I had five millions of years to live upon this earth, these I +would read daily with increasing delight."' <i>Ib</i>. iii. +283.</p> +<p><a name="note-861">[861]</a> Dunciad, +iv. 394, note.</p> +<p><a name="note-862">[862]</a> The King +opened Parliament this day. Hannah More during the election found +the mob favourable to Fox. One night, in a Sedan chair, she was +stopped with the news that it was not safe to go through Covent +Garden. 'There were a hundred armed men,' she was told, 'who, +suspecting every chairman belonged to Brookes's, would fall upon +us. A vast number of people followed me, crying out "It is Mrs. +Fox; none but Mr. Fox's wife would dare to come into Covent +Garden in a chair; she is going to canvas in the dark."' H. +More's <i>Memoirs</i>, i. 316. Horace Walpole wrote on April +11:—'In truth Mr. Fox has all the popularity in +Westminster.' <i>Letters</i>, viii. 469.</p> +<p><a name="note-863">[863]</a> See +<i>post</i>, under June 9, 1784, where Johnson describes Fox as +'a man who has divided the kingdom with Caesar.'</p> +<p><a name="note-864">[864]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, p. 111.</p> +<p><a name="note-865">[865]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, ii. 162.</p> +<p><a name="note-866">[866]</a> Boswell +twice speaks of W. G. Hamilton as 'an eminent friend' of Johnson. +He was not Boswell's friend. (Ante, p. 111, and <i>post</i>, +under Dec. 20, 1784.) But Boswell does not here say 'a friend +<i>of ours</i>.' By 'eminent friend' Burke is generally meant, +and he, possibly, is meant here. Boswell, it is true, speaks of +his 'orderly and amiable domestic habits' (<i>ante</i>, iii. +378); but then Boswell mentions the person here 'as a virtuous +man.' If Burke is meant, Johnson's suspicions would seem to be +groundless.</p> +<p><a name="note-867">[867]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, p. 168, where Johnson 'wonders why he should have +any enemies.'</p> +<p><a name="note-868">[868]</a> After +all, I cannot but be of opinion, that as Mr. Langton was +seriously requested by Dr. Johnson to mention what appeared to +him erroneous in the character of his friend, he was bound, as an +honest man, to intimate what he really thought, which he +certainly did in the most delicate manner; so that Johnson +himself, when in a quiet frame of mind, was pleased with it. The +texts suggested are now before me, and I shall quote a few of +them. 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' +<i>Mat.</i> v. 5.—'I therefore, the prisoner of the LORD, +beseech you, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are +called; with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, +forbearing one another in love.' <i>Ephes.</i> v. [iv.] 1, +2.—'And above all these things put on charity, which is the +bond of perfectness.' <i>Col.</i> iii. 14.—'Charity +suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not, charity vaunteth +not itself, is not puffed up: doth not behave itself unseemly, is +not easily provoked.' 1 <i>Cor.</i> xiii. 4, 5. BOSWELL. Johnson, +in <i>The Rambler,</i> No. 28, had almost foretold what would +happen. 'For escaping these and a thousand other deceits many +expedients have been proposed. Some have recommended the frequent +consultation of a wise friend, admitted to intimacy and +encouraged by sincerity. But this appears a remedy by no means +adapted to general use; for, in order to secure the virtue of +one, it pre-supposes more virtue in two than will generally be +found. In the first, such a desire of rectitude and amendment as +may incline him to hear his own accusation from the mouth of him +whom he esteems, and by whom therefore he will always hope that +his faults are not discovered; and in the second, such zeal and +honesty as will make him content for his friend's advantage to +lose his kindness.'</p> +<p><a name="note-869">[869]</a> Member +for Dumfries.</p> +<p><a name="note-870">[870]</a> Malone +points out that the passage is not in Bacon, but in Boyle, and +that it is quoted in Johnson's <i>Dictionary</i> (in the later +editions only), under <i>cross-bow.</i> It is as +follows:—'Testimony is like the shot of a long-bow, which +owes its efficacy to the force of the shooter; argument is like +the shot of the cross-bow, equally forcible whether discharged by +a giant or a dwarf.' See Smollett's <i>Works</i>, ed. 1797, i. +cliv, for a somewhat fuller account by Dr. Moore of what was said +by Johnson this evening.</p> +<p><a name="note-871">[871]</a> The +Peace made by that very able statesman, the Earl of Shelburne, +now Marquis of Lansdown, which may fairly be considered as the +foundation of all the prosperity of Great Britain since that +time. BOSWELL. In the winter of 1782-83, preliminary treaties of +peace were made with the United States, France, and Spain; and a +suspension of arms with Holland. The Ode is made up of such lines +as the following:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'While meek philosophy explores + Creation's vast stupendous round, + With piercing gaze sublime she soars, + And bursts the system's distant bound.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><i>Gent. Mag.</i>; 1783. p. 245.</p> +<p><a name="note-872">[872]</a> In the +first edition of my Work, the epithet <i>amiable</i> was given. I +was sorry to be obliged to strike it out; but I could not in +justice suffer it to remain, after this young lady had not only +written in favour of the savage Anarchy with which France has +been visited, but had (as I have been informed by good +authority), walked, without horrour, over the ground at the +Thuillieries, when it was strewed with the naked bodies of the +faithful Swiss Guards, who were barbarously massacred for having +bravely defended, against a crew of ruffians, the Monarch whom +they had taken an oath to defend. From Dr. Johnson she could now +expect not endearment but repulsion. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-873">[873]</a> Rogers +(<i>Table-Talk</i>, p. 50) described her as 'a very fascinating +person,' and narrated a curious anecdote which he heard from her +about the Reign of Terror.</p> +<p><a name="note-874">[874]</a> This +year, forming as it did exactly a quarter of a century since +Handel's death, and a complete century since his birth, was +sought, says the <i>Gent. Mag.</i> (1784, p. 457) as the first +public periodical occasion for bringing together musical +performers in England. Dr. Burney writes (<i>Ann. Reg.</i> 1784, +p. 331):—'Foreigners must have been astonished at so +numerous a band, moving in such exact measure, without the +assistance of a Coryphaeus to beat time. Rousseau says that "the +more time is beaten, the less it is kept."' There were upwards of +500 performers.</p> +<p><a name="note-875">[875]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, iii. 242.</p> +<p><a name="note-876">[876]</a> Lady +Wronghead, whispers Mrs. Motherly, pointing to Myrtilla.</p> +<p>'<i>Mrs. Motherly</i>. Only a niece of mine, Madam, that lives +with me; she will be proud to give your Ladyship any assistance +in her power.</p> +<p>'<i>Lady Wronghead</i>. A pretty sort of a young +woman—Jenny, you two must be acquainted.</p> +<p>'<i>Jenny</i>. O Mamma! I am never strange in a strange place. +<i>Salutes Myrtilla</i>.' <i>The Provoked Husband; or, A Journey +to London</i>, act ii. sc. 1, by Vanbrugh and Colley Gibber. It +was not therefore Squire Richard whom Johnson quoted, but his +sister.</p> +<p><a name="note-877">[877]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, p. 191.</p> +<p><a name="note-878">[878]</a> See +Macaulay's <i>Essays</i>, ed. 1843, i. 353, for his application +of this story.</p> +<p><a name="note-879">[879]</a> She too +was learned; for according to Hannah More (<i>Memoirs</i>, i. +292) she had learnt Hebrew, merely to be useful to her +husband.</p> +<center><a name= +"note-880">[880]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'This day then let us not be told, + That you are sick, and I grown old; + Nor think on our approaching ills, + And talk of spectacles and pills.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Swift's <i>Lines on Stella's Birthday</i>, 1726-27. Works, ed. +1803, xi. 21.</p> +<p><a name="note-881">[881]</a> Dr. +Newton, in his <i>Account of his own Life</i>, after +animadverting upon Mr. Gibbon's <i>History</i>, says, 'Dr. +Johnson's <i>Lives of the Poets</i> afforded more amusement; but +candour was much hurt and offended at the malevolence that +predominates in every part. Some passages, it must be allowed, +are judicious and well written, but make not sufficient +compensation for so much spleen and ill humour. Never was any +biographer more sparing of his praise, or more abundant in his +censures. He seemingly delights more in exposing blemishes, than +in recommending beauties; slightly passes over excellencies, +enlarges upon imperfections, and not content with his own severe +reflections, revives old scandal, and produces large quotations +from the forgotten works of former criticks. His reputation was +so high in the republick of letters, that it wanted not to be +raised upon the ruins of others. But these <i>Essays</i>, instead +of raising a higher idea than was before entertained of his +understanding, have certainly given the world a worse opinion of +his temper.—The Bishop was therefore the more surprized and +concerned for his townsman, for <i>he respected him not only for +his genius and learning, but valued him much more for the more +amiable part of his character, his humanity and charity, his +morality and religion.'</i> The last sentence we may consider as +the general and permanent opinion of Bishop Newton; the remarks +which precede it must, by all who have read Johnson's admirable +work, be imputed to the disgust and peevishness of old age. I +wish they had not appeared, and that Dr. Johnson had not been +provoked by them to express himself, not in respectful terms, of +a Prelate, whose labours were certainly of considerable advantage +both to literature and religion. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-882">[882]</a> Newton +was born Jan. 1, 1704, and was made Bishop in 1761. In his +<i>Account of his own Life</i> (p. 65) he says:—'He was no +great gainer by his preferment; for he was obliged to give up the +prebend of Westminster, the precentorship of York, the +lecturership of St. George's, Hanover Square, and the <i>genteel +office of sub-almoner</i>.' He died in 1781. His <i>Works</i> +were published in 1782. Gibbon, defending himself against an +attack by Newton, says (<i>Misc. Works</i>, l. 24l):—'The +old man should not have indulged his zeal in a false and feeble +charge against the historian, who,' &c.</p> +<p><a name="note-883">[883]</a> +<i>Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides,</i> 3rd ed. p. 371 [Oct. +25]. BOSWELL. See <i>ante</i>, ii. 216.</p> +<p><a name="note-884">[884]</a> The Rev. +Mr. Agutter [<i>post,</i> under Dec. 20] has favoured me with a +note of a dialogue between Mr. John Henderson [<i>post,</i> June +12] and Dr. Johnson on this topick, as related by Mr. Henderson, +and it is evidently so authentick that I shall here insert +it:—HENDERSON. 'What do you think, Sir, of William Law?' +JOHNSON. 'William Law, Sir, wrote the best piece of Parenetick +Divinity; but William Law was no reasoner.' HENDERSON. 'Jeremy +Collier, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Jeremy Collier fought without a rival, +and therefore could not claim the victory.' Mr. Henderson +mentioned Kenn and Kettlewell; but some objections were made: at +last he said, 'But, Sir, what do you think of Leslie?' JOHNSON. +'Charles Leslie I had forgotten. Leslie <i>was</i> a reasoner, +and <i>a reasoner who was not to be reasoned against.'</i> +BOSWELL.</p> +<p>For the effect of Law's 'Parenetick Divinity' on Johnson, see +<i>ante</i>, i. 68. 'I am surprised,' writes Macaulay, 'that +Johnson should have pronounced Law no reasoner. Law did indeed +fall into great errors; but they were errors against which logic +affords no security. In mere dialectical skill he had very few +superiors.' Macaulay's <i>England</i>, ed. 1874, v. 81, note. +Jeremy Collier's attack on the play-writers Johnson describes in +his <i>Life of Congreve</i> (<i>Works</i>, viii. 28), and +continues:—'Nothing now remained for the poets but to +resist or fly. Dryden's conscience, or his prudence, angry as he +was, withheld him from the conflict: Congreve and Vanbrugh +attempted answers.' Of Leslie, Lord Bolingbroke thus writes +(<i>Works</i>, in. 45):—'Let neither the polemical skill of +Leslie, nor the antique erudition of Bedford, persuade us to put +on again those old shackles of false law, false reason, and false +gospel, which were forged before the Revolution, and broken to +pieces by it.' Leslie is described by Macaulay, <i>History of +England</i>, v. 81.</p> +<p><a name="note-885">[885]</a> Burnet +(<i>History of his own Time</i>, ed. 1818, iv. 303) in 1712 +speaks of Hickes and Brett as being both in the Church, but as +shewing 'an inclination towards Popery.' Hickes, he says, was at +the head of the Jacobite party. See Boswell's <i>Hebrides</i>, +Oct. 25.</p> +<p><a name="note-886">[886]</a> 'Only +five of the seven were non-jurors; and anybody but Boswell would +have known that a man may resist arbitrary power, and yet not be +a good reasoner. Nay, the resistance which Sancroft and the other +nonjuring Bishops offered to arbitrary power, while they +continued to hold the doctrine of non-resistance, is the most +decisive proof that they were incapable of reasoning.' Macaulay's +<i>England</i>, ed. 1874, v. 81.</p> +<p><a name="note-887">[887]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, ii. 321, for Johnson's estimate of the Nonjurors, +and i. 429 for his Jacobitism.</p> +<p><a name="note-888">[888]</a> Savage's +<i>Works</i>, ed. 1777, ii. 28.</p> +<p><a name="note-889">[889]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, p. 46.</p> +<p><a name="note-890">[890]</a> See +Boswell's <i>Hebrides, post</i>, v. 77.</p> +<p><a name="note-891">[891]</a> I have +inserted the stanza as Johnson repeated it from memory; but I +have since found the poem itself, in <i>The Foundling Hospital +for Wit</i>, printed at London, 1749. It is as +follows:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'EPIGRAM, <i>occasioned by a religious dispute at Bath</i>. + 'On Reason, Faith, and Mystery high, + Two wits harangue the table; + B——y believes he knows not why. + N—— swears 'tis all a fable. + Peace, coxcombs, peach, and both agree, + N——, kiss they empty brother: + Religion laughs at foes like thee, + And dreads a friend like t'other.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>BOSWELL. The disputants are supposed to have been Beau Nash +and Bentley, the son of the doctor, and the friend of Walpole. +Croker. John Wesley in his <i>Journal</i>, i. 186, tells how he +once silences Nash.</p> +<p><a name="note-892">[892]</a> See +ante, ii. 105.</p> +<p><a name="note-893">[893]</a> Waller, +in his <i>Divine Poesie</i>, canto first, has the same thought +finely expressed:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'The Church triumphant, and the Church below, + In songs of praise their present union show; + Their joys are full; our expectation long, + In life we differ, but we join in song; + Angels and we assisted by this art, + May sing together, though we dwell apart.' + BOSWELL. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-894">[894]</a> See +Boswell's <i>Hebrides</i>, post, v. 45.</p> +<p><a name="note-895">[895]</a> In the +original, <i>flee</i>.</p> +<p><a name="note-896">[896]</a> The +sermon thus opens:—'That there are angels and spirits good +and bad; that at the head of these last there is ONE more +considerable and malignant than the rest, who, in the form, or +under the name of a <i>serpent</i>, was deeply concerned in the +fall of man, and whose <i>head</i>, as the prophetick language +is, the son of man was one day to <i>bruise</i>; that this evil +spirit, though that prophecy be in part completed, has not yet +received his death's wound, but is still permitted, for ends +unsearchable to us, and in ways which we cannot particularly +explain, to have a certain degree of power in this world hostile +to its virtue and happiness, and sometimes exerted with too much +success; all this is so clear from Scripture, that no believer, +unless he be first of all <i>spoiled by philosophy and vain +deceit [Colossians</i>, ii. 8], can possibly entertain a doubt of +it.'</p> +<p>Having treated of <i>possessions</i>, his Lordship says, 'As I +have no authority to affirm that there <i>are</i> now any such, +so neither may I presume to say with confidence, that there are +<i>not</i> any.'</p> +<p>'But then with regard to the influence of evil spirits at this +day upon the SOULS of men, I shall take leave to be a great deal +more peremptory.—(Then, having stated the various proofs, +he adds,) All this, I say, is so manifest to every one who reads +the Scriptures, that, if we respect their authority, the question +concerning the reality of the demoniack influence upon the minds +of men is clearly determined.'</p> +<p>Let it be remembered, that these are not the words of an +antiquated or obscure enthusiast, but of a learned and polite +Prelate now alive; and were spoken, not to a vulgar congregation, +but to the Honourable Society of Lincoln's-Inn. His Lordship in +this sermon explains the words, 'deliver us from evil,' in the +Lord's Prayer, as signifying a request to be protected from 'the +evil one,' that is the Devil. This is well illustrated in a short +but excellent Commentary by my late worthy friend, the Reverend +Dr. Lort, of whom it may truly be said, <i>Multis ille bonis +flebilis occidit</i>. It is remarkable that Waller, in his +<i>Reflections on the several Petitions, in that sacred form of +devotion</i>, has understood this in the same sense;—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Guard us from all temptations of the FOE.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>BOSWELL. Dr. Lort is often mentioned in Horace Walpole's +<i>Letters</i>. Multis ille <i>quidem</i> flebilis occidit,' +comes from Horace, <i>Odes</i>, i. xxiv. 9, translated by +Francis,—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + How did the good, the virtuous mourn.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>For Dr. Hurd see <i>ante</i>, p. 189.</p> +<p><a name="note-897">[897]</a> There is +a curious anecdote of this physician in <i>Gent. Mag.</i> 1772, +p. 467.</p> +<p><a name="note-898">[898]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, p. 166. He may have taken the more to Fox, as he had +taken to Beauclerk (<i>ante</i>, i. 248), on account of his +descent from Charles II. Fox was the great-great-grandson of that +king. His Christian names recall his Stuart ancestry.</p> +<p><a name="note-899">[899]</a> Horace +Walpole wrote on April 11 (<i>Letters</i>, viii. 469):—'In +truth Mr. Fox has all the popularity in Westminster; and, indeed, +is so amiable and winning that, could he have stood in person all +over England, I question whether he would not have carried the +Parliament.' Hannah More (<i>Memoirs</i>, i. 316) in the same +month wrote:—'Unluckily for my principles I met Fox +canvassing the other day, and he looked so sensible and +agreeable, that if I had not turned my eyes another way, I +believe it would have been all over with me.' See <i>ante</i>, p. +279.</p> +<p><a name="note-900">[900]</a> Dr. John +Radcliffe, who died in 1714, left by his will, among other great +benefactions to the University of Oxford, '£600 yearly to +two persons, when they are Masters of Arts and entered on the +physic-line, for their maintenance for the space of ten years; +the half of which time at least they are to travel in parts +beyond sea for their better improvement.' <i>Radcliffe's Life and +Will</i>, p. 123. Pope mentions them in his <i>Imitations of +Horace, Epistles</i>, ii. i. 183:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'E'en Radcliffe's doctors travel first to France, + Nor dare to practise till they've learned to dance.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-901">[901]</a> What +risks were run even by inoculation is shewn in two of Dr. +Warton's letters. He wrote to his brother:—'This moment the +dear children have all been inoculated, never persons behaved +better, no whimpering at all, I hope in God for success, but +cannot avoid being in much anxiety.' A few days later he +wrote:—'You may imagine I never passed such a day as this +in my life! grieved to death myself for the loss of so sweet a +child, but forced to stifle my feelings as much as possible for +the sake of my poor wife. She does not, however, hit on, or dwell +on, that most cutting circumstance of all, poor Nanny's dying, as +it were by our own means, tho' well intended indeed.' Wooll's +<i>Warton</i>, i. 289. Dr. Franklin (<i>Memoirs</i>, i. 155), on +the other hand, bitterly regretted that he had not had a child +inoculated, whom he lost by small-pox.</p> +<p><a name="note-902">[902]</a> See +<i>post</i>, before Nov. 17, and under Dec. 9, 1784.</p> +<p><a name="note-903">[903]</a> 'I am +the vilest of sinners and the worst of men.' Taylor's +<i>Works</i> (ed. 1864), iii. 31. 'The best men deserve not +eternal life, and I who am the worst may have it given me.' +<i>Ib</i>. p. 431—'He that hath lived worst, even I.' +<i>Ib</i>. vii. 241. 'Behold me the meanest of thy creatures.' +<i>Ib</i>. p. 296.</p> +<p><a name="note-904">[904]</a> 'You may +fairly look upon yourself to be the greatest sinner that you know +in the world. First, because you know more of the folly of your +own heart than you do of other people's; and can charge yourself +with various sins that you only know of yourself, and cannot be +sure that other people are guilty of them.' Law's <i>Serious +Call</i>, chap. 23.</p> +<p><a name="note-905">[905]</a> 1 +<i>Timothy</i>, i. 15.</p> +<p><a name="note-906">[906]</a> See +<i>post</i>, v. 68, note 4.</p> +<p><a name="note-907">[907]</a> 'Be +careful thou dost not speak a lie in thy prayers, which though +not observed is frequently practised by careless persons, +especially in the forms of confession, affirming things which +they have not thought, professing sorrow which is not, making a +vow they mean not.' Taylor's <i>Works</i>, ed. 1865, vii. +622.</p> +<p><a name="note-908">[908]</a> Reynolds +wrote:—'As in Johnson's writings not a line can be found +which a saint would wish to blot, so in his life he would never +suffer the least immorality or indecency of conversation, [or +anything] contrary to virtue or piety to proceed without a severe +check, which no elevation of rank exempted them from.' Taylor's +<i>Reynolds</i>, ii. 458. See <i>ante</i>, iii. 41.</p> +<p><a name="note-909">[909]</a> No doubt +Mr. Langton.</p> +<p><a name="note-910">[910]</a> Dr. +Sheridan tells how Swift overheard a Captain Hamilton say to a +gentleman at whose house he had arrived 'that he was very sorry +he had chosen that time for his visit. "Why so?" "Because I hear +Dean Swift is with you. He is a great scholar, a wit; a plain +country squire will have but a bad time of it in his company, and +I don't like to be laughed at." Swift then stepped up and said, +"Pray, Captain Hamilton, do you know how to say <i>yes</i> or +<i>no</i> properly?" "Yes, I think I have understanding enough +for that." "Then give me your hand—depend upon it, you and +I will agree very well."' 'The Captain told me,' continues +Sheridan, 'that he never passed two months so pleasantly in his +life.' Swift's <i>Works</i>, ed. 1803, ii. 104.</p> +<p><a name="note-911">[911]</a> Gibbon +wrote on Feb. 21, 1772 (<i>Misc. Works</i>, ii. 78):—'To +day the House of Commons was employed in a very odd way. Tommy +Townshend moved that the sermon of Dr. Nowell, who preached +before the House on the 30th of January (<i>id est</i>, before +the Speaker and four members), should be burnt by the common +hangman, as containing arbitrary, Tory, high-flown doctrines. The +House was nearly agreeing to the motion, till they recollected +that they had already thanked the preacher for his excellent +discourse, and ordered it to be printed.'</p> +<center><a name= +"note-912">[912]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Although it be not <i>shined</i> upon.' + <i>Hudibras</i>, iii. 2, 175. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-913">[913]</a> +According to Mr. Croker, this was the Rev. Henry Bate, of the +<i>Morning Post</i>, who in 1784 took the name of Dudley, was +created a baronet in 1815, and died in 1824. Horace Walpole wrote +on Nov. 13, 1776 (<i>Letters</i>, vi. 39l):—'Yesterday I +heard drums and trumpets in Piccadilly: I looked out of the +window and saw a procession with streamers flying. At first I +thought it a press-gang, but seeing the corps so well-drest, like +Hussars, in yellow with blue waistcoats and breeches, and high +caps, I concluded it was some new body of our allies, or a +regiment newly raised, and with new regimentals for distinction. +I was not totally mistaken, for the Colonel is <i>a new ally</i>. +In short, this was a procession set forth by Mr. Bate, Lord +Lyttelton's chaplain, and author of the old <i>Morning Post</i>, +and meant as an appeal to the town against his antagonist, the +new one.' In June, 1781, Bate was sentenced to a year's +imprisonment 'for an atrocious libel on the Duke of Richmond. He +was the worst of all the scandalous libellers that had appeared +both on private persons as well as public. His life was +dissolute, and he had fought more than one duel. Yet Lord +Sandwich had procured for him a good Crown living, and he was +believed to be pensioned by the Court.' Walpole's <i>Journal of +the Reign of George III</i>, ii. 464.</p> +<p><a name="note-914">[914]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, ii. 339, and iii. 265.</p> +<p><a name="note-915">[915]</a> Three +days earlier, in the debate on the Westminster Scrutiny, Fox +accused 'a person of great rank in this House'—Pitt I +believe—'of adding pertness and personal contumely to every +species of rash and inconsiderate violence.' <i>Parl. Hist</i>. +xxiv. 924. Pitt, in reply, classed Fox among 'political +apostates,' <i>ib</i>. p. 929. Burke, the same evening, 'sat down +saying, "he little minded the ill-treatment of a parcel of +boys."' When he was called to order, he said:—'When he used +the term "a parcel of boys," he meant to apply it to the +ministry, who, he conceived, were insulting him with their +triumph; a triumph which grey hairs ought to be allowed the +privilege of expressing displeasure at, when it was founded on +the rash exultation of mere boys.' <i>Ib</i>. p. 939. Pitt, +Prime-Minister though he was, in the spring of the same year, was +called to order by the Speaker, for charging a member with using +'language the most false, the most malicious, and the most +slanderous.' <i>Ib</i>. p. 763.</p> +<p><a name="note-916">[916]</a> +<i>Epistles to Mr. Pope</i>, ii. 165.</p> +<p><a name="note-917">[917]</a> See an +account of him, in a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Agutter. BOSWELL. +This sermon was published in 1788. In Hannah More's +<i>Memoirs</i> (i. 217), Henderson is described as 'a mixture of +great sense, which discovered uncommon parts and learning, with a +tincture of nonsense of the most extravagant kind. He believes in +witches and apparitions, as well as in judicial astronomy.' Mrs. +Kennicott writes (<i>ib</i>. p. 220):—'I think if Dr. +Johnson had the shaking him about, he would shake out his +nonsense, and set his sense a-working. 'He never got out into the +world, says Dr. Hall, the Master of Pembroke College, having died +in College in 1788.</p> +<p><a name="note-918">[918]</a> This was +the second Lord Lyttelton, commonly known as 'the wicked Lord +Lyttelton.' Fox described him to Rogers as 'a very bad +man—downright wicked.' Rogers's <i>Table Talk</i>, p. 95. +He died Nov. 27, 1779. Horace Walpole (<i>Letters</i>, vii. 292) +wrote to Mason on Dec. 11 of that year:—'If you can send us +any stories of ghosts out of the North, they will be very +welcome. Lord Lyttelton's vision has revived the taste; though it +seems a little odd that an apparition should despair of being +able to get access to his Lordship's bed in the shape of a young +woman, without being forced to use the disguise of a +robin-red-breast.' In the <i>Gent. Mag.</i> 1815, i. 597, and +1816, ii. 421, accounts are given of this vision. In the latter +account it is said that 'he saw a bird fluttering, and afterwards +a woman appeared in white apparel, and said, "Prepare to die; you +will not exist three days."' Mrs. Piozzi also wrote a full +account of it. Hayward's <i>Piozzi</i>, i. 332.</p> +<p><a name="note-919">[919]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, ii. 150, and iii. 298, note 1.</p> +<p><a name="note-920">[920]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, p. 278.</p> +<p><a name="note-921">[921]</a> 'If he +who considers himself as suspended over the abyss of eternal +perdition only by the thread of life, which must soon part by its +own weakness, and which the wing of every minute may divide, can +cast his eyes round him without shuddering with horror, or +panting for security; what can he judge of himself, but that he +is not yet awakened to sufficient conviction? &c.' <i>The +Rambler</i>, No. 110. In a blank leaf in the book in which +Johnson kept his diary of his journey in Wales is written in his +own hand, 'Faith in some proportion to Fear.' Duppa's Johnson's +<i>Diary of a Journey &c</i>., p. 157. See <i>ante</i>, iii. +199.</p> +<p><a name="note-922">[922]</a> He wrote +to Mrs. Thrale on March 20:—'Write to me no more about +<i>dying with a grace</i>; when you feel what I have felt in +approaching eternity—in fear of soon hearing the sentence +of which there is no revocation, you will know the folly.' +<i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. 354. Of him it might have been said in +Cowper's words:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><i>The Task: The Winter Morning Walk</i>, 1. 611. See +<i>ante</i>, iii. 294.</p> +<p><a name="note-923">[923]</a> The +Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazen-Nose College, +Oxford, has favoured me with the following remarks on my Work, +which he is pleased to say, 'I have hitherto extolled, and +cordially approve.'</p> +<p>'The chief part of what I have to observe is contained in the +following transcript from a letter to a friend, which, with his +concurrence, I copied for this purpose; and, whatever may be the +merit or justness of the remarks, you may be sure that being +written to a most intimate friend, without any intention that +they ever should go further, they are the genuine and undisguised +sentiments of the writer:—</p> +<p>'Jan. 6, 1792.</p> +<p>'Last week, I was reading the second volume of Boswell's +<i>Johnson</i>, with increasing esteem for the worthy authour, +and increasing veneration of the wonderful and excellent man who +is the subject of it. The writer throws in, now and then, very +properly some serious religious reflections; but there is one +remark, in my mind an obvious and just one, which I think he has +not made, that Johnson's "morbid melancholy," and constitutional +infirmities, were intended by Providence, like St. Paul's thorn +in the flesh, to check intellectual conceit and arrogance; which +the consciousness of his extraordinary talents, awake as he was +to the voice of praise, might otherwise have generated in a very +culpable degree. Another observation strikes me, that in +consequence of the same natural indisposition, and habitual +sickliness, (for he says he scarcely passed one day without pain +after his twentieth year,) he considered and represented human +life, as a scene of much greater misery than is generally +experienced. There may be persons bowed down with affliction all +their days; and there are those, no doubt, whose iniquities rob +them of rest; but neither calamities nor crimes, I hope and +believe, do so much and so generally abound, as to justify the +dark picture of life which Johnson's imagination designed, and +his strong pencil delineated. This I am sure, the colouring is +far too gloomy for what I have experienced, though as far as I +can remember, I have had more sickness (I do not say more severe, +but only more in quantity,) than falls to the lot of most people. +But then daily debility and occasional sickness were far +overbalanced by intervenient days, and, perhaps, weeks void of +pain, and overflowing with comfort. So that in short, to return +to the subject, human life, as far as I can perceive from +experience or observation, is not that state of constant +wretchedness which Johnson always insisted it was; which +misrepresentation, (for such it surely is,) his Biographer has +not corrected, I suppose, because, unhappily, he has himself a +large portion of melancholy in his constitution, and fancied the +portrait a faithful copy of life.'</p> +<p>The learned writer then proceeds thus in his letter to +me:—</p> +<p>'I have conversed with some sensible men on this subject, who +all seem to entertain the same sentiments respecting life with +those which are expressed or implied in the foregoing paragraph. +It might be added that as the representation here spoken of, +appears not consistent with fact and experience, so neither does +it seem to be countenanced by Scripture. There is, perhaps, no +part of the sacred volume which at first sight promises so much +to lend its sanction to these dark and desponding notions as the +book of <i>Ecclesiastes</i>, which so often, and so emphatically, +proclaims the vanity of things sublunary. But the design of this +whole book, (as it has been justly observed,) is not to put us +out of conceit with life, but to cure our vain expectations of a +compleat and perfect happiness in this world; to convince us, +that there is no such thing to be found in mere external +enjoyments;—and to teach us to seek for happiness in the +practice of virtue, in the knowledge and love of God, and in the +hopes of a better life. For this is the application of all; +<i>Let us hear</i>, &c. xii. 13. Not only his duty, but his +happiness too; _For_ GOD, &c. ver. 14.--See _Sherlock on +Providence<i>, p. 299.</i></p> +<p>'The New Testament tells us, indeed, and most truly, that +"sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" and, therefore, +wisely forbids us to increase our burden by forebodings of +sorrows; but I think it no where says that even our ordinary +afflictions are not consistent with a very considerable degree of +positive comfort and satisfaction. And, accordingly, one whose +sufferings as well as merits were conspicuous, assures us, that +in proportion "as the sufferings of Christ abounded in them, so +their consolation also abounded by Christ." 2 Cor<i>. i. 5. It is +needless to cite, as indeed it would be endless even to refer to, +the multitude of passages in both Testaments holding out, in the +strongest language, promises of blessings, even in this world, to +the faithful servants of GOD. I will only refer to</i> St. +Luke<i>, xviii. 29, 30, and 1</i> Tim<i>. iv. 8.</i></p> +<p>'Upon the whole, setting aside instances of great and lasting +bodily pain, of minds peculiarly oppressed by melancholy, and of +severe temporal calamities, from which extraordinary cases we +surely should not form our estimate of the general tenour and +complexion of life; excluding these from the account, I am +convinced that as well the gracious constitution of things which +Providence has ordained, as the declarations of Scripture and the +actual experience of individuals, authorize the sincere Christian +to hope that his humble and constant endeavours to perform his +duty, checquered as the best life is with many failings, will be +crowned with a greater degree of present peace, serenity, and +comfort, than he could reasonably permit himself to expect, if he +measured his views and judged of life from the opinion of Dr. +Johnson, often and energetically expressed in the Memoirs of him, +without any animadversion or censure by his ingenious Biographer. +If he himself, upon reviewing the subject, shall see the matter +in this light, he will, in an octavo edition, which is eagerly +expected, make such additional remarks or correction as he shall +judge fit; lest the impressions which these discouraging passages +may leave on the reader's mind, should in any degree hinder what +otherwise the whole spirit and energy of the work tends, and, I +hope, successfully, to promote,—pure morality and true +religion.'</p> +<p>Though I have, in some degree, obviated any reflections +against my illustrious friend's dark views of life, when +considering, in the course of this Work, his Rambler +<i>[</i>ante<i>, i. 213] and his</i> Rasselas <i>[</i>ante<i>, i. +343], I am obliged to Mr. Churton for complying with my request +of his permission to insert his Remarks, being conscious of the +weight of what he judiciously suggests as to the melancholy in my +own constitution. His more pleasing views of life, I hope, are +just.</i> Valeant quantum valere possunt<i>.</i></p> +<p>Mr. Churton concludes his letter to me in these +words:—'Once, and only once, I had the satisfaction of +seeing your illustrious friend; and as I feel a particular regard +for all whom he distinguished with his esteem and friendship, so +I derive much pleasure from reflecting that I once beheld, though +but transiently near our College gate, one whose works will for +ever delight and improve the world, who was a sincere and zealous +son of the Church of England, an honour to his country, and an +ornament to human nature.'</p> +<p>His letter was accompanied with a present from himself of his +Sermons at the Bampton Lecture<i>, and from his friend, Dr. +Townson, the venerable Rector of Malpas, in Cheshire, of his</i> +Discourses on the Gospels<i>, together with the following extract +of a letter from that excellent person, who is now gone to +receive the reward of his labours:—'Mr. Boswell is not only +very entertaining in his works, but they are so replete with +moral and religious sentiments, without an instance, as far as I +know, of a contrary tendency, that I cannot help having a great +esteem for him; and if you think such a trifle as a copy of +the</i> Discourses, ex dono authoris<i>, would be acceptable to +him, I should be happy to give him this small testimony of my +regard.'</i></p> +<p>Such spontaneous testimonies of approbation from such men, +without any personal acquaintance with me, are truly valuable and +encouraging.</p> +<center>BOSWELL.</center> +<center><a name= +"note-924">[924]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Tout se plaint, tout gémit en cherchant le bien-etre; + Nul ne voudrait mourir, nul ne voudrait renaitre.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Voltaire, Le désastre de Lisbonne. Works<i>, ed. 1819, +x. 124. 'Johnson said that, for his part, he never passed that +week in his life which he would wish to repeat, were an angel to +make the proposal to him.'</i> Ante<i>, ii. 125. Yet Dr. +Franklin, whose life overlapped Johnson's at both ends, said:-'I +should have no objection to go over the same life from its +beginning to the end, requesting only the advantage authors have +of correcting in a second edition the faults of its first. So +would I also wish to change some incidents of it for others more +favourable Notwithstanding, if this condition was denied, I +should still accept the offer of re-commencing the same life.' +Franklin's</i> Memoirs<i>, i. 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-925">[925]</a> +Mackintosh thus sums up this question:—'The truth is, that +endless fallacies must arise from the attempt to appreciate by +retrospect human life, of which the enjoyments depend on hope.' +Life of Mackintosh<i>, ii. 160. See</i> ante<i>, ii. 350.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-926">[926]</a> In the +lines on Levett. Ante<i>, p. 137.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-927">[927]</a> +AURENGZEBE, act iv. sc. 1. BOSWELL. According to Dr. Maxwell +(ante<i>, ii. 124), Johnson frequently quoted the fourth couplet +of these lines. Boswell does not give the last—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'I'm tired with waiting for this chemic gold + Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-928">[928]</a> Johnson, +speaking of the companions of his college days, said:— 'It +was bitterness which they mistook for frolick.' Ante<i>, i. +73.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-929">[929]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + '—to thee I call + But with no friendly voice, and add thy name + O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Milton's Paradise Lost<i>, iv. 35.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-930">[930]</a> Yet +there is no doubt that a man may appear very gay in company who +is sad at heart. His merriment is like the sound of drums and +trumpets in a battle, to drown the groans of the wounded and +dying. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-931">[931]</a> Mme. +D'Arblay (Memoirs of Dr. Burney<i>, ii. 103) tells how Johnson +was one day invited to her father's house at the request of Mr. +Greville, 'the finest gentleman about town,' as she earlier +described him (</i>ib<i>. i. 25), who desired to make his +acquaintance. This 'superb' gentleman was afraid to begin to +speak. 'Assuming his most supercilious air of distant superiority +he planted himself, immovable as a noble statue, upon the hearth, +as if a stranger to the whole set.' Johnson, who 'never spoke +till he was spoken to' (</i>ante<i>, in. 307)—this habit +the Burneys did not as yet know—'became completely absorbed +in silent rumination; very unexpectedly, however, he shewed +himself alive to what surrounded him, by one of those singular +starts of vision, that made him seem at times, though purblind to +things in common, gifted with an eye of instinct for espying any +action that he thought merited reprehension; for all at once, +looking fixedly on Mr. Greville, who without much self-denial, +the night being very cold, kept his station before the +chimney-piece, he exclaimed:—"If it were not for depriving +the ladies of the fire, I should like to stand upon the hearth +myself." A smile gleamed upon every face at this pointed speech. +Mr. Greville tried to smile himself, though faintly and +scoffingly. He tried also to hold his post; and though for two or +three minutes he disdained to move, the awkwardness of a general +pause impelled him ere long to glide back to his chair; but he +rang the bell with force as he passed it to order his +carriage.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-932">[932]</a> Page +139. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-933">[933]</a> On this +same day Miss Adams wrote to a friend:—'Dr. Johnson, tho' +not in good health, is in general very talkative and infinitely +agreeable and entertaining.' Pemb. Coll. MSS<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-934">[934]</a> Johnson +said 'Milton was a Phidias<i>, &c.'</i> Ante<i>, p. 99, note +1. In his</i> Life of Milton <i>(</i>Works, vii. 119) he +writes:—'Milton never learnt the art of doing little things +with grace; he overlooked the milder excellence of suavity and +softness; he was a <i>Lion</i> that had no skill <i>in dandling +the kid</i>.'</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + ['Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw + Dandled the kid.' + <i>Paradise Lost</i>, iv. 343.] +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-935">[935]</a> Cardinal +Newman (<i>History of my Religious Opinions</i>, ed. 1865, p. +361) remarks on this:—'As to Johnson's case of a murderer +asking you which way a man had gone, I should have anticipated +that, had such a difficulty happened to him, his first act would +have been to knock the man down, and to call out for the police; +and next, if he was worsted in the conflict, he would not have +given the ruffian the information he asked, at whatever risk to +himself. I think he would have let himself be killed first. I do +not think that he would have told a lie.'</p> +<p><a name="note-936">[936]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, iii. 376.</p> +<p><a name="note-937">[937]</a> Book ii. +1. 142.</p> +<p><a name="note-938">[938]</a> The +annotator calls them 'amiable verses.' BOSWELL. The annotators of +the <i>Dunciad</i> were Pope himself and Dr. Arbuthnot. Johnson's +<i>Works</i>, viii. 280.</p> +<p><a name="note-939">[939]</a> Boswell +was at this time corresponding with Miss Seward. See <i>post</i>, +June 25.</p> +<p><a name="note-940">[940]</a> By John +Dyer. <i>Ante</i>, ii. 453.</p> +<p><a name="note-941">[941]</a> Lewis's +Verses addressed to Pope were first published in a Collection of +Pieces on occasion of <i>The Dunciad</i>, 8vo., 1732. They do not +appear in Lewis's own <i>Miscellany</i>, printed in +1726.—<i>Grongar Hill</i> was first printed in Savage's +<i>Miscellanies</i> as an Ode, and was <i>reprinted</i> in the +same year in Lewis's <i>Miscellany</i>, in the form it now +bears.</p> +<p>In his <i>Miscellanies</i>, 1726, the beautiful +poem,—'Away, let nought to love +displeasing,'—reprinted in Percy's <i>Reliques</i>, vol. i. +book iii. No. 13, first appeared. MALONE.</p> +<p><a name="note-942">[942]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, p. 58.</p> +<p><a name="note-943">[943]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, i. 71, and ii. 226.</p> +<p><a name="note-944">[944]</a> Captain +Cook's third voyage. The first two volumes by Captain Cook; the +last by Captain King.</p> +<p><a name="note-945">[945]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, ii. 73, 228, 248; iii. 49.</p> +<center><a name= +"note-946">[946]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + '—quae mollissima fandi Tempora.' + '—time wherein the word May softliest be said.' + MORRIS. Virgil, <i>Aeneids</i>, iv. 293. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-947">[947]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, i. 71.</p> +<p><a name="note-948">[948]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, i. 203, note 6.</p> +<p><a name="note-949">[949]</a> Boswell +began to eat dinners in the Inner Temple so early as 1775. +<i>Ante</i>, ii. 377, note 1. He was not called till Hilary Term, +1786. Rogers's <i>Boswelliana</i>, p. 143.</p> +<p><a name="note-950">[950]</a> Mr. +(afterwards Sir) William Jones wrote two years earlier +(<i>Life</i>, p. 268):—'Whether it be a wise part to live +uncomfortably in order to die wealthy, is another question; but +this I know by experience, and have heard old practitioners make +the same observation, that a lawyer who is in earnest must be +chained to his chambers and the bar for ten or twelve years +together.'</p> +<p><a name="note-951">[951]</a> +Johnson's <i>Prologue at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre. +Works,</i> i. 23.</p> +<p><a name="note-952">[952]</a> +According to Mr. Seward, who published this account in his +<i>Anecdotes,</i> ii. 83, it was Mr. Langton's great-grandfather +who drew it up.</p> +<p><a name="note-953">[953]</a> 'My Lord +said that his rule for his, health was to be temperate and keep +himself warm. He never made breakfasts, but used in the morning +to drink a glass of some sort of ale. That he went to bed at +nine, and rose between six and seven, allowing himself a good +refreshment for his sleep. That the law will admit of no rival, +nothing to go even with it; but that sometimes one may for +diversion read in the Latin historians of England, Hoveden and +Matthew Paris, &c. But after it is conquered, it will admit +of other studies. He said, a little law, a good tongue, and a +good memory, would fit a man for the Chancery.' Seward's +<i>Anecdotes</i>, ii. 92.</p> +<p><a name="note-954">[954]</a> +Wednesday was the 16th</p> +<p><a name="note-955">[955]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, i. 41.</p> +<p><a name="note-956">[956]</a> +<i>Letters to Mrs. Thrale</i>, vol. ii. p. 372. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-957">[957]</a> See +<i>ante/</i>, i. 155.</p> +<p><a name="note-958">[958]</a> The +recommendation in this list of so many histories little agrees +'with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance' with +which, according to Lord Macaulay, Johnson spoke of history. +Macaulay's <i>Essays</i>, ed. 1843, i. 403.</p> +<p><a name="note-959">[959]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, iii. 12.</p> +<p><a name="note-960">[960]</a> +Northcote's account of Reynolds's table suits the description of +this 'gentleman's mode of living.' 'A table prepared for seven or +eight was often compelled to contain fifteen or sixteen.' There +was a 'deficiency of knives and forks, plates and glasses. The +attendance was in the same style.' There were 'two or three +undisciplined domestics. The host left every one at perfect +liberty to scramble for himself.' 'Rags' is certainly a strong +word to apply to any of the company; but then strong words were +what Johnson used. Northcote mentions 'the mixture of company.' +Northcote's <i>Reynolds</i>, ii. 94-6. See <i>ante</i>, iii. 375, +note 2.</p> +<p><a name="note-961">[961]</a> The +Mayor of Windsor. Rogers's <i>Boswelliana</i>, p. 211.</p> +<p><a name="note-962">[962]</a> The +passage occurs in Brooke's <i>Earl of Essex</i>(1761) at the +close of the first act, where Queen Elizabeth says:</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'I shall henceforth seek + For other lights to truth; for righteous monarchs, + Justly to judge, with their own eyes should see; + <i>To rule o'er freemen should themselves be free</i>.' + <i>Notes and Queries</i>, 5th S. viii. 456. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>The play was acted at Drury Lane Theatre, old Mr. Sheridan +taking the chief part. He it was who, in admiration, repeated the +passage to Johnson which provoked the parody. Murphy's +<i>Garrick</i>, p. 234.</p> +<p><a name="note-963">[963]</a> 'Letters +to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 284. BOSWELL. In a second letter +(<i>ib</i>. p. 347) he says:—'Cator has a rough, manly +independent understanding, and does not spoil it by +complaisance.' Miss Burney accuses him of emptiness, verbosity +and pomposity, all of which she describes in an amusing manner. +Mme. D'Arblay's <i>Diary</i>, ii. 47.</p> +<p><a name="note-964">[964]</a> 'All +general reflections upon nations and societies are the trite, +thread-bare jokes of those who set up for wit without having any, +and so have recourse to common-place.' Chesterfield's +<i>Letters</i>, i. 231.</p> +<p><a name="note-965">[965]</a> See vol. +ii. p. 126. BOSWELL</p> +<p><a name="note-966">[966]</a> '"That +may be so," replied the lady, "for ought I know, but they are +above my comprehension." "I an't obliged to find you +comprehension, Madam, curse me," cried he,' <i>Roderick +Random</i>, ch. 53. '"I protest," cried Moses, "I don't rightly +comprehend the force of your reasoning." "O, Sir," cried the +Squire, "I am your most humble servant, I find you want me to +furnish you with argument and intellects too."' <i>Vicar of +Wakefield</i>, ch. 7.</p> +<p><a name="note-967">[967]</a> In the +first edition, 'as the Honourable Horace Walpole is often +called;' in the second edition, 'as Horace, now Earl of Orford, +&c.' Walpole succeeded to the title in Dec. 1791. In answer +to congratulations he wrote (<i>Letters</i>, ix. +364):—'What has happened destroys my tranquillity.... +Surely no man of seventy-four, unless superannuated, can have the +smallest pleasure in sitting at home in his own room, as I almost +always do, and being called by a new name.' He died March 2, +1797.</p> +<p><a name="note-968">[968]</a> In +<i>The Rambler</i>, No. 83, a character of a virtuoso is given +which in many ways suits Walpole:—'It is never without +grief that I find a man capable of ratiocination or invention +enlisting himself in this secondary class of learning; for when +he has once discovered a method of gratifying his desire of +eminence by expense rather than by labour, and known the sweets +of a life blest at once with the ease of idleness and the +reputation of knowledge, he will not easily be brought to undergo +again the toil of thinking, or leave his toys and trinkets for +arguments and principles.'</p> +<p><a name="note-969">[969]</a> Walpole +says:—'I do not think I ever was in a room with Johnson six +times in my days.' <i>Letters</i>, ix. 319. 'The first time, I +think, was at the Royal Academy. Sir Joshua said, "Let me present +Dr. Goldsmith to you;" he did. "Now I will present Dr. Johnson to +you." "No," said I, "Sir Joshua; for Dr. Goldsmith, +pass—but you shall not present Dr. Johnson to me."' +<i>Journal &c. of Miss Berry</i>, i. 305. In his <i>Journal +of the Reign of George III</i>, he speaks of Johnson as 'one of +the venal champions of the Court,' 'a renegade' (i. 430); 'a +brute,' 'an old decrepit hireling' (<i>ib.</i> p. 472); and as +'one of the subordinate crew whom to name is to stigmatize' +(<i>ib.</i> ii. 5). In his <i>Memoirs of the Reign of George +III</i>, iv. 297, he says:—'With a lumber of learning and +some strong parts Johnson was an odious and mean character. His +manners were sordid, supercilious, and brutal; his style +ridiculously bombastic and vicious, and, in one word, with all +the pedantry he had all the gigantic littleness of a country +schoolmaster.'</p> +<p><a name="note-970">[970]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, i. 367.</p> +<p><a name="note-971">[971]</a> On May +26, 1791, Walpole wrote of Boswell's <i>Life of Johnson +(Letters</i> ix. 3l9):—'I expected amongst the +excommunicated to find myself, but am very gently treated. I +never would be in the least acquainted with Johnson; or, as +Boswell calls it, I had not a just value for him; which the +biographer imputes to my resentment for the Doctor's putting bad +arguments (purposely out of Jacobitism) into the speeches which +he wrote fifty years ago for my father in the <i>Gentleman's +Magazine</i>; which I did not read then, or ever knew Johnson +wrote till Johnson died.' Johnson said of these Debates:—'I +saved appearances tolerably well; but I took care that the Whig +dogs should not have the best of it.' <i>Ante</i>, i. 504. 'Lord +Holland said that whenever Boswell came into a company where +Horace Walpole was, Walpole would throw back his head, purse up +his mouth very significantly, and not speak a word while Boswell +remained.' <i>Autobiographical Recollections of C. R. Leslie</i>, +i. 155. Walpole (<i>Letters</i>, viii. 44) says:—'Boswell, +that quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was +let in, which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. +After tapping many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an +unbribed oracle, he vented his errand.'</p> +<p><a name="note-972">[972]</a> Walpole +wrote (<i>Letters</i>, vi. 44):—'If <i>The School for +Wives</i> and <i>The Christmas Tale</i> were laid to me, so was +<i>The Heroic Espistle</i>. I could certainly have written the +two former, but not the latter.' See <i>ante</i>, iv. 113.</p> +<p><a name="note-973">[973]</a> The +title given by Bishop Pearson to his collection of Hales's +Writings is the <i>Golden Remains of the Ever Memorable John +Hales of Eaton College, &c</i>. It was published in 1659.</p> +<p><a name="note-974">[974]</a> I +<i>Henry IV</i>, act ii. sc. 4. 'Sir James Mackintosh remembers +that, while spending the Christmas of 1793 at Beaconsfield, Mr. +Burke said to him, 'Johnson showed more powers of mind in company +than in his writings; but he argued only for victory; and when he +had neither a paradox to defend, nor an antagonist to crush, he +would preface his assent with "Why, no, Sir."' CROKER. Croker's +<i>Boswell</i>, p. 768.</p> +<center><a name= +"note-975">[975]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + Search then the ruling passion: There alone + The wild are constant, and the cunning known; + The fool consistent, and the false sincere; + Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.' + Pope, <i>Moral Essays</i>, i. 174. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>'The publick pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are +counterfeit.' <i>The Idler</i>, No. 18.</p> +<p><a name="note-976">[976]</a> +<i>Ante</i>, ii. 241, and iii. 325.</p> +<p><a name="note-977">[977]</a> Boswell +refers to Cicero's <i>Treatise on Famous Orators</i>.</p> +<p><a name="note-978">[978]</a> Boswell +here falls into a mistake. About harvest-time in 1766, there were +corn-riots owing to the dearness of bread. By the Act of the 15th +of Charles II, corn, when under a certain price, might be legally +exported. On Sept. 26, 1766, before this price had been reached, +the Crown issued a proclamation to prohibit the exportation of +grain. When parliament met in November, a bill of indemnity was +brought in for those concerned in the late embargo. 'The +necessity of the embargo was universally allowed;' it was the +exercise by the Crown of a power of dispensing with the laws that +was attacked. Some of the ministers who, out of office, 'had set +up as the patrons of liberty,' were made the object 'of many +sarcasms on the beaten subject of occasional patriotism.' <i>Ann. +Reg.</i> x. 39-48, and Dicey's <i>Law of the Constitution</i>, p. +50.</p> +<p><a name="note-979">[979]</a> <i>St. +Mark</i>, ii. 9.</p> +<p><a name="note-980">[980]</a> +<i>Anecdotes</i>, p. 43. BOSWELL. The passage is from the +<i>Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies</i>, March 22, 1775. +Payne's <i>Burke</i>, i. 173. The image of the angel and Lord +Bathurst was thus, according to Mrs. Piozzi, parodied by +Johnson:—'Suppose, Mr. Speaker, that to Wharton, or to +Marlborough, or to any of the eminent Whigs of the last age, the +devil had, not with great impropriety, consented to appear.' See +<i>ante</i>, iii. 326, where Johnson said 'the first Whig was the +Devil.'</p> +<p><a name="note-981">[981]</a> Boswell +was stung by what Mrs. Piozzi wrote when recording this parody. +She said that she had begged Johnson's leave to write it down +directly. 'A trick,' she continues, 'which I have seen played on +common occasions of sitting steadily [? stealthily] down at the +other end of the room to write at the moment what should be said +in company, either by Dr. Johnson or to him, I never practised +myself, nor approved of in another. There is something so +ill-bred, and so inclining to treachery in this conduct, that, +were it commonly adopted, all confidence would soon be exiled +from society.' See <i>post</i>, under June 30, 1784, where +Boswell refers to this passage.</p> +<center><a name= +"note-982">[982]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Who'er offends, at some unlucky time + Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Pope, <i>Imitations of Horace</i>, 2 Satires, i. 78.</p> +<p><a name="note-983">[983]</a> On March +14, 1770, in a debate on the licentiousness of the press, +Townshend joined together Johnson and Shebbeare. Burke, who +followed him, said nothing about Johnson. Fitzherbert, speaking +of Johnson as 'my friend,' defended him as 'a pattern of +morality.' <i>Cavendish Debates</i>, i.514. On Feb. 16, 1774, +when Fox drew attention to a 'vile libel' signed <i>A South +Briton</i>, Townshend said 'Dr. Shebbeare and Dr. Johnson have +been pensioned, but this wretched South Briton is to be +prosecuted.' It was Fox, and not Burke, who on this occasion +defended Johnson. <i>Parl. Hist.</i> xvii.1054. As Goldsmith was +writing <i>Retaliation</i> at the very time that this second +attack was made, it is very likely that it was the occasion, of +the change in the line.</p> +<p><a name="note-984">[984]</a> In the +original <i>yet</i>.</p> +<center><a name= +"note-985">[985]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Sis pecore et multa dives tellure licebit, + Tibique Pactolus fluat.' + 'Though wide thy land extends, and large thy fold, + Though rivers roll for thee their purest gold.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>FRANCIS. Horace, <i>Epodes</i>, xv. 19.</p> +<p><a name="note-986">[986]</a> See +Macaulay's <i>Essays</i>, ed. 1843, i. 404, for Macaulay's +appropriation and amplification of this passage.</p> +<p><a name="note-987">[987]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, ii. 168.</p> +<p><a name="note-988">[988]</a> Mr. +Croker suggests the Rev. Martin Sherlock, an Irish Clergyman, +'who published in 1781 his own travels under the title of +<i>Letters of an English Traveller translated from the +French.</i>' Croker's <i>Boswell, p. 770. Mason writes of him as +'Mister, or Monsieur, or Signor Sherlock, for I am told he is +both [sic] French, English, and Italian in print.' Walpole's</i> +Letters<i>, viii. 202. I think, however, that Dr. Thomas Campbell +is meant. His</i> Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland +<i>Boswell calls 'a very entertaining book, which has, however, +one fault;—that it assumes the fictitious character of an +Englishman.'</i> Ante<i>, ii. 339.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-989">[989]</a> See +ante<i>, iv. 49.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-990">[990]</a> This +anecdote is not in the first two editions.</p> +<p><a name="note-991">[991]</a> See +ante<i>, in. 369.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-992">[992]</a> 'I have +heard,' says Hawkins (Life<i>, p. 409), 'that in many instances, +and in some with tears in his eyes, he has apologised to those +whom he had offended by contradiction or roughness of behaviour.' +See</i> ante<i>, ii. 109, and 256, note 1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-993">[993]</a> Johnson +(Works<i>, viii. 131) describes Savage's 'superstitious regard to +the correction of his sheets ... The intrusion or omission of a +comma was sufficient to discompose him, and he would lament an +errour of a single letter as a heavy calamity.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-994">[994]</a> +Compositor in the Printing-house means, the person who adjusts +the types in the order in which they are to stand for printing; +and arranges what is called the form<i>, from which an impression +is taken. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-995">[995]</a> This +circumstance therefore alluded to in Mr. Courtenay's Poetical +Character <i>of him is strictly true. My informer was Mrs. +Desmoulins, who lived many years in Dr. Johnson's house. BOSWELL. +The following are Mr. Courtenay's lines:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Soft-eyed compassion with a look benign, + His fervent vows he offered at thy shrine; + To guilt, to woe, the sacred debt was paid, + And helpless females blessed his pious aid; + Snatched from disease, and want's abandoned crew, + Despair and anguish from their victims flew; + Hope's soothing balm into their bosoms stole, + And tears of penitence restored the soul.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-996">[996]</a> The +Cross Readings <i>were said to be formed 'by reading two columns +of a newspaper together onwards,' whereby 'the strangest +connections were brought about,' such as:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'This morning the Right Hon. the Speaker + was convicted of keeping a disorderly house. + Whereas the said barn was set on fire by + an incendiary letter dropped early in the morning. + By order of the Commissioners for Paving + An infallible remedy for the stone and gravel. + The sword of state was carried + before Sir John Fielding and committed to Newgate.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>The New Foundling Hospital for Wit<i>, i. 129. According to +Northcote (</i>Life of Reynolds<i>, i. 217), 'Dr. Goldsmith +declared, in the heat of his admiration of these</i> Cross +Readings<i>, it would have given him more pleasure to have been +the author of them than of all the works he had ever published of +his own.' Horace Walpole (Letters, v. 30) writes:— 'Have +you seen that delightful paper composed out of scraps in the +newspapers? I laughed till I cried. I mean the paper that +says:—</i></p> +<p>"This day his Majesty will go in great state to fifteen +notorious common prostitutes."'</p> +<p><a name="note-997">[997]</a> One of +these gentlemen was probably Mr. Musgrave (ante<i>, ii. 343, note +2), who, says Mrs. Piozzi (</i>Anec<i>. p. 295), when 'once he +was singularly warm about Johnson's writing the lives of our +famous prose authors, getting up and entreating him to set about +the work immediately, he coldly replied, "Sit down, Sir."' Miss +Burney says that 'the incense he paid Dr. Johnson by his solemn +manner of listening, by the earnest reverence with which he eyed +him, and by a theatric start of admiration every time he spoke, +joined to the Doctor's utter insensibility to all these tokens, +made me find infinite difficulty in keeping my countenance.' Mme. +D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, ii. 85. The other gentleman was perhaps +Dr. Wharton.</i> Ante<i>, ii. 41, note 1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-998">[998]</a> Probably +Dr. Beattie. The number of letters in his name agrees with the +asterisks given a few lines below. Ante<i>, iii. 339, note 1, +and</i> post<i>, p. 330.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-999">[999]</a> Johnson, +in his Dictionary<i>, defines</i> congé d'élire +<i>as</i> the king's permission royal to a dean and chapter in +time of vacation, to choose a bishop. <i>When Dr. Hampden was +made Bishop of Hereford in 1848, the Dean resisted the +appointment. H. C. Robinson records, on the authority of the +Bishop's Secretary (</i>Diary<i>, iii. 311), that 'at the actual +confirmation in Bow Church the scene was quite ludicrous. After +the judge had told the opposers that he could not hear them, the +citation for opposers to come forward was repeated, at which the +people present laughed out, as at a play.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1000">[1000]</a> This +has been printed in other publications, 'fall to the ground<i>.' +But Johnson himself gave me the true expression which he had used +as above; meaning that the recommendation left as little choice +in the one case as the other. BOSWELL. One of the 'other +publications is Hawkins's edition of Johnson's</i> Works<i>. See +in it vol. xi. p. 216.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1001">[1001]</a> They +are published in vol. xi. of Hawkins's edition of Johnson's +Works<i>. 1787, and are often quoted in my notes. It should be +remembered that Steevens is not trustworthy. See</i> ante<i>, +iii. 281, and iv. 178.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1002">[1002]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 96.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1003">[1003]</a> See +ante<i>, p. iii.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1004">[1004]</a> She +Stoops to Conquer <i>was first acted on March 15, 1773. The King +of Sardinia had died on Feb. 20.</i> Gent. Mag<i>. 1773, pp. 149, +151.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1005">[1005]</a> Hannah +More (Memoirs<i>, i. 170) describes how, in 1780, she went to one +of Mrs. Ord's assemblies at a time when 'the mourning for some +foreign Wilhelmina Jaquelina was not over. Every human creature +was in deep mourning, and I, poor I, all gorgeous in scarlet. +Even Jacobite Johnson was in deep mourning.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1006">[1006]</a> In the +tenth edition of the Rambler<i>, published in 1784, the entry is +still found:—'Milton, Mr. John, remarks on his +versification.' In like manner we find:—'Shakspeare, Mr. +William, his eminent success in tragi-comedy;' 'Spenser, Mr. +Edmund, some imitations of his diction censured;' 'Cowley, Mr. +Abraham, a passage in his writing illustrated.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1007">[1007]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 116.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1008">[1008]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 425, note 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1009">[1009]</a> +Hawkins (Life<i>, p. 571) writes:—'The plan for Johnson's +visiting the Continent became so well known, that, as a lady then +resident at Rome afterwards informed me, his arrival was +anxiously expected throughout Italy.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1010">[1010]</a> Edward +Lord Thurlow. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1011">[1011]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 179.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1012">[1012]</a> In +1778.</p> +<p><a name="note-1013">[1013]</a> 'With +Lord Thurlow, while he was at the bar, Johnson was well +acquainted. He said to Mr. Murphy twenty years ago, "Thurlow is a +man of such vigour of mind that I never knew I was to meet him, +but—I was going to tell a falsehood; I was going to say I +was afraid of him, and that would not be true, for I was never +afraid of any man—but I never knew that I was to meet +Thurlow, but I knew I had something to encounter."' Monthly +Review <i>for 1787, lxxvi. 382. Murphy, no doubt, was the writer. +Lord Campbell (</i>Lives of the Chancellors<i>, ed. 1846, v.621) +quotes from 'the Diary of a distinguished political character' an +account of a meeting between Thurlow and Horne Tooke, in 1801. +'Tooke evidently came forward for a display, and as I considered +his powers of conversation as surpassing those of any person I +had ever seen (in point of skill and dexterity, and if necessary +in</i> lying<i>), so I took for granted old grumbling Thurlow +would be obliged to lower his top-sail to him—but it seemed +as if the very</i> look <i>and</i> voice <i>of Thurlow scared him +out of his senses from the first moment. So Tooke tried to +recruit himself by wine, and, though not generally a drinker, was +very drunk, but all would not do.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1014">[1014]</a> It is +strange that Sir John Hawkins should have related that the +application was made by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when he could so +easily have been informed of the truth by inquiring of Sir +Joshua. Sir John's carelessness to ascertain facts is very +remarkable. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1015">[1015]</a> There +is something dreadful in the thought of the old man quietly going +on with his daily life within a few hundred yards of this +shocking scene of slaughter, this 'legal massacre,' to use his +own words (ante<i>, p. 188, note 3). England had a kind of Reign +of Terror of its own; little thought of at the time or remembered +since. Twenty-four men were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey +Sessions that ended on April 28. On June 16 nine of these had the +sentence commuted; the rest were hanged this day. Among these men +was not a single murderer. Twelve of them had committed burglary, +two a street robbery, and one had personated another man's name, +with intent to receive his wages.</i> Ann. Reg<i>. xxvii, 193, +and</i> Gent. Mag<i>. liv. 379, 474. The</i> Gent. Mag<i>. +recording the sentences, remarks:—'Convicts under sentence +of death in Newgate and the gaols throughout the kingdom increase +so fast, that, were they all to be executed, England would soon +be marked among the nations as the</i> Bloody Country<i>.' In the +spring assizes the returns are given for ten towns. There were 88 +capital convictions, of which 21 were at Winchester.</i> Ib<i>. +224. In the summer assizes and at the Old Bailey Sessions for +July there were 149 capital convictions. At Maidstone a man on +being sentenced 'gave three loud cheers, upon which the judge +gave strict orders for his being chained to the floor of the +dungeon.'</i> Ib<i>. pp. 311, 633. The hangman was to grow busier +yet. This increase in the number of capital punishments was +attributed by Romilly in great part to Madan's</i> Thoughts on +Executive Justice<i>; 'a small tract, in which, by a mistaken +application of the maxim "that the certainty of punishment is +more efficacious than its severity for the prevention of crimes," +he absurdly insisted on the expediency of rigidly enforcing, in +every instance, our penal code, sanguinary and barbarous as it +was. In 1783, the year before the book was published, there were +executed in London only 51 malefactors; in 1785, the year after +the book was published, there were executed 97; and it was +recently after the publication of the book that was exhibited a +spectacle unseen in London for a long course of years before, the +execution of nearly 20 criminals at a time.'</i> Life of +Romilly<i>, i. 89. Madan's Tract was published in the winter of +1784-5. Boswell's fondness for seeing executions is shewn,</i> +ante<i>, ii. 93.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1016">[1016]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 82, 104; iii. 290; and v. 7l.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1017">[1017]</a> A +friend of mine happened to be passing by a field congregation +<i>in the environs of London, when a Methodist preacher quoted +this passage with triumph. BOSWELL. On Dec. 26, 1784, John Wesley +preached the condemned criminals' sermon to forty-seven who were +under sentence of death. He records:—'The power of the Lord +was eminently present, and most of the prisoners were in tears. A +few days after, twenty of them died at once, five of whom died in +peace. I could not but greatly approve of the spirit and +behaviour of Mr. Villette, the Ordinary; and I rejoiced to hear +that it was the same on all similar occasions.' Wesley's</i> +Journal<i>, ed. 1827, iv. 287.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1018">[1018]</a> I +trust that THE CITY OF LONDON, now happily in unison with THE +COURT, will have the justice and generosity to obtain preferment +for this Reverend Gentleman, now a worthy old servant of that +magnificent Corporation. BOSWELL. In like manner, Boswell in 1768 +praised the Rev. Mr. Moore, Mr. Villette's predecessor. 'Mr. +Moore, the Ordinary of Newgate, discharged his duty with much +earnestness and a fervour for which I and all around me esteemed +and loved him. Mr. Moore seems worthy of his office, which, when +justly considered, is a very important one.' London Mag. <i>1783, +p. 204. For the quarrel between the City and the Court, see</i> +ante<i>, iii. 201.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1019">[1019]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 387.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1020">[1020]</a> Knox +in Winter Evenings<i>, No. xi. (</i>Works<i>, ii. 348), attacks +Johnson's biographers for lowering his character by publishing +his private conversation. 'Biography,' he complains, 'is every +day descending from its dignity.' See</i> ante<i>, i. 222, note +1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1021">[1021]</a> Piozzi +Letters<i>, ii. 256.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1022">[1022]</a> +Johnson wrote on April 15:—'I am still very weak, though my +appetite is keen and my digestion potent. ... I now think and +consult to-day what I shall eat to-morrow. This disease likewise +will, I hope, be cured.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 362. Beattie, who +dined with Johnson on June 27, wrote:—'Wine, I think, would +do him good, but he cannot be prevailed on to drink it. He has, +however, a voracious appetite for food. I verily believe that on +Sunday last he ate as much to dinner as I have done in all for +these ten days past.' Forbes's</i> Beattie<i>, ed. 1824, p. 315. +It was said that Beattie latterly indulged somewhat too much in +wine.</i> Ib<i>. p. 432.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1023">[1023]</a> Horace +Walpole wrote in April 1750 (Letters<i>, ii. 206):—'There +is come from France a Madame Bocage who has translated Milton: my +Lord Chesterfield prefers the copy to the original; but that is +not uncommon for him to do, who is the patron of bad authors and +bad actors. She has written a play too, which was damned, and +worthy my lord's approbation.' It was this lady who bade her +footman blow into the spout of the tea-pot.</i> Ante<i>, ii. 403. +Dr. J. H. Burton writes of her in his</i> Life of Hume<i>, ii. +213:—'The wits must praise her bad poetry if they +frequented her house. "Elle était d'une figure aimable," +says Grimm, "elle est bonne femme; elle est riche; elle pouvait +fixer chez elle les gens d'esprit et de bonne compagnie, sans les +mettre dans l'embarras de lui parler avec peu de +sincérité de sa Colombiade ou de ses +Amazones."'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1024">[1024]</a> It is +the sea round the South Pole that she describes in her Elegy +<i>(not</i> Ode<i>). The description begins:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'While o'er the deep in many a dreadful form, + The giant Danger howls along the storm, + Furling the iron sails with numbed hands, + Firm on the deck the great Adventurer stands;<i> Round glitt'ring mountains hear the billows rave, + And the vast ruin thunder on the wave.' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>In the Gent. Mag. <i>1793, p. 197, were given extracts abusive +of Johnson from some foolish letters that passed between Miss +Seward and Hayley, a poet her equal in feebleness. Boswell, in +his</i> Corrections and Additions to the First Edition +<i>(</i>ante<i>, i.10), corrected an error into which he had been +led by Miss Seward (</i>ante<i>, i.92, note 2). She, in the</i> +Gent. Mag. <i>for 1793, p.875, defended herself and attacked him. +His reply is found on p.1009. He says:—'As my book was to +be a</i> real history<i>, and not a</i> novel<i>, it was +necessary to suppress all erroneous particulars, however +entertaining.' (</i>Ante<i>, ii 467, note 4.) He +continues:—'So far from having any hostile disposition +towards this Lady, I have, in my</i> Life of Dr. +Johnson<i>...quoted a compliment paid by him to one of her +poetical pieces; and I have withheld his opinion of herself, +thinking that she might not like it. I am afraid it has reached +her by some other means; and thus we may account for various +attacks by her on her venerable townsman since his decease...What +are we to think of the scraps of letters between her and Mr. +Hayley, impotently attempting to undermine the noble pedestal on +which the publick opinion has placed Dr. Johnson?'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1025">[1025]</a> See +ante<i>, i.265, and iv. 174.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1026">[1026]</a> +'Johnson said he had once seen Mr. Stanhope at Dodsley's shop, +and was so much struck with his awkward manners and appearance +that he could not help asking Mr. Dodsley who he was.' Johnson's +Works<i>, (1787) xi.209.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1027">[1027]</a> +Chesterfield was Secretary of State from Nov. 1746 to Feb. 1748. +His letters to his son extend from 1739 to 1768.</p> +<p><a name="note-1028">[1028]</a> Foote +had taken off Lord Chesterfield in The Cozeners<i>. Mrs. +Aircastle trains her son Toby in the graces. She says to her +husband:—'Nothing but grace! I wish you would read some +late</i> Posthumous Letters<i>; you would then know the true +value of grace.' Act ii. sc. 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1029">[1029]</a> See +ante<i>, p.78, note 1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1030">[1030]</a> See a +pamphlet entitled Remarks on the Characters of the Court of Queen +Anne<i>, included in Swift's</i> Works<i>, ed. 1803, vi. +163.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1031">[1031]</a> +Carleton, according to the Memoirs<i>, made his first service in +the navy in 1672—seventeen years before the siege of Derry. +There is no mention of this siege in the book.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1032">[1032]</a> 'He +had obtained, by his long service, some knowledge of the practic +part of an engineer.' Preface to the Memoirs<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1033">[1033]</a> Nearly +200 pages in Bohn's edition. See ante<i>, i. 71, for Johnson's +rapid reading.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1034">[1034]</a> Lord +Mahon (War of the Succession in Spain<i>, Appendix, p. 131) +proves that a Captain Carleton really served. 'It is not +impossible,' he says, 'that the MS. may have been intrusted to De +Foe for the purpose of correction or revision...The</i> Memoirs +<i>are most strongly marked with internal proofs of +authenticity.' Lockhart (</i>Life of Scott<i>, iii. 84) +says:—'It seems to be now pretty generally believed that +Carleton's</i> Memoirs <i>were among the numberless fabrications +of De Foe; but in this case (if the fact indeed be so), as in +that of his</i> Cavalier<i>, he no doubt had before him the rude +journal of some officer.' Dr. Burton (</i>Reign of Queen Anne +<i>ii. 173) says that MSS. in the British Museum disprove 'the +possibility of De Foe's authorship.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1035">[1035]</a> Lord +Chesterfield (Letters<i>, ii. 109) writing to his son on Nov. 29, +1748, says of Mr. Eliot:—'Imitate that application of his, +which has made him know all thoroughly, and to the bottom. He +does not content himself with the surface of knowledge; but works +in the mine for it, knowing that it lies deep.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1036">[1036]</a> The +Houghton Collection was sold in 1779 by the third Earl of Orford, +to the Empress of Russia for £40,555. (Walpole's +Letters<i>, vii. 227, note 1.)</i></p> +<p>Horace Walpole wrote on Aug. 4 of that year (ib<i>. p. +235):—'Well! adieu to Houghton! about its mad master I +shall never trouble myself more. From the moment he came into +possession, he has undermined every act of my father that was +within his reach, but, having none of that great man's sense or +virtues, he could only lay wild hands on lands and houses; and +since he has stript Houghton of its glory, I do not care a straw +what he does with the stone or the acres.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1037">[1037]</a> This +museum at Alkerington near Manchester is described in the Gent. +Mag<i>. 1773, p.219. A proposal was made in Parliament to buy it +for the British Museum.</i> Ib<i>. 1783, p. 919. On July 8, 1784, +a bill enabling Lever to dispose of it by lottery passed the +House of Commons.</i> Ib<i>. 1784, p.705.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1038">[1038]</a> +Johnson defines intuition <i>as</i> sight of anything; immediate +knowledge<i>; and</i> sagacity <i>as</i> quickness of scent; +acuteness of discovery<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1039">[1039]</a> In the +first edition it stands 'A gentleman<i>' and below instead of Mr. +——, Mr. ——. In the second edition Mr. +—— becomes Mr. ——. In the third +edition</i> young <i>is added. Young Mr. Burke is probably meant. +As it stood in the second edition it might have been thought that +Edmund Burke was the gentleman; the more so as Johnson often +denied his want of wit.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1040">[1040]</a> +Hamlet<i>, act i. sc. 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1041">[1041]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 372, note 1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1042">[1042]</a> +Windham says (Diary<i>, p. 34) that when Dr. Brocklesby made this +offer 'Johnson pressed his hands and said, "God bless you through +Jesus Christ, but I will take no money but from my sovereign." +This, if I mistake not, was told the King through West.' Dr. +Brocklesby wrote to Burke, on July 2, 1788, to make him 'an +instant present of £1000, which,' he continues, 'for years +past, by will, I had destined as a testimony of my regard on my +decease.' Burke, accepting the present, said:—'I shall +never be ashamed to have it known, that I am obliged to one who +never can be capable of converting his kindness into a burthen.' +Burke's</i> Corres. <i>iii.78. See</i> ante<i>, p. 263, for the +just praise bestowed by Johnson on physicians in his</i> Life of +Garth<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1043">[1043]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 194.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1044">[1044]</a> +Letters to Mrs. Thrale<i>, vol. ii. p 375. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1045">[1045]</a> Rogers +(Table-Talk<i>, p. 45) describes him as 'a very handsome, +gentlemanly, and amiable person. Mme. D'Arblay tells how one +evening at Dr. Burney's home, when Signor Piozzi was playing on +the piano, 'Mrs. Thrale stealing on tip-toe behind him, +ludicrously began imitating him. Dr. Burney whispered to her, +"Because, Madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you +destroy the attention of all who in that one point are otherwise +gifted?"' Mrs. Thrale took this rebuke very well. This was her +first meeting with Piozzi. It was in Mr. Thrale's life-time.</i> +Memoirs of Dr. Burney<i>, ii. 110.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1046">[1046]</a> Dr. +Johnson's letter to Sir John Hawkins, Life<i>, p. 570. BOSWELL. +The last time Miss Burney saw Johnson, not three weeks before his +death, he told her that the day before he had seen Miss Thrale. +'I then said:—"Do you ever, Sir, hear from mother?" "No," +cried he, "nor write to her. I drive her quite from my mind. If I +meet with one of her letters, I burn it instantly. I have burnt +all I can find. I never speak of her, and I desire never to hear +of her more. I drive her, as I said, wholly from my mind."' Mme. +D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, ii. 328.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1047">[1047]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 493.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1048">[1048]</a> +Anec<i>. p. 293. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1049">[1049]</a> 'The +saying of the old philosopher who observes, "that he who wants +least is most like the gods who want nothing," was a favourite +sentence with Dr. Johnson, who on his own part required less +attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. +Conversation was all he required to make him happy.' Piozzi's +Anec<i>. p.275. Miss Burney's account of the life at Streatham is +generally very cheerful. I suspect that the irksome confinement +described by Mrs. Piozzi was not felt by her till she became +attached to Mr. Piozzi. This caused a great change in her +behaviour and much unhappiness. (</i>Ante<i>, p. 138, note 4.) He +at times treated her harshly. (</i>Ante<i>, p. 160, note.) Two +passages in her letters to Miss Burney shew a want of feeling in +her for a man who for nearly twenty years had been to her almost +as a father. On Feb. 18, 1784, she writes:—'Johnson is in a +sad way doubtless; yet he may still with care last another +twelve-month, and every week's existence is gain to him, who, +like good Hezekiah, wearies Heaven with entreaties for life. I +wrote him a very serious letter the other day.' On March 23 she +writes:—' My going to London would be a dreadful expense, +and bring on a thousand inquiries and inconveniences—visits +to Johnson and from Cator.' It is likely that in other letters +there were like passages, but these letters Miss Burney 'for +cogent reasons destroyed.' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, ii. 305, +7, 8.</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> +<a name="note-1050">1050</a> + 'Bless'd paper credit! last and best supply! + That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Pope, Moral Essays<i>, iii. 39.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1051">[1051]</a> Who +has been pleased to furnish me with his remarks. BOSWELL. No +doubt Malone, who says, however: 'On the whole the publick is +indebted to her for her lively, though very inaccurate and +artful, account of Dr. Johnson.' Prior's Malone<i>, p. +364.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1052">[1052]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 81.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1053">[1053]</a> Anec. +<i>p. 183. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1054">[1054]</a> Hannah +More. She, with her sisters, had kept a boarding-school at +Bristol.</p> +<p><a name="note-1055">[1055]</a> She +first saw Johnson in June, 1774. According to her Memoirs <i>(i. +48) he met her 'with good humour in his countenance, and +continued in the same pleasant humour the whole of the evening.' +She called on him in Bolt Court. One of her sisters +writes:—'Miss Reynolds told the doctor of all our rapturous +exclamations [about him] on the road. He shook his scientific +head at Hannah, and said, "She was a silly thing."'</i> Ib<i>. p. +49. 'He afterwards mentioned to Miss Reynolds how much he had +been touched with the enthusiasm of the young authoress, which +was evidently genuine and unaffected.'</i> Ib<i>. p. 50. She met +him again in the spring of 1775. Her sister writes:—'The +old genius was extremely jocular, and the young one very +pleasant. They indeed tried which could "pepper the highest" +[Goldsmith's</i> Retaliation<i>], and it is not clear to me that +he was really the highest seasoner.'</i> Ib<i>. p. 54. From the +Mores we know nothing of his reproof. He had himself said of 'a +literary lady'—no doubt Hannah More—'I was obliged to +speak to Miss Reynolds to let her know that I desired she would +not flatter me so much.'</i> Ante<i>, iii.293. Miss Burney +records a story she had from Mrs. Thrale, 'which,' she continues, +'exceeds, I think, in its severity all the severe things I have +yet heard of Dr. Johnson's saying. When Miss More was introduced +to him, she began singing his praise in the warmest manner. For +some time he heard her with that quietness which a long use of +praise has given him: she then redoubled her strokes, till at +length he turned suddenly to her, with a stern and angry +countenance, and said, "Madam, before you flatter a man so +grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your +flattery is worth his having."' Mme. D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, +i.103. Shortly afterwards Miss Burney records (</i>ib<i>. p. 121) +that Mrs. Thrale said to him:—'We have told her what you +said to Miss More, and I believe that makes her afraid.' He +replied:—'Well, and if she was to serve me as Miss More +did, I should say the same thing to her.' We have therefore three +reports of what he said—one from Mrs. Thrale indirectly, +one from her directly, and the third from Malone. However severe +the reproof was, the Mores do not seem to have been much touched +by it. At all events they enjoyed the meeting with Johnson, and +Hannah More needed a second reproof that was conveyed to her +through Miss Reynolds.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1056">[1056]</a> Anec. +<i>p. 202. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1057">[1057]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 40, 68, 92, 415, 481; ii. 188, 194; iii. 229; and</i> +post<i>, v. 245, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1058">[1058]</a> Anec. +<i>p. 44. BOSWELL. See</i> ante<i>, p. 318,</i> note <i>1, where +I quote the passage.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1059">[1059]</a> Ib<i>. +p. 23. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1060">[1060]</a> Ib<i>. +p. 45. Mr. Hayward says:—'She kept a copious diary and +notebook called</i> Thraliana <i>from 1776 to 1809. It is now,' +<a name="note-1861">[1861]</a> he +continues, 'in the possession of Mr. Salusbury, who deems it of +too private and delicate a character to be submitted to +strangers, but has kindly supplied me with some curious passages +from it.' Hayward's</i> Piozzi<i>, i. 6.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1061">[1061]</a> Ib<i>. +p. 51 [192]. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1062">[1062]</a> Anec. +<i>p. 193 [51]. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1063">[1063]</a> +Johnson, says Murphy, (Life<i>, p. 96) 'felt not only kindness, +but zeal and ardour for his friends.' 'Who,' he asks (</i>ib<i>. +p. 144), 'was more sincere and steady in his friendships?' +'Numbers,' he says (</i>ib<i>. p. 146), 'still remember with +gratitude the friendship which he shewed to them with unaltered +affection for a number of years.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1064">[1064]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 285, and iii. 440.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1065">[1065]</a> +Johnson's Works<i>, i. 152, 3.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1066">[1066]</a> In +vol. ii. of the Piozzi Letters <i>some of these letters are +given.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1067">[1067]</a> He +gave Miss Thrale lessons in Latin. Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, <i>i. +243 and 427.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1068">[1068]</a> Anec. +<i>p. 258. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1069">[1069]</a> George +James Cholmondeley, Esq., grandson of George, third Earl of +Cholmondeley, and one of the Commissioners of Excise; a gentleman +respected for his abilities, and elegance of manners. BOSWELL. +When I spoke to him a few years before his death upon this point, +I found him very sore at being made the topic of such a debate, +and very unwilling to remember any thing about either the offence +or the apology. CROKER.</p> +<p><a name="note-1070">[1070]</a> +Letters to Mrs. Thrale, <i>vol. ii. p. 12. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1071">[1071]</a> Mrs. +Piozzi (Anec.<i>p. 258) lays the scene of this anecdote 'in some +distant province, either Shropshire or Derbyshire, I believe.' +Johnson drove through these counties with the Thrales in 1774 +(</i>ante<i>, ii. 285). If the passage in the letter refers to +the same anecdote—and Mrs. Piozzi does not, so far as I +know, deny it—more than three years passed before Johnson +was told of his rudeness. Baretti, in a MS. note on</i> Piozzi +Letters<i>, ii. 12, says that the story was 'Mr. Cholmondeley's +running away from his creditors.' In this he is certainly wrong; +yet if Mr. Cholmondeley had run away, and others gave the same +explanation of the passage, his soreness is easily accounted +for.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1072">[1072]</a> +Anec<i>. p. 23. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1073">[1073]</a> Ib<i>. +p. 302. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1074">[1074]</a> +Rasselas<i>, chap, xvii</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1075">[1075]</a> +Paradise Lost<i>, iv. 639.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1076">[1076]</a> +Anec<i>. p. 63. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1077">[1077]</a> +'Johnson one day, on seeing an old terrier lie asleep by the +fire-side at Streatham, said, "Presto, you are, if possible, a +more lazy dog that I am."' Johnson's Works<i>, ed. 1787, xi. +203.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1078">[1078]</a> Upon +mentioning this to my friend Mr. Wilkes, he, with his usual +readiness, pleasantly matched it with the following sentimental +anecdote<i>. He was invited by a young man of fashion at Paris, +to sup with him and a lady, who had been for some time his +mistress, but with whom he was going to part. He said to Mr. +Wilkes that he really felt very much for her, she was in such +distress; and that he meant to make her a present of two hundred +louis-d'ors. Mr. Wilkes observed the behaviour of Mademoiselle, +who sighed indeed very piteously, and assumed every pathetick air +of grief; but eat no less than three French pigeons, which are as +large as English partridges, besides other things. Mr. Wilkes +whispered the gentleman, 'We often say in England,</i> Excessive +sorrow is exceeding dry<i>, but I never heard</i> Excessive +sorrow is exceeding hungry<i>. Perhaps</i> one <i>hundred will +do.' The gentleman took the hint. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1079">[1079]</a> See +post<i>, p. 367, for the passage omitted.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1080">[1080]</a> Sir +Joshua Reynolds, on account of the excellence both of the +sentiment and expression of this letter, took a copy of it which +he shewed to some of his friends; one of whom, who admired it, +being allowed to peruse it leisurely at home, a copy was made, +and found its way into the newspapers and magazines. It was +transcribed with some inaccuracies. I print it from the original +draft in Johnson's own hand-writing. BOSWELL. Hawkins writes +(Life<i>, p. 574):—'Johnson, upon being told that it was in +print, exclaimed in my hearing, "I am betrayed," but soon after +forgot, as he was ever ready to do all real or supposed injuries, +the error that made the publication possible.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1081">[1081]</a> Cowper +wrote of Thurlow:—'I know well the Chancellor's benevolence +of heart, and how much he is misunderstood by the world. When he +was young he would do the kindest things, and at an expense to +himself which at that time he could ill afford, and he would do +them too in the most secret manner.' Southey's Cowper<i>, vii. +128. Yet Thurlow did not keep his promise made to Cowper when +they were fellow-clerks in an attorney's office. 'Thurlow, I am +nobody, and shall be always nobody, and you will be chancellor. +You shall provide for me when you are.' He smiled, and replied, +'I surely will.'</i> Ib. <i>i. 41. When Cowper sent him the first +volume of his poems, 'he thought it not worth his while,' the +poet writes, 'to return me any answer, or to take the least +notice of my present.'</i> Ib. <i>xv. 176. Mr. (afterwards Sir) +W. Jones, in two letters to Burke, speaks of Thurlow as the +[Greek: thaerion] (beast). 'I heard last night, with surprise and +affliction,' he wrote on Feb. 15, 1783,'that the [Greek: +thaerion] was to continue in office. Now I can assure you from my +own positive knowledge (and I know him well), that although he +hates</i> our <i>species in general, yet his particular hatred is +directed against none more virulently than against Lord North, +and the friends of the late excellent Marquis.' Burke's</i> +Corres. <i>ii. 488, and iii. 10.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1082">[1082]</a> +'Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of unbounded power when an +aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by +his writings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of +infirmities and sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to +enable him, during the winter or two which might still remain to +him, to draw his breath more easily in the soft climate of Italy. +Not a farthing was to be obtained; and before Christmas the +author of the English Dictionary <i>and of the</i> Lives of the +Poets <i>had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke of +Fleet-street.'</i> Macaulay's Writings and Speeches, <i>ed. 1871, +p. 413. Just before Macaulay, with monstrous exaggeration, says +that Gibbon, 'forced by poverty to leave his country, completed +his immortal work on the shores of Lake Leman.' This poverty of +Gibbon would have been 'splendour' to Johnson. Debrett's Royal +Kalendar, for 1795 (p. 88), shews that there were twelve Lords of +the King's Bedchamber receiving each £1000 a year, and +fourteen Grooms of the Bedchamber receiving each, £500 a +year. As Burns was made a gauger, so Johnson might have been made +a Lord, or at least a Groom of the Bedchamber. It is not certain +that Pitt heard of the application for an increased pension. Mr. +Croker quotes from Thurlow's letter to Reynolds of Nov. 18, +1784:—'It was impossible for me to take the King's pleasure +on the suggestion I presumed to move. I am an untoward +solicitor.' Whether he consulted Pitt cannot be known. Mr. Croker +notices a curious obliteration in this letter. The Chancellor had +written:—'It would have suited the purpose better, if +nobody had heard of it, except Dr. Johnson, you and J. +Boswell.'</i> Boswell <i>has been erased—'artfully' too, +says—Mr. Croker-so that 'the sentence appears to run, +"except Dr. Johnson, you, and I."' Mr. Croker, with his usual +suspiciousness, suspects 'an uncandid trick.' But it is very +likely that Thurlow himself made the obliteration, regardless of +grammar. He might easily have thought that it would have been +better still had Boswell not been in the secret.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1083">[1083]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 176.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1084">[1084]</a> On +June 11 Boswell and Johnson were together (ante<i>, p. 293). The +date perhaps should be July 11. The letter that follows next is +dated July 12.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1085">[1085]</a> 'Even +in our flight from vice some virtue lies.' FRANCIS. Horace, i. +Epistles<i>, I. 41.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1086">[1086]</a> See +vol. ii. p. 258. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1087">[1087]</a> Mrs. +Johnson died in 1752. See ante<i>, i. 241, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1088">[1088]</a> See +Appendix.</p> +<p><a name="note-1089">[1089]</a> +Printed in his Works <i>[i. 150]. BOSWELL. See</i> ante<i>, i. +241, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1090">[1090]</a> He +wrote to Mr. Ryland on the same day:—'Be pleased to let the +whole be done with privacy that I may elude the vigilance of the +papers.' Notes and Queries<i>, 5th S. vii. 381.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1091">[1091]</a> +Boileau, Art Poétique<i>, chant iv.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1092">[1092]</a> This +is probably an errour either of the transcript or the press. +Removes <i>seems to be the word intended. MALONE.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1093">[1093]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 332, and</i> post <i>p. 360.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1094">[1094]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 267.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1095">[1095]</a> I have +heard Dr. Johnson protest that he never had quite as much as he +wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life.' Piozzi's Anec<i>. +p. 103.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1096">[1096]</a> At the +Essex Head, Essex-street. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1097">[1097]</a> +Juvenal, Satires<i>, x. 8:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Vanity of Human Wishes<i>, l. 15.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1098">[1098]</a> Mr. +Allen, the printer. BOSWELL. See ante<i>, iii. 141, 269.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1099">[1099]</a> It was +on this day that he wrote the prayer given below (p. 370) in +which is found that striking line—'this world where much is +to be done and little to be known.'</p> +<p><a name="note-1100">[1100]</a> His +letter to Dr. Heberden (Croker's Boswell<i>, p. 789) shews that +he had gone with Dr. Brocklesby to the last Academy dinner, when, +as he boasted, 'he went up all the stairs to the pictures without +stopping to rest or to breathe.'</i> Ante<i>, p. 270, note +2.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-1101">[1101]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + Quid te exempta levat<i> spinis de pluribus una? + 'Pluck out one thorn to mitigate thy pain, + What boots it while so many more remain?' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>FRANCIS. Horace, 2 Epistles<i>, ii. 212.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1102">[1102]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 4, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1103">[1103]</a> Sir +Joshua's physician. He is mentioned by Goldsmith in his verses to +the Miss Hornecks. Forster's Goldsmith<i>, ii. 149.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1104">[1104]</a> How +much balloons filled people's minds at this time is shewn by such +entries as the following in Windham's Diary<i>:-'Feb 7, 1784. Did +not rise till past nine; from that time till eleven, did little +more than indulge in idle reveries about balloons.' p. 3. 'July +20. The greater part of the time, till now, one o'clock, spent in +foolish reveries about balloons.' p. 12. Horace Walpole wrote on +Sept. 30 (</i>Letters<i>, viii. 505):—'I cannot fill my +paper, as the newspapers do, with air-balloons; which though +ranked with the invention of navigation, appear to me as childish +as the flying kites of school-boys.' 'Do not write about the +balloon,' wrote Johnson to Reynolds (</i>post<i>, p. 368), +'whatever else you may think proper to say.' In the beginning of +the year he had written:—'It is very seriously true that a +subscription of £800 has been raised for the wire and +workmanship of iron wings.'</i> Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. +345.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1105">[1105]</a> It is +remarkable that so good a Latin scholar as Johnson, should have +been so inattentive to the metre, as by mistake to have written +stellas <i>instead of</i> ignes<i>. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-1106">[1106]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Micat inter omnes + Julium sidus, velut inter ignes Luna minores.' + 'And like the Moon, the feebler fires among, + Conspicuous shines the Julian star.' + FRANCIS. Horace, Odes<i>, i. 12. 46. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-1107">[1107]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 209.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-1108">[1108]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'The little blood that creeps within his veins + Is but just warmed in a hot fever's pains.' + DRYDEN. Juvenal, Satires<i>, x. 217. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-1109">[1109]</a> +Lunardi had made, on Sept. 15, the first balloon ascent in +England. Gent. Mag<i>. 1784, p. 711. Johnson wrote to Mr. Ryland +on Sept. 18:—'I had this day in three letters three +histories of the Flying Man in the great Balloon.' He +adds:—'I live in dismal solitude.'</i> Notes and +Queries<i>, 5th S. vii. 381.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1110">[1110]</a> 'Sept. +27, 1784. Went to see Blanchard's balloon. Met Burke and D. +Burke; walked with them to Pantheon to see Lunardi's. Sept. 29. +About nine came to Brookes's, where I heard that the balloon had +been burnt about four o'clock.' Windham's Diary<i>, p. +24.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1111">[1111]</a> His +love of London continually appears. In a letter from him to Mrs. +Smart, wife of his friend the Poet, which is published in a +well-written life of him, prefixed to an edition of his Poems, in +1791, there is the following sentence:-'To one that has passed so +many years in the pleasures and opulence of London, there are few +places that can give much delight.'</p> +<p>Once, upon reading that line in the curious epitaph quoted in +The Spectator;</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Born in New-England, did in London die;' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>he laughed and said, 'I do not wonder at this. It would have +been strange, if born in London, he had died in New-England.' +BOSWELL. Mrs. Smart was in Dublin when Johnson wrote to her. +After the passage quoted by Boswell he continued:—'I think, +Madam, you may look upon your expedition as a proper preparative +to the voyage which we have often talked of. Dublin, though a +place much worse than London, is not so bad as Iceland.' Smart's +Poems<i>, i. xxi. For Iceland see</i> ante<i>, i. 242. The +epitaph, quoted in</i> The Spectator<i>, No. 518, +begins—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + Here Thomas Sapper lies interred. Ah why! + Born in New-England, did in London die.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-1112">[1112]</a> St. +Mark<i>, v. 34.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1113">[1113]</a> There +is no record of this in the Gent. Mag<i>. Among the 149 persons +who that summer had been sentenced to death (</i>ante<i>, p. 328) +who would notice these two?</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1114">[1114]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 356, note 1</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1115">[1115]</a> +Johnson wrote for him a Dedication of his Tasso <i>in 1763.</i> +Ante<i>, i. 383.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1116">[1116]</a> There +was no information for which Dr. Johnson was less grateful that +than for that which concerned the weather. It was in allusion to +his impatience with those who were reduced to keep conversation +alive by observations on the weather, that he applied the old +proverb to himself. If any one of his intimate acquaintance told +him it was hot or cold, wet or dry, windy or calm, he would stop +them, by saying, 'Poh! poh! you are telling us that of which none +but men in a mine or a dungeon can be ignorant. Let us bear with +patience, or enjoy in quiet, elementary changes, whether for the +better or the worse, as they are never secrets.' BURNEY. In The +Idler<i>, No. II, Johnson shews that 'an Englishman's notice of +the weather is the natural consequence of changeable skies and +uncertain seasons... In our island every man goes to sleep unable +to guess whether he shall behold in the morning a bright or +cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, +or broken by a tempest. We therefore rejoice mutually at good +weather, as at an escape from something that we feared; and +mutually complain of bad, as of the loss of something that we +hoped.' See</i> ante<i>, i. 332, and iv. 353.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1117">[1117]</a> His +Account of the Musical Performances in Commemoration of +Handel<i>. See</i> ante<i>, p. 283.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1118">[1118]</a> The +celebrated Miss Fanny Burney. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1119">[1119]</a> Dr. +Burney's letter must have been franked; otherwise there would +have been no frugality, for each enclosure was charged as a +separate letter.</p> +<p><a name="note-1120">[1120]</a> He +does not know, that is to say, what people of his acquaintance +were in town, privileged to receive letters post free; such as +members of either House of Parliament.</p> +<p><a name="note-1121">[1121]</a> +Consolation <i>is clearly a blunder, Malone's conjecture</i> +mortification <i>seems absurd.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1122">[1122]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 48, and iv. 177.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1123">[1123]</a> +Windham visited him at Ashbourne in the end of August, after the +former of these letters was written. See ante<i>, p. 356.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1124">[1124]</a> This +may refer, as Mr. Croker says, to Hamilton's generous offer, +mentioned ante<i>, p. 244. Yet Johnson, with his accurate mind, +was not likely to assign to the spring an event of the previous +November.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1125">[1125]</a> +Johnson refers to Pope's lines on Walpole:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Seen him I have but in his happier hour <i> Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power.' + </i> Satires. Epilogue<i>, i. 29. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-1126">[1126]</a> Son of +the late Peter Paradise, Esq. his Britannick Majesty's Consul at +Salonica, in Macedonia, by his lady, a native of that country. He +studied at Oxford, and has been honoured by that University with +the degree of LL.D. He is distinguished not only by his learning +and talents, but by an amiable disposition, gentleness of +manners, and a very general acquaintance with well-informed and +accomplished persons of almost all nations. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1127">[1127]</a> +Bookseller to his Majesty. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1128">[1128]</a> Mr. +Cruikshank attended him as a surgeon the year before. Ante<i>, p. +239.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1129">[1129]</a>Allan +Ramsay, Esq. painter to his Majesty, who died Aug. 10, 1784, in +the 71st year of his age, much regretted by his friends. BOSWELL. +See ante<i>, p. 260.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1130">[1130]</a> +Northcote (Life of Reynolds<i>, ii. 187) says that Johnson 'most +probably refers to Sir Joshua's becoming painter to the King. 'I +know,' he continues, 'that Sir Joshua expected the appointment +would be offered to him on the death of Ramsay, and expressed his +disapprobation with regard to soliciting for it; but he was +informed that it was a necessary point of etiquette, with which +at last he complied.' His 'furious purposes' should seem to have +been his intention to resign the Presidency of the Academy, on +finding that the place was not at once given him, and in the +knowledge that in the Academy there was a party against him. +Taylor's</i> Reynolds<i>, ii. 448.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1131">[1131]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 348.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1132">[1132]</a> The +Chancellor had not, it should seem, asked the King. See ante<i>, +p. 350, note.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1133">[1133]</a> The +Duke of Devonshire has kindly given me the following explanation +of this term:—'It was formerly the custom at some (I +believe several) of the large country-houses to have dinners at +which any of the neighbouring gentry and clergy might present +themselves as guests without invitation. The custom had been +discontinued at Chatsworth before my recollection, and so far as +I am aware is now only kept-up at Wentworth, Lord Fitzwilliam's +house in Yorkshire, where a few public dinners are still given +annually. I believe, however, that all persons intending to be +present on such occasions are now expected to give notice some +days previously. Public dinners were also given formerly by the +Archbishop of Canterbury, and if I am not mistaken also by the +Archbishop of York. I have myself been present at a public dinner +at Lambeth Palace within the last fifty years or thereabouts, and +I have been at one or more such dinners at Wentworth.' Since +receiving this explanation I have read the following in the +second part of the Greville Memoirs<i>, i. 99:—'June 1, +1838. I dined yesterday at Lambeth, at the Archbishop's public +dinner, the handsomest entertainment I ever saw. There were +nearly a hundred people present, all full-dressed or in uniform. +Nothing can be more dignified and splendid than the whole +arrangement.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1134">[1134]</a> Six +weeks later he was willing to hear even of balloons, so long as +he got a letter. 'You,' he wrote to Mr. Sastres, 'may always have +something to tell: you live among the various orders of mankind, +and may make a letter from the exploits, sometimes of the +philosopher, and sometimes of the pickpocket. You see some +balloons succeed and some miscarry, and a thousand strange and a +thousand foolish things.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. 412.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1135">[1135]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 349, note.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1136">[1136]</a> 'He +alludes probably to the place of King's Painter; which, since +Burke's reforming the King's household expenses, had been reduced +from £200 to £50 per annum.' Northcote's Reynolds<i>, +ii. 188. The place was more profitable than Johnson thought. 'It +was worth having from the harvest it brought in by the +multiplication of the faces of King and Queen as presents for +ambassadors and potentates.' This is shewn by the following note +in Sir Joshua's price-book:—'Nov. 28, 1789, remain in the +Academy five Kings, four Queens; in the house two Kings and one +Queen.' Taylor's</i> Reynolds<i>, ii. 449.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1137">[1137]</a> Mr. +Nichols published in 1782 Anecdotes of William Bowyer, +Printer<i>. In 1812-15 he brought out this work, recast and +enlarged, under the title of</i> Literary Anecdotes of the +Eighteenth Century<i>. See</i> ante<i>, p. 161.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1138">[1138]</a> In the +original (which is in the British Museum) not hints <i>but</i> +names<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1139">[1139]</a> On +Nov. 4, he wrote to Mr. Ryland:—'I have just received a +letter in which you tell me that you love to hear from me, and I +value such a declaration too much to neglect it. To have a +friend, and a friend like you, may be numbered amongst the first +felicities of life; at a time when weakness either of body or +mind loses the pride and the confidence of self-sufficiency, and +looks round for that help which perhaps human kindness cannot +give, and which we yet are willing to expect from one another. I +am at this time very much dejected.... I am now preparing myself +for my return, and do not despair of some more monthly meetings +[post<i>, Appendix C]. To hear that dear Payne is better gives me +great delight. I saw the draught of the stone [over Mrs. +Johnson's grave,</i> ante<i>, p. 351]. Shall I ever be able to +bear the sight of this stone? In your company I hope I shall.' +Mr. Morrison's</i> Autographs<i>, vol. ii.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1140">[1140]</a> To him +as a writer might be generally applied what he said of +Rochester:—'His pieces are commonly short, such as one fit +of resolution would produce.' Works<i>, vii. 159.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1141">[1141]</a> +Odes<i>, iv.7.</i> Works<i>, i. 137.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1142">[1142]</a> +Against inqitisitive and perplexing thoughts<i>. 'O LORD, my +Maker and Protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world +to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such +unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in +the practice of those duties which Thou hast required. When I +behold the works of thy hands, and consider the course of thy +providence, give me grace always to remember that thy thoughts +are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways. And while it shall +please Thee to continue me in this world, where much is to be +done, and little to be known, teach me by thy Holy Spirit, to +withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from +difficulties vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. +Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted, let me +serve Thee with active zeal and humble confidence, and wait with +patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou +receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge. Grant this, O LORD, +for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen.' BOSWELL.</i> Pr. and Med. <i>p. +219.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1143">[1143]</a> Life +of Johnson<i>, p. 599.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1144">[1144]</a> Porson +with admirable humour satirised Hawkins for his attack on Barber. +Gent. Mag. <i>1787, p. 752, and</i> Porson Tracts<i>, p. 358. +Baretti in his</i> Tolondron<i>, p. 149, says that 'Barber from +his earliest youth served Johnson with the greatest affection and +disinterestedness.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1145">[1145]</a> Vol. +ii. p. 30. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1146">[1146]</a> I +shall add one instance only to those which I have thought it +incumbent on me to point out. Talking of Mr. Garrick's having +signified his willingness to let Johnson have the loan of any of +his books to assist him in his edition of Shakspeare [ante<i>, +ii. 192]; Sir John says, (p. 444,) 'Mr. Garrick knew not what +risque he ran by this offer. Johnson had so strange a +forgetfulness of obligations of this sort, that few who lent him +books ever saw them again.' This surely conveys a most +unfavourable insinuation, and has been so understood. Sir John +mentions the single case of a curious edition of Politian +[</i>ante<i>, i. 90], which he tells us, 'appeared to belong to +Pembroke College, and which, probably, had been considered by +Johnson as his own, for upwards of fifty years.' Would it not be +fairer to consider this as an inadvertence, and draw no general +inference? The truth is, that Johnson was so attentive, that in +one of his manuscripts in my possession, he has marked in two +columns, books borrowed, and books lent.</i></p> +<p>In Sir John Hawkins's compilation, there are, however, some +passages concerning Johnson which have unquestionable merit. One +of them I shall transcribe, in justice to a writer whom I have +had too much occasion to censure, and to shew my fairness as the +biographer of my illustrious friend: 'There was wanting in his +conduct and behaviour, that dignity which results from a regular +and orderly course of action, and by an irresistible power +commands esteem. He could not be said to be a stayed man, nor so +to have adjusted in his mind the balance of reason and passion, +as to give occasion to say what may be observed of some men, that +all they do is just, fit, and right.' [Hawkins's Johnson<i>, p. +409.] Yet a judicious friend well suggests, 'It might, however, +have been added, that such men are often merely just, and rigidly +correct, while their hearts are cold and unfeeling; and that +Johnson's virtues were of a much higher tone than those of +the</i> stayed, orderly man<i>, here described.' BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1147">[1147]</a> 'Lich, +a dead carcase; whence Lichfield, the field of the dead, a city +in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians. Salve magna +parens.' <i>It is curious that in the Abridgment of the</i> +Dictionary <i>he struck out this salutation, though he left the +rest of the article.</i> Salve magna parens<i>, (Hail, mighty +parent) is from Virgil's</i> Georgics<i>, ii. 173. The Rev. T. +Twining, when at Lichfield in 1797, says:—'I visited the +famous large old willow-tree, which Johnson, they say, used to +kiss when he came to Lichfield.'</i> Recreations and Studies of a +Country Clergyman of the XVIII Century<i>, p. 227.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1148">[1148]</a> The +following circumstance, mutually to the honour of Johnson, and +the corporation of his native city, has been communicated to me +by the Reverend Dr. Vyse, from the Town-Clerk:—'Mr. Simpson +has now before him, a record of the respect and veneration which +the Corporation of Lichfield, in the year 1767, had for the +merits and learning of Dr. Johnson. His father built the +corner-house in the Market-place, the two fronts of which, +towards Market and Broad-market-street, stood upon waste land of +the Corporation, under a forty years' lease, which was then +expired. On the 15th of August, 1767, at a common-hall of the +bailiffs and citizens, it was ordered (and that without any +solicitation,) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson, +Doctor of Laws, of the encroachments at his house, for the term +of ninety-nine years, at the old rent, which was five shillings. +Of which, as Town-Clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure +of informing him, and that he was desired to accept it, without +paying any fine on the occasion, which lease was afterwards +granted, and the Doctor died possessed of this property.' +BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1149">[1149]</a> See +vol. i. p. 37. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1150">[1150]</a> +According to Miss Seward, who was Mr. White's cousin, 'Johnson +once called him "the rising strength of Lichfield."' Seward's +Letters<i>, i. 335.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1151">[1151]</a> The +Rev. R. Warner, who visited Lichfield in 1801, gives in his Tour +through the Northern Counties<i>, i. 105, a fuller account. He is +clearly wrong in the date of its occurrence, and in one other +matter, yet his story may in the main be true. He says that +Johnson's friends at Lichfield missed him one morning; the +servants said that he had set off at a very early hour, whither +they knew not. Just before supper he returned. He informed his +hostess of his breach of filial duty, which had happened just +fifty years before on that very day. 'To do away the sin of this +disobedience, I this day went,' he said, 'in a chaise to—, +and going into the market at the time of high business uncovered +my head, and stood with it bare an hour, before the stall which +my father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the +standers-by, and the inclemency of the weather.' This penance may +recall Dante's lines,—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Quando vivea più glorioso, disse, + Liberamente nel campo di Siena, + Ogni vergogna deposta, s'affisse.' + '"When at his glory's topmost height," said he, + "Respect of dignity all cast aside, + Freely he fix'd him on Sienna's plain."' + CARY. Dante, Purgatory<i>. Cant. xi. l. 133. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<center><a name= +"note-1152">[1152]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, + Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine.' + Pope, Essay on Man<i>, i. 221. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-1153">[1153]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 153, 296.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1154">[1154]</a> Mr. +Burke suggested to me as applicable to Johnson, what Cicero, in +his CATO MAJOR, says of Appius:—'Intentum enim animum +tanquam arcum habebat, nec languescens succumbebat senectuti<i>;' +repeating, at the same time, the following noble words in the +same passage:—</i>'Ita enim senectus honesta est, si se +ipsa defendit, si jus suum retinet, si nemini emancipata est, si +usque ad extremum vitae spiritum vindicet jus suum<i>.' BOSWELL. +The last line runs in the original:-'si usque ad ultimum spiritum +dominatur in suos.'</i> Cato Major<i>, xi. 38.</i></p> +<center><a name= +"note-1155">[1155]</a></center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'atrocem <i>animum Catonis.' + 'Cato— + Of spirit unsubdued.' + FRANCIS. Horace, 2</i> Odes<i>, i. 24. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-1156">[1156]</a> Yet +Baretti, who knew Johnson well, in a MS. note on Piozzi +Letters<i>, i.315, says:—'If ever Johnson took any delight +in anything it was to converse with some old acquaintance. New +people he never loved to be in company with, except ladies, when +disposed to caress and flatter him.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1157">[1157]</a> +Johnson, thirty-four years earlier, wrote:—'I think there +is some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not +so proportioned that the one can bear all that can be inflicted +on the other; whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as +life, and whether a soul well principled will not be separated +sooner than subdued.' The Rambler<i>, No. 32. He wrote to Mrs. +Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:—'But what if I am seventy-two; I +remember Sulpitius says of Saint Martin (now that's above your +reading),</i> Est animus victor annorum, et senectuti cedere +nescius<i>. Match me that among your young folks.'</i> Piozzi +Letters<i>, ii. 177. On Sept. 2, 1784, he wrote to Mr. Sastres +the Italian master:—'I have hope of standing the English +winter, and of seeing you, and reading</i> Petrarch <i>at +Bolt-court.'</i> Ib<i>. p. 407.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1158">[1158]</a> Life +of Johnson<i>, p. 7.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1159">[1159]</a> It is +a most agreeable circumstance attending the publication of this +Work, that Mr. Hector has survived his illustrious schoolfellow +so many years; that he still retains his health and spirits; and +has gratified me with the following acknowledgement: 'I thank +you, most sincerely thank you, for the great and long continued +entertainment your Life of Dr. Johnson <i>has afforded me, and +others, of my particular friends.' Mr. Hector, besides setting me +right as to the verses on a sprig of Myrtle, (see vol. i. p. 92, +note,) has favoured me with two English odes, written by Dr. +Johnson, at an early period of his life, which will appear in my +edition of his poems. BOSWELL. See</i> ante<i>, i. 16, note +1.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1160">[1160]</a> The +editor of the Biographia Britannica. Ante<i>, iii. 174.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1161">[1161]</a> On +Dec. 23, Miss Adams wrote to a friend:—'We are all under +the sincerest grief for the loss of poor Dr. Johnson. He spent +three or four days with my father at Oxford, and promised to come +again; as he was, he said, nowhere so happy.' Pemb. Coll. +MSS.</p> +<p><a name="note-1162">[1162]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 293.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1163">[1163]</a> Mr. +Strahan says (Preface, p. iv.) that Johnson, being hindered by +illness from revising these prayers, 'determined to give the +MSS., without revision, in charge to me. Accordingly one morning, +on my visiting him by desire at an early hour, he put these +papers into my hands, with instructions for committing them to +the press, and with a promise to prepare a sketch of his own life +to accompany them.' Whatever Johnson wished about the prayers, it +passes belief that he ever meant for the eye of the world these +minute accounts of his health and his feelings. Some parts indeed +Mr. Strahan himself suppressed, as the Pemb. Coll. MSS. shew +(ante<i>, p. 84, note 4). It is curious that one portion at least +fell into other hands (</i>ante<i>, ii. 476). There are other +apparent gaps in the diary which raise the suspicion that it was +only fragments that Mr. Strahan obtained. On the other hand Mr. +Strahan had nothing to gain by the publication beyond notoriety +(see his Preface, p. vi.). Dr. Adams, whose name is mentioned in +the preface, expressed in a letter to the</i> Gent. Mag. <i>1785, +p. 755, his disapproval of the publication. Mr. Courtenay +(</i>Poetical Review<i>, ed. 1786, p. 7), thus attacked Mr. +Strahan:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Let priestly S—h—n in a godly fit + The tale relate, in aid of Holy Writ; + Though candid Adams, by whom David fell [A], + Who ancient miracles sustained so well, + To recent wonders may deny his aid, + Nor own a pious brother of the trade.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>[A] The Rev. Dr. Adams of Oxford, distinguished for his answer +to David Hume's Essay on Miracles<i>.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1164">[1164]</a> +Johnson once said to Miss Burney of her brother Charles:—'I +should be glad to see him if he were not your brother; but were +he a dog, a cat, a rat, a frog, and belonged to you, I must needs +be glad to see him.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, ii. 233. On Nov. +25 she called on him. 'He let me in, though very ill. He told me +he was going to try what sleeping out of town might do for him. +"I remember," said he, "that my wife, when she was near her end, +poor woman, was also advised to sleep out of town; and when she +was carried to the lodgings that had been prepared for her, she +complained that the staircase was in very bad condition, for the +plaster was beaten off the walls in many places." "Oh!" said the +man of the house, "that's nothing but by the knocks against it of +the coffins of the poor souls that have died in the lodgings." He +laughed, though not without apparent secret anguish, in telling +me this.' Miss Burney continues:—'How delightfully bright +are his faculties, though the poor and infirm machine that +contains them seems alarmingly giving way. Yet, all brilliant as +he was, I saw him growing worse, and offered to go, which, for +the first time I ever remember, he did not oppose; but most +kindly pressing both my hands, "Be not," he said, in a voice of +even tenderness, "be not longer in coming again for my letting +you go now." I assured him I would be the sooner, and was running +off, but he called me back in a solemn voice, and in a manner the +most energetic, said:—"Remember me in your prayers."' Mme. +D'Arblay's</i> Diary<i>, ii. 327. See</i> ante<i>, iii. 367, note +4.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1165">[1165]</a> Mr. +Hector's sister and Johnson's first love. Ante<i>, ii. +459.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1166">[1166]</a> The +Rev. Dr. Taylor. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1167">[1167]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 474, and iii. 180.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1168">[1168]</a> +'Reliquum est, [Greek: Sphartan elaches, tahutan khusmei].' +<i>Cicero,</i> Epistolae ad Atticum<i>, iv. 6. 'Spartam nactus +es, hanc orna.' Erasmus,</i> Adagiorum Chiliades<i>, ed. 1559, p. +485.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1169">[1169]</a> Temple +says of the spleen that it is a disease too refined for this +country and people, who are well when they are not ill, and +pleased when they are not troubled; are content, because they +think little of it, and seek their happiness in the common eases +and commodities of life, or the increase of riches; not amusing +themselves with the more speculative contrivances of passion, or +refinements of pleasure.' Temple's Works<i>, ed. 1757, i. +170.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1170">[1170]</a> It is +truly wonderful to consider the extent and constancy of Johnson's +literary ardour, notwithstanding the melancholy which clouded and +embittered his existence. Besides the numerous and various works +which he executed, he had, at different times, formed schemes of +a great many more, of which the following catalogue was given by +him to Mr. Langton, and by that gentleman presented to his +Majesty:</p> +<center>'DIVINITY.</center> +<p>'A small book of precepts and directions for piety; the hint +taken from the directions in Morton's exercise.</p> +<p>'PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, and LITERATURE in general.</p> +<p>'History of Criticism<i>, as it relates to judging of +authours, from Aristotle to the present age. An account of the +rise and improvements of that art; of the different opinions of +authours, ancient and modern.</i></p> +<p>'Translation of the History of Herodian<i>.</i></p> +<p>'New edition of Fairfax's Translation of Tasso<i>, with notes, +glossary, &c.</i></p> +<p>'Chaucer, a new edition of him, from manuscripts and old +editions, with various readings, conjectures, remarks on his +language, and the changes it had undergone from the earliest +times to his age, and from his to the present: with notes +explanatory of customs, &c., and references to Boccace, and +other authours from whom he has borrowed, with an account of the +liberties he has taken in telling the stories; his life, and an +exact etymological glossary.</p> +<p>'Aristotle's Rhetorick<i>, a translation of it into +English.</i></p> +<p>'A Collection of Letters, translated from the modern writers, +with some account of the several authours.</p> +<p>'Oldham's Poems, with notes, historical and critical.</p> +<p>'Roscommon's Poems, with notes.</p> +<p>'Lives of the Philosophers, written with a polite air, in such +a manner as may divert as well as instruct.</p> +<p>'History of the Heathen Mythology, with an explication of the +fables, both allegorical and historical; with references to the +poets.</p> +<p>'History of the State of Venice, in a compendious manner.</p> +<p>'Aristotle's Ethicks<i>, an English translation of them, with +notes.</i></p> +<p>'Geographical Dictionary, from the French.</p> +<p>'Hierocles upon Pythagoras, translated into English, perhaps +with notes. This is done by Norris.</p> +<p>'A book of Letters, upon all kinds of subjects.</p> +<p>'Claudian, a new edition of his works, cum notis variorum<i>, +in the manner of Burman.</i></p> +<p>'Tully's Tusculan Questions, a translation of them.</p> +<p>'Tully's De Naturâ Deorum, a translation of those +books.</p> +<p>'Benzo's New History of the New World, to be translated.</p> +<p>'Machiavel's History of Florence, to be translated.</p> +<p>'History of the Revival of Learning in Europe, containing an +account of whatever contributed to the restoration of literature; +such as controversies, printing, the destruction of the Greek +empire, the encouragement of great men, with the lives of the +most eminent patrons and most eminent early professors of all +kinds of learning in different countries.</p> +<p>'A Body of Chronology, in verse, with historical notes.</p> +<p>'A Table of the Spectators, Tatlers, and Guardians, +distinguished by figures into six degrees of value, with notes, +giving the reasons of preference or degradation.</p> +<p>'A Collection of Letters from English authours, with a preface +giving some account of the writers; with reasons for selection, +and criticism upon styles; remarks on each letter, if +needful.</p> +<p>'A Collection of Proverbs from various languages. Jan. +6,—53.</p> +<p>'A Dictionary to the Common Prayer, in imitation of Calmet's +Dictionary of the Bible<i>. March, 52.</i></p> +<p>'A Collection of Stories and Examples, like those of Valerius +Maximus. Jan. 10,—53.</p> +<p>'From Aelian, a volume of select Stories, perhaps from others. +Jan.</p> +<center>28,-53.</center> +<p>'Collection of Travels, Voyages, Adventures, and Descriptions +of Countries.</p> +<p>'Dictionary of Ancient History and Mythology.</p> +<p>'Treatise on the Study of Polite Literature, containing the +history of learning, directions for editions, commentaries, +&c.</p> +<p>'Maxims, Characters, and Sentiments, after the manner of +Bruyère, collected out of ancient authours, particularly +the Greek, with Apophthegms.</p> +<p>'Classical Miscellanies, Select Translations from ancient +Greek and Latin authours.</p> +<p>'Lives of Illustrious Persons, as well of the active as the +learned, in imitation of Plutarch.</p> +<p>'Judgement of the learned upon English authours.</p> +<p>'Poetical Dictionary of the English tongue.</p> +<p>'Considerations upon the present state of London.</p> +<p>'Collection of Epigrams, with notes and observations.</p> +<p>'Observations on the English language, relating to words, +phrases, and modes of Speech.</p> +<p>'Minutiae Literariae, Miscellaneous reflections, criticisms, +emendations, notes.</p> +<p>'History of the Constitution.</p> +<p>'Comparison of Philosophical and Christian Morality, by +sentences collected from the moralists and fathers.</p> +<p>'Plutarch's Lives, in English, with notes.</p> +<p>'POETRY and works of IMAGINATION.</p> +<p>'Hymn to Ignorance.</p> +<p>'The Palace of Sloth,—a vision.</p> +<p>'Coluthus, to be translated.</p> +<p>'Prejudice,—a poetical essay.</p> +<p>'The Palace of Nonsense,—a vision.'</p> +<p>Johnson's extraordinary facility of composition, when he shook +off his constitutional indolence, and resolutely sat down to +write, is admirably described by Mr. Courtenay, in his Poetical +Review, which I have several times quoted:</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'While through life's maze he sent a piercing view, + His mind expansive to the object grew. + With various stores of erudition fraught, + The lively image, the deep-searching thought, + Slept in repose;—but when the moment press'd, + The bright ideas stood at once confess'd; + Instant his genius sped its vigorous rays, + And o'er the letter'd world diffus'd a blaze: + As womb'd with fire the cloud electrick flies, + And calmly o'er th' horizon seems to rise; + Touch'd by the pointed steel, the lightning flows, + And all th' expanse with rich effulgence glows.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>We shall in vain endeavour to know with exact precision every +production of Johnson's pen. He owned to me, that he had written +about forty sermons; but as I understood that he had given or +sold them to different persons, who were to preach them as their +own, he did not consider himself at liberty to acknowledge them. +Would those who were thus aided by him, who are still alive, and +the friends of those who are dead, fairly inform the world, it +would be obligingly gratifying a reasonable curiosity, to which +there should, I think, now be no objection. Two volumes of them, +published since his death, are sufficiently ascertained; see vol. +iii. p. 181. I have before me, in his hand-writing, a fragment of +twenty quarto leaves, of a translation into English of Sallust, +De Bella Catilinario<i>. When it was done I have no notion; but +it seems to have no very superior merit to mark it as his. Beside +the publications heretofore mentioned, I am satisfied, from +internal evidence, to admit also as genuine the following, which, +notwithstanding all my chronological care, escaped me in the +course of this work:</i></p> +<p>'Considerations on the Case of Dr. Trapp's Sermons,' + +published in 1739, in the Gentleman's Magazine<i>. [These +Considerations were published, not in 1739, but in 1787.</i> +Ante<i>, i. 140, note 5.] It is a very ingenious defence of the +right of</i> abridging <i>an authour's work, without being held +as infringing his property. This is one of the nicest questions +in the</i> Law of Literature<i>; and I cannot help thinking, that +the indulgence of abridging is often exceedingly injurious to +authours and booksellers, and should in very few cases be +permitted. At any rate, to prevent difficult and uncertain +discussion, and give an absolute security to authours in the +property of their labours, no abridgement whatever should be +permitted, till after the expiration of such a number of years as +the Legislature may be pleased to fix.</i></p> +<p>But, though it has been confidently ascribed to him, I cannot +allow that he wrote a Dedication to both Houses of Parliament of +a book entitled The Evangelical History Harmonized<i>. He was +no</i> croaker<i>; no declaimer against</i> the times<i>. +[See</i> ante<i>, ii. 357.] He would not have written, 'That we +are fallen upon an age in which corruption is not barely +universal, is universally confessed.' Nor 'Rapine preys on the +publick without opposition, and perjury betrays it without +inquiry.' Nor would he, to excite a speedy reformation, have +conjured up such phantoms of terrour as these: 'A few years +longer, and perhaps all endeavours will be in vain. We may be +swallowed by an earthquake: we may be delivered to our enemies.' +This is not Johnsonian.</i></p> +<p>There are, indeed, in this Dedication, several sentences +constructed upon the model of those of Johnson. But the imitation +of the form, without the spirit of his style, has been so +general, that this of itself is not sufficient evidence. Even our +newspaper writers aspire to it. In an account of the funeral of +Edwin, the comedian, in The Diary <i>of Nov. 9, 1790, that son of +drollery is thus described: 'A man who had so often cheered the +sullenness of vacancy, and suspended the approaches of sorrow.' +And in</i> The Dublin Evening Post<i>, August 16, 1791, there is +the following paragraph: 'It is a singular circumstance, that, in +a city like this, containing 200,000 people, there are three +months in the year during which no place of publick amusement is +open. Long vacation is here a vacation from pleasure, as well as +business; nor is there any mode of passing the listless evenings +of declining summer, but in the riots of a tavern, or the +stupidity of a coffee-house.'</i></p> +<p>I have not thought it necessary to specify every copy of +verses written by Johnson, it being my intention to, publish an +authentick edition of all his Poetry, with notes. BOSWELL. This +Catalogue<i>, as Mr. Boswell calls it, is by Dr. Johnson +intitled</i> Designs<i>. It seems from the hand that it was +written early in life: from the marginal dates it appears that +some portions were added in 1752 and 1753. CROKER.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1171">[1171]</a> On +April 19 of this year he wrote: 'When I lay sleepless, I used to +drive the night along by turning Greek epigrams into Latin. I +know not if I have not turned a hundred.' Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. +364. Forty-five years earlier he described how Boerhaave, 'when +he lay whole days and nights without sleep, found no method of +diverting his thoughts so effectual as meditation upon his +studies, and often relieved and mitigated the sense of his +torments by the recollection of what he had read, and by +reviewing those stores of knowledge which he had reposited in his +memory.'</i> Works<i>, vi. 284.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1172">[1172]</a> Mr. +Cumberland assures me, that he was always treated with great +courtesy by Dr. Johnson, who, in his Letters to Mrs. Thrale<i>, +vol. ii. p. 68 thus speaks of that learned, ingenious, and +accomplished gentleman: 'The want of company is an inconvenience: +but Mr. Cumberland is a million.' BOSWELL. Northcote, according +to Hazlitt (</i>Conversations of Northcote<i>, p. 275), said that +Johnson and his friends 'never admitted +C——[Cumberland] as one of the set; Sir Joshua did not +invite him to dinner. If he had been in the room, Goldsmith would +have flown out of it as if a dragon had been there. I remember +Garrick once saying, "D—n his</i> dish-clout <i>face; his +plays would never do, if it were not for my patching them up and +acting in them."'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1173">[1173]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 64, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1174">[1174]</a> Dr. +Parr said, "There are three great Grecians in England: Porson is +the first; Burney is the third; and who is the second I need not +tell"' Field's Parr<i>, ii. 215.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1175">[1175]</a> 'Dr. +Johnson,' said Parr, 'was an admirable scholar.... The classical +scholar was forgotten in the great original contributor to the +literature of his country.' Ib. <i>i. 164. 'Upon his correct and +profound knowledge of the Latin language,' he wrote, 'I have +always spoken with unusual zeal and unusual confidence.' +Johnson's</i> Parr<i>, iv. 679. Mrs. Piozzi (</i>Anec. <i>p. 54) +recounts a 'triumph' gained by Johnson in a talk on Greek +literature.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1176">[1176]</a> +Ante<i>, iii. 172.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1177">[1177]</a> We +must smile at a little inaccuracy of metaphor in the Preface to +the Transactions<i>, which is written by Mr. Burrowes. The</i> +critick of the style of <i>JOHNSON having, with a just zeal for +literature, observed, that the whole nation are called on to +exert themselves, afterwards says: 'They are</i> called on <i>by +every</i> tye <i>which can have a laudable influence on the heart +of man.' BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1178">[1178]</a> +Johnson's wishing to unite himself with this rich widow, was much +talked of, but I believe without foundation. The report, however, +gave occasion to a poem, not without characteristical merit, +entitled, 'Ode to Mrs. Thrale, by Samuel Johnson, LL.D. on their +supposed approaching Nuptials; printed for Mr. Faulder in +Bond-street.' I shall quote as a specimen the first three +stanzas:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'If e'er my fingers touch'd the lyre, + In satire fierce, in pleasure gay; + Shall not my THRALIA'S smiles inspire? + Shall Sam refuse the sportive lay? + My dearest Lady! view your slave, + Behold him as your very Scrub<i>; + Eager to write, as authour grave, + Or govern well, the brewing-tub. + To rich felicity thus raised, + My bosom glows with amorous fire; + Porter no longer shall be praised, + 'Tis I MYSELF am</i> Thrale's Entire<i>' +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-1179">[1179]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 44.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1180">[1180]</a> +'Higledy piggledy<i>,—Conglomeration and confusion.</i></p> +<p>'Hodge-podge<i>,—A culinary mixture of heterogeneous +ingredients: applied metaphorically to all discordant +combinations.</i></p> +<p>'Tit for Tat<i>,—Adequate retaliation.</i></p> +<p>'Shilly Shally<i>,—Hesitation and irresolution.</i></p> +<p>'Fee! fau! fum!—Gigantic intonations.</p> +<p><i>Rigmarole</i>,-Discourse, incoherent and rhapsodical.</p> +<p>'<i>Crincum-crancum</i>,—Lines of irregularity and +involution.</p> +<p>'<i>Dingdong</i>—Tintinabulary chimes, used +metaphorically to signify dispatch and vehemence.' BOSWELL. In +all the editions that I have examined the sentence in the text +beginning with 'annexed,' and ending with 'concatenation,' is +printed as if it were Boswell's. It is a quotation from vol. ii. +p. 93 of Colman's book. For <i>Scrub</i>, see <i>ante</i>, iii. +70, note 2.</p> +<p><a name="note-1181">[1181]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, iii. 173.</p> +<p><a name="note-1182">[1182]</a> +<i>History of America</i>, vol. i. quarto, p. 332. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1183">[1183]</a> Gibbon +(<i>Misc. Works</i>, i. 219) thus writes of his own +style:—'The style of an author should be the image of his +mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of +exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the +middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical +declamation; three times did I compose the first chapter, and +twice the second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with +their effect.' See <i>ante</i>, p. 36, note 1.</p> +<p><a name="note-1184">[1184]</a> +<i>Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</i>, vol. i. chap. +iv.</p> +<center>BOSWELL.</center> +<p><a name="note-1185">[1185]</a> +Macaulay (<i>Essays</i>, ed. 1874, iv. 157) gives a yet better +example of her Johnsonian style, though, as I have shewn +(<i>ante</i>, p. 223, note 5), he is wrong in saying that +Johnson's hand can be seen.</p> +<p><a name="note-1186">[1186]</a> +<i>Cecilia</i>, Book. vii. chap. i. [v.] BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1187">[1187]</a> The +passage which I quote is taken from that gentleman's <i>Elements +of Orthoepy</i>; containing a distinct View of the whole Analogy +of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, so far as relates to <i>Pronunciation, +Accent, and Quantity</i>, London, 1784. I beg leave to offer my +particular acknowledgements to the authour of a work of uncommon +merit and great utility. I know no book which contains, in the +same compass, more learning, polite literature, sound sense, +accuracy of arrangement, and perspicuity of expression. +BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1188">[1188]</a> That +collection was presented to Dr. Johnson, I believe by its +authours; and I heard him speak very well of it. BOSWELL. <i>The +Mirror</i> was published in 1779-80; by 1793 it reached its ninth +edition. For an account of it see Appendix DD. to Forbes's +<i>Beattie</i>. Henry Mackenzie, the author of <i>The Man of +Feeling</i>, was the chief contributor as well as the conductor +of the paper. He is given as the author of No. 16 in Lynam's +edition, p. 1.</p> +<p><a name="note-1189">[1189]</a> The +name of Vicesimus Knox is now scarcely known. Yet so late as 1824 +his collected <i>Works</i> were published in seven octavo +volumes. The editor says of his <i>Essays</i> (i. iii):—'In +no department of the <i>Belles Lettres</i> has any publication, +excepting the <i>Spectator</i>, been so extensively circulated. +It has been translated into most of the European languages.' See +<i>ante</i>, i. 222, note 1; iii. 13, note 3; and iv. 330.</p> +<p><a name="note-1190">[1190]</a> +<i>Lucretius</i>, iii. 6.</p> +<p><a name="note-1191">[1191]</a> It +were to be wished, that he had imitated that great man in every +respect, and had not followed the example of Dr. Adam Smith +[<i>ante</i>, iii. 13, note 1] in ungraciously attacking his +venerable <i>Alma Mater</i> Oxford. It must, however, be +observed, that he is much less to blame than Smith: he only +objects to certain particulars; Smith to the whole institution; +though indebted for much of his learning to an exhibition which +he enjoyed for many years at Baliol College. Neither of them, +however, will do any hurt to the noblest university in the world. +While I animadvert on what appears to me exceptionable in some of +the works of Dr. Knox, I cannot refuse due praise to others of +his productions; particularly his sermons, and to the spirit with +which he maintains, against presumptuous hereticks, the +consolatory doctrines peculiar to the Christian Revelation. This +he has done in a manner equally strenuous and conciliating. +Neither ought I to omit mentioning a remarkable instance of his +candour: Notwithstanding the wide difference of our opinions, +upon the important subject of University education, in a letter +to me concerning this Work, he thus expresses himself: 'I thank +you for the very great entertainment your <i>Life of Johnson</i> +gives me. It is a most valuable work. Yours is a new species of +biography. Happy for Johnson, that he had so able a recorder of +his wit and wisdom.' BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1192">[1192]</a> Dr. +Knox, in his <i>Moral and Literary</i> abstraction, may be +excused for not knowing the political regulations of his country. +No senator can be in the hands of a bailiff. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1193">[1193]</a> It is +entitled <i>A Continuation of Dr. J—n's Criticism on the +Poems of Gray</i>. The following is perhaps the best +passage:—'On some fine evening Gray had seen the moon +shining on a tower such as is here described. An owl might be +peeping out from the ivy with which it was clad. Of the observer +the station might be such that the owl, now emerged from the +mantling, presented itself to his eye in profile, skirting with +the Moon's limb. All this is well. The perspective is striking; +and the picture well defined. But the poet was not contented. He +felt a desire to enlarge it; and in executing his purpose gave it +accumulation without improvement. The idea of the Owl's +<i>complaining</i> is an artificial one; and the views on which +it proceeds absurd. Gray should have seen, that it but ill +befitted the <i>Bird of Wisdom</i> to complain to the Moon of an +intrusion which the Moon could no more help than herself.' p. 17. +Johnson wrote of this book:—'I know little of it, for +though it was sent me I never cut the leaves open. I had a letter +with it representing it to me as my own work; in such an account +to the publick there may be humour, but to myself it was neither +serious nor comical. I suspect the writer to be wrong-headed.' +<i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. 289. 'I was told,' wrote Walpole +(<i>Letters</i>, viii. 376), 'it would divert me, that it seems +to criticise Gray, but really laughs at Johnson. I sent for it +and skimmed it over, but am not at all clear what it +means—no recommendation of anything. I rather think the +author wishes to be taken by Gray's admirers for a ridiculer of +Johnson, and by the tatter's for a censurer of Gray.' '"The +cleverest parody of the Doctor's style of criticism," wrote Sir +Walter Scott, "is by John Young of Glasgow, and is very +capital."' <i>Croker Corres</i>, ii. 34.</p> +<p><a name="note-1194">[1194]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, iv. 59, for Burke's description of Croft's +imitation.</p> +<p><a name="note-1195">[1195]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, ii. 465.</p> +<center><a name="note-1196">[1196]</a> +H.S.E.</center> +<center>MICHAEL JOHNSON,</center> +<p>Vir impavidus, constans, animosus, periculorum immemor, +laborum patientissimus; fiducia christiana fortis, fervidusque; +paterfamilias apprime strenuus; bibliopola admodum peritus; mente +et libris et negotiis exculta; animo ita firmo, ut, rebus +adversis diu conflictatus, nec sibi nec suis defuerit; lingua sic +temperata, ut ei nihil quod aures vel pias, vel castas laesisset, +aut dolor, vel voluptas unquam expresserit.</p> +<p>Natus Cubleiae, in agro Derbiensi,</p> +<p>Anno MDCLVI.</p> +<p>Obiit MDCCXXXI.</p> +<p>Apposita est SARA, conjux,</p> +<p>Antiqua FORDORUM gente oriunda; quam domi sedulam, foris +paucis notam; nulli molestam, mentis acumine et judicii +subtilitate praecellentem; aliis multum, sibi parum indulgentem: +aeternitati semper attentam, omne fere virtutis nomen +commendavit.</p> +<p>Nata Nortoniae Regis, in agro Varvicensi, Anno MDCLXIX;</p> +<p>Obiit MDCCLIX.</p> +<p>Cum NATHANAELE, illorum filio, qui natus MDCCXII, cum vires et +animi et corporis multa pollicerentur, anno MDCCXXXVII, vitam +brevem pia morte finivit. Johnson's <i>Works</i>, i. 150.</p> +<p><a name="note-1197">[1197]</a> +Hawkins (<i>Life</i>, p. 590) says that he asked that the stone +over his own grave 'might be so placed as to protect his body +from injury.' Harwood (<i>History of Lichfield</i>, p. 520) says +that the stone in St. Michael's was removed in 1796, when the +church was paved. A fresh one with the old inscriptions was +placed in the church on the hundredth anniversary of Johnson's +death by Robert Thorp, Esq., of Buxton Road House, Macclesfield. +The Rev. James Serjeantson, Rector of St. Michael's, suggests to +me that the first stone was never set up. It is, he says, +unlikely that such a memorial within a dozen years was treated so +unworthily. Moreover in 1841 and again in 1883, during +reparations of the church, a very careful search was made for it, +but without result. There may have been, he thinks, some +difficulty in finding the exact place of interment. The matter +may have stood over till it was forgotten, and the mason, whose +receipted bill shews that he was paid for the stone, may have +used it for some other purpose.</p> +<p><a name="note-1198">[1198]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, i. 241, and iv. 351.</p> +<p><a name="note-1199">[1199]</a> 'He +would also,' says Hawkins (<i>Life</i>, p. 579), 'have written in +Latin verse an epitaph for Mr. Garrick, but found himself unequal +to the task of original poetic composition in that language.'</p> +<p><a name="note-1200">[1200]</a> In his +<i>Life of Browne</i>, Johnson wrote:—'The time will come +to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear +to die; and it has appeared that our author's fortitude did not +desert him in the great hour of trial.' <i>Works</i>, vi. +499.</p> +<p><a name="note-1201">[1201]</a> A Club +in London, founded by the learned and ingenious physician, Dr. +Ash, in honour of whose name it was called Eumelian, from the +Greek [Greek: Eumelias]; though it was warmly contended, and even +put to a vote, that it should have the more obvious appellation +of <i>Fraxinean</i>, from the Latin. BOSWELL. This club, founded +in 1788, met at the Blenheim Tavern, Bond-street. Reynolds, +Boswell, Burney, and Windham were members. Rose's <i>Biog. +Dict.</i> ii. 240. [Greek: Eummeliaes] means <i>armed with good +ashen spear</i>.</p> +<p><a name="note-1202">[1202]</a> Mrs. +Thrale's <i>Collection</i>, March 10,1784. Vol. ii. p. 350.</p> +<center>BOSWELL.</center> +<p><a name="note-1203">[1203]</a> +Hawkins's <i>Life of Johnson</i>, p. 583.</p> +<p><a name="note-1204">[1204]</a> See +what he said to Mr. Malone, p. 53 of this volume. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1205">[1205]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, i. 223, note 2.</p> +<p><a name="note-1206">[1206]</a> +<i>Epistle to the Romans</i>, vii. 23.</p> +<p><a name="note-1207">[1207]</a> +'Johnson's passions,' wrote Reynolds, 'were like those of other +men, the difference only lay in his keeping a stricter watch over +himself. In petty circumstances this [? his] wayward disposition +appeared, but in greater things he thought it worth while to +summon his recollection and be always on his guard.... [To them +that loved him not] as rough as winter; to those who sought his +love as mild as summer—many instances will readily occur to +those who knew him intimately of the guard which he endeavoured +always to keep over himself.' Taylor's <i>Reynolds</i>, ii. 460. +See <i>ante</i>, i. 94, 164, 201, and iv. 215.</p> +<p><a name="note-1208">[1208]</a> +<i>Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides</i>, 3d ed. p. 209. +[<i>Post</i>, v. 211.] On the same subject, in his Letter to Mrs. +Thrale, dated Nov. 29, 1783, he makes the following just +observation:—'Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must +be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or +better than in time past. The mind is enlarged and elevated by +mere purposes, though they end as they began [in the original, +<i>begin</i>], by airy contemplation. We compare and judge, +though we do not practise.' BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1209">[1209]</a> +<i>Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides</i>, p. 374. [<i>Post</i>, +v. 359.]</p> +<center>BOSWELL.</center> +<p><a name="note-1210">[1210]</a> +<i>Psalm</i> xix. 13.</p> +<p><a name="note-1211">[1211]</a> <i>Pr. +and Med.</i> p.47. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1212">[1212]</a> +<i>Ib.</i> p. 68 BOSWELL</p> +<p><a name="note-1213">[1213]</a> +<i>Ib.</i> p. 84 BOSWELL</p> +<p><a name="note-1214">[1214]</a> +<i>Ib.</i> p. 120. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1215">[1215]</a> Pr. +and Med. p. 130. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1216">[1216]</a> Dr. +Johnson related, with very earnest approbation, a story of a +gentleman, who, in an impulse of passion, overcame the virtue of +a young woman. When she said to him, 'I am afraid we have done +wrong!' he answered, 'Yes, we have done wrong;—for I would +not <i>debauch her mind</i>.' BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1217">[1217]</a> <i>St. +John</i>, viii. 7.</p> +<p><a name="note-1218">[1218]</a> <i>Pr. +and Med.</i> p. 192. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1219">[1219]</a> See +<i>ante</i>, iii. 155.</p> +<p><a name="note-1220">[1220]</a> +Boswell, on Feb. 10, 1791, describing to Malone the progress of +his book, says:—'I have now before me p. 488 [of vol. ii.] +in print; and 923 pages of the copy [MS.] only is exhausted, and +there remains 80, besides the <i>death</i>; as to which I shall +be concise, though solemn. Pray how shall I wind up? Shall I give +the <i>character</i> from my <i>Tour</i> somewhat enlarged?' +Croker's <i>Boswell</i>, p. 829. Mr. Croker is clearly in error +in saying (<i>ib.</i> p. 800) that 'Mr. Boswell's absence and the +jealousy between him and some of Johnson's other friends +prevented his being able to give the particulars which he (Mr. +Croker) has supplied in the Appendix.' In this Appendix is Mr. +Hoole's narrative which Boswell had seen and used (<i>post</i>, +p. 406).</p> +<p><a name="note-1221">[1221]</a> +<i>Psalm</i> lxxxii. 7.</p> +<p><a name="note-1222">[1222]</a> See +Appendix E.</p> +<p><a name="note-1223">[1223]</a> 'On +being asked in his last illness what physician he had sent for, +"Dr. Heberden," replied he, "<i>ultimus Romanorum</i>, the last +of the learned physicians."' Seward's <i>Biographiana</i>, p. +601.</p> +<p><a name="note-1224">[1224]</a> Mr. +Green related that when some of Johnson's friends desired that +Dr. Warren should be called in, he said they might call in whom +they pleased; and when Warren was called, at his going away +Johnson said, 'You have come in at the eleventh hour, but you +shall be paid the same with your fellow-labourers. Francis, put +into Dr. Warren's coach a copy of the <i>English Poets</i>.' +CROKER. Dr. Warren ten years later attended Boswell in his last +illness. <i>Letters of Boswell</i>, p. 355. He was the +great-grandfather of Col. Sir Charles Warren, G.C.M.G., F.R.S., +Chief Commissioner of Police.</p> +<p><a name="note-1225">[1225]</a> This +bold experiment, Sir John Hawkins has related in such a manner as +to suggest a charge against Johnson of intentionally hastening +his end; a charge so very inconsistent with his character in +every respect, that it is injurious even to refute it, as Sir +John has thought it necessary to do. It is evident, that what +Johnson did in hopes of relief, indicated an extraordinary +eagerness to retard his dissolution. BOSWELL. Murphy +(<i>Life</i>, p. 122) says that 'for many years, when Johnson was +not disposed to enter into the conversation going forward, +whoever sat near his chair might hear him repeating from +Shakespeare [<i>Measure for Measure</i>, act iii. sc. +i]:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "Ay, but to die and go we know not where; + To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; + This sensible warm motion to become + A kneaded clot; and the delighted spirit + To bathe in fiery floods." +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>And from Milton [<i>Paradise Lost</i>, ii. 146]:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "Who would lose + Though full of pain this intellectual being?"' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Johnson, the year before, at a time when he thought that he +must submit to the surgeon's knife (<i>ante</i>, p. 240), wrote +to Mrs. Thrale:—'You would not have me for fear of pain +perish in putrescence. I shall, I hope, with trust in eternal +mercy lay hold of the possibility of life which yet remains.' +<i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. 312. Hawkins records (<i>Life</i>, p. +588) that one day Johnson said to his doctor:—'How many men +in a year die through the timidity of those whom they consult for +health! I want length of life, and you fear giving me pain, which +I care not for.' Another day, 'when Mr. Cruikshank scarified his +leg, he cried out, "Deeper, deeper. I will abide the consequence; +you are afraid of your reputation, but that is nothing to me." To +those about him, he said, "You all pretend to love me, but you do +not love me so well as I myself do." '<i>Ib</i>. p. 592. Windham +(<i>Diary</i>, p. 32) says that he reproached Heberden with being +<i>timidorum timidissimus</i>. Throughout he acted up to what he +had said:—'I will be conquered, I will not capitulate.' +<i>Ante</i>, P. 374.</p> +<p><a name="note-1226">[1226]</a> +Macbeth, act v. sc. 3.</p> +<p><a name="note-1227">[1227]</a> +Satires, x. 356. Paraphrased by Johnson in The Vanity of Human +Wishes, at the lines beginning:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, + Obedient passions and a will resigned.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-1228">[1228]</a> +Johnson, three days after his stroke of palsy (ante, p. 230), +wrote:—'When I waked, I found Dr. Brocklesby sitting by me. +He fell to repeating Juvenal's ninth satire; but I let him see +that the province was mine.' <i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. 274.</p> +<p><a name="note-1229">[1229]</a> +Johnson, on his way to Scotland, 'changed horses,' he wrote, 'at +Darlington, where Mr. Cornelius Harrison, a cousin-german of +mine, was perpetual curate. He was the only one of my relations +who ever rose in fortune above penury, or in character above +neglect.' <i>Piozzi Letters</i>, i. 105. Malone, in a note to +later editions, shews that Johnson shortly before his death was +trying to discover some of his poor relations.</p> +<p><a name="note-1230">[1230]</a> Mr. +Windham records (<i>Diary</i>, p. 28) that the day before Johnson +made his will 'he recommended Frank to him as to one who had will +and power to protect him.' He continues, 'Having obtained my +assent to this, he proposed that Frank should be called in; and +desiring me to take him by the hand in token of the promise, +repeated before him the recommendation he had just made of him, +and the promise I had given to attend to it.</p> +<p><a name="note-1231">[1231]</a> +Johnson wrote five years earlier to Mrs. Thrale about her +husband's will:—'Do not let those fears prevail which you +know to be unreasonable; a will brings the end of life no +nearer.' <i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. 72.</p> +<p><a name="note-1232">[1232]</a> 'IN +THE NAME OF GOD. AMEN. I, SAMUEL JOHNSON, being in full +possession of my faculties, but fearing this night may put an end +to my life, do ordain this my last Will and Testament. I bequeath +to GOD, a soul polluted with many sins, but I hope purified by +JESUS CHRIST. I leave seven hundred and fifty pounds in the hands +of Bennet Langton, Esq.; three hundred pounds in the hands of Mr. +Barclay and Mr. Perkins, brewers; one hundred and fifty pounds in +the hands of Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore; one thousand pounds, +three <i>per cent.</i> annuities, in the publick funds; and one +hundred pounds now lying by me in ready money: all these +before-mentioned sums and property I leave, I say, to Sir Joshua +Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, of Doctors +Commons, in trust for the following uses:—That is to say, +to pay to the representatives of the late William Innys, +bookseller, in St, Paul's Church-yard, the sum of two hundred +pounds; to Mrs. White, my female servant, one hundred pounds +stock in the three <i>per cent</i>. annuitites aforesaid. The +rest of the aforesaid sums of money and property, together with +my books, plate, and household furniture, I leave to the +before-mentioned Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. +William Scott, also in trust, to the use of Francis Barber, my +man-servant, a negro, in such a manner as they shall judge most +fit and available to his benefit. And I appoint the aforesaid Sir +Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, sole +executors of this my last will and testament, hereby revoking all +former wills and testaments whatever. In witness whereof I +hereunto subscribe my name, and affix my seal, this eighth day of +December, 1784.</p> +<p>'Sam Johnson, (L.S.)</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Signed, scaled, published, declared, + and delivered, by the + said testator, as his last will + and testament, in the presence + of us, the word two being first + inserted in the opposite page. + 'GEORGE STRAHAN + 'JOHN DESMOULINS +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>'By way of Codicil to my last Will and Testament, I, SAMUEL +JOHNSON, give, devise, and bequeath, my messuage or tenement +situate at Litchfield, in the county of Stafford, with the +appertenances, in the tenure or occupation of Mrs. Bond, of +Lichfield aforesaid, or of Mr. Hinchman, her under-tenant, to my +executors, in trust, to sell and dispose of the same; and the +money arising from such sale I give and bequeath as follows, viz. +to Thomas and Benjamin, the sons of Fisher Johnson, late of +Leicester, and ——- Whiting, daughter of Thomas +Johnson [F-1], late of Coventry, and the grand-daughter of the +said Thomas Johnson, one full and equal fourth part each; but in +case there shall be more grand-daughters than one of the said +Thomas Johnson, living at the time of my decease, I give and +bequeath the part or share of that one to and equally between +such grand-daughters. I give and bequeath to the Rev. Mr. Rogers, +of Berkley, near Froom, in the county of Somerset, the sum of one +hundred pounds, requesting him to apply the same towards the +maintenance of Elizabeth Herne, a lunatick [F-2]. I also give and +bequeath to my god-children, the son and daughter of Mauritius +Lowe [F-3], painter, each of them, one hundred pounds of my stock +in the three <i>per cent</i>, consolidated annuities, to be +applied and disposed of by and at the discretion of my Executors, +in the education or settlement in the world of them my said +legatees. Also I give and bequeath to Sir John Hawkins, one of my +Executors, the Annales Ecclesiastici of Baronius, and Holinshed's +and Stowe's Chronicles, and also an octavo Common Prayer-Book. To +Bennet Langton, Esq. I give and bequeath my Polyglot Bible. To +Sir Joshua Reynolds, my great French Dictionary, by Martiniere, +and my own copy of my folio English Dictionary, of the last +revision. To Dr. William Scott, one of my Executors, the +Dictionnaire de Commerce, and Lectius's edition of the Greek +poets. To Mr. Windham [F-4], Poetae Graeci Heroici per Henricum +Stephanum. To the Rev. Mr. Strahan, vicar of Islington, in +Middlesex, Mill's Greek Testament, Beza's Greek Testament, by +Stephens, all my Latin Bibles, and my Greek Bible, by Wechelius. +To Dr. Heberden, Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Butter, and Mr. Cruikshank, +the surgeon who attended me, Mr. Holder, my apothecary, Gerard +Hamilton, Esq., Mrs. Gardiner [F-5], of Snow-hill, Mrs. Frances +Reynolds, Mr. Hoole, and the Reverend Mr. Hoole, his son, each a +book at their election, to keep as a token of remembrance. I also +give and bequeath to Mr. John Desmoulins [F-6], two hundred +pounds consolidated three <i>per cent</i>, annuities: and to Mr. +Sastres, the Italian master [F-7], the sum of five pounds, to be +laid out in books of piety for his own use. And whereas the said +Bennet Langton hath agreed, in consideration of the sum of seven +hundred and fifty pounds, mentioned in my Will to be in his +hands, to grant and secure an annuity of seventy pounds payable +during the life of me and my servant, Francis Barber, and the +life of the survivor of us, to Mr. George Stubbs, in trust for +us; my mind and will is, that in case of my decease before the +said agreement shall be perfected, the said sum of seven hundred +and fifty pounds, and the bond for securing the said sum, shall +go to the said Francis Barber; and I hereby give and bequeath to +him the same, in lieu of the bequest in his favour, contained in +my said Will. And I hereby empower my Executors to deduct and +retain all expences that shall or may be incurred in the +execution of my said Will, or of this Codicil thereto, out of +such estate and effects as I shall die possessed of. All the +rest, residue, and remainder, of my estate and effects, I give +and bequeath to my said Executors, in trust for the said Francis +Barber, his Executors and Administrators. Witness my hand and +seal, this ninth day of December, 1784.</p> +<center>'SAM. JOHNSON, (L. S.)</center> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'Signed, sealed, published, declared, + and delivered, by the + said Samuel Johnson, as, and + for a Codicil to his last Will and + Testament, in the presence of + us, who, in his presence, and at + his request, and also in the + presence of each other, have + hereto subscribed our names as + witnesses. + 'JOHN COPLEY. + 'WILLIAM GIBSON. + 'HENRY COLE.' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>Upon these testamentary deeds it is proper to make a few +observations.</p> +<p>His express declaration with his dying breath as a Christian, +as it had been often practised in such solemn writings, was of +real consequence from this great man; for the conviction of a +mind equally acute and strong, might well overbalance the doubts +of others, who were his contemporaries. The expression +<i>polluted</i>, may, to some, convey an impression of more than +ordinary contamination; but that is not warranted by its genuine +meaning, as appears from <i>The Rambler</i>, No. 42[F-8]. The +same word is used in the will of Dr. Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln +[F-9], who was piety itself.</p> +<p>His legacy of two hundred pounds to the representatives of Mr. +Innys, bookseller, in St. Paul's Church-yard [F-10], proceeded +from a very worthy motive. He told Sir John Hawkins, that his +father having become a bankrupt, Mr. Innys had assisted him with +money or credit to continue his business. 'This, (said he,) I +consider as an obligation on me to be grateful to his descendants +[F-11].'</p> +<p>The amount of his property proved to be considerably more than +he had supposed it to be. Sir John Hawkins estimates the bequest +to Francis Barber at a sum little short of fifteen hundred +pounds, including an annuity of seventy pounds to be paid to him +by Mr. Langton, in consideration of seven hundred and fifty +pounds, which Johnson had lent to that gentleman. Sir John seems +not a little angry at this bequest, and mutters 'a caveat against +ostentatious bounty and favour to negroes [F-12].' But surely +when a man has money entirely of his own acquisition, especially +when he has no near relations, he may, without blame, dispose of +it as he pleases, and with great propriety to a faithful servant. +Mr. Barber, by the recommendation of his master, retired to +Lichfield, where he might pass the rest of his days in +comfort.