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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10357 ***</div>

<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.&mdash;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>



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<p> </p>
<h2>CONTENTS OF VOL. IV.</h2>

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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>


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<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>&mdash;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,&mdash;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."&mdash;"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:&mdash;</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&mdash;<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:&mdash;<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&mdash;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," &amp;c., but I don't know
whether it might not be true of Lord &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;<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,&mdash;then the grace in form,&mdash;then
the colouring,&mdash;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:&mdash;</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."&mdash;"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 &agrave; 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,&mdash;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&mdash;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>."&mdash;"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>
     "&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-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,&mdash;'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,&mdash;"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>neuvi&egrave;me</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&mdash;in the first
place&mdash;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>&mdash;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,&mdash;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;&mdash;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,&mdash;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>;'&mdash;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:&mdash;</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.&mdash;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>, Lati&ugrave;s se
tamen aperiente materi&acirc;, plus qu&agrave;m 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>,'&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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>:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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.&mdash;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.&mdash;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."&mdash;"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."&mdash;"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>:&mdash;</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,&mdash;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:&mdash;</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; &mdash;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;&mdash;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:&mdash;'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.'&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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;'&mdash;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,&mdash;decency,&mdash;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 &mdash;&mdash;<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>:&mdash;</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>;&mdash;claret for
boys&mdash;port for men&mdash;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;&mdash;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
&mdash;&mdash;<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.
&mdash;&mdash; there, who sits as quiet&mdash;.' 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.
&mdash;&mdash; and I have reason to take it ill. <i>You</i> may
talk so of Mr. &mdash;&mdash;; but why do you make <i>me</i> do
it. Have I said anything against Mr. &mdash;&mdash;? 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:&mdash;</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,&mdash;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.'&mdash;'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,&mdash;one would not be seen in such a
place&mdash;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,&mdash;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>:&mdash;</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&mdash;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:&mdash;</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,
&amp;c. &amp;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&mdash; such as his having gone to Jamaica; or&mdash;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;&mdash;'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 &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;<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 &mdash;&mdash;'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;&mdash;'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>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</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&mdash;(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:&mdash;'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;&mdash;one, that I have lost all the names,&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:-'&mdash;&mdash;, 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:&mdash;</p>
<center>
<table summary="">
<tr><td>
<pre>
     '&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;to the chosen few
        Who dare excel, thy fost'ring aid afford,
      Their arts, their magick powers, with honours due
        Exalt;&mdash;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;&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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>:&mdash;</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
rect&egrave; qui prorogat horam</i><a href=
"#note-387">[387]</a>,' &amp;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;in fine weather,&mdash;at
the country house of a friend,&mdash;consoled and elevated by
pious exercises,&mdash;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;&mdash;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:&mdash;</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>:&mdash;</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&mdash;Y&mdash;L S&mdash;LL&mdash;RS,
<i>alias</i> P&mdash;C&mdash;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&mdash;y&mdash;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:&mdash;</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,&mdash;<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, &amp;c. SAM. JOHNSON. July 17, 1781.'</p>
<p>The following curious anecdote I insert in Dr. Burney's own
words:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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.&mdash;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>?&mdash;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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.&mdash;<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:&mdash;</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>'Postqu&agrave;m tu discesseris, qu&ograve; 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:&mdash;</p>
<center>
<table summary="">
<tr><td>
<pre>
     To THE REVEREND MR. &mdash;&mdash;, 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:&mdash;'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,
&amp;c.'&mdash;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, &amp;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:&mdash;</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, &amp;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 &amp;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 &amp;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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, &amp;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>:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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, &amp;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:&mdash;</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, &amp;c.</p>
<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center>
<p>'December 31, 1782<a href=
"#note-507">[507]</a>.'</p>
<p>1783: AETAT. 74.&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;I received an
