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diff --git a/42971-0.txt b/42971-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b1d3bca --- /dev/null +++ b/42971-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4596 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42971 *** + +[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. + +From a photograph of the painting by John Opie, R.A., in the National +Portrait Gallery] + + + + + MACAULAY'S + + LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON + + _WITH A SELECTION FROM HIS + ESSAY ON JOHNSON_ + + EDITED + WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES + + BY + + CHARLES LANE HANSON + + INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH, MECHANIC ARTS HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON + EDITOR OF CARLYLE'S "ESSAY ON BURNS," "REPRESENTATIVE + POEMS OF BURNS," ETC. + + [Illustration] + + GINN AND COMPANY + + BOSTON · NEW YORK · CHICAGO · LONDON + ATLANTA · DALLAS · COLUMBUS · SAN FRANCISCO + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY + CHARLES LANE HANSON + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + 421·12 + + The Athenæum Press + GINN AND COMPANY · PROPRIETORS · + BOSTON · U.S.A. + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + +The editor explains the difference between Macaulay's _Life of Johnson_ +and Macaulay's _Essay on Johnson_ in the Introduction, IV, p. xxviii, +and gives his reason for printing only a portion of the _Essay_. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + INTRODUCTION: + + PAGE + I. AN INTRODUCTION TO MACAULAY ix + + II. MACAULAY AND HIS LITERARY CONTEMPORARIES xxiii + + III. THE STUDY OF MACAULAY xxv + + IV. MACAULAY ON JOHNSON xxviii + + V. REFERENCE BOOKS xxix + + VI. CHRONOLOGY OF MACAULAY'S LIFE AND WORKS xxxii + + VII. CHRONOLOGY OF JOHNSON'S LIFE AND WORKS xxxiv + + LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON 1 + + SELECTION FROM MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON CROKER'S EDITION + OF BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 45 + + NOTES 77 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +I. AN INTRODUCTION TO MACAULAY + + (1800-1859) + +Before Thomas Babington Macaulay was big enough to hold a large +volume he used to lie on the rug by the open fire, with his book on +the floor and a piece of bread and butter in his hand. Apparently the +three-year-old boy was as fond of reading as of eating, and even at +this time he showed that he was no mere bookworm by sharing with the +maid what he had learned from "a volume as big as himself." He never +tired of telling the stories that he read, and as he easily remembered +the words of the book he rapidly acquired a somewhat astonishing +vocabulary for a boy of his years. One afternoon when the little +fellow, then aged four, was visiting, a servant spilled some hot coffee +on his legs. The hostess, who was very sympathetic, soon afterward +asked how he was feeling. He looked up in her face and replied, "Thank +you, madam, the agony is abated." It was at this same period of his +infancy that he had a little plot of ground of his own, marked out by a +row of oyster shells, which a maid one day threw away as rubbish. "He +went straight to the drawing-room, where his mother was entertaining +some visitors, walked into the circle, and said, very solemnly, 'Cursed +be Sally; for it is written, Cursed is he that removeth his neighbor's +landmark.'"[1] + +As these incidents indicate, the youngster was precocious. When he was +seven, his mother writes, he wrote a compendium of universal history, +and "really contrived to give a tolerably connected view of the leading +events from the Creation to the present time, filling about a quire +of paper." Yet, fond as he was of reading, he was "as playful as a +kitten." Although he made wonderful progress in all branches of his +education, he had to be driven to school. Again and again his entreaty +to be allowed to stay at home met his mother's "No, Tom, if it rains +cats and dogs, you shall go." The boy thought he was too busy with his +literary activities to waste time in school; but the father and mother +looked upon his productions merely as schoolboy amusements. He was to +be treated like other boys, and no suspicion was to come to him, if +they could help it, that he was superior to other children. + +The wise parents had set themselves no easy task in their determination +to pay little attention to the unusual gifts of this lad. One +afternoon, when a child, he went with his father to make a social call, +and found on the table the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, which he had +never before seen. While the others talked he quietly read, and on +reaching home recited as many stanzas as his mother had the patience or +the strength to hear. Clearly a boy who had read incessantly from the +time he was three years old, who committed to memory as rapidly as most +boys read, and who was eager to declaim poetry by the hour, or to tell +interminable stories of his own, would attract somebody's attention. +Fortunately for all concerned the lady who was particularly interested +in him, and who had him at her house for weeks at a time, Mrs. Hannah +More, encouraged without spoiling him, and rewarded him by buying books +to increase his library. When he was six or eight years old, she gave +him a small sum with which to lay "a corner-stone" for his library, and +a year or two afterward she wrote that he was entitled to another book: +"What say you to a little good prose? Johnson's 'Hebrides,' or Walton's +'Lives,' unless you would like a neat edition of 'Cowper's Poems,' or +'Paradise Lost,' for your own eating?" Whether he began at once to eat +Milton's great epic we are not told, but at a later period he said that +"if by some miracle of vandalism all copies of 'Paradise Lost' and 'The +Pilgrim's Progress' were destroyed off the face of the earth, he would +undertake to reproduce them both from recollection."[2] + +Prodigy though he was, Thomas was more than a reader and reciter of +books. Much as he cared for them he cared more for his home,--that +simple, thrifty, comfortable home,--and his three brothers and five +sisters. His father, Zachary, did a large business as an African +merchant. This earnest, precise, austere man was so anxious for his +eldest son to have a thoroughly trained mind that he expected a +deliberation and a maturity of judgment that are not natural to an +impetuous lad. The good-natured, open-hearted boy reasoned with him +and pleaded with him, and whether successful or not in persuading his +father, loved him just the same. The mother, with all her love and +ambition for him, took the utmost pains to teach him to do thoroughly +whatever he undertook, in order that he might attain the perfect +development of character that comes alone from the most vigorous +training. His sister, Lady Trevelyan, writes: "His unruffled sweetness +of temper, his unfailing flow of spirits, his amusing talk, all made +his presence so delightful that his wishes and his tastes were our law. +He hated strangers and his notion of perfect happiness was to see us +all working round him while he read aloud a novel, and then to walk +all together on the Common, or, if it rained, to have a frightfully +noisy game of hide-and-seek." It was a habit in the family to read +aloud every evening from such writers as Shakspere, Clarendon, Miss +Edgeworth, Scott, and Crabbe; and, as a standing dish, the _Quarterly_ +and the _Edinburgh Review_. + +From this home, in which he was wisely loved, Thomas was sent to +a private school near Cambridge. Then his troubles began. The +twelve-year-old boy longed for the one attraction that would tempt him +from his books--home life--and months ahead he counted the days which +must pass before he could again see the home "which absence renders +still dearer." In August, 1813, he urged his mother for permission to +go home on his birthday, October 25: "If your approbation of my request +depends upon my advancing in study, I will work like a cart-horse. If +you should refuse it, you will deprive me of the most pleasing illusion +which I ever experienced in my life."[3] But the father shook his head +and the boy toiled on with his Greek and Latin. He wrote of learning +the Greek grammar by heart, he tried his hand at Latin verses, and he +read what he pleased, with a preference for prose fiction and poetry. + +When eighteen years old (in October, 1818), Macaulay entered Trinity +College, Cambridge. But for mathematics he would have been made happy. +He writes to his mother: "Oh for words to express my abomination of +that science, if a name sacred to the useful and embellishing arts may +be applied to the perception and recollection of certain properties +in numbers and figures!... 'Discipline' of the mind! Say rather +starvation, confinement, torture, annihilation!"[4] There were prizes, +but Macaulay was not a prize winner. He was an excellent declaimer and +an excellent debater, and undoubtedly might have won more honors had +he been willing to work hard on the subjects prescribed, whether he +liked them or not. But he was eager to avoid the sciences, and he was +not content to be a mere struggler for honors. He was sensible enough +to enjoy the companionships the place afforded. He knew something of +the value of choosing comrades after his own heart, who were thoroughly +genuine and sincere, natural and manly. Even if, as Mr. Morison says, +the result of his college course was that "those faculties which were +naturally strong were made stronger, and those which were naturally +weak received little or no exercise," he wisely spent much time with +a remarkable group of young men, among whom Charles Austin was king. +Of Austin, John Stuart Mill says, "The impression he gave was that of +boundless strength, together with talents which, combined with such +apparent force of will and character, seemed capable of dominating the +world." And Trevelyan adds, "He certainly was the only man who ever +succeeded in dominating Macaulay." Austin it was who turned Zachary +Macaulay's eldest son from a Tory into a Whig. The boy had always +been interested in the political discussions held in his father's +house, a center of consultation for suburban members of Parliament, +and had learned to look at public affairs with no thought of ambition +or jealous self-seeking. This sort of training, supplemented by his +discussions at college, where he soon became a vigorous politician, +developed a patriotic, disinterested man. + +In the midst of his inexpressible delight in the freedom the college +course gave him to indulge his fondness for literature and to spend +his days and nights walking and talking with his mates, he continued +to remember his family with affection, and did not neglect to write +home. On March 25, 1821, he wrote his mother: "I am sure that it is +well worth while being sick to be nursed by a mother. There is nothing +which I remember with such pleasure as the time when you nursed me +at Aspenden. The other night, when I lay on my sofa very ill and +hypochondriac, I was told that you were come! How well I remember with +what an ecstasy of joy I saw that face approaching me, in the middle of +people that did not care if I died that night, except for the trouble +of burying me! The sound of your voice, the touch of your hand, are +present to me now, and will be, I trust in God, to my last hour."[5] + +On the first of October, 1824, two years after he had received the +degree of Bachelor of Arts, he wrote his father that he was that +morning elected Fellow, and that the position would make him almost +independent financially for the next seven years. + +In 1824, too, he made his first address before a public assembly,--an +antislavery address that probably gave Zachary Macaulay the happiest +half hour of his life, that called out a "whirlwind of cheers" from the +audience, and enthusiastic commendation from the _Edinburgh Review_. +The next year Macaulay was asked to write for that famous periodical, +then at the height of its political, social, and literary power. He +contributed the essay on Milton and "like Lord Byron he awoke one +morning and found himself famous." The compliment for which he cared +most--"the only commendation of his literary talent which even in +the innermost domestic circle he was ever known to repeat"--came +from Jeffrey, the editor, when he acknowledged the receipt of the +manuscript: "The more I think, the less I can conceive where you picked +up that style." + +When Macaulay entered college, his father considered himself worth at +least a hundred thousand pounds; but soon afterward he lost his money +and the eldest son found the other children looking to him for guidance +and support. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he +drew freely on his income from the fellowship and his occasional +contributions to the _Edinburgh_. He was the sunshine of the home, and +apparently only those who knew him there got the best of his brilliancy +and wit. + +In 1826 he was called to the bar, but he was becoming more and more +interested in public affairs and longed to be in Parliament. In 1830 +Lord Lansdowne, who had been much impressed by Macaulay's articles +on Mill, and by his high moral and private character, gave him the +opportunity to represent Calne--"on the eve of the most momentous +conflict," says Trevelyan, "that ever was fought out by speech and +vote within the walls of a senate-house."[6] When the Reform Bill was +introduced, the opposition laughed contemptuously at the impossibility +of disfranchising, wholly or in part, a hundred and ten boroughs for +the sake of securing a fair representation of the United Kingdom in the +House of Commons. Two days later Macaulay made the first of his Reform +speeches, and "when he sat down, the Speaker sent for him, and told +him that, in all his prolonged experience, he had never seen the House +in such a state of excitement." That not only unsettled the House of +Commons but put an end to the question whether he should give his time +to law or to politics. During the next three years he devoted himself +to Parliament. Entering with his whole soul into the thickest of the +fight for reform, he made a speech on the second reading of the Reform +Bill which no less a critic than Jeffrey said put him "clearly at the +head of the great speakers, if not the debaters, of the House."[7] + +Naturally the social advantages of the position appealed to Macaulay. +He appreciated the freedom, the good fellowship, the spirit of equality +among the members. "For the space of three seasons he dined out almost +nightly"; and for a man who at a time when his parliamentary fame +was highest, was so reduced that he sold the gold medals he had won +at Cambridge,--though "he was never for a moment in debt,"--it was +sometimes convenient to be a lion. Yet this "sitting up in the House +of Commons till three o'clock five days in the week, and getting an +indigestion at great dinners the remaining two," would not have been +the first choice of a man whose greatest joy "in the midst of all this +praise" was to think of the pleasure which his success would give to +his father and his sisters. + +In June, 1832, the bill which Macaulay had supported so zealously and +so eloquently at every stage of the fight, finally became an act. As +a reward the great orator was appointed a commissioner of the Board +of Control, which represented the crown in its relations to the East +Indian directors. He held this commissionership only eighteen months, +however, for as a means of reducing expenses the Whig Government +suppressed it. It is to Macaulay's everlasting credit that he voted for +this economic measure at a time when his Trinity fellowship was about +to expire, and when the removal from office left him penniless. + +Impatient to choose the first Reformed Parliament, the great cities +were looking about that autumn for worthy representatives. The Whigs +of Leeds got Macaulay's promise to stand for that town as soon as it +became a parliamentary borough. His attitude toward the electors whose +votes meant bread to him was as refreshing as it was striking. His +frank opinions they should have at all times, but pledges never. They +should choose their representative cautiously and then confide in him +liberally. Such independence was not relished in many quarters, but +Macaulay answered the remonstrants with even more vigor: "It is not +necessary to my happiness that I should sit in Parliament; but it is +necessary to my happiness that I should possess, in Parliament or out +of Parliament, the consciousness of having done what is right."[8] + +His appointment as Secretary to the Board of Control was a help +financially, and his return to Parliament by Leeds proved to be of +very great assistance. Matters were going smoothly when the Government +introduced their Slavery Bill. To Zachary Macaulay, who had always been +a zealous abolitionist, the measure was not satisfactory. To please him +the son opposed it. In order that he might be free to criticise the +bill, simply as a member of Parliament, he resigned his position in the +Cabinet, although both he and his father thought this course of action +would be fatal to his career. A son whose devotion to his father leads +him to such lengths is not always so promptly rewarded as Macaulay was +in this instance, for the resignation was not accepted, the bill was +amended, and the Ministers were as friendly as ever. + +Up to this time he had earned little money by his writing. After +giving his days to India and his nights to improving the condition of +the Treasury, he could get only snatches of time for turning off the +essays which we read with so much care. With a family depending on him +he now realized fully the need not of riches but of a competence. He +could live by his pen or by office; but he could not think seriously +of writing to "relieve the emptiness of the pocket" rather than "the +fullness of the mind," and if he must earn this competence through +office, the sooner he was through with the business the better. So it +was largely for the sake of his aged father, his younger brother, and +his dearly loved sisters, that he accepted an appointment as legal +adviser to the Supreme Council of India. + +He and his sister Hannah sailed for India in February, 1834. He tells +us that he read during the whole voyage: the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, +Virgil, Horace, Cæsar's _Commentaries_, Bacon's _De Augmentis_, Dante, +Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, _Don Quixote_, Gibbon's _Rome_, Mill's +_India_, all the seventy volumes of Voltaire, Sismondi's _History of +France_, and the seven thick folios of the _Biographia Britannica_. +On his arrival he plunged into the new work. Not satisfied with the +immense amount already assigned him, he saw two large opportunities to +do more by serving on two committees. As president of the Committee +of Public Instruction he substituted for Oriental learning the +introduction and promotion of European literature and science among the +natives; as president of the Law Commission he took the initiative in +framing the famous Penal Code, the value of which must be judged from +the facts that "hardly any questions have arisen upon it which have had +to be determined by the courts, and that few and slight amendments +have had to be made by the Legislature."[9] He worked patiently, yet he +longed to be back in England, and it was a great relief when in 1838, +his work done, his competence saved, he was able to return. He was too +late to see his father again, for Zachary Macaulay had died while the +son was on the way home. + +In the fall he went to Italy with his mind full of associations and +traditions. His biographer says that every line of good poetry which +the fame or the beauty of this country had inspired "rose almost +involuntarily to his lips." On this occasion he gave some of those +geographical and topographical touches to the _Lays of Ancient Rome_ +"which set his spirited stanzas ringing in the ear of a traveller in +Rome at every turn." Much as he enjoyed Italy, he soon began to long +for his regular work, and the following February found him in London +again. In March he was unanimously elected to _the_ Club, and he was +making the most of his leisure for books when he felt it his duty to +enter Parliament for Edinburgh. "Office was never, within my memory, +so little attractive," he writes, "and therefore, I fear, I cannot, +as a man of spirit, flinch, if it is offered to me." Without any show +of reluctance he was made Secretary at War and given a seat in the +Cabinet. To this position the man who had begun life "without rank, +fortune, or private interest" had risen before his fortieth birthday. +On March 14, 1840, he wrote his intimate friend, Mr. Ellis, a good +account of his life at that time.[10] + +"I have got through my estimates [for army expenses] with flying +colors; made a long speech of figures and details without hesitation +or mistake of any sort; stood catechising on all sorts of questions; +and got six millions of public money in the course of an hour or two. I +rather like the sort of work, and I have some aptitude for it. I find +business pretty nearly enough to occupy all my time; and if I have a +few minutes to myself, I spend them with my sister and niece; so that, +except while I am dressing and undressing, I get no reading at all. I +do not know but that it is as well for me to live thus for a time. I +became too mere a bookworm in India, and on my voyage home. Exercise, +they say, assists digestion; and it may be that some months of hard +official and Parliamentary work may make my studies more nourishing." + +But the Queen's advisers did not have the confidence of the country, +there was a change of government, and Macaulay lost his office. How +the loss affected him we may gather from a part of his letter to Mr. +Napier, at that time the editor of the _Edinburgh Review_. + +"I can truly say that I have not, for many years, been so happy as I +am at present.... I am free. I am independent. I am in Parliament, +as honorably seated as man can be. My family is comfortably off. I +have leisure for literature, yet I am not reduced to the necessity of +writing for money. If I had to choose a lot from all that there are in +human life, I am not sure that I should prefer any to that which has +fallen to me. I am sincerely and thoroughly contented."[11] + +Carlyle says that a biography should answer two questions: (1) what +and how produced was the effect of society on the man; and (2) what +and how produced was his effect on society.[12] To the careful reader +of Trevelyan's _Life_ the words just quoted from Macaulay will give +a pretty fair notion of what, up to this time, Macaulay had got from +society. The other question, what he gave to society, is perhaps +best answered in the account of the remaining years of his life. +In Parliament, in society, and in literary and political circles +throughout the country there was the feeling that he had won the +respect and good will of all, and that he was to do something still +greater. What this greater thing was to be was the question that +confronted Macaulay for the next few years. Certainly it was not the +publishing of his _Lays_, although one hundred thousand copies of them +were sold by the year 1875. Nor was it the collecting and reprinting of +his _Essays_, although they have given hundreds of thousands of minds +a taste for letters and a desire for knowledge. One could hardly call +it the delivery of those vehement and effective parliamentary speeches +with which he held his audience spellbound, even if one of them did +secure the passing of the Copyright Bill in 1842 in practically its +present form. But while attending to these other matters, Macaulay had +on his mind an undertaking which was destined to satisfy, as far as +he carried it toward completion, the hopes of his most enthusiastic +admirers. In 1841 he had written to Napier, "I shall not be satisfied +unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the +last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies."[13] In order +that he might give all his attention to this one project he soon +stopped writing for the _Edinburgh Review_; he denied himself no +little of the pleasure he had been getting from society; he gave up +more parliamentary honors than most others could ever hope to win. At +last, in 1848, he published the first volumes of a work that met with +a heartier welcome than the English-speaking world had given to any +historical work since the coming of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the +Roman Empire_. That these volumes of _The History of England_ were +the result of a very different kind of effort from that with which +Macaulay had dashed off the essays, may be inferred from a sentence +of Thackeray's, which Trevelyan says is no exaggeration: "He reads +twenty books to write a sentence; he travels a hundred miles to make a +line of description."[14] After all critics may say for or against the +_History_, it remains to note that Macaulay did what he undertook: he +wrote a history that is more readable than most novels. + +In other ways we can trace his "effect on society." He was chosen Lord +Rector of the University of Glasgow in 1848. Prince Albert tried, +but in vain, to induce him to become Professor of Modern History at +Cambridge in 1849. He was asked, but declined--urging the plea that +he was not a debater--to join the Cabinet in 1852. The same year the +people of Edinburgh, ashamed of their failure to reëlect him five years +before, chose him to represent them in Parliament. Meantime he had +been well and happy. In his journal for October 25, 1850, he wrote: +"My birthday. I am fifty. Well, I have had a happy life. I do not know +that anybody, whom I have seen close, has had a happier. Some things I +regret; but, on the whole, who is better off? I have not children of +my own, it is true; but I have children whom I love as if they were my +own, and who, I believe, love me. I wish that the next ten years may be +as happy as the last ten. But I rather wish it than hope it."[15] + +Macaulay may have surmised that the good health which had been such an +important factor in keeping him happy would not last much longer. At +any rate his last election to the House of Commons was followed by an +illness from which he never fully recovered, but through which, for +seven years, "he maintained his industry, his courage, his patience, +and his benevolence." Occasionally he treated the House to a "torrent +of words," but he understood that he must husband his powers for +work on books. To protect himself from a bookseller who advertised +an edition of his speeches, he made and published a selection of his +own, many of which he had to write from memory. Then he continued his +work on the _History_. Some of the time he had to "be resolute and +work doggedly," as Johnson said. "He almost gave up letter-writing; +he quite gave up society; and at last he had not leisure even for his +diary."[16] Yet of this immense labor he said, "It is the business and +the pleasure of my life." + +As a result of this steady toil the writer secured an enviable +influence abroad. He was made a member of several foreign academies, +and translations have turned the _History_ into a dozen tongues. At +home, among the numerous honors, he was presented with the degree of +Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford, and made a peer--Baron of Rothley. +Naturally before receiving this last honor he had withdrawn from +Parliament, and from 1856 to the end of his life he enjoyed a retired +home, with a fine garden. He had plenty of time to cash the famous +check for twenty thousand pounds which the first edition of the +_History_ brought him, and to invest and spend it as he pleased. On +his fifty-seventh birthday he wrote in his diary, "What is much more +important to my happiness than wealth, titles, and even fame, those +whom I love are well and happy, and very kind and affectionate to me." + +One of the chief sources of his happiness, one to which he was +particularly indebted these last days, was his love of reading. He +could no longer read fourteen books of the _Odyssey_ at a stretch +while out for a walk, but in the quiet of his library he enjoyed the +companionship of the author he happened to be reading as perhaps few +men could. He who could command any society in London failed to find +any that he preferred, at breakfast or at dinner, to the company of +Boswell; and it seems natural and fitting that he should be found +on that last December day, in 1859, "in the library, seated in his +easy-chair, and dressed as usual, with his book on the table beside +him." + +Equally fitting is it that in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, the +resting place of Johnson, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Addison, there should +lie a stone with this inscription: + + THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY, + BORN AT ROTHLEY TEMPLE, LEICESTERSHIRE, + OCTOBER 25TH, 1800. + DIED AT HOLLY LODGE, CAMPDEN HILL. + DECEMBER 28TH, 1859. + "His body is buried in peace, + but his name liveth for evermore." + +For he left behind him a great and honorable name, and every action of +his life was "as clear and transparent as one of his own sentences." +His biography reveals the dutiful son, the affectionate brother, the +true friend, the honorable politician, the practical legislator, the +eloquent speaker, the brilliant author. It shows unmistakably that +greater than all his works was the man. + + +II. MACAULAY AND HIS LITERARY CONTEMPORARIES + +The very year in which the last volumes of Johnson's _Lives of the +Poets_ were published, 1781, Burns began to do his best work. In 1796 +Burns died. In 1798, two years before Macaulay was born, Wordsworth and +Coleridge published the first of the _Lyrical Ballads_, which included +_The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_. Like Burns, yet in a way entirely +his own, Wordsworth was the poet of Nature and of Man, and this little +volume was the beginning of much spontaneous poetry which in the +following years proved a refreshing change from the polished couplets +which had been in fashion. Instead of Pope and Addison and Johnson, in +whose time literary men cared more for books than for social reforms, +more for manner than for matter, came Scott, Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, +Landor, and Southey with their irrepressible originality. + +Before Macaulay's day Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett had +each contributed something to the novel. During his lifetime came +practically all of the best work of Miss Austen, Scott, Cooper, Lytton, +Disraeli, Hawthorne, the Brontës, Dickens, Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskell, +Trollope, and Kingsley. George Eliot's _Adam Bede_ appeared the year he +died. + +Other prominent prose writers were Hallam, Grote, Milman, Froude, Mill, +Ruskin, and Carlyle. _In Memoriam_ and Mrs. Browning's _Sonnets from +the Portuguese_ were published in 1850, and Browning's _The Ring and +the Book_ came out in 1868. + +As to Macaulay's relations with his literary contemporaries, it must +be understood that he gave practically his whole attention to the +times of which he read and wrote, and to the men who made those times +interesting. Scientists were making important discoveries day by +day, but his concern was not with them, even at a time when Darwin +was writing his _Origin of Species_. It was not clear to him that +philosophical speculations like Carlyle's might do much to better +the condition of humanity. He finished Wordsworth's _Prelude_ only +to be disgusted with "the old flimsy philosophy about the effect +of scenery on the mind" and "the endless wildernesses of dull, +flat, prosaic twaddle." Although he read an infinite variety of +contemporary literature he said he would not attempt to dissect works +of imagination. In 1838, when Napier wished him to review Lockhart's +_Life of Scott_ for the _Edinburgh Review_, he replied that he enjoyed +many of Scott's performances as keenly as anybody, but that many could +criticise them far better. He added: "Surely it would be desirable that +some person who knew Sir Walter, who had at least seen him and spoken +with him, should be charged with this article. Many people are living +who had a most intimate acquaintance with him. I know no more of him +than I know of Dryden or Addison, and not a tenth part so much as I +know of Swift, Cowper, or Johnson."