</p> +<p>It has been objected that Johnson has omitted many of his best +friends, when leaving books to several as tokens of his last +remembrance. The names of Dr. Adams, Dr. Taylor [F-13], Dr. +Burney, Mr. Hector, Mr. Murphy, the Authour of this Work, and +others who were intimate with him, are not to be found in his +Will. This may be accounted for by considering, that as he was +very near his dissolution at the time, he probably mentioned such +as happened to occur to him; and that he may have recollected, +that he had formerly shewn others such proofs of his regard, that +it was not necessary to crowd his Will with their names. Mrs. +Lucy Porter was much displeased that nothing was left to her; but +besides what I have now stated, she should have considered, that +she had left nothing to Johnson by her Will, which was made +during his life-time, as appeared at her decease.</p> +<p>His enumerating several persons in one group, and leaving them +'each a book at their election,' might possibly have given +occasion to a curious question as to the order of choice, had +they not luckily fixed on different books. His library, though by +no means handsome in its appearance, was sold by Mr. Christie, +for two hundred and forty-seven pounds, nine shillings [F-14]; +many people being desirous to have a book which had belonged to +Johnson. In many of them he had written little notes: sometimes +tender memorials of his departed wife; as, 'This was dear Tetty's +book:' sometimes occasional remarks of different sorts. Mr. +Lysons, of Clifford's Inn, has favoured me with the two +following:</p> +<p>In <i>Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion</i>, by Bryan Duppa, +Lord Bishop of Winton, '<i>Preces quidam (? quidem) videtur +diligenter tractasse; spero non inauditus (? inauditas).'</i></p> +<p>In <i>The Rosicrucian infallible Axiomata</i>, by John Heydon, +Gent., prefixed to which are some verses addressed to the +authour, signed Ambr. Waters, A.M. Coll. Ex. Oxon. '<i>These +Latin verses were written to Hobbes by Bathurst, upon his +Treatise on Human Nature, and have no relation to the +book.—An odd fraud</i>.'—BOSWELL. [Note: See Appendix +F for notes on this footnote.]</p> +<p><a name="note-1233">[1233]</a> 'He +burned,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'many letters in the last week, I am +told, and those written by his mother drew from him a flood of +tears. Mr. Sastres saw him cast a melancholy look upon their +ashes, which he took up and examined to see if a word was still +legible.'—<i>Piozzi Letters</i>, ii. 383.</p> +<p><a name="note-1234">[1234]</a> +Boswell in his <i>Hebrides</i> (<i>post</i>, v. 53) says that +Johnson, starting northwards on his tour, left in a drawer in +Boswell's house 'one volume of a pretty full and curious <i>Diary +of his Life</i>, of which I have,' he continues, 'a few +fragments.' The other volume, we may conjecture, Johnson took +with him, for Boswell had seen both, and apparently seen them +only once. He mentions (<i>ante</i>, i. 27) that these 'few +fragments' had been transferred to him by the residuary legatee +(Francis Barber). One large fragment, which was published after +Barber's death, he could never have seen, for he never quotes +from it (<i>ante</i>, i. 35, note 1).</p> +<p><a name="note-1235">[1235]</a> One of +these volumes, Sir John Hawkins informs us, he put into his +pocket; for which the excuse he states is, that he meant to +preserve it from falling into the hands of a person whom he +describes so as to make it sufficiently clear who is meant; +'having strong reasons (said he,) to suspect that this man might +find and make an ill use of the book.' Why Sir John should +suppose that the gentleman alluded to would act in this manner, +he has not thought fit to explain. But what he did was not +approved of by Johnson; who, upon being acquainted of it without +delay by a friend, expressed great indignation, and warmly +insisted on the book being delivered up; and, afterwards, in the +supposition of his missing it, without knowing by whom it had +been taken, he said, 'Sir, I should have gone out of the world +distrusting half mankind.' Sir John next day wrote a letter to +Johnson, assigning reasons for his conduct; upon which Johnson +observed to Mr. Langton, 'Bishop Sanderson could not have +dictated a better letter. I could almost say, <i>Melius est sic +penituisse quam non errâsse</i>.' The agitation into which +Johnson was thrown by this incident, probably made him hastily +burn those precious records which must ever be regretted. +BOSWELL. According to Mr. Croker, Steevens was the man whom +Hawkins said that he suspected. Porson, in his witty +<i>Panegyrical Epistle on Hawkins v. Johnson</i> (<i>Gent. +Mag.</i> 1787, pp. 751-3, and <i>Porson Tracts</i>, p. 341), +says:—'I shall attempt a translation [of <i>Melius est</i>, +&c.] for the benefit of your mere English +readers:—<i>There is more joy over a sinner that repenteth +than over a just person that needeth no repentance</i>. And we +know from an authority not to be disputed (Hawkins's <i>Life</i>, +p. 406) that <i>Johnson was a great lover of penitents</i>.</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "God put it in the mind to take it hence, + That thou might'st win the more thy [Johnson's] love, + Pleading so wisely in excuse of it." +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-1236">[1236]</a> +<i>Henry IV</i>, act iv. sc. 5.</p> +<p><a name="note-1237">[1237]</a> +'Tibullus addressed Cynthia in this manner:—</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "<i>Te spectem, suprema, mihi cum venerit hora, + Te teneam moriens deficiente mamu. + Lib. i. El. I. 73. + Before my closing eyes dear Cynthia stand, + Held weakly by my fainting, trembling hand."' + Johnson's Works, iv. 35. +</i> +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-1238">[1238]</a> +Windham was scarcely a statesman as yet, though for a few months +of the year before he had been Chief Secretary for Ireland +(ante<i>, p 200). He was in Parliament, but he had never spoken. +His</i> Diary <i>shews that he had no 'important occupations.' On +Dec. 12, for instance, he records (p. 30):—'Came down about +ten; read reviews, wrote to Mrs. Siddons, and then went to the +ice; came home only in time to dress and go to my mother's to +dinner.' See</i> ante<i>, p. 356, for his interest in +balloons.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1239">[1239]</a> 'My +father,' writes Miss Burney, 'saw him once while I was away, and +carried Mr. Burke with him, who was desirous of paying his +respects to him once more in person. He rallied a little while +they were there; and Mr. Burke, when they left him, said to my +father:—"His work is almost done, and well has he done +it."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary<i>, ii. 333. Burke, in 1792, said in +Parliament that 'Dr. Johnson's virtues were equal to his +transcendent talents, and his friendship he valued as the +greatest consolation and happiness of his life.'</i> Parl. +Debates<i>, xxx. 109.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1240">[1240]</a> On the +same undoubted authority, I give a few articles, which should +have been inserted in chronological order; but which, now that +they are before me, I should be sorry to omit:—</p> +<p>'In 1736, Dr. Johnson had a particular inclination to have +been engaged as an assistant to the Reverend Mr. Budworth, then +head master of the Grammar-school, at Brewood, in Staffordshire, +"an excellent person, who possessed every talent of a perfect +instructor of youth, in a degree which, (to use the words of one +of the brightest ornaments of literature, the Reverend Dr. Hurd, +Bishop of Worcester,) has been rarely found in any of that +profession since the days of Quintilian." Mr. Budworth, "who was +less known in his life-time, from that obscure situation to which +the caprice of fortune oft condemns the most accomplished +characters, than his highest merit deserved," had been bred under +Mr. Blackwell [Blackwall], at Market Bosworth, where Johnson was +some time an usher [ante<i>, i. 84]; which might naturally lead +to the application. Mr. Budworth was certainly no stranger to the +learning or abilities of Johnson; as he more than once lamented +his having been under the necessity of declining the engagement, +from an apprehension that the paralytick affection, under which +our great Philologist laboured through life, might become the +object of imitation or of ridicule, among his pupils.' Captain +Budworth, his grandson, has confirmed to me this +anecdote.</i></p> +<p>'Among the early associates of Johnson, at St. John's Gate, +was Samuel Boyse [G-1], well known by his ingenious productions; +and not less noted for his imprudence. It was not unusual for +Boyse to be a customer to the pawnbroker. On one of these +occasions, Dr. Johnson collected a sum of money to redeem his +friend's clothes, which in two days after were pawned again. "The +sum, (said Johnson,) was collected by sixpences, at a time when +to me sixpence was a serious consideration [G-2]."</p> +<p>'Speaking one day of a person for whom he had a real +friendship, but in whom vanity was somewhat too predominant, he +observed, that "Kelly [G-3] was so fond of displaying on his +side-board the plate which he possessed, that he added to it his +spurs. For my part, (said he,) I never was master of a pair of +spurs, but once; and they are now at the bottom of the ocean. By +the carelessness of Boswell's servant, they were dropped from the +end of the boat, on our return from the Isle of Sky [G-4]."'</p> +<p>The late Reverend Mr. Samuel Badcock [G-5], having been +introduced to Dr. Johnson, by Mr. Nichols, some years before his +death, thus expressed himself in a letter to that +gentleman:—</p> +<p>'How much I am obliged to you for the favour you did me in +introducing me to Dr. Johnson! Tantùm vìdi +Virgilium <i>[G-6]. But to have seen him, and to have received a +testimony of respect from him, was enough. I recollect all the +conversation, and shall never forget one of his expressions. +Speaking of Dr. P—— [Priestley], (whose writings, I +saw, he estimated at a low rate,) he said, "You have proved him +as deficient in</i> probity <i>as he is in learning [G-7]." I +called him an "Index-scholar [G-8];" but he was not willing to +allow him a claim even to that merit. He said, that "he borrowed +from those who had been borrowers themselves, and did not know +that the mistakes he adopted had been answered by others." I +often think of our short, but precious, visit to this great man. +I shall consider it as a kind of an</i> aera <i>in my life.' +BOSWELL. [Note: See Appendix G for notes on this +footnote.]</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1241">[1241]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 152, 501.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1242">[1242]</a> He +wrote to Dr. Taylor on Feb. 17, 1776:—'Keep yourself +cheerful. Lie in bed with a lamp, and when you cannot sleep and +are beginning to think, light your candle and read. At least +light your candle; a man is perhaps never so much harrassed +(sic<i>) by his own mind in the light as in the dark.'</i> Notes +and Queries<i>, 6th S. v. 423.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1243">[1243]</a> Mr. +Croker records 'the following communication from Mr. Hoole +himself':—'I must mention an incident which shews how ready +Johnson was to make amends for any little incivility. When I +called upon him, the morning after he had pressed me rather +roughly to read louder<i>, he said, "I was peevish yesterday; you +must forgive me: when you are as old and as sick as I am, perhaps +you may be peevish too." I have heard him make many apologies of +this kind.'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1244">[1244]</a> 'To +his friend Dr. Burney he said a few hours before he died, taking +the Doctor's hands within his, and casting his eyes towards +Heaven with a look of the most fervent piety, "My dear friend, +while you live do all the good you can." Seward's Biographiana, +<i>p. 601</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1245">[1245]</a> Mr. +Hoole, senior, records of this day:—'Dr. Johnson exhorted +me to lead a better life than he had done. "A better life than +you, my dear Sir:" I repeated. He replied warmly, "Don't +compliment not." Croker's Boswell<i>, p. 844</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1246">[1246]</a> See +ante<i>, p. 293</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1247">[1247]</a> The +French historian, Jacques-Auguste de Thou, 1553-1617, author of +Historia sui Temporis <i>in 138 books.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1248">[1248]</a> See +ante, <i>ii. 42, note 2.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1249">[1249]</a> Mr. +Hutton was occasionally admitted to the royal breakfast-table. +"Hutton," said the King to him one morning, "is it true that you +Moravians marry without any previous knowledge of each other?" +"Yes, may it please your majesty," returned Hutton; "our +marriages are quite royal" Hannah More's Memoirs<i>, i. 318. One +of his female-missionaries for North American said to Dr. +Johnson:—'Whether my Saviour's service may be best carried +on here, or on the coast of Labrador, 'tis Mr. Hutton's business +to settle. I will do my part either in a brick-house or a +snow-house with equal alacrity.' Piozzi's</i> Synonymy<i>, ii. +120. He is described also in the</i> Memoirs of Dr. Burney<i>, i. +251, 291.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1250">[1250]</a> +Ante<i>, ii. 402.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1251">[1251]</a> Burke +said of Hussey, who was his friend and correspondent, that in his +character he had made 'that very rare union of the enlightened +statesman with the ecclesiastic.' Burke's Corres<i>. iv. +270.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1252">[1252]</a> +Boswell refers, I believe, to Fordyce's epitaph on Johnson in the +Gent. Mag. <i>1785, p. 412, or possibly to an</i> Ode <i>on p. 50 +of his poems.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1253">[1253]</a> 'Being +become very weak and helpless it was thought necessary that a man +should watch with him all night; and one was found in the +neighbourhood for half a crown a night.' Hawkins's Life of +Johnson<i>, p. 589.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1254">[1254]</a> It was +on Nov. 30 that he repeated these lines. See Croker's Boswell<i>, +p. 843.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1255">[1255]</a> +British Synonymy<i>, i. 359. Mrs. Piozzi, to add to the wonder, +says that these verses were 'improviso,' forgetting that Johnson +wrote to her on Aug 8, 1780 (</i>Piozzi Letters<i>, ii. +175):—'You have heard in the papers how —- is come to +age. I have enclosed a short song of congratulation which you +must not shew to anybody. It is odd that it should come into +anybody's head. I hope you will read it with candour; it is, I +believe, one of the author's first essays in that way of writing, +and a beginner is always to be treated with tenderness.' That it +was Sir John Lade who had come of age is shewn by the entry of +his birth, Aug. 1, 1759, in the</i> Gent. Mag. <i>1759, p. 392. +He was the nephew and ward of Mr. Thrale, who seemed to think +that Miss Burney would make him a good wife. (Mme. D'Arblay's</i> +Diary<i>, i. 79.) According to Mr. Hayward (</i>Life of +Piozzi<i>, i. 69) it was Lade who having asked Johnson whether he +advised him to marry, received as answer: 'I would advise no man +to marry, Sir, who is not likely to propagate understanding.' +See</i> ante<i>, ii. 109, note 2. Mr. Hayward adds that 'he +married a woman of the town, became a celebrated member of the +Four-in-Hand Club, and contrived to waste the whole of a fine +fortune before he died.' In Campbell's</i> Chancellors <i>(ed. +1846, v. 628) a story is told of Sir John Ladd, who is, I +suppose, the same man. The Prince of Wales in 1805 asked Lord +Thurlow to dinner, and also Ladd. 'When "the old Lion" arrived +the Prince went into the ante-room to meet him, and apologised +for the party being larger than he had intended, but added, "that +Sir John was an old friend of his, and he could not avoid asking +him to dinner," to which Thurlow, in his growling voice, +answered, "I have no objection, Sir, to Sir John Ladd in his +proper place, which I take to be your Royal Highness's coach-box, +and not your table."'</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1256">[1256]</a> +British Synonymy <i>was published in 1794, later therefore than +Boswell's first and second editions. In both these the latter +half of this paragraph ran as follows:—"From the specimen +which Mrs. Piozzi has exhibited of it (</i>Anecdotes<i>, p. 196) +it is much to be wished that the world could see the whole. +Indeed I can speak from my own knowledge; for having had the +pleasure to read it, I found it to be a piece of exquisite satire +conveyed in a strain of pointed vivacity and humour, and in a +manner of which no other instance is to be found in Johnson's +writings. After describing the ridiculous and ruinous career of a +wild spendthrift he</i> consoles <i>him with this +reflection:—</i></p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + "You may hang or drown at last."' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p><a name="note-1257">[1257]</a> Sir +John.</p> +<p><a name="note-1258">[1258]</a>'"Les +morts n'écrivent point," says Madame de Maintenon.' Hannah +More's Memoirs<i>, i. 233. The note that Johnson received 'was,' +says Mr. Hoole, 'from Mr. Davies, the bookseller, and mentioned a +present of some pork; upon which the Doctor said, in a manner +that seemed as if he thought it ill-timed, "too much of this," or +some such expression.' Croker's</i> Boswell<i>, p. 844.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1259">[1259]</a> Sir +Walter Scott says that 'Reynolds observed the charge given him by +Johnson on his death-bed not to use his pencil of a Sunday for a +considerable time, but afterwards broke it, being persuaded by +some person who was impatient for a sitting that the Doctor had +no title to exact such a promise.' Croker's Corres<i>. ii. 34. +'Reynolds used to say that "the pupil in art who looks for the +Sunday with pleasure as an idle day will never make a painter."' +Northcote's</i> Reynolds<i>, i. 119. 'Dr. Johnson,' said Lord +Eldon, 'sent me a message on his death-bed, to request that I +would attend public worship every Sunday.' Twiss's</i> Eldon<i>, +i. 168. The advice was not followed, for 'when a lawyer, a warm +partisan of the Chancellor, called him one of the pillars of the +Church; "No," said another lawyer, "he may be one of its +buttresses; but certainly not one of its pillars, for he is never +found within it."'</i> Ib<i>. iii. 488. Lord Campbell (</i>Lives +of the Chancellors<i>, vii. 716) says:—Lord Eldon was never +present at public worship in London from one year's end to the +other. Pleading in mitigation before Lord Ellenborough that he +attended public worship in the country, he received the rebuke, +"as if there were no God in town.'"</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1260">[1260]</a> +Reynolds records:—'During his last illness, when all hope +was at an end, he appeared to be quieter and more resigned. His +approaching dissolution was always present to his mind. A few +days before he died, Mr. Langton and myself only present, he said +he had been a great sinner, but he hoped he had given no bad +example to his friends; that he had some consolation in +reflecting that he had never denied Christ, and repeated the +text, "Whoever denies me, &c." [St. Matthew <i>x. 33.] We +were both very ready to assure him that we were conscious that we +were better and wiser from his life and conversation; and that so +far from denying Christ, he had been, in this age, his greatest +champion.' Taylor's</i> Reynolds<i>, ii. 459.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1261">[1261]</a> Hannah +More (Memoirs <i>i. 393) says that Johnson, having put up a +fervent prayer that Brocklesby might become a sincere Christian, +'caught hold of his hand with great earnestness, and cried, +"Doctor, you do not say</i> Amen<i>." The Doctor looked +foolishly, but after a pause cried "</i>Amen<i>"' Her account, +however, is often not accurate.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1262">[1262]</a> +Windham records (Diary<i>, p. 30) that on the night of the 12th +he urged him to take some sustenance, 'and desisted only upon his +exclaiming, "It is all very childish; let us hear no more of +it."' On his pressing him a second time, he answered that 'he +refused no sustenance but inebriating sustenance.' Windham +thereupon asked him to take some milk, but 'he recurred to his +general refusal, and begged that there might be an end of it. I +then said that I hoped he would forgive my earnestness; when he +replied eagerly, "that from me nothing would be necessary by way +of apology;" adding with great fervour, in words which I shall (I +hope) never forget—"God bless you, my dear Windham, through +Jesus Christ;" and concluding with a wish that we might meet in +some humble portion of that happiness which God might finally +vouchsafe to repentant sinners. These were the last words I ever +heard him speak. I hurried out of the room with tears in my eyes, +and more affected than I had been on any former occasion.' It was +at a later hour in this same night that Johnson 'scarified +himself in three places. On Mr. Desmoulins making a difficulty of +giving him the lancet he said, "Don't you, if you have any +scruples; but I will compel Frank," and on Mr. Desmoulins +attempting to prevent Frank from giving it to him, and at last to +restrain his hands, he grew very outrageous, so much so as to +call Frank "scoundrel" and to threaten Mr. Desmoulins that he +would stab him.'</i> Ib<i>. p. 32.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1263">[1263]</a> Mr. +Strahan, mentioning 'the anxious fear', which seized Johnson, +says, that 'his friends who knew his integrity observed it with +equal astonishment and concern.' He adds that 'his foreboding +dread of the Divine justice by degrees subsided into a pious +trust and humble hope in the Divine mercy.' Pr. and Med. +<i>preface, p. xv.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1264">[1264]</a> The +change of his sentiments with regard to Dr. Clarke, is thus +mentioned to me in a letter from the late Dr. Adams, Master of +Pembroke College, Oxford:—'The Doctor's prejudices were the +strongest, and certainly in another sense the weakest, that ever +possessed a sensible man. You know his extreme zeal for +orthodoxy. But did you ever hear what he told me himself? That he +had made it a rule not to admit Dr. Clarke's name in his +Dictionary<i>. This, however, wore off. At some distance of time +he advised with me what books he should read in defence of the +Christian Religion. I recommended Clarke's</i> Evidences of +Natural and Revealed Religion<i>, as the best of the kind; and I +find in what is called his</i> Prayers and Meditations<i>, that +he was frequently employed in the latter part of his time in +reading Clarke's</i> Sermons<i>. BOSWELL. See</i> ante<i>, i. +398.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1265">[1265]</a> The +Reverend Mr. Strahan took care to have it preserved, and has +inserted it in Prayers and Meditations<i>, p. 216. +BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1266">[1266]</a> See +ante<i>, iii. 433.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1267">[1267]</a> The +counterpart of Johnson's end and of one striking part of his +character may be found in Mr. Fearing in The Pilgrim's +Progress<i>, part ii. '"Mr. Fearing was," said Honesty, "a very +zealous man. Difficulty, lions, or Vanity Fair he feared not at +all; it was only sin, death, and hell that were to him a terror, +because he had some doubts about his interest in that celestial +country." "I dare believe," Greatheart replied, "that, as the +proverb is, he could have bit a firebrand, had it stood in his +way; but the things with which he was oppressed no man ever yet +could shake off with ease."' See</i> ante<i>, ii. 298, note +4.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1268">[1268]</a> Her +sister's likeness as Hope nursing Love was painted by Reynolds. +Northcote's Reynolds<i>, i. 185.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1269">[1269]</a> The +following letter, written with an agitated hand, from the very +chamber of death, by Mr. Langton, and obviously interrupted by +his feelings, will not unaptly close the story of so long a +friendship. The letter is not addressed, but Mr. Langton's family +believe it was intended for Mr. Boswell.</p> +<p>'MY DEAR SIR,—After many conflicting hopes and fears +respecting the event of this heavy return of illness which has +assailed our honoured friend, Dr. Johnson, since his arrival from +Lichfield, about four days ago the appearances grew more and more +awful, and this afternoon at eight o'clock, when I arrived at his +house to see how he should be going on, I was acquainted at the +door, that about three quarters of an hour before, he breathed +his last. I am now writing in the room where his venerable +remains exhibit a spectacle, the interesting solemnity of which, +difficult as it would be in any sort to find terms to express, so +to you, my dear Sir, whose own sensations will paint it so +strongly, it would be of all men the most superfluous to attempt +to—.'—CROKER. The interruption of the note was +perhaps due to a discovery made by Langton. Hawkins says, 'at +eleven, the evening of Johnson's death, Mr. Langton came to me, +and in an agony of mind gave me to understand that our friend had +wounded himself in several parts of the body.' Hawkins's Life<i>, +p. 590. To the dying man, 'on the last day of his existence on +this side the grave the desire of life,' to use Murphy's words +(</i>Life<i>, p. 135), 'had returned with all its former +vehemence.' In the hope of drawing off the dropsical water he +gave himself these wounds (see</i> ante<i>, p. 399). He lost a +good deal of blood, and no doubt hastened his end. Langton must +have suspected that Johnson intentionally shortened his +life.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1270">[1270]</a> +Servant to the Right Honourable William Windham. BOSWELL.</p> +<p><a name="note-1271">[1271]</a> Sir +Joshua Reynolds and Paoli were among the mourners. Among the +Nichols papers in the British Museum is preserved an invitation +card to the funeral.</p> +<p><a name="note-1272">[1272]</a> Dr. +Burney wrote to the Rev. T. Twining on Christmas Day, +1784:—'The Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey lay all +the blame on Sir John Hawkins for suffering Johnson to be so +unworthily interred. The Knight's first inquiry at the Abbey in +giving orders, as the most acting executor, was—"What would +be the difference in the expense between a public and private +funeral?" and was told only a few pounds to the prebendaries, and +about ninety pairs of gloves to the choir and attendants; and he +then determined that, "as Dr. Johnson had no music in him, he +should choose the cheapest manner of interment." And for this +reason there was no organ heard, or burial service sung; for +which he suffers the Dean and Chapter to be abused in all the +newspapers, and joins in their abuse when the subject is +mentioned in conversation.' Burney mentions a report that Hawkins +had been slandering Johnson. Recreations and Studies of a Country +Clergyman of the XVIII Century<i>, p. 129. Dr. Charles Burney, +jun., had written the day after the funeral:—'The executor, +Sir John Hawkins, did not manage things well, for there was no +anthem or choir service performed—no lesson—but +merely what is read over every old woman that is buried by the +parish. Dr. Taylor read the service but so-so.' Johnstone's</i> +Parr<i>, i. 535.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1273">[1273]</a> Pope's +Essay on Man<i>, iv. 390. See</i> ante<i>, iii. 6, and iv. +122.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1274">[1274]</a> On the +subject of Johnson I may adopt the words of Sir John Harrington, +concerning his venerable Tutor and Diocesan, Dr. John Still, +Bishop of Bath and Wells; 'who hath given me some helps, more +hopes, all encouragements in my best studies: to whom I never +came but I grew more religious; from whom I never went, but I +parted better instructed. Of him therefore, my acquaintance, my +friend, my instructor, if I speak much, it were not to be +marvelled; if I speak frankly, it is not to be blamed; and though +I speak partially, it were to be pardoned.' Nugoe Antiquoe<i>, +vol. i. p. 136. There is one circumstance in Sir John's character +of Bishop Still, which is peculiarly applicable to Johnson: 'He +became so famous a disputer, that the learnedest were even afraid +to dispute with him; and he finding his own strength, could not +stick to warn them in their arguments to take heed to their +answers, like a perfect fencer that will tell aforehand in which +button he will give the venew, or like a cunning chess-player +that will appoint aforehand with which pawn and in what place he +will give the mate.'</i> Ibid<i>. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1275">[1275]</a> The +late Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton. MALONE.</p> +<p><a name="note-1276">[1276]</a> 'His +death,' writes Hannah More (Memoirs<i>, i. 394), 'makes a kind of +era in literature.' 'One who had long known him said of +him:—'In general you may tell what the man to whom you are +speaking will say next. This you can never do of Johnson.' +Johnson's</i> Works <i>(1787), xi. 211.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1277">[1277]</a> Beside +the Dedications to him by Dr. Goldsmith [ante<i>, ii. 216], the +Reverend Dr. Francklin [</i>ante<i>, iv. 34], and the Reverend +Mr. Wilson [</i>ante<i>, iv. 162], which I have mentioned +according to their dates, there was one by a lady, of a +versification of</i> Aningait and Ajut<i>, and one by the +ingenious Mr. Walker [</i>ante<i>, iv. 206], of his</i> +Rhetorical Grammar<i>. I have introduced into this work several +compliments paid to him in the writings of his contemporaries; +but the number of them is so great, that we may fairly say that +there was almost a general tribute.</i></p> +<p>Let me not be forgetful of the honour done to him by Colonel +Myddleton, of Gwaynynog, near Denbigh; who, on the banks of a +rivulet in his park, where Johnson delighted to stand and repeat +verses, erected an urn with the following inscription:</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + 'This spot was often dignified by the presence of + SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. + Whose moral writings, exactly conformable to the + precepts of Christianity, + Gave ardour to Virtue and confidence to Truth [H-1].' +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>As no inconsiderable circumstance of his fame, we must reckon +the extraordinary zeal of the artists to extend and perpetuate +his image. I can enumerate a bust by Mr. Nollekens, and the many +casts which are made from it; several pictures by Sir Joshua +Reynolds, from one of which, in the possession of the Duke of +Dorset, Mr. Humphry executed a beautiful miniature in enamel; one +by Mrs. Frances Reynolds, Sir Joshua's sister; one by Mr. +Zoffani; and one by Mr. Opie [H-2]; and the following engravings +of his portrait: 1. One by Cooke, from Sir Joshua, for the +Proprietors' edition of his folio Dictionary<i>.—2. One +from ditto, by ditto, for their quarto edition.—3. One from +Opie, by Heath, for Harrison's edition of his</i> +Dictionary<i>.—4. One from Nollekens' bust of him, by +Bartolozzi, for Fielding's quarto edition of his</i> +Dictionary<i>.—5. One small, from Harding, by Trotter, for +his</i> Beauties<i>.—6. One small, from Sir Joshua, by +Trotter, for his</i> Lives of the Poets<i>.—7. One small, +from Sir Joshua, by Hall, for</i> The Rambler<i>.—8. One +small, from an original drawing, in the possession of Mr. John +Simco, etched by Trotter, for another edition of his</i> Lives of +the Poets<i>.—9. One small, no painter's name, etched by +Taylor, for his</i> Johnsoniana<i>.—10. One folio +whole-length, with his oak-stick, as described in Boswell's</i> +Tour<i>, drawn and etched by Trotter.—11. One large +mezzotinto, from Sir Joshua, by Doughty [H-3].—l2. One +large Roman head, from Sir Joshua, by Marchi.—13. One +octavo, holding a book to his eye, from Sir Joshua, by Hall, for +his</i> Works<i>.—14. One small, from a drawing from the +life, and engraved by Trotter, for his</i> Life <i>published by +Kearsley.—15. One large, from Opie, by Mr. Townley, +(brother of Mr. Townley, of the Commons,) an ingenious artist, +who resided some time at Berlin, and has the honour of being +engraver to his Majesty the King of Prussia. This is one of the +finest mezzotintos that ever was executed; and what renders it of +extraordinary value, the plate was destroyed after four or five +impressions only were taken off. One of them is in the possession +of Sir William Scott [H-4]. Mr. Townley has lately been prevailed +with to execute and publish another of the same, that it may be +more generally circulated among the admirers of Dr. +Johnson.—16. One large, from Sir Joshua's first picture of +him, by Heath, for this work, in quarto.—17. One octavo, by +Baker, for the octavo edition.—18. And one for +Lavater's</i> Essay on Physiognomy<i>, in which Johnson's +countenance is analysed upon the principles of that fanciful +writer.—There are also several seals with his head cut on +them, particularly a very fine one by that eminent artist, Edward +Burch, Esq. R.A. in the possession of the younger Dr. Charles +Burney.</i></p> +<p>Let me add, as a proof of the popularity of his character, +that there are copper pieces struck at Birmingham, with his head +impressed on them, which pass current as half-pence there, and in +the neighbouring parts of the country. BOSWELL. [Note: See +Appendix H for notes on this footnote.]</p> +<p><a name="note-1278">[1278]</a> It is +not yet published.—In a letter to me, Mr. Agutter says, 'My +sermon before the University was more engaged with Dr. Johnson's +moral <i>than his</i> intellectual <i>character. It particularly +examined his fear of death, and suggested several reasons for the +apprehension of the good, and the indifference of the infidel in +their last hours; this was illustrated by contrasting the death +of Dr. Johnson and Mr. Hume: the text was Job xxi. 22-26.' +BOSWELL. It was preached on July 23, 1786, and not at Johnson's +death. It is entitled</i> On the Difference between the Deaths of +the Righteous and the Wicked. Illustrated in the Instance of Dr. +Samuel Johnson and David Hume, Esq. <i>The text is from Job xxi. +23 (not 22)-26. It was published in 1800. Neither Johnson nor +Hume is mentioned in the sermon itself by name. Its chief, +perhaps its sole, merit is its brevity.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1279">[1279]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 335, and iii. 375.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1280">[1280]</a> 'May +26, 1791. After the Doctor's death, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, +and Boswell sent an ambling circular-letter to me begging +subscriptions for a monument for him. I would not deign to write +an answer; but sent down word by my footman, as I would have done +to parish officers, with a brief, that I would not subscribe.' +Horace Walpole's Letters<i>, ix. 319. In Malone's correspondence +are complaints of the backwardness of the members of the Literary +Club 'to pay the amounts nominally subscribed by them.' +Prior's</i> Goldsmith<i>, ii. 226.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1281">[1281]</a> It +was, says Malone, owing to Reynolds that the monument was erected +in St. Paul's. In his Journey to Flanders<i>he had lamented that +sculpture languished in England, and was almost confined to +monuments to eminent men. But even in these it had not fair play, +for Westminster Abbey was so full, that the recent monuments +appeared ridiculous being stuck up in odd holes and corners. On +the other hand St. Paul's looked forlorn and desolate. Here +monuments should be erected, under the direction of the Royal +Academy. He took advantage of Johnson's death to make a beginning +with the plan which he had here sketched, and induced his friends +to give up their intention of setting up the monument in the +Abbey. Reynolds's</i> Works<i>, ed. 1824, ii. 248. 'He asked Dr. +Parr—but in vain—to include in the epitaph Johnson's +title of Professor of Ancient Literature to the Royal Academy; as +it was on this pretext that he persuaded the Academicians to +subscribe a hundred guineas.' Johnstone's</i> Parr<i>, iv. 686. +See</i> ante<i>, ii. 239, where the question was raised whose +monument should be first erected in St. Paul's, and Johnson +proposed Milton's.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1282">[1282]</a> The +Reverend Dr. Parr, on being requested to undertake it, thus +expressed himself in a letter to William Seward, Esq.:</p> +<p>'I leave this mighty task to some hardier and some abler +writer. The variety and splendour of Johnson's attainments, the +peculiarities of his character, his private virtues, and his +literary publications, fill me with confusion and dismay, when I +reflect upon the confined and difficult species of composition, +in which alone they can be expressed, with propriety, upon his +monument.'</p> +<p>But I understand that this great scholar, and warm admirer of +Johnson, has yielded to repeated solicitations, and executed the +very difficult undertaking. BOSWELL. Dr. Johnson's Monument, +consisting of a colossal figure leaning against a column, has +since the death of our authour been placed in St. Paul's +Cathedral. The Epitaph was written by the Rev. Dr. Parr, and is +as follows:</p> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> +<pre> + SAMVELI IOHNSON + GRAMMATICO ET CRITICO + SCRIPTORVM ANGLICORVM LITTERATE PERITO + POETAE LVMINIBVS SENTENTIARVM + ET PONDERIBVS VERBORVM ADMIRABILI + MAGISTRO VIRTVTIS GRAVISSIMO + HOMINI OPTIMO ET SINGVLARIS EXEMPLI + QVI VIXIT ANN LXXV MENS IL. DIEB XIII + DECESSIT IDIB DECEMBR ANN CHRIST cIo Iocc LXXXIIII + SEPVLT IN AED SANCT PETR WESTMONASTERIENS + XIII KAL IANVAR ANN CHRIST cIo Iocc LXXXV + AMICI ET SODALES LITTERARII + PECVNIA CONLATA + H M FACIVND CVRAVER. +</pre> +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> +<p>On a scroll in his hand are the following words: [Greek: +ENMAKARESSIPONONANTAXIOSEIHAMOIBH].</p> +<p>On one side of the Monument—- FACIEBAT JOHANNES BACON +SCVLPTOR ANN.</p> +<center>CHRIST. M.DCC.-LXXXXV.</center> +<p>The Subscription for this monument, which cost eleven hundred +guineas, was begun by the LITERARY CLUB. MALONE. See Appendix +I.</p> +<p><a name="note-1283">[1283]</a> +'"Laetus sum laudari me," inquit Hector, opinor apud Naevium, +"abs te, pater, a laudato viro."' Cicero, Ep. ad Fam<i>. xv. +6.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1284">[1284]</a> To +prevent any misconception on this subject, Mr. Malone, by whom +these lines were obligingly communicated, requests me to add the +following remark:—</p> +<p>'In justice to the late Mr. Flood, now himself wanting, and +highly meriting, an epitaph from his country, to which his +transcendent talents did the highest honour, as well as the most +important service; it should be observed that these lines were by +no means intended as a regular monumental inscription for Dr. +Johnson. Had he undertaken to write an appropriated and +discriminative epitaph for that excellent and extraordinary man, +those who knew Mr. Flood's vigour of mind, will have no doubt +that he would have produced one worthy of his illustrious +subject. But the fact was merely this: In Dec. 1789, after a +large subscription had been made for Dr. Johnson's monument, to +which Mr. Flood liberally contributed, Mr. Malone happened to +call on him at his house, in Berners-street, and the conversation +turning on the proposed monument, Mr. Malone maintained that the +epitaph, by whomsoever it should be written, ought to be in +Latin. Mr. Flood thought differently. The next morning, in the +postscript to a note on another subject, he mentioned that he +continued of the same opinion as on the preceding day, and +subjoined the lines above given.' BOSWELL. Cowper also composed +an epitaph for Johnson—though not one of much merit. See +Southey's Cowper<i>, v. 119.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1285">[1285]</a> As I +do not see any reason to give a different character of my +illustrious friend now, from what I formerly gave, the greatest +part of the sketch of him in my Journal of a Tour to the +Hebrides<i>, is here adopted. BOSWELL.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1286">[1286]</a> See +ante<i>, i. 41.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1287">[1287]</a> For +his fox-hunting see ante<i>, i. 446, note I.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1288">[1288]</a> +Lucretius<i>, i. 72.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1289">[1289]</a> See +ante, i. 406.</p> +<p><a name="note-1290">[1290]</a> 'He +was always indulgent to the young, he never attacked the +unassuming, nor meant to terrify the diffident.' Mme. D'Arblay's +Diary <i>ii. 343.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1291">[1291]</a> In the +Olla Podrida<i>, a collection of Essays published at Oxford, +there is an admirable paper upon the character of Johnson, +written by the Reverend Dr. Home, the last excellent Bishop of +Norwich. The following passage is eminently happy: 'To reject +wisdom, because the person of him who communicates it is uncouth, +and his manners are inelegant;—what is it, but to throw +away a pine-apple, and assign for a reason the roughness of its +coat?' BOSWELL. The</i> Olla Podrida <i>was published in weekly +numbers in 1787 8. Boswell's quotation is from No. 13.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1292">[1292]</a> 'The +English Dictionary <i>was written ... amidst inconvenience +distraction, in sickness and in sorrow.' Preface to Johnson's</i> +Dictionary, Works<i>, v. 51.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1293">[1293]</a> 'For +unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.' +Luke<i>, xii. 48.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1294">[1294]</a> 'If in +this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most +miserable.' I Corinthians<i>, xv. 19.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1295">[1295]</a> See +ante, ii. 262, note 2.</p> +<p><a name="note-1296">[1296]</a> Though +a perfect resemblance of Johnson is not to be found in any age, +parts of his character are admirably expressed by Clarendon in +drawing that of Lord Falkland, whom the noble and masterly +historian describes at his seat near Oxford;—'Such an +immenseness of wit, such a solidity of judgement, so infinite a +fancy, bound in by a most logical ratiocination.—His +acquaintance was cultivated by the most polite and accurate men, +so that his house was an University in less volume, whither they +came, not so much for repose as study, and to examine and refine +those grosser propositions, which laziness and consent made +current in conversation.'</p> +<p>Bayle's account of Menage may also be quoted as exceedingly +applicable to the great subject of this work:—'His +illustrious friends erected a very glorious monument to him in +the collection entitled Menagiana. Those who judge of things +aright, will confess that this collection is very proper to shew +the extent of genius and learning which was the character of +Menage. And I may be bold to say, that the excellent works he +published will not distinguish him from other learned men so +advantageously as this<i>. To publish books of great learning, to +make Greek and Latin verses exceedingly well turned, is not a +common talent, I own; neither is it extremely rare, It is +incomparably more difficult to find men who can furnish discourse +about an infinite number of things, and who can diversify them an +hundred ways. How many authours are there, who are admired for +their works, on account of the vast learning that is displayed in +them, who are not able to sustain a conversation. Those who know +Menage only by his books, might think he resembled those learned +men; but if you shew the MENAGIANA, you distinguish him from +them, and make him known by a talent which is given to very few +learned men. There it appears that he was a man who spoke +off-hand a thousand good things. His memory extended to what was +ancient and modern; to the court and to the city; to the dead and +to the living languages; to things serious and things jocose; in +a word, to a thousand sorts of subjects. That which appeared a +trifle to some readers of the</i> Menagiana<i>, who did not +consider circumstances, caused admiration in other readers, who +minded the difference between what a man speaks without +preparation, and that which he prepares for the press. And, +therefore, we cannot sufficiently commend the care which his +illustrious friends took to erect a monument so capable of giving +him immortal glory. They were not obliged to rectify what they +had heard him say; for, in so doing, they had not been faithful +historians of his conversations.' BOSWELL. Boswell's quotation +from Clarendon (ed. 1826, iv. 242) differs somewhat from the +original.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1297">[1297]</a> See +ante<i>, ii. 326, and iv. 236.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1298">[1298]</a> See +ante<i>, p. iii.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1299">[1299]</a> To +this finely-drawn character we may add the noble testimony of Sir +Joshua Reynolds:—'His pride had no meanness in it; there +was nothing little or mean about him.' Taylor's Reynolds<i>, ii. +457.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1300">[1300]</a> In +Johnson's character of Boerhaave there is much that applies +equally well to himself. 'Thus died Boerhaave, a man formed by +nature for great designs, and guided by religion in the exertion +of his abilities. He was of a robust and athletick constitution +of body, so hardened by early severities and wholesome fatigue +that he was insensible of any sharpness of air, or inclemency of +weather. He was tall, and remarkable for extraordinary strength. +There was in his air and motion something rough and artless, but +so majestick and great at the same time, that no man ever looked +upon him without veneration, and a kind of tacit submission to +the superiority of his genius.... He was never soured by calumny +and detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to confute them; +"for they are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow them, +will go out of themselves."... He was not to be overawed or +depressed by the presence, frowns, or insolence of great men; but +persisted, on all occasions, in the right with a resolution +always present and always calm.... Nor was he unacquainted with +the art of recommending truth by elegance, and embellishing the +philosopher with polite literature.... He knew the importance of +his own writings to mankind, and lest he might by a roughness and +barbarity of style, too frequent among men of great learning, +disappoint his own intentions, and make his labours less useful, +he did not neglect the politer arts of eloquence and poetry. Thus +was his learning at once various and exact, profound and +agreeable.... He asserted on all occasions the divine authority +and sacred efficacy of the holy Scriptures; and maintained that +they alone taught the way of salvation, and that they only could +give peace of mind.' Johnson's Works<i>, vi. 288.</i></p> +<p><a name="note-1301">[1301]</a> Sir +Joshua Reynolds, who was born at Plympton.</p> +<p><a name="note-1302">[1302]</a> See +ante, <i>iii. 43, note 3.</i></p> +<center>THE END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.</center> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6), by Boswell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHNSON, VOLUME 4 (OF 6) *** + +***** This file should be named 10357-h.htm or 10357-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/5/10357/ + +Produced by David Widger, Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Kirschner +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) + +Author: Boswell + +Release Date: December 1, 2003 [EBook #10357] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHNSON, VOLUME 4 (OF 6) *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +BOSWELL'S + +LIFE OF JOHNSON + +INCLUDING BOSWELL'S JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES +AND JOHNSON'S DIARY OF A JOURNEY INTO NORTH WALES + +EDITED BY + +GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L. + +PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD + +IN SIX VOLUMES + +VOLUME IV.--LIFE (1780-1784) + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOL. IV. + + +LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (1780-DEC. 13, 1784) + +APPENDICES: + +A. ALTERCATION BETWEEN DR. JOHNSON AND DEAN BARNARD. +B. JOHNSON AND PRIESTLEY. +C. THE CLUB IN IVY-LANE. +D. THE ESSEX HEAD CLUB. +E. MISS BURNEY'S ACCOUNT OF JOHNSON'S LAST DAYS. +F. NOTES ON JOHNSON'S WILL, ETC. +G. NOTES ON BOSWELL'S NOTE. +H. NOTES ON BOSWELL'S NOTE. +I. PARR'S EPITAPH ON JOHNSON. + +FOOTNOTES. + + + + +_THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D._ + +Being disappointed in my hopes of meeting Johnson this year, so that I +could hear none of his admirable sayings, I shall compensate for this +want[1] by inserting a collection of them, for which I am indebted to my +worthy friend Mr. Langton, whose kind communications have been +separately interwoven in many parts of this work. Very few articles of +this collection were committed to writing by himself, he not having that +habit; which he regrets, and which those who know the numerous +opportunities he had of gathering the rich fruits of _Johnsonian_ wit +and wisdom, must ever regret. I however found, in conversations with +him, that a good store of _Johnsoniana_ treasured in his mind[2]; and I +compared it to Herculaneum, or some old Roman field, which when dug, +fully rewards the labour employed. The authenticity of every article is +unquestionable. For the expression, I, who wrote them down in his +presence, am partly answerable. + +'Theocritus is not deserving of very high respect as a writer; as to the +pastoral part, Virgil is very evidently superiour. He wrote when there +had been a larger influx of knowledge into the world than when +Theocritus lived. Theocritus does not abound in description, though +living in a beautiful country: the manners painted are coarse and gross. +Virgil has much more description, more sentiment, more of Nature, and +more of art. Some of the most excellent parts of Theocritus are, where +Castor and Pollux, going with the other Argonauts, land on the Bebrycian +coast, and there fall into a dispute with Amycus, the King of that +country; which is as well conducted as Euripides could have done it; and +the battle is well related. Afterwards they carry off a woman, whose two +brothers come to recover her, and expostulate with Castor and Pollux on +their injustice; but they pay no regard to the brothers, and a battle +ensues, where Castor and his brother are triumphant. Theocritus seems +not to have seen that the brothers have the advantage in their argument +over his Argonaut heroes. _The Sicilian Gossips_ is a piece of merit.' + +'Callimachus is a writer of little excellence. The chief thing to be +learned from him is his account of Rites and Mythology; which, though +desirable to be known for the sake of understanding other parts of +ancient authours, is the least pleasing or valuable part of their +writings.' + +'Mattaire's account of the Stephani[3] is a heavy book. He seems to have +been a puzzle-headed man, with a large share of scholarship, but with +little geometry or logick in his head, without method, and possessed of +little genius. He wrote Latin verses from time to time, and published a +set in his old age, which he called '_Senilia_;' in which he shews so +little learning or taste in writing, as to make _Carteret_ a dactyl[4]. +In matters of genealogy it is necessary to give the bare names as they +are; but in poetry, and in prose of any elegance in the writing, they +require to have inflection given to them. His book of the Dialects[5] is +a sad heap of confusion; the only way to write on them is to tabulate +them with Notes, added at the bottom of the page, and references.' + +'It may be questioned, whether there is not some mistake as to the +methods of employing the poor, seemingly on a supposition that there is +a certain portion of work left undone for want of persons to do it; but +if that is otherwise, and all the materials we have are actually worked +up, or all the manufactures we can use or dispose of are already +executed, then what is given to the poor, who are to be set at work, +must be taken from some who now have it; as time must be taken for +learning, according to Sir William Petty's observation, a certain part +of those very materials that, as it is, are properly worked up, must be +spoiled by the unskilfulness of novices. We may apply to well-meaning, +but misjudging persons in particulars of this nature, what Giannone[6] +said to a monk, who wanted what he called to _convert_ him: _"Tu sei +santo, ma tu non sei filosofo"_--It is an unhappy circumstance that one +might give away five hundred pounds in a year to those that importune in +the streets, and not do any good[7].' + +'There is nothing more likely to betray a man into absurdity than +_condescension_; when he seems to suppose his understanding too powerful +for his company[8].' + +'Having asked Mr. Langton if his father and mother had sat for their +pictures, which he thought it right for each generation of a family to +do, and being told they had opposed it, he said, "Sir, among the +anfractuosities[9] of the human mind, I know not if it may not be one, +that there is a superstitious reluctance to sit for a picture."' + +'John Gilbert Cooper[10] related, that soon after the publication of his +_Dictionary_, Garrick being asked by Johnson what people said of it, +told him, that among other animadversions, it was objected that he cited +authorities which were beneath the dignity of such a work, and mentioned +Richardson. "Nay, (said Johnson,) I have done worse than that: I have +cited _thee_, David[11]."' + +'Talking of expence, he observed, with what munificence a great merchant +will spend his money, both from his having it at command, and from his +enlarged views by calculation of a good effect upon the whole. "Whereas +(said he) you will hardly ever find a country gentleman who is not a +good deal disconcerted at an unexpected occasion for his being obliged +to lay out ten pounds[12]."' + +'When in good humour he would talk of his own writings with a wonderful +frankness and candour, and would even criticise them with the closest +severity. One day, having read over one of his Ramblers, Mr. Langton +asked him, how he liked that paper; he shook his head, and answered, +"too wordy." At another time, when one was reading his tragedy of +_Irene_ to a company at a house in the country, he left the room; and +somebody having asked him the reason of this, he replied, Sir, I thought +it had been better[13].' + +'Talking of a point of delicate scrupulosity[14] of moral conduct, he +said to Mr. Langton, "Men of harder minds than ours will do many things +from which you and I would shrink; yet, Sir, they will perhaps do more +good in life than we. But let us try to help one another. If there be a +wrong twist it may be set right. It is not probable that two people can +be wrong the same way."' + +'Of the Preface to Capel's _Shakspeare_, he said, "If the man would have +come to me, I would have endeavoured to endow his purposes with words; +for as it is, he doth gabble monstrously[15]."' + +'He related, that he had once in a dream a contest of wit with some +other person, and that he was very much mortified by imagining that his +opponent had the better of him. "Now, (said he,) one may mark here the +effect of sleep in weakening the power of reflection; for had not my +judgement failed me, I should have seen, that the wit of this supposed +antagonist, by whose superiority I felt myself depressed, was as much +furnished by me, as that which I thought I had been uttering in my own +character."' + +'One evening in company, an ingenious and learned gentleman read to him +a letter of compliment which he had received from one of the Professors +of a foreign University. Johnson, in an irritable fit, thinking there +was too much ostentation, said, "I never receive any of these tributes +of applause from abroad. One instance I recollect of a foreign +publication, in which mention is made of _l'illustre Lockman_[16]."' + +'Of Sir Joshua Reynolds, he said, "Sir, I know no man who has passed +through life with more observation than Reynolds."' + +'He repeated to Mr. Langton, with great energy, in the Greek, our +SAVIOUR'S gracious expression concerning the forgiveness of Mary +Magdalen, "[Greek: Ae pistis sou sesoke se poreuou eis eiraeuaeu.] Thy +faith hath saved thee; go in peace[17]." He said, "the manner of this +dismission is exceedingly affecting."' + +'He thus defined the difference between physical and moral truth; +"Physical truth, is, when you tell a thing as it actually is. Moral +truth, is, when you tell a thing sincerely and precisely as it appears +to you. I say such a one walked across the street; if he really did so, +I told a physical truth. If I thought so, though I should have been +mistaken, I told a moral truth."' + +'Huggins, the translator of Ariosto, and Mr. Thomas Warton, in the early +part of his literary life, had a dispute concerning that poet, of whom +Mr. Warton in his _Observations on Spenser's Fairy Queen_, gave some +account, which Huggins attempted to answer with violence, and said, "I +will _militate_ no longer against his _nescience_." Huggins was master +of the subject, but wanted expression. Mr. Warton's knowledge of it was +then imperfect, but his manner lively and elegant[18]. Johnson said, "It +appears to me, that Huggins has ball without powder, and Warton powder +without ball."' + +'Talking of the Farce of _High Life below Stairs_[19], he said, "Here is +a Farce, which is really very diverting when you see it acted; and yet +one may read it, and not know that one has been reading any thing +at all."' + +'He used at one time to go occasionally to the green room of Drury-lane +Theatre[20], where he was much regarded by the players, and was very +easy and facetious with them. He had a very high opinion of Mrs. Clive's +comick powers, and conversed more with her than with any of them. He +said, "Clive, Sir, is a good thing to sit by; she always understands +what you say[21]." And she said of him, "I love to sit by Dr. Johnson; +he always entertains me." One night, when _The Recruiting Officer_ was +acted, he said to Mr. Holland[22], who had been expressing an +apprehension that Dr. Johnson would disdain the works of Farquhar; "No, +Sir, I think Farquhar a man whose writings have considerable merit."' + +'His friend Garrick was so busy in conducting the drama, that they could +not have so much intercourse as Mr. Garrick used to profess an anxious +wish that there should be[23]. There might, indeed, be something in the +contemptuous severity as to the merit of acting, which his old preceptor +nourished in himself, that would mortify Garrick after the great +applause which he received from the audience. For though Johnson said of +him, "Sir, a man who has a nation to admire him every night, may well be +expected to be somewhat elated[24];" yet he would treat theatrical +matters with a ludicrous slight. He mentioned one evening, "I met David +coming off the stage, drest in a woman's riding-hood, when he acted in +_The Wonder_[25]; I came full upon him, and I believe he was not +pleased."' + +'Once he asked Tom Davies, whom he saw drest in a fine suit of clothes, +"And what art thou to-night?" Tom answered, "The Thane of Ross[26];" +(which it will be recollected is a very inconsiderable character.) "O +brave!" said Johnson.' + +'Of Mr. Longley, at Rochester, a gentleman of very considerable +learning, whom Dr. Johnson met there, he said, "My heart warms towards +him. I was surprised to find in him such a nice acquaintance with the +metre in the learned languages; though I was somewhat mortified that I +had it not so much to myself, as I should have thought[27]."' + +'Talking of the minuteness with which people will record the sayings of +eminent persons, a story was told, that when Pope was on a visit to +Spence[28] at Oxford, as they looked from the window they saw a +Gentleman Commoner, who was just come in from riding, amusing himself +with whipping at a post. Pope took occasion to say, "That young +gentleman seems to have little to do." Mr. Beauclerk observed, "Then, to +be sure, Spence turned round and wrote that down;" and went on to say to +Dr. Johnson, "Pope, Sir, would have said the same of you, if he had seen +you distilling[29]." JOHNSON. "Sir, if Pope had told me of my +distilling, I would have told him of his grotto[30]."' + +'He would allow no settled indulgence of idleness upon principle, and +always repelled every attempt to urge excuses for it, A friend one day +suggested, that it was not wholesome to study soon after dinner. +JOHNSON. "Ah, Sir, don't give way to such a fancy. At one time of my +life I had taken it into my head that it was not wholesome to study +between breakfast and dinner[31]."' + +'Mr. Beauclerk one day repeated to Dr. Johnson Pope's lines, + + "Let modest Foster, if he will, excel + Ten metropolitans in preaching well:" [32] + +Then asked the Doctor, "Why did Pope say this?" JOHNSON. 'Sir, he hoped +it would vex somebody.' + +'Dr. Goldsmith, upon occasion of Mrs. Lennox's bringing out a play[33], +said to Dr. Johnson at the CLUB, that a person had advised him to go and +hiss it, because she had attacked Shakspeare in her book called +_Shakspeare Illustrated_[34]. JOHNSON. "And did not you tell him he was +a rascal[35]?" GOLDSMITH. "No, Sir, I did not. Perhaps he might not mean +what he said." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, if he lied, it is a different thing." +Colman slily said, (but it is believed Dr. Johnson did not hear him,) +"Then the proper expression should have been,--Sir, if you don't lie, +you're a rascal."' + +'His affection for Topham Beauclerk was so great, that when Beauclerk +was labouring under that severe illness which at last occasioned his +death, Johnson said, (with a voice faultering with emotion,) "Sir, I +would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save +Beauclerk[36]."' + +'One night at the CLUB he produced a translation of an Epitaph which +Lord Elibank had written in English, for his Lady, and requested of +Johnson to turn into Latin for him. Having read _Domina de North et +Gray_, he said to Dyer, "You see, Sir, what barbarisms we are compelled +to make use of, when modern titles are to be specifically mentioned in +Latin inscriptions." When he had read it once aloud, and there had been +a general approbation expressed by the company, he addressed himself to +Mr. Dyer in particular, and said, "Sir, I beg to have your judgement, +for I know your nicety[37]." Dyer then very properly desired to read it +over again; which having done, he pointed out an incongruity in one of +the sentences. Johnson immediately assented to the observation, and +said, "Sir, this is owing to an alteration of a part of the sentence, +from the form in which I had first written it; and I believe, Sir, you +may have remarked, that the making a partial change, without a due +regard to the general structure of the sentence, is a very frequent +cause of errour in composition."' + +'Johnson was well acquainted with Mr. Dossie, authour of a treatise on +Agriculture[38]; and said of him, "Sir, of the objects which the Society +of Arts have chiefly in view, the chymical effects of bodies operating +upon other bodies, he knows more than almost any man." Johnson, in order +to give Mr. Dossie his vote to be a member of this Society, paid up an +arrear which had run on for two years. On this occasion he mentioned a +circumstance as characteristick of the Scotch. One of that nation, (said +he,) who had been a candidate, against whom I had voted, came up to me +with a civil salutation. Now, Sir, this is their way. An Englishman +would have stomached it, and been sulky, and never have taken further +notice of you; but a Scotchman, Sir, though you vote nineteen times +against him, will accost you with equal complaisance after each time, +and the twentieth time, Sir, he will get your vote.' + +'Talking on the subject of toleration, one day when some friends were +with him in his study, he made his usual remark, that the State has a +right to regulate the religion of the people, who are the children of +the State[39]. A clergyman having readily acquiesced in this, Johnson, +who loved discussion, observed, "But, Sir, you must go round to other +States than our own. You do not know what a Bramin has to say for +himself[40]. In short, Sir, I have got no further than this: Every man +has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a +right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test[41]."' + +'A man, he observed, should begin to write soon; for, if he waits till +his judgement is matured, his inability, through want of practice to +express his conceptions, will make the disproportion so great between +what he sees, and what he can attain, that he will probably be +discouraged from writing at all[42]. As a proof of the justness of this +remark, we may instance what is related of the great Lord Granville[43]; +that after he had written his letter, giving an account of the battle of +Dettingen, he said, "Here is a letter, expressed in terms not good +enough for a tallow-chandler to have used.'" + +'Talking of a Court-martial that was sitting upon a very momentous +publick occasion, he expressed much doubt of an enlightened decision; +and said, that perhaps there was not a member of it, who in the whole +course of his life, had ever spent an hour by himself in balancing +probabilities[44].' + +'Goldsmith one day brought to the CLUB a printed Ode, which he, with +others, had been hearing read by its authour in a publick room at the +rate of five shillings each for admission[45]. One of the company having +read it aloud, Dr. Johnson said, "Bolder words and more timorous +meaning, I think never were brought together."' + +'Talking of Gray's _Odes_, he said, "They are forced plants raised in a +hot-bed[46]; and they are poor plants; they are but cucumbers after +all." A gentleman present, who had been running down Ode-writing in +general, as a bad species of poetry, unluckily said, "Had they been +literally cucumbers, they had been better things than Odes."--"Yes, Sir, +(said Johnson,) for a _hog_."' + +'His distinction of the different degrees of attainment of learning was +thus marked upon two occasions. Of Queen Elizabeth he said, "She had +learning enough to have given dignity to a bishop;" and of Mr. Thomas +Davies he said, "Sir, Davies has learning enough to give credit to a +clergyman[47]."' + +'He used to quote, with great warmth, the saying of Aristotle recorded +by Diogenes Laertius[48]; that there was the same difference between one +learned and unlearned, as between the living and the dead.' + +'It is very remarkable, that he retained in his memory very slight and +trivial, as well as important things[49]. As an instance of this, it +seems that an inferiour domestick of the Duke of Leeds had attempted to +celebrate his Grace's marriage in such homely rhimes as he could make; +and this curious composition having been sung to Dr. Johnson he got it +by heart, and used to repeat it in a very pleasant manner. Two of the +stanzas were these:-- + + "When the Duke of Leeds shall married be + To a fine young lady of high quality, + How happy will that gentlewoman be + In his Grace of Leeds's good company. + + She shall have all that's fine and fair, + And the best of silk and sattin shall wear; + And ride in a coach to take the air, + And have a house in St. James's-square[50]." + +To hear a man, of the weight and dignity of Johnson, repeating such +humble attempts at poetry, had a very amusing effect. He, however, +seriously observed of the last stanza repeated by him, that it nearly +comprized all the advantages that wealth can give.' + +'An eminent foreigner, when he was shewn the British Museum, was very +troublesome with many absurd inquiries. "Now there, Sir, (said he,) is +the difference between an Englishman and a Frenchman. A Frenchman must +be always talking, whether he knows any thing of the matter or not; an +Englishman is content to say nothing, when he has nothing to say."' + +'His unjust contempt for foreigners was, indeed, extreme. One evening, +at old Slaughter's coffee-house[51], when a number of them were talking +loud about little matters, he said, "Does not this confirm old +Meynell's[52] observation--_For any thing I see, foreigners are +fools_[53]."' + +'He said, that once, when he had a violent tooth-ach, a Frenchman +accosted him thus:--_Ah, Monsieur vous etudiez trop_[54].' + +'Having spent an evening at Mr. Langton's with the Reverend Dr. Parr, he +was much pleased with the conversation of that learned gentleman; and +after he was gone, said to Mr. Langton, "Sir, I am obliged to you for +having asked me this evening. Parr is a fair man. I do not know when I +have had an occasion of such free controversy. It is remarkable how much +of a man's life may pass without meeting with any instance of this kind +of open discussion[55]."' + +'We may fairly institute a criticism between Shakspeare and +Corneille[56], as they both had, though in a different degree, the +lights of a latter age. It is not so just between the Greek dramatick +writers and Shakspeare. It may be replied to what is said by one of the +remarkers on Shakspeare, that though Darius's shade[57] had +_prescience_, it does not necessarily follow that he had all _past_ +particulars revealed to him.' + +'Spanish plays, being wildly and improbably farcical, would please +children here, as children are entertained with stories full of +prodigies; their experience not being sufficient to cause them to be so +readily startled at deviations from the natural course of life[58]. The +machinery of the Pagans is uninteresting to us[59]: when a Goddess +appears in Homer or Virgil, we grow weary; still more so in the Grecian +tragedies, as in that kind of composition a nearer approach to Nature is +intended. Yet there are good reasons for reading romances; as--the +fertility of invention, the beauty of style and expression, the +curiosity of seeing with what kind of performances the age and country +in which they were written was delighted: for it is to be apprehended, +that at the time when very wild improbable tales were well received, the +people were in a barbarous state, and so on the footing of children, as +has been explained.' + +'It is evident enough that no one who writes now can use the Pagan +deities and mythology; the only machinery, therefore, seems that of +ministering spirits, the ghosts of the departed, witches[60], and +fairies, though these latter, as the vulgar superstition concerning them +(which, while in its force, infected at least the imagination of those +that had more advantage in education, though their reason set them free +from it,) is every day wearing out, seem likely to be of little further +assistance in the machinery of poetry. As I recollect, Hammond +introduces a hag or witch into one of his love elegies, where the effect +is unmeaning and disgusting[61].' + +'The man who uses his talent of ridicule in creating or grossly +exaggerating the instances he gives, who imputes absurdities that did +not happen, or when a man was a little ridiculous describes him as +having been very much so, abuses his talents greatly. The great use of +delineating absurdities is, that we may know how far human folly can go; +the account, therefore, ought of absolute necessity to be faithful. A +certain character (naming the person) as to the general cast of it, is +well described by Garrick, but a great deal of the phraseology he uses +in it, is quite his own, particularly in the proverbial comparisons, +"obstinate as a pig," &c., but I don't know whether it might not be true +of Lord ------[62], that from a too great eagerness of praise and +popularity, and a politeness carried to a ridiculous excess, he was +likely, after asserting a thing in general, to give it up again in +parts. For instance, if he had said Reynolds was the first of painters, +he was capable enough of giving up, as objections might happen to be +severally made, first his outline,--then the grace in form,--then the +colouring,--and lastly, to have owned that he was such a mannerist, that +the disposition of his pictures was all alike.' + +'For hospitality, as formerly practised, there is no longer the same +reason; heretofore the poorer people were more numerous, and from want +of commerce, their means of getting a livelihood more difficult; +therefore the supporting them was an act of great benevolence; now that +the poor can find maintenance for themselves, and their labour is +wanted, a general undiscerning hospitality tends to ill, by withdrawing +them from their work to idleness and drunkenness. Then, formerly rents +were received in kind, so that there was a great abundance of provisions +in possession of the owners of the lands, which, since the plenty of +money afforded by commerce, is no longer the case.' + +'Hospitality to strangers and foreigners in our country is now almost at +an end, since, from the increase of them that come to us, there have +been a sufficient number of people that have found an interest in +providing inns and proper accommodations, which is in general a more +expedient method for the entertainment of travellers. Where the +travellers and strangers are few, more of that hospitality subsists, as +it has not been worth while to provide places of accommodation. In +Ireland there is still hospitality to strangers, in some degree; in +Hungary and Poland probably more.' + +'Colman, in a note on his translation of _Terence_, talking of +Shakspeare's learning, asks, "What says Farmer to this? What says +Johnson[63]?" Upon this he observed, "Sir, let Farmer answer for +himself: _I_ never engaged in this controversy. I always said, +Shakspeare had Latin enough to grammaticise his English[64]."' + +'A clergyman, whom he characterised as one who loved to say little +oddities, was affecting one day, at a Bishop's table, a sort of slyness +and freedom not in character, and repeated, as if part of _The Old Mans +Wish_, a song by Dr. Walter Pope, a verse bordering on licentiousness. +Johnson rebuked him in the finest manner, by first shewing him that he +did not know the passage he was aiming at, and thus humbling him: "Sir, +that is not the song: it is thus." And he gave it right. Then looking +stedfastly on him, "Sir, there is a part of that song which I should +wish to exemplify in my own life:-- + +"May I govern my passions with absolute sway[65]!"' + +'Being asked if Barnes knew a good deal of Greek, he answered, "I doubt, +Sir, he was _unoculus inter caecos[66]_."' + +'He used frequently to observe, that men might be very eminent in a +profession, without our perceiving any particular power of mind in them +in conversation. "It seems strange (said he) that a man should see so +far to the right, who sees so short a way to the left. Burke is the only +man whose common conversation corresponds with the general fame which +he has in the world. Take up whatever topick you please, he is ready to +meet you[67]."' + +'A gentleman, by no means deficient in literature, having discovered +less acquaintance with one of the Classicks than Johnson expected, when +the gentleman left the room, he observed, "You see, now, how little any +body reads." Mr. Langton happening to mention his having read a good +deal in Clenardus's _Greek Grammar_, "Why, Sir, (said he,) who is there +in this town who knows any thing of Clenardus but you and I?" And upon +Mr. Langton's mentioning that he had taken the pains to learn by heart +the Epistle of St. Basil, which is given in that Grammar as a praxis, +"Sir, (said he,) I never made such an effort to attain Greek[68]."' + +'Of Dodsley's _Publick Virtue, a Poem_, he said, "It was fine _blank_ +(meaning to express his usual contempt for blank verse[69]); however, +this miserable poem did not sell, and my poor friend Doddy said, Publick +Virtue was not a subject to interest the age."' + +'Mr. Langton, when a very young man, read Dodsley's _Cleone a +Tragedy_[70], to him, not aware of his extreme impatience to be read to. +As it went on he turned his face to the back of his chair, and put +himself into various attitudes, which marked his uneasiness. At the end +of an act, however, he said, "Come let's have some more, let's go into +the slaughter-house again, Lanky. But I am afraid there is more blood +than brains." Yet he afterwards said, "When I heard you read it, I +thought higher of its power of language: when I read it myself, I was +more sensible of its pathetick effect;" and then he paid it a compliment +which many will think very extravagant. "Sir, (said he,) if Otway had +written this play, no other of his pieces would have been remembered." +Dodsley himself, upon this being repeated to him, said, "It was too +much:" it must be remembered, that Johnson always appeared not to be +sufficiently sensible of the merit of Otway[71].' + +'Snatches of reading (said he) will not make a Bentley or a Clarke. They +are, however, in a certain degree advantageous. I would put a child into +a library (where no unfit books are) and let him read at his choice. A +child should not be discouraged from reading any thing that he takes a +liking to, from a notion that it is above his reach. If that be the +case, the child will soon find it out and desist; if not, he of course +gains the instruction; which is so much the more likely to come, from +the inclination with which he takes up the study[72].' + +'Though he used to censure carelessness with great vehemence, he owned, +that he once, to avoid the trouble of locking up five guineas, hid them, +he forgot where, so that he could not find them.' + +'A gentleman who introduced his brother to Dr. Johnson was earnest to +recommend him to the Doctor's notice, which he did by saying, "When we +have sat together some time, you'll find my brother grow very +entertaining."--"Sir, (said Johnson,) I can wait."' + +'When the rumour was strong that we should have a war, because the +French would assist the Americans, he rebuked a friend with some +asperity for supposing it, saying, "No, Sir, national faith is not yet +sunk so low."' + +'In the latter part of his life, in order to satisfy himself whether his +mental faculties were impaired, he resolved that he would try to learn a +new language, and fixed upon the Low Dutch, for that purpose, and this +he continued till he had read about one half of _Thomas a Kempis_; and +finding that there appeared no abatement of his power of acquisition, he +then desisted, as thinking the experiment had been duly tried[73]. Mr. +Burke justly observed, that this was not the most vigorous trial, Low +Dutch being a language so near to our own; had it been one of the +languages entirely different, he might have been very soon satisfied.' + +'Mr. Langton and he having gone to see a Freemason's funeral procession, +when they were at Rochester[74], and some solemn musick being played on +French horns, he said, "This is the first time that I have ever been +affected by musical sounds;" adding, "that the impression made upon him +was of a melancholy kind." Mr. Langton saying, that this effect was a +fine one,--JOHNSON. "Yes, if it softens the mind, so as to prepare it +for the reception of salutary feelings, it may be good: but inasmuch as +it is melancholy _per se_, it is bad[75]."' + +'Goldsmith had long a visionary project, that some time or other when +his circumstances should be easier, he would go to Aleppo, in order to +acquire a knowledge as far as might be of any arts peculiar to the East, +and introduce them into Britain. When this was talked of in Dr. +Johnson's company, he said, "Of all men Goldsmith is the most unfit to +go out upon such an inquiry; for he is utterly ignorant of such arts as +we already possess, and consequently could not know what would be +accessions to our present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir, he would +bring home a grinding barrow, which you see in every street in London, +and think that he had furnished a wonderful improvement[76]."' + +'Greek, Sir, (said he,) is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he +can[77].' + +'When Lord Charles Hay[78], after his return from America, was preparing +his defence to be offered to the Court-Martial which he had demanded, +having heard Mr. Langton as high in expressions of admiration of +Johnson, as he usually was, he requested that Dr. Johnson might be +introduced to him; and Mr. Langton having mentioned it to Johnson, he +very kindly and readily agreed; and being presented by Mr. Langton to +his Lordship, while under arrest, he saw him several times; upon one of +which occasions Lord Charles read to him what he had prepared, which +Johnson signified his approbation of, saying, "It is a very good +soldierly defence." Johnson said, that he had advised his Lordship, that +as it was in vain to contend with those who were in possession of power, +if they would offer him the rank of Lieutenant-General, and a +government, it would be better judged to desist from urging his +complaints. It is well known that his Lordship died before the sentence +was made known.' + +'Johnson one day gave high praise to Dr. Bentley's verses[79] in +Dodsley's _Collection_, which he recited with his usual energy. Dr. Adam +Smith, who was present, observed in his decisive professorial manner, +"Very well--Very well." Johnson however added, "Yes, they _are_ very +well, Sir; but you may observe in what manner they are well. They are +the forcible verses of a man of a strong mind, but not accustomed to +write verse[80]; for there is some uncouthness in the expression[81]."' + +'Drinking tea one day at Garrick's with Mr. Langton, he was questioned +if he was not somewhat of a heretick as to Shakspeare; said Garrick, "I +doubt he is a little of an infidel[82]."--"Sir, (said Johnson) I will +stand by the lines I have written on Shakspeare in my Prologue at the +opening of your Theatre[83]." Mr. Langton suggested, that in the line + + "And panting Time toil'd after him in vain," + +Johnson might have had in his eye the passage in _The Tempest_, where +Prospero says of Miranda, + + "-------She will outstrip all praise, + And make it halt behind her[84]." + +Johnson said nothing. Garrick then ventured to observe, "I do not think +that the happiest line in the praise of Shakspeare." Johnson exclaimed +(smiling,) "Prosaical rogues! next time I write, I'll make both time and +space pant[85]."' + +'It is well known that there was formerly a rude custom for those who +were sailing upon the Thames, to accost each other as they passed, in +the most abusive language they could invent, generally, however, with as +much satirical humour as they were capable of producing. Addison gives a +specimen of this ribaldry, in Number 383 of _The Spectator_, when Sir +Roger de Coverly and he are going to Spring-garden[86]. Johnson was once +eminently successful in this species of contest; a fellow having +attacked him with some coarse raillery, Johnson answered him thus, "Sir, +your wife, _under pretence of keeping a bawdy-house_, is a receiver of +stolen goods[87]." One evening when he and Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton +were in company together, and the admirable scolding of Timon of Athens +was mentioned, this instance of Johnson's was quoted, and thought to +have at least equal excellence.' + +'As Johnson always allowed the extraordinary talents of Mr. Burke, so +Mr. Burke was fully sensible of the wonderful powers of Johnson. Mr. +Langton recollects having passed an evening with both of them, when Mr. +Burke repeatedly entered upon topicks which it was evident he would have +illustrated with extensive knowledge and richness of expression; but +Johnson always seized upon the conversation, in which, however, he +acquitted himself in a most masterly manner. As Mr. Burke and Mr. +Langton were walking home, Mr. Burke observed that Johnson had been very +great that night; Mr. Langton joined in this, but added, he could have +wished to hear more from another person; (plainly intimating that he +meant Mr. Burke.) "O, no (said Mr. Burke) it is enough for me to have +rung the bell to him[88]."' + +'Beauclerk having observed to him of one of their friends, that he was +aukward at counting money, "Why, Sir, said Johnson, I am likewise +aukward at counting money. But then, Sir, the reason is plain; I have +had very little money to count."' + +'He had an abhorrence of affectation[89]. Talking of old Mr. Langton, of +whom he said, "Sir, you will seldom see such a gentleman, such are his +stores of literature, such his knowledge in divinity, and such his +exemplary life;" he added, "and Sir, he has no grimace, no +gesticulation, no bursts of admiration on trivial occasions; he never +embraces you with an overacted cordiality[90]."' + +'Being in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain Dr. +Berkeley's ingenious philosophy, that nothing exists but as perceived by +some mind[91]; when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, +"Pray, Sir, don't leave us; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, +and then you will cease to exist[92]."' + +'Goldsmith, upon being visited by Johnson one day in the Temple, said to +him with a little jealousy of the appearance of his accommodation, "I +shall soon be in better chambers than these." Johnson at the same time +checked him and paid him a handsome compliment, implying that a man of +his talents should be above attention to such distinctions,--'Nay, Sir, +never mind that. _Nil te quaesiveris extra_[93].' + +'At the time when his pension was granted to him, he said, with a noble +literary ambition, "Had this happened twenty years years ago, I should +have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabick, as Pococke did[94]."' + +'As an instance of the niceness of his taste, though he praised West's +translation of Pindar, he pointed out the following passage as faulty, +by expressing a circumstance so minute as to detract from the general +dignity which should prevail: + + "Down then from thy glittering nail, + Take, O Muse, thy Dorian _lyre_[95].'" + +'When Mr. Vesey[96] was proposed as a member of the LITERARY CLUB, Mr. +Burke began by saying that he was a man of gentle manners. "Sir, said +Johnson, you need say no more. When you have said a man of gentle +manners; you have said enough."' + +'The late Mr. Fitzherbert[97] told Mr. Langton that Johnson said to him, +"Sir, a man has no more right to _say_ an uncivil thing, than to _act_ +one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock +him down."' + +'My dear friend Dr. Bathurst[98], (said he with a warmth of approbation) +declared he was glad that his father, who was a West-Indian planter, had +left his affairs in total ruin, because having no estate, he was not +under the temptation of having slaves.' + +'Richardson had little conversation[99], except about his own works, of +which Sir Joshua Reynolds said he was always willing to talk, and glad +to have them introduced. Johnson when he carried Mr. Langton to see him, +professed that he could bring him out into conversation, and used this +allusive expression, "Sir, I can make him _rear._" But he failed; for in +that interview Richardson said little else than that there lay in the +room a translation of his _Clarissa_ into German[100].' + +'Once when somebody produced a newspaper in which there was a letter of +stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of which Johnson himself came in +for a share,--"Pray," said he, "let us have it read aloud from beginning +to end;" which being done, he with a ludicrous earnestness, and not +directing his look to any particular person, called out, "Are we alive +after all this satire!"' + +'He had a strong prejudice against the political character of +Seeker[101], one instance of which appeared at Oxford, where he +expressed great dissatisfaction at his varying the old established +toast, "Church and King." "The Archbishop of Canterbury, said he (with +an affected smooth smiling grimace) drinks,' Constitution in Church and +State.'" Being asked what difference there was between the two toasts, +he said, "Why, Sir, you may be sure he meant something." Yet when the +life of that prelate, prefixed to his sermons by Dr. Porteus and Dr. +Stinton his chaplains, first came out, he read it with the utmost +avidity, and said, "It is a life well written, and that well deserves to +be recorded."' + +'Of a certain noble Lord, he said, "Respect him, you could not; for he +had no mind of his own. Love him you could not; for that which you could +do with him, every one else could[102]."' + +'Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, "No man was more foolish when he had not a +pen in his hand, or more wise when he had[103]."' + +'He told in his lively manner the following literary anecdote: "Green +and Guthrie[104], an Irishman and a Scotchman, undertook a translation +of Duhalde's _History of China_. Green said of Guthrie, that he knew no +English, and Guthrie of Green, that he knew no French; and these two +undertook to translate Duhalde's _History of China_. In this translation +there was found 'the twenty-sixth day of the new moon.' Now as the whole +age of the moon is but twenty-eight days, the moon instead of being new, +was nearly as old as it could be. Their blunder arose from their +mistaking the word _neuvieme_ ninth, for _nouvelle_ or _neuve_, new."' + +'Talking of Dr. Blagden's copiousness and precision of communication, +Dr. Johnson said, "Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow[105]."' + +'On occasion of Dr. Johnson's publishing his pamphlet of _The False +Alarm_[106], there came out a very angry answer (by many supposed to be +by Mr. Wilkes). Dr. Johnson determined on not answering it; but, in +conversation with Mr. Langton, mentioned a particular or two, which if +he _had_ replied to it, he might perhaps have inserted. In the +answerer's pamphlet, it had been said with solemnity, "Do you consider, +Sir, that a House of Commons is to the people as a Creature is to its +Creator[107]?" To this question, said Dr. Johnson, I could have replied, +that--in the first place--the idea of a CREATOR must be such as that he +has a power to unmake or annihilate his creature.' + +'Then it cannot be conceived that a creature can make laws for its +CREATOR[108].' + +'Depend upon it, said he, that if a man _talks_ of his misfortunes, +there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where +there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the +mention of it[109].' + +'A man must be a poor beast that should _read_ no more in quantity than +he could _utter_ aloud.' + +'Imlac in _Rasselas_, I spelt with a _c_ at the end, because it is less +like English, which should always have the Saxon _k_ added to the +_c_[110].' + +'Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without +having it perceived[111]: for example, a madness has seized a person of +supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually[112]--had the +madness turned the opposite way and the person thought it a crime ever +to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.' + +'He apprehended that the delineation of _characters_ in the end of the +first Book of the _Retreat of the Ten Thousand_ was the first instance +of the kind that was known.' + +'Supposing (said he) a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, +it would be very troublesome[113]: for instance,--if a woman should +continually dwell upon the subject of the Arian heresy.' + +'No man speaks concerning another, even suppose it be in his praise, if +he thinks he does not hear him, exactly as he would, if he thought he +was within hearing.' + +'The applause of a single human being is of great consequence[114]: This +he said to me with great earnestness of manner, very near the time of +his decease, on occasion of having desired me to read a letter addressed +to him from some person in the North of England; which when I had done, +and he asked me what the contents were, as I thought being particular +upon it might fatigue him, it being of great length, I only told him in +general that it was highly in his praise;--and then he expressed himself +as above.' + +'He mentioned with an air of satisfaction what Baretti had told him; +that, meeting, in the course of his studying English, with an excellent +paper in the _Spectator_, one of four[115] that were written by the +respectable Dissenting Minister, Mr. Grove of Taunton, and observing the +genius and energy of mind that it exhibits, it greatly quickened his +curiosity to visit our country; as he thought if such were the lighter +periodical essays of our authours, their productions on more weighty +occasions must be wonderful indeed!' + +'He observed once, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, that a beggar in the street +will more readily ask alms from a _man_, though there should be no marks +of wealth in his appearance, than from even a well-dressed woman[116]; +which he accounted for from the greater degree of carefulness as to +money that is to be found in women; saying farther upon it, that the +opportunities in general that they possess of improving their condition +are much fewer than men have; and adding, as he looked round the +company, which consisted of men only,--there is not one of us who does +not think he might be richer if he would use his endeavour.' + +'He thus characterised an ingenious writer of his acquaintance: "Sir, he +is an enthusiast by rule[117]."' + +'_He may hold up that SHIELD against all his enemies_;'--was an +observation on Homer, in reference to his description of the shield of +Achilles, made by Mrs. Fitzherbert, wife to his friend Mr. Fitzherbert +of Derbyshire, and respected by Dr. Johnson as a very fine one[118]. He +had in general a very high opinion of that lady's understanding.' + +'An observation of Bathurst's may be mentioned, which Johnson repeated, +appearing to acknowledge it to be well founded, namely, it was somewhat +remarkable how seldom, on occasion of coming into the company of any new +person, one felt any wish or inclination to see him again[119].' + +This year the Reverend Dr. Franklin[120] having published a translation +of _Lucian_, inscribed to him the _Demonax_ thus:-- + +'To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, the Demonax of the present age, this piece is +inscribed by a sincere admirer of his respectable[121] talents, + +'THE TRANSLATOR.' + +Though upon a particular comparison of Demonax and Johnson, there does +not seem to be a great deal of similarity between them, this Dedication +is a just compliment from the general character given by Lucian of the +ancient Sage, '[Greek: ariston on oida ego philosophon genomenon], the +best philosopher whom I have ever seen or known.' + +1781: AETAT. 72.--In 1781 Johnson at last completed his _Lives of the +Poets_, of which he gives this account: 'Some time in March I finished +the _Lives of the Poets_, which I wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and +hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste[122].' In +a memorandum previous to this, he says of them: 'Written, I hope, in +such a manner as may tend to the promotion of piety[123].' + +This is the work which of all Dr. Johnson's writings will perhaps be +read most generally, and with most pleasure. Philology and +biography[124] were his favourite pursuits, and those who lived most in +intimacy with him, heard him upon all occasions, when there was a proper +opportunity, take delight in expatiating upon the various merits of the +English Poets: upon the niceties of their characters, and the events of +their progress through the world which they contributed to illuminate. +His mind was so full of that kind of information, and it was so well +arranged in his memory, that in performing what he had undertaken in +this way, he had little more to do than to put his thoughts upon paper, +exhibiting first each Poet's life, and then subjoining a critical +examination of his genius and works. But when he began to write, the +subject swelled in such a manner, that instead of prefaces to each poet, +of no more than a few pages, as he had originally intended[125], he +produced an ample, rich, and most entertaining view of them in every +respect. In this he resembled Quintilian, who tells us, that in the +composition of his _Institutions of Oratory[126], Latius se tamen +aperiente materia, plus quam imponebatur oneris sponte suscepi._ The +booksellers, justly sensible of the great additional value of the +copy-right, presented him with another hundred pounds, over and above +two hundred, for which his agreement was to furnish such prefaces as he +thought fit[127]. + +This was, however, but a small recompense for such a collection of +biography, and such principles and illustrations of criticism, as, if +digested and arranged in one system, by some modern Aristotle or +Longinus, might form a code upon that subject, such as no other nation +can shew. As he was so good as to make me a present of the greatest part +of the original and indeed only[128] manuscript of this admirable work, +I have an opportunity of observing with wonder, the correctness with +which he rapidly struck off such glowing composition. He may be +assimilated to the Lady in Waller, who could impress with 'Love at +first sight:' + + 'Some other nymphs with colours faint, + And pencil slow may Cupid paint, + And a weak heart in time destroy; + She has a stamp, and prints the boy[129].' + +That he, however, had a good deal of trouble, and some anxiety in +carrying on the work[130], we see from a series of letters to Mr. +Nichols the printer[131], whose variety of literary inquiry and +obliging disposition, rendered him useful to Johnson. Mr. Steevens +appears, from the papers in my possession, to have supplied him with +some anecdotes and quotations; and I observe the fair hand of Mrs. +Thrale as one of his copyists of select passages. But he was principally +indebted to my steady friend Mr. Isaac Reed, of Staple-inn, whose +extensive and accurate knowledge of English literary history I do not +express with exaggeration, when I say it is wonderful; indeed his +labours[132] have proved it to the world; and all who have the pleasure +of his acquaintance can bear testimony to the frankness of his +communications in private society. + +It is not my intention to dwell upon each of Johnson's _Lives of the +Poets_, or attempt an analysis of their merits, which, were I able to +do it, would take up too much room in this work; yet I shall make a few +observations upon some of them, and insert a few various readings. + +The Life of COWLEY he himself considered as the best of the whole, on +account of the dissertation which it contains on the _Metaphysical +Poets_. Dryden, whose critical abilities were equal to his poetical, had +mentioned them in his excellent Dedication of his Juvenal, but had +barely mentioned them[133]. Johnson has exhibited them at large, with +such happy illustration from their writings, and in so luminous a +manner, that indeed he may be allowed the full merit of novelty, and to +have discovered to us, as it were, a new planet in the poetical +hemisphere[134]. + +It is remarked by Johnson, in considering the works of a poet[135], that +'amendments are seldom made without some token of a rent;' but I do not +find that this is applicable to prose[136]. We shall see that though his +amendments in this work are for the better, there is nothing of the +_pannus assutus_[137]; the texture is uniform: and indeed, what had been +there at first, is very seldom unfit to have remained. + +_Various Readings[138] in the Life of COWLEY._ + +'All [future votaries of] _that may hereafter pant for_ solitude. + +'To conceive and execute the [agitation or perception] _pains and the +pleasures_ of other minds. + +'The wide effulgence of [the blazing] a _summer_ noon.' + +In the Life of WALLER, Johnson gives a distinct and animated narrative +of publick affairs in that variegated period, with strong yet nice +touches of character; and having a fair opportunity to display his +political principles, does it with an unqualified manly confidence, and +satisfies his readers how nobly he might have executed a _Tory History_ +of his country. + +So easy is his style in these Lives, that I do not recollect more than +three uncommon or learned words[139]; one, when giving an account of the +approach of Waller's mortal disease, he says, 'he found his legs grow +_tumid_;' by using the expression his legs _swelled_, he would have +avoided this; and there would have been no impropriety in its being +followed by the interesting question to his physician, 'What that +_swelling_ meant?' Another, when he mentions that Pope had _emitted_ +proposals; when _published_ or _issued_ would have been more readily +understood; and a third, when he calls Orrery and Dr. Delany[140], +writers both undoubtedly _veracious_[141], when _true, honest_, or +_faithful_, might have been used. Yet, it must be owned, that none of +these are _hard_ or _too big_ words; that custom would make them seem as +easy as any others; and that a language is richer and capable of more +beauty of expression, by having a greater variety of synonimes. + +His dissertation[142] upon the unfitness of poetry for the aweful +subjects of our holy religion, though I do not entirely agree with with +him, has all the merit of originality, with uncommon force and +reasoning. + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ WALLER. + +'Consented to [the insertion of their names] _their own nomination_. + +'[After] _paying_ a fine of ten thousand pounds. + +'Congratulating Charles the Second on his [coronation] _recovered +right_. + +'He that has flattery ready for all whom the vicissitudes of the world +happen to exalt, must be [confessed to degrade his powers] _scorned as a +prostituted mind_. + +'The characters by which Waller intended to distinguish his writings are +[elegance] _sprightliness_ and dignity. + +'Blossoms to be valued only as they [fetch] _foretell_ fruits. + +'Images such as the superficies of nature [easily] _readily_ supplies. + +'[His] Some applications [are sometimes] _may be thought_ too remote and +unconsequential. + +'His images are [sometimes confused] _not always distinct_? + +Against his Life of MILTON, the hounds of Whiggism have opened in full +cry[143]. But of Milton's great excellence as a poet, where shall we +find such a blazon as by the hand of Johnson? I shall select only the +following passage concerning _Paradise Lost_[144]: + +'Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton surveyed +the silent progress of his work, and marked his reputation stealing its +way in a kind of subterraneous current, through fear and silence. I +cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at +all dejected, relying on his own merit with steady consciousness, and +waiting without impatience the vicissitudes of opinion, and the +impartiality of a future generation[145].' + +Indeed even Dr. Towers, who may be considered as one of the warmest +zealots of _The Revolution Society_[146] itself, allows, that 'Johnson +has spoken in the highest terms of the abilities of that great poet, and +has bestowed on his principal poetical compositions the most honourable +encomiums[147].' + +That a man, who venerated the Church and Monarchy as Johnson did, should +speak with a just abhorrence of Milton as a politician, or rather as a +daring foe to good polity, was surely to be expected; and to those who +censure him, I would recommend his commentary on Milton's celebrated +complaint of his situation, when by the lenity of Charles the Second, 'a +lenity of which (as Johnson well observes) the world has had perhaps no +other example, he, who had written in justification of the murder of his +Sovereign, was safe under an Act of Oblivion[148].' + +'No sooner is he safe than he finds himself in danger, _fallen on evil +days and evil tongues_, [and] _with darkness and with danger compassed +round_[149]. This darkness, had his eyes been better employed, had +undoubtedly deserved compassion; but to add the mention of danger, was +ungrateful and unjust. He was fallen, indeed, on _evil days_; the time +was come in which regicides could no longer boast their wickedness. But +of _evil tongues_ for Milton to complain, required impudence at least +equal to his other powers; Milton, whose warmest advocates must allow, +that he never spared any asperity of reproach, or brutality of +insolence[150].' + +I have, indeed, often wondered how Milton, 'an acrimonious and surly +Republican[151],'--'a man who in his domestick relations was so severe +and arbitrary[152],' and whose head was filled with the hardest and most +dismal tenets of Calvinism[153], should have been such a poet; should +not only have written with sublimity, but with beauty, and even gaiety; +should have exquisitely painted the sweetest sensations of which our +nature is capable; imaged the delicate raptures of connubial love; nay, +seemed to be animated with all the spirit of revelry. It is a proof that +in the human mind the departments of judgement and imagination, +perception and temper, may sometimes be divided by strong partitions; +and that the light and shade in the same character may be kept so +distinct as never to be blended[154]. + +In the Life of Milton, Johnson took occasion to maintain his own and the +general opinion of the excellence of rhyme over blank verse, in English +poetry[155]; and quotes this apposite illustration of it by 'an +ingenious critick,' that _it seems to be verse only to the eye_[156]. +The gentleman whom he thus characterises, is (as he told Mr. Seward) Mr. +Lock[157], of Norbury Park, in Surrey, whose knowledge and taste in the +fine arts is universally celebrated; with whose elegance of manners the +writer of the present work has felt himself much impressed, and to whose +virtues a common friend, who has known him long, and is not much +addicted to flattery, gives the highest testimony. + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ MILTON. + +'I cannot find any meaning but this which [his most bigotted advocates] +_even kindness and reverence_ can give. + +'[Perhaps no] _scarcely any_ man ever wrote so much, and praised so few. + +'A certain [rescue] _perservative_ from oblivion. + +'Let me not be censured for this digression, as [contracted] _pedantick_ +or paradoxical. + +'Socrates rather was of opinion, that what we had to learn was how to +[obtain and communicate happiness] _do good and avoid evil_. + +'Its elegance [who can exhibit?] _is less attainable._' + +I could, with pleasure, expatiate upon the masterly execution of the +Life of DRYDEN, which we have seen[158] was one of Johnson's literary +projects at an early period, and which it is remarkable, that after +desisting from it, from a supposed scantiness of materials, he should, +at an advanced age, have exhibited so amply. + +His defence[159] of that great poet against the illiberal attacks upon +him, as if his embracing the Roman Catholick communion had been a +time-serving measure, is a piece of reasoning at once able and candid. +Indeed, Dryden himself, in his _Hind and Panther_, has given such a +picture of his mind, that they who know the anxiety for repose as to the +aweful subject of our state beyond the grave, though they may think his +opinion ill-founded, must think charitably of his sentiment:-- + + 'But, gracious GOD, how well dost thou provide + For erring judgements an unerring guide! + Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light, + A blaze of glory that forbids the sight. + O! teach me to believe thee thus conceal'd, + And search no farther than thyself reveal'd; + But Her alone for my director take, + Whom thou hast promis'd never to forsake. + My thoughtless youth was wing'd with vain desires; + My manhood long misled by wand'ring fires, + Follow'd false lights; and when their glimpse was gone, + My pride struck out new sparkles of her own. + Such was I, such by Nature still I am; + Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame. + Good life be now my task: my doubts are done; + What more could shock[160] my faith than Three in One?' + +In drawing Dryden's character, Johnson has given, though I suppose +unintentionally, some touches of his own. Thus:--'The power that +predominated in his intellectual operations was rather strong reason +than quick sensibility. Upon all occasions that were presented, he +studied rather than felt; and produced sentiments not such as Nature +enforces, but meditation supplies. With the simple and elemental +passions as they spring separate in the mind, he seems not much +acquainted. He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not +often pathetick; and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions +purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others[161].' It may +indeed be observed, that in all the numerous writings of Johnson, +whether in prose or verse, and even in his Tragedy, of which the subject +is the distress of an unfortunate Princess, there is not a single +passage that ever drew a tear[162]. + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ DRYDEN. + +'The reason of this general perusal, Addison has attempted to [find in] +_derive from_ the delight which the mind feels in the investigation +of secrets. + +'His best actions are but [convenient] _inability of_ wickedness. + +'When once he had engaged himself in disputation, [matter] _thoughts_ +flowed in on either side. + +'The abyss of an un-ideal [emptiness] _vacancy_. + +'These, like [many other harlots,] _the harlots of other men_, had his +love though not his approbation. + +'He [sometimes displays] _descends to display_ his knowledge with +pedantick ostentation. + +'French words which [were then used in] _had then crept into_ +conversation.' + +The Life of POPE[163] was written by Johnson _con amore_, both from the +early possession which that writer had taken of his mind, and from the +pleasure which he must have felt, in for ever silencing all attempts to +lessen his poetical fame, by demonstrating his excellence, and +pronouncing the following triumphant eulogium[164]:--'After all this, it +is surely superfluous to answer the question that has once been asked, +Whether Pope was a poet? otherwise than by asking in return, If Pope be +not a poet, where is poetry to be found? To circumscribe poetry by a +definition, will only shew the narrowness of the definer; though a +definition which shall exclude Pope will not easily be made. Let us look +round upon the present time, and back upon the past; let us enquire to +whom the voice of mankind has decreed the wreath of poetry; let their +productions be examined, and their claims stated, and the pretensions of +Pope will be no more disputed.' + +I remember once to have heard Johnson say, 'Sir, a thousand years may +elapse before there shall appear another man with a power of +versification equal to that of Pope.' That power must undoubtedly be +allowed its due share in enhancing the value of his captivating +composition. + +Johnson, who had done liberal justice to Warburton in his edition of +_Shakspeare_[165], which was published during the life of that powerful +writer, with still greater liberality[166] took an opportunity, in the +Life of Pope, of paying the tribute due to him when he was no longer in +'high place,' but numbered with the dead[167]. + +It seems strange, that two such men as Johnson and Warburton, who lived +in the same age and country, should not only not have been in any degree +of intimacy, but been almost personally unacquainted. But such +instances, though we must wonder at them, are not rare. If I am rightly +informed, after a careful enquiry, they never met but once, which was at +the house of Mrs. French, in London, well known for her elegant +assemblies, and bringing eminent characters together. The interview +proved to be mutually agreeable[168]. + +I am well informed, that Warburton said of Johnson, 'I admire him, but I +cannot bear his style:' and that Johnson being told of this, said, 'That +is exactly my case as to him[169].' The manner in which he expressed his +admiration of the fertility of Warburton's genius and of the variety of +his materials was, 'The table is always full, Sir. He brings things from +the north, and the south, and from every quarter. In his _Divine +Legation_, you are always entertained. He carries you round and round, +without carrying you forward to the point; but then you have no wish to +be carried forward.' He said to the Reverend Mr. Strahan, 'Warburton is +perhaps the last man who has written with a mind full of reading and +reflection[170].' + +It is remarkable, that in the Life of Broome[171], Johnson takes notice +of Dr. Warburton using a mode of expression which he himself used, and +that not seldom, to the great offence of those who did not know him. +Having occasion to mention a note, stating the different parts which +were executed by the associated translators of _The Odyssey_, he says, +'Dr. Warburton told me, in his warm language, that he thought the +relation given in the note _a lie_. The language is _warm_ indeed; and, +I must own, cannot be justified in consistency with a decent regard to +the established forms of speech. Johnson had accustomed himself to use +the word _lie_[172], to express a mistake or an errour in relation; in +short, when the _thing was not so as told_, though the relator did not +_mean_ to deceive. When he thought there was intentional falsehood in +the relator, his expression was, 'He _lies_, and he _knows_ he _lies_.' + +Speaking of Pope's not having been known to excel in conversation, +Johnson observes, that 'traditional memory retains no sallies of +raillery, or[173] sentences of observation; nothing either pointed or +solid, wise or merry[174]; and that one apophthegm only is +recorded[175].' In this respect, Pope differed widely from Johnson, +whose conversation was, perhaps, more admirable than even his writings, +however excellent. Mr. Wilkes has, however, favoured me with one +repartee of Pope, of which Johnson was not informed. Johnson, after +justly censuring him for having 'nursed in his mind a foolish dis-esteem +of Kings,' tells us, 'yet a little regard shewn him by the Prince of +Wales melted his obduracy; and he had not much to say when he was asked +by his Royal Highness, _how he could love a Prince, while he disliked +Kings_[176]?' The answer which Pope made, was, 'The young lion is +harmless, and even playful; but when his claws are full grown he becomes +cruel, dreadful, and mischievous.' + +But although we have no collection of Pope's sayings, it is not +therefore to be concluded, that he was not agreeable in social +intercourse; for Johnson has been heard to say, that 'the happiest +conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a +general effect of pleasing impression.' The late Lord Somerville[177], +who saw much both of great and brilliant life, told me, that he had +dined in company with Pope, and that after dinner the _little man_, as +he called him, drank his bottle of Burgundy, and was exceedingly gay and +entertaining. + +I cannot withhold from my great friend a censure of at least culpable +inattention, to a nobleman, who, it has been shewn[178], behaved to him +with uncommon politeness. He says, 'Except Lord Bathurst, none of Pope's +noble friends were such as that a good man would wish to have his +intimacy with them known to posterity[179].' This will not apply to Lord +Mansfield, who was not ennobled in Pope's life-time; but Johnson should +have recollected, that Lord Marchmont was one of those noble friends. He +includes his Lordship along with Lord Bolingbroke, in a charge of +neglect of the papers which Pope left by his will; when, in truth, as I +myself pointed out to him, before he wrote that poet's life, the papers +were 'committed to _the sole care and judgement_ of Lord Bolingbroke, +unless he (Lord Bolingbroke) shall not survive me;' so that Lord +Marchmont had no concern whatever with them[180]. After the first +edition of the _Lives_, Mr. Malone, whose love of justice is equal to +his accuracy, made, in my hearing, the same remark to Johnson; yet he +omitted to correct the erroneous statement[181]. These particulars I +mention, in the belief that there was only forgetfulness in my friend; +but I owe this much to the Earl of Marchmont's reputation, who, were +there no other memorials, will be immortalised by that line of Pope, in +the verses on his Grotto: + + 'And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul.' + +_Various Readings in the Life of POPE._ + +'[Somewhat free] _sufficiently bold_ in his criticism. + +'All the gay [niceties] _varieties_ of diction. + +'Strikes the imagination with far [more] _greater_ force. + +'It is [probably] _certainly_ the noblest version of poetry which the +world has ever seen. + +'Every sheet enabled him to write the next with [less trouble] _more +facility_. + +'No man sympathizes with [vanity, depressed] _the sorrows of vanity_. + +'It had been [criminal] _less easily excused_. + +'When he [threatened to lay down] _talked of laying down_ his pen. + +'Society [is so named emphatically in opposition to] _politically +regulated, is a state contra-distinguished from_ a state of nature. + +'A fictitious life of an [absurd] _infatuated_ scholar. + +'A foolish [contempt, disregard,] _disesteem_ of Kings. + +'His hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows [were like those of other +mortals] _acted strongly upon his mind_. + +'Eager to pursue knowledge and attentive to [accumulate] _retain it_. + +'A mind [excursive] _active_, ambitious, and adventurous. + +'In its [noblest] _widest_ researches still longing to go forward. + +'He wrote in such a manner as might expose him to few [neglects] +_hazards_. + +'The [reasonableness] _justice_ of my determination. + +'A [favourite] _delicious_ employment of the poets. + +'More terrifick and more powerful [beings] _phantoms_ perform on the +stormy ocean. + +'The inventor of [those] _this_ petty [beings] _nation_. + +'The [mind] _heart_ naturally loves truth.' + +In the Life of ADDISON we find an unpleasing account of his having lent +Steele a hundred pounds, and 'reclaimed his loan by an execution[182].' +In the new edition of the _Biographia Britannica_, the authenticity of +this anecdote is denied. But Mr. Malone has obliged me with the +following note concerning it:-- + +'Many persons having doubts concerning this fact, I applied to Dr. +Johnson to learn on what authority he asserted it. He told me, he had it +from Savage, who lived in intimacy with Steele, and who mentioned, that +Steele told him the story with tears in his eyes.--Ben Victor[183], Dr. +Johnson said, likewise informed him of this remarkable transaction, from +the relation of Mr. Wilkes[184] the comedian, who was also an intimate +of Steele's.--Some in defence of Addison, have said, that "the act was +done with the good natured view of rousing Steele, and correcting that +profusion which always made him necessitous."--"If that were the case, +(said Johnson,) and that he only wanted to alarm Steele, he would +afterwards have _returned_ the money to his friend, which it is not +pretended he did."--"This too, (he added,) might be retorted by an +advocate for Steele, who might alledge, that he did not repay the loan +_intentionally_, merely to see whether Addison would be mean and +ungenerous enough to make use of legal process to recover it. But of +such speculations there is no end: we cannot dive into the hearts of +men; but their actions are open to observation[185]." + +'I then mentioned to him that some people thought that Mr. Addison's +character was so pure, that the fact, _though true_, ought to have been +suppressed[186]. He saw no reason for this[187]. "If nothing but the +bright side of characters should be shewn, we should sit down in +despondency, and think it utterly impossible to imitate them in _any +thing_. The sacred writers (he observed) related the vicious as well as +the virtuous actions of men; which had this moral effect, that it kept +mankind from _despair_, into which otherwise they would naturally fall, +were they not supported by the recollection that others had offended +like themselves, and by penitence and amendment of life had been +restored to the favour of Heaven." + +'E.M.' + +'March 15, 1782.' + +The last paragraph of this note is of great importance; and I request +that my readers may consider it with particular attention. It will be +afterwards referred to in this work[188]. + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ ADDISON. + +'[But he was our first great example] _He was, however, one of our +earliest examples_ of correctness. + +And [overlook] _despise_ their masters. + +His instructions were such as the [state] _character_ of his [own time] +_readers_ made [necessary] _proper_. + +His purpose was to [diffuse] _infuse_ literary curiosity by gentle and +unsuspected conveyance [among] _into_ the gay, the idle, and +the wealthy. + +Framed rather for those that [wish] _are learning_ to write. + +Domestick [manners] _scenes_.' + +In his Life of PARNELL, I wonder that Johnson omitted to insert an +Epitaph which he had long before composed for that amiable man, without +ever writing it down, but which he was so good as, at my request, to +dictate to me, by which means it has been preserved. + + '_Hic requiescit_ THOMAS PARNELL, _S.T.P. + Qui sacerdos pariter et poeta, + Utrasque partes ita implevit, + Ut neque sacerdoti suavitas poetae, + Neo poetae sacerdotis sanctitas_[189], _deesset_.' + + _Various Readings in the Life of_ PARNELL. + +'About three years [after] _afterwards_. + +[Did not much want] _was in no great need of_ improvement. + +But his prosperity _did not last long_ [was clouded by that which took +away all his powers of enjoying either profit or pleasure, the death of +his wife, whom he is said to have lamented with such sorrow, as hastened +his end[190].] His end, whatever was the cause, was now approaching. + +In the Hermit, the [composition] _narrative_, as it is less airy, is +less pleasing.' + +In the Life of BLACKMORE, we find that writer's reputation generously +cleared by Johnson from the cloud of prejudice which the malignity of +contemporary wits had raised around it[191]. In this spirited exertion +of justice, he has been imitated by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his praise +of the architecture of Vanburgh[192]. + +We trace Johnson's own character in his observations on Blackmore's +'magnanimity as an authour.' 'The incessant attacks of his enemies, +whether serious or merry, are never discovered to have disturbed his +quiet, or to have lessened his confidence in himself.' Johnson, I +recollect, once told me, laughing heartily, that he understood it had +been said of him, 'He _appears_ not to feel; but when he is _alone_, +depend upon it, he _suffers sadly_.' I am as certain as I can be of any +man's real sentiments, that he _enjoyed_ the perpetual shower of little +hostile arrows as evidences of his fame. + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ BLACKMORE. + +To [set] _engage_ poetry [on the side] _in the cause_ of virtue. + +He likewise [established] _enforced_ the truth of Revelation. + +[Kindness] _benevolence_ was ashamed to favour. + +His practice, which was once [very extensive] _invidiously great_. +There is scarcely any distemper of dreadful name [of] which he has not +[shewn] _taught his reader_ how [it is to be opposed] _to oppose_. + +Of this [contemptuous] _indecent_ arrogance. + +[He wrote] _but produced_ likewise a work of a different kind. + +At least [written] _compiled_ with integrity. + +Faults which many tongues [were desirous] _would have made haste_ to +publish. + +But though he [had not] _could not boast of_ much critical knowledge. + +He [used] _waited for_ no felicities of fancy. + +Or had ever elevated his [mind] _views_ to that ideal perfection which +every [mind] _genius_ born to excel is condemned always to pursue and +never overtake. + +The [first great] _fundamental_ principle of wisdom and of virtue.' + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ PHILIPS. + +'His dreaded [rival] _antagonist_ Pope. + +They [have not often much] _are not loaded with_ thought. + +In his translations from Pindar, he [will not be denied to have reached] +_found the art of reaching_ all the obscurity of the Theban bard.' + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ CONGREVE. + +'Congreve's conversation must surely have been _at least_ equally +pleasing with his writings. + +It apparently [requires] _pre-supposes_ a familiar knowledge of many +characters. + +Reciprocation of [similes] _conceits_. + +The dialogue is quick and [various] _sparkling_. + +Love for Love; a comedy [more drawn from life] _of nearer alliance to +life_. + +The general character of his miscellanies is, that they shew little wit +and [no] _little_ virtue. + +[Perhaps] _certainly_ he had not the fire requisite for the higher +species of lyrick poetry.' + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ TICKELL. + +'[Longed] _long wished_ to peruse it. + +At the [accession] _arrival_ of King George. + +Fiction [unnaturally] _unskilfully_ compounded of Grecian deities and +Gothick fairies.' + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ AKENSIDE. + +'For [another] _a different_ purpose. + +[A furious] _an unnecessary_ and outrageous zeal. + +[Something which] _what_ he called and thought liberty. + +A [favourer of innovation] _lover of contradiction_. + +Warburton's [censure] _objections_. + +His rage [for liberty] _of patriotism_. + +Mr. Dyson with [a zeal] _an ardour_ of friendship.' + +In the Life of LYTTELTON, Johnson seems to have been not favourably +disposed towards that nobleman[193]. Mrs. Thrale suggests that he was +offended by _Molly Aston's_[194] preference of his Lordship to him[195]. +I can by no means join in the censure bestowed by Johnson on his +Lordship, whom he calls 'poor Lyttelton,' for returning thanks to the +Critical Reviewers for having 'kindly commended' his _Dialogues of the +Dead_. Such 'acknowledgements (says my friend) never can be proper, +since they must be paid either for flattery or for justice.' In my +opinion, the most upright man, who has been tried on a false accusation, +may, when he is acquitted, make a bow to his jury. And when those who +are so much the arbiters of literary merit, as in a considerable degree +to influence the publick opinion, review an authour's work, _placido +lumine_[196], when I am afraid mankind in general are better pleased +with severity, he may surely express a grateful sense of their +civility[197]. + +_Various Readings in the Life of_ LYTTELTON. + +'He solaced [himself] _his grief_ by writing a long poem to her memory. + +The production rather [of a mind that means well than thinks vigorously] +_as it seems of leisure than of study, rather effusions than +compositions_. + +His last literary [work] _production_. + +[Found the way] _undertook_ to persuade.' + +As the introduction to his critical examination of the genius and +writings of YOUNG, he did Mr. Herbert Croft[198], then a Barrister of +Lincoln's-inn, now a clergyman, the honour to adopt[199] a _Life of +Young_ written by that gentleman, who was the friend of Dr. Young's son, +and wished to vindicate him from some very erroneous remarks to his +prejudice. Mr. Croft's performance was subjected to the revision of Dr. +Johnson, as appears from the following note to Mr. John Nichols[200]:-- + +'This _Life of Dr. Young_ was written by a friend of his son. What is +crossed with black is expunged by the authour, what is crossed with red +is expunged by me. If you find any thing more that can be well omitted, +I shall not be sorry to see it yet shorter[201]' + +It has always appeared to me to have a considerable share of merit, and +to display a pretty successful imitation of Johnson's style. When I +mentioned this to a very eminent literary character[202], he opposed me +vehemently, exclaiming, 'No, no, it is _not_ a good imitation of +Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the +nodosities of the oak without its strength.' This was an image so happy, +that one might have thought he would have been satisfied with it; but he +was not. And setting his mind again to work, he added, with exquisite +felicity, 'It has all the contortions of the Sybil, without the +inspiration.' + +Mr. Croft very properly guards us against supposing that Young was a +gloomy man[203]; and mentions, that 'his parish was indebted to the +good-humour of the authour of the _Night Thoughts_ for an Assembly and a +Bowling-Green[204].' A letter from a noble foreigner is quoted, in which +he is said to have been 'very pleasant in conversation[205].' + +Mr. Langton, who frequently visited him, informs me, that there was an +air of benevolence in his manner, but that he could obtain from him less +information than he had hoped to receive from one who had lived so much +in intercourse with the brightest men of what has been called the +Augustan age of England; and that he shewed a degree of eager curiosity +concerning the common occurrences that were then passing, which appeared +somewhat remarkable in a man of such intellectual stores, of such an +advanced age, and who had retired from life with declared disappointment +in his expectations. + +An instance at once of his pensive turn of mind, and his cheerfulness of +temper, appeared in a little story which he himself told to Mr. Langton, +when they were walking in his garden: 'Here (said he) I had put a +handsome sun-dial, with this inscription, _Eheu fugaces!_[206] which +(speaking with a smile) was sadly verified, for by the next morning my +dial had been carried off.'[207] + +'It gives me much pleasure to observe, that however Johnson may have +casually talked,[208] yet when he sits, as "an ardent judge zealous to +his trust, giving sentence" [209] upon the excellent works of Young, he +allows them the high praise to which they are justly entitled. +"The _Universal Passion_ (says he) is indeed a very great +performance,--his distichs have the weight of solid sentiment, and his +points the sharpness of resistless truth."'[210] + +But I was most anxious concerning Johnson's decision upon _Night +Thoughts_, which I esteem as a mass of the grandest and richest poetry +that human genius has ever produced; and was delighted to find this +character of that work: 'In his _Night Thoughts_, he has exhibited a +very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections +and striking allusions; a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility +of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour. This is one +of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhime but +with disadvantage.'[211] And afterwards, 'Particular lines are not to be +regarded; the power is in the whole; and in the whole there is a +magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantation[212], the +magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity.' + +But there is in this Poem not only all that Johnson so well brings in +view, but a power of the _Pathetick_ beyond almost any example that I +have seen. He who does not feel his nerves shaken, and his heart pierced +by many passages in this extraordinary work, particularly by that most +affecting one, which describes the gradual torment suffered by the +contemplation of an object of affectionate attachment, visibly and +certainly decaying into dissolution, must be of a hard and obstinate +frame[213]. + +To all the other excellencies of _Night Thoughts_ let me add the great +and peculiar one, that they contain not only the noblest sentiments of +virtue, and contemplations on immortality, but the _Christian +Sacrifice_, the _Divine Propitiation_, with all its interesting +circumstances, and consolations to 'a wounded spirit[214],' solemnly and +poetically displayed in such imagery and language, as cannot fail to +exalt, animate, and soothe the truly pious. No book whatever can be +recommended to young persons, with better hopes of seasoning their minds +with _vital religion_, than YOUNG'S _Night Thoughts_. + +In the Life of SWIFT, it appears to me that Johnson had a certain degree +of prejudice against that extraordinary man, of which I have elsewhere +had occasion to speak[215]. Mr. Thomas Sheridan imputed it to a supposed +apprehension in Johnson, that Swift had not been sufficiently active in +obtaining for him an Irish degree when it was solicited[216], but of +this there was not sufficient evidence; and let me not presume to charge +Johnson with injustice, because he did not think so highly of the +writings of this authour, as I have done from my youth upwards. Yet that +he had an unfavourable bias is evident, were it only from that passage +in which he speaks of Swift's practice of saving, as, 'first ridiculous +and at last detestable;' and yet after some examination of +circumstances, finds himself obliged to own, that 'it will perhaps +appear that he only liked one mode of expence better than another, and +saved merely that he might have something to give[217].' + +One observation which Johnson makes in Swift's life should be often +inculcated:-- + +'It may be justly supposed, that there was in his conversation what +appears so frequently in his letters, an affectation of familiarity with +the great, an ambition of momentary equality, sought and enjoyed by the +neglect of those ceremonies which custom has established as the barriers +between one order of society and another. This transgression of +regularity was by himself and his admirers termed greatness of soul; but +a great mind disdains to hold any thing by courtesy, and therefore never +usurps what a lawful claimant may take away. He that encroaches on +another's dignity puts himself in his power; he is either repelled with +helpless indignity, or endured by clemency and condescension[218].' + +_Various Readings in the Life of Swift_. + +'Charity may be persuaded to think that it might be written by a man of +_a_ peculiar [opinions] _character_, without ill intention. + +He did not [disown] _deny_ it. + +'[To] _by_ whose kindness it is not unlikely that he was [indebted for] +_advanced to_ his benefices. + +[With] _for_ this purpose he had recourse to Mr. Harley. + +Sharpe, whom he [represents] _describes_ as "the harmless tool of +others' hate." + +Harley was slow because he was [irresolute] _doubtful_. + +When [readers were not many] _we were not yet a nation of readers_. + +[Every man who] _he that could say he_ knew him. + +Every man of known influence has so many [more] petitions [than] _which_ +he [can] _cannot_ grant, that he must necessarily offend more than he +[can gratify] _gratifies_. + +Ecclesiastical [preferments] _benefices_. + +'Swift [procured] _contrived_ an interview. + +[As a writer] _In his works_ he has given very different specimens. + +On all common occasions he habitually [assumes] _affects_ a style of +[superiority] _arrogance_. + +By the [omission] _neglect_ of those ceremonies. + +That their merits filled the world [and] _or that_ there was no [room +for] _hope of_ more.' + +I have not confined myself to the order of the _Lives_, in making my few +remarks. Indeed a different order is observed in the original +publication, and in the collection of Johnson's _Works_. And should it +be objected, that many of my various readings are inconsiderable, those +who make the objection will be pleased to consider, that such small +particulars are intended for those who are nicely critical in +composition, to whom they will be an acceptable selection[219]. + +_Spence's Anecdotes_, which are frequently quoted and referred to in +Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_, are in a manuscript collection, made by +the Reverend Mr. Joseph Spence[220], containing a number of particulars +concerning eminent men. To each anecdote is marked the name of the +person on whose authority it is mentioned. This valuable collection is +the property of the Duke of Newcastle, who upon the application of Sir +Lucas Pepys, was pleased to permit it to be put into the hands of Dr. +Johnson, who I am sorry to think made but an aukward return. 'Great +assistance (says he) has been given me by Mr. Spence's Collection, of +which I consider the communication as a favour worthy of publick +acknowledgement[221];' but he has not owned to whom he was obliged; so +that the acknowledgement is unappropriated to his Grace. + +While the world in general was filled with admiration of Johnson's +_Lives of the Poets_, there were narrow circles in which prejudice and +resentment were fostered, and from which attacks of different sorts +issued against him[222]. By some violent Whigs he was arraigned of +injustice to Milton; by some Cambridge men of depreciating Gray; and his +expressing with a dignified freedom what he really thought of George, +Lord Lyttelton, gave offence to some of the friends of that nobleman, +and particularly produced a declaration of war against him from Mrs. +Montagu, the ingenious Essayist on Shakspeare, between whom and his +Lordship a commerce of reciprocal compliments had long been carried +on[223]. In this war the smaller powers in alliance with him were of +course led to engage, at least on the defensive, and thus I for one was +excluded from the enjoyment of 'A Feast of Reason,' such as Mr. +Cumberland has described, with a keen, yet just and delicate pen, in his +_Observer_[224]. These minute inconveniencies gave not the least +disturbance to Johnson. He nobly said, when I talked to him of the +feeble, though shrill outcry which had been raised, 'Sir, I considered +myself as entrusted with a certain portion of truth. I have given my +opinion sincerely; let them shew where they think me wrong[225].' + +While my friend is thus contemplated in the splendour derived from his +last and perhaps most admirable work, I introduce him with peculiar +propriety as the correspondent of WARREN HASTINGS! a man whose regard +reflects dignity even upon JOHNSON; a man, the extent of whose abilities +was equal to that of his power; and who, by those who are fortunate +enough to know him in private life, is admired for his literature and +taste, and beloved for the candour, moderation, and mildness of his +character. Were I capable of paying a suitable tribute of admiration to +him, I should certainly not withhold it at a moment[226] when it is not +possible that I should be suspected of being an interested flatterer. +But how weak would be my voice after that of the millions whom he +governed. His condescending and obliging compliance with my +solicitation, I with humble gratitude acknowledge; and while by +publishing his letter to me, accompanying the valuable communication, I +do eminent honour to my great friend, I shall entirely disregard any +invidious suggestions, that as I in some degree participate in the +honour, I have, at the same time, the gratification of my own vanity +in view. + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. Park Lane, Dec. 2, 1790. + +SIR, + +I have been fortunately spared the troublesome suspense of a long +search, to which, in performance of my promise, I had devoted this +morning, by lighting upon the objects of it among the first papers that +I laid my hands on: my veneration for your great and good friend, Dr. +Johnson, and the pride, or I hope something of a better sentiment, which +I indulged in possessing such memorials of his good will towards me, +having induced me to bind them in a parcel containing other select +papers, and labelled with the titles appertaining to them. They consist +but of three letters, which I believe were all that I ever received from +Dr. Johnson. Of these, one, which was written in quadruplicate, under +the different dates of its respective dispatches, has already been made +publick[227], but not from any communication of mine. This, however, I +have joined to the rest; and have now the pleasure of sending them to +you for the use to which you informed me it was your desire to +destine them. + +'My promise was pledged with the condition, that if the letters were +found to contain any thing which should render them improper for the +publick eye, you would dispense with the performance of it. You will +have the goodness, I am sure, to pardon my recalling this stipulation to +your recollection, as I should be both to appear negligent of that +obligation which is always implied in an epistolary confidence. In the +reservation of that right I have read them over with the most scrupulous +attention, but have not seen in them the slightest cause on that ground +to withhold them from you. But, though not on that, yet on another +ground I own I feel a little, yet but a little, reluctance to part with +them: I mean on that of my own credit, which I fear will suffer by the +information conveyed by them, that I was early in the possession of such +valuable instructions for the beneficial employment of the influence of +my late station, and (as it may seem) have so little availed myself of +them. Whether I could, if it were necessary, defend myself against such +an imputation, it little concerns the world to know. I look only to the +effect which these relicks may produce, considered as evidences of the +virtues of their authour: and believing that they will be found to +display an uncommon warmth of private friendship, and a mind ever +attentive to the improvement and extension of useful knowledge, and +solicitous for the interests of mankind, I can cheerfully submit to the +little sacrifice of my own fame, to contribute to the illustration of so +great and venerable a character. They cannot be better applied, for that +end, than by being entrusted to your hands. Allow me, with this +offering, to infer from it a proof of the very great esteem with which I +have the honour to profess myself, Sir, + + Your most obedient + And most humble servant, + 'WARREN HASTINGS.' + +'_P.S_. At some future time, and when you have no further occasion for +these papers, I shall be obliged to you if you would return them.' + +The last of the three letters thus graciously put into my hands, and +which has already appeared in publick, belongs to this year; but I shall +previously insert the first two in the order of their dates. They +altogether form a grand group in my biographical picture. + +TO THE HONOURABLE WARREN HASTINGS, ESQ. + +'SIR, + +Though I have had but little personal knowledge of you, I have had +enough to make me wish for more; and though it be now a long time since +I was honoured by your visit, I had too much pleasure from it to forget +it. By those whom we delight to remember, we are unwilling to be +forgotten; and therefore I cannot omit this opportunity of reviving +myself in your memory by a letter which you will receive from the hands +of my friend Mr. Chambers[228]; a man, whose purity of manners and +vigour of mind are sufficient to make every thing welcome that +he brings. + +That this is my only reason for writing, will be too apparent by the +uselessness of my letter to any other purpose. I have no questions to +ask; not that I want curiosity after either the ancient or present state +of regions in which have been seen all the power and splendour of +wide-extended empire; and which, as by some grant of natural +superiority, supply the rest of the world with almost all that pride +desires and luxury enjoys. But my knowledge of them is too scanty to +furnish me with proper topicks of enquiry; I can only wish for +information; and hope, that a mind comprehensive like yours will find +leisure, amidst the cares of your important station, to enquire into +many subjects of which the European world either thinks not at all, or +thinks with deficient intelligence and uncertain conjecture. I shall +hope, that he who once intended to increase the learning of his country +by the introduction of the Persian language[229], will examine nicely +the traditions and histories of the East; that he will survey the +wonders of its ancient edifices, and trace the vestiges of its ruined +cities; and that, at his return, we shall know the arts and opinions of +a race of men, from whom very little has been hitherto derived. + +You, Sir, have no need of being told by me, how much may be added by +your attention and patronage to experimental knowledge and natural +history. There are arts of manufacture practised in the countries in +which you preside, which are yet very imperfectly known here, either to +artificers or philosophers. Of the natural productions, animate and +inanimate, we yet have so little intelligence, that our books are +filled, I fear, with conjectures about things which an Indian peasant +knows by his senses. + +Many of those things my first wish is to see; my second to know, by such +accounts as a man like you will be able to give. + +As I have not skill to ask proper questions, I have likewise no such +access to great men as can enable me to send you any political +information. Of the agitations of an unsettled government, and the +struggles of a feeble ministry[230], care is doubtless taken to give you +more exact accounts than I can obtain. If you are inclined to interest +yourself much in publick transactions, it is no misfortune to you to be +so distant from them. + +That literature is not totally forsaking us, and that your favourite +language is not neglected, will appear from the book[231], which I +should have pleased myself more with sending, if I could have presented +it bound: but time was wanting. I beg, however, Sir, that you will +accept it from a man very desirous of your regard; and that if you think +me able to gratify you by any thing more important you will employ me. + +I am now going to take leave, perhaps a very long leave, of my dear Mr. +Chambers. That he is going to live where you govern, may justly +alleviate the regret of parting; and the hope of seeing both him and you +again, which I am not willing to mingle with doubt, must at present +comfort as it can, Sir, Your most humble servant, + +SAM. JOHNSON. +March 30, 1774.' + +To THE SAME. + +'SIR, +Being informed that by the departure of a ship, there is now an +opportunity of writing to Bengal, I am unwilling to slip out of your +memory by my own negligence, and therefore take the liberty of reminding +you of my existence, by sending you a book which is not yet +made publick. + +I have lately visited a region less remote, and less illustrious than +India, which afforded some occasions for speculation; what has occurred +to me, I have put into the volume[232], of which I beg your acceptance. + +Men in your station seldom have presents totally disinterested; my book +is received, let me now make my request. + +There is, Sir, somewhere within your government, a young adventurer, one +Chauncey Lawrence, whose father is one of my oldest friends. Be pleased +to shew the young man what countenance is fit, whether he wants to be +restrained by your authority, or encouraged by your favour. His father +is now President of the College of Physicians, a man venerable for his +knowledge, and more venerable for his virtue[233]. + +I wish you a prosperous government, a safe return, and a long enjoyment +of plenty and tranquillity. + + I am, Sir, + Your most obedient + And most humble servant, + + SAM. JOHNSON[234]. + +London, Dec. 20, 1774.' + +TO THE SAME. + +'Jan. 9, 1781. + +Sir, + +Amidst the importance and multiplicity of affairs in which your great +office engages you, I take the liberty of recalling your attention for a +moment to literature, and will not prolong the interruption by an +apology which your character makes needless. + +Mr. Hoole, a gentleman long known, and long esteemed in the India-House, +after having translated Tasso[235], has undertaken Ariosto. How well he +is qualified for his undertaking he has already shewn. He is desirous, +Sir, of your favour in promoting his proposals, and flatters me by +supposing that my testimony may advance his interest. + +It is a new thing for a clerk of the India-House to translate poets; +--it is new for a Governour of Bengal to patronize learning. That he may +find his ingenuity rewarded, and that learning may flourish under your +protection, is the wish of, Sir, Your most humble servant, + +SAM. JOHNSON.' + +I wrote to him in February, complaining of having been troubled by a +recurrence of the perplexing question of Liberty and Necessity;--and +mentioning that I hoped soon to meet him again in London. + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +DEAR SIR, + +I hoped you had got rid of all this hypocrisy of misery. What have you +to do with Liberty and Necessity[236]? Or what more than to hold your +tongue about it? Do not doubt but I shall be most heartily glad to see +you here again, for I love every part about you but your affectation +of distress. + +I have at last finished my _Lives_, and have laid up for you a load of +copy[237], all out of order, so that it will amuse you a long time to +set it right. Come to me, my dear Bozzy, and let us be as happy as we +can. We will go again to the Mitre, and talk old times over. + + I am, dear Sir, + Yours affectionately, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +March, 14, 1781. + +On Monday, March 19, I arrived in London, and on Tuesday, the 20th, met +him in Fleet-street, walking, or rather indeed moving along; for his +peculiar march is thus described in a very just and picturesque manner, +in a short Life[238] of him published very soon after his death:--'When +he walked the streets, what with the constant roll of his head, and the +concomitant motion of his body, he appeared to make his way by that +motion, independent of his feet.' That he was often much stared at while +he advanced in this manner, may easily be believed; but it was not safe +to make sport of one so robust as he was. Mr. Langton saw him one day, +in a fit of absence, by a sudden start, drive the load off a porter's +back, and walk forward briskly, without being conscious of what he +had done. + +The porter was very angry, but stood still, and eyed the huge figure +with much earnestness, till he was satisfied that his wisest course was +to be quiet, and take up his burthen again. + +Our accidental meeting in the street after a long separation was a +pleasing surprize to us both. He stepped aside with me into +Falcon-court, and made kind inquiries about my family, and as we were in +a hurry going different ways, I promised to call on him next day; he +said he was engaged to go out in the morning. 'Early, Sir?' said I. +JOHNSON: 'Why, Sir, a London morning does not go with the sun.' + +I waited on him next evening, and he gave me a great portion of his +original manuscript of his _Lives of the Poets_, which he had +preserved for me. + +I found on visiting his friend, Mr. Thrale, that he was now very ill, +and had removed, I suppose by the solicitation of Mrs. Thrale, to a +house in Grosvenor-square[239]. I was sorry to see him sadly changed in +his appearance. + +He told me I might now have the pleasure to see Dr. Johnson drink wine +again, for he had lately returned to it. When I mentioned this to +Johnson, he said, 'I drink it now sometimes, but not socially.' The +first evening that I was with him at Thrale's, I observed he poured a +large quantity of it into a glass, and swallowed it greedily. Every +thing about his character and manners was forcible and violent; there +never was any moderation; many a day did he fast, many a year did he +refrain from wine; but when he did eat, it was voraciously; when he did +drink wine, it was copiously. He could practise abstinence, but not +temperance[240]. + +Mrs. Thrale and I had a dispute, whether Shakspeare or Milton had drawn +the most admirable picture of a man[241]. I was for Shakspeare; Mrs. +Thrale for Milton; and after a fair hearing, Johnson decided for +my opinion. + +I told him of one of Mr. Burke's playful sallies upon Dean Marlay[242]: +'I don't like the Deanery of _Ferns_, it sounds so like a _barren_ +title.'--'Dr. Heath should have it;' said I. Johnson laughed, and +condescending to trifle in the same mode of conceit, suggested Dr. +_Moss_[243]. + +He said, 'Mrs. Montagu has dropt me. Now, Sir, there are people whom one +should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped +by[244].' He certainly was vain of the society of ladies, and could make +himself very agreeable to them, when he chose it; Sir Joshua Reynolds +agreed with me that he could. Mr. Gibbon, with his usual sneer, +controverted it, perhaps in resentment of Johnson's having talked with +some disgust of his ugliness[245], which one would think a _philosopher_ +would not mind. Dean Marlay wittily observed, 'A lady may be vain, when +she can turn a wolf-dog into a lap-dog.' + +The election for Ayrshire, my own county, was this spring tried upon a +petition, before a Committee of the House of Commons. I was one of the +Counsel for the sitting member, and took the liberty of previously +stating different points to Johnson, who never failed to see them +clearly, and to supply me with some good hints. He dictated to me the +following note upon the registration of deeds:-- + +'All laws are made for the convenience of the community: what is legally +done, should be legally recorded, that the state of things may be known, +and that wherever evidence is requisite, evidence may be had. For this +reason, the obligation to frame and establish a legal register is +enforced by a legal penalty, which penalty is the want of that +perfection and plentitude of right which a register would give. Thence +it follows, that this is not an objection merely legal: for the reason +on which the law stands being equitable, makes it an equitable +objection.' + +'This (said he) you must enlarge on, when speaking to the Committee. You +must not argue there as if you were arguing in the schools[246]; close +reasoning will not fix their attention; you must say the same thing over +and over again, in different words. If you say it but once, they miss it +in a moment of inattention. It is unjust, Sir, to censure lawyers for +multiplying words when they argue; it is often necessary for them to +multiply words[247].' His notion of the duty of a member of Parliament, +sitting upon an election-committee[248], was very high; and when he was +told of a gentleman upon one of those committees, who read the +newspapers part of the time, and slept the rest, while the merits of a +vote were examined by the counsel; and as an excuse, when challenged by +the chairman for such behaviour, bluntly answered, 'I had made up my +mind upon that case;'--Johnson, with an indignant contempt, said, 'If he +was such a rogue as to make up his mind upon a case without hearing it, +he should not have been such a fool as to tell it.' 'I think (said Mr. +Dudley Long[249], now North) the Doctor has pretty plainly made him out +to be both rogue and fool.' + +Johnson's profound reverence for the Hierarchy[250] made him expect from +bishops the highest degree of decorum; he was offended even at their +going to taverns; 'A bishop (said he) has nothing to do at a +tippling-house. It is not indeed immoral in him to go to a tavern; +neither would it be immoral in him to whip a top in Grosvenor-square. +But, if he did, I hope the boys would fall upon him, and apply +the whip to _him_. There are gradations in conduct; there is +morality,--decency,--propriety. None of these should be violated by a +bishop. A bishop should not go to a house where he may meet a young +fellow leading out a wench.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, every tavern does not +admit women.' JOHNSON. 'Depend upon it, Sir, any tavern will admit a +well-drest man and a well-drest woman; they will not perhaps admit a +woman whom they see every night walking by their door, in the street. +But a well-drest man may lead in a well-drest woman to any tavern in +London. Taverns sell meat and drink, and will sell them to any body who +can eat and can drink. You may as well say that a mercer will not sell +silks to a woman of the town.' + +He also disapproved of bishops going to routs, at least of their staying +at them longer than their presence commanded respect. He mentioned a +particular bishop. 'Poh! (said Mrs. Thrale) the Bishop of ----[251] is +never minded at a rout.' BOSWELL. 'When a bishop places himself in a +situation where he has no distinct character, and is of no consequence, +he degrades the dignity of his order.' JOHNSON. 'Mr. Boswell, Madam, has +said it as correctly as it could be.' + +Nor was it only in the dignitaries of the Church that Johnson required a +particular decorum and delicacy of behaviour; he justly considered that +the clergy, as persons set apart for the sacred office of serving at the +altar, and impressing the minds of men with the aweful concerns of a +future state, should be somewhat more serious than the generality of +mankind, and have a suitable composure of manners. A due sense of the +dignity of their profession, independent of higher motives, will ever +prevent them from losing their distinction in an indiscriminate +sociality; and did such as affect this, know how much it lessens them in +the eyes of those whom they think to please by it, they would feel +themselves much mortified. + +Johnson and his friend, Beauclerk, were once together in company with +several clergymen, who thought that they should appear to advantage, by +assuming the lax jollity of _men of the world;_ which, as it may be +observed in similar cases, they carried to noisy excess. Johnson, who +they expected would be _entertained,_ sat grave and silent for some +time; at last, turning to Beauclerk, he said, by no means in a whisper, +'This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.' + +Even the dress of a clergyman should be in character, and nothing can be +more despicable than conceited attempts at avoiding the appearance of +the clerical order; attempts, which are as ineffectual as they are +pitiful. Dr. Porteus, now Bishop of London, in his excellent charge when +presiding over the diocese of Chester, justly animadverts upon this +subject; and observes of a reverend fop, that he 'can be but _half a +beau_[252].' + +Addison, in _The Spectator_[253], has given us a fine portrait of a +clergyman, who is supposed to be a member of his _Club_; and Johnson has +exhibited a model, in the character of Mr. Mudge[254], which has escaped +the collectors of his works, but which he owned to me, and which indeed +he shewed to Sir Joshua Reynolds at the time when it was written. It +bears the genuine marks of Johnson's best manner, and is as +follows[255]:-- + +'The Reverend Mr. _Zacariah Mudge_, Prebendary of Exeter, and Vicar of +St. Andrew's in Plymouth; a man equally eminent for his virtues and +abilities, and at once beloved as a companion and reverenced as a +pastor. He had that general curiosity to which no kind of knowledge is +indifferent or superfluous; and that general benevolence by which no +order of men is hated or despised. + +His principles both of thought and action were great and comprehensive. +By a solicitous examination of objections, and judicious comparison of +opposite arguments, he attained what enquiry never gives but to industry +and perspicuity, a firm and unshaken settlement of conviction. But his +firmness was without asperity; for, knowing with how much difficulty +truth was sometimes found, he did not wonder that many missed it. + +The general course of his life was determined by his profession; he +studied the sacred volumes in the original languages; with what +diligence and success, his _Notes upon the Psalms_ give sufficient +evidence. He once endeavoured to add the knowledge of Arabick to that of +Hebrew; but finding his thoughts too much diverted from other studies, +after some time desisted from his purpose. + +His discharge of parochial duties was exemplary. How his _Sermons_[256] +were composed, may be learned from the excellent volume which he has +given to the publick; but how they were delivered, can be known only to +those that heard them; for as he appeared in the pulpit, words will not +easily describe him. His delivery, though unconstrained was not +negligent, and though forcible was not turbulent; disdaining anxious +nicety of emphasis, and laboured artifice of action, it captivated the +hearer by its natural dignity, it roused the sluggish, and fixed the +volatile, and detained the mind upon the subject, without directing it +to the speaker. + +The grandeur and solemnity of the preacher did not intrude upon his +general behaviour; at the table of his friends he was a companion +communicative and attentive, of unaffected manners, of manly +cheerfulness, willing to please, and easy to be pleased. His +acquaintance was universally solicited, and his presence obstructed no +enjoyment which religion did not forbid. Though studious he was popular; +though argumentative he was modest; though inflexible he was candid; and +though metaphysical yet orthodox[257].' + +On Friday, March 30, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, with +the Earl of Charlemont, Sir Annesley Stewart, Mr. Eliot of Port-Eliot, +Mr. Burke, Dean Marlay, Mr. Langton; a most agreeable day, of which I +regret that every circumstance is not preserved; but it is unreasonable +to require such a multiplication of felicity. + +Mr. Eliot, with whom Dr. Walter Harte had travelled[258], talked to us +of his _History of Gustavus Adolphus_, which he said was a very good +book in the German translation. JOHNSON. 'Harte was excessively vain. He +put copies of his book in manuscript into the hands of Lord Chesterfield +and Lord Granville, that they might revise it. Now how absurd was it to +suppose that two such noblemen would revise so big a manuscript. Poor +man! he left London the day of the publication of his book, that he +might be out of the way of the great praise he was to receive; and he +was ashamed to return, when he found how ill his book had succeeded. It +was unlucky in coming out on the same day with Robertson's _History of +Scotland_[259]. His husbandry[260], however, is good.' BOSWELL. 'So he +was fitter for that than for heroick history: he did well, when he +turned his sword into a plough-share.' + +Mr. Eliot mentioned a curious liquor peculiar to his country, which the +Cornish fishermen drink. They call it _Mahogany_; and it is made of two +parts gin, and one part treacle, well beaten together. I begged to have +some of it made, which was done with proper skill by Mr. Eliot. I +thought it very good liquor; and said it was a counterpart of what is +called _Athol Porridge_ in the Highlands of Scotland, which is a mixture +of whisky and honey. Johnson said, 'that must be a better liquor than +the Cornish, for both its component parts are better.' He also +observed, '_Mahogany_ must be a modern name; for it is not long since +the wood called mahogany was known in this country.' I mentioned his +scale of liquors[261];--claret for boys--port for men--brandy for +heroes. 'Then (said Mr. Burke) let me have claret: I love to be a boy; +to have the careless gaiety of boyish days.' JOHNSON. 'I should drink +claret too, if it would give me that; but it does not: it neither makes +boys men, nor men boys. You'll be drowned by it, before it has any +effect upon you.' + +I ventured to mention a ludicrous paragraph in the newspapers, that Dr. +Johnson was learning to dance of Vestris[262]. Lord Charlemont, wishing +to excite him to talk, proposed in a whisper, that he should be asked, +whether it was true. 'Shall I ask him?' said his Lordship. We were, by a +great majority, clear for the experiment. Upon which his Lordship very +gravely, and with a courteous air said, 'Pray, Sir, is it true that you +are taking lessons of Vestris?' This was risking a good deal, and +required the boldness of a General of Irish Volunteers to make the +attempt. Johnson was at first startled, and in some heat answered, 'How +can your Lordship ask so simple a question?' But immediately recovering +himself, whether from unwillingness to be deceived, or to appear +deceived, or whether from real good humour, he kept up the joke: 'Nay, +but if any body were to answer the paragraph, and contradict it, I'd +have a reply, and would say, that he who contradicted it was no friend +either to Vestris or me. For why should not Dr.[263] Johnson add to his +other powers a little corporeal agility? Socrates learnt to dance at an +advanced age, and Cato learnt Greek at an advanced age. Then it might +proceed to say, that this Johnson, not content with dancing on the +ground, might dance on the rope; and they might introduce the elephant +dancing on the rope. A nobleman[264] wrote a play, called _Love in a +hollow Tree_. He found out that it was a bad one, and therefore wished +to buy up all the copies, and burn them. The Duchess of Marlborough had +kept one; and when he was against her at an election, she had a new +edition of it printed, and prefixed to it, as a frontispiece, an +elephant dancing on a rope; to shew, that his Lordship's writing comedy +was as aukward as an elephant dancing on a rope[265].' + +On Sunday, April 1, I dined with him at Mr. Thrale's, with Sir Philip +Jennings Clerk and Mr. Perkins[266], who had the superintendence of Mr. +Thrale's brewery, with a salary of five hundred pounds a year. Sir +Philip had the appearance of a gentleman of ancient family, well +advanced in life. He wore his own white hair in a bag of goodly size, a +black velvet coat, with an embroidered waistcoat, and very rich laced +ruffles; which Mrs. Thrale said were old fashioned, but which, for that +reason, I thought the more respectable, more like a Tory; yet Sir Philip +was then in Opposition in Parliament[267]. 'Ah, Sir, (said Johnson,) +ancient ruffles and modern principles do not agree.' Sir Philip defended +the Opposition to the American war ably and with temper, and I joined +him. He said, the majority of the nation was against the ministry. +JOHNSON. '_I_, Sir, am against the ministry[268]; but it is for having +too little of that, of which Opposition thinks they have too much. Were +I minister, if any man wagged his finger against me, he should be turned +out[269]; for that which it is in the power of Government to give at +pleasure to one or to another, should be given to the supporters of +Government. If you will not oppose at the expence of losing your place, +your opposition will not be honest, you will feel no serious grievance; +and the present opposition is only a contest to get what others have. +Sir Robert Walpole acted as I would do. As to the American war, the +_sense_ of the nation is _with_ the ministry. The majority of those who +can _understand_ is with it; the majority of those who can only _hear_, +is against it; and as those who can only hear are more numerous than +those who can understand, and Opposition is always loudest, a majority +of the rabble will be for Opposition.' + +This boisterous vivacity entertained us; but the truth in my opinion +was, that those who could understand the best were against the American +war, as almost every man now is, when the question has been coolly +considered. + +Mrs. Thrale gave high praise to Mr. Dudley Long, (now North). JOHNSON. +'Nay, my dear lady, don't talk so. Mr. Long's character is very _short_. +It is nothing. He fills a chair. He is a man of genteel appearance, and +that is all[270]. I know nobody who blasts by praise as you do: for +whenever there is exaggerated praise, every body is set against a +character. They are provoked to attack it. Now there is Pepys[271]; you +praised that man with such disproportion, that I was incited to lessen +him, perhaps more than he deserves[272]. His blood is upon your +head[273]. By the same principle, your malice defeats itself; for your +censure is too violent. And yet (looking to her with a leering smile) +she is the first woman in the world, could she but restrain that wicked +tongue of hers;--she would be the only woman, could she but command that +little whirligig[274].' + +Upon the subject of exaggerated praise I took the liberty to say, that I +thought there might be very high praise given to a known character which +deserved it, and therefore it would not be exaggerated. Thus, one might +say of Mr. Edmund Burke, He is a very wonderful man. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, +you would not be safe if another man had a mind perversely to +contradict. He might answer, "Where is all the wonder? Burke is, to be +sure, a man of uncommon abilities, with a great quantity of matter in +his mind, and a great fluency of language in his mouth. But we are not +to be stunned and astonished by him." So you see, Sir, even Burke would +suffer, not from any fault of his own, but from your folly.' + +Mrs. Thrale mentioned a gentleman who had acquired a fortune of four +thousand a year in trade, but was absolutely miserable, because he could +not talk in company; so miserable, that he was impelled to lament his +situation in the street to ----[275], whom he hates, and who he knows +despises him. 'I am a most unhappy man (said he). I am invited to +conversations. I go to conversations; but, alas! I have no +conversation.' JOHNSON. 'Man commonly cannot be successful in different +ways. This gentleman has spent, in getting four thousand pounds a year, +the time in which he might have learnt to talk; and now he cannot talk.' +Mr. Perkins made a shrewd and droll remark: 'If he had got his four +thousand a year as a mountebank, he might have learnt to talk at the +same time that he was getting his fortune.' + +Some other gentlemen came in. The conversation concerning the person +whose character Dr. Johnson had treated so slightingly, as he did not +know his merit, was resumed. Mrs. Thrale said, 'You think so of him, +Sir, because he is quiet, and does not exert himself with force. You'll +be saying the same thing of Mr. ---- there, who sits as quiet--.' This +was not well-bred; and Johnson did not let it pass without correction. +'Nay, Madam, what right have you to talk thus? Both Mr. ---- and I have +reason to take it ill. _You_ may talk so of Mr. ----; but why do you +make _me_ do it. Have I said anything against Mr. ----? You have _set_ +him, that I might shoot him: but I have not shot him.' + +One of the gentlemen said, he had seen three folio volumes of Dr. +Johnson's sayings collected by me. 'I must put you right, Sir, (said I;) +for I am very exact in authenticity. You could not see folio volumes, +for I have none: you might have seen some in quarto and octavo. This is +inattention which one should guard against.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is a want +of concern about veracity. He does not know that he saw _any_ volumes. +If he had seen them he could have remembered their size[276].' + +Mr. Thrale appeared very lethargick to-day. I saw him again on Monday +evening, at which time he was not thought to be in immediate danger; but +early in the morning of Wednesday, the 4th[277], he expired[278]. +Johnson was in the house, and thus mentions the event: 'I felt almost +the last flutter of his pulse, and looked for the last time upon the +face that for fifteen years had never been turned upon me but with +respect and benignity[279].' Upon that day there was a Call of the +LITERARY CLUB; but Johnson apologised for his absence by the +following note:-- + +'MR. JOHNSON knows that Sir Joshua Reynolds and the other gentlemen will +excuse his incompliance with the call, when they are told that Mr. +Thrale died this morning.' Wednesday.' + +Mr. Thrale's death was a very essential loss to Johnson[280], who, +although he did not foresee all that afterwards happened, was +sufficiently convinced that the comforts which Mr. Thrale's family +afforded him, would now in a great measure cease. He, however continued +to shew a kind attention to his widow and children as long as it was +acceptable; and he took upon him, with a very earnest concern, the +office of one of his executors, the importance of which seemed greater +than usual to him, from his circumstances having been always such, that +he had scarcely any share in the real business of life[281]. His friends +of the CLUB were in hopes that Mr. Thrale might have made a liberal +provision for him for his life, which, as Mr. Thrale left no son, and a +very large fortune, it would have been highly to his honour to have +done; and, considering Dr. Johnson's age, could not have been of long +duration; but he bequeathed him only two hundred pounds, which was the +legacy given to each of his executors[282]. I could not but be somewhat +diverted by hearing Johnson talk in a pompous manner of his new office, +and particularly of the concerns of the brewery, which it was at last +resolved should be sold[283]. Lord Lucan[284] tells a very good story, +which, if not precisely exact, is certainly characteristic: that when +the sale of Thrale's brewery was going forward, Johnson appeared +bustling about, with an ink-horn and pen in his button-hole, like an +excise-man; and on being asked what he really considered to be the value +of the property which was to be disposed of, answered, 'We are not here +to sell a parcel of boilers and vats but the potentiality of growing +rich, beyond the dreams of avarice[285].' + +On Friday, April 6, he carried me to dine at a club, which, at his +desire, had been lately formed at the Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's +Church-yard. He told Mr. Hoole, that he wished to have a _City Club_, +and asked him to collect one; but, said he, 'Don't let them be +_patriots_[286].' The company were to-day very sensible, well-behaved +men. I have preserved only two particulars of his conversation. He said +he was glad Lord George Gordon had escaped[287], rather than that a +precedent should be established for hanging a man for _constructive +treason_; which, in consistency with his true, manly, constitutional +Toryism, he considered would be a dangerous engine of arbitrary power. +And upon its being mentioned that an opulent and very indolent Scotch +nobleman, who totally resigned the management of his affairs to a man of +knowledge and abilities, had claimed some merit by saying, 'The next +best thing to managing a man's own affairs well is being sensible of +incapacity, and not attempting it, but having full confidence in one who +can do it:' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, this is paltry. There is a middle +course. Let a man give application; and depend upon it he will soon get +above a despicable state of helplessness, and attain the power of acting +for himself.' + +On Saturday, April 7, I dined with him at Mr. Hoole's with Governour +Bouchier and Captain Orme, both of whom had been long in the +East-Indies; and being men of good sense and observation, were very +entertaining. Johnson defended the oriental regulation of different +_casts_ of men, which was objected to as totally destructive of the +hopes of rising in society by personal merit. He shewed that there was a +_principle_ in it sufficiently plausible by analogy. 'We see (said he) +in metals that there are different species; and so likewise in animals, +though one species may not differ very widely from another, as in the +species of dogs,--the cur, the spaniel, the mastiff. The Bramins are the +mastiffs of mankind.' + +On Thursday, April 12, I dined with him at a Bishop's, where were Sir +Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Berrenger, and some more company. He had dined the +day before at another Bishop's. I have unfortunately recorded none of +his conversation at the Bishop's where we dined together[288]: but I +have preserved his ingenious defence of his dining twice abroad in +Passion-week[289]; a laxity, in which I am convinced he would not have +indulged himself at the time when he wrote his solemn paper in _The +Rambler_[290], upon that aweful season. It appeared to me, that by +being much more in company, and enjoying more luxurious living, he had +contracted a keener relish of pleasure, and was consequently less +rigorous in his religious rites. This he would not acknowledge; but he +reasoned with admirable sophistry, as follows: 'Why, Sir, a Bishop's +calling company together in this week is, to use the vulgar phrase, not +_the thing_. But you must consider laxity is a bad thing; but +preciseness is also a bad thing; and your general character may be more +hurt by preciseness than by dining with a Bishop in Passion-week. There +might be a handle for reflection. It might be said, 'He refused to dine +with a Bishop in Passion-week, but was three Sundays absent from +Church.' BOSWELL. 