answer in February, of which I extract what follows:&mdash;</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>isol&eacute;e</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:
'&mdash;&mdash;<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>,&mdash;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:&mdash;</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
&mdash;&mdash;<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:&mdash;</i></p>
<center>
<table summary="">
<tr><td>
<pre>
     '&mdash;&mdash;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,&mdash;but I do not love Beauclerk
the less<i>.'</i></p>
<p>On the frame of his portrait, Mr. Beauclerk had
inscribed,&mdash;</p>
<center>
<table summary="">
<tr><td>
<pre>
     '&mdash;&mdash;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&mdash;the
enjoyment of hope<a href=
"#note-572">[572]</a>,&mdash;the high
superiority of rank, without the anxious cares of
government,&mdash;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:&mdash;</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>,&mdash;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;&mdash;'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,&mdash;'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;&mdash;'Boswell,</i> lend <i>me sixpence&mdash;</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:&mdash;'Sir, I have been thinking on our dispute last
night&mdash;You were in the right<i><a href=
"#note-602">[602]</a>.'</i></p>
<p>The other was as follows:&mdash;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&mdash;</i></p>
<center>
<table summary="">
<tr><td>
<pre>
     Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi<i>, &amp;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,&mdash;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 &agrave; 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> &agrave; 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, &amp;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,&mdash;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?&mdash;' 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:&mdash;'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&mdash;<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;&mdash;'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>;&mdash;the ships of the Trojans turned to
sea-nymphs,&mdash;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:&mdash;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,&mdash;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;&mdash;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,&mdash;(after a little
pause)&mdash;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:&mdash;</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, &amp;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>:&mdash;</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,
&amp;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:&mdash;'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, &amp;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, &amp;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:&mdash;</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.'&mdash;'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.'&mdash;'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.'&mdash;'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,
&amp;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,&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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.&mdash;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;"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,&mdash;</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,&mdash;</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, &amp;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;&mdash;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;&mdash;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, &amp;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,&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;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, &amp;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, &amp;c.</p>
<center>'SAM. JOHNSON.'</center>
<p>'London, Nov. 29, 1783.'</p>
<p>1784: Aetat. 75.&mdash;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, &amp;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, &amp;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, &amp;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, &amp;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, &amp;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:&mdash;</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;&mdash;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,&mdash;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, &amp;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,
&amp;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:&mdash;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>?"'&mdash;
</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&mdash;"this is an
extraordinary man." If Burke should go into a stable to see his
horse drest, the ostler would say&mdash;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&mdash;' 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.&mdash;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.&mdash;'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
&agrave; 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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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 &mdash;&mdash; has not the evangelical
virtue of Langton. &mdash;&mdash;, 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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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:&mdash;'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,&mdash;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,&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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;&mdash;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:&mdash;</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;&mdash;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;&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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;&mdash;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:&mdash;' 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>:&mdash;</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 Otaheit&eacute; 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;&mdash;putting out,&mdash;adding,&mdash;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;&mdash;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:&mdash;</p>
<p>Universal History (ancient.)&mdash;Rollin's Ancient
History.&mdash;Puffendorf's Introduction to
History.&mdash;Vertot's History of Knights of Malta.&mdash;
Vertot's Revolution of Portugal.&mdash;Vertot's Revolutions of
Sweden.&mdash; Carte's History of England.&mdash;Present State of
England.&mdash;Geographical Grammar.&mdash;Prideaux's
Connection.&mdash;Nelson's Feasts and Fasts.&mdash;Duty of
Man.&mdash;Gentleman's Religion.&mdash;Clarendon's
History.&mdash;Watts's Improvement of the Mind.&mdash;Watts's
Logick.&mdash;Nature Displayed.&mdash;Lowth's English
Grammar.&mdash;Blackwall on the Classicks.&mdash;Sherlock's
Sermons.&mdash;Burnet's Life of Hale.&mdash;Dupin's History of
the Church.&mdash;Shuckford's Connection.&mdash;Law's Serious
Call.&mdash;Walton's Complete Angler.&mdash;Sandys's
Travels.&mdash;Sprat's History of the Royal
Society.&mdash;England's Gazetteer.&mdash;Goldsmith's Roman
History.&mdash;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;&mdash;' 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:&mdash;</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,&mdash;</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>:&mdash;'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,&mdash;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>:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;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. &mdash;&mdash; 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 cong&eacute;
d'&eacute;lire<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, &amp;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:&mdash;</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 Torr&eacute;'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, &amp;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:&mdash;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:&mdash;</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>:&mdash;'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;&mdash;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. &mdash;&mdash;, 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,&mdash;JOHNSON. 'Give me your hand,
Sir. You were too tedious, and I was too short.' MR.