[17] He turned instinctively to +the old books, the books that he had read again and again: to Homer, +Aristophanes, Horace, Herodotus, Addison, Swift, Fielding. There was at +least one writer of fiction in his time to whom he was always loyal. +On one occasion when he had been reading Dickens and Pliny and Miss +Austen at the same time, he declared that _Northanger Abbey_, although +"the work of a girl," was in his opinion "worth all Dickens and Pliny +together." + +What he did for humanity he did as a practical man of affairs, at home +alike in the Cabinet and in popular assemblies. While Carlyle in the +midst of his gloomy life was toiling heroically to banish shams and +to get at the True, the Real, Macaulay, who was reasonably satisfied +with the past and the present, and hopeful of the future, was sifting +from his vast treasury of information about the past what he believed +to be significant in history and important in literature. He had none +of the feeling that Ruskin had, that it was his duty to turn reformer, +but what he did toward educating his readers he did in the way he most +enjoyed. + + +III. THE STUDY OF MACAULAY + +Once for all it must be remembered that Macaulay had no intention of +being studied as a text-book, and we must deal with him fairly. First +we should read the _Life_ through at a sitting without consulting a +note, just as we read an article in the _Atlantic Monthly_ or the +_Encyclopædia Britannica_. We should rush on with the "torrent of +words" to the end to see what it is all about, and to get an impression +of the article as a whole. As Johnson says: "Let him that is yet +unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel +the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play from the +first scene to the last with utter negligence of all his commentators. +When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or +explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged let it disdain +alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald and of Pope. Let him read +on through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and corruption; +let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his interest +in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased let him +attempt exactness and read the commentators." + +Macaulay attracts attention not only to what he says but also to the +way in which he says it. In examining his style it will be a good plan +to ask ourselves whether the writer ever wanders from the subject, +or whether every part of the _Life_ contributes something to the one +subject under discussion. Naturally we find ourselves making topics, +such for example as Johnson's Youth, His Father, At Oxford. A list of +these topics gives us a bird's-eye view of the whole field and enables +us to examine the composition more critically. Has the writer arranged +the topics in the natural order? Does he give too much space to the +treatment of any one topic? Might any of them be omitted to advantage? + +Having examined the larger divisions, we may profitably turn our +attention to the parts which constitute these divisions, the +paragraphs. First let us see whether he goes easily from one paragraph +to the next. For example, is the first sentence of paragraph 2 a good +connecting link with what precedes? In looking through the _Life_ for +these links, we should make up our minds whether they are studied or +spontaneous. + +Then let us test the unity of the paragraphs. Can each paragraph be +summed up in a single sentence? Does a combination of the opening and +the closing sentence ever serve the purpose? Does one or the other of +these ever answer of itself? Has every sentence some bearing on the +main thought, or might some sentences be omitted as well as not? + +It will be equally profitable, at this point, to test the coherence +of half a dozen paragraphs. Does each sentence lead up naturally to +the next? Can the order of sentences be changed to advantage? When the +sentences in a paragraph hold together firmly, we should point out the +cause; when coherence is lacking, we should try to discover to what its +absence is due. + +Then comes the question of emphasis. Let us see whether we can find +two or three paragraphs in which Macaulay succeeds particularly well +in emphasizing the main point. If we find three, let us see whether he +accomplishes his purpose in the same way each time. + +For those of us who are still willing to learn something from +Macaulay's style, it is worth while to study the sentences. Selecting +two or three of the most interesting paragraphs, we may make the three +tests: (1) Is each sentence a unit? (2) Is the relation of every word +to the adjoining words absolutely clear? (3) Does the construction +emphasize what is important? + +Then there is the vocabulary. Who does not enjoy the feeling that he +is enlarging his vocabulary? An easy way of doing it is to read two +or three times such a paragraph as the nineteenth, and then, with the +book closed, to write as much of it as possible from memory. As it is +not merely a large vocabulary that we wish, but a well chosen one, we +shall do well to compare our version with Macaulay's and see in how +many cases his word is better than ours. Have we, for example, equaled +"winning affability," or "London mud," or "inhospitable door"? Is his +word more effective than ours because it is more specific, or what is +the reason? + +Before taking farewell of the _Life of Johnson_ there is another use to +which we may put the topics. We may use them as tests of our knowledge +of the essay. If we can write or talk fully and definitely on each of +the more important ones, we are sure to carry much food for thought +away with us. The value of a review of this sort is evident from a +glance at the following topics: Literary Life in London in Johnson's +Time, Johnson's Love Affair, The Dictionary, The Turning Point in +Johnson's Life, The Rambler, Rasselas, The Idler, His Shakspere, +The Club [His Conversation], Boswell, The Thrales, His Fleet Street +Establishment, The Lives of the Poets. + +As we read Macaulay we should be particularly careful to think for +ourselves. Mr. Gladstone has said: "Wherever and whenever read, he will +be read with fascination, with delight, with wonder. And with copious +instruction too; but also with copious reserve, with questioning +scrutiny, with liberty to reject, and with much exercise of that +liberty."[18] + +This means that we must follow him up, find out where he got his +information, see whether in his enthusiasm he has exaggerated. Then, +even if the critics do assure us that he is not one of the deep +thinkers, one of the very great writers, we may go on committing his +_Lays_ to heart, studying his _Essays_, and admiring those wonderfully +faithful pictures in his _History_. More than all else, as the years +go by, we are likely to find ourselves indebted to him for arousing +interest, for leading us to further reading. + + +IV. MACAULAY ON JOHNSON + +Among the "hasty and imperfect articles" which Macaulay wrote for +the _Edinburgh Review_ was one on Croker's Edition of Boswell's +Life of Johnson. It appeared in 1831 and gave the writer a welcome +opportunity to show the inaccuracy and unreliability of Croker, one +of his political opponents. Nearly one half of his space he gave to +criticising the editor, and that part it seems wise to omit in this +edition; for we care more about Boswell and Johnson. Twenty-five years +later, in 1856, when Macaulay had ceased to write for reviews, but +sent an occasional article to the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, he wrote +what is generally called the _Life of Samuel Johnson_. The publisher +of the encyclopædia writes that it was entirely to Macaulay's friendly +feeling that he was "indebted for those literary gems, which could not +have been purchased with money"; that "he made it a stipulation of his +contributing that remuneration should not be so much as mentioned." The +other articles referred to are those on Atterbury, Bunyan, Goldsmith, +and William Pitt. One writer calls them "perfect models of artistic +condensation." + +It is interesting to compare the later work with the earlier: to see +whether there is any evidence of improvement in Macaulay's use of +English, and whether he gives us a better notion of Boswell and Johnson. + + +V. REFERENCE BOOKS + +The book to which we naturally turn first to see whether Macaulay +knows his subject is Boswell's _Life of Johnson_; not the edition +in six volumes by Dr. George B. Hill, scholarly as it is, but some +such edition as Mr. Mowbray Morris's, published by the Macmillan +Company in one volume. When we read Boswell the first time, to get his +conception of his hero, we do not care to loiter on every page for +notes, interesting and instructive as they may be after the first rapid +reading. This single volume is so cheap that no one need hesitate to +buy it; then he may mark it up as much as he pleases and enjoy his own +book. The conscientious student need not feel obliged to read every +word of every episode, but may feel perfectly free to skip whatever +does not appeal to him, perfectly certain that before he has turned ten +pages he will stumble on something worth while. + +The book which will do more than all others to illuminate the life +and character of Macaulay is _The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay_, +written by his nephew, G. Otto Trevelyan. Harper & Brothers, the +publishers, have bound the two volumes in one which is so inexpensive +that every school library may easily afford it. Some critics think this +_Life_ ranks with Boswell's _Johnson_. It certainly is one of the most +readable biographies in the English language. Other useful books are +numerous, but among them all Carlyle's essay in reply to Macaulay's +_Essay on Boswell's Life of Johnson_ stands out first. + +BOSWELL + + ARBLAY, MADAME D'. Memoirs of Dr. Burney. (Contains "the most + vivid account of Boswell's manner when in company with + Dr. Johnson.") + + Boswelliana: the Commonplace Book of James Boswell. London, + 1874. + + CARLYLE, THOMAS. Boswell's Life of Johnson. + + FITZGERALD, PERCY, M.A., F.S.A. Life of James Boswell with four + portraits. 2 vols. London: 1891. + + LEASK, W. KEITH. James Boswell. (Famous Scots Series.) + Edinburgh: 1897. + + STEPHEN, LESLIE. James Boswell (in the Dictionary of National + Biography). + +JOHNSON + + BIRRELL, A. Dr. Johnson (in Obiter Dicta, Second Series). + + BOSWELL, JAMES. Life of Johnson including Boswell's Journal of + a Tour to the Hebrides, etc., edited by George Birkbeck + Hill, D.C.L., Pembroke College, Oxford, in six volumes. + Oxford, 1897. ("Boswell's famous book has never before + been annotated with equal enthusiasm, learning, and + industry."--Austin Dobson.) + + The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., including a Journal + of his Tour to the Hebrides, by James Boswell, Esq. + New edition, with numerous additions and notes, by + The Right Hon. John Wilson Croker, M.P., to which + are added ... 50 engraved illustrations. In ten + volumes. London: 1839. + + The Life of Johnson edited by Alexander Napier, M.A., + London, 1884, also has several engravings. + + Dr. Henry Morley's edition of Boswell's work is + illustrated with portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds. + George Routledge & Sons, London, 1885. + + BROUGHAM, HENRY, LORD, F.R.S. Lives of Men of Letters of the + Time of George III. London: 1856. + + GARDINER, S. R. A Student's History of England. + + GOSSE, EDMUND W. History of Eighteenth Century Literature. + + GREEN, J. R. A Short History of the English People. + + HILL, GEORGE BIRKBECK, D.C.L. Dr. Johnson, His Friends and + His Critics. London: 1878. + + HOSTE, J. W. Johnson and His Circle. London: Jarrold & Sons. + + Johnson's Chief Lives of the Poets, Being those of Milton, + Dryden, Swift, Addison, Pope, Gray, and Macaulay's + Life of Johnson, with a Preface by Matthew Arnold, to + which are appended Macaulay's and Carlyle's Essays on + Boswell's Life of Johnson. Henry Holt & Company, New + York, 1879. + + Johnson Club Papers by Various Hands. London: T. Fisher Unwin, + 1899. + + Johnsoniana: Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D., by + Mrs. Piozzi, Bishop Percy, and others, together with + the Diary of Dr. Campbell and extracts from that of + Madame D' Arblay, newly collected and edited by Robina + Napier. (Engravings and various autographs.) George + Bell and Sons, London, 1884. + + JOHNSON, SAMUEL. The Idler. In the series of British Essayists. + + Lives of the Poets. A New Edition, with Notes and + Introduction by Arthur Waugh, in six volumes. + Scribner's Sons, 1896. + + London. In Hales's Longer English Poems. + + The Rambler. In the series of British Essayists. + + Rasselas. Leach, Shewell & Sanborn, or Henry Holt & Co. + + The Vanity of Human Wishes. In Hales's Longer English + Poems and Syle's From Milton to Tennyson. + + The Works of Samuel Johnson. In nine volumes. Oxford. + + LECKY, W. E. H. History of England in the Eighteenth Century. + + PIOZZI, MRS. Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson during the + Last Twenty Years of his Life. 1786. + + Same, in the cheap National Series. The Cassell Company. + + Letters to and from the Late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. 1788. + + STEPHEN, LESLIE. History of English Thought in the Eighteenth + Century. + + Dr. Johnson's Writings (in Hours in a Library, Vol. II). + + Samuel Johnson. Dictionary of National Biography. + + Samuel Johnson. English Men of Letters Series. Harper & + Brothers. (Cloth or paper.) + +MACAULAY + + BAGEHOT, WALTER. Thomas Babington Macaulay. (In Literary + Studies.) + + BREWER, E. COBHAM, LL.D. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. The + Historic Note-book. + + CLARK, J. SCOTT. Thomas Babington Macaulay. (In A Study of + English Prose Writers.) + + GLADSTONE, W. E. Gleanings of Past Years. + + HARRISON, FREDERIC. Lord Macaulay. (In Early Victorian + Literature.) + + MACAULAY, THOMAS B. Critical and Historical Essays, contributed + to the _Edinburgh Review_. Trevelyan edition, in two + volumes. Longmans, Green, and Co. + + The History of England from the Accession of James II. + + Works. Complete edition, by Lady Trevelyan, in eight + volumes. Longmans, Green, and Co. + + MINTO, WILLIAM. Manual of English Prose Literature. + + MORISON, J. COTTER. Macaulay. (In English Men of Letters, + edited by John Morley.) + + PATTISON, MARK. Macaulay. (In the Encyclopædia Britannica.) + + STEPHEN, LESLIE. Macaulay. (In the Dictionary of National + Biography; in Hours in a Library.) + + TREVELYAN, G. OTTO. The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, in + two volumes; also two volumes in one. + +LONDON + + BESANT, WALTER. London in the Eighteenth Century. + + HARE, AUGUSTUS JOHN. Walks in London. + + HUTTON, LAURENCE. Literary Landmarks of London. + + WHEATLEY, HENRY B. London, Past and Present. + + +VI. CHRONOLOGY OF MACAULAY'S LIFE AND WORKS + + 1800. Born. + + 1814. Sent to boarding school. + + 1818. Entered Trinity College, Cambridge. + + 1822. Graduated as B.A. + + 1824. Degree of M.A. Elected Fellow. First public speech. + + 1825. First contribution to the _Edinburgh Review_: essay on + Milton. + + 1826. Called to the bar. + + 1828. Commissioner of Bankruptcy. + + 1830. Member of Parliament for Calne. First speech in + Parliament. + + 1831. Speeches on the Reform Bill. Essay on Boswell's Life of + Johnson. + + 1833. Member of Parliament for Leeds. Essay on Horace Walpole. + + 1834. Essay on William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Sailed for India + as legal adviser to the Supreme Council. + + 1837. Penal Code finished. + + 1838. His father died. Returned to England. Visited Italy. + + 1839. Elected to the Club. Member of Parliament for Edinburgh. + Secretary at War. + + 1840. Essay on Lord Clive. + + 1841. Reëlected to Parliament for Edinburgh. Essay on Warren + Hastings. + + 1842. Lays of Ancient Rome published. + + 1843. Essay on Madame d'Arblay. Essay on the Life and Writings + of Addison. + + 1844. Essay on the Earl of Chatham. (The second essay on this + subject, and his last contribution to the _Edinburgh + Review_.) + + 1846. Paymaster-General of the Army. Defeated in Edinburgh + election. + + 1848. First two volumes of his History of England. + + 1849. Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. + + 1852. Again elected to Parliament from Edinburgh, although not + a candidate. Failing health. + + 1854. Life of John Bunyan. + + 1855. Third and fourth volumes of his History of England. (The + fifth volume appeared after his death.) + + 1856. Resigned his seat in Parliament. Life of Samuel Johnson. + Life of Oliver Goldsmith. + + 1857. Became Baron Macaulay of Rothley. + + 1859. Life of William Pitt. Died December 28. + + +VII. CHRONOLOGY OF JOHNSON'S LIFE AND WORKS + + 1709. Born September 18. + + 1728. Entered Pembroke College, Oxford. Turned Pope's Messiah + into Latin verse. + + 1731. Left Oxford. His father died. + + 1735. Married. Opened an academy at Edial. + + 1737. Went to London. + + 1738. His first important work: London. Began to write for _The + Gentleman's Magazine_. + + 1744. Life of Savage. + + 1747. Prospectus of the Dictionary. + + 1749. The Vanity of Human Wishes. Irene. + + 1750-1752. The Rambler. + + 1752. Death of his wife. + + 1755. Letter to Chesterfield. The Dictionary appeared. + + 1758-1760. The Idler. + + 1759. Death of his mother. Rasselas. + + 1762. Pensioned. + + 1763. Met Boswell for the first time. + + 1764. The Club founded. + + 1765. Made Doctor of Laws by Trinity College, Dublin. + Introduced to the Thrales. His edition of Shakspere + published. + + 1773. Spent three months in Scotland. + + 1775. Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland published. + Taxation no Tyranny. Received the degree of Doctor in + Civil Law from Oxford. + + 1779. First four volumes of his Lives of the Poets. + + 1781. The remaining six volumes of the Lives. + + 1784. Died December 13. + + + + +LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON + +(_December, 1856_) + + + 1. Samuel Johnson, one of the most eminent English + writers of the eighteenth century, was the son of Michael + Johnson, who was, at the beginning of that century, a magistrate + of Lichfield, and a bookseller of great note in the midland + counties. Michael's abilities and attainments seem to 5 + have been considerable. He was so well acquainted with + the contents of the volumes which he exposed to sale, that the + country rectors of Staffordshire and Worcestershire thought + him an oracle on points of learning. Between him and the + clergy, indeed, there was a strong religious and political 10 + sympathy. He was a zealous churchman, and, though he had + qualified himself for municipal office by taking the oaths to + the sovereigns in possession, was to the last a Jacobite in heart. + At his house, a house which is still pointed out to every + traveller who visits Lichfield, Samuel was born on the 18th of 15 + September 1709. In the child, the physical, intellectual, and + moral peculiarities which afterwards distinguished the man were + plainly discernible; great muscular strength accompanied by + much awkwardness and many infirmities; great quickness of + parts, with a morbid propensity to sloth and procrastination; 20 + a kind and generous heart, with a gloomy and irritable temper. + He had inherited from his ancestors a scrofulous taint, which + it was beyond the power of medicine to remove. His parents + were weak enough to believe that the royal touch was a specific + for this malady. In his third year he was taken up to London, + inspected by the court surgeon, prayed over by the court + chaplains, and stroked and presented with a piece of gold by + Queen Anne. One of his earliest recollections was that of a + stately lady in a diamond stomacher and a long black hood. 5 + Her hand was applied in vain. The boy's features, which + were originally noble and not irregular, were distorted by his + malady. His cheeks were deeply scarred. He lost for a time + the sight of one eye; and he saw but very imperfectly with + the other. But the force of his mind overcame every impediment. 10 + Indolent as he was, he acquired knowledge with such + ease and rapidity that at every school to which he was sent he + was soon the best scholar. From sixteen to eighteen he resided + at home, and was left to his own devices. He learned much at + this time, though his studies were without guidance and without 15 + plan. He ransacked his father's shelves, dipped into a multitude + of books, read what was interesting, and passed over what + was dull. An ordinary lad would have acquired little or no useful + knowledge in such a way: but much that was dull to ordinary + lads was interesting to Samuel. He read little Greek; for his 20 + proficiency in that language was not such that he could take + much pleasure in the masters of Attic poetry and eloquence. + But he had left school a good Latinist; and he soon acquired, + in the large and miscellaneous library of which he now had the + command, an extensive knowledge of Latin literature. That 25 + Augustan delicacy of taste which is the boast of the great public + schools of England he never possessed. But he was early + familiar with some classical writers who were quite unknown + to the best scholars in the sixth form at Eton. He was peculiarly + attracted by the works of the great restorers of learning. 30 + Once, while searching for some apples, he found a huge folio + volume of Petrarch's works. The name excited his curiosity; + and he eagerly devoured hundreds of pages. Indeed, the + diction and versification of his own Latin compositions show + that he had paid at least as much attention to modern copies + from the antique as to the original models. + + 2. While he was thus irregularly educating himself, his family + was sinking into hopeless poverty. Old Michael Johnson was + much better qualified to pore upon books, and to talk about 5 + them, than to trade in them. His business declined; his debts + increased; it was with difficulty that the daily expenses of his + household were defrayed. It was out of his power to support + his son at either university; but a wealthy neighbour offered + assistance; and, in reliance on promises which proved to be of 10 + very little value, Samuel was entered at Pembroke College, + Oxford. When the young scholar presented himself to the + rulers of that society, they were amazed not more by his ungainly + figure and eccentric manners than by the quantity of extensive + and curious information which he had picked up during many 15 + months of desultory but not unprofitable study. On the first + day of his residence he surprised his teachers by quoting Macrobius; + and one of the most learned among them declared that + he had never known a freshman of equal attainments. + + 3. At Oxford, Johnson resided during about three years. 20 + He was poor, even to raggedness; and his appearance excited + a mirth and a pity which were equally intolerable to his haughty + spirit. He was driven from the quadrangle of Christ Church + by the sneering looks which the members of that aristocratical + society cast at the holes in his shoes. Some charitable person 25 + placed a new pair at his door; but he spurned them away in a + fury. Distress made him, not servile, but reckless and ungovernable. + No opulent gentleman commoner, panting for one-and-twenty, + could have treated the academical authorities with + more gross disrespect. The needy scholar was generally to be 30 + seen under the gate of Pembroke, a gate now adorned with + his effigy, haranguing a circle of lads, over whom, in spite of + his tattered gown and dirty linen, his wit and audacity gave + him an undisputed ascendency. In every mutiny against the + discipline of the college he was the ringleader. Much was + pardoned, however, to a youth so highly distinguished by abilities + and acquirements. He had early made himself known + by turning Pope's Messiah into Latin verse. The style and + rhythm, indeed, were not exactly Virgilian; but the translation 5 + found many admirers, and was read with pleasure by + Pope himself. + + 4. The time drew near at which Johnson would, in the + ordinary course of things, have become a Bachelor of Arts: + but he was at the end of his resources. Those promises of 10 + support on which he had relied had not been kept. His + family could do nothing for him. His debts to Oxford tradesmen + were small indeed, yet larger than he could pay. In the + autumn of 1731, he was under the necessity of quitting the + university without a degree. In the following winter his father 15 + died. The old man left but a pittance; and of that pittance + almost the whole was appropriated to the support of his widow. + The property to which Samuel succeeded amounted to no more + than twenty pounds. + + 5. His life, during the thirty years which followed, was 20 + one hard struggle with poverty. The misery of that struggle + needed no aggravation, but was aggravated by the sufferings + of an unsound body and an unsound mind. Before the young + man left the university, his hereditary malady had broken forth + in a singularly cruel form. He had become an incurable 25 + hypochondriac. He said long after that he had been mad all + his life, or at least not perfectly sane; and, in truth, + eccentricities less strange than his have often been thought grounds + sufficient for absolving felons, and for setting aside wills. His + grimaces, his gestures, his mutterings, sometimes diverted and 30 + sometimes terrified people who did not know him. At a dinner + table he would, in a fit of absence, stoop down and twitch off + a lady's shoe. He would amaze a drawing-room by suddenly + ejaculating a clause of the Lord's Prayer. He would conceive + an unintelligible aversion to a particular alley, and perform a + great circuit rather than see the hateful place. He would set + his heart on touching every post in the streets through which he + walked. If by any chance he missed a post, he would go back + a hundred yards and repair the omission. Under the influence 5 + 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 10 + worst. A deep melancholy took possession of him, and gave + a dark tinge to all his views of human nature and of human + destiny. Such wretchedness as he endured has driven many + men to shoot themselves or drown themselves. But he was + under no temptation to commit suicide. He was sick of life; 15 + but he was afraid of death; and he shuddered at every sight + or sound which reminded him of the inevitable hour. In religion + he found but little comfort during his long and frequent + fits of dejection; for his religion partook of his own character. + The light from heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a 20 + direct line, or with its own pure splendour. The rays had + to struggle through a disturbing medium; they reached him + refracted, dulled and discoloured by the thick gloom which + had settled on his soul; and, though they might be sufficiently + clear to guide him, were too dim to cheer him. 25 + + 6. With such infirmities of body and mind, this celebrated + man was left, at two-and-twenty, to fight his way through the + world. He remained during about five years in the midland + counties. At Lichfield, his birthplace and his early home, he + had inherited some friends and acquired others. He was kindly 30 + noticed by Henry Hervey, a gay officer of noble family, who + happened to be quartered there. Gilbert Walmesley, registrar + of the ecclesiastical court of the diocese, a man of distinguished + parts, learning, and knowledge of the world, did + himself honour by patronising the young adventurer, whose + repulsive person, unpolished manners, and squalid garb moved + many of the petty aristocracy of the neighbourhood to laughter + or to disgust. At Lichfield, however, Johnson could find no + way of earning a livelihood. He became usher of a grammar 5 + school in Leicestershire; he resided as a humble companion + in the house of a country gentleman; but a life of dependence + was insupportable to his haughty spirit. He repaired to Birmingham, + and there earned a few guineas by literary drudgery. + In that town he printed a translation, little noticed at the 10 + time, and long forgotten, of a Latin book about Abyssinia. + He then put forth proposals for publishing by subscription the + poems of Politian, with notes containing a history of modern + Latin verse: but subscriptions did not come in; and the volume + never appeared. 