'Very true, Sir. But suppose a man to be uniformly of +good conduct, would it not be better that he should refuse to dine with +a Bishop in this week, and so not encourage a bad practice by his +example?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, you are to consider whether you might not +do more harm by lessening the influence of a Bishop's character by your +disapprobation in refusing him, than by going to him.' + +TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'Life is full of troubles. I have just lost my dear friend Thrale. I +hope he is happy; but I have had a great loss. I am otherwise pretty +well. I require some care of myself, but that care is not ineffectual; +and when I am out of order, I think it often my own fault. + +'The spring is now making quick advances. As it is the season in which +the whole world is enlivened and invigorated, I hope that both you and I +shall partake of its benefits. My desire is to see Lichfield; but being +left executor to my friend, I know not whether I can be spared; but I +will try, for it is now long since we saw one another, and how little we +can promise ourselves many more interviews, we are taught by hourly +examples of mortality. Let us try to live so as that mortality may not +be an evil. Write to me soon, my dearest; your letters will give me +great pleasure. + +'I am sorry that Mr. Porter has not had his box; but by sending it to +Mr. Mathias, who very readily undertook its conveyance, I did the best I +could, and perhaps before now he has it. + +'Be so kind as to make my compliments to my friends; I have a great +value for their kindness, and hope to enjoy it before summer is past. Do +write to me. I am, dearest love, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, April 12, 1781.' + +On Friday, April 13, being Good-Friday, I went to St. Clement's church +with him as usual. There I saw again his old fellow-collegian, +Edwards[291], to whom I said, 'I think, Sir, Dr. Johnson and you meet +only at Church.'--'Sir, (said he,) it is the best place we can meet in, +except Heaven, and I hope we shall meet there too.' Dr. Johnson told me, +that there was very little communication between Edwards and him, after +their unexpected renewal of acquaintance. 'But (said he, smiling) he met +me once, and said, "I am told you have written a very pretty book called +_The Rambler_." I was unwilling that he should leave the world in total +darkness, and sent him a set.' + +Mr. Berrenger[292] visited him to-day, and was very pleasing. We talked +of an evening society for conversation at a house in town, of which we +were all members, but of which Johnson said, 'It will never do, Sir. +There is nothing served about there, neither tea, nor coffee, nor +lemonade, nor any thing whatever; and depend upon it, Sir, a man does +not love to go to a place from whence he comes out exactly as he went +in.' I endeavoured, for argument's sake, to maintain that men of +learning and talents might have very good intellectual society, without +the aid of any little gratifications of the senses. Berrenger joined +with Johnson, and said, that without these any meeting would be dull and +insipid. He would therefore have all the slight refreshments; nay, it +would not be amiss to have some cold meat, and a bottle of wine upon a +side-board. 'Sir, (said Johnson to me, with an air of triumph,) Mr. +Berrenger knows the world. Every body loves to have good things +furnished to them without any trouble. I told Mrs. Thrale once, that as +she did not choose to have card tables, she should have a profusion of +the best sweetmeats, and she would be sure to have company enough come +to her[293].' I agreed with my illustrious friend upon this subject; +for it has pleased GOD to make man a composite animal, and where there +is nothing to refresh the body, the mind will languish. + +On Sunday, April 15, being Easter-day, after solemn worship in St. +Paul's church, I found him alone; Dr. Scott of the Commons came in. He +talked of its having been said that Addison wrote some of his best +papers in _The Spectator_ when warm with wine[294]. Dr. Johnson did not +seem willing to admit this. Dr. Scott, as a confirmation of it, related, +that Blackstone, a sober man, composed his _Commentaries_ with a bottle +of port before him; and found his mind invigorated and supported in the +fatigue of his great work, by a temperate use of it[295]. + +I told him, that in a company where I had lately been, a desire was +expressed to know his authority for the shocking story of Addison's +sending an execution into Steele's house[296]. 'Sir, (said he,) it is +generally known, it is known to all who are acquainted with the literary +history of that period. It is as well known, as that he wrote _Cato_.' +Mr. Thomas Sheridan once defended Addison to me, by alledging that he +did it in order to cover Steele's goods from other creditors, who were +going to seize them. + +We talked of the difference between the mode of education at Oxford, +and that in those Colleges where instruction is chiefly conveyed by +lectures[297]. JOHNSON. 'Lectures were once useful; but now, when all +can read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary. If your +attention fails, and you miss a part of a lecture, it is lost; you +cannot go back as you do upon a book.' Dr. Scott agreed with him. 'But +yet (said I), Dr. Scott, you yourself gave lectures at Oxford[298].' He +smiled. 'You laughed (then said I) at those who came to you.' + +Dr. Scott left us, and soon afterwards we went to dinner. Our company +consisted of Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Desmoulins, Mr. Levett, Mr. Allen, the +printer, and Mrs. Hall[299], sister of the Reverend Mr. John Wesley, and +resembling him, as I thought, both in figure and manner. Johnson +produced now, for the first time, some handsome silver salvers, which he +told me he had bought fourteen years ago; so it was a great day. I was +not a little amused by observing Allen perpetually struggling to talk in +the manner of Johnson, like the little frog in the fable blowing himself +up to resemble the stately ox[300]. + +I mentioned a kind of religious Robinhood Society[301], which met every +Sunday evening, at Coachmakers'-hall, for free debate; and that the +subject for this night was, the text which relates, with other miracles, +which happened at our SAVIOUR'S death, 'And the graves were opened, and +many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves +after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto +many[302].' Mrs. Hall said it was a very curious subject, and she should +like to hear it discussed. JOHNSON, (somewhat warmly) 'One would not go +to such a place to hear it,--one would not be seen in such a place--to +give countenance to such a meeting.' I, however, resolved that I would +go. 'But, Sir, (said she to Johnson,) I should like to hear _you_ +discuss it.' He seemed reluctant to engage in it. She talked of the +resurrection of the human race in general, and maintained that we shall +be raised with the same bodies. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, we see that it is +not to be the same body; for the Scripture uses the illustration of +grain sown, and we know that the grain which grows is not the same with +what is sown[303]. You cannot suppose that we shall rise with a diseased +body; it is enough if there be such a sameness as to distinguish +identity of person.' She seemed desirous of knowing more, but he left +the question in obscurity. + +Of apparitions[304], he observed, 'A total disbelief of them is adverse +to the opinion of the existence of the soul between death and the last +day; the question simply is, whether departed spirits ever have the +power of making themselves perceptible to us; a man who thinks he has +seen an apparition, can only be convinced himself; his authority will +not convince another, and his conviction, if rational, must be founded +on being told something which cannot be known but by supernatural means.' + +He mentioned a thing as not unfrequent, of which I had never heard +before,--being _called_, that is, hearing one's name pronounced by the +voice of a known person at a great distance, far beyond the possibility +of being reached by any sound uttered by human organs. 'An acquaintance, +on whose veracity I can depend, told me, that walking home one evening +to Kilmarnock, he heard himself called from a wood, by the voice of a +brother who had gone to America; and the next packet brought accounts of +that brother's death.' Macbean[305] asserted that this inexplicable +_calling_ was a thing very well known. Dr. Johnson said, that one day at +Oxford, as he was turning the key of his chamber, he heard his mother +distinctly call Sam. She was then at Lichfield; but nothing ensued[306]. +This phaenomenon is, I think, as wonderful as any other mysterious +fact, which many people are very slow to believe, or rather, indeed, +reject with an obstinate contempt. + +Some time after this, upon his making a remark which escaped my +attention, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Hall were both together striving to +answer him. He grew angry, and called out loudly, 'Nay, when you both +speak at once, it is intolerable.' But checking himself, and softening, +he said, 'This one may say, though you _are_ ladies.' Then he brightened +into gay humour, and addressed them in the words of one of the songs in +_The Beggar's Opera_[307]:-- + + 'But two at a time there's no mortal can bear.' + +'What, Sir, (said I,) are you going to turn Captain Macheath?' There was +something as pleasantly ludicrous in this scene as can be imagined. The +contrast between Macheath, Polly, and Lucy--and Dr. Samuel Johnson, +blind, peevish Mrs. Williams, and lean, lank, preaching Mrs. Hall, was +exquisite. + +I stole away to Coachmakers'-hall, and heard the difficult text of which +we had talked, discussed with great decency, and some intelligence, by +several speakers. There was a difference of opinion as to the appearance +of ghosts in modern times, though the arguments for it, supported by Mr. +Addison's authority[308], preponderated. The immediate subject of debate +was embarrassed by the _bodies_ of the saints having been said to rise, +and by the question what became of them afterwards; did they return +again to their graves? or were they translated to heaven? Only one +evangelist mentions the fact[309], and the commentators whom I have +looked at, do not make the passage clear. There is, however, no occasion +for our understanding it farther, than to know that it was one of the +extraordinary manifestations of divine power, which accompanied the most +important event that ever happened. + +On Friday, April 20, I spent with him one of the happiest days that I +remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life. Mrs. Garrick, +whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I believe, as sincere as +wounded affection and admiration could produce, had this day, for the +first time since his death, a select party of his friends to dine with +her[310]. The company was Miss Hannah More, who lived with her, and whom +she called her Chaplain[311]; Mrs. Boscawen[312], Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, +Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Burney, Dr. Johnson, and myself. We found +ourselves very elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi[313], +where I have passed many a pleasing hour with him 'who gladdened +life[314].' She looked well, talked of her husband with complacency, and +while she cast her eyes on his portrait, which hung over the +chimney-piece, said, that 'death was now the most agreeable object to +her[315].' The very semblance of David Garrick was cheering. Mr. +Beauclerk, with happy propriety, inscribed under that fine portrait of +him, which by Lady Diana's kindness is now the property of my friend Mr. +Langton, the following passage from his beloved Shakspeare:-- + + 'A merrier man, + Within the limit of becoming mirth, + I never spent an hour's talk withal. + His eye begets occasion for his wit; + For every object that the one doth catch, + The other turns to a mirth-moving jest; + Which his fair tongue (Conceit's expositor) + Delivers in such apt and gracious words, + That aged ears play truant at his tales, + And younger hearings are quite ravished: + So sweet and voluble is his discourse[316].' + +We were all in fine spirits; and I whispered to Mrs. Boscawen, 'I +believe this is as much as can be made of life.' In addition to a +splendid entertainment, we were regaled with Lichfield ale[317], which +had a peculiar appropriated value. Sir Joshua, and Dr. Burney, and I, +drank cordially of it to Dr. Johnson's health; and though he would not +join us, he as cordially answered, 'Gentlemen, I wish you all as well as +you do me.' + +The general effect of this day dwells upon my mind in fond remembrance; +but I do not find much conversation recorded. What I have preserved +shall be faithfully given. + +One of the company mentioned Mr. Thomas Hollis, the strenuous Whig, who +used to send over Europe presents of democratical books, with their +boards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty. Mrs. Carter said, 'He +was a bad man. He used to talk uncharitably.' JOHNSON. 'Poh! poh! Madam; +who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably? Besides, he was a +dull poor creature as ever lived: And I believe he would not have done +harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own. +I remember once at the Society of Arts, when an advertisement was to be +drawn up, he pointed me out as the man who could do it best. This, you +will observe, was kindness to me. I however slipt away, and escaped it.' + +Mrs. Carter having said of the same person, 'I doubt he was an +Atheist[318].' JOHNSON. 'I don't know that. He might perhaps have +become one, if he had had time to ripen, (smiling.) He might have +_exuberated_ into an Atheist.' + +Sir Joshua Reynolds praised _Mudge's Sermons_[319]. JOHNSON. 'Mudge's +Sermons are good, but not practical. He grasps more sense than he can +hold; he takes more corn than he can make into meal; he opens a wide +prospect, but it is so distant, it is indistinct. I love _Blair's +Sermons_. Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a Presbyterian, and every +thing he should not be, I was the first to praise them[320]. Such was my +candour.' (smiling.) MRS. BOSCAWEN. 'Such his great merit to get the +better of all your prejudices.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Madam, let us compound +the matter; let us ascribe it to my candour, and his merit.' + +In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room, several +ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr. Percy, Mr. Chamberlayne[321], of the +Treasury, &c. &c. Somebody said the life of a mere literary man could +not be very entertaining. JOHNSON. 'But it certainly may. This is a +remark which has been made, and repeated, without justice; why should +the life of a literary man be less entertaining than the life of any +other man? Are there not as interesting varieties in such a life[322]? +As _a literary life_ it may be very entertaining.' BOSWELL. 'But it must +be better surely, when it is diversified with a little active variety-- +such as his having gone to Jamaica; or--his having gone to the +Hebrides.' Johnson was not displeased at this. + +Talking of a very respectable authour, he told us a curious circumstance +in his life, which was, that he had married a printer's devil. REYNOLDS. +'A printer's devil, Sir! Why, I thought a printer's devil was a creature +with a black face and in rags.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. But I suppose, he +had her face washed, and put clean clothes on her. (Then looking very +serious, and very earnest.) And she did not disgrace him; the woman had +a bottom of good sense. The word _bottom_ thus introduced, was so +ludicrous when contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not +forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of +Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah +More slyly hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee +with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should +excite ridicule, when he did not intend it; he therefore resolved to +assume and exercise despotick power, glanced sternly around, and called +out in a strong tone, 'Where's the merriment?' Then collecting himself, +and looking aweful, to make us feel how he could impose restraint, and +as it were searching his mind for a still more ludicrous word, he slowly +pronounced, 'I say the _woman_ was _fundamentally_ sensible;' as if he +had said, hear this now, and laugh if you dare. We all sat composed as +at a funeral[323]. + +He and I walked away together; we stopped a little while by the rails of +the Adelphi, looking on the Thames, and I said to him with some emotion +that I was now thinking of two friends we had lost, who once lived in +the buildings behind us, Beauclerk and Garrick. 'Ay, Sir, (said he, +tenderly) and two such friends as cannot be supplied[324].' + +For some time after this day I did not see him very often, and of the +conversation which I did enjoy, I am sorry to find I have preserved but +little. I was at this time engaged in a variety of other matters, which +required exertion and assiduity, and necessarily occupied almost all +my time. + +One day having spoken very freely of those who were then in power, he +said to me, 'Between ourselves, Sir, I do not like to give opposition +the satisfaction of knowing how much I disapprove of the ministry.' And +when I mentioned that Mr. Burke had boasted how quiet the nation was in +George the Second's reign, when Whigs were in power, compared with the +present reign, when Tories governed;--'Why, Sir, (said he,) you are to +consider that Tories having more reverence for government, will not +oppose with the same violence as Whigs, who being unrestrained by that +principle, will oppose by any means.' + +This month he lost not only Mr. Thrale, but another friend, Mr. William +Strahan, Junior, printer, the eldest son of his old and constant friend, +Printer to his Majesty. + +'TO MRS. STRAHAN. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'The grief which I feel for the loss of a very kind friend is sufficient +to make me know how much you suffer by the death of an amiable son; a +man, of whom I think it may truly be said, that no one knew him who does +not lament him. I look upon myself as having a friend, another friend, +taken from me. + +'Comfort, dear Madam, I would give you if I could, but I know how little +the forms of consolation can avail. Let me, however, counsel you not to +waste your health in unprofitable sorrow, but go to Bath, and endeavour +to prolong your own life; but when we have all done all that we can, one +friend must in time lose the other. + +'I am, dear Madam, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'April 23, 1781.' + +On Tuesday, May 8[325], I had the pleasure of again dining with him and +Mr. Wilkes, at Mr. Billy's[326]. No _negociation_ was now required to +bring them together; for Johnson was so well satisfied with the former +interview, that he was very glad to meet Wilkes again, who was this day +seated between Dr. Beattie and Dr. Johnson; (between _Truth_[327] and +_Reason_, as General Paoli said, when I told him of it.) WILKES. 'I have +been thinking, Dr. Johnson, that there should be a bill brought into +parliament that the controverted elections for Scotland should be tried +in that country, at their own Abbey of Holy-Rood House, and not here; +for the consequence of trying them here is, that we have an inundation +of Scotchmen, who come up and never go back again. Now here is Boswell, +who is come up upon the election for his own county, which will not last +a fortnight.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I see no reason why they should be +tried at all; for, you know, one Scotchman is as good as another.' +WILKES. 'Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year by an Advocate at +the Scotch bar?' BOSWELL. 'I believe two thousand pounds.' WlLKES. 'How +can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, +the money may be spent in England: but there is a harder question. If +one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds, what remains +for all the rest of the nation?' WILKES. 'You know, in the last war, the +immense booty which Thurot[328] carried off by the complete plunder of +seven Scotch isles; he re-embarked with _three and six-pence_.' Here +again Johnson and Wilkes joined in extravagant sportive raillery upon +the supposed poverty of Scotland, which Dr. Beattie and I did not think +it worth our while to dispute. + +The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured it as +pedantry[329]. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, it is a good thing; there is a +community of mind in it. Classical quotation is the _parole_ of literary +men all over the world.' WlLKES. 'Upon the continent they all quote the +vulgate Bible. Shakspeare is chiefly quoted here; and we quote also +Pope, Prior, Butler, Waller, and sometimes Cowley[330].' + +We talked of Letter-writing. JOHNSON. 'It is now become so much the +fashion to publish letters, that in order to avoid it, I put as little +into mine as I can.[331]' BOSWELL. 'Do what you will, Sir, you cannot +avoid it. Should you even write as ill as you can, your letters would be +published as curiosities: + + "Behold a miracle! instead of wit, + See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ[332]."' + +He gave us an entertaining account of _Bet Flint_[333], a woman of the +town, who, with some eccentrick talents and much effrontery, forced +herself upon his acquaintance. 'Bet (said he) wrote her own Life in +verse[334], which she brought to me, wishing that I would furnish her +with a Preface to it. (Laughing.) I used to say of her that she was +generally slut and drunkard; occasionally, whore and thief. She had, +however, genteel lodgings, a spinnet on which she played, and a boy that +walked before her chair. Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a +counterpane, and tried at the Old Bailey. Chief Justice ------[335], who +loved a wench, summed up favourably, and she was acquitted. After which +Bet said, with a gay and satisfied air, 'Now that the counterpane is _my +own_, I shall make a petticoat of it.' + +Talking of oratory, Mr. Wilkes described it as accompanied with all the +charms of poetical expression. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; oratory is the power +of beating down your adversary's arguments, and putting better in their +place.' WlLKES. 'But this does not move the passions.' JOHNSON. 'He must +be a weak man, who is to be so moved.' WlLKES. (naming a celebrated +orator) 'Amidst all the brilliancy of ----'s[336] imagination, and the +exuberance of his wit, there is a strange want of _taste_. It was +observed of Apelles's Venus[337], that her flesh seemed as if she had +been nourished by roses: his oratory would sometimes make one suspect +that he eats potatoes and drinks whisky.' + +Mr. Wilkes observed, how tenacious we are of forms in this country, and +gave as an instance, the vote of the House of Commons for remitting +money to pay the army in America _in Portugal pieces_[338], when, in +reality, the remittance is made not in Portugal money, but in our own +specie. JOHNSON. 'Is there not a law, Sir, against exporting the current +coin of the realm?' WlLKES. 'Yes, Sir: but might not the House of +Commons, in case of real evident necessity, order our own current coin +to be sent into our own colonies?' Here Johnson, with that quickness of +recollection which distinguished him so eminently, gave the _Middlesex +Patriot_ an admirable retort upon his own ground. 'Sure, Sir, _you_ +don't think a _resolution of the House of Commons_ equal to _the law of +the land_[339].' WlLKES. (at once perceiving the application) 'GOD +forbid, Sir.' To hear what had been treated with such violence in _The +False Alarm_, now turned into pleasant repartee, was extremely +agreeable. Johnson went on;--'Locke observes well, that a prohibition +to export the current coin is impolitick; for when the balance of trade +happens to be against a state, the current coin must be exported[340].' + +Mr. Beauclerk's great library[341] was this season sold in London by +auction. Mr. Wilkes said, he wondered to find in it such a numerous +collection of sermons; seeming to think it strange that a gentleman of +Mr. Beauclerk's character in the gay world should have chosen to have +many compositions of that kind. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, you are to consider, +that sermons make a considerable branch of English literature[342]; so +that a library must be very imperfect if it has not a numerous +collection of sermons[343]: and in all collections, Sir, the desire of +augmenting it grows stronger in proportion to the advance in +acquisition; as motion is accelerated by the continuance of the +_impetus_. Besides, Sir, (looking at Mr. Wilkes with a placid but +significant smile) a man may collect sermons with intention of making +himself better by them. I hope Mr. Beauclerk intended, that some time or +other that should be the case with him.' + +Mr. Wilkes said to me, loud enough for Dr. Johnson to hear, 'Dr. Johnson +should make me a present of his _Lives of the Poets_, as I am a poor +patriot, who cannot afford to buy them.' Johnson seemed to take no +notice of this hint; but in a little while, he called to Mr. Dilly, +'Pray, Sir, be so good as to send a set of my _Lives_ to Mr. Wilkes, +with my compliments.' This was accordingly done; and Mr. Wilkes paid Dr. +Johnson a visit, was courteously received, and sat with him a long time. + +The company gradually dropped away. Mr. Dilly himself was called down +stairs upon business; I left the room for some time; when I returned, I +was struck with observing Dr. Samuel Johnson and John Wilkes, Esq., +literally _tete-a-tete_; for they were reclined upon their chairs, with +their heads leaning almost close to each other, and talking earnestly, +in a kind of confidential whisper, of the personal quarrel between +George the Second and the King of Prussia[344]. Such a scene of +perfectly easy sociality between two such opponents in the war of +political controversy, as that which I now beheld, would have been an +excellent subject for a picture. It presented to my mind the happy days +which are foretold in Scripture, when the lion shall lie down with the +kid[345]. + +After this day there was another pretty long interval, during which Dr. +Johnson and I did not meet. When I mentioned it to him with regret, he +was pleased to say, 'Then, Sir, let us live double.' + +About this time it was much the fashion for several ladies to have +evening assemblies, where the fair sex might participate in conversation +with literary and ingenious men, animated by a desire to please. These +societies were denominated _Blue-stocking Clubs_, the origin of which +title being little known, it may be worth while to relate it. One of the +most eminent members of those societies, when they first commenced, was +Mr. Stillingfleet[346], whose dress was remarkably grave, and in +particular it was observed, that he wore blue stockings[347]. Such was +the excellence of his conversation, that his absence was felt as so +great a loss, that it used to be said, 'We can do nothing without the +_blue stockings_;' and thus by degrees the title was established. Miss +Hannah More has admirably described a _Blue-stocking Club_, in her _Bas +Bleu_[348], a poem in which many of the persons who were most +conspicuous there are mentioned. + +Johnson was prevailed with to come sometimes into these circles, and did +not think himself too grave even for the lively Miss Monckton[349] (now +Countess of Corke), who used to have the finest _bit of blue_ at the +house of her mother, Lady Galway. Her vivacity enchanted the Sage, and +they used to talk together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance +happened one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne's writings +were very pathetick. Johnson bluntly denied it. 'I am sure (said she) +they have affected _me_.' 'Why (said Johnson, smiling, and rolling +himself about,) that is, because, dearest, you're a dunce[350].' When +she some time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth +and politeness; 'Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not +have said it.' + +Another evening Johnson's kind indulgence towards me had a pretty +difficult trial. I had dined at the Duke of Montrose's with a very +agreeable party, and his Grace, according to his usual custom, had +circulated the bottle very freely. Lord Graham[351] and I went together +to Miss Monckton's, where I certainly was in extraordinary spirits, and +above all fear or awe. In the midst of a great number of persons of the +first rank, amongst whom I recollect with confusion, a noble lady of the +most stately decorum, I placed myself next to Johnson, and thinking +myself now fully his match, talked to him in a loud and boisterous +manner, desirous to let the company know how I could contend with +_Ajax_. I particularly remember pressing him upon the value of the +pleasures of the imagination, and as an illustration of my argument, +asking him, 'What, Sir, supposing I were to fancy that the--(naming the +most charming Duchess in his Majesty's dominions) were in love with me, +should I not be very happy?' My friend with much address evaded my +interrogatories, and kept me as quiet as possible; but it may easily be +conceived how he must have felt[352]. However, when a few days +afterwards I waited upon him and made an apology, he behaved with the +most friendly gentleness[353]. + +While I remained in London this year[354], Johnson and I dined together +at several places. I recollect a placid day at Dr. Butter's[355], who +had now removed from Derby to Lower Grosvenor-street, London; but of his +conversation on that and other occasions during this period, I neglected +to keep any regular record[356], and shall therefore insert here some +miscellaneous articles which I find in my Johnsonian notes. + +His disorderly habits, when 'making provision for the day that was +passing over him[357],' appear from the following anecdote, communicated +to me by Mr. John Nichols:--'In the year 1763, a young bookseller, who +was an apprentice to Mr. Whiston, waited on him with a subscription to +his _Shakspeare_: and observing that the Doctor made no entry in any +book of the subscriber's name, ventured diffidently to ask, whether he +would please to have the gentleman's address, that it might be properly +inserted in the printed list of subscribers. '_I shall print no list of +subscribers_;' said Johnson, with great abruptness: but almost +immediately recollecting himself, added, very complacently, 'Sir, I have +two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers;--one, +that I have lost all the names,--the other, that I have spent all +the money.' + +Johnson could not brook appearing to be worsted in argument, even when +he had taken the wrong side, to shew the force and dexterity of his +talents. When, therefore, he perceived that his opponent gained ground, +he had recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry. Once when I was +pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus:--'My dear +Boswell, let's have no more of this; you'll make nothing of it. I'd +rather have you whistle a Scotch tune.' + +Care, however, must be taken to distinguish between Johnson when he +'talked for victory[358],' and Johnson when he had no desire but to +inform and illustrate. 'One of Johnson's principal talents (says an +eminent friend of his)[359] was shewn in maintaining the wrong side of +an argument, and in a splendid perversion of the truth. If you could +contrive to have his fair opinion on a subject, and without any bias +from personal prejudice, or from a wish to be victorious in argument, it +was wisdom itself, not only convincing, but overpowering.' + +He had, however, all his life habituated himself to consider +conversation as a trial of intellectual vigour and skill[360]; and to +this, I think, we may venture to ascribe that unexampled richness and +brilliancy which appeared in his own. As a proof at once of his +eagerness for colloquial distinction, and his high notion of this +eminent friend, he once addressed him thus:-'----, we now have been +several hours together; and you have said but one thing for which I +envied you.' + +He disliked much all speculative desponding considerations, which tended +to discourage men from diligence and exertion. He was in this like Dr. +Shaw, the great traveller[361], who Mr. Daines Barrington[362] told me, +used to say, 'I hate a _cui bono_ man.' Upon being asked by a +friend[363] what he should think of a man who was apt to say _non est +tanti_;-'That he's a stupid fellow, Sir; (answered Johnson): What would +these _tanti_ men be doing the while?' When I in a low-spirited fit, was +talking to him with indifference of the pursuits which generally engage +us in a course of action, and inquiring a _reason_ for taking so much +trouble; 'Sir (said he, in an animated tone) it is driving on the +system of life.' + +He told me, that he was glad that I had, by General Oglethorpe's means, +become acquainted with Dr. Shebbeare. Indeed that gentleman, whatever +objections were made to him, had knowledge and abilities much above the +class of ordinary writers, and deserves to be remembered as a +respectable name in literature, were it only for his admirable _Letters +on the English Nation_, under the name of 'Battista Angeloni, a +Jesuit[364].' + +Johnson and Shebbeare[365] were frequently named together, as having in +former reigns had no predilection for the family of Hanover. The authour +of the celebrated _Heroick Epistle to Sir William Chambers_, introduces +them in one line, in a list of those 'who tasted the sweets of his +present Majesty's reign[366].' Such was Johnson's candid relish of the +merit of that satire, that he allowed Dr. Goldsmith, as he told me, to +read it to him from beginning to end, and did not refuse his praise to +its execution[367]. + +Goldsmith could sometimes take adventurous liberties with him, and +escape unpunished. Beauclerk told me that when Goldsmith talked of a +project for having a third Theatre in London, solely for the exhibition +of new plays, in order to deliver authours from the supposed tyranny of +managers, Johnson treated it slightingly; upon which Goldsmith said, +'Ay, ay, this may be nothing to you, who can now shelter yourself behind +the corner of a pension;' and that Johnson bore this with good-humour. + +Johnson praised the Earl of Carlisle's Poems[368], which his Lordship +had published with his name, as not disdaining to be a candidate for +literary fame. My friend was of opinion, that when a man of rank +appeared in that character, he deserved to have his merit handsomely +allowed[369]. In this I think he was more liberal than Mr. William +Whitehead[370], in his _Elegy to Lord Villiers_, in which under the +pretext of 'superiour toils, demanding all their care,' he discovers a +jealousy of the great paying their court to the Muses:-- + + '------to the chosen few + Who dare excel, thy fost'ring aid afford, + Their arts, their magick powers, with honours due + Exalt;--but be thyself what they record[371].' + +Johnson had called twice on the Bishop of Killaloe[372] before his +Lordship set out for Ireland, having missed him the first time. He said, +'It would have hung heavy on my heart if I had not seen him. No man ever +paid more attention to another than he has done to me[373]; and I have +neglected him, not wilfully, but from being otherwise occupied. Always, +Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination +prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love +you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.' + +Johnson told me, that he was once much pleased to find that a +carpenter, who lived near him, was very ready to shew him some things in +his business which he wished to see: 'It was paying (said he) respect to +literature.' + +I asked him if he was not dissatisfied with having so small a share of +wealth, and none of those distinctions in the state which are the +objects of ambition. He had only a pension of three hundred a year. Why +was he not in such circumstances as to keep his coach? Why had he not +some considerable office? JOHNSON, 'Sir, I have never complained of the +world[374]; nor do I think that I have reason to complain. It is rather +to be wondered at that I have so much. My pension is more out of the +usual course of things than any instance that I have known. Here, Sir, +was a man avowedly no friend to Government at the time, who got a +pension without asking for it. I never courted the great; they sent for +me; but I think they now give me up. They are satisfied; they have seen +enough of me.' Upon my observing that I could not believe this, for they +must certainly be highly pleased by his conversation; conscious of his +own superiority, he answered, 'No, Sir; great lords and great ladies +don't love to have their mouths stopped[375].' This was very expressive +of the effect which the force of his understanding and brilliancy of his +fancy could not but produce; and, to be sure, they must have found +themselves strangely diminished in his company. When I warmly declared +how happy I was at all times to hear him;--'Yes, Sir, (said he); but if +you were Lord Chancellor, it would not be so: you would then consider +your own dignity.' + +There was much truth and knowledge of human nature in this remark. But +certainly one should think, that in whatever elevated state of life a +man who _knew_ the value of the conversation of Johnson might be placed, +though he might prudently avoid a situation in which he might appear +lessened by comparison; yet he would frequently gratify himself in +private with the participation of the rich intellectual entertainment +which Johnson could furnish. Strange, however, it is, to consider how +few of the great sought his society[376]; so that if one were disposed +to take occasion for satire on that account, very conspicuous objects +present themselves. His noble friend, Lord Elibank, well observed, that +if a great man procured an interview with Johnson, and did not wish to +see him more, it shewed a mere idle curiosity, and a wretched want of +relish for extraordinary powers of mind[377]. Mrs. Thrale justly and +wittily accounted for such conduct by saying, that Johnson's +conversation was by much too strong for a person accustomed to +obsequiousness and flattery; it was _mustard in a young child's mouth!_ + +One day, when I told him that I was a zealous Tory, but not enough +'according to knowledge[378],' and should be obliged to him for 'a +reason[379],' he was so candid, and expressed himself so well, that I +begged of him to repeat what he had said, and I wrote down as follows:-- + +OF TORY AND WHIG. + +'A wise Tory and a wise Whig, I believe, will agree[380]. Their +principles are the same, though their modes of thinking are different. A +high Tory makes government unintelligible: it is lost in the clouds. A +violent Whig makes it impracticable: he is for allowing so much liberty +to every man, that there is not power enough to govern any man. The +prejudice of the Tory is for establishment; the prejudice of the Whig is +for innovation. A Tory does not wish to give more real power to +Government; but that Government should have more reverence. Then they +differ as to the Church. The Tory is not for giving more legal power to +the Clergy, but wishes they should have a considerable influence, +founded on the opinion of mankind; the Whig is for limiting and watching +them with a narrow jealousy.' + +To MR. PERKINS. + +'SIR, + +However often I have seen you, I have hitherto forgotten the note, but I +have now sent it: with my good wishes for the prosperity of you and your +partner[381], of whom, from our short conversation, I could not judge +otherwise than favourably. + +I am, Sir, + +Your most humble servant, + +SAM. JOHNSON. + +June 2, 1781.' + +On Saturday, June 2, I set out for Scotland, and had promised to pay a +visit in my way, as I sometimes did, at Southill, in Bedfordshire, at +the hospitable mansion of 'Squire Dilly, the elder brother of my worthy +friends, the booksellers, in the Poultry. Dr. Johnson agreed to be of +the party this year, with Mr. Charles Dilly and me, and to go and see +Lord Bute's seat at Luton Hoe. He talked little to us in the carriage, +being chiefly occupied in reading Dr. Watson's[382] second volume of +_Chemical Essays_[383], which he liked very well, and his own _Prince +of Abyssinia_, on which he seemed to be intensely fixed; having told us, +that he had not looked at it since it was first published. I happened to +take it out of my pocket this day, and he seized upon it with avidity. +He pointed out to me the following remarkable passage[384]:-- + +'By what means (said the prince) are the Europeans thus powerful; or +why, since they can so easily visit Asia and Africa for trade or +conquest, cannot the Asiaticks and Africans invade their coasts, plant +colonies in their ports, and give laws to their natural princes? The +same wind that carries them back would bring us thither.' 'They are more +powerful, Sir, than we, (answered Imlac,) because they are wiser. +Knowledge will always predominate over ignorance, as man governs the +other animals. But why their knowledge is more than ours, I know not +what reason can be given, but the unsearchable will of the +Supreme Being.' + +He said, 'This, Sir, no man can explain otherwise.' + +We stopped at Welwyn, where I wished much to see, in company with Dr. +Johnson, the residence of the authour of _Night Thoughts_, which was +then possessed by his son, Mr. Young. Here some address was requisite, +for I was not acquainted with Mr. Young, and had I proposed to Dr. +Johnson that we should send to him, he would have checked my wish, and +perhaps been offended. I therefore concerted with Mr. Dilly, that I +should steal away from Dr. Johnson and him, and try what reception I +could procure from Mr. Young; if unfavourable, nothing was to be said; +but if agreeable, I should return and notify it to them. I hastened to +Mr. Young's, found he was at home, sent in word that a gentleman desired +to wait upon him, and was shewn into a parlour, where he and a young +lady, his daughter, were sitting. He appeared to be a plain, civil, +country gentleman; and when I begged pardon for presuming to trouble +him, but that I wished much to see his place, if he would give me leave; +he behaved very courteously, and answered, 'By all means, Sir; we are +just going to drink tea; will you sit down?' I thanked him, but said, +that Dr. Johnson had come with me from London, and I must return to the +inn and drink tea with him; that my name was Boswell, I had travelled +with him in the Hebrides. 'Sir, (said he) I should think it a great +honour to see Dr. Johnson here. Will you allow me to send for him?' +Availing myself of this opening, I said that 'I would go myself and +bring him, when he had drunk tea; he knew nothing of my calling here.' +Having been thus successful, I hastened back to the inn, and informed +Dr. Johnson that 'Mr. Young, son of Dr. Young, the authour of _Night +Thoughts_, whom I had just left, desired to have the honour of seeing +him at the house where his father lived.' Dr. Johnson luckily made no +inquiry how this invitation had arisen, but agreed to go, and when we +entered Mr. Young's parlour, he addressed him with a very polite bow, +'Sir, I had a curiosity to come and see this place. I had the honour to +know that great man[385], your father.' We went into the garden, where +we found a gravel walk, on each side of which was a row of trees, +planted by Dr. Young, which formed a handsome Gothick arch; Dr. Johnson +called it a fine grove. I beheld it with reverence. + +We sat some time in the summer-house, on the outside wall of which was +inscribed, _'Ambulantes in horto audiebant vocem Dei_[386];' and in +reference to a brook by which it is situated, _'Vivendi recte qui +prorogat horam_[387],' &c. I said to Mr. Young, that I had been told his +father was cheerful[388]. 'Sir, (said he) he was too well-bred a man not +to be cheerful in company; but he was gloomy when alone. He never was +cheerful after my mother's death, and he had met with many +disappointments.' Dr. Johnson observed to me afterwards, 'That this was +no favourable account of Dr. Young; for it is not becoming in a man to +have so little acquiescence in the ways of Providence, as to be gloomy +because he has not obtained as much preferment as he expected[389]; nor +to continue gloomy for the loss of his wife. Grief has its time[390].' +The last part of this censure was theoretically made. Practically, we +know that grief for the loss of a wife may be continued very long, in +proportion as affection has been sincere. No man knew this better than +Dr. Johnson. + +We went into the church, and looked at the monument erected by Mr. Young +to his father. Mr. Young mentioned an anecdote, that his father had +received several thousand pounds of subscription-money for his +_Universal Passion_, but had lost it in the South-Sea[391]. Dr. Johnson +thought this must be a mistake; for he had never seen a +subscription-book. + +Upon the road we talked of the uncertainty of profit with which authours +and booksellers engage in the publication of literary works. JOHNSON. +'My judgement I have found is no certain rule as to the sale of a book.' +BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, have you been much plagued with authours sending +you their works to revise?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; I have been thought a +sour, surly fellow.' BOSWELL. 'Very lucky for you, Sir,--in that +respect.' I must however observe, that notwithstanding what he now said, +which he no doubt imagined at the time to be the fact, there was, +perhaps, no man who more frequently yielded to the solicitations even of +very obscure authours, to read their manuscripts, or more liberally +assisted them with advice and correction[392]. + +He found himself very happy at 'Squire Dilly's, where there is always +abundance of excellent fare, and hearty welcome. + +On Sunday, June 3, we all went to Southill church, which is very near to +Mr. Dilly's house. It being the first Sunday of the month, the holy +sacrament was administered, and I staid to partake of it. When I came +afterwards into Dr. Johnson's room, he said, 'You did right to stay and +receive the communion; I had not thought of it.' This seemed to imply +that he did not choose to approach the altar without a previous +preparation, as to which good men entertain different opinions, some +holding that it is irreverent to partake of that ordinance without +considerable premeditation; others, that whoever is a sincere Christian, +and in a proper frame of mind to discharge any other ritual duty of our +religion, may, without scruple, discharge this most solemn one. A middle +notion I believe to be the just one, which is, that communicants need +not think a long train of preparatory forms indispensibly necessary; but +neither should they rashly and lightly venture upon so aweful and +mysterious an institution. Christians must judge each for himself, what +degree of retirement and self-examination is necessary upon +each occasion. + +Being in a frame of mind which, I hope for the felicity of human nature, +many experience,--in fine weather,--at the country house of a +friend,--consoled and elevated by pious exercises,--I expressed myself +with an unrestrained fervour to my 'Guide, Philosopher, and +Friend[393];' 'My dear Sir, I would fain be a good man; and I am very +good now[394]. I fear GOD, and honour the King, I wish to do no ill, and +to be benevolent to all mankind.' He looked at me with a benignant +indulgence; but took occasion to give me wise and salutary caution. 'Do +not, Sir, accustom yourself to trust to _impressions_. There is a middle +state of mind between conviction and hypocrisy, of which many are +conscious[395]. By trusting to impressions, a man may gradually come to +yield to them, and at length be subject to them, so as not to be a free +agent, or what is the same thing in effect, to _suppose_ that he is not +a free agent. A man who is in that state, should not be suffered to +live; if he declares he cannot help acting in a particular way, and is +irresistibly impelled, there can be no confidence in him, no more than +in a tyger. But, Sir, no man believes himself to be impelled +irresistibly; we know that he who says he believes it, lies. Favourable +impressions at particular moments, as to the state of our souls, may be +deceitful and dangerous. In general no man can be sure of his acceptance +with God; some, indeed, may have had it revealed to them. St. Paul, who +wrought miracles, may have had a miracle wrought on himself, and may +have obtained supernatural assurance of pardon, and mercy, and +beatitude; yet St. Paul, though he expresses strong hope, also expresses +fear, lest having preached to others, he himself should be a +cast-away[396].' + +The opinion of a learned Bishop of our acquaintance, as to there being +merit in religious faith, being mentioned;--JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, Sir, the +most licentious man, were hell open before him, would not take the most +beautiful strumpet to his arms. We must, as the Apostle says, live by +faith, not by sight[397].' + +I talked to him of original sin[398], in consequence of the fall of man, +and of the atonement made by our SAVIOUR. After some conversation, which +he desired me to remember, he, at my request, dictated to me as +follows:-- + +'With respect to original sin, the inquiry is not necessary; for +whatever is the cause of human corruption, men are evidently and +confessedly so corrupt, that all the laws of heaven and earth are +insufficient to restrain them from crimes. + +'Whatever difficulty there may be in the conception of vicarious +punishments, it is an opinion which has had possession of mankind in all +ages. There is no nation that has not used the practice of sacrifices. +Whoever, therefore, denies the propriety of vicarious punishments, holds +an opinion which the sentiments and practice of mankind have +contradicted, from the beginning of the world. The great sacrifice for +the sins of mankind was offered at the death of the MESSIAH, who is +called in scripture "The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins[399] of +the world." To judge of the reasonableness of the scheme of redemption, +it must be considered as necessary to the government of the universe, +that GOD should make known his perpetual and irreconcileable detestation +of moral evil. He might indeed punish, and punish only the offenders; +but as the end of punishment is not revenge of crimes, but propagation +of virtue, it was more becoming the Divine clemency to find another +manner of proceeding, less destructive to man, and at least equally +powerful to promote goodness. The end of punishment is to reclaim and +warn. _That_ punishment will both reclaim and warn, which shews +evidently such abhorrence of sin in GOD, as may deter us from it, or +strike us with dread of vengeance when we have committed it. This is +effected by vicarious punishment. Nothing could more testify the +opposition between the nature of GOD and moral evil, or more amply +display his justice, to men and angels, to all orders and successions of +beings, than that it was necessary for the highest and purest nature, +even for DIVINITY itself, to pacify the demands of vengeance, by a +painful death; of which the natural effect will be, that when justice is +appeased, there is a proper place for the exercise of mercy; and that +such propitiation shall supply, in some degree, the imperfections of our +obedience, and the inefficacy of our repentance: for, obedience and +repentance, such as we can perform, are still necessary. Our SAVIOUR has +told us, that he did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill; to +fulfill the typical law, by the performance of what those types had +foreshewn; and the moral law, by precepts of greater purity and higher +exaltation.' + +[Here he said, 'GOD bless you with it.' I acknowledged myself much +obliged to him; but I begged that he would go on as to the propitiation +being the chief object of our most holy faith. He then dictated this one +other paragraph.] + +'The peculiar doctrine of Christianity is, that of an universal +sacrifice, and perpetual propitiation. Other prophets only proclaimed +the will and the threatenings of GOD. CHRIST satisfied his +justice[400].' + +The Reverend Mr. Palmer[401], Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, +dined with us. He expressed a wish that a better provision were made for +parish-clerks. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, a parish-clerk should be a man who is +able to make a will, or write a letter for any body in the parish.' + +I mentioned Lord Monboddo's notion[402] that the ancient Egyptians, with +all their learning, and all their arts, were not only black, but +woolly-haired. Mr. Palmer asked how did it appear upon examining the +mummies? Dr. Johnson approved of this test[403]. + +Although upon most occasions[404] I never heard a more strenuous +advocate for the advantages of wealth, than Dr. Johnson: he this day, I +know not from what caprice, took the other side. 'I have not observed +(said he) that men of very large fortunes enjoy any thing extraordinary +that makes happiness. What has the Duke of Bedford? What has the Duke of +Devonshire? The only great instance that I have ever known of the +enjoyment of wealth was, that of Jamaica Dawkins, who, going to visit +Palmyra, and hearing that the way was infested by robbers, hired a troop +of Turkish horse to guard him[405].' + +Dr. Gibbons[406], the Dissenting minister, being mentioned, he said, 'I +took to Dr. Gibbons.' And addressing himself to Mr. Charles Dilly, +added, 'I shall be glad to see him. Tell him, if he'll call on me, and +dawdle[407] over a dish of tea in an afternoon, I shall take it kind.' + +The Reverend Mr. Smith, Vicar of Southill, a very respectable man, with +a very agreeable family, sent an invitation to us to drink tea. I +remarked Dr. Johnson's very respectful[408] politeness. Though always +fond of changing the scene, he said, 'We must have Mr. Dilly's leave. We +cannot go from your house, Sir, without your permission.' We all went, +and were well satisfied with our visit. I however remember nothing +particular, except a nice distinction which Dr. Johnson made with +respect to the power of memory, maintaining that forgetfulness was a +man's own fault[409]. 'To remember and to recollect (said he) are +different things. A man has not the power to recollect what is not in +his mind; but when a thing is in his mind he may remember it.' The +remark was occasioned by my leaning back on a chair, which a little +before I had perceived to be broken, and pleading forgetfulness as an +excuse. 'Sir, (said he,) its being broken was certainly in your +mind[410].' + +When I observed that a housebreaker was in general very timorous; +JOHNSON. 'No wonder, Sir; he is afraid of being shot getting _into_ a +house, or hanged when he has got _out_ of it.' + +He told us, that he had in one day written six sheets of a translation +from the French[411], adding, 'I should be glad to see it now. I wish +that I had copies of all the pamphlets written against me, as it is said +Pope had. Had I known that I should make so much noise in the world, I +should have been at pains to collect them. I believe there is hardly a +day in which there is not something about me in the newspapers.' + +On Monday, June 4, we all went to Luton-Hoe, to see Lord Bute's +magnificent seat[412], for which I had obtained a ticket. As we entered +the park, I talked in a high style of my old friendship with Lord +Mountstuart[413], and said, 'I shall probably be much at this place.' +The Sage, aware of human vicissitudes, gently checked me: 'Don't you be +too sure of that.' He made two or three peculiar observations; as when +shewn the botanical garden, 'Is not every garden a botanical garden?' +When told that there was a shrubbery to the extent of several miles: +'That is making a very foolish use of the ground; a little of it is very +well.' When it was proposed that we should walk on the pleasure-ground; +'Don't let us fatigue ourselves. Why should we walk there? Here's a fine +tree, let's get to the top of it.' But upon the whole, he was very much +pleased. He said, 'This is one of the places I do not regret having come +to see. It is a very stately place, indeed; in the house magnificence is +not sacrificed to convenience, nor convenience to magnificence. The +library is very splendid: the dignity of the rooms is very great; and +the quantity of pictures is beyond expectation, beyond hope.' + +It happened without any previous concert, that we visited the seat of +Lord Bute upon the King's birthday; we dined and drank his Majesty's +health at an inn, in the village of Luton. + +In the evening I put him in mind of his promise to favour me with a copy +of his celebrated Letter to the Earl of Chesterfield, and he was at last +pleased to comply with this earnest request, by dictating it to me from +his memory; for he believed that he himself had no copy[414]. There was +an animated glow in his countenance while he thus recalled his +high-minded indignation. + +He laughed heartily at a ludicrous action in the Court of Session, in +which I was Counsel. The Society of _Procurators_, or Attornies, +entitled to practise in the inferiour courts at Edinburgh, had obtained +a royal charter, in which they had taken care to have their ancient +designation of Procurators changed into that of _Solicitors_, from a +notion, as they supposed, that it was more genteel[415]; and this new +title they displayed by a publick advertisement for a _General Meeting_ +at their HALL. + +It has been said, that the Scottish nation is not distinguished for +humour; and, indeed, what happened on this occasion may in some degree +justify the remark: for although this society had contrived to make +themselves a very prominent object for the ridicule of such as might +stoop to it, the only joke to which it gave rise, was the following +paragraph, sent to the newspaper called _The Caledonian Mercury_:-- + +'A correspondent informs us, that the Worshipful Society of _Chaldeans_, +_Cadies_[416], or _Running Stationers_ of this city are resolved, in +imitation, and encouraged by the singular success of their brethren, of +an equally respectable Society, to apply for a Charter of their +Privileges, particularly of the sole privilege of PROCURING, in the most +extensive sense of the word[417], exclusive of chairmen, porters, +penny-post men, and other _inferiour_ ranks; their brethren the R--Y--L +S--LL--RS, _alias_ P--C--RS, _before the_ INFERIOUR Courts of this City, +always excepted. + +'Should the Worshipful Society be successful, they are farther resolved +not to be _puffed up_ thereby, but to demean themselves with more +equanimity and decency than their _R--y--l, learned_, and _very modest_ +brethren above mentioned have done, upon their late dignification and +exaltation.' + +A majority of the members of the Society prosecuted Mr. Robertson, the +publisher of the paper, for damages; and the first judgement of the +whole Court very wisely dismissed the action: _Solventur risu tabulae, +tu missus abibis_[418]. But a new trial or review was granted upon a +petition, according to the forms in Scotland. This petition I was +engaged to answer, and Dr. Johnson with great alacrity furnished me this +evening with what follows:-- + +'All injury is either of the person, the fortune, or the fame. Now it is +a certain thing, it is proverbially known, that _a jest breaks no +bones_. They never have gained half-a-crown less in the whole profession +since this mischievous paragraph has appeared; and, as to their +reputation, What is their reputation but an instrument of getting money? +If, therefore, they have lost no money, the question upon reputation +may be answered by a very old position,--_De minimis non curat Praetor_. + +'Whether there was, or was not, an _animus injuriandi_, is not worth +inquiring, if no _injuria_ can be proved. But the truth is, there was no +_animus injuriandi_. It was only an _animus irritandi[419]_, which, +happening to be exercised upon a _genus irritabile_, produced unexpected +violence of resentment. Their irritability arose only from an opinion of +their own importance, and their delight in their new exaltation. What +might have been borne by a _Procurator_ could not be borne by a +_Solicitor_. Your Lordships well know, that _honores mutant mores_. +Titles and dignities play strongly on the fancy. As a madman is apt to +think himself grown suddenly great, so he that grows suddenly great is +apt to borrow a little from the madman. To co-operate with their +resentment would be to promote their phrenzy; nor is it possible to +guess to what they might proceed, if to the new title of Solicitor, +should be added the elation of victory and triumph. + +'We consider your Lordships as the protectors of our rights, and the +guardians of our virtues; but believe it not included in your high +office, that you should flatter our vices, or solace our vanity: and, as +vanity only dictates this prosecution, it is humbly hoped your Lordships +will dismiss it. + +'If every attempt, however light or ludicrous, to lessen another's +reputation, is to be punished by a judicial sentence, what punishment +can be sufficiently severe for him who attempts to diminish the +reputation of the Supreme Court of Justice, by reclaiming upon a cause +already determined, without any change in the state of the question? +Does it not imply hopes that the Judges will change their opinion? Is +not uncertainty and inconstancy in the highest degree disreputable to a +Court? Does it not suppose, that the former judgement was temerarious or +negligent? Does it not lessen the confidence of the publick? Will it not +be said, that _jus est aut incognitum aut vagum?_ and will not the +consequence be drawn, _misera est servitus[420]?_ Will not the rules of +action be obscure? Will not he who knows himself wrong to-day, hope that +the Courts of Justice will think him right to-morrow? Surely, my Lords, +these are attempts of dangerous tendency, which the Solicitors, as men +versed in the law, should have foreseen and avoided. It was natural for +an ignorant printer to appeal from the Lord Ordinary; but from lawyers, +the descendants of lawyers, who have practised for three hundred years, +and have now raised themselves to a higher denomination, it might be +expected, that they should know the reverence due to a judicial +determination; and, having been once dismissed, should sit down +in silence.' + +I am ashamed to mention, that the Court, by a plurality of voices, +without having a single additional circumstance before them, reversed +their own judgement, made a serious matter of this dull and foolish +joke, and adjudged Mr. Robertson to pay to the Society five pounds +(sterling money) and costs of suit. The decision will seem strange to +English lawyers. + +On Tuesday, June 5, Johnson was to return to London. He was very +pleasant at breakfast; I mentioned a friend of mine having resolved +never to marry a pretty woman. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is a very foolish +resolution to resolve not to marry a pretty woman. Beauty is of itself +very estimable. No, Sir, I would prefer a pretty woman, unless there are +objections to her. A pretty woman may be foolish; a pretty woman may be +wicked; a pretty woman may not like me. But there is no such danger in +marrying a pretty woman as is apprehended: she will not be persecuted if +she does not invite persecution. A pretty woman, if she has a mind to be +wicked, can find a readier way than another; and that is all.' + +I accompanied him in Mr. Dilly's chaise to Shefford, where talking of +Lord Bute's never going to Scotland, he said, 'As an Englishman, I +should wish all the Scotch gentlemen should be educated in England; +Scotland would become a province; they would spend all their rents in +England.' This is a subject of much consequence, and much delicacy. The +advantage of an English education is unquestionably very great to Scotch +gentlemen of talents and ambition; and regular visits to Scotland, and +perhaps other means, might be effectually used to prevent them from +being totally estranged from their native country, any more than a +Cumberland or Northumberland gentleman who has been educated in the +South of England. I own, indeed, that it is no small misfortune for +Scotch gentlemen, who have neither talents nor ambition, to be educated +in England, where they may be perhaps distinguished only by a nick-name, +lavish their fortune in giving expensive entertainments to those who +laugh at them, and saunter about as mere idle insignificant hangers on +even upon the foolish great; when if they had been judiciously brought +up at home, they might have been comfortable and creditable members +of society. + +At Shefford I had another affectionate parting from my revered friend, +who was taken up by the Bedford coach and carried to the metropolis. I +went with Messieurs Dilly, to see some friends at Bedford; dined with +the officers of the militia of the county, and next day proceeded on +my journey. + +'To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'How welcome your account of yourself and your invitation to your new +house was to me, I need not tell you, who consider our friendship not +only as formed by choice, but as matured by time. We have been now long +enough acquainted to have many images in common, and therefore to have a +source of conversation which neither the learning nor the wit of a new +companion can supply. + +'My _Lives_ are now published; and if you will tell me whither I shall +send them, that they may come to you, I will take care that you shall +not be without them. + +'You will, perhaps, be glad to hear, that Mrs. Thrale is disencumbered +of her brewhouse; and that it seemed to the purchaser so far from an +evil, that he was content to give for it an hundred and thirty-five +thousand pounds. Is the nation ruined? + +'Please to make my respectful compliments to Lady Rothes, and keep me in +the memory of all the little dear family, particularly pretty Mrs. +Jane.[421] + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your affectionate humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Bolt-Court, June 16, 1781.' + +Johnson's charity to the poor was uniform and extensive, both from +inclination and principle. He not only bestowed liberally out of his own +purse, but what is more difficult as well as rare, would beg from +others, when he had proper objects in view. This he did judiciously as +well as humanely. Mr. Philip Metcalfe[422] tells me, that when he has +asked him for some money for persons in distress, and Mr. Metcalfe has +offered what Johnson thought too much, he insisted on taking less, +saying 'No, no, Sir; we must not _pamper_ them.' + +I am indebted to Mr. Malone, one of Sir Joshua Reynolds's executors, for +the following note, which was found among his papers after his death, +and which, we may presume, his unaffected modesty prevented him from +communicating to me with the other letters from Dr. Johnson with which +he was pleased to furnish me. However slight in itself, as it does +honour to that illustrious painter, and most amiable man, I am happy to +introduce it. + +'To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 'DEAR SIR, + +'It was not before yesterday that I received your splendid benefaction. +To a hand so liberal in distributing, I hope nobody will envy the power +of acquiring. + +'I am, dear Sir, + +Your obliged and most humble servant, SAM, JOHNSON. June 23, 1781.' + +'To THOMAS ASTLE, Esq.[423] + +'SIR, + +'I am ashamed that you have been forced to call so often for your books, +but it has been by no fault on either side. They have never been out of +my hands, nor have I ever been at home without seeing you; for to see a +man so skilful in the antiquities of my country, is an opportunity of +improvement not willingly to be missed. + +'Your notes on Alfred[424] appear to me very judicious and accurate, but +they are too few. Many things familiar to you, are unknown to me, and to +most others; and you must not think too favourably of your readers: by +supposing them knowing, you will leave them ignorant. Measure of land, +and value of money, it is of great importance to state with care. Had +the Saxons any gold coin? + +'I have much curiosity after the manners and transactions of the middle +ages, but have wanted either diligence or opportunity, or both. You, +Sir, have great opportunities, and I wish you both diligence +and success. + +'I am, Sir, &c. SAM. JOHNSON. July 17, 1781.' + +The following curious anecdote I insert in Dr. Burney's own words:-- + +'Dr. Burney related to Dr. Johnson the partiality which his writings had +excited in a friend of Dr. Burney's, the late Mr. Bewley, well known in +Norfolk by the name of the _Philosopher of Massingham_[425]: who, from +the _Ramblers_ and Plan of his _Dictionary_, and long before the +authour's fame was established by the _Dictionary_ itself, or any other +work, had conceived such a reverence for him, that he urgently begged +Dr. Burney to give him the cover of the first letter he had received +from him, as a relick of so estimable a writer. This was in 1755. In +1760[426], when Dr. Burney visited Dr. Johnson at the Temple in London, +where he had then Chambers, he happened to arrive there before he was +up; and being shewn into the room where he was to breakfast, finding +himself alone, he examined the contents of the apartment, to try whether +he could undiscovered steal any thing to send to his friend Bewley, as +another relick of the admirable Dr. Johnson. But finding nothing better +to his purpose, he cut some bristles off his hearth-broom, and enclosed +them in a letter to his country enthusiast, who received them with due +reverence. The Doctor was so sensible of the honour done him by a man of +genius and science, to whom he was an utter stranger, that he said to +Dr. Burney, "Sir, there is no man possessed of the smallest portion of +modesty, but must be flattered with the admiration of such a man. I'll +give him a set of my _Lives_, if he will do me the honour to accept of +them[427]." In this he kept his word; and Dr. Burney had not only the +pleasure of gratifying his friend with a present more worthy of his +acceptance than the segment from the hearth-broom, but soon after of +introducing him to Dr. Johnson himself in Bolt-court, with whom he had +the satisfaction of conversing a considerable time, not a fortnight +before his death; which happened in St. Martin's-street, during his +visit to Dr. Burney, in the house where the great Sir Isaac Newton had +lived and died before.' + +In one of his little memorandum-books is the following minute:-- + +'August 9, 3 P.M., aetat. 72, in the summer-house at Streatham. After +innumerable resolutions formed and neglected, I have retired hither, to +plan a life of greater diligence, in hope that I may yet be useful, and +be daily better prepared to appear before my Creator and my Judge, from +whose infinite mercy I humbly call for assistance and support. + +'My purpose is, + +'To pass eight hours every day in some serious employment. + +'Having prayed, I purpose to employ the next six weeks upon the Italian +language, for my settled study.' + +How venerably pious does he appear in these moments of solitude, and how +spirited are his resolutions for the improvement of his mind, even in +elegant literature, at a very advanced period of life, and when +afflicted with many complaints[428]. + +In autumn he went to Oxford, Birmingham, Lichfield, and Ashbourne, for +which very good reasons might be given in the conjectural yet positive +manner of writers, who are proud to account for every event which they +relate[429]. He himself, however, says, + +'The motives of my journey I hardly know; I omitted it last year, and am +not willing to miss it again[430].' + +But some good considerations arise, amongst which is the kindly +recollection of Mr. Hector, surgeon at Birmingham: + +'Hector is likewise an old friend, the only companion of my childhood +that passed through the school with me. We have always loved one +another; perhaps we may be made better by some serious conversation, of +which however I have no distinct hope.' + +He says too, + +'At Lichfield, my native place, I hope to shew a good example by +frequent attendance on publick worship.' + +My correspondence with him during the rest of this year was I know not +why very scanty, and all on my side. I wrote him one letter to introduce +Mr. Sinclair (now Sir John), the member for Caithness, to his +acquaintance; and informed him in another that my wife had again been +affected with alarming symptoms of illness. + +1782: AETAT. 73.--In 1782, his complaints increased, and the history of +his life this year, is little more than a mournful recital of the +variations of his illness, in the midst of which, however, it will +appear from his letters, that the powers of his mind were in no +degree impaired. + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I sit down to answer your letter on the same day in which I received +it, and am pleased that my first letter of the year is to you. No man +ought to be at ease while he knows himself in the wrong; and I have not +satisfied myself with my long silence. The letter relating to Mr. +Sinclair, however, was, I believe, never brought. + +'My health has been tottering this last year; and I can give no very +laudable account of my time. I am always hoping to do better than I have +ever hitherto done. + +'My journey to Ashbourne and Staffordshire was not pleasant; for what +enjoyment has a sick man visiting the sick[431]?--Shall we ever have +another frolick like our journey to the Hebrides? + +'I hope that dear Mrs. Boswell will surmount her complaints; in losing +her you would lose your anchor, and be tost, without stability, by the +waves of life[432]. I wish both her and you very many years, and +very happy. + +'For some months past I have been so withdrawn from the world, that I +can send you nothing particular. All your friends, however, are well, +and will be glad of your return to London. + +'I am, dear Sir, + +'Yours most affectionately, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'January 5, 1782.' + +At a time when he was less able than he had once been to sustain a +shock, he was suddenly deprived of Mr. Levett, which event he thus +communicated to Dr. Lawrence:-- + +'SIR, + +'Our old friend, Mr. Levett, who was last night eminently cheerful, died +this morning. The man who lay in the same room, hearing an uncommon +noise, got up and tried to make him speak, but without effect. He then +called Mr. Holder, the apothecary, who, though when he came he thought +him dead, opened a vein, but could draw no blood. So has ended the long +life of a very useful and very blameless man. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 17, 1782.' + +In one of his memorandum-books in my possession, is the following +entry:-- + +'January 20, Sunday. Robert Levett was buried in the church-yard of +Bridewell, between one and two in the afternoon. He died on Thursday 17, +about seven in the morning, by an instantaneous death. He was an old and +faithful friend; I have known him from about 46. _Commendavi_. May GOD +have mercy on him. May he have mercy on me.' + +Such was Johnson's affectionate regard for Levett[433], that he honoured +his memory with the following pathetick verses:-- + + 'Condemd'd to Hope's delusive mine, + As on we toil from day to day, + By sudden blast or slow decline + Our social comforts drop away. + + Well try'd through many a varying year, + See LEVETT to the grave descend; + Officious, innocent, sincere, + Of every friendless name the friend[434]. + + Yet still he fills affection's eye, + Obscurely wise[435], and coarsely kind; + Nor, letter'd arrogance[436], deny + Thy praise to merit unrefin'd. + + When fainting Nature call'd for aid, + And hov'ring Death prepar'd the blow, + His vigorous remedy display'd + The power of art without the show. + + In Misery's darkest caverns known, + His ready help was ever nigh, + Where hopeless Anguish pour'd his groan, + And lonely want retir'd to die[437]. + + No summons mock'd by chill delay, + No petty gains disdain'd by pride; + The modest wants of every day + The toil of every day supply'd. + + His virtues walk'd their narrow round, + Nor made a pause, nor left a void; + And sure the Eternal Master found + His single talent well employ'd. + + The busy day, the peaceful night[438], + Unfelt, uncounted, glided by; + His frame was firm, his powers were bright, + Though now his eightieth year was nigh[439]. + + Then, with no throbs of fiery pain, + No cold gradations of decay, + Death broke at once the vital chain, + And freed his soul the nearest way.' + +In one of Johnson's registers of this year, there occurs the following +curious passage:-- + +'Jan. 20[440]. The Ministry is dissolved. I prayed with Francis and gave +thanks[441].' + +It has been the subject of discussion, whether there are two distinct +particulars mentioned here? or that we are to understand the giving of +thanks to be in consequence of the dissolution of the Ministry? In +support of the last of these conjectures may be urged his mean opinion +of that Ministry, which has frequently appeared in the course of this +work[442]; and it is strongly confirmed by what he said on the subject +to Mr. Seward:--'I am glad the Ministry is removed. Such a bunch of +imbecility never disgraced a country[443]. If they sent a messenger into +the City to take up a printer, the messenger was taken up instead of +the printer, and committed by the sitting Alderman[444]. If they sent +one army to the relief of another, the first army was defeated and taken +before the second arrived[445]. I will not say that what they did was +always wrong; but it was always done at a wrong time[446].' + +'TO MRS. STRAHAN. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'Mrs. Williams shewed me your kind letter. This little habitation is now +but a melancholy place, clouded with the gloom of disease and death. Of +the four inmates, one has been suddenly snatched away; two are oppressed +by very afflictive and dangerous illness; and I tried yesterday to gain +some relief by a third bleeding, from a disorder which has for some time +distressed me, and I think myself to-day much better. + +'I am glad, dear Madam, to hear that you are so far recovered as to go +to Bath. Let me once more entreat you to stay till your health is not +only obtained, but confirmed. Your fortune is such as that no moderate +expence deserves your care; and you have a husband, who, I believe, does +not regard it. Stay, therefore, till you are quite well. I am, for my +part, very much deserted; but complaint is useless. I hope GOD will +bless you, and I desire you to form the same wish for me. + +'I am, dear Madam, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Feb. 4, 1782.' + +'To EDMOND MALONE, ESQ. + +'SIR, + +'I have for many weeks been so much out of order, that I have gone out +only in a coach to Mrs. Thrale's, where I can use all the freedom that +sickness requires. Do not, therefore, take it amiss, that I am not with +you and Dr. Farmer. I hope hereafter to see you often. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Feb. 27, 1782.' + +To THE SAME. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I hope I grow better, and shall soon be able to enjoy the kindness of +my friends. I think this wild adherence to Chatterton[447] more +unaccountable than the obstinate defence of Ossian. In Ossian there is a +national pride, which may be forgiven, though it cannot be applauded. In +Chatterton there is nothing but the resolution to say again what has +once been said. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'March 7, 1782.' + +These short letters shew the regard which Dr. Johnson entertained for +Mr. Malone, who the more he is known is the more highly valued. It is +much to be regretted that Johnson was prevented from sharing the elegant +hospitality of that gentleman's table, at which he would in every +respect have been fully gratified. Mr. Malone, who has so ably +succeeded him as an Editor of Shakspeare, has, in his Preface, done +great and just honour to Johnson's memory. + +'TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'I went away from Lichfield ill, and have had a troublesome time with my +breath; for some weeks I have been disordered by a cold, of which I +could not get the violence abated, till I had been let blood three +times. I have not, however, been so bad but that I could have written, +and am sorry that I neglected it. + +'My dwelling is but melancholy; both Williams, and Desmoulins, and +myself, are very sickly: Frank is not well; and poor Levett died in his +bed the other day, by a sudden stroke; I suppose not one minute passed +between health and death; so uncertain are human things. + +'Such is the appearance of the world about me; I hope your scenes are +more cheerful. But whatever befalls us, though it is wise to be serious, +it is useless and foolish, and perhaps sinful, to be gloomy. Let us, +therefore, keep ourselves as easy as we can; though the loss of friends +will be felt, and poor Levett had been a faithful adherent for +thirty years. + +'Forgive me, my dear love, the omission of writing; I hope to mend that +and my other faults. Let me have your prayers. + +'Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb, and Miss Adey, and Mr. Pearson, and +the whole company of my friends. + +I am, my dear, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 2, 1782.' + +TO THE SAME. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'My last was but a dull letter, and I know not that this will be much +more cheerful; I am, however, willing to write, because you are desirous +to hear from me. + +'My disorder has now begun its ninth week, for it is not yet over. I was +last Thursday blooded for the fourth time, and have since found myself +much relieved, but I am very tender and easily hurt; so that since we +parted I have had but little comfort, but I hope that the spring will +recover me; and that in the summer I shall see Lichfield again, for I +will not delay my visit another year to the end of autumn. + +'I have, by advertising, found poor Mr. Levett's brothers in Yorkshire, +who will take the little he has left: it is but little, yet it will be +welcome, for I believe they are of very low condition. + +'To be sick, and to see nothing but sickness and death, is but a gloomy +state; but I hope better times, even in this world, will come, and +whatever this world may withhold or give, we shall be happy in a better +state. Pray for me, my dear Lucy. + +'Make my compliments to Mrs. Cobb, and Miss Adey, and my old friend +Hetty Baily, and to all the Lichfield ladies. + +'I am, dear Madam, + +'Yours, affectionately, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Bolt-court, Fleet-street, + +March 19, 1782.' + +On the day on which this letter was written, he thus feelingly mentions +his respected friend and physician, Dr. Lawrence:-- + +'Poor Lawrence has almost lost the sense of hearing; and I have lost the +conversation of a learned, intelligent, and communicative companion, and +a friend whom long familiarity has much endeared. Lawrence is one of the +best men whom I have known.--_Nostrum omnium miserere Deus_[448].' + +It was Dr. Johnson's custom when he wrote to Dr. Lawrence concerning his +own health, to use the Latin language[449]. I have been favoured by Miss +Lawrence with one of these letters as a specimen:-- + +'T. LAWRENCIO, _Medico, S_. + +'NOVUM _frigus, nova tussis, nova spirandi difficultas, novam sanguinis +missionem suadent, quam tamen te inconsulto nolim fieri. Ad te venire +vix possum, nec est cur ad me venias. Licere vel non licere uno verbo +dicendum est; catera mihi et Holdero[450] reliqueris. Si per te licet, +imperatur[451] nuncio Holderum ad me deducere. + +'Maiis Calendis, 1782. + +'Postquam tu discesseris, quo me vertam[452]?'_ + +TO CAPTAIN LANGTON[453], IN ROCHESTER. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'It is now long since we saw one another; and whatever has been the +reason neither you have written to me, nor I to you. To let friendship +die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is +voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary +pilgrimage, of which when it is, as it must be, taken finally away, he +that travels on alone, will wonder how his esteem could be so little. Do +not forget me; you see that I do not forget you. It is pleasing in the +silence of solitude to think, that there is one at least, however +distant, of whose benevolence there is little doubt, and whom there is +yet hope of seeing again[454]. + +'Of my life, from the time we parted, the history is mournful. The +spring of last year deprived me of Thrale, a man whose eye for fifteen +years had scarcely been turned upon me but with respect or +tenderness[455]; for such another friend, the general course of human +things will not suffer man to hope. I passed the summer at Streatham, +but there was no Thrale; and having idled away the summer with a weakly +body and neglected mind, I made a journey to Staffordshire on the edge +of winter. The season was dreary, I was sickly, and found the friends +sickly whom I went to see. After a sorrowful sojourn, I returned to a +habitation possessed for the present by two sick women, where my dear +old friend, Mr. Levett, to whom as he used to tell me, I owe your +acquaintance[456], died a few weeks ago, suddenly in his bed; there +passed not, I believe, a minute between health and death. At night, as +at Mrs. Thrale's I was musing in my chamber, I thought with uncommon +earnestness, that however I might alter my mode of life, or +whithersoever I might remove[457], I would endeavour to retain Levett +about me; in the morning my servant brought me word that Levett was +called to another state, a state for which, I think, he was not +unprepared, for he was very useful to the poor. How much soever I valued +him, I now wish that I had valued him more[458]. + +'I have myself been ill more than eight weeks of a disorder, from which +at the expence of about fifty ounces of blood, I hope I am now +recovering. + +'You, dear Sir, have, I hope, a more cheerful scene; you see George fond +of his book, and the pretty misses airy and lively, with my own little +Jenny[459] equal to the best[460]: and in whatever can contribute to +your quiet or pleasure, you have Lady Rothes ready to concur. May +whatever you enjoy of good be encreased, and whatever you suffer of evil +be diminished. + + I am, dear Sir, + Your humble servant, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Bolt-court, Fleet-street, + March 20, 1782.' + + 'To MR. HECTOR, IN BIRMINGHAM[461]. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I hope I do not very grossly flatter myself to imagine that you and +dear Mrs. Careless[462] will be glad to hear some account of me. I +performed the journey to London with very little inconvenience, and came +safe to my habitation, where I found nothing but ill health, and, of +consequence, very little cheerfulness. I then went to visit a little way +into the country, where I got a complaint by a cold which has hung eight +weeks upon me, and from which I am, at the expence of fifty ounces of +blood, not yet free. I am afraid I must once more owe my recovery to +warm weather, which seems to make no advances towards us. + +'Such is my health, which will, I hope, soon grow better. In other +respects I have no reason to complain. I know not that I have written +any thing more generally commended than the _Lives of the Poets_; and +have found the world willing enough to caress me, if my health had +invited me to be in much company; but this season I have been almost +wholly employed in nursing myself. + +'When summer comes I hope to see you again, and will not put off my +visit to the end of the year. I have lived so long in London, that I did +not remember the difference of seasons. + +'Your health, when I saw you, was much improved. You will be prudent +enough not to put it in danger. I hope, when we meet again, we shall all +congratulate each other upon fair prospects of longer life; though what +are the pleasures of the longest life, when placed in comparison with a +happy death? + +'I am, dear Sir, + +'Yours most affectionately, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 21, 1782.' + +To THE SAME. + +[Without a date, but supposed to be about this time.][463] + +'DEAR SIR, + +'That you and dear Mrs. Careless should have care or curiosity about my +health, gives me that pleasure which every man feels from finding +himself not forgotten. In age we feel again that love of our native +place and our early friends, which in the bustle or amusements of middle +life were overborne and suspended. You and I should now naturally cling +to one another: we have outlived most of those who could pretend to +rival us in each other's kindness. In our walk through life we have +dropped our companions, and are now to pick up such as chance may offer +us, or to travel on alone[464]. You, indeed, have a sister, with whom +you can divide the day: I have no natural friend left; but Providence +has been pleased to preserve me from neglect; I have not wanted such +alleviations of life as friendship could supply. My health has been, +from my twentieth year, such as has seldom afforded me a single day of +ease[465]; but it is at least not worse: and I sometimes make myself +believe that it is better. My disorders are, however, still sufficiently +oppressive. + +'I think of seeing Staffordshire again this autumn, and intend to find +my way through Birmingham, where I hope to see you and dear Mrs. +Careless well. I am Sir, + +'Your affectionate friend, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +I wrote to him at different dates; regretted that I could not come to +London this spring, but hoped we should meet somewhere in the summer; +mentioned the state of my affairs, and suggested hopes of some +preferment; informed him, that as _The Beauties of Johnson_ had been +published in London, some obscure scribbler had published at Edinburgh +what he called _The deformities of Johnson_. + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'The pleasure which we used to receive from each other on Good-Friday +and Easter-day[466], we must be this year content to miss. Let us, +however, pray for each other, and hope to see one another yet from time +to time with mutual delight. My disorder has been a cold, which impeded +the organs of respiration, and kept me many weeks in a state of great +uneasiness; but by repeated phlebotomy it is now relieved; and next to +the recovery of Mrs. Boswell, I flatter myself, that you will rejoice +at mine. + +'What we shall do in the summer it is yet too early to consider. You +want to know what you shall do now; I do not think this time of bustle +and confusion[467] likely to produce any advantage to you. Every man has +those to reward and gratify who have contributed to his advancement. To +come hither with such expectations at the expence of borrowed money, +which, I find, you know not where to borrow, can hardly be considered as +prudent. I am sorry to find, what your solicitation seems to imply, that +you have already gone the whole length of your credit. This is to set +the quiet of your whole life at hazard. If you anticipate your +inheritance, you can at last inherit nothing; all that you receive must +pay for the past. You must get a place, or pine in penury, with the +empty name of a great estate. Poverty, my dear friend, is so great an +evil, and pregnant with so much temptation, and so much misery, that I +cannot but earnestly enjoin you to avoid it[468]. Live on what you have; +live if you can on less; do not borrow either for vanity or pleasure; +the vanity will end in shame, and the pleasure in regret: stay therefore +at home, till you have saved money for your journey hither. + +_The Beauties of Johnson_ are said to have got money to the collector; +if the _Deformities_ have the same success, I shall be still a more +extensive benefactor. + +'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, who is, I hope, reconciled to me; +and to the young people whom I never have offended. + +'You never told me the success of your plea against the Solicitors[469]. + +'I am, dear Sir, + +'Your most affectionate, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 28, 1782.' + +Notwithstanding his afflicted state of body[470] and mind this year, the +following correspondence affords a proof not only of his benevolence and +conscientious readiness to relieve a good man from errour, but by his +cloathing one of the sentiments in his _Rambler_ in different language, +not inferiour to that of the original, shews his extraordinary command +of clear and forcible expression. + +A clergyman at Bath wrote to him, that in _The Morning Chronicle_, a +passage in _The Beauties of Johnson_[471], article DEATH, had been +pointed out as supposed by some readers to recommend suicide, the words +being, 'To die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is +generally his folly;' and respectfully suggesting to him, that such an +erroneous notion of any sentence in the writings of an acknowledged +friend of religion and virtue, should not pass uncontradicted. + +Johnson thus answered the clergyman's letter:-- + + To THE REVEREND MR. ----, AT BATH. + +'SIR, + +'Being now[472] in the country in a state of recovery, as I hope, from a +very oppressive disorder, I cannot neglect the acknowledgement of your +Christian letter. The book called _The Beauties of Johnson_ is the +production of I know not whom: I never saw it but by casual inspection, +and considered myself as utterly disengaged from its consequences. Of +the passage you mention, I remember some notice in some paper; but +knowing that it must be misrepresented, I thought of it no more, nor do +I know where to find it in my own books. I am accustomed to think little +of newspapers; but an opinion so weighty and serious as yours has +determined me to do, what I should, without your seasonable admonition, +have omitted; and I will direct my thought to be shewn in its true +state[473]. If I could find the passage, I would direct you to it. I +suppose the tenour is this:--'Acute diseases are the immediate and +inevitable strokes of Heaven; but of them the pain is short, and the +conclusion speedy; chronical disorders, by which we are suspended in +tedious torture between life and death, are commonly the effect of our +own misconduct and intemperance. To die, &c.'--This, Sir, you see is +all true and all blameless. I hope, some time in the next week, to have +all rectified. My health has been lately much shaken: if you favour me +with any answer, it will be a comfort to me to know that I have +your prayers. + +'I am, &c., + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'May 15, 1782.' + +This letter, as might be expected, had its full effect, and the +clergyman acknowledged it in grateful and pious terms[474]. + +The following letters require no extracts from mine to introduce them:-- + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'The earnestness and tenderness of your letter is such, that I cannot +think myself shewing it more respect than it claims by sitting down to +answer it the day on which I received it. + +'This year has afflicted me with a very irksome and severe disorder. My +respiration has been much impeded, and much blood has been taken away. I +am now harrassed by a catarrhous cough, from which my purpose is to seek +relief by change of air; and I am, therefore, preparing to go to +Oxford[475]. + +'Whether I did right in dissuading you from coming to London this +spring, I will not determine. You have not lost much by missing my +company; I have scarcely been well for a single week. I might have +received comfort from your kindness; but you would have seen me +afflicted, and, perhaps, found me peevish. Whatever might have been your +pleasure or mine, I know not how I could have honestly advised you to +come hither with borrowed money. Do not accustom yourself to consider +debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity. Poverty +takes away so many means of doing good, and produces so much inability +to resist evil, both natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous means +to be avoided. Consider a man whose fortune is very narrow; whatever be +his rank by birth, or whatever his reputation by intellectual +excellence, what good can he do? or what evil can he prevent? That he +cannot help the needy is evident; he has nothing to spare. But, perhaps, +his advice or admonition may be useful. His poverty will destroy his +influence: many more can find that he is poor, than that he is wise; and +few will reverence the understanding that is of so little advantage to +its owner. I say nothing of the personal wretched-ness of a debtor, +which, however, has passed into a proverb[476]. Of riches, it is not +necessary to write the praise[477]. Let it, however, be remembered, that +he who has money to spare, has it always in his power to benefit others; +and of such power a good man must always be desirous. + +'I am pleased with your account of Easter[478]. We shall meet, I hope in +Autumn, both well and both cheerful; and part each the better for the +other's company. + +'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, and to the young charmers. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' 'London, June 3, 1782.' + +'To MR. PERKINS[479]. + +'DEAR SIR, + +I am much pleased that you are going a very long journey, which may by +proper conduct restore your health and prolong your life. + +'Observe these rules: + +1. Turn all care out of your head as soon as you mount the chaise. + +2. Do not think about frugality; your health is worth more than it can +cost. + +3. Do not continue any day's journey to fatigue. + +4. Take now and then a day's rest. + +5. Get a smart sea-sickness, if you can. + +6. Cast away all anxiety, and keep your mind easy. + +'This last direction is the principal; with an unquiet mind, neither +exercise, nor diet, nor physick, can be of much use. + +'I wish you, dear Sir, a prosperous journey, and a happy recovery. + +I am, dear Sir, + +'Your most affectionate, humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'July 28, 1782.' + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Being uncertain whether I should have any call this autumn into the +country, I did not immediately answer your kind letter. I have no call; +but if you desire to meet me at Ashbourne, I believe I can come thither; +if you had rather come to London, I can stay at Streatham; take +your choice. + +'This year has been very heavy. From the middle of January to the middle +of June I was battered by one disorder after another! I am now very much +recovered, and hope still to be better. What happiness it is that Mrs. +Boswell has escaped. + +'My _Lives_ are reprinting, and I have forgotten the authour of Gray's +character[480]: write immediately, and it may be perhaps yet inserted. + +'Of London or Ashbourne you have your free choice; at any place I shall +be glad to see you. I am, dear Sir, + +'Yours &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Aug. 24, 1782.' + +On the 3Oth of August, I informed him that my honoured father had died +that morning; a complaint under which he had long laboured having +suddenly come to a crisis, while I was upon a visit at the seat of Sir +Charles Preston, from whence I had hastened the day before, upon +receiving a letter by express. + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I have struggled through this year with so much infirmity of body, and +such strong impressions of the fragility of life, that death, whenever +it appears, fills me with melancholy; and I cannot hear without emotion, +of the removal of any one, whom I have known, into another state. + +'Your father's death had every circumstance that could enable you to +bear it; it was at a mature age, and it was expected; and as his general +life had been pious, his thoughts had doubtless for many years past been +turned upon eternity. That you did not find him sensible must doubtless +grieve you; his disposition towards you was undoubtedly that of a kind, +though not of a fond father. Kindness, at least actual, is in our power, +but fondness is not; and if by negligence or imprudence you had +extinguished his fondness, he could not at will rekindle it. Nothing +then remained between you but mutual forgiveness of each other's faults, +and mutual desire of each other's happiness. + +'I shall long to know his final disposition of his fortune[481]. + +'You, dear Sir, have now a new station, and have therefore new cares, +and new employments. Life, as Cowley seems to say, ought to resemble a +well-ordered poem[482]; of which one rule generally received is, that +the exordium should be simple, and should promise little. Begin your new +course of life with the least show, and the least expence possible; you +may at pleasure encrease both, but you cannot easily diminish them. Do +not think your estate your own, while any man can call upon you for +money which you cannot pay; therefore, begin with timorous parsimony. +Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt. + +'When the thoughts are extended to a future state, the present life +seems hardly worthy of all those principles of conduct, and maxims of +prudence, which one generation of men has transmitted to another; but +upon a closer view, when it is perceived how much evil is produced, and +how much good is impeded by embarrassment and distress, and how little +room the expedients of poverty leave for the exercise of virtue, it +grows manifest that the boundless importance of the next life enforces +some attention to the interests of this. + +'Be kind to the old servants, and secure the kindness of the agents and +factors; do not disgust them by asperity, or unwelcome gaiety, or +apparent suspicion. From them you must learn the real state of your +affairs, the characters of your tenants, and the value of your +lands[483]. + +'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell; I think her expectations from air +and exercise are the best that she can form. I hope she will live long +and happily. + +'I forget whether I told you that Rasay[484] has been here; we dined +cheerfully together. I entertained lately a young gentleman from +Corrichatachin[485]. + +'I received your letters only this morning. I am, dear Sir, + +'Yours &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Sept. 7, 1782.' + +In answer to my next letter, I received one from him, dissuading me from +hastening to him as I had proposed[486]; what is proper for publication +is the following paragraph, equally just and tender:-- + +'One expence, however, I would not have you to spare: let nothing be +omitted that can preserve Mrs. Boswell, though it should be necessary to +transplant her for a time into a softer climate. She is the prop and +stay of your life. How much must your children suffer by losing her.' + +My wife was now so much convinced of his sincere friendship for me, and +regard for her, that, without any suggestion on my part, she wrote him a +very polite and grateful letter:-- + +'DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. BOSWELL. + +'DEAR LADY, + +'I have not often received so much pleasure as from your invitation to +Auchinleck. The journey thither and back is, indeed, too great for the +latter part of the year; but if my health were fully recovered, I would +suffer no little heat and cold, nor a wet or a rough road to keep me +from you. I am, indeed, not without hope of seeing Auchinleck again; but +to make it a pleasant place I must see its lady well, and brisk, and +airy. For my sake, therefore, among many greater reasons, take care, +dear Madam, of your health, spare no expence, and want no attendance +that can procure ease, or preserve it. Be very careful to keep your mind +quiet; and do not think it too much to give an account of your recovery +to, Madam, + +'Yours, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Sept. 7, 1782.' + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Having passed almost this whole year in a succession of disorders, I +went in October to Brighthelmston, whither I came in a state of so much +weakness, that I rested four times in walking between the inn and the +lodging. By physick and abstinence I grew better, and am now reasonably +easy, though at a great distance from health[487]. I am afraid, however, +that health begins, after seventy, and long before, to have a meaning +different from that which it had at thirty. But it is culpable to murmur +at the established order of the creation, as it is vain to oppose it. He +that lives must grow old; and he that would rather grow old than die, +has GOD to thank for the infirmities of old age[488]. + +'At your long silence I am rather angry. You do not, since now you are +the head of your house, think it worth your while to try whether you or +your friend can live longer without writing[489], nor suspect that after +so many years of friendship, that when I do not write to you, I forget +you. Put all such useless jealousies out of your head, and disdain to +regulate your own practice by the practice of another, or by any other +principle than the desire of doing right. + +'Your oeconomy, I suppose, begins now to be settled; your expences are +adjusted to your revenue, and all your people in their proper places. +Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a +great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it +makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult. + +'Let me know the history of your life, since your accession to your +estate. How many houses, how many cows, how much land in your own hand, +and what bargains you make with your tenants. + + * * * * * + +'Of my _Lives of the Poets_, they have printed a new edition in octavo, +I hear, of three thousand. Did I give a set to Lord Hailes? If I did +not, I will do it out of these. What did you make of all your copy[490]? + +'Mrs. Thrale and the three Misses[491] are now for the winter in +Argyll-street. Sir Joshua Reynolds has been out of order, but is well +again; and I am, dear Sir, + +'Your affectionate humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Dec. 7, 1782.' + +'To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. + +'Edinburgh, Dec. 20, 1782. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I was made happy by your kind letter, which gave us the agreeable hopes +of seeing you in Scotland again. + +'I am much flattered by the concern you are pleased to take in my +recovery. I am better, and hope to have it in my power to convince you +by my attention of how much consequence I esteem your health to the +world and to myself. I remain, Sir, with grateful respect, + +'Your obliged and obedient servant, + +'MARGARET BOSWELL.' + +The death of Mr. Thrale had made a very material alteration with respect +to Johnson's reception in that family. The manly authority of the +husband no longer curbed the lively exuberance of the lady; and as her +vanity had been fully gratified, by having the Colossus of Literature +attached to her for many years, she gradually became less assiduous to +please him. Whether her attachment to him was already divided by another +object, I am unable to ascertain; but it is plain that Johnson's +penetration was alive to her neglect or forced attention; for on the eth +of October this year, we find him making a 'parting use of the +library[492]' at Streatham, and pronouncing a prayer, which he composed +on leaving Mr. Thrale's family[493]:-- + +'Almighty God, Father of all mercy, help me by thy grace, that I may, +with humble and sincere thankfulness, remember the comforts and +conveniences which I have enjoyed at this place; and that I may resign +them with holy submission, equally trusting in thy protection when thou +givest, and when thou takest away. Have mercy upon me, Lord, have +mercy upon me. + +'To thy fatherly protection, O Lord, I commend this family. Bless, +guide, and defend them, that they may so pass through this world, as +finally to enjoy in thy presence everlasting happiness, for Jesus +Christ's sake. Amen[494].' + +One cannot read this prayer, without some emotions not very favourable +to the lady whose conduct occasioned it[495]. + +In one of his memorandum-books I find, 'Sunday, went to church at +Streatham. _Templo valedixi cum osculo_[496].' + +He met Mr. Philip Metcalfe[497] often at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and +other places, and was a good deal with him at Brighthelmston[498] this +autumn, being pleased at once with his excellent table and animated +conversation. Mr. Metcalfe shewed him great respect, and sent him a note +that he might have the use of his carriage whenever he pleased. Johnson +(3d October, 1782) returned this polite answer:--'Mr. Johnson is very +much obliged by the kind offer of the carriage, but he has no desire of +using Mr. Metcalfe's carriage, except when he can have the pleasure of +Mr. Metcalfe's company.' Mr. Metcalfe could not but be highly pleased +that his company was thus valued by Johnson, and he frequently attended +him in airings. They also went together to Chichester[499], and they +visited Petworth, and Cowdry, the venerable seat of the Lords Montacute. +'Sir, (said Johnson,) I should like to stay here four-and-twenty hours. +We see here how our ancestors lived.' + +That his curiosity was still unabated, appears from two letters to Mr. +John Nichols, of the 10th and 20th[500] of October this year. In one he +says, 'I have looked into your _Anecdotes_, and you will hardly thank a +lover of literary history for telling you, that he has been much +informed and gratified. I wish you would add your own discoveries and +intelligence to those of Dr. Rawlinson, and undertake the Supplement to +Wood[501]'. Think of it.' In the other, 'I wish, Sir, you could obtain +some fuller information of Jortin[502], Markland[503], and Thirlby[504]. +They were three contemporaries of great eminence.' + +'TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I heard yesterday of your late disorder[505], and should think ill of +myself if I had heard of it without alarm. I heard likewise Of your +recovery, which I sincerely wish to be complete and permanent. Your +country has been in danger of losing one of its brightest ornaments, and +I of losing one of my oldest and kindest friends: but I hope you will +still live long, for the honour of the nation: and that more enjoyment +of your elegance, your intelligence, and your benevolence, is still +reserved for, dear Sir, your most affectionate, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Brighthelmston, + +Nov. 14, 1782.' + +The Reverend Mr. Wilson having dedicated to him his _Archaeological +Dictionary_[506], that mark of respect was thus acknowledged:-- + +'TO THE REVEREND MR. WILSON, CLITHEROE, LANCASHIRE. + +'REVEREND SIR, + +'That I have long omitted to return you thanks for the honour conferred +upon me by your Dedication, I entreat you with great earnestness not to +consider as more faulty than it is. A very importunate and oppressive +disorder has for some time debarred me from the pleasures, and +obstructed me in the duties of life. The esteem and kindness of wise and +good men is one of the last pleasures which I can be content to lose; +and gratitude to those from whom this pleasure is received, is a duty of +which I hope never to be reproached with the final neglect. I therefore +now return you thanks for the notice which I have received from you, and +which I consider as giving to my name not only more bulk, but more +weight; not only as extending its superficies, but as increasing its +value. Your book was evidently wanted, and will, I hope, find its way +into the school, to which, however, I do not mean to confine it; for no +man has so much skill in ancient rites and practices as not to want it. +As I suppose myself to owe part of your kindness to my excellent friend, +Dr. Patten, he has likewise a just claim to my acknowledgements, which I +hope you, Sir, will transmit. There will soon appear a new edition of my +Poetical Biography; if you will accept of a copy to keep me in your +mind, be pleased to let me know how it may be conveniently conveyed to +you. The present is small, but it is given with good will by, +Reverend Sir, + +'Your most, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'December 31, 1782[507].' + +1783: AETAT. 74.--In 1783, he was more severely afflicted than ever, +as will appear in the course of his correspondence[508]; but still the +same ardour for literature, the same constant piety, the same kindness +for his friends, and the same vivacity, both in conversation and +writing, distinguished him. + +Having given Dr. Johnson a full account of what I was doing at +Auchinleck, and particularly mentioned what I knew would please him,--my +having brought an old man of eighty-eight from a lonely cottage to a +comfortable habitation within my enclosures, where he had good +neighbours near to him,--I received an answer in February, of which I +extract what follows:-- + +'I am delighted with your account of your activity at Auchinleck, and +wish the old gentleman, whom you have so kindly removed, may live long +to promote your prosperity by his prayers. You have now a new character +and new duties: think on them and practise them. + +'Make an impartial estimate of your revenue, and whatever it is, live +upon less. Resolve never to be poor. Frugality is not only the basis of +quiet, but of beneficence. No man can help others that wants help +himself; we must have enough before we have to spare. + +'I am glad to find that Mrs. Boswell grows well; and hope that to keep +her well, no care nor caution will be omitted. May you long live +happily together. + +'When you come hither, pray bring with you Baxter's _Anacreon_[509]. I +cannot get that edition in London.' + +On Friday, March 31, having arrived in London the night before, I was +glad to find him at Mrs. Thrale's house, in Argyll-street, appearances +of friendship between them being still kept up. I was shewn into his +room, and after the first salutation he said, 'I am glad you are come. I +am very ill.' He looked pale, and was distressed with a difficulty of +breathing; but after the common inquiries he assumed his usual strong +animated style of conversation. Seeing me now for the first time as a +_Laird_, or proprietor of land, he began thus: 'Sir, the superiority of +a country-gentleman over the people upon his estate is very agreeable; +and he who says he does not feel it to be agreeable, lies; for it must +be agreeable to have a casual superiority over those who are by nature +equal with us[510].' BOSWELL. 'Yet, Sir, we see great proprietors of +land who prefer living in London.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the pleasure of +living in London, the intellectual superiority that is enjoyed there, +may counter-balance the other. Besides, Sir, a man may prefer the state +of the country-gentleman upon the whole, and yet there may never be a +moment when he is willing to make the change to quit London for it.' He +said, 'It is better to have five _per cent_. out of land than out of +money, because it is more secure; but the readiness of transfer, and +promptness of interest, make many people rather choose the funds. Nay, +there is another disadvantage belonging to land, compared with money. A +man is not so much afraid of being a hard creditor, as of being a hard +landlord.' BOSWELL. 'Because there is a sort of kindly connection +between a landlord and his tenants.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; many landlords +with us never see their tenants. It is because if a landlord drives away +his tenants, he may not get others; whereas the demand for money is so +great, it may always be lent.' + +He talked with regret and indignation of the factious opposition to +Government at this time[511], and imputed it in a great measure to the +Revolution. 'Sir, (said he, in a low voice, having come nearer to me, +while his old prejudices seemed to be fermenting in his mind,) this +Hanoverian family is _isolee_ here[512]. They have no friends. Now the +Stuarts had friends who stuck by them so late as 1745. When the right of +the King is not reverenced, there will not be reverence for those +appointed by the King.' + +His observation that the present royal family has no friends, has been +too much justified by the very ungrateful behaviour of many who were +under great obligations to his Majesty; at the same time there are +honourable exceptions; and the very next year after this conversation, +and ever since, the King has had as extensive and generous support as +ever was given to any monarch, and has had the satisfaction of knowing +that he was more and more endeared to his people[513]. + +He repeated to me his verses on Mr. Levett, with an emotion which gave +them full effect[514]; and then he was pleased to say, 'You must be as +much with me as you can. You have done me good. You cannot think how +much better I am since you came in.' + +He sent a message to acquaint Mrs. Thrale that I was arrived. I had not +seen her since her husband's death. She soon appeared, and favoured me +with an invitation to stay to dinner, which I accepted. There was no +other company but herself and three of her daughters, Dr. Johnson, and +I. She too said, she was very glad I was come, for she was going to +Bath, and should have been sorry to leave Dr. Johnson before I came. +This seemed to be attentive and kind; and I who had not been informed of +any change, imagined all to be as well as formerly. He was little +inclined to talk at dinner, and went to sleep after it; but when he +joined us in the drawing-room, he seemed revived, and was again himself. + +Talking of conversation, he said, 'There must, in the first place, be +knowledge, there must be materials; in the second place, there must be a +command of words; in the third place, there must be imagination, to +place things in such views as they are not commonly seen in; and in the +fourth place, there must be presence of mind, and a resolution that is +not to be overcome by failures: this last is an essential requisite; for +want of it many people do not excel in conversation. Now _I_ want it: I +throw up the game upon losing a trick.' I wondered to hear him talk thus +of himself, and said, 'I don't know, Sir, how this may be; but I am sure +you beat other people's cards out of their hands.' I doubt whether he +heard this remark. While he went on talking triumphantly, I was fixed in +admiration, and said to Mrs. Thrale, 'O, for short-hand to take this +down!' 'You'll carry it all in your head; (said she;) a long head is as +good as short-hand.' + +It has been observed and wondered at, that Mr. Charles Fox never talked +with any freedom in the presence of Dr. Johnson[515], though it is well +known, and I myself can witness, that his conversation is various, +fluent, and exceedingly agreeable. Johnson's own experience, however, of +that gentleman's reserve was a sufficient reason for his going on thus: +'Fox never talks in private company; not from any determination not to +talk, but because he has not the first motion[516]. A man who is used to +the applause of the House of Commons, has no wish for that of a private +company. A man accustomed to throw for a thousand pounds, if set down to +throw for sixpence, would not be at the pains to count his dice. Burke's +talk is the ebullition of his mind; he does not talk from a desire of +distinction, but because his mind is full[517]. + +He thus curiously characterised one of our old acquaintance: '----[518] +is a good man, Sir; but he is a vain man and a liar. He, however, only +tells lies of vanity; of victories, for instance, in conversation, which +never happened.' This alluded to a story which I had repeated from that +gentleman, to entertain Johnson with its wild bravado: 'This Johnson, +Sir, (said he,) whom you are all afraid of will shrink, if you come +close to him in argument and roar as loud as he. He once maintained the +paradox, that there is no beauty but in utility[519]. "Sir, (said I,) +what say you to the peacock's tail, which is one of the most beautiful +objects in nature, but would have as much utility if its feathers were +all of one colour." He _felt_ what I thus produced, and had recourse to +his usual expedient, ridicule; exclaiming, "A peacock has a tail, and a +fox has a tail;" and then he burst out into a laugh. "Well, Sir, (said +I, with a strong voice, looking him full in the face,) you have +unkennelled your fox; pursue him if you dare." He had not a word to say, +Sir.' Johnson told me, that this was a fiction from beginning +to end[520]. + +After musing for some time, he said, 'I wonder how I should have any +enemies; for I do harm to nobody[521].' BOSWELL. 'In the first place, +Sir, you will be pleased to recollect, that you set out with attacking +the Scotch; so you got a whole nation for your enemies.' JOHNSON. 'Why, +I own, that by my definition of _oats_[522] I meant to vex them.' +BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, can you trace the cause of your antipathy to the +Scotch.' JOHNSON. 'I cannot, Sir[523].' BOSWELL. 'Old Mr. Sheridan says, +it was because they sold Charles the First.' JOHNSON. 'Then, Sir, old +Mr. Sheridan has found out a very good reason.' + +Surely the most obstinate and sulky nationality, the most determined +aversion to this great and good man, must be cured, when he is seen thus +playing with one of his prejudices, of which he candidly admitted that +he could not tell the reason. It was, however, probably owing to his +having had in his view the worst part of the Scottish nation, the needy +adventurers, many of whom he thought were advanced above their merits by +means which he did not approve. Had he in his early life been in +Scotland, and seen the worthy, sensible, independent gentlemen, who live +rationally and hospitably at home, he never could have entertained such +unfavourable and unjust notions of his fellow-subjects. And accordingly +we find, that when he did visit Scotland, in the latter period of his +life, he was fully sensible of all that it deserved, as I have already +pointed out, when speaking of his _Journey to the Western Islands_.[524] + +Next day, Saturday, March 22, I found him still at Mrs. Thrale's, but he +told me that he was to go to his own house in the afternoon[525]. He was +better, but I perceived he was but an unruly patient, for Sir Lucas +Pepys, who visited him, while I was with him said, 'If you were +_tractable_, Sir, I should prescribe for you.' + +I related to him a remark which a respectable friend had made to me, +upon the then state of Government, when those who had been long in +opposition had attained to power, as it was supposed, against the +inclination of the Sovereign[526]. 'You need not be uneasy (said this +gentleman) about the King. He laughs at them all; he plays them one +against another.' JOHNSON. 'Don't think so, Sir. The King is as much +oppressed as a man can be. If he plays them one against another, he +_wins_ nothing.' + +I had paid a visit to General Oglethorpe in the morning, and was told by +him that Dr. Johnson saw company on Saturday evenings, and he would meet +me at Johnson's that night. When I mentioned this to Johnson, not +doubting that it would please him, as he had a great value for +Oglethorpe, the fretfulness of his disease unexpectedly shewed itself; +his anger suddenly kindled, and he said, with vehemence, 'Did not you +tell him not to come? Am I to be _hunted_ in this manner?' I satisfied +him that I could not divine that the visit would not be convenient, and +that I certainly could not take it upon me of my own accord to forbid +the General. + +I found Dr. Johnson in the evening in Mrs. Williams's room, at tea and +coffee with her and Mrs. Desmoulins, who were also both ill; it was a +sad scene, and he was not in very good humour. He said of a performance +that had lately come out, 'Sir, if you should search all the madhouses +in England, you would not find ten men who would write so, and think +it sense.' + +I was glad when General Oglethorpe's arrival was announced, and we left +the ladies. Dr. Johnson attended him in the parlour, and was as +courteous as ever. The General said he was busy reading the writers of +the middle age. Johnson said they were very curious. OGLETHORPE. 'The +House of Commons has usurped the power of the nation's money, and used +it tyrannically. Government is now carried on by corrupt influence, +instead of the inherent right in the King.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, the want of +inherent right in the King occasions all this disturbance. What we did +at the Revolution was necessary: but it broke our constitution[527].' +OGLETHORPE. 'My father did not think it necessary.' + +On Sunday, March 23, I breakfasted with Dr. Johnson, who seemed much +relieved, having taken opium the night before. He however protested +against it, as a remedy that should be given with the utmost reluctance, +and only in extreme necessity. I mentioned how commonly it was used in +Turkey, and that therefore it could not be so pernicious as he +apprehended. He grew warm and said, 'Turks take opium, and Christians +take opium; but Russel, in his _Account of Aleppo_[528], tells us, that +it is as disgraceful in Turkey to take too much opium, as it is with us +to get drunk. Sir, it is amazing how things are exaggerated. A gentleman +was lately telling in a company where I was present, that in France as +soon as a man of fashion marries, he takes an opera girl into keeping; +and this he mentioned as a general custom. 'Pray, Sir, (said I,) how +many opera girls may there be?' He answered, 'About fourscore.' Well +then, Sir, (said I,) you see there can be no more than fourscore men of +fashion who can do this[529].' + +Mrs. Desmoulins made tea; and she and I talked before him upon a topick +which he had once borne patiently from me when we were by +ourselves[530],--his not complaining of the world, because he was not +called to some great office, nor had attained to great wealth. He flew +into a violent passion, I confess with some justice, and commanded us to +have done. 'Nobody, (said he) has a right to talk in this manner, to +bring before a man his own character, and the events of his life, when +he does not choose it should be done. I never have sought the world; +the world was not to seek me. It is rather wonderful that so much has +been done for me. All the complaints which are made of the world are +unjust[531]. I never knew a man of merit neglected[532]: it was +generally by his own fault that he failed of success. A man may hide his +head in a hole: he may go into the country, and publish a book now and +then, which nobody reads, and then complain he is neglected[533]. There +is no reason why any person should exert himself for a man who has +written a good book: he has not written it for any individual. I may as +well make a present to the postman who brings me a letter. When +patronage was limited, an authour expected to find a Maecenas, and +complained if he did not find one. Why should he complain? This Maecenas +has others as good as he, or others who have got the start of him.' +BOSWELL. 'But surely, Sir, you will allow that there are men of merit at +the bar, who never get practice.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you are sure that +practice is got from an opinion that the person employed deserves it +best; so that if a man of merit at the bar does not get practice, it is +from errour, not from injustice. He is not neglected. A horse that is +brought to market may not be bought, though he is a very good horse: but +that is from ignorance, not from intention[534].' + +There was in this discourse much novelty, ingenuity, and discrimination, +such as is seldom to be found. Yet I cannot help thinking that men of +merit, who have no success in life, may be forgiven for _lamenting_, if +they are not allowed to _complain_. They may consider it as _hard_ that +their merit should not have its suitable distinction. Though there is no +intentional injustice towards them on the part of the world, their merit +not having been perceived, they may yet repine against _fortune_, or +_fate_, or by whatever name they choose to call the supposed +mythological power of _Destiny_. It has, however, occurred to me, as a +consolatory thought, that men of merit should consider thus:-How much +harder would it be if the same persons had both all the merit and all +the prosperity. Would not this be a miserable distribution for the poor +dunces? Would men of merit exchange their intellectual superiority, and +the enjoyments arising from it, for external distinction and the +pleasures of wealth? If they would not, let them not envy others, who +are poor where they are rich, a compensation which is made to them. Let +them look inwards and be satisfied; recollecting with conscious pride +what Virgil finely says of the _Corycius Senex_, and which I have, in +another place[535], with truth and sincerity applied to Mr. Burke:-- + + '_Regum aequabat opes animis[536].'_ + +On the subject of the right employment of wealth, Johnson observed, 'A +man cannot make a bad use of his money, so far as regards Society, if he +does not hoard it; for if he either spends it or lends it out, Society +has the benefit. It is in general better to spend money than to give it +away; for industry is more promoted by spending money than by giving it +away. A man who spends his money is sure he is doing good with it: he is +not so sure when he gives it away. A man who spends ten thousand a year +will do more good than a man who spends two thousand and gives away +eight[537].' + +In the evening I came to him again. He was somewhat fretful from his +illness. A gentleman[538] asked him, whether he had been abroad to-day. +'Don't talk so childishly, (said he.) You may as well ask if I hanged +myself to-day.' I mentioned politicks. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I'd as soon have a +man to break my bones as talk to me of publick affairs, internal or +external. I have lived to see things all as bad as they can be.' + +Having mentioned his friend the second Lord Southwell, he said, 'Lord +Southwell was the highest-bred man without insolence that I ever was in +company with; the most _qualified_ I ever saw. Lord Orrery[539] was not +dignified: Lord Chesterfield was, but he was insolent[540]. Lord +----[541] is a man of coarse manners, but a man of abilities and +information. I don't say he is a man I would set at the head of a +nation, though perhaps he may be as good as the next Prime Minister that +comes; but he is a man to be at the head of a Club; I don't say _our_ +CLUB; for there's no such Club.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, was he not once a +factious man?' JOHNSON. 'O yes, Sir; as factious a fellow as could be +found: one who was for sinking us all into the mob[542].' BOSWELL. 'How +then, Sir, did he get into favour with the King?' JOHNSON. 'Because, +Sir, I suppose he promised the King to do whatever the King pleased.' + +He said, 'Goldsmith's blundering speech to Lord Shelburne, which has +been so often mentioned, and which he really did make to him, was only a +blunder in emphasis: "I wonder they should call your Lordship +_Malagrida_[543], for Malagrida was a very good man;" meant, I wonder +they should use _Malagrida_ as a term of reproach[544].' + +Soon after this time I had an opportunity of seeing, by means of one of +his friends[545], a proof that his talents, as well as his obliging +service to authours, were ready as ever. He had revised _The Village_, +an admirable poem, by the Reverend Mr. Crabbe. Its sentiments as to the +false notions of rustick happiness and rustick virtue were quite +congenial with his own[546]; and he had taken the trouble not only to +suggest slight corrections and variations, but to furnish some lines, +when he thought he could give the writer's meaning better than in the +words of the manuscript[547]. + +On Sunday, March 30, I found him at home in the evening, and had the +pleasure to meet with Dr. Brocklesby[548], whose reading, and knowledge +of life, and good spirits, supply him with a never-failing source of +conversation. He mentioned a respectable gentleman, who became extremely +penurious near the close of his life. Johnson said there must have been +a degree of madness about him. 'Not at all, Sir, (said Dr. Brocklesby,) +his judgement was entire.' Unluckily, however, he mentioned that +although he had a fortune of twenty-seven thousand pounds, he denied +himself many comforts, from an apprehension that he could not afford +them. 'Nay, Sir, (cried Johnson,) when the judgement is so disturbed +that a man cannot count, that is pretty well.' + +I shall here insert a few of Johnson's sayings, without the formality of +dates, as they have no reference to any particular time or place. + +'The more a man extends and varies his acquaintance the better.' This, +however, was meant with a just restriction; for, he on another occasion +said to me, 'Sir, a man may be so much of every thing, that he is +nothing of any thing.' + +'Raising the wages of day-labourers is wrong[549]; for it does not make +them live better, but only makes them idler, and idleness is a very bad +thing for human nature.' + +'It is a very good custom to keep a journal[550] for a man's own use; he +may write upon a card a day all that is necessary to be written, after +he has had experience of life. At first there is a great deal to be +written, because there is a great deal of novelty; but when once a man +has settled his opinions, there is seldom much to be set down.' + +'There is nothing wonderful in the journal which we see Swift kept in +London, for it contains slight topicks, and it might soon be +written[551].' + +I praised the accuracy of an account-book of a lady whom I mentioned. +JOHNSON. 'Keeping accounts, Sir, is of no use when a man is spending his +own money, and has nobody to whom he is to account. You won't eat less +beef to-day, because you have written down what it cost yesterday.' I +mentioned another lady who thought as he did, so that her husband could +not get her to keep an account of the expence of the family, as she +thought it enough that she never exceeded the sum allowed her. JOHNSON. +'Sir, it is fit she should keep an account, because her husband wishes +it; but I do not see its use[552].' I maintained that keeping an account +has this advantage, that it satisfies a man that his money has not been +lost or stolen, which he might sometimes be apt to imagine, were there +no written state of his expence; and beside, a calculation of oeconomy +so as not to exceed one's income, cannot be made without a view of the +different articles in figures, that one may see how to retrench in some +particulars less necessary than others. This he did not attempt +to answer. + +Talking of an acquaintance of ours[553], whose narratives, which +abounded in curious and interesting topicks, were unhappily found to be +very fabulous; I mentioned Lord Mansfield's having said to me, 'Suppose +we believe one _half_ of what he tells.' JOHNSON. 'Ay; but we don't know +_which_ half to believe. By his lying we lose not only our reverence for +him, but all comfort in his conversation.' BOSWELL. 'May we not take it +as amusing fiction?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, the misfortune is, that you will +insensibly believe as much of it as you incline to believe.' + +It is remarkable, that notwithstanding their congeniality in politicks, +he never was acquainted with a late eminent noble judge[554], whom I +have heard speak of him as a writer, with great respect[555]. Johnson, I +know not upon what degree of investigation, entertained no exalted +opinion of his Lordship's intellectual character[556]. Talking of him to +me one day, he said, 'It is wonderful, Sir, with how little real +superiority of mind men can make an eminent figure in publick life.' He +expressed himself to the same purpose concerning another law-Lord, who, +it seems, once took a fancy to associate with the wits of London; but +with so little success, that Foote said, 'What can he mean by coming +among us? He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in +others[557].' Trying him by the test of his colloquial powers, Johnson +had found him very defective. He once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'This +man now has been ten years about town, and has made nothing of it;' +meaning as a companion[558]. He said to me, 'I never heard any thing +from him in company that was at all striking; and depend upon it, Sir, +it is when you come close to a man in conversation, that you discover +what his real abilities are; to make a speech in a publick assembly is a +knack. Now I honour Thurlow, Sir; Thurlow is a fine fellow; he fairly +puts his mind to yours[559].' + +After repeating to him some of his pointed, lively sayings, I said, 'It +is a pity, Sir, you don't always remember your own good things, that you +may have a laugh when you will.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, it is better that I +forget them, that I may be reminded of them, and have a laugh on their +being brought to my recollection.' + +When I recalled to him his having said as we sailed up Loch-lomond[560], +'That if he wore any thing fine, it should be _very_ fine;' I observed +that all his thoughts were upon a great scale. JOHNSON. 'Depend upon it, +Sir, every man will have as fine a thing as he can get; as a large +diamond for his ring.' BOSWELL. 'Pardon me, Sir: a man of a narrow mind +will not think of it, a slight trinket will satisfy him: + + "_Nee sufferre queat majoris pondera gemmae_[561]."' + +I told him I should send him some Essays which I had written[562], which +I hoped he would be so good as to read, and pick out the good ones. +JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, send me only the good ones; don't make _me_ +pick them.' + +I heard him once say, 'Though the proverb _Nullum numen abest, si sit +prudentia[563], does not always prove true, we may be certain of the +converse of it, _Nullum numen adest, si sit imprudentia_.' + +Once, when Mr. Seward was going to Bath, and asked his commands, he +said, 'Tell Dr. Harrington that I wish he would publish another volume +of the _Nugae antiquae_[564]; it is a very pretty book[565].' Mr. Seward +seconded this wish, and recommended to Dr. Harrington to dedicate it to +Johnson, and take for his motto, what Catullus says to Cornelius Nepos:-- + + '----_namque tu solebas, + Meas esse aliquid putare_ NUGAS[566].' + +As a small proof of his kindliness and delicacy of feeling, the +following circumstance may be mentioned: One evening when we were in the +street together, and I told him I was going to sup at Mr. Beauclerk's, +he said, 'I'll go with you.' After having walked part of the way, +seeming to recollect something, he suddenly stopped and said, 'I cannot +go,--but _I do not love Beauclerk the less_.' + +On the frame of his portrait, Mr. Beauclerk had inscribed,-- + + '----_Ingenium ingens + Inculto latet hoc sub corpore_[567].' + +After Mr. Beauclerk's death, when it became Mr. Langton's property, he +made the inscription be defaced. Johnson said complacently, 'It was kind +in you to take it off;' and then after a short pause, added, 'and not +unkind in him to put it on.' + +He said, 'How few of his friends' houses would a man choose to be at +when he is sick.' He mentioned one or two. I recollect only +Thrale's[568]. + +He observed, 'There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an +old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when +leaving a company, does not recollect where he laid his hat, it is +nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people +will shrug up their shoulders, and say, 'His memory is going[569].' + +When I once talked to him of some of the sayings which every body +repeats, but nobody knows where to find, such as _Quos DEUS vult +perdere, prius dementat_[570]; he told me that he was once offered ten +guineas to point out from whence _Semel insanivimus omnes_ was taken. He +could not do it; but many years afterwards met with it by chance in +_Johannes Baptista Mantuanus_[571]. + +I am very sorry that I did not take a note of an eloquent argument in +which he maintained that the situation of Prince of Wales was the +happiest of any person's in the kingdom, even beyond that of the +Sovereign. I recollect only--the enjoyment of hope[572],--the high +superiority of rank, without the anxious cares of government,--and a +great degree of power, both from natural influence wisely used, and from +the sanguine expectations of those who look forward to the chance of +future favour. + +Sir Joshua Reynolds communicated to me the following particulars:-- + +Johnson thought the poems published as translations from Ossian had so +little merit, that he said, 'Sir, a man might write such stuff for ever, +if he would _abandon_ his mind to it[573].' + +He said, 'A man should pass a part of his time with _the laughers_, by +which means any thing ridiculous or particular about him might be +presented to his view, and corrected.' I observed, he must have been a +bold laugher who would have ventured to tell Dr. Johnson of any of his +particularities[574]. + +Having observed the vain ostentatious importance of many people in +quoting the authority of Dukes and Lords, as having been in their +company, he said, he went to the other extreme, and did not mention his +authority when he should have done it, had it not been that of a Duke or +a Lord[575]. + +Dr. Goldsmith said once to Dr. Johnson, that he wished for some +additional members to the LITERARY CLUB, to give it an agreeable +variety; for (said he,) there can now be nothing new among us: we have +travelled over one another's minds. Johnson seemed a little angry, and +said, 'Sir, you have not travelled over _my_ mind, I promise you.' Sir +Joshua, however, thought Goldsmith right; observing, that 'when people +have lived a great deal together, they know what each of them will say +on every subject. A new understanding, therefore, is desirable; because +though it may only furnish the same sense upon a question which would +have been furnished by those with whom we are accustomed to live, yet +this sense will have a different colouring; and colouring is of much +effect in every thing else as well as in painting.' + +Johnson used to say that he made it a constant rule to talk as well as +he could both as to sentiment and expression, by which means, what had +been originally effort became familiar and easy[576]. The consequence of +this, Sir Joshua observed, was, that his common conversation in all +companies was such as to secure him universal attention, as something +above the usual colloquial style was expected[577]. + +Yet, though Johnson had this habit in company, when another mode was +necessary, in order to investigate truth, he could descend to a language +intelligible to the meanest capacity. An instance of this was witnessed +by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when they were present at an examination of a +little blackguard boy, by Mr. Saunders Welch[578], the late Westminster +Justice. Welch, who imagined that he was exalting himself in Dr. +Johnson's eyes by using big words, spoke in a manner that was utterly +unintelligible to the boy; Dr. Johnson perceiving it, addressed himself +to the boy, and changed the pompous phraseology into colloquial +language. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was much amused by this procedure, +which seemed a kind of reversing of what might have been expected from +the two men, took notice of it to Dr. Johnson, as they walked away by +themselves. Johnson said, that it was continually the case; and that he +was always obliged to _translate_ the Justice's swelling diction, +(smiling,) so as that his meaning might be understood by the vulgar, +from whom information was to be obtained[579]. + +Sir Joshua once observed to him, that he had talked above the capacity +of some people with whom they had been in company together. 'No matter, +Sir, (said Johnson); they consider it as a compliment to be talked to, +as if they were wiser than they are. So true is this, Sir, that Baxter +made it a rule in every sermon that he preached, to say something that +was above the capacity of his audience[580].' + +Johnson's dexterity in retort, when he seemed to be driven to an +extremity by his adversary, was very remarkable. Of his power in this +respect, our common friend, Mr. Windham, of Norfolk, has been pleased to +furnish me with an eminent instance. However unfavourable to Scotland, +he uniformly gave liberal praise to George Buchanan[581], as a writer. +In a conversation concerning the literary merits of the two countries, +in which Buchanan was introduced, a Scotchman, imagining that on this +ground he should have an undoubted triumph over him, exclaimed, 'Ah, Dr. +Johnson, what would you have said of Buchanan, had he been an +Englishman?' 'Why, Sir, (said Johnson, after a little pause,) I should +_not_ have said of Buchanan, had he been an _Englishman_, what I will +now say of him as a _Scotchman_,--that he was the only man of genius +his country ever produced.' + +And this brings to my recollection another instance of the same nature. +I once reminded him that when Dr. Adam Smith was expatiating on the +beauty of Glasgow, he had cut him short by saying, 'Pray, Sir, have you +ever seen Brentford?' and I took the liberty to add, 'My dear Sir, +surely that was _shocking_.' 'Why, then, Sir, (he replied,) YOU have +never seen Brentford.' + +Though his usual phrase for conversation was _talk_[582], yet he made a +distinction; for when he once told me that he dined the day before at a +friend's house, with 'a very pretty company;' and I asked him if there +was good conversation, he answered, 'No, Sir; we had _talk_ enough, but +no _conversation_; there was nothing _discussed_.' + +Talking of the success of the Scotch in London, he imputed it In a +considerable degree to their spirit of nationality. 'You know, Sir, +(said he,) that no Scotchman publishes a book, or has a play brought +upon the stage, but there are five hundred people ready to applaud +him.[583]' + +He gave much praise to his friend, Dr. Burney's elegant and entertaining +travels[584], and told Mr. Seward that he had them in his eye, when +writing his _Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_. + +Such was his sensibility, and so much was he affected by pathetick +poetry, that, when he was reading Dr. Beattie's _Hermit_ in my presence, +it brought tears into his eyes[585]. + +He disapproved much of mingling real facts with fiction. On this +account he censured a book entitled _Love and Madness_[586]. + +Mr. Hoole told him, he was born in Moorfields, and had received part of +his early instruction in Grub-street. 'Sir, (said Johnson, smiling) you +have been _regularly_ educated.' Having asked who was his instructor, +and Mr. Hoole having answered, 'My uncle, Sir, who was a taylor;' +Johnson, recollecting himself, said, 'Sir, I knew him; we called him the +_metaphysical taylor_. He was of a club in Old-street, with me and +George Psalmanazar, and some others[587]: but pray, Sir, was he a good +taylor?' Mr. Hoole having answered that he believed he was too +mathematical, and used to draw squares and triangles on his shop-board, +so that he did not excel in the cut of a coat;--'I am sorry for it (said +Johnson,) for I would have every man to be master of his own business.' + +In pleasant reference to himself and Mr. Hoole, as brother authours, he +often said, 'Let you and I, Sir, go together, and eat a beef-steak in +Grub-street[588].' + +Sir William Chambers, that great Architect[589], whose works shew a +sublimity of genius, and who is esteemed by all who know him for his +social, hospitable, and generous qualities, submitted the manuscript of +his _Chinese Architecture_ to Dr. Johnson's perusal. Johnson was much +pleased with it, and said, 'It wants no addition nor correction, but a +few lines of introduction;' which he furnished, and Sir William +adopted[590]. + +He said to Sir William Scott, 'The age is running mad after innovation; +all the business of the world is to be done in a new way; men are to be +hanged in a new way; Tyburn itself is not safe from the fury of +innovation[591].' It having been argued that this was an +improvement,--'No, Sir, (said he, eagerly,) it is _not_ an improvement: +they object that the old method drew together a number of spectators. +Sir, executions are intended to draw spectators. If they do not draw +spectators they don't answer their purpose. The old method was most +satisfactory to all parties; the publick was gratified by a +procession[592]; the criminal was supported by it. Why is all this to +be swept away?' I perfectly agree with Dr. Johnson upon this head, and +am persuaded that executions now, the solemn procession being +discontinued, have not nearly the effect which they formerly had[593]. +Magistrates both in London, and elsewhere, have, I am afraid, in this +had too much regard to their own ease[594]. + +Of Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, Johnson said to a friend, 'Hurd, Sir, +is one of a set of men who account for every thing systematically; for +instance, it has been a fashion to wear scarlet breeches; these men +would tell you, that according to causes and effects, no other wear +could at that time have been chosen.' He, however, said of him at +another time to the same gentleman, 'Hurd, Sir, is a man whose +acquaintance is a valuable acquisition.' + +That learned and ingenious Prelate[595] it is well known published at +one period of his life _Moral and Political Dialogues_, with a woefully +whiggish cast. Afterwards, his Lordship having thought better, came to +see his errour, and republished the work with a more constitutional +spirit. Johnson, however, was unwilling to allow him full credit for his +political conversion. I remember when his Lordship declined the honour +of being Archbishop of Canterbury, Johnson said, 'I am glad he did not +go to Lambeth; for, after all, I fear he is a Whig in his heart.' + +Johnson's attention to precision and clearness in expression was very +remarkable. He disapproved of parentheses; and I believe in all his +voluminous writings, not half a dozen of them will be found. He never +used the phrases _the former_ and _the latter_, having observed, that +they often occasioned obscurity; he therefore contrived to construct his +sentences so as not to have occasion for them, and would even rather +repeat the same words, in order to avoid them[596]. Nothing is more +common than to mistake surnames when we hear them carelessly uttered for +the first time. To prevent this, he used not only to pronounce them +slowly and distinctly, but to take the trouble of spelling them; a +practice which I have often followed; and which I wish were general. + +Such was the heat and irritability of his blood, that not only did he +pare his nails to the quick; but scraped the joints of his fingers with +a pen-knife, till they seemed quite red and raw. + +The heterogeneous composition of human nature was remarkably +exemplified in Johnson. His liberality in giving his money to persons in +distress was extraordinary. Yet there lurked about him a propensity to +paultry saving. One day I owned to him that 'I was occasionally troubled +with a fit of _narrowness_.' 'Why, Sir, (said he,) so am I. _But I do +not tell it_.' He has now and then borrowed a shilling of me; and when I +asked for it again, seemed to be rather out of humour. A droll little +circumstance once occurred: as if he meant to reprimand my minute +exactness as a creditor, he thus addressed me;--'Boswell, _lend_ me +sixpence--_not to be repaid_[597].' + +This great man's attention to small things was very remarkable. As an +instance of it, he one day said to me, 'Sir, when you get silver in +change for a guinea, look carefully at it; you may find some curious +piece of coin.' + +Though a stern _true-born Englishman_[598], and fully prejudiced against +all other nations, he had discernment enough to see, and candour enough +to censure, the cold reserve too common among Englishmen towards +strangers: 'Sir, (said he,) two men of any other nation who are shewn +into a room together, at a house where they are both visitors, will +immediately find some conversation. But two Englishmen will probably go +each to a different window, and remain in obstinate silence. Sir, we as +yet do not enough understand the common rights of humanity[599].' + +Johnson was at a certain period of his life a good deal with the Earl of +Shelburne[600], now Marquis of Lansdown, as he doubtless could not but +have a due value for that nobleman's activity of mind, and uncommon +acquisitions of important knowledge, however much he might disapprove of +other parts of his Lordship's character, which were widely different +from his own. + +Maurice Morgann, Esq., authour of the very ingenious _Essay on the +character of Falstaff_[601], being a particular friend of his Lordship, +had once an opportunity of entertaining Johnson for a day or two at +Wickham, when its Lord was absent, and by him I have been favoured with +two anecdotes. + +One is not a little to the credit of Johnson's candour. Mr. Morgann and +he had a dispute pretty late at night, in which Johnson would not give +up, though he had the wrong side, and in short, both kept the field. +Next morning, when they met in the breakfasting-room, Dr. Johnson +accosted Mr. Morgann thus:--'Sir, I have been thinking on our dispute +last night--_You were in the right_[602].' + +The other was as follows:--Johnson, for sport perhaps, or from the +spirit of contradiction, eagerly maintained that Derrick[603] had merit +as a writer. Mr. Morgann argued with him directly, in vain. At length he +had recourse to this device. 'Pray, Sir, (said he,) whether do you +reckon Derrick or Smart[604] the best poet?' Johnson at once felt +himself roused; and answered, 'Sir, there is no settling the point of +precedency between a louse and a flea.' + +Once, when checking my boasting too frequently of myself in company, he +said to me, 'Boswell, you often vaunt so much, as to provoke ridicule. +You put me in mind of a man who was standing in the kitchen of an inn +with his back to the fire, and thus accosted the person next him, "Do +you know, Sir, who I am?" "No, Sir, (said the other,) I have not that +advantage." "Sir, (said he,) I am the _great_ TWALMLEY, who invented the +New Floodgate Iron[605]."' The Bishop of Killaloe, on my repeating the +story to him, defended Twalmley, by observing, that he was entitled to +the epithet of _great_; for Virgil in his groupe of worthies in the +Elysian fields-- + + _Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi_, &c. + +mentions + + _Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes_[606]. + +He was pleased to say to me one morning when we were left alone in his +study, 'Boswell, I think I am easier with you than with almost +any body.' + +He would not allow Mr. David Hume any credit for his political +principles, though similar to his own; saying of him, 'Sir, he was a +Tory by chance[607].' + +His acute observation of human life made him remark, 'Sir, there is +nothing by which a man exasperates most people more, than by displaying +a superiour ability or brilliancy in conversation. They seem pleased at +the time; but their envy makes them curse him at their hearts[608].' + +My readers will probably be surprised to hear that the great Dr. Johnson +could amuse himself with so slight and playful a species of composition +as a _Charade_. I have recovered one which he made on Dr. _Barnard_, now +Lord Bishop of Killaloe; who has been pleased for many years to treat me +with so much intimacy and social ease, that I may presume to call him +not only my Right Reverend, but my very dear Friend. I therefore with +peculiar pleasure give to the world a just and elegant compliment thus +paid to his Lordship by Johnson[609]. + +CHARADE. + +'My _first_[610] shuts out thieves from your house or your room, + My _second_[611] expresses a Syrian perfume. + My _whole_[612] is a man in whose converse is shar'd, + The strength of a Bar and the sweetness of Nard.' + +Johnson asked Richard Owen Cambridge, Esq., if he had read the Spanish +translation of _Sallust_, said to be written by a Prince of Spain[613], +with the assistance of his tutor, who is professedly the authour of a +treatise annexed, on the Phoenician language. + +Mr. Cambridge commended the work, particularly as he thought the +Translator understood his authour better than is commonly the case with +Translators: but said, he was disappointed in the purpose for which he +borrowed the book; to see whether a Spaniard could be better furnished +with inscriptions from monuments, coins, or other antiquities which he +might more probably find on a coast, so immediately opposite to +Carthage, than the Antiquaries of any other countries. JOHNSON. 'I am +very sorry you was[614] not gratified in your expectations.' CAMBRIDGE. +'The language would have been of little use, as there is no history +existing in that tongue to balance the partial accounts which the Roman +writers have left us.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. They have not been _partial_, +they have told their own story, without shame or regard to equitable +treatment of their injured enemy; they had no compunction, no feeling +for a Carthaginian. Why, Sir, they would never have borne Virgil's +description of Aeneas's treatment of Dido, if she had not been a +Carthaginian[615].' + +I gratefully acknowledge this and other communications from Mr. +Cambridge, whom, if a beautiful villa on the banks of the Thames, a few +miles distant from London, a numerous and excellent library, which he +accurately knows and reads, a choice collection of pictures, which he +understands and relishes, an easy fortune, an amiable family, an +extensive circle of friends and acquaintance, distinguished by rank, +fashion and genius, a literary fame, various, elegant and still +increasing, colloquial talents rarely to be found[616], and with all +these means of happiness, enjoying, when well advanced in years, health +and vigour of body, serenity and animation of mind, do not entitle to be +addressed _fortunate senex!_[617] I know not to whom, in any age, that +expression could with propriety have been used. Long may he live to hear +and to feel it! + +Johnson's love of little children, which he discovered upon all +occasions, calling them 'pretty dears,' and giving them sweetmeats, was +an undoubted proof of the real humanity and gentleness of his +disposition[618]. + +His uncommon kindness to his servants, and serious concern, not only for +their comfort in this world, but their happiness in the next, was +another unquestionable evidence of what all, who were intimately +acquainted with him, knew to be true. + +Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he +shewed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never +shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for +whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having +that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, +unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am +uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a +good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day +scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, +while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and +pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, +'Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;' and +then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is +a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.' + +This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of +the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I +heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.' And then in +a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, +and said, 'But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.' + +He thought Mr. Beauclerk made a shrewd and judicious' remark to Mr. +Langton, who, after having been for the first time in company with a +well-known wit about town, was warmly admiring and praising him, 'See +him again,' said Beauclerk. + +His respect for the Hierarchy, and particularly the Dignitaries of the +Church, has been more than once exhibited in the course of this +work[619]. Mr. Seward saw him presented to the Archbishop of York[620], +and described his _Bow to an ARCH-BISHOP_, as such a studied elaboration +of homage, such an extension of limb, such a flexion of body, as have +seldom or ever been equalled. + +I cannot help mentioning with much regret, that by my own negligence I +lost an opportunity of having the history of my family from its founder +Thomas Boswell, in 1504, recorded and illustrated by Johnson's pen. Such +was his goodness to me, that when I presumed to solicit him for so great +a favour, he was pleased to say, 'Let me have all the materials you can +collect, and I will do it both in Latin and English; then let it be +printed and copies of it be deposited in various places for security and +preservation.' I can now only do the best I can to make up for this +loss, keeping my great Master steadily in view. Family histories, like +the _imagines majorum_ of the Ancients, excite to virtue; and I wish +that they who really have blood, would be more careful to trace and +ascertain its course. Some have affected to laugh at the history of the +house of Yvery[621]: it would be well if many others would transmit +their pedigrees to posterity, with the same accuracy and generous zeal +with which the Noble Lord who compiled that work has honoured and +perpetuated his ancestry. + +On Thursday, April 10[622], I introduced to him, at his house in +Bolt-court, the Honourable and Reverend William Stuart, son of the Earl +of Bute; a gentleman truly worthy of being known to Johnson; being, with +all the advantages of high birth, learning, travel, and elegant manners, +an exemplary parish priest in every respect. + +After some compliments on both sides, the tour which Johnson and I had +made to the Hebrides was mentioned. JOHNSON. 'I got an acquisition of +more ideas by it than by any thing that I remember. I saw quite a +different system of life[623].' BOSWELL. 'You would not like to make the +same journey again?' JOHNSON. 'Why no, Sir; not the same: it is a tale +told. Gravina, an Italian critick, observes, that every man desires to +see that of which he has read; but no man desires to read an account of +what he has seen: so much does description fall short of reality. +Description only excites curiosity: seeing satisfies it. Other people +may go and see the Hebrides.' BOSWELL. 'I should wish to go and see some +country totally different from what I have been used to; such as Turkey, +where religion and every thing else are different.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; +there are two objects of curiosity,--the Christian world, and the +Mahometan world. All the rest may be considered as barbarous.' BOSWELL. +'Pray, Sir, is the _Turkish Spy_[624] a genuine book?' JOHNSON. 'No, +Sir. Mrs. Manley, in her _Life_, says that her father wrote the first +two volumes[625]: and in another book, _Dunton's Life and Errours_, we +find that the rest was written by one _Sault_, at two guineas a sheet, +under the direction of Dr. Midgeley[626]. + +BOSWELL. 'This has been a very factious reign, owing to the too great +indulgence of Government.' JOHNSON. 'I think so, Sir. What at first was +lenity, grew timidity[627]. Yet this is reasoning _a posteriori_, and +may not be just. Supposing a few had at first been punished, I believe +faction would have been crushed; but it might have been said, that it +was a sanguinary reign. A man cannot tell _a priori_ what will be best +for Government to do. This reign has been very unfortunate. We have had +an unsuccessful war; but that does not prove that we have been ill +governed. One side or other must prevail in war, as one or other must +win at play. When we beat Louis we were not better governed; nor were +the French better governed when Louis beat us.' + +On Saturday, April 12, I visited him, in company with Mr. Windham, of +Norfolk, whom, though a Whig, he highly valued. One of the best things +he ever said was to this gentleman; who, before he set out for Ireland +as Secretary to Lord Northington, when Lord Lieutenant, expressed to the +Sage some modest and virtuous doubts, whether he could bring himself to +practise those arts which it is supposed a person in that situation has +occasion to employ. 'Don't be afraid, Sir, (said Johnson, with a +pleasant smile,) you will soon make a very pretty rascal[628]. + +He talked to-day a good deal of the wonderful extent and variety of +London, and observed, that men of curious enquiry might see in it such +modes of life as very few could even imagine. He in particular +recommended to us to _explore Wapping_, which we resolved to do[629]. + +Mr. Lowe, the painter, who was with him, was very much distressed that a +large picture which he had painted was refused to be received into the +Exhibition of the Royal Academy. Mrs. Thrale knew Johnson's character so +superficially, as to represent him as unwilling to do small acts of +benevolence; and mentions in particular, that he would hardly take the +trouble to write a letter in favour of his friends[630]. The truth, +however, is, that he was remarkable, in an extraordinary degree, for +what she denies to him; and, above all, for this very sort of kindness, +writing letters for those to whom his solicitations might be of service. +He now gave Mr. Lowe the following, of which I was diligent enough, with +his permission, to take copies at the next coffee-house, while Mr. +Windham was so good as to stay by me. + +TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. + +'SIR, + +'Mr. Lowe considers himself as cut off from all credit and all hope, by +the rejection of his picture from the Exhibition. Upon this work he has +exhausted all his powers, and suspended all his expectations: and, +certainly, to be refused an opportunity of taking the opinion of the +publick, is in itself a very great hardship. It is to be condemned +without a trial. + +If you could procure the revocation of this incapacitating edict, you +would deliver an unhappy man from great affliction. The Council has +sometimes reversed its own determination; and I hope, that by your +interposition this luckless picture may be got admitted. I am, &c. + +SAM. JOHNSON. + +April 12, 1783. + +To MR. BARRY. + +SIR, + +Mr. Lowe's exclusion from the exhibition gives him more trouble than you +and the other gentlemen of the Council could imagine or intend. He +considers disgrace and ruin as the inevitable consequence of your +determination. + +He says, that some pictures have been received after rejection; and if +there be any such precedent, I earnestly entreat that you will use your +interest in his favour. Of his work I can say nothing; I pretend not to +judge of painting; and this picture I never saw: but I conceive it +extremely hard to shut out any man from the possibility of success; and +therefore I repeat my request that you will propose the re-consideration +of Mr. Lowe's case; and if there be any among the Council with whom my +name can have any weight, be pleased to communicate to them the desire +of, Sir, Your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON. April 12, 1783. + +Such intercession was too powerful to be resisted; and Mr. Lowe's +performance was admitted at Somerset Place[631]. The subject, as I +recollect, was the Deluge, at that point of time when the water was +verging to the top of the last uncovered mountain. Near to the spot was +seen the last of the antediluvian race, exclusive of those who were +saved in the ark of Noah. This was one of those giants, then the +inhabitants of the earth, who had still strength to swim, and with one +of his hands held aloft his infant child. Upon the small remaining dry +spot appeared a famished lion, ready to spring at the child and devour +it. Mr. Lowe told me that Johnson said to him, 'Sir, your picture is +noble and probable.' 'A compliment, indeed, (said Mr. Lowe,) from a man +who cannot lie, and cannot be mistaken.' + +About this time he wrote to Mrs. Lucy Porter, mentioning his bad health, +and that he intended a visit to Lichfield. 'It is, (says he,) with no +great expectation of amendment that I make every year a journey into the +country; but it is pleasant to visit those whose kindness has been often +experienced.' + +On April 18, (being Good-Friday,) I found him at breakfast, in his usual +manner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and eating a cross-bun +to prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement's church, as formerly. When +we came home from church, he placed himself on one of the stone-seats at +his garden-door, and I took the other, and thus in the open air and in a +placid frame of mind, he talked away very easily. JOHNSON. 'Were I a +country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have +crowds in my house[632].' BOSWELL. 'Sir Alexander Dick[633] tells me, +that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his +house: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined +there.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is about three a day.' BOSWELL. 'How your +statement lessens the idea.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is the good of +counting[634]. It brings every thing to a certainty, which before +floated in the mind indefinitely.' BOSWELL. 'But _Omne ignotum pro +magnifico est[635]: one is sorry to have this diminished.' JOHNSON. +'Sir, you should not allow yourself to be delighted with errour.' +BOSWELL. 'Three a day seem but few.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, he who +entertains three a day, does very liberally. And if there is a large +family, the poor entertain those three, for they eat what the poor would +get: there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, or +thrown out.' BOSWELL. 'I observe in London, that the poor go about and +gather bones, which I understand are manufactured.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; +they boil them, and extract a grease from them for greasing wheels and +other purposes. Of the best pieces they make a mock ivory, which is used +for hafts to knives, and various other things; the coarser pieces they +burn and pound, and sell the ashes.' BOSWELL. 'For what purpose, Sir?' +JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, for making a furnace for the chymists for melting +iron. A paste made of burnt bones will stand a stronger heat than any +thing else. Consider, Sir; if you are to melt iron, you cannot line your +pot with brass, because it is softer than iron, and would melt sooner; +nor with iron, for though malleable iron is harder than cast iron, yet +it would not do; but a paste of burnt-bones will not melt.' BOSWELL. 'Do +you know, Sir, I have discovered a manufacture to a great extent, of +what you only piddle at,--scraping and drying the peel of oranges[636]. +At a place in Newgate-street, there is a prodigious quantity prepared, +which they sell to the distillers.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I believe they make a +higher thing out of them than a spirit; they make what is called +orange-butter, the oil of the orange inspissated, which they mix perhaps +with common pomatum, and make it fragrant. The oil does not fly off in +the drying.' + +BOSWELL. 'I wish to have a good walled garden.' JOHNSON. 'I don't think +it would be worth the expence to you. We compute in England, a park wall +at a thousand pounds a mile; now a garden-wall must cost at least as +much. You intend your trees should grow higher than a deer will leap. +Now let us see; for a hundred pounds you could only have forty-four +square yards, which is very little; for two hundred pounds, you may have +eighty-four square yards[637], which is very well. But when will you get +the value of two hundred pounds of walls, in fruit, in your climate? No, +Sir, such contention with Nature is not worth while. I would plant an +orchard, and have plenty of such fruit as ripen well in your country. My +friend, Dr. Madden[638], of Ireland, said, that "in an orchard there +should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and +enough to rot upon the ground." Cherries are an early fruit, you may +have them; and you may have the early apples and pears.' BOSWELL. 'We +cannot have nonpareils.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you can no more have nonpareils +than you can have grapes.' BOSWELL. 'We have them, Sir; but they are +very bad.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, never try to have a thing merely to shew +that you _cannot_ have it. From ground that would let for forty +shillings you may have a large orchard; and you see it costs you only +forty shillings. Nay, you may graze the ground when the trees are grown +up; you cannot while they are young.' BOSWELL. 'Is not a good garden a +very common thing in England, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Not so common, Sir, as +you imagine[639]. In Lincolnshire there is hardly an orchard; in +Staffordshire very little fruit.' BOSWELL. 'Has Langton no orchard?' +JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'How so, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, from the +general negligence of the county. He has it not, because nobody else has +it.' BOSWELL. 'A hot-house is a certain thing; I may have that.' +JOHNSON. 'A hot-house is pretty certain; but you must first build it, +then you must keep fires in it, and you must have a gardener to take +care of it.' BOSWELL. 'But if I have a gardener at any rate?--' JOHNSON. +'Why, yes.' BOSWELL.' I'd have it near my house; there is no need to +have it in the orchard.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, I'd have it near my house. I +would plant a great many currants; the fruit is good, and they make a +pretty sweetmeat.' + +I record this minute detail, which some may think trifling, in order to +shew clearly how this great man, whose mind could grasp such large and +extensive subjects, as he has shewn in his literary labours, was yet +well-informed in the common affairs of life, and loved to +illustrate them. + +Mr. Walker, the celebrated master of elocution[640], came in, and then +we went up stairs into the study. I asked him if he had taught many +clergymen. JOHNSON. 'I hope not.' WALKER. 'I have taught only one, and +he is the best reader I ever heard, not by my teaching, but by his own +natural talents.' JOHNSON. 'Were he the best reader in the world, I +would not have it told that he was taught.' Here was one of his peculiar +prejudices. Could it be any disadvantage to the clergyman to have it +known that he was taught an easy and graceful delivery? BOSWELL. 'Will +you not allow, Sir, that a man may be taught to read well?' JOHNSON. +'Why, Sir, so far as to read better than he might do without being +taught, yes. Formerly it was supposed that there was no difference in +reading, but that one read as well as another.' BOSWELL. 'It is +wonderful to see old Sheridan as enthusiastick about oratory as +ever[641],' WALKER. 'His enthusiasm as to what oratory will do, may be +too great: but he reads well.' JOHNSON. 'He reads well, but he reads +low[642]; and you know it is much easier to read low than to read high; +for when you read high, you are much more limited, your loudest note can +be but one, and so the variety is less in proportion to the loudness. +Now some people have occasion to speak to an extensive audience, and +must speak loud to be heard.' WALKER. 'The art is to read strong, +though low.' + +Talking of the origin of language; JOHNSON. 'It must have come by +inspiration. A thousand, nay, a million of children could not invent a +language. While the organs are pliable, there is not understanding +enough to form a language; by the time that there is understanding +enough, the organs are become stiff. We know that after a certain age we +cannot learn to pronounce a new language. No foreigner, who comes to +England when advanced in life, ever pronounces English tolerably well; +at least such instances are very rare. When I maintain that language +must have come by inspiration, I do not mean that inspiration is +required for rhetorick, and all the beauties of language; for when once +man has language, we can conceive that he may gradually form +modifications of it. I mean only that inspiration seems to me to be +necessary to give man the faculty of speech; to inform him that he may +have speech; which I think he could no more find out without +inspiration, than cows or hogs would think of such a faculty.' WALKER. +'Do you think, Sir, that there are any perfect synonimes in any +language?' JOHNSON. 