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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8918-8.txt b/8918-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b0671b --- /dev/null +++ b/8918-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,28202 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1, by Boswell +Edited by Birkbeck Hill + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 + +Author: Boswell + Edited by Birkbeck Hill + +Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8918] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on August 25, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHNSON, VOL. 1 *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David King and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +_BOSWELL'S_ + +_LIFE OF JOHNSON_ + + + +_INCLUDING BOSWELL'S JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES + +AND JOHNSON'S DIARY OF A JOURNEY INTO NORTH WALES_ + + +EDITED BY + +GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L. + +PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD + +IN SIX VOLUMES + +VOLUME I.--LIFE (1709-1765) + + +M DCCC LXXXVII + + +THE + +LIFE + +OF + +SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. + +COMPREHENDING + +AN ACCOUNT OF HIS STUDIES +AND NUMEROUS WORKS, +IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER; + +A SERIES OF HIS EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE +AND CONVERSATIONS WITH MANY EMINENT PERSONS; + +AND + +VARIOUS ORIGINAL PIECES OF HIS COMPOSITION, +NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED: + +THE WHOLE EXHIBITING A VIEW OF LITERATURE AND +LITERARY MEN IN GREAT-BRITAIN, FOR NEAR +HALF A CENTURY, DURING WHICH +HE FLOURISHED. + +_BY JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ_. + +--_Quò fit ut_ OMNIS +_Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella_ +VITA SENIS.-- + +HORAT. + +THE THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND AUGMENTED, +IN FOUR VOLUMES. + +LONDON: +PRINTED BY H. BALDWIN AND SON, +FOR CHARLES DILLY, IN THE POULTRY. + + * * * * * + +M DCC XCIX. + + +TO + +THE REVEREND BENJAMIN JOWETT, M.A., + +MASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE + +REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD + +HONORARY LL.D. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH + +HONORARY D.D. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LEYDEN + +WHO IS NOT ONLY + +'AN ACUTE AND KNOWING CRITIC' + +BUT ALSO + +'JOHNSONIANISSIMUS' + +IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT + +OF THE + +KINDLY INTEREST THAT HE HAS THROUGHOUT TAKEN + +IN THE PROGRESS OF THIS WORK + +This Edition + +OF + +BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON + +Is Dedicated + + +CONTENTS OF VOL. I. + + + PAGE + +DEDICATION TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 + +ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 + +ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 + +ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 + +CHRONOLOGICAL CATALOGUE OF THE PROSE WORKS OF +SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 + +LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON (SEPT. 18, 1709-OCTOBER 1765) . . . . 1-500 + +APPENDICES + + A. JOHNSON'S DEBATES IN PARLIAMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501 + + B. JOHNSON'S LETTERS TO HIS MOTHER AND MISS PORTER + IN 1759 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512 + + C. JOHNSON AT CAMBRIDGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517 + + D. JOHNSON'S LETTER TO DR. LELAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518 + + E. JOHNSON'S 'ENGAGING IN POLITICKS WITH H----N'. . . . . . 518 + + F. JOHNSON'S FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE THRALES + AND HIS SERIOUS ILLNESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520 + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, &c. + +1. SAMUEL JOHNSON, after the Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds in the + National Gallery +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ to VOL. I. + +2. FACSIMILE OF JOHNSON'S HANDWRITING IN HIS 20TH YEAR +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VOL. I, p. 60. + +3. FACSIMILE OF A LETTER OF JOHNSON relating to _Rasselas_ +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VOL. I, p. 340. + +4. SAMUEL JOHNSON, from the Portrait painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, + 1756 +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VOL. I, p. 392. + +5. SAMUEL JOHNSON, after the Bust by Nollekens +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ to VOL. II. + +6. FACSIMILE OF JOHNSON'S HANDWRITING IN HIS 54TH YEAR +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VOL. II, _to follow Frontispiece_. + +7. SAMUEL JOHNSON, after the Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1770 +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece to_ VOL. III. + +8. FACSIMILE OF THE ROUND ROBIN ADDRESSED TO DR. JOHNSON +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VOL. III, p. 82. + +9. OPIE'S PORTRAIT OF JOHNSON, from the Engraving in the Common + Room of University College +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VOL. III, _to face_ p. 245. + +10. FACSIMILE OF DR. JOHNSON'S HANDWRITING A MONTH BEFORE + HIS DEATH +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VOL. IV, _to face_ p. 377. + +11. JAMES BOSWELL OF AUCHINLECK, Esq., from the painting by Sir + Joshua Reynolds +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece to_ VOL. V. + +12. FACSIMILE OF BOSWELL'S HANDWRITING, 1792, from a Letter in the + Bodleian Library +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VOL. V, _to follow Frontispiece_. + +13. MAP OF JOHNSON AND BOSWELL'S TOUR THROUGH SCOTLAND AND + THE HEBRIDES +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VOL. V, _to face_ p. 5. + +14. CHART OF JOHNSON'S CONTEMPORARIES +. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece to VOL. VI. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Fielding, it is said, drank confusion to the man who invented the fifth +act of a play. He who has edited an extensive work, and has concluded +his labours by the preparation of a copious index, might well be +pardoned, if he omitted to include the inventor of the Preface among the +benefactors of mankind. The long and arduous task that years before he +had set himself to do is done, and the last thing that he desires is to +talk about it. Liberty is what he asks for, liberty to range for a time +wherever he pleases in the wide and fair fields of literature. Yet with +this longing for freedom comes a touch of regret and a doubt lest the +'fresh woods and pastures new' may never wear the friendly and familiar +face of the plot of ground within whose narrower confines he has so long +been labouring, and whose every corner he knows so well. May-be he finds +hope in the thought that should his new world seem strange to him and +uncomfortable, ere long he may be called back to his old task, and in +the preparation of a second edition find the quiet and the peace of mind +that are often found alone in 'old use and wont.' + +With me the preparation of these volumes has, indeed, been the work of +many years. Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ I read for the first time in my +boyhood, when I was too young for it to lay any hold on me. When I +entered Pembroke College, Oxford, though I loved to think that Johnson +had been there before me, yet I cannot call to mind that I ever opened +the pages of Boswell. By a happy chance I was turned to the study of the +literature of the eighteenth century. Every week we were required by the +rules of the College to turn into Latin, or what we called Latin, a +passage from _The Spectator_. Many a happy minute slipped by while, in +forgetfulness of my task, I read on and on in its enchanting pages. It +was always with a sigh that at last I tore myself away, and sat +resolutely down to write bad Latin instead of reading good English. From +Addison in the course of time I passed on to the other great writers of +his and the succeeding age, finding in their exquisitely clear style, +their admirable common sense and their freedom from all the tricks of +affectation, a delightful contrast to so many of the eminent authors of +our own time. Those troublesome doubts, doubts of all kinds, which since +the great upheaval of the French Revolution have harassed mankind, had +scarcely begun to ruffle the waters of their life. Even Johnson's +troubled mind enjoyed vast levels of repose. The unknown world alone was +wrapped in stormy gloom; of this world 'all the complaints which were +made were unjust[1].' Though I was now familiar with many of the great +writers, yet Boswell I had scarcely opened since my boyhood. A happy day +came just eighteen years ago when in an old book-shop, almost under the +shadow of a great cathedral, I bought a second-hand copy of a somewhat +early edition of the _Life_ in five well-bound volumes. Of all my books +none I cherish more than these. In looking at them I have known what it +is to feel Bishop Percy's 'uneasiness at the thoughts of leaving his +books in death[2].' They became my almost inseparable companions. Before +long I began to note the parallel passages and allusions not only in +their pages, but in the various authors whom I studied. Yet in these +early days I never dreamt of preparing a new edition. It fell to my lot +as time went on to criticise in some of our leading publications works +that bore both on Boswell and Johnson. Such was my love for the subject +that on one occasion, when I was called upon to write a review that +should fall two columns of a weekly newspaper, I read a new edition of +the _Life_ from beginning to end without, I believe, missing a single +line of the text or a single note. At length, 'towering in the +confidence'[3] of one who as yet has but set his foot on the threshold +of some stately mansion in which he hopes to find for himself a home, I +was rash enough more than twelve years ago to offer myself as editor of +a new edition of Boswell's _Life of Johnson_. Fortunately for me another +writer had been already engaged by the publisher to whom I applied, and +my offer was civilly declined. From that time on I never lost sight of +my purpose but when in the troubles of life I well-nigh lost sight of +every kind of hope. Everything in my reading that bore on my favourite +author was carefully noted, till at length I felt that the materials +which I had gathered from all sides were sufficient to shield me from a +charge of rashness if I now began to raise the building. Much of the +work of preparation had been done at a grievous disadvantage. My health +more than once seemed almost hopelessly broken down. Nevertheless even +then the time was not wholly lost. In the sleepless hours of many a +winter night I almost forgot my miseries in the delightful pages of +Horace Walpole's Letters, and with pencil in hand and some little hope +still in heart, managed to get a few notes taken. Three winters I had to +spend on the shores of the Mediterranean. During two of them my malady +and my distress allowed of no rival, and my work made scarcely any +advance. The third my strength was returning, and in the six months that +I spent three years ago in San Remo I wrote out very many of the notes +which I am now submitting to my readers. + +An interval of some years of comparative health that I enjoyed between +my two severest illnesses allowed me to try my strength as a critic and +an editor. In _Dr. Johnson: His Friends and his Critics_, which I +published in the year 1878, I reviewed the judgments passed on Johnson +and Boswell by Lord Macaulay and Mr. Carlyle, I described Oxford as it +was known to Johnson, and I threw light on more than one important +passage in the _Life_. The following year I edited Boswell's _Journal of +a Tour to Corsica_ and his curious correspondence with the Hon. Andrew +Erskine. The somewhat rare little volume in which are contained the +lively but impudent letters that passed between these two friends I had +found one happy day in an old book-stall underneath the town hall of +Keswick. I hoped that among the almost countless readers of Boswell +there would be many who would care to study in one of the earliest +attempts of his joyous youth the man whose ripened genius was to place +him at the very head of all the biographers of whom the world can boast. +My hopes were increased by the elegance and the accuracy of the +typography with which my publishers, Messrs. De La Rue & Co., adorned +this reprint. I was disappointed in my expectations. These curious +Letters met with a neglect which they did not deserve. Twice, moreover, +I was drawn away from the task that I had set before me by other works. +By the death of my uncle, Sir Rowland Hill, I was called upon to edit +his _History of the Penny Postage_, and to write his _Life_. Later on +General Gordon's correspondence during the first six years of his +government of the Soudan was entrusted to me to prepare for the press. +In my _Colonel Gordon in Central Africa_ I attempted to do justice to +the rare genius, to the wise and pure enthusiasm, and to the exalted +beneficence of that great man. The labour that I gave to these works +was, as regards my main purpose, by no means wholly thrown away. I was +trained by it in the duties of an editor, and by studying the character +of two such men, who, though wide as the poles asunder in many things, +were as devoted to truth and accuracy as they were patient in their +pursuit, I was strengthened in my hatred of carelessness and error. + +With all these interruptions the summer of 1885 was upon me before I was +ready for the compositors to make a beginning with my work. In revising +my proofs very rarely indeed have I contented myself in verifying my +quotations with comparing them merely with my own manuscript. In almost +all instances I have once more examined the originals. 