15 + + 7. While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson + fell in love. The object of his passion was Mrs. Elizabeth + Porter, a widow who had children as old as himself. To ordinary + spectators, the lady appeared to be a short, fat, coarse + woman, painted half an inch thick, dressed in gaudy colours, 20 + and fond of exhibiting provincial airs and graces which were + not exactly those of the Queensberrys and Lepels. To Johnson, + however, whose passions were strong, whose eyesight was + too weak to distinguish ceruse from natural bloom, and who + had seldom or never been in the same room with a woman of 25 + real fashion, his Titty, as he called her, was the most beautiful, + graceful, and accomplished of her sex. That his admiration + was unfeigned cannot be doubted; for she was as poor as + himself. She accepted, with a readiness which did her little + honour, the addresses of a suitor who might have been her 30 + son. The marriage, however, in spite of occasional wranglings, + proved happier than might have been expected. The lover + continued to be under the illusions of the wedding-day till the + lady died in her sixty-fourth year. On her monument he + placed an inscription extolling the charms of her person and + of her manners; and when, long after her decease, he had + occasion to mention her, he exclaimed, with a tenderness half + ludicrous, half pathetic, "Pretty creature!" + + 8. His marriage made it necessary for him to exert himself 5 + more strenuously than he had hitherto done. He took a + house in the neighbourhood of his native town, and advertised + for pupils. But eighteen months passed away; and only three + pupils came to his academy. Indeed, his appearance was so + strange, and his temper so violent, that his schoolroom must 10 + have resembled an ogre's den. Nor was the tawdry painted + grandmother whom he called his Titty well qualified to make + provision for the comfort of young gentlemen. David Garrick, + who was one of the pupils, used, many years later, to throw + the best company of London into convulsions of laughter by 15 + mimicking the endearments of this extraordinary pair. + + 9. At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, + determined to seek his fortune in the capital as a literary + adventurer. He set out with a few guineas, three acts of the + tragedy of Irene in manuscript, and two or three letters of 20 + introduction from his friend Walmesley. + + 10. Never, since literature became a calling in England, had + it been a less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson + took up his residence in London. In the preceding generation + a writer of eminent merit was sure to be munificently 25 + rewarded by the government. The least that he could expect + was a pension or a sinecure place; and, if he showed any aptitude + for politics, he might hope to be a member of parliament, + a lord of the treasury, an ambassador, a secretary of state. It + would be easy, on the other hand, to name several writers 30 + of the nineteenth century of whom the least successful has + received forty thousand pounds from the booksellers. But + Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary part of + the dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity. + Literature had ceased to flourish under the patronage of the + great, and had not begun to flourish under the patronage of + the public. One man of letters, indeed, Pope, had acquired + by his pen what was then considered as a handsome fortune, + and lived on a footing of equality with nobles and ministers of 5 + state. But this was a solitary exception. Even an author + whose reputation was established, and whose works were popular, + such an author as Thomson, whose Seasons were in every + library, such an author as Fielding, whose Pasquin had had a + greater run than any drama since The Beggar's Opera, was 10 + sometimes glad to obtain, by pawning his best coat, the means + of dining on tripe at a cookshop underground, where he could + wipe his hands, after his greasy meal, on the back of a Newfoundland + dog. It is easy, therefore, to imagine what humiliations + and privations must have awaited the novice who had 15 + still to earn a name. One of the publishers to whom Johnson + applied for employment measured with a scornful eye that + athletic though uncouth frame, and exclaimed, "You had + better get a porter's knot, and carry trunks." Nor was the + advice bad; for a porter was likely to be as plentifully fed, 20 + and as comfortably lodged, as a poet. + + 11. Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson + was able to form any literary connection from which he could + expect more than bread for the day which was passing over + him. He never forgot the generosity with which Hervey, who 25 + was now residing in London, relieved his wants during this + time of trial. "Harry Hervey," said the old philosopher + many years later, "was a vicious man; but he was very + kind to me. If you call a dog Hervey I shall love him." + At Hervey's table Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts which 30 + were made more agreeable by contrast. But in general he + dined, and thought that he dined well, on sixpenny worth + of meat, and a pennyworth of bread, at an alehouse near + Drury Lane. + + 12. The effect of the privations and sufferings which he + endured at this time was discernible to the last in his temper + and his deportment. His manners had never been courtly. + They now became almost savage. Being frequently under the + necessity of wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a 5 + confirmed sloven. Being often very hungry when he sat down + to his meals, he contracted a habit of eating with ravenous + greediness. Even to the end of his life, and even at the tables + of the great, the sight of food affected him as it affects wild + beasts and birds of prey. His taste in cookery, formed in 10 + subterranean ordinaries and alamode beefshops, was far from + delicate. Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him + a hare that had been kept too long, or a meat pie made with + rancid butter, he gorged himself with such violence that his + veins swelled, and the moisture broke out on his forehead. 15 + The affronts which his poverty emboldened stupid and low-minded + men to offer to him would have broken a mean spirit + into sycophancy, but made him rude even to ferocity. Unhappily + the insolence which, while it was defensive, was pardonable, + and in some sense respectable, accompanied him into 20 + societies where he was treated with courtesy and kindness. He + was repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken + liberties with him. All the sufferers, however, were wise + enough to abstain from talking about their beatings, except + Osborne, the most rapacious and brutal of booksellers, who 25 + proclaimed everywhere that he had been knocked down by the + huge fellow whom he had hired to puff the Harleian Library. + + 13. About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in + London, he was fortunate enough to obtain regular employment + from Cave, an enterprising and intelligent bookseller, who 30 + was proprietor and editor of _The Gentleman's Magazine_. That + journal, just entering on the ninth year of its long existence, + was the only periodical work in the kingdom which then had + what would now be called a large circulation. It was, indeed, + the chief source of parliamentary intelligence. It was not then + safe, even during a recess, to publish an account of the proceedings + of either House without some disguise. Cave, however, + ventured to entertain his readers with what he called + "Reports of the Debates of the Senate of Lilliput." France 5 + was Blefuscu; London was Mildendo; pounds were sprugs; the + Duke of Newcastle was the Nardac Secretary of State; Lord + Hardwicke was the Hurgo Hickrad; and William Pulteney + was Wingul Pulnub. To write the speeches was, during several + years, the business of Johnson. He was generally furnished 10 + with notes, meagre indeed, and inaccurate, of what had been + said; but sometimes he had to find arguments and eloquence + both for the ministry and for the opposition. He was himself + a Tory, not from rational conviction--for his serious + opinion was that one form of government was just as good or 15 + as bad as another--but from mere passion, such as inflamed + the Capulets against the Montagues, or the Blues of the Roman + circus against the Greens. In his infancy he had heard so + much talk about the villanies of the Whigs, and the dangers + of the Church, that he had become a furious partisan when 20 + he could scarcely speak. Before he was three he had insisted + on being taken to hear Sacheverell preach at Lichfield Cathedral, + and had listened to the sermon with as much respect, + and probably with as much intelligence, as any Staffordshire + squire in the congregation. The work which had been begun 25 + in the nursery had been completed by the university. Oxford, + when Johnson resided there, was the most Jacobitical place + in England; and Pembroke was one of the most Jacobitical + colleges in Oxford. The prejudices which he brought up + to London were scarcely less absurd than those of his own 30 + Tom Tempest. Charles II. and James II. were two of the + best kings that ever reigned. Laud, a poor creature who + never did, said, or wrote anything indicating more than the + ordinary capacity of an old woman, was a prodigy of parts and + learning over whose tomb Art and Genius still continued to + weep. Hampden deserved no more honourable name than + that of "the zealot of rebellion." Even the ship money, condemned + not less decidedly by Falkland and Clarendon than by + the bitterest Roundheads, Johnson would not pronounce to 5 + have been an unconstitutional impost. Under a government, + the mildest that had ever been known in the world--under a + government, which allowed to the people an unprecedented + liberty of speech and action--he fancied that he was a slave; + he assailed the ministry with obloquy which refuted itself, and 10 + regretted the lost freedom and happiness of those golden days + in which a writer who had taken but one-tenth part of the + license allowed to him would have been pilloried, mangled + with the shears, whipped at the cart's tail, and flung into a + noisome dungeon to die. He hated dissenters and stock-jobbers, 15 + the excise and the army, septennial parliaments, and + continental connections. He long had an aversion to the + Scotch, an aversion of which he could not remember the commencement, + but which, he owned, had probably originated in + his abhorrence of the conduct of the nation during the Great 20 + Rebellion. It is easy to guess in what manner debates on + great party questions were likely to be reported by a man + whose judgment was so much disordered by party spirit. A + show of fairness was indeed necessary to the prosperity of the + Magazine. But Johnson long afterwards owned that, though 25 + he had saved appearances, he had taken care that the Whig + dogs should not have the best of it; and, in fact, every passage + which has lived, every passage which bears the marks of + his higher faculties, is put into the mouth of some member + of the opposition. 30 + + 14. A few weeks after Johnson had entered on these + obscure labours, he published a work which at once placed + him high among the writers of his age. It is probable that + what he had suffered during his first year in London had often + reminded him of some parts of that noble poem in which + Juvenal had described the misery and degradation of a needy + man of letters, lodged among the pigeons' nests in the tottering + garrets which overhung the streets of Rome. Pope's + admirable imitations of Horace's Satires and Epistles had 5 + recently appeared, were in every hand, and were by many + readers thought superior to the originals. What Pope had + done for Horace, Johnson aspired to do for Juvenal. The + enterprise was bold, and yet judicious. For between Johnson + and Juvenal there was much in common, much more certainly 10 + than between Pope and Horace. + + 15. Johnson's London appeared without his name in + May 1738. He received only ten guineas for this stately and + vigorous poem: but the sale was rapid, and the success complete. + A second edition was required within a week. Those 15 + small critics who are always desirous to lower established + reputations ran about proclaiming that the anonymous satirist + was superior to Pope in Pope's own peculiar department of + literature. It ought to be remembered, to the honour of Pope, + that he joined heartily in the applause with which the appearance 20 + of a rival genius was welcomed. He made inquiries about + the author of London. Such a man, he said, could not long + be concealed. The name was soon discovered; and Pope, + with great kindness, exerted himself to obtain an academical + degree and the mastership of a grammar school for the poor 25 + young poet. The attempt failed, and Johnson remained a + bookseller's hack. + + 16. It does not appear that these two men, the most + eminent writer of the generation which was going out, and + the most eminent writer of the generation which was coming 30 + in, ever saw each other. They lived in very different circles, + one surrounded by dukes and earls, the other by starving + pamphleteers and indexmakers. Among Johnson's associates + at this time may be mentioned Boyse, who, when his shirts + were pledged, scrawled Latin verses sitting up in bed with his + arms through two holes in his blanket, who composed very + respectable sacred poetry when he was sober, and who was at + last run over by a hackney coach when he was drunk; Hoole, + surnamed the metaphysical tailor, who, instead of attending 5 + to his measures, used to trace geometrical diagrams on the + board where he sate cross-legged; and the penitent impostor, + George Psalmanazar, who, after poring all day, in a humble + lodging, on the folios of Jewish rabbis and Christian fathers, + indulged himself at night with literary and theological 10 + conversation at an alehouse in the city. But the most remarkable + of the persons with whom at this time Johnson consorted + was Richard Savage, an earl's son, a shoemaker's apprentice, + who had seen life in all its forms, who had feasted among blue + ribands in Saint James's Square, and had lain with fifty pounds' 15 + weight of iron on his legs in the condemned ward of Newgate. + This man had, after many vicissitudes of fortune, sunk at last + into abject and hopeless poverty. His pen had failed him. + His patrons had been taken away by death, or estranged by + the riotous profusion with which he squandered their bounty, 20 + and the ungrateful insolence with which he rejected their + advice. He now lived by begging. He dined on venison + and champagne whenever he had been so fortunate as to + borrow a guinea. If his questing had been unsuccessful, he + appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat, 25 + and lay down to rest under the Piazza of Covent Garden in + warm weather, and, in cold weather, as near as he could get + to the furnace of a glass house. Yet, in his misery, he was still + an agreeable companion. He had an inexhaustible store of + anecdotes about that gay and brilliant world from which he 30 + was now an outcast. He had observed the great men of both + parties in hours of careless relaxation, had seen the leaders + of opposition without the mask of patriotism, and had heard + the prime minister roar with laughter and tell stories not over + decent. During some months Savage lived in the closest + familiarity with Johnson; and then the friends parted, not + without tears. Johnson remained in London to drudge for + Cave. Savage went to the West of England, lived there as + he had lived everywhere, and, in 1743, died, penniless and 5 + heart-broken, in Bristol gaol. + + 17. Soon after his death, while the public curiosity was + strongly excited about his extraordinary character, and his + not less extraordinary adventures, a life of him appeared + widely different from the catchpenny lives of eminent men 10 + which were then a staple article of manufacture in Grub + Street. The style was indeed deficient in ease and variety; + and the writer was evidently too partial to the Latin element + of our language. But the little work, with all its faults, was + a masterpiece. No finer specimen of literary biography existed 15 + in any language, living or dead; and a discerning critic might + have confidently predicted that the author was destined to be + the founder of a new school of English eloquence. + + 18. The life of Savage was anonymous; but it was well + known in literary circles that Johnson was the writer. During 20 + the three years which followed, he produced no important + work; but he was not, and indeed could not be, idle. The fame + of his abilities and learning continued to grow. Warburton + pronounced him a man of parts and genius; and the praise + of Warburton was then no light thing. Such was Johnson's 25 + reputation that, in 1747, several eminent booksellers combined + to employ him in the arduous work of preparing a + Dictionary of the English language, in two folio volumes. The + sum which they agreed to pay him was only fifteen hundred + guineas; and out of this sum he had to pay several poor men 30 + of letters who assisted him in the humbler parts of his task. + + 19. The prospectus of the Dictionary he addressed to the + Earl of Chesterfield. Chesterfield had long been celebrated + for the politeness of his manners, the brilliancy of his wit, + and the delicacy of his taste. He was acknowledged to be + the finest speaker in the House of Lords. He had recently + governed Ireland, at a momentous conjuncture, with eminent + firmness, wisdom, and humanity; and he had since become + Secretary of State. He received Johnson's homage with the 5 + most winning affability, and requited it with a few guineas, + bestowed doubtless in a very graceful manner, but was by no + means desirous to see all his carpets blackened with the London + mud, and his soups and wines thrown to right and left over + the gowns of fine ladies and the waistcoats of fine gentlemen, 10 + by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange starts and + uttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow, and ate + like a cormorant. During some time Johnson continued to + call on his patron, but after being repeatedly told by the + porter that his lordship was not at home, took the hint, and 15 + ceased to present himself at the inhospitable door. + + 20. Johnson had flattered himself that he should have completed + his Dictionary by the end of 1750; but it was not till + 1755 that he at length gave his huge volumes to the world. + During the seven years which he passed in the drudgery of 20 + penning definitions and marking quotations for transcription, + he sought for relaxation in literary labour of a more agreeable + kind. In 1749 he published the Vanity of Human Wishes, + an excellent imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal. It is + in truth not easy to say whether the palm belongs to the 25 + ancient or to the modern poet. The couplets in which the + fall of Wolsey is described, though lofty and sonorous, are feeble + when compared with the wonderful lines which bring before us + all Rome in tumult on the day of the fall of Sejanus, the laurels + on the doorposts, the white bull stalking towards the Capitol, 30 + the statues rolling down from their pedestals, the flatterers of + the disgraced minister running to see him dragged with a hook + through the streets, and to have a kick at his carcase before + it is hurled into the Tiber. It must be owned too that in the + concluding passage the Christian moralist has not made the + most of his advantages, and has fallen decidedly short of + the sublimity of his pagan model. On the other hand, Juvenal's + Hannibal must yield to Johnson's Charles; and Johnson's + vigorous and pathetic enumeration of the miseries of a literary 5 + life must be allowed to be superior to Juvenal's lamentation + over the fate of Demosthenes and Cicero. + + 21. For the copyright of the Vanity of Human Wishes + Johnson received only fifteen guineas. + + 22. A few days after the publication of this poem, his 10 + tragedy, begun many years before, was brought on the stage. + His pupil, David Garrick, had, in 1741, made his appearance + on a humble stage in Goodman's Fields, had at once risen to the + first place among actors, and was now, after several years of + almost uninterrupted success, manager of Drury Lane Theatre. 15 + The relation between him and his old preceptor was of a very + singular kind. They repelled each other strongly, and yet + attracted each other strongly. Nature had made them of very + different clay; and circumstances had fully brought out the + natural peculiarities of both. Sudden prosperity had turned 20 + Garrick's head. Continued adversity had soured Johnson's + temper. Johnson saw with more envy than became so great + a man the villa, the plate, the china, the Brussels carpet, which + the little mimic had got by repeating, with grimaces and + gesticulations, what wiser men had written; and the exquisitely 25 + sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled by the thought that, + while all the rest of the world was applauding him, he could + obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinion it was impossible + to despise, scarcely any compliment not acidulated with scorn. + Yet the two Lichfield men had so many early recollections in 30 + common, and sympathised with each other on so many points + on which they sympathised with nobody else in the vast population + of the capital, that, though the master was often provoked + by the monkey-like impertinence of the pupil, and the + pupil by the bearish rudeness of the master, they remained + friends till they were parted by death. Garrick now brought + Irene out, with alterations sufficient to displease the author, + yet not sufficient to make the piece pleasing to the audience. + The public, however, listened with little emotion, but with 5 + much civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation. After + nine representations the play was withdrawn. It is, indeed, + altogether unsuited to the stage, and, even when perused in + the closet, will be found hardly worthy of the author. He had + not the slightest notion of what blank verse should be. A 10 + change in the last syllable of every other line would make the + versification of the Vanity of Human Wishes closely resemble + the versification of Irene. The poet, however, cleared, by + his benefit nights, and by the sale of the copyright of his + tragedy, about three hundred pounds, then a great sum in 15 + his estimation. + + 23. About a year after the representation of Irene, he + began to publish a series of short essays on morals, manners, + and literature. This species of composition had been brought + into fashion by the success of the Tatler, and by the still more 20 + brilliant success of the Spectator. A crowd of small writers + had vainly attempted to rival Addison. The Lay Monastery, + the Censor, the Freethinker, the Plain Dealer, the Champion, + and other works of the same kind, had had their short day. + None of them had obtained a permanent place in our literature; 25 + and they are now to be found only in the libraries of + the curious. At length Johnson undertook the adventure in + which so many aspirants had failed. In the thirty-sixth year + after the appearance of the last number of the Spectator + appeared the first number of the Rambler. From March 30 + 1750 to March 1752, this paper continued to come out every + Tuesday and Saturday. + + 24. From the first the Rambler was enthusiastically admired + by a few eminent men. Richardson, when only five numbers + had appeared, pronounced it equal, if not superior, to the + Spectator. Young and Hartley expressed their approbation + not less warmly. Bubb Dodington, among whose many faults + indifference to the claims of genius and learning cannot be + reckoned, solicited the acquaintance of the writer. In 5 + consequence probably of the good offices of Dodington, who was + then the confidential adviser of Prince Frederic, two of His + Royal Highness's gentlemen carried a gracious message to + the printing office, and ordered seven copies for Leicester + House. But these overtures seem to have been very coldly 10 + received. Johnson had had enough of the patronage of the + great to last him all his life, and was not disposed to haunt + any other door as he had haunted the door of Chesterfield. + + 25. By the public the Rambler was at first very coldly + received. Though the price of a number was only twopence, 15 + the sale did not amount to five hundred. The profits were + therefore very small. But as soon as the flying leaves were + collected and reprinted they became popular. The author + lived to see thirteen thousand copies spread over England + alone. Separate editions were published for the Scotch and 20 + Irish markets. A large party pronounced the style perfect, so + absolutely perfect that in some essays it would be impossible + for the writer himself to alter a single word for the better. + Another party, not less numerous, vehemently accused him of + having corrupted the purity of the English tongue. The best 25 + critics admitted that his diction was too monotonous, too + obviously artificial, and now and then turgid even to absurdity. + But they did justice to the acuteness of his observations on + morals and manners, to the constant precision and frequent + brilliancy of his language, to the weighty and magnificent 30 + eloquence of many serious passages, and to the solemn yet + pleasing humour of some of the lighter papers. On the question + of precedence between Addison and Johnson, a question + which, seventy years ago, was much disputed, posterity has + pronounced a decision from which there is no appeal. Sir + Roger, his chaplain and his butler, Will Wimble and Will + Honeycomb, the Vision of Mirza, the Journal of the Retired + Citizen, the Everlasting Club, the Dunmow Flitch, the Loves + of Hilpah and Shalum, the Visit to the Exchange, and the 5 + Visit to the Abbey, are known to everybody. But many men + and women, even of highly cultivated minds, are unacquainted + with Squire Bluster and Mrs. Busy, Quisquilius and Venustulus, + the Allegory of Wit and Learning, the Chronicle of the Revolutions + of a Garret, and the sad fate of Aningait and Ajut. 10 + + 26. The last Rambler was written in a sad and gloomy + hour. Mrs. Johnson had been given over by the physicians. + Three days later she died. She left her husband almost + broken-hearted. Many people had been surprised to see a + man of his genius and learning stooping to every drudgery, 15 + and denying himself almost every comfort, for the purpose of + supplying a silly, affected old woman with superfluities, which + she accepted with but little gratitude. But all his affection + had been concentrated on her. He had neither brother nor + sister, neither son nor daughter. To him she was beautiful as 20 + the Gunnings, and witty as Lady Mary. Her opinion of his + writings was more important to him than the voice of the + pit of Drury Lane Theatre or the judgment of the Monthly + Review. The chief support which had sustained him through + the most arduous labour of his life was the hope that she would 25 + enjoy the fame and the profit which he anticipated from his + Dictionary. She was gone; and in that vast labyrinth of + streets, peopled by eight hundred thousand human beings, + he was alone. Yet it was necessary for him to set himself, as + he expressed it, doggedly to work. After three more laborious 30 + years, the Dictionary was at length complete. + + 27. It had been generally supposed that this great work + would be dedicated to the eloquent and accomplished nobleman + to whom the prospectus had been addressed. He well + knew the value of such a compliment; and therefore, when + the day of publication drew near, he exerted himself to soothe, + by a show of zealous and at the same time of delicate and + judicious kindness, the pride which he had so cruelly wounded. + Since the Ramblers had ceased to appear, the town had been 5 + entertained by a journal called The World, to which many men + of high rank and fashion contributed. In two successive numbers + of the World the Dictionary was, to use the modern phrase, + puffed with wonderful skill. The writings of Johnson were + warmly praised. It was proposed that he should be invested 10 + with the authority of a Dictator, nay, of a Pope, over our + language, and that his decisions about the meaning and the + spelling of words should be received as final. His two folios, + it was said, would of course be bought by everybody who could + afford to buy them. It was soon known that these papers were 15 + written by Chesterfield. But the just resentment of Johnson + was not to be so appeased. In a letter written with singular + energy and dignity of thought and language, he repelled the + tardy advances of his patron. The Dictionary came forth without + a dedication. In the preface the author truly declared that 20 + he owed nothing to the great, and described the difficulties with + which he had been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically + that the ablest and most malevolent of all the enemies of his + fame, Horne Tooke, never could read that passage without tears. + + 28. The public, on this occasion, did Johnson full justice, 25 + and something more than justice. The best lexicographer + may well be content if his productions are received by the + world with cold esteem. But Johnson's Dictionary was hailed + with an enthusiasm such as no similar work has ever excited. + It was indeed the first dictionary which could be read with 30 + pleasure. The definitions show so much acuteness of thought + and command of language, and the passages quoted from poets, + divines, and philosophers are so skilfully selected, that a leisure + hour may always be very agreeably spent in turning over the + pages. The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most + part, into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist. + He knew little or nothing of any Teutonic language + except English, which indeed, as he wrote it, was scarcely a + Teutonic language; and thus he was absolutely at the mercy 5 + of Junius and Skinner. + + 29. The Dictionary, though it raised Johnson's fame, added + nothing to his pecuniary means. The fifteen hundred guineas + which the booksellers had agreed to pay him had been advanced + and spent before the last sheets issued from the press. It is 10 + painful to relate that, twice in the course of the year which + followed the publication of this great work, he was arrested + and carried to spunging-houses, and that he was twice indebted + for his liberty to his excellent friend Richardson. It was still + necessary for the man who had been formally saluted by the 15 + highest authority as Dictator of the English language to supply + his wants by constant toil. He abridged his Dictionary. He + proposed to bring out an edition of Shakspeare by subscription; + and many subscribers sent in their names and laid down their + money; but he soon found the task so little to his taste that 20 + he turned to more attractive employments. He contributed + many papers to a new monthly journal, which was called the + Literary Magazine. Few of these papers have much interest; + but among them was the very best thing that he ever wrote, a + masterpiece both of reasoning and of satirical pleasantry, the 25 + review of Jenyns's Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil. + + 30. In the spring of 1758 Johnson put forth the first of a + series of essays, entitled The Idler. During two years these + essays continued to appear weekly. They were eagerly read, + widely circulated, and, indeed, impudently pirated, while they 30 + were still in the original form, and had a large sale when + collected into volumes. The Idler may be described as a second + part of the Rambler, somewhat livelier and somewhat weaker + than the first part. + + 31. While Johnson was busied with his Idlers, his mother, who + had accomplished her ninetieth year, died at Lichfield. It was + long since he had seen her; but he had not failed to contribute + largely, out of his small means, to her comfort. In order to + defray the charges of her funeral, and to pay some debts which 5 + she had left, he wrote a little book in a single week, and sent + off the sheets to the press without reading them over. A + hundred pounds were paid him for the copyright; and the + purchasers had great cause to be pleased with their bargain; + for the book was Rasselas. 