'Originally there were not; but by using words +negligently, or in poetry, one word comes to be confounded +with another.' + +He talked of Dr. Dodd[643]. 'A friend of mine, (said he,) came to me and +told me, that a lady wished to have Dr. Dodd's picture in a bracelet, +and asked me for a motto. I said, I could think of no better than +_Currat Lex_. I was very willing to have him pardoned, that is, to have +the sentence changed to transportation: but, when he was once hanged, I +did not wish he should be made a saint.' + +Mrs. Burney, wife of his friend Dr. Burney, came in, and he seemed to be +entertained with her conversation. + +Garrick's funeral was talked of as extravagantly expensive. Johnson, +from his dislike to exaggeration, would not allow that it was +distinguished by any extraordinary pomp. 'Were there not six horses to +each coach?' said Mrs. Burney. JOHNSON. 'Madam, there were no more six +horses than six phoenixes[644].' + +Mrs. Burney wondered that some very beautiful new buildings should be +erected in Moorfields, in so shocking a situation as between Bedlam and +St. Luke's Hospital; and said she could not live there. JOHNSON. 'Nay, +Madam, you see nothing there to hurt you. You no more think of madness +by having windows that look to Bedlam, than you think of death by having +windows that look to a church-yard.' MRS. BURNEY. 'We may look to a +church-yard, Sir; for it is right that we should be kept in mind of +death.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, if you go to that, it is right that we +should be kept in mind of madness, which is occasioned by too much +indulgence of imagination. I think a very moral use may be made of these +new buildings: I would have those who have heated imaginations live +there, and take warning.' MRS. BURNEY. 'But, Sir, many of the poor +people that are mad, have become so from disease, or from distressing +events. It is, therefore, not their fault, but their misfortune; and, +therefore, to think of them is a melancholy consideration.' + +Time passed on in conversation till it was too late for the service of +the church at three o'clock. I took a walk, and left him alone for some +time; then returned, and we had coffee and conversation again by +ourselves. + +I stated the character of a noble friend of mine, as a curious case for +his opinion:--'He is the most inexplicable man to me that I ever knew. +Can you explain him, Sir? He is, I really believe, noble-minded, +generous, and princely. But his most intimate friends may be separated +from him for years, without his ever asking a question concerning them. +He will meet them with a formality, a coldness, a stately indifference; +but when they come close to him, and fairly engage him in conversation, +they find him as easy, pleasant, and kind, as they could wish. One then +supposes that what is so agreeable will soon be renewed; but stay away +from him for half a year, and he will neither call on you, nor send to +inquire about you.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I cannot ascertain his character +exactly, as I do not know him; but I should not like to have such a man +for my friend. He may love study, and wish not to be interrupted by his +friends; _Amici fures temporis_. He may be a frivolous man, and be so +much occupied with petty pursuits, that he may not want friends. Or he +may have a notion that there is a dignity in appearing indifferent, +while he in fact may not be more indifferent at his heart than another.' + +We went to evening prayers at St. Clement's, at seven, and then parted. + +On Sunday, April 20, being Easter-day, after attending solemn service at +St. Paul's, I came to Dr. Johnson, and found Mr. Lowe, the painter, +sitting with him. Mr. Lowe mentioned the great number of new buildings +of late in London, yet that Dr. Johnson had observed, that the number of +inhabitants was not increased. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the bills of +mortality prove that no more people die now than formerly; so it is +plain no more live. The register of births proves nothing, for not one +tenth of the people of London are born there.' BOSWELL. 'I believe, Sir, +a great many of the children born in London die early.' JOHNSON. 'Why, +yes, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'But those who do live, are as stout and strong +people as any[645]: Dr. Price[646] says, they must be naturally stronger +to get through.' JOHNSON. 'That is system, Sir. A great traveller +observes, that it is said there are no weak or deformed people among the +Indians; but he with much sagacity assigns the reason of this, which is, +that the hardship of their life as hunters and fishers does not allow +weak or diseased children to grow up. Now had I been an Indian, I must +have died early; my eyes would not have served me to get food. I indeed +now could fish, give me English tackle; but had I been an Indian I must +have starved, or they would have knocked me on the head, when they saw I +could do nothing.' BOSWELL. 'Perhaps they would have taken care of you: +we are told they are fond of oratory, you would have talked to them.' +JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I should not have lived long enough to be fit to +talk; I should have been dead before I was ten years old. Depend upon +it, Sir, a savage, when he is hungry, will not carry about with him a +looby of nine years old, who cannot help himself. They have no +affection, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'I believe natural affection, of which we +hear so much, is very small.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, natural affection is +nothing: but affection from principle and established duty is sometimes +wonderfully strong.' LOWE. 'A hen, Sir, will feed her chickens in +preference to herself.' JOHNSON. 'But we don't know that the hen is +hungry; let the hen be fairly hungry, and I'll warrant she'll peck the +corn herself. A cock, I believe, will feed hens instead of himself; but +we don't know that the cock is hungry.' BOSWELL. 'And that, Sir, is not +from affection but gallantry. But some of the Indians have affection.' +JOHNSON. 'Sir, that they help some of their children is plain; for some +of them live, which they could not do without being helped.' + +I dined with him; the company were, Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Desmoulins, and +Mr. Lowe. He seemed not to be well, talked little, grew drowsy soon +after dinner, and retired, upon which I went away. + +Having next day gone to Mr. Burke's seat in the country, from whence I +was recalled by an express, that a near relation of mine had killed his +antagonist in a duel, and was himself dangerously wounded[647], I saw +little of Dr. Johnson till Monday, April 28, when I spent a considerable +part of the day with him, and introduced the subject, which then chiefly +occupied my mind. JOHNSON. 'I do not see, Sir, that fighting is +absolutely forbidden in Scripture; I see revenge forbidden, but not +self-defence.' BOSWELL. 'The Quakers say it is; "Unto him that smiteth +thee on one cheek, offer him also the other[648]."' JOHNSON. 'But stay, +Sir; the text is meant only to have the effect of moderating passion; it +is plain that we are not to take it in a literal sense. We see this from +the context, where there are other recommendations, which I warrant you +the Quaker will not take literally; as, for instance, "From him that +would borrow of thee, turn thou not away[649]." Let a man whose credit +is bad, come to a Quaker, and say, "Well, Sir, lend me a hundred +pounds;" he'll find him as unwilling as any other man. No, Sir, a man +may shoot the man who invades his character, as he may shoot him who +attempts to break into his house[650]. So in 1745, my friend, Tom +Cumming the Quaker[651], said, he would not fight, but he would drive an +ammunition cart; and we know that the Quakers have sent flannel +waistcoats to our soldiers, to enable them to fight better.' BOSWELL. +'When a man is the aggressor, and by ill-usage forces on a duel in which +he is killed, have we not little ground to hope that he is gone into a +state of happiness?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, we are not to judge determinately of +the state in which a man leaves this life. He may in a moment have +repented effectually, and it is possible may have been accepted by GOD. +There is in _Camden's Remains_, an epitaph upon a very wicked man, who +was killed by a fall from his horse, in which he is supposed to say, + + '"Between the stirrup and the ground, + I mercy ask'd, I mercy found[652]."' + +BOSWELL. 'Is not the expression in the Burial-service, "in the _sure_ +and _certain_ hope of a blessed resurrection[653]," too strong to be +used indiscriminately, and, indeed, sometimes when those over whose +bodies it is said, have been notoriously profane?' JOHNSON. 'It is sure +and certain _hope_, Sir; not _belief_.' I did not insist further; +but cannot help thinking that less positive words would be more +proper[654]. + +Talking of a man who was grown very fat, so as to be incommoded with +corpulency; he said, 'He eats too much, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'I don't know, +Sir; you will see one man fat who eats moderately, and another lean who +eats a great deal.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, whatever may be the quantity +that a man eats, it is plain that if he is too fat, he has eaten more +than he should have done. One man may have a digestion that consumes +food better than common; but it is certain that solidity is encreased by +putting something to it.' BOSWELL. 'But may not solids swell and be +distended?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, they may swell and be distended; but +that is not fat.' + +We talked of the accusation against a gentleman for supposed +delinquencies in India[655]. JOHNSON. 'What foundation there is for +accusation I know not, but they will not get at him. Where bad actions +are committed at so great a distance, a delinquent can obscure the +evidence till the scent becomes cold; there is a cloud between, which +cannot be penetrated: therefore all distant power is bad. I am clear +that the best plan for the government of India is a despotick governour; +for if he be a good man, it is evidently the best government; and +supposing him to be a bad man, it is better to have one plunderer than +many. A governour whose power is checked, lets others plunder, that he +himself may be allowed to plunder; but if despotick, he sees that the +more he lets others plunder, the less there will be for himself, so he +restrains them; and though he himself plunders, the country is a gainer, +compared with being plundered by numbers.' + +I mentioned the very liberal payment which had been received for +reviewing; and, as evidence of this, that it had been proved in a trial, +that Dr. Shebbeare[656] had received six guineas a sheet for that kind +of literary labour. JOHNSON, 'Sir, he might get six guineas for a +particular sheet, but not _communibus sheetibus_[657].' BOSWELL. 'Pray, +Sir, by a sheet of review is it meant that it shall be all of the +writer's own composition? or are extracts, made from the book reviewed, +deducted.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir: it is a sheet, no matter of what.' +BOSWELL. 'I think that it is not reasonable.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, it is. +A man will more easily write a sheet all his own, than read an octavo +volume to get extracts[658].' To one of Johnson's wonderful fertility of +mind I believe writing was really easier than reading and extracting; +but with ordinary men the case is very different. A great deal, indeed, +will depend upon the care and judgement with which the extracts are +made. I can suppose the operation to be tedious and difficult: but in +many instances we must observe crude morsels cut out of books as if at +random; and when a large extract is made from one place, it surely may +be done with very little trouble. One however, I must acknowledge, might +be led, from the practice of reviewers, to suppose that they take a +pleasure in original writing; for we often find, that instead of giving +an accurate account of what has been done by the authour whose work +they are reviewing, which is surely the proper business of a literary +journal, they produce some plausible and ingenious conceits of their +own, upon the topicks which have been discussed[659]. + +Upon being told that old Mr. Sheridan, indignant at the neglect of his +oratorical plans, had threatened to go to America; JOHNSON. 'I hope he +will go to America.' BOSWELL. 'The Americans don't want oratory.' +JOHNSON. 'But we can want Sheridan[660].' + +On Monday[661], April 29, I found him at home in the forenoon, and Mr. +Seward with him. Horace having been mentioned; BOSWELL. 'There is a +great deal of thinking in his works. One finds there almost every thing +but religion.' SEWARD. 'He speaks of his returning to it, in his Ode +_Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens_[662] JOHNSON. 'Sir, he was not in +earnest: this was merely poetical.' BOSWELL. 'There are, I am afraid, +many people who have no religion at all.' SEWARD. 'And sensible people +too.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, not sensible in that respect. There must be +either a natural or a moral stupidity, if one lives in a total neglect +of so very important a concern.' SEWARD. 'I wonder that there should be +people without religion.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you need not wonder at this, +when you consider how large a proportion of almost every man's life is +passed without thinking of it. I myself was for some years totally +regardless of religion. It had dropped out of my mind. It was at an +early part of my life. Sickness brought it back, and I hope I have never +lost it since[663].' BOSWELL. 'My dear Sir, what a man must you have +been without religion! Why you must have gone on drinking, and +swearing, and--[664]' JOHNSON. (with a smile) 'I drank enough and swore +enough, to be sure.' SEWARD. 'One should think that sickness and the +view of death would make more men religious.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, they do not +know how to go about it: they have not the first notion. A man who has +never had religion before, no more grows religious when he is sick, than +a man who has never learnt figures can count when he has need of +calculation.' + +I mentioned a worthy friend of ours[665] whom we valued much, but +observed that he was too ready to introduce religious discourse upon all +occasions. JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, Sir, he will introduce religious +discourse without seeing whether it will end in instruction and +improvement, or produce some profane jest. He would introduce it in the +company of Wilkes, and twenty more such.' + +I mentioned Dr. Johnson's excellent distinction between liberty of +conscience and liberty of teaching[666]. JOHNSON. 'Consider, Sir; if you +have children whom you wish to educate in the principles of the Church +of England, and there comes a Quaker who tries to pervert them to his +principles, you would drive away the Quaker. You would not trust to the +predomination of right, which you believe is in your opinions; you would +keep wrong out of their heads. Now the vulgar are the children of the +State. If any one attempts to teach them doctrines contrary to what the +State approves, the magistrate may and ought to restrain him.' SEWARD. +'Would you restrain private conversation, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it +is difficult to say where private conversation begins, and where it +ends. If we three should discuss even the great question concerning the +existence of a Supreme Being by ourselves, we should not be restrained; +for that would be to put an end to all improvement. But if we should +discuss it in the presence of ten boarding-school girls, and as many +boys, I think the magistrate would do well to put us in the stocks, to +finish the debate there.' + +Lord Hailes had sent him a present of a curious little printed poem, on +repairing the University of Aberdeen, by David Malloch, which he +thought would please Johnson, as affording clear evidence that Mallet +had appeared even as a literary character by the name of _Malloch_; his +changing which to one of softer sound, had given Johnson occasion to +introduce him into his _Dictionary_, under the article _Alias_[667]. +This piece was, I suppose, one of Mallet's first essays. It is preserved +in his works, with several variations. Johnson having read aloud, from +the beginning of it, where there were some common-place assertions as to +the superiority of ancient times;--'How false (said he) is all this, to +say that in ancient times learning was not a disgrace to a Peer as it is +now. In ancient times a Peer was as ignorant as any one else. He would +have been angry to have it thought he could write his name[668]. Men in +ancient times dared to stand forth with a degree of ignorance with which +nobody would dare now to stand forth. I am always angry when I hear +ancient times praised at the expence of modern times. There is now a +great deal more learning in the world than there was formerly; for it is +universally diffused. You have, perhaps, no man who knows as much Greek +and Latin as Bentley[669]; no man who knows as much mathematicks as +Newton: but you have many more men who know Greek and Latin, and who +know mathematicks[670].' + +On Thursday, May 1, I visited him in the evening along with young Mr. +Burke. He said, 'It is strange that there should be so little reading in +the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, +if they can have any thing else to amuse them[671]. There must be an +external impulse; emulation, or vanity, or avarice. The progress which +the understanding makes through a book, has more pain than pleasure in +it. Language is scanty, and inadequate to express the nice gradations +and mixtures of our feelings. No man reads a book of science from pure +inclination. The books that we do read with pleasure are light +compositions, which contain a quick succession of events. However, I +have this year read all Virgil through[672]. I read a book of the +_Aeneid_ every night, so it was done in twelve nights, and I had great +delight in it. The _Georgicks_ did not give me so much pleasure, except +the fourth book. The _Eclogues_ I have almost all by heart. I do not +think the story of the _Aeneid_ interesting. I like the story of the +_Odyssey_ much better[673]; and this not on account of the wonderful +things which it contains; for there are wonderful things enough in the +_Aeneid_;--the ships of the Trojans turned to sea-nymphs,--the tree at +Polydorus's tomb dropping blood. The story of the _Odyssey_ is +interesting, as a great part of it is domestick. It has been said, there +is pleasure in writing, particularly in writing verses. I allow you may +have pleasure from writing, after it is over, if you have written well; +but you don't go willingly to it again[674]. I know when I have been +writing verses, I have run my finger down the margin, to see how many I +had made, and how few I had to make[675].' + +He seemed to be in a very placid humour, and although I have no note of +the particulars of young Mr. Burke's conversation, it is but justice to +mention in general, that it was such that Dr. Johnson said to me +afterwards, 'He did very well indeed; I have a mind to tell his +father[676].' + +'TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'The gentleman who waits on you with this, is Mr. Cruikshanks[677], who +wishes to succeed his friend Dr. Hunter[678] as Professor of Anatomy in +the Royal Academy. His qualifications are very generally known, and it +adds dignity to the institution that such men[679] are candidates. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'May 2[680], 1783.' + +I have no minute of any interview with Johnson till Thursday, May 15, +when I find what follows:--BOSWELL. 'I wish much to be in Parliament, +Sir[681].' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, unless you come resolved to support any +administration, you would be the worse for being in Parliament, because +you would be obliged to live more expensively.' BOSWELL. 'Perhaps, Sir, +I should be the less happy for being in Parliament. I never would sell +my vote, and I should be vexed if things went wrong.' JOHNSON. 'That's +cant, Sir. It would not vex you more in the house, than in the gallery: +publick affairs vex no man.' BOSWELL. 'Have not they vexed yourself a +little, Sir? Have not you been vexed by all the turbulence of this +reign, and by that absurd vote of the House of Commons, "That the +influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be +diminished[682]?"' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I have never slept an hour less, nor +eat an ounce less meat[683]. I would have knocked the factious dogs on +the head, to be sure; but I was not _vexed_.' BOSWELL. 'I declare, Sir, +upon my honour, I did imagine I was vexed, and took a pride in it; but +it _was_, perhaps, cant; for I own I neither ate less, nor slept less.' +JOHNSON. 'My dear friend, clear your _mind_ of cant[684]. You may _talk_ +as other people do: you may say to a man, "Sir, I am your most humble +servant." You are not his most humble servant. You may say, "These are +bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times." You +don't mind the times. You tell a man, "I am sorry you had such bad +weather the last day of your journey, and were so much wet." You don't +care six-pence whether he is wet or dry. You may _talk_ in this manner; +it is a mode of talking in Society[685]; but don't _think_ +foolishly[686].' + +I talked of living in the country. JOHNSON. 'Don't set up for what is +called hospitality; it is a waste of time, and a waste of money; you are +eaten up, and not the more respected for your liberality. If your house +be like an inn, nobody cares for you. A man who stays a week with +another, makes him a slave for a week.'[687] BOSWELL. 'But there are +people, Sir, who make their houses a home to their guests, and are +themselves quite easy.' JOHNSON. 'Then, Sir, home must be the same to +the guests, and they need not come.' + +Here he discovered a notion common enough in persons not much accustomed +to entertain company, that there must be a degree of elaborate +attention, otherwise company will think themselves neglected; and such +attention is no doubt very fatiguing.[688] He proceeded: 'I would not, +however, be a stranger in my own county; I would visit my neighbours, +and receive their visits; but I would not be in haste to return visits. +If a gentleman comes to see me, I tell him he does me a great deal of +honour. I do not go to see him perhaps for ten weeks; then we are very +complaisant to each other. No, Sir, you will have much more influence by +giving or lending money where it is wanted, than by hospitality[689].' + +On Saturday, May 17, I saw him for a short time. Having mentioned that I +had that morning been with old Mr. Sheridan, he remembered their former +intimacy with a cordial warmth, and said to me, 'Tell Mr. Sheridan, I +shall be glad to see him, and shake hands with him[690].' BOSWELL. 'It +is to me very wonderful that resentment should be kept up so long.' +JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is not altogether resentment that he does not +visit me; it is partly falling out of the habit,--partly disgust, as one +has at a drug that has made him sick. Besides, he knows that I laugh at +his oratory[691].' + +Another day I spoke of one of our friends, of whom he, as well as I, +had a very high opinion. He expatiated in his praise; but added, 'Sir, +he is a cursed Whig, a _bottomless_ Whig, as they all are now[692].' + +I mentioned my expectations from the interest of an eminent person[693] +then in power; adding, 'but I have no claim but the claim of friendship; +however, some people will go a great way from that motive.' JOHNSON. +'Sir, they will go all the way from that motive.' A gentleman talked of +retiring. 'Never think of that,' said Johnson. The gentleman urged, 'I +should then do no ill.' JOHNSON. Nor no good either. Sir, it would be a +civil suicide[694].' + +On Monday, May 26, I found him at tea, and the celebrated Miss Burney, +the authour of _Evelina_[695] and _Cecilia_, with him. I asked if there +would be any speakers in Parliament, if there were no places to be +obtained. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. Why do you speak here? Either to instruct +and entertain, which is a benevolent motive; or for distinction, which +is a selfish motive.' I mentioned _Cecilia_. JOHNSON. (with an air of +animated satisfaction) 'Sir, if you talk of _Cecilia_, talk on[696].' + +We talked of Mr. Barry's exhibition of his pictures. JOHNSON. 'Whatever +the hand may have done, the mind has done its part. There is a grasp of +mind there which you find nowhere else[697].' + +I asked whether a man naturally virtuous, or one who has overcome wicked +inclinations, is the best. JOHNSON. 'Sir, to _you_, the man who has +overcome wicked inclinations is not the best. He has more merit to +_himself_: I would rather trust my money to a man who has no hands, and +so a physical impossibility to steal, than to a man of the most honest +principles. There is a witty satirical story of Foote. He had a small +bust of Garrick placed upon his bureau, "You may be surprized (said he) +that I allow him to be so near my gold;--but you will observe he has +no hands."' + +On Friday, May 29[698], being to set out for Scotland next morning, I +passed a part of the day with him in more than usual earnestness; as his +health was in a more precarious state than at any time when I had parted +from him. He, however, was quick and lively, and critical as usual. I +mentioned one who was a very learned man. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, he has a +great deal of learning; but it never lies straight. There is never one +idea by the side of another; 'tis all entangled: and then he drives it +so aukwardly upon conversation.' + +I stated to him an anxious thought, by which a sincere Christian might +be disturbed, even when conscious of having lived a good life, so far as +is consistent with human infirmity; he might fear that he should +afterwards fall away, and be guilty of such crimes as would render all +his former religion vain. Could there be, upon this aweful subject, such +a thing as balancing of accounts? Suppose a man who has led a good life +for seven years, commits an act of wickedness, and instantly dies; will +his former good life have any effect in his favour? JOHNSON. 'Sir, if a +man has led a good life for seven years, and then is hurried by passion +to do what is wrong, and is suddenly carried off, depend upon it he will +have the reward of his seven years' good life; GOD will not take a catch +of him. Upon this principle Richard Baxter believes that a Suicide may +be saved. "If, (says he) it should be objected that what I maintain may +encourage suicide, I answer, I am not to tell a lie to prevent it."' +BOSWELL. 'But does not the text say, "As the tree falls, so it must +lie[699]?"' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; as the tree falls: but,--(after a +little pause)--that is meant as to the general state of the tree, not +what is the effect of a sudden blast.' In short, he interpreted the +expression as referring to condition, not to position. The common +notion, therefore, seems to be erroneous; and Shenstone's witty remark +on Divines trying to give the tree a jerk upon a death-bed, to make it +lie favourably, is not well founded[700]. + +I asked him what works of Richard Baxter's I should read. He said, 'Read +any of them; they are all good[701].' + +He said, 'Get as much force of mind as you can. Live within your income. +Always have something saved at the end of the year. Let your imports be +more than your exports, and you'll never go far wrong.' + +I assured him, that in the extensive and various range of his +acquaintance there never had been any one who had a more sincere respect +and affection for him than I had. He said, 'I believe it, Sir. Were I in +distress, there is no man to whom I should sooner come than to you. I +should like to come and have a cottage in your park, toddle about, live +mostly on milk, and be taken care of by Mrs. Boswell. She and I are good +friends now; are we not?' + +Talking of devotion, he said, 'Though it be true that "GOD dwelleth not +in temples made with hands[702]," yet in this state of being, our minds +are more piously affected in places appropriated to divine worship, than +in others. Some people have a particular room in their house, where they +say their prayers; of which I do not disapprove, as it may animate their +devotion.' + +He embraced me, and gave me his blessing, as usual when I was leaving +him for any length of time. I walked from his door to-day, with a +fearful apprehension of what might happen before I returned. + +'To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM WINDHAM. + +Sir, The bringer of this letter is the father of Miss Philips[703], a +singer, who comes to try her voice on the stage at Dublin. + +Mr. Philips is one of my old friends; and as I am of opinion that +neither he nor his daughter will do any thing that can disgrace their +benefactors, I take the liberty of entreating you to countenance and +protect them so far as may be suitable to your station[704] and +character; and shall consider myself as obliged by any favourable notice +which they shall have the honour of receiving from you. + +I am, Sir, Your most humble servant, + +SAM JOHNSON. London, May 31, 1783.' + +The following is another instance of his active benevolence:-- + +'To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. + +DEAR SIR, I have sent you some of my god-son's[705] performances, of +which I do not pretend to form any opinion. When I took the liberty of +mentioning him to you, I did not know what I have since been told, that +Mr. Moser[706] had admitted him among the Students of the Academy. What +more can be done for him I earnestly entreat you to consider; for I am +very desirous that he should derive some advantage from my connection +with him. If you are inclined to see him, I will bring him to wait on +you, at any time that you shall be pleased to appoint. + +I am, Sir, Your most humble servant, + +SAM. JOHNSON. June 2, 1783.' + +My anxious apprehensions at parting with him this year proved to be but +too well founded; for not long afterwards he had a dreadful stroke of +the palsy, of which there are very full and accurate accounts in +letters written by himself, to shew with what composure of mind, and +resignation to the Divine Will, his steady piety enabled him to behave. + +'TO MR. EDMUND ALLEN[707]. + +DEAR SIR, It has pleased GOD, this morning, to deprive me of the powers +of speech; and as I do not know but that it may be his further good +pleasure to deprive me soon of my senses, I request you will on the +receipt of this note, come to me, and act for me, as the exigencies of +my case may require. + +I am, Sincerely yours, + +SAM. JOHNSON. June 17, 1783.' + +'TO THE REVEREND DR. JOHN TAYLOR. + +'DEAR SIR, It has pleased GOD, by a Paralytick stroke in the night, to +deprive me of speech. + +I am very desirous of Dr. Heberden's[708] assistance, as I think my case +is not past remedy. Let me see you as soon as it is possible. Bring Dr. +Heberden with you, if you can; but come yourself at all events. I am +glad you are so well, when I am so dreadfully attacked. + +I think that by a speedy application of stimulants much may be done. I +question if a vomit, vigorous and rough, would not rouse the organs of +speech to action. As it is too early to send, I will try to recollect +what I can, that can be suspected to have brought on this +dreadful distress. + +I have been accustomed to bleed frequently for an asthmatick complaint; +but have forborne for some time by Dr. Pepys's persuasion, who +perceived my legs beginning to swell. I sometimes alleviate a painful, +or more properly an oppressive, constriction of my chest, by opiates; +and have lately taken opium frequently, but the last, or two last times, +in smaller quantities. My largest dose is three grains, and last night I +took but two[709]. You will suggest these things (and they are all that +I can call to mind) to Dr. Heberden. + +I am, &c. SAM. JOHNSON[710]. June 17, 1783.' + +Two days after he wrote thus to Mrs. Thrale[711]:-- + +'On Monday, the 16th, I sat for my picture[712], and walked a +considerable way with little inconvenience. In the afternoon and evening +I felt myself light and easy, and began to plan schemes of life. Thus I +went to bed, and in a short time waked and sat up, as has been long my +custom, when I felt a confusion and indistinctness in my head, which +lasted, I suppose, about half a minute. I was alarmed, and prayed God, +that however he might afflict my body, he would spare my understanding. +This prayer, that I might try the integrity of my faculties, I made in +Latin verse[713]. The lines were not very good, but I knew them not to +be very good: I made them easily, and concluded myself to be unimpaired +in my faculties. + +Soon after I perceived that I had suffered a paralytick stroke, and that +my speech was taken from me. I had no pain, and so little dejection in +this dreadful state, that I wondered at my own apathy, and considered +that perhaps death itself, when it should come, would excite less +horrour than seems now to attend it. + +In order to rouse the vocal organs, I took two drams. Wine has been +celebrated for the production of eloquence. I put myself into violent +motion, and I think repeated it; but all was vain. I then went to bed, +and strange as it may seem, I think slept. When I saw light, it was time +to contrive what I should do. Though God stopped my speech, he left me +my hand; I enjoyed a mercy which was not granted to my dear friend +Lawrence[714], who now perhaps overlooks me as I am writing, and +rejoices that I have what he wanted. My first note was necessarily to my +servant, who came in talking, and could not immediately comprehend why +he should read what I put into his hands. + +I then wrote a card to Mr. Allen, that I might have a discreet friend at +hand, to act as occasion should require. In penning this note, I had +some difficulty; my hand, I knew not how nor why, made wrong letters. I +then wrote to Dr. Taylor to come to me, and bring Dr. Heberden; and I +sent to Dr. Brocklesby, who is my neighbour. My physicians are very +friendly, and give me great hopes; but you may imagine my situation. I +have so far recovered my vocal powers, as to repeat the Lord's Prayer +with no very imperfect articulation. My memory, I hope, yet remains as +it was; but such an attack produces solicitude for the safety of +every faculty.' + +'To MR. THOMAS DAVIES. + +'DEAR SIR, I have had, indeed, a very heavy blow; but GOD, who yet +spares my life, I humbly hope will spare my understanding, and restore +my speech. As I am not at all helpless, I want no particular assistance, +but am strongly affected by Mrs. Davies's tenderness; and when I think +she can do me good, shall be very glad to call upon her. I had ordered +friends to be shut out; but one or two have found the way in; and if you +come you shall be admitted: for I know not whom I can see, that will +bring more amusement on his tongue, or more kindness in his heart. I +am, &c. + +SAM. JOHNSON. June 18, 1783.' + +It gives me great pleasure to preserve such a memorial of Johnson's +regard for Mr. Davies, to whom I was indebted for my introduction to +him[715]. He indeed loved Davies cordially, of which I shall give the +following little evidence. One day when he had treated him with too much +asperity. Tom, who was not without pride and spirit, went off in a +passion; but he had hardly reached home, when Frank, who had been sent +after him, delivered this note:--'Come, come, dear Davies, I am always +sorry when we quarrel; send me word that we are friends.' + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +DEAR SIR, Your anxiety about my health is very friendly, and very +agreeable with your general kindness. I have, indeed, had a very +frightful blow. On the 17th of last month, about three in the morning, +as near as I can guess, I perceived myself almost totally deprived of +speech. I had no pain. My organs were so obstructed, that I could say +_no_, but could scarcely say _yes_. I wrote the necessary directions, +for it pleased GOD to spare my hand, and sent for Dr. Heberden and Dr. +Brocklesby. Between the time in which I discovered my own disorder, and +that in which I sent for the doctors, I had, I believe, in spite of my +surprize and solicitude, a little sleep, and Nature began to renew its +operations. They came, and gave the directions which the disease +required, and from that time I have been continually improving in +articulation. I can now speak, but the nerves are weak, and I cannot +continue discourse long; but strength, I hope, will return. The +physicians consider me as cured. I was last Sunday at church. On Tuesday +I took an airing to Hampstead, and dined with THE CLUB[716], where Lord +Palmerston was proposed, and, against my opinion, was rejected[717]. I +designed to go next week with Mr. Langton to Rochester, where I purpose +to stay about ten days, and then try some other air. I have many kind +invitations. Your brother has very frequently enquired after me. Most of +my friends have, indeed, been very attentive[718]. Thank dear Lord +Hailes for his present. + +I hope you found at your return every thing gay and prosperous, and your +lady, in particular, quite recovered and confirmed. Pay her my respects. + +I am, dear Sir, Your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON. London, July 3, +1783.' + +'To MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. + +DEAR MADAM, The account which you give of your health is but melancholy. +May it please GOD to restore you. My disease affected my speech, and +still continues, in some degree, to obstruct my utterance; my voice is +distinct enough for a while; but the organs being still weak are quickly +weary: but in other respects I am, I think, rather better than I have +lately been; and can let you know my state without the help of any +other hand. + +In the opinion of my friends, and in my own, I am gradually mending. The +Physicians consider me as cured; and I had leave, four days ago, to wash +the cantharides from my head. Last Tuesday I dined at THE CLUB. + +I am going next week into Kent, and purpose to change the air frequently +this summer; whether I shall wander so far as Staffordshire I cannot +tell. I should be glad to come. Return my thanks to Mrs. Cobb, and Mr. +Pearson, and all that have shewn attention to me. + +Let us, my dear, pray for one another, and consider our sufferings as +notices mercifully given us to prepare ourselves for another state. + +I live now but in a melancholy way. My old friend Mr. Levett is dead, +who lived with me in the house, and was useful and companionable; Mrs. +Desmoulins is gone away[719]; and Mrs. Williams is so much decayed, that +she can add little to another's gratifications. The world passes away, +and we are passing with it; but there is, doubtless, another world, +which will endure for ever. Let us all fit ourselves for it. + +I am, &c., SAM. JOHNSON. London, July 5, 1783.' + +Such was the general vigour of his constitution, that he recovered from +this alarming and severe attack with wonderful quickness; so that in +July he was able to make a visit to Mr. Langton at Rochester[720], where +he passed about a fortnight, and made little excursions as easily as at +any time of his life[721]. In August he went as far as the neighbourhood +of Salisbury, to Heale[722], the seat of William Bowles, Esq[723]., a +gentleman whom I have heard him praise for exemplary religious order in +his family. In his diary I find a short but honourable mention of this +visit: 'August 28, I came to Heale without fatigue. 30. I am entertained +quite to my mind.' + +'To DR. BROCKLESBY. Heale, near Salisbury, Aug. 29, 1783. + +DEAR SIR, Without appearing to want a just sense of your kind attention, +I cannot omit to give an account of the day which seemed to appear in +some sort perilous. I rose at five and went out at six, and having +reached Salisbury about nine[724], went forward a few miles in my +friend's chariot. I was no more wearied with the journey, though it was +a high-hung, rough coach, than I should have been forty years ago. We +shall now see what air will do. The country is all a plain; and the +house in which I am, so far as I can judge from my window, for I write +before I have left my chamber, is sufficiently pleasant. + +Be so kind as to continue your attention to Mrs. Williams; it is great +consolation to the well, and still greater to the sick, that they find +themselves not neglected; and I know that you will be desirous of giving +comfort even where you have no great hope of giving help. + +Since I wrote the former part of the letter, I find that by the course +of the post I cannot send it before the thirty-first. + +I am, &c. SAM. JOHNSON.' + +While he was here he had a letter from Dr. Brocklesby, acquainting him +of the death of Mrs. Williams, which affected him a good deal[725]. +Though for several years her temper had not been complacent, she had +valuable qualities, and her departure left a blank in his house[726]. +Upon this occasion he, according to his habitual course of piety, +composed a prayer[727]. + +I shall here insert a few particulars concerning him, with which I have +been favoured by one of his friends[728]. + +'He had once conceived the design of writing the Life of Oliver +Cromwell[729], saying, that he thought it must be highly curious to +trace his extraordinary rise to the supreme power, from so obscure a +beginning. He at length laid aside his scheme, on discovering that all +that can be told of him is already in print; and that it is +impracticable to procure any authentick information in addition to what +the world is already possessed of[730].' + +'He had likewise projected, but at what part of his life is not known, a +work to shew how small a quantity of REAL FICTION there is in the world; +and that the same images, with very little variation, have served all +the authours who have ever written[731].' + +'His thoughts in the latter part of his life were frequently employed on +his deceased friends. He often muttered these, or such like sentences: +"Poor man! and then he died."' + +'Speaking of a certain literary friend, "He is a very pompous puzzling +fellow, (said he); he lent me a letter once that somebody had written to +him, no matter what it was about; but he wanted to have the letter back, +and expressed a mighty value for it; he hoped it was to be met with +again, he would not lose it for a thousand pounds. I layed my hand upon +it soon afterwards, and gave it him. I believe I said, I was very glad +to have met with it. O, then he did not know that it signified any +thing. So you see, when the letter was lost it was worth a thousand +pounds, and when it was found it was not worth a farthing."' + +'The style and character of his conversation is pretty generally known; +it was certainly conducted in conformity with a precept of Lord Bacon, +but it is not clear, I apprehend, that this conformity was either +perceived or intended by Johnson. The precept alluded to is as follows: +"In all kinds of speech, either pleasant, grave, severe, or ordinary, it +is convenient to speak leisurely, and rather drawingly than hastily: +because hasty speech confounds the memory, and oftentimes, besides the +unseemliness, drives the man either to stammering, a non-plus, or +harping on that which should follow; whereas a slow speech confirmeth +the memory, addeth a conceit of wisdom to the hearers, besides a +seemliness of speech and countenance[732]." Dr. Johnson's method of +conversation was certainly calculated to excite attention, and to amuse +and instruct, (as it happened,) without wearying or confusing his +company. He was always most perfectly clear and perspicuous; and his +language was so accurate, and his sentences so neatly constructed, that +his conversation might have been all printed without any correction. At +the same time, it was easy and natural; the accuracy of it had no +appearance of labour, constraint, or stiffness; he seemed more correct +than others, by the force of habit, and the customary exercises of his +powerful mind[733].' + +'He spoke often in praise of French literature. "The French are +excellent in this, (he would say,) they have a book on every +subject[734]." From what he had seen of them he denied them the praise +of superiour politeness[735], and mentioned, with very visible disgust, +the custom they have of spitting on the floors of their apartments. +"This, (said the Doctor) is as gross a thing as can well be done; and +one wonders how any man, or set of men, can persist in so offensive a +practice for a whole day together; one should expect that the first +effort towards civilization would remove it even among savages[736]."' + +'Baxter's _Reasons of the Christian Religion_, he thought contained the +best collection of the evidences of the divinity of the +Christian system.' + +'Chymistry[737] was always an interesting pursuit with Dr. Johnson. +Whilst he was in Wiltshire, he attended some experiments that were made +by a physician at Salisbury, on the new kinds of air[738]. In the +course of the experiments frequent mention being made of Dr. Priestley, +Dr. Johnson knit his brows, and in a stern manner enquired, "Why do we +hear so much of Dr. Priestley[739]?" He was very properly answered, +"Sir, because we are indebted to him for these important discoveries." +On this Dr. Johnson appeared well content; and replied, "Well, well, I +believe we are; and let every man have the honour he has merited."' + +'A friend was one day, about two years before his death, struck with +some instance of Dr. Johnson's great candour. "Well, Sir, (said he,) I +will always say that you are a very candid man." "Will you," (replied the +Doctor,) I doubt then you will be very singular. But, indeed, Sir, +(continued he,) I look upon myself to be a man very much misunderstood. +I am not an uncandid, nor am I a severe man. I sometimes say more than I +mean, in jest; and people are apt to believe me serious: however, I am +more candid than I was when I was younger. As I know more of mankind I +expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a _good man_, upon +easier terms than I was formerly[740].' + +On his return from Heale he wrote to Dr. Burney:-- + +'I came home on the 18th[741] at noon to a very disconsolate house. You +and I have lost our friends[742]; but you have more friends at home. My +domestick companion is taken from me. She is much missed, for her +acquisitions were many, and her curiosity universal; so that she partook +of every conversation[743]. I am not well enough to go much out; and to +sit, and eat, or fast alone, is very wearisome. I always mean to send my +compliments to all the ladies.' + +His fortitude and patience met with severe trials during this year. The +stroke of the palsy has been related circumstantially; but he was also +afflicted with the gout, and was besides troubled with a complaint which +not only was attended with immediate inconvenience, but threatened him +with a chirurgical operation, from which most men would shrink. The +complaint was a _sarcocele_, which Johnson bore with uncommon firmness, +and was not at all frightened while he looked forward to amputation. He +was attended by Mr. Pott and Mr. Cruikshank. I have before me a letter +of the 30th of July this year, to Mr. Cruikshank, in which he says, 'I +am going to put myself into your hands;' and another, accompanying a set +of his _Lives of the Poets_, in which he says, 'I beg your acceptance of +these volumes, as an acknowledgement of the great favours which you have +bestowed on, Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant.' I have in +my possession several more letters from him to Mr. Cruikshank, and also +to Dr. Mudge at Plymouth, which it would be improper to insert, as they +are filled with unpleasing technical details. I shall, however, extract +from his letters to Dr. Mudge such passages as shew either a felicity of +expression, or the undaunted state of his mind. + +'My conviction of your skill, and my belief of your friendship, +determine me to intreat your opinion and advice.'--'In this state I with +great earnestness desire you to tell me what is to be done. Excision is +doubtless necessary to the cure, and I know not any means of palliation. +The operation is doubtless painful; but is it dangerous? The pain I hope +to endure with decency[744]; but I am loth to put life into much +hazard.'--'By representing the gout as an antagonist to the palsy, you +have said enough to make it welcome. This is not strictly the first fit, +but I hope it is as good as the first; for it is the second that ever +confined me; and the first was ten years ago[745], much less fierce and +fiery than this.'--'Write, dear Sir, what you can to inform or encourage +me. The operation is not delayed by any fears or objections of mine.' + +To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. 'Dear Sir, You may very reasonably charge me +with insensibility of your kindness, and that of Lady Rothes, since I +have suffered so much time to pass without paying any acknowledgement. I +now, at last, return my thanks; and why I did it not sooner I ought to +tell you. I went into Wiltshire as soon as I well could, and was there +much employed in palliating my own malady. Disease produces much +selfishness. A man in pain is looking after ease; and lets most other +things go as chance shall dispose of them. In the mean time I have lost +a companion[746], to whom I have had recourse for domestick amusement +for thirty years, and whose variety of knowledge never was exhausted; +and now return to a habitation vacant and desolate. I carry about a very +troublesome and dangerous complaint, which admits no cure but by the +chirurgical knife. Let me have your prayers. I am, &c. + +SAM. JOHNSON. London, Sept. 29, 1783.' + +Happily the complaint abated without his being put to the torture of +amputation. But we must surely admire the manly resolution which he +discovered while it hung over him. + +In a letter to the same gentleman he writes, 'The gout has within these +four days come upon me with a violence which I never experienced before. +It made me helpless as an infant.' And in another, having mentioned Mrs. +Williams, he says,--'whose death following that of Levett, has now made +my house a solitude. She left her little substance to a charity-school. +She is, I hope, where there is neither darkness, nor want, nor sorrow.' + +I wrote to him, begging to know the state of his health, and mentioned +that Baxter's _Anacreon_[747], 'which is in the library at Auchinleck, +was, I find, collated by my father in 1727, with the MS. belonging to +the University of Leyden, and he has made a number of Notes upon it. +Would you advise me to publish a new edition of it?' + +His answer was dated September 30:-- + +'You should not make your letters such rarities, when you know, or might +know, the uniform state of my health. It is very long since I heard from +you; and that I have not answered is a very insufficient reason for the +silence of a friend. Your _Anacreon_ is a very uncommon book; neither +London nor Cambridge can supply a copy of that edition. Whether it +should be reprinted, you cannot do better than consult Lord +Hailes.--Besides my constant and radical disease, I have been for these +ten days much harassed with the gout; but that has now remitted. I hope +GOD will yet grant me a little longer life, and make me less unfit to +appear before him.' + +He this autumn received a visit from the celebrated Mrs. Siddons. He +gives this account of it in one of his letters[748] to Mrs. Thrale:-- + +'Mrs. Siddons, in her visit to me, behaved with great modesty and +propriety, and left nothing behind her to be censured or despised. +Neither praise nor money, the two powerful corrupters of mankind, seem +to have depraved her. I shall be glad to see her again. Her brother +Kemble calls on me, and pleases me very well. Mrs. Siddons and I talked +of plays; and she told me her intention of exhibiting this winter the +characters of Constance, Catharine, and Isabella, in Shakspeare.' + +Mr. Kemble has favoured me with the following minute of what passed at +this visit:-- + +'When Mrs. Siddons came into the room, there happened to be no chair +ready for her, which he observing, said with a smile, "Madam, you who so +often occasion a want of seats to other people, will the more easily +excuse the want of one yourself[749]." + +Having placed himself by her, he with great good-humour entered upon a +consideration of the English drama; and, among other inquiries, +particularly asked her which of Shakspeare's characters she was most +pleased with. Upon her answering that she thought the character of Queen +Catharine, in _Henry the Eighth_, the most natural:--"I think so too, +Madam, (said he;) and whenever you perform it, I will once more hobble +out to the theatre myself[750]." Mrs. Siddons promised she would do +herself the honour of acting his favourite part for him; but many +circumstances happened to prevent the representation of _King Henry the +Eighth_ during the Doctor's life. + +'In the course of the evening he thus gave his opinion upon the merits +of some of the principal performers whom he remembered to have seen upon +the stage. "Mrs. Porter,[751] in the vehemence of rage, and Mrs. Clive +in the sprightliness of humour, I have never seen equalled. What Clive +did best, she did better than Garrick; but could not do half so many +things well; she was a better romp than any I ever saw in nature[752]. +Pritchard[753], in common life, was a vulgar ideot; she would talk of +her _gownd_: but, when she appeared upon the stage, seemed to be +inspired by gentility and understanding. I once talked with Colley +Cibber[754], and thought him ignorant of the principles of his art. +Garrick, Madam, was no declaimer; there was not one of his own +scene-shifters who could not have spoken _To be, or not to be_, better +than he did[755]; yet he was the only actor I ever saw, whom I could +call a master both in tragedy and comedy[756]; though I liked him best +in comedy. A true conception of character, and natural expression of it, +were his distinguished excellencies." Having expatiated, with his usual +force and eloquence, on Mr. Garrick's extraordinary eminence as an +actor, he concluded with this compliment to his social talents: "And +after all, Madam, I thought him less to be envied on the stage than at +the head of a table."' + +Johnson, indeed, had thought more upon the subject of acting than might +be generally supposed[757]. Talking of it one day to Mr. Kemble, he +said, 'Are you, Sir, one of those enthusiasts who believe yourself +transformed into the very character you represent?' Upon Mr. Kemble's +answering that he had never felt so strong a persuasion himself[758]; +'To be sure not, Sir, (said Johnson;) the thing is impossible. And if +Garrick really believed himself to be that monster, Richard the Third, +he deserved to be hanged every time he performed it[759].' + +A pleasing instance of the generous attention of one of his friends has +been discovered by the publication of Mrs. Thrale's collection of +_Letters_. In a letter to one of the Miss Thrales[760], he writes,-- + +'A friend, whose name I will tell when your mamma has tried to guess +it, sent to my physician to enquire whether this long train of illness +had brought me into difficulties for want of money, with an invitation +to send to him for what occasion required. I shall write this night to +thank him, having no need to borrow.' + +And afterwards, in a letter to Mrs. Thrale,-- + +'Since you cannot guess, I will tell you, that the generous man was +Gerard Hamilton. I returned him a very thankful and respectful +letter[761].' + +I applied to Mr. Hamilton, by a common friend, and he has been so +obliging as to let me have Johnson's letter to him upon this occasion, +to adorn my collection. + +'To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Your kind enquiries after my affairs, and your generous offers, have +been communicated to me by Dr. Brocklesby. I return thanks with great +sincerity, having lived long enough to know what gratitude is due to +such friendship; and entreat that my refusal may not be imputed to +sullenness or pride. I am, indeed, in no want. Sickness is, by the +generosity of my physicians, of little expence to me. But if any +unexpected exigence should press me, you shall see, dear Sir, how +cheerfully I can be obliged to so much liberality. + + 'I am, Sir, + Your most obedient + And most humble servant, + SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'November, 19, 1783[762].' + +I find in this, as in former years, notices of his kind attention to +Mrs. Gardiner[763], who, though in the humble station of a +tallow-chandler upon Snow-hill, was a woman of excellent good sense, +pious, and charitable. She told me, she had been introduced to him by +Mrs. Masters[764], the poetess, whose volumes he revised, and, it is +said, illuminated here and there with a ray of his own genius. Mrs. +Gardiner was very zealous for the support of the Ladies' charity-school, +in the parish of St. Sepulchre. It is confined to females; and, I am +told, it afforded a hint for the story of _Betty Broom_ in _The +Idler_[765]. Johnson this year, I find, obtained for it a sermon from +the late Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. Shipley, whom he, in one of his +letters to Mrs. Thrale[766], characterises as 'knowing and conversible;' +and whom all who knew his Lordship, even those who differed from him in +politicks, remember with much respect[767]. + +The Earl of Carlisle having written a tragedy, entitled _The Fathers +Revenge_[768], some of his Lordship's friends applied to Mrs. +Chapone[769] to prevail on Dr. Johnson to read and give his opinion of +it[770], which he accordingly did, in a letter to that lady. Sir Joshua +Reynolds having informed me that this letter was in Lord Carlisle's +possession, though I was not fortunate enough to have the honour of +being known to his Lordship, trusting to the general courtesy of +literature, I wrote to him, requesting the favour of a copy of it, and +to be permitted to insert it in my _Life of Dr. Johnson_. His Lordship +was so good as to comply with my request, and has thus enabled me to +enrich my work with a very fine piece of writing, which displays both +the critical skill and politeness of my illustrious friend; and perhaps +the curiosity which it will excite, may induce the noble and elegant +Authour to gratify the world by the publication[771] of a performance, +of which Dr. Johnson has spoken in such terms. + +'To MRS. CHAPONE. + +'MADAM, + +'By sending the tragedy to me a second time[772], I think that a very +honourable distinction has been shewn me, and I did not delay the +perusal, of which I am now to tell the effect. + +'The construction of the play is not completely regular; the stage is +too often vacant, and the scenes are not sufficiently connected. This, +however, would be called by Dryden only a mechanical defect[773]; which +takes away little from the power of the poem, and which is seen rather +than felt. + +'A rigid examiner of the diction might, perhaps, wish some words +changed, and some lines more vigorously terminated. But from such petty +imperfections what writer was ever free? + +'The general form and force of the dialogue is of more importance. It +seems to want that quickness of reciprocation which characterises the +English drama, and is not always sufficiently fervid or animated. + +'Of the sentiments I remember not one that I wished omitted. In the +imagery I cannot forbear to distinguish the comparison of joy succeeding +grief to light rushing on the eye accustomed to darkness. It seems to +have all that can be desired to make it please. It is new, just, and +delightful[774]. + +'With the characters, either as conceived or preserved, I have no fault +to find; but was much inclined to congratulate a writer, who, in +defiance of prejudice and fashion, made the Archbishop a good man, and +scorned all thoughtless applause, which a vicious churchman would have +brought him. + +'The catastrophe is affecting. The Father and Daughter both culpable, +both wretched, and both penitent, divide between them our pity and +our sorrow. + +'Thus, Madam, I have performed what I did not willingly undertake, and +could not decently refuse. The noble writer will be pleased to remember, +that sincere criticism ought to raise no resentment, because judgement +is not under the controul of will; but involuntary criticism, as it has +still less of choice, ought to be more remote from possibility +of offence. + +'I am, &c., + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'November 28, 1783.' + +I consulted him on two questions of a very different nature: one, +whether the unconstitutional influence exercised by the Peers of +Scotland in the election of the representatives of the Commons[775], by +means of fictitious qualifications, ought not to be resisted;--the +other, What, in propriety and humanity, should be done with old horses +unable to labour. I gave him some account of my life at Auchinleck: and +expressed my satisfaction that the gentlemen of the county had, at two +publick meetings, elected me their _Praeses_ or Chairman[776]. + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Like all other men who have great friends, you begin to feel the pangs +of neglected merit; and all the comfort that I can give you is, by +telling you that you have probably more pangs to feel, and more neglect +to suffer. You have, indeed, begun to complain too soon; and I hope I +am the only confidant of your discontent. Your friends have not yet had +leisure to gratify personal kindness; they have hitherto been busy in +strengthening their ministerial interest[777]. If a vacancy happens in +Scotland, give them early intelligence; and as you can serve Government +as powerfully as any of your probable competitors, you may make in some +sort a warrantable claim. + +'Of the exaltations and depressions of your mind you delight to talk, +and I hate to hear. Drive all such fancies from you. + +'On the day when I received your letter, I think, the foregoing page was +written; to which, one disease or another has hindered me from making +any additions. I am now a little better. But sickness and solitude press +me very heavily. I could bear sickness better, if I were relieved from +solitude[778]. + +'The present dreadful confusion of the publick[779] ought to make you +wrap yourself up in your hereditary possessions, which, though less than +you may wish, are more than you can want; and in an hour of religious +retirement return thanks to GOD, who has exempted you from any strong +temptation to faction, treachery, plunder[780], and disloyalty. + +'As your neighbours distinguish you by such honours as they can bestow, +content yourself with your station, without neglecting your profession. +Your estate and the Courts will find you full employment; and your mind, +well occupied, will be quiet. + +'The usurpation of the nobility, for they apparently usurp all the +influence they gain by fraud and misrepresentation, I think it certainly +lawful, perhaps your duty, to resist. What is not their own they have +only by robbery. + +'Your question about the horses gives me more perplexity. I know not +well what advice to give you. I can only recommend a rule which you do +not want;--give as little pain as you can. I suppose that we have a +right to their service while their strength lasts; what we can do with +them afterwards I cannot so easily determine. But let us consider. +Nobody denies that man has a right first to milk the cow, and to sheer +the sheep, and then to kill them for his table. May he not, by parity of +reason, first work a horse, and then kill him the easiest way, that he +may have the means of another horse, or food for cows and sheep? Man is +influenced in both cases by different motives of self-interest. He that +rejects the one must reject the other. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Dec. 24, 1783.' + +'A happy and pious Christmas; and many happy years to you, your lady, +and children.' + +The late ingenious Mr. Mickle[781], some time before his death, wrote me +a letter concerning Dr. Johnson, in which he mentions,-- + +'I was upwards of twelve years acquainted with him, was frequently in +his company, always talked with ease to him, and can truly say, that I +never received from him one rough word.' + +In this letter he relates his having, while engaged in translating the +_Lusiad_, had a dispute of considerable length with Johnson, who, as +usual, declaimed upon the misery and corruption of a sea life, and used +this expression:--'It had been happy for the world, Sir, if your hero +Gama, Prince Henry of Portugal, and Columbus, had never been born, or +that their schemes had never gone farther than their own imaginations.' + +'This sentiment, (says Mr. Mickle,) which is to be found in his +_Introduction to the World displayed_[782], I, in my Dissertation +prefixed to the _Lusiad_, have controverted; and though authours are +said to be bad judges of their own works[783], I am not ashamed to own +to a friend, that that dissertation is my favourite above all that I +ever attempted in prose. Next year, when the Lusiad was published, I +waited on Dr. Johnson, who addressed me with one of his good-humoured +smiles:--"Well, you have remembered our dispute about Prince Henry, and +have cited me too. You have done your part very well indeed: you have +made the best of your argument; but I am not convinced yet." + +'Before publishing the _Lusiad_, I sent Mr. Hoole a proof of that part +of the introduction, in which I make mention of Dr. Johnson, yourself, +and other well-wishers to the work, begging it might be shewn to Dr. +Johnson. This was accordingly done; and in place of the simple mention +of him which I had made, he dictated to Mr. Hoole the sentence as it now +stands[784]. + +'Dr. Johnson told me in 1772, that, about twenty years before that time, +he himself had a design to translate the _Lusiad_, of the merit of which +he spoke highly, but had been prevented by a number of other +engagements.' + +Mr. Mickle reminds me in this letter of a conversation, at dinner one +day at Mr. Hoole's with Dr. Johnson, when Mr. Nicol the King's +bookseller and I attempted to controvert the maxim, 'better that ten +guilty should escape, than one innocent person suffer;' and were +answered by Dr. Johnson with great power of reasoning and eloquence. I +am very sorry that I have no record of that day[785]: but I well +recollect my illustrious friend's having ably shewn, that unless civil +institutions insure protection to the innocent, all the confidence which +mankind should have in them would be lost. + +I shall here mention what, in strict chronological arrangement, should +have appeared in my account of last year; but may more properly be +introduced here, the controversy having not been closed till this. The +Reverend Mr. Shaw[786], a native of one of the Hebrides, having +entertained doubts of the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ossian, +divested himself of national bigotry; and having travelled in the +Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and also in Ireland, in order to +furnish himself with materials for a _Gaelick Dictionary_, which he +afterwards compiled[787], was so fully satisfied that Dr. Johnson was in +the right upon the question, that he candidly published a pamphlet, +stating his conviction and the proofs and reasons on which it was +founded. A person at Edinburgh, of the name of Clark, answered this +pamphlet with much zeal, and much abuse of its authour. Johnson took Mr. +Shaw under his protection, and gave him his assistance in writing a +reply, which has been admired by the best judges, and by many been +considered as conclusive. A few paragraphs, which sufficiently mark +their great Authour, shall be selected:-- + +'My assertions are, for the most part, purely negative: I deny the +existence of Fingal, because in a long and curious peregrination through +the Gaelick regions I have never been able to find it. What I could not +see myself I suspect to be equally invisible to others; and I suspect +with the more reason, as among all those who have seen it no man +can shew it. + +'Mr. Clark compares the obstinacy of those who disbelieve the +genuineness of Ossian to a blind man, who should dispute the reality of +colours, and deny that the British troops are cloathed in red. The blind +man's doubt would be rational, if he did not know by experience that +others have a power which he himself wants: but what perspicacity has +Mr. Clark which Nature has withheld from me or the rest of mankind? + +'The true state of the parallel must be this. Suppose a man, with eyes +like his neighbours, was told by a boasting corporal, that the troops, +indeed, wore red clothes for their ordinary dress, but that every +soldier had likewise a suit of black velvet, which he put on when the +King reviews them. This he thinks strange, and desires to see the fine +clothes, but finds nobody in forty thousand men that can produce either +coat or waistcoat. One, indeed, has left them in his chest at Port +Mahon; another has always heard that he ought to have velvet clothes +somewhere; and a third has heard somebody say, that soldiers ought to +wear velvet. Can the enquirer be blamed if he goes away believing that a +soldier's red coat is all that he has? + +'But the most obdurate incredulity may be shamed or silenced by acts. To +overpower contradictions, let the soldier shew his velvet-coat, and the +Fingalist the original of Ossian[788]. + +'The difference between us and the blind man is this:--the blind man is +unconvinced, because he cannot see; and we, because though we can see, +we find that nothing can be shown.' + +Notwithstanding the complication of disorders under which Johnson now +laboured, he did not resign himself to despondency and discontent, but +with wisdom and spirit endeavoured to console and amuse his mind with as +many innocent enjoyments as he could procure. Sir John Hawkins has +mentioned the cordiality with which he insisted that such of the members +of the old club in Ivy-lane[789] as survived, should meet again and dine +together, which they did, twice at a tavern and once at his house[790]: +and in order to insure himself society in the evening for three days in +the week[791], he instituted a club at the Essex Head, in Essex-street, +then kept by Samuel Greaves, an old servant of Mr. Thrale's. + +'To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'It is inconvenient to me to come out, I should else have waited on you +with an account of a little evening Club which we are establishing in +Essex-street, in the Strand, and of which you are desired to be one. It +will be held at the Essex Head, now kept by an old servant of Thrale's. +The company is numerous, and, as you will see by the list, +miscellaneous. The terms are lax, and the expences light. Mr. Barry was +adopted by Dr. Brocklesby, who joined with me in forming the plan. We +meet thrice a week, and he who misses forfeits two-pence[792]. + +'If you are willing to become a member, draw a line under your name. +Return the list. We meet for the first time on Monday at eight.' + + 'I am, &c. + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Dec. 4, 1783.' + +It did not suit Sir Joshua to be one of this Club. But when I mention +only Mr. Daines Barrington, Dr. Brocklesby, Mr. Murphy, Mr. John +Nichols, Mr. Cooke, Mr. Joddrel, Mr. Paradise, Dr. Horsley, Mr. +Windham[793], I shall sufficiently obviate the misrepresentation of it +by Sir John Hawkins, as if it had been a low ale-house association, by +which Johnson was degraded[794]. Johnson himself, like his namesake Old +Ben[795], composed the Rules of his Club[796]. + +In the end of this year he was seized with a spasmodick asthma of such +violence, that he was confined to the house in great pain, being +sometimes obliged to sit all night in his chair, a recumbent posture +being so hurtful to his respiration, that he could not endure lying in +bed; and there came upon him at the same time that oppressive and fatal +disease, a dropsy. It was a very severe winter, which probably +aggravated his complaints; and the solitude in which Mr. Levett and Mrs. +Williams had left him, rendered his life very gloomy. Mrs. +Desmoulins[797], who still lived, was herself so very ill, that she +could contribute very little to his relief[798]. He, however, had none +of that unsocial shyness which we commonly see in people afflicted with +sickness. He did not hide his head from the world, in solitary +abstraction; he did not deny himself to the visits of his friends and +acquaintances; but at all times, when he was not overcome by sleep, was +ready for conversation as in his best days[799]. + +'To MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'You may perhaps think me negligent that I have not written to you +again[800] upon the loss of your brother; but condolences and +consolations are such common and such useless things, that the omission +of them is no great crime: and my own diseases occupy my mind, and +engage my care. My nights are miserably restless, and my days, +therefore, are heavy. I try, however, to hold up my head as high as +I can[801]. + +'I am sorry that your health is impaired; perhaps the spring and the +summer may, in some degree, restore it: but if not, we must submit to +the inconveniences of time, as to the other dispensations of Eternal +Goodness. Pray for me, and write to me, or let Mr. Pearson write +for you. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Nov. 29, 1783.' + +1784: Aetat. 75.--And now I am arrived at the last year of the life of +SAMUEL JOHNSON, a year in which, although passed in severe +indisposition, he nevertheless gave many evidences of the continuance of +those wondrous powers of mind, which raised him so high in the +intellectual world. His conversation and his letters of this year were +in no respect inferiour to those of former years. + +The following is a remarkable proof of his being alive to the most +minute curiosities of literature. + +'To MR. DILLY, BOOKSELLER, IN THE POULTRY. + +'SIR, + +'There is in the world a set of books which used to be sold by the +booksellers on the bridge[802], and which I must entreat you to procure +me. They are called _Burton's Books_[803]; the title of one is +_Admirable Curiosities, Rarities, and Wonders in England_. I believe +there are about five or six of them; they seem very proper to allure +backward readers; be so kind as to get them for me, and send me them +with the best printed edition of _Baxter's Call to the Unconverted_. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 6, 1784.' + +'To MR. PERKINS. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I was very sorry not to see you when you were so kind as to call on me; +but to disappoint friends, and if they are not very good natured, to +disoblige them, is one of the evils of sickness. If you will please to +let me know which of the afternoons in this week I shall be favoured +with another visit by you and Mrs. Perkins, and the young people, I will +take all the measures that I can to be pretty well at that time[804]. + +'I am, dear Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 21, 1784.' + +His attention to the Essex-Head Club appears from the following letter +to Mr. Alderman Clark, a gentleman for whom he deservedly entertained a +great regard. + +'To RICHARD CLARK, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'You will receive a requisition, according to the rules of the Club, to +be at the house as President of the night. This turn comes once a month, +and the member is obliged to attend, or send another in his place. You +were enrolled in the Club by my invitation, and I ought to introduce +you; but as I am hindered by sickness, Mr. Hoole will very properly +supply my place as introductor, or yours as President. I hope in milder +weather to be a very constant attendant. + +'I am, Sir, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 27, 1784.' + +'You ought to be informed that the forfeits began with the year, and +that every night of non-attendance incurs the mulct of three-pence, that +is, nine pence a week.' + +On the 8th of January I wrote to him, anxiously inquiring as to his +health, and enclosing my _Letter to the People of Scotland, on the +present state of the nation_[805]. + +'I trust, (said I,) that you will be liberal enough to make allowance +for my differing from you on two points, (the Middlesex Election, and +the American War[806]) when my general principles of government are +according to your own heart, and when, at a crisis of doubtful event, I +stand forth with honest zeal as an ancient and faithful Briton. My +reason for introducing those two points was, that as my opinions with +regard to them had been declared at the periods when they were least +favourable, I might have the credit of a man who is not a worshipper of +ministerial power.' + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I hear of many enquiries which your kindness has disposed you to make +after me[807]. I have long intended you a long letter, which perhaps the +imagination of its length hindered me from beginning. I will, therefore, +content myself with a shorter. + +'Having promoted the institution of a new Club in the neighbourhood, at +the house of an old servant of Thrale's, I went thither to meet the +company, and was seized with a spasmodick asthma so violent, that with +difficulty I got to my own house, in which I have been confined eight or +nine weeks, and from which I know not when I shall be able to go even to +church. The asthma, however, is not the worst. A dropsy gains ground +upon me; my legs and thighs are very much swollen with water, which I +should be content if I could keep there, but I am afraid that it will +soon be higher. My nights are very sleepless and very tedious. And yet I +am extremely afraid of dying. + +'My physicians try to make me hope, that much of my malady is the effect +of cold, and that some degree at least of recovery is to be expected +from vernal breezes and summer suns[808]. If my life is prolonged to +autumn, I should be glad to try a warmer climate; though how to travel +with a diseased body, without a companion to conduct me, and with very +little money, I do not well see. Ramsay has recovered his limbs in +Italy[809]; and Fielding was sent to Lisbon, where, indeed, he died; but +he was, I believe, past hope when he went. Think for me what I can do. + +'I received your pamphlet, and when I write again may perhaps tell you +some opinion about it; but you will forgive a man struggling with +disease his neglect of disputes, politicks, and pamphlets[810]. Let me +have your prayers. My compliments to your lady, and young ones. Ask +your physicians about my case: and desire Sir Alexander Dick[811] to +write me his opinion. + +'I am, dear Sir, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Feb. 11, 1784.' + +'TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. + +'MY DEAREST LOVE, + +'I have been extremely ill of an asthma and dropsy, but received, by the +mercy of GOD, sudden and unexpected relief last Thursday, by the +discharge of twenty pints of water[812]. Whether I shall continue free, +or shall fill again, cannot be told. Pray for me. + +'Death, my dear, is very dreadful; let us think nothing worth our care +but how to prepare for it: what we know amiss in ourselves let us make +haste to amend, and put our trust in the mercy of GOD, and the +intercession of our Saviour. I am, dear Madam, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Feb. 23, 1784.' + +TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I have just advanced so far towards recovery as to read a pamphlet; and +you may reasonably suppose that the first pamphlet which I read was +yours. I am very much of your opinion, and, like you, feel great +indignation at the indecency with which the King is every day treated. +Your paper contains very considerable knowledge of history and of the +constitution, very properly produced and applied. It will certainly +raise your character[813], though perhaps it may not make you a +Minister of State. + +'I desire you to see Mrs. Stewart once again, and tell her, that in the +letter-case was a letter relating to me, for which I will give her, if +she is willing to give it me, another guinea[814]. The letter is of +consequence only to me. + +'I am, dear Sir, &c. 'SAM. JOHNSON.' 'London, Feb. 27, 1784.' + +In consequence of Johnson's request that I should ask our physicians +about his case, and desire Sir Alexander Dick to send his opinion, I +transmitted him a letter from that very amiable Baronet, then in his +eighty-first year, with his faculties as entire as ever; and mentioned +his expressions to me in the note accompanying it: 'With my most +affectionate wishes for Dr. Johnson's recovery, in which his friends, +his country, and all mankind have so deep a stake:' and at the same time +a full opinion upon his case by Dr. Gillespie, who, like Dr. Cullen, had +the advantage of having passed through the gradations of surgery and +pharmacy, and by study and practice had attained to such skill, that my +father settled on him two hundred pounds a year for five years, and +fifty pounds a year during his life, as an _honorarium_ to secure his +particular attendance. The opinion was conveyed in a letter to me, +beginning, 'I am sincerely sorry for the bad state of health your very +learned and illustrious friend, Dr. Johnson, labours under at present.' + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. 'DEAR SIR, + +'Presently after I had sent away my last letter, I received your kind +medical packet. I am very much obliged both to you and your physicians +for your kind attention to my disease. Dr. Gillespie has sent me an +excellent _consilium medicum_, all solid practical experimental +knowledge. I am at present, in the opinion of my physicians, (Dr. +Heberden and Dr. Brocklesby,) as well as my own, going on very +hopefully. I have just begun to take vinegar of squills. The powder hurt +my stomach so much, that it could not be continued. + +'Return Sir Alexander Dick my sincere thanks for his kind letter; and +bring with you the rhubarb[815] which he so tenderly offers me. + +'I hope dear Mrs. Boswell is now quite well, and that no evil, either +real or imaginary, now disturbs you. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 2, 1784.' + +I also applied to three of the eminent physicians who had chairs in our +celebrated school of medicine at Edinburgh, Doctors Cullen, Hope, and +Monro, to each of whom I sent the following letter:-- + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Dr. Johnson has been very ill for some time; and in a letter of anxious +apprehension he writes to me, "Ask your physicians about my case." + +'This, you see, is not authority for a regular consultation: but I have +no doubt of your readiness to give your advice to a man so eminent, and +who, in his _Life of Garth_, has paid your profession a just and elegant +compliment: "I believe every man has found in physicians great +liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusions[816] of +beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art, where there is no +hope of lucre." + +'Dr. Johnson is aged seventy-four. Last summer he had a stroke of the +palsy, from which he recovered almost entirely. He had, before that, +been troubled with a catarrhous cough. This winter he was seized with a +spasmodick asthma, by which he has been confined to his house for about +three months. Dr. Brocklesby writes to me, that upon the least admission +of cold, there is such a constriction upon his breast, that he cannot +lie down in his bed, but is obliged to sit up all night, and gets rest +and sometimes sleep, only by means of laudanum and syrup of poppies; and +that there are oedematous tumours on his legs and thighs. Dr. Brocklesby +trusts a good deal to the return of mild weather. Dr. Johnson says, that +a dropsy gains ground upon him; and he seems to think that a warmer +climate would do him good. I understand he is now rather better, and is +using vinegar of squills. I am, with great esteem, dear Sir, + +'Your most obedient humble servant, + +'JAMES BOSWELL.' + +'March 7, 1784.' + +All of them paid the most polite attention to my letter, and its +venerable object. Dr. Cullen's words concerning him were, 'It would give +me the greatest pleasure to be of any service to a man whom the publick +properly esteem, and whom I esteem and respect as much as I do Dr. +Johnson.' Dr. Hope's, 'Few people have a better claim on me than your +friend, as hardly a day passes that I do not ask his opinion about this +or that word.' Dr. Monro's, 'I most sincerely join you in sympathizing +with that very worthy and ingenious character, from whom his country has +derived much instruction and entertainment.' + +Dr. Hope corresponded with his friend Dr. Brocklesby. Doctors Cullen and +Monro wrote their opinions and prescriptions to me, which I afterwards +carried with me to London, and, so far as they were encouraging, +communicated to Johnson. The liberality on one hand, and grateful sense +of it on the other, I have great satisfaction in recording. + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I am too much pleased with the attention which you and your dear +lady[817] show to my welfare, not to be diligent in letting you know the +progress which I make towards health. The dropsy, by GOD'S blessing, has +now run almost totally away by natural evacuation; and the asthma, if +not irritated by cold, gives me little trouble. While I am writing this, +I have not any sensation of debility or disease. But I do not yet +venture out, having been confined to the house from the thirteenth of +December, now a quarter of a year. + +'When it will be fit for me to travel as far as Auchinleck, I am not +able to guess; but such a letter as Mrs. Boswell's might draw any man, +not wholly motionless, a great way. Pray tell the dear lady how much her +civility and kindness have touched and gratified me. + +'Our parliamentary tumults have now begun to subside, and the King's +authority is in some measure re-established[818]. Mr. Pitt will have +great power: but you must remember, that what he has to give must, at +least for some time, be given to those who gave, and those who preserve, +his power. A new minister can sacrifice little to esteem or friendship; +he must, till he is settled, think only of extending his interest. + + * * * * * + +'If you come hither through Edinburgh, send for Mrs. Stewart, and give +from me another guinea for the letter in the old case, to which I shall +not be satisfied with my claim, till she gives it me. + +'Please to bring with you Baxter's _Anacreon_[819]; and if you procure +heads of _Hector Boece_[820], the historian, and _Arthur Johnston_[821], +the poet, I will put them in my room[822]; or any other of the fathers +of Scottish literature. + +'I wish you an easy and happy journey, and hope I need not tell you that +you will be welcome to, dear Sir, + +'Your most affectionate, humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 18, 1784.' + +I wrote to him, March 28, from York, informing him that I had a high +gratification in the triumph of monarchical principles over +aristocratical influence, in that great country, in an address to the +King[823]; that I was thus far on my way to him, but that news of the +dissolution of Parliament having arrived, I was to hasten back to my own +county, where I had carried an Address to his Majesty by a great +majority, and had some intention of being a candidate to represent the +county in Parliament. + +'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'You could do nothing so proper as to haste back when you found the +Parliament dissolved. With the influence which your Address must have +gained you, it may reasonably be expected that your presence will be of +importance, and your activity of effect. + +'Your solicitude for me gives me that pleasure which every man feels +from the kindness of such a friend: and it is with delight I relieve it +by telling, that Dr. Brocklesby's account is true, and that I am, by the +blessing of GOD, wonderfully relieved. + +'You are entering upon a transaction which requires much prudence. You +must endeavour to oppose without exasperating; to practise temporary +hostility, without producing enemies for life. This is, perhaps, hard to +be done; yet it has been done by many, and seems most likely to be +effected by opposing merely upon general principles, without descending +to personal or particular censures or objections. One thing I must +enjoin you, which is seldom observed in the conduct of elections;--I +must entreat you to be scrupulous in the use of strong liquors. One +night's drunkenness may defeat the labours of forty days well employed. +Be firm, but not clamorous; be active, but not malicious; and you may +form such an interest, as may not only exalt yourself, but dignify +your family. + +'We are, as you may suppose, all busy here. Mr. Fox resolutely stands +for Westminster, and his friends say will carry the election[824]. +However that be, he will certainly have a seat[825]. Mr. Hoole has just +told me, that the city leans towards the King. + +'Let me hear, from time to time, how you are employed, and what progress +you make. + +'Make dear Mrs. Boswell, and all the young Boswells, the sincere +compliments of, Sir, your affectionate humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 30, 1784.' + +To Mr. Langton he wrote with that cordiality which was suitable to the +long friendship which had subsisted between him and that +gentleman[826]. + +March 27. 'Since you left me, I have continued in my own opinion, and in +Dr, Brocklesby's, to grow better with respect to all my formidable and +dangerous distempers: though to a body battered and shaken as mine has +lately been, it is to be feared that weak attacks may be sometimes +mischievous. I have, indeed, by standing carelessly at an open window, +got a very troublesome cough, which it has been necessary to appease by +opium, in larger quantities than I like to take, and I have not found it +give way so readily as I expected; its obstinacy, however, seems at last +disposed to submit to the remedy, and I know not whether I should then +have a right to complain of any morbid sensation. My asthma is, I am +afraid, constitutional and incurable; but it is only occasional, and +unless it be excited by labour or by cold, gives me no molestation, nor +does it lay very close siege to life; for Sir John Floyer[827], whom the +physical race consider as authour of one of the best books upon it, +panted on to ninety, as was supposed; and why were we content with +supposing a fact so interesting, of a man so conspicuous? because he +corrupted, at perhaps seventy or eighty, the register, that he might +pass for younger than he was. He was not much less than eighty, when to +a man of rank who modestly asked his age, he answered, "Go look;" though +he was in general a man of civility and elegance. + +'The ladies, I find, are at your house all well, except Miss Langton, +who will probably soon recover her health by light suppers. Let her eat +at dinner as she will, but not take a full stomach to bed. Pay my +sincere respects to dear Miss Langton in Lincolnshire, let her know that +I mean not to break our league of friendship, and that I have a set of +_Lives_ for her, when I have the means of sending it.' + +April 8. 'I am still disturbed by my cough; but what thanks have I not +to pay, when my cough is the most painful sensation that I feel? and +from that I expect hardly to be released, while winter continues to +gripe us with so much pertinacity. The year has now advanced eighteen +days beyond the equinox, and still there is very little remission of the +cold. When warm weather comes, which surely must come at last, I hope it +will help both me and your young lady. + +'The man so busy about addresses is neither more nor less than our own +Boswell, who had come as far as York towards London, but turned back on +the dissolution, and is said now to stand for some place. Whether to +wish him success, his best friends hesitate. + +'Let me have your prayers for the completion of my recovery: I am now +better than I ever expected to have been. May GOD add to his mercies +the grace that may enable me to use them according to his will. My +compliments to all.' + +April 13. 'I had this evening a note from Lord Portmore[828], desiring +that I would give you an account of my health. You might have had it +with less circumduction. I am, by GOD'S blessing, I believe, free from +all morbid sensations, except a cough, which is only troublesome. But I +am still weak, and can have no great hope of strength till the weather +shall be softer. The summer, if it be kindly, will, I hope, enable me to +support the winter. GOD, who has so wonderfully restored me, can +preserve me in all seasons. + +'Let me enquire in my turn after the state of your family, great and +little. I hope Lady Rothes and Miss Langton are both well. That is a +good basis of content. Then how goes George on with his studies? How +does Miss Mary? And how does my own Jenny? I think I owe Jenny a letter, +which I will take care to pay. In the mean time tell her that I +acknowledge the debt. + +'Be pleased to make my compliments to the ladies. If Mrs. Langton comes +to London, she will favour me with a visit, for I am not well enough +to go out.' + +'To OZIAS HUMPHRY[829], ESQ. + +'SIR, + +'Mr. Hoole has told me with what benevolence you listened to a request +which I was almost afraid to make, of leave to a young painter[830] to +attend you from time to time in your painting-room, to see your +operations, and receive your instructions[831]. + +'The young man has perhaps good parts, but has been without a regular +education. He is my god-son, and therefore I interest myself in his +progress and success, and shall think myself much favoured if I receive +from you a permission to send him. + +'My health is, by GOD'S blessing, much restored, but I am not yet +allowed by my physicians to go abroad; nor, indeed, do I think myself +yet able to endure the weather. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'April 5, 1784.' + +To THE SAME. + +'SIR, + +'The bearer is my god-son, whom I take the liberty of recommending to +your kindness; which I hope he will deserve by his respect to your +excellence, and his gratitude for your favours. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'April 10, 1784.' + +To THE SAME. + +'SIR, + +'I am very much obliged by your civilities to my god-son, but must beg +of you to add to them the favour of permitting him to see you paint, +that he may know how a picture is begun, advanced and completed. + +'If he may attend you in a few of your operations, I hope he will shew +that the benefit has been properly conferred, both by his proficiency +and his gratitude. At least I shall consider you as enlarging your +kindness to, Sir, + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'May 31, 1784.' + +'To THE REVEREND DR. TAYLOR, ASHBOURNE, DERBYSHIRE. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'What can be the reason that I hear nothing from you? I hope nothing +disables you from writing. What I have seen, and what I have felt, gives +me reason to fear every thing. Do not omit giving me the comfort of +knowing, that after all my losses I have yet a friend left. + +'I want every comfort. My life is very solitary and very cheerless. +Though it has pleased GOD wonderfully to deliver me from the dropsy, I +am yet very weak, and have not passed the door since the 13th of +December[832]. I hope for some help from warm weather, which will surely +come in time. + +'I could not have the consent of the physicians to go to church +yesterday; I therefore received the holy sacrament at home, in the room +where I communicated with dear Mrs. Williams, a little before her death. +O! my friend, the approach of death is very dreadful. I am afraid to +think on that which I know I cannot avoid. It is vain to look round and +round for that help which cannot be had. Yet we hope and hope, and fancy +that he who has lived to-day may live to-morrow. But let us learn to +derive our hope only from GOD. + +'In the mean time, let us be kind to one another. I have no friend now +living but you and Mr. Hector, that was the friend of my youth. Do not +neglect, dear Sir, + +'Yours affectionately, + +'SAM. JOHNSON[833].' + +'London, Easter-Monday, + +April 12, 1784.' + +What follows is a beautiful specimen of his gentleness and complacency +to a young lady his god-child, one of the daughters of his friend Mr. +Langton, then I think in her seventh year. He took the trouble to write +it in a large round hand, nearly resembling printed characters, that she +might have the satisfaction of reading it herself. The original lies +before me, but shall be faithfully restored to her; and I dare say will +be preserved by her as a jewel as long as she lives[834]. + +'To Miss JANE LANGTON, IN ROCHESTER, KENT. + +'MY DEAREST MISS JENNY, + +'I am sorry that your pretty letter has been so long without being +answered; but, when I am not pretty well, I do not always write plain +enough for young ladies. I am glad, my dear, to see that you write so +well, and hope that you mind your pen, your book, and your needle, for +they are all necessary. Your books will give you knowledge, and make you +respected; and your needle will find you useful employment when you do +not care to read. When you are a little older, I hope you will be very +diligent in learning arithmetick[835], and, above all, that through your +whole life you will carefully say your prayers, and read your Bible. + +'I am, my dear, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'May 10, 1784.' + +On Wednesday, May 5, I arrived in London, and next morning had the +pleasure to find Dr. Johnson greatly recovered. I but just saw him; for +a coach was waiting to carry him to Islington, to the house of his +friend the Reverend Mr. Strahan, where he went sometimes for the benefit +of good air, which, notwithstanding his having formerly laughed at the +general opinion upon the subject, he now acknowledged was conducive +to health. + +One morning afterwards, when I found him alone, he communicated to me, +with solemn earnestness, a very remarkable circumstance which had +happened in the course of his illness, when he was much distressed by +the dropsy. He had shut himself up, and employed a day in particular +exercises of religion,--fasting, humiliation, and prayer. On a sudden he +obtained extraordinary relief, for which he looked up to Heaven with +grateful devotion. He made no direct inference from this fact; but from +his manner of telling it, I could perceive that it appeared to him as +something more than an incident in the common course of events[836]. For +my own part, I have no difficulty to avow that cast of thinking, which +by many modern pretenders to wisdom is called _superstitious_. But here +I think even men of dry rationality may believe, that there was an +intermediate[837] interposition of Divine Providence, and that 'the +fervent prayer of this righteous man[838]' availed[839]. + +On Sunday, May 9, I found Colonel Valiancy, the celebrated antiquarian +and Engineer of Ireland, with him. On Monday, the 10th, I dined with him +at Mr. Paradise's, where was a large company; Mr. Bryant, Mr. Joddrel, +Mr. Hawkins Browne, &c. On Thursday, the 13th, I dined with him at Mr. +Joddrel's, with another large company; the Bishop of Exeter, Lord +Monboddo[840], Mr. Murphy, &c. + +On Saturday, May 15[841], I dined with him at Dr. Brocklesby's, where +were Colonel Vallancy, Mr. Murphy, and that ever-cheerful companion Mr. +Devaynes, apothecary to his Majesty. Of these days, and others on which +I saw him, I have no memorials, except the general recollection of his +being able and animated in conversation, and appearing to relish society +as much as the youngest man. I find only these three small +particulars:--When a person was mentioned, who said, 'I have lived +fifty-one years in this world without having had ten minutes of +uneasiness;' he exclaimed, 'The man who says so, lies: he attempts to +impose on human credulity.' The Bishop of Exeter in vain observed, that +men were very different. His Lordship's manner was not impressive, and +I learnt afterwards that Johnson did not find out that the person who +talked to him was a Prelate; if he had, I doubt not that he would have +treated him with more respect; for once talking of George +Psalmanazar[842], whom he reverenced for his piety, he said, 'I should +as soon think of contradicting a BISHOP[843].' One of the company[844] +provoked him greatly by doing what he could least of all bear, which was +quoting something of his own writing, against what he then maintained. +'What, Sir, (cried the gentleman,) do you say to + + "The busy day, the peaceful night, + Unfelt, uncounted, glided by[845]?"'-- + +Johnson finding himself thus presented as giving an instance of a man +who had lived without uneasiness, was much offended, for he looked upon +such a quotation as unfair. His anger burst out in an unjustifiable +retort, insinuating that the gentleman's remark was a sally of ebriety; +'Sir, there is one passion I would advise you to command: when you have +drunk out that glass, don't drink another[846].' Here was exemplified +what Goldsmith said of him, with the aid of a very witty image from one +of Cibber's Comedies: 'There is no arguing with Johnson; for if his +pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it[847].' +Another was this: when a gentleman[848] of eminence in the literary +world was violently censured for attacking people by anonymous +paragraphs in newspapers; he, from the spirit of contradiction as I +thought, took up his defence, and said, 'Come, come, this is not so +terrible a crime; he means only to vex them a little. I do not say that +I should do it; but there is a great difference between him and me; what +is fit for Hephaestion is not fit for Alexander.' Another, when I told +him that a young and handsome Countess had said to me, 'I should think +that to be praised by Dr. Johnson would make one a fool all one's life;' +and that I answered, 'Madam, I shall make him a fool to-day, by +repeating this to him,' he said, 'I am too old to be made a fool; but if +you say I am made a fool, I shall not deny it. I am much pleased with a +compliment, especially from a pretty woman.' + +On the evening of Saturday, May 15, he was in fine spirits, at our +Essex-Head Club. He told us, 'I dined yesterday at Mrs. Garrick's, with +Mrs. Carter[849], Miss Hannah More, and Miss Fanny Burney. Three such +women are not to be found: I know not where I could find a fourth, +except Mrs. Lennox, who is superiour to them all[850].' BOSWELL. 'What! +had you them all to yourself, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'I had them all as much as +they were had; but it might have been better had there been more company +there.' BOSWELL. 'Might not Mrs. Montagu have been a fourth?' JOHNSON. +'Sir, Mrs. Montagu does not make a trade of her wit; but Mrs. Montagu is +a very extraordinary woman; she has a constant stream of conversation, +and it is always impregnated; it has always meaning[851].' BOSWELL. 'Mr. +Burke has a constant stream of conversation.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; if a +man were to go by chance at the same time with Burke under a shed, to +shun a shower, he would say--"this is an extraordinary man." If Burke +should go into a stable to see his horse drest, the ostler would +say--we have had an extraordinary man here[852].' BOSWELL. 'Foote was a +man who never failed in conversation. If he had gone into a stable--' +JOHNSON. 'Sir, if he had gone into a stable, the ostler would have said, +here has been a comical fellow; but he would not have respected him.' +BOSWELL. 'And, Sir, the ostler would have answered him, would have given +him as good as he brought, as the common saying is.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; +and Foote would have answered the ostler.--When Burke does not descend +to be merry, his conversation is very superiour indeed. There is no +proportion between the powers which he shews in serious talk and in +jocularity. When he lets himself down to that, he is in the +kennel[853].' I have in another place[854] opposed, and I hope with +success, Dr. Johnson's very singular and erroneous notion as to Mr. +Burke's pleasantry. Mr. Windham now said low to me, that he differed +from our great friend in this observation; for that Mr. Burke was often +very happy in his merriment. It would not have been right for either of +us to have contradicted Johnson at this time, in a Society all of whom +did not know and value Mr. Burke as much as we did. It might have +occasioned something more rough, and at any rate would probably have +checked the flow of Johnson's good-humour. He called to us with a sudden +air of exultation, as the thought started into his mind, 'O! Gentlemen, +I must tell you a very great thing. The Empress of Russia has ordered +the _Rambler_ to be translated into the Russian language[855]: so I +shall be read on the banks of the Wolga. Horace boasts that his fame +would extend as far as the banks of the Rhone[856]; now the Wolga is +farther from me than the Rhone was from Horace.' BOSWELL. 'You must +certainly be pleased with this, Sir.' JOHNSON. 'I am pleased Sir, to be +sure. A man is pleased to find he has succeeded in that which he has +endeavoured to do.' + +One of the company mentioned his having seen a noble person driving in +his carriage, and looking exceedingly well, notwithstanding his great +age. JOHNSON. 'Ah, Sir; that is nothing. Bacon observes, that a stout +healthy old man is like a tower undermined.' + +On Sunday, May 16, I found him alone; he talked of Mrs. Thrale with much +concern, saying, 'Sir, she has done every thing wrong, since Thrale's +bridle was off her neck;' and was proceeding to mention some +circumstances which have since been the subject of publick +discussion[857], when he was interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Douglas, +now Bishop of Salisbury. + +Dr. Douglas, upon this occasion, refuted a mistaken notion which is very +common in Scotland, that the ecclesiastical discipline of the Church of +England, though duly enforced, is insufficient to preserve the morals of +the clergy, inasmuch as all delinquents may be screened by appealing to +the Convocation, which being never authorized by the King to sit for +the dispatch of business, the appeal never can be heard. Dr. Douglas +observed, that this was founded upon ignorance; for that the Bishops +have sufficient power to maintain discipline, and that the sitting of +the Convocation was wholly immaterial in this respect, it being not a +Court of judicature, but like a parliament, to make Canons and +regulations as times may require. + +Johnson, talking of the fear of death, said, 'Some people are not +afraid, because they look upon salvation as the effect of an absolute +decree, and think they feel in themselves the marks of sanctification. +Others, and those the most rational in my opinion, look upon salvation +as conditional; and as they never can be sure that they have complied +with the conditions, they are afraid[858].' + +In one of his little manuscript diaries, about this time, I find a short +notice, which marks his amiable disposition more certainly than a +thousand studied declarations.--'Afternoon spent cheerfully and +elegantly, I hope without offence to GOD or man; though in no holy duty, +yet in the general exercise and cultivation of benevolence.' + +On Monday, May 17, I dined with him at Mr. Dilly's, where were Colonel +Valiancy, the Reverend Dr. Gibbons[859], and Mr. Capel Lofft, who, +though a most zealous Whig, has a mind so full of learning and +knowledge, and so much exercised in various departments, and withal so +much liberality, that the stupendous powers of the literary Goliath, +though they did not frighten this little David of popular spirit, could +not but excite his admiration[860]. There was also Mr. Braithwaite of +the Post-office, that amiable and friendly man, who, with modest and +unassuming manners, has associated with many of the wits of the age. +Johnson was very quiescent to-day. Perhaps too I was indolent. I find +nothing more of him in my notes, but that when I mentioned that I had +seen in the King's library sixty-three editions of my favourite _Thomas +a Kempis_, amongst which it was in eight languages, Latin, German, +French, Italian, Spanish, English, Arabick, and Armenian, he said, he +thought it unnecessary to collect many editions of a book, which were +all the same, except as to the paper and print; he would have the +original, and all the translations, and all the editions which had any +variations in the text. He approved of the famous collection of editions +of _Horace_ by Douglas, mentioned by Pope[861], who is said to have had +a closet filled with them; and he added, 'every man should try to +collect one book in that manner, and present it to a publick library.' + +On Tuesday, May 18, I saw him for a short time in the morning. I told +him that the mob had called out, as the King passed[862], 'No Fox--No +Fox,' which I did not like. He said, 'They were right, Sir.' I said, I +thought not; for it seemed to be making Mr. Fox the King's +competitor[863]. There being no audience, so that there could be no +triumph in a victory, he fairly agreed with me[864]. I said it might do +very well, if explained thus:--'Let us have no Fox;' understanding it as +a prayer to his Majesty not to appoint that gentleman minister. + +On Wednesday, May 19, I sat a part of the evening with him, by +ourselves. I observed, that the death of our friends might be a +consolation against the fear of our own dissolution, because we might +have more friends in the other world than in this. He perhaps felt this +as a reflection upon his apprehension as to death; and said, with heat, +'How can a man know _where_ his departed friends are, or whether they +will be his friends in the other world[865]? How many friendships have +you known formed upon principles of virtue? Most friendships are formed +by caprice or by chance, mere confederacies in vice or leagues +in folly.' + +We talked of our worthy friend Mr. Langton. He said, 'I know not who +will go to Heaven if Langton does not. Sir, I could almost say, _Sit +anima mea cum Langtono_' I mentioned a very eminent friend[866] a +virtuous man. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; but ---- has not the evangelical +virtue of Langton. ----, I am afraid, would not scruple to pick up +a wench.' + +He however charged Mr. Langton with what he thought want of judgement +upon an interesting occasion. 'When I was ill, (said he) I desired he +would tell me sincerely in what he thought my life was faulty. Sir, he +brought me a sheet of paper, on which he had written down several texts +of Scripture, recommending christian charity. And when I questioned him +what occasion I had given for such an animadversion, all that he could +say amounted to this,--that I sometimes contradicted people in +conversation. Now what harm does it do to any man to be contradicted?' +BOSWELL. 'I suppose he meant the _manner_ of doing it; roughly,--and +harshly.' JOHNSON. 'And who is the worse for that?' BOSWELL. 'It hurts +people of weak nerves.' JOHNSON. 'I know no such weak-nerved +people[867].' Mr. Burke, to whom I related this conference, said, 'It is +well, if when a man comes to die, he has nothing heavier upon his +conscience than having been a little rough in conversation.' + +Johnson, at the time when the paper was presented to him, though at +first pleased with the attention of his friend, whom he thanked in an +earnest manner, soon exclaimed, in a loud and angry tone, 'What is your +drift, Sir?' Sir Joshua Reynolds pleasantly observed, that it was a +scene for a comedy, to see a penitent get into a violent passion and +belabour his confessor[868]. + +I have preserved no more of his conversation at the times when I saw him +during the rest of this month, till Sunday, the 30th of May, when I met +him in the evening at Mr. Hoole's, where there was a large company both +of ladies and gentlemen; Sir James Johnston[869] happened to say, that +he paid no regard to the arguments of counsel at the bar of the House of +Commons, because they were paid for speaking. 'JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, +argument is argument. You cannot help paying regard to their arguments, +if they are good. If it were testimony, you might disregard it, if you +knew that it were purchased. There is a beautiful image in Bacon[870] +upon this subject: testimony is like an arrow shot from a long bow; the +force of it depends on the strength of the hand that draws it. Argument +is like an arrow from a cross-bow, which has equal force though shot +by a child.' + +He had dined that day at Mr. Hoole's, and Miss Helen Maria Williams +being expected in the evening, Mr. Hoole put into his hands her +beautiful _Ode on the Peace_[871]: Johnson read it over, and when this +elegant and accomplished young lady[872] was presented to him, he took +her by the hand in the most courteous manner, and repeated the finest +stanza of her poem; this was the most delicate and pleasing compliment +he could pay. Her respectable friend, Dr. Kippis, from whom I had this +anecdote, was standing by, and was not a little gratified. + +Miss Williams told me, that the only other time she was fortunate enough +to be in Dr. Johnson's company, he asked her to sit down by him, which +she did, and upon her enquiring how he was, he answered, 'I am very ill +indeed, Madam. I am very ill even when you are near me; what should I be +were you at a distance?'[873] + +He had now a great desire to go to Oxford, as his first jaunt after his +illness; we talked of it for some days, and I had promised to accompany +him. He was impatient, and fretful to-night, because I did not at once +agree to go with him on Thursday. When I considered how ill he had been, +and what allowance should be made for the influence of sickness upon his +temper, I resolved to indulge him, though with some inconvenience to +myself, as I wished to attend the musical meeting in honour of +Handel[874], in Westminster-Abbey, on the following Saturday. + +In the midst of his own diseases and pains, he was ever compassionate to +the distresses of others, and actively earnest in procuring them aid, as +appears from a note to Sir Joshua Reynolds, of June, in these words:--'I +am ashamed to ask for some relief for a poor man, to whom, I hope, I +have given what I can be expected to spare. The man importunes me, and +the blow goes round. I am going to try another air on Thursday.' + +On Thursday, June 3, the Oxford post-coach took us up in the morning at +Bolt-court. The other two passengers were Mrs. Beresford and her +daughter, two very agreeable ladies from America; they were going to +Worcestershire, where they then resided. Frank had been sent by his +master the day before to take places for us; and I found, from the +way-bill, that Dr. Johnson had made our names be put down. Mrs. +Beresford, who had read it, whispered me, 'Is this the great Dr. +Johnson?' I told her it was; so she was then prepared to listen. As she +soon happened to mention in a voice so low that Johnson did not hear it, +that her husband had been a member of the American Congress, I cautioned +her to beware of introducing that subject, as she must know how very +violent Johnson was against the people of that country. He talked a +great deal, but I am sorry I have preserved little of the conversation. +Miss Beresford was so much charmed, that she said to me aside, 'How he +does talk! Every sentence is an essay.' She amused herself in the coach +with knotting; he would scarcely allow this species of employment any +merit. 'Next to mere idleness (said he) I think knotting is to be +reckoned in the scale of insignificance; though I once attempted to +learn knotting. Dempster's sister (looking to me) endeavoured to teach +me it; but I made no progress[875].' + +I was surprised at his talking without reserve in the publick post-coach +of the state of his affairs; 'I have (said he) about the world I think +above a thousand pounds, which I intend shall afford Frank an annuity of +seventy pounds a year.' Indeed his openness with people at a first +interview was remarkable. He said once to Mr. Langton, 'I think I am +like Squire Richard in _The Journey to London, "I'm never strange in a +strange place_[876]."' He was truly _social_. He strongly censured what +is much too common in England among persons of condition,--maintaining +an absolute silence, when unknown to each other; as for instance, when +occasionally brought together in a room before the master or mistress of +the house has appeared. 'Sir, that is being so uncivilised as not to +understand the common rights of humanity[877].' + +At the inn where we stopped he was exceedingly dissatisfied with some +roast mutton which we had for dinner. The ladies I saw wondered to see +the great philosopher, whose wisdom and wit they had been admiring all +the way, get into ill-humour from such a cause. He scolded the waiter, +saying, 'It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, +ill-kept, and ill-drest[878].' + +He bore the journey very well, and seemed to feel himself elevated as he +approached Oxford, that magnificent and venerable seat of learning, +Orthodoxy, and Toryism. Frank came in the heavy coach, in readiness to +attend him; and we were received with the most polite hospitality at the +house of his old friend Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College, who had +given us a kind invitation. Before we were set down, I communicated to +Johnson, my having engaged to return to London directly, for the reason +I have mentioned, but that I would hasten back to him again. He was +pleased that I had made this journey merely to keep him company. He was +easy and placid, with Dr. Adams, Mrs. and Miss Adams, and Mrs. Kennicot, +widow of the learned Hebraean[879], who was here on a visit. He soon +dispatched the inquiries which were made about his illness and recovery, +by a short and distinct narrative; and then assuming a gay air, repeated +from Swift,-- + + 'Nor think on our approaching ills, + And talk of spectacles and pills[880].' + +Dr. Newton, the Bishop of Bristol, having been mentioned, Johnson, +recollecting the manner in which he had been censured by that +Prelate[881], thus retaliated:-' Tom knew he should be dead before what +he has said of me would appear. He durst not have printed it while he +was alive.' DR. ADAMS. 'I believe his _Dissertations on the Prophecies_ +is his great work.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is Tom's great work; but how +far it is great, or how much of it is Tom's, are other questions. I +fancy a considerable part of it was borrowed.' DR. ADAMS. 'He was a very +successful man.' JOHNSON. 'I don't think so, Sir. He did not get very +high. He was late in getting what he did get; and he did not get it by +the best means. I believe he was a gross flatterer[882].' + +I fulfilled my intention by going to London, and returned to Oxford on +Wednesday the 9th of June, when I was happy to find myself again in the +same agreeable circle at Pembroke College, with the comfortable prospect +of making some stay. Johnson welcomed my return with more than +ordinary glee. + +He talked with great regard of the Honourable Archibald Campbell, whose +character he had given at the Duke of Argyll's table, when we were at +Inverary[883]; and at this time wrote out for me, in his own hand, a +fuller account of that learned and venerable writer, which I have +published in its proper place. Johnson made a remark this evening which +struck me a good deal. 'I never (said he) knew a non-juror who could +reason[884].' Surely he did not mean to deny that faculty to many of +their writers; to Hickes, Brett[885], and other eminent divines of that +persuasion; and did not recollect that the seven Bishops, so justly +celebrated for their magnanimous resistance of arbitrary power, were yet +Nonjurors to the new Government[886]. The nonjuring clergy of Scotland, +indeed, who, excepting a few, have lately, by a sudden stroke, cut off +all ties of allegiance to the house of Stuart, and resolved to pray for +our present lawful Sovereign by name, may be thought to have confirmed +this remark; as it may be said, that the divine indefeasible hereditary +right which they professed to believe, if ever true, must be equally +true still. Many of my readers will be surprized when I mention, that +Johnson assured me he had never in his life been in a nonjuring +meeting-house[887]. + +Next morning at breakfast, he pointed out a passage in Savage's +_Wanderer_, saying, 'These are fine verses.' 'If (said he) I had written +with hostility of Warburton in my _Shakspeare_, I should have quoted +this couplet:-- + + "Here Learning, blinded first and then beguil'd, + Looks dark as Ignorance, as Fancy wild[888]." + +You see they'd have fitted him to a _T_,' (smiling.) DR. ADAMS. 'But you +did not write against Warburton.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, I treated him with +great respect both in my Preface and in my Notes[889].' + +Mrs. Kennicot spoke of her brother, the Reverend Mr. Chamberlayne, who +had given up great prospects in the Church of England on his conversion +to the Roman Catholick faith. Johnson, who warmly admired every man who +acted from a conscientious regard to principle, erroneous or not, +exclaimed fervently, 'GOD bless him.' + +Mrs. Kennicot, in confirmation of Dr. Johnson's opinion[890], that the +present was not worse than former ages, mentioned that her brother +assured her, there was now less infidelity on the Continent than there +had been; Voltaire and Rousseau were less read. I asserted, from good +authority, that Hume's infidelity was certainly less read. JOHNSON. 'All +infidel writers drop into oblivion, when personal connections and the +floridness of novelty are gone; though now and then a foolish fellow, +who thinks he can be witty upon them, may bring them again into notice. +There will sometimes start up a College joker, who does not consider +that what is a joke in a College will not do in the world. To such +defenders of Religion I would apply a stanza of a poem which I remember +to have seen in some old collection:-- + + "Henceforth be quiet and agree, + Each kiss his empty brother; + Religion scorns a foe like thee, + But dreads a friend like t'other." + +The point is well, though the expression is not correct; _one_, and not +_thee, should be opposed to _t'other_[891].' + +On the Roman Catholick religion he said, 'If you join the Papists +externally, they will not interrogate you strictly as to your belief in +their tenets. No reasoning Papist believes every article of their faith. +There is one side on which a good man might be persuaded to embrace it. +A good man of a timorous disposition, in great doubt of his acceptance +with GOD, and pretty credulous, might be glad to be of a church where +there, are so many helps to get to Heaven. I would be a Papist if I +could. I have fear enough; but an obstinate rationality prevents me. I +shall never be a Papist, unless on the near approach of death, of which +I have a very great terrour. I wonder that women are not all Papists.' +BOSWELL. 'They are not more afraid of death than men are.' JOHNSON. +'Because they are less wicked.' DR. ADAMS. 'They are more pious.' +JOHNSON. 'No, hang 'em, they are not more pious. A wicked fellow is the +most pious when he takes to it. He'll beat you all at piety.' + +He argued in defence of some of the peculiar tenets of the Church of +Rome. As to the giving the bread only to the laity, he said, 'They may +think, that in what is merely ritual, deviations from the primitive mode +may be admitted on the ground of convenience, and I think they are as +well warranted to make this alteration, as we are to substitute +sprinkling in the room of the ancient baptism.' As to the invocation of +saints[892], he said, 'Though I do not think it authorised, it appears +to me, that "the communion of saints" in the Creed means the communion +with the saints in Heaven, as connected with "The holy Catholick +Church[893]."' He admitted the influence of evil spirits[894] upon our +minds, and said, 'Nobody who believes the New Testament can deny it.' + +I brought a volume of Dr. Hurd the Bishop of Worcester's _Sermons_, and +read to the company some passages from one of them, upon this text, +'_Resist the Devil, and he will fly[895] from you.' James_, iv. 7. I was +happy to produce so judicious and elegant a supporter[896] of a +doctrine, which, I know not why, should, in this world of imperfect +knowledge, and, therefore, of wonder and mystery in a thousand +instances, be contested by some with an unthinking assurance and +flippancy. + +After dinner, when one of us talked of there being a great enmity +between Whig and Tory;--JOHNSON. 'Why not so much, I think, unless when +they come into competition with each other. There is none when they are +only common acquaintance, none when they are of different sexes. A Tory +will marry into a Whig family, and a Whig into a Tory family, without +any reluctance. But indeed, in a matter of much more concern than +political tenets, and that is religion, men and women do not concern +themselves much about difference of opinion; and ladies set no value on +the moral character of men who pay their addresses to them; the greatest +profligate will be as well received as the man of the greatest virtue, +and this by a very good woman, by a woman who says her prayers three +times a day.' Our ladies endeavoured to defend their sex from this +charge; but he roared them down! 'No, no, a lady will take Jonathan Wild +as readily as St. Austin, if he has three-pence more; and, what is +worse, her parents will give her to him. Women have a perpetual envy of +our vices; they are less vicious than we, not from choice, but because +we restrict them; they are the slaves of order and fashion; their virtue +is of more consequence to us than our own, so far as concerns +this world.' + +Miss Adams mentioned a gentleman of licentious character, and said, +'Suppose I had a mind to marry that gentleman, would my parents +consent?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, they'd consent, and you'd go. You'd go though +they did not consent.' MISS ADAMS. 'Perhaps their opposing might make me +go.' JOHNSON. 'O, very well; you'd take one whom you think a bad man, to +have the pleasure of vexing your parents. You put me in mind of Dr. +Barrowby[897], the physician, who was very fond of swine's flesh. One +day, when he was eating it, he said, 'I wish I was a Jew.' 'Why so? +(said somebody); the Jews are not allowed to eat your favourite meat.' +'Because, (said he,) I should then have the gust of eating it, with the +pleasure of sinning.' Johnson then proceeded in his declamation. + +Miss Adams soon afterwards made an observation that I do not recollect, +which pleased him much: he said with a good-humoured smile, 'That there +should be so much excellence united with so much _depravity_, +is strange.' + +Indeed, this lady's good qualities, merit, and accomplishments, and her +constant attention to Dr. Johnson, were not lost upon him. She happened +to tell him that a little coffee-pot, in which she had made his coffee, +was the only thing she could call her own. He turned to her with a +complacent gallantry, 'Don't say so, my dear; I hope you don't reckon my +heart as nothing.' + +I asked him if it was true as reported, that he had said lately, 'I am +for the King against Fox; but I am for Fox against Pitt.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, +Sir; the King is my master; but I do not know Pitt; and Fox is my +friend[898].' + +'Fox, (added he,) is a most extraordinary man; here is a man (describing +him in strong terms of objection in some respects according as he +apprehended, but which exalted his abilities the more) who has divided +the Kingdom with Caesar[899]; so that it, was a doubt whether the nation +should be ruled by the sceptre of George the Third, or the tongue +of Fox.' + +Dr. Wall, physician at Oxford, drank tea with us. Johnson had in +general a peculiar pleasure in the company of physicians, which was +certainly not abated by the conversation of this learned, ingenious, and +pleasing gentleman. Johnson said, 'It is wonderful how little good +Radcliffe's travelling fellowships[900] have done. I know nothing that +has been imported by them; yet many additions to our medical knowledge +might be got in foreign countries. Inoculation, for instance, has saved +more lives than war destroys[901]: and the cures performed by the +Peruvian-bark are innumerable. But it is in vain to send our travelling +physicians to France, and Italy, and Germany, for all that is known +there is known here; I'd send them out of Christendom; I'd send them +among barbarous nations.' + +On Friday, June 11, we talked at breakfast, of forms of prayer. JOHNSON. +'I know of no good prayers but those in the _Book of Common Prayer_.' +DR. ADAMS, (in a very earnest manner): 'I wish, Sir, you would compose +some family prayers.' JOHNSON. 'I will not compose prayers for you, Sir, +because you can do it for yourself. But I have thought of getting +together all the books of prayers which I could, selecting those which +should appear to me the best, putting out some, inserting others, adding +some prayers of my own, and prefixing a discourse on prayer.' We all now +gathered about him, and two or three of us at a time joined in pressing +him to execute this plan. He seemed to be a little displeased at the +manner of our importunity, and in great agitation called out, 'Do not +talk thus of what is so aweful. I know not what time GOD will allow me +in this world. There are many things which I wish to do.' Some of us +persisted, and Dr. Adams said, 'I never was more serious about any thing +in my life.' JOHNSON. 'Let me alone, let me alone; I am overpowered.' +And then he put his hands before his face, and reclined for some time +upon the table[902]. + +I mentioned Jeremy Taylor's using, in his forms of prayer, 'I am the +chief of sinners,' and other such self-condemning expressions[903]. +'Now, (said I) this cannot be said with truth by every man, and +therefore is improper for a general printed form. I myself cannot say +that I am the worst of men; I _will_ not say so.' JOHNSON. 'A man may +know, that physically, that is, in the real state of things, he is not +the worst man; but that morally he may be so. Law observes that "Every +man knows something worse of himself, than he is sure of in +others[904]." You may not have committed such crimes as some men have +done; but you do not know against what degree of light they have sinned. +Besides, Sir, "the chief of sinners" is a mode of expression for "I am a +great sinner." So St. Paul, speaking of our SAVIOUR'S having died to +save sinners, says, "of whom I am the chief[905];" yet he certainly did +not think himself so bad as Judas Iscariot.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, Taylor +means it literally, for he founds a conceit upon it. When praying for +the conversion of sinners, and of himself in particular, he says, "LORD, +thou wilt not leave thy _chief_ work undone." JOHNSON. 'I do not approve +of figurative expressions in addressing the Supreme Being; and I never +use them[906]. Taylor gives a very good advice: "Never lie in your +prayers; never confess more than you really believe; never promise more +than you mean to perform[907]." I recollected this precept in his +_Golden Grove_; but his _example_ for prayer contradicts his _precept_.' + +Dr. Johnson and I went in Dr. Adams's coach to dine with Dr. Nowell, +Principal of St. Mary Hall, at his beautiful villa at Iffley, on the +banks of the Isis, about two miles from Oxford. While we were upon the +road, I had the resolution to ask Johnson whether he thought that the +roughness of his manner had been an advantage or not, and if he would +not have done more good if he had been more gentle. I proceeded to +answer myself thus: 'Perhaps it has been of advantage, as it has given +weight to what you said: you could not, perhaps, have talked with such +authority without it.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; I have done more good as I am. +Obscenity and Impiety have always been repressed in my company[908].' +BOSWELL. 'True, Sir; and that is more than can be said of every Bishop. +Greater liberties have been taken in the presence of a Bishop, though a +very good man, from his being milder, and therefore not commanding such +awe. Yet, Sir, many people who might have been benefited by your +conversation, have been frightened away. A worthy friend of ours[909] +has told me, that he has often been afraid to talk to you.' JOHNSON. +'Sir, he need not have been afraid, if he had any thing rational to say. +If he had not, it was better he did not talk[910]. + +Dr. Nowell is celebrated for having preached a sermon before the House +of Commons, on the 3Oth of January, 1773, full of high Tory sentiments, +for which he was thanked as usual, and printed it at their request; but, +in the midst of that turbulence and faction which disgraced a part of +the present reign, the thanks were afterwards ordered to be +expunged[911]. This strange conduct sufficiently exposes itself; and Dr. +Nowell will ever have the honour which is due to a lofty friend of our +monarchical constitution. Dr. Johnson said to me, 'Sir, the Court will +be very much to blame, if he is not promoted.' I told this to Dr. +Nowell, and asserting my humbler, though not less zealous exertions in +the same cause, I suggested that whatever return we might receive, we +should still have the consolation of being like Butler's steady and +generous Royalist, + + 'True as the dial to the sun, + Although it be not shone upon[912].' + +We were well entertained and very happy at Dr. Nowell's, where was a +very agreeable company, and we drank 'Church and King' after dinner, +with true Tory cordiality. + +We talked of a certain clergyman[913] of extraordinary character, who +by exerting his talents in writing on temporary topicks, and displaying +uncommon intrepidity, had raised himself to affluence. I maintained that +we ought not to be indignant at his success; for merit of every sort was +entitled to reward. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I will not allow this man to have +merit. No, Sir; what he has is rather the contrary; I will, indeed, +allow him courage, and on this account we so far give him credit. We +have more respect for a man who robs boldly on the highway, than for a +fellow who jumps out of a ditch, and knocks you down behind your back. +Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is +always respected, even when it is associated with vice[914]. + +I censured the coarse invectives which were become fashionable in the +House of Commons[915], and said that if members of parliament must +attack each other personally in the heat of debate, it should be done +more genteely. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; that would be much worse. Abuse is not +so dangerous when there is no vehicle of wit or delicacy, no subtle +conveyance. The difference between coarse and refined abuse is as the +difference between being bruised by a club, and wounded by a poisoned +arrow.' I have since observed his position elegantly expressed by +Dr. Young:-- + + 'As the soft plume gives swiftness to the dart, + Good breeding sends the satire to the heart[916].' + +On Saturday, June 12, there drank tea with us at Dr. Adams's, Mr. John +Henderson, student of Pembroke-College, celebrated for his wonderful +acquirements in Alchymy, Judicial Astrology, and other abstruse and +curious learning[917]; and the Reverend Herbert Croft, who, I am afraid, +was somewhat mortified by Dr. Johnson's not being highly pleased with +some _Family Discourses_, which he had printed; they were in too +familiar a style to be approved of by so manly a mind. I have no note of +this evening's conversation, except a single fragment. When I mentioned +Thomas Lord Lyttelton's vision[918], the prediction of the time of his +death, and its exact fulfilment;--JOHNSON. 'It is the most extraordinary +thing that has happened in my day. I heard it with my own ears, from his +uncle, Lord Westcote. I am so glad to have every evidence of the +spiritual world, that I am willing to believe it.' DR. ADAMS. 'You have +evidence enough; good evidence, which needs not such support.' JOHNSON. +'I like to have more[919].' + +Mr. Henderson, with whom I had sauntered in the venerable walks of +Merton-College, and found him a very learned and pious man, supped with +us. Dr. Johnson surprised him not a little, by acknowledging with a look +of horrour, that he was much oppressed by the fear of death[920]. The +amiable Dr. Adams suggested that GOD was infinitely good. JOHNSON. 'That +he is infinitely good, as far as the perfection of his nature will +allow, I certainly believe; but it is necessary for good upon the whole, +that individuals should be punished. As to an _individual_, therefore, +he is not infinitely good; and as I cannot be _sure_ that I have +fulfilled the conditions on which salvation is granted, I am afraid I +may be one of those who shall be damned.' (looking dismally.) DR. ADAMS. +'What do you mean by damned?' JOHNSON. (passionately and loudly) 'Sent +to Hell, Sir, and punished everlastingly[921].' DR. ADAMS. 'I don't +believe that doctrine.' JOHNSON. 'Hold, Sir, do you believe that some +will be punished at all?' DR. ADAMS. 'Being excluded from Heaven will be +a punishment; yet there may be no great positive suffering.' JOHNSON. +'Well, Sir; but, if you admit any degree of punishment, there is an end +of your argument for infinite goodness simply considered; for, infinite +goodness would inflict no punishment whatever. There is not infinite +goodness physically considered; morally there is.' BOSWELL. 'But may not +a man attain to such a degree of hope as not to be uneasy from the fear +of death?' JOHNSON. 'A man may have such a degree of hope as to keep him +quiet. You see I am not quiet, from the vehemence with which I talk; +but I do not despair.' MRS. ADAMS. 'You seem, Sir, to forget the merits +of our Redeemer.' JOHNSON. 'Madam, I do not forget the merits of my +Redeemer; but my Redeemer has said that he will set some on his right +hand and some on his left.' He was in gloomy agitation, and said, 'I'll +have no more on't[922].' If what has now been stated should be urged by +the enemies of Christianity, as if its influence on the mind were not +benignant, let it be remembered, that Johnson's temperament was +melancholy, of which such direful apprehensions of futurity are often a +common effect. We shall presently see that when he approached nearer to +his aweful change, his mind became tranquil, and he exhibited as much +fortitude as becomes a thinking man in that situation. + +From the subject of death we passed to discourse of life, whether it was +upon the whole more happy or miserable. Johnson was decidedly for the +balance of misery[923]: in confirmation of which I maintained, that no +man would choose to lead over again the life which he had experienced. +Johnson acceded to that opinion in the strongest terms[924]. This is an +inquiry often made; and its being a subject of disquisition is a proof +that much misery presses upon human feelings; for those who are +conscious of a felicity of existence, would never hesitate to accept of +a repetition of it. I have met with very few who would. I have heard Mr. +Burke make use of a very ingenious and plausible argument on this +subject;--'Every man (said he) would lead his life over again; for, +every man is willing to go on and take an addition to his life, which, +as he grows older, he has no reason to think will be better, or even so +good as what has preceded.' I imagine, however, the truth is, that there +is a deceitful hope that the next part of life will be free from the +pains, and anxieties, and sorrows, which we have already felt[925]. We +are for wise purposes 'Condemn'd to Hope's delusive mine;' as Johnson +finely says[926]; and I may also quote the celebrated lines of Dryden, +equally philosophical and poetical:-- + + 'When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat, + Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit: + Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay; + To-morrow's falser than the former day; + Lies worse; and while it says we shall be blest + With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. + Strange cozenage! none would live past years again; + Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; + And from the dregs of life think to receive, + What the first sprightly running could not give[927].' + +It was observed to Dr. Johnson, that it seemed strange that he, who has +so often delighted his company by his lively and brilliant conversation, +should say he was miserable. JOHNSON. 'Alas! it is all outside; I may be +cracking my joke[928], and cursing the sun. _Sun, how I hate thy +beams_[929]!' I knew not well what to think of this declaration; whether +to hold it as a genuine picture of his mind[930], or as the effect of +his persuading himself contrary to fact, that the position which he had +assumed as to human unhappiness, was true. We may apply to him a +sentence in Mr. Greville's[931] _Maxims, Characters, and +Reflections_[932]; a book which is entitled to much more praise than it +has received: 'ARISTARCHUS is charming: how full of knowledge, of sense, +of sentiment. You get him with difficulty to your supper; and after +having delighted every body and himself for a few hours, he is obliged +to return home;--he is finishing his treatise, to prove that unhappiness +is the portion of man[933].' + +On Sunday, June 13, our philosopher was calm at breakfast. There was +something exceedingly pleasing in our leading a College life, without +restraint, and with superiour elegance, in consequence of our living in +the Master's house, and having the company of ladies. Mrs. Kennicot +related, in his presence, a lively saying of Dr. Johnson to Miss Hannah +More, who had expressed a wonder that the poet who had written _Paradise +Lost_ should write such poor Sonnets:--' Milton, Madam, was a genius +that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon +cherry-stones[934].' + +We talked of the casuistical question, Whether it was allowable at any +time to depart from _Truth_? JOHNSON. 'The general rule is, that Truth +should never be violated, because it is of the utmost importance to the +comfort of life, that we should have a full security by mutual faith; +and occasional inconveniences should be willingly suffered that we may +preserve it. There must, however, be some exceptions. If, for instance, +a murderer should ask you which way a man is gone, you may tell him what +is not true, because you are under a previous obligation not to betray a +man to a murderer[935].' BOSWELL. 'Supposing the person who wrote +_Junius_ were asked whether he was the authour, might he deny it?' +JOHNSON. 'I don't know what to say to this. If you were _sure_ that he +wrote _Junius_, would you, if he denied it, think as well of him +afterwards? Yet it may be urged, that what a man has no right to ask, +you may refuse to communicate[936]; and there is no other effectual mode +of preserving a secret and an important secret, the discovery of which +may be very hurtful to you, but a flat denial; for if you are silent, or +hesitate, or evade, it will be held equivalent to a confession. But +stay, Sir; here is another case. Supposing the authour had told me +confidentially that he had written _Junius_, and I were asked if he had, +I should hold myself at liberty to deny it, as being under a previous +promise, express or implied, to conceal it. Now what I ought to do for +the authour, may I not do for myself? But I deny the lawfulness of +telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him. You have no +business with consequences; you are to tell the truth. Besides, you are +not sure what effect your telling him that he is in danger may have. It +may bring his distemper to a crisis, and that may cure him. Of all +lying, I have the greatest abhorrence of this, because I believe it has +been frequently practised on myself.' + +I cannot help thinking that there is much weight in the opinion of those +who have held, that Truth, as an eternal and immutable principle, ought, +upon no account whatever, to be violated, from supposed previous or +superiour obligations, of which every man being to judge for himself, +there is great danger that we too often, from partial motives, persuade +ourselves that they exist; and probably whatever extraordinary instances +may sometimes occur, where some evil may be prevented by violating this +noble principle, it would be found that human happiness would, upon the +whole, be more perfect were Truth universally preserved. + +In the notes to the _Dunciad_[937], we find the following verses, +addressed to Pope[938]:-- + + 'While malice, Pope, denies thy page + Its own celestial fire; + While criticks, and while bards in rage + Admiring, won't admire: + + While wayward pens thy worth assail, + And envious tongues decry; + These times, though many a friend bewail, + These times bewail not I. + + But when the world's loud praise is thine, + And spleen no more shall blame; + When with thy Homer thou shalt shine + In one establish'd fame! + + When none shall rail, and every lay + Devote a wreath to thee: + That day (for come it will) that day + Shall I lament to see.' + +It is surely not a little remarkable, that they should appear without a +name. Miss Seward[939], knowing Dr. Johnson's almost universal and +minute literary information, signified a desire that I should ask him +who was the authour. He was prompt with his answer: 'Why, Sir, they were +written by one Lewis, who was either under-master or an usher of +Westminster-school, and published a Miscellany, in which _Grongar +Hill_[940] first came out[941].' Johnson praised them highly, and +repeated them with a noble animation. In the twelfth line, instead of +'one establish'd fame,' he repeated 'one unclouded flame,' which he +thought was the reading in former editions: but I believe was a flash of +his own genius. It is much more poetical than the other. + +On Monday, June 14, and Tuesday, 15, Dr. Johnson and I dined, on one of +them, I forget which, with Mr. Mickle, translator of the _Lusiad_, at +Wheatley, a very pretty country place a few miles from Oxford; and on +the other with Dr. Wetherell, Master of University-College. From Dr. +Wetherell's he went to visit Mr. Sackville Parker, the bookseller; and +when he returned to us, gave the following account of his visit, saying, +'I have been to see my old friend, Sack. Parker; I find he has married +his maid; he has done right. She had lived with him many years in great +confidence, and they had mingled minds; I do not think he could have +found any wife that would have made him so happy. The woman was very +attentive and civil to me; she pressed me to fix a day for dining with +them, and to say what I liked, and she would be sure to get it for me. +Poor Sack! He is very ill, indeed. We parted as never to meet again. It +has quite broke me down.' This pathetic narrative was strangely +diversified with the grave and earnest defence of a man's having married +his maid. I could not but feel it as in some degree ludicrous. + +In the morning of Tuesday, June 15, while we sat at Dr. Adams's, we +talked of a printed letter from the Reverend Herbert Croft[942], to a +young gentleman who had been his pupil, in which he advised him to read +to the end of whatever books he should begin to read. JOHNSON. 'This is +surely a strange advice; you may as well resolve that whatever men you +happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep to them for life. A book +may be good for nothing; or there may be only one thing in it worth +knowing; are we to read it all through[943]? These Voyages, (pointing to +the three large volumes of _Voyages to the South Sea_[944], which were +just come out) _who_ will read them through? A man had better work his +way before the mast, than read them through; they will be eaten by rats +and mice, before they are read through. There can be little +entertainment in such books; one set of Savages is like another.' +BOSWELL. 'I do not think the people of Otaheite can be reckoned +Savages.' JOHNSON. 'Don't cant in defence of Savages[945].' BOSWELL. +'They have the art of navigation.' JOHNSON. 'A dog or a cat can swim.' +BOSWELL. 'They carve very ingeniously.' JOHNSON. 'A cat can scratch, and +a child with a nail can scratch.' I perceived this was none of the +_mollia tempora fandi_[946]; so desisted. + +Upon his mentioning that when he came to College he wrote his first +exercise twice over; but never did so afterwards[947]; MISS ADAMS. 'I +suppose, Sir, you could not make them better?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Madam, to +be sure, I could make them better. Thought is better than no thought.' +MISS ADAMS. 'Do you think, Sir, you could make your _Ramblers_ better?' +JOHNSON. 'Certainly I could.' BOSWELL. 'I'll lay a bet, Sir, you +cannot.' JOHNSON. 'But I will, Sir, if I choose. I shall make the best +of them you shall pick out, better.' BOSWELL. 'But you may add to them. +I will not allow of that.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, there are three ways of +making them better;--putting out,--adding,--or correcting[948].' + +During our visit at Oxford, the following conversation passed between +him and me on the subject of my trying my fortune at the English +bar[949]: Having asked whether a very extensive acquaintance in London, +which was very valuable, and of great advantage to a man at large, might +not be prejudicial to a lawyer, by preventing him from giving sufficient +attention to his business;--JOHNSON. 'Sir, you will attend to business, +as business lays hold of you. When not actually employed, you may see +your friends as much as you do now. You may dine at a Club every day, +and sup with one of the members every night; and you may be as much at +publick places as one who has seen them all would wish to be. But you +must take care to attend constantly in Westminster-Hall; both to mind +your business, as it is almost all learnt there, (for nobody reads now;) +and to shew that you want to have business[950]. And you must not be +too often seen at publick places, that competitors may not have it to +say, 'He is always at the Playhouse or at Ranelagh, and never to be +found at his chambers.' And, Sir, there must be a kind of solemnity in +the manner of a professional man. I have nothing particular to say to +you on the subject. All this I should say to any one; I should have said +it to Lord Thurlow twenty years ago.' + +The PROFESSION may probably think this representation of what is +required in a Barrister who would hope for success, to be by much too +indulgent; but certain it is, that as + + 'The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame[951],' + +some of the lawyers of this age who have risen high, have by no means +thought it absolutely necessary to submit to that long and painful +course of study which a Plowden, a Coke, and a Hale considered as +requisite. My respected friend, Mr. Langton, has shewn me in the +hand-writing of his grandfather[952], a curious account of a +conversation which he had with Lord Chief Justice Hale, in which that +great man tells him, 'That for two years after he came to the inn of +court, he studied sixteen hours a day; however (his Lordship added) that +by this intense application he almost brought himself to his grave, +though he were of a very strong constitution, and after reduced himself +to eight hours; but that he would not advise any body to so much; that +he thought six hours a day, with attention and constancy, was +sufficient; that a man must use his body as he would his horse, and his +stomach; not tire him at once, but rise with an appetite.[953]' + +On Wednesday, June 19[954], Dr. Johnson and I returned to London; he +was not well to-day, and said very little, employing himself chiefly in +reading Euripides. He expressed some displeasure at me, for not +observing sufficiently the various objects upon the road. 'If I had your +eyes, Sir, (said he) I should count the passengers.' It was wonderful +how accurate his observation of visual objects was, notwithstanding his +imperfect eyesight, owing to a habit of attention[955]. That he was much +satisfied with the respect paid to him at Dr. Adams's is thus attested +by himself: 'I returned last night from Oxford, after a fortnight's +abode with Dr. Adams, who treated me as well as I could expect or wish; +and he that contents a sick man, a man whom it is impossible to please, +has surely done his part well[956].' + +After his return to London from this excursion, I saw him frequently, +but have few memorandums: I shall therefore here insert some particulars +which I collected at various times. + +The Reverend Mr. Astle, of Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, brother to the +learned and ingenious Thomas Astle[957], Esq., was from his early years +known to Dr. Johnson, who obligingly advised him as to his studies, and +recommended to him the following books, of which a list which he has +been pleased to communicate, lies before me in Johnson's own +hand-writing:-- + +_Universal History (ancient.)--Rollin's Ancient History.--Puffendorf's +Introduction to History.--Vertot's History of Knights of Malta.-- +Vertot's Revolution of Portugal.--Vertot's Revolutions of Sweden.-- +Carte's History of England.--Present State of England.--Geographical +Grammar.--Prideaux's Connection.--Nelson's Feasts and Fasts.--Duty of +Man.--Gentleman's Religion.--Clarendon's History.--Watts's Improvement +of the Mind.--Watts's Logick.--Nature Displayed.--Lowth's English +Grammar.--Blackwall on the Classicks.--Sherlock's Sermons.--Burnet's +Life of Hale.--Dupin's History of the Church.--Shuckford's +Connection.--Law's Serious Call.--Walton's Complete Angler.--Sandys's +Travels.--Sprat's History of the Royal Society.--England's +Gazetteer.--Goldsmith's Roman History.--Some Commentaries on the. +Bible_[958]. + +It having been mentioned to Dr. Johnson that a gentleman who had a son +whom he imagined to have an extreme degree of timidity, resolved to send +him to a publick school, that he might acquire confidence;--' Sir, (said +Johnson,) this is a preposterous expedient for removing his infirmity; +such a disposition should be cultivated in the shade. Placing him at a +publick school is forcing an owl upon day[959].' + +Speaking of a gentleman whose house was much frequented by low company; +'Rags, Sir, (said he,) will always make their appearance where they have +a right to do it.' + +Of the same gentleman's mode of living, he said, 'Sir, the servants, +instead of doing what they are bid, stand round the table in idle +clusters, gaping upon the guests; and seem as unfit to attend a company, +as to steer a man of war[960].' + +A dull country magistrate[961] gave Johnson a long tedious account of +his exercising his criminal jurisdiction, the result of which was his +having sentenced four convicts to transportation. Johnson, in an agony +of impatience to get rid of such a companion, exclaimed, 'I heartily +wish, Sir, that I were a fifth.' + +Johnson was present when a tragedy was read, in which there occurred +this line:-- + + 'Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free[962].' + +The company having admired it much, 'I cannot agree with you (said +Johnson:) It might as well be said,-- + +'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.' + +He was pleased with the kindness of Mr. Cator, who was joined with him +in Mr. Thrale's important trust, and thus describes him[963]:--'There is +much good in his character, and much usefulness in his knowledge.' He +found a cordial solace at that gentleman's seat at Beckenham, in Kent, +which is indeed one of the finest places at which I ever was a guest; +and where I find more and more a hospitable welcome. + +Johnson seldom encouraged general censure of any profession[964]; but he +was willing to allow a due share of merit to the various departments +necessary in civilised life. In a splenetick, sarcastical, or jocular +frame, however, he would sometimes utter a pointed saying of that +nature. One instance has been mentioned[965], where he gave a sudden +satirical stroke to the character of an _attorney_. The too +indiscriminate admission to that employment, which requires both +abilities and integrity, has given rise to injurious reflections, which +are totally inapplicable to many very respectable men who exercise it +with reputation and honour. + +Johnson having argued for some time with a pertinacious gentleman; his +opponent, who had talked in a very puzzling manner, happened to say, 'I +don't understand you, Sir:' upon which Johnson observed, 'Sir, I have +found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an +understanding[966].' + +Talking to me of Horry Walpole, (as Horace late Earl of Orford was +often called[967],) Johnson allowed that he got together a great many +curious little things, and told them in an elegant manner[968]. Mr. +Walpole thought Johnson a more amiable character after reading his +_Letters to Mrs. Thrale_: but never was one of the true admirers of that +great man[969]. We may suppose a prejudice conceived, if he ever heard +Johnson's account to Sir George Staunton[970], that when he made the +speeches in parliament for the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 'he always took +care to put Sir Robert Walpole in the wrong, and to say every thing he +could against the electorate of Hanover[971].' The celebrated _Heroick +Epistle_, in which Johnson is satyrically introduced, has been ascribed +both to Mr. Walpole and Mr. Mason. One day at Mr. Courtenay's, when a +gentleman expressed his opinion that there was more energy in that poem +than could be expected from Mr. Walpole; Mr. Warton, the late Laureat, +observed, 'It may have been written by Walpole, and _buckram'd_ by +Mason[972].' + +He disapproved of Lord Hailes, for having modernised the language of the +ever-memorable John Hales of Eton[973], in an edition which his Lordship +published of that writer's works. 'An authour's language, Sir, (said +he,) is a characteristical part of his composition, and is also +characteristical of the age in which he writes. Besides, Sir, when the +language is changed we are not sure that the sense is the same. No, Sir; +I am sorry Lord Hailes has done this.' + +Here it may be observed, that his frequent use of the expression, _No, +Sir_, was not always to intimate contradiction; for he would say so, +when he was about to enforce an affirmative proposition which had not +been denied, as in the instance last mentioned. I used to consider it as +a kind of flag of defiance; as if he had said, 'Any argument you may +offer against this, is not just. No, Sir, it is not.' It was like +Falstaff's 'I deny your Major[974].' + +Sir Joshua Reynolds having said that he took the altitude of a man's +taste by his stories and his wit, and of his understanding by the +remarks which he repeated; being always sure that he must be a weak man +who quotes common things with an emphasis as if they were oracles; +Johnson agreed with him; and Sir Joshua having also observed that the +real character of a man was found out by his amusements,--Johnson added, +'Yes, Sir; no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures[975].' + +I have mentioned Johnson's general aversion to a pun[976]. He once, +however, endured one of mine. When we were talking of a numerous company +in which he had distinguished himself highly, I said, 'Sir, you were a +COD surrounded by smelts. Is not this enough for you? at a time too when +you were not _fishing_ for a compliment?' He laughed at this with a +complacent approbation. Old Mr. Sheridan observed, upon my mentioning it +to him, 'He liked your compliment so well, he was willing to take it +with _pun sauce_.' For my own part, I think no innocent species of wit +or pleasantry should be suppressed; and that a good pun may be admitted +among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation. + +Had Johnson treated at large _De Claris Oratoribus_[977], he might have +given us an admirable work. When the Duke of Bedford attacked the +ministry as vehemently as he could, for having taken upon them to extend +the time for the importation of corn[978], Lord Chatham, in his first +speech in the House of Lords, boldly avowed himself to be an adviser of +that measure. 'My colleagues, (said he,) as I was confined by +indisposition, did me the signal honour of coming to the bed-side of a +sick man, to ask his opinion. But, had they not thus condescended, I +should have _taken up my bed and walked_, in order to have delivered +that opinion at the Council-Board.' Mr. Langton, who was present, +mentioned this to Johnson, who observed, 'Now, Sir, we see that he took +these words as he found them; without considering, that though the +expression in Scripture, _take up thy bed and walk_[979], strictly +suited the instance of the sick man restored to health and strength, who +would of course be supposed to carry his bed with him, it could not be +proper in the case of a man who was lying in a state of feebleness, and +who certainly would not add to the difficulty of moving at all, that of +carrying his bed.' + +When I pointed out to him in the newspaper one of Mr. Grattan's animated +and glowing speeches, in favour of the freedom of Ireland, in which this +expression occurred (I know not if accurately taken): 'We will +persevere, till there is not one link of the English chain left to clank +upon the rags of the meanest beggar in Ireland;' 'Nay, Sir, (said +Johnson,) don't you perceive that _one_ link cannot clank?' + +Mrs. Thrale has published[980], as Johnson's, a kind of parody or +counterpart of a fine poetical passage in one of Mr. Burke's speeches on +American Taxation. It is vigorously but somewhat coarsely executed; and +I am inclined to suppose, is not quite correctly exhibited. I hope he +did not use the words _'vile agents'_ for the Americans in the House of +Parliament; and if he did so, in an extempore effusion, I wish the lady +had not committed it to writing[981]. + +Mr. Burke uniformly shewed Johnson the greatest respect; and when Mr. +Townshend, now lord Sydney, at a period when he was conspicuous in +opposition, threw out some reflection in parliament upon the grant of a +pension to a man of such political principles as Johnson; Mr. Burke, +though then of the same party with Mr. Townshend, stood warmly forth in +defence of his friend, to whom, he justly observed, the pension was +granted solely on account of his eminent literary merit. I am well +assured, that Mr. Townshend's attack upon Johnson was the occasion of +his 'hitching in a rhyme[982];' for, that in the original copy of +Goldsmith's character of Mr. Burke, in his _Retaliation_, another +person's name stood in the couplet where Mr. Townshend is now +introduced[983]:-- + + 'Though fraught with all learning kept[984] straining his throat, + To persuade _Tommy Townshend_ to lend him a vote.' + +It may be worth remarking, among the _minutiae_ of my collection, that +Johnson was once drawn to serve in the militia, the Trained Bands of the +City of London, and that Mr. Rackstrow, of the Museum in Fleet-street, +was his Colonel. It may be believed he did not serve in person; but the +idea, with all its circumstances, is certainly laughable. He upon that +occasion provided himself with a musket, and with a sword and belt, +which I have seen hanging in his closet. + +He was very constant to those whom he once employed, if they gave him no +reason to be displeased. When somebody talked of being imposed on in the +purchase of tea and sugar, and such articles: 'That will not be the +case, (said he,) if you go to a _stately shop_, as I always do. In such +a shop it is not worth their while to take a petty advantage.' + +An authour of most anxious and restless vanity being mentioned, 'Sir, +(said he,) there is not a young sapling upon Parnassus more severely +blown about by every wind of criticism than that poor fellow.' + +The difference, he observed, between a well-bred and an ill-bred man is +this: 'One immediately attracts your liking, the other your aversion. +You love the one till you find reason to hate him; you hate the other +till you find reason to love him.' + +The wife of one of his acquaintance had fraudulently made a purse for +herself out of her husband's fortune. Feeling a proper compunction in +her last moments, she confessed how much she had secreted; but before +she could tell where it was placed, she was seized with a convulsive fit +and expired. Her husband said, he was more hurt by her want of +confidence in him, than by the loss of his money. 'I told him, (said +Johnson,) that he should console himself: for _perhaps_ the money might +be _found_, and he was _sure_ that his wife was gone.' + +A foppish physician once reminded Johnson of his having been in company +with him on a former occasion; 'I do not remember it, Sir.' The +physician still insisted; adding that he that day wore so fine a coat +that it must have attracted his notice. 'Sir, (said Johnson,) had you +been dipt in Pactolus[985] I should not have noticed you.' + +He seemed to take a pleasure in speaking in his own style; for when he +had carelessly missed it, he would repeat the thought translated into +it[986]. Talking of the Comedy of _The Rehearsal_[987], he said, 'It has +not wit enough to keep it sweet.' This was easy; he therefore caught +himself, and pronounced a more round sentence; 'It has not vitality +enough to preserve it from putrefaction.' + +He censured a writer of entertaining Travels[988] for assuming a feigned +character, saying, (in his sense of the word[989],) 'He carries out one +lye; we know not how many he brings back.'[990] At another time, talking +of the same person, he observed, 'Sir, your assent to a man whom you +have never known to falsify, is a debt: but after you have known a man +to falsify, your assent to him then is a favour.' + +Though he had no taste for painting, he admired much the manner in which +Sir Joshua Reynolds treated of his art, in his _Discourses to the Royal +Academy_[991]. He observed one day of a passage in them, 'I think I +might as well have said this myself: 'and once when Mr. Langton was +sitting by him, he read one of them very eagerly, and expressed himself +thus:--'Very well, Master Reynolds; very well, indeed. But it will not +be understood.' + +When I observed to him that Painting was so far inferiour to Poetry, +that the story or even emblem which it communicates must be previously +known, and mentioned as a natural and laughable instance of this, that a +little Miss on seeing a picture of Justice with the scales, had +exclaimed to me, 'See, there's a woman selling sweetmeats;' he said, +'Painting, Sir, can illustrate, but cannot inform.' + +No man was more ready to make an apology when he had censured unjustly, +than Johnson[992]. When a proof-sheet of one of his works was brought to +him, he found fault with the mode in which a part of it was arranged, +refused to read it, and in a passion[993] desired that the +compositor[994] might be sent to him. The compositor was Mr. Manning, a +decent sensible man, who had composed about one half of his +_Dictionary_, when in Mr. Strahan's printing-house; and a great part of +his _Lives of the Poets_, when in that of Mr. Nichols; and who (in his +seventy-seventh year), when in Mr. Baldwin's printing-house, composed a +part of the first edition of this work concerning him. By producing the +manuscript, he at once satisfied Dr. Johnson that he was not to blame. +Upon which Johnson candidly and earnestly said to him, 'Mr. Compositor, +I ask your pardon. Mr. Compositor, I ask your pardon, again and again.' + +His generous humanity to the miserable was almost beyond example. The +following instance is well attested:--Coming home late one night, he +found a poor woman lying in the street, so much exhausted that she could +not walk; he took her upon his back, and carried her to his house, where +he discovered that she was one of those wretched females who had fallen +into the lowest state of vice, poverty, and disease. Instead of harshly +upbraiding her, he had her taken care of with all tenderness for a long +time, at considerable expence, till she was restored to health, and +endeavoured to put her into a virtuous way of living[995]. + +He thought Mr. Caleb Whitefoord singularly happy in hitting on the +signature of _Papyrius Cursor_, to his ingenious and diverting +cross-readings of the newspapers; it being a real name of an ancient +Roman, and clearly expressive of the thing done in this lively +conceit[996]. + +He once in his life was known to have uttered what is called a _bull_: +Sir Joshua Reynolds, when they were riding together in Devonshire, +complained that he had a very bad horse, for that even when going down +hill he moved slowly step by step. 'Ay (said Johnson,) and when he +_goes_ up hill, he _stands still_.' + +He had a great aversion to gesticulating in company. He called once to +a gentleman who offended him in that point, 'Don't _attitudenise_.' And +when another gentleman thought he was giving additional force to what he +uttered, by expressive movements of his hands, Johnson fairly seized +them, and held them down[997]. + +An authour of considerable eminence[998] having engrossed a good share +of the conversation in the company of Johnson, and having said nothing +but what was trifling and insignificant; Johnson when he was gone, +observed to us, 'It is wonderful what a difference there sometimes is +between a man's powers of writing and of talking. ---- writes with great +spirit, but is a poor talker; had he held his tongue we might have +supposed him to have been restrained by modesty; but he has spoken a +great deal to-day; and you have heard what stuff it was.' + +A gentleman having said that a _conge d'elire_[999] has not, perhaps, +the force of a command, but may be considered only as a strong +recommendation; 'Sir, (replied Johnson, who overheard him,) it is such a +recommendation, as if I should throw you out of a two-pair of stairs +window, and recommend to you to fall soft[1000].' + +Mr. Steevens, who passed many a social hour with him during their long +acquaintance, which commenced when they both lived in the Temple, has +preserved a good number of particulars concerning him, most of which are +to be found in the department of Apothegms, &c. in the Collection of +_Johnson's Works_[1001]. But he has been pleased to favour me with the +following, which are original:-- + +'One evening, previous to the trial of Barretti[1002], a consultation of +his friends was held at the house of Mr. Cox, the Solicitor, in +Southampton-buildings, Chancery-lane. Among others present were, Mr. +Burke and Dr. Johnson, who differed in sentiments concerning the +tendency of some part of the defence the prisoner was to make. When the +meeting was over, Mr. Steevens observed, that the question between him +and his friend had been agitated with rather too much warmth. "It may be +so, Sir, (replied the Doctor,) for Burke and I should have been of one +opinion, if we had had no audience[1003]." + +'Dr. Johnson once assumed a character in which perhaps even Mr. Boswell +never saw him. His curiosity having been excited by the praises bestowed +on the celebrated Torre's fireworks at Marybone-Gardens, he desired Mr. +Steevens to accompany him thither. The evening had proved showery; and +soon after the few people present were assembled, publick notice was +given, that the conductors to the wheels, suns, stars, &c., were so +thoroughly water-soaked, that it was impossible any part of the +exhibition should be made. "This is a mere excuse, (says the Doctor,) to +save their crackers for a more profitable company. Let us but hold up +our sticks, and threaten to break those coloured lamps that surround the +Orchestra, and we shall soon have our wishes gratified. The core of the +fireworks cannot be injured; let the different pieces be touched in +their respective centers, and they will do their offices as well as +ever." Some young men who overheard him, immediately began the violence +he had recommended, and an attempt was speedily made to fire some of the +wheels which appeared to have received the smallest damage; but to +little purpose were they lighted, for most of them completely failed. +The authour of _The Rambler_, however, may be considered, on this +occasion, as the ringleader of a successful riot, though not as a +skilful pyrotechnist.' + +'It has been supposed that Dr. Johnson, so far as fashion was concerned, +was careless of his appearance in publick. But this is not altogether +true, as the following slight instance may show:--Goldsmith's last +Comedy was to be represented during some court-mourning[1004]: and Mr. +Steevens appointed to call on Dr. Johnson, and carry him to the tavern +where he was to dine with others of the Poet's friends. The Doctor was +ready dressed, but in coloured cloaths; yet being told that he would +find every one else in black, received the intelligence with a profusion +of thanks, hastened to change his attire, all the while repeating his +gratitude for the information that had saved him from an appearance so +improper in the front row of a front box. "I would not (added he,) for +ten pounds, have seemed so retrograde to any general observance[1005]." + +'He would sometimes found his dislikes on very slender circumstances. +Happening one day to mention Mr. Flexman, a Dissenting Minister, with +some compliment to his exact memory in chronological matters; the Doctor +replied, "Let me hear no more of him, Sir. That is the fellow who made +the Index to my _Ramblers_, and set down the name of Milton thus: +Milton, _Mr_. John[1006]."' + +Mr. Steevens adds this testimony:-- + +'It is unfortunate, however, for Johnson, that his particularities and +frailties can be more distinctly traced than his good and amiable +exertions. Could the many bounties he studiously concealed, the many +acts of humanity he performed in private, be displayed with equal +circumstantiality, his defects would be so far lost in the blaze of his +virtues, that the latter only would be regarded.' + +Though from my very high admiration of Johnson, I have wondered[1007] +that he was not courted by all the great and all the eminent persons of +his time, it ought fairly to be considered, that no man of humble birth, +who lived entirely by literature, in short no authour by profession, +ever rose in this country into that personal notice which he did. In the +course of this work a numerous variety of names has been mentioned, to +which many might be added. I cannot omit Lord and Lady Lucan, at whose +house he often enjoyed all that an elegant table and the best company +can contribute to happiness; he found hospitality united with +extraordinary accomplishments, and embellished with charms of which no +man could be insensible[1008]. + +On Tuesday, June 22, I dined with him at THE LITERARY CLUB, the last +time of his being in that respectable society. The other members present +were the Bishop of St. Asaph, Lord Eliot, Lord Palmerston, Dr. Fordyce, +and Mr. Malone. He looked ill; but had such a manly fortitude, that he +did not trouble the company with melancholy complaints. They all shewed +evident marks of kind concern about him, with which he was much pleased, +and he exerted himself to be as entertaining as his indisposition +allowed him. + +The anxiety of his friends to preserve so estimable a life, as long as +human means might be supposed to have influence, made them plan for him +a retreat from the severity of a British winter, to the mild climate of +Italy[1009]. This scheme was at last brought to a serious resolution at +General Paoli's, where I had often talked of it. One essential matter, +however, I understood was necessary to be previously settled, which was +obtaining such an addition to his income, as would be sufficient to +enable him to defray the expence in a manner becoming the first literary +character of a great nation, and, independent of all his other merits, +the Authour of THE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. The person to +whom I above all others thought I should apply to negociate this +business, was the Lord Chancellor[1010], because I knew that he highly +valued Johnson, and that Johnson highly valued his Lordship; so that it +was no degradation of my illustrious friend to solicit for him the +favour of such a man. I have mentioned[1011] what Johnson said of him to +me when he was at the bar; and after his Lordship was advanced to the +seals[1012], he said of him, 'I would prepare myself for no man in +England but Lord Thurlow. When I am to meet with him I should wish to +know a day before[1013]'. How he would have prepared himself I cannot +conjecture. Would he have selected certain topicks, and considered them +in every view so as to be in readiness to argue them at all points? and +what may we suppose those topicks to have been? I once started the +curious enquiry to the great man who was the subject of this compliment: +he smiled, but did not pursue it. + +I first consulted with Sir Joshua Reynolds, who perfectly coincided in +opinion with me; and I therefore, though personally very little known to +his Lordship, wrote to him[1014], stating the case, and requesting his +good offices for Dr. Johnson. I mentioned that I was obliged to set out +for Scotland early in the following week, so that if his Lordship should +have any commands for me as to this pious negociation, he would be +pleased to send them before that time; otherwise Sir Joshua Reynolds +would give all attention to it. + +This application was made not only without any suggestion on the part of +Johnson himself, but was utterly unknown to him, nor had he the smallest +suspicion of it. Any insinuations, therefore, which since his death have +been thrown out, as if he had stooped to ask what was superfluous, are +without any foundation. But, had he asked it, it would not have been +superfluous; for though the money he had saved proved to be more than +his friends imagined, or than I believe he himself, in his carelessness +concerning worldly matters, knew it to be, had he travelled upon the +Continent, an augmentation of his income would by no means have been +unnecessary. + +On Wednesday, June 23, I visited him in the morning, after having been +present at the shocking sight of fifteen men executed before +Newgate[1015]. I said to him, I was sure that human life was not +machinery, that is to say, a chain of fatality planned and directed by +the Supreme Being, as it had in it so much wickedness and misery, so +many instances of both, as that by which my mind was now clouded. Were +it machinery it would be better than it is in these respects, though +less noble, as not being a system of moral government. He agreed with me +now, as he always did[1016], upon the great question of the liberty of +the human will, which has been in all ages perplexed with so much +sophistry. 