'Diligence and +accuracy,' writes Gibbon, 'are the only merits which an historical +writer may ascribe to himself; if any merit indeed can be assumed from +the performance of an indispensable duty[4].' By diligence and accuracy +I have striven to win for myself a place in Johnson's _school_--'a +school distinguished,' as Sir Joshua Reynolds said, 'for a love of truth +and accuracy[5].' I have steadily set before myself Boswell's example +where he says:--'Let me only observe, as a specimen of my trouble, that +I have sometimes been obliged to run half over London, in order to fix a +date correctly; which, when I had accomplished, I well knew would obtain +me no praise, though a failure would have been to my discredit[6].' When +the variety and the number of my notes are considered, when it is known +that a great many of the authors I do not myself possess, but that they +could only be examined in the Bodleian or the British Museum, it will be +seen that the labour of revising the proofs was, indeed, unusually +severe. In the course of the eighteen months during which they have been +passing through the press, fresh reading has given fresh information, +and caused many an addition, and not a few corrections moreover to be +made, in passages which I had previously presumed to think already +complete. Had it been merely the biography of a great man of letters +that I was illustrating, such anxious care would scarcely have been +needful. But Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, as its author with just pride +boasts on its title-page, 'exhibits a view of literature and literary +men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which Johnson +flourished.' Wide, indeed, is the gulf by which this half-century is +separated from us. The reaction against the thought and style of the age +over which Pope ruled in its prime, and Johnson in its decline,--this +reaction, wise as it was in many ways and extravagant as it was perhaps +in more, is very far from having spent its force. Young men are still +far too often found in our Universities who think that one proof of +their originality is a contempt of authors whose writings they have +never read. Books which were in the hands of almost every reader of the +_Life_ when it first appeared are now read only by the curious. +Allusions and quotations which once fell upon a familiar and a friendly +ear now fall dead. Men whose names were known to every one, now often +have not even a line in a Dictionary of Biography. Over manners too a +change has come, and as Johnson justly observes, 'all works which +describe manners require notes in sixty or seventy years, or less[7].' +But it is not only Boswell's narrative that needs illustration. Johnson +in his talk ranges over a vast number of subjects. In his capacious +memory were stored up the fruits of an almost boundless curiosity, and a +wide and varied reading. I have sought to follow him wherever a remark +of his required illustration, and have read through many a book that I +might trace to its source a reference or an allusion. I have examined, +moreover, all the minor writings which are attributed to him by Boswell, +but which are not for the most part included in his collected works. In +some cases I have ventured to set my judgment against Boswell's, and +have refused to admit that Johnson was the author of the feeble pieces +which were fathered on him. Once or twice in the course of my reading I +have come upon essays which had escaped the notice of his biographer, +but which bear the marks of his workmanship. To these I have given a +reference. While the minute examination that I have so often had to make +of Boswell's narrative has done nothing but strengthen my trust in his +statements and my admiration of his laborious truthfulness, yet in one +respect I have not found him so accurate as I had expected. 'I have,' he +says, 'been extremely careful as to the exactness of my quotations[8].' +Though in preparing his manuscript he referred in each case 'to the +originals,' yet he did not, I conjecture, examine them once more in +revising his proof-sheets. At all events he has allowed errors to slip +in. These I have pointed out in my notes, for in every case where I +could I have, I believe, verified his quotations. + +I have not thought that it was my duty as an editor to attempt to refute +or even to criticise Johnson's arguments. The story is told that when +Peter the Great was on his travels and far from his country, some +members of the Russian Council of State in St. Petersburgh ventured to +withstand what was known to be his wish. His walking-stick was laid upon +the table, and silence at once fell upon all. In like manner, before +that editor who should trouble himself and his readers with attempting +to refute Johnson's arguments, paradoxical as they often were, should be +placed Reynolds's portrait of that 'labouring working mind[9].' It might +make him reflect that if the mighty reasoner could rise up and meet him +face to face, he would be sure, on which ever side the right might be, +even if at first his pistol missed fire to knock him down with the +butt-end of it[10]. I have attempted therefore not to criticise but to +illustrate Johnson's statements. I have compared them with the opinions +of the more eminent men among his contemporaries, and with his own as +they are contained in other parts of his _Life_, and in his writings. It +is in his written works that his real opinion can be most surely found. +'He owned he sometimes talked for victory; he was too conscientious to +make error permanent and pernicious by deliberately writing it[11].' My +numerous extracts from the eleven volumes of his collected works will, I +trust, not only give a truer insight into the nature of the man, but +also will show the greatness of the author to a generation of readers +who have wandered into widely different paths. + +In my attempts to trace the quotations of which both Johnson and Boswell +were somewhat lavish, I have not in every case been successful, though I +have received liberal assistance from more than one friend. In one case +my long search was rewarded by the discovery that Boswell was quoting +himself. That I have lighted upon the beautiful lines which Johnson +quoted when he saw the Highland girl singing at her wheel[12], and have +found out who was 'one Giffard,' or rather Gifford, 'a parson,' is to me +a source of just triumph. I have not known many happier hours than the +one in which in the Library of the British Museum my patient +investigation was rewarded and I perused _Contemplation_. + +Fifteen hitherto unpublished letters of Johnson[13]; his college +composition in Latin prose[14]; a long extract from his manuscript +diary[15]; a suppressed passage in his _Journey to the Western +Islands_[16]; Boswell's letters of acceptance of the office of Secretary +for Foreign Correspondence to the Royal Academy[17]; the proposal for +the publication of a _Geographical Dictionary_ issued by Johnson's +beloved friend, Dr. Bathurst[18]; and Mr. Recorder Longley's record of +his conversation with Johnson on Greek metres[19], will, I trust, throw +some lustre on this edition. + +In many notes I have been able to clear up statements in the text which +were not fully understood even by the author, or were left intentionally +dark by him, or have become obscure through lapse of time. I would +particularly refer to the light that I have thrown on Johnson's engaging +in politics with William Gerard Hamilton[20], and on Burke's 'talk of +retiring[21].' In many other notes I have established Boswell's accuracy +against attacks which had been made on it apparently with success. It +was with much pleasure that I discovered that the story told of +Johnson's listening to Dr. Sacheverel's sermon is not in any way +improbable[22], and that Johnson's 'censure' of Lord Kames was quite +just[23]. The ardent advocates of total abstinence will not, I fear, be +pleased at finding at the end of my long note on Johnson's wine-drinking +that I have been obliged to show that he thought that the gout from +which he suffered was due to his temperance. 'I hope you persevere in +drinking,' he wrote to his friend, Dr. Taylor. 'My opinion is that I +have drunk too little[24].' + +In the Appendices I have generally treated of subjects which demanded +more space than could be given them in the narrow limits of a foot-note. +In the twelve pages of the essay on Johnson's _Debates in +Parliament_[25] I have compressed the result of the reading of many +weeks. In examining the character of George Psalmanazar[26] I have +complied with the request of an unknown correspondent who was naturally +interested in the history of that strange man, 'after whom Johnson +sought the most[27].' In my essay on Johnson's Travels and Love of +Travelling[28] I have, in opposition to Lord Macaulay's wild and wanton +rhetoric, shown how ardent and how elevated was the curiosity with which +Johnson's mind was possessed. In another essay I have explained, I do +not say justified, his strong feelings towards the founders of the +United States[29]; and in a fifth I have examined the election of the +Lord Mayors of London, at a time when the City was torn by political +strife[30]. To the other Appendices it is not needful particularly to +refer. + +In my Index, which has cost me many months' heavy work, 'while I bore +burdens with dull patience and beat the track of the alphabet with +sluggish resolution[31],' I have, I hope, shown that I am not unmindful +of all that I owe to men of letters. To the dead we cannot pay the debt +of gratitude that is their due. Some relief is obtained from its +burthen, if we in our turn make the men of our own generation debtors to +us. The plan on which my Index is made will, I trust, be found +convenient. By the alphabetical arrangement in the separate entries of +each article the reader, I venture to think, will be greatly facilitated +in his researches. Certain subjects I have thought it best to form into +groups. Under America, France Ireland, London, Oxford, Paris, and +Scotland, are gathered together almost all the references to those +subjects. The provincial towns of France, however, by some mistake I did +not include in the general article. One important but intentional +omission I must justify. In the case of the quotations in which my notes +abound I have not thought it needful in the Index to refer to the book +unless the eminence of the author required a separate and a second +entry. My labour would have been increased beyond all endurance and my +Index have been swollen almost into a monstrosity had I always referred +to the book as well as to the matter which was contained in the passage +that I extracted. Though in such a variety of subjects there must be +many omissions, yet I shall be greatly disappointed if actual errors are +discovered. Every entry I have made myself, and every entry I have +verified in the proof-sheets, not by comparing it with my manuscript, +but by turning to the reference in the printed volumes. Some indulgence +nevertheless may well be claimed and granted. If Homer at times nods, an +index-maker may be pardoned, should he in the fourth or fifth month of +his task at the end of a day of eight hours' work grow drowsy. May I +fondly hope that to the maker of so large an Index will be extended the +gratitude which Lord Bolingbroke says was once shown to lexicographers? +'I approve,' writes his Lordship, 'the devotion of a studious man at +Christ Church, who was overheard in his oratory entering into a detail +with God, and acknowledging the divine goodness in furnishing the world +with makers of dictionaries[32].' + +In the list that I give in the beginning of the sixth volume of the +books which I quote, the reader will find stated in full the titles +which in the notes, through regard to space, I was forced to compress. + +The Concordance of Johnson's sayings which follows the Index[33] will be +found convenient by the literary man who desires to make use of his +strong and pointed utterances. Next to Shakespeare he is, I believe, +quoted and misquoted the most frequently of all our writers. 'It is not +every man that can _carry_ a _bon-mot_[34].' Bons-mots that are +miscarried of all kinds of good things suffer the most. In this +Concordance the general reader, moreover, may find much to delight him. +Johnson's trade was wit and wisdom[35], and some of his best wares are +here set out in a small space. It was, I must confess, with no little +pleasure that in revising my proof-sheets I found that the last line in +my Concordance and the last line in my six long volumes is Johnson's +quotation of Goldsmith's fine saying; 'I do not love a man who is +zealous for nothing.' + +In the 'forward' references in the notes to other passages in the book, +the reader may be surprised at finding that while often I only give the +date under which the reference will be found, frequently I am able to +quote the page and volume. The explanation is a simple one: two sets of +compositors were generally at work, and two volumes were passing through +the press simultaneously. + +In the selection of the text which I should adopt I hesitated for some +time. In ordinary cases the edition which received the author's final +revision is the one which all future editors should follow. The second +edition, which was the last that was brought out in Boswell's life-time, +could not, I became convinced, be conveniently reproduced. As it was +passing through the press he obtained many additional anecdotes and +letters. These he somewhat awkwardly inserted in an Introduction and an +Appendix. He was engaged on his third edition when he died. 'He had +pointed out where some of these materials should be inserted,' and 'in +the margin of the copy which he had in part revised he had written +notes[36].' His interrupted labours were completed by Edmond Malone, to +whom he had read aloud almost the whole of his original manuscript, and +who had helped him in the revision of the first half of the book when it +was in type[37]. 