10 + + 32. The success of Rasselas was great, though such ladies + as Miss Lydia Languish must have been grievously disappointed + when they found that the new volume from the circulating + library was little more than a dissertation on the author's + favourite theme, the Vanity of Human Wishes; that the Prince 15 + of Abyssinia was without a mistress, and the Princess without a + lover; and that the story set the hero and the heroine down + exactly where it had taken them up. The style was the subject + of much eager controversy. The Monthly Review and the + Critical Review took different sides. Many readers pronounced 20 + the writer a pompous pedant, who would never use a word of + two syllables where it was possible to use a word of six, and + who could not make a waiting woman relate her adventures + without balancing every noun with another noun, and every + epithet with another epithet. Another party, not less zealous, 25 + cited with delight numerous passages in which weighty meaning + was expressed with accuracy and illustrated with splendour. + And both the censure and the praise were merited. + + 33. About the plan of Rasselas little was said by the + critics; and yet the faults of the plan might seem to invite 30 + severe criticism. Johnson has frequently blamed Shakspeare + for neglecting the proprieties of time and place, and for ascribing + to one age or nation the manners and opinions of another. + Yet Shakspeare has not sinned in this way more grievously + than Johnson. Rasselas and Imlac, Nekayah and Pekuah, are + evidently meant to be Abyssinians of the eighteenth century: + for the Europe which Imlac describes is the Europe of the + eighteenth century; and the inmates of the Happy Valley + talk familiarly of that law of gravitation which Newton 5 + discovered, and which was not fully received even at Cambridge + till the eighteenth century. What a real company of Abyssinians + would have been may be learned from Bruce's Travels. + But Johnson, not content with turning filthy savages, ignorant + of their letters, and gorged with raw steaks cut from living 10 + cows, into philosophers as eloquent and enlightened as himself + or his friend Burke, and into ladies as highly accomplished as + Mrs. Lennox or Mrs. Sheridan, transferred the whole domestic + system of England to Egypt. Into a land of harems, a land of + polygamy, a land where women are married without ever being 15 + seen, he introduced the flirtations and jealousies of our + ballrooms. In a land where there is boundless liberty of divorce, + wedlock is described as the indissoluble compact. "A youth + and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, + exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream 20 + of each other. Such," says Rasselas, "is the common process + of marriage." Such it may have been, and may still be, in + London, but assuredly not at Cairo. A writer who was guilty + of such improprieties had little right to blame the poet who + made Hector quote Aristotle, and represented Julio Romano 25 + as flourishing in the days of the oracle of Delphi. + + 34. By such exertions as have been described, Johnson + supported himself till the year 1762. In that year a great + change in his circumstances took place. He had from a child + been an enemy of the reigning dynasty. His Jacobite prejudices 30 + had been exhibited with little disguise both in his works + and in his conversation. Even in his massy and elaborate + Dictionary, he had, with a strange want of taste and judgment, + inserted bitter and contumelious reflections on the Whig party. + The excise, which was a favourite resource of Whig financiers, + he had designated as a hateful tax. He had railed against the + commissioners of excise in language so coarse that they had + seriously thought of prosecuting him. He had with difficulty + been prevented from holding up the Lord Privy Seal by name 5 + as an example of the meaning of the word "renegade." A + pension he had defined as pay given to a state hireling to betray + his country; a pensioner as a slave of state hired by a stipend + to obey a master. It seemed unlikely that the author of these + definitions would himself be pensioned. But that was a time 10 + of wonders. George the Third had ascended the throne; and + had, in the course of a few months, disgusted many of the old + friends and conciliated many of the old enemies of his house. + The city was becoming mutinous. Oxford was becoming loyal. + Cavendishes and Bentincks were murmuring. Somersets and 15 + Wyndhams were hastening to kiss hands. The head of the + treasury was now Lord Bute, who was a Tory, and could have + no objection to Johnson's Toryism. Bute wished to be thought + a patron of men of letters; and Johnson was one of the most + eminent and one of the most needy men of letters in Europe. 20 + A pension of three hundred a year was graciously offered, and + with very little hesitation accepted. + + 35. This event produced a change in Johnson's whole way + of life. For the first time since his boyhood he no longer felt + the daily goad urging him to the daily toil. He was at liberty, 25 + after thirty years of anxiety and drudgery, to indulge his + constitutional indolence, to lie in bed till two in the afternoon, + and to sit up talking till four in the morning, without fearing + either the printer's devil or the sheriff's officer. + + 36. One laborious task indeed he had bound himself to 30 + perform. He had received large subscriptions for his promised + edition of Shakspeare; he had lived on those subscriptions + during some years; and he could not without disgrace omit + to perform his part of the contract. His friends repeatedly + exhorted him to make an effort; and he repeatedly resolved + to do so. But, notwithstanding their exhortations and his + resolutions, month followed month, year followed year, and + nothing was done. He prayed fervently against his idleness; + he determined, as often as he received the sacrament, that 5 + he would no longer doze away and trifle away his time; but + the spell under which he lay resisted prayer and sacrament. + His private notes at this time are made up of self-reproaches. + "My indolence," he wrote on Easter eve in 1764, "has sunk + into grosser sluggishness. A kind of strange oblivion has 10 + overspread me, so that I know not what has become of the last + year." Easter 1765 came, and found him still in the same + state. "My time," he wrote, "has been unprofitably spent, + and seems as a dream that has left nothing behind. My + memory grows confused, and I know not how the days pass 15 + over me." Happily for his honour, the charm which held him + captive was at length broken by no gentle or friendly hand. + He had been weak enough to pay serious attention to a story + about a ghost which haunted a house in Cock Lane, and had + actually gone himself with some of his friends, at one in the 20 + morning, to St. John's Church, Clerkenwell, in the hope of + receiving a communication from the perturbed spirit. But the + spirit, though adjured with all solemnity, remained obstinately + silent; and it soon appeared that a naughty girl of eleven had + been amusing herself by making fools of so many philosophers. 25 + Churchill, who, confident in his powers, drunk with popularity, + and burning with party spirit, was looking for some man of + established fame and Tory politics to insult, celebrated the + Cock Lane Ghost in three cantos, nicknamed Johnson Pomposo, + asked where the book was which had been so long 30 + promised and so liberally paid for, and directly accused the + great moralist of cheating. This terrible word proved effectual; + and in October 1765 appeared, after a delay of nine + years, the new edition of Shakspeare. + + 37. This publication saved Johnson's character for honesty, + but added nothing to the fame of his abilities and learning. + The preface, though it contains some good passages, is not in + his best manner. The most valuable notes are those in which + he had an opportunity of showing how attentively he had 5 + during many years observed human life and human nature. + The best specimen is the note on the character of Polonius. + Nothing so good is to be found even in Wilhelm Meister's + admirable examination of Hamlet. But here praise must end. + It would be difficult to name a more slovenly, a more worthless 10 + edition of any great classic. The reader may turn over play + after play without finding one happy conjectural emendation, + or one ingenious and satisfactory explanation of a passage + which had baffled preceding commentators. Johnson had, in + his prospectus, told the world that he was peculiarly fitted for 15 + the task which he had undertaken, because he had, as a + lexicographer, been under the necessity of taking a wider view of + the English language than any of his predecessors. That his + knowledge of our literature was extensive is indisputable. But, + unfortunately, he had altogether neglected that very part of 20 + our literature with which it is especially desirable that an editor + of Shakspeare should be conversant. It is dangerous to assert + a negative. Yet little will be risked by the assertion, that in + the two folio volumes of the English Dictionary there is not a + single passage quoted from any dramatist of the Elizabethan 25 + age, except Shakspeare and Ben. Even from Ben the quotations + are few. Johnson might easily, in a few months, have + made himself well acquainted with every old play that was + extant. But it never seems to have occurred to him that this + was a necessary preparation for the work which he had undertaken. 30 + He would doubtless have admitted that it would be + the height of absurdity in a man who was not familiar with + the works of Æschylus and Euripides to publish an edition of + Sophocles. Yet he ventured to publish an edition of Shakspeare, + without having ever in his life, as far as can be discovered, + read a single scene of Massinger, Ford, Decker, Webster, + Marlow, Beaumont, or Fletcher. His detractors were noisy + and scurrilous. Those who most loved and honoured him had + little to say in praise of the manner in which he had discharged 5 + the duty of a commentator. He had, however, acquitted himself + of a debt which had long lain heavy on his conscience; + and he sank back into the repose from which the sting of satire + had roused him. He long continued to live upon the fame + which he had already won. He was honoured by the University 10 + of Oxford with a Doctor's degree, by the Royal Academy + with a professorship, and by the King with an interview, in + which his Majesty most graciously expressed a hope that so + excellent a writer would not cease to write. In the interval, + however, between 1765 and 1775 Johnson published only two 15 + or three political tracts, the longest of which he could have + produced in forty-eight hours, if he had worked as he worked + on the Life of Savage and on Rasselas. + + 38. But, though his pen was now idle, his tongue was active. + The influence exercised by his conversation, directly upon 20 + those with whom he lived, and indirectly on the whole literary + world, was altogether without a parallel. His colloquial talents + were indeed of the highest order. He had strong sense, quick + discernment, wit, humour, immense knowledge of literature + and of life, and an infinite store of curious anecdotes. As 25 + respected style, he spoke far better than he wrote. Every sentence + which dropped from his lips was as correct in structure + as the most nicely balanced period of the Rambler. But in + his talk there were no pompous triads, and little more than a fair + proportion of words in _osity_ and _ation_. All was simplicity, 30 + ease, and vigour. He uttered his short, weighty, and pointed + sentences with a power of voice, and a justness and energy of + emphasis, of which the effect was rather increased than diminished + by the rollings of his huge form, and by the asthmatic + gaspings and puffings in which the peals of his eloquence generally + ended. Nor did the laziness which made him unwilling + to sit down to his desk prevent him from giving instruction or + entertainment orally. To discuss questions of taste, of learning, + of casuistry, in language so exact and so forcible that it might 5 + have been printed without the alteration of a word, was to him + no exertion, but a pleasure. He loved, as he said, to fold his + legs and have his talk out. He was ready to bestow the overflowings + of his full mind on anybody who would start a subject, + on a fellow-passenger in a stage coach, or on the person who 10 + sate at the same table with him in an eating-house. But his + conversation was nowhere so brilliant and striking as when he + was surrounded by a few friends, whose abilities and knowledge + enabled them, as he once expressed it, to send him back every + ball that he threw. Some of these, in 1764, formed themselves 15 + into a club, which gradually became a formidable power in the + commonwealth of letters. The verdicts pronounced by this + conclave on new books were speedily known over all London, + and were sufficient to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to + condemn the sheets to the service of the trunk-maker and the 20 + pastry-cook. Nor shall we think this strange when we consider + what great and various talents and acquirements met in the + little fraternity. Goldsmith was the representative of poetry + and light literature, Reynolds of the arts, Burke of political + eloquence and political philosophy. There, too, were Gibbon, 25 + the greatest historian, and Jones, the greatest linguist, of the + age. Garrick brought to the meetings his inexhaustible pleasantry, + his incomparable mimicry, and his consummate knowledge + of stage effect. Among the most constant attendants + were two high-born and high-bred gentlemen, closely bound 30 + together by friendship, but of widely different characters and + habits; Bennet Langton, distinguished by his skill in Greek + literature, by the orthodoxy of his opinions, and by the sanctity + of his life; and Topham Beauclerk, renowned for his amours, + his knowledge of the gay world, his fastidious taste, and his + sarcastic wit. To predominate over such a society was not + easy. Yet even over such a society Johnson predominated. + Burke might indeed have disputed the supremacy to which + others were under the necessity of submitting. But Burke, 5 + though not generally a very patient listener, was content to + take the second part when Johnson was present; and the + club itself, consisting of so many eminent men, is to this + day popularly designated as Johnson's Club. + + 39. Among the members of this celebrated body was one 10 + to whom it has owed the greater part of its celebrity, yet who + was regarded with little respect by his brethren, and had not + without difficulty obtained a seat among them. This was + James Boswell, a young Scotch lawyer, heir to an honourable + name and a fair estate. That he was a coxcomb and a bore, 15 + weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous, was obvious to all who + were acquainted with him. That he could not reason, that + he had no wit, no humour, no eloquence, is apparent from + his writings. And yet his writings are read beyond the + Mississippi, and under the Southern Cross, and are likely to be 20 + read as long as the English exists, either as a living or as a + dead language. Nature had made him a slave and an idolater. + His mind resembled those creepers which the botanists call + parasites, and which can subsist only by clinging round the + stems and imbibing the juices of stronger plants. He must 25 + have fastened himself on somebody. He might have fastened + himself on Wilkes, and have become the fiercest patriot in the + Bill of Rights Society. He might have fastened himself on + Whitfield, and have become the loudest field preacher among + the Calvinistic Methodists. In a happy hour he fastened himself 30 + on Johnson. The pair might seem ill matched. For + Johnson had early been prejudiced against Boswell's country. + To a man of Johnson's strong understanding and irritable + temper, the silly egotism and adulation of Boswell must have + been as teasing as the constant buzz of a fly. Johnson hated + to be questioned; and Boswell was eternally catechising him + on all kinds of subjects, and sometimes propounded such + questions as "What would you do, sir, if you were locked up + in a tower with a baby?" Johnson was a water drinker; and 5 + Boswell was a wine-bibber, and indeed little better than a + habitual sot. It was impossible that there should be perfect + harmony between two such companions. Indeed, the great + man was sometimes provoked into fits of passion in which he + said things which the small man, during a few hours, seriously 10 + resented. Every quarrel, however, was soon made up. During + twenty years the disciple continued to worship the master: + the master continued to scold the disciple, to sneer at him, and + to love him. The two friends ordinarily resided at a great + distance from each other. Boswell practised in the Parliament 15 + House of Edinburgh, and could pay only occasional + visits to London. During those visits his chief business was + to watch Johnson, to discover all Johnson's habits, to turn the + conversation to subjects about which Johnson was likely to + say something remarkable, and to fill quarto note books with 20 + minutes of what Johnson had said. In this way were gathered + the materials out of which was afterwards constructed the most + interesting biographical work in the world. + + 40. Soon after the club began to exist, Johnson formed a + connection less important indeed to his fame, but much more 25 + important to his happiness, than his connection with Boswell. + Henry Thrale, one of the most opulent brewers in the kingdom, + a man of sound and cultivated understanding, rigid principles, + and liberal spirit, was married to one of those clever, + kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert young women, who are 30 + perpetually doing or saying what is not exactly right, but who, do + or say what they may, are always agreeable. In 1765 the + Thrales became acquainted with Johnson, and the acquaintance + ripened fast into friendship. They were astonished and + delighted by the brilliancy of his conversation. They were + flattered by finding that a man so widely celebrated, preferred + their house to any other in London. Even the peculiarities + which seemed to unfit him for civilised society, his gesticulations, + his rollings, his puffings, his mutterings, the strange way 5 + in which he put on his clothes, the ravenous eagerness with + which he devoured his dinner, his fits of melancholy, his fits of + anger, his frequent rudeness, his occasional ferocity, increased + the interest which his new associates took in him. For these + things were the cruel marks left behind by a life which had 10 + been one long conflict with disease and with adversity. In a + vulgar hack writer such oddities would have excited only disgust. + But in a man of genius, learning, and virtue their effect + was to add pity to admiration and esteem. Johnson soon had + an apartment at the brewery in Southwark, and a still more 15 + pleasant apartment at the villa of his friends on Streatham + Common. A large part of every year he passed in those + abodes, abodes which must have seemed magnificent and luxurious + indeed, when compared with the dens in which he had + generally been lodged. But his chief pleasures were derived 20 + from what the astronomer of his Abyssinian tale called "the + endearing elegance of female friendship." Mrs. Thrale rallied + him, soothed him, coaxed him, and, if she sometimes provoked + him by her flippancy, made ample amends by listening to his + reproofs with angelic sweetness of temper. When he was 25 + diseased in body and in mind, she was the most tender of + nurses. No comfort that wealth could purchase, no contrivance + that womanly ingenuity, set to work by womanly compassion, + could devise, was wanting to his sick-room. He + requited her kindness by an affection pure as the affection of 30 + a father, yet delicately tinged with a gallantry which, though + awkward, must have been more flattering than the attentions + of a crowd of the fools who gloried in the names, now obsolete, + of Buck and Maccaroni. It should seem that a full half of + Johnson's life, during about sixteen years, was passed under + the roof of the Thrales. He accompanied the family sometimes + to Bath, and sometimes to Brighton, once to Wales, and once + to Paris. But he had at the same time a house in one of the + narrow and gloomy courts on the north of Fleet Street. In 5 + the garrets was his library, a large and miscellaneous collection + of books, falling to pieces and begrimed with dust. On + a lower floor he sometimes, but very rarely, regaled a friend + with a plain dinner, a veal pie, or a leg of lamb and spinage, + and a rice pudding. Nor was the dwelling uninhabited during 10 + his long absences. It was the home of the most extraordinary + assemblage of inmates that ever was brought together. At + the head of the establishment Johnson had placed an old + lady named Williams, whose chief recommendations were her + blindness and her poverty. But, in spite of her murmurs and 15 + reproaches, he gave an asylum to another lady who was as poor + as herself, Mrs. Desmoulins, whose family he had known many + years before in Staffordshire. Room was found for the daughter + of Mrs. Desmoulins, and for another destitute damsel, who was + generally addressed as Miss Carmichael, but whom her generous 20 + host called Polly. An old quack doctor named Levett, + who bled and dosed coal-heavers and hackney coachmen, and + received for fees crusts of bread, bits of bacon, glasses of gin, + and sometimes a little copper, completed this strange menagerie. + All these poor creatures were at constant war with each 25 + other, and with Johnson's negro servant Frank. Sometimes, + indeed, they transferred their hostilities from the servant to + the master, complained that a better table was not kept for + them, and railed or maundered till their benefactor was glad to + make his escape to Streatham, or to the Mitre Tavern. And 30 + yet he, who was generally the haughtiest and most irritable + of mankind, who was but too prompt to resent anything which + looked like a slight on the part of a purse-proud bookseller, + or of a noble and powerful patron, bore patiently from + mendicants, who, but for his bounty, must have gone to the + workhouse, insults more provoking than those for which he had + knocked down Osborne and bidden defiance to Chesterfield. + Year after year Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Desmoulins, Polly, and + Levett continued to torment him and to live upon him. 5 + + 41. The course of life which has been described was + interrupted in Johnson's sixty-fourth year by an important + event. He had early read an account of the Hebrides, and + had been much interested by learning that there was so near + him a land peopled by a race which was still as rude and 10 + simple as in the middle ages. A wish to become intimately + acquainted with a state of society so utterly unlike all that he + had ever seen frequently crossed his mind. But it is not + probable that his curiosity would have overcome his habitual + sluggishness, and his love of the smoke, the mud, and the 15 + cries of London, had not Boswell importuned him to attempt + the adventure, and offered to be his squire. At length, in + August 1773, Johnson crossed the Highland line, and plunged + courageously into what was then considered, by most Englishmen, + as a dreary and perilous wilderness. After wandering 20 + about two months through the Celtic region, sometimes in + rude boats which did not protect him from the rain, and + sometimes on small shaggy ponies which could hardly bear + his weight, he returned to his old haunts with a mind full of + new images and new theories. During the following year he 25 + employed himself in recording his adventures. About the + beginning of 1775, his Journey to the Hebrides was published, + and was, during some weeks, the chief subject of conversation + in all circles in which any attention was paid to literature. + The book is still read with pleasure. The narrative is 30 + entertaining; the speculations, whether sound or unsound, are + always ingenious; and the style, though too stiff and pompous, + is somewhat easier and more graceful than that of his + early writings. His prejudice against the Scotch had at + length become little more than matter of jest; and whatever + remained of the old feeling had been effectually removed by + the kind and respectful hospitality with which he had been + received in every part of Scotland. It was, of course, not to + be expected that an Oxonian Tory should praise the Presbyterian 5 + polity and ritual, or that an eye accustomed to the + hedgerows and parks of England should not be struck by the + bareness of Berwickshire and East Lothian. But even in + censure Johnson's tone is not unfriendly. The most enlightened + Scotchmen, with Lord Mansfield at their head, were 10 + well pleased. But some foolish and ignorant Scotchmen were + moved to anger by a little unpalatable truth which was + mingled with much eulogy, and assailed him whom they chose + to consider as the enemy of their country, with libels much + more dishonourable to their country than anything that he 15 + had ever said or written. They published paragraphs in the + newspapers, articles in the magazines, sixpenny pamphlets, + five-shilling books. One scribbler abused Johnson for being + blear-eyed; another for being a pensioner; a third informed + the world that one of the Doctor's uncles had been convicted 20 + of felony in Scotland, and had found that there was in that + country one tree capable of supporting the weight of an + Englishman. Macpherson, whose Fingal had been proved + in the Journey to be an impudent forgery, threatened to take + vengeance with a cane. The only effect of this threat was 25 + that Johnson reiterated the charge of forgery in the most + contemptuous terms, and walked about, during some time, + with a cudgel, which, if the impostor had not been too wise + to encounter it, would assuredly have descended upon him, + to borrow the sublime language of his own epic poem, "like 30 + a hammer on the red son of the furnace." + + 42. Of other assailants Johnson took no notice whatever. + He had early resolved never to be drawn into controversy; + and he adhered to his resolution with a steadfastness which + is the more extraordinary, because he was, both intellectually + and morally, of the stuff of which controversialists are made. + In conversation, he was a singularly eager, acute, and pertinacious + disputant. When at a loss for good reasons, he + had recourse to sophistry; and, when heated by altercation, 5 + he made unsparing use of sarcasm and invective. But, when + he took his pen in his hand, his whole character seemed + to be changed. A hundred bad writers misrepresented him + and reviled him; but not one of the hundred could boast of + having been thought by him worthy of a refutation, or even 10 + of a retort. The Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and Hendersons + did their best to annoy him, in the hope that he would + give them importance by answering them. But the reader will + in vain search his works for any allusion to Kenrick or Campbell, + to MacNicol or Henderson. One Scotchman, bent on 15 + vindicating the fame of Scotch learning, defied him to the + combat in a detestable Latin hexameter. + + "Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum." + + But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He had learned, + both from his own observation and from literary history, 20 + in which he was deeply read, that the place of books in + the public estimation is fixed, not by what is written about + them, but by what is written in them; and that an author + whose works are likely to live is very unwise if he stoops to + wrangle with detractors whose works are certain to die. He 25 + always maintained that fame was a shuttlecock which could + be kept up only by being beaten back, as well as beaten forward, + and which would soon fall if there were only one battledore. + No saying was oftener in his mouth than that fine + apophthegm of Bentley, that no man was ever written down 30 + but by himself. + + 43. Unhappily, a few months after the appearance of the + Journey to the Hebrides, Johnson did what none of his + envious assailants could have done, and to a certain extent + succeeded in writing himself down. The disputes between + England and her American colonies had reached a point at + which no amicable adjustment was possible. Civil war was + evidently impending; and the ministers seem to have thought 5 + that the eloquence of Johnson might with advantage be + employed to inflame the nation against the opposition here, + and against the rebels beyond the Atlantic. He had already + written two or three tracts in defence of the foreign and + domestic policy of the government; and those tracts, though 10 + hardly worthy of him, were much superior to the crowd of + pamphlets which lay on the counters of Almon and Stockdale. + But his Taxation no Tyranny was a pitiable failure. The very + title was a silly phrase, which can have been recommended + to his choice by nothing but a jingling alliteration which he 15 + ought to have despised. The arguments were such as boys + use in debating societies. The pleasantry was as awkward as + the gambols of a hippopotamus. Even Boswell was forced to + own that, in this unfortunate piece, he could detect no trace + of his master's powers. The general opinion was that the 20 + strong faculties which had produced the Dictionary and the + Rambler were beginning to feel the effect of time and of + disease, and that the old man would best consult his credit + by writing no more. + + 44. But this was a great mistake. Johnson had failed, not 25 + because his mind was less vigorous than when he wrote Rasselas + in the evenings of a week, but because he had foolishly + chosen, or suffered others to choose for him, a subject such as + he would at no time have been competent to treat. He was + in no sense a statesman. He never willingly read or thought 30 + or talked about affairs of state. He loved biography, literary + history, the history of manners; but political history was + positively distasteful to him. The question at issue between + the colonies and the mother country was a question about + which he had really nothing to say. He failed, therefore, as + the greatest men must fail when they attempt to do that for + which they are unfit; as Burke would have failed if Burke + had tried to write comedies like those of Sheridan; as Reynolds + would have failed if Reynolds had tried to paint landscapes 5 + like those of Wilson. Happily, Johnson soon had an + opportunity of proving most signally that his failure was not + to be ascribed to intellectual decay. + + 45. On Easter eve 1777, some persons, deputed by a meeting + which consisted of forty of the first booksellers in London, 10 + called upon him. Though he had some scruples about doing + business at that season, he received his visitors with much + civility. They came to inform him that a new edition of the English + poets, from Cowley downwards, was in contemplation, and to ask + him to furnish short biographical prefaces. He readily undertook 15 + the task, a task for which he was pre-eminently qualified. + His knowledge of the literary history of England since the + Restoration was unrivalled. That knowledge he had derived + partly from books, and partly from sources which had long been + closed; from old Grub Street traditions; from the talk of 20 + forgotten poetasters and pamphleteers who had long been lying + in parish vaults; from the recollections of such men as Gilbert + Walmesley, who had conversed with the wits of Button's; Cibber, + who had mutilated the plays of two generations of dramatists; + Orrery, who had been admitted to the society of Swift; and 25 + Savage, who had rendered services of no very honourable kind + to Pope. The biographer therefore sate down to his task with + a mind full of matter. He had at first intended to give only + a paragraph to every minor poet, and only four or five pages + to the greatest name. But the flood of anecdote and criticism 30 + overflowed the narrow channel. The work, which was originally + meant to consist only of a few sheets, swelled into ten + volumes, small volumes, it is true, and not closely printed. + The first four appeared in 1779, the remaining six in 1781. + + 46. The Lives of the Poets are, on the whole, the best of + Johnson's works. The narratives are as entertaining as any + novel. The remarks on life and on human nature are eminently + shrewd and profound. The criticisms are often excellent, and, + even when grossly and provokingly unjust, well deserve to be 5 + studied. For, however erroneous they may be, they are never + silly. They are the judgments of a mind trammelled by prejudice + and deficient in sensibility, but vigorous and acute. + They therefore generally contain a portion of valuable truth + which deserves to be separated from the alloy; and, at the 10 + very worst, they mean something, a praise to which much of + what is called criticism in our time has no pretensions. + + 47. Savage's Life Johnson reprinted nearly as it had + appeared in 1744. Whoever, after reading that life, will + turn to the other lives will be struck by the difference of 15 + style. Since Johnson had been at ease in his circumstances + he had written little and had talked much. When, therefore, + he, after the lapse of years, resumed his pen, the mannerism + which he had contracted while he was in the constant habit + of elaborate composition was less perceptible than formerly; 20 + and his diction frequently had a colloquial ease which it had + formerly wanted. The improvement may be discerned by a + skilful critic in the Journey to the Hebrides, and in the Lives + of the Poets is so obvious that it cannot escape the notice of + the most careless reader. 