&mdash;&mdash;. '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:&mdash;</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,&mdash;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, &amp;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,&mdash;</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,&mdash;'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, &amp;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
trouv&eacute;e</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>,&mdash;</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>,&mdash;</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, &amp;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>,&mdash;</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>,&mdash;</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&mdash;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?&mdash;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:&mdash;'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>:&mdash;</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,&mdash;</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,&mdash;</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:&mdash;</p>
<p><i>'When I one day lamented the loss of a first cousin killed
in</i> America,&mdash;"<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>&mdash;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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,&mdash;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;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 &eacute;ternel emploi,
      Cultivez vos amis</i><a href=
"#note-1091">1091</a>.'&mdash;
</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:&mdash;</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.&mdash;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&mdash;<i>abite curoe</i>;&mdash;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.&mdash;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 sol&aacute;<a href=
"#note-1108">1108</a>.&mdash;&mdash;"
</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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,
&amp;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, &amp;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, &amp;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, &amp;c. 'Sam. Johnson.' 'Ashbourne,
Sept. 4, 1784.'</p>
<p>To Mr. Thomas Davies:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;<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:&mdash;</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):&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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, &amp;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:&mdash;</p>
<p>July 26, he wrote to me from Ashbourne:&mdash;</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,&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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, &amp;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:&mdash;</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,&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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&mdash; 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:&mdash;</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,&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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, &amp;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>,'&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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,&mdash;to my friend,&mdash;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,&mdash;</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:&mdash;</p>
<center>
<table summary="">
<tr><td>
<pre>
     '&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;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,&mdash;</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>:&mdash;</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,&mdash;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;"&mdash;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>!"&mdash;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,&mdash;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>:&mdash;</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 &mdash;- &mdash;&mdash;<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&mdash;
     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,&mdash;
       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:&mdash;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:&mdash;</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>:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;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
&agrave; 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>:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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&mdash;literally smoothing down his arms and his knees,'
&amp;c. The <i>Annual Register</i> says that Barnard the next day
sent the verses addressed to 'Sir Joshua Reynolds &amp; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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:&mdash;</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),' &amp;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':&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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 Abb&eacute; 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:&mdash;</i></p>
<p>'I suppose you have heard a great deal of the Abb&eacute;
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:&mdash;</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&mdash;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;"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):&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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&mdash;at least
very rarely. At times indeed he re-animates; but it is soon over
and he says of himself:&mdash;"I am now like
Macbeth&mdash;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&mdash;he refused it, and
said:&mdash;'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 &pound;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&mdash;how long
he does not say&mdash;contributed &pound;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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>, &amp;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&mdash;and perhaps many&mdash;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,&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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 &pound;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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, &amp;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&mdash;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, &amp;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 &mdash;&mdash;;
Saturday, at the Academy; Sunday with Mr. Ramsay.'</i> Piozzi
Letters<i>, ii. 107. On May 1, he wrote:&mdash;'At Mrs. Ord's, I
met one Mrs. B&mdash;&mdash; [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:&mdash;'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&mdash;"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&mdash;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:&mdash;'Mon ami, vous vous &ecirc;tes mis
une couronne sur la t&ecirc;te, mais une couronne
d'&eacute;pines.' His attacks on the Church led to persecution,
in the end he made a retractation, but nevertheless he died in
prison.</i> Nouv. Biog. G&eacute;n. <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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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>:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'C&mdash;&mdash; L&mdash;&mdash; accuses
&mdash;&mdash; 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&mdash;&mdash; L&mdash;&mdash; is
'Charlotte Lennox.' Perhaps &mdash;&mdash; 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,' &amp;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;&mdash;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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, &amp;c.