'These notes,' says Malone, 'are faithfully preserved.' +He adds that 'every new remark, not written by the author, for the sake +of distinction has been enclosed within crotchets[38].' In the third +edition therefore we have the work in the condition in which it would +have most approved itself to Boswell's own judgment. In one point only, +and that a trifling one, had Malone to exercise his judgment. But so +skilful an editor was very unlikely to go wrong in those few cases in +which he was called upon to insert in their proper places the additional +material which the author had already published in his second edition. +Malone did not, however, correct the proof-sheets. I thought it my duty, +therefore, in revising my work to have the text of Boswell's second +edition read aloud to me throughout. Some typographical errors might, I +feared, have crept in. In a few unimportant cases early in the book I +adopted the reading of the second edition, but as I read on I became +convinced that almost all the verbal alterations were Boswell's own. +Slight errors, often of the nature of Scotticisms, had been corrected, +and greater accuracy often given. Some of the corrections and additions +in the third edition that were undoubtedly from his hand were of +considerable importance. + +I have retained Boswell's spelling in accordance with the wish that he +expressed in the preface to his _Account of Corsica_. 'If this work,' he +writes, 'should at any future period be reprinted, I hope that care will +be taken of my orthography[39].' The punctuation too has been preserved. + +I should be wanting in justice were I not to acknowledge that I owe much +to the labours of Mr. Croker. No one can know better than I do his great +failings as an editor. His remarks and criticisms far too often deserve +the contempt that Macaulay so liberally poured on them. Without being +deeply versed in books, he was shallow in himself. Johnson's strong +character was never known to him. Its breadth and length, and depth and +height were far beyond his measure. With his writings even he shows few +signs of being familiar. Boswell's genius, a genius which even to Lord +Macaulay was foolishness, was altogether hidden from his dull eye. No +one surely but a 'blockhead,' a 'barren rascal[40],' could with scissors +and paste-pot have mangled the biography which of all others is the +delight and the boast of the English-speaking world. He is careless in +small matters, and his blunders are numerous. These I have only noticed +in the more important cases, remembering what Johnson somewhere points +out, that the triumphs of one critic over another only fatigue and +disgust the reader. Yet he has added considerably to our knowledge of +Johnson. He knew men who had intimately known both the hero and his +biographer, and he gathered much that but for his care would have been +lost for ever. He was diligent and successful in his search after +Johnson's letters, of so many of which Boswell with all his persevering +and pushing diligence had not been able to get a sight. The editor of +Mr. Croker's _Correspondence and Diaries_[41] goes, however, much too +far when, in writing of Macaulay's criticism, he says: 'The attack +defeated itself by its very violence, and therefore it did the book no +harm whatever. Between forty and fifty thousand copies have been sold, +although Macaulay boasted with great glee that he had smashed it.' The +book that Macaulay attacked was withdrawn. That monstrous medley reached +no second edition. In its new form all the worst excrescences had been +cleared away, and though what was left was not Boswell, still less was +it unchastened Croker. His repentance, however, was not thorough. He +never restored the text to its old state; wanton transpositions of +passages still remain, and numerous insertions break the narrative. It +was my good fortune to become a sound Boswellian before I even looked at +his edition. It was not indeed till I came to write out my notes for the +press that I examined his with any thoroughness. + +'Notes,' says Johnson, 'are often necessary, but they are necessary +evils[42].' To the young reader who for the first time turns over +Boswell's delightful pages I would venture to give the advice Johnson +gives about Shakespeare:-- + +'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[43].' + +So too let him who reads the _Life of Johnson_ for the first time read +it in one of the _Pre-Crokerian_ editions. They are numerous and good. +With his attention undiverted by notes he will rapidly pass through one +of the most charming narratives that the world has ever seen, and if his +taste is uncorrupted by modern extravagances, will recognise the genius +of an author who, in addition to other great qualities, has an admirable +eye for the just proportions of an extensive work, and who is the master +of a style that is as easy as it is inimitable. + +Johnson, I fondly believe, would have been pleased, perhaps would even +have been proud, could he have foreseen this edition. Few distinctions +he valued more highly than those which he received from his own great +University. The honorary degrees that it conferred on him, the gown that +it entitled him to wear, by him were highly esteemed. In the Clarendon +Press he took a great interest[44]. The efforts which that famous +establishment has made in the excellence of the typography, the quality +of the paper, and the admirably-executed illustrations and facsimiles to +do honour to his memory and to the genius of his biographer would have +highly delighted him. To his own college he was so deeply attached that +he would not have been displeased to learn that his editor had been +nursed in that once famous 'nest of singing birds.' Of Boswell's +pleasure I cannot doubt. How much he valued any tribute of respect from +Oxford is shown by the absurd importance that he gave to a sermon which +was preached before the University by an insignificant clergyman more +than a year and a half after Johnson's death[45]. When Edmund Burke +witnessed the long and solemn procession entering the Cathedral of St. +Paul's, as it followed Sir Joshua Reynolds to his grave, he wrote: +'Everything, I think, was just as our deceased friend would, if living, +have wished it to be; for he was, as you know, not altogether +indifferent to this kind of observances[46].' It would, indeed, be +presumptuous in me to flatter myself that in this edition everything is +as Johnson and Boswell would, if living, have wished it. Yet to this +kind of observances, the observances that can be shown by patient and +long labour, and by the famous press of a great University, neither man +was altogether indifferent. + +Should my work find favour with the world of readers, I hope again to +labour in the same fields. I had indeed at one time intended to enlarge +this edition by essays on Boswell, Johnson, Mrs. Thrale, and perhaps on +other subjects. Their composition would, however, have delayed +publication more than seemed advisable, and their length might have +rendered the volumes bulky beyond all reason. A more favourable +opportunity may come. I have in hand a _Selection of the Wit and Wisdom +of Dr. Johnson_. I purpose, moreover, to collect and edit all of his +letters that are not in the _Life_. Some hundreds of these were +published by Mrs. Piozzi; many more are contained in Mr. Croker's +edition; while others have already appeared in _Notes and Queries_[47]. +Not a few, doubtless, are still lurking in the desks of the collectors +of autographs. As a letter-writer Johnson stands very high. While the +correspondence of David Garrick has been given to the world in two large +volumes, it is not right that the letters of his far greater friend +should be left scattered and almost neglected. 'He that sees before him +to his third dinner,' says Johnson, 'has a long prospect[48].' My +prospect is still longer; for, if health be spared, and a fair degree of +public favour shown, I see before me to my third book. When I have +published my _Letters_, I hope to enter upon a still more arduous task +in editing the _Lives of the Poets_. + +In my work I have received much kind assistance, not only from friends, +but also from strangers to whom I had applied in cases where special +knowledge could alone throw light on some obscure point. My +acknowledgments I have in most instances made in my notes. In some +cases, either through want of opportunity or forgetfulness, this has not +been done. I gladly avail myself of the present opportunity to remedy +this deficiency. The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres I have to thank for +so liberally allowing the original of the famous Round Robin, which is +in his Lordship's possession, to be reproduced by a photographic process +for this edition. It is by the kindness of Mr. J.L.G. Mowat, M.A., +Fellow and Bursar of Pembroke College, Oxford, that I have been able to +make a careful examination of the Johnsonian manuscripts in which our +college is so rich. If the vigilance with which he keeps guard over +these treasures while they are being inspected is continued by his +successors in office, the college will never have to mourn over the loss +of a single leaf. To the Rev. W.D. Macray, M.A., of the manuscript +department of the Bodleian, to Mr. Falconer Madan, M.A., Sub-Librarian +of the same Library, and to Mr. George Parker, one of the Assistants, I +am indebted for the kindness with which they have helped me in my +inquiries. To Mr. W.H. Allnutt, another of the Assistants, I owe still +more. When I was abroad, I too frequently, I fear, troubled him with +questions which no one could have answered who was not well versed in +bibliographical lore. It was not often that his acuteness was baffled, +while his kindness was never exhausted. My old friend Mr. E.J. Payne, +M.A., Fellow of University College, Oxford, the learned editor of the +_Select Works of Burke_ published by the Clarendon Press, has allowed +me, whenever I pleased, to draw on his extensive knowledge of the +history and the literature of the eighteenth century. Mr. C.G. Crump, +B.A., of Balliol College, Oxford, has traced for me not a few of the +quotations which had baffled my search. To Mr. G.K. Fortescue, +Superintendent of the Reading Room of the British Museum, my most +grateful acknowledgments are due. His accurate and extensive knowledge +of books and his unfailing courtesy and kindness have lightened many a +day's heavy work in the spacious room over which he so worthily +presides. But most of all am I indebted to Mr. C.E. Doble, M.A., of the +Clarendon Press. He has read all my proof-sheets, and by his almost +unrivalled knowledge of the men of letters of the close of the +seventeenth and of the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, he has +saved my notes from some blunders and has enriched them with much +valuable information. In my absence abroad he has in more instances than +I care to think of consulted for me the Bodleian Library. It is some +relief to my conscience to know that the task was rendered lighter to +him by his intimate familiarity with its treasures, and by the deep love +for literature with which he is inspired. + +There are other thanks due which I cannot here fittingly express. 'An +author partakes of the common condition of humanity; he is born and +married like another man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and +disappointments, griefs and joys like a courtier or a statesman[49].' In +the hopes and fears, in the expectations and disappointments, in the +griefs and joys--nay, in the very labours of his literary life, if his +hearth is not a solitary one, he has those who largely share. + +I have now come to the end of my long labours. 'There are few things not +purely evil,' wrote Johnson, 'of which we can say without some emotion +of uneasiness, _this is the last_[50].' From this emotion I cannot feign +that I am free. My book has been my companion in many a sad and many a +happy hour. I take leave of it with a pang of regret, but I am cheered +by the hope that it may take its place, if a lowly one, among the works +of men who have laboured patiently but not unsuccessfully in the great +and shining fields of English literature. + +G. B. H. + + +CLARENS, SWITZERLAND: +_March_ 16, 1887. + + + +ERRATA. + +Vol. I, page 140, _n_. 5, l. 2, _read 'of.'_ + " " 176, _n_. 2, l. 22, _for_ 1774 _read_ 1747. + " " 262, _n_. 3 of p. 261, l. 3, _for_ guineas _read_ pounds. + " " 480, l. 20, _for_ language, _read_ language.' + +Vol. II, page 34, _n_. 1, l. 40, _for_ proper. _read_ proper.' + " " 445, l. 8, _for_ Masters _read_ Master + +Vol. III, page 18, l. 13, _read_ accessary. + " " 81, _n_. 1, l. 2, _for_ 1784, _read_ 1784. + " " 312, _n_. 1, l. 1, _for_ Mrs. Burney _read_ Miss Burney + +Vol. IV, page 323, _n_. 1, l. 21, _for_ Wharton _read_ Warton + " " 379, l. 19, _read_ after + +Vol. V, page 49, _n_. 4, l. 2, _for 'Boswell' read 'Johnson.'