25 + + 48. Among the lives the best are perhaps those of Cowley, + Dryden, and Pope. The very worst is, beyond all doubt, + that of Gray. + + 49. This great work at once became popular. There was, + indeed, much just and much unjust censure: but even those 30 + who were loudest in blame were attracted by the book in + spite of themselves. Malone computed the gains of the publishers + at five or six thousand pounds. But the writer was + very poorly remunerated. Intending at first to write very + short prefaces, he had stipulated for only two hundred guineas. + The booksellers, when they saw how far his performance had + surpassed his promise, added only another hundred. Indeed, + Johnson, though he did not despise, or affect to despise, money, + and though his strong sense and long experience ought to 5 + have qualified him to protect his own interests, seems to have + been singularly unskilful and unlucky in his literary bargains. + He was generally reputed the first English writer of his time. + Yet several writers of his time sold their copyrights for sums + such as he never ventured to ask. To give a single instance, 10 + Robertson received four thousand five hundred pounds for + the History of Charles V.; and it is no disrespect to the + memory of Robertson to say that the History of Charles V. + is both a less valuable and a less amusing book than the Lives + of the Poets. 15 + + 50. Johnson was now in his seventy-second year. The + infirmities of age were coming fast upon him. That inevitable + event of which he never thought without horror was brought + near to him; and his whole life was darkened by the shadow + of death. He had often to pay the cruel price of longevity. 20 + Every year he lost what could never be replaced. The strange + dependents to whom he had given shelter, and to whom, + in spite of their faults, he was strongly attached by habit, + dropped off one by one; and, in the silence of his home, he + regretted even the noise of their scolding matches. The kind 25 + and generous Thrale was no more; and it would have been + well if his wife had been laid beside him. But she survived + to be the laughing-stock of those who had envied her, and + to draw from the eyes of the old man who had loved her + beyond anything in the world tears far more bitter than he 30 + would have shed over her grave. With some estimable and + many agreeable qualities, she was not made to be independent. + The control of a mind more steadfast than her own + was necessary to her respectability. While she was restrained + by her husband, a man of sense and firmness, indulgent to + her taste in trifles, but always the undisputed master of his + house, her worst offences had been impertinent jokes, white + lies, and short fits of pettishness ending in sunny good humour. + But he was gone; and she was left an opulent widow of forty, 5 + with strong sensibility, volatile fancy, and slender judgment. + She soon fell in love with a music-master from Brescia, in + whom nobody but herself could discover anything to admire. + Her pride, and perhaps some better feelings, struggled hard + against this degrading passion. But the struggle irritated her 10 + nerves, soured her temper, and at length endangered her + health. Conscious that her choice was one which Johnson + could not approve, she became desirous to escape from his + inspection. Her manner towards him changed. She was + sometimes cold and sometimes petulant. She did not conceal 15 + her joy when he left Streatham; she never pressed him + to return; and, if he came unbidden, she received him in a + manner which convinced him he was no longer a welcome + guest. He took the very intelligible hints which she gave. + He read, for the last time, a chapter of the Greek Testament in 20 + the library which had been formed by himself. In a solemn + and tender prayer he commended the house and its inmates + to the Divine protection, and, with emotions which choked + his voice and convulsed his powerful frame, left for ever that + beloved home for the gloomy and desolate house behind Fleet 25 + Street, where the few and evil days which still remained to + him were to run out. Here, in June 1783, he had a paralytic + stroke, from which, however, he recovered, and which + does not appear to have at all impaired his intellectual faculties. + But other maladies came thick upon him. His asthma 30 + tormented him day and night. Dropsical symptoms made + their appearance. While sinking under a complication of + diseases, he heard that the woman whose friendship had been + the chief happiness of sixteen years of his life had married an + Italian fiddler; that all London was crying shame upon her; + and that the newspapers and magazines were filled with + allusions to the Ephesian matron, and the two pictures in + Hamlet. He vehemently said that he would try to forget her + existence. He never uttered her name. Every memorial 5 + of her which met his eye he flung into the fire. She meanwhile + fled from the laughter and hisses of her countrymen + and countrywomen to a land where she was unknown, hastened + across Mount Cenis, and learned, while passing a merry + Christmas of concerts and lemonade parties at Milan, that 10 + the great man with whose name hers is inseparably associated + had ceased to exist. + + 51. He had, in spite of much mental and much bodily + affliction, clung vehemently to life. The feeling described + in that fine but gloomy paper which closes the series of his 15 + Idlers seemed to grow stronger in him as his last hour drew + near. He fancied that he should be able to draw his breath + more easily in a southern climate, and would probably have + set out for Rome and Naples, but for his fear of the expense + of the journey. That expense, indeed, he had the means of 20 + defraying; for he had laid up about two thousand pounds, + the fruit of labours which had made the fortune of several + publishers. But he was unwilling to break in upon this hoard, + and he seems to have wished even to keep its existence a + secret. Some of his friends hoped that the government might 25 + be induced to increase his pension to six hundred pounds a + year, but this hope was disappointed, and he resolved to stand + one English winter more. That winter was his last. His + legs grew weaker; his breath grew shorter; the fatal water + gathered fast, in spite of incisions which he, courageous against 30 + pain, but timid against death, urged his surgeons to make + deeper and deeper. Though the tender care which had mitigated + his sufferings during months of sickness at Streatham + was withdrawn, he was not left desolate. The ablest physicians + and surgeons attended him, and refused to accept fees from + him. Burke parted from him with deep emotion. Windham + sate much in the sick-room, arranged the pillows, and sent his + own servant to watch at night by the bed. Frances Burney, + whom the old man had cherished with fatherly kindness, stood 5 + weeping at the door; while Langton, whose piety eminently + qualified him to be an adviser and comforter at such a time, + received the last pressure of his friend's hand within. When + at length the moment, dreaded through so many years, came + close, the dark cloud passed away from Johnson's mind. His 10 + temper became unusually patient and gentle; he ceased to + think with terror of death, and of that which lies beyond + death; and he spoke much of the mercy of God, and of the + propitiation of Christ. In this serene frame of mind he died + on the 13th of December 1784. He was laid, a week later, 15 + in Westminster Abbey, among the eminent men of whom he + had been the historian,--Cowley and Denham, Dryden and + Congreve, Gay, Prior, and Addison. + + 52. Since his death the popularity of his works--the Lives + of the Poets, and, perhaps, the Vanity of Human Wishes, 20 + excepted--has greatly diminished. His Dictionary has been + altered by editors till it can scarcely be called his. An allusion + to his Rambler or his Idler is not readily apprehended in + literary circles. The fame even of Rasselas has grown somewhat + dim. But, though the celebrity of the writings may have 25 + declined, the celebrity of the writer, strange to say, is as great + as ever. Boswell's book has done for him more than the best + of his own books could do. The memory of other authors is + kept alive by their works. But the memory of Johnson keeps + many of his works alive. The old philosopher is still among 30 + us in the brown coat with the metal buttons and the shirt which + ought to be at wash, blinking, puffing, rolling his head, drumming + with his fingers, tearing his meat like a tiger, and swallowing + his tea in oceans. No human being who has been more + than seventy years in the grave is so well known to us. And + it is but just to say that our intimate acquaintance with what + he would himself have called the anfractuosities of his intellect + and of his temper serves only to strengthen our conviction that + he was both a great and a good man. 5 + + + + +FROM MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON CROKER'S EDITION OF BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON + +(_Edinburgh Review, September, 1831_) + + + 1. The Life of Johnson is assuredly a great, a very great + work. Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, + Shakspeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists, + Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than + Boswell is the first of biographers. He has no second. He has 5 + distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not worth + while to place them. Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere. + + 2. We are not sure that there is in the whole history of the + human intellect so strange a phænomenon as this book. Many + of the greatest men that ever lived have written biography. 10 + Boswell was one of the smallest men that ever lived, and he has + beaten them all. He was, if we are to give any credit to his + own account or to the united testimony of all who knew him, a + man of the meanest and feeblest intellect. Johnson described + him as a fellow who had missed his only chance of immortality 15 + by not having been alive when the Dunciad was written. + Beauclerk used his name as a proverbial expression for a bore. + He was the laughing-stock of the whole of that brilliant society + which has owed to him the greater part of its fame. He was + always laying himself at the feet of some eminent man, and 20 + begging to be spit upon and trampled upon. He was always + earning some ridiculous nickname, and then "binding it as a + crown unto him," not merely in metaphor, but literally. He + exhibited himself, at the Shakspeare Jubilee, to all the crowd + which filled Stratford-on-Avon, with a placard round his hat + bearing the inscription of Corsica Boswell. In his Tour he + proclaimed to all the world that at Edinburgh he was known 5 + by the appellation of Paoli Boswell. Servile and impertinent, + shallow and pedantic, a bigot and a sot, bloated with family + pride, and eternally blustering about the dignity of a born + gentleman, yet stooping to be a tale-bearer, an eavesdropper, + a common butt in the taverns of London, so curious to know 10 + every body who was talked about, that, Tory and high Churchman + as he was, he manoeuvred, we have been told, for an introduction + to Tom Paine, so vain of the most childish distinctions, + that when he had been to court, he drove to the office where + his book was printing without changing his clothes, and summoned 15 + all the printer's devils to admire his new ruffles and + sword; such was this man, and such he was content and proud + to be. Every thing which another man would have hidden, + every thing the publication of which would have made another + man hang himself, was matter of gay and clamorous exultation 20 + to his weak and diseased mind. What silly things he said, + what bitter retorts he provoked, how at one place he was + troubled with evil presentiments which came to nothing, how + at another place, on waking from a drunken doze, he read the + prayerbook and took a hair of the dog that had bitten him, 25 + how he went to see men hanged and came away maudlin, how + he added five hundred pounds to the fortune of one of his babies + because she was not scared at Johnson's ugly face, how he was + frightened out of his wits at sea, and how the sailors quieted + him as they would have quieted a child, how tipsy he was at 30 + Lady Cork's one evening and how much his merriment annoyed + the ladies, how impertinent he was to the Duchess of Argyle + and with what stately contempt she put down his impertinence, + how Colonel Macleod sneered to his face at his impudent + obtrusiveness, how his father and the very wife of his bosom + laughed and fretted at his fooleries; all these things he proclaimed + to all the world, as if they had been subjects for pride + and ostentatious rejoicing. All the caprices of his temper, all + the illusions of his vanity, all his hypochondriac whimsies, all 5 + his castles in the air, he displayed with a cool self-complacency, + a perfect unconsciousness that he was making a fool of himself, + to which it is impossible to find a parallel in the whole history + of mankind. He has used many people ill; but assuredly + he has used nobody so ill as himself. 10 + + 3. That such a man should have written one of the best + books in the world is strange enough. But this is not all. + Many persons who have conducted themselves foolishly in + active life, and whose conversation has indicated no superior + powers of mind, have left us valuable works. Goldsmith was 15 + very justly described by one of his contemporaries as an + inspired idiot, and by another as a being + + "Who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll." + + La Fontaine was in society a mere simpleton. His blunders + would not come in amiss among the stories of Hierocles. But 20 + these men attained literary eminence in spite of their weaknesses. + Boswell attained it by reason of his weaknesses. If + he had not been a great fool, he would never have been a + great writer. Without all the qualities which made him the + jest and the torment of those among whom he lived, without 25 + the officiousness, the inquisitiveness, the effrontery, the + toad-eating, the insensibility to all reproof, he never could have + produced so excellent a book. He was a slave, proud of his + servitude, a Paul Pry, convinced that his own curiosity and + garrulity were virtues, an unsafe companion who never scrupled 30 + to repay the most liberal hospitality by the basest violation of + confidence, a man without delicacy, without shame, without + sense enough to know when he was hurting the feelings of + others or when he was exposing himself to derision; and + because he was all this, he has, in an important department + of literature, immeasurably surpassed such writers as Tacitus, + Clarendon, Alfieri, and his own idol Johnson. + + 4. Of the talents which ordinarily raise men to eminence 5 + as writers, Boswell had absolutely none. There is not in all + his books a single remark of his own on literature, politics, + religion, or society, which is not either commonplace or absurd. + His dissertations on hereditary gentility, on the slave-trade, + and on the entailing of landed estates, may serve as examples. 10 + To say that these passages are sophistical would be to pay + them an extravagant compliment. They have no pretence to + argument, or even to meaning. He has reported innumerable + observations made by himself in the course of conversation. + Of those observations we do not remember one which is above 15 + the intellectual capacity of a boy of fifteen. He has printed + many of his own letters, and in these letters he is always ranting + or twaddling. Logic, eloquence, wit, taste, all those things + which are generally considered as making a book valuable, were + utterly wanting to him. He had, indeed, a quick observation 20 + and a retentive memory. These qualities, if he had been a + man of sense and virtue, would scarcely of themselves have sufficed + to make him conspicuous; but, because he was a dunce, + a parasite, and a coxcomb, they have made him immortal. + + 5. Those parts of his book which, considered abstractedly, 25 + are most utterly worthless, are delightful when we read them + as illustrations of the character of the writer. Bad in themselves, + they are good dramatically, like the nonsense of Justice + Shallow, the clipped English of Dr. Caius, or the misplaced + consonants of Fluellen. Of all confessors, Boswell is the most 30 + candid. Other men who have pretended to lay open their + own hearts, Rousseau, for example, and Lord Byron, have + evidently written with a constant view to effect, and are to be + then most distrusted when they seem to be most sincere. + There is scarcely any man who would not rather accuse himself + of great crimes and of dark and tempestuous passions, + than proclaim all his little vanities and wild fancies. It would + be easier to find a person who would avow actions like those + of Cæsar Borgia or Danton, than one who would publish a 5 + daydream like those of Alnaschar and Malvolio. Those weaknesses + which most men keep covered up in the most secret + places of the mind, not to be disclosed to the eye of friendship + or of love, were precisely the weaknesses which Boswell + paraded before all the world. He was perfectly frank, because 10 + the weakness of his understanding and the tumult of his spirits + prevented him from knowing when he made himself ridiculous. + His book resembles nothing so much as the conversation of + the inmates of the Palace of Truth. + + 6. His fame is great; and it will, we have no doubt, be 15 + lasting; but it is fame of a peculiar kind, and indeed + marvellously resembles infamy. We remember no other case in + which the world has made so great a distinction between a + book and its author. In general, the book and the author + are considered as one. To admire the book is to admire the 20 + author. The case of Boswell is an exception, we think the + only exception, to this rule. His work is universally allowed + to be interesting, instructive, eminently original: yet it has + brought him nothing but contempt. All the world reads it: + all the world delights in it: yet we do not remember ever to 25 + have read or ever to have heard any expression of respect and + admiration for the man to whom we owe so much instruction + and amusement. While edition after edition of his book was + coming forth, his son, as Mr. Croker tells us, was ashamed of + it, and hated to hear it mentioned. This feeling was natural 30 + and reasonable. Sir Alexander saw that, in proportion to the + celebrity of the work, was the degradation of the author. The + very editors of this unfortunate gentleman's books have forgotten + their allegiance, and, like those Puritan casuists who + took arms by the authority of the king against his person, + have attacked the writer while doing homage to the writings. + Mr. Croker, for example, has published two thousand five + hundred notes on the life of Johnson, and yet scarcely ever + mentions the biographer whose performance he has taken such 5 + pains to illustrate without some expression of contempt. + + 7. An ill-natured man Boswell certainly was not. Yet the + malignity of the most malignant satirist could scarcely cut + deeper than his thoughtless loquacity. Having himself no + sensibility to derision and contempt, he took it for granted 10 + that all others were equally callous. He was not ashamed to + exhibit himself to the whole world as a common spy, a common + tattler, a humble companion without the excuse of poverty, + and to tell a hundred stories of his own pertness and + folly, and of the insults which his pertness and folly brought 15 + upon him. It was natural that he should show little discretion + in cases in which the feelings or the honour of others + might be concerned. No man, surely, ever published such + stories respecting persons whom he professed to love and + revere. He would infallibly have made his hero as contemptible 20 + as he has made himself, had not his hero really + possessed some moral and intellectual qualities of a very high + order. The best proof that Johnson was really an extraordinary + man is that his character, instead of being degraded, has, + on the whole, been decidedly raised by a work in which all 25 + his vices and weaknesses are exposed more unsparingly than + they ever were exposed by Churchill or by Kenrick. + + 8. Johnson grown old, Johnson in the fulness of his fame + and in the enjoyment of a competent fortune, is better known + to us than any other man in history. Every thing about him, his 30 + coat, his wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus's + dance, his rolling walk, his blinking eye, the outward signs + which too clearly marked his approbation of his dinner, his + insatiable appetite for fish-sauce and veal-pie with plums, his + inextinguishable thirst for tea, his trick of touching the posts + as he walked, his mysterious practice of treasuring up scraps of + orange-peel, his morning slumbers, his midnight disputations, + his contortions, his mutterings, his gruntings, his puffings, + his vigorous, acute, and ready eloquence, his sarcastic wit, his 5 + vehemence, his insolence, his fits of tempestuous rage, his + queer inmates, old Mr. Levett and blind Mrs. Williams, the cat + Hodge and the negro Frank, all are as familiar to us as the + objects by which we have been surrounded from childhood. + But we have no minute information respecting those years of 10 + Johnson's life during which his character and his manners + became immutably fixed. We know him, not as he was known + to the men of his own generation, but as he was known to men + whose father he might have been. That celebrated club of + which he was the most distinguished member contained few 15 + persons who could remember a time when his fame was not + fully established and his habits completely formed. He had + made himself a name in literature while Reynolds and the + Wartons were still boys. He was about twenty years older + than Burke, Goldsmith, and Gerard Hamilton, about thirty 20 + years older than Gibbon, Beauclerk, and Langton, and about + forty years older than Lord Stowell, Sir William Jones, and + Windham. Boswell and Mrs. Thrale, the two writers from + whom we derive most of our knowledge respecting him, never + saw him till long after he was fifty years old, till most of his 25 + great works had become classical, and till the pension bestowed + on him by the Crown had placed him above poverty. Of those + eminent men who were his most intimate associates towards the + close of his life, the only one, as far as we remember, who knew + him during the first ten or twelve years of his residence in the 30 + capital, was David Garrick; and it does not appear that, during + those years, David Garrick saw much of his fellow-townsman. + + 9. Johnson came up to London precisely at the time when + the condition of a man of letters was most miserable and + degraded. It was a dark night between two sunny days. The + age of patronage had passed away. The age of general curiosity + and intelligence had not arrived. The number of readers + is at present so great that a popular author may subsist in + comfort and opulence on the profits of his works. In the 5 + reigns of William the Third, of Anne, and of George the First, + even such men as Congreve and Addison would scarcely have + been able to live like gentlemen by the mere sale of their + writings. But the deficiency of the natural demand for literature + was, at the close of the seventeenth and at the beginning 10 + of the eighteenth century, more than made up by artificial + encouragement, by a vast system of bounties and premiums. + There was, perhaps, never a time at which the rewards of + literary merit were so splendid, at which men who could write + well found such easy admittance into the most distinguished 15 + society, and to the highest honours of the state. The chiefs + of both the great parties into which the kingdom was divided + patronised literature with emulous munificence. Congreve, + when he had scarcely attained his majority, was rewarded for + his first comedy with places which made him independent for 20 + life. Smith, though his Hippolytus and Phædra failed, would + have been consoled with three hundred a year but for his own + folly. Rowe was not only Poet Laureate, but also land-surveyor + of the customs in the port of London, clerk of the council to + the Prince of Wales, and secretary of the Presentations to the 25 + Lord Chancellor. Hughes was secretary to the Commissions + of the Peace. Ambrose Philips was judge of the Prerogative + Court in Ireland. Locke was Commissioner of Appeals and + of the Board of Trade. Newton was Master of the Mint. + Stepney and Prior were employed in embassies of high dignity 30 + and importance. Gay, who commenced life as an apprentice + to a silk mercer, became a secretary of legation at five-and-twenty. + It was to a poem on the Death of Charles the Second, + and to the City and Country Mouse, that Montague owed + his introduction into public life, his earldom, his garter, and + his Auditorship of the Exchequer. Swift, but for the unconquerable + prejudice of the queen, would have been a bishop. + Oxford, with his white staff in his hand, passed through the + crowd of his suitors to welcome Parnell, when that ingenious 5 + writer deserted the Whigs. Steele was a commissioner of + stamps and a member of Parliament. Arthur Mainwaring was + a commissioner of the customs, and auditor of the imprest. + Tickell was secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland. Addison + was secretary of state. 