'But, Sir, as to the doctrine of Necessity, no man believes +it. If a man should give me arguments that I do not see, though I could +not answer them, should I believe that I do not see?' It will be +observed, that Johnson at all times made the just distinction between +doctrines _contrary_ to reason, and doctrines _above_ reason. + +Talking of the religious discipline proper for unhappy convicts, he +said, 'Sir, one of our regular clergy will probably not impress their +minds sufficiently: they should be attended by a Methodist +preacher[1017]; or a Popish priest.' Let me however observe, in justice +to the Reverend Mr. Vilette, who has been Ordinary of Newgate for no +less than eighteen years, in the course of which he has attended many +hundreds of wretched criminals, that his earnest and humane exhortations +have been very effectual. His extraordinary diligence is highly +praiseworthy, and merits a distinguished reward[1018]. + +On Thursday, June 24, I dined with him at Mr. Dilly's, where were the +Rev. Mr. (now Dr.) Knox, master of Tunbridge-school, Mr. Smith, Vicar of +Southill, Dr. Beattie, Mr. Pinkerton, authour of various literary +performances, and the Rev. Dr. Mayo. At my desire old Mr. Sheridan was +invited, as I was earnest to have Johnson and him brought together again +by chance, that a reconciliation might be effected. Mr. Sheridan +happened to come early, and having learned that Dr. Johnson was to be +there, went away[1019]; so I found, with sincere regret, that my +friendly intentions were hopeless. I recollect nothing that passed this +day, except Johnson's quickness, who, when Dr. Beattie observed, as +something remarkable which had happened to him, that he had chanced to +see both No. 1, and No. 1000, of the hackney-coaches, the first and the +last; 'Why, Sir, (said Johnson,) there is an equal chance for one's +seeing those two numbers as any other two.' He was clearly right; yet +the seeing of the two extremes, each of which is in some degree more +conspicuous than the rest, could not but strike one in a stronger manner +than the sight of any other two numbers. Though I have neglected to +preserve his conversation, it was perhaps at this interview that Dr. +Knox formed the notion of it which he has exhibited in his _Winter +Evenings_[1020]. + +On Friday, June 25, I dined with him at General Paoli's, where, he says +in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale, 'I love to dine[1021].' There was +a variety of dishes much to his taste, of all which he seemed to me to +eat so much, that I was afraid he might be hurt by it[1022]; and I +whispered to the General my fear, and begged he might not press him. +'Alas! (said the General,) see how very ill he looks; he can live but a +very short time. Would you refuse any slight gratifications to a man +under sentence of death? There is a humane custom in Italy, by which +persons in that melancholy situation are indulged with having whatever +they like best to eat and drink, even with expensive delicacies.' + +I shewed him some verses on Lichfield by Miss Seward, which I had that +day received from her, and had the pleasure to hear him approve of them. +He confirmed to me the truth of a high compliment which I had been told +he had paid to that lady, when she mentioned to him _The Colombiade_, an +epick poem, by Madame du Boccage[1023]:--'Madam, there is not any thing +equal to your description of the sea round the North Pole, in your Ode +on the death of Captain Cook[1024].' + +On Sunday, June 27, I found him rather better. I mentioned to him a +young man who was going to Jamaica with his wife and children, in +expectation of being provided for by two of her brothers settled in that +island, one a clergyman, and the other a physician. JOHNSON. 'It is a +wild scheme, Sir, unless he has a positive and deliberate invitation. +There was a poor girl, who used to come about me, who had a cousin in +Barbadoes, that, in a letter to her, expressed a wish she should come +out to that Island, and expatiated on the comforts and happiness of her +situation. The poor girl went out: her cousin was much surprised, and +asked her how she could think of coming. "Because, (said she,) you +invited me." "Not I," answered the cousin. The letter was then produced. +"I see it is true, (said she,) that I did invite you: but I did not +think you would come." They lodged her in an out-house, where she passed +her time miserably; and as soon as she had an opportunity she returned +to England. Always tell this, when you hear of people going abroad to +relations, upon a notion of being well received. In the case which you +mention, it is probable the clergyman spends all he gets, and the +physician does not know how much he is to get.' + +We this day dined at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, with General Paoli, Lord +Eliot, (formerly Mr. Eliot, of Port Eliot,) Dr. Beattie, and some other +company. Talking of Lord Chesterfield;--JOHNSON. 'His manner was +exquisitely elegant[1025], and he had more knowledge than I expected.' +BOSWELL. 'Did you find, Sir, his conversation to be of a superiour +style?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, in the conversation which I had with him I had +the best right to superiority, for it was upon philology and +literature.' Lord Eliot, who had travelled at the same time with Mr. +Stanhope[1026], Lord Chesterfield's natural son, justly observed, that +it was strange that a man who shewed he had so much affection for his +son as Lord Chesterfield did, by writing so many long and anxious +letters to him, almost all of them when he was Secretary of State[1027], +which certainly was a proof of great goodness of disposition, should +endeavour to make his son a rascal. His Lordship told us, that Foote had +intended to bring on the stage a father who had thus tutored his son, +and to shew the son an honest man to every one else, but practising his +father's maxims upon him, and cheating him[1028]. JOHNSON. 'I am much +pleased with this design; but I think there was no occasion to make the +son honest at all. No; he should be a consummate rogue: the contrast +between honesty and knavery would be the stronger. It should be +contrived so that the father should be the only sufferer by the son's +villainy, and thus there would be poetical justice.' + +He put Lord Eliot in mind of Dr. Walter Harte[1029]. 'I know (said he,) +Harte was your Lordship's tutor, and he was also tutor to the +Peterborough family. Pray, my Lord, do you recollect any particulars +that he told you of Lord Peterborough? He is a favourite of mine, and is +not enough known; his character has been only ventilated in party +pamphlets[1030].' Lord Eliot said, if Dr. Johnson would be so good as to +ask him any questions, he would tell what he could recollect. +Accordingly some things were mentioned. 'But, (said his Lordship,) the +best account of Lord Peterborough that I have happened to meet with, is +in _Captain Carleton's Memoirs_. Carleton was descended of an ancestor +who had distinguished himself at the siege of Derry[1031]. He was an +officer; and, what was rare at that time, had some knowledge of +engineering[1032].' Johnson said, he had never heard of the book. Lord +Eliot had it at Port Eliot; but, after a good deal of enquiry, procured +a copy in London, and sent it to Johnson, who told Sir Joshua Reynolds +that he was going to bed when it came, but was so much pleased with it, +that he sat up till he had read it through[1033], and found in it such +an air of truth, that he could not doubt of its authenticity[1034]; +adding, with a smile, (in allusion to Lord Eliot's having recently been +raised to the peerage,) 'I did not think a _young Lord_ could have +mentioned to me a book in the English history that was not known to +me[1035].' + +An addition to our company came after we went up to the drawing-room; +Dr. Johnson seemed to rise in spirits as his audience increased. He +said, 'He wished Lord Orford's pictures[1036], and Sir Ashton Lever's +Museum[1037], might be purchased by the publick, because both the money, +and the pictures, and the curiosities, would remain in the country; +whereas, if they were sold into another kingdom, the nation would indeed +get some money, but would lose the pictures and curiosities, which it +would be desirable we should have, for improvement in taste and natural +history. The only question was, as the nation was much in want of money, +whether it would not be better to take a large price from a +foreign State?' + +He entered upon a curious discussion of the difference between intuition +and sagacity; one being immediate in its effect, the other requiring a +circuitous process; one he observed was the _eye_ of the mind, the other +the _nose_ of the mind[1038]. + +A young gentleman[1039] present took up the argument against him, and +maintained that no man ever thinks of the _nose of the mind_, not +adverting that though that figurative sense seems strange to us, as very +unusual, it is truly not more forced than Hamlet's 'In my _mind's eye_, +Horatio[1040].' He persisted much too long, and appeared to Johnson as +putting himself forward as his antagonist with too much presumption; +upon which he called to him in a loud tone, 'What is it you are +contending for, if you _be_ contending?' And afterwards imagining that +the gentleman retorted upon him with a kind of smart drollery, he said, +'Mr. ----, it does not become you to talk so to me. Besides, ridicule is +not your talent; you have _there_ neither intuition nor sagacity.' The +gentleman protested that he had intended no improper freedom, but had +the greatest respect for Dr. Johnson. After a short pause, during which +we were somewhat uneasy,--JOHNSON. 'Give me your hand, Sir. You were +too tedious, and I was too short.' MR. ----. 'Sir, I am honoured by your +attention in any way.' JOHNSON. 'Come, Sir, let's have no more of it. We +offended one another by our contention; let us not offend the company by +our compliments.' + +He now said, 'He wished much to go to Italy, and that he dreaded passing +the winter in England.' I said nothing; but enjoyed a secret +satisfaction in thinking that I had taken the most effectual measures to +make such a scheme practicable. + +On Monday, June 28, I had the honour to receive from the Lord Chancellor +the following letter:-- + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. SIR, + +I should have answered your letter immediately, if, (being much engaged +when I received it) I had not put it in my pocket, and forgot to open it +till this morning. + +I am much obliged to you for the suggestion; and I will adopt and press +it as far as I can. The best argument, I am sure, and I hope it is not +likely to fail, is Dr. Johnson's merit. But it will be necessary, if I +should be so unfortunate as to miss seeing you, to converse with Sir +Joshua on the sum it will be proper to ask,--it short, upon the means of +setting him out. It would be a reflection on us all, if such a man +should perish for want of the means to take care of his health. + +Yours, &c. THURLOW.' + +This letter gave me a very high satisfaction; I next day went and shewed +it to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was exceedingly pleased with it. He +thought that I should now communicate the negociation to Dr. Johnson, +who might afterwards complain if the attention with which he had been +honoured, should be too long concealed from him. I intended to set out +for Scotland next morning; but Sir Joshua cordially insisted that I +should stay another day, that Johnson and I might dine with him, that we +three might talk of his Italian Tour, and, as Sir Joshua expressed +himself, 'have it all out.' I hastened to Johnson, and was told by him +that he was rather better to-day. BOSWELL. 'I am very anxious about you, +Sir, and particularly that you should go to Italy for the winter, which +I believe is your own wish.' JOHNSON. 'It is, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'You have +no objection, I presume, but the money it would require.' JOHNSON. 'Why, +no, Sir.' Upon which I gave him a particular account of what had been +done, and read to him the Lord Chancellor's letter. He listened with +much attention; then warmly said, 'This is taking prodigious pains about +a man.' 'O! Sir, (said I, with most sincere affection,) your friends +would do every thing for you.' He paused, grew more and more agitated, +till tears started into his eyes, and he exclaimed with fervent emotion, +'GOD bless you all.' I was so affected that I also shed tears. After a +short silence, he renewed and extended his grateful benediction, 'GOD +bless you all, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake.' We both remained for some time +unable to speak. He rose suddenly and quitted the room, quite melted in +tenderness. He staid but a short time, till he had recovered his +firmness; soon after he returned I left him, having first engaged him to +dine at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, next day. I never was again under that +roof which I had so long reverenced. + +On Wednesday, June 30, the friendly confidential dinner with Sir Joshua +Reynolds took place, no other company being present. Had I known that +this was the last time that I should enjoy in this world, the +conversation of a friend whom I so much respected, and from whom I +derived so much instruction and entertainment, I should have been deeply +affected. When I now look back to it, I am vexed that a single word +should have been forgotten. + +Both Sir Joshua and I were so sanguine in our expectations, that we +expatiated with confidence on the liberal provision which we were sure +would be made for him, conjecturing whether munificence would be +displayed in one large donation, or in an ample increase of his pension. +He himself catched so much of our enthusiasm, as to allow himself to +suppose it not impossible that our hopes might in one way or other be +realised. He said that he would rather have his pension doubled than a +grant of a thousand pounds; 'For, (said he,) though probably I may not +live to receive as much as a thousand pounds, a man would have the +consciousness that he should pass the remainder of his life in +splendour, how long soever it might be.' Considering what a moderate +proportion an income of six hundred pounds a year bears to innumerable +fortunes in this country, it is worthy of remark, that a man so truly +great should think it splendour[1041]. + +As an instance of extraordinary liberality of friendship, he told us, +that Dr. Brocklesby had upon this occasion offered him a hundred a year +for his life[1042]. A grateful tear started into his eye, as he spoke +this in a faultering tone. + +Sir Joshua and I endeavoured to flatter his imagination with agreeable +prospects of happiness in Italy. 'Nay, (said he,) I must not expect much +of that; when a man goes to Italy merely to feel how he breathes the +air, he can enjoy very little.' + +Our conversation turned upon living in the country, which Johnson, +whose melancholy mind required the dissipation of quick successive +variety, had habituated himself to consider as a kind of mental +imprisonment[1043]. 'Yet, Sir, (said I,) there are many people who are +content to live in the country.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is in the +intellectual world as in the physical world; we are told by natural +philosophers that a body is at rest in the place that is fit for it; +they who are content to live in the country, are _fit_ for the country.' + +Talking of various enjoyments, I argued that a refinement of taste was a +disadvantage, as they who have attained to it must be seldomer pleased +than those who have no nice discrimination, and are therefore satisfied +with every thing that comes in their way. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir; that is a +paltry notion. Endeavour to be as perfect as you can in every respect.' + +I accompanied him in Sir Joshua Reynolds's coach, to the entry of +Bolt-court. He asked me whether I would not go with him to his house; I +declined it, from an apprehension that my spirits would sink. We bade +adieu to each other affectionately in the carriage. When he had got down +upon the foot-pavement, he called out, 'Fare you well;' and without +looking back, sprung away with a kind of pathetick briskness, if I may +use that expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle to conceal +uneasiness, and impressed me with a foreboding of our long, long +separation. + +I remained one day more in town, to have the chance of talking over my +negociation with the Lord Chancellor; but the multiplicity of his +Lordship's important engagements did not allow of it; so I left the +management of the business in the hands of Sir Joshua Reynolds. + +Soon after this time Dr. Johnson had the mortification of being informed +by Mrs. Thrale, that, 'what she supposed he never believed[1044],' was +true; namely, that she was actually going to marry Signor Piozzi, an +Italian musick-master[1045]. He endeavoured to prevent it; but in vain. +If she would publish the whole of the correspondence that passed between +Dr. Johnson and her on the subject, we should have a full view of his +real sentiments. As it is, our judgement must be biassed by that +characteristick specimen which Sir John Hawkins has given us: 'Poor +Thrale! I thought that either her virtue or her vice would have +restrained her from such a marriage. She is now become a subject for her +enemies to exult over; and for her friends, if she has any left, to +forget, or pity[1046].' + +It must be admitted that Johnson derived a considerable portion of +happiness from the comforts and elegancies which he enjoyed in Mr. +Thrale's family[1047]; but Mrs. Thrale assures us he was indebted for +these to her husband alone, who certainly respected him sincerely. Her +words are,-- + +'_Veneration for his virtue, reverence for his talents_, delight _in his +conversation, and_ habitual endurance of a yoke my husband first put +upon me, _and of which he contentedly bore his share for sixteen or +seventeen years, made me go on so long with_ Mr. Johnson; _but the +perpetual confinement I will own to have been_ terrifying _in the first +years of our friendship, and_ irksome _in the last; nor could I pretend +to support _it without help, when my coadjutor was no more_[1048].' + +Alas! how different is this from the declarations which I have heard +Mrs. Thrale make in his life-time, without a single murmur against any +peculiarities, or against any one circumstance which attended their +intimacy[1049]. + +As a sincere friend of the great man whose _Life_ I am writing, I think +it necessary to guard my readers against the mistaken notion of Dr. +Johnson's character, which this lady's _Anecdotes_ of him suggest; for +from the very nature and form of her book, 'it lends deception lighter +wings to fly'.[1050] + +'Let it be remembered, (says an eminent critick[1051],) that she has +comprised in a small volume all that she could recollect of Dr. Johnson +in _twenty years_, during which period, doubtless, some severe things +were said by him; and they who read the book in _two hours_, naturally +enough suppose that his whole conversation was of this complexion. But +the fact is, I have been often in his company, and never _once_ heard +him say a severe thing to any one; and many others can attest the +same[1052]. When he did say a severe thing, it was generally extorted by +ignorance pretending to knowledge, or by extreme vanity or affectation. + +'Two instances of inaccuracy, (adds he,) are peculiarly worthy of +notice: + +'It is said, _"That natural[1053] roughness of his manner so often +mentioned, would, notwithstanding the regularity of his notions, burst +through them all from time to time; and he once bade a very celebrated +lady, who praised him with too much zeal perhaps, or perhaps too strong +an emphasis, (which always offended him,) consider what her flattery was +worth, before she choaked him with it."_ + +'Now let the genuine anecdote be contrasted with this. The person thus +represented as being harshly treated, though a very celebrated +lady[1054], was _then_ just come to London from an obscure situation in +the country. At Sir Joshua Reynolds's one evening, she met Dr. Johnson. +She very soon began to pay her court to him in the most fulsome strain. +"Spare me, I beseech you, dear Madam," was his reply. She still _laid it +on_. "Pray, Madam, let us have no more of this;" he rejoined. Not paying +any attention to these warnings, she continued still her eulogy. At +length, provoked by this indelicate and vain obtrusion of compliment, he +exclaimed, "Dearest lady, consider with yourself what your flattery is +worth, before you bestow it so freely[1055]." + +'How different does this story appear, when accompanied with all these +circumstances which really belong to it, but which Mrs. Thrale either +did not know, or has suppressed. + +'She says, in another place[1056], _"One gentleman, however, who dined +at a nobleman's house in his company, and that of_ Mr. Thrale, _to whom +I was obliged for the anecdote, was willing to enter the lists in +defence of_ King William's _character; and having opposed and +contradicted_ Johnson _two or three times, petulantly enough, the master +of the house began to feel uneasy, and expect disagreeable consequences; +to avoid which, he said, loud enough for the Doctor to hear,--'Our +friend here has no meaning now in all this, except just to relate at +club to-morrow how he teized_ Johnson _at dinner to-day; this is all to +do himself_ honour.' _No, upon my word, (replied the other,') I see no_ +honour _in it, whatever you may do. Well, Sir, (returned_ Mr. Johnson, +_sternly,) if you do not_ see _the honour, I am sure I_ feel _the +disgrace_." + +'This is all sophisticated. Mr. Thrale was _not_ in the company, though +he might have related the story to Mrs. Thrale. A friend, from whom I +had the story, was present; and it was _not_ at the house of a nobleman. +On the observation being made by the master of the house on a +gentleman's contradicting Johnson, that he had talked for the honour, +&c., the gentleman muttered in a low voice, "I see no honour in it;" and +Dr. Johnson said nothing: so all the rest, (though _bien trouvee_) is +mere garnish.' + +I have had occasion several times, in the course of this work, to point +out the incorrectness of Mrs. Thrale, as to particulars which consisted +with my own knowledge[1057]. But indeed she has, in flippant terms +enough, expressed her disapprobation of that anxious desire of +authenticity which prompts a person who is to record conversations, to +write them down _at the moment_[1058]. Unquestionably, if they are to be +recorded at all, the sooner it is done the better. This lady herself +says[1059],-- + +_'To recollect, however, and to repeat the sayings of_ Dr. Johnson, _is +almost all that can be done by the writers of his Life; as his life, at +least since my acquaintance with him, consisted in little else than +talking, when he was not [absolutely] employed in some serious piece +of work.'_ + +She boasts of her having kept a common-place book[1060]; and we find she +noted, at one time or other, in a very lively manner, specimens of the +conversation of Dr. Johnson, and of those who talked with him; but had +she done it recently, they probably would have been less erroneous; and +we should have been relieved from those disagreeable doubts of their +authenticity, with which we must now peruse them. + +She says of him[1061],-- + +_'He was the most charitable of mortals, without being what we call an_ +active friend. _Admirable at giving counsel; no man saw his way so +clearly; but he_ would not stir a finger _for the assistance of those to +whom he was willing enough to give advice.'_ And again on the same page, +_'If you wanted a slight favour, you must apply to people of other +dispositions; for_ not a step would Johnson move _to obtain a man a vote +in a society, to repay a compliment which might be useful or pleasing, +to write a letter of request, &c., or to obtain a hundred pounds a year +more for a friend who, perhaps, had already two or three. No force could +urge him to diligence, no importunity could conquer his resolution to +stand still.'_ + +It is amazing that one who had such opportunities of knowing Dr. +Johnson, should appear so little acquainted with his real character. I +am sorry this lady does not advert, that she herself contradicts the +assertion of his being obstinately defective in the _petites morales_, +in the little endearing charities of social life, in conferring smaller +favours; for she says[1062],-- + +'Dr. Johnson _was liberal enough in granting literary assistance to +others, I think; and innumerable are the Prefaces, Sermons, Lectures, +and Dedications which he used to make for people who begged of him._' + +I am certain that a _more active friend_ has rarely been found in any +age[1063]. This work, which I fondly hope will rescue his memory from +obloquy, contains a thousand instances of his benevolent exertions in +almost every way that can be conceived; and particularly in employing +his pen with a generous readiness for those to whom its aid could be +useful. Indeed his obliging activity in doing little offices of +kindness, both by letters and personal application, was one of the most +remarkable features in his character; and for the truth of this I can +appeal to a number of his respectable friends: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. +Langton, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Burke, Mr. Windham, Mr. Malone, the Bishop of +Dromore, Sir William Scott, Sir Robert Chambers. And can Mrs. Thrale +forget the advertisements which he wrote for her husband at the time of +his election contest[1064]; the epitaphs on him and her mother[1065]; +the playful and even trifling verses, for the amusement of her and her +daughters; his corresponding with her children[1066], and entering into +their minute concerns[1067], which shews him in the most amiable light? +She relates[1068],-- + +That Mr. Ch-lm-ley unexpectedly rode up to Mr. Thrale's carriage, in +which Mr. Thrale and she, and Dr. Johnson were travelling; that he paid +them all his proper compliments, but observing that Dr. Johnson, who was +reading, did not see him, _'tapt him gently on the shoulder. "'Tis_ Mr. +Ch-lm-ley;" _says my husband. "Well, Sir--and what if it is_ Mr. +Ch-lm-ley;" _says the other, sternly, just lifting his eyes a moment +from his book, and returning to it again, with renewed avidity.'_ + +This surely conveys a notion of Johnson, as if he had been grossly rude +to Mr. Cholmondeley[1069], a gentleman whom he always loved and +esteemed. If, therefore, there was an absolute necessity for mentioning +the story at all, it might have been thought that her tenderness for Dr. +Johnson's character would have disposed her to state any thing that +could soften it. Why then is there a total silence as to what Mr. +Cholmondeley told her?--that Johnson, who had known him from his +earliest years, having been made sensible of what had doubtless a +strange appearance, took occasion, when he afterwards met him, to make a +very courteous and kind apology. There is another little circumstance +which I cannot but remark. Her book was published in 1785, she had then +in her possession a letter from Dr. Johnson, dated in 1777[1070], which +begins thus:--'Cholmondeley's story shocks me, if it be true, which I +can hardly think, for I am utterly unconscious of it: I am very sorry, +and very much ashamed[1071].' Why then publish the anecdote? Or if she +did, why not add the circumstances, with which she was well acquainted! + +In his social intercourse she thus describes him[1072]:-- + +'_Ever musing till he was called out to converse, and conversing till +the fatigue of his friends, or the promptitude of his own temper to take +offence, consigned him back again to silent meditation_.' + +Yet, in the same book[1073], she tells us,-- + +'_He was, however, seldom inclined to be silent, when any moral or +literary question was started; and it was on such occasions that, like +the Sage in _"Rasselas[1074]," _he spoke, and attention watched his +lips; he reasoned, and conviction closed his periods_.' + +His conversation, indeed, was so far from ever _fatiguing_ his friends, +that they regretted when it was interrupted, or ceased, and could +exclaim in Milton's language,-- + +'With thee conversing, I forget all time[1075].' + +I certainly, then, do not claim too much in behalf of my illustrious +friend in saying, that however smart and entertaining Mrs. Thrale's +_Anecdotes_ are, they must not be held as good evidence against him; for +wherever an instance of harshness and severity is told, I beg leave to +doubt its perfect authenticity; for though there may have been _some_ +foundation for it, yet, like that of his reproof to the 'very celebrated +lady,' it may be so exhibited in the narration as to be very unlike the +real fact. + +The evident tendency of the following anecdote[1076] is to represent Dr. +Johnson as extremely deficient in affection, tenderness, or even common +civility:-- + +_'When I one day lamented the loss of a first cousin killed in_ +America,--"_Prithee, my dear, (said he,) have done with canting; how +would the world be the worse for it, I may ask, if all your relations +were at once spitted like larks, and roasted for_ Presto's +_supper?"_--Presto[1077] _was the dog that lay under the table while +we talked._' + +I suspect this too of exaggeration and distortion. I allow that he made +her an angry speech; but let the circumstances fairly appear, as told by +Mr. Baretti, who was present:-- + +'Mrs. Thrale, while supping very heartily upon larks, laid down her +knife and fork, and abruptly exclaimed, "O, my dear Mr. Johnson, do you +know what has happened? The last letters from abroad have brought us an +account that our poor cousin's head was taken off by a cannon-ball." +Johnson, who was shocked both at the fact, and her light unfeeling +manner of mentioning it, replied, "Madam, it would give _you_ very +little concern if all your relations were spitted like those larks, and +drest for Presto's supper[1078]."' + +It is with concern that I find myself obliged to animadvert on the +inaccuracies of Mrs. Piozzi's _Anecdotes_, and perhaps I may be thought +to have dwelt too long upon her little collection. But as from Johnson's +long residence under Mr. Thrale's roof, and his intimacy with her, the +account which she has given of him may have made an unfavourable and +unjust impression, my duty, as a faithful biographer, has obliged me +reluctantly to perform this unpleasing task. + +Having left the _pious negotiation_, as I called it, in the best hands, +I shall here insert what relates to it. Johnson wrote to Sir Joshua +Reynolds on July 6, as follows:-- + +'I am going, I hope, in a few days, to try the air of Derbyshire, but +hope to see you before I go. Let me, however, mention to you what I have +much at heart. If the Chancellor should continue his attention to Mr. +Boswell's request, and confer with you on the means of relieving my +languid state, I am very desirous to avoid the appearance of asking +money upon false pretences. I desire you to represent to his Lordship, +what, as soon as it is suggested, he will perceive to be +reasonable,--That, if I grow much worse, I shall be afraid to leave my +physicians, to suffer the inconveniences of travel, and pine in the +solitude of a foreign country; That, if I grow much better, of which +indeed there is now little appearance, I shall not wish to leave my +friends and my domestick comforts; for I do not travel for pleasure or +curiosity; yet if I should recover, curiosity would revive. In my +present state, I am desirous to make a struggle for a little longer +life, and hope to obtain some help from a softer climate. Do for me +what you can.' + +He wrote to me July 26:-- + +'I wish your affairs could have permitted a longer and continued +exertion of your zeal and kindness. They that have your kindness may +want your ardour. In the mean time I am very feeble and very dejected.' + +By a letter from Sir Joshua Reynolds I was informed, that the Lord +Chancellor had called on him, and acquainted him that the application +had not been successful; but that his Lordship, after speaking highly in +praise of Johnson, as a man who was an honour to his country, desired +Sir Joshua to let him know, that on granting a mortgage of his pension, +he should draw on his Lordship to the amount of five or six hundred +pounds; and that his Lordship explained the meaning of the mortgage to +be, that he wished the business to be conducted in such a manner, that +Dr. Johnson should appear to be under the least possible obligation. Sir +Joshua mentioned, that he had by the same post communicated all this to +Dr. Johnson. + +How Johnson was affected upon the occasion will appear from what he +wrote to Sir Joshua Reynolds:-- + +'Ashbourne, Sept. 9. Many words I hope are not necessary between you and +me, to convince you what gratitude is excited in my heart by the +Chancellor's liberality, and your kind offices....[1079] I have enclosed +a letter to the Chancellor, which, when you have read it, you will be +pleased to seal with a head, or any other general seal, and convey it to +him: had I sent it directly to him, I should have seemed to overlook the +favour of your intervention.' + +'To THE LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR[1080]. + +MY LORD, After a long and not inattentive observation of mankind, the +generosity of your Lordship's offer raises in me not less wonder than +gratitude[1081]. Bounty, so liberally bestowed, I should gladly receive, +if my condition made it necessary; for, to such a mind, who would not be +proud to own his obligations? But it has pleased GOD to restore me to so +great a measure of health, that if I should now appropriate so much of a +fortune destined to do good, I could not escape from myself the charge +of advancing a false claim. My journey to the continent, though I once +thought it necessary, was never much encouraged by my physicians; and I +was very desirous that your Lordship should be told of it by Sir Joshua +Reynolds, as an event very uncertain; for if I grew much better, I +should not be willing, if much worse, not able, to migrate. Your +Lordship was first solicited without my knowledge; but, when I was told +that you were pleased to honour me with your patronage, I did not expect +to hear of a refusal; yet, as I have had no long time to brood hope, and +have not rioted in imaginary opulence, this cold reception has been +scarce a disappointment; and, from your Lordship's kindness, I have +received a benefit, which only men like you are able to bestow. I shall +now live _mihi carior_, with a higher opinion of my own merit. + + 'I am, my Lord, + Your Lordship's most obliged, + Most grateful, and + Most humble servant, + SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'September, 1784.' + +Upon this unexpected failure I abstain from presuming to make any +remarks, or to offer any conjectures.[1082] + +Having after repeated reasonings[1083], brought Dr. Johnson to agree to +my removing to London, and even to furnish me with arguments in favour +of what he had opposed; I wrote to him requesting he would write them +for me; he was so good as to comply, and I shall extract that part of +his letter to me of June 11[1084], as a proof how well he could exhibit +a cautious yet encouraging view of it:-- + +'I remember, and intreat you to remember, that _virtus est vitium +fugere_[1085]; the first approach to riches is security from poverty. +The condition on which you have my consent to settle in London is, that +your expence never exceeds your annual income. Fixing this basis of +security, you cannot be hurt, and you may be very much advanced. The +loss of your Scottish business, which is all that you can lose, is not +to be reckoned as any equivalent to the hopes and possibilities that +open here upon you. If you succeed, the question of prudence is at an +end; every body will think that done right which ends happily; and +though your expectations, of which I would not advise you to talk too +much, should not be totally answered, you can hardly fail to get friends +who will do for you all that your present situation allows you to hope; +and if, after a few years, you should return to Scotland, you will +return with a mind supplied by various conversation, and many +opportunities of enquiry, with much knowledge, and materials for +reflection and instruction.' + +Let us now contemplate Johnson thirty years after the death of his wife, +still retaining for her all the tenderness of affection. + +'TO THE REVEREND MR. BAGSHAW, AT BROMLEY[1086]. + +'SIR, + +'Perhaps you may remember, that in the year 1753[1087], you committed to +the ground my dear wife. I now entreat your permission to lay a stone +upon her; and have sent the inscription, that, if you find it proper, +you may signify your allowance. + +'You will do me a great favour by showing the place where she lies, that +the stone may protect her remains. + +'Mr. Ryland[1088] will wait on you for the inscription[1089], and +procure it to be engraved. You will easily believe that I shrink from +this mournful office. When it is done, if I have strength remaining, I +will visit Bromley once again, and pay you part of the respect to which +you have a right from, Reverend Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON[1090].' + +'July 12, 1784.' + +On the same day he wrote to Mr. Langton:-- + +'I cannot but think that in my languid and anxious state, I have some +reason to complain that I receive from you neither enquiry nor +consolation. You know how much I value your friendship, and with what +confidence I expect your kindness, if I wanted any act of tenderness +that you could perform; at least, if you do not know it, I think your +ignorance is your own fault. Yet how long is it that I have lived almost +in your neighbourhood without the least notice. I do not, however, +consider this neglect as particularly shown to me; I hear two of your +most valuable friends make the same complaint. But why are all thus +overlooked? You are not oppressed by sickness, you are not distracted by +business; if you are sick, you are sick of leisure:--And allow yourself +to be told, that no disease is more to be dreaded or avoided. Rather to +do nothing than to do good, is the lowest state of a degraded mind. +Boileau says to his pupil, + + '_Que les vers ne soient pas votre eternel emploi, + Cultivez vos amis_[1091].'-- + +That voluntary debility, which modern language is content to term +indolence, will, if it is not counteracted by resolution, render in time +the strongest faculties lifeless, and turn the flame to the smoke of +virtue. I do not expect nor desire to see you, because I am much pleased +to find that your mother stays so long with you, and I should think you +neither elegant nor grateful, if you did not study her gratification. +You will pay my respects to both the ladies, and to all the young +people. I am going Northward for a while, to try what help the country +can give me; but, if you will write, the letter will come after me.' + +Next day he set out on a jaunt to Staffordshire and Derbyshire, +flattering himself that he might be in some degree relieved. + +During his absence from London he kept up a correspondence with several +of his friends, from which I shall select what appears to me proper for +publication, without attending nicely to chronological order. + +To Dr. BROCKLESBY, he writes, Ashbourne, July 20:-- + +'The kind attention which you have so long shewn to my health and +happiness, makes it as much a debt of gratitude as a call of interest, +to give you an account of what befals me, when accident recovers[1092] +me from your immediate care. The journey of the first day was performed +with very little sense of fatigue; the second day brought me to +Lichfield, without much lassitude; but I am afraid that I could not have +borne such violent agitation for many days together. Tell Dr. Heberden, +that in the coach I read _Ciceronianus_ which I concluded as I entered +Lichfield. My affection and understanding went along with Erasmus, +except that once or twice he somewhat unskilfully entangles Cicero's +civil or moral, with his rhetorical, character. I staid five days at +Lichfield, but, being unable to walk, had no great pleasure, and +yesterday (19th) I came hither, where I am to try what air and attention +can perform. Of any improvement in my health I cannot yet please myself +with the perception.--The asthma has no abatement. Opiates stop the fit, +so as that I can sit and sometimes lie easy, but they do not now procure +me the power of motion; and I am afraid that my general strength of body +does not encrease. The weather indeed is not benign; but how low is he +sunk whose strength depends upon the weather[1093]! I am now looking +into Floyer[1094] who lived with his asthma to almost his ninetieth +year. His book by want of order is obscure, and his asthma, I think, not +of the same kind with mine. Something however I may perhaps learn. My +appetite still continues keen enough; and what I consider as a symptom +of radical health, I have a voracious delight in raw summer fruit, of +which I was less eager a few years ago[1095]. You will be pleased to +communicate this account to Dr. Heberden, and if any thing is to be +done, let me have your joint opinion. Now--_abite curoe_;--let me +enquire after the Club[1096].' + +July 31. 'Not recollecting that Dr. Heberden might be at Windsor, I +thought your letter long in coming. But, you know, _nocitura +petuntur_[1097], the letter which I so much desired, tells me that I +have lost one of my best and tenderest friends[1098]. My comfort is, +that he appeared to live like a man that had always before his eyes the +fragility of our present existence, and was therefore, I hope, not +unprepared to meet his judge. Your attention, dear Sir, and that of Dr. +Heberden, to my health, is extremely kind. I am loth to think that I +grow worse; and cannot fairly prove even to my own partiality, that I +grow much better.' + +August 5. 'I return you thanks, dear Sir, for your unwearied attention, +both medicinal and friendly, and hope to prove the effect of your care +by living to acknowledge it.' + +August 12[1099]. 'Pray be so kind as to have me in your thoughts, and +mention my case to others as you have opportunity. I seem to myself +neither to gain nor lose strength. I have lately tried milk, but have +yet found no advantage, and am afraid of it merely as a liquid. My +appetite is still good, which I know is dear Dr. Heberden's criterion of +the _vis vitoe_. As we cannot now see each other, do not omit to write, +for you cannot think with what warmth of expectation I reckon the hours +of a post-day.' + +August 14. 'I have hitherto sent you only melancholy letters, you will +be glad to hear some better account. Yesterday the asthma remitted, +perceptibly remitted, and I moved with more ease than I have enjoyed for +many weeks. May GOD continue his mercy. This account I would not delay, +because I am not a lover of complaints, or complainers, and yet I have +since we parted uttered nothing till now but terrour and sorrow. Write +to me, dear Sir.' + +August 16. 'Better I hope, and better. My respiration gets more and more +ease and liberty. I went to church yesterday, after a very liberal +dinner, without any inconvenience; it is indeed no long walk, but I +never walked it without difficulty, since I came, before.--the intention +was only to overpower the seeming _vis inertioe_ of the pectoral and +pulmonary muscles. I am favoured with a degree of ease that very much +delights me, and do not despair of another race upon the stairs of the +Academy[1100]. If I were, however, of a humour to see, or to shew the +state of my body, on the dark side, I might say, + + _"Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una[1101]?"_ + +The nights are still sleepless, and the water rises, though it does not +rise very fast. Let us, however, rejoice in all the good that we have. +The remission of one disease will enable nature to combat the rest. The +squills I have not neglected; for I have taken more than a hundred drops +a day, and one day took two hundred and fifty, which, according to the +popular equivalence of a drop to a grain, is more than half an ounce. I +thank you, dear Sir, for your attention in ordering the medicines; your +attention to me has never failed. If the virtue of medicines could be +enforced by the benevolence of the prescriber, how soon should I +be well.' + +August 19. 'The relaxation of the asthma still continues, yet I do not +trust it wholly to itself, but soothe it now and then with an opiate. I +not only perform the perpetual act of respiration with less labour, but +I can walk with fewer intervals of rest, and with greater freedom of +motion. I never thought well of Dr. James's compounded medicines[1102]; +his ingredients appeared to me sometimes inefficacious and trifling, and +sometimes heterogeneous and destructive of each other. This prescription +exhibits a composition of about three hundred and thirty grains, in +which there are four grains of emetick tartar, and six drops [of] +thebaick tincture. He that writes thus, surely writes for show. The +basis of his medicine is the gum ammoniacum, which dear Dr. Lawrence +used to give, but of which I never saw any effect. We will, if you +please, let this medicine alone. The squills have every suffrage, and in +the squills we will rest for the present.' + +August 21. 'The kindness which you shew by having me in your thoughts +upon all occasions, will, I hope, always fill my heart with gratitude. +Be pleased to return my thanks to Sir George Baker[1103], for the +consideration which he has bestowed upon me. Is this the balloon that +has been so long expected, this balloon to which I subscribed, but +without payment[1104]? It is pity that philosophers have been +disappointed, and shame that they have been cheated; but I know not well +how to prevent either. Of this experiment I have read nothing; where was +it exhibited? and who was the man that ran away with so much money? +Continue, dear Sir, to write often and more at a time; for none of your +prescriptions operate to their proper uses more certainly than your +letters operate as cordials.' + +August 26. 'I suffered you to escape last post without a letter, but you +are not to expect such indulgence very often; for I write not so much +because I have any thing to say, as because I hope for an answer; and +the vacancy of my life here makes a letter of great value. I have here +little company and little amusement, and thus abandoned to the +contemplation of my own miseries, I am sometimes gloomy and depressed; +this too I resist as I can, and find opium, I think, useful, but I +seldom take more than one grain. Is not this strange weather? Winter +absorbed the spring, and now autumn is come before we have had summer. +But let not our kindness for each other imitate the inconstancy of +the seasons.' + +Sept. 2. 'Mr. Windham has been here to see me; he came, I think, forty +miles out of his way, and staid about a day and a half, perhaps I make +the time shorter than it was. Such conversation I shall not have again +till I come back to the regions of literature; and there Windham is, +_inter stellas_[1105] _Luna minores_[1106].' He then mentions the +effects of certain medicines, as taken; that 'Nature is recovering its +original powers, and the functions returning to their proper state. God +continue his mercies, and grant me to use them rightly.' + +Sept. 9. 'Do you know the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire? And have you +ever seen Chatsworth? I was at Chatsworth on Monday: I had indeed seen +it before[1107], but never when its owners were at home; I was very +kindly received, and honestly pressed to stay: but I told them that a +sick man is not a fit inmate of a great house. But I hope to go again +some time.' + +Sept. 11. 'I think nothing grows worse, but all rather better, except +sleep, and that of late has been at its old pranks. Last evening, I felt +what I had not known for a long time, an inclination to walk for +amusement; I took a short walk, and came back again neither breathless +nor fatigued. This has been a gloomy, frigid, ungenial summer, but of +late it seems to mend; I hear the heat sometimes mentioned, but I do +not feel it: + + "Praterea minimus gelido jam in corpore sanguis + Febre calet sola[1108].----" + +I hope, however, with good help, to find means of supporting a winter at +home, and to hear and tell at the Club what is doing, and what ought to +be doing in the world. I have no company here, and shall naturally come +home hungry for conversation. To wish you, dear Sir, more leisure, would +not be kind; but what leisure you have, you must bestow upon me.' + +Sept. 16. 'I have now let you alone for a long time, having indeed +little to say. You charge me somewhat unjustly with luxury. At +Chatsworth, you should remember, that I have eaten but once; and the +Doctor, with whom I live, follows a milk diet. I grow no fatter, though +my stomach, if it be not disturbed by physick, never fails me. I now +grow weary of solitude, and think of removing next week to Lichfield, a +place of more society, but otherwise of less convenience. When I am +settled, I shall write again. Of the hot weather that you mention, we +have [not] had in Derbyshire very much, and for myself I seldom feel +heat, and suppose that my frigidity is the effect of my distemper; a +supposition which naturally leads me to hope that a hotter climate may +be useful. But I hope to stand another English winter.' + +Lichfield, Sept. 29. 'On one day I had three letters about the +air-balloon[1109]: yours was far the best, and has enabled me to impart +to my friends in the country an idea of this species of amusement. In +amusement, mere amusement, I am afraid it must end, for I do not find +that its course can be directed so as that it should serve any purposes +of communication; and it can give no new intelligence of the state of +the air at different heights, till they have ascended above the height +of mountains, which they seem never likely to do. I came hither on the +27th. How long I shall stay I have not determined. My dropsy is gone, +and my asthma much remitted, but I have felt myself a little declining +these two days, or at least to-day; but such vicissitudes must be +expected. One day may be worse than another; but this last month is far +better than the former; if the next should be as much better than this, +I shall run about the town on my own legs.' + +October 6. 'The fate of the balloon I do not much lament[1110]: to make +new balloons, is to repeat the jest again. We now know a method of +mounting into the air, and, I think, are not likely to know more. The +vehicles can serve no use till we can guide them; and they can gratify +no curiosity till we mount with them to greater heights than we can +reach without; till we rise above the tops of the highest mountains, +which we have yet not done. We know the state of the air in all its +regions, to the top of Teneriffe, and therefore, learn nothing from +those who navigate a balloon below the clouds. The first experiment, +however, was bold, and deserved applause and reward. But since it has +been performed, and its event is known, I had rather now find a medicine +that can ease an asthma.' + +October 25. 'You write to me with a zeal that animates, and a tenderness +that melts me. I am not afraid either of a journey to London, or a +residence in it. I came down with little fatigue, and am now not weaker. +In the smoky atmosphere I was delivered from the dropsy, which I +consider as the original and radical disease. The town is my +element[1111]; there are my friends, there are my books, to which I +have not yet bid farewell, and there are my amusements. Sir Joshua told +me long ago that my vocation was to publick life, and I hope still to +keep my station, till GOD shall bid me _Go in peace_[1112].' + +To MR. HOOLE:-- + +Ashbourne, Aug. 7. 'Since I was here I have two little letters from you, +and have not had the gratitude to write. But every man is most free with +his best friends, because he does not suppose that they can suspect him +of intentional incivility. One reason for my omission is, that being in +a place to which you are wholly a stranger, I have no topicks of +correspondence. If you had any knowledge of Ashbourne, I could tell you +of two Ashbourne men, who, being last week condemned at Derby to be +hanged for a robbery, went and hanged themselves in their cell[1113]. +But this, however it may supply us with talk, is nothing to you. Your +kindness, I know, would make you glad to hear some good of me, but I +have not much good to tell; if I grow not worse, it is all that I can +say. I hope Mrs. Hoole receives more help from her migration. Make her +my compliments, and write again to, dear Sir, your affectionate servant.' + +Aug. 13. 'I thank you for your affectionate letter. I hope we shall both +be the better for each other's friendship, and I hope we shall not very +quickly be parted. Tell Mr. Nicholls that I shall be glad of his +correspondence, when his business allows him a little remission; though +to wish him less business, that I may have more pleasure, would be too +selfish. To pay for seats at the balloon is not very necessary, because +in less than a minute, they who gaze at a mile's distance will see all +that can be seen. About the wings[1114] I am of your mind; they cannot +at all assist it, nor I think regulate its motion. I am now grown +somewhat easier in my body, but my mind is sometimes depressed. About +the Club I am in no great pain. The forfeitures go on, and the house, I +hear, is improved for our future meetings. I hope we shall meet often +and sit long.' + +Sept. 4. 'Your letter was, indeed, long in coming, but it was very +welcome. Our acquaintance has now subsisted long[1115] and our +recollection of each other involves a great space, and many little +occurrences, which melt the thoughts to tenderness. Write to me, +therefore, as frequently as you can. I hear from Dr. Brocklesby and Mr. +Ryland, that the Club is not crouded. I hope we shall enliven it when +winter brings us together.' + +To DR. BURNEY:-- + +August 2. 'The weather, you know, has not been balmy; I am now reduced +to think, and am at last content to talk of the weather. Pride must have +a fall[1116]. I have lost dear Mr. Allen, and wherever I turn, the dead +or the dying meet my notice, and force my attention upon misery and +mortality. Mrs. Burney's escape from so much danger, and her ease after +so much pain, throws, however, some radiance of hope upon the gloomy +prospect. May her recovery be perfect, and her continuance long. I +struggle hard for life. I take physick, and take air; my friend's +chariot is always ready. We have run this morning twenty-four miles, and +could run forty-eight more. _But who can run the race with death?_' + +'Sept. 4. [Concerning a private transaction, in which his opinion was +asked, and after giving it he makes the following reflections, which are +applicable on other occasions.] Nothing deserves more compassion than +wrong conduct with good meaning; than loss or obloquy suffered by one +who, as he is conscious only of good intentions, wonders why he loses +that kindness which he wishes to preserve; and not knowing his own +fault, if, as may sometimes happen, nobody will tell him, goes on to +offend by his endeavours to please. I am delighted by finding that our +opinions are the same. You will do me a real kindness by continuing to +write. A post-day has now been long a day of recreation.' + +Nov. 1. 'Our correspondence paused for want of topicks. I had said what +I had to say on the matter proposed to my consideration; and nothing +remained but to tell you, that I waked or slept; that I was more or less +sick. I drew my thoughts in upon myself, and supposed yours employed +upon your book. That your book[1117] has been delayed I am glad, since +you have gained an opportunity of being more exact. Of the caution +necessary in adjusting narratives there is no end. Some tell what they +do not know, that they may not seem ignorant, and others from mere +indifference about truth. All truth is not, indeed, of equal importance; +but, if little violations are allowed, every violation will in time be +thought little; and a writer should keep himself vigilantly on his guard +against the first temptations to negligence or supineness. I had ceased +to write, because respecting you I had no more to say, and respecting +myself could say little good. I cannot boast of advancement, and in +cases of convalescence it may be said, with few exceptions, _non +progredi, est regredi_. I hope I may be excepted. My great difficulty +was with my sweet Fanny[1118], who, by her artifice of inserting her +letter in yours, had given me a precept of frugality[1119] which I was +not at liberty to neglect; and I know not who were in town under whose +cover I could send my letter[1120]. I rejoice to hear that you are all +so well, and have a delight particularly sympathetick in the recovery of +Mrs. Burney.' + +To MR. LANGTON:-- + +Aug. 25. 'The kindness of your last letter, and my omission to answer +it, begins to give you, even in my opinion, a right to recriminate, and +to charge me with forgetfulness for the absent. I will, therefore, delay +no longer to give an account of myself, and wish I could relate what +would please either myself or my friend. On July 13, I left London, +partly in hope of help from new air and change of place, and partly +excited by the sick man's impatience of the present. I got to Lichfield +in a stage vehicle, with very little fatigue, in two days, and had the +consolation[1121] to find, that since my last visit my three old +acquaintance are all dead. July 20, I went to Ashbourne, where I have +been till now; the house in which we live is repairing. I live in too +much solitude, and am often deeply dejected: I wish we were nearer, and +rejoice in your removal to London. A friend, at once cheerful and +serious, is a great acquisition. Let us not neglect one another for the +little time which Providence allows us to hope. Of my health I cannot +tell you, what my wishes persuaded me to expect, that it is much +improved by the season or by remedies. I am sleepless; my legs grow +weary with a very few steps, and the water breaks its boundaries in some +degree. The asthma, however, has remitted; my breath is still much +obstructed, but is more free than it was. Nights of watchfulness produce +torpid days; I read very little, though I am alone; for I am tempted to +supply in the day what I lost in bed. This is my history; like all other +histories, a narrative of misery. Yet am I so much better than in the +beginning of the year, that I ought to be ashamed of complaining. I now +sit and write with very little sensibility of pain or weakness; but when +I rise, I shall find my legs betraying me. Of the money which you +mentioned, I have no immediate need; keep it, however, for me, unless +some exigence requires it. Your papers I will shew you certainly when +you would see them, but I am a little angry at you for not keeping +minutes of your own _acceptum et expensum_[1122], and think a little +time might be spared from Aristophanes, for the _res familiares_. +Forgive me for I mean well. I hope, dear Sir, that you and Lady Rothes, +and all the young people, too many to enumerate, are well and happy. GOD +bless you all.' + +To MR. WINDHAM:-- + +August. 'The tenderness with which you have been pleased to treat me, +through my long illness, neither health nor sickness can, I hope, make +me forget; and you are not to suppose, that after we parted you were no +longer in my mind. But what can a sick man say, but that he is sick? His +thoughts are necessarily concentered in himself; he neither receives nor +can give delight; his enquiries are after alleviations of pain, and his +efforts are to catch some momentary comfort. Though I am now in the +neighbourhood of the Peak, you must expect no account of its wonders, of +its hills, its waters, its caverns, or its mines; but I will tell you, +dear Sir, what I hope you will not hear with less satisfaction, that, +for about a week past, my asthma has been less afflictive.' + +Lichfield. October 2[1123]. 'I believe you have been long enough +acquainted with the _phoenomena_ of sickness, not to be surprised that a +sick man wishes to be where he is not, and where it appears to every +body but himself that he might easily be, without having the resolution +to remove. I thought Ashbourne a solitary place, but did not come hither +till last Monday. I have here more company, but my health has for this +last week not advanced; and in the languor of disease how little can be +done? Whither or when I shall make my next remove I cannot tell; but I +entreat you, dear Sir, to let me know, from time to time, where you may +be found, for your residence is a very powerful attractive to, Sir, your +most humble servant.' + +'To MR. PERKINS. 'DEAR SIR, + +'I cannot but flatter myself that your kindness for me will make you +glad to know where I am, and in what state. + +'I have been struggling very hard with my diseases. My breath has been +very much obstructed, and the water has attempted to encroach upon me +again. I past the first part of the summer at Oxford, afterwards I went +to Lichfield, thence to Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, and a week ago I +returned to Lichfield. + +'My breath is now much easier, and the water is in a great measure run +away, so that I hope to see you again before winter. + +'Please to make my compliments to Mrs. Perkins, and to Mr. and Mrs. +Barclay. + +'I am, dear Sir, 'Your most humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' 'Lichfield, +Oct. 4, 1784.' + +'To THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON. 'DEAR SIR, + +'Considering what reason[1124] you gave me in the spring to conclude +that you took part in whatever good or evil might befal me, I ought not +to have omitted so long the account which I am now about to give you. My +diseases are an asthma and a dropsy, and, what is less curable, +seventy-five. Of the dropsy, in the beginning of the summer, or in the +spring, I recovered to a degree which struck with wonder both me and my +physicians: the asthma now is likewise, for a time, very much relieved. +I went to Oxford, where the asthma was very tyrannical, and the dropsy +began again to threaten me; but seasonable physick stopped the +inundation: I then returned to London, and in July took a resolution to +visit Staffordshire and Derbyshire, where I am yet struggling with my +diseases. The dropsy made another attack, and was not easily ejected, +but at last gave way. The asthma suddenly remitted in bed, on the 13th +of August, and, though now very oppressive, is, I think, still something +gentler than it was before the remission. My limbs are miserably +debilitated, and my nights are sleepless and tedious. When you read +this, dear Sir, you are not sorry that I wrote no sooner. I will not +prolong my complaints. I hope still to see you _in a happier +hour_[1125], to talk over what we have often talked, and perhaps to find +new topicks of merriment, or new incitements to curiosity. I am, dear +Sir, &c. SAM. JOHNSON. Lichfield, Oct. 20, 1784.' + +'TO JOHN PARADISE, ESQ.[1126] + +DEAR SIR, + +Though in all my summer's excursion I have given you no account of +myself, I hope you think better of me than to imagine it possible for me +to forget you, whose kindness to me has been too great and too constant +not to have made its impression on a harder breast than mine. Silence is +not very culpable when nothing pleasing is suppressed. It would have +alleviated none of your complaints to have read my vicissitudes of evil. +I have struggled hard with very formidable and obstinate maladies; and +though I cannot talk of health, think all praise due to my Creator and +Preserver for the continuance of my life. The dropsy has made two +attacks, and has given way to medicine; the asthma is very oppressive, +but that has likewise once remitted. I am very weak, and very sleepless; +but it is time to conclude the tale of misery. I hope, dear Sir, that +you grow better, for you have likewise your share of human evil, and +that your lady and the young charmers are well. + +I am, dear Sir, &c. SAM. JOHNSON. + +Lichfield, Oct. 20, 1784.' + +'To Mr. George Nicol[1127]. + +'Dear Sir, +'Since we parted, I have been much oppressed by my asthma, but it has +lately been less laborious. When I sit I am almost at ease, and I can +walk, though yet very little, with less difficulty for this week past, +than before. I hope I shall again enjoy my friends, and that you and I +shall have a little more literary conversation. Where I now am, every +thing is very liberally provided for me but conversation. My friend is +sick himself, and the reciprocation of complaints and groans affords not +much of either pleasure or instruction. What we have not at home this +town does not supply, and I shall be glad of a little imported +intelligence, and hope that you will bestow, now and then, a little time +on the relief and entertainment of, Sir, 'Yours, &c. 'Sam. Johnson.' + +'Ashbourne, Aug. 19, 1784.' + +'To Mr. Cruikshank. + +'Dear Sir, + +'Do not suppose that I forget you; I hope I shall never be accused of +forgetting my benefactors[1128]. I had, till lately, nothing to write +but complaints upon complaints, of miseries upon miseries; but within +this fortnight I have received great relief. Have your Lectures any +vacation? If you are released from the necessity of daily study, you may +find time for a letter to me. [In this letter he states the particulars +of his case.] In return for this account of my health, let me have a +good account of yours, and of your prosperity in all your undertakings. + +'I am, dear Sir, yours, &c. 'Sam. Johnson.' 'Ashbourne, Sept. 4, 1784.' + +To Mr. Thomas Davies:-- + +August 14. 'The tenderness with which you always treat me, makes me +culpable in my own eyes for having omitted to write in so long a +separation; I had, indeed, nothing to say that you could wish to hear. +All has been hitherto misery accumulated upon misery, disease +corroborating disease, till yesterday my asthma was perceptibly and +unexpectedly mitigated. I am much comforted with this short relief, and +am willing to flatter myself that it may continue and improve. I have at +present, such a degree of ease, as not only may admit the comforts, but +the duties of life. Make my compliments to Mrs. Davies. Poor dear Allen, +he was a good man.' + +To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS:-- + +Ashbourne, July 21. 'The tenderness with which I am treated by my +friends, makes it reasonable to suppose that they are desirous to know +the state of my health, and a desire so benevolent ought to be +gratified. I came to Lichfield in two days without any painful fatigue, +and on Monday came hither, where I purpose to stay: and try what air and +regularity will effect. I cannot yet persuade myself that I have made +much progress in recovery. My sleep is little, my breath is very much +encumbered, and my legs are very weak. The water has encreased a little, +but has again run off. The most distressing symptom is want of sleep.' + +August 19. 'Having had since our separation, little to say that could +please you or myself by saying, I have not been lavish of useless +letters; but I flatter myself that you will partake of the pleasure with +which I can now tell you that about a week ago, I felt suddenly a +sensible remission of my asthma, and consequently a greater lightness of +action and motion. Of this grateful alleviation I know not the cause, +nor dare depend upon its continuance, but while it lasts I endeavour to +enjoy it, and am desirous of communicating, while it lasts, my pleasure +to my friends. Hitherto, dear Sir, I had written before the post, which +stays in this town but a little while, brought me your letter. Mr. +Davies seems to have represented my little tendency to recovery in terms +too splendid. I am still restless, still weak, still watery, but the +asthma is less oppressive. Poor Ramsay[1129]! On which side soever I +turn, mortality presents its formidable frown. I left three old friends +at Lichfield when I was last there, and now found them all dead. I no +sooner lose sight of dear Allen, than I am told that I shall see him no +more. That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had sooner +remembered it. Do not think me intrusive or importunate, if I now call, +dear Sir, on you to remember it.' + +Sept. 2. 'I am glad that a little favour from the court has intercepted +your furious purposes[1130]. I could not in any case have approved such +publick violence of resentment, and should have considered any who +encouraged it, as rather seeking sport for themselves, than honour for +you. Resentment gratifies him who intended an injury, and pains him +unjustly who did not intend it. But all this is now superfluous. I still +continue by GOD'S mercy to mend. My breath is easier, my nights are +quieter, and my legs are less in bulk, and stronger in use. I have, +however, yet a great deal to overcome, before I can yet attain even an +old man's health. Write, do write to me now and then; we are now old +acquaintance, and perhaps few people have lived so much and so long +together, with less cause of complaint on either side. The retrospection +of this is very pleasant, and I hope we shall never think on each other +with less kindness.' + +Sept. 9. 'I could not answer your letter[1131] before this day, because +I went on the sixth to Chatsworth, and did not come back till the post +was gone. Many words, I hope, are not necessary between you and me, to +convince you what gratitude is excited in my heart, by the Chancellor's +liberality and your kind offices. I did not indeed expect that what was +asked by the Chancellor would have been refused[1132], but since it has, +we will not tell that any thing has been asked. I have enclosed a letter +to the Chancellor which, when you have read it, you will be pleased to +seal with a head, or other general seal, and convey it to him; had I +sent it directly to him, I should have seemed to overlook the favour of +your intervention. My last letter told you of my advance in health, +which, I think, in the whole still continues. Of the hydropick tumour +there is now very little appearance; the asthma is much less +troublesome, and seems to remit something day after day. I do not +despair of supporting an English winter. At Chatsworth, I met young Mr. +Burke, who led me very commodiously into conversation with the Duke and +Duchess. We had a very good morning. The dinner was publick[1133].' + +Sept. 18. 'I flattered myself that this week would have given me a +letter from you, but none has come. Write to me now and then, but direct +your next to Lichfield. I think, and I hope, am sure, that I still grow +better; I have sometimes good nights; but am still in my legs weak, but +so much mended, that I go to Lichfield in hope of being able to pay my +visits on foot, for there are no coaches. I have three letters this day, +all about the balloon, I could have been content with one. Do not write +about the balloon, whatever else you may think proper to say[1134].' + +October 2. 'I am always proud of your approbation, and therefore was +much pleased that you liked my letter. When you copied it[1135], you +invaded the Chancellor's right rather than mine. The refusal I did not +expect, but I had never thought much about it, for I doubted whether the +Chancellor had so much tenderness for me as to ask. He, being keeper of +the King's conscience, ought not to be supposed capable of an improper +petition. All is not gold that glitters, as we have often been told; and +the adage is verified in your place[1136] and my favour; but if what +happens does not make us richer, we must bid it welcome, if it makes us +wiser. I do not at present grow better, nor much worse; my hopes, +however, are somewhat abated, and a very great loss is the loss of hope, +but I struggle on as I can.' + +TO MR. JOHN NICHOLS:-- + +Lichfield, Oct. 20. 'When you were here, you were pleased, as I am told, +to think my absence an inconvenience. I should certainly have been very +glad to give so skilful a lover of antiquities any information about my +native place, of which, however, I know not much, and have reason to +believe that not much is known. Though I have not given you any +amusement, I have received amusement from you. At Ashbourne, where I had +very little company, I had the luck to borrow _Mr. Bowyer's Life_[1137]; +a book so full of contemporary history, that a literary man must find +some of his old friends. I thought that I could, now and then, have told +you some hints[1138] worth your notice; and perhaps we may talk a life +over. I hope we shall be much together; you must now be to me what you +were before, and what dear Mr. Allen was, besides. He was taken +unexpectedly away, but I think he was a very good man. I have made +little progress in recovery. I am very weak, and very sleepless; but I +live on and hope[1139].' + +This various mass of correspondence, which I have thus brought together, +is valuable, both as an addition to the store which the publick already +has of Johnson's writings, and as exhibiting a genuine and noble +specimen of vigour and vivacity of mind, which neither age nor sickness +could impair or diminish. + +It may be observed, that his writing in every way, whether for the +publick, or privately to his friends, was by fits and starts; for we see +frequently, that many letters are written on the same day. When he had +once overcome his aversion to begin, he was, I suppose, desirous to go +on, in order to relieve his mind from the uneasy reflection of delaying +what he ought to do[1140]. + +While in the country, notwithstanding the accumulation of illness which +he endured, his mind did not lose its powers. He translated an Ode of +Horace[1141], which is printed in his _Works_, and composed several +prayers. I shall insert one of them, which is so wise and energetick, so +philosophical and so pious, that I doubt not of its affording +consolation to many a sincere Christian, when in a state of mind to +which I believe the best are sometimes liable[1142]. + +And here I am enabled fully to refute a very unjust reflection, by Sir +John Hawkins[1143], both against Dr. Johnson, and his faithful servant, +Mr. Francis Barber[1144]; as if both of them had been guilty of culpable +neglect towards a person of the name of Heely, whom Sir John chooses to +call a _relation_ of Dr. Johnson's. The fact is, that Mr. Heely was not +his relation; he had indeed been married to one of his cousins, but she +had died without having children, and he had married another woman; so +that even the slight connection which there once had been by _alliance_ +was dissolved. Dr. Johnson, who had shewn very great liberality to this +man while his first wife was alive, as has appeared in a former part of +this work[1145], was humane and charitable enough to continue his bounty +to him occasionally; but surely there was no strong call of duty upon +him or upon his legatee, to do more. The following letter, obligingly +communicated to me by Mr. Andrew Strahan, will confirm what I +have stated:-- + +'TO MR. HEELY, No. 5, IN PYE-STREET, WESTMINSTER. + +'SIR, + +'As necessity obliges you to call so soon again upon me, you should at +least have told the smallest sum that will supply your present want; you +cannot suppose that I have much to spare. Two guineas is as much as you +ought to be behind with your creditor. If you wait on Mr. Strahan, in +New-street, Fetter-lane, or in his absence, on Mr. Andrew Strahan, shew +this, by which they are entreated to advance you two guineas, and to +keep this as a voucher. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Ashbourne, Aug. 12, 1784.' + +Indeed it is very necessary to keep in mind that Sir John Hawkins has +unaccountably viewed Johnson's character and conduct in almost every +particular, with an unhappy prejudice[1146]. + +We now behold Johnson for the last time, in his native city, for which +he ever retained a warm affection, and which, by a sudden apostrophe, +under the word _Lich_[1147], he introduces with reverence, into his +immortal Work, THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY:--_Salve, magna parens![1148] +While here, he felt a revival of all the tenderness of filial affection, +an instance of which appeared in his ordering the grave-stone and +inscription over Elizabeth Blaney[1149] to be substantially and +carefully renewed. + +To Mr. Henry White[1150], a young clergyman, with whom he now formed an +intimacy, so as to talk to him with great freedom, he mentioned that he +could not in general accuse himself of having been an undutiful son. +'Once, indeed, (said he,) I was disobedient; I refused to attend my +father to Uttoxeter-market. Pride was the source of that refusal, and +the remembrance of it was painful. A few years ago, I desired to atone +for this fault; I went to Uttoxeter in very bad weather, and stood for a +considerable time bareheaded in the rain, on the spot where my father's +stall used to stand. In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was +expiatory[1151].' + +'I told him (says Miss Seward) in one of my latest visits to him, of a +wonderful learned pig, which I had seen at Nottingham; and which did all +that we have observed exhibited by dogs and horses. The subject amused +him. 'Then, (said he,) the pigs are a race unjustly calumniated. _Pig_ +has, it seems, not been wanting to _man_, but _man_ to _pig_. We do not +allow _time_ for his education, we kill him at a year old.' Mr. Henry +White, who was present, observed that if this instance had happened in +or before Pope's time, he would not have been justified in instancing +the swine as the lowest degree of groveling instinct[1152]. Dr. Johnson +seemed pleased with the observation, while the person who made it +proceeded to remark, that great torture must have been employed, ere the +indocility of the animal could have been subdued. 'Certainly, (said the +Doctor;) but, (turning to me,) how old is your pig?' I told him, three +years old. 'Then, (said he,) the pig has no cause to complain; he would +have been killed the first year if he had not been _educated_, and +protracted existence is a good recompence for very considerable degrees +of torture[1153].' + +As Johnson had now very faint hopes of recovery, and as Mrs. Thrale was +no longer devoted to him, it might have been supposed that he would +naturally have chosen to remain in the comfortable house of his beloved +wife's daughter, and end his life where he began it. But there was in +him an animated and lofty spirit[1154], and however complicated diseases +might depress ordinary mortals, all who saw him, beheld and acknowledged +the _invictum animum Catonis_[1155]. Such was his intellectual ardour +even at this time, that he said to one friend, 'Sir, I look upon every +day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance[1156];' and to +another, when talking of his illness, 'I will be conquered; I will not +capitulate[1157].' And such was his love of London, so high a relish +had he of its magnificent extent, and variety of intellectual +entertainment, that he languished when absent from it, his mind having +become quite luxurious from the long habit of enjoying the metropolis; +and, therefore, although at Lichfield, surrounded with friends, who +loved and revered him, and for whom he had a very sincere affection, he +still found that such conversation as London affords, could be found no +where else. These feelings, joined, probably, to some flattering hopes +of aid from the eminent physicians and surgeons in London, who kindly +and generously attended him without accepting fees, made him resolve to +return to the capital. From Lichfield he came to Birmingham, where he +passed a few days with his worthy old schoolfellow, Mr. Hector, who thus +writes to me:-- + +'He was very solicitous with me to recollect some of our most early +transactions, and transmit them to him, for I perceive nothing gave him +greater pleasure than calling to mind those days of our innocence. I +complied with his request, and he only received them a few days before +his death. I have transcribed for your inspection, exactly the minutes I +wrote to him.' + +This paper having been found in his repositories after his death, Sir +John Hawkins has inserted it entire[1158], and I have made occasional +use of it and other communications from Mr. Hector[1159], in the course +of this Work. I have both visited and corresponded with him since Dr. +Johnson's death, and by my inquiries concerning a great variety of +particulars have obtained additional information. I followed the same +mode with the Reverend Dr. Taylor, in whose presence I wrote down a good +deal of what he could tell; and he, at my request, signed his name, to +give it authenticity. It is very rare to find any person who is able to +give a distinct account of the life even of one whom he has known +intimately, without questions being put to them. My friend Dr. +Kippis[1160] has told me, that on this account it is a practice with him +to draw out a biographical catechism. + +Johnson then proceeded to Oxford, where he was again kindly received by +Dr. Adams[1161], who was pleased to give me the following account in one +of his letters, (Feb. 17th, 1785):-- + +'His last visit was, I believe, to my house, which he left, after a stay +of four or five days. We had much serious talk together, for which I +ought to be the better as long as I live. You will remember some +discourse which we had in the summer upon the subject of prayer, and the +difficulty of this sort of composition[1162]. He reminded me of this, +and of my having wished him to try his hand, and to give us a specimen +of the style and manner that he approved. He added, that he was now in a +right frame of mind, and as he could not possibly employ his time +better, he would in earnest set about it. But I find upon enquiry, that +no papers of this sort were left behind him, except a few short +ejaculatory forms suitable to his present situation.' + +Dr. Adams had not then received accurate information on this subject; +for it has since appeared that various prayers had been composed by him +at different periods, which, intermingled with pious resolutions, and +some short notes of his life, were entitled by him _Prayers and +Meditations_, and have, in pursuance of his earnest requisition, in +the hopes of doing good, been published, with a judicious well-written +Preface, by the Reverend Mr. Strahan, to whom he delivered them[1163]. +This admirable collection, to which I have frequently referred in the +course of this Work, evinces, beyond all his compositions for the +publick, and all the eulogies of his friends and admirers, the sincere +virtue and piety of Johnson. It proves with unquestionable authenticity, +that amidst all his constitutional infirmities, his earnestness to +conform his practice to the precepts of Christianity was unceasing, and +that he habitually endeavoured to refer every transaction of his life to +the will of the Supreme Being. + +He arrived in London on the 16th of November, and next day sent to Dr. +Burney the following note, which I insert as the last token of his +remembrance of that ingenious and amiable man, and as another of the +many proofs of the tenderness and benignity of his heart:-- + +'MR. JOHNSON, who came home last night, sends his respects to dear Dr. +Burney, and all the dear Burneys, little and great[1164].' + +'TO MR. HECTOR, IN BIRMINGHAM. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I did not reach Oxford until Friday morning, and then I sent Francis to +see the balloon fly, but could not go myself. I staid at Oxford till +Tuesday, and then came in the common vehicle easily to London. I am as I +was, and having seen Dr. Brocklesby, am to ply the squills; but, +whatever be their efficacy, this world must soon pass away. Let us think +seriously on our duty. I send my kindest respects to dear Mrs. +Careless[1165]: let me have the prayers of both. We have all lived long, +and must soon part. GOD have mercy on us, for the sake of our Lord JESUS +CHRIST. Amen. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Nov. 17, 1784.' + +His correspondence with me, after his letter on the subject of my +settling in London, shall now, so far as is proper, be produced in +one series:-- + +July 26, he wrote to me from Ashbourne:-- + +'On the 14th I came to Lichfield, and found every body glad enough to +see me. On the 20th, I came hither, and found a house half-built, of +very uncomfortable appearance; but my own room has not been altered. +That a man worn with diseases, in his seventy-second or third year, +should condemn part of his remaining life to pass among ruins and +rubbish, and that no inconsiderable part, appears to me very strange. I +know that your kindness makes you impatient to know the state of my +health, in which I cannot boast of much improvement. I came through the +journey without much inconvenience, but when I attempt self-motion I +find my legs weak, and my breath very short; this day I have been much +disordered. I have no company; the Doctor[1166] is busy in his fields, +and goes to bed at nine, and his whole system is so different from mine, +that we seem formed for different elements[1167]; I have, therefore, +all my amusement to seek within myself.' + +Having written to him, in bad spirits, a letter filled with dejection +and fretfulness, and at the same time expressing anxious apprehensions +concerning him, on account of a dream which had disturbed me; his answer +was chiefly in terms of reproach, for a supposed charge of 'affecting +discontent, and indulging the vanity of complaint.' It, however, +proceeded,-- + +'Write to me often, and write like a man. I consider your fidelity and +tenderness as a great part of the comforts which are yet left me, and +sincerely wish we could be nearer to each other.... My dear friend, life +is very short and very uncertain; let us spend it as well as we can. My +worthy neighbour, Allen, is dead. Love me as well as you can. Pay my +respects to dear Mrs. Boswell. Nothing ailed me at that time; let your +superstition at last have an end.' + +Feeling very soon, that the manner in which he had written might hurt +me, he two days afterwards, July 28, wrote to me again, giving me an +account of his sufferings; after which, he thus proceeds:-- + +'Before this letter, you will have had one which I hope you will not +take amiss; for it contains only truth, and that truth kindly +intended.... _Spartam quam nactus es orna_[1168]; make the most and best +of your lot, and compare yourself not with the few that are above you, +but with the multitudes which are below you.... Go steadily forward with +lawful business or honest diversions. _Be_ (as Temple says of the +Dutchmen) _well when you are not ill, and pleased when you are not +angry_[1169].... This may seem but an ill return for your tenderness; +but I mean it well, for I love you with great ardour and sincerity. Pay +my respects to dear Mrs. Boswell, and teach the young ones to love me.' + +I unfortunately was so much indisposed during a considerable part of +the year, that it was not, or at least I thought it was not in my power +to write to my illustrious friend as formerly, or without expressing +such complaints as offended him. Having conjured him not to do me the +injustice of charging me with affectation, I was with much regret long +silent. His last letter to me then came, and affected me very +tenderly:-- + +'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I have this summer sometimes amended, and sometimes relapsed, but, upon +the whole, have lost ground, very much. My legs are extremely weak, and +my breath very short, and the water is now encreasing upon me. In this +uncomfortable state your letters used to relieve; what is the reason +that I have them no longer? Are you sick, or are you sullen? Whatever be +the reason, if it be less than necessity, drive it away; and of the +short life that we have, make the best use for yourself and for your +friends.... I am sometimes afraid that your omission to write has some +real cause, and shall be glad to know that you are not sick, and that +nothing ill has befallen dear Mrs. Boswell, or any of your family. + +'I am, Sir, your, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Lichfield, Nov. 5, 1784.' + +Yet it was not a little painful to me to find, that in a paragraph of +this letter, which I have omitted, he still persevered in arraigning me +as before, which was strange in him who had so much experience of what I +suffered. I, however, wrote to him two as kind letters as I could; the +last of which came too late to be read by him, for his illness encreased +more rapidly upon him than I had apprehended; but I had the consolation +of being informed that he spoke of me on his death-bed, with affection, +and I look forward with humble hope of renewing our friendship in a +better world. + +I now relieve the readers of this Work from any farther personal notice +of its authour, who if he should be thought to have obtruded himself too +much upon their attention, requests them to consider the peculiar plan +of his biographical undertaking. + +Soon after Johnson's return to the metropolis, both the asthma and +dropsy became more violent and distressful. He had for some time kept a +journal in Latin of the state of his illness, and the remedies which he +used, under the title of _Aegri Ephemeris_, which he began on the 6th of +July, but continued it no longer than the 8th of November; finding, I +suppose, that it was a mournful and unavailing register. It is in my +possession; and is written with great care and accuracy. + +Still his love of literature[1170] did not fail. A very few days before +his death he transmitted to his friend Mr. John Nichols, a list of the +authours of the _Universal History_, mentioning their several shares in +that work. It has, according to his direction, been deposited in the +British Museum, and is printed in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for +December, 1784. + +During his sleepless nights he amused himself by translating into Latin +verse, from the Greek, many of the epigrams in the Anthologica[1171]. +These translations, with some other poems by him in Latin, he gave to +his friend Mr. Langton, who, having added a few notes, sold them to the +booksellers for a small sum, to be given to some of Johnson's relations, +which was accordingly done; and they are printed in the collection of +his works. + +A very erroneous notion has circulated as to Johnson's deficiency in the +knowledge of the Greek language, partly owing to the modesty with which, +from knowing how much there was to be learnt, he used to mention his own +comparative acquisitions. When Mr. Cumberland[1172] talked to him of the +Greek fragments which are so well illustrated in The Observer[1173], +and of the Greek dramatists in general, he candidly acknowledged his +insufficiency in that particular branch of Greek literature. Yet it may +be said, that though not a great, he was a good Greek scholar. Dr. +Charles Burney[1174], the younger, who is universally acknowledged by +the best judges to be one of the few men of this age who are very +eminent for their skill in that noble language, has assured me, that +Johnson could give a Greek word for almost every English one; and that +although not sufficiently conversant in the niceties of the language, he +upon some occasions discovered, even in these, a considerable degree of +critical acumen. Mr. Dalzel, Professor of Greek at Edinburgh, whose +skill in it is unquestionable, mentioned to me, in very liberal terms, +the impression which was made upon him by Johnson, in a conversation +which they had in London concerning that language. As Johnson, +therefore, was undoubtedly one of the first Latin scholars in modern +times, let us not deny to his fame some additional splendour from +Greek[1175]. + +I shall now fulfil my promise[1176] of exhibiting specimens of various +sorts of imitation of Johnson's style. + +In the _Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy_, 1787, there is an +'Essay on the Style of Dr. Samuel Johnson,' by the Reverend Robert +Burrowes, whose respect for the great object of his criticism[1177] is +thus evinced in the concluding paragraph:-- + +'I have singled him out from the whole body of English writers, because +his universally-acknowledged beauties would be most apt to induce +imitation; and I have treated rather on his faults than his perfections, +because an essay might comprize all the observations I could make upon +his faults, while volumes would not be sufficient for a treatise on his +perfections.' + +Mr. BURROWES has analysed the composition of Johnson, and pointed out +its peculiarities with much acuteness; and I would recommend a careful +perusal of his Essay to those, who being captivated by the union of +perspicuity and splendour which the writings of Johnson contain, without +having a sufficient portion of his vigour of mind, may be in danger of +becoming bad copyists of his manner. I, however, cannot but observe, and +I observe it to his credit, that this learned gentleman has himself +caught no mean degree of the expansion and harmony, which, independent +of all other circumstances, characterise the sentences of Johnson. Thus, +in the Preface to the volume in which his Essay appears, we find,-- + +'If it be said that in societies of this sort, too much attention is +frequently bestowed on subjects barren and speculative, it may be +answered, that no one science is so little connected with the rest, as +not to afford many principles whose use may extend considerably beyond +the science to which they primarily belong; and that no proposition is +so purely theoretical as to be totally incapable of being applied to +practical purposes. There is no apparent connection between duration and +the cycloidal arch, the properties of which duly attended to, have +furnished us with our best regulated methods of measuring time: and he +who has made himself master of the nature and affections of the +logarithmick curve, is not aware that he has advanced considerably +towards ascertaining the proportionable density of the air at its +various distances from the surface of the earth.' + +The ludicrous imitators of Johnson's style are innumerable. Their +general method is to accumulate hard words, without considering, that, +although he was fond of introducing them occasionally, there is not a +single sentence in all his writings where they are crowded together, as +in the first verse of the following imaginary Ode by him to Mrs. +Thrale[1178], which appeared in the newspapers:-- + + '_Cervisial coctor's viduate_ dame, + _Opin'st_ thou this gigantick frame, + _Procumbing_ at thy shrine: + Shall, _catenated_ by thy charms, + A captive in thy _ambient_ arms, + _Perennially_ be thine?' + +This, and a thousand other such attempts, are totally unlike the +original, which the writers imagined they were turning into ridicule. +There is not similarity enough for burlesque, or even for caricature. + +Mr. COLMAN, in his _Prose on several occasions_, has _A Letter from +LEXIPHANES[1179]; containing Proposals for a Glossary or Vocabulary of +the Vulgar Tongue: intended as a Supplement to a larger DICTIONARY_. It +is evidently meant as a sportive sally of ridicule on Johnson, whose +style is thus imitated, without being grossly overcharged:-- + +'It is easy to foresee, that the idle and illiterate will complain that +I have increased their labours by endeavouring to diminish them; and +that I have explained what is more easy by what is more difficult-- +_ignotum per ignotius_. I expect, on the other hand, the liberal +acknowledgements of the learned. He who is buried in scholastick +retirement, secluded from the assemblies of the gay, and remote from the +circles of the polite, will at once comprehend the definitions, and be +grateful for such a seasonable and necessary elucidation of his +mother-tongue.' + +Annexed to this letter is a short specimen of the work, thrown together +in a vague and desultory manner, not even adhering to alphabetical +concatenation[1180]. + +The serious imitators of Johnson's style, whether intentionally or by +the imperceptible effect of its strength and animation, are, as I have +had already occasion to observe, so many, that I might introduce +quotations from a numerous body of writers in our language, since he +appeared in the literary world. I shall point out only the following:-- + +WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D.D.[1181] + +'In other parts of the globe, man, in his rudest state, appears as lord +of the creation, giving law to various tribes of animals which he has +tamed and reduced to subjection. The Tartar follows his prey on the +horse which he has reared, or tends his numerous herds, which furnish +him both with food and clothing; the Arab has rendered the camel docile, +and avails himself of its persevering strength; the Laplander has formed +the rein-deer to be subservient to his will; and even the people of +Kamschatka have trained their dogs to labour. This command over the +inferiour creatures is one of the noblest prerogatives of man, and among +the greatest efforts of his wisdom and power. Without this, his dominion +is incomplete. He is a monarch who has no subjects; a master without +servants; and must perform every operation by the strength of his own +arm[1182].' + +EDWARD GIBBON, Esq.[1183] + +'Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most +imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the +submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord the laws of +society lose their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of +humanity. The ardour of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of +success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, +all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of +pity[1184].' + +MISS BURNEY[1185]. + +'My family, mistaking ambition for honour, and rank for dignity, have +long planned a splendid connection for me, to which, though my +invariable repugnance has stopped any advances, their wishes and their +views immovably adhere. I am but too certain they will now listen to no +other. I dread, therefore, to make a trial where I despair of success; I +know not how to risk a prayer with those who may silence me by a +command[1186].' + +REVEREND MR. NARES[1187]. + +'In an enlightened and improving age, much perhaps is not to be +apprehended from the inroads of mere caprice; at such a period it will +generally be perceived, that needless irregularity is the worst of all +deformities, and that nothing is so truly elegant in language as the +simplicity of unviolated analogy. Rules will, therefore, be observed, so +far as they are known and acknowledged: but, at the same time, the +desire of improvement having been once excited will not remain inactive; +and its efforts, unless assisted by knowledge, as much as they are +prompted by zeal, will not unfrequently be found pernicious; so that the +very persons whose intention it is to perfect the instrument of reason, +will deprave and disorder it unknowingly. At such a time, then, it +becomes peculiarly necessary that the analogy of language should be +fully examined and understood; that its rules should be carefully laid +down; and that it should be clearly known how much it contains, which +being already right should be defended from change and violation: how +much it has that demands amendment; and how much that, for fear of +greater inconveniencies, must, perhaps, be left unaltered, though +irregular.' + +A distinguished authour in _The Mirror_[1188], a periodical paper, +published at Edinburgh, has imitated Johnson very closely. Thus, in +No. 16,-- + +'The effects of the return of spring have been frequently remarked as +well in relation to the human mind as to the animal and vegetable world. +The reviving power of this season has been traced from the fields to the +herds that inhabit them, and from the lower classes of beings up to man. +Gladness and joy are described as prevailing through universal Nature, +animating the low of the cattle, the carol of the birds, and the pipe of +the shepherd.' + +The Reverend Dr. KNOX[1189], master of Tunbridge school, appears to have +the _imitari avco_[1190] of Johnson's style perpetually in his mind; +and to his assiduous, though not servile, study of it, we may partly +ascribe the extensive popularity of his writings[1191]. + +In his _Essays, Moral and Literary_, No. 3, we find the following +passage:-- + +'The polish of external grace may indeed be deferred till the approach +of manhood. When solidity is obtained by pursuing the modes prescribed +by our fore-fathers, then may the file be used. The firm substance will +bear attrition, and the lustre then acquired will be durable.' + +There is, however, one in No. 11, which is blown up into such tumidity, +as to be truly ludicrous. The writer means to tell us, that Members of +Parliament, who have run in debt by extravagance, will sell their votes +to avoid an arrest[1192], which he thus expresses:-- + +'They who build houses and collect costly pictures and furniture with +the money of an honest artisan or mechanick, will be very glad of +emancipation from the hands of a bailiff, by a sale of their senatorial +suffrage.' + +But I think the most perfect imitation of Johnson is a professed one, +entitled _A Criticism on Gray's Elegy in a Country Church-Yard_, said to +be written by Mr. Young, Professor of Greek, at Glasgow, and of which +let him have the credit, unless a better title can be shewn. It has not +only the peculiarities of Johnson's style, but that very species of +literary discussion and illustration for which he was eminent. Having +already quoted so much from others, I shall refer the curious to this +performance, with an assurance of much entertainment[1193]. + +Yet whatever merit there may be in any imitations of Johnson's style, +every good judge must see that they are obviously different from the +original; for all of them are either deficient in its force, or +overloaded with its peculiarities; and the powerful sentiment to which +it is suited is not to be found[1194]. + +Johnson's affection for his departed relations seemed to grow warmer as +he approached nearer to the time when he might hope to see them again. +It probably appeared to him that he should upbraid himself with unkind +inattention, were he to leave the world without having paid a tribute of +respect to their memory. + +'To MR. GREEN[1195], APOTHECARY, AT LICHFIELD. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I have enclosed the Epitaph[1196] for my Father, Mother, and Brother, +to be all engraved on the large size, and laid in the middle aisle in +St. Michael's church, which I request the clergyman and churchwardens +to permit. + +'The first care must be to find the exact place of interment, that the +stone may protect the bodies[1197]. Then let the stone be deep, massy, +and hard; and do not let the difference of ten pounds, or more, defeat +our purpose. + +'I have enclosed ten pounds, and Mrs. Porter will pay you ten more, +which I gave her for the same purpose. What more is wanted shall be +sent; and I beg that all possible haste may be made, for I wish to have +it done while I am yet alive. Let me know, dear Sir, that you +receive this. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Dec. 2, 1784.' + +'To MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'I am very ill, and desire your prayers. I have sent Mr. Green the +Epitaph, and a power to call on you for ten pounds. + +'I laid this summer a stone over Tetty, in the chapel of Bromley, in +Kent[1198]. The inscription is in Latin, of which this is the English. +[Here a translation.] + +'That this is done, I thought it fit that you should know. What care +will be taken of us, who can tell? May GOD pardon and bless us, for +JESUS CHRIST'S sake. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON[1199],' + +'Dec. 2, 1784.' + +My readers are now, at last, to behold SAMUEL JOHNSON preparing himself +for that doom, from which the most exalted powers afford no exemption to +man[1200]. Death had always been to him an object of terrour; so that, +though by no means happy, he still clung to life with an eagerness at +which many have wondered. At any time when he was ill, he was very much +pleased to be told that he looked better. An ingenious member of the +_Eumelian Club_[1201], informs me, that upon one occasion when he said +to him that he saw health returning to his cheek, Johnson seized him by +the hand and exclaimed, 'Sir, you are one of the kindest friends I +ever had.' + +His own state of his views of futurity will appear truly rational; and +may, perhaps, impress the unthinking with seriousness. + +'You know, (says he,)[1202] I never thought confidence with respect to +futurity, any part of the character of a brave, a wise, or a good man. +Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing; wisdom impresses +strongly the consciousness of those faults, of which it is, perhaps, +itself an aggravation; and goodness, always wishing to be better, and +imputing every deficience to criminal negligence, and every fault to +voluntary corruption, never dares to suppose the condition of +forgiveness fulfilled, nor what is wanting in the crime supplied by +penitence. + +'This is the state of the best; but what must be the condition of him +whose heart will not suffer him to rank himself among the best, or among +the good? Such must be his dread of the approaching trial, as will leave +him little attention to the opinion of those whom he is leaving for +ever; and the serenity that is not felt, it can be no virtue to feign.' + +His great fear of death, and the strange dark manner in which Sir John +Hawkins[1203] imparts the uneasiness which he expressed on account of +offences with which he charged himself, may give occasion to injurious +suspicions, as if there had been something of more than ordinary +criminality weighing upon his conscience. On that account, therefore, as +well as from the regard to truth which he inculcated[1204], I am to +mention, (with all possible respect and delicacy, however,) that his +conduct, after he came to London, and had associated with Savage and +others, was not so strictly virtuous, in one respect, as when he was a +younger man. It was well known, that his amorous inclinations were +uncommonly strong and impetuous. He owned to many of his friends, that +he used to take women of the town to taverns, and hear them relate their +history[1205]. In short, it must not be concealed, that, like many other +good and pious men, among whom we may place the Apostle Paul upon his +own authority, Johnson was not free from propensities which were ever +'warring against the law of his mind[1206],'--and that in his combats +with them, he was sometimes overcome[1207]. + +Here let the profane and licentious pause; let them not thoughtlessly +say that Johnson was an _hypocrite_, or that his _principles_ were not +firm, because his _practice_ was not uniformly conformable to what he +professed. + +Let the question be considered independent of moral and religious +association; and no man will deny that thousands, in many instances, act +against conviction. Is a prodigal, for example, an _hypocrite_, when he +owns he is satisfied that his extravagance will bring him to ruin and +misery? We are _sure_ he _believes_ it; but immediate inclination, +strengthened by indulgence, prevails over that belief in influencing his +conduct. Why then shall credit be refused to the _sincerity_ of those +who acknowledge their persuasion of moral and religious duty, yet +sometimes fail of living as it requires? I heard Dr. Johnson once +observe, 'There is something noble in publishing truth, though it +condemns one's self[1208].' And one who said in his presence, 'he had +no notion of people being in earnest in their good professions, whose +practice was not suitable to them,' was thus reprimanded by him:--'Sir, +are you so grossly ignorant of human nature as not to know that a man +may be very sincere in good principles, without having good +practice[1209]?' + +But let no man encourage or soothe himself in 'presumptuous sin[1210],' +from knowing that Johnson was sometimes hurried into indulgences which +he thought criminal. I have exhibited this circumstance as a shade in so +great a character, both from my sacred love of truth, and to shew that +he was not so weakly scrupulous as he has been represented by those who +imagine that the sins, of which a deep sense was upon his mind, were +merely such little venial trifles as pouring milk into his tea on +Good-Friday. His understanding will be defended by my statement, if his +consistency of conduct be in some degree impaired. But what wise man +would, for momentary gratifications, deliberately subject himself to +suffer such uneasiness as we find was experienced by Johnson in +reviewing his conduct as compared with his notion of the ethicks of the +gospel? Let the following passages be kept in remembrance:-- + +'O, GOD, giver and preserver of all life, by whose power I was created, +and by whose providence I am sustained, look down upon me with +tenderness and mercy; grant that I may not have been created to be +finally destroyed; that I may not be preserved to add wickedness to +wickedness[1211].' 'O, LORD, let me not sink into total depravity; look +down upon me, and rescue me at last from the captivity of sin[1212].' +'Almighty and most merciful Father, who hast continued my life from year +to year, grant that by longer life I may become less desirous of sinful +pleasures, and more careful of eternal happiness[1213].' 'Let not my +years be multiplied to increase my guilt; but as my age advances, let me +become more pure in my thoughts, more regular in my desires, and more +obedient to thy laws[1214].' 'Forgive, O merciful LORD, whatever I have +done contrary to thy laws. Give me such a sense of my wickedness as may +produce true contrition and effectual repentance; so that when I shall +be called into another state, I may be received among the sinners to +whom whom sorrow and reformation have obtained pardon, for JESUS +CHRIST'S sake. Amen[1215].' + +Such was the distress of mind, such the penitence of Johnson, in his +hours of privacy, and in his devout approaches to his Maker. His +_sincerity_, therefore, must appear to every candid mind unquestionable. + +It is of essential consequence to keep in view, that there was in this +excellent man's conduct no false principle of _commutation_, no +_deliberate_ indulgence in sin, in consideration of a counter-balance of +duty. His offending, and his repenting, were distinct and +separate[1216]: and when we consider his almost unexampled attention to +truth, his inflexible integrity, his constant piety, who will dare to +'cast a stone at him[1217]?' Besides, let it never be forgotten, that he +cannot be charged with any offence indicating badness of _heart_, any +thing dishonest, base, or malignant; but that, on the contrary, he was +charitable in an extraordinary degree: so that even in one of his own +rigid judgements of himself, (Easter-eve, 1781,) while he says, 'I have +corrected no external habits;' he is obliged to own, 'I hope that since +my last communion I have advanced, by pious reflections, in my +submission to GOD, and my benevolence to man[1218].' + +I am conscious that this is the most difficult and dangerous part of my +biographical work, and I cannot but be very anxious concerning it. I +trust that I have got through it, preserving at once my regard to +truth,--to my friend,--and to the interests of virtue and religion. Nor +can I apprehend that more harm can ensue from the knowledge of the +irregularity of Johnson, guarded as I have stated it, than from knowing +that Addison and Parnell were intemperate in the use of wine; which he +himself, in his _Lives_ of those celebrated writers and pious men, has +not forborne to record[1219]. + +It is not my intention to give a very minute detail of the particulars +of Johnson's remaining days[1220], of whom it was now evident, that the +crisis was fast approaching, when he must '_die like men, and fall like +one of the Princes_[1221].' Yet it will be instructive, as well as +gratifying to the curiosity of my readers, to record a few +circumstances, on the authenticity of which they may perfectly rely, as +I have been at the utmost pains to obtain an accurate account of his +last illness, from the best authority[1222]. + +Dr. Heberden[1223], Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Warren[1224], and Dr. Butter, +physicians, generously attended him, without accepting any fees, as did +Mr. Cruikshank, surgeon; and all that could be done from professional +skill and ability, was tried, to prolong a life so truly valuable. He +himself, indeed, having, on account of his very bad constitution, been +perpetually applying himself to medical inquiries, united his own +efforts with those of the gentlemen who attended him; and imagining that +the dropsical collection of water which oppressed him might be drawn off +by making incisions in his body, he, with his usual resolute defiance of +pain, cut deep, when he thought that his surgeon had done it too +tenderly[1225]. + +About eight or ten days before his death, when Dr. Brocklesby paid him +his morning visit, he seemed very low and desponding, and said, 'I have +been as a dying man all night.' He then emphatically broke out in the +words of Shakspeare,-- + + 'Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseas'd; + Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; + Raze out the written troubles of the brain; + And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, + Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff, + Which weighs upon the heart?' + +To which Dr. Brocklesby readily answered, from the same great poet:-- + + '----------------therein the patient + Must minister to himself[1226].' + +Johnson expressed himself much satisfied with the application. + +On another day after this, when talking on the subject of prayer, Dr. +Brocklesby repeated from Juvenal,-- + + '_Orandum est, ut sit mens sana in corpore Sano_[1227],' + +and so on to the end of the tenth satire; but in running it quickly +over, he happened, in the line, + + '_Qui spatium vitae; extremum inter munera ponat_,' + +to pronounce _supremum_ for _extremum_; at which Johnson's critical ear +instantly took offence, and discoursing vehemently on the unmetrical +effect of such a lapse, he shewed himself as full as ever of the spirit +of the grammarian[1228]. + +Having no near relations[1229], it had been for some time Johnson's +intention to make a liberal provision for his faithful servant, Mr. +Francis Barber, whom he looked upon as particularly under his +protection, and whom he had all along treated truly as an humble friend. +Having asked Dr. Brocklesby what would be a proper annuity to a +favourite servant, and being answered that it must depend on the +circumstances of the master; and, that in the case of a nobleman, fifty +pounds a year was considered as an adequate reward for many years' +faithful service; 'Then, (said Johnson,) shall I be _nobilissimus_, for +I mean to leave Frank seventy pounds a year, and I desire you to tell +him so[1230].' It is strange, however, to think, that Johnson was not +free from that general weakness of being averse to execute a will, so +that he delayed it from time to time[1231]; and had it not been for Sir +John Hawkins's repeatedly urging it, I think it is probable that his +kind resolution would not have been fulfilled. After making one, which, +as Sir John Hawkins informs us, extended no further than the promised +annuity, Johnson's final disposition of his property was established by +a Will and Codicil, of which copies are subjoined[1232]. + +The consideration of numerous papers of which he was possessed, seems +to have struck Johnson's mind, with a sudden anxiety, and as they were +in great confusion, it is much to be lamented that he had not entrusted +some faithful and discreet person with the care and selection of them; +instead of which, he in a precipitate manner, burnt large masses of +them, with little regard, as I apprehend, to discrimination. Not that I +suppose we have thus been deprived of any compositions which he had ever +intended for the publick eye; but, from what escaped the flames, I judge +that many curious circumstances relating both to himself and other +literary characters have perished[1233]. + +Two very valuable articles, I am sure, we have lost, which were two +quarto volumes, containing a full, fair, and most particular account of +his own life, from his earliest recollection. I owned to him, that +having accidentally seen them, I had read a great deal in them; and +apologizing for the liberty I had taken, asked him if I could help +it[1234]. He placidly answered, 'Why, Sir, I do not think you could +have helped it.' I said that I had, for once in my life, felt half an +inclination to commit theft. It had come into my mind to carry off those +two volumes, and never see him more. Upon my inquiring how this would +have affected him, 'Sir, (said he,) I believe I should have gone +mad[1235].' + +During his last illness, Johnson experienced the steady and kind +attachment of his numerous friends. Mr. Hoole has drawn up a narrative +of what passed in the visits which he paid him during that time, from +the both of November to the 13th of December, the day of his death, +inclusive, and has favoured me with a perusal of it, with permission to +make extracts, which I have done. Nobody was more attentive to him than +Mr. Langton, to whom he tenderly said, _Te teneam moriens deficiente +manu_[1237]. And I think it highly to the honour of Mr. Windham, that +his important occupations as an active statesman[1238] did not prevent +him from paying assiduous respect to the dying Sage whom he revered. Mr. +Langton informs me, that, 'one day he found Mr. Burke and four or five +more friends sitting with Johnson. Mr. Burke said to him, "I am afraid, +Sir, such a number of us may be oppressive to you." "No, Sir, (said +Johnson,) it is not so; and I must be in a wretched state, indeed, when +your company would not be a delight to me." Mr. Burke, in a tremulous +voice, expressive of being very tenderly affected, replied, "My dear +Sir, you have always been too good to me." Immediately afterwards he +went away. This was the last circumstance in the acquaintance of these +two eminent men[1239].' + +The following particulars of his conversation within a few days of his +death, I give on the authority of Mr. John Nichols[1240]:-- + +'He said, that the Parliamentary Debates were the only part of his +writings which then gave him any compunction[1241]: but that at the time +he wrote them, he had no conception he was imposing upon the world, +though they were frequently written from very slender materials, and +often from none at all,--the mere coinage of his own imagination. He +never wrote any part of his works with equal velocity. Three columns of +the _Magazine_, in an hour, was no uncommon effort, which was faster +than most persons could have transcribed that quantity. + +'Of his friend Cave, he always spoke with great affection. "Yet (said +he,) Cave, (who never looked out of his window, but with a view to the +_Gentleman's Magazine_,) was a penurious pay-master; he would contract +for lines by the hundred, and expect the long hundred; but he was a good +man, and always delighted to have his friends at his table." + +'When talking of a regular edition of his own works, he said, "that he +had power, [from the booksellers,] to print such an edition, if his +health admitted it; but had no power to assign over any edition, unless +he could add notes, and so alter them as to make them new works; which +his state of health forbade him to think of. I may possibly live, (said +he,) or rather breath, three days, or perhaps three weeks; but find +myself daily and gradually weaker." + +'He said at another time, three or four days only before his death, +speaking of the little fear he had of undergoing a chirurgical +operation, "I would give one of these legs for a year more of life, I +mean of comfortable life, not such as that which I now suffer;"--and +lamented much his inability to read during his hours of restlessness; "I +used formerly, (he added,) when sleepless in bed, _to read like a +Turk_[1242]." + +'Whilst confined by his last illness, it was his regular practice to +have the church-service read to him, by some attentive and friendly +Divine. The Rev. Mr. Hoole performed this kind office in my presence for +the last time, when, by his own desire, no more than the Litany was +read; in which his responses were in the deep and sonorous voice which +Mr. Boswell has occasionally noticed, and with the most profound +devotion that can be imagined. His hearing not being quite perfect, he +more than once interrupted Mr. Hoole, with "Louder, my dear Sir, louder, +I entreat you, or you pray in vain[1243]!"--and, when the service was +ended, he, with great earnestness, turned round to an excellent lady who +was present, saying, "I thank you, Madam, very heartily, for your +kindness in joining me in this solemn exercise. Live well, I conjure +you; and you will not feel the compunction at the last, which I now +feel[1244]." So truly humble were the thoughts which this great and good +man entertained of his own approaches to religious perfection[1245]. + +'He was earnestly invited to publish a volume of _Devotional +Exercises_[1246]; but this, (though he listened to the proposal with +much complacency, and a large sum of money was offered for it,) he +declined, from motives of the sincerest modesty. + +'He seriously entertained the thought of translating _Thuanus_[1247]. He +often talked to me on the subject; and once, in particular, when I was +rather wishing that he would favour the world, and gratify his +sovereign, by a Life of Spenser[1248], (which he said that he would +readily have done, had he been able to obtain any new materials for the +purpose,) he added, "I have been thinking again, Sir, of _Thuanus_: it +would not be the laborious task which you have supposed it. I should +have no trouble but that of dictation, which would be performed as +speedily as an amanuensis could write." + +It is to the mutual credit of Johnson and Divines of different +communions, that although he was a steady Church-of-England man, there +was, nevertheless, much agreeable intercourse between him and them. Let +me particularly name the late Mr. La Trobe, and Mr. Hutton[1249], of the +Moravian profession. His intimacy with the English Benedictines, at +Paris, has been mentioned[1250]; and as an additional proof of the +charity in which he lived with good men of the Romish Church, I am happy +in this opportunity of recording his friendship with the Reverend Thomas +Hussey[1251], D.D. His Catholick Majesty's Chaplain of Embassy at the +Court of London, that very respectable man, eminent not only for his +powerful eloquence as a preacher, but for his various abilities and +acquisitions. Nay, though Johnson loved a Presbyterian the least of all, +this did not prevent his having a long and uninterrupted social +connection with the Reverend Dr. James Fordyce, who, since his death, +hath gratefully celebrated him in a warm strain of devotional +composition[1252]. + +Amidst the melancholy clouds which hung over the dying Johnson, his +characteristical manner shewed itself on different occasions. + +When Dr. Warren, in the usual style, hoped that he was better; his +answer was, 'No, Sir; you cannot conceive with what acceleration I +advance towards death.' + +A man whom he had never seen before was employed one night to sit up +with him[1253]. Being asked next morning how he liked his attendant, his +answer was, 'Not at all, Sir: the fellow's an ideot; he is as aukward as +a turn-spit when first put into the wheel, and as sleepy as a dormouse.' + +Mr. Windham having placed a pillow conveniently to support him, he +thanked him for his kindness, and said, 'That will do,--all that a +pillow can do.' + +He repeated[1254] with great spirit a poem, consisting of several +stanzas, in four lines, in alternate rhyme, which he said he had +composed some years before, on occasion of a rich, extravagant young +gentleman's coming of age; saying he had never repeated it but once +since he composed it, and had given but one copy of it. That copy was +given to Mrs. Thrale, now Piozzi, who has published it in a Book which +she entitles _British Synonymy_[1255], but which is truly a collection +of entertaining remarks and stories, no matter whether accurate or not. +Being a piece of exquisite satire, conveyed in a strain of pointed +vivacity and humour, and in a manner of which no other instance is to be +found in Johnson's writings, I shall here insert it[1256]:-- + + Long-expected one-and-twenty, + Ling'ring year, at length is flown; + Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty, + Great --- ----[1257], are now your own. + + Loosen'd from the Minor's tether, + Free to mortgage or to sell, + Wild as wind, and light as feather, + Bid the sons of thrift farewell. + + Call the Betseys, Kates, and Jennies, + All the names that banish care; + Lavish of your grandsire's guineas, + Shew the spirit of an heir. + + All that prey on vice or folly + Joy to see their quarry fly; + There the gamester, light and jolly, + There the lender, grave and sly. + + Wealth, my lad, was made to wander, + Let it wander as it will; + Call the jockey, call the pander, + Bid them come and take their fill. + + When the bonny blade carouses, + Pockets full, and spirits high-- + What are acres? what are houses? + Only dirt, or wet or dry. + + Should the guardian friend or mother + Tell the woes of wilful waste; + Scorn their counsel, scorn their pother,-- + You can hang or drown at last. + +As he opened a note which his servant brought to him, he said, 'An odd +thought strikes me: we shall receive no letters in the grave[1258].' + +He requested three things of Sir Joshua Reynolds:--To forgive him thirty +pounds which he had borrowed of him; to read the Bible; and never to +use his pencil on a Sunday[1259]. Sir Joshua readily acquiesced[1260]. + +Indeed he shewed the greatest anxiety for the religious improvement of +his friends, to whom he discoursed of its infinite consequence. He +begged of Mr. Hoole to think of what he had said, and to commit it to +writing: and, upon being afterwards assured that this was done, pressed +his hands, and in an earnest tone thanked him. Dr. Brocklesby having +attended him with the utmost assiduity and kindness as his physician and +friend, he was peculiarly desirous that this gentleman should not +entertain any loose speculative notions, but be confirmed in the truths +of Christianity, and insisted on his writing down in his presence, as +nearly as he could collect it, the import of what passed on the subject: +and Dr. Brocklesby having complied with the request, he made him sign +the paper, and urged him to keep it in his own custody as long as he +lived[1261]. + +Johnson, with that native fortitude, which, amidst all his bodily +distress and mental sufferings, never forsook him, asked Dr. Brocklesby, +as a man in whom he had confidence, to tell him plainly whether he could +recover. 'Give me (said he) a direct answer.' The Doctor having first +asked him if he could bear the whole truth, which way soever it might +lead, and being answered that he could, declared that, in his opinion, +he could not recover without a miracle. 'Then, (said Johnson,) I will +take no more physick, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may +render up my soul to GOD unclouded.' In this resolution he persevered, +and, at the same time, used only the weakest kinds of sustenance. Being +pressed by Mr. Windham to take somewhat more generous nourishment, lest +too low a diet should have the very effect which he dreaded, by +debilitating his mind, he said, 'I will take any thing but inebriating +sustenance[1262].' + +The Reverend Mr. Strahan, who was the son of his friend, and had been +always one of his great favourites, had, during his last illness, the +satisfaction of contributing to soothe and comfort him. That gentleman's +house, at Islington, of which he is Vicar, afforded Johnson, +occasionally and easily, an agreeable change of place and fresh air; and +he attended also upon him in town in the discharge of the sacred offices +of his profession. + +Mr. Strahan has given me the agreeable assurance, that, after being in +much agitation, Johnson became quite composed, and continued so till his +death[1263]. + +Dr. Brocklesby, who will not be suspected of fanaticism, obliged me with +the following accounts:-- + +'For some time before his death, all his fears were calmed and absorbed +by the prevalence of his faith, and his trust in the merits and +_propitiation_ of JESUS CHRIST. + +'He talked often to me about the necessity of faith in the _sacrifice_ +of Jesus, as necessary beyond all good works whatever, for the salvation +of mankind. + +'He pressed me to study Dr. Clarke and to read his Sermons. I asked him +why he pressed Dr. Clarke, an Arian[1264]. "Because, (said he,) he is +fullest on the _propitiatory sacrifice_."' + +Johnson having thus in his mind the true Christian scheme, at once +rational and consolatory, uniting justice and mercy in the DIVINITY, +with the improvement of human nature, previous to his receiving the Holy +Sacrament in his apartment, composed and fervently uttered this +prayer[1265]:-- + +'Almighty and most merciful Father, I am now as to human eyes, it +seems, about to commemorate, for the last time, the death of thy Son +JESUS CHRIST, our Saviour and Redeemer. Grant, O LORD, that my whole +hope and confidence may be in his merits, and thy mercy; enforce and +accept my imperfect repentance; make this commemoration available to the +confirmation of my faith, the establishment of my hope, and the +enlargement of my charity; and make the death of thy Son JESUS CHRIST +effectual to my redemption. Have mercy upon me, and pardon the multitude +of my offences. Bless my friends; have mercy upon all men. Support me, +by thy Holy Spirit, in the days of weakness, and at the hour of death; +and receive me, at my death, to everlasting happiness, for the sake of +JESUS CHRIST. Amen.' + +Having, as has been already mentioned, made his will on the 8th and 9th +of December, and settled all his worldly affairs, he languished till +Monday, the 13th of that month, when he expired, about seven o'clock in +the evening, with so little apparent pain that his attendants hardly +perceived when his dissolution took place. + +Of his last moments, my brother, Thomas David[1266], has furnished me +with the following particulars:-- + +'The Doctor, from the time that he was certain his death was near, +appeared to be perfectly resigned[1267], was seldom or never fretful or +out of temper, and often said to his faithful servant, who gave me this +account, "Attend, Francis, to the salvation of your soul, which is the +object of greatest importance:" he also explained to him passages in the +scripture, and seemed to have pleasure in talking upon religious +subjects. + +'On Monday, the 13th of December, the day on which he died, a Miss +Morris[1268], daughter to a particular friend of his, called, and said +to Francis, that she begged to be permitted to see the Doctor, that she +might earnestly request him to give her his blessing. Francis went into +his room, followed by the young lady, and delivered the message. The +Doctor turned himself in the bed, and said, "GOD bless you, my dear!" +These were the last words he spoke. His difficulty of breathing +increased till about seven o'clock in the evening, when Mr. Barber and +Mrs. Desmoulins, who were sitting in the room, observing that the noise +he made in breathing had ceased, went to the bed, and found he was +dead[1269].' + +About two days after his death, the following very agreeable account was +communicated to Mr. Malone, in a letter by the Honourable John Byng, to +whom I am much obliged for granting me permission to introduce it in +my work. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Since I saw you, I have had a long conversation with Cawston[1270], who +sat up with Dr. Johnson, from nine o'clock, on Sunday evening, till ten +o'clock, on Monday morning. And, from what I can gather from him, it +should seem, that Dr. Johnson was perfectly composed, steady in hope, +and resigned to death. At the interval of each hour, they assisted him +to sit up in his bed, and move his legs, which were in much pain; when +he regularly addressed himself to fervent prayer; and though, sometimes, +his voice failed him, his senses never did, during that time. The only +sustenance he received, was cyder and water. He said his mind was +prepared, and the time to his dissolution seemed long. At six in the +morning, he enquired the hour, and, on being informed, said that all +went on regularly, and he felt he had but a few hours to live. + +'At ten o'clock in the morning, he parted from Cawston, saying, "You +should not detain Mr. Windham's servant:--I thank you; bear my +remembrance to your master." Cawston says, that no man could appear more +collected, more devout, or less terrified at the thoughts of the +approaching minute. + +'This account, which is so much more agreeable than, and somewhat +different from, yours, has given us the satisfaction of thinking that +that great man died as he lived, full of resignation, strengthened in +faith, and joyful in hope.' + +A few days before his death, he had asked Sir John Hawkins, as one of +his executors, where he should be buried; and on being answered, +'Doubtless, in Westminster-Abbey,' seemed to feel a satisfaction, very +natural to a Poet; and indeed in my opinion very natural to every man of +any imagination, who has no family sepulchre in which he can be laid +with his fathers. Accordingly, upon Monday, December 20, his remains +were deposited in that noble and renowned edifice; and over his grave +was placed a large blue flag-stone, with this inscription:-- + + 'SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. + _Obiit_ XIII _die Decembris_, + _Anno Domini_ + M. DCC. LXXXIV. + Aetatis suoe_ LXXV.' + +His funeral was attended by a respectable number of his friends, +particularly such of the members of the LITERARY CLUB as were then in +town; and was also honoured with the presence of several of the Reverend +Chapter of Westminster. Mr. Burke, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Windham, Mr. +Langton, Sir Charles Bunbury, and Mr. Colman, bore his pall[1271]. His +schoolfellow, Dr. Taylor, performed the mournful office of reading the +burial service[1272]. + +I trust, I shall not be accused of affectation, when I declare, that I +find myself unable to express all that I felt upon the loss of such a +'Guide[1273], Philosopher, and Friend[1274].' I shall, therefore, not +say one word of my own, but adopt those of an eminent friend[1275], +which he uttered with an abrupt felicity, superior to all studied +compositions:--'He has made a chasm, which not only nothing can fill up, +but which nothing has a tendency to fill up. Johnson is dead. Let us go +to the next best:--there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in +mind of Johnson[1276].' + +As Johnson had abundant homage paid to him during his life[1277], so no +writer in this nation ever had such an accumulation of literary honours +after his death. A sermon upon that event was preached in St. Mary's +Church, Oxford, before the University, by the Reverend Mr. Agutter, of +Magdalen College[1278]. The _Lives_, the _Memoirs_, the _Essays_, both +in prose and verse, which have been published concerning him, would make +many volumes. The numerous attacks too upon him, I consider as part of +his consequence, upon the principle which he himself so well knew and +asserted[1279]. Many who trembled at his presence, were forward in +assault, when they no longer apprehended danger. When one of his little +pragmatical foes was invidiously snarling at his fame, at Sir Joshua +Reynolds's table, the Reverend Dr. Parr exclaimed, with his usual bold +animation, 'Ay, now that the old lion is dead, every ass thinks he may +kick at him.' + +A monument for him, in Westminster Abbey, was resolved upon soon after +his death, and was supported by a most respectable contribution[1280]; +but the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's having come to a resolution of +admitting monuments there, upon a liberal and magnificent plan, that +Cathedral was afterwards fixed on, as the place in which a cenotaph +should be erected to his memory[1281]: and in the cathedral of his +native city of Lichfield, a smaller one is to be erected. To compose his +epitaph, could not but excite the warmest competition of genius[1282]. +If _laudari a laudato viro_ be praise which is highly estimable[1283], +I should not forgive myself were I to omit the following sepulchral +verses on the authour of THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY, written by the Right +Honourable Henry Flood[1284]:-- + + 'No need of Latin or of Greek to grace + Our JOHNSON'S memory, or inscribe his grave; + His native language claims this mournful space, + To pay the Immortality he gave.' + +The character of SAMUEL JOHNSON has, I trust, been so developed in the +course of this work, that they who have honoured it with a perusal, may +be considered as well acquainted with him. As, however, it may be +expected that I should collect into one view the capital and +distinguishing features of this extraordinary man, I shall endeavour to +acquit myself of that part of my biographical undertaking[1285], however +difficult it may be to do that which many of my readers will do better +for themselves. + +His figure was large and well formed, and his countenance of the cast of +an ancient statue; yet his appearance was rendered strange and somewhat +uncouth, by convulsive cramps, by the scars of that distemper which it +was once imagined the royal touch could cure, and by a slovenly mode of +dress. He had the use only of one eye; yet so much does mind govern and +even supply the deficiency of organs, that his visual perceptions, as +far as they extended, were uncommonly quick and accurate[1286]. So +morbid was his temperament, that he never knew the natural joy of a free +and vigorous use of his limbs: when he walked, it was like the +struggling gait of one in fetters; when he rode, he had no command or +direction of his horse, but was carried as if in a balloon[1287]. That +with his constitution and habits of life he should have lived +seventy-five years, is a proof that an inherent _vivida vis_[1288] is a +powerful preservative of the human frame. + +Man is, in general, made up of contradictory qualities; and these will +ever shew themselves in strange succession, where a consistency in +appearance at least, if not in reality, has not been attained by long +habits of philosophical discipline. In proportion to the native vigour +of the mind, the contradictory qualities will be the more prominent, and +more difficult to be adjusted; and, therefore, we are not to wonder, +that Johnson exhibited an eminent example of this remark which I have +made upon human nature. At different times, he seemed a different man, +in some respects; not, however, in any great or essential article, upon +which he had fully employed his mind, and settled certain principles of +duty, but only in his manners, and in the display of argument and fancy +in his talk. He was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. Though +his imagination might incline him to a belief of the marvellous and the +mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with +jealousy[1289]. He was a sincere and zealous Christian, of high +Church-of-England and monarchical principles, which he would not tamely +suffer to be questioned; and had, perhaps, at an early period, narrowed +his mind somewhat too much, both as to religion and politicks. His being +impressed with the danger of extreme latitude in either, though he was +of a very independent spirit, occasioned his appearing somewhat +unfavourable to the prevalence of that noble freedom of sentiment which +is the best possession of man. Nor can it be denied, that he had many +prejudices; which, however, frequently suggested many of his pointed +sayings, that rather shew a playfulness of fancy than any settled +malignity. He was steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations +of religion and morality; both from a regard for the order of society, +and from a veneration for the GREAT SOURCE of all order; correct, nay +stern in his taste; hard to please, and easily offended[1290]; impetuous +and irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent +heart[1291], which shewed itself not only in a most liberal charity, as +far as his circumstances would allow, but in a thousand instances of +active benevolence. He was afflicted with a bodily disease, which made +him often restless and fretful; and with a constitutional melancholy, +the clouds of which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a +gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking: we, therefore, ought not to +wonder at his sallies of impatience and passion at any time; especially +when provoked by obtrusive ignorance, or presuming petulance; and +allowance must be made for his uttering hasty and satirical sallies even +against his best friends. And, surely, when it is considered, that, +'amidst sickness and sorrow[1292],'he exerted his faculties in so many +works for the benefit of mankind, and particularly that he atchieved the +great and admirable DICTIONARY of our language, we must be astonished at +his resolution. The solemn text, 'of him to whom much is given, much +will be required[1293],' seems to have been ever present to his mind, in +a rigorous sense, and to have made him dissatisfied with his labours and +acts of goodness, however comparatively great; so that the unavoidable +consciousness of his superiority was, in that respect, a cause of +disquiet. He suffered so much from this, and from the gloom which +perpetually haunted him, and made solitude frightful, that it may be +said of him, 'If in this life only he had hope, he was of all men most +miserable[1294].' He loved praise, when it was brought to him; but was +too proud to seek for it. He was somewhat susceptible of flattery. As he +was general and unconfined in his studies, he cannot be considered as +master of any one particular science; but he had accumulated a vast and +various collection of learning and knowledge, which was so arranged in +his mind, as to be ever in readiness to be brought forth. But his +superiority over other learned men consisted chiefly in what may be +called the art of thinking, the art of using his mind; a certain +continual power of seizing the useful substance of all that he knew, and +exhibiting it in a clear and forcible manner; so that knowledge, which +we often see to be no better than lumber in men of dull understanding, +was, in him, true, evident, and actual wisdom. His moral precepts are +practical; for they are drawn from an intimate acquaintance with human +nature. His maxims carry conviction; for they are founded on the basis +of common sense, and a very attentive and minute survey of real life. +His mind was so full of imagery, that he might have been perpetually a +poet; yet it is remarkable, that, however rich his prose is in this +respect, his poetical pieces, in general, have not much of that +splendour, but are rather distinguished by strong sentiment and acute +observation, conveyed in harmonious and energetick verse, particularly +in heroick couplets. Though usually grave, and even aweful, in his +deportment, he possessed uncommon and peculiar powers of wit and humour; +he frequently indulged himself in colloquial pleasantry; and the +heartiest merriment[1295] was often enjoyed in his company; with this +great advantage, that as it was entirely free from any poisonous +tincture of vice or impiety, it was salutary to those who shared +in it. He had accustomed himself to such accuracy in his common +conversation[1296], that he at all times expressed his thoughts with +great force, and an elegant choice of language, the effect of which was +aided by his having a loud voice, and a slow deliberate utterance[1297]. +In him were united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, +which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing: for he could +reason close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. Exulting in his +intellectual strength and dexterity, he could, when he pleased, be the +greatest sophist that ever contended in the lists of declamation; and, +from a spirit of contradiction and a delight in shewing his powers, he +would often maintain the wrong side with equal warmth and ingenuity; so +that, when there was an audience, his real opinions could seldom be +gathered from his talk[1298]; though when he was in company with a +single friend, he would discuss a subject with genuine fairness: but he +was too conscientious to make errour permanent and pernicious, by +deliberately writing it; and, in all his numerous works, he earnestly +inculcated what appeared to him to be the truth; his piety being +constant, and the ruling principle of all his conduct[1299]. + +Such was SAMUEL JOHNSON, a man whose talents, acquirements, and +virtues, were so extraordinary, that the more his character is +considered, the more he will be regarded by the present age, and by +posterity, with admiration and reverence[1300]. + + + + +APPENDIX A. + +(_Page_ 115, _note_ 4.) + +There are at least three accounts of this altercation and three versions +of the lines. Two of these versions nearly agree. The earliest is found +in a letter by Richard Burke, senior, dated Jan. 6, 1773 (_Burke +Corres_. i. 403); the second in _The Annual Register_ for 1776, p. 223; +and the third in Miss Reynolds's _Recollections_ (Croker's _Boswell_, +8vo. p. 833). R. Burke places the scene in Reynolds's house. Whether he +himself was present is not clear. 'The dean,' he says, 'asserted that +after forty-five a man did not improve. "I differ with you, Sir," +answered Johnson; "a man may improve, and you yourself have great room +for improvement." The dean was confounded, and for the instant silent. +Recovering, he said, "On recollection I see no cause to alter my +opinion, except I was to call it improvement for a man to grow (which I +allow he may) positive, rude, and insolent, and save arguments by +brutality."' Neither the _Annual Register_ nor Miss Reynolds reports the +Dean's speech. But she says that 'soon after the ladies withdrew, Dr. +Johnson followed them, and sitting down by the lady of the house [that +is by herself, if they were at Sir Joshua's] he said, "I am very sorry +for having spoken so rudely to the Dean." "You very well may, Sir." +"Yes," he said, "it was highly improper to speak in that style to a +minister of the gospel, and I am the more hurt on reflecting with what +mild dignity he received it."' If Johnson really spoke of the Dean's +_mild dignity_, it is clear that Richard Burke's account is wrong. But +it was written just after the scene, and Boswell says there was 'a +pretty smart altercation.' Miss Reynolds continues:--'When the Dean came +up into the drawing-room, Dr. Johnson immediately rose from his seat, +and made him sit on the sofa by him, and with such a beseeching look for +pardon and with such fond gestures--literally smoothing down his arms +and his knees,' &c. The _Annual Register_ says that Barnard the next day +sent the verses addressed to 'Sir Joshua Reynolds & Co.' On the next +page I give Richard Burke's version of the lines, and show the various +readings. + +MISS REYNOLD'S RICHARD BURKE'S VERSION. _Annual Register_ + VERSION + I lately thought no man alive + Could e'er improve past forty-five, + And ventured to assert it; + The observation was not new, + But seem'd to me so just and true, + That none could controvert it. + + 'No, Sir,' says Johnson, ''tis not so; +'Tis _That's_ your mistake, and I can show + An instance, if you doubt it; +You who perhaps are _You, Sir, who are near_ forty-eight, +still May _much_ improve, 'tis not too late; + I wish you'd set about it.' + + Encouraged thus to mend my faults, + I turn'd his counsel in my thoughts, +could Which way I _should_ apply it: +Genius I knew was _Learning and wit seem'd_ past my reach, +what none can For who can learn _where none will_ teach? when + And wit--I could not buy it. + + Then come, my friends, and try your skill, +may You _can improve me, if you will; inform + (My books are at a distance). + With you I'll live and learn; and then + Instead of books I shall read men, + _So_ lend me your assistance. To + + Dear Knight of Plympton[1301], teach me how +unclouded To suffer with _unruffled_ brow, +as And smile serene _like_ thine, +and The jest uncouth _or_ truth severe, +Like thee to turn _To such apply_ my deafest ear, To such + And calmly drink my wine. I'll turn + + Thou say'st, not only skill is gain'd, +attained But genius too may be _obtain'd_, attained +invitation By studious _imitation_; + Thy temper mild, thy genius fine, +study I'll _copy_ till I make _them_ mine, thee +meditation By constant _application_. + + Thy art of pleasing teach me, Garrick, +reverest (_sic_) Thou who _reversest_ odes Pindarick[1302], + A second time read o'er; + Oh! could we read thee backwards too, +Past _Last_ thirty years thou shouldst review, + And charm us thirty more. + + If I have thoughts and can't express 'em, + Gibbon shall teach me how to dress 'em + In terms select and terse; + Jones teach me modesty--and Greek; + Smith how to think; _Burke_ how to speak, Burk + And Beauclerk to converse. + + Let Johnson teach me how to place + In fairest light each borrowed grace, + From him I'll learn to write; +free and easy Copy his _clear and easy_ style, clear + And from the roughness of his file, familiar +like Grow _as_ himself--polite.' like + +Horace Walpole, on Dec. 27, 1775, speaks of these verses as if they were +fresh. 'They are an answer,' he writes, 'to a gross brutality of Dr. +Johnson, to which a properer answer would have been to fling a glass of +wine in his face. I have no patience with an unfortunate monster +trusting to his helpless deformity for indemnity for any impertinence +that his arrogance suggests, and who thinks that what he has read is an +excuse for everything he says.' Horace Walpole's _Letters,_ vi. 302. It +is strange that Walpole should be so utterly ignorant of Johnson's +courage and bodily strength. The date of Walpole's letter makes me +suspect that Richard Burke dated his Jan. 6, 1775 (he should have +written 1776), and that the blunder of a copyist has changed 1775 +into 1773. + + + + +APPENDIX B. + +(_Page_ 238.) + +Had Boswell continued the quotation from Priestley's _Illustrations of +Philosophical Necessity_ he would have shown that though Priestley could +not _hate_ the rioters, he could very easily _prosecute_ them. +He says:-- + +'If as a Necessarian I cease to _blame_ men for their vices in the +ultimate sense of the word, though, in the common and proper sense of +it, I continue to do as much as other persons (for how necessarily +soever they act, they are influenced by a base and mischievous +disposition of mind, against which I must guard myself and others in +proportion as I love myself and others),' &c. Priestley's +_Works_, iii. 508. + +Of his interview with Johnson, Priestley, in his _Appeal to the Public_, +part ii, published in 1792 (_Works_, xix. 502), thus writes, answering +'the impudent falsehood that when I was at Oxford Dr. Johnson left a +company on my being introduced to it':-- + +'In fact we never were at Oxford at the same time, and the only +interview I ever had with him was at Mr. Paradise's, where we dined +together at his own request. He was particularly civil to me, and +promised to call upon me the next time he should go through Birmingham. +He behaved with the same civility to Dr. Price, when they supped +together at Dr. Adams's at Oxford. Several circumstances show that Dr. +Johnson had not so much of bigotry at the decline of life as had +distinguished him before, on which account it is well known to all our +common acquaintance, that I declined all their pressing solicitations to +be introduced to him.' + +Priestley expresses himself ill, but his meaning can be made out. Parr +answered Boswell in the March number of the _Gent. Mag._ for 1795, p. +179. But the evidence that he brings is rendered needless by Priestley's +positive statement. May peace henceforth fall on 'Priestley's injured +name.' (Mrs. Barbauld's _Poems_, ii. 243.) + +When Boswell asserts that Johnson 'was particularly resolute in not +giving countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to +society,' he forgets that that very summer of 1783 he had been willing +to dine at Wilkes's house (_ante_, p. 224, note 2). + +Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, ed. 1833, iii. 157) wrote to Dr. Price in +1784:--'It is said that scarce anybody but yourself and Dr. Priestley +possesses the art of knowing how to differ decently.' Gibbon (_Misc. +Works_, i. 304), describing in 1789 the honestest members of the French +Assembly, calls them 'a set of wild visionaries, like our Dr. Price, who +gravely debate, and dream about the establishment of a pure and perfect +democracy of five and twenty millions, the virtues of the golden age, +and the primitive rights and equality of mankind.' Admiration of Price +made Samuel Rogers, when a boy, wish to be a preacher. 'I thought there +was nothing on earth so _grand_ as to figure in a pulpit. Dr. Price +lived much in the society of Lord Lansdowne [Earl of Shelburne] and +other people of rank; and his manners were extremely polished. In the +pulpit he was great indeed.' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 3. + +The full title of the tract mentioned by Boswell is, _A small +Whole-Length of Dr. Priestley from his Printed Works_. It was published +in 1792, and is a very poor piece of writing. + +Johnson had refused to meet the Abbe Raynal, the author of the _Histoire +Philosophique et Politique du Commerce des Deux Indes_, when he was +over in England in 1777. Mrs. Chapone, writing to Mrs. Carter on June 15 +of that year, says:-- + +'I suppose you have heard a great deal of the Abbe Raynal, who is in +London. I fancy you would have served him as Dr. Johnson did, to whom +when Mrs. Vesey introduced him, he turned from him, and said he had read +his book, and would have nothing to say to him.' Mrs. Chapone's +_Posthumous Works_, i. 172. + +See Walpole's _Letters_, v. 421, and vi. 444. His book was burnt by the +common hangman in Paris. Carlyle's _French Revolution_, ed. 1857, i. 45. + + + + +APPENDIX C. + +(_Page 253_.) + +Hawkins gives the two following notes:-- + +'DEAR SIR, + +'As Mr. Ryland was talking with me of old friends and past times, we +warmed ourselves into a wish, that all who remained of the club should +meet and dine at the house which once was Horseman's, in Ivy-lane. I +have undertaken to solicit you, and therefore desire you to tell on what +day next week you can conveniently meet your old friends. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Bolt-court, Nov. 22, 1783.' + +'DEAR SIR, + +'In perambulating Ivy-lane, Mr. Ryland found neither our landlord +Horseman, nor his successor. The old house is shut up, and he liked not +the appearance of any near it; he therefore bespoke our dinner at the +Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's Church-yard, where, at half an hour after +three, your company will be desired to-day by those who remain of our +former society. + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Dec. 3.' + +Four met--Johnson, Hawkins, Ryland, and Payne (_ante_, i. 243). + +'We dined,' Hawkins continues, 'and in the evening regaled with coffee. +At ten we broke up, much to the regret of Johnson, who proposed +staying; but finding us inclined to separate, he left us with a sigh +that seemed to come from his heart, lamenting that he was retiring to +solitude and cheerless meditation.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 562. + +Hawkins is mistaken in saying that they had a second meeting at a tavern +at the end of a month; for Johnson, on March 10, 1784, wrote:-- + +'I have been confined from the fourteenth of December, and know not when +I shall get out.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 351. + +He thus describes these meetings:-- + +'Dec. 13. I dined about a fortnight ago with three old friends; we had +not met together for thirty years, and one of us thought the other grown +very old. In the thirty years two of our set have died; our meeting may +be supposed to be somewhat tender.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 339. + +'Jan. 12, 1784. I had the same old friends to dine with me on Wednesday, +and may say that since I lost sight of you I have had one pleasant day.' +Ib. p. 346. + +'April 15, 1784. Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving another dinner +to the remainder of the old club. We used to meet weekly, about the year +fifty, and we were as cheerful as in former times; only I could not make +quite so much noise, for since the paralytick affliction my voice is +sometimes weak.' Ib. p. 361. + +'April 19, 1784. The people whom I mentioned in my letter are the +remnant of a little club that used to meet in Ivy-lane about three and +thirty years ago, out of which we have lost Hawkesworth and Dyer; the +rest are yet on this side the grave. Our meetings now are serious, and I +think on all parts tender.' Ib. 363. + +See _ante_, i. 191, note 5. + + + + +APPENDIX D. + +(_Page 254_.) + +It is likely that Sir Joshua Reynolds refused to join the Essex Head +Club because he did not wish to meet Barry. Not long before this time he +had censured Barry's delay in entering upon his duties as Professor +of painting. + +'Barry answered:--"If I had no more to do in the composition of my +lectures than to produce such poor flimsy stuff as your discourses, I +should soon have done my work, and be prepared to read." It is said this +speech was delivered with his fist clenched, in a menacing posture.' +(Northcote's _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 146.) + +The Hon. Daines Barrington was the author of an _Essay on the Migration +of Birds_ (_ante_, ii. 248) and of _Observations on the Statutes_ +(_ante_, iii. 314). Horace Walpole wrote on Nov. 24, 1780 (_Letters_, +vii. 464):-- + +'I am sorry for the Dean of Exeter; if he dies I conclude the leaden +mace of the Antiquarian Society will be given to Judge Barrington.' (He +was 'second Justice of Chester.') + +For Dr. Brocklesby see _ante_, pp. 176, 230, 338, 400. + +Of Mr. John Nichols, Murphy says that 'his attachment to Dr. Johnson was +unwearied.' _Life of Johnson_, p. 66. He was the printer of _The Lives +of the Poets_ (_ante_, p. 36), and the author of _Biographical and +Literary Anecdotes of William Bowyer, Printer_, 'the last of the learned +printers,' whose apprentice he had been (_ante_, p. 369). Horace Walpole +(_Letters_, viii. 259) says:-- + +'I scarce ever saw a book so correct as Mr. Nichols's _Life of Mr. +Bowyer_. I wish it deserved the pains he has bestowed on it every way, +and that he would not dub so many men _great_. I have known several of +his _heroes_, who were very _little_ men.' + +The _Life of Bowyer_ being recast and enlarged was republished under the +title of _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_. From 1778 till +his death in 1826 the _Gentleman's Magazine_ was in great measure in his +hands. Southey, writing in 1804, says:-- + +'I have begun to take in here at Keswick the _Gentleman's Magazine_, +_alias_ the _Oldwomania_, to enlighten a Portuguese student among the +mountains; it does amuse me by its exquisite inanity, and the glorious +and intense stupidity of its correspondents; it is, in truth, a disgrace +to the age and the country.' Southey's _Life and Correspondence_, +ii. 281. + +Mr. William Cooke, 'commonly called Conversation Cooke,' wrote _Lives of +Macklin and Foote_. Forster's _Essays_, ii. 312, and _Gent. Mag._ 1824, +p. 374. Mr. Richard Paul Joddrel, or Jodrell, was the author of _The +Persian Heroine, a Tragedy_, which, in Baker's _Biog. Dram._ i. 400, is +wrongly assigned to Sir R.P. Jodrell, M.D. Nichols's _Lit. Anec._ ix. 2. + +For Mr. Paradise see _ante_, p. 364, note 2. + +Dr. Horsley was the controversialist, later on Bishop of St. David's and +next of Rochester. Gibbon makes splendid mention of him (_Misc. Works_, +i. 232) when he tells how 'Dr. Priestley's Socinian shield has +repeatedly been pierced by the mighty spear of Horsley.' Windham, +however, in his _Diary_ in one place (p. 125) speaks of him as having +his thoughts 'intent wholly on prospects of Church preferment;' and in +another place (p. 275) says that 'he often lays down with great +confidence what turns out afterwards to be wrong.' In the House of +Lords he once said that 'he did not know what the mass of the people in +any country had to do with the laws but to obey them.' _Parl. Hist_. +xxxii. 258. Thurlow rewarded him for his _Letters to Priestley_ by a +stall at Gloucester, 'saying that "those who supported the Church should +be supported by it."' Campbell's _Chancellors_, ed. 1846, v. 635. + +For Mr. Windham, see _ante_, p. 200. + +Hawkins (_Life of Johnson_, p. 567) thus writes of the formation of the +Club:-- + +'I was not made privy to this his intention, but all circumstances +considered, it was no matter of surprise to me when I heard that the +great Dr. Johnson had, in the month of December 1783, formed a sixpenny +club at an ale-house in Essex-street, and that though some of the +persons thereof were persons of note, strangers, under restrictions, for +three pence each night might three nights in a week hear him talk and +partake of his conversation.' + +Miss Hawkins (_Memoirs_, i. 103) says:-- + +'Boswell was well justified in his resentment of my father's designation +of this club as a sixpenny club, meeting at an ale-house. ... Honestly +speaking, I dare say my father did not like being passed over.' + +Sir Joshua Reynolds, writing of the club, says:-- + +'Any company was better than none; by which Johnson connected himself +with many mean persons whose presence he could command. For this purpose +he established a club at a little ale-house in Essex-street, composed of +a strange mixture of very learned and very ingenious odd people. Of the +former were Dr. Heberden, Mr. Windham, Mr. Boswell, Mr. Steevens, Mr. +Paradise. Those of the latter I do not think proper to enumerate.' +Taylor's _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 455. + +It is possible that Reynolds had never seen the Essex Head, and that the +term 'little ale-house' he had borrowed from Hawkins's account. Possibly +too his disgust at Barry here found vent. Murphy (_Life of Johnson_, p. +124) says:-- + +'The members of the club were respectable for their rank, their talents, +and their literature.' + +The 'little ale-house' club saw one of its members, Alderman Clarke +(_ante_, p. 258), Lord Mayor within a year; another, Horsley, a Bishop +within five years; and a third, Windham, Secretary at War within ten +years. Nichols (_Literary Anecdotes_, ii. 553) gives a list of the +'constant members' at the time of Johnson's death. + + + + +APPENDIX E. + +(Page 399.) + +Miss Burney's account of Johnson's last days is interesting, but her +dates are confused more even than is common with her. I have corrected +them as well as I can. + +'Dec. 9. He will not, it seems, be talked to--at least very rarely. At +times indeed he re-animates; but it is soon over and he says of +himself:--"I am now like Macbeth--question enrages me."' + +'Dec. 10. At night my father brought us the most dismal tidings of dear +Dr. Johnson. He had thanked and taken leave of all his physicians. Alas! +I shall lose him, and he will take no leave of me. My father was deeply +depressed. I hear from everyone he is now perfectly resigned to his +approaching fate, and no longer in terror of death.' + +'Dec. 11. My father in the morning saw this first of men. He was up and +very composed. He took his hand very kindly, asked after all his family, +and then in particular how Fanny did. "I hope," he said, "Fanny did not +take it amiss that I did not see her. I was very bad. Tell Fanny to pray +for me." After which, still grasping his hand, he made a prayer for +himself, the most fervent, pious, humble, eloquent, and touching, my +father says, that ever was composed. Oh! would I had heard it! He ended +it with Amen! in which my father joined, and was echoed by all present; +and again, when my father was leaving him, he brightened up, something +of his arch look returned, and he said: "I think I shall throw the ball +at Fanny yet."' + +'Dec. 12. [Miss Burney called at Bolt-court.] All the rest went away but +a Mrs. Davis, a good sort of woman, whom this truly charitable soul had +sent for to take a dinner at his house. [See _ante_, p. 239, note 2.] +Mr. Langton then came. He could not look at me, and I turned away from +him. Mrs. Davis asked how the Doctor was. "Going on to death very fast," +was his mournful answer. "Has he taken," said she, "anything?" "Nothing +at all. We carried him some bread and milk--he refused it, and +said:--'The less the better.'"' + +'Dec. 20. This day was the ever-honoured, ever-lamented Dr. Johnson +committed to the earth. Oh, how sad a day to me! My father attended. I +could not keep my eyes dry all day; nor can I now in the recollecting +it; but let me pass over what to mourn is now so vain.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, ii. 333-339. + + + + +APPENDIX F. + +(_Notes on Boswell's note on pages 403-405_.) + +[F-1] In a letter quoted in Mr. Croker's Boswell, p. 427, Dr. Johnson +calls Thomas Johnson 'cousin,' and says that in the last sixteen months +he had given him L40. He mentions his death in 1779. _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 45. + +[F-2] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 603) says that Elizabeth Herne was Johnson's +first-cousin, and that he had constantly--how long he does not +say--contributed L15 towards her maintenance. + +[F-3] For Mauritius Lowe, see _ante_, iii. 324, and iv. 201. + +[F-4] To Mr. Windham, two days earlier, he had given a copy of the _New +Testament_, saying:--'Extremum hoc munus morientis habeto.' Windham's +_Diary_, p. 28. + +[F-5] For Mrs. Gardiner see _ante_, i. 242. + +[F-6] Mr. John Desmoulins was the son of Mrs. Desmoulins (_ante_, iii. +222, 368), and the grandson of Johnson's god-father, Dr. Swinfen +(_ante_, i. 34). Johnson mentions him in a letter to Mrs. Thrale in +1778. 'Young Desmoulins is taken in an _under-something_ of Drury Lane; +he knows not, I believe, his own denomination.' _Piozzi Letters_, +ii. 25. + +[F-7] The reference is to _The Rambler_, No. 41 (not 42 as Boswell +says), where Johnson mentions 'those vexations and anxieties with which +all human enjoyments are polluted.' + +[F-8] Bishop Sanderson described his soul as 'infinitely polluted with +sin.' Walton's _Lives_, ed. 1838, p. 396. + +[F-9] Hume, writing in 1742 about his _Essays Moral and Political_, +says:-- + +'Innys, the great bookseller in Paul's Church-yard, wonders there is not +a new edition, for that he cannot find copies for his customers.' J.H. +Burton's _Hume_, i. 143. + +[F-10] Nichols (_Lit. Anec._ ii. 554) says that, on Dec. 7, + +'Johnson asked him whether any of the family of Faden the printer were +living. Being told that the geographer near Charing Cross was Faden's +son, he said, after a short pause:--"I borrowed a guinea of his father +near thirty years ago; be so good as to take this, and pay it for me."' + +[F-11] Nowhere does Hawkins more shew the malignancy of his character +than in his attacks on Johnson's black servant, and through him on +Johnson. With the passage in which this offensive _caveat_ is found he +brings his work to a close. At the first mention of Frank (_Life_, p. +328) he says:-- + +'His first master had _in great humanity_ made him a Christian, and his +last for no assignable reason, nay rather in despite of nature, and to +unfit him for being useful according to his capacity, determined to make +him a scholar.' + +But Hawkins was a brutal fellow. See _ante_, i. 27, note 2, and 28, note +1. + +[F-12] Johnson had written to Taylor on Oct. 23 of this year:-- + +'"Coming down from a very restless night I found your letter, which made +me a little angry. You tell me that recovery is in my power. This indeed +I should be glad to hear if I could once believe it. But you mean to +charge me with neglecting or opposing my own health. Tell me, therefore, +what I do that hurts me, and what I neglect that would help me." This +letter is endorsed by Taylor: "This is the last letter. My answer, which +were (_sic_) the words of advice he gave to Mr. Thrale the day he dyed, +he resented extremely from me."' Mr. Alfred Morrison's _Collection of +Autographs_, &c., ii. 343. + +'The words of advice' which were given to Mr. Thrale _the day before_ +the fatal fit seized him, were that he should abstain from full meals. +_Ante_, iv. 84, note 4. Johnson's resentment of Taylor's advice may +account for the absence of his name in his will. + +[F-13] They were sold in 650 Lots, in a four days' sale. Besides the +books there were 146 portraits, of which 61 were framed and glazed. +These prints in their frames were sold in lots of 4, 8, and even 10 +together, though certainly some of them--and perhaps many--were +engravings from Reynolds. The Catalogue of the sale is in the +Bodleian Library. + + + + +APPENDIX G. + +(_Notes on Boswell's note on page 408_.) + +[G-1] Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anecdotes_, p. 120) that Johnson told her,-- + +'When Boyse was almost perishing with hunger, and some money was +produced to purchase him a dinner, he got a bit of roast beef, but could +not eat it without ketch-up; and laid out the last half-guinea he +possessed in truffles and mushrooms, eating them in bed too, for want of +clothes, or even a shirt to sit up in.' + +Hawkins (_Life_, p. 159) gives 1740 as the year of Boyse's destitution. + +'He was,' he says, 'confined to a bed which had no sheets; here, to +procure food, he wrote; his posture sitting up in bed, his only covering +a blanket, in which a hole was made to admit of the employment of +his arm.' + +Two years later Boyse wrote the following verses to Cave from a +spunging-house:-- + + 'Hodie, teste coelo summo, + Sine pane, sine nummo, + Sorte positus infeste, + Scribo tibi dolens moeste. + Fame, bile tumet jecur: + Urbane, mitte opem, precor. + Tibi enim cor humanum + Non a malis alienum: + Mihi mens nee male grato, + Pro a te favore dato. + Ex gehenna debitoria, + Vulgo, domo spongiatoria.' + +He adds that he hopes to have his _Ode on the British Nation_ done that +day. This _Ode_, which is given in the _Gent. Mag._ 1742, p. 383, +contains the following verse, which contrasts sadly with the poor +poet's case:-- + + 'Thou, sacred isle, amidst thy ambient main, + _Enjoyst the sweets of freedom_ all thy own.' + +[G-2] It is not likely that Johnson called a sixpence 'a serious +consideration.' He who in his youth would not let his comrades say +_prodigious_ (_ante/_, in. 303) was not likely in his old age so to +misuse a word. + +[G-3] Hugh Kelly is mentioned _ante_, ii. 48, note 2, and iii. 113. + +[G-4] It was not on the return from Sky, but on the voyage from Sky to +Rasay, that the spurs were lost. _Post_, v. 163. + +[G-5] Dr. White's _Bampton Lectures_ of 1784 'became part of the +triumphant literature of the University of Oxford,' and got the preacher +a Christ Church Canonry. Of these _Lectures_ Dr. Parr had written about +one-fifth part. White, writing to Parr about a passage in the manuscript +of the last Lecture, said:--'I fear I did not clearly explain myself; I +humbly beg the favour of you to make my meaning more intelligible.' On +the death of Mr. Badcock in 1788, a note for L500 from White was found +in his pocket-book. White pretended that this was remuneration for some +other work; but it was believed on good grounds that Badcock had begun +what Parr had completed, and that these famous _Lectures_ were mainly +their work. Badcock was one of the writers in the _Monthly Review_. +Johnstone's _Life of Dr. Parr_, i. 218-278. For Badcock's correspondence +with the editor of the _Monthly Review_, see _Bodleian_ MS. _Add._ +C. 90. + +[G-6] 'Virgilium vidi tantum.' Ovid, _Tristia_, iv. 10. 51. + +[G-7] Mackintosh says of Priestley:--'Frankness and disinterestedness in +the avowal of his opinion were his point of honour.' He goes on to point +out that there was 'great mental power in him wasted and scattered.' +_Life of Mackintosh_, i. 349. See _ante_, ii. 124, and iv. 238 for +Johnson's opinion of Priestley. + +[G-8] Badcock, in using the term 'index-scholar,' was referring no doubt +to Pope's lines:-- + +'How Index-learning turns no student pale, + Yet holds the eel of science by the tail.' + +_Dunciad_, i. 279. + + + + +APPENDIX H. + +(_Notes on Boswell's note on pages 421-422_.) + +[H-1] The last lines of the inscription on this urn are borrowed, with a +slight change, from the last paragraph of the last _Rambler/_. +(Johnson's _Works_, iii. 465, and _ante_, i. 226.) Johnson visited +Colonel Myddelton on August 29, 1774, in his Tour to Wales. See +_post_, v. 453. + +[H-2] Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on Sept. 3, 1783, said:--'I sat to +Opey (sic) as long as he desired, and I think the head is finished, but +it is not much admired.