_ +Vol. VI. " 74, col. 2, _insert_ Eccles, Rev. W., i. 360. + + + + + +DEDICATION. + + +_TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS_. + +MY DEAR SIR, + +Every liberal motive that can actuate an Authour in the dedication of +his labours, concurs in directing me to you, as the person to whom the +following Work should be inscribed. + +If there be a pleasure in celebrating the distinguished merit of a +contemporary, mixed with a certain degree of vanity not altogether +inexcusable, in appearing fully sensible of it, where can I find one, in +complimenting whom I can with more general approbation gratify those +feelings? Your excellence not only in the Art over which you have long +presided with unrivalled fame, but also in Philosophy and elegant +Literature, is well known to the present, and will continue to be the +admiration of future ages. Your equal and placid temper[51], your variety +of conversation, your true politeness, by which you are so amiable in +private society, and that enlarged hospitality which has long made your +house a common centre of union for the great, the accomplished, the +learned, and the ingenious; all these qualities I can, in perfect +confidence of not being accused of flattery, ascribe to you. + +If a man may indulge an honest pride, in having it known to the world, +that he has been thought worthy of particular attention by a person of +the first eminence in the age in which he lived, whose company has been +universally courted, I am justified in availing myself of the usual +privilege of a Dedication, when I mention that there has been a long and +uninterrupted friendship between us. + +[Page 2: Dedication.] + +If gratitude should be acknowledged for favours received, I have this +opportunity, my dear Sir, most sincerely to thank you for the many happy +hours which I owe to your kindness,--for the cordiality with which you +have at all times been pleased to welcome me,--for the number of +valuable acquaintances to whom you have introduced me,--for the _noctes +coenaeque Deûm_[52], which I have enjoyed under your roof[53]. + +If a work should be inscribed to one who is master of the subject of it, +and whose approbation, therefore, must ensure it credit and success, the +_Life of Dr. Johnson_ is, with the greatest propriety, dedicated to Sir +Joshua Reynolds, who was the intimate and beloved friend of that great +man; the friend, whom he declared to be 'the most invulnerable man he +knew; whom, if he should quarrel with him, he should find the most +difficulty how to abuse[54].' You, my dear Sir, studied him, and knew him +well: you venerated and admired him. Yet, luminous as he was upon the +whole, you perceived all the shades which mingled in the grand +composition; all the little peculiarities and slight blemishes which +marked the literary Colossus. Your very warm commendation of the +specimen which I gave in my _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, of my +being able to preserve his conversation in an authentick and lively +manner, which opinion the Publick has confirmed, was the best +encouragement for me to persevere in my purpose of producing the whole +of my stores[55]. + +In one respect, this Work will, in some passages, be different from the +former. In my _Tour_, I was almost unboundedly open in my +communications, and from my eagerness to display the wonderful fertility +and readiness of Johnson's wit, freely shewed to the world its +dexterity, even when I was myself the object of it. I trusted that I +should be liberally understood, as knowing very well what I was about, +and by no means as simply unconscious of the pointed effects of the +satire. I own, indeed, that I was arrogant enough to suppose that the +tenour of the rest of the book would sufficiently guard me against such +a strange imputation. But it seems I judged too well of the world; for, +though I could scarcely believe it, I have been undoubtedly informed, +that many persons, especially in distant quarters, not penetrating +enough into Johnson's character, so as to understand his mode of +treating his friends, have arraigned my judgement, instead of seeing +that I was sensible of all that they could observe. + +It is related of the great Dr. Clarke[56], that when in one of his +leisure hours he was unbending himself with a few friends in the most +playful and frolicksome manner, he observed Beau Nash approaching; upon +which he suddenly stopped:--'My boys, (said he,) let us be grave: here +comes a fool.' The world, my friend, I have found to be a great fool, as +to that particular, on which it has become necessary to speak very +plainly. I have, therefore, in this Work been more reserved[57]; and +though I tell nothing but the truth, I have still kept in my mind that +the whole truth is not always to be exposed. This, however, I have +managed so as to occasion no diminution of the pleasure which my book +should afford; though malignity may sometimes be disappointed of its +gratifications. + +[Page 4: Dedication.] + +I am, + +My dear Sir, + +Your much obliged friend, + +And faithful humble servant, + +JAMES BOSWELL. + +London, + +April 20, 1791. + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT + +TO THE + +FIRST EDITION. + +I at last deliver to the world a Work which I have long promised, and of +which, I am afraid, too high expectations have been raised[58]. The delay +of its publication must be imputed, in a considerable degree, to the +extraordinary zeal which has been shewn by distinguished persons in all +quarters to supply me with additional information concerning its +illustrious subject; resembling in this the grateful tribes of ancient +nations, of which every individual was eager to throw a stone upon the +grave of a departed Hero, and thus to share in the pious office of +erecting an honourable monument to his memory[59]. + +[Page 6: Advertisement to the First Edition.] + +The labour and anxious attention with which I have collected and +arranged the materials of which these volumes are composed, will hardly +be conceived by those who read them with careless facility[60]. The +stretch of mind and prompt assiduity by which so many conversations were +preserved[61], I myself, at some distance of time, contemplate with +wonder; and I must be allowed to suggest, that the nature of the work, +in other respects, as it consists of innumerable detached particulars, +all which, even the most minute, I have spared no pains to ascertain +with a scrupulous authenticity, has occasioned a degree of trouble far +beyond that of any other species of composition. Were I to detail the +books which I have consulted, and the inquiries which I have found it +necessary to make by various channels, I should probably be thought +ridiculously ostentatious. Let me only observe, as a specimen of my +trouble, that I have sometimes been obliged to run half over London, in +order to fix a date correctly; which, when I had accomplished, I well +knew would obtain me no praise, though a failure would have been to my +discredit. And after all, perhaps, hard as it may be, I shall not be +surprized if omissions or mistakes be pointed out with invidious +severity. I have also been extremely careful as to the exactness of my +quotations; holding that there is a respect due to the publick which +should oblige every Authour to attend to this, and never to presume to +introduce them with,--'_I think I have read_;'--or,--'_If I remember +right_;'--when the originals may be examined[62]. + +I beg leave to express my warmest thanks to those who have been pleased +to favour me with communications and advice in the conduct of my Work. +But I cannot sufficiently acknowledge my obligations to my friend Mr. +_Malone_, who was so good as to allow me to read to him almost the whole +of my manuscript, and make such remarks as were greatly for the +advantage of the Work[63]; though it is but fair to him to mention, that +upon many occasions I differed from him, and followed my own judgement. + +I regret exceedingly that I was deprived of the benefit of his revision, +when not more than one half of the book had passed through the press; +but after having completed his very laborious and admirable edition of +_Shakspeare_, for which he generously would accept of no other reward +but that fame which he has so deservedly obtained, he fulfilled his +promise of a long-wished-for visit to his relations in Ireland; from +whence his safe return _finibus Atticis_ is desired by his friends here, +with all the classical ardour of _Sic te Diva potens Cypri_[64]; for +there is no man in whom more elegant and worthy qualities are united; +and whose society, therefore, is more valued by those who know him. + +It is painful to me to think, that while I was carrying on this Work, +several of those to whom it would have been most interesting have died. +Such melancholy disappointments we know to be incident to humanity; but +we do not feel them the less. Let me particularly lament the Reverend +_Thomas Warton_, and the Reverend Dr. _Adams_. Mr. _Warton_, amidst his +variety of genius and learning, was an excellent Biographer. His +contributions to my Collection are highly estimable; and as he had a +true relish of my _Tour to the Hebrides_, I trust I should now have been +gratified with a larger share of his kind approbation. Dr. _Adams_, +eminent as the Head of a College, as a writer[65], and as a most amiable +man, had known _Johnson_ from his early years, and was his friend +through life. What reason I had to hope for the countenance of that +venerable Gentleman to this Work, will appear from what he wrote to me +upon a former occasion from Oxford, November 17, 1785:--'Dear Sir, I +hazard this letter, not knowing where it will find you, to thank you for +your very agreeable _Tour_, which I found here on my return from the +country, and in which you have depicted our friend so perfectly to my +fancy, in every attitude, every scene and situation, that I have thought +myself in the company, and of the party almost throughout. It has given +very general satisfaction; and those who have found most fault with a +passage here and there, have agreed that they could not help going +through, and being entertained with the whole. I wish, indeed, some few +gross expressions had been softened, and a few of our hero's foibles had +been a little more shaded; but it is useful to see the weaknesses +incident to great minds; and you have given us Dr. Johnson's authority +that in history all ought to be told[66].' + +Such a sanction to my faculty of giving a just representation of Dr. +_Johnson_ I could not conceal. Nor will I suppress my satisfaction in +the consciousness, that by recording so considerable a portion of the +wisdom and wit of '_the brightest ornament of the eighteenth +century_[67].' I have largely provided for the instruction and +entertainment of mankind. + +London, April 20, 1791[68]. + + + + +ADVERTISMENT + +TO THE + +SECOND EDITION. + + +That I was anxious for the success of a Work which had employed much of +my time and labour, I do not wish to conceal: but whatever doubts I at +any time entertained, have been entirely removed by the very favourable +reception with which it has been honoured[69]. That reception has excited +my best exertions to render my Book more perfect; and in this endeavour +I have had the assistance not only of some of my particular friends, but +of many other learned and ingenious men, by which I have been enabled to +rectify some mistakes, and to enrich the Work with many valuable +additions. These I have ordered to be printed separately in quarto, for +the accommodation of the purchasers of the first edition[70]. May I be +permitted to say that the typography of both editions does honour to the +press of Mr. _Henry Baldwin_, now Master of the Worshipful Company of +Stationers, whom I have long known as a worthy man and an obliging +friend. + +In the strangely mixed scenes of human existence, our feelings are often +at once pleasing and painful. Of this truth, the progress of the present +Work furnishes a striking instance. It was highly gratifying to me that +my friend, Sir _Joshua Reynolds_, to whom it is inscribed, lived to +peruse it, and to give the strongest testimony to its fidelity; but +before a second edition, which he contributed to improve, could be +finished, the world has been deprived of that most valuable man[71]; a +loss of which the regret will be deep, and lasting, and extensive, +proportionate to the felicity which he diffused through a wide circle of +admirers and friends[72]. + +[Page 11: Advertisement to the Second Edition.] + +In reflecting that the illustrious subject of this Work, by being more +extensively and intimately known, however elevated before, has risen in +the veneration and love of mankind, I feel a satisfaction beyond what +fame can afford. We cannot, indeed, too much or too often admire his +wonderful powers of mind, when we consider that the principal store of +wit and wisdom which this Work contains, was not a particular selection +from his general conversation, but was merely his occasional talk at +such times as I had the good fortune to be in his company[73]; and, +without doubt, if his discourse at other periods had been collected with +the same attention, the whole tenor of what he uttered would have been +found equally excellent. + +His strong, clear, and animated enforcement of religion, morality, +loyalty, and subordination, while it delights and improves the wise and +the good, will, I trust, prove an effectual antidote to that detestable +sophistry which has been lately imported from France, under the false +name of _Philosophy_, and with a malignant industry has been employed +against the peace, good order, and happiness of society, in our free and +prosperous country; but thanks be to _GOD_, without producing the +pernicious effects which were hoped for by its propagators. + +It seems to me, in my moments of self-complacency, that this extensive +biographical work, however inferior in its nature, may in one respect be +assimilated to the _ODYSSEY_. Amidst a thousand entertaining and +instructive episodes the _HERO_ is never long out of sight; for they are +all in some degree connected with him; and _HE_, in the whole course of +the History, is exhibited by the Authour for the best advantage of his +readers. + +'--Quid virtus et quid sapientia possit, +Utile proposuit nobis exemplar Ulyssen[74].' + +Should there be any cold-blooded and morose mortals who really dislike +this Book, I will give them a story to apply. When the great _Duke of +Marlborough_, accompanied by _Lord Cadogan_, was one day reconnoitering +the army in Flanders, a heavy rain came on, and they both called for +their cloaks. _Lord Cadogan's_ servant, a good humoured alert lad, +brought his Lordship's in a minute. The Dukes servant, a lazy sulky dog, +was so sluggish, that his Grace being wet to the skin, reproved him, and +had for answer with a grunt, 'I came as fast as I could,' upon which the +Duke calmly said, '_Cadogan_, I would not for a thousand pounds have +that fellow's temper!' + +There are some men, I believe, who have, or think they have, a very +small share of vanity. Such may speak of their literary fame in a +decorous style of diffidence. But I confess, that I am so formed by +nature and by habit, that to restrain the effusion of delight, on having +obtained such fame, to me would be truly painful. Why then should I +suppress it? Why 'out of the abundance of the heart' should I not +speak[75]? Let me then mention with a warm, but no insolent exultation, +that I have been regaled with spontaneous praise of my work by many and +various persons eminent for their rank, learning, talents and +accomplishments; much of which praise I have under their hands to be +reposited in my archives at _Auchinleck_[76]. An honourable and reverend +friend speaking of the favourable reception of my volumes, even in the +circles of fashion and elegance, said to me, 'you have made them all +talk Johnson.'