     And have a house, &amp;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:&mdash;</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, &amp;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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>:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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, &amp;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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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 &agrave; 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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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?&mdash;eh? flabby<i>, I
think.' BOSWELL. Dr. A. Carlyle (</i>Auto<i>. p. 279),
says:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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,&mdash;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,&mdash;' 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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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>&mdash;'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>,
&amp;c., frequently written instead of</i> critick, publick<i>,
&amp;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:&mdash;'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&mdash;and yet he did not
go five steps farther before he asked charity of a little
woman&mdash;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.&mdash;An ancient gentleman
came slowly&mdash;and, after him, a young smart one&mdash;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."'&mdash;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>&amp;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>:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'In whole
quires of his</i> Histories<i>,</i> Animated Nature<i>, &amp;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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, &amp;c.&mdash;"The English Poets,
biographically and critically considered, by SAM.
JOHNSON."&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'His is one of the works in which
blank verse seems properly used.' Of Young's</i> Night
Thoughts<i>:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;' 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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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,&mdash;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:&mdash;'There is just come out a publication which makes a
considerable noise. The celebrated Dr. Parr, of Norwich,
has&mdash;wickedly, shall we say?&mdash;but surely
wantonly&mdash;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:&mdash;'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. &mdash;&mdash;'s [Asaph's]. Boswell, by
his 'careful enquiry,' no doubt meant to show that this statement
was wrong. Johnson is reported to have said:&mdash;' 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 &pound;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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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&mdash;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.'&mdash;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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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, &amp;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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.&mdash;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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;'"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&mdash;that she would never speak to him more. However,
he went up to her himself, longing to begin, and very roughly
said:&mdash;"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&mdash;as
everybody does&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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;"&mdash;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:&mdash;'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;&mdash;'These
decisions have often been apparently partial, and sometimes
tyrannically oppressive.'</i> Works, vi. 169. In The Patriot
<i>(1774), he says:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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>:&mdash;</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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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 p&eacute;tille
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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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,
&amp;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'You
have, &pound;500 for your immediate expenses, and, &pound;2000 a
year, with both the houses and all the goods.' Piozzi Letters<i>,
ii. 192. Beattie wrote on June 1:&mdash;'Everybody says Mr.
Thrale should have left Johnson &pound;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:&mdash;'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 &pound;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 &pound;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>:&mdash;'It is
sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government.'
Gibbon (</i>Misc. Works<i>, ii. 77) wrote on Feb. 21,
1772:&mdash;'Charles Fox is commenced patriot, and is already
attempting to pronounce the words,</i> country<i>,</i>
liberty<i>,</i> corruption<i>, &amp;c.; with what success time
will discover.' Forty years before Johnson begged not to meet
patriots, Sir Robert Walpole said:&mdash;'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
Pens&eacute;es 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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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, &amp;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 &pound;200 for the master of the house,
&pound;100 for the moderator of the meeting, and &pound;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:&mdash;'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&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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&mdash;</p>
<center>
<table summary="">
<tr><td>
<pre>
     "Accept<i> a miracle," &amp;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:&mdash;</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 &Dagger; 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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'[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 &pound;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 &pound;5,011 (ante, in. 420, note
4). Wilkes's own library&mdash;a large one&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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, &amp;c. BOSWELL.</p>
<p><a name="note-347">[347]</a> Mrs.
Montagu, so early as 1757, wrote of Mr. Stillingfleet:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;</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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;' 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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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 ferm&egrave; sensus communis in ilia
             Fortuna,"&mdash;&mdash;[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:&mdash;</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,&mdash;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:&mdash;</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&mdash;&mdash; 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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;' 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:&mdash;'By
the</i> Universal Passion <i>he acquired no vulgar fortune, more
than &pound;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' &amp;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!&mdash;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:&mdash;'By the
way, the clock strikes the old cracked sound&mdash;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 &pound;27,000 when she was reckoned worth at least
&pound;300,000, adds:&mdash;'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 &pound;114,000, before he was
visibly worth &pound;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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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;&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;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>&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;without however giving the
year&mdash;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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>,
&amp;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</i>And is not Johnson ours, himself a host?
<i>Under which stared you in the face&mdash;</i>From Miss More's
"Sensibility<i>." This little incident amused us; but, alas!