10 + + 10. This liberal patronage was brought into fashion, as it + seems, by the magnificent Dorset, almost the only noble versifier + in the court of Charles the Second who possessed talents + for composition which were independent of the aid of a coronet. + Montague owed his elevation to the favour of Dorset, and 15 + imitated through the whole course of his life the liberality to + which he was himself so greatly indebted. The Tory leaders, + Harley and Bolingbroke in particular, vied with the chiefs of + the Whig party in zeal for the encouragement of letters. But + soon after the accession of the House of Hanover a change 20 + took place. The supreme power passed to a man who cared + little for poetry or eloquence. The importance of the House + of Commons was constantly on the increase. The government + was under the necessity of bartering for Parliamentary support + much of that patronage which had been employed in fostering 25 + literary merit; and Walpole was by no means inclined to + divert any part of the fund of corruption to purposes which he + considered as idle. He had eminent talents for government + and for debate. But he had paid little attention to books, + and felt little respect for authors. One of the coarse jokes of 30 + his friend, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, was far more pleasing + to him than Thomson's Seasons or Richardson's Pamela. + He had observed that some of the distinguished writers + whom the favour of Halifax had turned into statesmen had + been mere encumbrances to their party, dawdlers in office, + and mutes in Parliament. During the whole course of his + administration, therefore, he scarcely befriended a single man + of genius. The best writers of the age gave all their support + to the opposition, and contributed to excite that discontent 5 + which, after plunging the nation into a foolish and unjust war, + overthrew the minister to make room for men less able and + equally immoral. The opposition could reward its eulogists + with little more than promises and caresses. St. James's would + give nothing: Leicester House had nothing to give. 10 + + 11. Thus, at the time when Johnson commenced his literary + career, a writer had little to hope from the patronage of + powerful individuals. The patronage of the public did not + yet furnish the means of comfortable subsistence. The prices + paid by booksellers to authors were so low that a man of 15 + considerable talents and unremitting industry could do little more + than provide for the day which was passing over him. The + lean kine had eaten up the fat kine. The thin and withered + ears had devoured the good ears. The season of rich harvests + was over, and the period of famine had begun. All that is 20 + squalid and miserable might now be summed up in the word + Poet. That word denoted a creature dressed like a scarecrow, + familiar with compters and spunging-houses, and perfectly + qualified to decide on the comparative merits of the Common + Side in the King's Bench prison and of Mount Scoundrel 25 + in the Fleet. Even the poorest pitied him; and they well + might pity him. For if their condition was equally abject, + their aspirings were not equally high, nor their sense of + insult equally acute. To lodge in a garret up four pair of + stairs, to dine in a cellar among footmen out of place, to 30 + translate ten hours a day for the wages of a ditcher, to be hunted + by bailiffs from one haunt of beggary and pestilence to another, + from Grub Street to St. George's Fields, and from St. George's + Fields to the alleys behind St. Martin's church, to sleep on a + bulk in June and amidst the ashes of a glass-house in December, + to die in a hospital and to be buried in a parish vault, + was the fate of more than one writer who, if he had lived + thirty years earlier, would have been admitted to the sittings + of the Kitcat or the Scriblerus club, would have sat in Parliament, 5 + and would have been intrusted with embassies to the + High Allies; who, if he had lived in our time, would have + found encouragement scarcely less munificent in Albemarle + Street or in Paternoster Row. + + 12. As every climate has its peculiar diseases, so every walk 10 + of life has its peculiar temptations. The literary character, + assuredly, has always had its share of faults, vanity, jealousy, + morbid sensibility. To these faults were now superadded the + faults which are commonly found in men whose livelihood is + precarious, and whose principles are exposed to the trial of 15 + severe distress. All the vices of the gambler and of the beggar + were blended with those of the author. The prizes in the + wretched lottery of book-making were scarcely less ruinous than + the blanks. If good fortune came, it came in such a manner + that it was almost certain to be abused. After months of 20 + starvation and despair, a full third night or a well-received + dedication filled the pocket of the lean, ragged, unwashed + poet with guineas. He hastened to enjoy those luxuries with + the images of which his mind had been haunted while he + was sleeping amidst the cinders and eating potatoes at the 25 + Irish ordinary in Shoe Lane. A week of taverns soon qualified + him for another year of night-cellars. Such was the life + of Savage, of Boyse, and of a crowd of others. Sometimes + blazing in gold-laced hats and waistcoats; sometimes lying in + bed because their coats had gone to pieces, or wearing paper 30 + cravats because their linen was in pawn; sometimes drinking + Champagne and Tokay with Betty Careless; sometimes + standing at the window of an eating-house in Porridge island, + to snuff up the scent of what they could not afford to taste; + they knew luxury; they knew beggary; but they never knew + comfort. These men were irreclaimable. They looked on a + regular and frugal life with the same aversion which an old + gipsy or a Mohawk hunter feels for a stationary abode, and for + the restraints and securities of civilised communities. They 5 + were as untameable, as much wedded to their desolate freedom, + as the wild ass. They could no more be broken in to + the offices of social man than the unicorn could be trained to + serve and abide by the crib. It was well if they did not, like + beasts of a still fiercer race, tear the hands which ministered 10 + to their necessities. To assist them was impossible; and the + most benevolent of mankind at length became weary of giving + relief which was dissipated with the wildest profusion as soon + as it had been received. If a sum was bestowed on the + wretched adventurer, such as, properly husbanded, might 15 + have supplied him for six months, it was instantly spent in + strange freaks of sensuality, and before forty-eight hours had + elapsed, the poet was again pestering all his acquaintance for + twopence to get a plate of shin of beef at a subterraneous + cook-shop. If his friends gave him an asylum in their houses, 20 + those houses were forthwith turned into bagnios and taverns. + All order was destroyed; all business was suspended. The + most good-natured host began to repent of his eagerness to + serve a man of genius in distress when he heard his guest + roaring for fresh punch at five o'clock in the morning. 25 + + 13. A few eminent writers were more fortunate. Pope had + been raised above poverty by the active patronage which, in + his youth, both the great political parties had extended to his + Homer. Young had received the only pension ever bestowed, + to the best of our recollection, by Sir Robert Walpole, as the 30 + reward of mere literary merit. One or two of the many poets + who attached themselves to the opposition, Thomson in particular + and Mallet, obtained, after much severe suffering, the + means of subsistence from their political friends. Richardson, + like a man of sense, kept his shop; and his shop kept him, + which his novels, admirable as they are, would scarcely have + done. But nothing could be more deplorable than the state + even of the ablest men, who at that time depended for subsistence + on their writings. Johnson, Collins, Fielding, and 5 + Thomson, were certainly four of the most distinguished persons + that England produced during the eighteenth century. + It is well known that they were all four arrested for debt. + + 14. Into calamities and difficulties such as these Johnson + plunged in his twenty-eighth year. From that time till he was 10 + three or four and fifty, we have little information respecting + him; little, we mean, compared with the full and accurate + information which we possess respecting his proceedings and + habits towards the close of his life. He emerged at length + from cock-lofts and sixpenny ordinaries into the society of the 15 + polished and the opulent. His fame was established. A pension + sufficient for his wants had been conferred on him: and + he came forth to astonish a generation with which he had + almost as little in common as with Frenchmen or Spaniards. + + 15. In his early years he had occasionally seen the great; 20 + but he had seen them as a beggar. He now came among + them as a companion. The demand for amusement and + instruction had, during the course of twenty years, been gradually + increasing. The price of literary labour had risen; and + those rising men of letters with whom Johnson was henceforth 25 + to associate were for the most part persons widely different + from those who had walked about with him all night in the + streets for want of a lodging. Burke, Robertson, the Wartons, + Gray, Mason, Gibbon, Adam Smith, Beattie, Sir William + Jones, Goldsmith, and Churchill, were the most distinguished 30 + writers of what may be called the second generation of the + Johnsonian age. Of these men Churchill was the only one + in whom we can trace the stronger lineaments of that character + which, when Johnson first came up to London, was common + among authors. Of the rest, scarcely any had felt the pressure + of severe poverty. Almost all had been early admitted + into the most respectable society on an equal footing. They + were men of quite a different species from the dependents of + Curll and Osborne. 5 + + 16. Johnson came among them the solitary specimen of + a past age, the last survivor of the genuine race of Grub + Street hacks; the last of that generation of authors whose + abject misery and whose dissolute manners had furnished + inexhaustible matter to the satirical genius of Pope. From 10 + nature he had received an uncouth figure, a diseased constitution, + and an irritable temper. The manner in which the + earlier years of his manhood had been passed had given to + his demeanour, and even to his moral character, some peculiarities + appalling to the civilised beings who were the companions 15 + of his old age. The perverse irregularity of his hours, + the slovenliness of his person, his fits of strenuous exertion, + interrupted by long intervals of sluggishness, his strange abstinence, + and his equally strange voracity, his active benevolence, + contrasted with the constant rudeness and the occasional 20 + ferocity of his manners in society, made him, in the opinion + of those with whom he lived during the last twenty years of + his life, a complete original. An original he was, undoubtedly, + in some respects. But if we possessed full information + concerning those who shared his early hardships, we should 25 + probably find that what we call his singularities of manner + were, for the most part, failings which he had in common + with the class to which he belonged. He ate at Streatham + Park as he had been used to eat behind the screen at + St. John's Gate, when he was ashamed to show his ragged 30 + clothes. He ate as it was natural that a man should eat, who, + during a great part of his life, had passed the morning in + doubt whether he should have food for the afternoon. The + habits of his early life had accustomed him to bear privation + with fortitude, but not to taste pleasure with moderation. + He could fast; but, when he did not fast, he tore his dinner + like a famished wolf, with the veins swelling on his forehead, + and the perspiration running down his cheeks. He + scarcely ever took wine. But when he drank it, he drank it 5 + greedily and in large tumblers. These were, in fact, mitigated + symptoms of that same moral disease which raged with such + deadly malignity in his friends Savage and Boyse. The + roughness and violence which he showed in society were to + be expected from a man whose temper, not naturally gentle, 10 + had been long tried by the bitterest calamities, by the want + of meat, of fire, and of clothes, by the importunity of creditors, + by the insolence of booksellers, by the derision of fools, + by the insincerity of patrons, by that bread which is the + bitterest of all food, by those stairs which are the most toilsome 15 + of all paths, by that deferred hope which makes the + heart sick. Through all these things the ill-dressed, coarse, + ungainly pedant had struggled manfully up to eminence and + command. It was natural that, in the exercise of his power, + he should be "eo immitior, quia toleraverat," that, though his 20 + heart was undoubtedly generous and humane, his demeanour + in society should be harsh and despotic. For severe distress + he had sympathy, and not only sympathy, but munificent + relief. But for the suffering which a harsh world inflicts + upon a delicate mind he had no pity; for it was a kind of 25 + suffering which he could scarcely conceive. He would carry + home on his shoulders a sick and starving girl from the + streets. He turned his house into a place of refuge for a + crowd of wretched old creatures who could find no other + asylum; nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude weary 30 + out his benevolence. But the pangs of wounded vanity + seemed to him ridiculous; and he scarcely felt sufficient + compassion even for the pangs of wounded affection. He + had seen and felt so much of sharp misery, that he was not + affected by paltry vexations; and he seemed to think that + every body ought to be as much hardened to those vexations + as himself. He was angry with Boswell for complaining of + a headache, with Mrs. Thrale for grumbling about the dust + on the road, or the smell of the kitchen. These were, in 5 + his phrase, "foppish lamentations," which people ought to + be ashamed to utter in a world so full of sin and sorrow. + Goldsmith crying because the Good-natured Man had failed, + inspired him with no pity. Though his own health was not + good, he detested and despised valetudinarians. Pecuniary 10 + losses, unless they reduced the loser absolutely to beggary, + moved him very little. People whose hearts had been softened + by prosperity might weep, he said, for such events; but + all that could be expected of a plain man was not to laugh. + He was not much moved even by the spectacle of Lady 15 + Tavistock dying of a broken heart for the loss of her lord. + Such grief he considered as a luxury reserved for the idle and + the wealthy. A washerwoman, left a widow with nine small + children, would not have sobbed herself to death. + + 17. A person who troubled himself so little about small 20 + or sentimental grievances was not likely to be very attentive + to the feelings of others in the ordinary intercourse of society. + He could not understand how a sarcasm or a reprimand + could make any man really unhappy. "My dear doctor," + said he to Goldsmith, "what harm does it do to a man to call 25 + him Holofernes?" "Pooh, ma'am," he exclaimed to Mrs. + Carter, "who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably?" + Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in small + things. Johnson was impolite, not because he wanted benevolence, + but because small things appeared smaller to him than 30 + to people who had never known what it was to live for fourpence + halfpenny a day. + + 18. The characteristic peculiarity of his intellect was the + union of great powers with low prejudices. If we judged of + him by the best parts of his mind, we should place him almost + as high as he was placed by the idolatry of Boswell; if by + the worst parts of his mind, we should place him even below + Boswell himself. Where he was not under the influence of + some strange scruple, or some domineering passion, which 5 + prevented him from boldly and fairly investigating a subject, + he was a wary and acute reasoner, a little too much inclined + to scepticism, and a little too fond of paradox. No man was + less likely to be imposed upon by fallacies in argument or by + exaggerated statements of fact. But if, while he was beating 10 + down sophisms and exposing false testimony, some childish + prejudices, such as would excite laughter in a well-managed + nursery, came across him, he was smitten as if by enchantment. + His mind dwindled away under the spell from gigantic + elevation to dwarfish littleness. Those who had lately been 15 + admiring its amplitude and its force were now as much astonished + at its strange narrowness and feebleness as the fisherman + in the Arabian tale, when he saw the Genie, whose stature + had overshadowed the whole sea-coast, and whose might + seemed equal to a contest with armies, contract himself to 20 + the dimensions of his small prison, and lie there the helpless + slave of the charm of Solomon. + + 19. Johnson was in the habit of sifting with extreme severity + the evidence for all stories which were merely odd. But when + they were not only odd but miraculous, his severity relaxed. 25 + He began to be credulous precisely at the point where the + most credulous people begin to be sceptical. It is curious to + observe, both in his writings and in his conversation, the contrast + between the disdainful manner in which he rejects unauthenticated + anecdotes, even when they are consistent with the 30 + general laws of nature, and the respectful manner in which he + mentions the wildest stories relating to the invisible world. + A man who told him of a waterspout or a meteoric stone + generally had the lie direct given him for his pains. A man + who told him of a prediction or a dream wonderfully accomplished + was sure of a courteous hearing. "Johnson," observed + Hogarth, "like king David, says in his haste that all men are + liars." "His incredulity," says Mrs. Thrale, "amounted almost + to disease." She tells us how he browbeat a gentleman, who 5 + gave him an account of a hurricane in the West Indies, and a + poor quaker who related some strange circumstance about the + red-hot balls fired at the siege of Gibraltar. "It is not so. + It cannot be true. Don't tell that story again. You cannot + think how poor a figure you make in telling it." He once said, 10 + half jestingly we suppose, that for six months he refused to + credit the fact of the earthquake at Lisbon, and that he still + believed the extent of the calamity to be greatly exaggerated. + Yet he related with a grave face how old Mr. Cave of St. John's + Gate saw a ghost, and how this ghost was something of a shadowy 15 + being. He went himself on a ghost hunt to Cock Lane, and + was angry with John Wesley for not following up another scent + of the same kind with proper spirit and perseverance. He rejects + the Celtic genealogies and poems without the least hesitation; + yet he declares himself willing to believe the stories of 20 + the second sight. If he had examined the claims of the Highland + seers with half the severity with which he sifted the evidence + for the genuineness of Fingal, he would, we suspect, have + come away from Scotland with a mind fully made up. In his + Lives of the Poets, we find that he is unwilling to give credit 25 + to the accounts of Lord Roscommon's early proficiency in his + studies; but he tells with great solemnity an absurd romance + about some intelligence preternaturally impressed on the mind + of that nobleman. He avows himself to be in great doubt + about the truth of the story, and ends by warning his readers 30 + not wholly to slight such impressions. + + 20. Many of his sentiments on religious subjects are worthy + of a liberal and enlarged mind. He could discern clearly + enough the folly and meanness of all bigotry except his own. + When he spoke of the scruples of the Puritans, he spoke like + a person who had really obtained an insight into the divine + philosophy of the New Testament, and who considered Christianity + as a noble scheme of government, tending to promote + the happiness and to elevate the moral nature of man. The 5 + horror which the sectaries felt for cards, Christmas ale, + plum-porridge, mince-pies, and dancing-bears, excited his contempt. + To the arguments urged by some very worthy people against + showy dress he replied with admirable sense and spirit, "Let + us not be found, when our Master calls us, stripping the lace 10 + off our waistcoats, but the spirit of contention from our souls + and tongues. Alas! sir, the man who cannot get to heaven in + a green coat will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey + one." Yet he was himself under the tyranny of scruples as + unreasonable as those of Hudibras or Ralpho, and carried his 15 + zeal for ceremonies and for ecclesiastical dignities to lengths + altogether inconsistent with reason or with Christian charity. + He has gravely noted down in his diary that he once committed + the sin of drinking coffee on Good Friday. In Scotland, he + thought it his duty to pass several months without joining in 20 + public worship, solely because the ministers of the kirk had not + been ordained by bishops. His mode of estimating the piety + of his neighbours was somewhat singular. "Campbell," said + he, "is a good man, a pious man. I am afraid he has not + been in the inside of a church for many years; but he never 25 + passes a church without pulling off his hat: this shows he has + good principles." Spain and Sicily must surely contain many + pious robbers and well-principled assassins. Johnson could + easily see that a Roundhead who named all his children after + Solomon's singers, and talked in the House of Commons about 30 + seeking the Lord, might be an unprincipled villain whose religious + mummeries only aggravated his guilt. But a man who + took off his hat when he passed a church episcopally consecrated + must be a good man, a pious man, a man of good principles. + Johnson could easily see that those persons who looked on + a dance or a laced waistcoat as sinful, deemed most ignobly + of the attributes of God and of the ends of revelation. But + with what a storm of invective he would have overwhelmed + any man who had blamed him for celebrating the redemption 5 + of mankind with sugarless tea and butterless buns. + + 21. Nobody spoke more contemptuously of the cant of + patriotism. Nobody saw more clearly the error of those who + regarded liberty, not as a means, but as an end, and who + proposed to themselves, as the object of their pursuit, the 10 + prosperity of the state as distinct from the prosperity of the + individuals who compose the state. His calm and settled opinion + seems to have been that forms of government have little or no + influence on the happiness of society. This opinion, erroneous + as it is, ought at least to have preserved him from all 15 + intemperance on political questions. It did not, however, preserve + him from the lowest, fiercest, and most absurd extravagances of + party-spirit, from rants which, in every thing but the diction, + resembled those of Squire Western. He was, as a politician, + half ice and half fire. On the side of his intellect he was a 20 + mere Pococurante, far too apathetic about public affairs, far too + sceptical as to the good or evil tendency of any form of polity. + His passions, on the contrary, were violent even to slaying + against all who leaned to Whiggish principles. The well-known + lines which he inserted in Goldsmith's Traveller express 25 + what seems to have been his deliberate judgment: + + "How small of all that human hearts endure + That part which kings or laws can cause or cure!" + + He had previously put expressions very similar into the mouth + of Rasselas. It is amusing to contrast these passages with the 30 + torrents of raving abuse which he poured forth against the + Long Parliament and the American Congress. In one of the + conversations reported by Boswell this inconsistency displays + itself in the most ludicrous manner. + + 22. "Sir Adam Ferguson," says Boswell, "suggested that + luxury corrupts a people, and destroys the spirit of liberty. + JOHNSON: 'Sir, that is all visionary. I would not give half + a guinea to live under one form of government rather than + another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual. 5 + Sir, the danger of the abuse of power is nothing to a private + man. What Frenchman is prevented passing his life as he + pleases?' SIR ADAM: 'But, sir, in the British constitution it + is surely of importance to keep up a spirit in the people, so as + to preserve a balance against the crown.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, I 10 + perceive you are a vile Whig. Why all this childish jealousy of + the power of the crown? The crown has not power enough.'" + + 23. One of the old philosophers, Lord Bacon tells us, used + to say that life and death were just the same to him. "Why, + then," said an objector, "do you not kill yourself?" The 15 + philosopher answered, "Because it is just the same." If + the difference between two forms of government be not + worth half a guinea, it is not easy to see how Whiggism can + be viler than Toryism, or how the crown can have too little + power. If the happiness of individuals is not affected by 20 + political abuses, zeal for liberty is doubtless ridiculous. But + zeal for monarchy must be equally so. No person would + have been more quick-sighted than Johnson to such a contradiction + as this in the logic of an antagonist. + + 24. The judgments which Johnson passed on books were, 25 + in his own time, regarded with superstitious veneration, and, in + our time, are generally treated with indiscriminate contempt. + They are the judgments of a strong but enslaved understanding. + The mind of the critic was hedged round by an uninterrupted + fence of prejudices and superstitions. Within his narrow limits, 30 + he displayed a vigour and an activity which ought to have + enabled him to clear the barrier that confined him. + + 25. How it chanced that a man who reasoned on his premises + so ably, should assume his premises so foolishly, is one of + the great mysteries of human nature. The same inconsistency + may be observed in the schoolmen of the middle ages. + Those writers show so much acuteness and force of mind in + arguing on their wretched data, that a modern reader is perpetually + at a loss to comprehend how such minds came by 5 + such data. Not a flaw in the superstructure of the theory + which they are rearing escapes their vigilance. Yet they are + blind to the obvious unsoundness of the foundation. It is + the same with some eminent lawyers. Their legal arguments + are intellectual prodigies, abounding with the happiest analogies 10 + and the most refined distinctions. The principles of + their arbitrary science being once admitted, the statute-book + and the reports being once assumed as the foundations of + reasoning, these men must be allowed to be perfect masters + of logic. But if a question arises as to the postulates on which 15 + their whole system rests, if they are called upon to vindicate the + fundamental maxims of that system which they have passed + their lives in studying, these very men often talk the language + of savages or of children. Those who have listened to a man + of this class in his own court, and who have witnessed the skill 20 + with which he analyses and digests a vast mass of evidence, or + reconciles a crowd of precedents which at first sight seem + contradictory, scarcely know him again when, a few hours later, + they hear him speaking on the other side of Westminster + Hall in his capacity of legislator. They can scarcely believe 25 + that the paltry quirks which are faintly heard through a storm + of coughing, and which do not impose on the plainest country + gentleman, can proceed from the same sharp and vigorous + intellect which had excited their admiration under the same + roof, and on the same day. 30 + + 26. Johnson decided literary questions like a lawyer, not + like a legislator. He never examined foundations where a + point was already ruled. His whole code of criticism rested + on pure assumption, for which he sometimes quoted a precedent + or an authority, but rarely troubled himself to give a reason + drawn from the nature of things. He took it for granted that + the kind of poetry which flourished in his own time, which he + had been accustomed to hear praised from his childhood, and + which he had himself written with success, was the best kind 5 + of poetry. In his biographical work he has repeatedly laid + it down as an undeniable proposition that during the latter + part of the seventeenth century, and the earlier part of the + eighteenth, English poetry had been in a constant progress + of improvement. Waller, Denham, Dryden, and Pope, had 10 + been, according to him, the great reformers. He judged of + all works of the imagination by the standard established among + his own contemporaries. Though he allowed Homer to have + been a greater man than Virgil, he seems to have thought the + Æneid a greater poem than the Iliad. Indeed he well might 15 + have thought so; for he preferred Pope's Iliad to Homer's. + He pronounced that, after Hoole's translation of Tasso, Fairfax's + would hardly be reprinted. He could see no merit in + our fine old English ballads, and always spoke with the most + provoking contempt of Percy's fondness for them. Of the 20 + great original works of imagination which appeared during + his time, Richardson's novels alone excited his admiration. + He could see little or no merit in Tom Jones, in Gulliver's + Travels, or in Tristram Shandy. To Thomson's Castle of + Indolence, he vouchsafed only a line of cold commendation, 25 + of commendation much colder than what he has bestowed + on the Creation of that portentous bore, Sir Richard Blackmore. + Gray was, in his dialect, a barren rascal. Churchill + was a blockhead. The contempt which he felt for the trash + of Macpherson was indeed just; but it was, we suspect, 30 + just by chance. He despised the Fingal for the very reason + which led many men of genius to admire it. He despised it, + not because it was essentially commonplace, but because it + had a superficial air of originality. + + 27. He was undoubtedly an excellent judge of compositions + fashioned on his own principles. But when a deeper philosophy + was required, when he undertook to pronounce judgment + on the works of those great minds which "yield homage + only to eternal laws," his failure was ignominious. He criticised 5 + Pope's Epitaphs excellently. But his observations on + Shakespeare's plays and Milton's poems seem to us for the + most part as wretched as if they had been written by Rymer + himself, whom we take to have been the worst critic that + ever lived. 10 + + 28. Some of Johnson's whims on literary subjects can be + compared only to that strange nervous feeling which made him + uneasy if he had not touched every post between the Mitre + tavern and his own lodgings. His preference of Latin epitaphs + to English epitaphs is an instance. An English epitaph, he 15 + said, would disgrace Smollett. He declared that he would not + pollute the walls of Westminster Abbey with an English epitaph + on Goldsmith. What reason there can be for celebrating a + British writer in Latin, which there was not for covering the + Roman arches of triumph with Greek inscriptions, or for 20 + commemorating the deeds of the heroes of Thermopylæ in + Egyptian hieroglyphics, we are utterly unable to imagine. + + 29. On men and manners, at least on the men and manners + of a particular place and a particular age, Johnson had + certainly looked with a most observant and discriminating eye. 25 + His remarks on the education of children, on marriage, on + the economy of families, on the rules of society, are always + striking, and generally sound. In his writings, indeed, the + knowledge of life which he possessed in an eminent degree is + very imperfectly exhibited. Like those unfortunate chiefs of 30 + the middle ages who were suffocated by their own chain-mail + and cloth of gold, his maxims perish under that load of words + which was designed for their defence and their ornament. + But it is clear from the remains of his conversation, that he + had more of that homely wisdom which nothing but experience + and observation can give than any writer since the time + of Swift. If he had been content to write as he talked, he + might have left books on the practical art of living superior + to the Directions to Servants. 