--Yes, I may add, I have _Johnsonised_ the land; and I +trust they will not only _talk_, but _think_, Johnson. + +To enumerate those to whom I have been thus indebted, would be tediously +ostentatious. I cannot however but name one whose praise is truly +valuable, not only on account of his knowledge and abilities, but on +account of the magnificent, yet dangerous embassy, in which he is now +employed[77], which makes every thing that relates to him peculiarly +interesting. Lord MACARTNEY favoured me with his own copy of my book, +with a number of notes, of which I have availed myself. On the first +leaf I found in his Lordship's hand-writing, an inscription of such +high commendation, that even I, vain as I am, cannot prevail on myself +to publish it. + +July 1, 1793[78]. + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT + +TO THE + +THIRD EDITION. + + +Several valuable letters, and other curious matter, having been +communicated to the Author too late to be arranged in that chronological +order which he had endeavoured uniformly to observe in his work, he was +obliged to introduce them in his Second Edition, by way of _ADDENDA_, as +commodiously as he could. In the present edition these have been +distributed in their proper places. In revising his volumes for a new +edition, he had pointed out where some of these materials should be +inserted; but unfortunately in the midst of his labours, he was seized +with a fever, of which, to the great regret of all his friends, he died +on the 19th of May, 1795[79]. All the Notes that he had written in the +margin of the copy which he had in part revised, are here faithfully +preserved; and a few new Notes have been added, principally by some of +those friends to whom the Author in the former editions acknowledged his +obligations. Those subscribed with the letter _B_ were communicated by +Dr. _Burney_: those to which the letters _J B_ are annexed, by the Rev. +_J. Blakeway_, of Shrewsbury, to whom Mr. _Boswell_ acknowledged himself +indebted for some judicious remarks on the first edition of his work: +and the letters _J B-O_. are annexed to some remarks furnished by the +Author's second son, a Student of Brazen-Nose College in Oxford. Some +valuable observations were communicated by _James Bindley_, Esq., First +Commissioner in the Stamp-Office, which have been acknowledged in their +proper places. For all those without any signature, Mr. _Malone_ is +answerable.--Every new remark, not written by the Author, for the sake +of distinction has been enclosed within crotchets: in one instance, +however, the printer by mistake has affixed this mark to a note relative +to the Rev. _Thomas Fysche Palmer_, which was written by Mr. Boswell. +and therefore ought not to have been thus distinguished. + +[Page 15: Advertisement to the Third Edition.] + +I have only to add, that the proof-sheets of the present edition not +having passed through my hands, I am not answerable for any +typographical errours that may be found in it. Having, however, been +printed at the very accurate press of Mr. _Baldwin_, I make no doubt it +will be found not less perfect than the former edition; the greatest +care having been taken, by correctness and elegance to do justice to one +of the most instructive and entertaining works in the English language. + +_EDMOND MALONE_[80]. + +April 8, 1799. + + + + +A + +CHRONOLOGICAL CATALOGUE + +OF THE + +_PROSE WORKS[81] OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D_. + + +[N.B. To those which he himself acknowledged is added _acknowl_. To +those which may be fully believed to be his from internal evidence, is +added _intern. evid_.] + +1735. Abridgement and translation of Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia, +_acknowl_. + +1738. Part of a translation of Father Paul Sarpi's History of the +Council of Trent. _acknowl_. + +[N.B. As this work after some sheets were printed, suddenly stopped, I +know not whether any part of it is now to be found.] + +_For the Gentleman's Magazine_. + +Preface. _intern. evid_. + +Life of Father Paul. _acknowl_. + +1739. A complete vindication of the Licenser of the Stage from the +malicious and scandalous aspersions of Mr. Brooke, authour of Gustavus +Vasa. _acknowl_. + +_Marmor Norfolciense_: or, an Essay on an ancient prophetical +inscription in monkish rhyme, lately discovered near Lynne in Norfolk; +by PROBUS BRITANNICUS. _acknowl_. + +[Page 17: A Chronological Catalogue of Prose Works] + +_For the Gentleman's Magazine_. + +Life of Boerhaave. _acknowl_. + +Address to the Reader. _intern. evid_. + +Appeal to the Publick in behalf of the Editor. _intern. evid_. + +Considerations on the case of Dr. Trapp's Sermons; a plausible attempt +to prove that an authour's work may be abridged without injuring his +property. _acknowl_. + +1740. _For the Gentleman's Magazine_. + +Preface. _intern. evid_. + +Life of Admiral Drake. _acknowl_. + +Life of Admiral Blake. _acknowl_. + +Life of Philip Barretier. _acknowl_. + +Essay on Epitaphs. _acknowl_. + +1741. _For the Gentleman's Magazine_. + +Preface. _intern. evid_. + +A free translation of the Jests of Hierocles, with an introduction. +_intern. evid_. + +Debate on the _Humble Petition and Advice_ of the Rump Parliament to +Cromwell in 1657, to assume the Title of King; abridged, methodized and +digested. _intern. evid_. + +Translation of Abbé Guyon's Dissertation on the Amazons. _intern. evid_. + +Translation of Fontenelle's Panegyrick on Dr. Morin. _intern. evid_. + +1742. _For the Gentleman's Magazine_. + +Preface. _intern. evid_. + +Essay on the Account of the Conduct of the Duchess of Marlborough. +_acknowl_. + +An Account of the Life of Peter Burman. _acknowl_. + +The Life of Sydenham, afterwards prefixed to Dr. Swan's Edition of his +Works. _acknowl_. + +Proposals for printing Bibliotheca Harleiana, or a Catalogue of the +Library of the Earl of Oxford, afterwards prefixed to the first Volume +of that Catalogue, in which the Latin Accounts of the Books were written +by him. _acknowl_. + +Abridgement intitled, Foreign History. _intern. evid_. + +Essay on the Description of China, from the French of Du Halde. _intern. +evid_. + +1743. Dedication to Dr. Mead of Dr. James's Medicinal Dictionary. +_intern. evid_. + +_For the Gentleman's Magazine_. + +Preface, _intern. evid_. + +Parliamentary Debates under the Name of Debates in the Senate of +Lilliput, from Nov. 19, 1740, to Feb. 23, 1742-3, inclusive. _acknowl_. + +Considerations on the Dispute between Crousaz and Warburton on Pope's +Essay on Man. _intern. evid_. + +A Letter announcing that the Life of Mr. Savage was speedily to be +published by a person who was favoured with his Confidence. _intern. +evid_. + +Advertisement for Osborne concerning the Harleian Catalogue. _intern. +evid_. + +1744. Life of Richard Savage. _acknowl_. + +Preface to the Harleian Miscellany. _acknowl_. + +_For the Gentleman's Magazine_. + +Preface. _intern. evid_. + +1745. Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth, with remarks +on Sir T.H.'s (Sir Thomas Hanmer's) Edition of Shakspeare, and proposals +for a new Edition of that Poet. _acknowl_. + +1747. Plan for a Dictionary of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, addressed to Philip +Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield. _acknowl_. + +_For the Gentleman's Magazine_. + +1748. Life of Roscommon. _acknowl_. + +Foreign History, November. _intern. evid_. + +_For Dodsley's_ PRECEPTOR. + +Preface. _acknowl_. + +Vision of Theodore the Hermit. _acknowl_. + +1750. The RAMBLER, the first Paper of which was published 20th of March +this year, and the last 17th of March 1752, the day on which Mrs. +Johnson died. _acknowl_. + +Letter in the General Advertiser to excite the attention of the Publick +to the Performance of Comus, which was next day to be acted at +Drury-Lane Playhouse for the Benefit of Milton's Grandaughter. +_acknowl_. + +Preface and Postscript to Lauder's Pamphlet intitled, 'An Essay on +Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns in his Paradise Lost.' +_acknowl_. + +1751. Life of Cheynel in the Miscellany called 'The Student.' _acknowl_. + +Letter for Lauder, addressed to the Reverend Dr. John Douglas, +acknowledging his Fraud concerning Milton in Terms of suitable +Contrition. _acknowl_. + +Dedication to the Earl of Middlesex of Mrs. Charlotte Lennox's 'Female +Quixotte.' _intern. evid_.[82] + +1753. Dedication to John Earl of Orrery, of Shakspeare Illustrated, by +Mrs. Charlotte Lennox. _acknowl_. + +During this and the following year he wrote and gave to his much loved +friend Dr. Bathurst the Papers in the Adventurer, signed T. _acknowl_. + +1754. Life of Edw. Cave in the Gentleman's Magazine. _acknowl_. + +1755. A DICTIONARY, with a Grammar and History, of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE. +_acknowl_. + +An Account of an Attempt to ascertain the Longitude at Sea, by an exact +Theory of the Variations of the Magnetical Needle, with a Table of the +Variations at the most remarkable Cities in Europe from the year 1660 to +1860. _acknowl_. This he wrote for Mr. Zachariah Williams, an ingenious +ancient Welch Gentleman, father of Mrs. Anna Williams whom he for many +years kindly lodged in his House. It was published with a Translation +into Italian by Signor Baretti. In a Copy of it which he presented to +the Bodleian Library at Oxford, is pasted a Character of the late Mr. +Zachariah Williams, plainly written by Johnson. _intern. evid_. + +1756. An Abridgement of his Dictionary. _acknowl_. + +Several Essays in the Universal Visitor, which there is some difficulty +in ascertaining. All that are marked with two Asterisks have been +ascribed to him, although I am confident from internal Evidence, that we +should except from these 'The Life of Chaucer,' 'Reflections on the +State of Portugal,' and 'An Essay on Architecture:' And from the same +Evidence I am confident that he wrote 'Further Thoughts on Agriculture,' +and 'A Dissertation on the State of Literature and Authours.' The +Dissertation on the Epitaphs written by Pope he afterwards acknowledged, +and added to his 'Idler.' + +Life of Sir Thomas Browne prefixed to a new Edition of his Christian +Morals. _acknowl_. + +_In the Literary Magazine; or, Universal Review_, which began in January +1756. + +His _Original Essays_ are + +Preliminary Address, _intern. evid_.. + +An introduction to the Political State of Great Britain, _intern. +evid_.. + +Remarks on the Militia Bill, _intern. evid_.. + +Observations on his Britannick Majesty's Treaties with the Empress of +Russia and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel. _intern. evid_.. + +Observations on the Present State of Affairs. _intern. evid_.. + +Memoirs of Frederick III. King of Prussia. _intern. evid_.. + +In the same Magazine his Reviews_ are of the following Books: + +'Birch's History of the Royal Society.'--'Browne's Christian +Morals.'--'Warton's Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, Vol. +I.'--'Hampton's Translation of Polybius.'--'Sir Isaac Newton's Arguments +in Proof of a Deity.'--'Borlase's History of the Isles of +Scilly.'--'Home's Experiments on Bleaching.'--'Browne's History of +Jamaica.'--'Hales on Distilling Sea Waters, Ventilators in Ships, and +curing an ill Taste in Milk.'--'Lucas's Essay on Waters.'--'Keith's +Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops.'--'Philosophical Transactions, Vol. +XLIX.'--'Miscellanies by Elizabeth Harrison.'--'Evans's Map and Account +of the Middle Colonies in America.'--'The Cadet, a Military +Treatise.'--'The Conduct of the Ministry relating to the present War +impartially examined.' _intern. evid_.. + +'Mrs. Lennox's Translation of Sully's Memoirs.'--'Letter on the Case of +Admiral Byng.'--'Appeal to the People concerning Admiral +Byng.'--'Hanway's Eight Days' Journey, and Essay on Tea.'