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 481. Hawkins +(_Life of Johnson_, p. 569) says that in 1784 'Johnson resumed sitting +to Opie, but,' he adds, 'I believe the picture was never finished.' + +[H-3] Of this picture, which was the one painted for Beauclerk (_ante_, +p. 180), it is stated in Johnson's _Work_, ed. 1787, xi. 204, that +'there is in it that appearance of a labouring working mind, of an +indolent reposing body, which he had to a very great degree.' + +[H-4] It seems almost certain that the portrait of Johnson in the Common +Room of University College, Oxford, is this very mezzotinto. It was +given to the College by Sir William Scott, and it is a mezzotinto from +Opie's portrait. It has been reproduced for this work, and will be found +facing page 244 of volume iii. Scott's inscription on the back of the +frame is given on page 245, note 3, of the same volume. + + + + + +APPENDIX I. + +(_Page_ 424.) + +Boswell most likely never knew that in the year 1790 Mr. Seward, in the +name of Cadell the publisher, had asked Parr to write a _Life of +Johnson_. (Johnstone's _Life of Parr_, iv. 678.) Parr, in his amusing +vanity, was as proud of this _Life_ as if he had written it. '"It would +have been," he said, "the third most learned work that has ever yet +appeared. The most learned work ever published I consider Bentley _On +the Epistles of Phalaris_; the next Salmasius _On the Hellenistic +Language_." Alluding to Boswell's Life he continued, "Mine should have +been, not the droppings of his lips, but the history of his mind."' +Field's _Life of Parr_, i. 164. + +In the epitaph that he first sent in were found the words 'Probabili +Poetae.' + +'In arms,' wrote Parr, 'were all the Johnsonians: Malone, Steevens, Sir +W. Scott, Windham, and even Fox, all in arms. The epithet was cold. They +do not understand it, and I am a Scholar, not a Belles-Lettres man.' + +Parr had wished to pass over all notice of Johnson's poetical character. +To this, Malone said, none of his friends of the Literary Club would +agree. He pointed out also that Parr had not noticed 'that part of +Johnson's genius, which placed him on higher ground than perhaps any +other quality that can be named--the universality of his knowledge, the +promptness of his mind in producing it on all occasions in conversation, +and the vivid eloquence with which he clothed his thoughts, however +suddenly called upon.' Parr, regardless of Johnson's rule that 'in +lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath' (_ante_, ii. 407), +replied, that if he mentioned his conversation he should have to mention +also his roughness in contradiction, &c. As for the epithet _probabili_, +he 'never reflected upon it without almost a triumphant feeling in its +felicity.' Nevertheless he would change it into 'poetae sententiarum et +verborum ponderibus admirabili.' Yet these words, 'energetic and +sonorous' though they were, 'fill one with a secret and invincible +loathing, because they tend to introduce into the epitaph a character of +magnificence.' With every fresh objection he rose in importance. He +wrote for the approbation of real scholars of generations yet unborn. +'That the epitaph was written by such or such a man will, from the +publicity of the situation, and the popularity of the subject, be long +remembered.' Johnstone's _Life of Parr_, iv. 694-712. No objection seems +to have been raised to the five pompous lines of perplexing dates and +numerals in which no room is found even for Johnson's birth and +birth-place. + +'After I had written the epitaph,' wrote Parr to a friend, 'Sir Joshua +Reynolds told me there was a scroll. I was in a rage. A scroll! Why, +Ned, this is vile modern contrivance. I wanted one train of ideas. What +could I do with the scroll? Johnson held it, and Johnson must speak in +it. I thought of this, his favourite maxim, in the Life of Milton, +[Johnson's _Works_, vii. 77], + + "[Greek: Otti toi en megaroisi kakon t agathon te tetuktai.]." + +In Homer [_Odyssey_, iv. 392] you know--and shewing the excellence of +Moral Philosophy. There Johnson and Socrates agree. Mr. Seward, hearing +of my difficulty, and no scholar, suggested the closing line in the +_Rambler_ [_ante_, i. 226, note 1]; had I looked there I should have +anticipated the suggestion. It is the closing line in Dionysius's +_Periegesis_, + + "[Greek: Anton ek makaron antaxios eiae amoibae.]." + +I adopted it, and gave Seward the praise. "Oh," quoth Sir William Scott, +"_[Greek: makaron]_ is Heathenish, and the Dean and Chapter will +hesitate." "The more fools they," said I. But to prevent disputes I have +altered it. + + "[Greek: En makaressi ponon antaxios ein amoibae]." + Johnstone's _Life of Parr_, iv. 713. + +Though the inscription on the scroll is not strictly speaking part of +the epitaph, yet this mixture of Greek and Latin is open to the censure +Johnson passed on Pope's Epitaph on Craggs. + +'It may be proper to remark,' he said, 'the absurdity of joining in the +same inscription Latin and English, or verse and prose. If either +language be preferable to the other, let that only be used; for no +reason can be given why part of the information should be given in one +tongue and part in another on a tomb more than in any other place, or on +any other occasion.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 353. + +Bacon the sculptor was anxious, wrote Malone, 'that posterity should +know that he was entitled to annex R.A. to his name.' Parr was ready to +give his name, lest if it were omitted 'Bacon should slily put the +figure of a hog on Johnson's monument'; just as 'Saurus and Batrachus, +when Octavia would not give them leave to set their names on the Temples +they had built in Rome, scattered one of them [Greek: saurai] [lizards], +and the other [Greek: batrachoi] [frogs] on the bases and capitals of +the columns.' But as for the R.A., the sculptor 'very reluctantly had to +agree to its omission.' Johnstone's _Parr_, iv. 705 and 710. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Nothing can compensate for this want this year of all years. +Johnson's health was better than it had been for long, and his mind +happier perhaps than it had ever been. The knowledge that in his _Lives +of the Poets_, he had done, and was doing good work, no doubt was very +cheering to him. At no time had he gone more into society, and at no +time does he seem to have enjoyed it with greater relish. 'How do you +think I live?' he wrote on April 25. 'On Thursday, I dined with +Hamilton, and went thence to Mrs. Ord. On Friday, with much company at +Reynolds's. On Saturday, at Dr. Bell's. On Sunday, at Dr. Burney's; at +night, came Mrs. Ord, Mr. Greville, &c. On Monday with Reynolds, at +night with Lady Lucan; to-day with Mr. Langton; to-morrow with the +Bishop of St. Asaph; on Thursday with Mr. Bowles; Friday ----; Saturday, +at the Academy; Sunday with Mr. Ramsay.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 107. On +May 1, he wrote:--'At Mrs. Ord's, I met one Mrs. B---- [Buller], a +travelled lady, of great spirit, and some consciousness of her own +abilities. We had a contest of gallantry an hour long, so much to the +diversion of the company that at Ramsay's last night, in a crowded room, +they would have pitted us again. There were Smelt, [one of the King's +favourites] and the Bishop of St. Asaph, who comes to every place; and +Lord Monboddo, and Sir Joshua, and ladies out of tale.' _Ib_. p. 111. +The account that Langton gives of the famous evening at Mrs. Vesey's, +'when the company began to collect round Johnson till they became not +less than four, if not five deep (_ante_, May 2, 1780), is lively +enough; but 'the particulars of the conversation' which he neglects, +Boswell would have given us in full. + +[2] In 1792, Miss Burney, after recording that Boswell told some of his +Johnsonian stories, continues:--'Mr. Langton told some stories in +imitation of Dr. Johnson; but they became him less than Mr. Boswell, and +only reminded me of what Dr. Johnson himself once said to me--"Every man +has some time in his life an ambition to be a wag."' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, v. 307. + +[3] _Stephanorum Historia, vitas ipsorum ac libros complectens_. London, +1709. + +[4] _Senilia_ was published in 1742. The line to which Johnson refers +is, 'Mel, nervos, fulgur, Carteret, unus, habes,' p. 101. In another +line, the poet celebrates Colley Cibber's Muse--the _Musa Cibberi_: +'Multa Cibberum levat aura.' p. 50. See Macaulay's Essays, ed. 1843, +i. 367. + +[5] _Graecae Linguae Dialecti in Scholae Westmonast. usum_, 1738. + +[6] Giannone, an Italian historian, born 1676, died 1748. When he +published his _History of the Kingdom of Naples_, a friend +congratulating him on its success, said:--'Mon ami, vous vous etes mis +une couronne sur la tete, mais une couronne d'epines.' His attacks on +the Church led to persecution, in the end he made a retractation, but +nevertheless he died in prison. _Nouv. Biog. Gen._ xx. 422. + +[7] See _ante_, ii. 119. + +[8] 'There is no kind of impertinence more justly censurable than his +who is always labouring to level thoughts to intellects higher than his +own; who apologises for every word which his own narrowness of converse +inclines him to think unusual; keeps the exuberance of his faculties +under visible restraint; is solicitous to anticipate inquiries by +needless explanations; and endeavours to shade his own abilities lest +weak eyes should be dazzled with their lustre.' _The Rambler_, No. 173. + +[9] Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, defines _Anfractuousness_ as _Fulness +of windings and turnings_. _Anfractuosity_ is not given. Lord Macaulay, +in the last sentence in his _Biography of Johnson_, alludes to +this passage. + +[10] See _ante_, iii. 149, note 2. + +[11] 'My purpose was to admit no testimony of living authors, that I +might not be misled by partiality, and that none of my contemporaries +might have reason to complain; nor have I departed from this resolution, +but when some performance of uncommon excellence excited my veneration, +when my memory supplied me from late books with an example that was +wanting, or when my heart, in the tenderness of friendship, solicited +admission for a favourite name.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 39. He cites +himself under _important_, Mrs. Lennox under _talent_, Garrick under +_giggler_; from Richardson's _Clarissa_, he makes frequent quotations. +In the fourth edition, published in 1773 (_ante_, ii. 203), he often +quotes Reynolds; for instance, under _vulgarism_, which word is not in +the previous editions. Beattie he quotes under _weak_, and Gray under +_bosom_. He introduces also many quotations from Law, and Young. In the +earlier editions, in his quotations from _Clarissa_, he very rarely +gives the author's name; in the fourth edition I have found it +rarely omitted. + +[12] In one of his _Hypochondriacks_ (_London Mag._ 1782, p. 233) +Boswell writes:--'I have heard it remarked by one, of whom more remarks +deserve to be remembered than of any person I ever knew, that a man is +often as narrow as he is prodigal for want of counting.' + +[13] 'Sept. 1778. We began talking of _Irene_, and Mrs. Thrale made Dr. +Johnson read some passages which I had been remarking as uncommonly +applicable to the present time. He read several speeches, and told us he +had not ever read so much of it before since it was first printed.' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 96. 'I was told,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'that a +gentleman called Pot, or some such name, was introduced to him as a +particular admirer of his. The Doctor growled and took no further +notice. "He admires in especial your _Irene_ as the finest tragedy +modern times;" to which the Doctor replied, "If Pot says so, Pot lies!" +and relapsed into his reverie.' _Croker Corres._ ii. 32. + +[14] _Scrupulosity_ was a word that Boswell had caught up from Johnson. +Sir W. Jones (_Life_, i. 177) wrote in 1776:--'You will be able to +examine with the minutest _scrupulosity_, as Johnson would call it.' +Johnson describes Addison's prose as 'pure without scrupulosity.' +_Works_, vii. 472. 'Swift,' he says, 'washed himself with oriental +scrupulosity.' _Ib._ viii. 222. Boswell (_Hebrides_, Aug. 15) writes of +'scrupulosity of conscience.' + +[15] + + 'When thou didst not, savage, + Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like + A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes + With words that made them known.' + _The Tempest_, act i. sc. 2. + +[16] Secretary to the British Herring Fishery, remarkable for an +extraordinary number of occasional verses, not of eminent merit. +BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 115, note i. Lockman was known in France as the +translator of Voltaire's _La Henriade_. See Marmontel's Preface. +Voltaire's _Works_, ed. 1819, viii. 18. + +[17] _Luke_ vii. 50. BOSWELL. + +[18] Miss Burney, describing him in 1783, says:--'He looks unformed in +his manners and awkward in his gestures. He joined not one word in the +general talk.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 237. See _ante_, ii. +41, note 1. + +[19] By Garrick. + +[20] See _ante_, i. 201. + +[21] See _post_, under Sept. 30, 1783. + +[22] The actor. Churchill introduces him in _The Rosciad_ (_Poems_, i. +16):--'Next Holland came. With truly tragic stalk, He creeps, he flies. +A Hero should not walk.' + +[23] In a letter written by Johnson to a friend in 1742-43, he says: 'I +never see Garrick.' MALONE. + +[24] See _ante_, ii. 227. + +[25] _The Wonder! A Woman keeps a Secret_, by Mrs. Centlivre. Acted at +Drury Lane in 1714. Revived by Garrick in 1757. Reed's _Biog. +Dram_. iii. 420. + +[26] In _Macbeth_. + +[27] Mr. Longley was Recorder of Rochester, and father of Archbishop +Longley. To the kindness of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Newton Smart, I owe +the following extract from his manuscript _Autobiography_:--'Dr. Johnson +and General Paoli came down to visit Mr. Langton, and I was asked to +meet them, when the conversation took place mentioned by Boswell, in +which Johnson gave me more credit for knowledge of the Greek metres than +I deserved. There was some question about anapaestics, concerning which +I happened to remember what Foster used to tell us at Eton, that the +whole line to the _Basis Anapaestica_ was considered but as one verse, +however divided in the printing, and consequently the syllables at the +end of each line were not common, as in other metres. This observation +was new to Johnson, and struck him. Had he examined me farther, I fear +he would have found me ignorant. Langton was a very good Greek scholar, +much superior to Johnson, to whom nevertheless he paid profound +deference, sometimes indeed I thought more than he deserved. The next +day I dined at Langton's with Johnson, I remember Lady Rothes [Langton's +wife] spoke of the advantage children now derived from the little books +published purposely for their instruction. Johnson controverted it, +asserting that at an early age it was better to gratify curiosity with +wonders than to attempt planting truth, before the mind was prepared to +receive it, and that therefore, _Jack the Giant-Killer, Parisenus and +Parismenus_, and _The Seven Champions of Christendom_ were fitter for +them than Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Trimmer.' Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 16) +says:--'Dr. Johnson used to condemn me for putting Newbery's books into +children's hands. "Babies do not want," said he, "to hear about babies; +they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can +stretch and stimulate their little minds." When I would urge the +numerous editions of _Tommy Prudent_ or _Goody Two Shoes_; "Remember +always," said he, "that the parents buy the books, and that the children +never read them.'" For Johnson's visit to Rochester, see _post_, +July, 1783. + +[28] See _post_, beginning of 1781, after _The Life of Swift_, and +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 15. + +[29] See _ante_, under Sept. 9, 1779. + +[30] Johnson wrote of this grotto (_Works_, viii. 270):--'It may be +frequently remarked of the studious and speculative that they are proud +of trifles, and that their amusements seem frivolous and childish.' + +[31] See _ante_, i. 332. + +[32] _Epilogue to the Satires_, i. 131. Dr. James Foster, the +Nonconformist preacher. Johnson mentions 'the reputation which he had +gained by his proper delivery.' _Works_, viii. 384. In _The +Conversations of Northcote_, p. 88, it is stated that 'Foster first +became popular from the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke stopping in the porch +of his chapel in the Old Jewry out of a shower of rain: and thinking he +might as well hear what was going on he went in, and was so well pleased +that he sent all the great folks to hear him, and he was run after as +much as Irving has been in our time.' Dr. T. Campbell (_Diary_, p. 34) +recorded in 1775, that 'when Mrs. Thrale quoted something from Foster's +_Sermons_, Johnson flew in a passion, and said that Foster was a man of +mean ability, and of no original thinking.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, v. +300) wrote of Foster:--'Wonderful! a divine preferring reason to faith, +and more afraid of vice than of heresy.' + +[33] It is believed to have been her play of _The Sister_, brought out +in 1769. 'The audience expressed their disapprobation of it with so much +appearance of prejudice that she would not suffer an attempt to exhibit +it a second time.' _Gent. Mag._ xxxix. 199. It is strange, however, if +Goldsmith was asked to hiss a play for which he wrote the epilogue. +Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, ii. 80. Johnson wrote on Oct. 28, 1779 +(_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 72):--'C---- L---- accuses ---- of making a party +against her play. I always hissed away the charge, supposing him a man +of honour; but I shall now defend him with less confidence.' Baretti, in +a marginal note, says that C---- L---- is 'Charlotte Lennox.' Perhaps +---- stands for Cumberland. Miss Burney said that 'Mr. Cumberland is +notorious for hating and envying and spiting all authors in the dramatic +line.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 272. + +[34] See _ante_, i. 255. + +[35] In _The Rambler_, No. 195, Johnson describes rascals such as this +man. 'They hurried away to the theatre, full of malignity and +denunciations against a man whose name they had never heard, and a +performance which they could not understand; for they were resolved to +judge for themselves, and would not suffer the town to be imposed upon +by scribblers. In the pit they exerted themselves with great spirit and +vivacity; called out for the tunes of obscene songs, talked loudly at +intervals of Shakespeare and Jonson,' &c. + +[36] See _ante_, ii. 469. + +[37] Dr. Percy told Malone 'that they all at the Club had such a high +opinion of Mr. Dyer's knowledge and respect for his judgment as to +appeal to him constantly, and that his sentence was final.' Malone adds +that 'he was so modest and reserved, that he frequently sat silent in +company for an hour, and seldom spoke unless appealed to. Goldsmith, who +used to rattle away upon _all_ subjects, had been talking somewhat +loosely relative to music. Some one wished for Mr. Dyer's opinion, which +he gave with his usual strength and accuracy. "Why," said Goldsmith, +turning round to Dyer, whom he had scarcely noticed before, "you seem to +know a good deal of this matter." "If I had not," replied Dyer, "I +should not, in this company, have said a word upon the subject."' Burke +described him as 'a man of profound and general erudition; his sagacity +and judgment were fully equal to the extent of his learning.' Prior's +_Malone_, pp. 419, 424. Malone in his _Life of Dryden_, p. 181, says +that Dyer was _Junius_. Johnson speaks of him as 'the late learned Mr. +Dyer.' _Works_, viii. 385. Had he been alive he was to have been the +professor of mathematics in the imaginary college at St. Andrews. +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 25. Many years after his death, Johnson +bought his portrait to hang in 'a little room that he was fitting up +with prints.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 639. + +[38] _Memoirs of Agriculture and other Oeconomical Arts_, 3 vols., by +Robert Dossie, London, 1768-82. + +[39] See _ante_, ii. 14. + +[40] Here Lord Macartney remarks, 'A Bramin or any cast of the Hindoos +will neither admit you to be of their religion, nor be converted to +yours;--a thing which struck the Portuguese with the greatest +astonishment, when they first discovered the East Indies.' BOSWELL. + +[41] See _ante_, ii. 250. + +[42] See _ante_, Aug. 30, 1780. + +[43] John, Lord Carteret, and Earl Granville, who died Jan. 2, 1763. It +is strange that he wrote so ill; for Lord Chesterfield says (_Misc. +Works_, iv. _Appendix_, p. 42) that 'he had brought away with him from +Oxford, a great stock of Greek and Latin, and had made himself master of +all the modern languages. He was one of the best speakers in the House +of Lords, both in the declamatory and argumentative way.' + +[44] Walpole describes the partiality of the members of the +court-martial that sat on Admiral Keppel in Jan. 1779. One of them +'declared frankly that he should not attend to forms of law, but to +justice.' So friendly were the judges to the prisoner that 'it required +the almost unanimous voice of the witnesses in favour of his conduct, +and the vile arts practised against him, to convince all mankind how +falsely and basely he had been accused.' Walpole, referring to the +members, speaks of 'the feelings of seamen unused to reason.' Some of +the leading politicians established themselves at Portsmouth during the +trial. _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 329 + +[45] See _ante_, ii. 240. + +[46] In all Gray's _Odes_, there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which +we wish away.... The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural +violence. "Double, double, toil and trouble." He has a kind of strutting +dignity, and is tall by walking on tip-toe. His art and his struggle are +too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease and nature.' +Johnson's _Works_, viii. 484-87. See _ante_, i. 402, and ii. 327, 335. + +[47] One evening, in the Haymarket Theatre, 'when Foote lighted the King +to his chair, his majesty asked who [sic] the piece was written by? "By +one of your Majesty's chaplains," said Foote, unable even then to +suppress his wit; "and dull enough to have been written by a bishop."' +Forster's _Essays_, ii. 435. See _ante_, i. 390, note 3. + +[48] Bk. v. ch. 1. + +[49] See _ante_, ii. 133, note 1; Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 27, and +Oct. 28. + +[50] The correspondent of _The Gentleman's Magazine_ [1792, p. 214] who +subscribes himself SCIOLUS furnishes the following supplement:-- + +'A lady of my acquaintance remembers to have heard her uncle sing those +homely stanzas more than forty-five years ago. He repeated the +second thus:-- + + She shall breed young lords and ladies fair, + And ride abroad in a coach and three pair, + And the best, &c. + And have a house, &c. + +And remembered a third which seems to have been the introductory one, +and is believed to have been the only remaining one:-- + + When the Duke of Leeds shall have made his choice + Of a charming young lady that's beautiful and wise, + She'll be the happiest young gentlewoman under the skies, + As long as the sun and moon shall rise, + And how happy shall, &c. + +It is with pleasure I add that this stanza could never be more truly +applied than at this present time. BOSWELL. This note was added to the +second edition. + +[51] See _ante_, i. 115, note 1. + +[52] See _ante_, i. 82. + +[53] Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 121, says:--'Johnson +was a real _true-born Englishman_. He hated the Scotch, the French, the +Dutch, the Hanoverians, and had the greatest contempt for all other +European nations; such were his early prejudices which he never +attempted to conquer.' Reynolds wrote of Johnson:--'The prejudices he +had to countries did not extend to individuals. In respect to Frenchmen +he rather laughed at himself, but it was insurmountable. He considered +every foreigner as a fool till they had convinced him of the contrary.' +Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 460. Garrick wrote of the French in +1769:--'Their _politesse_ has reduced their character to such a +sameness, and their humours and passions are so curbed by habit, that, +when you have seen half-a-dozen French men and women, you have seen the +whole.' _Garrick Corres_. i. 358. + +[54] 'There is not a man or woman here,' wrote Horace Walpole from Paris +(_Letters_ iv. 434), 'that is not a perfect old nurse, and who does not +talk gruel and anatomy with equal fluency and ignorance.' + +[55] '"I remember that interview well," said Dr. Parr with great +vehemence when once reminded of it; "I gave him no quarter." The subject +of our dispute was the liberty of the press. Dr. Johnson was very great. +Whilst he was arguing, I observed that he stamped. Upon this I stamped. +Dr. Johnson said, "Why did you stamp, Dr. Parr?" I replied, "Because you +stamped; and I was resolved not to give you the advantage even of a +stamp in the argument."' This, Parr said, was by no means his first +introduction to Johnson. Field's _Parr_, i. 161. Parr wrote to Romilly +in 1811:--'Pray let me ask whether you have ever read some admirable +remarks of Mr. Hutcheson upon the word _merit_. I remember a controversy +I had with Dr. Johnson upon this very term: we began with theology +fiercely, I gently carried the conversation onward to philosophy, and +after a dispute of more than three hours he lost sight of my heresy, and +came over to my opinion upon the metaphysical import of the term.' _Life +of Romilly_, ii. 365. When Parr was a candidate for the mastership of +Colchester Grammar School, Johnson wrote for him a letter of +recommendation. Johnstone's _Parr_, i. 94. + +[56] 'Somebody was praising Corneille one day in opposition to +Shakespeare. "Corneille is to Shakespeare," replied Mr. Johnson, "as a +clipped hedge is to a forest."' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 59. + +[57] Johnson, it is clear, discusses here Mrs. Montagu's _Essay on +Shakespeare_. She compared Shakespeare first with Corneille, and then +with Aeschylus. In contrasting the ghost in _Hamlet_ with the shade of +Darius in _The Persians_, she says:--'The phantom, who was to appear +ignorant of what was past, that the Athenian ear might be soothed and +flattered with the detail of their victory at Salamis, is allowed, for +the same reason, such prescience as to foretell their future triumph at +Plataea.' p. 161. + +[58] Caution is required in everything which is laid before youth, to +secure them from unjust prejudices, perverse opinions, and incongruous +combinations of images. In the romances formerly written, every +transaction and sentiment was so remote from all that passes among men, +that the reader was in very little danger of making any applications to +himself.' _The Rambler_, No. 4. + +[59] Johnson says of Pope's _Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_:--'The next +stanzas place and detain us in the dark and dismal regions of mythology, +where neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow can be found.' +_Works_, viii. 328. Of Gray's _Progress of Poetry_, he says:--'The +second stanza, exhibiting Mars' car and Jove's eagle, is unworthy of +further notice. Criticism disdains to chase a school-boy to his +common-places.' _Ib_. p. 484. + +[60] See _ante_, ii. 178. + +[61] + + 'A Wizard-Dame, the Lover's ancient friend, + With magic charm has deaft thy husband's ear, + At her command I saw the stars descend, + And winged lightnings stop in mid career, &c.' + +Hammond. _Elegy_, v. In Boswell's _Hebrides_ (Sept. 29), he said +'Hammond's _Love Elegies_ were poor things.' + +[62] Perhaps Lord Corke and Orrery. _Ante_, iii. 183. CROKER. + +[63] Colman assumed that Johnson had maintained that Shakespeare was +totally ignorant of the learned languages. He then quotes a line to +prove 'that the author of _The Taming of the Shrew_ had at least read +Ovid;' and continues:--'And what does Dr. Johnson say on this occasion? +Nothing. And what does Mr. Farmer say on this occasion? Nothing.' +Colman's _Terence_, ii. 390. For Farmer, see _ante_, iii. 38. + +[64] 'It is most likely that Shakespeare had learned Latin sufficiently +to make him acquainted with construction, but that he never advanced to +an easy perusal of the Roman authors.' Johnson's _Works_, V. 129. 'The +style of Shakespeare was in itself ungrammatical, perplexed, and +obscure.' _Ib_. p. 135. + +[65] + + 'May I govern my passion with + an absolute sway, + And grow wiser and better, as + my strength wears away, + Without gout or stone by a + gentle decay.' + +_The Old Man's Wish_ was sung to Sir Roger de Coverley by 'the fair +one,' after the collation in which she ate a couple of chickens, and +drank a full bottle of wine. _Spectator_, No. 410. 'What signifies our +wishing?' wrote Dr. Franklin. 'I have sung that _wishing song_ a +thousand times when I was young, and now find at fourscore that the +three contraries have befallen me, being subject to the gout and the +stone, and not being yet master of all my passions.' Franklin's +_Memoirs_, iii. 185. + +[66] He uses the same image in _The Life of Milton_ (_Works_, vii. +104):--'He might still be a giant among the pigmies, the one-eyed +monarch of the blind.' Cumberland (_Memoirs_, i. 39) says that Bentley, +hearing it maintained that Barnes spoke Greek almost like his mother +tongue, replied:--'Yes, I do believe that Barnes had as much Greek and +understood it about as well as an Athenian blacksmith.' See _ante_, iii +284. A passage in Wooll's _Life of Dr. Warton_ (i. 313) shews that +Barnes attempted to prove that Homer and Solomon were one and the same +man. But I. D'Israeli says that it was reported that Barnes, not having +money enough to publish his edition of _Homer_, 'wrote a poem, the +design of which is to prove that Solomon was the author of the _Iliad_, +to interest his wife, who had some property, to lend her aid towards the +publication of so divine a work.' _Calamities of Authors_, i. 250. + +[67] 'The first time Suard saw Burke, who was at Reynolds's, Johnson +touched him on the shoulder and said, "Le grand Burke."' _Boswelliana_, +p. 299. See ante, ii. 450. + +[68] Miss Hawkins (_Memoirs_, i. 279, 288) says that Langton told her +father that he meant to give his six daughters such a knowledge of +Greek, 'that while five of them employed themselves in feminine works, +the sixth should read a Greek author for the general amusement.' She +describes how 'he would get into the most fluent recitation of half a +page of Greek, breaking off for fear of wearying, by saying, "and so it +goes on," accompanying his words with a gentle wave of his hand.' + +[69] See post, p. 42. + +[70] See ante, i. 326. + +[71] This assertion concerning Johnson's insensibility to the pathetick +powers of Otway, is too _round_. I once asked him, whether he did not +think Otway frequently tender: when he answered, 'Sir, he is all +tenderness.' BURNEY. He describes Otway as 'one of the first names in +the English drama.' _Works_, vii. 173. + +[72] See ante, April 16, 1779. + +[73] Johnson; it seems, took up this study. In July, 1773, he recorded +that between Easter and Whitsuntide, he attempted to learn the Low Dutch +language. 'My application,' he continues, 'was very slight, and my +memory very fallacious, though whether more than in my earlier years, I +am not very certain.' _Pr. and Med._ p. 129, and ante, ii. 263. On his +death-bed, he said to Mr. Hoole:--'About two years since I feared that I +had neglected God, and that then I had not a _mind_ to give him; on +which I set about to read _Thomas a Kempis_ in Low Dutch, which I +accomplished, and thence I judged that my mind was not impaired, Low +Dutch having no affinity with any of the languages which I knew.' +Croker's _Boswell_, p. 844. See ante, iii. 235. + +[74] See post, under July 5, 1783. + +[75] See ante, ii. 409, and iii. 197. + +[76] One of Goldsmith's friends 'remembered his relating [about the year +1756] a strange Quixotic scheme he had in contemplation of going to +decipher the inscriptions on the _written mountains_, though he was +altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which they might be +supposed to be written.' Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, ed. 1801, i. 40. +Percy says that Goldsmith applied to the prime minister, Lord Bute, for +a salary to enable him to execute 'the visionary project' mentioned in +the text. 'To prepare the way, he drew up that ingenious essay on this +subject which was first printed in the _Ledger_, and afterwards in his +_Citizen of the World_ [No. 107].' _Ib_. p. 65. Percy adds that the Earl +of Northumberland, who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, regretted 'that +he had not been made acquainted with his plan; for he would have +procured him a sufficient salary on the Irish establishment.' Goldsmith, +in his review of Van Egmont's _Travels in Asia_, says:--'Could we see a +man set out upon this journey [to Asia] not with an intent to consider +rocks and rivers, but the manners, and the mechanic inventions, and the +imperfect learning of the inhabitants; resolved to penetrate into +countries as yet little known, and eager to pry into all their secrets, +with an heart not terrified at trifling dangers; if there could be found +a man who could unite this true courage with sound learning, from such a +character we might hope much information.' Goldsmith's _Works_, ed. +1854, iv. 225. Johnson would have gone to Constantinople, as he himself +said, had he received his pension twenty years earlier. _Post_, p. 27. + +[77] It should be remembered, that this was said twenty-five or thirty +years ago, [written in 1799,] when lace was very generally worn. MALONE. +'Greek and Latin,' said Porson, 'are only luxuries.' Rogers's _Table +Talk_, p. 325. + +[78] See _ante_, iii. 8. + +[79] Dr. Johnson, in his _Life of Cowley_, says, that these are 'the +only English verses which Bentley is known to have written.' I shall +here insert them, and hope my readers will apply them. + + 'Who strives to mount Parnassus' hill, + And thence poetick laurels bring, + Must first acquire due force and skill, + Must fly with swan's or eagle's wing. + + Who Nature's treasures would explore, + Her mysteries and arcana know; + Must high as lofty Newton soar, + Must stoop as delving Woodward low. + + Who studies ancient laws and rites, + Tongues, arts, and arms, and history; + Must drudge, like Selden, days and nights, + And in the endless labour die. + + Who travels in religious jars, + (Truth mixt with errour, shades with rays;) + Like Whiston, wanting pyx or stars, + In ocean wide or sinks or strays. + + But grant our hero's hope, long toil + And comprehensive genius crown, + All sciences, all arts his spoil, + Yet what reward, or what renown? + + Envy, innate in vulgar souls, + Envy steps in and stops his rise, + Envy with poison'd tarnish fouls + His lustre, and his worth decries. + + He lives inglorious or in want, + To college and old books confin'd; + Instead of learn'd he's call'd pedant, + Dunces advanc'd, he's left behind: + Yet left content a genuine Stoick he, + Great without patron, rich without South Sea.' BOSWELL. + +In Mr. Croker's octavo editions, _arts_ in the fifth stanza is +changed into _hearts_. J. Boswell, jun., gives the following reading of +the first four lines of the last stanza, not from _Dodsley's +Collection_, but from an earlier one, called _The Grove_. + + 'Inglorious or by wants inthralled, + To college and old books confined, + A pedant from his learning called, + Dunces advanced, he's left behind.' + +[80] Bentley, in the preface to his edition of _Paradise Lost_, says:-- + + 'Sunt et mihi carmina; me quoque dicunt + Vatem pastores: sed non ego credulus illis.' + +[81] The difference between Johnson and Smith is apparent even in this +slight instance. Smith was a man of extraordinary application, and had +his mind crowded with all manner of subjects; but the force, acuteness, +and vivacity of Johnson were not to be found there. He had book-making +so much in his thoughts, and was so chary of what might be turned to +account in that way, that he once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he +made it a rule, when in company, never to talk of what he understood. +Beauclerk had for a short time a pretty high opinion of Smith's +conversation. Garrick, after listening to him for a while, as to one of +whom his expectations had been raised, turned slyly to a friend, and +whispered him, 'What say you to this?--eh? _flabby_, I think.' BOSWELL. +Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 279), says:--'Smith's voice was harsh and +enunciation thick, approaching to stammering. His conversation was not +colloquial, but like lecturing. He was the most absent man in company +that I ever saw, moving his lips, and talking to himself, and smiling in +the midst of large companies. If you awaked him from his reverie and +made him attend to the subject of conversation, he immediately began a +harangue, and never stopped till he told you all he knew about it, with +the utmost philosophical ingenuity.' Dugald Stewart (_Life of Adam +Smith_, p. 117) says that 'his consciousness of his tendency to absence +rendered his manner somewhat embarrassed in the company of strangers.' +But 'to his intimate friends, his peculiarities added an inexpressible +charm to his conversation, while they displayed in the most interesting +light the artless simplicity of his heart.' _Ib_. p. 113. See also +Walpole's _Letters_, vi. 302, and _ante_, ii. 430, note 1. + +[82] Garrick himself was a good deal of an infidel: see _ante_, ii. 85, +note 7. + +[83] _Ante_, i. 181. + +[84] The Tempest, act iv. sc. i. In _The Rambler_, No. 127, Johnson +writes of men who have 'borne opposition down before them, and left +emulation panting behind.' He quotes (_Works_, vii. 261) the following +couplet by Dryden:-- + + 'Fate after him below with pain did move, + And victory could scarce keep pace above.' + +Young in _The Last Day_, book I, had written:-- + + 'Words all in vain pant after the distress.' + +[85] I am sorry to see in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of +Edinburgh_, vol. ii, _An Essay on the Character of Hamlet_, written, I +should suppose, by a very young man, though called 'Reverend;' who +speaks with presumptuous petulance of the first literary character of +his age. Amidst a cloudy confusion of words, (which hath of late too +often passed in Scotland for _Metaphysicks_,) he thus ventures to +criticise one of the noblest lines in our language:--'Dr. Johnson has +remarked, that "time toil'd after him in vain." But I should apprehend, +that this is _entirely to mistake the character_. Time toils after +_every great man_, as well after Shakspeare. The _workings_ of an +ordinary mind _keep pace_, indeed, with time; they move no faster; _they +have their beginning, their middle, and their end_; but superiour +natures can _reduce these into a point_. They do not, indeed, _suppress_ +them; but they _suspend_, or they _lock them up in the breast_.' The +learned Society, under whose sanction such gabble is ushered into the +world, would do well to offer a premium to any one who will discover its +meaning. BOSWELL. + +[86] 'May 29, 1662. Took boat and to Fox-hall, where I had not been a +great while. To the old Spring Garden, and there walked long.' Pepys's +_Diary_, i. 361. The place was afterwards known as Faux-hall and +Vauxhall. See _ante_, iii. 308. + +[87] 'One that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service and art nothing +but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar.' _King Lear_, +act ii. sc. 2. + +[88] Yet W.G. Hamilton said:--'Burke understands everything but gaming +and music. In the House of Commons I sometimes think him only the second +man in England; out of it he is always the first.' Prior's _Burke_, p. +484. See _ante_, ii. 450. Bismarck once 'rang the bell' to old Prince +Metternich. 'I listened quietly,' he said, 'to all his stories, merely +jogging the bell every now and then till it rang again. That pleases +these talkative old men.' DR. BUSCH, quoted in Lowe's _Prince +Bismarck_, i. 130. + +[89] See _ante_, i. 470, for his disapproval of 'studied behaviour.' + +[90] Johnson had perhaps Dr. Warton in mind. _Ante_, ii. 41, note 1. + +[91] See _ante_, i. 471, and iii. 165. + +[92] 'Oblivion is a kind of annihilation.' Sir Thomas Browne's +_Christian Morals_, sect. xxi. + +[93] 'Nec te quaesiveris extra.' Persius, _Sat_. i. 7. We may compare +Milton's line, + + 'In himself was all his state.' + _Paradise Lost_, v. 353. + +[94] See _ante,_ iii. 269. + +[95] 'A work of this kind must, in a minute examination, discover many +imperfections; but West's version, so far as I have considered it, +appears to be the product of great labour and great abilities.' +Johnson's _Works,_ viii. 398. + +[96] See Boswell's _Hebrides,_ Aug. 25, 1773. + +[97] See _ante,_ i. 82, and ii. 228. + +[98] See _ante,_ i. 242. + +[99] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11. + +[100] A literary lady has favoured me with a characteristick anecdote of +Richardson. One day at his country-house at Northend, where a large +company was assembled at dinner, a gentleman who was just returned from +Paris, willing to please Mr. Richardson, mentioned to him a very +flattering circumstance,--that he had seen his _Clarissa_ lying on the +King's brother's table. Richardson observing that part of the company +were engaged in talking to each other, affected then not to attend to +it. But by and by, when there was a general silence, and he thought that +the flattery might be fully heard, he addressed himself to the +gentleman, 'I think, Sir, you were saying something about,--' pausing in +a high flutter of expectation. The gentleman provoked at his inordinate +vanity, resolved not to indulge it, and with an exquisitely sly air of +indifference answered, 'A mere trifle Sir, not worth repeating.' The +mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten words +more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and appeared to enjoy it +much. BOSWELL. + +[101] + + 'E'en in a bishop I can spy desert; + Seeker is decent, Rundel has a heart.' + +Pope, _Epil. to Sat_. ii. 70. Horace Walpole wrote on Aug. 4,1768 +(Letters, v. 115):--'We have lost our Pope. Canterbury [Archbishop +Seeker] died yesterday. He had never been a Papist, but almost +everything else. Our Churchmen will not be Catholics; that stock seems +quite fallen.' + +[102] Perhaps the Earl of Corke. _Ante_, iii. 183. + +[103] Garrick perhaps borrowed this saying when, in his epigram on +Goldsmith, speaking of the ideas of which his head was full, he said:-- + + 'When his mouth opened all were in a pother, + Rushed to the door and tumbled o'er each other, + But rallying soon with all their force again, + In bright array they issued from his pen.' + +Fitzgerald's _Garrick_, ii. 363. See _ante_, ii. 231. + +[104] See _ante_, i. 116, and ii. 52. + +[105] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, ix. 318) writes of Boswell's _Life of +Johnson:_--'Dr. Blagden says justly, that it is a new kind of libel, by +which you may abuse anybody, by saying some dead person said so and so +of somebody alive.' + +[106] See _ante_, ii. III. In the _Gent. Mag._ 1770, p. 78, is a review +of _A Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D._, 'that is generally imputed to +Mr. Wilkes.' + +[107] 'Do you conceive the full force of the word CONSTITUENT? It has +the same relation to the House of Commons as Creator to creature.' _A +Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D._, p. 23. + +[108] His profound admiration of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE was such as to +set him above that 'Philosophy and vain deceit' [_Colossians_, ii. 8] +with which men of narrower conceptions have been infected. I have heard +him strongly maintain that 'what is right is not so from any natural +fitness, but because GOD wills it to be right;' and it is certainly so, +because he has predisposed the relations of things so as that which he +wills must be right. BOSWELL. Johnson was as much opposed as the Rev. +Mr. Thwackum to the philosopher Square, who 'measured all actions by the +unalterable rule of right and the eternal fitness of things.' _Tom +Jones_, book iii. ch. 3. + +[109] In _Rasselas_ (ch. ii.) we read that the prince's look 'discovered +him to receive some solace of the miseries of life, from consciousness +of the delicacy with which he felt, and the eloquence with which he +bewailed them.' See _ante_, April 8, 1780. + +[110] I hope the authority of the great Master of our language will stop +that curtailing innovation, by which we see _critic, public_, &c., +frequently written instead of _critick, publick_, &c. BOSWELL. Boswell +had always been nice in his spelling. In the Preface to his _Corsica_, +published twenty-four years before _The Life of Johnson_, he defends his +peculiarities, and says:--'If this work should at any future period be +reprinted, I hope that care will be taken of my orthography.' Mr. Croker +says that in a memorandum in Johnson's writing he has found +'_cubic_ feet.' + +[111] 'Disorders of intellect,' answered Imlac, 'happen much more often +than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps, if we speak +with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state.' +_Rasselas_, ch. 44. + +[112] See _ante_, i. 397, for Kit Smart's madness in praying. + +[113] Yet he gave lessons in Latin to Miss Burney and Miss Thrale. Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 243. In Skye he said, 'Depend upon it, no woman +is the worse for sense and knowledge.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 19. + +[114] See _ante_, iii, 240. + +[115] Nos. 588, 601, 626 and 635. The first number of the _Spectator_ +was written by Addison, the last by Grove. See _ante_, iii. 33, for +Johnson's praise of No. 626. + +[116] Sterne is of a direct contrary opinion. See his _Sentimental +Journey_, Article, 'The Mystery.' BOSWELL. Sterne had been of the same +opinion as Johnson, for he says that the beggar he saw 'confounded all +kind of reasoning upon him.' 'He passed by me,' he continues, 'without +asking anything--and yet he did not go five steps farther before he +asked charity of a little woman--I was much more likely to have given of +the two. He had scarce done with the woman, when he pulled his hat off +to another who was coming the same way.--An ancient gentleman came +slowly--and, after him, a young smart one--He let them both pass, and +asked nothing; I stood observing him half an hour, in which time he had +made a dozen turns backwards and forwards, and found that he invariably +pursued the same plan.' _Sentimental Journey_, ed. 1775, ii. 105. + +[117] Very likely Dr. Warton. _Ante_, ii. 41. + +[118] I differ from Mr. Croker in the explanation of this ill-turned +sentence. The _shield_ that Homer may hold up is the observation made by +Mrs. Fitzherbert. It was this observation that Johnson respected as a +very fine one. For his high opinion of that lady's understanding, see +_ante_, i. 83. + +[119] In _Boswelliana_ (p. 323) are recorded two more of Langton's +Anecdotes. 'Mr. Beauclerk told Dr. Johnson that Dr. James said to him he +knew more Greek than Mr. Walmesley. "Sir," said he, "Dr. James did not +know enough of Greek to be sensible of his ignorance of the language. +Walmesley did."' See _ante_, i. 81. 'A certain young clergyman used to +come about Dr. Johnson. The Doctor said it vexed him to be in his +company, his ignorance was so hopeless. "Sir," said Mr. Langton, "his +coming about you shows he wishes to help his ignorance." "Sir," said the +Doctor, "his ignorance is so great, I am afraid to show him the +bottom of it."' + +[120] Dr. Francklin. See _ante_, iii. 83, note 3. Churchill attacked him +in _The Rosciad_ (Poems, ii. 4). When, he says, it came to the choice +of a judge, + + 'Others for Francklin voted; but 'twas known, + He sickened at all triumphs but his own.' + +[121] See _ante_, iii. 241, note 2. + +[122] _Pr. and Med_. p.190. BOSWELL. + +[123] _Ib_. 174. BOSWELL. + +[124] 'Mr. Fowke once observed to Dr. Johnson that, in his opinion, the +Doctor's literary strength lay in writing biography, in which he +infinitely exceeded all his contemporaries. "Sir," said Johnson, "I +believe that is true. The dogs don't know how to write trifles with +dignity."'--R. Warner's _Original Letters_, p. 204. + +[125] His design is thus announced in his _Advertisement_: 'The +Booksellers having determined to publish a body of English Poetry, I was +persuaded to promise them a Preface to the works of each authour; an +undertaking, as it was then presented to my mind, not very tedious or +difficult. + +'My purpose was only to have allotted to every poet an Advertisement, +like that [in original _those_] which we find in the French +Miscellanies, containing a few dates, and a general character; but I +have been led beyond my intention, I hope by the honest desire of giving +useful pleasure.' BOSWELL. + +[126] _Institutiones_, liber i, Prooemium 3. + +[127] 'He had bargained for two hundred guineas, and the booksellers +spontaneously added a third hundred; on this occasion Dr. Johnson +observed to me, "Sir, I always said the booksellers were a generous set +of men. Nor, in the present instance, have I reason to complain. The +fact is, not that they have paid me too little, but that I have written +too much." The _Lives_ were soon published in a separate edition; when, +for a very few corrections, he was presented with another hundred +guineas.' Nichols's _Lit. Anec._ viii. 416. See _ante_, iii. 111. In Mr. +Morrison's _Collection of Autographs_ &c., vol. ii, 'is Johnson's +receipt for 100_l_., from the proprietors of _The Lives of the Poets_ +for revising the last edition of that work.' It is dated Feb. 19, 1783. +'Underneath, in Johnson's autograph, are these words: "It is great +impudence to put _Johnson's Poets_ on the back of books which Johnson +neither recommended nor revised. He recommended only Blackmore on the +Creation, and Watts. How then are they Johnson's? This is indecent."' +The poets whom Johnson recommended were Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and +Yalden. _Ante_, under Dec. 29, 1778. + +[128] Gibbon says of the last five quartos of the six that formed his +_History_:--'My first rough manuscript, without any intermediate copy, +has been sent to the press.' _Misc. Works_, i. 255. In the _Memoir of +Goldsmith_, prefixed to his _Misc. Works_, i. 113, it is said:--'In +whole quires of his _Histories_, _Animated Nature_, &c., he had seldom +occasion to correct or alter a single word.' See _ante_, i. 203. + +[129] From Waller's _Of Loving at First Sight_. Waller's _Poems, +Miscellanies_, xxxiv. + +[130] He trusted greatly to his memory. If it did not retain anything +exactly, he did not think himself bound to look it up. Thus in his +criticism on Congreve (_Works_, viii. 31) he says:--'Of his plays I +cannot speak distinctly; for since I inspected them many years have +passed.' In a note on his _Life of Rowe_, Nichols says:--'This _Life_ +is a very remarkable instance of the uncommon strength of Dr. Johnson's +memory. When I received from him the MS. he complacently observed that +the criticism was tolerably well done, considering that he had not read +one of Rowe's plays for thirty years.' _Ib_. vii. 417. + +[131] Thus:--'In the _Life of Waller_, Mr. Nichols will find a reference +to the _Parliamentary History_ from which a long quotation is to be +inserted. If Mr. Nichols cannot easily find the book, Mr. Johnson will +send it from Streatham.' + +'Clarendon is here returned.' + +'By some accident, I laid _your_ note upon Duke up so safely, that I +cannot find it. Your informations have been of great use to me. I must +beg it again; with another list of our authors, for I have laid that +with the other. I have sent Stepney's Epitaph. Let me have the revises +as soon as can be. Dec. 1778.' + +'I have sent Philips, with his Epitaphs, to be inserted. The fragment of +a preface is hardly worth the impression, but that we may seem to do +something. It may be added to the _Life of Philips_. The Latin page is +to be added to the _Life of Smith_. I shall be at home to revise the two +sheets of Milton. March 1, 1779.' + +'Please to get me the last edition of Hughes's _Letters_; and try to get +_Dennis upon Blackmore_, and upon Calo, and any thing of the same writer +against Pope. Our materials are defective.' + +'As Waller professed to have imitated Fairfax, do you think a few pages +of Fairfax would enrich our edition? Few readers have seen it, and it +may please them. But it is not necessary.' + +'An account of the Lives and works of some of the most eminent English +Poets. By, &c.--"The English Poets, biographically and critically +considered, by SAM. JOHNSON."--Let Mr. Nichols take his choice, or make +another to his mind. May, 1781.' + +'You somehow forgot the advertisement for the new edition. It was not +inclosed. Of Gay's _Letters_ I see not that any use can be made, for +they give no information of any thing. That he was a member of the +Philosophical Society is something; but surely he could be but a +corresponding member. However, not having his life here, I know not how +to put it in, and it is of little importance.' + +See several more in _The Gent. Mag._, 1785. The Editor of that +Miscellany, in which Johnson wrote for several years, seems justly to +think that every fragment of so great a man is worthy of being +preserved. BOSWELL. In the original MS. in the British Museum, _Your_ in +the third paragraph of this note is not in italics. Johnson writes his +correspondent's name _Nichols_, _Nichol_, and _Nicol_. In the fourth +paragraph he writes, first _Philips_, and next _Phillips_. His spelling +was sometimes careless, _ante_, i. 260, note 2. In the _Gent. Mag._ for +1785, p. 10, another of these notes is published:--'In reading Rowe in +your edition, which is very impudently called mine, I observed a little +piece unnaturally and odiously obscene. I was offended, but was still +more offended when I could not find it in Rowe's genuine volumes. To +admit it had been wrong; to interpolate it is surely worse. If I had +known of such a piece in the whole collection, I should have been angry. +What can be done?' In a note, Mr. Nichols says that this piece 'has not +only appeared in the _Works_ of Rowe, but has been transplanted by Pope +into the _Miscellanies_ he published in his own name and that of +Dean Swift.' + +[132] He published, in 1782, a revised edition of Baker's_ Biographia +Dramatica_. Baker was a grandson of De Foe. _Gent. Mag._ 1782, p. 77. + +[133] Dryden writing of satiric poetry, says:--'Had I time I could +enlarge on the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which are as +requisite in this as in heroic poetry itself; of which the satire is +undoubtedly a species. With these beautiful turns I confess myself to +have been unacquainted, till about twenty years ago, in a conversation +which I had with that noble wit of Scotland, Sir George Mackenzie, he +asked me why I did not imitate in my verses the turns of Mr. Waller, and +Sir John Denham. ... This hint, thus seasonably given me, first made me +sensible of my own wants, and brought me afterwards to seek for the +supply of them in other English authors. I looked over the darling of my +youth, the famous Cowley.' Dryden's _Works_, ed. 1821, xiii. III. + +[134] In one of his letters to Nichols, Johnson says:--'You have now all +Cowley. I have been drawn to a great length, but Cowley or Waller never +had any critical examination before.' _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p.9. + +[135] _Life of Sheffield_. BOSWELL. Johnson's _Works_, vii. 485. + +[136] See, however, p.11 of this volume, where the same remark is made +and Johnson is there speaking of _prose_. MALONE. + +[137] + + 'Purpureus, late qui splendeat unus et alter + Assuitur pannus.' + + '... Shreds of purple with broad lustre shine + Sewed on your poem.' + +FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poet_. 15. + +[138] The original reading is enclosed in crochets, and the present one +is printed in Italicks. BOSWELL. + +[139] I have noticed a few words which, to our ears, are more uncommon +than at least two of the three that Boswell mentions; as, 'Languages +divaricate,' _Works_, vii. 309; 'The mellifluence of Pope's numbers,' +_ib._ 337; 'A subject flux and transitory,' _ib._ 389; 'His prose is +pure without scrupulosity,' _ib._ 472; 'He received and accommodated the +ladies' (said of one serving behind the counter), _ib._ viii. 62; 'The +prevalence of this poem was gradual,' _ib._ p. 276; 'His style is +sometimes concatenated,' _ib._ p. 458. Boswell, on the next page, +supplies one more instance--'Images such as the superficies of nature +readily supplies.' + +[140] See _ante_, iii. 249. + +[141] Veracious is perhaps one of the 'four or five words' which Johnson +added, or thought that he added, to the English language. _Ante_, i. +221. He gives it in his _Dictionary_, but without any authority for it. +It is however older than his time. + +[142] See Johnson's _Works_, vii. 134, 212, and viii. 386. + +[143] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 452) writes of Johnson's +'_Billingsgate on Milton_.' A later letter shows that, like so many of +Johnson's critics, he had not read the _Life_. _Ib_. p. 508. + +[144] _Works_, vii. 108. + +[145] Thirty years earlier he had written of Milton as 'that poet whose +works may possibly be read when every other monument of British +greatness shall be obliterated.' _Ante_, i. 230. See _ante_, ii. 239. + +[146] Earl Stanhope (_Life of Pitt_, ii. 65) describes this Society in +1790, 'as a Club, till then of little note, which had a yearly festival +in commemoration of the events of 1688. It had been new-modelled, and +enlarged with a view to the transactions at Paris, but still retained +its former name to imply a close connection between the principles of +1688 in England, and the principles of 1789 in France.' The Earl +Stanhope of that day presided at the anniversary meeting on Nov. 4, +1789. Nov. 4 was the day on which William III. landed. + +[147] See _An Essay on the Life, Character, and writings of Dr. Samuel +Johnson_, London, 1787; which is very well written, making a proper +allowance for the democratical bigotry of its authour; whom I cannot +however but admire for his liberality in speaking thus of my +illustrious friend:-- + +'He possessed extraordinary powers of understanding, which were much +cultivated by study, and still more by meditation and reflection. His +memory was remarkably retentive, his imagination uncommonly vigorous, +and his judgement keen and penetrating. He had a strong sense of the +importance of religion; his piety was sincere, and sometimes ardent; and +his zeal for the interests of virtue was often manifested in his +conversation and in his writings. The same energy which was displayed in +his literary productions was exhibited also in his conversation, which +was various, striking, and instructive; and perhaps no man ever equalled +him for nervous and pointed repartees.' + +'His _Dictionary_, his moral Essays, and his productions in polite +literature, will convey useful instruction, and elegant entertainment, +as long as the language in which they are written shall be +understood.' BOSWELL. + +[148] Boswell paraphrases the following passage:--'The King, with lenity +of which the world has had perhaps no other example, declined to be the +judge or avenger of his own or his father's wrongs; and promised to +admit into the Act of Oblivion all, except those whom the Parliament +should except; and the Parliament doomed none to capital punishment but +the wretches who had immediately co-operated in the murder of the King. +Milton was certainly not one of them; he had only justified what they +had done.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 95. + +[149] + 'Though fall'n on evil days, + On evil days though fall'n and evil tongues, + In darkness, and with dangers compast round.' + _Paradise Lost_, vii. 26. + +[150] Johnson's _Works_, vii. 105. + +[151] 'His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly +republican.' _Ib_. p. 116. + +[152] 'What we know of Milton's character in domestick relations is, +that he was severe and arbitrary.' _Ib._ p. 116. + +[153] 'His theological opinions are said to have been first, +Calvinistical; and afterwards, perhaps when he began to hate the +Presbyterians, to have tended towards Arminianism.... He appears to have +been untainted by any heretical peculiarity of opinion.' _Ib._ p. 115. + +[154] Mr. Malone things it is rather a proof that he felt nothing of +those cheerful sensations which he has described: that on these topicks +it is the _poet_, and not the _man_, that writes. BOSWELL. + +[155] See _ante_, i. 427, ii. 124, and iv. 20, for Johnson's +condemnation of blank verse. This condemnations was not universal. Of +Dryden, he wrote (_Works_, vii. 249):--'He made rhyming tragedies, till, +by the prevalence of manifest propriety, he seems to have grown ashamed +of making them any longer.' His own _Irene_ is in blank verse; though +Macaulay justly remarks of it:--'He had not the slightest notion of what +blank verse should be.' (Macaulay's _Writings and Speeches_, ed. 1871, +p. 380.) Of Thomson's _Seasons_, he says (_Works_, vii. 377):--'His is one +of the works in which blank verse seems properly used.' Of Young's +_Night Thoughts_:--'This is one of the few poems in which blank verse +could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage.' _Ib_. p. 460. Of +Milton himself, he writes:--'Whatever be the advantages of rhyme, I +cannot prevail on myself to wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I +cannot wish his work to be other than it is; yet, like other heroes, he +is to be admired rather than imitated.' _Ib_. vii. 142. How much he felt +the power of Milton's blank verse is shewn by his _Rambler_, No. 90, +where, after stating that 'the noblest and most majestick pauses which +our versification admits are upon the fourth and sixth syllables,' he +adds:--' Some passages [in Milton] which conclude at this stop [the +sixth syllable] I could never read without some strong emotions of +delight or admiration.' 'If,' he continues, 'the poetry of Milton be +examined with regard to the pauses and flow of his verses into each +other, it will appear that he has performed all that our language would +admit.' Cowper was so indignant at Johnson's criticism of Milton's blank +verse that he wrote:--'Oh! I could thresh his old jacket till I made his +pension jingle in his pocket.' Southey's _Cowper_, iii. 315. + +[156] One of the most natural instances of the effect of blank verse +occurred to the late Earl of Hopeton. His Lordship observed one of his +shepherds poring in the fields upon Milton's _Paradise Lost_; and having +asked him what book it was, the man answered, 'An't please your +Lordship, this is a very odd sort of an authour: he would fain rhyme, +but cannot get at it.' BOSWELL. 'The variety of pauses, so much boasted +by the lovers of blank verse, changes the measures of an English poet to +the periods of a declaimer; and there are only a few skilful and happy +readers of Milton, who enable their audience to perceive where the lines +end or begin. "Blank verse," said an ingenious critick, "seems to be +verse only to the eye."' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 141. In the _Life of +Roscommon_ (_ib_. p. 171), he says:--'A poem frigidly didactick, without +rhyme, is so near to prose, that the reader only scorns it for +pretending to be verse.' + +[157] Mr. Locke. Often mentioned in Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_. + +[158] See vol. in. page 71. BOSWELL. + +[159] It is scarcely a defence. Whatever it was, he thus ends it:-'It is +natural to hope, that a comprehensive is likewise an elevated soul, and +that whoever is wise is also honest. I am willing to believe that +Dryden, having employed his mind, active as it was, upon different +studies, and filled it, capacious as it was, with other materials, came +unprovided to the controversy, and wanted rather skill to discover the +right than virtue to maintain it. But inquiries into the heart are not +for man; we must now leave him to his judge.' Works, vii. 279. + +[160] In the original _fright_. _The Hind and the Panther_, i. 79. + +[161] In this quotation two passages are joined. _Works_, vii. 339, 340. + +[162] 'The deep and pathetic morality of the _Vanity of Human Wishes_' +says Sir Walter Scott, 'has often extracted tears from those whose eyes +wander dry over the pages of professed sentimentality.' CROKER. It. drew +tears from Johnson himself. 'When,' says Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 50), +'he read his own satire, in which the life of a scholar is painted, he +burst into a passion of tears. The family and Mr. Scott only were +present, who, in a jocose way, clapped him on the back, and +said:--"What's all this, my dear Sir? Why you, and I, and Hercules, you +know, were all troubled with melancholy." He was a very large man, and +made out the triumvirate with Johnson and Hercules comically enough. The +Doctor was so delighted at his odd sally, that he suddenly embraced him, +and the subject was immediately changed.' + +[163] In Disraeli's _Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, iv. 180, is +given 'a memorandum of Dr. Johnson's of hints for the _Life of Pope_.' + +[164] _Works_, viii. 345. + +[165] 'Of the last editor [Warburton] it is more difficult to speak. +Respect is due to high place, tenderness to living reputation, and +veneration to genius and learning; but he cannot be justly offended at +that liberty of which he has himself so frequently given an example, nor +very solicitous what is thought of notes which he ought never to have +considered as part of his serious employments.' _Works_, v. 140. See +_post_, June 10,1784. + +[166] The liberality is certainly measured. With much praise there is +much censure. _Works_, viii. 288. See _ante_, ii. 36, and Boswell's +_Hebrides_, Aug. 23. + +[167] Of Johnson's conduct towards Warburton, a very honourable notice +is taken by the editor of _Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, not +admitted into the Collection of their respective Works_. After an able +and 'fond, though not undistinguishing,' consideration of Warburton's +character, he says, 'In two immortal works, Johnson has stood forth in +the foremost rank of his admirers. By the testimony of such a man, +impertinence must be abashed, and malignity itself must be softened. Of +literary merit, Johnson, as we all know, was a sagacious but a most +severe judge. Such was his discernment, that he pierced into the most +secret springs of human actions; and such was his integrity, that he +always weighed the moral characters of his fellow-creatures in the +"balance of the sanctuary." He was too courageous to propitiate a rival, +and too proud to truckle to a superiour. Warburton he knew, as I know +him, and as every man of sense and virtue would wish to be known,--I +mean, both from his own writings, and from the writings of those who +dissented from his principles, or who envied his reputation. But, as to +favours, he had never received or asked any from the Bishop of +Gloucester; and, if my memory fails me not, he had seen him only once, +when they met almost without design, conversed without much effort, and +parted without any lasting impressions of hatred or affection. Yet, with +all the ardour of sympathetic genius, Johnson has done that +spontaneously and ably, which, by some writers, had been before +attempted injudiciously, and which, by others, from whom more successful +attempts might have been expected, has not _hitherto_ been done at all. +He spoke well of Warburton, without insulting those whom Warburton +despised. He suppressed not the imperfections of this extraordinary man, +while he endeavoured to do justice to his numerous and transcendental +excellencies. He defended him when living, amidst the clamours of his +enemies; and praised him when dead, amidst the _silence of his +friends_.' + +Having availed myself of this editor's eulogy on my departed friend, for +which I warmly thank him, let me not suffer the lustre of his +reputation, honestly acquired by profound learning and vigorous +eloquence, to be tarnished by a charge of illiberality. He has been +accused of invidiously dragging again into light certain writings of a +person respectable by his talents, his learning, his station and his +age, which were published a great many years ago, and have since, it is +said, been silently given up by their authour. But when it is considered +that these writings were not _sins of youth_, but deliberate works of +one well-advanced in life, overflowing at once with flattery to a great +man of great interest in the Church, and with unjust and acrimonious +abuse of two men of eminent merit; and that, though it would have been +unreasonable to expect an humiliating recantation, no apology whatever +has been made in the cool of the evening, for the oppressive fervour of +the heat of the day; no slight relenting indication has appeared in any +note, or any corner of later publications; is it not fair to understand +him as superciliously persevering? When he allows the shafts to remain +in the wounds, and will not stretch forth a lenient hand, is it wrong, +is it not generous to become an indignant avenger? BOSWELL. Boswell +wrote on Feb. 16, 1789:--'There is just come out a publication which +makes a considerable noise. The celebrated Dr. Parr, of Norwich, +has--wickedly, shall we say?--but surely wantonly--published Warburton's +_Juvenile Translations and Discourse on Prodigies_, and Bishop Kurd's +attacks on Jortin and Dr. Thomas Leland, with his _Essay on the Delicacy +of Friendship_.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 275. The 'editor,' therefore, +is Parr, and the 'Warburtonian' is Hurd. Boswell had written to Parr on +Jan. 10, 1791:--'I request to hear by return of post if I may say or +guess that Dr. Parr is the editor of these tracts.' Parr's _Works_, +viii. 12. See also _ib_. iii. 405. + +[168] In Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 213, it is said, that this +meeting was 'at the Bishop of St. ----'s [Asaph's]. Boswell, by his +'careful enquiry,' no doubt meant to show that this statement was wrong. +Johnson is reported to have said:--' Dr. Warburton at first looked +surlily at me; but after we had been jostled into conversation he took +me to a window, asked me some questions, and before we parted was so +well pleased with me that he patted me.' + +[169] 'Warburton's style is copious without selection, and forcible +without neatness; he took the words that presented themselves; his +diction is coarse and impure; and his sentences are unmeasured.' +Johnson's _Works_, viii. 288. + +[170] Churchill, in _The Duellist (Poems_ ed. 1766, ii. 85), describes +Warburton as having + + 'A heart, which virtue ne'er disgraced; + A head where learning runs to waste.' + +[171] _Works_, viii. 230. + +[172] 'I never,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'heard Johnson pronounce the words, +"I beg your pardon, Sir," to any human creature but the apparently +soft and gentle Dr. Burney.' Burney had asked her whether she had +subscribed L100 to building a bridge. '"It is very comical, is it not, +Sir?" said I, turning to Dr. Johnson, "that people should tell such +unfounded stories." "It is," answered he, "neither comical nor serious, +my dear; it is only a wandering lie." This was spoken in his natural +voice, without a thought of offence, I am confident; but up bounced +Burney in a towering passion, and to my much amaze put on the hero, +surprising Dr. Johnson into a sudden request for pardon, and +protestation of not having ever intended to accuse his friend of a +falsehood.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 312. + +[173] In the original, '_nor_.' _Works_, viii. 311. + +[174] In the original, '_either_ wise or merry.' + +[175] In the original, '_stands upon record_'. + +[176] _Works_, viii. 316. Surely the words 'had not much to say' imply +that Johnson had heard the answer, but thought little of its wit. +According to Mr. Croker, the repartee is given in Ruffhead's _Life of +Pope_, and this book Johnson had seen. _Ante_, ii. 166. + +[177] Let me here express my grateful remembrance of Lord Somerville's +kindness to me, at a very early period. He was the first person of high +rank that took particular notice of me in the way most flattering to a +young man, fondly ambitious of being distinguished for his literary +talents; and by the honour of his encouragement made me think well of +myself, and aspire to deserve it better. He had a happy art of +communicating his varied knowledge of the world, in short remarks and +anecdotes, with a quiet pleasant gravity, that was exceedingly engaging. +Never shall I forget the hours which I enjoyed with him at his +apartments in the Royal Palace of Holy-Rood House, and at his seat near +Edinburgh, which he himself had formed with an elegant taste. BOSWELL. + +[178] _Ante_, iii. 392. + +[179] Boswell, I think, misunderstands Johnson. Johnson said (_Works_, +viii. 313) that 'Pope's admiration of the Great seems to have increased +in the advance of life.' His _Iliad_ he had dedicated to Congreve, but +'to his latter works he took care to annex names dignified with titles, +but was not very happy in his choice; for, except Lord Bathurst, none of +his noble friends were such as that a good man would wish to have his +intimacy with them known to posterity; he can derive little honour from +the notice of Cobham, Burlington, or Bolingbroke.' Johnson, it seems +clear, is speaking, not of the noblemen whom Pope knew in general, but +of those to whom he dedicated any of his works. Among them Lord +Marchmont is not found, so that on him no slight is cast. + +[180] Neither does Johnson actually say that Lord Marchmont had 'any +concern,' though perhaps he implies it. He writes:--'Pope left the care +of his papers to his executors; first to Lord Bolingbroke; and, if he +should not be living, to the Earl of Marchmont: undoubtedly expecting +them to be proud of the trust, and eager to extend his fame. But let no +man dream of influence beyond his life. After a decent time, Dodsley the +bookseller went to solicit preference as the publisher, and was told +that the parcel had not been yet inspected; and, whatever was the +reason, the world has been disappointed of what was "reserved for the +next age."' _Ib_. p. 306. As Bolingbroke outlived Pope by more than +seven years, it is clear, from what Johnson states, that he alone had +the care of the papers, and that he gave the answer to Dodsley. +Marchmont, however, knew the contents of the papers. _Ib_. p. 319. + +[181] This neglect did not arise from any ill-will towards Lord +Marchmont, but from inattention; just as he neglected to correct his +statement concerning the family of Thomson the poet, after it had been +shewn to be erroneous (_ante_, in. 359). MALONE. + +[182] _Works, vii. 420._ + +[183] Benjamin Victor published in 1722, a _Letter to Steele_, and in +1776, _Letters, Dramatic Pieces, and Poems_ Brit. Mus. Catalogue. + +[184] Mr. _Wilks_. See _ante_, i. 167, note 1. + +[185] See _post_, p. 91 and Macaulay's _Essay on Addison_ (ed. 1974, iv. +207). + +[186] 'A better and more Christian man scarcely ever breathed than +Joseph Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wine--why we +could scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have liked him +as we do.' Thackery's _English Humourists_, ed. 1858, p. 94. + +[187] See _ante_, i. 30, and iii. 155. + +[188] See _post_, under Dec. 2, 1784. + +[189] Parnell 'drank to excess.' _Ante_, iii. 155. + +[190] I should have thought that Johnson, who had felt the severe +affliction from which Parnell never recovered, would have preserved this +passage. BOSWELL. + +[191] Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson in May, 1780:-'Blackmore will be +rescued from the old wits who worried him much to your disliking; so, a +little for love of his Christianity, a little for love of his physic, a +little for love of his courage--and a little for love of contradiction, +you will save him from his malevolent critics, and perhaps do him the +honour to devour him yourself.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 122. See +_ante_, ii. 107. + +[192] 'This is a tribute which a painter owes to an architect who +composed like a painter; and was defrauded of the due reward of his +merit by the wits of his time, who did not understand the principles of +composition in poetry better than he did; and who knew little, or +nothing, of what he understood perfectly, the general ruling principles +of architecture and painting.' Reynolds's _Thirteenth Discourse_. + +[193] Johnson had not wished to write _Lyttelton's Life_. He wrote to +Lord Westcote, Lyttelton's brother, 'My desire is to avoid offence, and +be totally out of danger. I take the liberty of proposing to your +lordship, that the historical account should be written under your +direction by any friend you may be willing to employ, and I will only +take upon myself to examine the poetry.'--Croker's _Boswell_, p.650. + +[194] It was not _Molly Aston_ (_ante_ i. 83) but Miss Hill Boothby +(_ib_.) of whom Mrs. Thrale wrote. She says (_Anec_. p.160):--'Such was +the purity of her mind, Johnson said, and such the graces of her manner, +that Lord Lyttelton and he used to strive for her preference with an +emulation that occasioned hourly disgust, and ended in lasting +animosity.' There is surely much exaggeration in this account. + +[195] Let not my readers smile to think of Johnson's being a candidate +for female favour; Mr. Peter Garrick assured me, that he was told by a +lady, that in her opinion Johnson was 'a very _seducing man_.' +Disadvantages of person and manner may be forgotten, where intellectual +pleasure is communicated to a susceptible mind; and that Johnson was +capable of feeling the most delicate and disinterested attachment, +appears from the following letter, which is published by Mrs. Thrale +[_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 391], with some others to the same person, of +which the excellence is not so apparent:-- + +'TO MISS BOOTHBY. January, 1755. + +DEAREST MADAM, + +Though I am afraid your illness leaves you little leisure for the +reception of airy civilities, yet I cannot forbear to pay you my +congratulations on the new year; and to declare my wishes that your +years to come may be many and happy. In this wish, indeed, I include +myself, who have none but you on whom my heart reposes; yet surely I +wish your good, even though your situation were such as should permit +you to communicate no gratifications to, dearest, dearest Madam, Your, +&c. SAM JOHNSON.' (BOSWELL.) + +[196] Horace, _Odes_, iv. 3.2, quoted also _ante_, i.352, note. + +[197] The passage which Boswell quotes in part is as follows:--'When +they were first published they were kindly commended by the _Critical +Reviewers_; [i.e. the writers in the _Critical Review_. In some of the +later editions of Boswell these words have been printed, _critical +reviewers_; so as to include all the reviewers who criticised the work]; +and poor Lyttelton, with humble gratitude, returned, in a note which I +have read, acknowledgements which can never be proper, since they must +be paid either for flattery or for justice.' _Works_, viii.491. Boswell +forgets that what may be proper in one is improper in another. +Lyttelton, when he wrote this note, had long been a man of high +position. He had 'stood in the first rank of opposition,' he had been +Chancellor of the Exchequer, and when he lost his post, he had been +'recompensed with a peerage.' See _ante_, ii. 126. + +[198] See _post_, June 12 and 15, 1784. + +[199] He adopted it from indolence. Writing on Aug. 1, 1780, after +mentioning the failure of his application to Lord Westcote, he +continues:--'There is an ingenious scheme to save a day's work, or part +of a day, utterly defeated. Then what avails it to be wise? The plain +and the artful man must both do their own work.--But I think I have got +a life of Dr. Young.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 173. + +[200] _Gent. Mag._ vol. lv. p. 10. BOSWELL. + +[201] By a letter to Johnson from Croft, published in the later editions +of the _Lives_, it seems that Johnson only expunged one passage. Croft +says:--'Though I could not prevail on you to make any alteration, you +insisted on striking out one passage, because it said, that, if I did +not wish you to live long for your sake, I did for the sake of myself +and the world.' _Works_ viii.458. + +[202] The Late Mr. Burke. MALONE. + +[203] See_post_, June 2, 1781. + +[204] Johnson's _Works_, viii 440. + +[205] _Ib._ p.436 + +[206] 'Eheu! fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni.' 'How swiftly +glide our flying years!' FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, ii.14. i. + +[207] The late Mr. James Ralph told Lord Macartney, that he passed an +evening with Dr. Young at Lord Melcombe's (then Mr. Dodington) at +Hammersmith. The Doctor happening to go out into the garden, Mr. +Dodington observed to him, on his return, that it was a dreadful night, +as in truth it was, there being a violent storm of rain and wind. 'No, +Sir, (replied the Doctor) it is a very fine night. The LORD is +abroad.' BOSWELL. + +[208] See _ante_, ii.96, and iii.251; and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. +30. + +[209] 'An ardent judge, who zealous in his trust, With warmth gives +sentence, yet is always just.' Pope's _Essay on Criticism_, l.677. + +[210] _Works_, viii.459. Though the _Life of Young_ is by Croft, yet the +critical remarks are by Johnson. + +[211] _Ib._ p.460. + +[212] Johnson refers to Chambers's _Dissertation on Oriental Gardening_, +which was ridiculed in the _Heroic Epistle_. See _post_, under May 8, +1781, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 13. + +[213] Boswell refers to the death of Narcissa in the third of the _Night +Thoughts_. While he was writing the _Life of Johnson_ Mrs. Boswell was +dying of consumption in (to quote Young's words) + + The rigid north, + Her native bed, on which bleak + Boreas blew.' + +She died nearly two years before _The Life_ was published. + +[214] _Proverbs_, xviii.14. + +[215] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 16. + +[216] See vol. i. page 133. BOSWELL. + +[217] 'In his economy Swift practised a peculiar and offensive +parsimony, without disguise or apology. The practice of saving being +once necessary, became habitual, and grew first ridiculous, and at last +detestable. But his avarice, though it might exclude pleasure, was never +suffered to encroach upon his virtue. He was frugal by inclination, but +liberal by principle; and if the purpose to which he destined his little +accumulations be remembered, with his distribution of occasional +charity, it will perhaps appear, that he only liked one mode of expense +better than another, and saved merely that he might have something to +give.' _Works_, viii.222. + +[218] _Ib_. p.225. + +[219] Mr. Chalmers here records a curious literary anecdote--that when a +new and enlarged edition of the _Lives of the Poets_ was published in +1783, Mr. Nichols, in justice to the purchasers of the preceding +editions, printed the additions in a separate pamphlet, and advertised +that it might be had _gratis_. Not ten copies were called for. CROKER. + +[220] See _ante_, p.9, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 15. + +[221] _Works_, vii. Preface. + +[222] From this disreputable class, I except an ingenious though not +satisfactory defence of HAMMOND, which I did not see till lately, by the +favour of its authour, my amiable friend, the Reverend Mr. Bevill, who +published it without his name. It is a juvenile performance, but +elegantly written, with classical enthusiasm of sentiment, and yet with +a becoming modesty, and great respect for Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL. + +[223] Before the _Life of Lyttelton_ was published there was, it seems, +some coolness between Mrs. Montagu and Johnson. Miss Burney records the +following conversation in September 1778. 'Mark now,' said Dr. Johnson, +'if I contradict Mrs. Montagu to-morrow. I am determined, let her say +what she will, that I will not contradict her.' MRS. THRALE. 'Why to be +sure, Sir, you did put her a little out of countenance last time she +came.'...DR. JOHNSON. 'Why, Madam, I won't answer that I shan't +contradict her again, if she provokes me as she did then; but a less +provocation I will withstand. I believe I am not high in her good graces +already; and I begin (added he, laughing heartily) to tremble for my +admission into her new house. I doubt I shall never see the inside of +it.' Yet when they met a few days later all seemed friendly. 'When Mrs. +Montagu's new house was talked of, Dr. Johnson in a jocose manner, +desired to know if he should be invited to see it. "Ay, sure," cried +Mrs. Montagu, looking well pleased, "or else I shan't like it."' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.118, 126. 'Mrs. Montagu's dinners and assemblies,' +writes Wraxall, 'were principally supported by, and they fell with, the +giant talents of Johnson, who formed the nucleus round which all the +subordinate members revolved.' Wraxall's _Memoirs_, ed. 1815, i.160. + +[224] Described by the author as 'a body of original essays.' 'I +consider _The Observer,'_ he arrogantly continues, 'as fairly enrolled +amongst the standard classics of our native language.' Cumberland's +_Memoirs_, ii.199. In his account of this _Feast of Reason_ he quite as +much satirises Mrs. Montagu as praises her. He introduces Johnson in it, +annoyed by an impertinent fellow, and saying to him:--'Have I said +anything, good Sir, that you do not comprehend?' 'No, no,' replied he, +'I perfectly well comprehend every word you have been saying.' 'Do you +so, Sir?' said the philosopher, 'then I heartily ask pardon of the +company for misemploying their time so egregiously.' _The Observer_, +No. 25. + +[225] Miss Burney gives an account of an attack made by Johnson, at a +dinner at Streatham, in June 1781, on Mr. Pepys (_post_, p. 82), 'one of +Mrs. Montagu's steadiest abettors.' 'Never before,' she writes, 'have I +seen Dr. Johnson speak with so much passion. "Mr. Pepys," he cried, in a +voice the most enraged, "I understand you are offended by my _Life of +Lord Lyttelton_. What is it you have to say against it? Come forth, man! +Here am I, ready to answer any charge you can bring."' After the quarrel +had been carried even into the drawing-room, Mrs. Thrale, 'with great +spirit and dignity, said that she should be very glad to hear no more of +it. Everybody was silenced, and Dr. Johnson, after a pause, +said:--"Well, Madam, you _shall_ hear no more of it; yet I will defend +myself in every part and in every atom."... Thursday morning, Dr. +Johnson went to town for some days, but not before Mrs. Thrale read him +a very serious lecture upon giving way to such violence; which he bore +with a patience and quietness that even more than made his peace with +me.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 45. Two months later the quarrel was +made up. 'Mr. Pepys had desired this meeting by way of a reconciliation; +and Dr. Johnson now made amends for his former violence, as he advanced +to him, as soon as he came in, and holding out his hand to him received +him with a cordiality he had never shewn him before. Indeed he told me +himself that he thought the better of Mr. Pepys for all that had +passed.' _Ib._ p. 82. Miss Burney, in Dec. 1783, described the quarrel +to Mr. Cambridge:--'"I never saw Dr. Johnson really in a passion but +then; and dreadful indeed it was to see. I wished myself away a thousand +times. It was a frightful scene. He so red, poor Mr. Pepys so pale." "It +was behaving ill to Mrs. Thrale certainly to quarrel in her house." +"Yes, but he never repeated it; though he wished of all things to have +gone through just such another scene with Mrs. Montagu; and to refrain +was an act of heroic forbearance. She came to Streatham one morning, and +I saw he was dying to attack her." "And how did Mrs. Montagu herself +behave?" Very stately, indeed, at first. She turned from him very +stiffly, and with a most distant air, and without even courtesying to +him, and with a firm intention to keep to what she had publicly +declared--that she would never speak to him more. However, he went up to +her himself, longing to begin, and very roughly said:--"Well, Madam, +what's become of your fine new house? I hear no more of it." "But how +did she bear this?" "Why, she was obliged to answer him; and she soon +grew so frightened--as everybody does--that she was as civil as ever." +He laughed heartily at this account. But I told him Dr. Johnson was now +much softened. He had acquainted me, when I saw him last, that he had +written to her upon the death of Mrs. Williams [see _post_, Sept. 18, +1783, note], because she had allowed her something yearly, which now +ceased. "And I had a very kind answer from her," said he. "Well then, +Sir," cried I, "I hope peace now will be again proclaimed." "Why, I am +now," said he, "come to that time when I wish all bitterness and +animosity to be at an end."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 290. + +[226] January, 1791. BOSWELL. Hastings's trial had been dragging on for +more than three years when _The Life of Johnson_ was published. It began +in 1788, and ended in 1795. + +[227] _Gent. Mag_. for 1785, p. 412. + +[228] Afterwards Sir Robert Chambers, one of his Majesty's Judges in +India. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i.274. + +[229] 'He conceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might +with advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an English +gentleman; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is said that the +University of Oxford, in which Oriental learning had never, since the +revival of letters, been wholly neglected, was to be the seat of the +institution which he contemplated.' Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, +iii. 338. + +[230] Lord North's. Feeble though it was, it lasted eight years longer. + +[231] Jones's _Persian Grammar_. Boswell. It was published in 1771. + +[232] _Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_. BOSWELL. + +[233] See _ante_, ii. 296. + +[234] Macaulay wrote of Hastings's answer to this letter:--'It is a +remarkable circumstance that one of the letters of Hastings to Dr. +Johnson bears date a very few hours after the death of Nuncomar. While +the whole settlement was in commotion, while a mighty and ancient +priesthood were weeping over the remains of their chief, the conqueror +in that deadly grapple sat down, with characteristic self-possession, to +write about the _Tour to the Hebrides_, Jones's _Persian Grammar_, and +the history, traditions, arts, and natural productions of India.' +Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, iii.376. + +[235] Johnson wrote the Dedication, _Ante_, i.383. + +[236] See _ante_, ii.82, note 2. + +[237] _Copy_ is _manuscript for printing_. + +[238] Published by Kearsley, with this well-chosen motto:--'From his +cradle He was a SCHOLAR, and a ripe and good one: And to add greater +honours to his age Than man could give him, he died fearing Heaven.' +SHAKSPEARE. BOSWELL. This quotation is a patched up one from _Henry +VIII_, act iv. sc.2. The quotation in the text is found on p. 89 of this +_Life of Johnson_. + +[239] Mr. Thrale had removed, that is to say, from his winter residence +in the Borough. Mrs. Piozzi has written opposite this passage in her +copy of Boswell:--'Spiteful again! He went by direction of his +physicians where they could easiest attend to him.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, +i. 91. There was, perhaps, a good deal of truth in Boswell's +supposition, for in 1779 Johnson had told her that he saw 'with +indignation her despicable dread of living in the Borough.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii.92. Johnson had a room in the new house. 'Think,' wrote +Hannah More, 'of Johnson's having apartments in Grosvenor-square! but he +says it is not half so convenient as Bolt-court.' H. More's +_Memoirs_, i.2O7. + +[240] See _ante_, iii. 250. + +[241] Shakspeare makes Hamlet thus describe his father:-- + + 'See what a grace was seated on this brow: + Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, + An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; + A station like the herald, Mercury, + New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; + A combination, and a form, indeed, + Where every god did seem to set his seal, + To give the world assurance of a man.! + [Act iii. sc. 4.] + +Milton thus pourtrays our first parent, Adam:-- + + 'His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd + Absolute rule; and hyacinthin locks + Round from his parted forelock manly hung + Clus'tring, but not beneath his shoulders broad.' + [_P.L._ iv. 300.] BOSWELL. + +[242] 'Grattan's Uncle, Dean Marlay [afterwards Bishop of Waterford], +had a good deal of the humour of Swift. Once, when the footman was out +of the way, he ordered the coachman to fetch some water from the well. +To this the man objected, that _his_ business was to drive, not to run +on errands. "Well, then," said Marlay, "bring out the coach and four, +set the pitcher inside, and drive to the well;"--a service which was +several times repeated, to the great amusement of the village.' Rogers's +_Table-Talk_, p.176. + +[243] See _ante_, ii. 241, for Johnson's contempt of puns. + +[244] 'He left not faction, but of that was left.' _Absalom and +Achitophel_, l. 568. + +[245] Boswell wrote of Gibbon in 1779:--'He is an ugly, affected, +disgusting fellow, and poisons our Literary Club to me.' _Letters of +Boswell_, p.242. See _ante_, ii.443, note 1. + +[246] _The schools_ in this sense means a University. + +[247] See _ante_, ii.224. + +[248] Up to the year 1770, controverted elections had been tried before +a Committee of the whole House. By the _Grenville Act_ which was passed +in that year they were tried by a select committee. _Parl. Hist._ xvi. +902. Johnson, in _The False Alarm_ (1770), describing the old method of +trial, says;--'These decisions have often been apparently partial, and +sometimes tyrannically oppressive.' _Works, vi. 169._ _In The Patriot_ +(1774), he says:--'A disputed election is now tried with the same +scrupulousness and solemnity as any other title.' _Ib._ p.223. See +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov.10. + +[249] Miss Burney describes a dinner at Mr. Thrale's, about this time, +at which she met Johnson, Boswell, and Dudley Long. Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, ii. 14. + +[250] See _ante_, ii.171, _post_, two paragraphs before April 10, 1783, +and May 15, 1784. + +[251] Johnson wrote on May i, 1780:--'There was the Bishop of St. Asaph +who comes to every place.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 111. Hannah More, in +1782, describes an assembly at this Bishop's. 'Conceive to yourself 150 +or 200 people met together dressed in the extremity of the fashion, +painted as red as Bacchanals...ten or a dozen card-tables crammed with +dowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics and yellow admirals.' +_Memoirs_, i.242. He was elected a member of the Literary Club, 'with +the sincere approbation and eagerness of all present,' wrote Mr. +(afterwards Sir William) Jones; elected, too, on the same day on which +Lord Chancellor Camden was rejected (_ante_, iii. 311, note 2). Two or +three years later Sir William married the Bishop's daughter. _Life of +Sir W Jones_, pp.240, 279. + +[252] 'Trust not to looks, nor credit outward show; The villain lurks +beneath the cassocked beau.' Churchill's _Poems_ (ed. 1766), ii.41. + +[253] No. 2. + +[254] See vol. i p. 378. BOSWELL. + +[255] Northcote, according to Hazlitt, said of this character with some +truth, that 'it was like one of Kneller's portraits--it would do for +anybody.' Northcote's _Conversations_, p.86. + +[256] See _post_, p.98. + +[257] _London Chronicle_, May 2, 1769. This respectable man is there +mentioned to have died on the 3rd of April, that year, at Cofflect, the +seat of Thomas Veale, Esq., in his way to London. BOSWELL. + +[258] Dr. Harte was the tutor of Mr. Eliot and of young Stanhope, Lord +Chesterfield's illegitimate son. 'My morning hopes,' wrote Chesterfield +to his son at Rome, 'are justly placed in Mr. Harte, and the masters he +will give you; my evening ones in the Roman ladies: pray be attentive to +both.' Chesterfield's _Letters_, ii.263. See _ante_, i.163, note 1, +ii.120, and _post_, June 27, 1784. + +[259] Robertson's _Scotland_ is in the February list of books in the +_Gent. Mag_. for 1759; Harte's _Gustavus Adolphus_ and Hume's _England +under the House of Tudor_ in the March list. Perhaps it was from Hume's +competition that Harte suffered. + +[260] _Essays on Husbandry_, 1764. + +[261] See _ante_, iii. 381. + +[262] 'Christmas Day, 1780. I shall not attempt to see Vestris till the +weather is milder, though it is the universal voice that he is the only +perfect being that has dropped from the clouds, within the memory of man +or woman...When the Parliament meets he is to be thanked by the +Speaker.' Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 480. + +[263] Here Johnson uses his title of Doctor (_ante_, ii.332, note 1), +but perhaps he does so as quoting the paragraph in the newspaper. + +[264] William, the first Viscount Grimston. BOSWELL. Swift thus +introduces him in his lines _On Poetry, A Rhapsody_:-- + + 'When death had finished Blackmore's reign, + The leaden crown devolved to thee, + Great poet of the hollow tree.' + +Mr. Nichols, in a note on this, says that Grimston 'wrote the play when +a boy, to be acted by his schoolfellows.' Swift's _Works_ (1803), xi. +297. Two editions were published apparently by Grimston himself, one +bearing his name but no date, and the other the date of 1705 but no +name. By 1705 Grimston was 22 years old--no longer a boy. The former +edition was published by Bernard Lintott at the Cross Keys, +Fleet-street, and the latter by the same bookseller at the Middle Temple +Gate. The grossness of a young man of birth at this period is shewn by +the Preface. The third edition with the elephant on the tight-rope was +published in 1736. There is another illustration in which an ass is +represented bearing a coronet. Grimston's name is not given here, but +there is a dedication 'To the Right Sensible the Lord Flame.' Three or +four notes are added, one of which is very gross. The election was for +St. Alban's, for which borough he was thrice returned. + +[265] Dr. T. Campbell records (_Diary_, p. 69) that 'Boswell asked +Johnson if he had never been under the hands of a dancing master. "Aye, +and a dancing mistress too," says the Doctor; "but I own to you I never +took a lesson but one or two; my blind eyes showed me I could never make +a proficiency."' + +[266] See vol. ii. p.286. BOSWELL. + +[267] Miss Burney writes of him in Feb. 1779:--'He is a professed +minority man, and very active and zealous in the opposition. Men of such +different principles as Dr. Johnson and Sir Philip cannot have much +cordiality in their political debates; however, the very superior +abilities of the former, and the remarkable good breeding of the latter +have kept both upon good terms.' She describes a hot argument between +them, and continues:--'Dr. Johnson pursued him with unabating vigour and +dexterity, and at length, though he could not convince, he so entirely +baffled him, that Sir Philip was self-compelled to be quiet--which, with +a very good grace, he confessed. Dr. Johnson then recollecting himself, +and thinking, as he owned afterwards, that the dispute grew too serious, +with a skill all his own, suddenly and unexpectedly turned it to +burlesque.' D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 192. + +[268] See _post_, Jan. 20, 1782. + +[269] See _ante_, ii.355. + +[270] Here Johnson condescended to play upon the words _Long_ and +_short_. But little did he know that, owing to Mr. Long's reserve in his +presence, he was talking thus of a gentleman distinguised amongst his +acquaintance for acuteness of wit; one to whom I think the French +expression, '_Il petille d'esprit_,' is particularly He has gratified me +by mentioning that he heard Dr. Johnson say, 'Sir, if I were to lose +Boswell, it would be a limb amputated.' BOSWELL. + +[271] William Weller Pepys, Esq., one of the Masters in the High Court +of Chancery, and well known in polite circles. My acquaintance with him +is not sufficient to enable me to speak of him from my own judgement. +But I know that both at Eton and Oxford he was the intimate friend of +the late Sir James Macdonald, the _Marcellus_ of Scotland [_ante_, +i.449], whose extraordinary talents, learning, and virtues, will ever be +remembered with admiration and regret. BOSWELL. + +[272] See note, _ante_, p. 65, which describes an attack made by Johnson +on Pepys more than two months after this conversation. + +[273] Johnson once said to Mrs. Thrale:--'Why, Madam, you often provoke +me to say severe things by unreasonable commendation. If you would not +call for my praise, I would not give you my censure; but it constantly +moves my indignation to be applied to, to speak well of a thing which I +think contemptible.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.132. See _ante_, +iii.225. + +[274] 'Mrs. Thrale,' wrote Miss Burney in 1780, 'is a most dear +creature, but never restrains her tongue in anything, nor, indeed, any +of her feelings. She laughs, cries, scolds, sports, reasons, makes +fun--does everything she has an inclination to do, without any study of +prudence, or thought of blame; and, pure and artless as is this +character, it often draws both herself and others into scrapes, which a +little discretion would avoid.' _Ib_. i.386. Later on she writes:--'Mrs. +Thrale, with all her excellence, can give up no occasion of making +sport, however unseasonable or even painful... I knew she was not to be +safely trusted with anything she could turn into ridicule.' _Ib_. +ii.24 and 29. + +[275] Perhaps Mr. Seward, who was constantly at the Thrales' (_ante_, +iii. 123). + +[276] See _ante_, iii.228, 404. + +[277] It was the seventh anniversary of Goldsmith's death. + +[278] 'Mrs. Garrick and I,' wrote Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 208), 'were +invited to an assembly at Mrs. Thrale's. There was to be a fine concert, +and all the fine people were to be there. Just as my hair was dressed, +came a servant to forbid our coming, for that Mr. Thrale was dead.' + +[279] _Pr. and Med._ p 191. BOSWELL. The rest of the entry should be +given:--'On Wednesday, 11, was buried my dear friend Thrale, who died on +Wednesday 4; and with him were buried many of my hopes and pleasures. +[On Sunday, 1st, the physician warned him against full meals, on Monday +I pressed him to observance of his rules, but without effect, and +Tuesday I was absent, but his wife pressed forbearance upon him again +unsuccessfully. At night I was called to him, and found him senseless in +strong convulsions. I staid in the room, except that I visited Mrs. +Thrale twice.] About five, I think, on Wednesday morning he expired; I +felt, &c. Farewell. May God that delighteth in mercy have had mercy on +thee. I had constantly prayed for him some time before his death. The +decease of him from whose friendship I had obtained many opportunities +of amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts as to a refuge from +misfortunes, has left me heavy. But my business is with myself.' The +passage enclosed in brackets I have copied from the original MS. Mr. +Strahan, the editor, omitted it, no doubt from feelings of delicacy. +What a contrast in this to the widow who published a letter in which she +had written:--'I wish that you would put in a word of your own to Mr. +Thrale about eating less!' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.130. Baretti, in a note +on _Piozzi Letters_, ii.142, says that 'nobody ever had spirit enough to +tell Mr. Thrale that his fits were apoplectic; such is the blessing of +being rich that nobody dares to speak out.' In Johnson's _Works_ (1787), +xi.203, it is recorded that 'Johnson, who attended Thrale in his last +moments, said, "His servants would have waited upon him in this awful +period, and why not his friend?"' + +[280] Johnson's letters to the widow show how much he felt Thrale's +death. 'April 5, 1781. I am not without my part of the calamity. No +death since that of my wife has ever oppressed me like this. April 7. My +part of the loss hangs upon me. I have lost a friend of boundless +kindness, at an age when it is very unlikely that I should find another. +April 9. Our sorrow has different effects; you are withdrawn into +solitude, and I am driven into company. I am afraid of thinking what I +have lost. I never had such a friend before. April 11. I feel myself +like a man beginning a new course of life. I had interwoven myself with +my dear friend.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 191-97. 'I have very often,' +wrote Miss Burney, in the following June, 'though I mention them not, +long and melancholy discourses with Dr. Johnson about our dear deceased +master, whom, indeed, he regrets incessantly.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +ii. 63. On his next birthday, he wrote:--'My first knowledge of Thrale +was in 1765. I enjoyed his favour for almost a fourth part of my life.' +_Pr. and Med._ p.191. One or two passages in Mrs. Thrale's Letters shew +her husband's affection for Johnson. On May 3, 1776, she writes:--'Mr. +Thrale says he shall not die in peace without seeing Rome, and I am sure +he will go nowhere that he can help without you.' _Piozzi Letters_, +i.317. A few days later, she speaks of 'our dear master, who cannot be +quiet without you for a week.' _Ib._ p.329. Johnson, in his fine epitaph +on Thrale (_Works_, i.153) broke through a rule which he himself had +laid down. In his _Essay on Epitaphs_ (_Ib._ v 263), he said:--'It is +improper to address the epitaph to the passenger [traveller], a custom +which an injudicious veneration for antiquity introduced again at the +revival of letters.' Yet in the monument in Streatham Church, we find +the same _Abi viator_ which he had censured in an epitaph on Henry IV +of France. + +[281] Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale shew that he had long been well +acquainted with the state of her husband's business. In the year 1772, +Mr. Thrale was in money difficulties. Johnson writes to her almost as if +he were a partner in the business. 'The first consequence of our late +trouble ought to be an endeavour to brew at a cheaper rate...Unless this +can be done, nothing can help us; and if this be done, we shall not want +help.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.57. He urges economy in the household, and +continues:--'But the fury of housewifery will soon subside; and little +effect will be produced, but by methodical attention and even +frugality.' _Ib._ p.64. In another letter he writes:--'This year will +undoubtedly be an year of struggle and difficulty; but I doubt not of +getting through it; and the difficulty will grow yearly less and less. +Supposing that our former mode of life kept us on the level, we shall, +by the present contraction of expense, gain upon fortune a thousand a +year, even though no improvements can be made in the conduct of the +trade.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 66. Four years later, he writes:--'To-day I +went to look into my places at the Borough. I called on Mr. Perkins in +the counting-house. He crows and triumphs, as we go on we shall double +our business.' _Ib._ p. 333. When the executors first met, he +wrote:--'We met to-day, and were told of mountainous difficulties, till +I was provoked to tell them, that if there were really so much to do and +suffer, there would be no executors in the world. Do not suffer yourself +to be terrified.' _Ib._ ii. 197. Boswell says (_ante_, ii. 44l):--'I +often had occasion to remark, Johnson loved business, loved to have his +wisdom actually operate on real life.' When Boswell had purchased a +farm, 'Johnson,' he writes (_ante_, iii. 207), 'made several +calculations of the expense and profit; for he delighted in exercising +his mind on the science of numbers.' The letter (_ante_, ii. 424) +about the book-trade 'exhibits,' to use Boswell's words, 'his +extraordinary precision and acuteness.' Boswell wrote to Temple:--'Dr. +Taylor has begged of Dr. Johnson to come to London, to assist him in +some interesting business; and Johnson loves much to be so consulted, +and so comes up.' _Ante_, iii. 51, note 3. + +[282] Johnson, as soon as the will was read, wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You +have, L500 for your immediate expenses, and, L2000 a year, with both the +houses and all the goods.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 192. Beattie wrote on +June 1:--'Everybody says Mr. Thrale should have left Johnson L200 a +year; which, from a fortune like his, would have been a very +inconsiderable deduction.' Beattie's _Life_, ed. 1824, p. 290. + +[283] Miss Burney thus writes of the day of the sale:--'Mrs. Thrale went +early to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr. Barclay, the Quaker, +who was the bidder. She was in great agitation of mind, and told me if +all went well she would wave a white handkerchief out of the +coach-window. Four o'clock came and dinner was ready, and no Mrs. +Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon the lawn, where we sauntered in eager +expectation, till near six, and then the coach appeared in sight, and a +white handkerchief was waved from it.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 34. +The brewery was sold for L135,000. See _post_, June 16, 1781. + +[284] See _post_, paragraph before June 22, 1784. + +[285] Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 369, says that 'the +two last years of Thrale's life his brewery brought him L30,000 a year +neat profit.' + +[286] In the fourth edition of his _Dictionary_, published in 1773, +Johnson introduced a second definition of _patriot_:--'It is sometimes +used for a factious disturber of the government.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, +ii. 77) wrote on Feb. 21, 1772:--'Charles Fox is commenced patriot, and +is already attempting to pronounce the words, _country_, _liberty_, +_corruption_, &c.; with what success time will discover.' Forty years +before Johnson begged not to meet patriots, Sir Robert Walpole said:--'A +patriot, Sir! why patriots spring up like mushrooms. I could raise fifty +of them within the four-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of them in +one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolent +demand, and up starts a patriot. I have never been afraid of making +patriots; but I disdain and despise all their efforts.' Coxe's +_Walpole_, i. 659. See _ante_, ii. 348, and iii. 66. + +[287] He was tried on Feb. 5 and 6, 1781. _Ann. Reg._ xxiv. 217. + +[288] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 210) records a dinner on a Tuesday in +this year. (Like Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, she cared nothing for +dates.) It was in the week after Thrale's death. It must have been the +dinner here mentioned by Boswell; for it was at a Bishop's (Shipley of +St. Asaph), and Sir Joshua and Boswell were among the guests. Why +Boswell recorded none of Johnson's conversation may be guessed from what +she tells. 'I was heartily disgusted,' she says, 'with Mr. Boswell, who +came up stairs after dinner much disordered with wine.' (See _post_, p. +109). The following morning Johnson called on her. 'He reproved me,' she +writes, 'with pretended sharpness for reading _Les Pensees de Pascal_, +alleging that as a good Protestant I ought to abstain from books written +by Catholics. I was beginning to stand upon my defence, when he took me +with both hands, and with a tear running down his cheeks, "Child," said +he, with the most affecting earnestness, "I am heartily glad that you +read pious books, by whomsoever they may be written.'" + +[289] On Good-Friday, in 1778, Johnson recorded:--'It has happened this +week, as it never happened in Passion-week before, that I have never +dined at home, and I have therefore neither practised abstinence nor +peculiar devotion' _Pr. and Med._ p. 163. + +[290] No. 7. + +[291] See _ante_, iii. 302. + +[292] Richard Berenger, Esq., many years Gentleman of the Horse, and +first Equerry to his present Majesty. MALONE. According to Mrs. Piozzi +(_Anec._ p. 156), he was Johnson's 'standard of true elegance.' + +[293] See _ante_, iii. 186. + +[294] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 449) thus describes Addison's 'familiar +day,' on the authority of Pope:--'He studied all morning; then dined at +a tavern; and went afterwards to Button's [coffee-house]. From the +coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late, and +drank too much wine.' Spence (_Anec._ p. 286) adds, on the authority of +Pope, that 'Addison passed each day alike, and much in the manner that +Dryden did. Dryden employed his mornings in writing; dined _en famille_; +and then went to Wills's; only he came home earlier a'nights' + +[295] Mr. Foss says of Blackstone:--'Ere he had been long on the bench +he experienced the bad effects of the studious habits in which he had +injudiciously indulged in his early life, and of his neglect to take the +necessary amount of exercise, to which he was specially averse.' He died +at the age of 56. Foss's _Judges_, viii. 250. He suffered greatly from +his corpulence. His portrait in the Bodleian shews that he was a very +fat man. Malone says that Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell) wrote to +Blackstone's family to apologise for Boswell's anecdote. Prior's +_Malone_, p. 415. Scott would not have thought any the worse of +Blackstone for his bottle of port; both he and his brother, the +Chancellor, took a great deal of it. 'Lord Eldon liked plain port; the +stronger the better.' Twiss's _Eldon_, iii. 486. Some one asked him +whether Lord Stowell took much exercise. 'None,' he said, 'but the +exercise of eating and drinking.' _Ib._ p. 302. Yet both men got through +a vast deal of hard work, and died, Eldon at the age of 86, and +Stowell of 90. + +[296] See this explained, pp. 52, 53 of this volume. BOSWELL. + +[297] See _ante_, ii. 7. + +[298] William Scott was a tutor of University College at the age of +nineteen. He held the office for ten years--to 1775. He wrote to his +father in 1772 about his younger brother John (afterwards Lord Eldon), +who had just made a run-away match:--'The business in which I am engaged +is so extremely disagreeable in itself, and so destructive to health (if +carried on with such success as can render it at all considerable in +point of profit) that I do not wonder at his unwillingness to succeed me +in it.' Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 47, 74. + +[299] The account of her marriage given By John Wesley in a letter +to his brother-in-law, Mr. Hall, is curious. He wrote on Dec. 22, +1747:--'More than twelve years ago you told me God had revealed it to you +that you should marry my youngest sister ... You asked and gained her +consent... In a few days you had a counter-revelation, that you was not +to marry her, but her sister. This last error was far worse than the +first. But you was not quite above conviction. So, in spite of her poor +astonished parents, of her brothers, of all your vows and promises, you +shortly after jilted the younger and married the elder sister.' Wesley's +_Journal_, ii. 39. Mrs. Hall suffered greatly for marrying a wretch who +had so cruelly treated her own sister, Southey's _Wesley_, i. 369. + +[300] See _ante_, iii. 269. + +[301] The original 'Robinhood' was a debating society which met near +Temple-Bar. Some twenty years before this time Goldsmith belonged to it, +and, it was said, Burke. Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 287, and Prior's +_Burke_, p. 79. The president was a baker by trade. 'Goldsmith, after +hearing him give utterance to a train of strong and ingenious reasoning, +exclaimed to Derrick, "That man was meant by nature for a Lord +Chancellor." Derrick replied, "No, no, not so high; he is only intended +for Master of the _Rolls_."' Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. 420. Fielding, in +1752, in _The Covent-Garden Journal_, Nos. 8 and 9, takes off this +Society and the baker. A fragment of a report of their discussions which +he pretends to have discovered, begins thus:--'This evenin the questin +at the Robinhood was, whether relidgin was of any youse to a sosyaty; +baken bifor mee To'mmas Whytebred, baker.' Horace Walpole (_Letters_, +iv. 288), in 1764, wrote of the visit of a French gentleman to England, +'He has _seen_ ... Jews, Quakers, Mr. Pitt, the Royal Society, the +Robinhood, Lord Chief-Justice Pratt, the Arts-and-Sciences, &c.' Romilly +(_Life_, i. 168), in a letter dated May 22, 1781, says that during the +past winter several of these Sunday religious debating societies had +been established. 'The auditors,' he was assured, 'were mostly weak, +well-meaning people, who were inclined to Methodism;' but among the +speakers were 'some designing villains, and a few coxcombs, with more +wit than understanding.' 'Nothing,' he continues, 'could raise up +panegyrists of these societies but what has lately happened, an attempt +to suppress them. The Solicitor-General has brought a bill into +Parliament for this purpose. The bill is drawn artfully enough; for, as +these societies are held on Sundays, and people pay for admittance, he +has joined them with a famous tea-drinking house [Carlisle House], +involving them both in the same fate, and entitling his bill, _A Bill to +regulate certain Abuses and Profanations of the Lord's Day_.' The Bill +was carried; on a division none being found among the Noes but the two +tellers. The penalties for holding a meeting were L200 for the master of +the house, L100 for the moderator of the meeting, and L50 for each of +the servants at the door. _Parl. Hist._ xxii. 262, 279. + +[302] _St. Matthew_, xxvii. 52. + +[303] I _Corinthians_, xv. 37. + +[304] As this subject frequently recurs in these volumes, the reader may +be led erroneously to suppose that Dr. Johnson was so fond of such +discussions, as frequently to introduce them. But the truth is, that the +authour himself delighted in talking concerning ghosts, and what he has +frequently denominated _the mysterious_; and therefore took every +opportunity of _leading_ Johnson to converse on such subjects. MALONE. +See _ante_, i. 406. + +[305] Macbean (Johnson's old amanuensis, _ante_, i. 187) is not in +Boswell's list of guests; but in the Pemb. Coll. MSS., there is the +following entry on Monday, April 16:--'Yesterday at dinner were Mrs. +Hall, Mr. Levet, Macbean, Boswel (sic), Allen. Time passed in talk after +dinner. At seven, I went with Mrs. Hall to Church, and came back +to tea.' + +[306] Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anec_. p. 192) that he said 'a long time +after my poor mother's death, I heard her voice call _Sam_.' She is so +inaccurate that most likely this is merely her version of the story that +Boswell has recorded above. See also _ante_, i. 405. Lord Macaulay made +more of this story of the voice than it could well bear--'Under the +influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his +imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand poring on the +town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another, he would +distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his +name. But this was not the worst.' Macaulay's _Writings and Speeches_, +ed. 1871, p. 374. + +[307] + + 'One wife is too much for most + husbands to bear, + But two at a time there's no + mortal can bear.' + + Act iii. sc. 4. + +[308] 'I think a person who is terrified with the imagination of ghosts +and spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the reports +of all historians, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the +traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and +groundless.' _The Spectator_, No. 110. + +[309] _St. Matthew_, chap. xxvii. vv. 52, 53. BOSWELL. + +[310] Garrick died on Jan. 20, 1779. + +[311] Garrick called her _Nine_, (the Nine Muses). 'Nine,' he said, 'you +are a _Sunday Woman_.' H. More's _Memoirs_, i. 113. + +[312] See vol. iii. p. 331. BOSWELL. + +[313] See _ante_, ii. 325, note 3. + +[314] Boswell is quoting from Johnson's eulogium on Garrick in his _Life +of Edmund Smith. Works_, vii. 380. See _ante_, i. 81. + +[315] How fond she and her husband had been is shewn in a letter, in +which, in answer to an invitation, he says:--'As I have not left Mrs. +Garrick one day since we were married, near twenty-eight years, I cannot +now leave her.' _Garrick Corres._ ii. 150. 'Garrick's widow is buried +with him. She survived him forty-three years--"a little bowed-down old +woman, who went about leaning on a gold-headed cane, dressed in deep +widow's mourning, and always talking of her dear Davy." (_Pen and Ink +Sketches_, 1864).' Stanley's _Westminster Abbey_, ed. 1868, p. 305. + +[316] _Love's Labour's Lost_, act ii. sc. i. + +[317] See _ante_, ii. 461. + +[318] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 346) describes Hollis as 'a most +excellent man, a most immaculate Whig, but as simple a poor soul as ever +existed, except his editor, who has given extracts from the good +creature's diary that are very near as anile as Ashmole's. There are +thanks to God for reaching every birthday, ... and thanks to Heaven for +her Majesty's being delivered of a third or fourth prince, and _God send +he may prove a good man_.' See also Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of +George III_, i. 287. Dr. Franklin wrote much more highly of him. +Speaking of what he had done, he said:--'It is prodigious the quantity +of good that may be done by one man, _if he will make a business of +it_.' Franklin's Memoirs, ed. 1818, iii. 135. + +[319] See p. 77 of this volume. BOSWELL. + +[320] See _ante_, iii. 97. + +[321] On April 6 of the next year this gentleman, when Secretary of the +Treasury, destroyed himself, overwhelmed, just as Cowper had been, by +the sense of the responsibility of an office which had been thrust upon +him. See Hannah More's _Memoirs_, i. 245, and Walpole's _Letters_, +viii. 206. + +[322] 'It is commonly supposed that the uniformity of a studious life +affords no matter for a narration; but the truth is, that of the most +studious life a great part passes without study. An author partakes of +the common condition of humanity; he is born and married like another +man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, griefs +and joys, and friends and enemies, like a courtier, or a statesman; nor +can I conceive why his affairs should not excite curiosity as much as +the whisper of a drawing-room or the factions of a camp.' _The +Idler_, No. 102. + +[323] Hannah More wrote of this day (_Memoirs_, i. 212):--'I accused Dr. +Johnson of not having done justice to the _Allegro_ and _Penseroso_. He +spoke disparagingly of both. I praised _Lycidas_, which he absolutely +abused, adding, "if Milton had not written the _Paradise Lost_, he would +have only ranked among the minor Poets. He was a Phidias that could cut +a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of +cherry-stones."' See _post_, June 13, 1784. The _Allegro_ and +_Penseroso_ Johnson described as 'two noble efforts of imagination.' Of +_Lycidas_ he wrote:--'Surely no man could have fancied that he read it +with pleasure, had he not known the author.' _Works_, vii. 121, 2. + +[324] Murphy (_Life of Garrick_, p. 374) says 'Shortly after Garrick's +death Johnson was told in a large company, "You are recent from the +_Lives of the Poets_; why not add your friend Garrick to the number?" +Johnson's answer was, "I do not like to be officious; but if Mrs. +Garrick will desire me to do it, I shall be very willing to pay that +last tribute to the memory of a man I loved." 'Murphy adds that he +himself took care that Mrs. Garrick was informed of what Johnson had +said, but that no answer was ever received. + +[325] Miss Burney wrote in May:--'Dr. Johnson was charming, both in +spirits and humour. I really think he grows gayer and gayer daily, and +more _ductile_ and pleasant.' In June she wrote:--'I found him in +admirable good-humour, and our journey [to Streatham] was extremely +pleasant. I thanked him for the last batch of his poets, and we talked +them over almost all the way.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 23, 44. +Beattie, a week or two later, wrote:--'Johnson grows in grace as he +grows in years. He not only has better health and a fresher complexion +than ever he had before (at least since I knew him), but he has +contracted a gentleness of manner which pleases everybody.' Beattie's +_Life_, ed. 1824, p. 289. + +[326] See _ante_, iii. 65. Wilkes was by this time City Chamberlain. 'I +think I see him at this moment,' said Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 43), +'walking through the crowded streets of the city, as Chamberlain, on his +way to Guildhall, in a scarlet coat, military boots, and a bag-wig--the +hackney-coachmen in vain calling out to him, "A coach, your honour."' + +[327] See _ante_, ii. 201, for Beattie's _Essay on Truth_. + +[328] Thurot, in the winter of 1759-60, with a small squadron made +descents on some of the Hebrides and on the north-eastern coast of +Ireland. In a sea fight off Ireland he was killed and his ships were +taken. _Gent. Mag_. xxx. 107. Horace Walpole says that in the alarm +raised by him in Ireland, 'the bankers there stopped payment.' _Memoirs +of the Reign of George II_, iii. 224. + +[329] + + 'Some for renown on scraps of learning doat, + And think they grow immortal as they quote.' + +Young's _Love of Fame_, sat. i. Cumberland (_Memoirs_, ii. 226) says +that Mr. Dilly, speaking of 'the profusion of quotations which some +writers affectedly make use of, observed that he knew a Presbyterian +parson who, for eighteenpence, would furnish any pamphleteer with as +many scraps of Greek and Latin as would pass him off for an +accomplished classic.' + +[330] Cowley was quite out of fashion. Richardson (_Corres._ ii. 229) +wrote more than thirty years earlier:--'I wonder Cowley is so absolutely +neglected.' Pope, a dozen years or so before Richardson, asked, + + 'Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet, + His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.' + +_Imitations of Horace_, Epis. ii. i. 75. + +[331] See _ante_, ii. 58, and iii. 276. + +[332] 'There was a club held at the King's Head in Pall Mall that +arrogantly called itself The World. Lord Stanhope (now Lord +Chesterfield) was a member. Epigrams were proposed to be written on the +glasses by each member after dinner. Once when Dr. Young was invited +thither, the doctor would have declined writing because he had no +diamond, Lord Stanhope lent him his, and he wrote immediately-- + + "_Accept_ a miracle," &c.' + +Spence's _Anecdotes_, p. 377. Dr. Maty (_Memoirs of Chesterfield_, i. +227) assigns the lines to Pope, and lays the scene at Lord Cobham's. +Spence, however, gives Young himself as his authority. + +[333] 'Aug. 1778. "I wonder," said Mrs. Thrale, "you bear with my +nonsense." "No, madam, you never talk nonsense; you have as much sense +and more wit than any woman I know." "Oh," cried Mrs. Thrale, blushing, +"it is my turn to go under the table this morning, Miss Burney." "And +yet," continued the doctor, with the most comical look, "I have known +all the wits from Mrs. Montagu down to Bet Flint." "Bet Flint!" cried +Mrs. Thrale. "Pray, who is she?" "Oh, a fine character, madam. She was +habitually a slut and a drunkard, and occasionally a thief and a +harlot.... Mrs. Williams," he added, "did not love Bet Flint, but Bet +Flint made herself very easy about that."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +i. 87, 90. + +[334] Johnson, whose memory was wonderfully retentive [see _ante_, i. +39], remembered the first four lines of this curious production, which +have been communicated to me by a young lady of his acquaintance:-- + + 'When first I drew my vital breath, + A little minikin I came upon + earth; + And then I came from a dark + abode, + Into this gay and gaudy world.' + BOSWELL. + +[335] The _Sessional Reports of the Old Bailey Trials_ for 1758, p. 278, +contain a report of the trial. The Chief Justice Willes was in the +Commission, but, according to the _Report_, it was before the Recorder +that Bet Flint was tried. It may easily be, however, that either the +reporter or the printer has blundered. It is only by the characters * +and that the trials before the Chief Justice and the Recorder are +distinguished. Bet had stolen not only the counterpane, but five other +articles. The prosecutrix could not prove that the articles were hers, +and not a captain's, whose servant she said she had been, and who was +now abroad. On this ground the prisoner was acquitted. Of Chief Justice +Willes, Horace Walpole writes:--'He was not wont to disguise any of his +passions. That for gaming was notorious; for women unbounded.' He +relates an anecdote of his wit and licentiousness. Walpole's _Reign of +George II_, i. 89. He had been Johnson's schoolfellow (_ante_, i. 45). + +[336] Burke is meant. See _ante_, ii. 131, where Johnson said that Burke +spoke too familiarly; and _post_, May 15, 1784, where he said that 'when +Burke lets himself down to jocularity he is in the kennel.' + +[337] Wilkes imperfectly recalled to mind the following passage in +Plutarch:--'[Greek: Euphranor ton Thaesea ton heatou to Parrhasiou +parebale, legon tor men ekeinou hroda bebrokenai, tor de eautou krea +boeia.]' 'Euphranor, comparing his own Theseus with Parrhasius's, said +that Parrhasius's had fed on roses, but his on beef.' _Plutarch_, ed. +1839, iii. 423. + +[338] Portugal, receiving from Brazil more gold than it needed for home +uses, shipped a large quantity to England. It was said, though probably +with exaggeration, that the weekly packet-boat from Lisbon, brought one +week with another, more than L50,000 in gold to England. Smith's _Wealth +of Nations_, book iv. ch. 6. Portugal pieces were current in our +colonies, and no doubt were commonly sent to them from London. It was +natural therefore that they should be selected for this legal fiction. + +[339] See _ante_, ii. III. + +[340] 'Whenever the whole of our foreign trade and consumption exceeds +our exportation of commodities, our money must go to pay our debts so +contracted, whether melted or not melted down. If the law makes the +exportation of our coin penal, it will be melted down; if it leaves the +exportation of our coin free, as in Holland, it will be carried out in +specie. One way or other, go it must, as we see in Spain.... Laws made +against exportation of money or bullion will be all in vain. Restraint +or liberty in that matter makes no country rich or poor.' Locke's +_Works_, ed. 1824, iv. 160. + +[341] 'Nov. 14, 1779. Mr. Beauclerk has built a library in Great +Russellstreet, that reaches half way to Highgate. Everybody goes to see +it; it has put the Museum's nose quite out of joint.' Walpole's +_Letters_, vii. 273. It contained upwards of 30,000 volumes, and the +sale extended over fifty days. Two days' sale were given to the works on +divinity, including, in the words of the catalogue, 'Heterodox! et +Increduli. Angl. Freethinkers and their opponents.' _Dr. Johnson: His +Friends and His Critics_, p. 315. It sold for L5,011 (ante, in. 420, +note 4). Wilkes's own library--a large one--had been sold in 1764, in a +five days' sale, as is shewn by the _Auctioneer's Catalogue_, which is +in the Bodleian. + +[342] 'Our own language has from the Reformation to the present time +been chiefly dignified and adorned by the works of our divines, who, +considered as commentators, controvertists, or preachers, have +undoubtedly left all other nations far behind them.' _The Idler_, +No. 91. + +[343] Mr. Wilkes probably did not know that there is in an English +sermon the most comprehensive and lively account of that entertaining +faculty, for which he himself is so much admired. It is in Dr. Barrow's +first volume, and fourteenth sermon, _'Against foolish Talking and +Jesting.'_ My old acquaintance, the late Corbyn Morris, in his ingenious +_Essay on Wit, Humour, and Ridicule_, calls it 'a profuse description of +Wit;' but I do not see how it could be curtailed, without leaving out +some good circumstance of discrimination. As it is not generally known, +and may perhaps dispose some to read sermons, from which they may +receive real advantage, while looking only for entertainment, I shall +here subjoin it:--'But first (says the learned preacher) it may be +demanded, what the thing we speak of is? Or what this facetiousness (or +_wit_ as he calls it before) doth import? To which questions I might +reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man, +"'Tis that which we all see and know." Any one better apprehends what it +is by acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is, indeed, +a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many +postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and +judgements, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain +notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the +figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a +known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in +forging an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, +taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of +their sound: sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression: +sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude: sometimes it is lodged in +a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd +intimation, in cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection: +sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in +a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling +of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical +representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical +look or gesture, passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity, +sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being: sometimes it riseth +only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange: sometimes from a crafty +wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows +not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are +unaccountable, and inexplicable; being answerable to the numberless +rovings of fancy, and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of +speaking out of the simple and plain way, (such as reason teacheth and +proveth things by,) which by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit +or expression, doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some +wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as +signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of +invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar; it +seeming to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote +conceits applicable; a notable skill, that he can dextrously accommodate +them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of +humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. (Whence +in Aristotle such persons are termed [Greek: _hepidexioi_], dextrous men, +and [Greek: _eustrophoi_], men of facile or versatile manners, who can +easily turn themselves to all things, or turn all things to themselves.) +It also procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness, as +semblance of difficulty: (as monsters, not for their beauty, but their +rarity; as juggling tricks, not for their use, but their abstruseness, +are beheld with pleasure:) by diverting the mind from its road of +serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit; by +provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or +complaisance; and by seasoning matters, otherwise distasteful or +insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful tang.' BOSWELL. Morris's +_Essay_ was published in 1744. Hume wrote:--'Pray do you not think +that a proper dedication may atone for what is objectionable in my +Dialogues'! I am become much of my friend Corbyn Morrice's mind, who +says that he writes all his books for the sake of the dedications.' J. +H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 147. + +[344] The quarrel arose from the destruction by George II. of George +I.'s will (_ante_, ii. 342). The King of Prussia, Frederick the Great, +was George I.'s grandson. 'Vague rumours spoke of a large legacy to the +Queen of Prussia [Frederick's mother]. Of that bequest demands were +afterwards said to have been frequently and roughly made by her son, the +great King of Prussia, between whom and his uncle subsisted much +inveteracy.' Walpole's _Letters_, i. cxx. + +[345] When I mentioned this to the Bishop of Killaloe, 'With the goat,' +said his Lordship. Such, however, is the engaging politeness and +pleasantry of Mr. Wilkes, and such the social good humour of the Bishop, +that when they dined together at Mr. Dilly's, where I also was, they +were mutually agreeable. BOSWELL. It was not the lion, but the leopard, +that shall lie down with the kid. _Isaiah_, xi. 6. + +[346] Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, authour of tracts relating to natural +history, &c. BOSWELL. + +[347] Mrs. Montagu, so early as 1757, wrote of Mr. Stillingfleet:--'I +assure you our philosopher is so much a man of pleasure, he has left off +his old friends and his blue stockings, and is at operas and other gay +assemblies every night.' Montagu's _Letters_, iv. 117. + +[348] See _ante_, in. 293, note 5. + +[349] Miss Burney thus describes her:--'She is between thirty and +forty, very short, very fat, but handsome; splendidly and fantastically +dressed, rouged not unbecomingly yet evidently, and palpably desirous of +gaining notice and admiration. She has an easy levity in her air, +manner, voice, and discourse, that speak (sic) all within to be +comfortable.... She is one of those who stand foremost in collecting all +extraordinary or curious people to her London conversaziones, which, +like those of Mrs. Vesey, mix the rank and the literature, and exclude +all beside.... Her parties are the most brilliant in town.' Miss Burney +then describes one of these parties, at which were present Johnson, +Burke, and Reynolds. 'The company in general were dressed with more +brilliancy than at any rout I ever was at, as most of them were going to +the Duchess of Cumberland's.' Miss Burney herself was 'surrounded by +strangers, all dressed superbly, and all looking saucily.... Dr. Johnson +was standing near the fire, and environed with listeners.' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 179, 186, 190. Leslie wrote of Lady Corke in +1834 (_Autobiographical Recollections_, i. 137, 243):--'Notwithstanding +her great age, she is very animated. The old lady, who was a lion-hunter +in her youth, is as much one now as ever.' She ran after a Boston negro +named Prince Saunders, who 'as he put his Christian name "Prince" on his +cards without the addition of Mr., was believed to be a native African +prince, and soon became a lion of the first magnitude in fashionable +circles.' She died in 1840. + +[350] 'A lady once ventured to ask Dr. Johnson how he liked Yorick's +[Sterne's] _Sermons_. "I know nothing about them, madam," was his reply. +But some time afterwards, forgetting himself, he severely censured them. +The lady retorted:--"I understood you to say, Sir, that you had never +read them." "No, Madam, I did read them, but it was in a stage-coach; I +should not have even deigned to look at them had I been at large." +Cradock's _Memoirs_, p. 208. + +[351] See _ante_, iii. 382, note 1. + +[352] Next day I endeavoured to give what had happened the most +ingenious turn I could, by the following verses:-- + +To THE HONOURABLE Miss MONCKTON. + + 'Not that with th' excellent Montrose + I had the happiness to dine; + Not that I late from table rose, + From Graham's wit, from generous wine. + + It was not these alone which led + On sacred manners to encroach; + And made me feel what most I dread, + JOHNSON'S just frown, and self-reproach. + + But when I enter'd, not abash'd, + From your bright eyes were shot such rays, + At once intoxication flash'd, + And all my frame was in a blaze. + + But not a brilliant blaze I own, + Of the dull smoke I'm yet asham'd; + I was a dreary ruin grown, + And not enlighten'd though inflam'd. + + Victim at once to wine and love, + I hope, MARIA, you'll forgive; + While I invoke the powers above, + That henceforth I may wiser live.' + +The lady was generously forgiving, returned me an obliging answer, and I +thus obtained an _Act of Oblivion_, and took care never to offend +again. BOSWELL. + +[353] See _ante_, ii. 436, and iv. 88, note I. + +[354] On May 22 Horace Walpole wrote (_Letters_, viii. 44):--'Boswell, +that quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was let in, +which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. After tapping +many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed oracle, he +vented his errand. "Had I seen Dr. Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_?" I +said slightly, "No, not yet;" and so overlaid his whole impertinence.' + +[355] See _ante_, iii. 1. + +[356] See _ante_, ii. 47, note 2; 352, note I; and iii. 376, for +explanations of like instances of Boswell's neglect. + +[357] See _ante_, i. 298, note 4. + +[358] 'He owned he sometimes talked for victory.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, +opening pages. + +[359] The late Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton. MALONE. + +[360] Dr. Johnson, being told of a man who was thankful for being +introduced to him, 'as he had been convinced in a long dispute that an +opinion which he had embraced as a settled truth was no better than a +vulgar error, "Nay," said he, "do not let him be thankful, for he was +right, and I was wrong." Like his Uncle Andrew in the ring at +Smithfield, Johnson, in a circle of disputants, was determined neither +to be thrown nor conquered.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 139. Johnson, in +_The Adventurer_, No. 85, seems to describe his own talk. He writes:--' +While the various opportunities of conversation invite us to try every +mode of argument, and every art of recommending our sentiments, we are +frequently betrayed to the use of such as are not in themselves strictly +defensible; a man heated in talk, and eager of victory, takes advantage +of the mistakes or ignorance of his adversary, lays hold of concessions +to which he knows he has no right, and urges proofs likely to prevail on +his opponent, though he knows himself that they have no force.' J. S. +Mill gives somewhat the same account of his own father. 'I am inclined +to think,' he writes, 'that he did injustice to his own opinions by the +unconscious exaggerations of an intellect emphatically polemical; and +that when thinking without an adversary in view, he was willing to make +room for a great portion of the truths he seemed to deny.' Mill's +_Autobiography_, p. 201. See also _ante_, ii. 100, 450, in. 23, 277, +331; and _post_, May 18, 1784, and Steevens's account of Johnson just +before June 22, 1784. + +[361] Thomas Shaw, D.D., author of _Travels to Barbary and the Levant_. + +[362] See ante, iii. 314. + +[363] The friend very likely was Boswell himself. He was one of 'these +_tanti_ men.' 'I told Paoli that in the very heat of youth I felt the +_nom est tanti_, the _omnia vanitas_ of one who has exhausted all the +sweets of his being, and is weary with dull repetition. I told him that +I had almost become for ever incapable of taking a part in active life.' +Boswell's _Corsica_, ed. 1879, p. 193. + +[364] _Letters on the English Nation: By Batista Angeloni, a Jesuit, who +resided many years in London. Translated from the original Italian by +the Author of the Marriage Act. A Novel_. 2 vols. London [no printer's +name given], 1755. Shebbeare published besides six _Letters to the +People of England_ in the years 1755-7, for the last of which he was +sentenced to the pillory. _Ante_, iii. 315, note I. Horace Walpole +(_Letters_, iii. 74) described him in 1757 as 'a broken Jacobite +physician, who has threatened to write himself into a place or +the pillory.' + +[365] I recollect a ludicrous paragraph in the newspapers, that the King +had pensioned both a _He_-bear and a _She_-bear. BOSWELL. See _ante_, +ii. 66, and _post_, April 28, 1783. + +[366] + + Witness, ye chosen train + Who breathe the sweets of his Saturnian reign; + Witness ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares, + Hark to my call, for some of you have ears.' + +_Heroic Epistle_. See _post_, under June 16, 1784. + +[367] In this he was unlike the King, who, writes Horace Walpole,' +expecting only an attack on Chambers, bought it to tease, and began +reading it to, him; but, finding it more bitter on himself, flung it +down on the floor in a passion, and would read no more.' _Journal of the +Reign of George III_, i. 187. + +[368] They were published in 1773 in a pamphlet of 16 pages, and, with +the good fortune that attends a muse in the peerage, reached a third +edition in the year. To this same earl the second edition of Byron's +_Hours of Idleness_ was 'dedicated by his obliged ward and affectionate +kinsman, the author.' In _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, he is +abused in the passage which begins:-- + + 'No muse will cheer with renovating smile, + The paralytic puling of Carlisle.' + +In a note Byron adds:--'The Earl of Carlisle has lately published an +eighteen-penny pamphlet on the state of the stage, and offers his plan +for building a new theatre. It is to be hoped his lordship will be +permitted to bring forward anything for the stage--except his own +tragedies.' In the third canto of _Childe Harold_ Byron makes amends. In +writing of the death of Lord Carlisle's youngest son at Waterloo, +he says:-- + + 'Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine; + Yet one I would select from that proud throng, + Partly because they blend me with his line, + And partly that I did his Sire some wrong.' + +For his lordship's tragedy see _post_, under Nov. 19, 1783. + +[369] Men of rank and fortune, however, should be pretty well assured of +having a real claim to the approbation of the publick, as writers, +before they venture to stand forth. Dryden, in his preface to _All for +Love_, thus expresses himself:-- + +'Men of pleasant conversation (at least esteemed so) and endued with a +trifling kind of fancy, perhaps helped out by [with] a smattering of +Latin, are ambitious to distinguish themselves from the herd of +gentlemen, by their poetry: + + _"Rarus enim ferme sensus communis in ilia + Fortuna,"----[Juvenal_, viii. 73.] + +And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what +fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates, but +they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their +nakedness to publick view? Not considering that they are not to expect +the same approbation from sober men, which they have found from their +flatterers after the third bottle: If a little glittering in discourse +has passed them on us for witty men, where was the necessity of +undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill title to an estate, +but yet is in possession of it, would he bring it of his own accord to +be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talents [talent], +yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can +be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to +scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves +ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right where he said, "That no +man is satisfied with his own condition." A poet is not pleased, because +he is not rich; and the rich are discontented because the poets will not +admit them of their number.' BOSWELL. Boswell, it should seem, had +followed Swift's advice:-- + + 'Read all the prefaces of Dryden, + For these our critics much confide in; + Though merely writ at first for filling, + To raise the volume's price a shilling.' + +Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xi. 293. + +[370] See _ante_, i. 402. + +[371] Wordsworth, it should seem, held with Johnson in this. When he +read the article in the _Edinburgh Review_ on Lord Byron's early poems, +he remarked that 'though Byron's verses were probably poor enough, yet +such an attack was abominable,--that a young nobleman, who took to +poetry, deserved to be encouraged, not ridiculed.' Rogers's +_Table-Talk_, p. 234, note. + +[372] Dr. Barnard, formerly Dean of Derry. See _ante_, iii. 84. + +[373] This gave me very great pleasure, for there had been once a pretty +smart altercation between Dr. Barnard and him, upon a question, whether +a man could improve himself after the age of forty-five; when Johnson in +a hasty humour, expressed himself in a manner not quite civil. Dr. +Barnard made it the subject of a copy of pleasant verses, in which he +supposed himself to learn different perfections from different men. They +concluded with delicate irony:-- + + 'Johnson shall teach me how to place + In fairest light each borrow'd grace; + From him I'll learn to write; + Copy his clear familiar style, + And by the roughness of his file + Grow, like _himself, polite_.' + +I know not whether Johnson ever saw the poem, but I had occasion to find +that as Dr. Barnard and he knew each other better, their mutual regard +increased. BOSWELL. See Appendix A. + +[374] See _ante_, ii. 357, iii. 309, and _post_, March 23, 1783. + +[375] 'Sir Joshua once asked Lord B---- to dine with Dr. Johnson and the +rest, but though a man of rank and also of good information, he seemed +as much alarmed at the idea as if you had tried to force him into one of +the cages at Exeter-Change.' Hazlitt's _Conversations of Northcote_, +p. 41. + +[376] Yet when he came across them he met with much respect. At Alnwick +he was, he writes, 'treated with great civility by the Duke of +Northumberland.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 108. At Inverary, the Duke and +Duchess of Argyle shewed him great attention. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. +25. In fact, all through his Scotch tour he was most politely welcomed +by 'the great.' At Chatsworth, he was 'honestly pressed to stay' by the +Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (_post_, Sept. 9, 1784). See _ante_, iii. +21. On the other hand, Mrs. Barbauld says:--'I believe it is true that +in England genius and learning obtain less personal notice than in most +other parts of Europe.' She censures 'the contemptuous manner in which +Lady Wortley Montagu mentioned Richardson:--"The doors of the Great," +she says, "were never opened to him."' _Richardson Corres._ i. clxxiv. + +[377] When Lord Elibank was seventy years old, he wrote:--'I shall be +glad to go five hundred miles to enjoy a day of his company.' Boswell's +_Hebrides_, Sept. 12. + +[378] _Romans_, x. 2. + +[379] I _Peter_, iii. 15. + +[380] Horace Walpole wrote three years earlier:--' Whig principles are +founded on sense; a Whig may be a fool, a Tory must be so.' +_Letters_, vii. 88. + +[381] Mr. Barclay, a descendant of Robert Barclay, of Ury, the +celebrated apologist of the people called Quakers, and remarkable for +maintaining the principles of his venerable progenitor, with as much of +the elegance of modern manners, as is consistent with primitive +simplicity, BOSWELL. + +[382] Now Bishop of Llandaff, one of the _poorest_ Bishopricks in this +kingdom. His Lordship has written with much zeal to show the propriety +of _equalizing_ the revenues of Bishops. He has informed us that he has +burnt all his chemical papers. The friends of our excellent +constitution, now assailed on every side by innovators and levellers, +would have less regretted the suppression of some of this Lordship's +other writings. BOSWELL. Boswell refers to _A Letter to the Archbishop +of Canterbury by Richard, Lord Bishop of Landaff_, 1782. If the revenues +were made more equal, 'the poorer Bishops,' the Bishop writes, 'would be +freed from the necessity of holding ecclesiastical preferments _in +commendam_ with their Bishopricks,' p. 8. + +[383] De Quincey says that Sir Humphry Davy told him, 'that he could +scarcely imagine a time, or a condition of the science, in which the +Bishop's _Essays_ would be superannuated.' De Quincey's _Works_, ii. +106. De Quincey describes the Bishop as being 'always a discontented +man, a railer at the government and the age, which could permit such as +his to pine away ingloriously in one of the humblest among the +Bishopricks.' _Ib_. p. 107. He was, he adds, 'a true Whig,' and would +have been made Archbishop of York had his party staid in power a little +longer in 1807.' + +[384] _Rasselas_, chap. xi. + +[385] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30. + +[386] 'They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden.' +_Genesis_, iii. 8. + +[387] + + ... 'Vivendi recte qui prorogat horam, + Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille + Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.' + + 'And sure the man who has it in his power + To practise virtue, and protracts the hour, + Waits like the rustic till the river dried; + Still glides the river, and will ever glide.' + +FRANCIS. Horace, _Epist_. i. 2. 41. + +[388] See _ante_, p. 59. + +[389] See _ante_, iii. 251. + +[390] See _ante_, iii. 136. + +[391] This assertion is disproved by a comparison of dates. The first +four satires of Young were published in 1725; The South Sea scheme +(which appears to be meant,) was in 1720. MALONE. In Croft's _Life of +Young_, which Johnson adopted, it is stated:--'By the _Universal +Passion_ he acquired no vulgar fortune, more than L3000. A considerable +sum had already been swallowed up in the South Sea.' Johnson's _Works_, +viii. 430. Some of Young's poems were published before 1720. + +[392] Crabbe got Johnson to revise his poem, _The Village_ (_post_, +under March 23, 1783). He states, that 'the Doctor did not readily +comply with requests for his opinion; not from any unwillingness to +oblige, but from a painful contention in his mind between a desire of +giving pleasure and a determination to speak truth.' Crabbe's _Works_, +ii. 12. See _ante_, ii. 51, 195, and iii. 373. + +[393] Pope's _Essay on Man_, iv. 390. See _ante_, iii. 6, note 2. + +[394] He had within the last seven weeks gone up drunk, at least twice, +to a lady's drawing-room. _Ante_, pp. 88, note 1, and 109. + +[395] Mr. Croker, though without any authority, prints _unconscious_. + +[396] I Corinthians, ix. 27. See _ante_, 295. + +[397] 'We walk by faith, not by sight.' 2 Corinthians, v. 7 + +[398] Dr. Ogden, in his second sermon _On the Articles of the Christian +Faith_, with admirable acuteness thus addresses the opposers of that +Doctrine, which accounts for the confusion, sin and misery, which we +find in this life: 'It would be severe in GOD, you think, to _degrade_ +us to such a sad state as this, for the offence of our first parents: +but you can allow him to _place_ us in it without any inducement. Are +our calamities lessened for not being ascribed to Adam? If your +condition be unhappy, is it not still unhappy, whatever was the +occasion? with the aggravation of this reflection, that if it was as +good as it was at first designed, there seems to be somewhat the less +reason to look for its amendment.' BOSWELL. + +[399] 'Which taketh away the sin' &c. St. John, i. 29. + +[400] See Boswell's Hebrides, August 22. + +[401] This unfortunate person, whose full name was Thomas Fysche Palmer, +afterwards went to Dundee, in Scotland, where he officiated as minister +to a congregation of the sect who called themselves _Unitarians_, from a +notion that they distinctively worship ONE GOD, because they _deny_ the +mysterious doctrine of the TRINITY. They do not advert that the great +body of the Christian Church, in maintaining that mystery, maintain also +the _Unity_ of the GODHEAD; the 'TRINITY in UNITY!--three persons and +ONE GOD.' The Church humbly adores the DIVINITY as exhibited in the holy +Scriptures. The Unitarian sect vainly presumes to comprehend and define +the ALMIGHTY. Mr. Palmer having heated his mind with political +speculations, became so much dissatisfied with our excellent +Constitution, as to compose, publish, and circulate writings, which were +found to be so seditious and dangerous, that upon being found guilty by +a Jury, the Court of Justiciary in Scotland sentenced him to +transportation for fourteen years. A loud clamour against this sentence +was made by some Members of both Houses of Parliament; but both Houses +approved of it by a great majority; and he was conveyed to the +settlement for convicts in New South Wales. BOSWELL. This note first +appears in the third edition. Mr. Palmer was sentenced to seven (not +fourteen) years transportation in Aug. 1793. It was his fellow prisoner, +Mr. Muir, an advocate, who was sentenced to fourteen years. _Ann. Reg._ +1793, p. 40. When these sentences were brought before the House of +Commons, Mr. Fox said that it was 'the Lord-Advocate's fervent wish that +his native principles of justice should be introduced into this country; +and that on the ruins of the common law of England should be erected the +infamous fabric of Scottish persecution. ... If that day should ever +arrive, if the tyrannical laws of Scotland should ever be introduced in +opposition to the humane laws of England, it would then be high time for +my hon. friends and myself to settle our affairs, and retire to some +happier clime, where we might at least enjoy those rights which God has +given to man, and which his nature tells him he has a right to demand.' +_Parl. Hist._ xxx. 1563. For _Unitarians_, see _ante_, ii. 408, note I. + +[402] Taken from Herodotus. [Bk. ii. ch. 104.] BOSWELL. + +[403] 'The mummies,' says Blakesley, 'have straight hair, and in the +paintings the Egyptians are represented as red, not black.' _Ib_. note. + +[404] See _ante_, i. 441, and _post_, March 28, and June 3, 1782. + +[405] Mr. Dawkins visited Palmyra in 1751. He had 'an escort of the Aga +of Hassia's best Arab horsemen.' Johnson was perhaps astonished at the +size of their caravan, 'which was increased to about 200 persons.' The +writer treats the whole matter with great brevity. Wood's _Ruins of +Palmyra_, p. 33. On their return the travellers discovered a party of +Arab horsemen, who gave them an alarm. Happily these Arabs were still +more afraid of them, and were at once plundered by the escort, 'who +laughed at our remonstrances against their injustice.' Wood's _Ruins of +Balbec_, p. 2. + +[406] He wrote a _Life of Watts_, which Johnson quoted. _Works_, viii. +382. + +[407] See _ante_, iii. 422, note 6. + +[408] In the first two editions _formal_. + +[409] Johnson maintains this in _The Idler_, No. 74. 'Few,' he says, +'have reason to complain of nature as unkindly sparing of the gifts of +memory ... The true art of memory is the art of attention.' See +_ante_, iii. 191. + +[410]The first of the definitions given by Johnson of _to remember_ is +_to bear in mind anything; not to forget. To recollect_ he defines _to +recover to memory_. We may, perhaps, assume that Boswell said, 'I did +not recollect that the chair was broken;' and that Johnson replied, 'you +mean, you did not remember. That you did not remember is your own fault. +It was in your mind that it was broken, and therefore you ought to have +remembered it. It was not a case of recollecting; for we recollect, that +is, recover to memory, what is not in our mind.' In the passage _ante_, +i. 112, which begins, 'I indeed doubt if he could have remembered,' we +find in the first two editions not _remembered_, but _recollected_. +Perhaps this change is due to euphony, as _collected_ comes a few lines +before. Horace Walpole, in one of his _Letters_ (i. 15), distinguishes +the two words, on his revisiting his old school, Eton:--'By the way, the +clock strikes the old cracked sound--I recollect so much, and remember +so little.' + +[411] He made the same boast at St. Andrews. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, +Aug. 19. He was, I believe, speaking of his translation of Courayer's +_Life of Paul Sarpi and Notes_, of which some sheets were printed off. +_Ante_, i. 135. + +[412] Horace Walpole, after mentioning that George III's mother, who +died in 1772, left but L27,000 when she was reckoned worth at least +L300,000, adds:--'It is no wonder that it became the universal belief +that she had wasted all on Lord Bute. This became still more probable as +he had made the purchase of the estate at Luton, at the price of +L114,000, before he was visibly worth L20,000; had built a palace there, +another in town, and had furnished the former in the most expensive +manner, bought pictures and books, and made a vast park and lake.' +_Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 19. + +[413] To him Boswell dedicated his _Thesis_ as _excelsae familiae de +Bute spei alterae_ (_ante_, ii. 20). In 1775, he wrote of him:--'He is +warmly my friend and has engaged to do for me.' _Letters of Boswell_, +p. 186 + +[414] He was mistaken in this. See _ante_, i. 260; also iii. 420. + +[415] In England in like manner, and perhaps for the same reason, all +Attorneys have been converted into Solicitors. + +[416] 'There is at Edinburgh a society or corporation of errand boys, +called Cawdies, who ply in the streets at night with paper lanthorns, +and are very serviceable in carrying messages.' _Humphrey Clinker_. +Letter of Aug. 8. + +[417] Their services in this sense are noticed in the same letter. + +[418] + + 'The formal process shall be turned to sport, + And you dismissed with honour by the Court.' + FRANCIS. Horace, _Satires_, ii.i.86. + +[419] Mr. Robertson altered this word to _jocandi_, he having found in +Blackstone that to irritate is actionable. BOSWELL. + +[420] Quoted by Johnson, _ante_, ii. l97. + +[421] His god-daughter. See _post_ May 10, 1784. + +[422] See _post_, under Dec. 20, 1782 + +[423] See _ante_, i. 155 + +[424] The will of King Alfred, alluded to in this letter, from the +original Saxon, in the library of Mr. Astle, has been printed at the +expense of the University of Oxford. BOSWELL. + +[425] He was a surgeon in this small Norfolk town. Dr. Burney's +_Memoirs_, i. 106. + +[426] Burney visited Johnson first in 1758, when he was living in Gough +Square. _Ante_, i. 328. + +[427] Mme. D'Arblay says that Dr. Johnson sent them to Dr. Burney's +house, directed 'For the Broom Gentleman.' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, +ii. 180. + +[428] 'Sept. 14, 1781. Dr. Johnson has been very unwell indeed. Once I +was quite frightened about him; but he continues his strange +discipline--starving, mercury, opium; and though for a time half +demolished by its severity, he always in the end rises superior both to +the disease and the remedy, which commonly is the most alarming of the +two.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 107. On Sept. 18, his birthday, he +wrote:--'As I came home [from church], I thought I had never begun any +period of life so placidly. I have always been accustomed to let this +day pass unnoticed, but it came this time into my mind that some little +festivity was not improper. I had a dinner, and invited Allen and +Levett.' _Pr. and Med._ p. 199. + +[429] This remark, I have no doubt, is aimed at Hawkins, who (_Life_, p. +553) pretends to account for this trip. + +[430] _Pr. and Med._ p. 201. BOSWELL. + +[431] He wrote from Lichfield on the previous Oct. 27:--'All here is +gloomy; a faint struggle with the tediousness of time; a doleful +confession of present misery, and the approach seen and felt of what is +most dreaded and most shunned. But such is the lot of man.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 209. + +[432] The truth of this has been proved by sad experience. BOSWELL. Mrs. +Boswell died June 4, 1789. MALONE. + +[433] See account of him in the _Gent. Mag_. Feb. 1785. BOSWELL, see +ante, i. 243, note 3. + +[434] Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonymy_, ii. 79), quoting this verse, under +_Officious_, says;--'Johnson, always thinking neglect the worst +misfortune that could befall a man, looked on a character of this +description with less aversion than I do.' + +[435] + + 'Content thyself to be _obscurely good_.' + +Addisons _Cato_, act. iv. sc. 4. + +[436] In both editions of Sir John Hawkins's _Life of Dr. Johnson_, +'letter'd _ignorance_' is printed. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker (_Boswell_, p. I) +says that 'Mr. Boswell is habitually unjust to Sir J. Hawkins.' As some +kind of balance, I suppose, to this injustice, he suppresses this note. + +[437] Johnson repeated this line to me thus:-- + + 'And Labour steals an hour to die.' + +But he afterwards altered it to the present reading. BOSWELL. This poem +is printed in the _Ann. Reg_. for 1783, p. 189, with the following +variations:--l. 18, for 'ready help' 'useful care': l. 28, 'His single +talent,' 'The single talent'; l. 33, 'no throbs of fiery pain,' 'no +throbbing fiery pain'; l. 36, 'and freed,' 'and forced.' On the next +page it is printed _John Gilpin_. + +[438] Mr. Croker says that this line shows that 'some of Gray's happy +expressions lingered in Johnson's memory' He quotes a line that comes at +the end of the _Ode on Vicissitude_--'From busy day, the peaceful +night.' This line is not Gray's, but Mason's. + +[439] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:--'If you want +events, Here is Mr. Levett just come in at fourscore from a walk to +Hampstead, eight miles, in August.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 177. + +[440] In the original, _March_ 20. On the afternoon of March 20 Lord +North announced in the House of Commons 'that his Majesty's Ministers +were no more.' _Parl. Hist_. xxii. 1215. + +[441] _Pr. and Med_. p. 209 [207]. BOSWELL. + +[442] See _ante_, ii. 355, iii. 46, iv. 81, 100. Mr. Seward records in +his _Biographiana_, p. 600--without however giving the year--that +'Johnson being asked what the Opposition meant by their flaming speeches +and violent pamphlets against Lord North's administration, answered: +"They mean, Sir, rebellion; they mean in spite to destroy that country +which they are not permitted to govern."' + +[443] In the previous December the City of London in an address, writes +Horace Walpole, 'besought the King to remove both his public and +_private_ counsellors, and used these stunning and memorable +words:--_"Your armies are captured; the wonted superiority of your +navies is annihilated, your dominions are lost."_ Words that could be +used to no other King; no King had ever lost so much without losing all. +If James II. lost his crown, yet the crown lost no dominions.' _Journal +of the Reign of George III_, ii. 483. The address is given in the _Ann. +Reg._ xxiv. 320. On Aug. 4 of this year Johnson wrote to Dr. +Taylor:--'Perhaps no nation not absolutely conquered has declined so +much in so short a time. We seem to be sinking. Suppose the Irish, +having already gotten a free trade and an independent Parliament, should +say we will have a King and ally ourselves with the House of Bourbon, +what could be done to hinder or overthrow them?' Mr. Morrison's +_Autographs_, vol. ii. + +[444] In February and March, 1771, the House of Commons ordered eight +printers to attend at the bar on a charge of breach of privilege, in +publishing reports of debates. One of the eight, Miller of the _Evening +Post_, when the messenger of the House tried to arrest him, gave the man +himself into custody on a charge of assault. The messenger was brought +before Lord Mayor Crosby and Aldermen Wilkes and Oliver, and a warrant +was made out for his commitment. Bail was thereupon offered and accepted +for his appearance at the next sessions. The Lord Mayor and Oliver were +sent to the Tower by the House. Wilkes was ordered to appear on April 8; +but the Ministry, not daring to face his appearance, adjourned the House +till the 9th. A committee was appointed by ballot to inquire into the +late obstructions to the execution of the orders of the House. It +recommended the consideration of the expediency of the House ordering +that Miller should be taken into custody. The report, when read, was +received with a roar of laughter. Nothing was done. Such was, to quote +the words of Burke in the _Annual Register_ (xiv. 70), 'the miserable +result of all the pretended vigour of the Ministry.' See _Parl. Hist._ +xvii. 58, 186. + +[445] Lord Cornwallis's army surrendered at York Town, five days before +Sir Henry Clinton's fleet and army arrived off the Chesapeak. _Ann. +Reg._ xxiv. 136. + +[446] Johnson wrote on March 30:--'The men have got in whom I have +endeavoured to keep out; but I hope they will do better than their +predecessors; it will not be easy to do worse.' Croker's _Boswell_, +p. 706. + +[447] This note was in answer to one which accompanied one of the +earliest pamphlets on the subject of Chatterton's forgery, entitled +_Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley_, &c. Mr. +Thomas Warton's very able _Inquiry_ appeared about three months +afterwards; and Mr. Tyrwhitt's admirable _Vindication of his Appendix_ +in the summer of the same hear, left the believers in this daring +imposture nothing but 'the resolution to say again what had been said +before.' MALONE. + +[448] _Pr. and Med._ p. 207. BOSWELL. + +[449] He addressed to him an Ode in Latin, entitled _Ad Thomam Laurence, +medicum doctissimum, quum filium peregre agentem desiderio nimis tristi +prosequeretur. Works_, i. 165. + +[450] Mr. Holder, in the Strand, Dr. Johnson's apothecary. BOSWELL. + +[451] 'Johnson should rather have written "imperatum est." But the +meaning of the words is perfectly clear. "If you say yes, the messenger +has orders to bring Holder to me." Mr. Croker translates the words as +follows:-"If you consent, pray tell the messenger to bring Holder to +me." If Mr. Croker is resolved to write on points of classical learning, +we would advise him to begin by giving an hour every morning to our old +friend Corderius.' Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i 366. In _The Answers +to Mr. Macaulay's Criticism_, prefixed to Croker's _Boswell_, p. 13, it +is suggested that Johnson wrote either _imperetur_ or _imperator_. The +letter may be translated: 'A fresh chill, a fresh cough, and a fresh +difficulty in breathing call for a fresh letting of blood. Without your +advice, however, I would not submit to the operation. I cannot well come +to you, nor need you come to me. Say yes or no in one word, and leave +the rest to Holder and to me. If you say yes, let the messenger be +bidden (imperetur) to bring Holder to me. May 1, 1782. When _you_ have +left, whither shall I turn?' + +[452] Soon after the above letter, Dr. Lawrence left London, but not +before the palsy had made so great a progress as to render him unable to +write for himself. The folio wing are extracts from letters addressed by +Dr. Johnson to one of his daughters:-- + +'You will easily believe with what gladness I read that you had heard +once again that voice to which we have all so often delighted to attend. +May you often hear it. If we had his mind, and his tongue, we could +spare the rest. + +'I am not vigorous, but much better than when dear Dr. Lawrence held my +pulse the last time. Be so kind as to let me know, from one little +interval to another, the state of his body. I am pleased that he +remembers me, and hope that it never can be possible for me to forget +him. July 22, 1782.' + +'I am much delighted even with the small advances which dear Dr. +Lawrence makes towards recovery. If we could have again but his mind, +and his tongue in his mind, and his right hand, we should not much +lament the rest. I should not despair of helping the swelled hand by +electricity, if it were frequently and diligently supplied. + +'Let me know from time to time whatever happens; and I hope I need not +tell you, how much I am interested in every change. Aug. 26, 1782.' + +'Though the account with which you favoured me in your last letter could +not give me the pleasure that I wished, yet I was glad to receive it; +for my affection to my dear friend makes me desirous of knowing his +state, whatever it be. I beg, therefore, that you continue to let me +know, from time to time, all that you observe. + +'Many fits of severe illness have, for about three months past, forced +my kind physician often upon my mind. I am now better; and hope +gratitude, as well as distress, can be a motive to remembrance. +Bolt-court, Fleet-street, Feb. 4, 1783.' BOSWELL. + +[453] Mr. Langton being at this time on duty at Rochester, he is +addressed by his military title. BOSWELL. + +[454] Eight days later he recorded:--'I have in ten days written to +Aston, Lucy, Hector, Langton, Boswell; perhaps to all by whom my letters +are desired.' _Pr. and Med._ 209. He had written also to Mrs. Thrale, +but her affection, it should seem from this, he was beginning to doubt. + +[455] See _ante_, p. 84. + +[456] See _ante_, i. 247. + +[457] See _post_, p. 158, note 4. + +[458] Johnson has here expressed a sentiment similar to that contained +in one of Shenstone's stanzas, to which, in his life of that poet, he +has given high praise:-- + + 'I prized every hour that went by, + Beyond all that had pleased me before; + But now they are gone [past] and I sigh, + I grieve that I prized them no more.' + +J. BOSWELL, JUN. + +[459] She was his god-daughter. See _post_, May 10, 1784. + +[460] 'Dr. Johnson gave a very droll account of the children of Mr. +Langton, "who," he said, "might be very good children, if they were let +alone; but the father is never easy when he is not making them do +something which they cannot do; they must repeat a fable, or a speech, +or the Hebrew alphabet, and they might as well count twenty for what +they know of the matter; however, the father says half, for he prompts +every other word."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 73. See _ante_, p. +20, note 2. + +[461] A part of this letter having been torn off, I have, from the +evident meaning, supplied a few words and half-words at the ends and +beginnings of lines. BOSWELL. + +[462] See vol. ii. p. 459. BOSWELL. She was Hector's widowed sister, and +Johnson's first love. In the previous October, writing of a visit to +Birmingham, he said:--'Mrs. Careless took me under her care, and told me +when I had tea enough.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 205. + +[463] This letter cannot belong to this year. In it Johnson says of his +health, 'at least it is not worse.' But 1782 found him in very bad +health; he passed almost the whole of the year 'in a succession of +disorders' (_post_, p. 156). What he says of friendship renders it +almost certain that the letter was written while he had still Thrale; +and him he lost in April, 1781. Had it been written after June, 1779, +but before Thrale's death, the account given of health would have been +even better than it is (_ante_, iii. 397). It belongs perhaps to the +year 1777 or 1778. + +[464] 'To a man who has survived all the companions of his youth ... +this full-peopled world is a dismal solitude.' _Rambler_, No. 69. + +[465] See _ante_, i. 63. + +[466] They met on these days in the years 1772, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 81, and +3. + +[467] The ministry had resigned on the 20th. _Ante_, p. 139, note 1. + +[468] Thirty-two years earlier he wrote in _The Rambler_, No. 53:-'In +the prospect of poverty there is nothing but gloom and melancholy; the +mind and body suffer together; its miseries bring no alleviation; it is +a state in which every virtue is obscured, and in which no conduct can +avoid reproach.' And again in No. 57:--'The prospect of penury in age is +so gloomy and terrifying, that every man who looks before him must +resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of +sparing.' See _ante_. 