Johnson looks very ill indeed&mdash;spiritless and wan. However,
he made an effort to be cheerful.' Miss Adams wrote on June 14,
1782:&mdash;'On Wednesday we had here a delightful blue-stocking
party. Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott and Miss More, Dr. Johnson, Mr.
Henderson, &amp;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, &amp;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
&pound;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):&mdash;'The clear money on
which I can reckon out of my estate is scarcely &pound;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;'O Lord, so far as,
&amp;c.,&mdash;Thrale.' This means, I think, 'so far as it might
be lawful, I prayed for Thrale.' The following day Johnson
entered:&mdash;'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&mdash;Dr. Johnson not
excepted&mdash;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>.:&mdash;'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 modic&egrave; sumpsi,
ne intemperanti&acirc; 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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'I have
looked <i>often</i>,' &amp;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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>r&ocirc;le</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>Si&egrave;cle 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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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>,' &amp;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>
     &mdash;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:&mdash;'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.&mdash;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:&mdash;</i></p>
<center>
<table summary="">
<tr><td>
<pre>
     &mdash;Qu&ograve; 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:&mdash;</p>
<p>Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris&mdash;<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>, &amp;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:&mdash;</i></p>
<p>"[Greek: otau de daimonn handri porsunae kaka ton noun
heblapse proton,]"</p>
<p>on which Barnes writes:&mdash;"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, &amp;c.<i>, is imitated by Swift in
his</i> Verses on Stella's Birthday<i>, 1726-7:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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&mdash;
     "Tu quoque, ut h&icirc;c video, non es ignarus amorum."
       'FORTUNATUS&mdash;
     "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:&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;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>):&mdash;'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, &amp;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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.'&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</i>The
necessity of proportioning punishments to crimes<i>. He
writes:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:'&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;not Derrick and Smart&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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&mdash;[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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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
&pound;1000 a mile, &pound;100 would build 176 yards of wall,
which would form a square of 44 yards, and enclose an area of
1936 square yards; and &pound;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'You write Scotch, you say "the
one,"&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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 &pound;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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,
&amp;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'I can apply better to books than I could in
some more vigorous parts of my life&mdash;at least than I did<i>;
and I have one more reason for reading&mdash;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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'I always recoil from again engaging with it.'
Froude's</i> Carlyle<i>, i. 213. Five years later he
wrote:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;'a day,' wrote Horace Walpole (Letters<i>, vii.
345), 'that ought for ever to be a red-lettered day'&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'If we should have a bad harvest this
year, Mr. Sheridan would say:&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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>:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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>, &amp;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>:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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>.'&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'Je lui veux beaucoup de jugement; je le veux
spectateur froid et tranquille de la nature humaine; qu'il ait
par cons&eacute;quent beaucoup de finesse, mais nulle
sensibilit&eacute;, ou, ce qui est la m&ecirc;me chose, l'art de
tout imiter, et une &eacute;gale aptitude &agrave; toutes sortes
de caract&egrave;res et de r&ocirc;les; s'il &eacute;tait
sensible, il lui serait impossible de jouer dix fois de suite le
m&ecirc;me r&ocirc;le avec la m&ecirc;me chaleur et le m&ecirc;me
succ&egrave;s; tr&egrave;s chaud &agrave; la premi&egrave;re
repr&eacute;sentation, il serait &eacute;puis&eacute; et froid
comme le marble &agrave; la troisi&egrave;me,' &amp;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]:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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>:&mdash;'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:&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash; '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:&mdash;'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.'&mdash;MILTON.
     ['To-day deep thoughts resolve with me <i>to drench
      In mirth</i> that<i>, &amp;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:&mdash;"Sir, On
&mdash;&mdash; the &mdash;&mdash; of &mdash;&mdash; &mdash; 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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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>:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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 &amp;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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>Si&egrave;cle 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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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,' &amp;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,'
&amp;c.; and iii. 84, note 2, where he said:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'<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:&mdash;' 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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;and a very
stupid one too&mdash;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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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>
     '&mdash;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):&mdash;'Godwin, Lofft, and Thelwall are the only three
persons I know (except Hazlitt) who grieve at the late
events'&mdash;the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. He found long
after his death 'a MS. by him in these words:&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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.&mdash;'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.&mdash;'And above all these things put on charity, which is the
bond of perfectness.' <i>Col.</i> iii. 14.&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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):&mdash;'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&mdash;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.&mdash;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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'The
old man should not have indulged his zeal in a false and feeble
charge against the historian, who,' &amp;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:&mdash;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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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&mdash;&mdash;y believes he knows not why.