--'Some further +Particulars in Relation to the Case of Admiral Byng, by a Gentleman of +Oxford.' _acknowl_. + +Mr. Jonas Hanway having written an angry Answer to the Review of his +Essay on Tea, Johnson in the same Collection made a Reply to it. +_acknowl_. This is the only Instance, it is believed, when he +condescended to take Notice of any Thing that had been written against +him; and here his chief Intention seems to have been to make Sport. + +Dedication to the Earl of Rochford of, and Preface to, Mr. Payne's +Introduction to the Game of Draughts, _acknowl_. + +Introduction to the London Chronicle, an Evening Paper which still +subsists with deserved credit. _acknowl_. + +1757. Speech on the Subject of an Address to the Throne after the +Expedition to Rochefort; delivered by one of his Friends in some publick +Meeting: it is printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for October 1785. +_intern. evid_. + +The first two Paragraphs of the Preface to Sir William Chambers's +Designs of Chinese Buildings, &c. _acknowl_. + +1758. THE IDLER, which began April 5, in this year, and was continued +till April 5, 1760. _acknowl_. + +An Essay on the Bravery of the English Common Soldiers was added to it +when published in Volumes. _acknowl_. + +1759. Rasselas Prince of Abyssinia, a Tale. _acknowl_. + +Advertisement for the Proprietors of the Idler against certain Persons +who pirated those Papers as they came out singly in a Newspaper called +the Universal Chronicle or Weekly Gazette. _intern. evid_. + +For Mrs. Charlotte Lennox's English Version of Brumoy,--'A Dissertation +on the Greek Comedy,' and the General Conclusion of the Book. _intern. +evid_. + +Introduction to the World Displayed, a Collection of Voyages and +Travels. _acknowl_. + +Three Letters in the Gazetteer, concerning the best plan for Blackfriars +Bridge. _acknowl_. + +1760. Address of the Painters to George III. on his Accession to the +Throne. _intern. evid_. + +Dedication of Baretti's Italian and English Dictionary to the Marquis of +Abreu, then Envoy-Extraordinary from Spain at the Court of +Great-Britain. _intern. evid_. + +Review in the Gentleman's Magazine of Mr. Tytler's acute and able +Vindication of Mary Queen of Scots. _acknowl_. + +Introduction to the Proceedings of the Committee for Cloathing the +French Prisoners. _acknowl_. + +1761. Preface to Rolfs Dictionary of Trade and Commerce. _acknowl_. + +Corrections and Improvements for Mr. Gwyn the Architect's Pamphlet, +intitled 'Thoughts on the Coronation of George III.' _acknowl_. + +1762. Dedication to the King of the Reverend Dr. Kennedy's Complete +System of Astronomical Chronology, unfolding the Scriptures, Quarto +Edition. _acknowl_. + +Concluding Paragraph of that Work. _intern. evid_. + +Preface to the Catalogue of the Artists' Exhibition. _intern. evid_. + +1763. + +Character of Collins in the Poetical Calendar, published by Fawkes and +Woty. _acknowl_. + +Dedication to the Earl of Shaftesbury of the Edition of Roger Ascham's +English Works, published by the Reverend Mr. Bennet. _acknowl_. + +The Life of Ascham, also prefixed to that edition. _acknowl_. + +Review of Telemachus, a Masque, by the Reverend George Graham of Eton +College, in the Critical Review. _acknowl_. + +Dedication to the Queen of Mr. Hoole's Translation of Tasso. _acknowl_. + +Account of the Detection of the Imposture of the Cock-Lane Ghost, +published in the Newspapers and Gentleman's Magazine. _acknowl_. + +1764. + +Part of a Review of Grainger's 'Sugar Cane, a Poem,' in the London +Chronicle. _acknowl_. + +Review of Goldsmith's Traveller, a Poem, in the Critical Review. +_acknowl_. + +1765. + +The Plays of William Shakspeare, in eight volumes, 8vo. with Notes. +_acknowl_. + +1766. + +The Fountains, a Fairy Tale, in Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies. _acknowl_. + +1767. + +Dedication to the King of Mr. Adams's Treatise on the Globes. _acknowl_. + +1769. + +Character of the Reverend Mr. Zachariah Mudge, in the London Chronicle. +_acknowl_. + +1770. + +The False Alarm. _acknowl_. + +1771. + +Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands. +_acknowl_. + +1772. + +Defence of a Schoolmaster; dictated to me for the House of Lords. +_acknowl_. + +Argument in Support of the Law of _Vicious Intromission_; dictated to me +for the Court of Session in Scotland. _acknowl_. + +1773. + +Preface to Macbean's 'Dictionary of Ancient Geography.' _acknowl_. + +Argument in Favour of the Rights of Lay Patrons; dictated to me for the +General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. _acknowl_. + +1774. + +The Patriot. _acknowl_. + +1775. + +A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. _acknowl_. + +Proposals for publishing the Works of Mrs. Charlotte Lennox, in Three +Volumes Quarto. _acknowl_. + +Preface to Baretti's Easy Lessons in Italian and English. _intern. +evid_. + +Taxation no Tyranny; an Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the +American Congress. _acknowl_. + +Argument on the Case of Dr. Memis; dictated to me for the Court of +Session in Scotland. _acknowl_. + +Argument to prove that the Corporation of Stirling was corrupt; dictated +to me for the House of Lords. _acknowl_. + +1776. + +Argument in Support of the Right of immediate, and personal reprehension +from the Pulpit; dictated to me. _acknowl_. + +Proposals for publishing an Analysis of the Scotch Celtick Language, by +the Reverend William Shaw. _acknowl_. + +1777. + +Dedication to the King of the Posthumous Works of Dr. Pearce, Bishop of +Rochester. _acknowl_. + +Additions to the Life and Character of that Prelate; prefixed to those +Works. _acknowl_. + +Various Papers and Letters in Favour of the Reverend Dr. Dodd. +_acknowl_. + +1780. + +Advertisement for his Friend Mr. Thrale to the Worthy Electors of the +Borough of Southwark. _acknowl_. + +The first Paragraph of Mr. Thomas Davies's Life of Garrick, _acknowl_. + +1781. + +Prefaces Biographical and Critical to the Works of the most eminent +English Poets; afterwards published with the Title of Lives of the +English Poets[83]. _acknowl_. + +Argument on the Importance of the Registration of Deeds; dictated to me +for an Election Committee of the House of Commons. _acknowl_. + +On the Distinction between TORY and WHIG; dictated to me. _acknowl_. + +On Vicarious Punishments, and the great Propitiation for the Sins of the +World, by JESUS CHRIST; dictated to me. _acknowl_. + +Argument in favour of Joseph Knight, an African Negro, who claimed his +Liberty in the Court of Session in Scotland, and obtained it; dictated +to me. _acknowl_. + +Defence of Mr. Robertson, Printer of the Caledonian Mercury, against the +Society of Procurators in Edinburgh, for having inserted in his Paper a +ludicrous Paragraph against them; demonstrating that it was not an +injurious Libel; dictated to me. _acknowl_. + +1782. + +The greatest part, if not the whole, of a Reply, by the Reverend Mr. +Shaw, to a Person at Edinburgh, of the Name of Clark, refuting his +arguments for the authenticity of the Poems published by Mr. James +Macpherson as Translations from Ossian. _intern. evid_. + +1784. List of the Authours of the Universal History, deposited in the +British Museum, and printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for December, +this year, _acknowl_. + +_Various Years_. + +Letters to Mrs. Thrale. _acknowl_. + +Prayers and Meditations, which he delivered to the Rev. Mr. Strahan, +enjoining him to publish them, _acknowl_. + +Sermons _left for Publication_ by John Taylor, LL.D. Prebendary of +Westminster, and given to the World by the Reverend Samuel Hayes, A.M. +_intern. evid_. + +Such was the number and variety of the Prose Works of this extraordinary +man, which I have been able to discover, and am at liberty to mention; +but we ought to keep in mind, that there must undoubtedly have been many +more which are yet concealed; and we may add to the account, the +numerous Letters which he wrote, of which a considerable part are yet +unpublished. It is hoped that those persons in whose possession they +are, will favour the world with them. + +_JAMES BOSWELL_. + + * * * * * + +'After my death I wish no other herald, +No other speaker of my living actions, +To keep mine honour from corruption, +But such an honest chronicler as Griffith[84].' + +SHAKSPEARE, _Henry VIII. [Act IV. Sc. 2_.] + + + + +THE LIFE OF + +SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. + + +To write the Life of him who excelled all mankind in writing the lives +of others, and who, whether we consider his extraordinary endowments, or +his various works, has been equalled by few in any age, is an arduous, +and may be reckoned in me a presumptuous task. + +Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion +which he has given[85], that every man's life may be best written by +himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that +clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed +so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most +perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited. But although he at +different times, in a desultory manner, committed to writing many +particulars of the progress of his mind and fortunes, he never had +persevering diligence enough to form them into a regular composition[86]. +Of these memorials a few have been preserved; but the greater part was +consigned by him to the flames, a few days before his death. + +[Page 26: The Author's qualifications.] + +As I had the honour and happiness of enjoying his friendship for upwards +of twenty years; as I had the scheme of writing his life constantly in +view; as he was well apprised of this circumstance[87], and from time to +time obligingly satisfied my inquiries, by communicating to me the +incidents of his early years; as I acquired a facility in recollecting, +and was very assiduous in recording, his conversation, of which the +extraordinary vigour and vivacity constituted one of the first features +of his character; and as I have spared no pains in obtaining materials +concerning him, from every quarter where I could discover that they were +to be found, and have been favoured with the most liberal communications +by his friends; I flatter myself that few biographers have entered upon +such a work as this, with more advantages; independent of literary +abilities, in which I am not vain enough to compare myself with some +great names who have gone before me in this kind of writing. + +[Page 27: The Life by Sir J. Hawkins.] + +Since my work was announced, several Lives and Memoirs of Dr. Johnson +have been published[88], the most voluminous of which is one compiled for +the booksellers of London, by Sir John Hawkins, Knight[89], a man, whom, +during my long intimacy with Dr. Johnson, I never saw in his company, I +think but once, and I am sure not above twice. Johnson might have +esteemed him for his decent, religious demeanour, and his knowledge of +books and literary history; but from the rigid formality of his manners, +it is evident that they never could have lived together with +companionable ease and familiarity[90]; nor had Sir John Hawkins that +nice perception which was necessary to mark the finer and less obvious +parts of Johnson's character. His being appointed one of his executors, +gave him an opportunity of taking possession of such fragments of a +diary and other papers as were left; of which, before delivering them up +to the residuary legatee, whose property they were, he endeavoured to +extract the substance. In this he has not been very successful, as I +have found upon a perusal of those papers, which have been since +transferred to me. Sir John Hawkins's ponderous labours, I must +acknowledge, exhibit a _farrago_, of which a considerable portion is not +devoid of entertainment to the lovers of literary gossiping; but besides +its being swelled out with long unnecessary extracts from various works +(even one of several leaves from Osborne's Harleian Catalogue, and those +not compiled by Johnson, but by Oldys), a very small part of it relates +to the person who is the subject of the book; and, in that, there is +such an inaccuracy in the statement of facts, as in so solemn an authour +is hardly excusable, and certainly makes his narrative very +unsatisfactory. But what is still worse, there is throughout the whole +of it a dark uncharitable cast, by which the most unfavourable +construction is put upon almost every circumstance in the character and +conduct of my illustrious friend[91]; who, I trust, will, by a true and +fair delineation, be vindicated both from the injurious +misrepresentations of this authour, and from the slighter aspersions of +a lady who once lived in great intimacy with him[92]. + +[Page 28: Warburton's view of biography.] + +[Page 29: The author's mode of procedure.] + +There is, in the British Museum, a letter from Bishop Warburton to Dr. +Birch, on the subject of biography; which, though I am aware it may +expose me to a charge of artfully raising the value of my own work, by +contrasting it with that of which I have spoken, is so well conceived +and expressed, that I cannot refrain from here inserting it:-- + +'I shall endeavor, (says Dr. Warburton,) to give you what satisfaction I +can in any thing you want to be satisfied in any subject of Milton, and +am extremely glad you intend to write his life. Almost all the +life-writers we have had before Toland and Desmaiseaux[93], are indeed +strange insipid creatures; and yet I had rather read the worst of them, +than be obliged to go through with this of Milton's, or the other's life +of Boileau, where there is such a dull, heavy succession of long +quotations of disinteresting passages, that it makes their method quite +nauseous. But the verbose, tasteless Frenchman seems to lay it down as a +principle, that every life must be a book, and what's worse, it proves a +book without a life; for what do we know of Boileau, after all his +tedious stuff? You are the only one, (and I speak it without a +compliment) that by the vigour of your stile and sentiments, and the +real importance of your materials, have the art, (which one would +imagine no one could have missed,) of adding agreements to the most +agreeable subject in the world, which is literary history[94].' + +'Nov. 24, 1737.' + +[Page 30: Not a panegyrick, but a Life.] + +Instead of melting down my materials into one mass, and constantly +speaking in my own person, by which I might have appeared to have more +merit in the execution of the work, I have resolved to adopt and enlarge +upon the excellent plan of Mr. Mason, in his Memoirs of Gray[95]. +Wherever narrative is necessary to explain, connect, and supply, I +furnish it to the best of my abilities; but in the chronological series +of Johnson's life, which I trace as distinctly as I can, year by year, I +produce, wherever it is in my power, his own minutes, letters, or +conversation, being convinced that this mode is more lively, and will +make my readers better acquainted with him, than even most of those were +who actually knew him, but could know him only partially; whereas there +is here an accumulation of intelligence from various points, by which +his character is more fully understood and illustrated[96]. + +Indeed I cannot conceive a more perfect mode of writing any man's life, +than not only relating all the most important events of it in their +order, but interweaving what he privately wrote, and said, and thought; +by which mankind are enabled as it were to see him live, and to 'live +o'er each scene[97]' with him, as he actually advanced through the +several stages of his life. Had his other friends been as diligent and +ardent as I was, he might have been almost entirely preserved. As it is, +I will venture to say that he will be seen in this work more completely +than any man who has ever yet lived[98]. + +And he will be seen as he really was; for I profess to write, not his +panegyrick, which must be all praise, but his Life; which, great and +good as he was, must not