441. + +[469] See _ante_, p. 128. + +[470] Hannah More wrote in April of this year (_Memoirs_, i. +249):--'Poor Johnson is in a bad state of health. I fear his +constitution is broken up.' (Yet in one week he dined out four times. +_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 237.) At one of these dinners, 'I urged him,' she +continues (_ib_. p. 251) 'to take a _little_ wine. He replied, "I can't +drink a _little_, child; therefore, I never touch it. Abstinence is as +easy to me as temperance would be difficult." He was very good-humoured +and gay. One of the company happened to say a word about poetry, "Hush, +hush," said he, "it is dangerous to say a word of poetry before her; it +is talking of the art of war before Hannibal."' + +[471] This book was published in 1781, and, according to Lowndes, +reached its seventh edition by 1787. See _ante_, i. 214. + +[472] The clergyman's letter was dated May 4. _Gent. Mag._ 1786, p. 93. +Johnson is explaining the reason of his delay in acknowledging it. + +[473] What follows appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ of May 29, +1782:--'A correspondent having mentioned, in the _Morning Chronicle_ of +December 12, the last clause of the following paragraph, as seeming to +favour suicide; we are requested to print the whole passage, that its +true meaning may appear, which is not to recommend suicide but exercise. + +'Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are +decreed: but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the +association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be +disjoined by an easy separation. It was a principle among the ancients, +that acute diseases are from Heaven, and chronical from ourselves; the +dart of death, indeed, falls from Heaven, but we poison it by our own +misconduct: to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish +is generally his folly.' [_The Rambler_, No. 85.] BOSWELL. + +[474] The Correspondence may be seen at length in the _Gent. Mag._ Feb. +1786. BOSWELL. Johnson, advising Dr. Taylor 'to take as much exercise as +he can bear,' says:-'I take the true definition of exercise to be labour +without weariness.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 461. + +[475] Here he met Hannah More. 'You cannot imagine,' she writes +(_Memoirs_, i. 261), 'with what delight he showed me every part of his +own college. Dr. Adams had contrived a very pretty piece of gallantry. +We spent the day and evening at his house. After dinner, Johnson begged +to conduct me to see the College; he would let no one show it me but +himself. "This was my room; this Shenstone's." Then, after pointing out +all the rooms of the poets who had been of his college, "In short," said +he, "we were a nest of singing-birds." When we came into the +common-room, we spied a fine large print of Johnson, hung up that very +morning, with this motto:--_And is not Johnson ours, himself a host?_ +Under which stared you in the face--_From Miss More's "Sensibility_." +This little incident amused us; but, alas! Johnson looks very ill +indeed--spiritless and wan. However, he made an effort to be cheerful.' +Miss Adams wrote on June 14, 1782:--'On Wednesday we had here a +delightful blue-stocking party. Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott and Miss More, +Dr. Johnson, Mr. Henderson, &c., dined here. Poor Dr. Johnson is in very +bad health, but he exerted himself as much as he could, and being very +fond of Miss More, he talked a good deal, and every word he says is +worth recording. He took great delight in showing Miss More every part +of Pembroke College, and his own rooms, &c., and told us many things +about himself when here. .. June 19, 1782. We dined yesterday for the +last time in the company with Dr. Johnson; he went away to-day. A warm +dispute arose; it was about cider or wine freezing, and all the spirit +retreating to the center.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS._ + +[476] 'I never retired to rest without feeling the justness of the +Spanish proverb, "Let him who sleeps too much borrow the pillow of a +debtor."' Johnson's _Works_, iv. 14. + +[477] See _ante_, i. 441. + +[478] Which I celebrated in the Church of England chapel at Edinburgh, +founded by Lord Chief Baron Smith, of respectable and pious +memory. BOSWELL. + +[479] See _ante_, p. 80. + +[480] The Reverend Mr. Temple, Vicar of St. Gluvias, Cornwall. BOSWELL. +See _ante_, i. 436, and ii. 316. + +[481] 'He had settled on his eldest son,' says Dr. Rogers +(_Boswelliana_, p. 129), 'the ancestral estate, with an unencumbered +rental of Ll,600 a year.' That the rental, whatever it was, was not +unencumbered is shewn by the passage from Johnson's letter, _post_, p. +155, note 4. Boswell wrote to Malone in 1791 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. +828):--'The clear money on which I can reckon out of my estate is +scarcely L900 a year.' + +[482] Cowley's _Ode to Liberty_, Stanza vi. + +[483] 'I do beseech all the succeeding heirs of entail,' wrote Boswell +in his will, 'to be kind to the tenants, and not to turn out old +possessors to get a little more rent.' Rogers's _Boswelliana, p. 186. + +[484] Macleod, the Laird of Rasay. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 8. + +[485] A farm in the Isle of Skye, where Johnson wrote his Latin Ode to +Mrs. Thrale. _Ib._ Sept. 6. + +[486] Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on Oct. 4:--'Boswel's (sic) father is +dead, and Boswel wrote me word that he would come to London for my +advice. [The] advice which I sent him is to stay at home, and [busy] +himself with his own affairs. He has a good es[tate], considerably +burthened by settlements, and he is himself in debt. But if his wife +lives, I think he will be prudent.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. +v. 462. + +[487] Miss Burney wrote in the first week in December:--'Dr. Johnson was +in most excellent good humour and spirits.' She describes later on a +brilliant party which he attended at Miss Monckton's on the 8th, where +the people were 'superbly dressed,' and where he was 'environed with +listeners.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 186, and 190. See _ante_, p. +108, note 4. + +[488] See _ante,_, iii. 337, where Johnson got 'heated' when Boswell +maintained this. + +[489] See _ante_, in. 395. + +[490] The greatest part of the copy, or manuscript of _The Lives of the +Poets_ had been given by Johnson to Boswell (_ante_, iv. 36). + +[491] Of her twelve children but these three were living. She was +forty-one years old. + +[492] 'The family,' writes Dr. Burney, 'lived in the library, which used +to be the parlour. There they breakfasted. Over the bookcases were hung +Sir Joshua's portraits of Mr. Thrale's friends--Baretti, Burke, Burney, +Chambers, Garrick, Goldsmith, Johnson, Murphy, Reynolds, Lord Sandys, +Lord Westcote, and in the same picture Mrs. Thrale and her eldest +daughter.' Mr. Thrale's portrait was also there. Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, +ii. 80, and Prior's _Malone_, p. 259. + +[493] _Pr. and Med._ p. 214. BOSWELL. + +[494] Boswell omits a line that follows this prayer:--'O Lord, so far +as, &c.,--Thrale.' This means, I think, 'so far as it might be lawful, +I prayed for Thrale.' The following day Johnson entered:--'I was called +early. I packed up my bundles, and used the foregoing prayer with my +morning devotions, somewhat, I think, enlarged. Being earlier than the +family, I read St. Paul's farewell in the _Acts_ [xx. 17-end], and then +read fortuitously in the gospels, which was my parting use of +the library.' + +[495] Johnson, no doubt, was leaving Streatham because Mrs. Thrale was +leaving it. 'Streatham,' wrote Miss Burney, on Aug. 12 of this year, 'my +other home, and the place where I have long thought my residence +dependent only on my own pleasure, is already let for three years to +Lord Shelburne.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.151. Johnson was not yet +leaving the Thrale family, for he joined them at Brighton, and he was +living with them the following spring in Argyll-street. Nevertheless, +if, as all Mrs. Thrale's friends strongly held, her second marriage was +blameworthy, Boswell's remark admits of defence. Miss Burney in her +diary and letters keeps the secret which Mrs. Thrale had confided to her +of her attachment to Mr. Piozzi; but in the _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, +which, as Mme. D'Arblay, she wrote long afterwards, she leaves little +doubt that Streatham was given up as a step towards the second marriage. +In 1782, on a visit there, she found that her father 'and all +others--Dr. Johnson not excepted--were cast into the same gulf of +general neglect. As Mrs. Thrale became more and more dissatisfied with +her own situation, and impatient for its relief, she slighted Johnson's +counsel, and avoided his society.' Mme. D'Arblay describes a striking +scene in which her father, utterly puzzled by 'sad and altered +Streatham,' left it one day with tears in his eyes. Another day, Johnson +accompanied her to London. 'His look was stern, though dejected, but +when his eye, which, however shortsighted, was quick to mental +perception, saw how ill at ease she appeared, all sternness subsided +into an undisguised expression of the strongest emotion, while, with a +shaking hand and pointing finger, he directed her looks to the mansion +from which they were driving; and when they faced it from the +coach-window, as they turned into Streatham Common, tremulously +exclaimed, "That house ...is lost to _me_... for ever."' Johnson's +letter to Langton of March 20, 1782 (_ante_, p. 145), in which he says +that he was 'musing in his chamber at Mrs. Thrale's,' shews that so +early as that date he foresaw that a change was coming. Boswell's +statement that 'Mrs. Thrale became less assiduous to please Johnson,' +might have been far more strongly worded. See Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, +ii. 243-253. Lord Shelburne, who as Prime Minister was negotiating peace +with the United States, France, and Spain, hired Mrs. Thrale's house 'in +order to be constantly near London.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, +iii. 242. + +[496] Mr. Croker quotes the following from the _Rose MSS_.:--'Oct. 6, +Die Dominica, 1782. Pransus sum Streathamiae agninum crus coctum cum +herbis (spinach) comminutis, farcimen farinaceum cum uvis passis, lumbos +bovillos, et pullum gallinae: Turcicae; et post carnes missas, ficus, +uvas, non admodum maturas, ita voluit anni intemperies, cum malis +Persicis, iis tamen duris. Non laetus accubui, cibum modice sumpsi, ne +intemperantia ad extremum peccaretur. Si recte memini, in mentem +venerunt epulae in exequiis Hadoni celebratae. Streathamiam +quando revisam?' + +[497] 'Mr. Metcalfe is much with Dr. Johnson, but seems to have taken an +unaccountable dislike to Mrs. Thrale, to whom he never speaks.... He is +a shrewd, sensible, keen, and very clever man.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +ii. 172, 174. He, Burke, and Malone were Sir Joshua's executors. +Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 293. + +[498] Boswell should have shown, for he must have known it, that Johnson +was Mrs. Thrale's guest at Brighton. Miss Burney was also of the party. +Her account of him is a melancholy one:--'Oct. 28. Dr. Johnson +accompanied us to a ball, to the universal amazement of all who saw him +there; but he said he had found it so dull being quite alone the +preceding evening, that he determined upon going with us; "for," said +he, "it cannot be worse than being alone."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. +161. 'Oct. 29. Mr. Pepys joined Dr. Johnson, with whom he entered into +an argument, in which he was so roughly confuted, and so severely +ridiculed, that he was hurt and piqued beyond all power of disguise, +and, in the midst of the discourse, suddenly turned from him, and, +wishing Mrs. Thrale goodnight, very abruptly withdrew. Dr. Johnson was +certainly right with respect to the argument and to reason; but his +opposition was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that I +was really quite grieved to see how unamiable he appeared, and how +greatly he made himself dreaded by all, and by many abhorred.' _Ib_. p. +163. 'Oct. 30. In the evening we all went to Mrs. Hatsel's. Dr. Johnson +was not invited.' _Ib_. p. 165. 'Oct. 31. A note came to invite us all, +except Dr. Johnson, to Lady Rothes's.' _Ib_. p. 168. 'Nov. 2. We went to +Lady Shelley's. Dr. Johnson again excepted in the invitation. He is +almost constantly omitted, either from too much respect or too much +fear. I am sorry for it, as he hates being alone.' _Ib_. p. 160. 'Nov. +7. Mr. Metcalfe called upon Dr. Johnson, and took him out an airing. Mr. +Hamilton is gone, and Mr. Metcalfe is now the only person out of this +house that voluntarily communicates with the Doctor. He has been in a +terrible severe humour of late, and has really frightened all the +people, till they almost ran from him. To me only I think he is now +kind, for Mrs. Thrale fares worse than anybody.' _Ib_. p. 177. + +[499] '"Dr. Johnson has asked me," said Mr. Metcalfe, "to go with him to +Chichester, to see the cathedral, and I told him I would certainly go if +he pleased; but why I cannot imagine, for how shall a blind man see a +cathedral?" "I believe," quoth I [i.e. Miss Burney] "his blindness is as +much the effect of absence as of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at +times."' _Ib_. p. 174. For Johnson's eyesight, see _ante_, i. 41. + +[500] The second letter is dated the 28th. Johnson says:--'I have looked +_often_,' &c.; but he does not say 'he has been _much_ informed,' but +only 'informed.' Both letters are in the _Gent. Mag._ 1784, p. 893. + +[501] The reference is to Rawlinson's MS. collections for a continuation +of Wood's _Athenae_ (Macray's _Annals of the Bodleian_, p. 181). + +[502] Jortin's sermons are described by Johnson as 'very elegant.' +_Ante_, in. 248. He and Thirlby are mentioned by him in the _Life of +Pope. Works_, viii. 254. + +[503] Markland was born 1693, died 1776. His notes on some of Euripides' +_Plays_ were published at the expense of Dr. Heberden. Markland had +previously destroyed a great many other notes; writing in 1764 he +said:--'Probably it will be a long time (if ever) before this sort of +learning will revive in England; in which it is easy to foresee that +there must be a disturbance in a few years, and all public disorders are +enemies to this sort of literature.' _Gent. Mag._ 1778, P. 3l0. 'I +remember,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 252), 'when lamentation was +made of the neglect shown to Jeremiah Markland, a great philologist, as +some one ventured to call him: "He is a scholar undoubtedly, Sir," +replied Dr. Johnson, "but remember that he would run from the world, and +that it is not the world's business to run after him. I hate a fellow +whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and [who] +does nothing when he is there but sit and _growl_; let him come out as I +do, and _bark_"' A brief account of him is given in the _Ann. Reg._ +xix. 45. + +[504] Nichols published in 1784 a brief account of Thirlby, nearly half +of it being written by Johnson. Thirlby was born in 1692 and died in +1753. 'His versatility led him to try the round of what are called the +learned professions.' His life was marred by drink and insolence.' His +mind seems to have been tumultuous and desultory, and he was glad to +catch any employment that might produce attention without anxiety; such +employment, as Dr. Battie has observed, is necessary for madmen.' _Gent. +Mag._ 1784, pp. 260, 893. + +[505] He was attacked, says Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 131), 'by +a slight paralytic affection, after an almost uninterrupted course of +good health for many years.' Miss Burney wrote on Dec. 28 to one of her +sisters:--'How can you wish any wishes [matrimonial wishes] about Sir +Joshua and me? A man who has had two shakes of the palsy!' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 218. + +[506] Dr. Patten in Sept. 1781 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 699) informed +Johnson of Wilson's intended dedication. Johnson, in his reply, +said:--'What will the world do but look on and laugh when one scholar +dedicates to another?' + +[507] On the same day he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'This, my dear Sir, is the +last day of a very sickly and melancholy year. Join your prayers with +mine, that the next may be more happy to us both. I hope the happiness +which I have not found in this world will by infinite mercy be granted +in another.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 462. + +[508] 'Jan. 4, 1783. Dr. Johnson came so very late that we had all given +him up; he was very ill, and only from an extreme of kindness did he +come at all. When I went up to him to tell how sorry I was to find him +so unwell, "Ah," he cried, taking my hand and kissing it, "who shall ail +anything when Cecilia is so near? Yet you do not think how poorly I am." + +All dinner time he hardly opened his mouth but to repeat to me:--"Ah! +you little know how ill I am." He was excessively kind to me in spite of +all his pain.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 228. _Cecilia_ was the name +of her second novel (_post_, May 26, 1783). On Jan. 10 he thus ended a +letter to Mr. Nichols:--'Now I will put you in a way of shewing me more +kindness. I have been confined by ilness (sic) a long time, and sickness +and solitude make tedious evenings. Come sometimes and see, Sir, + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +_MS_. in the British Museum. + +[509] 'Dr. Johnson found here [at Auchinleck] Baxter's Anacreon, which +he told me he had long inquired for in vain, and began to suspect there +was no such book.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov.2. See _post_, under +Sept. 29, 1783. + +[510] 'The delight which men have in popularity, fame, honour, +submission, and subjection of other men's minds, wills, or affections, +although these things may be desired for other ends, seemeth to be a +thing in itself, without contemplation of consequence, grateful and +agreeable to the nature of man.' Bacon's _Nat. Hist._ Exper. No. 1000. +See _ante_, ii. 178. + +[511] In a letter to Dr. Taylor on Jan. 21 of this year, he attacked the +scheme of equal representation.' Pitt, on May 7, 1782, made his first +reform motion. Johnson thus ended his letter:--'If the scheme were more +reasonable, this is not a time for innovation. I am afraid of a civil +war. The business of every wise man seems to be now to keep his ground.' +_Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 481. + +[512] See _ante_, i. 429, _post_, 170, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. +30. + +[513] The year after this conversation the General Election of 1784 was +held, which followed on the overthrow of the Coalition Ministry and the +formation of the Pitt Ministry in December, 1783. The 'King's friends' +were in a minority of one in the last great division in the old +Parliament; in the motion on the Address in the new Parliament they had +a majority of 168. _Parl. Hist._ xxiv. 744, 843. Miss Burney, writing in +Nov. 1788, when the King was mad, says that one of his physicians 'moved +me even to tears by telling me that none of their own lives would be +safe if the King did not recover, so prodigiously high ran the tide of +affection and loyalty. All the physicians received threatening letters +daily, to answer for the safety of their monarch with their lives! Sir +G. Baker had already been stopped in his carriage by the mob, to give an +account of the King; and when he said it was a bad one, they had +furiously exclaimed, "The more shame for you."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +iv. 336. Describing in 1789 a Royal tour in the West of England, she +writes of 'the crowds, the rejoicings, the hallooing and singing, and +garlanding and decorating of all the inhabitants of this old city +[Exeter], and of all the country through which we passed.' _Ib._ v. 48. + +[514] Miss Palmer, Sir Joshua's niece, 'heard Dr. Johnson repeat these +verses with the tears falling over his cheek.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, +ii. 417. + +[515] Gibbon remarked that 'Mr. Fox was certainly very shy of saying +anything in Johnson's presence.' _Ante_, iii. 267. See _post_, under +June 9, 1784, where Johnson said 'Fox is my friend.' + +[516] Mr. Greville (_Journal_, ed. 1874, ii. 316) records the following +on the authority of Lord Holland:--'Johnson liked Fox because he +defended his pension, and said it was only to blame in not being large +enough. "Fox," he said, is a liberal man; he would always be _aut Caesar +aut nullus_; whenever I have seen him he has been _nullus_. Lord Holland +said Fox made it a rule never to talk in Johnson's presence, because he +knew all his conversations were recorded for publication, and he did not +choose to figure in them.' Fox could not have known what was not the +fact. When Boswell was by, he had reason for his silence; but otherwise +he might have spoken out. 'Mr. Fox,' writes Mackintosh (_Life_, i. 322) +'united, in a most remarkable degree, the seemingly repugnant characters +of the mildest of men and the most vehement of orators. In private life +he was so averse from parade and dogmatism as to be somewhat inactive in +conversation.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 283) tells how Fox spent a day +with him at Lausanne:--'Perhaps it never can happen again, that I should +enjoy him as I did that day, alone from ten in the morning till ten at +night. Our conversation never flagged a moment.' 'In London mixed +society,' said Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 74), 'Fox conversed little; but +at his own house in the country, with his intimate friends, he would +talk on for ever, with all the openness and simplicity of a child.' + +[517] Sec _ante_, ii. 450. + +[518] Most likely 'Old Mr. Sheridan.' + +[519] See _ante_, ii. 166. + +[520] Were I to insert all the stories which have been told of contests +boldly maintained with him, imaginary victories obtained over him, of +reducing him to silence, and of making him own that his antagonist had +the better of him in argument, my volumes would swell to an immoderate +size. One instance, I find, has circulated both in conversation and in +print; that when he would not allow the Scotch writers to have merit, +the late Dr. Rose, of Chiswick, asserted, that he could name one Scotch +writer, whom Dr. Johnson himself would allow to have written better than +any man of the age; and upon Johnson's asking who it was, answered, +'Lord Bute, when he signed the warrant for your pension.' Upon which +Johnson, struck with the repartee, acknowledged that this _was_ true. +When I mentioned it to Johnson, 'Sir, (said he,) if Rose said this, I +never heard it.' BOSWELL. + +[521] This reflection was very natural in a man of a good heart, who was +not conscious of any ill-will to mankind, though the sharp sayings which +were sometimes produced by his discrimination and vivacity, which he +perhaps did not recollect, were, I am afraid, too often remembered with +resentment. BOSWELL. When, three months later on, he was struck with +palsy, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'I have in this still scene of life +great comfort in reflecting that I have given very few reason to hate +me. I hope scarcely any man has known me closely but for his benefit, or +cursorily but to his innocent entertainment. Tell me, you that know me +best, whether this be true, that according to your answer I may continue +my practice, or try to mend it.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 287. See _post_, +May 19, 1784. Passages such as the two following might have shewn him +why he had enemies. 'For roughness, it is a needless cause of +discontent; severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth hate.' +Bacon's _Essays_, No. xi. ''Tis possible that men may be as oppressive +by their parts as their power.' _The Government of the Tongue_, sect. +vii. See _ante_, i. 388, note 2. + +[522] 'A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in +Scotland supports the people.' _Ante_, i. 294. Stockdale records +(_Memoirs_, ii. 191) that he heard a Scotch lady, after quoting this +definition, say to Johnson, 'I can assure you that in Scotland we give +oats to our horses as well as you do to yours in England.' He +replied:--'I am very glad, Madam, to find that you treat your horses as +well as you treat yourselves.' + +[523] Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote:--'The prejudices he had to countries +did not extend to individuals. The chief prejudice in which he indulged +himself was against Scotland, though he had the most cordial friendship +with individuals. This he used to vindicate as a duty. ... Against the +Irish he entertained no prejudice; he thought they united themselves +very well with us; but the Scotch, when in England, united and made a +party by employing only Scotch servants and Scotch tradesmen. He held it +right for Englishmen to oppose a party against them.' Taylor's +_Reynolds_, ii. 460. See _ante_, ii. 242, 306, and Boswell's _Hebrides, +post_, v. 20. + +[524] _Ante_, ii. 300. + +[525] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 85) says that 'Dr. Johnson, commonly +spending the middle of the week at our house, kept his numerous family +in Fleet-street upon a settled allowance; but returned to them every +Saturday to give them three good dinners and his company, before he came +back to us on the Monday night.' + +[526] Lord North's Ministry lasted from 1770, to March, 1782. It was +followed by the Rockingham Ministry, and the Shelburne Ministry, which +in its turn was at this very time giving way to the Coalition Ministry, +to be followed very soon by the Pitt Ministry. + +[527] I have, in my _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_ [p. 200, Sept. +13], fully expressed my sentiments upon this subject. The Revolution was +_necessary_, but not a subject for _glory_; because it for a long time +blasted the generous feelings of _Loyalty_. And now, when by the +benignant effect of time the present Royal Family are established in our +_affections_, how unwise it is to revive by celebrations the memory of a +shock, which it would surely have been better that our constitution had +not required. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 3, and iv. 40, note 4. + +[528] Johnson reviewed this book in 1756. _Ante_, i. 309. + +[529] Johnson, four months later, wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's +daughters:--'Never think, my sweet, that you have arithmetick enough; +when you have exhausted your master, buy books. ... A thousand stories +which the ignorant tell and believe die away at once when the computist +takes them in his gripe.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 296. See _post_, +April 18, 1783. + +[530] See _ante_, p. 116; also iii. 310, where he bore the same topic +impatiently when with Dr. Scott. + +[531] See _ante_, ii. 357. + +[532] + + 'See nations, slowly wise and meanly just, + To buried merit raise the tardy bust.' + Johnson's _Vanity of Human Wishes_. + +[533] He was perhaps, thinking of Markland. _Ante_, p. 161, note 3. + +[534] 'Dr. Johnson,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'was no complainer of +ill-usage. I never heard him even lament the disregard shown to +_Irene_.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 386. See _ante_, i. 200. + +[535] Letter to the People of Scotland against the attempt to diminish +the number of the Lords of Session, 1785. BOSWELL. 'By Mr. Burke's +removal from office the King's administration was deprived of the +assistance of that affluent mind, which is so universally rich that, as +long as British literature and British politicks shall endure, it will +be said of Edmund Burke, _Regum equabat [sic] opes animis.'_ p.71. + +[536] _Georgics_, iv. 132. + +[537] See _ante_, iii. 56, note 2. + +[538] Very likely Boswell. + +[539] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22. + +[540] Johnson had said:--'Lord Chesterfield is the proudest man this day +existing.' _Ante_, i. 265. + +[541] Lord Shelburne. At this time he was merely holding office till a +new Ministry was formed. On April 5 he was succeeded by the Duke of +Portland. His 'coarse manners' were due to a neglected childhood. In the +fragment of his _Autobiography_ he describes 'the domestic brutality and +ill-usage he experienced at home,' in the South of Ireland. 'It cost +me,' he continues, 'more to unlearn the habits, manners, and principles +which I then imbibed, than would have served to qualify me for any +_role_ whatever through life.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 12, 16. + +[542] Bentham, it is reported, said of of him that 'alone of his own +time, he was a "Minister who did not fear the people."' _Ib._ iii. 572. + +[543] Malagrida, a Jesuit, was put to death at Lisbon in 1761, nominally +on a charge of heresy, but in reality on a suspicion of his having +sanctioned, as confessor to one of the conspirators, an attempt to +assassinate King Joseph of Portugal. Voltaire, _Siecle de Louis XV_, ch. +xxxviii. 'His name,' writes Wraxall (_Memoirs_, ed. 1815, i. 67), 'is +become proverbial among us to express duplicity.' It was first applied +to Lord Shelburne in a squib attributed to Wilkes, which contained a +vision of a masquerade. The writer, after describing him as masquerading +as 'the heir apparent of Loyola and all the College,' continues:--'A +little more of the devil, my Lord, if you please, about the eyebrows; +that's enough, a perfect Malagrida, I protest.' Fitzmaurice's +_Shelburne_, ii. 164. 'George III. habitually spoke of Shelburne as +"Malagrida," and the "Jesuit of Berkeley Square."' _Ib._ iii. 8. The +charge of duplicity was first made against Shelburne on the retirement +of Fox (the first Lord Holland) in 1763. 'It was the tradition of +Holland House that Bute justified the conduct of Shelburne, by telling +Fox that it was "a pious fraud." "I can see the fraud plainly enough," +is said to have been Fox's retort, "but where is the piety?"' _Ib_. i. +226. Any one who has examined Reynolds's picture of Shelburne, +especially 'about the eyebrows,' at once sees how the name of Jesuit +was given. + +[544] Beauclerk wrote to Lord Charlemont on Nov. 20, 1773:-'Goldsmith +the other day put a paragraph into the newspapers in praise of Lord +Mayor Townshend. [Shelburne supported Townshend in opposition to Wilkes +in the election of the Lord Mayor. Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, ii. 287.] +The same night we happened to sit next to Lord Shelburne at Drury Lane. +I mentioned the circumstance of the paragraph to him; he said to +Goldsmith that he hoped that he had mentioned nothing about Malagrida in +it. "Do you know," answered Goldsmith, "that I never could conceive the +reason why they call you Malagrida, _for_ Malagrida was a very good sort +of man." You see plainly what he meant to say, but that happy turn of +expression is peculiar to himself. Mr. Walpole says that this story is a +picture of Goldsmith's whole life.' _Life of Charlemont_, i. 344. + +[545] Most likely Reynolds, who introduced Crabbe to Johnson. Crabbe's +_Works_, ed. 1834, ii. 11. + +[546] + + 'I paint the cot, + As truth will paint it, and as Bards will not. + Nor you, ye Poor, of lettered scorn complain, + To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain; + O'ercome by labour, and bowed down by time, + Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme? + Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread, + By winding myrtles round your ruined shed? + Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower, + Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?' + + _The Village_, book i. + +See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 6. + +[547] I shall give an instance, marking the original by Roman, and +Johnson's substitution in Italick characters:-- + + 'In fairer scenes, where peaceful pleasures spring, + Tityrus, the pride of Mantuan swains, might sing: + But charmed by him, or smitten with his views, + Shall modern poets court the Mantuan muse? + From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray, + Where Fancy leads, or Virgil led the way?' + '_On Mincio's banks, in Caesar's bounteous reign, + If Tityrus found the golden age again, + Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong, + Mechanick echoes of the Mantuan song?_ + From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray, + _Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way?._ + +Here we find Johnson's poetical and critical powers undiminished. I +must, however, observe, that the aids he gave to this poem, as to _The +Traveller_ and _Deserted Village_ of Goldsmith, were so small as by no +means to impair the distinguished merit of the authour. BOSWELL. + +[548] In the _Gent. Mag._ 1763, pp. 602, 633, is a review of his +_Observations on Diseases of the Army_. He says that the register of +deaths of military men proves that more than eight times as many men +fall by what was called the gaol fever as by battle. His suggestions are +eminently wise. Lord Seaford, in 1835, told Leslie 'that he remembered +dining in company with Dr. Johnson at Dr. Brocklesby's, when he was a +boy of twelve or thirteen. He was impressed with the superiority of +Johnson, and his knocking everybody down in argument.' C.R. Leslie's +_Recollections_, i. 146. + +[549] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 28. + +[550] See _ante_, i. 433, and ii. 217, 358. + +[551] "In his _Life of Swift_ (_Works_, viii. 205) he thus speaks of +this _Journal_:-'In the midst of his power and his politicks, he kept a +journal of his visits, his walks, his interviews with ministers, and +quarrels with his servant, and transmitted it to Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. +Dingley, to whom he knew that whatever befell him was interesting, and +no accounts could be too minute. Whether these diurnal trifles were +properly exposed to eyes which had never received any pleasure from the +presence of the dean, may be reasonably doubted: they have, however, +some odd attraction: the reader, finding frequent mention of names which +he has been used to consider as important, goes on in hope of +information; and, as there is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is +disappointed, he can hardly complain.'" + +[552] On his fifty-fifth birthday he recorded:--'I resolve to keep a +journal both of employment and of expenses. To keep accounts.' _Pr. and +Med_. 59. See _post_, Aug. 25, 1784, where he writes to Langton:--'I am +a little angry at you for not keeping minutes of your own _acceptum et +expensum_, and think a little time might be spared from Aristophanes for +the _res familiares_.' + +[553] This Mr. Chalmers thought was George Steevens. CROKER. D'Israeli +(_Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, vi. 76) describes Steevens as +guilty of 'an unparalleled series of arch deception and malicious +ingenuity.' He gives curious instances of his literary impostures. See +_ante_, iii. 281, and _post_, May 15, 1784. + +[554] If this be Lord Mansfield, Boswell must use _late_ in the sense of +_in retirement_; for Mansfield was living when the _Life of Johnson_ was +published. He retired in 1788. Johnson in 1772, said that he had never +been in his company (_ante_, ii. 158). The fact that Mansfield is +mentioned in the previous paragraph adds to the probability that he +is meant. + +[555] See _ante_, ii. 318. + +[556] In Scotland, Johnson spoke of Mansfield's 'splendid talents.' +Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11. + +[557] 'I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other +men.' 2 _ Henry IV_, act i. sc. 2. + +[558] Knowing as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory his +Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable +appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions upon him, +must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved +and stiff. If it be so, and he might be an agreeable man if he would, we +cannot be sorry that he misses his aim. BOSWELL. Wedderburne, afterwards +Lord Loughborough, is mentioned (_ante_, ii. 374), and again in Murphy's +_Life of Johnson_, p. 43, as being in company with Johnson and Foote. +Boswell also has before (_ante_, i. 387) praised the elegance of his +oratory. Henry Mackenzie (_Life of John Home_, i. 56) says that +Wedderburne belonged to a club at the British Coffee-house, of which +Garrick, Smollett, and Dr. Douglas were members. + +[559] Boswell informed the people of Scotland in the Letter that he +addressed to them in 1785 (p. 29), that 'now that Dr. Johnson is gone to +a better world, he (Boswell) bowed the intellectual knee to _Lord +Thurlow_.' See _post_, June 22, 1784. + +[560] Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 27. + +[561] + + 'Charged with light summer-rings his fingers sweat, + Unable to support a gem of weight.' + DRYDEN. Juvenal, _Satires_, i. 29. + +[562] He had published a series of seventy _Essays_ under the title of +_The Hypochondriack_ in the _London Magazine_ from 1777 to 1783. + +[563] Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 365. The common reading, however, is +'Nullum numen _habes_,' &c. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 218) records this +saying, but with a variation. '"For," says Mr. Johnson, "though I do not +quite agree with the proverb, that _Nullum numen adest si sit +prudentia_, yet we may very well say, that _Nullum numen adest, ni sit +prudentia."' + +[564] It has since appeared. BOSWELL. + +[565] Miss Burney mentions meeting Dr. Harington at Bath in 1780. 'It is +his son,' she writes, 'who published those very curious remains of his +ancestor [Sir John Harington] under the title _Nugae Antiquae_ which my +father and all of us were formerly so fond of.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, i. 341. + +[566] + + 'For though they are but trifles, thou + Some value didst to them allow.' + + Martin's _Catullus_, p. 1. + +[567] + + --Underneath this rude, uncouth disguise, + A genius of extensive knowledge lies.' + + FRANCIS. Horace, _Satires_, i. 3. 33. + +[568] He would not have been a troublesome patient anywhere, for, +according to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 275),'he required less attendance, +sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature.' + +[569] 'That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow +much excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe +that the mind grows old with the body; and that he whom we are now +forced to confess superiour is hastening daily to a level with +ourselves.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 212. + +[570] With the following elucidation of the saying-_Quos Deus_ (it +should rather be-_Quem Jupiter) vult perdere, prius dementat_-Mr. +Boswell was furnished by Mr. Pitts:--'Perhaps no scrap of Latin whatever +has been more quoted than this. It occasionally falls even from those +who are scrupulous even to pedantry in their Latinity, and will not +admit a word into their compositions, which has not the sanction of the +first age. The word _demento_ is of no authority, either as a verb +active or neuter.--After a long search for the purpose of deciding a +bet, some gentlemen of Cambridge found it among the fragments of +Euripides, in what edition I do not recollect, where it is given as a +translation of a Greek Iambick: [Greek: Ou Theos thelei apolesoi' +apophreuai.] + +'The above scrap was found in the hand-writing of a suicide of fashion, +Sir D. O., some years ago, lying on the table of the room where he had +destroyed himself. The suicide was a man of classical acquirements: he +left no other paper behind him.' + +Another of these proverbial sayings, + + _Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim,_ + +I, in a note on a passage in _The Merchant of Venice_ [act iii. sc. 5], +traced to its source. It occurs (with a slight variation) in the +_Alexandreis_ of Philip Gualtier (a poet of the thirteenth century), +which was printed at Lyons in 1558. Darius is the person addressed:-- + + --Quo tendis inertem, + Rex periture, fugam? nescis, heu! perdite, nescis + Quern fugias: hostes incurris dum fugis hostem; + _Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim._ + +A line not less frequently quoted was suggested for enquiry in a note on +_The Rape of Lucrece:-- + +Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris--_: + +But the author of this verse has not, I believe, been discovered. +MALONE. The 'Greek lambick' in the above note is not Greek. To a learned +friend I owe the following note. 'The _Quem Jupiter vult perdere_, &c., +is said to be a translation of a fragment of _Euripides_ by Joshua +Barnes. There is, I believe, no such fragment at all. In Barnes's +_Euripides_, Cantab. 1694, fol. p. 515, is a fragment of Euripides with +a note which may explain the muddle of Boswell's correspondent:-- + +"[Greek: otau de daimonn handri porsunae kaka ton noun heblapse proton,]" + +on which Barnes writes:--"Tale quid in Franciados nostrae [probably his +uncompleted poem on Edward III.] l. 3. _Certe ille deorum Arbiter +ultricem cum vult extendere dextram Dementat prius._"' See _ante_, ii. +445, note 1. Sir D. O. is, perhaps, Sir D'Anvers Osborne, whose death is +recorded in the _Gent. Mag._ 1753, p. 591. 'Sir D'Anvers Osborne, Bart., +Governor of New York, soon after his arrival there; _in his garden.' +Solamen miseris, &c._, is imitated by Swift in his _Verses on Stella's +Birthday_, 1726-7:-- + + 'The only comfort they propose, + To have companions in their woes.' + +Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xi. 22. The note on _Lucrece_ was, I +conjecture, on line 1111:-- + +'Grief best is pleased with grief's society.' + +[571] + + 'FAUSTUS-- + "Tu quoque, ut hic video, non es ignarus amorum." + 'FORTUNATUS-- + "Id commune malum; semel insanivimus omnes."' + +Baptistae Mantuani Carmelitae _Adolescentia, seu Bucolica_. Ecloga I, +published in 1498. 'Scaliger,' says Johnson (_Works_, viii. 391), +'complained that Mantuan's Bucolicks were received into schools, and +taught as classical. ... He was read, at least in some of the inferiour +schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of the present +[eighteenth] century.' + +[572] See _ante_, i. 368. + +[573] See _ante_, i. 396. + +[574] I am happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his +enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking +particularities pointed out:--Miss Hunter, a niece of his friend +Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his extraordinary +motions, said to him, 'Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do you make such strange +gestures?' 'From bad habit,' he replied. 'Do you, my dear, take care to +guard against bad habits.' This I was told by the young lady's brother +at Margate. BOSWELL. Boswell had himself told Johnson of some of them, +at least in writing. Johnson read in manuscript his _Journal of a Tour +to the Hebrides_. Boswell says in a note on Oct. 12:--'It is remarkable +that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his own +peculiar habits, without saying anything on the subject, which I hoped +he would have done.' + +[575] See _ante_, ii. 42, note 2, and iii. 324. + +[576] Johnson, after stating that some of Milton's manuscripts prove +that 'in the early part of his life he wrote with much care,' +continues:--'Such reliques show how excellence is acquired; what we hope +ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.' +_Works_, vii. 119. Lord Chesterfield (_Letters_, iii. 146) had made the +same rule as Johnson:--'I was,' he writes, 'early convinced of the +importance and powers of eloquence; and from that moment I applied +myself to it. I resolved not to utter one word even in common +conversation that should not be the most expressive and the most elegant +that the language could supply me with for that purpose; by which means +I have acquired such a certain degree of habitual eloquence, that I must +now really take some pains if I would express myself very inelegantly.' + +[577] 'Dr. Johnson,' wrote Malone in 1783, 'is as correct and elegant in +his common conversation as in his writings. He never seems to study +either for thoughts or words. When first introduced I was very young; +yet he was as accurate in his conversation as if he had been talking to +the first scholar in England.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 92. See _post_, +under Aug. 29, 1783. + +[578] See _ante_, iii. 216. + +[579] See _ante_, ii. 323. + +[580] The justness of this remark is confirmed by the following story, +for which I am indebted to Lord Eliot:--A country parson, who was +remarkable for quoting scraps of Latin in his sermons, having died, one +of his parishioners was asked how he liked his successor. 'He is a very +good preacher,' was his answer, 'but no _latiner_.' BOSWELL. For the +original of Lord Eliot's story see Twells's _Life of Dr. E. Pocock_, ed. +1816, p. 94. Reynolds said that 'Johnson always practised on every +occasion the rule of speaking his best, whether the person to whom he +addressed himself was or was not capable of comprehending him. "If," +says he, "I am understood, my labour is not lost. If it is above their +comprehension, there is some gratification, though it is the admiration +of ignorance;" and he said those were the most sincere admirers; and +quoted Baxter, who made a rule never to preach a sermon without saying +something which he knew was beyond the comprehension of his audience, in +order to inspire their admiration.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 456. +Addison, in _The Spectator_, No. 221, tells of a preacher in a country +town who outshone a more ignorant rival, by quoting every now and then a +Latin sentence from one of the Fathers. 'The other finding his +congregation mouldering every Sunday, and hearing at length what was the +occasion of it, resolved to give his parish a little Latin in his turn; +but being unacquainted with any of the Fathers, he digested into his +sermons the whole book of _Quae Genus_, adding, however, such +explications to it as he thought might be for the benefit of his people. +He afterwards entered upon _As in praesenti_, which he converted in the +same manner to the use of his parishioners. This in a very little time +thickened his audience, filled his church, and routed his antagonist.' + +[581] See _ante_, ii. 96 + +[582] '"Well," said he, "we had good talk." BOSWELL. "Yes, Sir; you +tossed and gored several persons."' _Ante,_ ii. 66. + +[583] Dr. J. H. Burton says of Hume (_Life, ii. 31_):--'No Scotsman +could write a book of respectable talent without calling forth his loud +and warm eulogiums. Wilkie was to be the Homer, Blacklock the Pindar, +and Home the Shakespeare or something still greater of his country.' See +_ante_, ii. 121, 296, 306. + +[584] _The Present State of Music in France and Italy,_ I vol. 1771, and +_The Present State of Music in Germany, &c.,_ 2 vols. 1773. Johnson must +have skipped widely in reading these volumes, for though Dr. Burney +describes his travels, yet he writes chiefly of music. + +[585] Boswell's son James says that he heard from his father, that the +passage which excited this strong emotion was the following:-- + + 'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more: + I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you; + For morn is approaching, your charms to restore, + Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew; + Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn; + Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save: + But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn? + O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?' + +[586] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 338) mentions this book at some +length. On March 13, 1780, he wrote:--'Yesterday was published an +octavo, pretending to contain the correspondence of Hackman and Miss Ray +that he murdered.' See _ante_, iii. 383. + +[587] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 547), recording how Johnson used to meet +Psalmanazar at an ale-house, says that Johnson one day 'remarked on the +human mind, that it had a necessary tendency to improvement, and that it +would frequently anticipate instruction. "Sir," said a stranger that +overheard him, "that I deny; I am a tailor, and have had many +apprentices, but never one that could make a coat till I had taken great +pains in teaching him."' See _ante_, iii. 443. Robert Hall was +influenced in his studies by 'his intimate association in mere childhood +with a tailor, one of his father's congregation, who was an acute +metaphysician.' Hall's _Works_, vi. 5. + +[588] Johnson had never been in Grub-street. _Ante_, i. 296, note 2. + +[589] The Honourable Horace Walpole, late Earl of Orford, thus bears +testimony to this gentleman's merit as a writer:--'Mr. Chambers's +_Treatise on Civil Architecture_ is the most sensible book, and the most +exempt from prejudices, that ever was written on that science.'--Preface +to _Anecdotes of Painting in England_. BOSWELL. Chambers was the +architect of Somerset House. See _ante_, p. 60, note 7. + +[590] The introductory lines are these:--'It is difficult to avoid +praising too little or too much. The boundless panegyricks which have +been lavished upon the Chinese learning, policy, and arts, shew with +what power novelty attracts regard, and how naturally esteem swells into +admiration. I am far from desiring to be numbered among the exaggerators +of Chinese excellence. I consider them as great, or wise, only in +comparison with the nations that surround them; and have no intention to +place them in competition either with the antients or with the moderns +of this part of the world; yet they must be allowed to claim our notice +as a distinct and very singular race of men: as the inhabitants of a +region divided by its situation from all civilized countries, who have +formed their own manners, and invented their own arts, without the +assistance of example.' BOSWELL. + +[591] The last execution at Tyburn was on Nov. 7, 1783, when one man was +hanged. The first at Newgate was on the following Dec. 9, when ten were +hanged. _Gent. Mag._ 1783, pp. 974, 1060. + +[592] We may compare with this 'loose talk' Johnson's real opinion, as +set forth in _The Rambler_, No. 114, entitled:--_The necessity of +proportioning punishments to crimes_. He writes:--'The learned, the +judicious, the pious Boerhaave relates that he never saw a criminal +dragged to execution without asking himself, "Who knows whether this man +is not less culpable than me?" On the days when the prisons of this city +are emptied into the grave, let every spectator of this dreadful +procession put the same question to his own heart. Few among those that +crowd in thousands to the legal massacre, and look with carelessness, +perhaps with triumph, on the utmost exacerbations of human misery, would +then be able to return without horror and dejection.' He continues:--'It +may be observed that all but murderers have, at their last hour, the +common sensations of mankind pleading in their favour.... They who would +rejoice at the correction of a thief, are yet shocked at the thought of +destroying him. His crime shrinks to nothing compared with his misery, +and severity defeats itself by exciting pity.' + +[593] Richardson, in his _Familiar Letters_, No. 160, makes a country +gentleman in town describe the procession of five criminals to Tyburn, +and their execution. He should have heard, he said, 'the exhortation +spoken by the bell-man from the wall of St. Sepulchre's church-yard; +but the noise of the officers and the mob was so great, and the silly +curiosity of people climbing into the cart to take leave of the +criminals made such a confused noise that I could not hear them. They +are as follow: "All good people pray heartily to God for these poor +sinners, who now are going to their deaths; for whom this great bell +doth toll. You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable +tears.... Lord have mercy upon you! Christ have mercy upon you!" which +last words the bell-man repeats three times. All the way up Holborn the +crowd was so great, as at every twenty or thirty yards to obstruct the +passage; and wine, notwithstanding a late good order against that +practice, was brought the malefactors, who drank greedily of it. After +this the three thoughtless young men, who at first seemed not enough +concerned, grew most shamefully daring and wanton. They swore, laughed, +and talked obscenely. At the place of execution the scene grew still +more shocking; and the clergyman who attended was more the subject of +ridicule than of their serious attention. The psalm was sung amidst the +curses and quarrelling of hundreds of the most abandoned and profligate +of mankind. As soon as the poor creatures were half-dead, I was much +surprised to see the populace fall to haling and pulling the carcases +with so much earnestness as to occasion several warm rencounters and +broken heads. These, I was told, were the friends of the persons +executed, or such as for the sake of tumult chose to appear so; and some +persons sent by private surgeons to obtain bodies for dissection.' The +psalm is mentioned in a note on the line in _The Dunciad_, i. 4l, 'Hence +hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines:'--'It is an ancient English custom,' +says Pope, 'for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution +at Tyburn.' + +[594] The rest of these miscellaneous sayings were first given in the +_Additions to Dr. Johnson's Life_ at the beginning of vol. I of the +second edition. + +[595] Hume (_Auto_. p. 6) speaks of Hurd as attacking him 'with all the +illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility which distinguish the +Warburtonian school.' 'Hurd,' writes Walpole, 'had acquired a great name +by several works of slender merit, was a gentle, plausible man, +affecting a singular decorum that endeared him highly to devout old +ladies.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 50. He is best known +to the present generation by his impertinent notes on Addison's _Works_. +By reprinting them, Mr. Bohn did much to spoil what was otherwise an +excellent edition of that author. See _ante_, p. 47, note 2. + +[596] The Rev. T. Twining, one of Dr. Burney's friends, wrote in +1779:--'You use a form of reference that I abominate, i.e. the latter, +the former. "As long as you have the use of your tongue and your pen," +said Dr. Johnson to Dr. Burney, "never, Sir, be reduced to that shift."' +_Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIIIth +Century_, p. 72. + +[597] 'A shilling was now wanted for some purpose or other, and none of +them happened to have one; I begged that I might lend one. "Ay, do," +said the Doctor, "I will borrow of you; authors are like privateers, +always fair game for one another."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 212. + +[598] See _ante_, i. 129, note 3. + +[599] See _post_, June 3, 1784, where he uses almost the same words. + +[600] What this period was Boswell seems to leave intentionally vague. +Johnson knew Lord Shelburne at least as early as 1778 (_ante_, iii. +265). He wrote to Dr. Taylor on July 22, 1782:--'Shelburne speaks of +Burke in private with great malignity.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. +462. The company commonly gathered at his house would have been +displeasing to Johnson. Priestley, who lived with Shelburne seven years, +says (_Auto_. p. 55) that a great part of the company he saw there was +like the French philosophers, unbelievers in Christianity, and even +professed atheists: men 'who had given no proper attention to +Christianity, and did not really know what it was.' Johnson was intimate +with Lord Shelburne's brother. _Ante_, ii. 282, note 3. + +[601] Johnson being asked his opinion of this Essay, answered, 'Why, +Sir, we shall have the man come forth again; and as he has proved +Falstaff to be no coward, he may prove Iago to be a very good +character.' BOSWELL. + +[602] A writer in the _European Magazine_, xxx. 160, says that Johnson +visited Lord Shelburne at Bowood. At dinner he repeated part of his +letter to Lord Chesterfield (_ante_, i. 261). A gentleman arrived late. +Shelburne, telling him what he had missed, went on:-'I dare say the +Doctor will be kind enough to give it to us again.' 'Indeed, my Lord, I +will not. I told the circumstance first for my own amusement, but I will +not be dragged in as story-teller to a company.' In an argument he used +some strong expressions, of which his opponent took no notice, Next +morning 'he went up to the gentleman with great good-nature, and said, +"Sir, I have found out upon reflection that I was both warm and wrong in +my argument with you last night; for the first of which I beg your +pardon, and for the second, I thank you for setting me right."' It is +clear that the second of these anecdotes is the same as that told by Mr. +Morgann of Johnson and himself, and that the scene has been wrongly +transferred from Wickham to Bowood. The same writer says that it was +between Derrick and Boyce--not Derrick and Smart--that Johnson, in the +story that follows, could not settle the precedency. + +[603] See ante, i. 124, 394. + +[604] See ante, i. 397. + +[605] What the great TWALMLEY was so proud of having invented, was +neither more nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing +linen. BOSWELL. + +[606] + + 'Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi, + Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat, + Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti, + Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes.' + + _Aeneid_, vi. 660. + + 'Lo, they who in their country's fight + sword-wounded bodies bore; + Lo, priests of holy life and chaste, + while they in life had part; + Lo, God-loved poets, men who spake + things worthy Phoebus' heart, + And they who bettered life on earth + by new-found mastery.' + +MORRIS. Virgil, _Aeneids_, vi. 660. The great Twalmley might have +justified himself by _The Rambler_, No. 9:--'Every man, from the +highest to the lowest station, ought to warm his heart and animate his +endeavours with the hopes of being useful to the world, by advancing the +art which it is his lot to exercise; and for that end he must +necessarily consider the whole extent of its application, and the whole +weight of its importance.... Every man ought to endeavour at eminence, +not by pulling others down, but by raising himself, and enjoy the +pleasure of his own superiority, whether imaginary or real, without +interrupting others in the same felicity.' All this is what Twalmley +did. He adorned an art, he endeavoured at eminence, and he inoffensively +enjoyed the pleasure of his own superiority. He could also have defended +himself by the example of Aeneas, who, introducing himself, said:-- + + 'Sum pius Aeneas ..... + ... fama super aethera notus.' + +_Aeneid_, i. 378. I fear that Twalmley met with the neglect that so +commonly befalls inventors. In the _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p. 719, I find in +the list of 'B-nk-ts,' Josiah Twamley, the elder, of Warwick, +ironmonger. + +[607] 'Sir, Hume is a Tory by chance, as being a Scotchman; but not upon +a principle of duty, for he has no principle. If he is anything, he is a +Hobbist.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30. Horace Walpole's opinion was +very different. 'Are not atheism and bigotry first cousins? Was not +Charles II. an atheist and a bigot? and does Mr. Hume pluck a stone from +a church but to raise an altar to tyranny?' _Letters_, v. 444. Hume +wrote in 1756:--'My views of _things_ are more conformable to Whig +principles; my representations of _persons_ to Tory prejudices.' J.H. +Burton's _Hume_, ii. 11. Hume's Toryism increased with years. He says in +his _Autobiography/_ (p. xi.) that all the alterations which he made in +the later editions of his _History of the Stuarts_, 'he made invariably +to the Tory side.' Dr. Burton gives instances of these; _Life of Hume_, +ii. 74. Hume wrote in 1763 that he was 'too much infected with the +plaguy prejudices of Whiggism when he began the work.' _Ib_. p. 144. In +1770 he wrote:--'I either soften or expunge many villainous, seditious +Whig strokes which had crept into it.' _Ib_. p. 434. This growing hatred +of Whiggism was, perhaps, due to pique. John Home, in his notes of +Hume's talk in the last weeks of his life, says: 'He recurred to a +subject not unfrequent with him--that is, the design to ruin him as an +author, by the people that were ministers at the first publication of +his _History_, and called themselves Whigs.' _Ib_. p. 500. As regards +America, Hume was with the Whigs, as Johnson had perhaps learnt from +their common friend, Mr. Strahan. 'He was,' says Dr. Burton, 'far more +tolerant of the sway of individuals over numbers, which he looked upon +as the means of preserving order and civilization, than of the +predominance of one territory over another, which he looked upon as +subjugation.' _Ib_. p. 477. Quite at the beginning of the struggle he +foretold that the Americans would not be subdued, unless they broke in +pieces among themselves. _Ib_. p. 482. He was not frightened by the +prospect of the loss of our supremacy. He wrote to Adam Smith:--'My +notion is that the matter is not so important as is commonly imagined. +Our navigation and general commerce may suffer more than our +manufactures.' _Ib_. p. 484. Johnson's charge against Hume that he had +no principle, is, no doubt, a gross one; yet Hume's advice to a +sceptical young clergyman, who had good hope of preferment, that he +should therefore continue in orders, was unprincipled enough. 'It is,' +he wrote, 'putting too great a respect on the vulgar and on their +superstitions to pique one's self on sincerity with regard to them. Did +ever one make it a point of honour to speak truth to children or madmen? +If the thing were worthy being treated gravely, I should tell him that +the Pythian oracle, with the approbation of Xenophon, advised every one +to worship the gods--[Greek: nomo poleos]. I wish it were still in my +power to be a hypocrite in this particular. The common duties of society +usually require it; and the ecclesiastical profession only adds a little +more to an innocent dissimulation, or rather simulation, without which +it is impossible to pass through the world.' _Ib/_. p. 187. + +[608] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 48) says that Johnson told her that in +writing the story of Gelaleddin, the poor scholar (_Idler_, No. 75), who +thought to fight his way to fame by his learning and wit, 'he had his +own outset into life in his eye.' Gelaleddin describes how 'he was +sometimes admitted to the tables of the viziers, where he exerted his +wit and diffused his knowledge; but he observed that where, by endeavour +or accident he had remarkably excelled, he was seldom invited a second +time.' See _ante_, p. 116. + +[609] See ante, p. 115. + +[610] Bar. BOSWELL. + +[611] Nard. BOSWELL. + +[612] Barnard. BOSWELL. + +[613] It was reviewed in the _Gent. Mag_. 1781, p. 282, where it is said +to have been written by Don Gabriel, third son of the King of Spain. + +[614] Though 'you was' is very common in the authors of the last century +when one person was addressed, I doubt greatly whether Johnson ever so +expressed himself. + +[615] See _ante_, i. 311. + +[616] Horace Walpole (_Letters_ v. 85) says, 'Boswell, like Cambridge, +has a rage of knowing anybody that ever was talked of.' Miss Burney +records 'an old trick of Mr. Cambridge to his son George, when listening +to a dull story, in saying to the relator "Tell the rest of that to +George."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 274. See _ante_, ii. 361. + +[617] Virgil, _Eclogues_, i. 47. + +[618] 'Mr. Johnson,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 21), 'was +exceedingly disposed to the general indulgence of children, and was even +scrupulously and ceremoniously attentive not to offend them. He had +strongly persuaded himself of the difficulty people always find to erase +early impressions either of kindness or resentment.' + +[619] _Ante_, ii.171, iv.75; also _post_, May 15, 1784. + +[620] Johnson, on May 1, 1780, wrote of the exhibition dinner:--'The +apartments were truly very noble. The pictures, for the sake of a +sky-light, are at the top of the house; there we dined, and I sat over +against the Archbishop of York. See how I live when I am not under +petticoat government.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 111. It was Archbishop +Markham whom he met; he is mentioned by Boswell in his _Hebrides, post_, +v. 37. In spite of the 'elaboration of homage' Johnson could judge +freely of an archbishop. He described the Archbishop of Tuam as 'a man +coarse of voice and inelegant of language.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 300. + +[621] By Lord Perceval, afterwards Earl of Egmont. He carried, writes +Horace Walpole (_Letters_, ii. 144), 'the Westminster election at the +end of my father's ministry, which he amply described in the history of +his own family, a genealogical work called the _History of the House of +Yvery_, a work which cost him three thousand pounds; and which was so +ridiculous, that he has since tried to suppress all the copies. It +concluded with the description of the Westminster election, in these or +some such words:--"And here let us leave this young nobleman struggling +for the dying liberties of his country."' + +[622] Five days earlier Johnson made the following entry in his +Diary:--'1783, April 5. I took leave of Mrs. Thrale. I was much moved. I +had some expostulations with her. She said that she was likewise +affected. I commended the Thrales with great good-will to God; may my +petitions have been heard.' Hawkins's _Life_, p. 553. This was not 'a +formal taking of leave,' as Hawkins says. She was going to Bath (Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 264). On May-day he wrote to her on the death of +one of her little girls:--'I loved her, for she was Thrale's and yours, +and, by her dear father's appointment, in some sort mine: I love you +all, and therefore cannot without regret see the phalanx broken, and +reflect that you and my other dear girls are deprived of one that was +born your friend. To such friends every one that has them has recourse +at last, when it is discovered and discovered it seldom fails to be, +that the fortuitous friendships of inclination or vanity are at the +mercy of a thousand accidents.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 255. He was sadly +thinking how her friendship for him was rapidly passing away. + +[623] Johnson modestly ended his account of the tour by saying:--'I +cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on national manners are the +thoughts of one who has seen but little.' _Works_, ix. 161. See +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 22. + +[624] See _ib_. Oct. 21. + +[625] She says that he was 'the genuine author of the first volume. An +ingenious physician,' she continues, 'with the assistance of several +others, continued the work until the eighth volume.' Mrs. Manley's +_History of her own Life and Times_, p. 15--a gross, worthless book. +Swift satirised her in _Corinna, a Ballad_. Swift's _Works_ (1803), +x. 94. + +[626] The real authour was I. P. Marana, a Genoese, who died at Paris in +1693. John Dunton in his _Life_ says, that Mr. _William Bradshaw_ +received from Dr. Midgeley forty shillings a sheet for writing part of +the _Turkish Spy_; but I do not find that he any where mentions _Sault_ +as engaged in that work. MALONE. + +[627] See _ante_, ii. 355, iii. 46, and iv. 139. + +[628] This was in June, 1783, and I find in Mr. Windham's private diary +(which it seems this conversation induced him to keep) the following +memoranda of Dr. Johnson's advice: 'I have no great timidity in my own +disposition, and am no encourager of it in others. Never be afraid to +think yourself fit for any thing for which your friends think you fit. +_You will become an able negotiator--a very pretty rascal_. No one in +Ireland wears even the mask of incorruption; no one professes to do for +sixpence what he can get a shilling for doing. Set sail, and see where +the winds and the waves will carry you. Every day will improve another. +_Dies diem docet_, by observing at night where you failed in the day, +and by resolving to fail so no more.' CROKER. The Whigs thought he made +'a very pretty rascal' in a very different way. On his opposition to +Whitbread's bill for establishing parochial schools, Romilly wrote +(_Life_, ii. 2l6), 'that a man so enlightened as Windham should take the +same side (which he has done most earnestly) would excite great +astonishment, if one did not recollect his eager opposition a few months +ago to the abolition of the slave trade.' He was also 'most strenuous in +opposition' to Romilly's bill for repealing the act which made it a +capital offence to steal to the amount of forty shillings in a +dwelling-house, _Ib_. p. 316. + +[629] We accordingly carried our scheme into execution, in October, +1792; but whether from that uniformity which has in modern times, in a +great degree, spread through every part of the Metropolis, or from our +want of sufficient exertion, we were disappointed. BOSWELL. + +[630] Piozzi's _Anecdotes_, p. 193. See _post_, under June 30, 1784. + +[631] Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 139-143) says that the picture, +which was execrable beyond belief, was exhibited in an empty room. Lowe, +in 1769 (not in 1771 as Northcote says), gained the gold medal of the +Academy for the best historical picture. (_Gent. Mag_. 1770, p. 587.) +Northcote says that the award was not a fair one. He adds that Lowe, +being sent to Rome by the patronage of the Academy, was dissatisfied +with the sum allowed him. 'When Sir Joshua said that he knew from +experience that it was sufficient, Lowe pertly answered "that it was +possible for a man to live on guts and garbage."' He died at an obscure +lodging in Westminster, in 1793. There is, wrote Miss Burney, 'a certain +poor wretch of a villainous painter, one Mr. Lowe, whom Dr. Johnson +recommends to all the people he thinks can afford to sit for their +picture. Among these he applied to Mr. Crutchley [one of Mr. Thrale's +executors]. "But now," said Mr. Crutchley to me, "I have not a notion of +sitting for my picture--for who wants it? I may as well give the man +the money without; but no, they all said that would not do so well, and +Dr. Johnson asked me to give _him_ my picture." "And I assure you, Sir," +says he, "I shall put it in very good company, for I have portraits of +some very respectable people in my dining-room." After all I could say I +was obliged to go to the painter's. And I found him in such a condition! +a room all dirt and filth, brats squalling and wrangling... "Oh!" says +I, "Mr. Lowe, I beg your pardon for running away, but I have just +recollected another engagement; so I poked three guineas in his hand, +and told him I would come again another time, and then ran out of the +house with all my might."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.41. A +correspondent of the _Examiner_ writing on May 28, 1873, said that he +had met one of Lowe's daughters, 'who recollected,' she told him, 'when +a child, sitting on Dr. Johnson's knee and his making her repeat the +Lord's Prayer.' She was Johnson's god-daughter. By a committee +consisting of Milman, Thackeray, Dickens, Carlyle and others, an annuity +fund for her and her sister was raised. Lord Palmerston gave a large +subscription. + +[632] See _post_, May 15, 1783. + +[633] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, _post_, v. 48. + +[634] See _ante_, p. 171. + +[635] Quoted by Boswell, _ante_, iii. 324. + +[636] It is suggested to me by an anonymous Annotator on my Work, that +the reason why Dr. Johnson collected the peels of squeezed oranges may +be found in the 58th [358th] Letter in Mrs. Piozzi's _Collection_, where +it appears that he recommended 'dried orange-peel, finely powdered,' as +a medicine. BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 330. + +[637] There are two mistakes in this calculation, both perhaps due to +Boswell. _Eighty-four_ should be _eighty-eight_, and square-yards should +be _yards square_. 'If a wall cost L1000 a mile, L100 would build 176 +yards of wall, which would form a square of 44 yards, and enclose an +area of 1936 square yards; and L200 would build 352 yards of wall, which +would form a square of 88 yards, and inclose an area of 7744 square +yards. The cost of the wall in the latter case, as compared with the +space inclosed, would therefore be reduced to one half.' _Notes and +Queries_, 1st S. x. 471. + +[638] See _ante_, i. 318. + +[639] 'Davies observes, in his account of Ireland, that no Irishman had +ever planted an orchard.' Johnson's _Works_, ix.7. 'At Fochabars [in the +Highlands] there is an orchard, which in Scotland I had never seen +before.' _Ib._ p. 21. + +[640] Miss Burney this year mentions meeting 'Mr. Walker, the lecturer. +Though modest in science, he is vulgar in conversation.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, ii. 237. Johnson quotes him, _Works_, viii. 474. + +[641] 'Old Mr. Sheridan' was twelve years younger than Johnson. For his +oratory, see _ante_, i. 453, and _post_, April 28 and May 17, 1783. + +[642] See _ante_, i. 358, when Johnson said of Sheridan:--'His voice +when strained is unpleasing, and when low is not always heard.' + +[643] See _ante_, iii. 139. + +[644] 'A more magnificent funeral was never seen in London,' wrote +Murphy (_Life of Garrick_, p. 349). Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. +169), wrote on the day of the funeral:--'I do think the pomp of +Garrick's funeral perfectly ridiculous. It is confounding the immense +space between pleasing talents and national services.' He added, 'at +Lord Chatham's interment there were not half the noble coaches that +attended Garrick's.' _Ib_. p. 171. In his _Journal of the Reign of +George III_ (ii. 333), he says:--'The Court was delighted to see a more +noble and splendid appearance at the interment of a comedian than had +waited on the remains of the great Earl of Chatham.' Bishop Horne +(_Essays and Thoughts_, p. 283) has some lines on 'this grand parade of +woe,' which begin:-- + + 'Through weeping London's crowded streets, + As Garrick's funeral passed, + Contending wits and nobles strove, + Who should forsake him last. + Not so the world behaved to _him_ + Who came that world to save, + By solitary Joseph borne + Unheeded to his grave.' + +Johnson wrote on April 30, 1782: 'Poor Garrick's funeral expenses are +yet unpaid, though the undertaker is broken.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 239. +Garrick was buried on Feb. 1, 1779, and had left his widow a large +fortune. Chatham died in May, 1778. + +[645] Boswell had heard Johnson maintain this; _ante_, ii. 101. + +[646] See _post_, p. 238, note 2. + +[647] This duel was fought on April 21, between Mr. Riddell of the +Horse-Grenadiers, and Mr. Cunningham of the Scots Greys. Riddell had the +first fire, and shot Cunningham through the breast. After a pause of two +minutes Cunningham returned the fire, and gave Riddell a wound of which +he died next day. _Gent. Mag._ 1783, p. 362. Boswell's grandfather's +grandmother was a Miss Cunningham. Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 4. I do +not know that there was any nearer connection. In Scotland, I suppose, +so much kindred as this makes two men 'near relations.' + +[648] 'Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the +other.' _St. Luke_, vi. 29. Had Miss Burney thought of this text, she +might have quoted it with effect against Johnson, who, criticising her +_Evelina_, said:--'You write Scotch, you say "the one,"--my dear, +that's not English. Never use that phrase again.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, i. 84. + +[649] 'Turn not thou away.' _St. Matthew_, v. 42. + +[650] I think it necessary to caution my readers against concluding that +in this or any other conversation of Dr. Johnson, they have his serious +and deliberate opinion on the subject of duelling. In my _Journal of a +Tour to the Hebrides_, 3 ed. p. 386 [p. 366, Oct. 24], it appears that +he made this frank confession:--'Nobody at times, talks more laxly than +I do;' and, _ib_. p. 231 [Sept. 19, 1773], 'He fairly owned he could not +explain the rationality of duelling.' We may, therefore, infer, that he +could not think that justifiable, which seems so inconsistent with the +spirit of the Gospel. At the same time it must be confessed, that from +the prevalent notions of honour, a gentleman who receives a challenge is +reduced to a dreadful alternative. A remarkable instance of this is +furnished by a clause in the will of the late Colonel Thomas, of the +Guards, written the night before he fell in a duel, Sept. 3, 1783:--'In +the first place, I commit my soul to Almighty GOD, in hopes of his mercy +and pardon for the irreligious step I now (in compliance with the +unwarrantable customs of this wicked world) put myself under the +necessity of taking.' BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 179. + +[651] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24 and Sept. 20. Dr. Franklin +(_Memoirs_, i. 177) says that when the assembly at Philadelphia, the +majority of which were Quakers, was asked by New England to supply +powder for some garrison, 'they would not grant money to buy powder, +because that was an ingredient of war; but they voted an aid of L3000 to +be appropriated for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat, or _other +grain_.' The Governor interpreted _other grain_ as gunpowder, without +any objection ever being raised. + +[652] 'A gentleman falling off his horse brake his neck, which sudden +hap gave occasion of much speech of his former life, and some in this +judging world judged the worst. In which respect a good friend made this +good epitaph, remembering that of Saint Augustine, _Misericordia Domini +inter pontem et fontem_. + + "My friend judge not me, + Thou seest I judge not thee; + Betwixt the stirrop and the ground, + Mercy I askt, mercy I found."' + +_Camden's Remains_, ed. 1870, p. 420. + +[653] 'In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life.' +_Prayer-book._ + +[654] Upon this objection the Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of +Brazennose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following +satisfactory observation:--'The passage in the Burial-service does not +mean the resurrection of the person interred, but the general +resurrection; it is in sure and certain hope of _the_ resurrection; not +_his_ resurrection. Where the deceased is really spoken of, the +expression is very different, "as our hope is this our brother doth" +[rest in Christ]; a mode of speech consistent with every thing but +absolute certainty that the person departed doth _not_ rest in Christ, +which no one can be assured of, without immediate revelation from +Heaven. In the first of these places also, "eternal life" does not +necessarily mean eternity of bliss, but merely the eternity of the +state, whether in happiness or in misery, to ensue upon the +resurrection; which is probably the sense of "the life everlasting," in +the Apostles' Creed. See _Wheatly and Bennet on the Common +Prayer_.' BOSWELL. + +[655] Six days earlier the Lord-Advocate Dundas had brought in a bill +for the Regulation of the Government of India. Hastings, he said, should +be recalled. His place should be filled by 'a person of independent +fortune, who had not for object the repairing of his estate in India, +that had long been the nursery of ruined and decayed fortunes.' _Parl. +Hist_. xxiii. 757. Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on Nov. 22 of this +year:--'I believe corruption and oppression are in India at an enormous +height, but it has never appeared that they were promoted by the +Directors, who, I believe, see themselves defrauded, while the country +is plundered; but the distance puts their officers out of reach.' _Notes +and Queries_, 6th S. v. 482. See _ante_, p. 66. + +[656] See _ante_, p. 113. + +[657] Stockdale (_Memoirs_, ii. 57) says that, in 1770, the payment to +writers in the _Critical Review_ was two guineas a sheet, but that some +of the writers in _The Monthly Review_ received four guineas a sheet. As +these Reviews were octavos, each sheet contained sixteen pages. Lord +Jeffrey says that the writers in the _Edinburgh Review_ were at first +paid ten guineas a sheet. 'Not long after the _minimum_ was raised to +sixteen guineas, at which it remained during my reign, though two-thirds +of the articles were paid much higher--averaging, I should think, from +twenty to twenty-five guineas a sheet on the whole number.' Cockburn's +_Jeffrey_, i. 136. + +[658] See ante, ii. 344. + +[659] See _ante_, iii.32. + +[660] See _ante_, p. 206. + +[661] _Monday_ is no doubt put by mistake for _Tuesday_, which was the +29th. Boswell had spent a considerable part of Monday the 28th with +Johnson (_ante_, p. 211). + +[662] + + 'A fugitive from Heaven and prayer, + I mocked at all religious fear.' +FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, i.34. 1. + +[663] He told Boswell (_ante_, i. 68) that he had been a sort of lax +talker against religion for some years before he went to Oxford, but +that there he took up Law's _Serious Call_ and found it quite an +overmatch for him. 'This,' he said, 'was the first occasion of my +thinking in earnest of religion after I became capable of rational +enquiry.' During the vacation of 1729 he had a serious illness (_ante_, +i. 63), which most likely was 'the sickness that brought religion back.' + +[664] See _ante_, i. 93, 164, and _post_, under Dec. 2, 1784. + +[665] Mr. Langton. See _ante_, ii. 254. + +[666] See _ante_, ii. 249. + +[667] Malloch continued to write his name thus, _after he came to +London_. His verses prefixed to the second edition of Thomson's _Winter_ +are so subscribed. MALONE. 'Alias. A Latin word signifying otherwise; +as, Mallet, _alias_ Malloch; that is _otherwise_ Malloch.' The mention +of Mallet first comes in Johnson's own abridgment of his _Dictionary_. +In the earlier unabridged editions the definition concludes, 'often used +in the trials of criminals, whose danger has obliged them to change +their names; as Simpson _alias_ Smith, _alias_ Baker, &c.' For Mallet, +see _ante_, i. 268, and ii. 159. + +[668] Perhaps Scott had this saying of Johnson's in mind when he made +Earl Douglas exclaim:-- + + 'At first in heart it liked me ill, + When the King praised his clerkly skill. + Thanks to St. Bothan, son of mine, + Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line.' +_Marmion_, canto vi. 15. + +[669] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 10. + +[670] Johnson often maintained this diffusion of learning. Thus he +wrote:--'The call for books was not in Milton's age what it is in the +present. To read was not then a general amusement; neither traders, nor +often gentlemen, thought themselves disgraced by ignorance. The women +had not then aspired to literature nor was every house supplied with a +closet of knowledge.' _Works_, vii. 107. He goes on to mention 'that +general literature which now pervades the nation through all its ranks.' +_Works_, p. 108. 'That general knowledge which now circulates in common +talk was in Addison's time rarely to be found. Men not professing +learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and, in the female world, any +acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured.' _Ib_. +p.470. 'Of the _Essay on Criticism_, Pope declared that he did not +expect the sale to be quick, because "not one gentleman in sixty, even +of liberal education, could understand it." The gentlemen, and the +education of that time, seem to have been of a lower character than they +are of this.' _Ib_. viii. 243. See _ante_, iii. 3, 254. Yet he +maintained that 'learning has decreased in England, because learning +will not do so much for a man as formerly.' Boswell's _Hebrides, +post_, v. 80. + +[671] Malone describes a call on Johnson in the winter of this year:--'I +found him in his arm-chair by the fire-side, before which a few apples +were laid. He was reading. I asked him what book he had got. He said the +_History of Birmingham_. Local histories, I observed, were generally +dull. "It is true, Sir; but this has a peculiar merit with me; for I +passed some of my early years, and married my wife there." [See _ante_, +i. 96.] I supposed the apples were preparing as medicine. "Why, no, Sir; +I believe they are only there because I want something to do. These are +some of the solitary expedients to which we are driven by sickness. I +have been confined this week past; and here you find me roasting apples, +and reading the _History of Birmingham_."' Prior's _Malone_, p. 92. + +[672] On April 19, he wrote:--'I can apply better to books than I could +in some more vigorous parts of my life--at least than I _did_; and I +have one more reason for reading--that time has, by taking away my +companions, left me less opportunity of conversation.' Croker's +_Boswell_, p. 727. + +[673] He told Mr. Windham that he had never read the _Odyssey_ through +in the original. Windham's _Diary_, p. 17. 'Fox,' said Rogers (_Table +Talk_, p. 92), 'used to read Homer through once every year. On my asking +him, "Which poem had you rather have written, the _Iliad_ or the +_Odyssey_?" he answered, "I know which I had rather read" (meaning the +_Odyssey_).' + +[674] 'Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence +and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or +resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to +more delightful amusements.' Johnson's _Works_, iv. 145. Of Pope Johnson +wrote (_ib_. viii. 321):--'To make verses was his first labour, and to +mend them was his last. ... He was one of those few whose labour is +their pleasure.' Thomas Carlyle, in 1824, speaking of writing, says:--'I +always recoil from again engaging with it.' Froude's _Carlyle_, i. 213. +Five years later he wrote:--'Writing is a dreadful labour, yet not so +dreadful as _idleness_.' _Ib_. ii. 75. See _ante_, iii. 19. + +[675] See _ante_, ii. 15. + +[676] Miss Burney wrote to Mrs. Thrale in 1780:--'I met at Sir Joshua's +young Burke, who is made much ado about, but I saw not enough of him to +know why.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 416. Mrs. Thrale replied:--'I +congratulate myself on being quite of your opinion concerning Burke the +minor, whom I once met and could make nothing of.' _Ib_. p. 418. Miss +Hawkins (_Memoirs_, i. 304) reports, on Langton's authority, that Burke +said:--'How extraordinary it is that I, and Lord Chatham, and Lord +Holland, should each have a son so superior to ourselves.' + +[677] Cruikshank, not Cruikshanks (see _post_, under Sept. 18, 1783, and +Sept. 4 1784). He had been Dr. Hunter's partner; he was not elected +(_Gent. Mag._ 1783, p. 626). Northcote, in quoting this letter, says +that 'Sir Joshua's influence in the Academy was not always answerable to +his desire. "Those who are of some importance everywhere else," he said, +"find themselves nobody when they come to the Academy."' Northcote's +_Reynolds_, ii. 145. + +[678] William Hunter, scarcely less famous as a physician than his +youngest brother, John Hunter, as a surgeon. + +[679] Let it be remembered by those who accuse Dr. Johnson of +illiberality that both were _Scotchmen_. BOSWELL. + +[680] The following day he dined at Mrs. Garrick's. 'Poor Johnson,' +wrote Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 280), 'exerted himself exceedingly, but +he was very ill and looked so dreadfully, that it quite grieved me. He +is more mild and complacent than he used to be. His sickness seems to +have softened his mind, without having at all weakened it. I was struck +with the mild radiance of this setting sun.' + +[681] In the winter of 1788-9 Boswell began a canvass of his own county, +He also courted Lord Lonsdale, in the hope of getting one of the seats +in his gift, who first fooled him and then treated him with great +brutality, _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 270, 294, 324. + +[682] On April 6, 1780--'a day,' wrote Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. +345), 'that ought for ever to be a red-lettered day'--Mr. Dunning made +this motion. It was carried by 233 to 215. _Parl. Hist._ xxi. 340-367. + +[683] See _ante_, i. 355, and ii. 94 for Johnson's appeal to meals as a +measure of vexation. + +[684] Johnson defines _cant_ as '1. A corrupt dialect used by beggars +and vagabonds. 2. A particular form of speaking peculiar to some certain +class or body of men. 3. A whining pretension to goodness in formal and +affected terms. 4. Barbarous jargon. 5. Auction.' I have noted the +following instances of his use of the word:--'I betook myself to a +coffee-house frequented by wits, among whom I learned in a short time +the _cant_ of criticism.' _The Rambler_, No.123. 'Every class of society +has its _cant_ of lamentation.' _Ib_. No.128. 'Milton's invention +required no assistance from the common _cant_ of poetry.' _Ib_. No.140. +'We shall secure our language from being overrun with _cant_, from being +crowded with low terms, the spawn of folly or affectation.' _Works_, v. +II. 'This fugitive _cant_, which is always in a state of increase or +decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durable materials of a +language.' _Ib_. p.45. In a note on I _Henry VI_, act iii. sc.1, he +says: 'To _roam_ is supposed to be derived from the _cant_ of vagabonds, +who often pretended a pilgrimage to Rome.' See _ante_, iii. 197, for +'modern _cant_.' + +[685] 'Custom,' wrote Sir Joshua, 'or politeness, or courtly manners has +authorised such an eastern hyperbolical style of compliment, that part +of Dr. Johnson's character for rudeness of manners must be put to the +account of scrupulous adherence to truth. His obstinate silence, whilst +all the company were in raptures, vying with each other who should +pepper highest, was considered as rudeness or ill-nature.' Taylor's +_Reynolds_, ii. 458. + +[686] 'The shame is to impose words for ideas upon ourselves or others.' +Johnson's _Works_, vi. 64. See _ante_, p.122, where he says: 'There is a +middle state of mind between conviction and hypocrisy.' Bacon, in his +_Essay of Truth_, says: 'It is not the lie that passeth through the +mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth +the hurt.' + +[687] See _ante_, p. 204. + +[688] 'I dined and lay at Harrison's, where I was received with that +old-fashioned breeding which is at once so honourable and so +troublesome.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 144. Mr. Pleydell, in _Guy +Mannering_, ed. 1860, iv. 96, says: 'You'll excuse my old-fashioned +importunity. I was born in a time when a Scotchman was thought +inhospitable if he left a guest alone a moment, except when he slept.' + +[689] See _ante_, ii. 167. + +[690] See _ante_, i. 387. + +[691] In Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 197, it is recorded that +Johnson said, 'Sheridan's writings on elocution were a continual +renovation of hope, and an unvaried succession of disappointments.' +According to the _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p. 288, he continued:--'If we +should have a bad harvest this year, Mr. Sheridan would say:--"It was +owing to the neglect of oratory."' See _ante_, p. 206. + +[692] Burke, no doubt, was this 'bottomless Whig.' When Johnson said 'so +they _all_ are now,' he was perhaps thinking of the Coalition Ministry +in which Lord North and his friends had places. + +[693] No doubt Burke, who was Paymaster of the Forces. He is Boswell's +'eminent friend.' See _ante_ ii.222, and _post_, Dec. 24, 1783, and +Jan.8, 1784. In these two consecutive paragraphs, though two people seem +to be spoken of, yet only one is in reality. + +[694] I believe that Burke himself was present part of the time, and +that he was the gentleman who 'talked of _retiring_. On May 19 and 21 he +had in Parliament defended his action in restoring to office two clerks, +Powell and Bembridge, who had been dismissed by his predecessor, and he +had justified his reforms in the Paymaster's office. 'He awaited,' he +said, the 'judgement of the House. ...If they so far differed in +sentiment, he had only to say, _Nunc dimittis servum tuum.' Parl. Hist._ +xxiii.919. + +[695] A copy of _Evelina_ had been placed in the Bodleian. 'Johnson +says,' wrote Miss Burney, 'that when he goes to Oxford he will write my +name in the books, and my age when I writ them, and then,' he says, 'the +world may know that we _So mix our studies, and so joined our fame._ For +we shall go down hand in hand to posterity.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +i.429. The oldest copy of _Evelina_ now in the Bodleian is of an edition +published after Johnson's death. Miss Burney, in 1793, married General +D'Arblay, a French refugee. + +[696] Macaulay maintained that Johnson had a hand in the composition of +_Cecilia_. He quotes a passage from it, and says:--'We say with +confidence, either Sam. Johnson or the Devil.' (_Essays_, ed. 1874, iv. +157.) That he is mistaken is shown by Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_ (ii. 172). +'Ay,' cried Dr. Johnson, 'some people want to make out some credit to me +from the little rogue's book. I was told by a gentleman this morning +that it was a very fine book, if it was all her own.' "It is all her +own," said I, "for me, I am sure, for I never saw one word of it before +it was printed."' On p. 196 she records the following:--'SIR JOSHUA. +"Gibbon says he read the whole five volumes in a day." "'Tis +impossible," cried Mr. Burke, "it cost me three days; and you know I +never parted with it from the day I first opened it."' See _post_, among +the imitators of Johnson's style, under Dec. 6, 1784. + +[697] In Mr. Barry's printed analysis, or description of these pictures, +he speaks of Johnson's character in the highest terms. BOSWELL. Barry, +in one of his pictures, placed Johnson between the two beautiful +duchesses of Rutland and Devonshire, pointing to their Graces Mrs. +Montagu as an example. He expresses his 'reverence for his consistent, +manly, and well-spent life.' Barry's _Works_, ii. 339. Johnson, in his +turn, praises 'the comprehension of Barry's design.' _Piozzi Letters_, +ii. 256. He was more likely to understand it, as the pictures formed a +series, meant 'to illustrate one great maxim of moral truth, viz. that +the obtaining of happiness depends upon cultivating the human faculties. +We begin with man in a savage state full of inconvenience, imperfection, +and misery, and we follow him through several gradations of culture and +happiness, which, after our probationary state here, are finally +attended with beatitude or misery.' Barry's _Works_, ii. 323. Horace +Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 366) describes Barry's book as one 'which does +not want sense, though full of passion and self, and vulgarisms +and vanity.' + +[698] Boswell had tried to bring about a third meeting between Johnson +and Wilkes. On May 21 he wrote:--'Mr. Boswell's compliments to Mr. +Wilkes. He finds that it would not be unpleasant to Dr. Johnson to dine +at Mr. Wilkes's. The thing would be so curiously benignant, it were a +pity it should not take place. Nobody but Mr. Boswell should be asked to +meet the doctor.' An invitation was sent, but the following answer was +returned:--'May 24, 1783. Mr. Johnson returns thanks to Mr. and Miss +Wilkes for their kind invitation; but he is engaged for Tuesday to Sir +Joshua Reynolds, and for Wednesday to Mr. Paradise.' Owing to Boswell's +return to Scotland, another day could not be fixed. Almon's _Wilkes_, +iv. 314, 321. + +[699] 'If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the +place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.' _Ecclesiastes_, xi. 3. + +[700] 'When a tree is falling, I have seen the labourers, by a trivial +jerk with a rope, throw it upon the spot where they would wish it should +lie. Divines, understanding this text too literally, pretend, by a +little interposition in the article of death, to regulate a person's +everlasting happiness. I fancy the allusion will hardly countenance +their presumption.' Shenstone's _Works_, ed. 1773, ii. 255. + +[701] Hazlitt says that 'when old Baxter first went to Kidderminster to +preach, he was almost pelted by the women for maintaining from the +pulpit the then fashionable and orthodox doctrine, that "Hell was paved +with infants' skulls.'" _Conversations of Northcote_, p. 80. + +[702] _Acts_, xvii. 24. + +[703] Now the celebrated Mrs. Crouch. BOSWELL. + +[704] Mr. Windham was at this time in Dublin, Secretary to the Earl of +Northington, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. BOSWELL. See +_ante_, p.200. + +[705] Son of Mr. Samuel Paterson. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii.90, and +_post_, April 5, 1784. + +[706] The late Keeper of the Royal Academy. He died on Jan. 23 of this +year. Reynolds wrote of him:--'He may truly be said in every sense, to +have been the father of the present race of artists.' Northcote's +_Reynolds_ ii.137. + +[707] Mr. Allen was his landlord and next neighbour in Bolt-court. +_Ante_, iii. 141. + +[708] Cowper mentions him in _Retirement_:-- + + 'Virtuous and faithful Heberden! whose skill + Attempts no task it cannot well fulfill, + Gives melancholy up to nature's care, + And sends the patient into purer air.' + + Cowper's _Poems_, ed. 1786, i. 272. + +He is mentioned also by Priestley (_Auto._ ed. 1810, p.66) as one of his +chief benefactors. Lord Eldon, when almost a briefless barrister, +consulted him. 'I put my hand into my pocket, meaning to give him his +fee; but he stopped me, saying, "Are you the young gentleman who gained +the prize for the essay at Oxford?" I said I was. "I will take no fee +from you." I often consulted him; but he would never take a fee.' +Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 104. + +[709] How much he had physicked himself is shewn by a letter of May 8. +'I took on Thursday,' he writes, 'two brisk catharticks and a dose of +calomel. Little things do me no good. At night I was much better. Next +day cathartick again, and the third day opium for my cough. I lived +without flesh all the three days.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.257. He had been +bled at least four times that year and had lost about fifty ounces of +blood. _Ante_, pp.142, 146. On Aug. 3, 1779, he wrote:--'Of the last +fifty days I have taken mercurial physick, I believe, forty.' _Notes and +Queries_, 6th S. v.461. + +[710] An exact reprint of this letter is given by Professor Mayor in +_Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v.481. The omissions and the repetitions +'betray,' he says, 'the writer's agitation.' The postscript Boswell had +omitted. It is as follows:--'Dr. Brocklesby will be with me to meet Dr. +Heberden, and I shall have previously make (sic) master of the case as +well as I can.' + +[711] Vol. ii. p.268, of Mrs. Thrale's _Collection_. BOSWELL. The +beginning of the letter is very touching:--'I am sitting down in no +cheerful solitude to write a narrative which would once have affected +you with tenderness and sorrow, but which you will perhaps pass over now +with the careless glance of frigid indifference. For this diminution of +regard, however, I know not whether I ought to blame you, who may have +reasons which I cannot know, and I do not blame myself, who have for a +great part of human life done you what good I could, and have never done +you evil.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 268. 'I have loved you,' he continued, +'with virtuous affection; I have honoured you with sincere esteem. Let +not all our endearments be forgotten, but let me have in this great +distress your pity and your prayers. You see I yet turn to you with my +complaints as a settled and unalienable friend; do not, do not drive me +from you, for I have not deserved either neglect or hatred.' +_Ib._ p.271. + +[712] On Aug. 20 he wrote:--'I sat to Mrs. Reynolds yesterday for my +picture, perhaps the tenth time, and I sat near three hours with the +patience of _mortal born to bear_; at last she declared it quite +finished, and seems to think it fine. I told her it was _Johnson's +grimly ghost_. It is to be engraved, and I think _in glided_, &c., will +be a good inscription.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 302. Johnson is quoting +from Mallet's ballad of _Margaret's Ghost_:-- + + 'Twas at the silent solemn hour, + When night and morning meet; + In glided Margaret's grimly ghost, + And stood at William's feet.' + + _Percy Ballads_, in. 3, 16. + +According to Northcote, Reynolds said of his sister's oil-paintings, +'they made other people laugh and him cry.' 'She generally,' Northcote +adds, 'did them by stealth.' _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 160. + +[713] 'Nocte, inter 16 et 17 Junii, 1783. + + Summe pater, quodcunque tuum de corpore Numen + Hoc statuat, precibus Christus adesse velit: + Ingenio parcas, nee sit mihi culpa rogasse, + Qua solum potero parte placere tibi.' + + _Works_, i.159. + +[714] According to the _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p.542, Dr. Lawrence died at +Canterbury on June 13 of this year, his second son died on the 15th. +But, if we may trust Munk's _Roll of the College of Physicians_, ii.153, +on the father's tomb-stone, June 6 is given as the day of his death. Mr. +Croker gives June 17 as the date, and June 19 as the day of the son's +death, and is puzzled accordingly. + +[715] Poor Derrick, however, though he did not himself introduce me to +Dr. Johnson as he promised, had the merit of introducing me to Davies, +the immediate introductor. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i.385, 391. + +[716] Miss Burney, calling on him the next morning, offered to make his +tea. He had given her his own large arm-chair which was too heavy for +her to move to the table. '"Sir," quoth she, "I am in the wrong chair." +"It is so difficult," cried he with quickness, "for anything to be wrong +that belongs to you, that it can only be I that am in the wrong chair to +keep you from the right one."' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, ii. 345. + +[717] His Lordship was soon after chosen, and is now a member of THE +CLUB. BOSWELL. He was father of the future prime-minister, who was born +in the following year. + +[718] He wrote on June 23:--'What man can do for man has been done for +me.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.278. Murphy (_Life_, p. 121) says that, +visiting him during illness, he found him reading Dr. Watson's +_Chymistry_ (_ante_, p. 118). 'Articulating with difficulty he +said:--"From this book he who knows nothing may learn a great deal, and +he who knows will be pleased to find his knowledge recalled to his mind +in a manner highly pleasing."' + +[719] 'I have, by the migration of one of my ladies, more peace at home; +but I remember an old savage chief that says of the Romans with great +indignation-_ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant_ [_Tacitus, +Agricola_, c. xxx]. _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 259. + +[720] 'July 23. I have been thirteen days at Rochester, and am just now +returned. I came back by water in a common boat twenty miles for a +shilling, and when I landed at Billingsgate, I carried my budget myself +to Cornhill before I could get a coach, and was not much incommoded' +_Ib_. ii.294. See _ante_, iv.8, 22, for mention of Rochester. + +[721] Murphy (_Life_, p. 121) says that Johnson visited Oxford this +summer. Perhaps he was misled by a passage in the _Piozzi Letters_ (ii. +302) where Johnson is made to write:--'At Oxford I have just left +Wheeler.' For _left_ no doubt should be read _lost_. Wheeler died on +July 22 of this year. _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p. 629. + +[722] This house would be interesting to Johnson, as in it Charles II, +'for whom he had an extraordinary partiality' (_ante_, ii. 341), lay hid +for some days after the battle of Worcester. Clarendon (vi. 540) +describes it 'as a house that stood alone from neighbours and from any +highway.' Charles was lodged 'in a little room, which had been made +since the beginning of the troubles for the concealment of delinquents.' + +[723] 'I told Dr. Johnson I had heard that Mr. Bowles was very much +delighted with the expectation of seeing him, and he answered me:--"He +is so delighted that it is shocking. It is really shocking to see how +high are his expectations." I asked him why, and he said:--"Why, if any +man is expected to take a leap of twenty yards, and does actually take +one of ten, everybody will be disappointed, though ten yards may be more +than any other man ever leaped."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.260. On +Oct. 9, he wrote:--'Two nights ago Mr. Burke sat with me a long time. +We had both seen Stonehenge this summer for the first time.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii.315. + +[724] Salisbury is eighty-two miles from Cornhill by the old coach-road. +Johnson seems to have been nearly fifteen hours on the journey. + +[725] 'Aug. 13, 1783. I am now broken with disease, without the +alleviation of familiar friendship or domestic society. I have no middle +state between clamour and silence, between general conversation and +self-tormenting solitude. Levett is dead, and poor Williams is making +haste to die.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.301. 'Aug. 20. This has been a day +of great emotion; the office of the Communion of the Sick has been +performed in poor Mrs. Williams's chamber.' _Ib_. 'Sept. 22. Poor +Williams has, I hope, seen the end of her afflictions. She acted with +prudence and she bore with fortitude. She has left me. + + "Thou thy weary [worldly] task hast done, + Home art gone and ta'en thy wages." + + [_Cymbeline_, act iv. sc. 2.] + +Had she had good humour and prompt elocution, her universal curiosity +and comprehensive knowledge would have made her the delight of all that +knew her.' _Ib_. p. 311. + +[726] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 354) described in 1756 such a companion as +he found in Mrs. Williams. He quotes Pope's _Epitaph on Mrs. Corbet_, +and continues:--'I have always considered this as the most valuable of +all Pope's epitaphs; the subject of it is a character not discriminated +by any shining or eminent peculiarities; yet that which really makes, +though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every +wise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languor +of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs, weary and disgusted, +from the ostentatious, the volatile and the vain. Of such a character +which the dull overlook, and the gay despise, it was fit that the value +should be made known, and the dignity established.' See _ante_, i.232. + +[727] _Pr. and Med_. p. 226. BOSWELL. + +[728] I conjecture that Mr. Bowles is the friend. The account follows +close on the visit to his house, and contains a mention of Johnson's +attendance at a lecture at Salisbury. + +[729] A writer in _Notes and Queries_, 1st S. xii. 149, says:--'Mr. +Bowles had married a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, viz. Dinah, the +fourth daughter of Sir Thomas Frankland, and highly valued himself upon +this connection with the Protector.' He adds that Mr. Bowles was an +active Whig. + +[730] Mr. Malone observes, 'This, however, was certainly a mistake, as +appears from the _Memoirs_ published by Mr. Noble. Had Johnson been +furnished with the materials which the industry of that gentleman has +procured, and with others which, it it is believed, are yet preserved in +manuscript, he would, without doubt, have produced a most valuable and +curious history of Cromwell's life.' BOSWELL. + +[731] See _ante_, ii.358, note 3. + +[732] _Short Notes for Civil Conversation_. Spedding's _Bacon_, vii.109. + +[733] 'When I took up his _Life of Cowley_, he made me put it away to +talk. I could not help remarking how very like he is to his writing, and +how much the same thing it was to hear or to read him; but that nobody +could tell that without coming to Streatham, for his language was +generally imagined to be laboured and studied, instead of the mere +common flow of his thoughts. "Very true," said Mrs. Thrale, "he writes +and talks with the same ease, and in the same manner."' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, i. 120. What a different account is this from that given by +Macaulay:--'When he talked he clothed his wit and his sense in forcible +and natural expressions. As soon as he took his pen in his hand to write +for the public, his style became systematically vicious.' Macaulay's +_Essays_, edit. 1843, i.404. See _ante_, ii.96, note; iv.183; and +_post_, the end of the vol. + +[734] See _ante_, ii.125, iii.254, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 14. + +[735] Hume said:--'The French have more real politeness, and the English +the better method of expressing it. By real politeness I mean softness +of temper, and a sincere inclination to oblige and be serviceable, which +is very conspicuous in this nation, not only among the high, but low; in +so much that the porters and coachmen here are civil, and that, not only +to gentlemen, but likewise among themselves.' J.H. Burton's _Hume_, +i. 53. + +[736] This is the third time that Johnson's disgust at this practice is +recorded. See _ante_, ii.403, and iii.352. + +[737] See _ante_, iii.398, note 3. + +[738] 'Sept. 22, 1783. The chymical philosophers have discovered a body +(which I have forgotten, but will enquire) which, dissolved by an acid, +emits a vapour lighter than the atmospherical air. This vapour is +caught, among other means, by tying a bladder compressed upon the body +in which the dissolution is performed; the vapour rising swells the +bladder and fills it. _Piozzi Letters_, ii.310. The 'body' was +iron-filings, the acid sulphuric acid, and the vapour nitrogen. The +other 'new kinds of air' were the gases discovered by Priestley. + +[739] I do not wonder at Johnson's displeasure when the name of Dr. +Priestley was mentioned; for I know no writer who has been suffered to +publish more pernicious doctrines. I shall instance only three. First, +_Materialism_; by which _mind_ is denied to human nature; which, if +believed, must deprive us of every elevated principle. Secondly, +_Necessity_; or the doctrine that every action, whether good or bad, is +included in an unchangeable and unavoidable system; a notion utterly +subversive of moral government. Thirdly, that we have no reason to think +that the _future_ world, (which, as he is pleased to _inform_ us, will +be adapted to our _merely improved_ nature,) will be materially +different from _this_; which, if believed, would sink wretched mortals +into despair, as they could no longer hope for the 'rest that remaineth +for the people of GOD' [_Hebrews_, iv.9], or for that happiness which is +revealed to us as something beyond our present conceptions; but would +feel themselves doomed to a continuation of the uneasy state under which +they now groan. I say nothing of the petulant intemperance with which he +dares to insult the venerable establishments of his country. + +As a specimen of his writings, I shall quote the following passage, +which appears to me equally absurd and impious, and which might have +been retorted upon him by the men who were prosecuted for burning his +house. 'I cannot, (says he,) as a _necessarian_, [meaning +_necessitarian_] hate _any man_; because I consider him as _being_, in +all respects, just what GOD has _made him to be_; and also as _doing +with respect to me_, nothing but what he was _expressly designed_ and +_appointed_ to do; GOD being the _only cause_, and men nothing more than +the _instruments_ in his hands to _execute all his pleasure_.'-- +_Illustrations of Philosophical Necessity_, p. 111. + +The Reverend Dr. Parr, in a late tract, appears to suppose that _'Dr. +Johnson not only endured, but almost solicited, an interview with Dr. +Priestley_. In justice to Dr. Johnson, I declare my firm belief that he +never did. My illustrious friend was particularly resolute in not giving +countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to +society. I was present at Oxford when Dr. Price, even before he had +rendered himself so generally obnoxious by his zeal for the French +Revolution, came into a company where Johnson was, who instantly left +the room. Much more would he have reprobated Dr. Priestley. Whoever +wishes to see a perfect delineation of this _Literary Jack of all +Trades_, may find it in an ingenious tract, entitled, 'A SMALL +WHOLE-LENGTH OF DR. PRIESTLEY,' printed for Rivingtons, in St. Paul's +Church-Yard. BOSWELL. See Appendix B. + +[740] Burke said, 'I have learnt to think _better_ of mankind.' _Ante_, +iii.236. + +[741] He wrote to his servant Frank from Heale on Sept. l6:--'As +Thursday [the 18th] is my birthday I would have a little dinner got, and +would have you invite Mrs. Desmoulins, Mrs. Davis that was about Mrs. +Williams, and Mr. Allen, and Mrs. Gardiner.' Croker's _Boswell_, p.739. +See _ante_, iii.157, note 3. + +[742] Dr. Burney had just lost Mr. Bewley, 'the Broom Gentleman' +(_ante_, p. 134), and Mr. Crisp. Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, ii.323, 352. +For Mr. Crisp, see Macaulay's _Review_ of Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary. +Essays_, ed. 1874, iv.104. + +[743] He wrote of her to Mrs. Montagu:--'Her curiosity was universal, +her knowledge was very extensive, and she sustained forty years of +misery with steady fortitude. Thirty years and more she had been my +companion, and her death has left me very desolate.' Croker's _Boswell_, +p. 739. This letter brought to a close his quarrel with Mrs. Montagu +(_ante_, p. 64). + +[744] On Sept. 22 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'If excision should be +delayed, there is danger of a gangrene. You would not have me for fear +of pain perish in putrescence. I shall, I hope, with trust in eternal +mercy, lay hold of the possibility of life which yet remains.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii.312. + +[745] Rather more than seven years ago. _Ante_, ii.82, note 2. + +[746] Mrs. Anna Williams. BOSWELL. + +[747] See _ante_, p. 163, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov 2. + +[748] Dated Oct. 27. _Piozzi Letters_, ii.321. + +[749] According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Letters_, ii.387), he said to Mrs. +Siddons:--'You see, Madam, wherever you go there are no seats to be +got.' Sir Joshua also paid her a fine compliment. 'He never marked his +own name [on a picture],' says Northcote, 'except in the instance of +Mrs. Siddons's portrait as the Tragic Muse, when he wrote his name upon +the hem of her garment. "I could not lose," he said, "the honour this +opportunity offered to me for my name going down to posterity on the hem +of your garment."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 246. In Johnson's _Works_, +ed. 1787, xi. 207, we read that 'he said of Mrs. Siddons that she +appeared to him to be one of the few persons that the two great +corrupters of mankind, money and reputation, had not spoiled.' + +[750] 'Indeed, Dr. Johnson,' said Miss Monckton, 'you _must_ see Mrs. +Siddons.' 'Well, Madam, if you desire it, I will go. See her I shall +not, nor hear her; but I'll go, and that will do.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, ii. 198. + +[751] 'Mrs. Porter, the tragedian, was so much the favourite of her +time, that she was welcomed on the stage when she trod it by the help of +a stick.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 319. + +[752] He said:--'Mrs. Clive was the best player I ever saw.' Boswell's +_Hebrides, post_, v. 126. See _ante_, p. 7. She was for many years the +neighbour and friend of Horace Walpole. + +[753] She acted the heroine in _Irene. Ante_, i. 197. 'It is wonderful +how little mind she had,' he once said. _Ante_, ii. 348. See Boswell's +_Hebrides, post_, v. 126. + +[754] See _ante_, iii. 183. + +[755] See ante, iii. 184. + +[756] 'Garrick's great distinction is his universality,' Johnson said. +'He can represent all modes of life, but that of an easy, fine-bred +gentleman.' Boswell's _Hebrides, post_, v. 126. See _ante_, iii. 35. +Horace Walpole wrote of Garrick in 1765 (_Letters_, iv. 335):--'Several +actors have pleased me more, though I allow not in so many parts. Quin +in Falstaff was as excellent as Garrick in _Lear_. Old Johnson far more +natural in everything he attempted; Mrs. Porter surpassed him in +passionate tragedy. Cibber and O'Brien were what Garrick could never +reach, coxcombs and men of fashion. Mrs. Clive is at least as perfect in +low comedy.' + +[757] See _ante_, ii. 465. + +[758] Mr. Kemble told Mr. Croker that 'Mrs. Siddons's pathos in the last +scene of _The Stranger_ quite overcame him, but he always endeavoured to +restrain any impulses which might interfere with his previous study of +his part.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 742. Diderot, writing of the +qualifications of a great actor, says:--'Je lui veux beaucoup de +jugement; je le veux spectateur froid et tranquille de la nature +humaine; qu'il ait par consequent beaucoup de finesse, mais nulle +sensibilite, ou, ce qui est la meme chose, l'art de tout imiter, et une +egale aptitude a toutes sortes de caracteres et de roles; s'il etait +sensible, il lui serait impossible de jouer dix fois de suite le meme +role avec la meme chaleur et le meme succes; tres chaud a la premiere +representation, il serait epuise et froid comme le marble a la +troisieme,' &c. Diderot's _Works_ (ed. 1821), iii. 274. See Boswell's +_Hebrides, post_, v. 46. + +[759] My worthy friend, Mr. John Nichols, was present when Mr. +Henderson, the actor, paid a visit to Dr. Johnson; and was received in a +very courteous manner. See _Gent. Mag_. June, 1791. + +I found among Dr. Johnson's papers, the following letter to him, from +the celebrated Mrs. Bellamy [_ante_, i. 326]:-- + +'To DR. JOHNSON. + +'SIR, + +'The flattering remembrance of the partiality you honoured me with, some +years ago, as well as the humanity you are known to possess, has +encouraged me to solicit your patronage at my Benefit. + +'By a long Chancery suit, and a complicated train of unfortunate events, +I am reduced to the greatest distress; which obliges me, once more, to +request the indulgence of the publick. + +'Give me leave to solicit the honour of your company, and to assure you, +if you grant my request, the gratification I shall feel, from being +patronized by Dr. Johnson, will be infinitely superiour to any advantage +that may arise from the Benefit; as I am, with the profoundest +respect, Sir, + +'Your most obedient, humble servant, G. A. BELLAMY. No. 10 Duke-street, +St. James's, May 11, 1783.' + +I am happy in recording these particulars, which prove that my +illustrious friend lived to think much more favourably of Players than +he appears to have done in the early part of his life. BOSWELL. Mr. +Nichols, describing Henderson's visit to Johnson, says:--'The +conversation turning on the merits of a certain dramatic writer, Johnson +said: "I never did the man an injury; but he would persist in reading +his tragedy to me."' _Gent. Mag_: 1791, p. 500. + +[760] _Piozzi Letters_, vol. ii. p. 328. BOSWELL. + +[761] _Piozzi Letters_, vol. ii. p. 342. BOSWELL. The letter to Miss +Thrale was dated Nov. 18. Johnson wrote on Dec. l3:--'You must all guess +again at my friend. It was not till Dec. 31 that he told the name. + +[762] Miss Burney, who visited him on this day, records:--'He was, if +possible, more instructive, entertaining, good-humoured, and exquisitely +fertile than ever.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 284. The day before he +wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's little daughters:--'I live here by my own +self, and have had of late very bad nights; but then I have had a pig to +dinner which Mr. Perkins gave me. Thus life is chequered.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 327. + +[763] See _ante_, i. 242. + +[764] See _ante_, i. 242. + +[765] Nos. 26 and 29. + +[766] _Piozzi Letters_, i. 334. See _ante_, p. 75. + +[767] He strongly opposed the war with America, and was one of Dr. +Franklin's friends. Franklin's _Memoirs_, ed. 1818, iii. 108. + +[768] It was of this tragedy that the following story is told in +Rogers's _Table-Talk_, p. 177:--'Lord Shelburne could say the most +provoking things, and yet appear quite unconscious of their being so. In +one of his speeches, alluding to Lord Carlisle, he said:--"The noble +Lord has written a comedy." "No, a tragedy." "Oh, I beg pardon; I +thought it was a comedy."' See _ante_, p. 113. Pope, writing to Mr. +Cromwell on Aug. 19, 1709, says:--'One might ask the same question of a +modern life, that Rich did of a modern play: "Pray do me the favour, +Sir, to inform me is this your tragedy or your comedy?"' Pope's _Works_, +ed. 1812, vi. 81. + +[769] Mrs. Chapone, when she was Miss Mulso, had written 'four billets +in _The Rambler_, No. 10.' _Ante_, i. 203. She was one of the literary +ladies who sat at Richardson's feet. Wraxall (_Memoirs_, ed. 1815, i. +155) says that 'under one of the most repulsive exteriors that any woman +ever possessed she concealed very superior attainments and extensive +knowledge.' Just as Mrs. Carter was often called 'the learned Mrs. +Carter,' so Mrs. Chapone was known as 'the admirable Mrs. Chapone.' + +[770] See _ante_, iii. 373. + +[771] A few copies only of this tragedy have been printed, and given to +the authour's friends. BOSWELL. + +[772] Dr. Johnson having been very ill when the tragedy was first sent +to him, had declined the consideration of it. BOSWELL. + +[773] Johnson refers, I suppose, to a passage in Dryden which he quotes +in his _Dictionary_ under _mechanick_:--'Many a fair precept in poetry +is like a seeming demonstration in mathematicks, very specious in the +diagram, but failing in the mechanick operation.' + +[774] + + 'I could have borne my woes; that stranger Joy + Wounds while it smiles:--The long imprison'd wretch, + Emerging from the night of his damp cell, + Shrinks from the sun's bright beams; and that which flings + Gladness o'er all, to him is agony.' BOSWELL. + +[775] Lord Cockburn (_Life of Lord Jeffrey_, i. 74) describing the +representation of Scotland towards the close of last century, and in +fact till the Reform Bill of 1832, says:--'There were probably not above +1500 or 2000 county electors in all Scotland; a body not too large to be +held, hope included, in Government's hand. The election of either the +town or the county member was a matter of such utter indifference to the +people, that they often only knew of it by the ringing of a bell, or by +seeing it mentioned next day in a newspaper.' + +[776] Six years later, when he was _Praeses_ of the Quarter-Sessions, he +carried up to London an address to be presented to the Prince of Wales. +'This,' he wrote, 'will add something to my _conspicuousness_. Will that +word do?' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 295. + +[777] This part of this letter was written, as Johnson goes on to say, a +considerable time before the conclusion. The Coalition Ministry, which +was suddenly dismissed by the King on Dec. 19, was therefore still in +power. Among Boswell's 'friends' was Burke. See _ante_, p. 223. + +[778] On Nov. 22 he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'I feel the weight of solitude +very pressing; after a night of broken and uncomfortable slumber I rise +to a solitary breakfast, and sit down in the evening with no companion. +Sometimes, however, I try to read more and more.' _Notes and Queries_, +6th S. v. 482. On Dec. 27 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You have more than +once wondered at my complaint of solitude, when you hear that I am +crowded with visits. _Inopem me copia fecit_. Visitors are no proper +companions in the chamber of sickness. They come when I could sleep or +read, they stay till I am weary.... The amusements and consolations of +langour and depression are conferred by familiar and domestick +companions, which can be visited or called at will.... Such society I +had with Levett and Williams; such I had where I am never likely to have +it more.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 341. + +[779] The confusion arising from the sudden dismissal of a Ministry +which commanded a large majority in the House of Commons had been +increased by the resignation, on Dec. 22, of Earl Temple, three days +after his appointment as Secretary of State. _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 238. + +[780] 'News I know none,' wrote Horace Walpole on Dec. 30, 1783 +(_Letters_, viii. 447), 'but that they are crying Peerages about the +streets in barrows, and can get none off.' Thirty-three peerages were +made in the next three years. (_Whitaker's Almanac_, 1886, p. 463.) +Macaulay tells how this December 'a troop of Lords of the Bedchamber, of +Bishops who wished to be translated, and of Scotch peers who wished to +be reelected made haste to change sides.' Macaulay's _Writings and +Speeches_, ed. 1871, p. 407. + +[781] See _ante_, ii. 182. He died Oct. 28, 1788. + +[782]'Prince Henry was the first encourager of remote navigation. What +mankind has lost and gained by the genius and designs of this prince it +would be long to compare, and very difficult to estimate. Much knowledge +has been acquired, and much cruelty been committed; the belief of +religion has been very little propagated, and its laws have been +outrageously and enormously violated. The Europeans have scarcely +visited any coast but to gratify avarice, and extend corruption; to +arrogate dominion without right, and practise cruelty without incentive. +Happy had it then been for the oppressed, if the designs of Henry had +slept in his bosom, and surely more happy for the oppressors.' Johnson's +_Works_, v. 219. See _ante_, ii. 478. + +[783] 'The author himself,' wrote Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 220), 'is +the best judge of his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated on +the subject; no one is so sincerely interested in the event.' + +[784] Mickle, speaking in the third person as the Translator, says:-- +'He is happy to be enabled to add Dr. Johnson to the number of those +whose kindness for the man, and good wishes for the Translation, call +for his sincerest gratitude.' Mickle's _Lusiad_, p. ccxxv. + +[785] A brief record, it should seem, is given, _ante_, iii. 37. + +[786] See _ante_, iii. 106, 214. + +[787] The author of _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr, Johnson_ +says (p. 153) that it was Johnson who determined Shaw to undertake this +work. 'Sir,' he said, 'if you give the world a vocabulary of that +language, while the island of Great Britain stands in the Atlantic Ocean +your name will be mentioned.' On p. 156 is a letter by Johnson +introducing Shaw to a friend. + +[788] 'Why is not the original deposited in some publick library?' he +asked. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 10. + +[789] See ante, i. 190. + +[790] See Appendix C. + +[791] 'Dec. 27, 1873. The wearisome solitude of the long evenings did +indeed suggest to me the convenience of a club in my neighbourhood, but +I have been hindered from attending it by want of breath.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 340. 'Dec. 31. I have much need of entertainment; +spiritless, infirm, sleepless, and solitary, looking back with sorrow +and forward with terrour.' _Ib_, p. 343. + +[792] '"I think," said Mr. Cambridge, "it sounds more like some club +that one reads of in _The Spectator_ than like a real club in these +times; for the forfeits of a whole year will not amount to those of a +single night in other clubs."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 290. Mr. +Cambridge was thinking of the Two-penny Club. _Spectator_, No. ix. + +[793] I was in Scotland when this Club was founded, and during all the +winter. Johnson, however, declared I should be a member, and invented a +word upon the occasion: 'Boswell (said he) is a very _clubable_ man.' +When I came to town I was proposed by Mr. Barrington, and chosen. I +believe there are few societies where there is better conversation or +more decorum. Several of us resolved to continue it after our great +founder was removed by death. Other members were added; and now, above +eight years since that loss, we go on happily. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker says +'Johnson had already invented _unclubable_ for Sir J. Hawkins,' and +refers to a note by Dr. Burney (_ante_, i. 480, note I), in which +Johnson is represented as saying of Hawkins, while he was still a member +of the Literary Club:--'Sir John, Sir, is a very unclubable man.' But, +as Mr. Croker points out (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 164), 'Hawkins was not +knighted till long after he had left the club.' The anecdote, being +proved to be inaccurate in one point, may be inaccurate in another, and +may therefore belong to a much later date. + +[794] See Appendix D. + +[795] Ben Jonson wrote _Leges Convivales_ that were 'engraven in marble +over the chimney in the Apollo of the Old Devil Tavern, Temple Bar; that +being his Club Room.' Jonson's _Works_, ed. 1756, vii. 291. + +[796] RULES. + + 'To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench + In mirth, which after no repenting draws.'--MILTON. + + ['To-day deep thoughts _resolve with me_ to drench + In mirth _that_, &c.' _Sonnets_, xxi.] + +'The Club shall consist of four-and-twenty. + +'The meetings shall be on the Monday, Thursday, and Saturday of every +week; but in the week before Easter there shall be no meeting. + +'Every member is at liberty to introduce a friend once a week, but not +oftener. + +'Two members shall oblige themselves to attend in their turn every night +from eight to ten, or to procure two to attend in their room. + +'Every member present at the Club shall spend at least sixpence; and +every member who stays away shall forfeit three-pence. + +'The master of the house shall keep an account of the absent members; +and deliver to the President of the night a list of the +forfeits incurred. + +'When any member returns after absence, he shall immediately lay down +his forfeits; which if he omits to do, the President shall require. + +'There shall be no general reckoning, but every man shall adjust his own +expences. + +'The night of indispensable attendance will come to every member once a +month. Whoever shall for three months together omit to attend himself, +or by substitution, nor shall make any apology in the fourth month, +shall be considered as having abdicated the Club. + +'When a vacancy is to be filled, the name of the candidate, and of the +member recommending him, shall stand in the Club-room three nights. On +the fourth he may be chosen by ballot; six members at least being +present, and two-thirds of the ballot being in his favour; or the +majority, should the numbers not be divisible by three. + +'The master of the house shall give notice, six days before, to each of +those members whose turn of necessary attendance is come. + +'The notice may be in these words:--"Sir, On ---- the ---- of ---- -- +will be your turn of presiding at the Essex-Head. Your company is +therefore earnestly requested." + +'One penny shall be left by each member for the waiter.' + +Johnson's definition of a Club in this sense, in his _Dictionary_, is, +'An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.' BOSWELL. + +[797] She had left him in the summer (_ante_, p. 233), but perhaps she +had returned. + +[798] He received many acts of kindness from outside friends. On Dec. 31 +he wrote:--'I have now in the house pheasant, venison, turkey, and ham, +all unbought. Attention and respect give pleasure, however late or +however useless. But they are not useless when they are late; it is +reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been +spent with the approbation of mankind.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 343. + +[799] 'Dec. 16, 1783. I spent the afternoon with Dr. Johnson, who indeed +is very ill, and whom I could hardly tell how to leave. He was very, +very kind. Oh! what a cruel, heavy loss will he be! Dec. 30. I went to +Dr. Johnson, and spent the evening with him. He was very indifferent +indeed. There were some very disagreeable people with him; and he once +affected me very much by turning suddenly to me, and grasping my hand +and saying:--"The blister I have tried for my breath has betrayed some +very bad tokens; but I will not terrify myself by talking of them. Ah! +_priez Dieu pour moi_."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 293, 5. 'I +snatch,' he wrote a few weeks later, 'every lucid interval, and animate +myself with such amusements as the time offers.' _Piozzi Letters_, +ii. 349. + +[800] He had written to her on Nov. 10. See Croker's _Boswell_, p. 742. + +[801] Hawkins (_Life_, 562) says that this November Johnson said to +him:--'What a man am I, who have got the better of three diseases, the +palsy, the gout, and the asthma, and can now enjoy the conversation of +my friends, without the interruptions of weakness or pain.' + +[802] 'The street [on London Bridge], which, before the houses fell to +decay, consisted of handsome lofty edifices, pretty regularly built, was +20 feet broad, and the houses on each side generally 26-1/2 feet deep.' +After 1746 no more leases were granted, and the houses were allowed to +run to ruin. In 1756-7 they were all taken down. Dodsley's _London and +its Environs_, ed. 1761, iv. 136-143. + +[803] In Lowndes's _Bibl. Man_. i. 328 is given a list of nearly fifty +of these books. Some of them were reprinted by Stace in 1810-13 in 6 +vols. quarto. Dr. Franklin, writing of the books that he bought in his +boyhood says:--'My first acquisition was Bunyan's works in separate +little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's +_Historical Collections_; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap. +Forty volumes in all.' Franklin's _Memoirs_, i. 17. + +[804] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale this same day:--'Alas, I had no sleep last +night, and sit now panting over my paper. _Dabit Deus his quoque finem.' +['This too the Gods shall end.' MORRIS, Virgil, _Aeneids_, 1.199.] +_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 347. + +[805] Boswell's purpose in this _Letter_ was to recommend the Scotch to +address the King to express their satisfaction that the East India +Company Bill had been rejected by the House of Lords. _Ib_. p. 39. 'Let +us,' he writes, 'upon this awful occasion think only of _property_ and +_constitution_;' p. 42. 'Let me add,' he says in concluding, 'that a +dismission of the Portland Administration will probably disappoint an +object which I have most ardently at heart;' p. 42. He was thinking no +doubt of his 'expectations from the interest of an eminent person then +in power' (ante, p. 223.) + +[806] On p. 4 Boswell condemns the claim of Parliament to tax the +American colonies as 'unjust and inexpedient.' 'This claim,' he says, +'was almost universally approved of in Scotland, where due consideration +was had of the advantage of raising regiments.' He continues:--'When +pleading at the bar of the House of Commons in a question concerning +taxation, I avowed that opinion, declaring that the man in the world for +whom I have the highest respect (Dr. Johnson) had not been able to +convince me that _Taxation was no Tyranny_.' + +[807] Boswell wrote to Reynolds on Feb. 6:--'I intend to be in London +next month, chiefly to attend upon Dr. Johnson with respectful +affection.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 748. + +[808] 'I have really hope from spring,' he wrote on Jan. 21, 'and am +ready, like Almanzor, to bid the sun _fly swiftly_, and _leave weeks and +months behind him_. The sun has looked for six thousand years upon the +world to little purpose, if he does not know that a sick man is almost +as impatient as a lover.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 347. Almanzor's speech +is at the end of Dryden's _Conquest of Granada_:-- + + 'Move swiftly, Sun, and fly a lover's pace; + Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race.' + +See _ante_, i. 332, where Johnson said, 'This distinction of seasons is +produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance every +day is bright,' and _post_, Aug. 2, 1784. + +[809] He died in the following August at Dover, on his way home. +Walpole's _Letters_, viii. 494. See _ante_, iii. 250, 336, and _post_, +Aug. 19, 1784. + +[810] On the last day of the old year he wrote:--'To any man who extends +his thoughts to national consideration, the times are dismal and gloomy. +But to a sick man, what is the publick?' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 344. + +The original of the following note is in the admirable collection of +autographs belonging to my friend, Mr. M. M. Holloway:-- + +'TO THE REV. DR. TAYLOR, + +'in Ashbourne, + +'Derbyshire. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I am still confined to the house, and one of my amusements is to write +letters to my friends, though they, being busy in the common scenes of +life, are not equally diligent in writing to me. Dr. Heberden was with +me two or three days ago, and told me that nothing ailed me, which I was +glad to hear, though I knew it not to be true. My nights are restless, +my breath is difficult, and my lower parts continue tumid. + +'The struggle, you see, still continues between the two sets of +ministers: those that are _out_ and _in_ one can scarce call them, for +who is _out_ or _in_ is perhaps four times a day a new question. The +tumult in government is, I believe, excessive, and the efforts of each +party outrageously violent, with very little thought on any national +interest, at a time when we have all the world for our enemies, when the +King and parliament have lost even the titular dominion of America, and +the real power of Government every where else. Thus Empires are broken +down when the profits of administration are so great, that ambition is +satisfied with obtaining them, and he that aspires to greatness needs do +nothing more than talk himself into importance. He has then all the +power which danger and conquest used formerly to give; he can raise a +family and reward his followers. + +'Mr. Burke has just sent me his Speech upon the affairs of India, a +volume of above a hundred pages closely printed. I will look into it; +but my thoughts seldom now travel to great distances. + +'I would gladly know when you think to come hither, and whether this +year you will come or no. If my life be continued, I know not well how I +shall bestow myself. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your affectionate &c., + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, Jan. 24, 1784.' + +[811] See _post_, v. 48. + +[812] See _post_, p. 271. + +[813] I sent it to Mr. Pitt, with a letter, in which I thus expressed +myself:--'My principles may appear to you too monarchical: but I know +and am persuaded, they are not inconsistent with the true principles of +liberty. Be this as it may, you, Sir, are now the Prime Minister, called +by the Sovereign to maintain the rights of the Crown, as well as those +of the people, against a violent faction. As such, you are entitled to +the warmest support of every good subject in every department.' He +answered:--'I am extremely obliged to you for the sentiments you do me +the honour to express, and have observed with great pleasure the +_zealous and able support_ given to the CAUSE OF THE PUBLICK in the work +you were so good to transmit to me.' BOSWELL. Five years later, and two +years before _The Life of Johnson_ was published, Boswell wrote to +Temple:--'As to Pitt, he is an insolent fellow, but so able, that upon +the whole I must support him against the _Coalition_; but I will _work_ +him, for he has behaved very ill to me. Can he wonder at my wishing for +preferment, when men of the first family and fortune in England struggle +for it?' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 295. Warburton said of Helvetius, whom +he disliked, that, if he had met him, 'he would have _worked_ him.' +Walpole's _Letters_, iv. 217. + +[814] Out of this offer, and one of a like nature made in 1779 (_ante_, +iii. 418), Mr. Croker weaves a vast web of ridiculous suspicions. + +[815] From his garden at Prestonfield, where he cultivated that plant +with such success, that he was presented with a gold medal by the +Society of London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and +Commerce. BOSWELL. + +[816] In the original _effusion_. Johnson's _Works_, vii. 402. + +[817] Who had written him a very kind letter. BOSWELL. + +[818] On Jan. 12 the Ministry had been in a minority of 39 in a House of +425; on March 8 the minority was reduced to one in a House of 381. +Parliament was dissolved on the 25th. In the first division in the new +Parliament the Ministry were in a majority of 97 in a House of 369. +_Parl. Hist._ xxiv. 299, 744, 829. + +[819] See _ante_, p. 241. + +[820] 'In old Aberdeen stands the King's College, of which the first +president was Hector Boece, or Boethius, who may be justly reverenced as +one of the revivers of elegant learning.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 11. + +[821] See _ante_, iii. 104. + +[822] In his dining-room, no doubt, among 'the very respectable people' +whose portraits hung there. _Ante_, p. 203, note. + +[823] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 466) wrote on March 30:--'The +nation is intoxicated, and has poured in Addresses of Thanks to the +Crown for exerting the prerogative _against_ the palladium of +the people.' + +[824] The election lasted from April 1 to May 16. Fox was returned +second on the poll. _Ann. Reg._ xxvii. 190. + +[825] He was returned also for Kirkwall, for which place he sat for +nearly a year, while the scrutiny of the Westminster election was +dragging on. _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 799. + +[826] Hannah More wrote on March 8 (_Memoirs_, i. 310):--'I am sure you +will honour Mr. Langton, when I tell you he is come on purpose to stay +with Dr. Johnson, and that during his illness. He has taken a little +lodging in Fleet-street in order to be near, to devote himself to him. +He has as much goodness as learning, and that is saying a bold thing of +one of the first Greek scholars we have.' + +[827] Floyer was the Lichfield physician on whose advice Johnson was +'_touched_' by Queen Anne. _Ante_, i. 42, 91, and _post_, July 20, 1784. + +[828] To which Johnson returned this answer:-- + +'TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL OF PORTMORE. + +'Dr. Johnson acknowledges with great respect the honour of Lord +Portmore's notice. He is better than he was; and will, as his Lordship +directs, write to Mr. Langton. + +'Bolt-court, Fleet-street, + +April 13, 1784.' + +BOSWELL. Johnson here assumes his title of Doctor, which Boswell says +(_ante_, ii. 332, note 1), so far as he knew, he never did. Perhaps the +letter has been wrongly copied, or perhaps Johnson thought that, in +writing to a man of title, he ought to assume such title as he +himself had. + +[829] The eminent painter, representative of the ancient family of +Homfrey (now Humphry) in the west of England; who, as appears from their +arms which they have invariably used, have been, (as I have seen +authenticated by the best authority,) one of those among the Knights and +Esquires of honour who are represented by Holinshed as having issued +from the Tower of London on coursers apparelled for the justes, +accompanied by ladies of honour, leading every one a Knight, with a +chain of gold, passing through the streets of London into Smithfield, on +Sunday, at three o'clock in the afternoon, being the first Sunday after +Michaelmas, in the fourteenth year of King Richard the Second. This +family once enjoyed large possessions, but, like others, have lost them +in the progress of ages. Their blood, however, remains to them well +ascertained; and they may hope in the revolution of events, to recover +that rank in society for which, in modern times, fortune seems to be an +indispensable requisite. BOSWELL. + +[830] Son of Mr. Samuel Paterson. BOSWELL. In the first two editions +after 'Paterson' is added 'eminent for his knowledge of books.' See +_ante_, iii. 90. + +[831] Humphry, on his first coming to London, poor and unfriended, was +helped by Reynolds. Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 174. + +[832] On April 21 he wrote:--'After a confinement of 129 days, more than +the third part of a year, and no inconsiderable part of human life, I +this day returned thanks to God in St. Clement's Church for my +recovery.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 365. + +[833] On April 26 he wrote:--'On Saturday I showed myself again to the +living world at the Exhibition; much and splendid was the company, but +like the Doge of Genoa at Paris [Versailles, Voltaire, _Siecle de Louis +XIV_, chap, xiv.], I admired nothing but myself. I went up the stairs to +the pictures without stopping to rest or to breathe, + + "In all the madness of superfluous health." + +[Pope's _Essay on Man_, iii. 3.] The Prince of Wales had promised to be +there; but when we had waited an hour and a half, sent us word that he +could not come.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 367. 'The first Gentleman in +Europe' was twenty-one years old when he treated men like Johnson and +Reynolds with this insolence. Mr. Forster (_Life of Goldsmith_, ii. 244) +says that it was at this very dinner that 'Johnson left his seat by +desire of the Prince of Wales, and went to the head of the table to be +introduced.' He does not give his authority for the statement. + +[834] Mr. Croker wrote in 1847 that he had 'seen it very lately framed +and glazed, in possession of the lady to whom it was addressed.' +Croker's _Boswell_, p. 753. + +[835] Shortly before he begged one of Mrs. Thrale's daughters 'never to +think that she had arithmetic enough.' _Ante_, p. 171, note 3. See +_ante_, iii. 207, note 3. + +[836] Cowper wrote on May 10 to the Rev. John Newton:--'We rejoice in +the account you give us of Dr. Johnson. His conversion will indeed be a +singular proof of the omnipotence of Grace; and the more singular, the +more decided.' Southey's _Cowper_, xv. 150. Johnson, in a prayer that he +wrote on April 11, said:--'Enable me, O Lord, to glorify Thee for that +knowledge of my corruption, and that sense of Thy wrath, which my +disease and weakness and danger awakened in my mind.' _Pr. and Med._ +p. 217. + +[837] Mr. Croker suggests _immediate_. + +[838] 'The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.' +_St. James_, v. 16. + +[839] Upon this subject there is a very fair and judicious remark in the +life of Dr. Abernethy, in the first edition of the _Biographia +Britannica_, which I should have been glad to see in his life which has +been written for the second edition of that valuable work. 'To deny the +exercise of a particular providence in the Deity's government of the +world is certainly impious: yet nothing serves the cause of the scorner +more than an incautious forward zeal in determining the particular +instances of it.' + +In confirmation of my sentiments, I am also happy to quote that sensible +and elegant writer Mr. _Melmoth_ [see _ante_, iii. 422], in Letter VIII. +of his collection, published under the name of _Fitzosborne_. 'We may +safely assert, that the belief of a particular Providence is founded +upon such probable reasons as may well justify our assent. It would +scarce, therefore, be wise to renounce an opinion which affords so firm +a support to the soul, in those seasons wherein she stands in most need +of assistance, merely because it is not possible, in questions of this +kind, to solve every difficulty which attends them.' BOSWELL. + +[840] I was sorry to observe Lord Monboddo avoid any communication with +Dr. Johnson. I flattered myself that I had made them very good friends +(see _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, third edit. p. 67, _post_, v. +80), but unhappily his Lordship had resumed and cherished a violent +prejudice against my illustrious friend, to whom I must do the justice +to say, there was on his part not the least anger, but a good-humoured +sportiveness. Nay, though he knew of his Lordship's indisposition +towards him, he was even kindly; as appeared from his inquiring of me +after him, by an abbreviation of his name, 'Well, how does _Monny_?' +BOSWELL. Boswell (_Hebrides, post_, v. 74) says:--'I knew Lord Monboddo +and Dr. Johnson did not love each other; yet I was unwilling not to +visit his lordship, and was also curious to see them together.' +Accordingly, he brought about a meeting. Four years later, in 1777 +(_ante_, iii. 102), Monboddo received from Johnson a copy of his Journey +to the Hebrides. They met again in London in 1780 (Piozzi Letters, ii. +III), and perhaps then quarrelled afresh. Dr. Seattle wrote on Feb. 28, +1785:-'Lord Monboddo's hatred of Johnson was singular; he would not +allow him to know anything but Latin grammar, "and that," says he, "I +know as well as he does." I never heard Johnson say anything severe of +him, though when he mentioned his name, he generally "grinned horribly a +ghastly smile,"' ['Grinned horrible,' &c. _Paradise Lost_, ii. 846.] +Forbes's _Beattie_, p. 333. The use of the abbreviation _Monny_ on +Johnson's part scarcely seems a proof of kindliness. See _ante_, i. 453, +where he said:--'Why, Sir, _Sherry_ is dull, naturally dull,' &c.; and +iii. 84, note 2, where he said:--'I should have thought _Mund_ Burke +would have had more sense;' see also Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 216, +where he said:--'_Derry_ [Derrick] may do very well while he can outrun +his character; but the moment that his character gets up with him he +is gone.' + +[841] On May 13 he wrote:--' Now I am broken loose, my friends seem +willing enough to see me. ... But I do not now drive the world about; +the world drives or draws me. I am very weak.' _Piozzi Letters_, +ii. 369. + +[842] See _ante,_ iii, 443. + +[843] See _ante,_ p. 197. + +[844] Boswell himself, likely enough. + +[845] Verses on the death of Mr. Levett. BOSWELL. _Ante,_ p. 138 + +[846] If it was Boswell to whom this advice was given, it is not +unlikely that he needed it. The meagreness of his record of Johnson's +talk at this season may have been due, as seems to have happened before, +to too much drinking. _Ante,_ p.88, note 1. + +[847] _Ante,_ ii. 100. + +[848] George Steevens. See _ante,_ iii. 281. + +[849] Forty-six years earlier Johnson wrote of this lady:-'I have +composed a Greek epigram to Eliza, and think she ought to be celebrated +in as many different languages as Lewis le Grand.' _Ante_, i. 122. Miss +Burney described her in 1780 as 'really a noble-looking woman; I never +saw age so graceful in the female sex yet; her whole face seems to beam +with goodness, piety, and philanthropy.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +i. 373. + +[850] 'Mrs. Thrale says that though Mrs. Lennox's books are generally +approved, nobody likes her.' _Ib._ p. 91. See _ante_, i. 255, and +iv. 10. + +[851] 'Sept. 1778. MRS. THRALE. "Mrs. Montagu is the first woman for +literary knowledge in England, and if in England, I hope I may say in +the world." DR. JOHNSON. "I believe you may, Madam. She diffuses more +knowledge in her conversation than any woman I know, or, indeed, almost +any man." MRS. THRALE. "I declare I know no man equal to her, take away +yourself and Burke, for that art."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 118. It +is curious that Mrs. Thrale and Boswell should both thus instance Burke. +Miss Burney writes of her in much more moderate terms:--'Allowing a +little for parade and ostentation, which her power in wealth and rank in +literature offer some excuse for, her conversation is very agreeable; +she is always reasonable and sensible, and sometimes instructive and +entertaining.' _Ib._ p. 325. See _ante_, ii. 88, note 3. These five +ladies all lived to a great age. Mrs. Montagu was 80 when she died; Mrs. +Lennox, 83; Miss Burney (Mme. D'Arblay), 87; Miss More and Mrs. (Miss) +Carter, 88. Their hostess, Mrs. Garrick, was 97 or 98. + +[852] Miss Burney, describing how she first saw Burke, says:--'I had +been told that Burke was not expected; yet I could conclude this +gentleman to be no other. There was an evident, a striking superiority +in his demeanour, his eye, his motions, that announced him no common +man.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 145. See _ante_, ii. 450, where +Johnson said of Burke:--'His stream of mind is perpetual;' and Boswell's +_Hebrides post,_, v. 32, and Prior's _Life of Burke_, fifth edition, +p. 58. + +[853] _Kennel_ is a strong word to apply to Burke; but, in his +jocularity, he sometimes 'let himself down' to indelicate stories. In +the House of Commons he had told one--and a very stupid one too--not a +year before. _Parl. Hist_, xxiii. 918. Horace Walpole speaks of Burke's +'pursuit of wit even to puerility.' _Journal of the Reign of George +III_, i. 443. He adds (_ib_. ii. 26):--'Burke himself always aimed at +wit, but was not equally happy in public and private. In the former, +nothing was so luminous, so striking, so abundant; in private, it was +forced, unnatural, and bombast.' See _ante_, p. 104, where Wilkes said +that in his oratory 'there was a strange want of taste.' + +[854] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, third edition, p. 20 [_post_, +v. 32.] BOSWELL. See also _ante_, i. 453, and iii. 323. + +[855] I have since heard that the report was not well founded; but the +elation discovered by Johnson in the belief that it was true, shewed a +noble ardour for literary fame. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote on Feb. 9:--'One +thing which I have just heard you will think to surpass expectation. The +chaplain of the factory at Petersburgh relates that the _Rambler_ is +now, by the command of the Empress, translating into Russian, and has +promised, when it is printed, to send me a copy.' _Piozzi Letters,_ ii. +349. Stockdale records (_Memoirs,_ ii. 98) that in 1773 the Empress of +Russia engaged 'six English literary gentlemen for instructors of her +young nobility in her Academy at St. Petersburgh.' He was offered one of +the posts. Her zeal may have gone yet further, and she may have wished +to open up English literature to those who could not read English. +Beauclerk's library was offered for sale to the Russian Ambassador. +_Ante,_ iii. 420. Miss Burney, in 1789, said that a newspaper reported +that 'Angelica Kauffmann is making drawings from _Evelina_ for the +Empress of Russia.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary,_ v. 35. + +[856] + + '--me peritus + Disect Iber, Rhodanique potor.' + + 'To him who drinks the rapid Rhone + Shall Horace, deathless bard, be known.' + + FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, ii. 20. 19. + +[857] See _ante_, iii. 49. + +[858] See _post_, June 12, 1784. + +[859] See _ante_, p. 126. + +[860] H. C. Robinson (_Diary_, i. 29) describes him as 'an author on an +infinity of subjects; his books were on Law, History, Poetry, +Antiquities, Divinity, Politics.' He adds (_ib_. p. 49l):--'Godwin, +Lofft, and Thelwall are the only three persons I know (except Hazlitt) +who grieve at the late events'--the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. He +found long after his death 'a MS. by him in these words:--"Rousseau, +Euripides, Tasso, Racine, Cicero, Virgil, Petrarch, Richardson. If I had +five millions of years to live upon this earth, these I would read daily +with increasing delight."' _Ib_. iii. 283. + +[861] Dunciad, iv. 394, note. + +[862] The King opened Parliament this day. Hannah More during the +election found the mob favourable to Fox. One night, in a Sedan chair, +she was stopped with the news that it was not safe to go through Covent +Garden. 'There were a hundred armed men,' she was told, 'who, suspecting +every chairman belonged to Brookes's, would fall upon us. A vast number +of people followed me, crying out "It is Mrs. Fox; none but Mr. Fox's +wife would dare to come into Covent Garden in a chair; she is going to +canvas in the dark."' H. More's _Memoirs_, i. 316. Horace Walpole wrote +on April 11:--'In truth Mr. Fox has all the popularity in Westminster.' +_Letters_, viii. 469. + +[863] See _post_, under June 9, 1784, where Johnson describes Fox as 'a +man who has divided the kingdom with Caesar.' + +[864] See _ante_, p. 111. + +[865] See _ante_, ii. 162. + +[866] Boswell twice speaks of W. G. Hamilton as 'an eminent friend' of +Johnson. He was not Boswell's friend. (Ante, p. 111, and _post_, under +Dec. 20, 1784.) But Boswell does not here say 'a friend _of ours_.' By +'eminent friend' Burke is generally meant, and he, possibly, is meant +here. Boswell, it is true, speaks of his 'orderly and amiable domestic +habits' (_ante_, iii. 378); but then Boswell mentions the person here +'as a virtuous man.' If Burke is meant, Johnson's suspicions would seem +to be groundless. + +[867] See _ante_, p. 168, where Johnson 'wonders why he should have any +enemies.' + +[868] After all, I cannot but be of opinion, that as Mr. Langton was +seriously requested by Dr. Johnson to mention what appeared to him +erroneous in the character of his friend, he was bound, as an honest +man, to intimate what he really thought, which he certainly did in the +most delicate manner; so that Johnson himself, when in a quiet frame of +mind, was pleased with it. The texts suggested are now before me, and I +shall quote a few of them. 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit +the earth.' _Mat._ v. 5.--'I therefore, the prisoner of the LORD, +beseech you, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are +called; with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing +one another in love.' _Ephes._ v. [iv.] 1, 2.--'And above all these +things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.' _Col._ iii. +14.--'Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not, charity +vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up: doth not behave itself unseemly, +is not easily provoked.' 1 _Cor._ xiii. 4, 5. BOSWELL. Johnson, in _The +Rambler,_ No. 28, had almost foretold what would happen. 'For escaping +these and a thousand other deceits many expedients have been proposed. +Some have recommended the frequent consultation of a wise friend, +admitted to intimacy and encouraged by sincerity. But this appears a +remedy by no means adapted to general use; for, in order to secure the +virtue of one, it pre-supposes more virtue in two than will generally be +found. In the first, such a desire of rectitude and amendment as may +incline him to hear his own accusation from the mouth of him whom he +esteems, and by whom therefore he will always hope that his faults are +not discovered; and in the second, such zeal and honesty as will make +him content for his friend's advantage to lose his kindness.' + +[869] Member for Dumfries. + +[870] Malone points out that the passage is not in Bacon, but in Boyle, +and that it is quoted in Johnson's _Dictionary_ (in the later editions +only), under _cross-bow._ It is as follows:--'Testimony is like the shot +of a long-bow, which owes its efficacy to the force of the shooter; +argument is like the shot of the cross-bow, equally forcible whether +discharged by a giant or a dwarf.' See Smollett's _Works_, ed. 1797, i. +cliv, for a somewhat fuller account by Dr. Moore of what was said by +Johnson this evening. + +[871] The Peace made by that very able statesman, the Earl of Shelburne, +now Marquis of Lansdown, which may fairly be considered as the +foundation of all the prosperity of Great Britain since that time. +BOSWELL. In the winter of 1782-83, preliminary treaties of peace were +made with the United States, France, and Spain; and a suspension of arms +with Holland. The Ode is made up of such lines as the following:-- + + 'While meek philosophy explores + Creation's vast stupendous round, + With piercing gaze sublime she soars, + And bursts the system's distant bound.' + +_Gent. Mag._; 1783. p. 245. + +[872] In the first edition of my Work, the epithet _amiable_ was given. +I was sorry to be obliged to strike it out; but I could not in justice +suffer it to remain, after this young lady had not only written in +favour of the savage Anarchy with which France has been visited, but had +(as I have been informed by good authority), walked, without horrour, +over the ground at the Thuillieries, when it was strewed with the naked +bodies of the faithful Swiss Guards, who were barbarously massacred for +having bravely defended, against a crew of ruffians, the Monarch whom +they had taken an oath to defend. From Dr. Johnson she could now expect +not endearment but repulsion. BOSWELL. + +[873] Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 50) described her as 'a very fascinating +person,' and narrated a curious anecdote which he heard from her about +the Reign of Terror. + +[874] This year, forming as it did exactly a quarter of a century since +Handel's death, and a complete century since his birth, was sought, says +the _Gent. Mag._ (1784, p. 457) as the first public periodical occasion +for bringing together musical performers in England. Dr. Burney writes +(_Ann. Reg._ 1784, p. 331):--'Foreigners must have been astonished at so +numerous a band, moving in such exact measure, without the assistance of +a Coryphaeus to beat time. Rousseau says that "the more time is beaten, +the less it is kept."' There were upwards of 500 performers. + +[875] See _ante_, iii. 242. + +[876] Lady Wronghead, whispers Mrs. Motherly, pointing to Myrtilla. + +'_Mrs. Motherly_. Only a niece of mine, Madam, that lives with me; she +will be proud to give your Ladyship any assistance in her power. + +'_Lady Wronghead_. A pretty sort of a young woman--Jenny, you two must +be acquainted. + +'_Jenny_. O Mamma! I am never strange in a strange place. _Salutes +Myrtilla_.' _The Provoked Husband; or, A Journey to London_, act ii. sc. +1, by Vanbrugh and Colley Gibber. It was not therefore Squire Richard +whom Johnson quoted, but his sister. + +[877] See _ante_, p. 191. + +[878] See Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 353, for his application of +this story. + +[879] She too was learned; for according to Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. +292) she had learnt Hebrew, merely to be useful to her husband. + +[880] + + 'This day then let us not be told, + That you are sick, and I grown old; + Nor think on our approaching ills, + And talk of spectacles and pills.' + +Swift's _Lines on Stella's Birthday_, 1726-27. Works, ed. 1803, xi. 21. + +[881] Dr. Newton, in his _Account of his own Life_, after animadverting +upon Mr. Gibbon's _History_, says, 'Dr. Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_ +afforded more amusement; but candour was much hurt and offended at the +malevolence that predominates in every part. Some passages, it must be +allowed, are judicious and well written, but make not sufficient +compensation for so much spleen and ill humour. Never was any biographer +more sparing of his praise, or more abundant in his censures. He +seemingly delights more in exposing blemishes, than in recommending +beauties; slightly passes over excellencies, enlarges upon +imperfections, and not content with his own severe reflections, revives +old scandal, and produces large quotations from the forgotten works of +former criticks. His reputation was so high in the republick of letters, +that it wanted not to be raised upon the ruins of others. But these +_Essays_, instead of raising a higher idea than was before entertained +of his understanding, have certainly given the world a worse opinion of +his temper.--The Bishop was therefore the more surprized and concerned +for his townsman, for _he respected him not only for his genius and +learning, but valued him much more for the more amiable part of his +character, his humanity and charity, his morality and religion.'_ The +last sentence we may consider as the general and permanent opinion of +Bishop Newton; the remarks which precede it must, by all who have read +Johnson's admirable work, be imputed to the disgust and peevishness of +old age. I wish they had not appeared, and that Dr. Johnson had not been +provoked by them to express himself, not in respectful terms, of a +Prelate, whose labours were certainly of considerable advantage both to +literature and religion. BOSWELL. + +[882] Newton was born Jan. 1, 1704, and was made Bishop in 1761. In his +_Account of his own Life_ (p. 65) he says:--'He was no great gainer by +his preferment; for he was obliged to give up the prebend of +Westminster, the precentorship of York, the lecturership of St. +George's, Hanover Square, and the _genteel office of sub-almoner_.' He +died in 1781. His _Works_ were published in 1782. Gibbon, defending +himself against an attack by Newton, says (_Misc. Works_, l. 24l):--'The +old man should not have indulged his zeal in a false and feeble charge +against the historian, who,' &c. + +[883] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides,_ 3rd ed. p. 371 [Oct. 25]. +BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 216. + +[884] The Rev. Mr. Agutter [_post,_ under Dec. 20] has favoured me with +a note of a dialogue between Mr. John Henderson [_post,_ June 12] and +Dr. Johnson on this topick, as related by Mr. Henderson, and it is +evidently so authentick that I shall here insert it:--HENDERSON. 'What +do you think, Sir, of William Law?' JOHNSON. 'William Law, Sir, wrote +the best piece of Parenetick Divinity; but William Law was no reasoner.' +HENDERSON. 'Jeremy Collier, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Jeremy Collier fought +without a rival, and therefore could not claim the victory.' Mr. +Henderson mentioned Kenn and Kettlewell; but some objections were made: +at last he said, 'But, Sir, what do you think of Leslie?' JOHNSON. +'Charles Leslie I had forgotten. Leslie _was_ a reasoner, and _a +reasoner who was not to be reasoned against.'_ BOSWELL. + +For the effect of Law's 'Parenetick Divinity' on Johnson, see _ante_, i. +68. 'I am surprised,' writes Macaulay, 'that Johnson should have +pronounced Law no reasoner. Law did indeed fall into great errors; but +they were errors against which logic affords no security. In mere +dialectical skill he had very few superiors.' Macaulay's _England_, ed. +1874, v. 81, note. Jeremy Collier's attack on the play-writers Johnson +describes in his _Life of Congreve_ (_Works_, viii. 28), and +continues:--'Nothing now remained for the poets but to resist or fly. +Dryden's conscience, or his prudence, angry as he was, withheld him from +the conflict: Congreve and Vanbrugh attempted answers.' Of Leslie, Lord +Bolingbroke thus writes (_Works_, in. 45):--'Let neither the polemical +skill of Leslie, nor the antique erudition of Bedford, persuade us to +put on again those old shackles of false law, false reason, and false +gospel, which were forged before the Revolution, and broken to pieces by +it.' Leslie is described by Macaulay, _History of England_, v. 81. + +[885] Burnet (_History of his own Time_, ed. 1818, iv. 303) in 1712 +speaks of Hickes and Brett as being both in the Church, but as shewing +'an inclination towards Popery.' Hickes, he says, was at the head of the +Jacobite party. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 25. + +[886] 'Only five of the seven were non-jurors; and anybody but Boswell +would have known that a man may resist arbitrary power, and yet not be a +good reasoner. Nay, the resistance which Sancroft and the other +nonjuring Bishops offered to arbitrary power, while they continued to +hold the doctrine of non-resistance, is the most decisive proof that +they were incapable of reasoning.' Macaulay's _England_, ed. 1874, +v. 81. + +[887] See _ante_, ii. 321, for Johnson's estimate of the Nonjurors, and +i. 429 for his Jacobitism. + +[888] Savage's _Works_, ed. 1777, ii. 28. + +[889] See _ante_, p. 46. + +[890] See Boswell's _Hebrides, post_, v. 77. + +[891] I have inserted the stanza as Johnson repeated it from memory; but +I have since found the poem itself, in _The Foundling Hospital for Wit_, +printed at London, 1749. It is as follows:-- + + 'EPIGRAM, _occasioned by a religious dispute at Bath_. + + 'On Reason, Faith, and Mystery high, + Two wits harangue the table; + B----y believes he knows not why. + N---- swears 'tis all a fable. + Peace, coxcombs, peach, and both agree, + N----, kiss they empty brother: + Religion laughs at foes like thee, + And dreads a friend like t'other.' + +BOSWELL. The disputants are supposed to have been Beau Nash and Bentley, +the son of the doctor, and the friend of Walpole. Croker. John Wesley in +his _Journal_, i. 186, tells how he once silences Nash. + +[892] See ante, ii. 105. + +[893] Waller, in his _Divine Poesie_, canto first, has the same thought +finely expressed:-- + + 'The Church triumphant, and the Church below, + In songs of praise their present union show; + Their joys are full; our expectation long, + In life we differ, but we join in song; + Angels and we assisted by this art, + May sing together, though we dwell apart.' + + BOSWELL. + +[894] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, post, v. 45. + +[895] In the original, _flee_. + +[896] The sermon thus opens:--'That there are angels and spirits good +and bad; that at the head of these last there is ONE more considerable +and malignant than the rest, who, in the form, or under the name of a +_serpent_, was deeply concerned in the fall of man, and whose _head_, as +the prophetick language is, the son of man was one day to _bruise_; that +this evil spirit, though that prophecy be in part completed, has not yet +received his death's wound, but is still permitted, for ends +unsearchable to us, and in ways which we cannot particularly explain, to +have a certain degree of power in this world hostile to its virtue and +happiness, and sometimes exerted with too much success; all this is so +clear from Scripture, that no believer, unless he be first of all +_spoiled by philosophy and vain deceit [Colossians_, ii. 8], can +possibly entertain a doubt of it.' + +Having treated of _possessions_, his Lordship says, 'As I have no +authority to affirm that there _are_ now any such, so neither may I +presume to say with confidence, that there are _not_ any.' + +'But then with regard to the influence of evil spirits at this day upon +the SOULS of men, I shall take leave to be a great deal more +peremptory.--(Then, having stated the various proofs, he adds,) All +this, I say, is so manifest to every one who reads the Scriptures, that, +if we respect their authority, the question concerning the reality of +the demoniack influence upon the minds of men is clearly determined.' + +Let it be remembered, that these are not the words of an antiquated or +obscure enthusiast, but of a learned and polite Prelate now alive; and +were spoken, not to a vulgar congregation, but to the Honourable Society +of Lincoln's-Inn. His Lordship in this sermon explains the words, +'deliver us from evil,' in the Lord's Prayer, as signifying a request to +be protected from 'the evil one,' that is the Devil. This is well +illustrated in a short but excellent Commentary by my late worthy +friend, the Reverend Dr. Lort, of whom it may truly be said, _Multis +ille bonis flebilis occidit_. It is remarkable that Waller, in his +_Reflections on the several Petitions, in that sacred form of devotion_, +has understood this in the same sense;-- + + 'Guard us from all temptations of the FOE.' + +BOSWELL. Dr. Lort is often mentioned in Horace Walpole's _Letters_. +Multis ille _quidem_ flebilis occidit,' comes from Horace, _Odes_, i. +xxiv. 9, translated by Francis,-- + + How did the good, the virtuous mourn.' + +For Dr. Hurd see _ante_, p. 189. + +[897] There is a curious anecdote of this physician in _Gent. Mag._ +1772, p. 467. + +[898] See _ante_, p. 166. He may have taken the more to Fox, as he had +taken to Beauclerk (_ante_, i. 248), on account of his descent from +Charles II. Fox was the great-great-grandson of that king. His Christian +names recall his Stuart ancestry. + +[899] Horace Walpole wrote on April 11 (_Letters_, viii. 469):--'In +truth Mr. Fox has all the popularity in Westminster; and, indeed, is so +amiable and winning that, could he have stood in person all over +England, I question whether he would not have carried the Parliament.' +Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 316) in the same month wrote:--'Unluckily for +my principles I met Fox canvassing the other day, and he looked so +sensible and agreeable, that if I had not turned my eyes another way, I +believe it would have been all over with me.' See _ante_, p. 279. + +[900] Dr. John Radcliffe, who died in 1714, left by his will, among +other great benefactions to the University of Oxford, 'L600 yearly to +two persons, when they are Masters of Arts and entered on the +physic-line, for their maintenance for the space of ten years; the half +of which time at least they are to travel in parts beyond sea for their +better improvement.' _Radcliffe's Life and Will_, p. 123. Pope mentions +them in his _Imitations of Horace, Epistles_, ii. i. 183:-- + + 'E'en Radcliffe's doctors travel first to France, + Nor dare to practise till they've learned to dance.' + +[901] What risks were run even by inoculation is shewn in two of Dr. +Warton's letters. He wrote to his brother:--'This moment the dear +children have all been inoculated, never persons behaved better, no +whimpering at all, I hope in God for success, but cannot avoid being in +much anxiety.' A few days later he wrote:--'You may imagine I never +passed such a day as this in my life! grieved to death myself for the +loss of so sweet a child, but forced to stifle my feelings as much as +possible for the sake of my poor wife. She does not, however, hit on, or +dwell on, that most cutting circumstance of all, poor Nanny's dying, as +it were by our own means, tho' well intended indeed.' Wooll's _Warton_, +i. 289. Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, i. 155), on the other hand, bitterly +regretted that he had not had a child inoculated, whom he lost by +small-pox. + +[902] See _post_, before Nov. 17, and under Dec. 9, 1784. + +[903] 'I am the vilest of sinners and the worst of men.' Taylor's +_Works_ (ed. 1864), iii. 31. 'The best men deserve not eternal life, and +I who am the worst may have it given me.' _Ib_. p. 431--'He that hath +lived worst, even I.' _Ib_. vii. 241. 'Behold me the meanest of thy +creatures.' _Ib_. p. 296. + +[904] 'You may fairly look upon yourself to be the greatest sinner that +you know in the world. First, because you know more of the folly of your +own heart than you do of other people's; and can charge yourself with +various sins that you only know of yourself, and cannot be sure that +other people are guilty of them.' Law's _Serious Call_, chap. 23. + +[905] 1 _Timothy_, i. 15. + +[906] See _post_, v. 68, note 4. + +[907] 'Be careful thou dost not speak a lie in thy prayers, which though +not observed is frequently practised by careless persons, especially in +the forms of confession, affirming things which they have not thought, +professing sorrow which is not, making a vow they mean not.' Taylor's +_Works_, ed. 1865, vii. 622. + +[908] Reynolds wrote:--'As in Johnson's writings not a line can be found +which a saint would wish to blot, so in his life he would never suffer +the least immorality or indecency of conversation, [or anything] +contrary to virtue or piety to proceed without a severe check, which no +elevation of rank exempted them from.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 458. See +_ante_, iii. 41. + +[909] No doubt Mr. Langton. + +[910] Dr. Sheridan tells how Swift overheard a Captain Hamilton say to a +gentleman at whose house he had arrived 'that he was very sorry he had +chosen that time for his visit. "Why so?" "Because I hear Dean Swift is +with you. He is a great scholar, a wit; a plain country squire will have +but a bad time of it in his company, and I don't like to be laughed at." +Swift then stepped up and said, "Pray, Captain Hamilton, do you know how +to say _yes_ or _no_ properly?" "Yes, I think I have understanding +enough for that." "Then give me your hand--depend upon it, you and I +will agree very well."' 