        N&mdash;&mdash; swears 'tis all a fable.
      Peace, coxcombs, peach, and both agree,
        N&mdash;&mdash;, 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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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.&mdash;(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;&mdash;</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,&mdash;</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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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, '&pound;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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):&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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'&mdash;Pitt I
believe&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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? &amp;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 &amp;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:&mdash;'Write to me no more about
<i>dying with a grace</i>; when you feel what I have felt in
approaching eternity&mdash;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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;&mdash;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>, &amp;c. xii. 13. Not only his duty, but his
happiness too; _For_ GOD, &amp;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,&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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 g&eacute;mit en cherchant le bien-etre;
      Nul ne voudrait mourir, nul ne voudrait renaitre.'
</pre>
</td></tr>
</table>
</center>
<p>Voltaire, Le d&eacute;sastre 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:&mdash;'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&mdash;</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:&mdash; '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>
     '&mdash;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)&mdash;this habit
the Burneys did not as yet know&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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>, &amp;c.'</i> Ante<i>, p. 99, note
1. In his</i> Life of Milton <i>(</i>Works, vii. 119) he
writes:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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.&mdash;<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,&mdash;'Away, let nought to love
displeasing,'&mdash;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>
     '&mdash;quae mollissima fandi Tempora.'
     '&mdash;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):&mdash;'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, &amp;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:&mdash;'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,
&amp;c.' Walpole succeeded to the title in Dec. 1791. In answer
to congratulations he wrote (<i>Letters</i>, ix.
364):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;but you shall not present Dr. Johnson to me."'
<i>Journal &amp;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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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, &amp;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:&mdash;'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;&mdash;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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash; 'Have
you seen that delightful paper composed out of scraps in the
newspapers? I laughed till I cried. I mean the paper that
says:&mdash;</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> cong&eacute; d'&eacute;lire
<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:&mdash;'Milton, Mr. John, remarks on his
versification.' In like manner we find:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'The wits must praise her bad poetry if they
frequented her house. "Elle &eacute;tait 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
sinc&eacute;rit&eacute; 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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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 &pound;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):&mdash;'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.
&mdash;&mdash;, Mr. &mdash;&mdash;. In the second edition Mr.
&mdash;&mdash; becomes Mr. &mdash;&mdash;. 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 &pound;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;' My going to London would be a dreadful expense,
and bring on a thousand inquiries and inconveniences&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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'&mdash;no doubt Hannah More&mdash;'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:&mdash;'We have told her what you
said to Miss More, and I believe that makes her afraid.' He
replied:&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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&mdash;and Mrs. Piozzi does not, so far as I
know, deny it&mdash;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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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 &pound;1000 a year, and
fourteen Grooms of the Bedchamber receiving each, &pound;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;'artfully' too,
says&mdash;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:&mdash;'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 Po&eacute;tique<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:&mdash;</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&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;'It is very seriously true that a
subscription of &pound;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:&mdash;'I had this day in three letters three
histories of the Flying Man in the great Balloon.' He
adds:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;</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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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 &pound;200 to &pound;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;,
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,&mdash;</i></p>
<center>
<table summary="">
<tr><td>
<pre>
     'Quando vivea pi&ugrave; 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:&mdash;'Intentum enim animum
tanquam arcum habebat, nec languescens succumbebat senectuti<i>;'
repeating, at the same time, the following noble words in the
same passage:&mdash;</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&mdash;