5 + + 30. Yet even his remarks on society, like his remarks on + literature, indicate a mind at least as remarkable for narrowness + as for strength. He was no master of the great science + of human nature. He had studied, not the genus man, but + the species Londoner. Nobody was ever so thoroughly conversant 10 + with all the forms of life and all the shades of moral + and intellectual character which were to be seen from Islington + to the Thames, and from Hyde-Park corner to Mile-end green. + But his philosophy stopped at the first turnpike-gate. Of the + rural life of England he knew nothing; and he took it for 15 + granted that every body who lived in the country was either + stupid or miserable. "Country gentlemen," said he, "must + be unhappy; for they have not enough to keep their lives in + motion"; as if all those peculiar habits and associations which + made Fleet Street and Charing Cross the finest views in the 20 + world to himself had been essential parts of human nature. + Of remote countries and past times he talked with wild and + ignorant presumption. "The Athenians of the age of Demosthenes," + he said to Mrs. Thrale, "were a people of brutes, a + barbarous people." In conversation with Sir Adam Ferguson 25 + he used similar language. "The boasted Athenians," he said, + "were barbarians. The mass of every people must be barbarous + where there is no printing." The fact was this: he saw that + a Londoner who could not read was a very stupid and brutal + fellow: he saw that great refinement of taste and activity of 30 + intellect were rarely found in a Londoner who had not read + much; and, because it was by means of books that people + acquired almost all their knowledge in the society with which + he was acquainted, he concluded, in defiance of the strongest + and clearest evidence, that the human mind can be cultivated + by means of books alone. An Athenian citizen might possess + very few volumes; and the largest library to which he had + access might be much less valuable than Johnson's bookcase + in Bolt Court. But the Athenian might pass every morning 5 + in conversation with Socrates, and might hear Pericles speak + four or five times every month. He saw the plays of Sophocles + and Aristophanes: he walked amidst the friezes of Phidias + and the paintings of Zeuxis: he knew by heart the choruses + of Æschylus: he heard the rhapsodist at the corner of the 10 + street reciting the Shield of Achilles or the Death of Argus: + he was a legislator, conversant with high questions of alliance, + revenue, and war: he was a soldier, trained under a liberal + and generous discipline: he was a judge, compelled every day + to weigh the effect of opposite arguments. These things were 15 + in themselves an education, an education eminently fitted, not, + indeed, to form exact or profound thinkers, but to give quickness + to the perceptions, delicacy to the taste, fluency to the + expression, and politeness to the manners. All this was overlooked. + An Athenian who did not improve his mind by reading 20 + was, in Johnson's opinion, much such a person as a + Cockney who made his mark, much such a person as black + Frank before he went to school, and far inferior to a parish + clerk or a printer's devil. + + 31. Johnson's friends have allowed that he carried to a 25 + ridiculous extreme his unjust contempt for foreigners. He + pronounced the French to be a very silly people, much behind + us, stupid, ignorant creatures. And this judgment he formed + after having been at Paris about a month, during which he + would not talk French, for fear of giving the natives an 30 + advantage over him in conversation. He pronounced them, + also, to be an indelicate people, because a French footman + touched the sugar with his fingers. That ingenious and + amusing traveller, M. Simond, has defended his countrymen + very successfully against Johnson's accusation, and has pointed + out some English practices which, to an impartial spectator, + would seem at least as inconsistent with physical cleanliness + and social decorum as those which Johnson so bitterly reprehended. + To the sage, as Boswell loves to call him, it never 5 + occurred to doubt that there must be something eternally + and immutably good in the usages to which he had been + accustomed. In fact, Johnson's remarks on society beyond + the bills of mortality, are generally of much the same kind + with those of honest Tom Dawson, the English footman in 10 + Dr. Moore's Zeluco. "Suppose the king of France has no + sons, but only a daughter, then, when the king dies, this here + daughter, according to that there law, cannot be made queen, + but the next near relative, provided he is a man, is made king, + and not the last king's daughter, which, to be sure, is very 15 + unjust. The French foot-guards are dressed in blue, and all + the marching regiments in white, which has a very foolish + appearance for soldiers; and as for blue regimentals, it is + only fit for the blue horse or the artillery." + + 32. Johnson's visit to the Hebrides introduced him to a 20 + state of society completely new to him; and a salutary suspicion + of his own deficiencies seems on that occasion to have + crossed his mind for the first time. He confessed, in the + last paragraph of his Journey, that his thoughts on national + manners were the thoughts of one who had seen but little, of 25 + one who had passed his time almost wholly in cities. This + feeling, however, soon passed away. It is remarkable that to + the last he entertained a fixed contempt for all those modes + of life and those studies which tend to emancipate the mind + from the prejudices of a particular age or a particular nation. 30 + Of foreign travel and of history he spoke with the fierce and + boisterous contempt of ignorance. "What does a man learn + by travelling? Is Beauclerk the better for travelling? What + did Lord Charlemont learn in his travels, except that there + was a snake in one of the pyramids of Egypt?" History was, + in his opinion, to use the fine expression of Lord Plunkett, an + old almanack: historians could, as he conceived, claim no + higher dignity than that of almanack-makers; and his favourite + historians were those who, like Lord Hailes, aspired to no 5 + higher dignity. He always spoke with contempt of Robertson. + Hume he would not even read. He affronted one of + his friends for talking to him about Catiline's conspiracy, and + declared that he never desired to hear of the Punic war again + as long as he lived. 10 + + 33. Assuredly one fact which does not directly affect our + own interests, considered in itself, is no better worth knowing + than another fact. The fact that there is a snake in a pyramid, + or the fact that Hannibal crossed the Alps, are in themselves + as unprofitable to us as the fact that there is a green 15 + blind in a particular house in Threadneedle Street, or the + fact that a Mr. Smith comes into the city every morning on + the top of one of the Blackwall stages. But it is certain that + those who will not crack the shell of history will never get at + the kernel. Johnson, with hasty arrogance, pronounced the 20 + kernel worthless, because he saw no value in the shell. The + real use of travelling to distant countries and of studying the + annals of past times is to preserve men from the contraction + of mind which those can hardly escape whose whole communion + is with one generation and one neighbourhood, who 25 + arrive at conclusions by means of an induction not sufficiently + copious, and who therefore constantly confound exceptions + with rules, and accidents with essential properties. In + short, the real use of travelling and of studying history is to + keep men from being what Tom Dawson was in fiction, and 30 + Samuel Johnson in reality. + + 34. Johnson, as Mr. Burke most justly observed, appears + far greater in Boswell's books than in his own. His conversation + appears to have been quite equal to his writings in + matter, and far superior to them in manner. 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. All his + books are written in a learned language, in a language which 5 + nobody hears from his mother or his nurse, in a language in + which nobody ever quarrels, or drives bargains, or makes love, + in a language in which nobody ever thinks. It is clear that + Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in which he + wrote. The expressions which came first to his tongue were 10 + simple, energetic, and picturesque. When he wrote for publication + he did his sentences out of English into Johnsonese. + His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. Thrale are the original + of that work of which the Journey to the Hebrides is the + translation; and it is amusing to compare the two versions. 15 + "When we were taken up stairs," says he in one of his letters, + "a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed on which one of us + was to lie." This incident is recorded in the Journey as + follows: "Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose + started up, at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from 20 + the forge." Sometimes Johnson translated aloud. "The + Rehearsal," he said, very unjustly, "has not wit enough to + keep it sweet"; then, after a pause, "it has not vitality + enough to preserve it from putrefaction." + + 35. Mannerism is pardonable, and is sometimes even agreeable, 25 + when the manner, though vicious, is natural. Few readers, + for example, would be willing to part with the mannerism of + Milton or of Burke. But a mannerism which does not sit + easy on the mannerist, which has been adopted on principle, + and which can be sustained only by constant effort, is always 30 + offensive. And such is the mannerism of Johnson. + + 36. The characteristic faults of his style are so familiar to + all our readers, and have been so often burlesqued, that it + is almost superfluous to point them out. It is well known + that he made less use than any other eminent writer of those + strong plain words, Anglo-Saxon or Norman-French, of which + the roots lie in the inmost depths of our language; and that + he felt a vicious partiality for terms which, long after our own + speech had been fixed, were borrowed from the Greek and 5 + Latin, and which therefore, even when lawfully naturalised, + must be considered as born aliens, not entitled to rank with + the king's English. His constant practice of padding out a + sentence with useless epithets, till it became as stiff as the + bust of an exquisite, his antithetical forms of expression, 10 + constantly employed even where there is no opposition in the + ideas expressed, his big words wasted on little things, his + harsh inversions, so widely different from those graceful and + easy inversions which give variety, spirit, and sweetness to + the expression of our great old writers, all these peculiarities 15 + have been imitated by his admirers and parodied by his + assailants, till the public has become sick of the subject. + + 37. Goldsmith said to him, very wittily and very justly, + "If you were to write a fable about little fishes, doctor, you + would make the little fishes talk like whales." No man surely 20 + ever had so little talent for personation as Johnson. Whether + he wrote in the character of a disappointed legacy-hunter or an + empty town fop, of a crazy virtuoso or a flippant coquette, he + wrote in the same pompous and unbending style. His speech, + like Sir Piercy Shafton's Euphuistic eloquence, bewrayed him 25 + under every disguise. Euphelia and Rhodoclea talk as finely + as Imlac the poet, or Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia. The gay + Cornelia describes her reception at the country-house of her + relations in such terms as these: "I was surprised, after the + civilities of my first reception, to find, instead of the leisure 30 + and tranquillity which a rural life always promises, and, if + well conducted, might always afford, a confused wildness of + care, and a tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every + face was clouded, and every motion agitated." The gentle + Tranquilla informs us, that she "had not passed the earlier + part of life without the flattery of courtship, and the joys of + triumph; but had danced the round of gaiety amidst the + murmurs of envy and the gratulations of applause, had been + attended from pleasure to pleasure by the great, the sprightly, 5 + and the vain, and had seen her regard solicited by the + obsequiousness of gallantry, the gaiety of wit, and the timidity of + love." Surely Sir John Falstaff himself did not wear his petticoats + with a worse grace. The reader may well cry out, + with honest Sir Hugh Evans, "I like not when a 'oman has 10 + a great peard: I spy a great peard under her muffler."[19] + + 38. We had something more to say. But our article is + already too long; and we must close it. We would fain + part in good humour from the hero, from the biographer, + and even from the editor, who, ill as he has performed his 15 + task, has at least this claim to our gratitude, that he has + induced us to read Boswell's book again. As we close it, the + club-room is before us, and the table on which stands the + omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. There are + assembled those heads which live for ever on the canvass of 20 + Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall + thin form of Langton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerk, and the + beaming smile of Garrick, Gibbon tapping his snuff-box, and + Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the foreground is + that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of 25 + those among whom we have been brought up, the gigantic + body, the huge massy face, seamed with the scars of disease, + the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig + with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten + and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving 30 + with convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form rolling; we + hear it puffing; and then comes the "Why, sir!" and the + "What then, sir?" and the "No, sir!" and the "You don't + see your way through the question, sir!" + + 39. What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable + man! To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and 5 + in ours as a companion. To receive from his contemporaries + that full homage which men of genius have in general received + only from posterity! To be more intimately known to posterity + than other men are known to their contemporaries! + That kind of fame which is commonly the most transient is, 10 + in his case, the most durable. The reputation of those writings, + which he probably expected to be immortal, is every day + fading; while those peculiarities of manner and that careless + table-talk, the memory of which, he probably thought, would + die with him, are likely to be remembered as long as the 15 + English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe. + + + + +NOTES + + +=PAGE 1.= LINE 4. =Lichfield.= Observe how near Lichfield comes to +being in the exact center of England. + +=1= 4-5. =the midland counties.= As you run your eye over the map, what +counties should you naturally include under this head? In what county +is Lichfield? + +=1= 9. =oracle.= "Johnson, the Lichfield librarian, is now here; he +propagates learning all over this diocese, and advanceth knowledge to +its just height; all the clergy here are his pupils, and suck all they +have from him."--From a letter written by Rev. George Plaxton, quoted +by Boswell. + +=1= 10-11. =a strong religious and political sympathy.= Macaulay's use +of the article would lead us to think that the two kinds of sympathy +were very closely connected. Michael Johnson was a member of the +Established Church of England, and at heart a believer in the "divine +right" kings. The student who is not familiar with the history of +this period will do well to look up _Jacobite_ in Brewer's _Historic +Note-book_ and then to read in some brief history an account of the +_sovereigns in possession_ who followed James II,--William and Mary +(1689-1702) and Anne (1702-1714). Boswell says, "He no doubt had an +early attachment to the House of Stuart; but his zeal had cooled as his +reason strengthened." + +=1= 16. =In the child.= Pause to take the glimpse ahead which this +sentence gives. The construction helps one to remember the three kinds +of peculiarities and the order in which they are mentioned. + +=2= 26. =Augustan delicacy of taste.= You may read in Harper's +_Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities_, in the article +on Augustus Cæsar, how "the court of Augustus thus became a school of +culture, where men of genius acquired that delicacy of taste, elevation +of sentiment, and purity of expression which characterize the writers +of the age." + +=2= 32. =Petrarch.= Does Macaulay imply that Petrarch is one of "the +great restorers of learning"? See _Renaissance_ in _The Century +Dictionary_ and Harper's _Dictionary of Classical Literature and +Antiquities_. Note that Petrarch "may be said to have rediscovered +Greek, which for some six centuries had been lost to the western +world." Keep in mind, too, that his friend and disciple, Boccaccio, +translated Homer into Latin. + +=3= 11. =Pembroke College.= The University of Oxford consists of +twenty-one colleges which together form a corporate body. The colleges +are "endowed by their founders and others with estates and benefices; +out of the revenue arising from the estates, as well as other +resources, the Heads and Senior and Junior Members _on the foundation_ +receive an income, and the expenses of the colleges are defrayed. +Members _not on the foundation_, called 'independent members,' reside +entirely at their own expense." Among the members _on the foundation_ +are the Heads, Fellows, and Scholars. + +=3= 17-18. =Macrobius.= A Roman grammarian who probably lived at the +beginning of the fifth century. + +=3= 20. =about three years.= Apparently Johnson remained at Oxford +only fourteen months. See Dr. Hill's _Dr. Johnson, His Friends and His +Critics_. + +=4= 1-2. "It was bitterness which they mistook for frolic. I was +miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my +wit; so I disregarded all power and all authority."--Johnson, quoted +by Boswell. Although aware of what he considered the defects of his +college, Johnson loved Pembroke as long as he lived. He delighted in +boasting of its eminent graduates and would have left to it his house +at Lichfield had not wiser friends induced him to bequeath it to some +poor relatives. + +=4= 15-16. =his father died.= "I now therefore see that I must make my +own fortune. Meanwhile let me take care that the powers of my mind be +not debilitated by poverty, and that indigence do not force me into any +criminal act."--Johnson, quoted by Boswell. + +=5= 32. =Walmesley.= "I am not able to name a man of equal knowledge. +His acquaintance with books was great, and what he did not immediately +know, he could, at least, tell where to find."--Johnson, quoted by +Boswell. + +=6= 13. =Politian.= Another of "the great restorers of learning" (see +=2= 31). His beginning of a translation of the _Iliad_ into Latin +attracted the attention of Lorenzo de' Medici, under whose patronage he +became one of the first scholars of Italy. + +=6= 17. =fell in love.= Boswell says that Johnson's early attachments +to the fair sex were "very transient," and considers it but natural +that when the passion of love once seized him it should be exceedingly +strong, concentrated as it was in one object. + +=6= 22. =Queensberrys and Lepels.= Families of high rank in England. + +=7= 3-4. =half ludicrous.= Carlyle says it is no matter for ridicule +that the man "whose look all men both laughed at and shuddered at, +should find any brave female heart, to acknowledge, at first sight +and hearing of him, 'This is the most sensible man I ever met with'; +and then, with generous courage, to take him to itself, and say Be +thou mine!... Johnson's deathless affection for his Tetty was always +venerable and noble." + +=7= 6-7. At Edial. Although this enterprise did not prosper, the man, +as Carlyle says, "was to become a Teacher of grown gentlemen, in the +most surprising way; a man of Letters, and Ruler of the British Nation +for some time,--not of their bodies merely, but of their minds; not +over them, but _in_ them." + +=7= 13. =David Garrick.= The mere fact that this celebrated actor and +successful manager brought out twenty-four of Shakspere's plays is +reason enough why we should look him up. A slight knowledge of his +career enables one to enjoy all the more the frequent references to +him in Boswell's _Life of Johnson_. After reading the sketch in the +_Encyclopædia Britannica_ it would be a good plan to read Boswell's +references consecutively by means of the index. + +=8= 9. =Fielding.= For an enjoyable short sketch of the first great +English novelist, see Thackeray's _English Humourists_. + +=8= 10. =The Beggar's Opera=, by John Gay, appeared in 1728. + +=8= 19. =knot.= See _The Century Dictionary_. + +=8= 34. =Drury Lane.= A street in the heart of the city, near the +Strand,--one of the chief thoroughfares. It was beginning to lose its +old-time respectability. + +=9= 9. =the sight of food.= Once when Boswell was giving a dinner and +one of the company was late, Boswell proposed to order dinner to be +served, adding, "'Ought six people to be kept waiting for one?' 'Why, +yes,' answered Johnson, with a delicate humanity, 'if the one will +suffer more by your sitting down than the six will do by waiting.'" Is +it probable that Macaulay exaggerates? + +=9= 27. =Harleian Library.= The library collected by Robert Harley, +First Earl of Oxford. Osborne afterwards bought it and Johnson did some +of the cataloguing for him. As to Osborne's punishment, Boswell says: +"The simple truth I had from Johnson himself. 'Sir, he was impertinent +to me, and I beat him. But it was not in his shop: it was in my own +chamber.'" + +=10= 6. =Blefuscu, Mildendo.= If Blefuscu and Mildendo look unfamiliar, +go to Lilliput for them. (See _Gulliver's Travels_.) + +=10= 9. "Johnson told me, that as soon as he found that the speeches +were thought genuine, he determined that he would write no more +of them; for he 'would not be accessory to the propagation of +falsehood.'"--Boswell. + +=10= 15. Cf. _The Traveller_. Do you suppose that either Johnson or +Goldsmith really believed that one form of government is as good as +another? + +=10= 17. =Montagues.= See Shakspere's _Romeo and Juliet_. + +_10_ 18. =Greens.= In Roman chariot races there was the bitterest +rivalry between the different colors of the factions, and the betting +often led to scenes of riot and bloodshed. Once in Justinian's reign, +in the great circus at Constantinople, the tumult was not suppressed +till about thirty thousand of the rioters had been killed. See Gibbon, +_Decline and Fall_, Chapter XL. + +=10= 22. =Sacheverell.= What do you gather from the context about this +preacher? Was he high church? Did he preach resistance to the king? + +=10= 31. =Tom Tempest.= See Johnson's _Idler_, No. 10. + +=10= 32. =Laud.= Read in Gardiner's _Student's History of England_ the +account of this archbishop who tried to enforce uniformity of worship. + +=11= 2-4. =Hampden, Falkland, Clarendon.= In the case of these three +statesmen, as well as in the case of Laud, the context shows which of +them were supporters of Charles I and which resisted him. Does Macaulay +imply that Johnson would have been excusable if he had sympathized with +Hampden's refusal to pay "ship money"? + +=11= 5. =Roundheads.= If you do not know why they were so called, see +_The Century Dictionary_. + +=11= 20-21. =Great Rebellion.= If in doubt as to which rebellion +Macaulay refers, see _The Century Dictionary_ or Brewer's _Dictionary +of Phrase and Fable_. + +=12= 2, 8, 10. =Juvenal.= Dryden has translated five of the poems of +this great Roman satirist. It is worth while to compare Johnson's +_London_, a free imitation of the Third Satire, with Dryden's version. +Johnson's poem may be found in Hales's _Longer English Poems_. + +=12= 19. Boswell, too, asks us to remember Pope's candor and liberal +conduct on this occasion. Let us not forget it. + +=13= 8. =Psalmanazar.= Pretending to be a Japanese, this Frenchman +wrote what he called a _History of Formosa_. Although fabulous, it +deceived the learned world. + +=13= 14-15. =blue ribands.= Worn by members of the Order of the Garter. + +=13= 16. =Newgate.= The notorious London prison. + +=13= 26. =Piazza= here has its first meaning,--"an open square in a +town surrounded by buildings or colonnades, a plaza." This space was +once the "convent" garden of the monks of Westminster. For a brief +sketch of it down to the time its "coffee houses and taverns became the +fashionable lounging-places for the authors, wits, and noted men of the +kingdom," see _The Century Dictionary_. + +=14= 11-12. =Grub Street.= "Originally the name of a street in +Moorfields in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, +dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called +_grubstreet_. + + 'I'd sooner ballads write, and _grubstreet_ lays.' Gay." + + --Johnson's _Dictionary_, edition of 1773. + +=14= 23. =Warburton.= Bishop Warburton thus praised Johnson in the +Preface to his own edition of _Shakspere_, and Johnson showed his +appreciation by saying to Boswell, "He praised me at a time when +praise was of value to me." On another occasion, when asked whether he +considered Warburton a superior critic to Theobald, he replied, "He'd +make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices!" Johnson's sketch of +him, in the _Life of Pope_, Boswell calls "the tribute due to him when +he was no longer in 'high place,' but numbered with the dead." + +=14= 28-31. He employed six amanuenses, not a large number of +assistants for a task of such magnitude. Nor was the sum of fifteen +hundred guineas a generous one from which to pay these assistants. + +=14= 33. =Chesterfield.= Every young man should read an abridged +edition of Chesterfield's _Letters to his Son_; for example, the volume +in the Knickerbocker Nugget Series. It contains much that is worth +remembering, and the style is entertaining. + +=15= 17. It is hard to realize what a stupendous task Johnson undertook +when he began his Dictionary. Other dictionaries, notably Bailey's, +were in existence, but they were mere beginnings of what he had in +mind. As lists of words, with explanations of the meanings, they were +useful, but none of them could reasonably be considered a standard. A +standard Johnson's certainly was. Although no etymologist, in general +he not only gave full and clear definitions, but he chose remarkably +happy illustrations of the meanings of words. By taking care, also, to +select passages which were interesting and profitable reading as well +as elegant English, he succeeded in making probably the most readable +dictionary that has ever appeared. + +=15= 23. For the _Vanity of Human Wishes_, see Hales's _Longer English +Poems_ or Syle's _From Milton to Tennyson_. As in the case of _London_, +the student will wish to compare Dryden's translation. + +=16= 8-9. And this was eleven years after the _London_ had appeared; as +Boswell says, his fame was already established. + +=16= 13. =Goodman's Fields.= Garrick made this theater successful. + +=16= 15. =Drury Lane Theatre.= Near Drury Lane. (See note to =8= 34.) +Other prominent actors in this famous old theatre were Kean, the +Kembles, and Mrs. Siddons. + +=17= 13. See page 7. The story on which _Irene_ is based is as +follows:-- + + Mahomet the Great, first emperor of the Turks, in the year 1453 + laid siege to the city of Constantinople, then possessed by the + Greeks, and, after an obstinate resistance, took and sacked it. + Among the many young women whom the commanders thought fit to + lay hands on and present to him was one named Irene, a Greek, + of incomparable beauty and such rare perfection of body and + mind, that the emperor, becoming enamored of her, neglected + the care of his government and empire for two whole years, + and thereby so exasperated the Janizaries, that they mutinied + and threatened to dethrone him. To prevent this mischief, + Mustapha Bassa, a person of great credit with him, undertook + to represent to him the great danger to which he lay exposed + by the indulgence of his passion: he called to his remembrance + the character, actions, and achievements of his predecessors, + and the state of his government; and, in short, so roused + him from his lethargy, that he took a horrible resolution + to silence the clamors of his people by the sacrifice of + this admirable creature. Accordingly, he commanded her to be + dressed and adorned in the richest manner that she and her + attendants could devise, and against a certain hour issued + orders for the nobility and leaders of his army to attend him + in the great hall of his palace. When they were all assembled, + himself appeared with great pomp and magnificence, leading his + captive by the hand, unconscious of guilt and ignorant of his + design. With a furious and menacing look, he gave the beholders + to understand that he meant to remove the cause of their + discontent; but bade them first view that lady, whom he held + with his left hand, and say whether any of them, possessed of a + jewel so rare and precious, would for any cause forego her; to + which they answered that he had great reason for his affection + toward her. To this the emperor replied that he would convince + them that he was yet master of himself. And having so said, + presently, with one of his hands catching the fair Greek by + the hair of the head, and drawing his falchion with the other, + he, at one blow, struck off her head, to the great terror of + them all; and having so done, he said unto them, "Now by this + judge whether your emperor is able to bridle his affections or + not."--Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_. + +=17= 20-21. =Tatler, Spectator.= It is to be hoped that the reader +needs no introduction to these papers or to the account of them in +Macaulay's essay on Addison. + +=17= 30. =Rambler.= A suitable title for a series of moral discourses? +At the time of the undertaking he composed a prayer to the effect +that he might in this way promote the glory of Almighty God and the +salvation both of himself and others.--_Prayers and Meditations_, p. 9, +quoted by Boswell. + +=17= 31-32. Boswell considers it a strong confirmation of the truth +of Johnson's remark that "a man may write at any time if he will set +himself doggedly to it," that "notwithstanding his constitutional +indolence, his depression of spirits, and his labour in carrying on his +Dictionary, he answered the stated calls of the press twice a week from +the stores of his mind during all that time." + +=17= 34. =Richardson.