'The Captain told me,' continues Sheridan, 'that +he never passed two months so pleasantly in his life.' Swift's _Works_, +ed. 1803, ii. 104. + +[911] Gibbon wrote on Feb. 21, 1772 (_Misc. Works_, ii. 78):--'To day +the House of Commons was employed in a very odd way. Tommy Townshend +moved that the sermon of Dr. Nowell, who preached before the House on +the 30th of January (_id est_, before the Speaker and four members), +should be burnt by the common hangman, as containing arbitrary, Tory, +high-flown doctrines. The House was nearly agreeing to the motion, till +they recollected that they had already thanked the preacher for his +excellent discourse, and ordered it to be printed.' + +[912] + + 'Although it be not _shined_ upon.' + _Hudibras_, iii. 2, 175. + +[913] According to Mr. Croker, this was the Rev. Henry Bate, of the +_Morning Post_, who in 1784 took the name of Dudley, was created a +baronet in 1815, and died in 1824. Horace Walpole wrote on Nov. 13, 1776 +(_Letters_, vi. 39l):--'Yesterday I heard drums and trumpets in +Piccadilly: I looked out of the window and saw a procession with +streamers flying. At first I thought it a press-gang, but seeing the +corps so well-drest, like Hussars, in yellow with blue waistcoats and +breeches, and high caps, I concluded it was some new body of our allies, +or a regiment newly raised, and with new regimentals for distinction. I +was not totally mistaken, for the Colonel is _a new ally_. In short, +this was a procession set forth by Mr. Bate, Lord Lyttelton's chaplain, +and author of the old _Morning Post_, and meant as an appeal to the town +against his antagonist, the new one.' In June, 1781, Bate was sentenced +to a year's imprisonment 'for an atrocious libel on the Duke of +Richmond. He was the worst of all the scandalous libellers that had +appeared both on private persons as well as public. His life was +dissolute, and he had fought more than one duel. Yet Lord Sandwich had +procured for him a good Crown living, and he was believed to be +pensioned by the Court.' Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George +III_, ii. 464. + +[914] See _ante_, ii. 339, and iii. 265. + +[915] Three days earlier, in the debate on the Westminster Scrutiny, Fox +accused 'a person of great rank in this House'--Pitt I believe--'of +adding pertness and personal contumely to every species of rash and +inconsiderate violence.' _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 924. Pitt, in reply, +classed Fox among 'political apostates,' _ib_. p. 929. Burke, the same +evening, 'sat down saying, "he little minded the ill-treatment of a +parcel of boys."' When he was called to order, he said:--'When he used +the term "a parcel of boys," he meant to apply it to the ministry, who, +he conceived, were insulting him with their triumph; a triumph which +grey hairs ought to be allowed the privilege of expressing displeasure +at, when it was founded on the rash exultation of mere boys.' _Ib_. p. +939. Pitt, Prime-Minister though he was, in the spring of the same year, +was called to order by the Speaker, for charging a member with using +'language the most false, the most malicious, and the most slanderous.' +_Ib_. p. 763. + +[916] _Epistles to Mr. Pope_, ii. 165. + +[917] See an account of him, in a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Agutter. +BOSWELL. This sermon was published in 1788. In Hannah More's _Memoirs_ +(i. 217), Henderson is described as 'a mixture of great sense, which +discovered uncommon parts and learning, with a tincture of nonsense of +the most extravagant kind. He believes in witches and apparitions, as +well as in judicial astronomy.' Mrs. Kennicott writes (_ib_. p. +220):--'I think if Dr. Johnson had the shaking him about, he would shake +out his nonsense, and set his sense a-working. 'He never got out into the +world, says Dr. Hall, the Master of Pembroke College, having died in +College in 1788. + +[918] This was the second Lord Lyttelton, commonly known as 'the wicked +Lord Lyttelton.' Fox described him to Rogers as 'a very bad +man--downright wicked.' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 95. He died Nov. 27, +1779. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 292) wrote to Mason on Dec. 11 +of that year:--'If you can send us any stories of ghosts out of the +North, they will be very welcome. Lord Lyttelton's vision has revived +the taste; though it seems a little odd that an apparition should +despair of being able to get access to his Lordship's bed in the shape +of a young woman, without being forced to use the disguise of a +robin-red-breast.' In the _Gent. Mag._ 1815, i. 597, and 1816, ii. 421, +accounts are given of this vision. In the latter account it is said that +'he saw a bird fluttering, and afterwards a woman appeared in white +apparel, and said, "Prepare to die; you will not exist three days."' +Mrs. Piozzi also wrote a full account of it. Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 332. + +[919] See _ante_, ii. 150, and iii. 298, note 1. + +[920] See _ante_, p. 278. + +[921] 'If he who considers himself as suspended over the abyss of +eternal perdition only by the thread of life, which must soon part by +its own weakness, and which the wing of every minute may divide, can +cast his eyes round him without shuddering with horror, or panting for +security; what can he judge of himself, but that he is not yet awakened +to sufficient conviction? &c.' _The Rambler_, No. 110. In a blank leaf +in the book in which Johnson kept his diary of his journey in Wales is +written in his own hand, 'Faith in some proportion to Fear.' Duppa's +Johnson's _Diary of a Journey &c_., p. 157. See _ante_, iii. 199. + +[922] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on March 20:--'Write to me no more about +_dying with a grace_; when you feel what I have felt in approaching +eternity--in fear of soon hearing the sentence of which there is no +revocation, you will know the folly.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 354. Of him +it might have been said in Cowper's words:-- + + 'Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears.' + +_The Task: The Winter Morning Walk_, 1. 611. See _ante_, iii. 294. + +[923] The Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazen-Nose College, +Oxford, has favoured me with the following remarks on my Work, which he +is pleased to say, 'I have hitherto extolled, and cordially approve.' + +'The chief part of what I have to observe is contained in the following +transcript from a letter to a friend, which, with his concurrence, I +copied for this purpose; and, whatever may be the merit or justness of +the remarks, you may be sure that being written to a most intimate +friend, without any intention that they ever should go further, they are +the genuine and undisguised sentiments of the writer:-- + +'Jan. 6, 1792. + +'Last week, I was reading the second volume of Boswell's _Johnson_, with +increasing esteem for the worthy authour, and increasing veneration of +the wonderful and excellent man who is the subject of it. The writer +throws in, now and then, very properly some serious religious +reflections; but there is one remark, in my mind an obvious and just +one, which I think he has not made, that Johnson's "morbid melancholy," +and constitutional infirmities, were intended by Providence, like St. +Paul's thorn in the flesh, to check intellectual conceit and arrogance; +which the consciousness of his extraordinary talents, awake as he was to +the voice of praise, might otherwise have generated in a very culpable +degree. Another observation strikes me, that in consequence of the same +natural indisposition, and habitual sickliness, (for he says he scarcely +passed one day without pain after his twentieth year,) he considered and +represented human life, as a scene of much greater misery than is +generally experienced. There may be persons bowed down with affliction +all their days; and there are those, no doubt, whose iniquities rob them +of rest; but neither calamities nor crimes, I hope and believe, do so +much and so generally abound, as to justify the dark picture of life +which Johnson's imagination designed, and his strong pencil delineated. +This I am sure, the colouring is far too gloomy for what I have +experienced, though as far as I can remember, I have had more sickness +(I do not say more severe, but only more in quantity,) than falls to the +lot of most people. But then daily debility and occasional sickness were +far overbalanced by intervenient days, and, perhaps, weeks void of pain, +and overflowing with comfort. So that in short, to return to the +subject, human life, as far as I can perceive from experience or +observation, is not that state of constant wretchedness which Johnson +always insisted it was; which misrepresentation, (for such it surely +is,) his Biographer has not corrected, I suppose, because, unhappily, he +has himself a large portion of melancholy in his constitution, and +fancied the portrait a faithful copy of life.' + +The learned writer then proceeds thus in his letter to me:-- + +'I have conversed with some sensible men on this subject, who all seem +to entertain the same sentiments respecting life with those which are +expressed or implied in the foregoing paragraph. It might be added that +as the representation here spoken of, appears not consistent with fact +and experience, so neither does it seem to be countenanced by Scripture. +There is, perhaps, no part of the sacred volume which at first sight +promises so much to lend its sanction to these dark and desponding +notions as the book of _Ecclesiastes_, which so often, and so +emphatically, proclaims the vanity of things sublunary. But the design +of this whole book, (as it has been justly observed,) is not to put us +out of conceit with life, but to cure our vain expectations of a +compleat and perfect happiness in this world; to convince us, that there +is no such thing to be found in mere external enjoyments;--and to teach +us to seek for happiness in the practice of virtue, in the knowledge and +love of God, and in the hopes of a better life. For this is the +application of all; _Let us hear_, &c. xii. 13. Not only his duty, but +his happiness too; _For_ GOD, &c. ver. 14.--See _Sherlock on +Providence_, p. 299. + +'The New Testament tells us, indeed, and most truly, that "sufficient +unto the day is the evil thereof;" and, therefore, wisely forbids us to +increase our burden by forebodings of sorrows; but I think it no where +says that even our ordinary afflictions are not consistent with a very +considerable degree of positive comfort and satisfaction. And, +accordingly, one whose sufferings as well as merits were conspicuous, +assures us, that in proportion "as the sufferings of Christ abounded in +them, so their consolation also abounded by Christ." 2 _Cor_. i. 5. It +is needless to cite, as indeed it would be endless even to refer to, the +multitude of passages in both Testaments holding out, in the strongest +language, promises of blessings, even in this world, to the faithful +servants of GOD. I will only refer to _St. Luke_, xviii. 29, 30, and 1 +_Tim_. iv. 8. + +'Upon the whole, setting aside instances of great and lasting bodily +pain, of minds peculiarly oppressed by melancholy, and of severe +temporal calamities, from which extraordinary cases we surely should not +form our estimate of the general tenour and complexion of life; +excluding these from the account, I am convinced that as well the +gracious constitution of things which Providence has ordained, as the +declarations of Scripture and the actual experience of individuals, +authorize the sincere Christian to hope that his humble and constant +endeavours to perform his duty, checquered as the best life is with many +failings, will be crowned with a greater degree of present peace, +serenity, and comfort, than he could reasonably permit himself to +expect, if he measured his views and judged of life from the opinion of +Dr. Johnson, often and energetically expressed in the Memoirs of him, +without any animadversion or censure by his ingenious Biographer. If he +himself, upon reviewing the subject, shall see the matter in this light, +he will, in an octavo edition, which is eagerly expected, make such +additional remarks or correction as he shall judge fit; lest the +impressions which these discouraging passages may leave on the reader's +mind, should in any degree hinder what otherwise the whole spirit and +energy of the work tends, and, I hope, successfully, to promote,--pure +morality and true religion.' + +Though I have, in some degree, obviated any reflections against my +illustrious friend's dark views of life, when considering, in the course +of this Work, his _Rambler_ [_ante_, i. 213] and his _Rasselas_ [_ante_, +i. 343], I am obliged to Mr. Churton for complying with my request of +his permission to insert his Remarks, being conscious of the weight of +what he judiciously suggests as to the melancholy in my own +constitution. His more pleasing views of life, I hope, are just. +_Valeant quantum valere possunt_. + +Mr. Churton concludes his letter to me in these words:--'Once, and only +once, I had the satisfaction of seeing your illustrious friend; and as I +feel a particular regard for all whom he distinguished with his esteem +and friendship, so I derive much pleasure from reflecting that I once +beheld, though but transiently near our College gate, one whose works +will for ever delight and improve the world, who was a sincere and +zealous son of the Church of England, an honour to his country, and an +ornament to human nature.' + +His letter was accompanied with a present from himself of his _Sermons +at the Bampton Lecture_, and from his friend, Dr. Townson, the venerable +Rector of Malpas, in Cheshire, of his _Discourses on the Gospels_, +together with the following extract of a letter from that excellent +person, who is now gone to receive the reward of his labours:--'Mr. +Boswell is not only very entertaining in his works, but they are so +replete with moral and religious sentiments, without an instance, as far +as I know, of a contrary tendency, that I cannot help having a great +esteem for him; and if you think such a trifle as a copy of the +_Discourses, ex dono authoris_, would be acceptable to him, I should be +happy to give him this small testimony of my regard.' + +Such spontaneous testimonies of approbation from such men, without any +personal acquaintance with me, are truly valuable and encouraging. +BOSWELL. + +[924] + + 'Tout se plaint, tout gemit en cherchant le bien-etre; + Nul ne voudrait mourir, nul ne voudrait renaitre.' + +Voltaire, _Le desastre de Lisbonne. Works_, ed. 1819, x. 124. 'Johnson +said that, for his part, he never passed that week in his life which he +would wish to repeat, were an angel to make the proposal to him.' +_Ante_, ii. 125. Yet Dr. Franklin, whose life overlapped Johnson's at +both ends, said:-'I should have no objection to go over the same life +from its beginning to the end, requesting only the advantage authors +have of correcting in a second edition the faults of its first. So would +I also wish to change some incidents of it for others more favourable +Notwithstanding, if this condition was denied, I should still accept the +offer of re-commencing the same life.' Franklin's _Memoirs_, i. 2. + +[925] Mackintosh thus sums up this question:--'The truth is, that +endless fallacies must arise from the attempt to appreciate by +retrospect human life, of which the enjoyments depend on hope.' _Life of +Mackintosh_, ii. 160. See _ante_, ii. 350. + +[926] In the lines on Levett. _Ante_, p. 137. + +[927] AURENGZEBE, act iv. sc. 1. BOSWELL. According to Dr. Maxwell +(_ante_, ii. 124), Johnson frequently quoted the fourth couplet of these +lines. Boswell does not give the last-- + + 'I'm tired with waiting for this chemic gold + Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.' + +[928] Johnson, speaking of the companions of his college days, said:-- +'It was bitterness which they mistook for frolick.' _Ante_, i. 73. + +[929] + + '--to thee I call + But with no friendly voice, and add thy name + O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams.' + +Milton's _Paradise Lost_, iv. 35. + +[930] Yet there is no doubt that a man may appear very gay in company +who is sad at heart. His merriment is like the sound of drums and +trumpets in a battle, to drown the groans of the wounded and +dying. BOSWELL. + +[931] Mme. D'Arblay (_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 103) tells how Johnson +was one day invited to her father's house at the request of Mr. +Greville, 'the finest gentleman about town,' as she earlier described +him (_ib_. i. 25), who desired to make his acquaintance. This 'superb' +gentleman was afraid to begin to speak. 'Assuming his most supercilious +air of distant superiority he planted himself, immovable as a noble +statue, upon the hearth, as if a stranger to the whole set.' Johnson, +who 'never spoke till he was spoken to' (_ante_, in. 307)--this habit +the Burneys did not as yet know--'became completely absorbed in silent +rumination; very unexpectedly, however, he shewed himself alive to what +surrounded him, by one of those singular starts of vision, that made him +seem at times, though purblind to things in common, gifted with an eye +of instinct for espying any action that he thought merited reprehension; +for all at once, looking fixedly on Mr. Greville, who without much +self-denial, the night being very cold, kept his station before the +chimney-piece, he exclaimed:--"If it were not for depriving the ladies +of the fire, I should like to stand upon the hearth myself." A smile +gleamed upon every face at this pointed speech. Mr. Greville tried to +smile himself, though faintly and scoffingly. He tried also to hold his +post; and though for two or three minutes he disdained to move, the +awkwardness of a general pause impelled him ere long to glide back to +his chair; but he rang the bell with force as he passed it to order his +carriage.' + +[932] Page 139. BOSWELL. + +[933] On this same day Miss Adams wrote to a friend:--'Dr. Johnson, tho' +not in good health, is in general very talkative and infinitely +agreeable and entertaining.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS_. + +[934] Johnson said 'Milton was a _Phidias_, &c.' _Ante_, p. 99, note 1. +In his _Life of Milton_ (_Works, vii. 119) he writes:--'Milton never +learnt the art of doing little things with grace; he overlooked the +milder excellence of suavity and softness; he was a _Lion_ that had no +skill _in dandling the kid_.' + + ['Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw + Dandled the kid.' + + _Paradise Lost_, iv. 343.] + +[935] Cardinal Newman (_History of my Religious Opinions_, ed. 1865, p. +361) remarks on this:--'As to Johnson's case of a murderer asking you +which way a man had gone, I should have anticipated that, had such a +difficulty happened to him, his first act would have been to knock the +man down, and to call out for the police; and next, if he was worsted in +the conflict, he would not have given the ruffian the information he +asked, at whatever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself be +killed first. I do not think that he would have told a lie.' + +[936] See _ante_, iii. 376. + +[937] Book ii. 1. 142. + +[938] The annotator calls them 'amiable verses.' BOSWELL. The annotators +of the _Dunciad_ were Pope himself and Dr. Arbuthnot. Johnson's _Works_, +viii. 280. + +[939] Boswell was at this time corresponding with Miss Seward. See +_post_, June 25. + +[940] By John Dyer. _Ante_, ii. 453. + +[941] Lewis's Verses addressed to Pope were first published in a +Collection of Pieces on occasion of _The Dunciad_, 8vo., 1732. They do +not appear in Lewis's own _Miscellany_, printed in 1726.--_Grongar Hill_ +was first printed in Savage's _Miscellanies_ as an Ode, and was +_reprinted_ in the same year in Lewis's _Miscellany_, in the form it +now bears. + +In his _Miscellanies_, 1726, the beautiful poem,--'Away, let nought to +love displeasing,'--reprinted in Percy's _Reliques_, vol. i. book iii. +No. 13, first appeared. MALONE. + +[942] See _ante_, p. 58. + +[943] See _ante_, i. 71, and ii. 226. + +[944] Captain Cook's third voyage. The first two volumes by Captain +Cook; the last by Captain King. + +[945] See _ante_, ii. 73, 228, 248; iii. 49. + +[946] + + '--quae mollissima fandi Tempora.' + '--time wherein the word May softliest be said.' + + MORRIS. Virgil, _Aeneids_, iv. 293. + +[947] See _ante_, i. 71. + +[948] See _ante_, i. 203, note 6. + +[949] Boswell began to eat dinners in the Inner Temple so early as 1775. +_Ante_, ii. 377, note 1. He was not called till Hilary Term, 1786. +Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 143. + +[950] Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Jones wrote two years earlier +(_Life_, p. 268):--'Whether it be a wise part to live uncomfortably in +order to die wealthy, is another question; but this I know by +experience, and have heard old practitioners make the same observation, +that a lawyer who is in earnest must be chained to his chambers and the +bar for ten or twelve years together.' + +[951] Johnson's _Prologue at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre. Works, +_ i. 23. + +[952] According to Mr. Seward, who published this account in his +_Anecdotes,_ ii. 83, it was Mr. Langton's great-grandfather who drew +it up. + +[953] 'My Lord said that his rule for his, health was to be temperate +and keep himself warm. He never made breakfasts, but used in the morning +to drink a glass of some sort of ale. That he went to bed at nine, and +rose between six and seven, allowing himself a good refreshment for his +sleep. That the law will admit of no rival, nothing to go even with it; +but that sometimes one may for diversion read in the Latin historians of +England, Hoveden and Matthew Paris, &c. But after it is conquered, it +will admit of other studies. He said, a little law, a good tongue, and a +good memory, would fit a man for the Chancery.' Seward's +_Anecdotes_, ii. 92. + +[954] Wednesday was the 16th + +[955] See _ante_, i. 41. + +[956] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii. p. 372. BOSWELL. + +[957] See _ante/_, i. 155. + +[958] The recommendation in this list of so many histories little agrees +'with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance' with which, +according to Lord Macaulay, Johnson spoke of history. Macaulay's +_Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 403. + +[959] See _ante_, iii. 12. + +[960] Northcote's account of Reynolds's table suits the description of +this 'gentleman's mode of living.' 'A table prepared for seven or eight +was often compelled to contain fifteen or sixteen.' There was a +'deficiency of knives and forks, plates and glasses. The attendance was +in the same style.' There were 'two or three undisciplined domestics. +The host left every one at perfect liberty to scramble for himself.' +'Rags' is certainly a strong word to apply to any of the company; but +then strong words were what Johnson used. Northcote mentions 'the +mixture of company.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 94-6. See _ante_, iii. +375, note 2. + +[961] The Mayor of Windsor. Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 211. + +[962] The passage occurs in Brooke's _Earl of Essex_(1761) at the close +of the first act, where Queen Elizabeth says: + + 'I shall henceforth seek + For other lights to truth; for righteous monarchs, + Justly to judge, with their own eyes should see; + _To rule o'er freemen should themselves be free_.' + _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. viii. 456. + +The play was acted at Drury Lane Theatre, old Mr. Sheridan taking the +chief part. He it was who, in admiration, repeated the passage to +Johnson which provoked the parody. Murphy's _Garrick_, p. 234. + +[963] 'Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 284. BOSWELL. In a second +letter (_ib_. p. 347) he says:--'Cator has a rough, manly independent +understanding, and does not spoil it by complaisance.' Miss Burney +accuses him of emptiness, verbosity and pomposity, all of which she +describes in an amusing manner. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 47. + +[964] 'All general reflections upon nations and societies are the trite, +thread-bare jokes of those who set up for wit without having any, and so +have recourse to common-place.' Chesterfield's _Letters_, i. 231. + +[965] See vol. ii. p. 126. BOSWELL + +[966] '"That may be so," replied the lady, "for ought I know, but they +are above my comprehension." "I an't obliged to find you comprehension, +Madam, curse me," cried he,' _Roderick Random_, ch. 53. '"I protest," +cried Moses, "I don't rightly comprehend the force of your reasoning." +"O, Sir," cried the Squire, "I am your most humble servant, I find +you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too."' _Vicar +of Wakefield_, ch. 7. + +[967] In the first edition, 'as the Honourable Horace Walpole is often +called;' in the second edition, 'as Horace, now Earl of Orford, &c.' +Walpole succeeded to the title in Dec. 1791. In answer to +congratulations he wrote (_Letters_, ix. 364):--'What has happened +destroys my tranquillity.... Surely no man of seventy-four, unless +superannuated, can have the smallest pleasure in sitting at home in his +own room, as I almost always do, and being called by a new name.' He +died March 2, 1797. + +[968] In _The Rambler_, No. 83, a character of a virtuoso is given which +in many ways suits Walpole:--'It is never without grief that I find a +man capable of ratiocination or invention enlisting himself in this +secondary class of learning; for when he has once discovered a method of +gratifying his desire of eminence by expense rather than by labour, and +known the sweets of a life blest at once with the ease of idleness and +the reputation of knowledge, he will not easily be brought to undergo +again the toil of thinking, or leave his toys and trinkets for arguments +and principles.' + +[969] Walpole says:--'I do not think I ever was in a room with Johnson +six times in my days.' _Letters_, ix. 319. 'The first time, I think, was +at the Royal Academy. Sir Joshua said, "Let me present Dr. Goldsmith to +you;" he did. "Now I will present Dr. Johnson to you." "No," said I, +"Sir Joshua; for Dr. Goldsmith, pass--but you shall not present Dr. +Johnson to me."' _Journal &c. of Miss Berry_, i. 305. In his _Journal of +the Reign of George III_, he speaks of Johnson as 'one of the venal +champions of the Court,' 'a renegade' (i. 430); 'a brute,' 'an old +decrepit hireling' (_ib._ p. 472); and as 'one of the subordinate crew +whom to name is to stigmatize' (_ib._ ii. 5). In his _Memoirs of the +Reign of George III_, iv. 297, he says:--'With a lumber of learning and +some strong parts Johnson was an odious and mean character. His manners +were sordid, supercilious, and brutal; his style ridiculously bombastic +and vicious, and, in one word, with all the pedantry he had all the +gigantic littleness of a country schoolmaster.' + +[970] See _ante_, i. 367. + +[971] On May 26, 1791, Walpole wrote of Boswell's _Life of Johnson +(Letters_ ix. 3l9):--'I expected amongst the excommunicated to find +myself, but am very gently treated. I never would be in the least +acquainted with Johnson; or, as Boswell calls it, I had not a just value +for him; which the biographer imputes to my resentment for the Doctor's +putting bad arguments (purposely out of Jacobitism) into the speeches +which he wrote fifty years ago for my father in the _Gentleman's +Magazine_; which I did not read then, or ever knew Johnson wrote till +Johnson died.' Johnson said of these Debates:--'I saved appearances +tolerably well; but I took care that the Whig dogs should not have the +best of it.' _Ante_, i. 504. 'Lord Holland said that whenever Boswell +came into a company where Horace Walpole was, Walpole would throw back +his head, purse up his mouth very significantly, and not speak a word +while Boswell remained.' _Autobiographical Recollections of C. R. +Leslie_, i. 155. Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 44) says:--'Boswell, that +quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was let in, +which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. After tapping +many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed oracle, he +vented his errand.' + +[972] Walpole wrote (_Letters_, vi. 44):--'If _The School for Wives_ +and _The Christmas Tale_ were laid to me, so was _The Heroic Espistle_. +I could certainly have written the two former, but not the latter.' See +_ante_, iv. 113. + +[973] The title given by Bishop Pearson to his collection of Hales's +Writings is the _Golden Remains of the Ever Memorable John Hales of +Eaton College, &c_. It was published in 1659. + +[974] I _Henry IV_, act ii. sc. 4. 'Sir James Mackintosh remembers that, +while spending the Christmas of 1793 at Beaconsfield, Mr. Burke said to +him, 'Johnson showed more powers of mind in company than in his +writings; but he argued only for victory; and when he had neither a +paradox to defend, nor an antagonist to crush, he would preface his +assent with "Why, no, Sir."' CROKER. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 768. + +[975] + + Search then the ruling passion: There alone + The wild are constant, and the cunning known; + The fool consistent, and the false sincere; + Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.' + Pope, _Moral Essays_, i. 174. + +'The publick pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are +counterfeit.' _The Idler_, No. 18. + +[976] _Ante_, ii. 241, and iii. 325. + +[977] Boswell refers to Cicero's _Treatise on Famous Orators_. + +[978] Boswell here falls into a mistake. About harvest-time in 1766, +there were corn-riots owing to the dearness of bread. By the Act of the +15th of Charles II, corn, when under a certain price, might be legally +exported. On Sept. 26, 1766, before this price had been reached, the +Crown issued a proclamation to prohibit the exportation of grain. When +parliament met in November, a bill of indemnity was brought in for those +concerned in the late embargo. 'The necessity of the embargo was +universally allowed;' it was the exercise by the Crown of a power of +dispensing with the laws that was attacked. Some of the ministers who, +out of office, 'had set up as the patrons of liberty,' were made the +object 'of many sarcasms on the beaten subject of occasional +patriotism.' _Ann. Reg._ x. 39-48, and Dicey's _Law of the +Constitution_, p. 50. + +[979] _St. Mark_, ii. 9. + +[980] _Anecdotes_, p. 43. BOSWELL. The passage is from the _Speech on +Conciliation with the Colonies_, March 22, 1775. Payne's _Burke_, i. +173. The image of the angel and Lord Bathurst was thus, according to +Mrs. Piozzi, parodied by Johnson:--'Suppose, Mr. Speaker, that to +Wharton, or to Marlborough, or to any of the eminent Whigs of the last +age, the devil had, not with great impropriety, consented to appear.' +See _ante_, iii. 326, where Johnson said 'the first Whig was the Devil.' + +[981] Boswell was stung by what Mrs. Piozzi wrote when recording this +parody. She said that she had begged Johnson's leave to write it down +directly. 'A trick,' she continues, 'which I have seen played on common +occasions of sitting steadily [? stealthily] down at the other end of +the room to write at the moment what should be said in company, either +by Dr. Johnson or to him, I never practised myself, nor approved of in +another. There is something so ill-bred, and so inclining to treachery +in this conduct, that, were it commonly adopted, all confidence would +soon be exiled from society.' See _post_, under June 30, 1784, where +Boswell refers to this passage. + +[982] + + 'Who'er offends, at some unlucky time + Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme.' + +Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, 2 Satires, i. 78. + +[983] On March 14, 1770, in a debate on the licentiousness of the press, +Townshend joined together Johnson and Shebbeare. Burke, who followed +him, said nothing about Johnson. Fitzherbert, speaking of Johnson as 'my +friend,' defended him as 'a pattern of morality.' _Cavendish Debates_, +i.514. On Feb. 16, 1774, when Fox drew attention to a 'vile libel' +signed _A South Briton_, Townshend said 'Dr. Shebbeare and Dr. Johnson +have been pensioned, but this wretched South Briton is to be +prosecuted.' It was Fox, and not Burke, who on this occasion defended +Johnson. _Parl. Hist._ xvii.1054. As Goldsmith was writing _Retaliation_ +at the very time that this second attack was made, it is very likely +that it was the occasion, of the change in the line. + +[984] In the original _yet_. + +[985] + + 'Sis pecore et multa dives tellure licebit, + Tibique Pactolus fluat.' + 'Though wide thy land extends, and large thy fold, + Though rivers roll for thee their purest gold.' + +FRANCIS. Horace, _Epodes_, xv. 19. + +[986] See Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 404, for Macaulay's +appropriation and amplification of this passage. + +[987] See _ante_, ii. 168. + +[988] Mr. Croker suggests the Rev. Martin Sherlock, an Irish Clergyman, +'who published in 1781 his own travels under the title of _Letters of an +English Traveller translated from the French._' Croker's _Boswell, p. +770. Mason writes of him as 'Mister, or Monsieur, or Signor Sherlock, +for I am told he is both [sic] French, English, and Italian in print.' +Walpole's _Letters_, viii. 202. I think, however, that Dr. Thomas +Campbell is meant. His _Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland_ +Boswell calls 'a very entertaining book, which has, however, one +fault;--that it assumes the fictitious character of an Englishman.' +_Ante_, ii. 339. + +[989] See _ante_, iv. 49. + +[990] This anecdote is not in the first two editions. + +[991] See _ante_, in. 369. + +[992] 'I have heard,' says Hawkins (_Life_, p. 409), 'that in many +instances, and in some with tears in his eyes, he has apologised to +those whom he had offended by contradiction or roughness of behaviour.' +See _ante_, ii. 109, and 256, note 1. + +[993] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 131) describes Savage's 'superstitious +regard to the correction of his sheets ... The intrusion or omission of +a comma was sufficient to discompose him, and he would lament an errour +of a single letter as a heavy calamity.' + +[994] Compositor in the Printing-house means, the person who adjusts the +types in the order in which they are to stand for printing; and arranges +what is called the _form_, from which an impression is taken. BOSWELL. + +[995] This circumstance therefore alluded to in Mr. Courtenay's +_Poetical Character_ of him is strictly true. My informer was Mrs. +Desmoulins, who lived many years in Dr. Johnson's house. BOSWELL. The +following are Mr. Courtenay's lines:-- + + 'Soft-eyed compassion with a look benign, + His fervent vows he offered at thy shrine; + To guilt, to woe, the sacred debt was paid, + And helpless females blessed his pious aid; + Snatched from disease, and want's abandoned crew, + Despair and anguish from their victims flew; + Hope's soothing balm into their bosoms stole, + And tears of penitence restored the soul.' + +[996] The _Cross Readings_ were said to be formed 'by reading two +columns of a newspaper together onwards,' whereby 'the strangest +connections were brought about,' such as:-- + + 'This morning the Right Hon. the Speaker + was convicted of keeping a disorderly house. + Whereas the said barn was set on fire by + an incendiary letter dropped early in the morning. + By order of the Commissioners for Paving + An infallible remedy for the stone and gravel. + The sword of state was carried + before Sir John Fielding and committed to Newgate.' + +_The New Foundling Hospital for Wit_, i. 129. According to Northcote +(_Life of Reynolds_, i. 217), 'Dr. Goldsmith declared, in the heat of +his admiration of these _Cross Readings_, it would have given him more +pleasure to have been the author of them than of all the works he had +ever published of his own.' Horace Walpole (Letters, v. 30) writes:-- +'Have you seen that delightful paper composed out of scraps in the +newspapers? I laughed till I cried. I mean the paper that says:-- + +"This day his Majesty will go in great state to fifteen notorious common +prostitutes."' + +[997] One of these gentlemen was probably Mr. Musgrave (_ante_, ii. 343, +note 2), who, says Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 295), when 'once he was +singularly warm about Johnson's writing the lives of our famous prose +authors, getting up and entreating him to set about the work +immediately, he coldly replied, "Sit down, Sir."' Miss Burney says that +'the incense he paid Dr. Johnson by his solemn manner of listening, by +the earnest reverence with which he eyed him, and by a theatric start of +admiration every time he spoke, joined to the Doctor's utter +insensibility to all these tokens, made me find infinite difficulty in +keeping my countenance.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 85. The other +gentleman was perhaps Dr. Wharton. _Ante_, ii. 41, note 1. + +[998] Probably Dr. Beattie. The number of letters in his name agrees +with the asterisks given a few lines below. _Ante_, iii. 339, note 1, +and _post_, p. 330. + +[999] Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, defines _conge d'elire_ as _the +king's permission royal to a dean and chapter in time of vacation, to +choose a bishop._ When Dr. Hampden was made Bishop of Hereford in 1848, +the Dean resisted the appointment. H. C. Robinson records, on the +authority of the Bishop's Secretary (_Diary_, iii. 311), that 'at the +actual confirmation in Bow Church the scene was quite ludicrous. After +the judge had told the opposers that he could not hear them, the +citation for opposers to come forward was repeated, at which the people +present laughed out, as at a play.' + +[1000] This has been printed in other publications, 'fall _to the +ground_.' But Johnson himself gave me the true expression which he had +used as above; meaning that the recommendation left as little choice in +the one case as the other. BOSWELL. One of the 'other publications is +Hawkins's edition of Johnson's _Works_. See in it vol. xi. p. 216. + +[1001] They are published in vol. xi. of Hawkins's edition of Johnson's +_Works_. 1787, and are often quoted in my notes. It should be +remembered that Steevens is not trustworthy. See _ante_, iii. 281, +and iv. 178. + +[1002] See _ante_, ii. 96. + +[1003] See _ante_, p. iii. + +[1004] _She Stoops to Conquer_ was first acted on March 15, 1773. The +King of Sardinia had died on Feb. 20. _Gent. Mag_. 1773, pp. 149, 151. + +[1005] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 170) describes how, in 1780, she went +to one of Mrs. Ord's assemblies at a time when 'the mourning for some +foreign Wilhelmina Jaquelina was not over. Every human creature was in +deep mourning, and I, poor I, all gorgeous in scarlet. Even Jacobite +Johnson was in deep mourning.' + +[1006] In the tenth edition of the _Rambler_, published in 1784, the +entry is still found:--'Milton, Mr. John, remarks on his versification.' +In like manner we find:--'Shakspeare, Mr. William, his eminent success +in tragi-comedy;' 'Spenser, Mr. Edmund, some imitations of his diction +censured;' 'Cowley, Mr. Abraham, a passage in his writing illustrated.' + +[1007] See _ante_, p. 116. + +[1008] See _ante_, iii. 425, note 3. + +[1009] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 571) writes:--'The plan for Johnson's +visiting the Continent became so well known, that, as a lady then +resident at Rome afterwards informed me, his arrival was anxiously +expected throughout Italy.' + +[1010] Edward Lord Thurlow. BOSWELL. + +[1011] See _ante_, p. 179. + +[1012] In 1778. + +[1013] 'With Lord Thurlow, while he was at the bar, Johnson was well +acquainted. He said to Mr. Murphy twenty years ago, "Thurlow is a man of +such vigour of mind that I never knew I was to meet him, but--I was +going to tell a falsehood; I was going to say I was afraid of him, and +that would not be true, for I was never afraid of any man--but I never +knew that I was to meet Thurlow, but I knew I had something to +encounter."' _Monthly Review_ for 1787, lxxvi. 382. Murphy, no doubt, +was the writer. Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chancellors_, ed. 1846, +v.621) quotes from 'the Diary of a distinguished political character' an +account of a meeting between Thurlow and Horne Tooke, in 1801. 'Tooke +evidently came forward for a display, and as I considered his powers of +conversation as surpassing those of any person I had ever seen (in point +of skill and dexterity, and if necessary in _lying_), so I took for +granted old grumbling Thurlow would be obliged to lower his top-sail to +him--but it seemed as if the very _look_ and _voice_ of Thurlow scared +him out of his senses from the first moment. So Tooke tried to recruit +himself by wine, and, though not generally a drinker, was very drunk, +but all would not do.' + +[1014] It is strange that Sir John Hawkins should have related that the +application was made by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when he could so easily +have been informed of the truth by inquiring of Sir Joshua. Sir John's +carelessness to ascertain facts is very remarkable. BOSWELL. + +[1015] There is something dreadful in the thought of the old man quietly +going on with his daily life within a few hundred yards of this shocking +scene of slaughter, this 'legal massacre,' to use his own words (_ante_, +p. 188, note 3). England had a kind of Reign of Terror of its own; +little thought of at the time or remembered since. Twenty-four men were +sentenced to death at the Old Bailey Sessions that ended on April 28. On +June 16 nine of these had the sentence commuted; the rest were hanged +this day. Among these men was not a single murderer. Twelve of them had +committed burglary, two a street robbery, and one had personated another +man's name, with intent to receive his wages. _Ann. Reg_. xxvii, 193, +and _Gent. Mag_. liv. 379, 474. The _Gent. Mag_. recording the +sentences, remarks:--'Convicts under sentence of death in Newgate and +the gaols throughout the kingdom increase so fast, that, were they all +to be executed, England would soon be marked among the nations as the +_Bloody Country_.' In the spring assizes the returns are given for ten +towns. There were 88 capital convictions, of which 21 were at +Winchester. _Ib_. 224. In the summer assizes and at the Old Bailey +Sessions for July there were 149 capital convictions. At Maidstone a man +on being sentenced 'gave three loud cheers, upon which the judge gave +strict orders for his being chained to the floor of the dungeon.' _Ib_. +pp. 311, 633. The hangman was to grow busier yet. This increase in the +number of capital punishments was attributed by Romilly in great part to +Madan's _Thoughts on Executive Justice_; 'a small tract, in which, by a +mistaken application of the maxim "that the certainty of punishment is +more efficacious than its severity for the prevention of crimes," he +absurdly insisted on the expediency of rigidly enforcing, in every +instance, our penal code, sanguinary and barbarous as it was. In 1783, +the year before the book was published, there were executed in London +only 51 malefactors; in 1785, the year after the book was published, +there were executed 97; and it was recently after the publication of the +book that was exhibited a spectacle unseen in London for a long course +of years before, the execution of nearly 20 criminals at a time.' _Life +of Romilly_, i. 89. Madan's Tract was published in the winter of 1784-5. +Boswell's fondness for seeing executions is shewn, _ante_, ii. 93. + +[1016] See _ante_, ii. 82, 104; iii. 290; and v. 7l. + +[1017] A friend of mine happened to be passing by a _field congregation_ +in the environs of London, when a Methodist preacher quoted this passage +with triumph. BOSWELL. On Dec. 26, 1784, John Wesley preached the +condemned criminals' sermon to forty-seven who were under sentence of +death. He records:--'The power of the Lord was eminently present, and +most of the prisoners were in tears. A few days after, twenty of them +died at once, five of whom died in peace. I could not but greatly +approve of the spirit and behaviour of Mr. Villette, the Ordinary; and I +rejoiced to hear that it was the same on all similar occasions.' +Wesley's _Journal_, ed. 1827, iv. 287. + +[1018] I trust that THE CITY OF LONDON, now happily in unison with THE +COURT, will have the justice and generosity to obtain preferment for +this Reverend Gentleman, now a worthy old servant of that magnificent +Corporation. BOSWELL. In like manner, Boswell in 1768 praised the Rev. +Mr. Moore, Mr. Villette's predecessor. 'Mr. Moore, the Ordinary of +Newgate, discharged his duty with much earnestness and a fervour for +which I and all around me esteemed and loved him. Mr. Moore seems worthy +of his office, which, when justly considered, is a very important one.' +_London Mag._ 1783, p. 204. For the quarrel between the City and the +Court, see _ante_, iii. 201. + +[1019] See _ante_, i. 387. + +[1020] Knox in _Winter Evenings_, No. xi. (_Works_, ii. 348), attacks +Johnson's biographers for lowering his character by publishing his +private conversation. 'Biography,' he complains, 'is every day +descending from its dignity.' See _ante_, i. 222, note 1. + +[1021] _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 256. + +[1022] Johnson wrote on April 15:--'I am still very weak, though my +appetite is keen and my digestion potent. ... I now think and consult +to-day what I shall eat to-morrow. This disease likewise will, I hope, +be cured.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 362. Beattie, who dined with +Johnson on June 27, wrote:--'Wine, I think, would do him good, but he +cannot be prevailed on to drink it. He has, however, a voracious +appetite for food. I verily believe that on Sunday last he ate as much +to dinner as I have done in all for these ten days past.' Forbes's +_Beattie_, ed. 1824, p. 315. It was said that Beattie latterly indulged +somewhat too much in wine. _Ib_. p. 432. + +[1023] Horace Walpole wrote in April 1750 (_Letters_, ii. 206):--'There +is come from France a Madame Bocage who has translated Milton: my Lord +Chesterfield prefers the copy to the original; but that is not uncommon +for him to do, who is the patron of bad authors and bad actors. She has +written a play too, which was damned, and worthy my lord's approbation.' +It was this lady who bade her footman blow into the spout of the +tea-pot. _Ante_, ii. 403. Dr. J. H. Burton writes of her in his _Life of +Hume_, ii. 213:--'The wits must praise her bad poetry if they frequented +her house. "Elle etait d'une figure aimable," says Grimm, "elle est +bonne femme; elle est riche; elle pouvait fixer chez elle les gens +d'esprit et de bonne compagnie, sans les mettre dans l'embarras de lui +parler avec peu de sincerite de sa Colombiade ou de ses Amazones."' + +[1024] It is the sea round the South Pole that she describes in her +_Elegy_ (not _Ode_). The description begins:-- + + 'While o'er the deep in many a dreadful form, + The giant Danger howls along the storm, + _Furling the iron sails with numbed hands, + Firm on the deck the great Adventurer stands;_ + Round glitt'ring mountains hear the billows rave, + And the vast ruin thunder on the wave.' + +In the _Gent. Mag._ 1793, p. 197, were given extracts abusive of Johnson +from some foolish letters that passed between Miss Seward and Hayley, a +poet her equal in feebleness. Boswell, in his _Corrections and Additions +to the First Edition_ (_ante_, i.10), corrected an error into which he +had been led by Miss Seward (_ante_, i.92, note 2). She, in the _Gent. +Mag._ for 1793, p.875, defended herself and attacked him. His reply is +found on p.1009. He says:--'As my book was to be a _real history_, and +not a _novel_, it was necessary to suppress all erroneous particulars, +however entertaining.' (_Ante_, ii 467, note 4.) He continues:--'So far +from having any hostile disposition towards this Lady, I have, in my +_Life of Dr. Johnson_...quoted a compliment paid by him to one of her +poetical pieces; and I have withheld his opinion of herself, thinking +that she might not like it. I am afraid it has reached her by some other +means; and thus we may account for various attacks by her on her +venerable townsman since his decease...What are we to think of the +scraps of letters between her and Mr. Hayley, impotently attempting to +undermine the noble pedestal on which the publick opinion has placed +Dr. Johnson?' + +[1025] See _ante_, i.265, and iv. 174. + +[1026] 'Johnson said he had once seen Mr. Stanhope at Dodsley's shop, +and was so much struck with his awkward manners and appearance that he +could not help asking Mr. Dodsley who he was.' Johnson's _Works_, +(1787) xi.209. + +[1027] Chesterfield was Secretary of State from Nov. 1746 to Feb. 1748. +His letters to his son extend from 1739 to 1768. + +[1028] Foote had taken off Lord Chesterfield in _The Cozeners_. Mrs. +Aircastle trains her son Toby in the graces. She says to her +husband:--'Nothing but grace! I wish you would read some late +_Posthumous Letters_; you would then know the true value of grace.' Act +ii. sc. 2. + +[1029] See _ante_, p.78, note 1. + +[1030] See a pamphlet entitled _Remarks on the Characters of the Court +of Queen Anne_, included in Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, vi. 163. + +[1031] Carleton, according to the _Memoirs_, made his first service in +the navy in 1672--seventeen years before the siege of Derry. There is no +mention of this siege in the book. + +[1032] 'He had obtained, by his long service, some knowledge of the +practic part of an engineer.' Preface to the _Memoirs_. + +[1033] Nearly 200 pages in Bohn's edition. See _ante_, i. 71, for +Johnson's rapid reading. + +[1034] Lord Mahon (_War of the Succession in Spain_, Appendix, p. 131) +proves that a Captain Carleton really served. 'It is not impossible,' he +says, 'that the MS. may have been intrusted to De Foe for the purpose of +correction or revision...The _Memoirs_ are most strongly marked with +internal proofs of authenticity.' Lockhart (_Life of Scott_, iii. 84) +says:--'It seems to be now pretty generally believed that Carleton's +_Memoirs_ were among the numberless fabrications of De Foe; but in this +case (if the fact indeed be so), as in that of his _Cavalier_, he no +doubt had before him the rude journal of some officer.' Dr. Burton +(_Reign of Queen Anne_ ii. 173) says that MSS. in the British Museum +disprove 'the possibility of De Foe's authorship.' + +[1035] Lord Chesterfield (_Letters_, ii. 109) writing to his son on Nov. +29, 1748, says of Mr. Eliot:--'Imitate that application of his, which +has made him know all thoroughly, and to the bottom. He does not content +himself with the surface of knowledge; but works in the mine for it, +knowing that it lies deep.' + +[1036] The Houghton Collection was sold in 1779 by the third Earl of +Orford, to the Empress of Russia for L40,555. (Walpole's _Letters_, vii. +227, note 1.) + +Horace Walpole wrote on Aug. 4 of that year (_ib_. p. 235):--'Well! +adieu to Houghton! about its mad master I shall never trouble myself +more. From the moment he came into possession, he has undermined every +act of my father that was within his reach, but, having none of that +great man's sense or virtues, he could only lay wild hands on lands and +houses; and since he has stript Houghton of its glory, I do not care a +straw what he does with the stone or the acres.' + +[1037] This museum at Alkerington near Manchester is described in the +_Gent. Mag_. 1773, p.219. A proposal was made in Parliament to buy it +for the British Museum. _Ib_. 1783, p. 919. On July 8, 1784, a bill +enabling Lever to dispose of it by lottery passed the House of Commons. +_Ib_. 1784, p.705. + +[1038] Johnson defines _intuition_ as _sight of anything; immediate +knowledge_; and _sagacity_ as _quickness of scent; acuteness of +discovery_. + +[1039] In the first edition it stands '_A gentleman_' and below instead +of Mr. ----, Mr. ----. In the second edition Mr. ---- becomes Mr. ----. +In the third edition _young_ is added. Young Mr. Burke is probably +meant. As it stood in the second edition it might have been thought that +Edmund Burke was the gentleman; the more so as Johnson often denied his +want of wit. + +[1040] _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2. + +[1041] See _ante_, i. 372, note 1. + +[1042] Windham says (_Diary_, p. 34) that when Dr. Brocklesby made this +offer 'Johnson pressed his hands and said, "God bless you through Jesus +Christ, but I will take no money but from my sovereign." This, if I +mistake not, was told the King through West.' Dr. Brocklesby wrote to +Burke, on July 2, 1788, to make him 'an instant present of L1000, +which,' he continues, 'for years past, by will, I had destined as a +testimony of my regard on my decease.' Burke, accepting the present, +said:--'I shall never be ashamed to have it known, that I am obliged to +one who never can be capable of converting his kindness into a burthen.' +Burke's _Corres._ iii.78. See _ante_, p. 263, for the just praise +bestowed by Johnson on physicians in his _Life of Garth_. + +[1043] See _ante_, ii. 194. + +[1044] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii. p 375. BOSWELL. + +[1045] Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 45) describes him as 'a very handsome, +gentlemanly, and amiable person. Mme. D'Arblay tells how one evening at +Dr. Burney's home, when Signor Piozzi was playing on the piano, 'Mrs. +Thrale stealing on tip-toe behind him, ludicrously began imitating him. +Dr. Burney whispered to her, "Because, Madam, you have no ear yourself +for music, will you destroy the attention of all who in that one point +are otherwise gifted?"' Mrs. Thrale took this rebuke very well. This was +her first meeting with Piozzi. It was in Mr. Thrale's life-time. +_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 110. + +[1046] Dr. Johnson's letter to Sir John Hawkins, _Life_, p. 570. +BOSWELL. The last time Miss Burney saw Johnson, not three weeks before +his death, he told her that the day before he had seen Miss Thrale. 'I +then said:--"Do you ever, Sir, hear from mother?" "No," cried he, "nor +write to her. I drive her quite from my mind. If I meet with one of her +letters, I burn it instantly. I have burnt all I can find. I never speak +of her, and I desire never to hear of her more. I drive her, as I said, +wholly from my mind."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 328. + +[1047] See _ante_, i. 493. + +[1048] _Anec_. p. 293. BOSWELL. + +[1049] 'The saying of the old philosopher who observes, "that he who +wants least is most like the gods who want nothing," was a favourite +sentence with Dr. Johnson, who on his own part required less attendance, +sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. Conversation was all +he required to make him happy.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p.275. Miss Burney's +account of the life at Streatham is generally very cheerful. I suspect +that the irksome confinement described by Mrs. Piozzi was not felt by +her till she became attached to Mr. Piozzi. This caused a great change +in her behaviour and much unhappiness. (_Ante_, p. 138, note 4.) He at +times treated her harshly. (_Ante_, p. 160, note.) Two passages in her +letters to Miss Burney shew a want of feeling in her for a man who for +nearly twenty years had been to her almost as a father. On Feb. 18, +1784, she writes:--'Johnson is in a sad way doubtless; yet he may still +with care last another twelve-month, and every week's existence is gain +to him, who, like good Hezekiah, wearies Heaven with entreaties for +life. I wrote him a very serious letter the other day.' On March 23 she +writes:--' My going to London would be a dreadful expense, and bring on +a thousand inquiries and inconveniences--visits to Johnson and from +Cator.' It is likely that in other letters there were like passages, but +these letters Miss Burney 'for cogent reasons destroyed.' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 305, 7, 8. + +[1050] + 'Bless'd paper credit! last and best supply! + That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!' + +Pope, _Moral Essays_, iii. 39. + +[1051] Who has been pleased to furnish me with his remarks. BOSWELL. No +doubt Malone, who says, however: 'On the whole the publick is indebted +to her for her lively, though very inaccurate and artful, account of Dr. +Johnson.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 364. + +[1052] See _ante_, iii. 81. + +[1053] _Anec._ p. 183. BOSWELL. + +[1054] Hannah More. She, with her sisters, had kept a boarding-school at +Bristol. + +[1055] She first saw Johnson in June, 1774. According to her _Memoirs_ +(i. 48) he met her 'with good humour in his countenance, and continued +in the same pleasant humour the whole of the evening.' She called on him +in Bolt Court. One of her sisters writes:--'Miss Reynolds told the +doctor of all our rapturous exclamations [about him] on the road. He +shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said, "She was a silly thing."' +_Ib_. p. 49. 'He afterwards mentioned to Miss Reynolds how much he had +been touched with the enthusiasm of the young authoress, which was +evidently genuine and unaffected.' _Ib_. p. 50. She met him again in the +spring of 1775. Her sister writes:--'The old genius was extremely +jocular, and the young one very pleasant. They indeed tried which could +"pepper the highest" [Goldsmith's _Retaliation_], and it is not clear to +me that he was really the highest seasoner.' _Ib_. p. 54. From the Mores +we know nothing of his reproof. He had himself said of 'a literary +lady'--no doubt Hannah More--'I was obliged to speak to Miss Reynolds to +let her know that I desired she would not flatter me so much.' _Ante_, +iii.293. Miss Burney records a story she had from Mrs. Thrale, 'which,' +she continues, 'exceeds, I think, in its severity all the severe things +I have yet heard of Dr. Johnson's saying. When Miss More was introduced +to him, she began singing his praise in the warmest manner. For some +time he heard her with that quietness which a long use of praise has +given him: she then redoubled her strokes, till at length he turned +suddenly to her, with a stern and angry countenance, and said, "Madam, +before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider +whether or not your flattery is worth his having."' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, i.103. Shortly afterwards Miss Burney records (_ib_. p. 121) +that Mrs. Thrale said to him:--'We have told her what you said to Miss +More, and I believe that makes her afraid.' He replied:--'Well, and if +she was to serve me as Miss More did, I should say the same thing to +her.' We have therefore three reports of what he said--one from Mrs. +Thrale indirectly, one from her directly, and the third from Malone. +However severe the reproof was, the Mores do not seem to have been much +touched by it. At all events they enjoyed the meeting with Johnson, and +Hannah More needed a second reproof that was conveyed to her through +Miss Reynolds. + +[1056] _Anec._ p. 202. BOSWELL. + +[1057] See _ante_, i. 40, 68, 92, 415, 481; ii. 188, 194; iii. 229; and +_post_, v. 245, note 2. + +[1058] _Anec._ p. 44. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 318, _note_ 1, where I +quote the passage. + +[1059] _Ib_. p. 23. BOSWELL. + +[1060] _Ib_. p. 45. Mr. Hayward says:--'She kept a copious diary and +notebook called _Thraliana_ from 1776 to 1809. It is now,' [1861] he +continues, 'in the possession of Mr. Salusbury, who deems it of too +private and delicate a character to be submitted to strangers, but has +kindly supplied me with some curious passages from it.' Hayward's +_Piozzi_, i. 6. + +[1061] _Ib_. p. 51 [192]. BOSWELL. + +[1062] _Anec._ p. 193 [51]. BOSWELL. + +[1063] Johnson, says Murphy, (_Life_, p. 96) 'felt not only kindness, +but zeal and ardour for his friends.' 'Who,' he asks (_ib_. p. 144), +'was more sincere and steady in his friendships?' 'Numbers,' he says +(_ib_. p. 146), 'still remember with gratitude the friendship which he +shewed to them with unaltered affection for a number of years.' + +[1064] See _ante_, ii. 285, and iii. 440. + +[1065] Johnson's _Works_, i. 152, 3. + +[1066] In vol. ii. of the _Piozzi Letters_ some of these letters are +given. + +[1067] He gave Miss Thrale lessons in Latin. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary,_ i. +243 and 427. + +[1068] _Anec._ p. 258. BOSWELL. + +[1069] George James Cholmondeley, Esq., grandson of George, third Earl +of Cholmondeley, and one of the Commissioners of Excise; a gentleman +respected for his abilities, and elegance of manners. BOSWELL. When I +spoke to him a few years before his death upon this point, I found him +very sore at being made the topic of such a debate, and very unwilling +to remember any thing about either the offence or the apology. CROKER. + +[1070] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale,_ vol. ii. p. 12. BOSWELL. + +[1071] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._p. 258) lays the scene of this anecdote 'in +some distant province, either Shropshire or Derbyshire, I believe.' +Johnson drove through these counties with the Thrales in 1774 (_ante_, +ii. 285). If the passage in the letter refers to the same anecdote--and +Mrs. Piozzi does not, so far as I know, deny it--more than three years +passed before Johnson was told of his rudeness. Baretti, in a MS. note +on _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 12, says that the story was 'Mr. Cholmondeley's +running away from his creditors.' In this he is certainly wrong; yet if +Mr. Cholmondeley had run away, and others gave the same explanation of +the passage, his soreness is easily accounted for. + +[1072] _Anec_. p. 23. BOSWELL. + +[1073] _Ib_. p. 302. BOSWELL. + +[1074] _Rasselas_, chap, xvii + +[1075] _Paradise Lost_, iv. 639. + +[1076] _Anec_. p. 63. BOSWELL. + +[1077] 'Johnson one day, on seeing an old terrier lie asleep by the +fire-side at Streatham, said, "Presto, you are, if possible, a more lazy +dog that I am."' Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 203. + +[1078] Upon mentioning this to my friend Mr. Wilkes, he, with his usual +readiness, pleasantly matched it with the following _sentimental +anecdote_. He was invited by a young man of fashion at Paris, to sup +with him and a lady, who had been for some time his mistress, but with +whom he was going to part. He said to Mr. Wilkes that he really felt +very much for her, she was in such distress; and that he meant to make +her a present of two hundred louis-d'ors. Mr. Wilkes observed the +behaviour of Mademoiselle, who sighed indeed very piteously, and assumed +every pathetick air of grief; but eat no less than three French pigeons, +which are as large as English partridges, besides other things. Mr. +Wilkes whispered the gentleman, 'We often say in England, _Excessive +sorrow is exceeding dry_, but I never heard _Excessive sorrow is +exceeding hungry_. Perhaps _one_ hundred will do.' The gentleman took +the hint. BOSWELL. + +[1079] See _post_, p. 367, for the passage omitted. + +[1080] Sir Joshua Reynolds, on account of the excellence both of the +sentiment and expression of this letter, took a copy of it which he +shewed to some of his friends; one of whom, who admired it, being +allowed to peruse it leisurely at home, a copy was made, and found its +way into the newspapers and magazines. It was transcribed with some +inaccuracies. I print it from the original draft in Johnson's own +hand-writing. BOSWELL. Hawkins writes (_Life_, p. 574):--'Johnson, upon +being told that it was in print, exclaimed in my hearing, "I am +betrayed," but soon after forgot, as he was ever ready to do all real or +supposed injuries, the error that made the publication possible.' + +[1081] Cowper wrote of Thurlow:--'I know well the Chancellor's +benevolence of heart, and how much he is misunderstood by the world. +When he was young he would do the kindest things, and at an expense to +himself which at that time he could ill afford, and he would do them too +in the most secret manner.' Southey's _Cowper_, vii. 128. Yet Thurlow +did not keep his promise made to Cowper when they were fellow-clerks in +an attorney's office. 'Thurlow, I am nobody, and shall be always nobody, +and you will be chancellor. You shall provide for me when you are.' He +smiled, and replied, 'I surely will.' _Ib._ i. 41. When Cowper sent him +the first volume of his poems, 'he thought it not worth his while,' the +poet writes, 'to return me any answer, or to take the least notice of my +present.' _Ib._ xv. 176. Mr. (afterwards Sir) W. Jones, in two letters +to Burke, speaks of Thurlow as the [Greek: thaerion] (beast). 'I heard +last night, with surprise and affliction,' he wrote on Feb. 15, +1783,'that the [Greek: thaerion] was to continue in office. Now I can +assure you from my own positive knowledge (and I know him well), that +although he hates _our_ species in general, yet his particular hatred is +directed against none more virulently than against Lord North, and the +friends of the late excellent Marquis.' Burke's _Corres._ ii. 488, +and iii. 10. + +[1082] 'Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of unbounded power when an +aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by his +writings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of infirmities +and sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to enable him, during the +winter or two which might still remain to him, to draw his breath more +easily in the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained; +and before Christmas the author of the _English Dictionary_ and of the +_Lives of the Poets_ had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke +of Fleet-street.' _Macaulay's Writings and Speeches,_ ed. 1871, p. 413. +Just before Macaulay, with monstrous exaggeration, says that Gibbon, +'forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on +the shores of Lake Leman.' This poverty of Gibbon would have been +'splendour' to Johnson. Debrett's Royal Kalendar, for 1795 (p. 88), +shews that there were twelve Lords of the King's Bedchamber receiving +each L1000 a year, and fourteen Grooms of the Bedchamber receiving each, +L500 a year. As Burns was made a gauger, so Johnson might have been made +a Lord, or at least a Groom of the Bedchamber. It is not certain that +Pitt heard of the application for an increased pension. Mr. Croker +quotes from Thurlow's letter to Reynolds of Nov. 18, 1784:--'It was +impossible for me to take the King's pleasure on the suggestion I +presumed to move. I am an untoward solicitor.' Whether he consulted Pitt +cannot be known. Mr. Croker notices a curious obliteration in this +letter. The Chancellor had written:--'It would have suited the purpose +better, if nobody had heard of it, except Dr. Johnson, you and J. +Boswell.' _Boswell_ has been erased--'artfully' too, says--Mr. Croker-so +that 'the sentence appears to run, "except Dr. Johnson, you, and I."' +Mr. Croker, with his usual suspiciousness, suspects 'an uncandid trick.' +But it is very likely that Thurlow himself made the obliteration, +regardless of grammar. He might easily have thought that it would have +been better still had Boswell not been in the secret. + +[1083] See _ante_, iii. 176. + +[1084] On June 11 Boswell and Johnson were together (_ante_, p. 293). +The date perhaps should be July 11. The letter that follows next is +dated July 12. + +[1085] 'Even in our flight from vice some virtue lies.' FRANCIS. Horace, +i. _Epistles_, I. 41. + +[1086] See vol. ii. p. 258. BOSWELL. + +[1087] Mrs. Johnson died in 1752. See _ante_, i. 241, note 2. + +[1088] See Appendix. + +[1089] Printed in his _Works_ [i. 150]. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 241, +note 2. + +[1090] He wrote to Mr. Ryland on the same day:--'Be pleased to let the +whole be done with privacy that I may elude the vigilance of the +papers.' _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. vii. 381. + +[1091] Boileau, _Art Poetique_, chant iv. + +[1092] This is probably an errour either of the transcript or the press. +_Removes_ seems to be the word intended. MALONE. + +[1093] See _ante_, i. 332, and _post_ p. 360. + +[1094] See _ante_, p. 267. + +[1095] I have heard Dr. Johnson protest that he never had quite as much +as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life.' Piozzi's +_Anec_. p. 103. + +[1096] At the Essex Head, Essex-street. BOSWELL. + +[1097] Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 8:-- + + 'Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart.' + +_Vanity of Human Wishes_, l. 15. + +[1098] Mr. Allen, the printer. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 141, 269. + +[1099] It was on this day that he wrote the prayer given below (p. 370) +in which is found that striking line--'this world where much is to be +done and little to be known.' + +[1100] His letter to Dr. Heberden (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 789) shews +that he had gone with Dr. Brocklesby to the last Academy dinner, when, +as he boasted, 'he went up all the stairs to the pictures without +stopping to rest or to breathe.' _Ante_, p. 270, note 2. + +[1101] + + Quid te exempta _levat_ spinis de pluribus una? + 'Pluck out one thorn to mitigate thy pain, + What boots it while so many more remain?' + +FRANCIS. Horace, 2 _Epistles_, ii. 212. + +[1102] See _ante_, iii. 4, note 2. + +[1103] Sir Joshua's physician. He is mentioned by Goldsmith in his +verses to the Miss Hornecks. Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 149. + +[1104] How much balloons filled people's minds at this time is shewn by +such entries as the following in Windham's _Diary_:-'Feb 7, 1784. Did +not rise till past nine; from that time till eleven, did little more +than indulge in idle reveries about balloons.' p. 3. 'July 20. The +greater part of the time, till now, one o'clock, spent in foolish +reveries about balloons.' p. 12. Horace Walpole wrote on Sept. 30 +(_Letters_, viii. 505):--'I cannot fill my paper, as the newspapers do, +with air-balloons; which though ranked with the invention of navigation, +appear to me as childish as the flying kites of school-boys.' 'Do not +write about the balloon,' wrote Johnson to Reynolds (_post_, p. 368), +'whatever else you may think proper to say.' In the beginning of the +year he had written:--'It is very seriously true that a subscription of +L800 has been raised for the wire and workmanship of iron wings.' +_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 345. + +[1105] It is remarkable that so good a Latin scholar as Johnson, should +have been so inattentive to the metre, as by mistake to have written +_stellas_ instead of _ignes_. BOSWELL. + +[1106] + + 'Micat inter omnes + Julium sidus, velut inter ignes Luna minores.' + 'And like the Moon, the feebler fires among, + Conspicuous shines the Julian star.' + + FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, i. 12. 46. + +[1107] See _ante_, iii. 209. + +[1108] + + 'The little blood that creeps within his veins + Is but just warmed in a hot fever's pains.' + + DRYDEN. Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 217. + +[1109] Lunardi had made, on Sept. 15, the first balloon ascent in +England. _Gent. Mag_. 1784, p. 711. Johnson wrote to Mr. Ryland on Sept. +18:--'I had this day in three letters three histories of the Flying Man +in the great Balloon.' He adds:--'I live in dismal solitude.' _Notes and +Queries_, 5th S. vii. 381. + +[1110] 'Sept. 27, 1784. Went to see Blanchard's balloon. Met Burke and +D. Burke; walked with them to Pantheon to see Lunardi's. Sept. 29. About +nine came to Brookes's, where I heard that the balloon had been burnt +about four o'clock.' Windham's _Diary_, p. 24. + +[1111] His love of London continually appears. In a letter from him to +Mrs. Smart, wife of his friend the Poet, which is published in a +well-written life of him, prefixed to an edition of his Poems, in 1791, +there is the following sentence:-'To one that has passed so many years +in the pleasures and opulence of London, there are few places that can +give much delight.' + +Once, upon reading that line in the curious epitaph quoted in _The +Spectator;_ + + 'Born in New-England, did in London die;' + +he laughed and said, 'I do not wonder at this. It would have been +strange, if born in London, he had died in New-England.' BOSWELL. Mrs. +Smart was in Dublin when Johnson wrote to her. After the passage quoted +by Boswell he continued:--'I think, Madam, you may look upon your +expedition as a proper preparative to the voyage which we have often +talked of. Dublin, though a place much worse than London, is not so bad +as Iceland.' Smart's _Poems_, i. xxi. For Iceland see _ante_, i. 242. +The epitaph, quoted in _The Spectator_, No. 518, begins-- + + Here Thomas Sapper lies interred. Ah why! + Born in New-England, did in London die.' + +[1112] _St. Mark_, v. 34. + +[1113] There is no record of this in the _Gent. Mag_. Among the 149 +persons who that summer had been sentenced to death (_ante_, p. 328) who +would notice these two? + +[1114] See _ante_, p. 356, note 1 + +[1115] Johnson wrote for him a Dedication of his _Tasso_ in 1763. +_Ante_, i. 383. + +[1116] There was no information for which Dr. Johnson was less grateful +that than for that which concerned the weather. It was in allusion to +his impatience with those who were reduced to keep conversation alive by +observations on the weather, that he applied the old proverb to himself. +If any one of his intimate acquaintance told him it was hot or cold, wet +or dry, windy or calm, he would stop them, by saying, 'Poh! poh! you are +telling us that of which none but men in a mine or a dungeon can be +ignorant. Let us bear with patience, or enjoy in quiet, elementary +changes, whether for the better or the worse, as they are never +secrets.' BURNEY. In _The Idler_, No. II, Johnson shews that 'an +Englishman's notice of the weather is the natural consequence of +changeable skies and uncertain seasons... In our island every man goes +to sleep unable to guess whether he shall behold in the morning a bright +or cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, or +broken by a tempest. We therefore rejoice mutually at good weather, as +at an escape from something that we feared; and mutually complain of +bad, as of the loss of something that we hoped.' See _ante_, i. +332, and iv. 353. + +[1117] His _Account of the Musical Performances in Commemoration of +Handel_. See _ante_, p. 283. + +[1118] The celebrated Miss Fanny Burney. BOSWELL. + +[1119] Dr. Burney's letter must have been franked; otherwise there would +have been no frugality, for each enclosure was charged as a +separate letter. + +[1120] He does not know, that is to say, what people of his acquaintance +were in town, privileged to receive letters post free; such as members +of either House of Parliament. + +[1121] _Consolation_ is clearly a blunder, Malone's conjecture +_mortification_ seems absurd. + +[1122] See _ante_, iii. 48, and iv. 177. + +[1123] Windham visited him at Ashbourne in the end of August, after the +former of these letters was written. See _ante_, p. 356. + +[1124] This may refer, as Mr. Croker says, to Hamilton's generous offer, +mentioned _ante_, p. 244. Yet Johnson, with his accurate mind, was not +likely to assign to the spring an event of the previous November. + +[1125] Johnson refers to Pope's lines on Walpole:-- + + 'Seen him I have but in his _happier hour_ + Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power.' + + _Satires. Epilogue_, i. 29. + +[1126] Son of the late Peter Paradise, Esq. his Britannick Majesty's +Consul at Salonica, in Macedonia, by his lady, a native of that country. +He studied at Oxford, and has been honoured by that University with the +degree of LL.D. He is distinguished not only by his learning and +talents, but by an amiable disposition, gentleness of manners, and a +very general acquaintance with well-informed and accomplished persons of +almost all nations. BOSWELL. + +[1127] Bookseller to his Majesty. BOSWELL. + +[1128] Mr. Cruikshank attended him as a surgeon the year before. _Ante_, +p. 239. + +[1129]Allan Ramsay, Esq. painter to his Majesty, who died Aug. 10, 1784, +in the 71st year of his age, much regretted by his friends. BOSWELL. See +_ante_, p. 260. + +[1130] Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 187) says that Johnson 'most +probably refers to Sir Joshua's becoming painter to the King. 'I know,' +he continues, 'that Sir Joshua expected the appointment would be offered +to him on the death of Ramsay, and expressed his disapprobation with +regard to soliciting for it; but he was informed that it was a necessary +point of etiquette, with which at last he complied.' His 'furious +purposes' should seem to have been his intention to resign the +Presidency of the Academy, on finding that the place was not at once +given him, and in the knowledge that in the Academy there was a party +against him. Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 448. + +[1131] See _ante_, p. 348. + +[1132] The Chancellor had not, it should seem, asked the King. See +_ante_, p. 350, note. + +[1133] The Duke of Devonshire has kindly given me the following +explanation of this term:--'It was formerly the custom at some (I +believe several) of the large country-houses to have dinners at which +any of the neighbouring gentry and clergy might present themselves as +guests without invitation. The custom had been discontinued at +Chatsworth before my recollection, and so far as I am aware is now only +kept-up at Wentworth, Lord Fitzwilliam's house in Yorkshire, where a few +public dinners are still given annually. I believe, however, that all +persons intending to be present on such occasions are now expected to +give notice some days previously. Public dinners were also given +formerly by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and if I am not mistaken also +by the Archbishop of York. I have myself been present at a public dinner +at Lambeth Palace within the last fifty years or thereabouts, and I have +been at one or more such dinners at Wentworth.' Since receiving this +explanation I have read the following in the second part of the +_Greville Memoirs_, i. 99:--'June 1, 1838. I dined yesterday at +Lambeth, at the Archbishop's public dinner, the handsomest entertainment +I ever saw. There were nearly a hundred people present, all full-dressed +or in uniform. Nothing can be more dignified and splendid than the whole +arrangement.' + +[1134] Six weeks later he was willing to hear even of balloons, so long +as he got a letter. 'You,' he wrote to Mr. Sastres, 'may always have +something to tell: you live among the various orders of mankind, and may +make a letter from the exploits, sometimes of the philosopher, and +sometimes of the pickpocket. You see some balloons succeed and some +miscarry, and a thousand strange and a thousand foolish things.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 412. + +[1135] See _ante_, p. 349, note. + +[1136] 'He alludes probably to the place of King's Painter; which, since +Burke's reforming the King's household expenses, had been reduced from +L200 to L50 per annum.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 188. The place was +more profitable than Johnson thought. 'It was worth having from the +harvest it brought in by the multiplication of the faces of King and +Queen as presents for ambassadors and potentates.' This is shewn by the +following note in Sir Joshua's price-book:--'Nov. 28, 1789, remain in +the Academy five Kings, four Queens; in the house two Kings and one +Queen.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 449. + +[1137] Mr. Nichols published in 1782 _Anecdotes of William Bowyer, +Printer_. In 1812-15 he brought out this work, recast and enlarged, +under the title of _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_. See +_ante_, p. 161. + +[1138] In the original (which is in the British Museum) not _hints_ but +_names_. + +[1139] On Nov. 4, he wrote to Mr. Ryland:--'I have just received a +letter in which you tell me that you love to hear from me, and I value +such a declaration too much to neglect it. To have a friend, and a +friend like you, may be numbered amongst the first felicities of life; +at a time when weakness either of body or mind loses the pride and the +confidence of self-sufficiency, and looks round for that help which +perhaps human kindness cannot give, and which we yet are willing to +expect from one another. I am at this time very much dejected.... I am +now preparing myself for my return, and do not despair of some more +monthly meetings [_post_, Appendix C]. To hear that dear Payne is better +gives me great delight. I saw the draught of the stone [over Mrs. +Johnson's grave, _ante_, p. 351]. Shall I ever be able to bear the sight +of this stone? In your company I hope I shall.' Mr. Morrison's +_Autographs_, vol. ii. + +[1140] To him as a writer might be generally applied what he said of +Rochester:--'His pieces are commonly short, such as one fit of +resolution would produce.' _Works_, vii. 159. + +[1141] _Odes_, iv.7. _Works_, i. 137. + +[1142] _Against inqitisitive and perplexing thoughts_. 'O LORD, my Maker +and Protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world to work out +my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing +thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties +which Thou hast required. When I behold the works of thy hands, and +consider the course of thy providence, give me grace always to remember +that thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways. And while +it shall please Thee to continue me in this world, where much is to be +done, and little to be known, teach me by thy Holy Spirit, to withdraw +my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties +vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in +the light which Thou hast imparted, let me serve Thee with active zeal +and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in +which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge. +Grant this, O LORD, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen.' BOSWELL. _Pr. and +Med._ p. 219. + +[1143] _Life of Johnson_, p. 599. + +[1144] Porson with admirable humour satirised Hawkins for his attack on +Barber. _Gent. Mag._ 1787, p. 752, and _Porson Tracts_, p. 358. Baretti +in his _Tolondron_, p. 149, says that 'Barber from his earliest youth +served Johnson with the greatest affection and disinterestedness.' + +[1145] Vol. ii. p. 30. BOSWELL. + +[1146] I shall add one instance only to those which I have thought it +incumbent on me to point out. Talking of Mr. Garrick's having signified +his willingness to let Johnson have the loan of any of his books to +assist him in his edition of Shakspeare [_ante_, ii. 192]; Sir John +says, (p. 444,) 'Mr. Garrick knew not what risque he ran by this offer. +Johnson had so strange a forgetfulness of obligations of this sort, that +few who lent him books ever saw them again.' This surely conveys a most +unfavourable insinuation, and has been so understood. Sir John mentions +the single case of a curious edition of Politian [_ante_, i. 90], which +he tells us, 'appeared to belong to Pembroke College, and which, +probably, had been considered by Johnson as his own, for upwards of +fifty years.' Would it not be fairer to consider this as an +inadvertence, and draw no general inference? The truth is, that Johnson +was so attentive, that in one of his manuscripts in my possession, he +has marked in two columns, books borrowed, and books lent. + +In Sir John Hawkins's compilation, there are, however, some passages +concerning Johnson which have unquestionable merit. One of them I shall +transcribe, in justice to a writer whom I have had too much occasion to +censure, and to shew my fairness as the biographer of my illustrious +friend: 'There was wanting in his conduct and behaviour, that dignity +which results from a regular and orderly course of action, and by an +irresistible power commands esteem. He could not be said to be a stayed +man, nor so to have adjusted in his mind the balance of reason and +passion, as to give occasion to say what may be observed of some men, +that all they do is just, fit, and right.' [Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. +409.] Yet a judicious friend well suggests, 'It might, however, have +been added, that such men are often merely just, and rigidly correct, +while their hearts are cold and unfeeling; and that Johnson's virtues +were of a much higher tone than those of the _stayed, orderly man_, here +described.' BOSWELL. + +[1147] 'Lich, a dead carcase; whence Lichfield, the field of the dead, a +city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians. _Salve magna +parens.'_ It is curious that in the Abridgment of the _Dictionary_ he +struck out this salutation, though he left the rest of the article. +_Salve magna parens_, (Hail, mighty parent) is from Virgil's _Georgics_, +ii. 173. The Rev. T. Twining, when at Lichfield in 1797, says:--'I +visited the famous large old willow-tree, which Johnson, they say, used +to kiss when he came to Lichfield.' _Recreations and Studies of a +Country Clergyman of the XVIII Century_, p. 227. + +[1148] The following circumstance, mutually to the honour of Johnson, +and the corporation of his native city, has been communicated to me by +the Reverend Dr. Vyse, from the Town-Clerk:--'Mr. Simpson has now before +him, a record of the respect and veneration which the Corporation of +Lichfield, in the year 1767, had for the merits and learning of Dr. +Johnson. His father built the corner-house in the Market-place, the two +fronts of which, towards Market and Broad-market-street, stood upon +waste land of the Corporation, under a forty years' lease, which was +then expired. On the 15th of August, 1767, at a common-hall of the +bailiffs and citizens, it was ordered (and that without any +solicitation,) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson, Doctor +of Laws, of the encroachments at his house, for the term of ninety-nine +years, at the old rent, which was five shillings. Of which, as +Town-Clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure of informing him, +and that he was desired to accept it, without paying any fine on the +occasion, which lease was afterwards granted, and the Doctor died +possessed of this property.' BOSWELL. + +[1149] See vol. i. p. 37. BOSWELL. + +[1150] According to Miss Seward, who was Mr. White's cousin, 'Johnson +once called him "the rising strength of Lichfield."' Seward's +_Letters_, i. 335. + +[1151] The Rev. R. Warner, who visited Lichfield in 1801, gives in his +_Tour through the Northern Counties_, i. 105, a fuller account. He is +clearly wrong in the date of its occurrence, and in one other matter, +yet his story may in the main be true. He says that Johnson's friends at +Lichfield missed him one morning; the servants said that he had set off +at a very early hour, whither they knew not. Just before supper he +returned. He informed his hostess of his breach of filial duty, which +had happened just fifty years before on that very day. 'To do away the +sin of this disobedience, I this day went,' he said, 'in a chaise +to--, and going into the market at the time of high business uncovered +my head, and stood with it bare an hour, before the stall which my +father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the standers-by, and +the inclemency of the weather.' This penance may recall Dante's lines,-- + + 'Quando vivea piu glorioso, disse, + Liberamente nel campo di Siena, + Ogni vergogna deposta, s'affisse.' + '"When at his glory's topmost height," said he, + "Respect of dignity all cast aside, + Freely he fix'd him on Sienna's plain."' + + CARY. Dante, _Purgatory_. Cant. xi. l. 133. + +[1152] + + 'How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, + Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine.' + + Pope, _Essay on Man_, i. 221. + +[1153] See _ante_, iii. 153, 296. + +[1154] Mr. Burke suggested to me as applicable to Johnson, what Cicero, +in his CATO MAJOR, says of _Appius:--'Intentum enim animum tanquam arcum +habebat, nec languescens succumbebat senectuti_;' repeating, at the same +time, the following noble words in the same passage:--_'Ita enim +senectus honesta est, si se ipsa defendit, si jus suum retinet, si +nemini emancipata est, si usque ad extremum vitae spiritum vindicet jus +suum_.' BOSWELL. The last line runs in the original:-'si usque ad +ultimum spiritum dominatur in suos.' _Cato Major_, xi. 38. + +[1155] + + '_atrocem_ animum Catonis.' + 'Cato-- + Of spirit unsubdued.' + + FRANCIS. Horace, 2 _Odes_, i. 24. + +[1156] Yet Baretti, who knew Johnson well, in a MS. note on _Piozzi +Letters_, i.315, says:--'If ever Johnson took any delight in anything it +was to converse with some old acquaintance. New people he never loved to +be in company with, except ladies, when disposed to caress and +flatter him.' + +[1157] Johnson, thirty-four years earlier, wrote:--'I think there is +some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not so +proportioned that the one can bear all that can be inflicted on the +other; whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as life, and +whether a soul well principled will not be separated sooner than +subdued.' _The Rambler_, No. 32. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, +1780:--'But what if I am seventy-two; I remember Sulpitius says of Saint +Martin (now that's above your reading), _Est animus victor annorum, et +senectuti cedere nescius_. Match me that among your young folks.' +_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 177. On Sept. 2, 1784, he wrote to Mr. Sastres the +Italian master:--'I have hope of standing the English winter, and of +seeing you, and reading _Petrarch_ at Bolt-court.' _Ib_. p. 407. + +[1158] _Life of Johnson_, p. 7. + +[1159] It is a most agreeable circumstance attending the publication of +this Work, that Mr. Hector has survived his illustrious schoolfellow so +many years; that he still retains his health and spirits; and has +gratified me with the following acknowledgement: 'I thank you, most +sincerely thank you, for the great and long continued entertainment your +_Life of Dr. Johnson_ has afforded me, and others, of my particular +friends.' Mr. Hector, besides setting me right as to the verses on a +sprig of Myrtle, (see vol. i. p. 92, note,) has favoured me with two +English odes, written by Dr. Johnson, at an early period of his life, +which will appear in my edition of his poems. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. +16, note 1. + +[1160] The editor of the _Biographia Britannica. Ante_, iii. 174. + +[1161] On Dec. 23, Miss Adams wrote to a friend:--'We are all under the +sincerest grief for the loss of poor Dr. Johnson. He spent three or four +days with my father at Oxford, and promised to come again; as he was, he +said, nowhere so happy.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS._ + +[1162] See _ante_, p. 293. + +[1163] Mr. Strahan says (Preface, p. iv.) that Johnson, being hindered +by illness from revising these prayers, 'determined to give the MSS., +without revision, in charge to me. Accordingly one morning, on my +visiting him by desire at an early hour, he put these papers into my +hands, with instructions for committing them to the press, and with a +promise to prepare a sketch of his own life to accompany them.' Whatever +Johnson wished about the prayers, it passes belief that he ever meant +for the eye of the world these minute accounts of his health and his +feelings. Some parts indeed Mr. Strahan himself suppressed, as the Pemb. +Coll. MSS. shew (_ante_, p. 84, note 4). It is curious that one portion +at least fell into other hands (_ante_, ii. 476). There are other +apparent gaps in the diary which raise the suspicion that it was only +fragments that Mr. Strahan obtained. On the other hand Mr. Strahan had +nothing to gain by the publication beyond notoriety (see his Preface, p. +vi.). Dr. Adams, whose name is mentioned in the preface, expressed in a +letter to the _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p. 755, his disapproval of the +publication. Mr. Courtenay (_Poetical Review_, ed. 1786, p. 7), thus +attacked Mr. Strahan:-- + + 'Let priestly S--h--n in a godly fit + The tale relate, in aid of Holy Writ; + Though candid Adams, by whom David fell [A], + Who ancient miracles sustained so well, + To recent wonders may deny his aid, + Nor own a pious brother of the trade.' + +[A] The Rev. Dr. Adams of Oxford, distinguished for his answer to David +Hume's _Essay on Miracles_. + +[1164] Johnson once said to Miss Burney of her brother Charles:--'I +should be glad to see him if he were not your brother; but were he a +dog, a cat, a rat, a frog, and belonged to you, I must needs be glad to +see him.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 233. On Nov. 25 she called on +him. 'He let me in, though very ill. He told me he was going to try what +sleeping out of town might do for him. "I remember," said he, "that my +wife, when she was near her end, poor woman, was also advised to sleep +out of town; and when she was carried to the lodgings that had been +prepared for her, she complained that the staircase was in very bad +condition, for the plaster was beaten off the walls in many places." +"Oh!" said the man of the house, "that's nothing but by the knocks +against it of the coffins of the poor souls that have died in the +lodgings." He laughed, though not without apparent secret anguish, in +telling me this.' Miss Burney continues:--'How delightfully bright are +his faculties, though the poor and infirm machine that contains them +seems alarmingly giving way. Yet, all brilliant as he was, I saw him +growing worse, and offered to go, which, for the first time I ever +remember, he did not oppose; but most kindly pressing both my hands, "Be +not," he said, in a voice of even tenderness, "be not longer in coming +again for my letting you go now." I assured him I would be the sooner, +and was running off, but he called me back in a solemn voice, and in a +manner the most energetic, said:--"Remember me in your prayers."' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 327. See _ante_, iii. 367, note 4. + +[1165] Mr. Hector's sister and Johnson's first love. _Ante_, ii. 459. + +[1166] The Rev. Dr. Taylor. BOSWELL. + +[1167] See _ante_, ii. 474, and iii. 180. + +[1168] 'Reliquum est, _[Greek: Sphartan elaches, tahutan khusmei].'_ +Cicero, _Epistolae ad Atticum_, iv. 6. 'Spartam nactus es, hanc orna.' +Erasmus, _Adagiorum Chiliades_, ed. 1559, p. 485. + +[1169] Temple says of the spleen that it is a disease too refined for +this country and people, who are well when they are not ill, and pleased +when they are not troubled; are content, because they think little of +it, and seek their happiness in the common eases and commodities of +life, or the increase of riches; not amusing themselves with the more +speculative contrivances of passion, or refinements of pleasure.' +Temple's _Works_, ed. 1757, i. 170. + +[1170] It is truly wonderful to consider the extent and constancy of +Johnson's literary ardour, notwithstanding the melancholy which clouded +and embittered his existence. Besides the numerous and various works +which he executed, he had, at different times, formed schemes of a great +many more, of which the following catalogue was given by him to Mr. +Langton, and by that gentleman presented to his Majesty: + +'DIVINITY. + +'A small book of precepts and directions for piety; the hint taken from +the directions in Morton's exercise. + +'PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, and LITERATURE in general. + +'_History of Criticism_, as it relates to judging of authours, from +Aristotle to the present age. An account of the rise and improvements of +that art; of the different opinions of authours, ancient and modern. + +'Translation of the _History of Herodian_. + +'New edition of Fairfax's Translation of _Tasso_, with notes, glossary, +&c. + +'Chaucer, a new edition of him, from manuscripts and old editions, with +various readings, conjectures, remarks on his language, and the changes +it had undergone from the earliest times to his age, and from his to the +present: with notes explanatory of customs, &c., and references to +Boccace, and other authours from whom he has borrowed, with an account +of the liberties he has taken in telling the stories; his life, and an +exact etymological glossary. + +'Aristotle's _Rhetorick_, a translation of it into English. + +'A Collection of Letters, translated from the modern writers, with some +account of the several authours. + +'Oldham's Poems, with notes, historical and critical. + +'Roscommon's Poems, with notes. + +'Lives of the Philosophers, written with a polite air, in such a manner +as may divert as well as instruct. + +'History of the Heathen Mythology, with an explication of the fables, +both allegorical and historical; with references to the poets. + +'History of the State of Venice, in a compendious manner. + +'Aristotle's _Ethicks_, an English translation of them, with notes. + +'Geographical Dictionary, from the French. + +'Hierocles upon Pythagoras, translated into English, perhaps with notes. +This is done by Norris. + +'A book of Letters, upon all kinds of subjects. + +'Claudian, a new edition of his works, _cum notis variorum_, in the +manner of Burman. + +'Tully's Tusculan Questions, a translation of them. + +'Tully's De Natura Deorum, a translation of those books. + +'Benzo's New History of the New World, to be translated. + +'Machiavel's History of Florence, to be translated. + +'History of the Revival of Learning in Europe, containing an account of +whatever contributed to the restoration of literature; such as +controversies, printing, the destruction of the Greek empire, the +encouragement of great men, with the lives of the most eminent patrons +and most eminent early professors of all kinds of learning in different +countries. + +'A Body of Chronology, in verse, with historical notes. + +'A Table of the Spectators, Tatlers, and Guardians, distinguished by +figures into six degrees of value, with notes, giving the reasons of +preference or degradation. + +'A Collection of Letters from English authours, with a preface giving +some account of the writers; with reasons for selection, and criticism +upon styles; remarks on each letter, if needful. + +'A Collection of Proverbs from various languages. Jan. 6,--53. + +'A Dictionary to the Common Prayer, in imitation of Calmet's _Dictionary +of the Bible_. March, 52. + +'A Collection of Stories and Examples, like those of Valerius Maximus. +Jan. 10,--53. + +'From Aelian, a volume of select Stories, perhaps from others. Jan. +28,-53. + +'Collection of Travels, Voyages, Adventures, and Descriptions of +Countries. + +'Dictionary of Ancient History and Mythology. + +'Treatise on the Study of Polite Literature, containing the history of +learning, directions for editions, commentaries, &c. + +'Maxims, Characters, and Sentiments, after the manner of Bruyere, +collected out of ancient authours, particularly the Greek, with +Apophthegms. + +'Classical Miscellanies, Select Translations from ancient Greek and +Latin authours. + +'Lives of Illustrious Persons, as well of the active as the learned, in +imitation of Plutarch. + +'Judgement of the learned upon English authours. + +'Poetical Dictionary of the English tongue. + +'Considerations upon the present state of London. + +'Collection of Epigrams, with notes and observations. + +'Observations on the English language, relating to words, phrases, and +modes of Speech. + +'Minutiae Literariae, Miscellaneous reflections, criticisms, +emendations, notes. + +'History of the Constitution. + +'Comparison of Philosophical and Christian Morality, by sentences +collected from the moralists and fathers. + +'Plutarch's Lives, in English, with notes. + +'POETRY and works of IMAGINATION. + +'Hymn to Ignorance. + +'The Palace of Sloth,--a vision. + +'Coluthus, to be translated. + +'Prejudice,--a poetical essay. + +'The Palace of Nonsense,--a vision.' + +Johnson's extraordinary facility of composition, when he shook off his +constitutional indolence, and resolutely sat down to write, is admirably +described by Mr. Courtenay, in his Poetical Review, which I have several +times quoted: + + 'While through life's maze he sent a piercing view, + His mind expansive to the object grew. + With various stores of erudition fraught, + The lively image, the deep-searching thought, + Slept in repose;--but when the moment press'd, + The bright ideas stood at once confess'd; + Instant his genius sped its vigorous rays, + And o'er the letter'd world diffus'd a blaze: + As womb'd with fire the cloud electrick flies, + And calmly o'er th' horizon seems to rise; + Touch'd by the pointed steel, the lightning flows, + And all th' expanse with rich effulgence glows.' + +We shall in vain endeavour to know with exact precision every production +of Johnson's pen. He owned to me, that he had written about forty +sermons; but as I understood that he had given or sold them to different +persons, who were to preach them as their own, he did not consider +himself at liberty to acknowledge them. Would those who were thus aided +by him, who are still alive, and the friends of those who are dead, +fairly inform the world, it would be obligingly gratifying a reasonable +curiosity, to which there should, I think, now be no objection. Two +volumes of them, published since his death, are sufficiently +ascertained; see vol. iii. p. 181. I have before me, in his +hand-writing, a fragment of twenty quarto leaves, of a translation into +English of Sallust, _De Bella Catilinario_. When it was done I have no +notion; but it seems to have no very superior merit to mark it as his. +Beside the publications heretofore mentioned, I am satisfied, from +internal evidence, to admit also as genuine the following, which, +notwithstanding all my chronological care, escaped me in the course of +this work: + +'Considerations on the Case of Dr. Trapp's Sermons,' + published in +1739, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_. [These Considerations were +published, not in 1739, but in 1787. _Ante_, i. 140, note 5.] It is a +very ingenious defence of the right of _abridging_ an authour's work, +without being held as infringing his property. This is one of the nicest +questions in the _Law of Literature_; and I cannot help thinking, that +the indulgence of abridging is often exceedingly injurious to authours +and booksellers, and should in very few cases be permitted. At any rate, +to prevent difficult and uncertain discussion, and give an absolute +security to authours in the property of their labours, no abridgement +whatever should be permitted, till after the expiration of such a number +of years as the Legislature may be pleased to fix. + +But, though it has been confidently ascribed to him, I cannot allow that +he wrote a Dedication to both Houses of Parliament of a book entitled +_The Evangelical History Harmonized_. He was no _croaker_; no declaimer +against _the times_. [See _ante_, ii. 357.] He would not have written, +'That we are fallen upon an age in which corruption is not barely +universal, is universally confessed.' Nor 'Rapine preys on the publick +without opposition, and perjury betrays it without inquiry.' Nor would +he, to excite a speedy reformation, have conjured up such phantoms of +terrour as these: 'A few years longer, and perhaps all endeavours will +be in vain. We may be swallowed by an earthquake: we may be delivered to +our enemies.' This is not Johnsonian. + +There are, indeed, in this Dedication, several sentences constructed +upon the model of those of Johnson. But the imitation of the form, +without the spirit of his style, has been so general, that this of +itself is not sufficient evidence. Even our newspaper writers aspire to +it. In an account of the funeral of Edwin, the comedian, in _The Diary_ +of Nov. 9, 1790, that son of drollery is thus described: 'A man who had +so often cheered the sullenness of vacancy, and suspended the approaches +of sorrow.' And in _The Dublin Evening Post_, August 16, 1791, there is +the following paragraph: 'It is a singular circumstance, that, in a city +like this, containing 200,000 people, there are three months in the year +during which no place of publick amusement is open. Long vacation is +here a vacation from pleasure, as well as business; nor is there any +mode of passing the listless evenings of declining summer, but in the +riots of a tavern, or the stupidity of a coffee-house.' + +I have not thought it necessary to specify every copy of verses written +by Johnson, it being my intention to, publish an authentick edition of +all his Poetry, with notes. BOSWELL. This _Catalogue_, as Mr. Boswell +calls it, is by Dr. Johnson intitled _Designs_. It seems from the hand +that it was written early in life: from the marginal dates it appears +that some portions were added in 1752 and 1753. CROKER. + +[1171] On April 19 of this year he wrote: 'When I lay sleepless, I used +to drive the night along by turning Greek epigrams into Latin. I know +not if I have not turned a hundred.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 364. +Forty-five years earlier he described how Boerhaave, 'when he lay whole +days and nights without sleep, found no method of diverting his thoughts +so effectual as meditation upon his studies, and often relieved and +mitigated the sense of his torments by the recollection of what he had +read, and by reviewing those stores of knowledge which he had reposited +in his memory.' _Works_, vi. 284. + +[1172] Mr. Cumberland assures me, that he was always treated with great +courtesy by Dr. Johnson, who, in his _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii. +p. 68 thus speaks of that learned, ingenious, and accomplished +gentleman: 'The want of company is an inconvenience: but Mr. Cumberland +is a million.' BOSWELL. Northcote, according to Hazlitt (_Conversations +of Northcote_, p. 275), said that Johnson and his friends 'never +admitted C----[Cumberland] as one of the set; Sir Joshua did not invite +him to dinner. If he had been in the room, Goldsmith would have flown +out of it as if a dragon had been there. I remember Garrick once saying, +"D--n his _dish-clout_ face; his plays would never do, if it were not +for my patching them up and acting in them."' + +[1173] See _ante_, p. 64, note 2. + +[1174] Dr. Parr said, "There are three great Grecians in England: Porson +is the first; Burney is the third; and who is the second I need not +tell"' Field's _Parr_, ii. 215. + +[1175] 'Dr. Johnson,' said Parr, 'was an admirable scholar.... The +classical scholar was forgotten in the great original contributor to the +literature of his country.' _Ib._ i. 164. 'Upon his correct and profound +knowledge of the Latin language,' he wrote, 'I have always spoken with +unusual zeal and unusual confidence.' Johnson's _Parr_, iv. 679. Mrs. +Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 54) recounts a 'triumph' gained by Johnson in a talk +on Greek literature. + +[1176] _Ante_, iii. 172. + +[1177] We must smile at a little inaccuracy of metaphor in the Preface +to the _Transactions_, which is written by Mr. Burrowes. The _critick of +the style of_ JOHNSON having, with a just zeal for literature, observed, +that the whole nation are called on to exert themselves, afterwards +says: 'They are _called on_ by every _tye_ which can have a laudable +influence on the heart of man.' BOSWELL. + +[1178] Johnson's wishing to unite himself with this rich widow, was much +talked of, but I believe without foundation. The report, however, gave +occasion to a poem, not without characteristical merit, entitled, 'Ode +to Mrs. Thrale, by Samuel Johnson, LL.D. on their supposed approaching +Nuptials; printed for Mr. Faulder in Bond-street.' I shall quote as a +specimen the first three stanzas:-- + + 'If e'er my fingers touch'd the lyre, + In satire fierce, in pleasure gay; + Shall not my THRALIA'S smiles inspire? + Shall Sam refuse the sportive lay? + My dearest Lady! view your slave, + Behold him as your very _Scrub_; + Eager to write, as authour grave, + Or govern well, the brewing-tub. + To rich felicity thus raised, + My bosom glows with amorous fire; + Porter no longer shall be praised, + 'Tis I MYSELF am _Thrale's Entire_' + +[1179] See _ante_, ii. 44. + +[1180] '_Higledy piggledy_,--Conglomeration and confusion. + +'_Hodge-podge_,--A culinary mixture of heterogeneous ingredients: +applied metaphorically to all discordant combinations. + +'_Tit for Tat_,--Adequate retaliation. + +'_Shilly Shally_,--Hesitation and irresolution. + +'_Fee! fau! fum!--Gigantic intonations. + +_Rigmarole_,-Discourse, incoherent and rhapsodical. + +'_Crincum-crancum_,--Lines of irregularity and involution. + +'_Dingdong_--Tintinabulary chimes, used metaphorically to signify +dispatch and vehemence.' BOSWELL. In all the editions that I have +examined the sentence in the text beginning with 'annexed,' and ending +with 'concatenation,' is printed as if it were Boswell's. It is a +quotation from vol. ii. p. 93 of Colman's book. For _Scrub_, see _ante_, +iii. 70, note 2. + +[1181] See _ante_, iii. 173. + +[1182] _History of America_, vol. i. quarto, p. 332. BOSWELL. + +[1183] Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 219) thus writes of his own +style:--'The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the +choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many +experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull +chronicle and a rhetorical declamation; three times did I compose the +first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably +satisfied with their effect.' See _ante_, p. 36, note 1. + +[1184] _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vol. i. chap. iv. +BOSWELL. + +[1185] Macaulay (_Essays_, ed. 1874, iv. 157) gives a yet better example +of her Johnsonian style, though, as I have shewn (_ante_, p. 223, note +5), he is wrong in saying that Johnson's hand can be seen. + +[1186] _Cecilia_, Book. vii. chap. i. [v.] BOSWELL. + +[1187] The passage which I quote is taken from that gentleman's +_Elements of Orthoepy_; containing a distinct View of the whole Analogy +of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, so far as relates to _Pronunciation, Accent, +and Quantity_, London, 1784. I beg leave to offer my particular +acknowledgements to the authour of a work of uncommon merit and great +utility. I know no book which contains, in the same compass, more +learning, polite literature, sound sense, accuracy of arrangement, and +perspicuity of expression. BOSWELL. + +[1188] That collection was presented to Dr. Johnson, I believe by its +authours; and I heard him speak very well of it. BOSWELL. _The Mirror_ +was published in 1779-80; by 1793 it reached its ninth edition. For an +account of it see Appendix DD. to Forbes's _Beattie_. Henry Mackenzie, +the author of _The Man of Feeling_, was the chief contributor as well as +the conductor of the paper. He is given as the author of No. 16 in +Lynam's edition, p. 1. + +[1189] The name of Vicesimus Knox is now scarcely known. Yet so late as +1824 his collected _Works_ were published in seven octavo volumes. The +editor says of his _Essays_ (i. iii):--'In no department of the _Belles +Lettres_ has any publication, excepting the _Spectator_, been so +extensively circulated. It has been translated into most of the European +languages.' See _ante_, i. 222, note 1; iii. 13, note 3; and iv. 330. + +[1190] _Lucretius_, iii. 6. + +[1191] It were to be wished, that he had imitated that great man in +every respect, and had not followed the example of Dr. Adam Smith +[_ante_, iii. 13, note 1] in ungraciously attacking his venerable _Alma +Mater_ Oxford. It must, however, be observed, that he is much less to +blame than Smith: he only objects to certain particulars; Smith to the +whole institution; though indebted for much of his learning to an +exhibition which he enjoyed for many years at Baliol College. Neither of +them, however, will do any hurt to the noblest university in the world. +While I animadvert on what appears to me exceptionable in some of the +works of Dr. Knox, I cannot refuse due praise to others of his +productions; particularly his sermons, and to the spirit with which he +maintains, against presumptuous hereticks, the consolatory doctrines +peculiar to the Christian Revelation. This he has done in a manner +equally strenuous and conciliating. Neither ought I to omit mentioning a +remarkable instance of his candour: Notwithstanding the wide difference +of our opinions, upon the important subject of University education, in +a letter to me concerning this Work, he thus expresses himself: 'I thank +you for the very great entertainment your _Life of Johnson_ gives me. It +is a most valuable work. Yours is a new species of biography. Happy for +Johnson, that he had so able a recorder of his wit and wisdom.' BOSWELL. + +[1192] Dr. Knox, in his _Moral and Literary_ abstraction, may be excused +for not knowing the political regulations of his country. No senator can +be in the hands of a bailiff. BOSWELL. + +[1193] It is entitled _A Continuation of Dr. J--n's Criticism on the +Poems of Gray_. The following is perhaps the best passage:--'On some +fine evening Gray had seen the moon shining on a tower such as is here +described. An owl might be peeping out from the ivy with which it was +clad. Of the observer the station might be such that the owl, now +emerged from the mantling, presented itself to his eye in profile, +skirting with the Moon's limb. All this is well. The perspective is +striking; and the picture well defined. But the poet was not contented. +He felt a desire to enlarge it; and in executing his purpose gave it +accumulation without improvement. The idea of the Owl's _complaining_ is +an artificial one; and the views on which it proceeds absurd. Gray +should have seen, that it but ill befitted the _Bird of Wisdom_ to +complain to the Moon of an intrusion which the Moon could no more help +than herself.' p. 17. Johnson wrote of this book:--'I know little of +it, for though it was sent me I never cut the leaves open. I had a +letter with it representing it to me as my own work; in such an account +to the publick there may be humour, but to myself it was neither serious +nor comical. I suspect the writer to be wrong-headed.' _Piozzi Letters_, +ii. 289. 'I was told,' wrote Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 376), 'it would +divert me, that it seems to criticise Gray, but really laughs at +Johnson. I sent for it and skimmed it over, but am not at all clear what +it means--no recommendation of anything. I rather think the author +wishes to be taken by Gray's admirers for a ridiculer of Johnson, and by +the tatter's for a censurer of Gray.' '"The cleverest parody of the +Doctor's style of criticism," wrote Sir Walter Scott, "is by John Young +of Glasgow, and is very capital."' _Croker Corres_, ii. 34. + +[1194] See _ante_, iv. 59, for Burke's description of Croft's imitation. + +[1195] See _ante_, ii. 465. + +[1196] H.S.E. + +MICHAEL JOHNSON, + +Vir impavidus, constans, animosus, periculorum immemor, laborum +patientissimus; fiducia christiana fortis, fervidusque; paterfamilias +apprime strenuus; bibliopola admodum peritus; mente et libris et +negotiis exculta; animo ita firmo, ut, rebus adversis diu conflictatus, +nec sibi nec suis defuerit; lingua sic temperata, ut ei nihil quod aures +vel pias, vel castas laesisset, aut dolor, vel voluptas unquam +expresserit. + +Natus Cubleiae, in agro Derbiensi, + +Anno MDCLVI. + +Obiit MDCCXXXI. + +Apposita est SARA, conjux, + +Antiqua FORDORUM gente oriunda; quam domi sedulam, foris paucis notam; +nulli molestam, mentis acumine et judicii subtilitate praecellentem; +aliis multum, sibi parum indulgentem: aeternitati semper attentam, omne +fere virtutis nomen commendavit. + +Nata Nortoniae Regis, in agro Varvicensi, Anno MDCLXIX; + +Obiit MDCCLIX. + +Cum NATHANAELE, illorum filio, qui natus MDCCXII, cum vires et animi et +corporis multa pollicerentur, anno MDCCXXXVII, vitam brevem pia morte +finivit. Johnson's _Works_, i. 150. + +[1197] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 590) says that he asked that the stone over +his own grave 'might be so placed as to protect his body from injury.' +Harwood (_History of Lichfield_, p. 520) says that the stone in St. +Michael's was removed in 1796, when the church was paved. A fresh one +with the old inscriptions was placed in the church on the hundredth +anniversary of Johnson's death by Robert Thorp, Esq., of Buxton Road +House, Macclesfield. The Rev. James Serjeantson, Rector of St. +Michael's, suggests to me that the first stone was never set up. It is, +he says, unlikely that such a memorial within a dozen years was treated +so unworthily. Moreover in 1841 and again in 1883, during reparations of +the church, a very careful search was made for it, but without result. +There may have been, he thinks, some difficulty in finding the exact +place of interment. The matter may have stood over till it was +forgotten, and the mason, whose receipted bill shews that he was paid +for the stone, may have used it for some other purpose. + +[1198] See _ante_, i. 241, and iv. 351. + +[1199] 'He would also,' says Hawkins (_Life_, p. 579), 'have written in +Latin verse an epitaph for Mr. Garrick, but found himself unequal to the +task of original poetic composition in that language.' + +[1200] In his _Life of Browne_, Johnson wrote:--'The time will come to +every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die; and +it has appeared that our author's fortitude did not desert him in the +great hour of trial.' _Works_, vi. 499. + +[1201] A Club in London, founded by the learned and ingenious physician, +Dr. Ash, in honour of whose name it was called Eumelian, from the Greek +[Greek: Eumelias]; though it was warmly contended, and even put to a +vote, that it should have the more obvious appellation of _Fraxinean_, +from the Latin. BOSWELL. This club, founded in 1788, met at the Blenheim +Tavern, Bond-street. Reynolds, Boswell, Burney, and Windham were +members. Rose's _Biog. Dict._ ii. 240. [Greek: Eummeliaes] means _armed +with good ashen spear_. + +[1202] Mrs. Thrale's _Collection_, March 10,1784. Vol. ii. p. 350. +BOSWELL. + +[1203] Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 583. + +[1204] See what he said to Mr. Malone, p. 53 of this volume. BOSWELL. + +[1205] See _ante_, i. 223, note 2. + +[1206] _Epistle to the Romans_, vii. 23. + +[1207] 'Johnson's passions,' wrote Reynolds, 'were like those of other +men, the difference only lay in his keeping a stricter watch over +himself. In petty circumstances this [? his] wayward disposition +appeared, but in greater things he thought it worth while to summon his +recollection and be always on his guard.... [To them that loved him not] +as rough as winter; to those who sought his love as mild as summer--many +instances will readily occur to those who knew him intimately of the +guard which he endeavoured always to keep over himself.' Taylor's +_Reynolds_, ii. 460. See _ante_, i. 94, 164, 201, and iv. 215. + +[1208] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3d ed. p. 209. [_Post_, v. +211.] On the same subject, in his Letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated Nov. 29, +1783, he makes the following just observation:--'Life, to be worthy of a +rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to +do more or better than in time past. The mind is enlarged and elevated +by mere purposes, though they end as they began [in the original, +_begin_], by airy contemplation. We compare and judge, though we do not +practise.' BOSWELL. + +[1209] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, p. 374. [_Post_, v. 359.] +BOSWELL. + +[1210] _Psalm_ xix. 13. + +[1211] _Pr. and Med._ p.47. BOSWELL. + +[1212] _Ib._ p. 68 BOSWELL + +[1213] _Ib._ p. 84 BOSWELL + +[1214] _Ib._ p. 120. BOSWELL. + +[1215] Pr. and Med. p. 130. BOSWELL. + +[1216] Dr. Johnson related, with very earnest approbation, a story of a +gentleman, who, in an impulse of passion, overcame the virtue of a young +woman. When she said to him, 'I am afraid we have done wrong!' he +answered, 'Yes, we have done wrong;--for I would not _debauch her +mind_.' BOSWELL. + +[1217] _St. John_, viii. 7. + +[1218] _Pr. and Med._ p. 192. BOSWELL. + +[1219] See _ante_, iii. 155. + +[1220] Boswell, on Feb. 10, 1791, describing to Malone the progress of +his book, says:--'I have now before me p. 488 [of vol. ii.] in print; +and 923 pages of the copy [MS.] only is exhausted, and there remains 80, +besides the _death_; as to which I shall be concise, though solemn. Pray +how shall I wind up? Shall I give the _character_ from my _Tour_ +somewhat enlarged?' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 829. Mr. Croker is clearly in +error in saying (_ib._ p. 800) that 'Mr. Boswell's absence and the +jealousy between him and some of Johnson's other friends prevented his +being able to give the particulars which he (Mr. Croker) has supplied in +the Appendix.' In this Appendix is Mr. Hoole's narrative which Boswell +had seen and used (_post_, p. 406). + +[1221] _Psalm_ lxxxii. 7. + +[1222] See Appendix E. + +[1223] 'On being asked in his last illness what physician he had sent +for, "Dr. Heberden," replied he, "_ultimus Romanorum_, the last of the +learned physicians."' Seward's _Biographiana_, p. 601. + +[1224] Mr. Green related that when some of Johnson's friends desired +that Dr. Warren should be called in, he said they might call in whom +they pleased; and when Warren was called, at his going away Johnson +said, 'You have come in at the eleventh hour, but you shall be paid the +same with your fellow-labourers. Francis, put into Dr. Warren's coach a +copy of the _English Poets_.' CROKER. Dr. Warren ten years later +attended Boswell in his last illness. _Letters of Boswell_, p. 355. He +was the great-grandfather of Col. Sir Charles Warren, G.C.M.G., F.R.S., +Chief Commissioner of Police. + +[1225] This bold experiment, Sir John Hawkins has related in such a +manner as to suggest a charge against Johnson of intentionally hastening +his end; a charge so very inconsistent with his character in every +respect, that it is injurious even to refute it, as Sir John has thought +it necessary to do. It is evident, that what Johnson did in hopes of +relief, indicated an extraordinary eagerness to retard his dissolution. +BOSWELL. Murphy (_Life_, p. 122) says that 'for many years, when Johnson +was not disposed to enter into the conversation going forward, whoever +sat near his chair might hear him repeating from Shakespeare [_Measure +for Measure_, act iii. sc. i]:-- + + "Ay, but to die and go we know not where; + To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; + This sensible warm motion to become + A kneaded clot; and the delighted spirit + To bathe in fiery floods." + +And from Milton [_Paradise Lost_, ii. 146]:-- + + "Who would lose + Though full of pain this intellectual being?"' + +Johnson, the year before, at a time when he thought that he must submit +to the surgeon's knife (_ante_, p. 240), wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You +would not have me for fear of pain perish in putrescence. I shall, I +hope, with trust in eternal mercy lay hold of the possibility of life +which yet remains.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 312. Hawkins records (_Life_, +p. 588) that one day Johnson said to his doctor:--'How many men in a +year die through the timidity of those whom they consult for health! I +want length of life, and you fear giving me pain, which I care not for.' +Another day, 'when Mr. Cruikshank scarified his leg, he cried out, +"Deeper, deeper. I will abide the consequence; you are afraid of your +reputation, but that is nothing to me." To those about him, he said, +"You all pretend to love me, but you do not love me so well as I myself +do." '_Ib_. p. 592. Windham (_Diary_, p. 32) says that he reproached +Heberden with being _timidorum timidissimus_. Throughout he acted up to +what he had said:--'I will be conquered, I will not capitulate.' +_Ante_, P. 374. + +[1226] Macbeth, act v. sc. 3. + +[1227] Satires, x. 356. Paraphrased by Johnson in The Vanity of Human +Wishes, at the lines beginning:-- + + 'Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, + Obedient passions and a will resigned.' + +[1228] Johnson, three days after his stroke of palsy (ante, p. 230), +wrote:--'When I waked, I found Dr. Brocklesby sitting by me. He fell to +repeating Juvenal's ninth satire; but I let him see that the province +was mine.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 274. + +[1229] Johnson, on his way to Scotland, 'changed horses,' he wrote, 'at +Darlington, where Mr. Cornelius Harrison, a cousin-german of mine, was +perpetual curate. He was the only one of my relations who ever rose in +fortune above penury, or in character above neglect.' _Piozzi Letters_, +i. 105. Malone, in a note to later editions, shews that Johnson shortly +before his death was trying to discover some of his poor relations. + +[1230] Mr. Windham records (_Diary_, p. 28) that the day before Johnson +made his will 'he recommended Frank to him as to one who had will and +power to protect him.' He continues, 'Having obtained my assent to this, +he proposed that Frank should be called in; and desiring me to take him +by the hand in token of the promise, repeated before him the +recommendation he had just made of him, and the promise I had given to +attend to it. + +[1231] Johnson wrote five years earlier to Mrs. Thrale about her +husband's will:--'Do not let those fears prevail which you know to be +unreasonable; a will brings the end of life no nearer.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 72. + +[1232] 'IN THE NAME OF GOD. AMEN. I, SAMUEL JOHNSON, being in full +possession of my faculties, but fearing this night may put an end to my +life, do ordain this my last Will and Testament. I bequeath to GOD, a +soul polluted with many sins, but I hope purified by JESUS CHRIST. I +leave seven hundred and fifty pounds in the hands of Bennet Langton, +Esq.; three hundred pounds in the hands of Mr. Barclay and Mr. Perkins, +brewers; one hundred and fifty pounds in the hands of Dr. Percy, Bishop +of Dromore; one thousand pounds, three _per cent._ annuities, in the +publick funds; and one hundred pounds now lying by me in ready money: +all these before-mentioned sums and property I leave, I say, to Sir +Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, of Doctors +Commons, in trust for the following uses:--That is to say, to pay to the +representatives of the late William Innys, bookseller, in St, Paul's +Church-yard, the sum of two hundred pounds; to Mrs. White, my female +servant, one hundred pounds stock in the three _per cent_. annuitites +aforesaid. The rest of the aforesaid sums of money and property, +together with my books, plate, and household furniture, I leave to the +before-mentioned Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William +Scott, also in trust, to the use of Francis Barber, my man-servant, a +negro, in such a manner as they shall judge most fit and available to +his benefit. And I appoint the aforesaid Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John +Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, sole executors of this my last will and +testament, hereby revoking all former wills and testaments whatever. In +witness whereof I hereunto subscribe my name, and affix my seal, this +eighth day of December, 1784. + +'Sam Johnson, (L.S.) + + 'Signed, scaled, published, declared, + and delivered, by the + said testator, as his last will + and testament, in the presence + of us, the word two being first + inserted in the opposite page. + + 'GEORGE STRAHAN + + 'JOHN DESMOULINS + +'By way of Codicil to my last Will and Testament, I, SAMUEL JOHNSON, +give, devise, and bequeath, my messuage or tenement situate at +Litchfield, in the county of Stafford, with the appertenances, in the +tenure or occupation of Mrs. Bond, of Lichfield aforesaid, or of Mr. +Hinchman, her under-tenant, to my executors, in trust, to sell and +dispose of the same; and the money arising from such sale I give and +bequeath as follows, viz. to Thomas and Benjamin, the sons of Fisher +Johnson, late of Leicester, and ----- Whiting, daughter of Thomas +Johnson [F-1], late of Coventry, and the grand-daughter of the said +Thomas Johnson, one full and equal fourth part each; but in case there +shall be more grand-daughters than one of the said Thomas Johnson, +living at the time of my decease, I give and bequeath the part or share +of that one to and equally between such grand-daughters. I give and +bequeath to the Rev. Mr. Rogers, of Berkley, near Froom, in the county +of Somerset, the sum of one hundred pounds, requesting him to apply the +same towards the maintenance of Elizabeth Herne, a lunatick [F-2]. I also +give and bequeath to my god-children, the son and daughter of Mauritius +Lowe [F-3], painter, each of them, one hundred pounds of my stock in the +three _per cent_, consolidated annuities, to be applied and disposed of +by and at the discretion of my Executors, in the education or settlement +in the world of them my said legatees. Also I give and bequeath to Sir +John Hawkins, one of my Executors, the Annales Ecclesiastici of +Baronius, and Holinshed's and Stowe's Chronicles, and also an octavo +Common Prayer-Book. To Bennet Langton, Esq. I give and bequeath my +Polyglot Bible. To Sir Joshua Reynolds, my great French Dictionary, by +Martiniere, and my own copy of my folio English Dictionary, of the last +revision. To Dr. William Scott, one of my Executors, the Dictionnaire de +Commerce, and Lectius's edition of the Greek poets. To Mr. Windham [F-4], +Poetae Graeci Heroici per Henricum Stephanum. To the Rev. Mr. Strahan, +vicar of Islington, in Middlesex, Mill's Greek Testament, Beza's Greek +Testament, by Stephens, all my Latin Bibles, and my Greek Bible, by +Wechelius. To Dr. Heberden, Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Butter, and Mr. +Cruikshank, the surgeon who attended me, Mr. Holder, my apothecary, +Gerard Hamilton, Esq., Mrs. Gardiner [F-5], of Snow-hill, Mrs. Frances +Reynolds, Mr. Hoole, and the Reverend Mr. Hoole, his son, each a book at +their election, to keep as a token of remembrance. I also give and +bequeath to Mr. John Desmoulins [F-6], two hundred pounds consolidated +three _per cent_, annuities: and to Mr. Sastres, the Italian +master [F-7], the sum of five pounds, to be laid out in books of piety +for his own use. And whereas the said Bennet Langton hath agreed, in +consideration of the sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds, mentioned in +my Will to be in his hands, to grant and secure an annuity of seventy +pounds payable during the life of me and my servant, Francis Barber, and +the life of the survivor of us, to Mr. George Stubbs, in trust for us; +my mind and will is, that in case of my decease before the said +agreement shall be perfected, the said sum of seven hundred and fifty +pounds, and the bond for securing the said sum, shall go to the said +Francis Barber; and I hereby give and bequeath to him the same, in lieu +of the bequest in his favour, contained in my said Will. And I hereby +empower my Executors to deduct and retain all expences that shall or may +be incurred in the execution of my said Will, or of this Codicil +thereto, out of such estate and effects as I shall die possessed of. All +the rest, residue, and remainder, of my estate and effects, I give and +bequeath to my said Executors, in trust for the said Francis Barber, his +Executors and Administrators. Witness my hand and seal, this ninth day +of December, 1784. + +'SAM. JOHNSON, (L. S.) + + 'Signed, sealed, published, declared, + and delivered, by the + said Samuel Johnson, as, and + for a Codicil to his last Will and + Testament, in the presence of + us, who, in his presence, and at + his request, and also in the + presence of each other, have + hereto subscribed our names as + witnesses. + + 'JOHN COPLEY. + + 'WILLIAM GIBSON. + + 'HENRY COLE.' + +Upon these testamentary deeds it is proper to make a few observations. + +His express declaration with his dying breath as a Christian, as it had +been often practised in such solemn writings, was of real consequence +from this great man; for the conviction of a mind equally acute and +strong, might well overbalance the doubts of others, who were his +contemporaries. The expression _polluted_, may, to some, convey an +impression of more than ordinary contamination; but that is not +warranted by its genuine meaning, as appears from _The Rambler_, No. +42[F-8]. The same word is used in the will of Dr. Sanderson, Bishop of +Lincoln [F-9], who was piety itself. + +His legacy of two hundred pounds to the representatives of Mr. Innys, +bookseller, in St. Paul's Church-yard [F-10], proceeded from a very +worthy motive. He told Sir John Hawkins, that his father having become a +bankrupt, Mr. Innys had assisted him with money or credit to continue +his business. 'This, (said he,) I consider as an obligation on me to be +grateful to his descendants [F-11].' + +The amount of his property proved to be considerably more than he had +supposed it to be. Sir John Hawkins estimates the bequest to Francis +Barber at a sum little short of fifteen hundred pounds, including an +annuity of seventy pounds to be paid to him by Mr. Langton, in +consideration of seven hundred and fifty pounds, which Johnson had lent +to that gentleman. Sir John seems not a little angry at this bequest, +and mutters 'a caveat against ostentatious bounty and favour to +negroes [F-12].' But surely when a man has money entirely of his own +acquisition, especially when he has no near relations, he may, without +blame, dispose of it as he pleases, and with great propriety to a +faithful servant. Mr. Barber, by the recommendation of his master, +retired to Lichfield, where he might pass the rest of his days +in comfort. + +It has been objected that Johnson has omitted many of his best friends, +when leaving books to several as tokens of his last remembrance. The +names of Dr. Adams, Dr. Taylor [F-13], Dr. Burney, Mr. Hector, Mr. +Murphy, the Authour of this Work, and others who were intimate with him, +are not to be found in his Will. This may be accounted for by +considering, that as he was very near his dissolution at the time, he +probably mentioned such as happened to occur to him; and that he may +have recollected, that he had formerly shewn others such proofs of his +regard, that it was not necessary to crowd his Will with their names. +Mrs. Lucy Porter was much displeased that nothing was left to her; but +besides what I have now stated, she should have considered, that she had +left nothing to Johnson by her Will, which was made during his +life-time, as appeared at her decease. + +His enumerating several persons in one group, and leaving them 'each a +book at their election,' might possibly have given occasion to a curious +question as to the order of choice, had they not luckily fixed on +different books. His library, though by no means handsome in its +appearance, was sold by Mr. Christie, for two hundred and forty-seven +pounds, nine shillings [F-14]; many people being desirous to have a book +which had belonged to Johnson. In many of them he had written little +notes: sometimes tender memorials of his departed wife; as, 'This was +dear Tetty's book:' sometimes occasional remarks of different sorts. Mr. +Lysons, of Clifford's Inn, has favoured me with the two following: + +In _Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion_, by Bryan Duppa, Lord Bishop of +Winton, '_Preces quidam (? quidem) videtur diligenter tractasse; spero +non inauditus (? inauditas).'_ + +In _The Rosicrucian infallible Axiomata_, by John Heydon, Gent., +prefixed to which are some verses addressed to the authour, signed Ambr. +Waters, A.M. Coll. Ex. Oxon. '_These Latin verses were written to Hobbes +by Bathurst, upon his Treatise on Human Nature, and have no relation to +the book.--An odd fraud_.'--BOSWELL. [Note: See Appendix F for notes on +this footnote.] + +[1233] 'He burned,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'many letters in the last week, +I am told, and those written by his mother drew from him a flood of +tears. Mr. Sastres saw him cast a melancholy look upon their ashes, +which he took up and examined to see if a word was still +legible.'--_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 383. + +[1234] Boswell in his _Hebrides_ (_post_, v. 53) says that Johnson, +starting northwards on his tour, left in a drawer in Boswell's house +'one volume of a pretty full and curious _Diary of his Life_, of which I +have,' he continues, 'a few fragments.' The other volume, we may +conjecture, Johnson took with him, for Boswell had seen both, and +apparently seen them only once. He mentions (_ante_, i. 27) that these +'few fragments' had been transferred to him by the residuary legatee +(Francis Barber). One large fragment, which was published after Barber's +death, he could never have seen, for he never quotes from it (_ante_, i. +35, note 1). + +[1235] One of these volumes, Sir John Hawkins informs us, he put into +his pocket; for which the excuse he states is, that he meant to preserve +it from falling into the hands of a person whom he describes so as to +make it sufficiently clear who is meant; 'having strong reasons (said +he,) to suspect that this man might find and make an ill use of the +book.' Why Sir John should suppose that the gentleman alluded to would +act in this manner, he has not thought fit to explain. But what he did +was not approved of by Johnson; who, upon being acquainted of it without +delay by a friend, expressed great indignation, and warmly insisted on +the book being delivered up; and, afterwards, in the supposition of his +missing it, without knowing by whom it had been taken, he said, 'Sir, I +should have gone out of the world distrusting half mankind.' Sir John +next day wrote a letter to Johnson, assigning reasons for his conduct; +upon which Johnson observed to Mr. Langton, 'Bishop Sanderson could not +have dictated a better letter. I could almost say, _Melius est sic +penituisse quam non errasse_.' The agitation into which Johnson was +thrown by this incident, probably made him hastily burn those precious +records which must ever be regretted. BOSWELL. According to Mr. Croker, +Steevens was the man whom Hawkins said that he suspected. Porson, in his +witty _Panegyrical Epistle on Hawkins v. Johnson_ (_Gent. Mag._ 1787, +pp. 751-3, and _Porson Tracts_, p. 341), says:--'I shall attempt a +translation [of _Melius est_, &c.] for the benefit of your mere English +readers:--_There is more joy over a sinner that repenteth than over a +just person that needeth no repentance_. And we know from an authority +not to be disputed (Hawkins's _Life_, p. 406) that _Johnson was a great +lover of penitents_. + + "God put it in the mind to take it hence, + That thou might'st win the more thy [Johnson's] love, + Pleading so wisely in excuse of it." + +[1236] _Henry IV_, act iv. sc. 5. + +[1237] 'Tibullus addressed Cynthia in this manner:-- + + "_Te spectem, suprema, mihi cum venerit hora, + Te teneam moriens deficiente mamu. + Lib. i. El. I. 73. + + Before my closing eyes dear Cynthia stand, + Held weakly by my fainting, trembling hand."' + Johnson's Works, iv. 35. + + +[1238] Windham was scarcely a statesman as yet, though for a few months +of the year before he had been Chief Secretary for Ireland (_ante_, p +200). He was in Parliament, but he had never spoken. His _Diary_ shews +that he had no 'important occupations.' On Dec. 12, for instance, he +records (p. 30):--'Came down about ten; read reviews, wrote to Mrs. +Siddons, and then went to the ice; came home only in time to dress and +go to my mother's to dinner.' See _ante_, p. 356, for his interest +in balloons. + +[1239] 'My father,' writes Miss Burney, 'saw him once while I was away, +and carried Mr. Burke with him, who was desirous of paying his respects +to him once more in person. He rallied a little while they were there; +and Mr. Burke, when they left him, said to my father:--"His work is +almost done, and well has he done it."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. +333. Burke, in 1792, said in Parliament that 'Dr. Johnson's virtues were +equal to his transcendent talents, and his friendship he valued as the +greatest consolation and happiness of his life.' _Parl. Debates_, +xxx. 109. + +[1240] On the same undoubted authority, I give a few articles, which +should have been inserted in chronological order; but which, now that +they are before me, I should be sorry to omit:-- + +'In 1736, Dr. Johnson had a particular inclination to have been engaged +as an assistant to the Reverend Mr. Budworth, then head master of the +Grammar-school, at Brewood, in Staffordshire, "an excellent person, who +possessed every talent of a perfect instructor of youth, in a degree +which, (to use the words of one of the brightest ornaments of +literature, the Reverend Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester,) has been rarely +found in any of that profession since the days of Quintilian." Mr. +Budworth, "who was less known in his life-time, from that obscure +situation to which the caprice of fortune oft condemns the most +accomplished characters, than his highest merit deserved," had been bred +under Mr. Blackwell [Blackwall], at Market Bosworth, where Johnson was +some time an usher [_ante_, i. 84]; which might naturally lead to the +application. Mr. Budworth was certainly no stranger to the learning or +abilities of Johnson; as he more than once lamented his having been +under the necessity of declining the engagement, from an apprehension +that the paralytick affection, under which our great Philologist +laboured through life, might become the object of imitation or of +ridicule, among his pupils.' Captain Budworth, his grandson, has +confirmed to me this anecdote. + +'Among the early associates of Johnson, at St. John's Gate, was Samuel +Boyse [G-1], well known by his ingenious productions; and not less noted +for his imprudence. It was not unusual for Boyse to be a customer to the +pawnbroker. On one of these occasions, Dr. Johnson collected a sum of +money to redeem his friend's clothes, which in two days after were +pawned again. "The sum, (said Johnson,) was collected by sixpences, at a +time when to me sixpence was a serious consideration [G-2]." + +'Speaking one day of a person for whom he had a real friendship, but in +whom vanity was somewhat too predominant, he observed, that "Kelly [G-3] +was so fond of displaying on his side-board the plate which he possessed, +that he added to it his spurs. For my part, (said he,) I never was +master of a pair of spurs, but once; and they are now at the bottom of +the ocean. By the carelessness of Boswell's servant, they were dropped +from the end of the boat, on our return from the Isle of Sky [G-4]."' + +The late Reverend Mr. Samuel Badcock [G-5], having been introduced to Dr. +Johnson, by Mr. Nichols, some years before his death, thus expressed +himself in a letter to that gentleman:-- + +'How much I am obliged to you for the favour you did me in introducing +me to Dr. Johnson! _Tantum vidi Virgilium_ [G-6]. But to have seen him, +and to have received a testimony of respect from him, was enough. I +recollect all the conversation, and shall never forget one of his +expressions. Speaking of Dr. P---- [Priestley], (whose writings, I +saw, he estimated at a low rate,) he said, "You have proved him as +deficient in _probity_ as he is in learning [G-7]." I called him an +"Index-scholar [G-8];" but he was not willing to allow him a claim even +to that merit. He said, that "he borrowed from those who had been +borrowers themselves, and did not know that the mistakes he adopted had +been answered by others." I often think of our short, but precious, +visit to this great man. I shall consider it as a kind of an _aera_ in +my life.' BOSWELL. [Note: See Appendix G for notes on this footnote.] + +[1241] See _ante_, i. 152, 501. + +[1242] He wrote to Dr. Taylor on Feb. 17, 1776:--'Keep yourself +cheerful. Lie in bed with a lamp, and when you cannot sleep and are +beginning to think, light your candle and read. At least light your +candle; a man is perhaps never so much harrassed (_sic_) by his own mind +in the light as in the dark.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 423. + +[1243] Mr. Croker records 'the following communication from Mr. Hoole +himself':--'I must mention an incident which shews how ready Johnson was +to make amends for any little incivility. When I called upon him, the +morning after he had pressed me rather roughly to read _louder_, he +said, "I was peevish yesterday; you must forgive me: when you are as old +and as sick as I am, perhaps you may be peevish too." I have heard him +make many apologies of this kind.' + +[1244] 'To his friend Dr. Burney he said a few hours before he died, +taking the Doctor's hands within his, and casting his eyes towards +Heaven with a look of the most fervent piety, "My dear friend, while you +live do all the good you can." Seward's _Biographiana,_ p. 601 + +[1245] Mr. Hoole, senior, records of this day:--'Dr. Johnson exhorted me +to lead a better life than he had done. "A better life than you, my dear +Sir:" I repeated. He replied warmly, "Don't compliment not." Croker's +_Boswell_, p. 844 + +[1246] See _ ante_, p. 293 + +[1247] The French historian, Jacques-Auguste de Thou, 1553-1617, author +of _Historia sui Temporis_ in 138 books. + +[1248] See _ante,_ ii. 42, note 2. + +[1249] Mr. Hutton was occasionally admitted to the royal breakfast-table. +"Hutton," said the King to him one morning, "is it true that you +Moravians marry without any previous knowledge of each other?" "Yes, may +it please your majesty," returned Hutton; "our marriages are quite +royal" Hannah More's _Memoirs_, i. 318. One of his female-missionaries +for North American said to Dr. Johnson:--'Whether my Saviour's service +may be best carried on here, or on the coast of Labrador, 'tis Mr. +Hutton's business to settle. I will do my part either in a brick-house +or a snow-house with equal alacrity.' Piozzi's _Synonymy_, ii. 120. He +is described also in the _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 251, 291. + +[1250] _Ante_, ii. 402. + +[1251] Burke said of Hussey, who was his friend and correspondent, that +in his character he had made 'that very rare union of the enlightened +statesman with the ecclesiastic.' Burke's _Corres_. iv. 270. + +[1252] Boswell refers, I believe, to Fordyce's epitaph on Johnson in the +_Gent. Mag._ 1785, p. 412, or possibly to an _Ode_ on p. 50 of +his poems. + +[1253] 'Being become very weak and helpless it was thought necessary +that a man should watch with him all night; and one was found in the +neighbourhood for half a crown a night.' Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, +p. 589. + +[1254] It was on Nov. 30 that he repeated these lines. See Croker's +_Boswell_, p. 843. + +[1255] _British Synonymy_, i. 359. Mrs. Piozzi, to add to the wonder, +says that these verses were 'improviso,' forgetting that Johnson wrote +to her on Aug 8, 1780 (_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 175):--'You have heard in +the papers how --- is come to age. I have enclosed a short song of +congratulation which you must not shew to anybody. It is odd that it +should come into anybody's head. I hope you will read it with candour; +it is, I believe, one of the author's first essays in that way of +writing, and a beginner is always to be treated with tenderness.' That +it was Sir John Lade who had come of age is shewn by the entry of his +birth, Aug. 1, 1759, in the _Gent. Mag._ 1759, p. 392. He was the nephew +and ward of Mr. Thrale, who seemed to think that Miss Burney would make +him a good wife. (Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 79.) According to Mr. +Hayward (_Life of Piozzi_, i. 69) it was Lade who having asked Johnson +whether he advised him to marry, received as answer: 'I would advise no +man to marry, Sir, who is not likely to propagate understanding.' See +_ante_, ii. 109, note 2. Mr. Hayward adds that 'he married a woman of +the town, became a celebrated member of the Four-in-Hand Club, and +contrived to waste the whole of a fine fortune before he died.' In +Campbell's _Chancellors_ (ed. 1846, v. 628) a story is told of Sir John +Ladd, who is, I suppose, the same man. The Prince of Wales in 1805 asked +Lord Thurlow to dinner, and also Ladd. 'When "the old Lion" arrived the +Prince went into the ante-room to meet him, and apologised for the party +being larger than he had intended, but added, "that Sir John was an old +friend of his, and he could not avoid asking him to dinner," to which +Thurlow, in his growling voice, answered, "I have no objection, Sir, to +Sir John Ladd in his proper place, which I take to be your Royal +Highness's coach-box, and not your table."' + +[1256] _British Synonymy_ was published in 1794, later therefore than +Boswell's first and second editions. In both these the latter half of +this paragraph ran as follows:--"From the specimen which Mrs. Piozzi has +exhibited of it (_Anecdotes_, p. 196) it is much to be wished that the +world could see the whole. Indeed I can speak from my own knowledge; for +having had the pleasure to read it, I found it to be a piece of +exquisite satire conveyed in a strain of pointed vivacity and humour, +and in a manner of which no other instance is to be found in Johnson's +writings. After describing the ridiculous and ruinous career of a wild +spendthrift he _consoles_ him with this reflection:-- + + "You may hang or drown at last."' + +[1257] Sir John. + +[1258]'"Les morts n'ecrivent point," says Madame de Maintenon.' Hannah +More's _Memoirs_, i. 233. The note that Johnson received 'was,' says Mr. +Hoole, 'from Mr. Davies, the bookseller, and mentioned a present of some +pork; upon which the Doctor said, in a manner that seemed as if he +thought it ill-timed, "too much of this," or some such expression.' +Croker's _Boswell_, p. 844. + +[1259] Sir Walter Scott says that 'Reynolds observed the charge given +him by Johnson on his death-bed not to use his pencil of a Sunday for a +considerable time, but afterwards broke it, being persuaded by some +person who was impatient for a sitting that the Doctor had no title to +exact such a promise.' Croker's _Corres_. ii. 34. 'Reynolds used to say +that "the pupil in art who looks for the Sunday with pleasure as an idle +day will never make a painter."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 119. 'Dr. +Johnson,' said Lord Eldon, 'sent me a message on his death-bed, to +request that I would attend public worship every Sunday.' Twiss's +_Eldon_, i. 168. The advice was not followed, for 'when a lawyer, a warm +partisan of the Chancellor, called him one of the pillars of the Church; +"No," said another lawyer, "he may be one of its buttresses; but +certainly not one of its pillars, for he is never found within it."' +_Ib_. iii. 488. Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chancellors_, vii. 716) +says:--Lord Eldon was never present at public worship in London from one +year's end to the other. Pleading in mitigation before Lord Ellenborough +that he attended public worship in the country, he received the rebuke, +"as if there were no God in town.'" + +[1260] Reynolds records:--'During his last illness, when all hope was at +an end, he appeared to be quieter and more resigned. His approaching +dissolution was always present to his mind. A few days before he died, +Mr. Langton and myself only present, he said he had been a great sinner, +but he hoped he had given no bad example to his friends; that he had +some consolation in reflecting that he had never denied Christ, and +repeated the text, "Whoever denies me, &c." [_St. Matthew_ x. 33.] We +were both very ready to assure him that we were conscious that we were +better and wiser from his life and conversation; and that so far from +denying Christ, he had been, in this age, his greatest champion.' +Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 459. + +[1261] Hannah More (_Memoirs_ i. 393) says that Johnson, having put up a +fervent prayer that Brocklesby might become a sincere Christian, 'caught +hold of his hand with great earnestness, and cried, "Doctor, you do not +say _Amen_." The Doctor looked foolishly, but after a pause cried +"_Amen_"' Her account, however, is often not accurate. + +[1262] Windham records (_Diary_, p. 30) that on the night of the 12th he +urged him to take some sustenance, 'and desisted only upon his +exclaiming, "It is all very childish; let us hear no more of it."' On +his pressing him a second time, he answered that 'he refused no +sustenance but inebriating sustenance.' Windham thereupon asked him to +take some milk, but 'he recurred to his general refusal, and begged that +there might be an end of it. I then said that I hoped he would forgive +my earnestness; when he replied eagerly, "that from me nothing would be +necessary by way of apology;" adding with great fervour, in words which +I shall (I hope) never forget--"God bless you, my dear Windham, through +Jesus Christ;" and concluding with a wish that we might meet in some +humble portion of that happiness which God might finally vouchsafe to +repentant sinners. These were the last words I ever heard him speak. I +hurried out of the room with tears in my eyes, and more affected than I +had been on any former occasion.' It was at a later hour in this same +night that Johnson 'scarified himself in three places. On Mr. Desmoulins +making a difficulty of giving him the lancet he said, "Don't you, if you +have any scruples; but I will compel Frank," and on Mr. Desmoulins +attempting to prevent Frank from giving it to him, and at last to +restrain his hands, he grew very outrageous, so much so as to call Frank +"scoundrel" and to threaten Mr. Desmoulins that he would stab him.' +_Ib_. p. 32. + +[1263] Mr. Strahan, mentioning 'the anxious fear', which seized Johnson, +says, that 'his friends who knew his integrity observed it with equal +astonishment and concern.' He adds that 'his foreboding dread of the +Divine justice by degrees subsided into a pious trust and humble hope in +the Divine mercy.' _Pr. and Med._ preface, p. xv. + +[1264] The change of his sentiments with regard to Dr. Clarke, is thus +mentioned to me in a letter from the late Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke +College, Oxford:--'The Doctor's prejudices were the strongest, and +certainly in another sense the weakest, that ever possessed a sensible +man. You know his extreme zeal for orthodoxy. But did you ever hear what +he told me himself? That he had made it a rule not to admit Dr. Clarke's +name in his _Dictionary_. This, however, wore off. At some distance of +time he advised with me what books he should read in defence of the +Christian Religion. I recommended Clarke's _Evidences of Natural and +Revealed Religion_, as the best of the kind; and I find in what is +called his _Prayers and Meditations_, that he was frequently employed in +the latter part of his time in reading Clarke's _Sermons_. BOSWELL. See +_ante_, i. 398. + +[1265] The Reverend Mr. Strahan took care to have it preserved, and has +inserted it in _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 216. BOSWELL. + +[1266] See _ante_, iii. 433. + +[1267] The counterpart of Johnson's end and of one striking part of his +character may be found in Mr. Fearing in _The Pilgrim's Progress_, part +ii. '"Mr. Fearing was," said Honesty, "a very zealous man. Difficulty, +lions, or Vanity Fair he feared not at all; it was only sin, death, and +hell that were to him a terror, because he had some doubts about his +interest in that celestial country." "I dare believe," Greatheart +replied, "that, as the proverb is, he could have bit a firebrand, had it +stood in his way; but the things with which he was oppressed no man ever +yet could shake off with ease."' See _ante_, ii. 298, note 4. + +[1268] Her sister's likeness as Hope nursing Love was painted by +Reynolds. Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 185. + +[1269] The following letter, written with an agitated hand, from the +very chamber of death, by Mr. Langton, and obviously interrupted by his +feelings, will not unaptly close the story of so long a friendship. The +letter is not addressed, but Mr. Langton's family believe it was +intended for Mr. Boswell. + +'MY DEAR SIR,--After many conflicting hopes and fears respecting the +event of this heavy return of illness which has assailed our honoured +friend, Dr. Johnson, since his arrival from Lichfield, about four days +ago the appearances grew more and more awful, and this afternoon at +eight o'clock, when I arrived at his house to see how he should be going +on, I was acquainted at the door, that about three quarters of an hour +before, he breathed his last. I am now writing in the room where his +venerable remains exhibit a spectacle, the interesting solemnity of +which, difficult as it would be in any sort to find terms to express, so +to you, my dear Sir, whose own sensations will paint it so strongly, it +would be of all men the most superfluous to attempt to--.'--CROKER. +The interruption of the note was perhaps due to a discovery made by +Langton. Hawkins says, 'at eleven, the evening of Johnson's death, Mr. +Langton came to me, and in an agony of mind gave me to understand that +our friend had wounded himself in several parts of the body.' Hawkins's +_Life_, p. 590. To the dying man, 'on the last day of his existence on +this side the grave the desire of life,' to use Murphy's words (_Life_, +p. 135), 'had returned with all its former vehemence.' In the hope of +drawing off the dropsical water he gave himself these wounds (see +_ante_, p. 399). He lost a good deal of blood, and no doubt hastened his +end. Langton must have suspected that Johnson intentionally +shortened his life. + +[1270] Servant to the Right Honourable William Windham. BOSWELL. + +[1271] Sir Joshua Reynolds and Paoli were among the mourners. Among the +Nichols papers in the British Museum is preserved an invitation card to +the funeral. + +[1272] Dr. Burney wrote to the Rev. T. Twining on Christmas Day, +1784:--'The Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey lay all the blame on +Sir John Hawkins for suffering Johnson to be so unworthily interred. The +Knight's first inquiry at the Abbey in giving orders, as the most acting +executor, was--"What would be the difference in the expense between a +public and private funeral?" and was told only a few pounds to the +prebendaries, and about ninety pairs of gloves to the choir and +attendants; and he then determined that, "as Dr. Johnson had no music in +him, he should choose the cheapest manner of interment." And for this +reason there was no organ heard, or burial service sung; for which he +suffers the Dean and Chapter to be abused in all the newspapers, and +joins in their abuse when the subject is mentioned in conversation.' +Burney mentions a report that Hawkins had been slandering Johnson. +_Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIII Century_, +p. 129. Dr. Charles Burney, jun., had written the day after the +funeral:--'The executor, Sir John Hawkins, did not manage things well, +for there was no anthem or choir service performed--no lesson--but +merely what is read over every old woman that is buried by the parish. +Dr. Taylor read the service but so-so.' Johnstone's _Parr_, i. 535. + +[1273] Pope's _Essay on Man_, iv. 390. See _ante_, iii. 6, and iv. 122. + +[1274] On the subject of Johnson I may adopt the words of Sir John +Harrington, concerning his venerable Tutor and Diocesan, Dr. John Still, +Bishop of Bath and Wells; 'who hath given me some helps, more hopes, all +encouragements in my best studies: to whom I never came but I grew more +religious; from whom I never went, but I parted better instructed. Of +him therefore, my acquaintance, my friend, my instructor, if I speak +much, it were not to be marvelled; if I speak frankly, it is not to be +blamed; and though I speak partially, it were to be pardoned.' _Nugoe +Antiquoe_, vol. i. p. 136. There is one circumstance in Sir John's +character of Bishop Still, which is peculiarly applicable to Johnson: +'He became so famous a disputer, that the learnedest were even afraid to +dispute with him; and he finding his own strength, could not stick to +warn them in their arguments to take heed to their answers, like a +perfect fencer that will tell aforehand in which button he will give the +venew, or like a cunning chess-player that will appoint aforehand with +which pawn and in what place he will give the mate.' _Ibid_. BOSWELL. + +[1275] The late Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton. MALONE. + +[1276] 'His death,' writes Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 394), 'makes a +kind of era in literature.' 'One who had long known him said of +him:--'In general you may tell what the man to whom you are speaking +will say next. This you can never do of Johnson.' Johnson's _Works_ +(1787), xi. 211. + +[1277] Beside the Dedications to him by Dr. Goldsmith [_ante_, ii. 216], +the Reverend Dr. Francklin [_ante_, iv. 34], and the Reverend Mr. Wilson +[_ante_, iv. 162], which I have mentioned according to their dates, +there was one by a lady, of a versification of _Aningait and Ajut_, and +one by the ingenious Mr. Walker [_ante_, iv. 206], of his _Rhetorical +Grammar_. I have introduced into this work several compliments paid to +him in the writings of his contemporaries; but the number of them is so +great, that we may fairly say that there was almost a general tribute. + +Let me not be forgetful of the honour done to him by Colonel Myddleton, +of Gwaynynog, near Denbigh; who, on the banks of a rivulet in his park, +where Johnson delighted to stand and repeat verses, erected an urn with +the following inscription: + + 'This spot was often dignified by the presence of + SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. + Whose moral writings, exactly conformable to the + precepts of Christianity, + Gave ardour to Virtue and confidence to Truth [H-1].' + +As no inconsiderable circumstance of his fame, we must reckon the +extraordinary zeal of the artists to extend and perpetuate his image. I +can enumerate a bust by Mr. Nollekens, and the many casts which are made +from it; several pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds, from one of which, in +the possession of the Duke of Dorset, Mr. Humphry executed a beautiful +miniature in enamel; one by Mrs. Frances Reynolds, Sir Joshua's sister; +one by Mr. Zoffani; and one by Mr. Opie [H-2]; and the following +engravings of his portrait: 1. One by Cooke, from Sir Joshua, for the +Proprietors' edition of his folio _Dictionary_.--2. One from ditto, by +ditto, for their quarto edition.--3. One from Opie, by Heath, for +Harrison's edition of his _Dictionary_.--4. One from Nollekens' bust of +him, by Bartolozzi, for Fielding's quarto edition of his +_Dictionary_.--5. One small, from Harding, by Trotter, for his +_Beauties_.--6. One small, from Sir Joshua, by Trotter, for his _Lives +of the Poets_.--7. One small, from Sir Joshua, by Hall, for _The +Rambler_.--8. One small, from an original drawing, in the possession of +Mr. John Simco, etched by Trotter, for another edition of his _Lives of +the Poets_.--9. One small, no painter's name, etched by Taylor, for his +_Johnsoniana_.--10. One folio whole-length, with his oak-stick, as +described in Boswell's _Tour_, drawn and etched by Trotter.--11. One +large mezzotinto, from Sir Joshua, by Doughty [H-3].--l2. One large Roman +head, from Sir Joshua, by Marchi.--13. One octavo, holding a book to his +eye, from Sir Joshua, by Hall, for his _Works_.--14. One small, from a +drawing from the life, and engraved by Trotter, for his _Life_ published +by Kearsley.--15. One large, from Opie, by Mr. Townley, (brother of Mr. +Townley, of the Commons,) an ingenious artist, who resided some time at +Berlin, and has the honour of being engraver to his Majesty the King of +Prussia. This is one of the finest mezzotintos that ever was executed; +and what renders it of extraordinary value, the plate was destroyed +after four or five impressions only were taken off. One of them is in +the possession of Sir William Scott [H-4]. Mr. Townley has lately been +prevailed with to execute and publish another of the same, that it may +be more generally circulated among the admirers of Dr. Johnson.--16. One +large, from Sir Joshua's first picture of him, by Heath, for this work, +in quarto.--17. One octavo, by Baker, for the octavo edition.--18. And +one for Lavater's _Essay on Physiognomy_, in which Johnson's countenance +is analysed upon the principles of that fanciful writer.--There are also +several seals with his head cut on them, particularly a very fine one by +that eminent artist, Edward Burch, Esq. R.A. in the possession of the +younger Dr. Charles Burney. + +Let me add, as a proof of the popularity of his character, that there +are copper pieces struck at Birmingham, with his head impressed on them, +which pass current as half-pence there, and in the neighbouring parts of +the country. BOSWELL. [Note: See Appendix H for notes on this footnote.] + +[1278] It is not yet published.--In a letter to me, Mr. Agutter says, +'My sermon before the University was more engaged with Dr. Johnson's +_moral_ than his _intellectual_ character. It particularly examined his +fear of death, and suggested several reasons for the apprehension of the +good, and the indifference of the infidel in their last hours; this was +illustrated by contrasting the death of Dr. Johnson and Mr. Hume: the +text was Job xxi. 22-26.' BOSWELL. It was preached on July 23, 1786, and +not at Johnson's death. It is entitled _On the Difference between the +Deaths of the Righteous and the Wicked. Illustrated in the Instance of +Dr. Samuel Johnson and David Hume, Esq._ The text is from Job xxi. 23 +(not 22)-26. It was published in 1800. Neither Johnson nor Hume is +mentioned in the sermon itself by name. Its chief, perhaps its sole, +merit is its brevity. + +[1279] See _ante_, ii. 335, and iii. 375. + +[1280] 'May 26, 1791. After the Doctor's death, Burke, Sir Joshua +Reynolds, and Boswell sent an ambling circular-letter to me begging +subscriptions for a monument for him. I would not deign to write an +answer; but sent down word by my footman, as I would have done to parish +officers, with a brief, that I would not subscribe.' Horace Walpole's +_Letters_, ix. 319. In Malone's correspondence are complaints of the +backwardness of the members of the Literary Club 'to pay the amounts +nominally subscribed by them.' Prior's _Goldsmith_, ii. 226. + +[1281] It was, says Malone, owing to Reynolds that the monument was +erected in St. Paul's. In his _Journey to Flanders_he had lamented that +sculpture languished in England, and was almost confined to monuments to +eminent men. But even in these it had not fair play, for Westminster +Abbey was so full, that the recent monuments appeared ridiculous being +stuck up in odd holes and corners. On the other hand St. Paul's looked +forlorn and desolate. Here monuments should be erected, under the +direction of the Royal Academy. He took advantage of Johnson's death to +make a beginning with the plan which he had here sketched, and induced +his friends to give up their intention of setting up the monument in the +Abbey. Reynolds's _Works_, ed. 1824, ii. 248. 'He asked Dr. Parr--but in +vain--to include in the epitaph Johnson's title of Professor of Ancient +Literature to the Royal Academy; as it was on this pretext that he +persuaded the Academicians to subscribe a hundred guineas.' Johnstone's +_Parr_, iv. 686. See _ante_, ii. 239, where the question was raised +whose monument should be first erected in St. Paul's, and Johnson +proposed Milton's. + +[1282] The Reverend Dr. Parr, on being requested to undertake it, thus +expressed himself in a letter to William Seward, Esq.: + +'I leave this mighty task to some hardier and some abler writer. The +variety and splendour of Johnson's attainments, the peculiarities of his +character, his private virtues, and his literary publications, fill me +with confusion and dismay, when I reflect upon the confined and +difficult species of composition, in which alone they can be expressed, +with propriety, upon his monument.' + +But I understand that this great scholar, and warm admirer of Johnson, +has yielded to repeated solicitations, and executed the very difficult +undertaking. BOSWELL. Dr. Johnson's Monument, consisting of a colossal +figure leaning against a column, has since the death of our authour been +placed in St. Paul's Cathedral. The Epitaph was written by the Rev. Dr. +Parr, and is as follows: + + SAMVELI IOHNSON + GRAMMATICO ET CRITICO + SCRIPTORVM ANGLICORVM LITTERATE PERITO + POETAE LVMINIBVS SENTENTIARVM + ET PONDERIBVS VERBORVM ADMIRABILI + MAGISTRO VIRTVTIS GRAVISSIMO + HOMINI OPTIMO ET SINGVLARIS EXEMPLI + QVI VIXIT ANN LXXV MENS IL. DIEB XIII + DECESSIT IDIB DECEMBR ANN CHRIST cIo Iocc LXXXIIII + SEPVLT IN AED SANCT PETR WESTMONASTERIENS + XIII KAL IANVAR ANN CHRIST cIo Iocc LXXXV + AMICI ET SODALES LITTERARII + PECVNIA CONLATA + H M FACIVND CVRAVER. + +On a scroll in his hand are the following words: +[Greek: ENMAKARESSIPONONANTAXIOSEIHAMOIBH]. + +On one side of the Monument--- FACIEBAT JOHANNES BACON SCVLPTOR ANN. +CHRIST. M.DCC.-LXXXXV. + +The Subscription for this monument, which cost eleven hundred guineas, +was begun by the LITERARY CLUB. MALONE. See Appendix I. + +[1283] '"Laetus sum laudari me," inquit Hector, opinor apud Naevium, +"abs te, pater, a laudato viro."' Cicero, _Ep. ad Fam_. xv. 6. + +[1284] To prevent any misconception on this subject, Mr. Malone, by whom +these lines were obligingly communicated, requests me to add the +following remark:-- + +'In justice to the late Mr. Flood, now himself wanting, and highly +meriting, an epitaph from his country, to which his transcendent talents +did the highest honour, as well as the most important service; it should +be observed that these lines were by no means intended as a regular +monumental inscription for Dr. Johnson. Had he undertaken to write an +appropriated and discriminative epitaph for that excellent and +extraordinary man, those who knew Mr. Flood's vigour of mind, will have +no doubt that he would have produced one worthy of his illustrious +subject. But the fact was merely this: In Dec. 1789, after a large +subscription had been made for Dr. Johnson's monument, to which Mr. +Flood liberally contributed, Mr. Malone happened to call on him at his +house, in Berners-street, and the conversation turning on the proposed +monument, Mr. Malone maintained that the epitaph, by whomsoever it +should be written, ought to be in Latin. Mr. Flood thought differently. +The next morning, in the postscript to a note on another subject, he +mentioned that he continued of the same opinion as on the preceding day, +and subjoined the lines above given.' BOSWELL. Cowper also composed an +epitaph for Johnson--though not one of much merit. See Southey's +_Cowper_, v. 119. + +[1285] As I do not see any reason to give a different character of my +illustrious friend now, from what I formerly gave, the greatest part of +the sketch of him in my _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, is here +adopted. BOSWELL. + +[1286] See _ante_, i. 41. + +[1287] For his fox-hunting see _ante_, i. 446, note I. + +[1288] _Lucretius_, i. 72. + +[1289] See ante, i. 406. + +[1290] 'He was always indulgent to the young, he never attacked the +unassuming, nor meant to terrify the diffident.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_ ii. 343. + +[1291] In the _Olla Podrida_, a collection of Essays published at +Oxford, there is an admirable paper upon the character of Johnson, +written by the Reverend Dr. Home, the last excellent Bishop of Norwich. +The following passage is eminently happy: 'To reject wisdom, because the +person of him who communicates it is uncouth, and his manners are +inelegant;--what is it, but to throw away a pine-apple, and assign for a +reason the roughness of its coat?' BOSWELL. The _Olla Podrida_ was +published in weekly numbers in 1787 8. Boswell's quotation is from +No. 13. + +[1292] 'The _English Dictionary_ was written ... amidst inconvenience +distraction, in sickness and in sorrow.' Preface to Johnson's +_Dictionary, Works_, v. 51. + +[1293] 'For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much +required.' _Luke_, xii. 48. + +[1294] 'If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men +most miserable.' I _Corinthians_, xv. 19. + +[1295] See ante, ii. 262, note 2. + +[1296] Though a perfect resemblance of Johnson is not to be found in any +age, parts of his character are admirably expressed by Clarendon in +drawing that of Lord Falkland, whom the noble and masterly historian +describes at his seat near Oxford;--'Such an immenseness of wit, such a +solidity of judgement, so infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical +ratiocination.--His acquaintance was cultivated by the most polite and +accurate men, so that his house was an University in less volume, +whither they came, not so much for repose as study, and to examine and +refine those grosser propositions, which laziness and consent made +current in conversation.' + +Bayle's account of Menage may also be quoted as exceedingly applicable +to the great subject of this work:--'His illustrious friends erected a +very glorious monument to him in the collection entitled Menagiana. +Those who judge of things aright, will confess that this collection is +very proper to shew the extent of genius and learning which was the +character of Menage. And I may be bold to say, that _the excellent works +he published will not distinguish him from other learned men so +advantageously as this_. To publish books of great learning, to make +Greek and Latin verses exceedingly well turned, is not a common talent, +I own; neither is it extremely rare, It is incomparably more difficult +to find men who can furnish discourse about an infinite number of +things, and who can diversify them an hundred ways. How many authours +are there, who are admired for their works, on account of the vast +learning that is displayed in them, who are not able to sustain a +conversation. Those who know Menage only by his books, might think he +resembled those learned men; but if you shew the MENAGIANA, you +distinguish him from them, and make him known by a talent which is given +to very few learned men. There it appears that he was a man who spoke +off-hand a thousand good things. His memory extended to what was ancient +and modern; to the court and to the city; to the dead and to the living +languages; to things serious and things jocose; in a word, to a thousand +sorts of subjects. That which appeared a trifle to some readers of the +_Menagiana_, who did not consider circumstances, caused admiration in +other readers, who minded the difference between what a man speaks +without preparation, and that which he prepares for the press. And, +therefore, we cannot sufficiently commend the care which his illustrious +friends took to erect a monument so capable of giving him immortal +glory. They were not obliged to rectify what they had heard him say; +for, in so doing, they had not been faithful historians of his +conversations.' BOSWELL. Boswell's quotation from Clarendon (ed. 1826, +iv. 242) differs somewhat from the original. + +[1297] See _ante_, ii. 326, and iv. 236. + +[1298] See _ante_, p. iii. + +[1299] To this finely-drawn character we may add the noble testimony of +Sir Joshua Reynolds:--'His pride had no meanness in it; there was +nothing little or mean about him.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 457. + +[1300] In Johnson's character of Boerhaave there is much that applies +equally well to himself. 'Thus died Boerhaave, a man formed by nature +for great designs, and guided by religion in the exertion of his +abilities. He was of a robust and athletick constitution of body, so +hardened by early severities and wholesome fatigue that he was +insensible of any sharpness of air, or inclemency of weather. He was +tall, and remarkable for extraordinary strength. There was in his air +and motion something rough and artless, but so majestick and great at +the same time, that no man ever looked upon him without veneration, and +a kind of tacit submission to the superiority of his genius.... He was +never soured by calumny and detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to +confute them; "for they are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow +them, will go out of themselves."... He was not to be overawed or +depressed by the presence, frowns, or insolence of great men; but +persisted, on all occasions, in the right with a resolution always +present and always calm.... Nor was he unacquainted with the art of +recommending truth by elegance, and embellishing the philosopher with +polite literature.... He knew the importance of his own writings to +mankind, and lest he might by a roughness and barbarity of style, too +frequent among men of great learning, disappoint his own intentions, and +make his labours less useful, he did not neglect the politer arts of +eloquence and poetry. Thus was his learning at once various and exact, +profound and agreeable.... He asserted on all occasions the divine +authority and sacred efficacy of the holy Scriptures; and maintained +that they alone taught the way of salvation, and that they only could +give peace of mind.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 288. + +[1301] Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was born at Plympton. + +[1302] See _ante,_ iii. 43, note 3. + + +THE END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6), by Boswell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHNSON, VOLUME 4 (OF 6) *** + +***** This file should be named 10357.txt or 10357.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/5/10357/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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