      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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</i></p>
<center>
<table summary="">
<tr><td>
<pre>
     'Let priestly S&mdash;h&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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, &amp;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, &amp;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 Natur&acirc; 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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,
&amp;c.</p>
<p>'Maxims, Characters, and Sentiments, after the manner of
Bruy&egrave;re, 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,&mdash;a vision.</p>
<p>'Coluthus, to be translated.</p>
<p>'Prejudice,&mdash;a poetical essay.</p>
<p>'The Palace of Nonsense,&mdash;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;&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;[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&mdash;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:&mdash;</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>,&mdash;Conglomeration and confusion.</i></p>
<p>'Hodge-podge<i>,&mdash;A culinary mixture of heterogeneous
ingredients: applied metaphorically to all discordant
combinations.</i></p>
<p>'Tit for Tat<i>,&mdash;Adequate retaliation.</i></p>
<p>'Shilly Shally<i>,&mdash;Hesitation and irresolution.</i></p>
<p>'Fee! fau! fum!&mdash;Gigantic intonations.</p>
<p><i>Rigmarole</i>,-Discourse, incoherent and rhapsodical.</p>
<p>'<i>Crincum-crancum</i>,&mdash;Lines of irregularity and
involution.</p>
<p>'<i>Dingdong</i>&mdash;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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'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&mdash;n's Criticism on the
Poems of Gray</i>. The following is perhaps the best
passage:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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&mdash;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:&mdash;'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;&mdash;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:&mdash;'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]:&mdash;</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]:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;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 &mdash;&mdash;- 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.&mdash;An odd fraud</i>.'&mdash;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.'&mdash;<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 err&acirc;sse</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:&mdash;'I shall attempt a translation [of <i>Melius est</i>,
&amp;c.] for the benefit of your mere English
readers:&mdash;<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:&mdash;</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):&mdash;'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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;</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:&mdash;</p>
<p>'How much I am obliged to you for the favour you did me in
introducing me to Dr. Johnson! Tant&ugrave;m v&igrave;di
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&mdash;&mdash; [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:&mdash;'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':&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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):&mdash;'You have heard in the papers how &mdash;- 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:&mdash;"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:&mdash;</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'&eacute;crivent 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:&mdash;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:&mdash;'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, &amp;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&mdash;"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:&mdash;'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,&mdash;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&mdash;.'&mdash;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:&mdash;'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&mdash;"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:&mdash;'The executor,
Sir John Hawkins, did not manage things well, for there was no
anthem or choir service performed&mdash;no lesson&mdash;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:&mdash;'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>.&mdash;2. One
from ditto, by ditto, for their quarto edition.&mdash;3. One from
Opie, by Heath, for Harrison's edition of his</i>
Dictionary<i>.&mdash;4. One from Nollekens' bust of him, by
Bartolozzi, for Fielding's quarto edition of his</i>
Dictionary<i>.&mdash;5. One small, from Harding, by Trotter, for
his</i> Beauties<i>.&mdash;6. One small, from Sir Joshua, by
Trotter, for his</i> Lives of the Poets<i>.&mdash;7. One small,
from Sir Joshua, by Hall, for</i> The Rambler<i>.&mdash;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>.&mdash;9. One small, no painter's name, etched by
Taylor, for his</i> Johnsoniana<i>.&mdash;10. One folio
whole-length, with his oak-stick, as described in Boswell's</i>
Tour<i>, drawn and etched by Trotter.&mdash;11. One large
mezzotinto, from Sir Joshua, by Doughty [H-3].&mdash;l2. One
large Roman head, from Sir Joshua, by Marchi.&mdash;13. One
octavo, holding a book to his eye, from Sir Joshua, by Hall, for
his</i> Works<i>.&mdash;14. One small, from a drawing from the
life, and engraved by Trotter, for his</i> Life <i>published by
Kearsley.&mdash;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.&mdash;16. One large, from Sir Joshua's first picture of
him, by Heath, for this work, in quarto.&mdash;17. One octavo, by
Baker, for the octavo edition.&mdash;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.&mdash;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.&mdash;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&mdash;but in vain&mdash;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&mdash;- 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:&mdash;</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&mdash;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;&mdash;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;&mdash;'Such an
immenseness of wit, such a solidity of judgement, so infinite a
fancy, bound in by a most logical ratiocination.&mdash;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:&mdash;'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:&mdash;'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>

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