= Samuel Richardson. When he was a boy, the girls +employed him to write love letters for them; and his novels, written in +after life, also took the form of letters. He wrote _Pamela, or Virtue +Rewarded_; _Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady_; and _The +History of Sir Charles Grandison_ (about 1750). Johnson called him "an +author who has enlarged the knowledge of human nature and taught the +passions to move at the command of virtue." + +=18= 2. =Young.= Johnson held a high opinion of Edward Young's +most famous work, _Night Thoughts_, and Boswell writes, "No book +whatever can be recommended to young persons, with better hopes of +seasoning their minds with _vital religion_, than Young's _Night +Thoughts_."--=Hartley.= David Hartley, prominent as a psychologist, and +as a physician benevolent and studious. For intimate friends he chose +such men as Warburton and Young. + +=18= 3. =Dodington.= A member of Parliament who patronized men of +letters and was complimented by Young and Fielding. + +=18= 7. =Frederic.= When Frederick, Prince of Wales, became the +center of the opposition to Walpole, in 1737, among the leaders of +his political friends, called "the Leicester House Party,"--at that +time Leicester House was the residence of the Prince of Wales,--were +Chesterfield, William Pitt, and Bubb Dodington. + +=18= 25. In regard to the use of antiquated and hard words, for which +Johnson was censured, he says in _Idler_ No. 90, "He that thinks with +more extent than another, will want words of larger meaning." + +=18= 30-32. =brilliancy ... eloquence ... humour.= Johnson wrote many +of these discourses so hastily, says Boswell, that he did not even read +them over before they were printed. Boswell continues: "Sir Joshua +Reynolds once asked him by what means he had attained his extraordinary +accuracy and flow of language. He told him, that he had early laid it +down as a fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and in every +company: to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he +could put it in; and that by constant practice, and never suffering +any careless expressions to escape him, or attempting to deliver his +thoughts without arranging them in the clearest manner, it became +habitual to him." One man who knew Johnson intimately observed "that he +always talked as if he was talking upon oath." + +=18= 32-=19= 10. Cf. Johnson's comment: "Whoever wishes to attain +an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not +ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of +Addison."--Boswell, 1750. + +=19= 1-2. =Sir Roger=, etc. These two sets of allusions offer a good +excuse for handling complete editions of the _Spectator_ and the +_Rambler_. + +=19= 21. =the Gunnings.= "The beautiful Misses Gunning," two +sisters, were born in Ireland. They went to London in 1751, were +continually followed by crowds, and were called "the handsomest women +alive."--=Lady Mary.= Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Let one of the +encyclopædias introduce you to this relative of Fielding who laughed +at Pope when he made love to her, and whose wit had full play in the +brilliant letters from Constantinople which added greatly to her +reputation as an independent thinker. + +=19= 23-24. =the Monthly Review.= This Whig periodical would not +appeal to Johnson as did its rival, the _Critical Review_. It was the +_Monthly_ that Goldsmith did hack work for. Smollett wrote for the +other. See Irving's _Life of Goldsmith_, Chapter VII. + +=19= 31. It was published in 1755, price £4 10_s._, bound. + +=20= 17. The letter, which needs no comment, is as follows: + + February 7, 1755. + + TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. + + My Lord, + + I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of the World, + that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the + publick, were written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished, + is an honour, which, being very little accustomed to favours + from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what + terms to acknowledge. + + When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your + Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by + the enchantment of your address; and could not forbear to + wish that I might boast myself _Le vainqueur du vainqueur de + la terre_;--that I might obtain that regard for which I saw + the world contending; but I found my attendance so little + encouraged that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me + to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in + publick, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a + retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I have done all that + I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, + be it ever so little. + + Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in your + outward rooms or was repulsed from your door; during which time + I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which + it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the + verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word + of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did + not expect, for I never had a Patron before. + + The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and + found him a native of the rocks. + + Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a + man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached + ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have + been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had + been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and + cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till + I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical + asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been + received, or to be unwilling that the Publick should consider + me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me + to do for myself. + + Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to + any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though + I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I + have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once + boasted myself with so much exultation, + + My Lord, + Your Lordship's most humble, + Most obedient servant, + SAM. JOHNSON. + +=20= 24. =Horne Tooke.= A name assumed by John Horne, a politician +and philologist whose career is briefly outlined in _The Century +Dictionary_. The passage which so moved him follows. + + In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let + it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though + no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the authour, and + the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the + faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity + to inform it that the _English Dictionary_ was written with + little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage + of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or + under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience + and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may repress + the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if our + language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an + attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the + lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised + in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive ages, + inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge, and + co-operating diligence of the _Italian_ academicians, did + not secure them from the censure of _Beni_; if the embodied + criticks of _France_, when fifty years had been spent upon + their work, were obliged to change its oeconomy, and give their + second edition another form, I may surely be contented without + the praise of perfection, which, if I could obtain, in this + gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted + my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk + into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I + therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to + fear or hope from censure or from praise. + +This extract is taken from the fourth edition, London, MDCCLXXIII, +the last to receive Johnson's corrections. If you possibly can get +the opportunity, turn these volumes over enough to find a few of the +whimsical definitions, such, for example, as that of lexicographer, +according to Johnson "a writer of dictionaries, a _harmless drudge_." +Other words worth looking up are _excise_, _oats_, and _networks_. + +=21= 6. =Junius and Skinner.= Johnson frankly admitted that for +etymologies he turned to the shelf which contained the etymological +dictionaries of these seventeenth-century students of the Teutonic +languages. This phase of dictionary making was not considered so deeply +then as it is now. + +=21= 13. =spunging-houses.= Johnson's _Dictionary_ says: +"Spunging-house. A house to which debtors are taken before commitment +to prison, where the bailiffs sponge upon them, or riot at their cost." + +=21= 26. =Jenyns.= This writer, who, according to Boswell, "could very +happily play with a light subject," ventured so far beyond his depth +that it was easy for Johnson to expose him. + +=22= 10. =Rasselas.= Had Johnson written nothing else, says Boswell, +_Rasselas_ "would have rendered his name immortal in the world of +literature.... It has been translated into most, if not all, of the +modern languages." + +=22= 12. =Miss Lydia Languish.= Of course plays are not necessarily +written to be read, but Sheridan's well-known comedy, _The Rivals_, is +decidedly readable. Every one should be familiar with Miss Languish and +Mrs. Malaprop. + +=23= 8. =Bruce.= The _Dictionary of National Biography_ says that +James Bruce--whose _Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile_, five +volumes, appeared in 1790--"will always remain the poet, and his work +the epic, of African travel." + +=23= 13. =Mrs. Lennox.= A woman whose literary efforts Johnson +encouraged so much as he did Mrs. Lennox's is certainly worth looking +up in the index to Boswell's _Johnson_.--=Mrs. Sheridan=, the +dramatist's mother, gave Johnson many an entertaining evening in her +home. She and her son entered heartily into the lively, stimulating +conversations he loved. + +=23= 25. =Hector ... Aristotle.= The sacking of Troy is generally +assigned to the twelfth century B.C. Aristotle lived eight centuries +later.--=Julio Romano.= An Italian painter of the fifteenth century. + +=24= 5. =the Lord Privy Seal.= Some documents require only the privy +seal; others must have the great seal too. For Johnson's admission that +the printer was wise in striking out the reference alluded to, see the +index to Boswell's _Johnson_, under _Gower_. + +=24= 14. =Oxford.= By recalling what Macaulay said in the early part of +the essay (=10= 26, 27) about Oxford, and by bearing in mind what House +[of Stuart? of Hanover?] George the Third belonged to, one sees point +to "was becoming loyal." + +=24= 14-18. Study these four short sentences in connection with the +preceding sentence beginning "George the Third." To what extent are +they a repetition? To what extent an explanation? + +=24= 22. =accepted.= When, in answer to Johnson's question to Lord +Bute, "Pray, my Lord, what am I expected to do for this pension?" he +received the ready reply, "It is not given you for anything you are to +do, but for what you have done," he hesitated no longer. + +Three hundred a year was a large sum in Johnson's eyes at that time. +Whether he wrote less than he would have written without it may be +questioned, says Mr. Hill, but he adds that probably "without the +pension he would not have lived to write the second greatest of his +works--the _Lives of the Poets_." + +=25= 19. =a ghost ... Cock Lane.= If you will read Boswell's account of +the affair, you will probably conclude that Johnson was not quite so +"weak" as Macaulay implies. + +=25= 26. =Churchill.= One of the reigning wits of the day, Boswell says. + +=26= 3. =The preface.= Other critics speak with more enthusiasm of the +good sense and the clear expression of the preface, and find that these +qualities are not altogether lacking in the notes. + +=26= 8. =Wilhelm Meister.= The hero of Goethe's novel of the same name. +You may have read this passage on _Hamlet_ in Rolfe's edition (p. 14), +quoted from Furness's _Hamlet_, Vol. II, pp. 272 ff. Sprague also +quotes it in his edition, p. 13. + +=26= 26. =Ben.= The eighteenth-century Johnson has been followed by +the nineteenth-century critics in putting a high estimate on the Jonson +who wrote _Every Man in His Humor_. We are told that Shakspere took +one of the parts in this play, acted in 1598. If you are not satisfied +with the account in _The Century Dictionary_, or with any encyclopædia +article, see _The English Poets_, edited by T. H. Ward, Vol. II (The +Macmillan Company). + +=26= 33-34. =Æschylus, Euripides, Sophocles.= Three great contemporary +Greek tragedians. + +=27= 3. =Fletcher.= Point out why an editor of Shakspere's plays should +be familiar with the work of this group of Elizabethan dramatists. + +=27= 11. =Royal Academy.= "His Majesty having the preceding year [1768] +instituted the Royal Academy of Arts in London, Johnson had won the +honour of being appointed Professor in Ancient Literature."--Boswell. +Goldsmith was Professor in Ancient History in the same institution, and +Boswell was Secretary for Foreign Correspondence. Look in _The Century +Dictionary_ under _academy_, the third meaning, and recall whatever you +may have heard or read about the French Academy. + +=27= 12. =the King.= "His Majesty expressed a desire to have the +literary biography of this country ably executed, and proposed to Dr. +Johnson to undertake it."--Boswell. Read Boswell's account of the +interview. In consulting the index look under _George III._ + +=27= 22. =colloquial talents.= Madame d'Arblay once said that Johnson +had about him more "fun, and comical humour, and love of nonsense" than +almost anybody else she ever saw. + +=28= 23. =Goldsmith.= Macaulay's article on Goldsmith in _The +Encyclopædia Britannica_ is short, and so thoroughly readable that +there is no excuse for not being familiar with it. Boswell is +continually giving interesting glimpses of Dr. Oliver Goldsmith, and +by taking advantage of the index in the _Life of Johnson_ one may in +half an hour learn a great deal about this remarkable man. According +to Boswell, "he had sagacity enough to cultivate assiduously the +acquaintance of Johnson, and his faculties were gradually enlarged by +the contemplation of such a model." + +=28= 24. =Reynolds.= We can learn from short articles about Sir +Joshua's career, but the index to Boswell's _Johnson_ will introduce +us to the good times the great portrait painter had with the great +conversationalist whom we are studying. Reynolds was the first proposer +of the Club, and "there seems to have been hardly a day," says Robina +Napier, "when these friends did not meet in the painting room or in +general society." Ruskin says, "Titian paints nobler pictures and +Vandyke had nobler subjects, but neither of them entered so subtly as +Sir Joshua did into the minor varieties of human heart and temper." +The business of his art "was not to criticise, but to observe," and +for this purpose the hours he spent at the Club might be as profitable +as those spent in his painting room. It will be interesting to make a +list of some of the most notable "subjects" Reynolds painted.--=Burke.= +Be sure to read Boswell's account of the famous Round Robin. It +will make you feel better acquainted with Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, +and Goldsmith. The student will find valuable material in Professor +Lamont's edition of Burke's _Speech on Conciliation with America_, +published by Ginn & Company. + +=28= 25. =Gibbon.= You noticed on the _Round Robin_ the autograph of +the author of _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_? + +=28= 26. =Jones.= Sir William Henry Rich Jones was "the first English +scholar to master Sanskrit, and to recognize its importance for +comparative philology," says _The Century Dictionary_. + +=29= 9. =Johnson's Club.= The Club still flourishes. Both Scott and +Macaulay belonged to it. + +=29= 14. =James Boswell.= "Out of the fifteen millions that then lived, +and had bed and board, in the British Islands, this man has provided us +a greater _pleasure_ than any other individual, at whose cost we now +enjoy ourselves; perhaps has done us a greater _service_ than can be +specially attributed to more than two or three: yet, ungrateful that +we are, no written or spoken eulogy of James Boswell anywhere exists; +his recompense in solid pudding (so far as copyright went) was not +excessive; and as for the empty praise, it has altogether been denied +him. Men are unwiser than children; they do not know the hand that +feeds." + +So Carlyle writes of the man; the book, he says, is "beyond any other +product of the eighteenth century"; it draws aside the curtains of the +Past and gives us a picture which changeful Time cannot harm or hide. +The picture charms generation after generation because it is true. "It +is not speaking with exaggeration, but with strict measured sobriety, +to say that this Book of Boswell's will give us more real insight into +the _History of England_ during those days than twenty other Books, +falsely entitled 'Histories,' which take to themselves that special +aim.... The thing I want to see is not Redbook Lists, and Court +Calendars, and Parliamentary Registers, but the LIFE OF MAN in England: +what men did, thought, suffered, enjoyed; the form, especially the +spirit, of their terrestrial existence, its outward environment, its +inward principle; _how_ and _what_ it was; whence it proceeded, whither +it was tending.... + +"Hence, indeed, comes it that History, which should be 'the essence of +innumerable Biographies,' will tell us, question it as we like, less +than one genuine Biography may do, pleasantly and of its own accord!" + +Mr. Leslie Stephen says that "Macaulay's graphic description of +his absurdities, and Carlyle's more penetrating appreciation of his +higher qualities, contain all that can be said"; but the more recent +testimony of Dr. George B. Hill, in _Dr. Johnson, His Friends and His +Critics_, should count for something. Dr. Hill points out that while +Macaulay grants Boswell immortality he refuses him greatness, and calls +attention to what he considers elements of greatness. In regard to the +accuracy of a biographer who would "run half over London, in order to +fix a date correctly," he says: "That love, I might almost say that +passion for accuracy, that distinguished Boswell in so high a degree +does not belong to a mind that is either mean or feeble. Mean minds are +indifferent to truth, and feeble minds can see no importance in a date." + +=29= 27. =Wilkes.= John Wilkes, a notorious politician, was imprisoned +for writing an article in which he attacked George the Third. The +liberty of the press was involved and Wilkes was released, much to +the delight of the people. For a brief summary of the Bill of Rights, +see Brewer's _Historic Note-book_ or _A Handbook of English Political +History_, by Acland and Ransome. + +=29= 29. =Whitfield.= Macaulay's short sentence implies, does it not, +that Whitfield (or Whitefield) was a noisy, open-air preacher among the +Calvinistic Methodists? In testing the accuracy of this inference in +_The Encyclopædia Britannica_ or in Franklin's _Autobiography_, note in +what countries Whitefield preached, and where he died. Boswell quotes +Johnson's opinion of Whitefield in two places. + +=29= 30. =In a happy hour.= May 16, 1763. By all means read Boswell's +account of the rough reception he received and the persistence +necessary to secure the fastening. + +=31= 14. =pity ... esteem.= The Thrales were not alone in overlooking +these oddities. "His tricks and contortions, a subject for pity not +ridicule," says Mr. Hoste, "were ignored by the celebrated wits and +beauties who visited him in his gloomy 'den,' and by the duchesses and +other distinguished ladies who gathered 'four and five deep' around him +at fashionable assemblies, hanging on his sentences, and contended for +the nearest places to his chair." + +=31= 15. =Southwark.= South of the commercial center of London and +across the Thames. + +=31= 16. =Streatham.= About five miles southwest of London City. +The Southwark apartment was in a commercial district; the Streatham +apartment in a thinly settled residential suburb. + +=31= 34. =Maccaroni.= See _The Century Dictionary_ or Brewer's +_Handbook of Phrase and Fable_. + +=32= 21. =Levett.= Of Levett, Goldsmith said to Boswell, "He is poor +and honest, which is recommendation enough to Johnson." + +=32= 30. =the Mitre Tavern.= "The Mitre Tavern still stands in Fleet +Street: but where now is its Scot-and-lot paying, beef-and-ale +loving, cock-hatted, potbellied Landlord; its rosy-faced, assiduous +Landlady, with all her shining brass-pans, waxed tables, well-filled +larder-shelves; her cooks, and bootjacks, and errand-boys, and +watery-mouthed hangers-on? Gone! Gone! The becking waiter, that with +wreathed smiles was wont to spread for Samuel and Bozzy their 'supper +of the gods,' has long since pocketed his last sixpence; and vanished, +six-pences and all, like a ghost at cockcrowing." Yet, Carlyle goes on +to say, thanks to this book of Boswell's, "they who are gone are still +here; though hidden they are revealed, though dead they yet speak." + +=33= 27. =Hebrides.= Locate these picturesque islands on the map. + +=34= 10. =Lord Mansfield.= William Murray, chief justice of the King's +Bench from 1756 to 1788, has been called "the founder of English +commercial law." + +=34= 23. =Macpherson.= In 1760 James Macpherson published what +purported to be fragments of Gaelic verse with translations. These +were so interesting that he was sent to the Highlands to hunt for +more, and within three years he published the _Poems of Ossian_, +consisting of two epics, "Fingal" and "Temora." Their genuineness has +been discussed ever since. Evidently Johnson settled the matter to his +own satisfaction and to Macaulay's, and you may be interested in what +Boswell has to say. At the same time it seems clear that Johnson went +too far in his charge of forgery. Macpherson probably did not find a +complete epic, yet he undoubtedly found some Gaelic poetry. + +=34= 27. =contemptuous terms.= Boswell gives the following letter: + + MR. JAMES MACPHERSON, + + I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence + offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do + for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I shall not be + deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of + a ruffian. + + What would you have me retract? I thought your book an + imposture; I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I + have given my reasons to the publick, which I here dare you to + refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are + not so formidable; and what I hear of your morals, inclines me + to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to what you shall + prove. You may print this if you will. + + SAM. JOHNSON. + +=35= 11-12. =The Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and Hendersons.= If +Johnson and Macaulay do not tell enough about these men, Boswell does. + +=35= 30. =Bentley.= Richard Bentley (1662-1742), a well-known English +classical scholar and critic. + +=36= 13. =Taxation no Tyranny.= The rest of the title is _An Answer to +the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress_. + +=37= 6. =Wilson.= Richard Wilson was one of the greatest English +landscape painters, says _The Dictionary of National Biography_. + +=37= 14. =Cowley.= The man who wrote + +God the first garden made, and the first city Cain. + +=37= 18. =Restoration.= The _International Dictionary_ offers a brief +explanation in case you are not absolutely certain of the exact meaning. + +=37= 23. =Walmesley.= See note to =5= 32.--=Button's.= Button's +coffeehouse flourished earlier in the century. Do you remember any +other reference to it? to Will's? to Child's?--=Cibber.= Colley Cibber, +actor and dramatist, altered and adapted some of Shakspere's plays. +Both Johnson and Boswell express their opinions of him frankly enough. +He was appointed poet laureate in 1730. + +=37= 25. =Orrery.= Orrery did more than enjoy this privilege,--he wrote +a book entitled _Remarks on the Life and Writings of Jonathan Swift_. +Boswell records Johnson's opinion of it. What other great literary men +enjoyed the society of Swift? _The Century Dictionary_ gives a column +to Swift, and Johnson has a sketch in his _Lives of the Poets_. + +=37= 26. =services of no very honourable kind.= By supplying Pope with +private intelligence for his _Dunciad_ he "gained the esteem of Pope +and the enmity of his victims." + +=38= 32. =Malone.= Edmund Malone was a friend of Johnson, Burke, and +Reynolds. He wrote a supplement to Johnson's edition of Shakspere, +published an edition of Reynolds's works, and after bringing out his +own edition of Shakspere, left material for another edition, which was +published by James Boswell the younger in 1821. Boswell's _Malone_, the +"third variorum" edition, is generally considered the best. To Boswell +the elder, an intimate friend, he was of much assistance in preparing +the _Life of Johnson_, and he edited with valuable notes the third, +fourth, fifth, and sixth reissues of the work. + +=40= 21-22. =In a solemn and tender prayer.= + + 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, O Lord, have mercy upon me. + + To thy fatherly protection, O Lord, I commend this family. + Bless, guide, and defend them, that they may so pass through + this world, as finally to enjoy in thy presence everlasting + happiness, for Jesus Christ's sake, Amen.--Boswell's _Johnson_. + +=41= 1. =Italian fiddler.= A violinist of much talent. Piozzi was +the music master from Brescia who, a little over three years after +Mr. Thrale's death, married the widow. After learning what you can +from Boswell, you will enjoy some such account as the _Encyclopædia +Britannica_ offers. While doing your reading it may be well to keep in +mind what two or three critics have said. Mr. Mowbray Morris writes: +"After all the abuse showered on the unfortunate woman it is pleasant +to know that the marriage proved a happy one in every respect. Piozzi, +who was really a well-mannered, amiable man, took every care of his +wife's fortune, and on their return to England her family and friends +were soon reconciled to him." Mr. Leslie Stephen says: "Her love of +Piozzi, which was both warm and permanent, is the most amiable feature +of her character." Mr. Herbert Paul, after praising Macaulay's _Life of +Johnson_, adds, "Yet, if I may say so, I can never forgive Macaulay for +his cruel and unaccountable injustice to Mrs. Thrale." + +=41= 3. =the Ephesian matron.= She cared so much for her husband that +she went into the vault to die with him, and there, in the midst of +her violent grief, fell in love with a soldier who was guarding some +dead bodies near by. For the story (told by a Latin writer, Petronius), +see Jeremy Taylor's _The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying_, Chapter V, +section 8.--=the two pictures.= In Act III. + +=42= 2. =Burke parted from him.= After twenty-seven years of +uninterrupted friendship with Johnson, says Robina Napier.--=Windham.= +The Right Hon. William Windham, a member of the Club, a friend of +Malone, Burke, Fox, and Pitt; in 1794 Secretary at War (Pitt's +ministry), in 1806 War and Colonial Secretary (Lord Grenville's +ministry); in the words of Macaulay, "the first gentleman of his age, +the ingenious, the chivalrous, the high-souled Windham." Johnson wrote +him appreciative letters in August and October, 1784. See Boswell. + +=42= 4. =Frances Burney.= In Macaulay's essay on Madame d'Arblay, he +says: "Her appearance is an important epoch in our literary history. +Evelina was the first tale written by a woman, and purporting to be a +picture of life and manners, that lived or deserved to live." Read this +account of the "timid and obscure girl" who suddenly "found herself on +the highest pinnacle of fame," eulogized by such men as Burke, Windham, +Gibbon, Reynolds, and Sheridan. + +=42= 6. =Langton.= See page 30. + +=42= 10-11. =his temper.= In connection with this closing sentence let +us remember a paragraph from Boswell (1776): + +"That he was occasionally remarkable for violence of temper may be +granted: but let us ascertain the degree, and not let it be supposed +that he was in a perpetual rage, and never without a club in his hand +to knock down every one who approached him. On the contrary, the truth +is, that by much the greatest part of his time he was civil, obliging, +nay, polite in the true sense of the word; so much so, that many +gentlemen who were long acquainted with him never received, or even +heard a strong expression from him." + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + + +[1] Trevelyan, _Life and Letters_, I, 41. + +[2] Trevelyan, I, 47. + +[3] The entire letter is interesting. See Trevelyan, I, 56. The letters +of this period are particularly attractive. + +[4] _Ibid._ I, 91. + +[5] Trevelyan, I, 102. The letters from college are well worth reading. + +[6] Trevelyan, I, 136. + +[7] _Ibid._, 179. + +[8] Trevelyan, I, 249-253. + +[9] Trevelyan, I, 368. + +[10] _Ibid._, II, 68. + +[11] Trevelyan, II, 89. + +[12] _Carlyle's Essay on Burns_, p. 5, Ginn's edition. + +[13] Trevelyan, II. 96. + +[14] For Trevelyan's evidence, see II, 191. + +[15] Trevelyan, II, 244. + +[16] _Ibid._, 321. + +[17] Trevelyan, II, 15. + +[18] _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1876. + +[19] It is proper to observe that this passage bears a very close +resemblance to a passage in the Rambler (No. 20). The resemblance may +possibly be the effect of unconscious plagiarism.--_Macaulay._ + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + +Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant +preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. + +Simple typographical errors were corrected. + +To preserve line numbers on pages 1-75, each line on those pages is +shown here as it appeared in the original book, with two exceptions: to +make the text searchable, words originally split across two lines have +been made whole by moving them to one or the other of those lines; and +a few words have been moved to adjacent lines so they would not extend +into the area reserved for line numbers. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson, by +Thomas Babington Macaulay + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42971 *** |