be supposed to be entirely perfect. To be as he +was, is indeed subject of panegyrick enough to any man in this state of +being; but in every picture there should be shade as well as light, and +when I delineate him without reserve, I do what he himself recommended, +both by his precept and his example[99]. + +[Page 31: Conversation best displays character.] + +'If the biographer writes from personal knowledge, and makes haste to +gratify the publick curiosity, there is danger lest his interest, his +fear, his gratitude, or his tenderness overpower his fidelity, and tempt +him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an act of +piety to hide the faults or failings of their friends, even when they +can no longer suffer by their detection; we therefore see whole ranks of +characters adorned with uniform panegyrick, and not to be known from one +another but by extrinsick and casual circumstances. "Let me remember, +(says Hale,) when I find myself inclined to pity a criminal, that there +is likewise a pity due to the country." If we owe regard to the memory +of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to +virtue and to truth[100].' + +What I consider as the peculiar value of the following work, is, the +quantity it contains of Johnson's conversation; which is universally +acknowledged to have been eminently instructive and entertaining; and of +which the specimens that I have given upon a former occasion[101], have +been received with so much approbation, that I have good grounds for +supposing that the world will not be indifferent to more ample +communications of a similar nature. + +That the conversation of a celebrated man, if his talents have been +exerted in conversation, will best display his character, is, I trust, +too well established in the judgment of mankind, to be at all shaken by +a sneering observation of Mr. Mason, in his _Memoirs of Mr. William +Whitehead_, in which there is literally no _Life_, but a mere dry +narrative of facts[102]. I do not think it was quite necessary to attempt +a depreciation of what is universally esteemed, because it was not to be +found in the immediate object of the ingenious writer's pen; for in +truth, from a man so still and so tame, as to be contented to pass many +years as the domestick companion of a superannuated lord and lady[103], +conversation could no more be expected, than from a Chinese mandarin on +a chimney-piece, or the fantastick figures on a gilt leather skreen. + +[Page 32: Dr. Johnson on biography.] + +If authority be required, let us appeal to Plutarch, the prince of +ancient biographers. [Greek: Oute tais epiphanestatais praxesi pantos +enesti daelosis aretaes ae kakias, alla pragma brachu pollakis, kai +raema, kai paidia tis emphasin aethous epoiaesen mallon ae machai +murionekroi, kai parataxeis ai megistai, kai poliorkiai poleon.] Nor is +it always in the most distinguished atchievements that men's virtues or +vices may be best discerned; but very often an action of small note, a +short saying, or a jest, shall distinguish a person's real character +more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battles[104].' + +To this may be added the sentiments of the very man whose life I am +about to exhibit. + +'The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those +performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the +thoughts into domestick privacies, and display the minute details of +daily life, where exteriour appendages are cast aside, and men excel +each other only by prudence and by virtue. The account of Thuanus is +with great propriety said by its authour to have been written, that it +might lay open to posterity the private and familiar character of that +man, _cujus ingenium et candorem ex ipsius scriptis sunt olim semper +miraturi_, whose candour and genius will to the end of time be by his +writings preserved in admiration. + +'There are many invisible circumstances, which whether we read as +enquirers after natural or moral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge +our science, or increase our virtue, are more important than publick +occurrences. Thus Sallust, the great master of nature, has not forgot in +his account of Catiline to remark, that his walk was now quick, and +again slow, as an indication of a mind revolving[105] with violent +commotion. Thus the story of Melanchthon affords a striking lecture on +the value of time, by informing us, that when he had made an +appointment, he expected not only the hour, but the minute to be fixed, +that the day might not run out in the idleness of suspence; and all the +plans and enterprises of De Witt are now of less importance to the world +than that part of his personal character, which represents him as +careful of his health, and negligent of his life. + +'But biography has often been allotted to writers, who seem very little +acquainted with the nature of their task, or very negligent about the +performance. They rarely afford any other account than might be +collected from publick papers, but imagine themselves writing a life, +when they exhibit a chronological series of actions or preferments;[106] +and have so little regard to the manners[106] or behaviour of their +heroes, that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real character, by +a short conversation with one of his servants, than from a formal and +studied narrative, begun with his pedigree, and ended with his funeral. + +[Page 33: Reply to possible objections.] + +'There are indeed, some natural reasons why these narratives are often +written by such as were not likely to give much instruction or delight, +and why most accounts of particular persons are barren and useless. If a +life be delayed till interest and envy are at an end, we may hope for +impartiality, but must expect little intelligence; for the incidents +which give excellence to biography are of a volatile and evanescent +kind, such as soon escape the memory, and are transmitted[107] by +tradition. We know how few can pourtray a living acquaintance, except by +his most prominent and observable particularities, and the grosser +features of his mind; and it may be easily imagined how much of this +little knowledge may be lost in imparting it, and how soon a succession +of copies will lose all resemblance of the original[108].' + +I am fully aware of the objections which may be made to the minuteness +on some occasions of my detail of Johnson's conversation, and how +happily it is adapted for the petty exercise of ridicule, by men of +superficial understanding and ludicrous fancy; but I remain firm and +confident in my opinion, that minute particulars are frequently +characteristick, and always amusing, when they relate to a distinguished +man. I am therefore exceedingly unwilling that any thing, however +slight, which my illustrious friend thought it worth his while to +express, with any degree of point, should perish. For this almost +superstitious reverence, I have found very old and venerable authority, +quoted by our great modern prelate, Secker, in whose tenth sermon there +is the following passage: + +'_Rabbi David Kimchi_, a noted Jewish Commentator, who lived about five +hundred years ago, explains that passage in the first Psalm, _His leaf +also shall not wither_, from Rabbins yet older than himself, thus: That +_even the idle talk_, so he expresses it, _of a good man ought to be +regarded_; the most superfluous things he saith are always of some +value. And other ancient authours have the same phrase, nearly in the +same sense.' + +[Page 34: Johnson's birth and baptism. A.D. 1709.] + +Of one thing I am certain, that considering how highly the small portion +which we have of the table-talk and other anecdotes of our celebrated +writers is valued, and how earnestly it is regretted that we have not +more, I am justified in preserving rather too many of Johnson's sayings, +than too few; especially as from the diversity of dispositions it cannot +be known with certainty beforehand, whether what may seem trifling to +some and perhaps to the collector himself, may not be most agreeable to +many; and the greater number that an authour can please in any degree, +the more pleasure does there arise to a benevolent mind. + +To those who are weak enough to think this a degrading task, and the +time and labour which have been devoted to it misemployed, I shall +content myself with opposing the authority of the greatest man of any +age, JULIUS CÆSAR, of whom Bacon observes, that 'in his book of +Apothegms which he collected, we see that he esteemed it more honour to +make himself but a pair of tables, to take the wise and pithy words of +others, than to have every word of his own to be made an apothegm or an +oracle[109].' + +Having said thus much by way of introduction, I commit the following +pages to the candour of the Publick. + + * * * * * + +SAMUEL[110] JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, on the 18th +of September, N.S., 1709; and his initiation into the Christian Church +was not delayed; for his baptism is recorded, in the register of St. +Mary's parish in that city, to have been performed on the day of his +birth. His father is there stiled _Gentleman_, a circumstance of which +an ignorant panegyrist has praised him for not being proud; when the +truth is, that the appellation of Gentleman, though now lost in the +indiscriminate assumption of _Esquire_[111], was commonly taken by those +who could not boast of gentility. His father was Michael Johnson, a +native of Derbyshire, of obscure extraction[112], who settled in Lichfield +as a bookseller and stationer[113]. + +[Page 35: His parentage. A.D. 1709] + +His mother was Sarah Ford, descended of an ancient race of substantial +yeomanry in Warwickshire[114]. They were well advanced in years when they +married, and never had more than two children, both sons; Samuel, their +first born, who lived to be the illustrious character whose various +excellence I am to endeavour to record, and Nathanael, who died in his +twenty-fifth year. + +[Page 36: Character of Michael Johnson. A.D. 1709] + +Mr. Michael Johnson was a man of a large and robust body, and of a +strong and active mind; yet, as in the most solid rocks veins of unsound +substance are often discovered, there was in him a mixture of that +disease, the nature of which eludes the most minute enquiry, though the +effects are well known to be a weariness of life, an unconcern about +those things which agitate the greater part of mankind, and a general +sensation of gloomy wretchedness[115]. From him then his son inherited, +with some other qualities, 'a vile melancholy,' which in his too strong +expression of any disturbance of the mind, 'made him mad all his life, +at least not sober[116].' Michael was, however, forced by the narrowness +of his circumstances to be very diligent in business, not only in his +shop[117], but by occasionally resorting to several towns in the +neighbourhood[118], some of which were at a considerable distance from +Lichfield[119]. At that time booksellers' shops in the provincial towns of +England were very rare, so that there was not one even in Birmingham, in +which town old Mr. Johnson used to open a shop every market-day. He was +a pretty good Latin scholar, and a citizen so creditable as to be made +one of the magistrates of Lichfield[120]; and, being a man of good sense, +and skill in his trade, he acquired a reasonable share of wealth, of +which however he afterwards lost the greatest part, by engaging +unsuccessfully in a manufacture of parchment[121]. He was a zealous +high-church man and royalist, and retained his attachment to the +unfortunate house of Stuart, though he reconciled himself, by +casuistical arguments of expediency and necessity, to take the oaths +imposed by the prevailing power[122]. + +[Page 37: An incident in his life. A.D. 1709] + +There is a circumstance in his life somewhat romantick, but so well +authenticated, that I shall not omit it. A young woman of Leek, in +Staffordshire, while he served his apprenticeship there, conceived a +violent passion for him; and though it met with no favourable return, +followed him to Lichfield, where she took lodgings opposite to the house +in which he lived, and indulged her hopeless flame. When he was informed +that it so preyed upon her mind that her life was in danger, he with a +generous humanity went to her and offered to marry her, but it was then +too late: her vital power was exhausted; and she actually exhibited one +of the very rare instances of dying for love. She was buried in the +cathedral of Lichfield; and he, with a tender regard, placed a stone +over her grave with this inscription: + +Here lies the body of + +Mrs. ELIZABETH BLANEY, a stranger. + +She departed this life + +20 of September, 1694. + +[Page 38: Sarah Johnson. A.D. 1712.] + +Johnson's mother was a woman of distinguished understanding. I asked his +old school-fellow, Mr. Hector, surgeon of Birmingham, if she was not +vain of her son. He said, 'she had too much good sense to be vain, but +she knew her son's value.' Her piety was not inferiour to her +understanding; and to her must be ascribed those early impressions of +religion upon the mind of her son, from which the world afterwards +derived so much benefit. He told me, that he remembered distinctly +having had the first notice of Heaven, 'a place to which good people +went,' and hell, 'a place to which bad people went,' communicated to him +by her, when a little child in bed with her[123]; and that it might be the +better fixed in his memory, she sent him to repeat it to Thomas Jackson, +their man-servant; he not being in the way, this was not done; but there +was no occasion for any artificial aid for its preservation. + +In following so very eminent a man from his cradle to his grave, every +minute particular, which can throw light on the progress of his mind, is +interesting. That he was remarkable, even in his earliest years, may +easily be supposed; for to use his own words in his Life of Sydenham, + +'That the strength of his understanding, the accuracy of his +discernment, and ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked from +his infancy, by a diligent observer, there is no reason to doubt. For, +there is no instance of any man, whose history has been minutely +related, that did not in every part of life discover the same proportion +of intellectual vigour[124].' + +In all such investigations it is certainly unwise to pay too much +attention to incidents which the credulous relate with eager +satisfaction, and the more scrupulous or witty enquirer considers only +as topicks of ridicule: Yet there is a traditional story of the infant +Hercules of toryism, so curiously characteristick, that I shall not +withhold it. It was communicated to me in a letter from Miss Mary Adye, +of Lichfield: + +[Page 39: Anecdotes of Johnson's childhood.] + +'When Dr. Sacheverel was at Lichfield, Johnson was not quite three years +old. My grandfather Hammond observed him at the cathedral perched upon +his father's shoulders, listening and gaping at the much celebrated +preacher. Mr. Hammond asked Mr. Johnson how he could possibly think of +bringing such an infant to church, and in the midst of so great a croud. +He answered, because it was impossible to keep him at home; for, young +as he was, he believed he had caught the publick spirit and zeal for +Sacheverel, and would have staid for ever in the church, satisfied with +beholding him[125].' + +Nor can I omit a little instance of that jealous independence of spirit, +and impetuosity of temper, which never forsook him. The fact was +acknowledged to me by himself, upon the authority of his mother. One +day, when the servant who used to be sent to school to conduct him home, +had not come in time, he set out by himself, though he was then so +near-sighted, that he was obliged to stoop down on his hands and knees +to take a view of the kennel before he ventured to step over it. His +school-mistress, afraid that he might miss his way, or fall into the +kennel, or be run over by a cart, followed him at some distance. He +happened to turn about and perceive her. Feeling her careful attention +as an insult to his manliness, he ran back to her in a rage, and beat +her, as well as his strength would permit. + +Of the power of his memory, for which he was all his life eminent to a +degree almost incredible[126], the following early instance was told me in +his presence at Lichfield, in 1776, by his step-daughter, Mrs. Lucy +Porter, as related to her by his mother. + +[Page 40: Johnson's infant precocity. A.D. 1712.] + +When he was a child in petticoats, and had learnt to read, Mrs. Johnson +one morning put the common prayer-book into his hands, pointed to the +collect for the day, and said, 'Sam, you must get this by heart.' She +went up stairs, leaving him to study it: But by the time she had reached +the second floor, she heard him following her. 'What's the matter?' said +she. 'I can say it,' he replied; and repeated it distinctly, though he +could not have read it more than twice. + +But there has been another story of his infant precocity generally +circulated, and generally believed, the truth of which I am to refute +upon his own authority. It is told[127], that, when a child of three years +old, he chanced to tread upon a duckling, the eleventh of a brood, and +killed it; upon which, it is said, he dictated to his mother the +following epitaph: + +'Here lies good master duck, + Whom Samuel Johnson trod on; +If it had liv'd, it had been _good luck_, + For then we'd had an _odd one_.' + +There is surely internal evidence that this little composition combines +in it, what no child of three years old could produce, without an +extension of its faculties by immediate inspiration; yet Mrs. Lucy +Porter, Dr. Johnson's step-daughter, positively maintained to me, in his +presence, that there could be no doubt of the truth of this anecdote, +for she had heard it from his mother. So difficult is it to obtain an +authentick relation of facts, and such authority may there be for +errour; for he assured me, that his father made the verses, and wished +to pass them for his child's. He added, 'my father was a foolish old +man[128]; that is to say, foolish in talking of his children[129].' + +[Page 41: His eyesight.] + +[Page 42: The king's evil.] + +Young Johnson had the misfortune to be much afflicted with the +scrophula, or king's evil, which disfigured a countenance naturally well +formed, and hurt his visual nerves so much, that he did not see at all +with one of his eyes, though its appearance was little different from +that of the other. There is amongst his prayers, one inscribed '_When +my_ EYE _was restored to its use_[130],' which ascertains a defect that +many of his friends knew he had, though I never perceived it[131]. I +supposed him to be only near-sighted; and indeed I must observe, that in +no other respect could I discern any defect in his vision; on the +contrary, the force of his attention and perceptive quickness made him +see and distinguish all manner of objects, whether of nature or of art, +with a nicety that is rarely to be found. When he and I were travelling +in the Highlands of Scotland, and I pointed out to him a mountain which +I observed resembled a cone, he corrected my inaccuracy, by shewing me, +that it was indeed pointed at the top, but that one side of it was +larger than the other[132]. And the ladies with whom he was acquainted +agree, that no man was more nicely and minutely critical in the elegance +of female dress[133]. When I found that he saw the romantick beauties of +Islam, in Derbyshire, much better than I did, I told him that he +resembled an able performer upon a bad instrument[134]. How false and +contemptible then are all the remarks which have been made to the +prejudice either of his candour or of his philosophy, founded upon a +supposition that he was almost blind. It has been said, that he +contracted this grievous malady from his nurse[135]. His mother yielding +to the superstitious notion, which, it is wonderful to think, prevailed +so long in this country, as to the virtue of the regal touch; a notion, +which our kings encouraged, and to which a man of such inquiry and such +judgement as Carte[136] could give credit; carried him to London, where he +was actually touched by Queen Anne. Mrs. Johnson indeed, as Mr. Hector +informed me, acted by the advice of the celebrated Sir John Floyer[137], +then a physician in Lichfield. Johnson used to talk of this very +frankly; and Mrs. Piozzi has preserved his very picturesque description +of the scene, as it remained upon his fancy. Being asked if he could +remember Queen Anne, 'He had (he said) a confused, but somehow a sort of +solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds, and a long black hood[138].' +This touch, however, was without any effect. I ventured to say to him, +in allusion to the political principles in which he was educated, and of +which he ever retained some odour, that 'his mother had not carried him +far enough; she should have taken him to ROME.' + +[Page 43: Johnson at a dame's school.] + +He was first taught to read English by Dame Oliver[139], a widow, who kept +a school for young children in Lichfield. He told me she could read the +black letter, and asked him to borrow for her, from his father, a bible +in that character. When he was going to Oxford, she came to take leave +of him, brought him, in the simplicity of her kindness, a present of +gingerbread, and said, he was the best scholar she ever had. He +delighted in mentioning this early compliment: adding, with a smile, +that 'this was as high a proof of his merit as he could conceive.' His +next instructor in English was a master, whom, when he spoke of him to +me, he familiarly called Tom Brown, who, said he, 'published a +spelling-book, and dedicated it to the UNIVERSE; but, I fear, no copy of +it can now be had[140].' + +[Page 44: Lichfield School.] + +He began to learn Latin[141] with Mr. Hawkins, usher, or under-master of +Lichfield school, 'a man (said he) very skilful in his little way.' With +him he continued two years[142], and then rose to be under the care of Mr. +Hunter, the head-master, who, according to his account, 'was very +severe, and wrong-headedly severe. He used (said he) to beat us +unmercifully; and he did not distinguish between ignorance and +negligence; for he would beat a boy equally for not knowing a thing, as +for neglecting to know it. He would ask a boy a question; and if he did +not answer it, he would beat him, without considering whether he had an +opportunity of knowing how to answer it. For instance, he would call up +a boy and ask him Latin for a candlestick, which the boy could not +expect to be asked. Now, Sir, if a boy could answer every question, +there would be no need of a master to teach him.' + +[Page 45: Johnson's school-fellows.] + +It is, however, but justice to the memory of Mr. Hunter to mention, that +though he might err in being too severe, the school of Lichfield was +very respectable in his time[143]. The late Dr. Taylor, Prebendary of +Westminster, who was educated under him, told me, that 'he was an +excellent master, and that his ushers were most of them men of eminence; +that Holbrook, one of the most ingenious men, best scholars, and best +preachers of his age, was usher during the greatest part of the time +that Johnson was at school[144]. Then came Hague, of whom as much might be +said, with the addition that he was an elegant poet. Hague was succeeded +by Green, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, whose character in the learned +world is well known[145]. In the same form with Johnson was Congreve[146], +who afterwards became chaplain to Archbishop Boulter, and by that +connection obtained good preferment in Ireland. He was a younger son of +the ancient family of Congreve, in Staffordshire, of which the poet was +a branch. His brother sold the estate. There was also Lowe, afterwards +Canon of Windsor[147].' + +[Page 46: Mr. Hunter.] + +Indeed Johnson was very sensible how much he owed to Mr. Hunter. Mr. +Langton one day asked him how he had acquired so accurate a knowledge of +Latin, in which, I believe, he was exceeded by no man of his time; he +said, 'My master whipt me very well. Without that, Sir, I should have +done nothing.' He told Mr. Langton, that while Hunter was flogging his +boys unmercifully, he used to say, 'And this I do to save you from the +gallows.' Johnson, upon all occasions, expressed his approbation of +enforcing instruction by means of the rod[148]. 'I would rather (said he) +have the rod to be the general terrour to all, to make them learn, than +tell a child, if you do thus, or thus, you will be more esteemed than +your brothers or sisters. The rod produces an effect which terminates in +itself. A child is afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and +there's an end on't; whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of +superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief; you make +brothers and sisters hate each other[149].' + +When Johnson saw some young ladies in Lincolnshire who were remarkably +well behaved, owing to their mother's strict discipline and severe +correction[150], he exclaimed, in one of Shakspeare's lines a little +varied, + +'_Rod_, I will honour thee for this thy duty[151].' + +[Page 47: Johnson a King of men.] + +That superiority over his fellows, which he maintained with so much +dignity in his march through life, was not assumed from vanity and +ostentation, but was the natural and constant effect of those +extraordinary powers of mind, of which he could not but be conscious by +comparison; the intellectual difference, which in other cases of +comparison of characters, is often a matter of undecided contest, being +as clear in his case as the superiority of stature in some men above +others. Johnson did not strut or stand on tip-toe: He only did not +stoop. From his earliest years his superiority was perceived and +acknowledged[152]. He was from the beginning [Greek: anax andron], a king +of men. His schoolfellow, Mr. Hector, has obligingly furnished me with +many particulars of his boyish days[153]: and assured me that he never +knew him corrected at school, but for talking and diverting other boys +from their business. He seemed to learn by intuition; for though +indolence and procrastination were inherent in his constitution, +whenever he made an exertion he did more than any one else. In short, he +is a memorable instance of what has been often observed, that the boy is +the man in miniature: and that the distinguishing characteristicks of +each individual are the same, through the whole course of life. His +favourites used to receive very liberal assistance from him; and such +was the submission and deference with which he was treated, such the +desire to obtain his regard, that three of the boys, of whom Mr. Hector +was sometimes one, used to come in the morning as his humble attendants, +and carry him to school. One in the middle stooped, while he sat upon +his back, and one on each side supported him; and thus he was borne +triumphant. Such a proof of the early predominance of intellectual +vigour is very remarkable, and does honour to human nature. Talking to +me once himself of his being much distinguished at school, he told me, +'they never thought to raise me by comparing me to any one; they never +said, Johnson is as good a scholar as such a one; but such a one is as +good a scholar as Johnson; and this was said but of one, but of Lowe; +and I do not think he was as good a scholar.' + +[Page 48: Johnson's tenacious memory.] + +He discovered a great ambition to excel, which roused him to counteract +his indolence. He was uncommonly inquisitive; and his memory was so +tenacious, that he never forgot any thing that he either heard or read. +Mr. Hector remembers having recited to him eighteen verses, which, after +a little pause, he repeated _verbatim_, varying only one epithet, by +which he improved the line. + +He never joined with the other boys in their ordinary diversions: his +only amusement was in winter, when he took a pleasure in being drawn +upon the ice by a boy barefooted, who pulled him along by a garter fixed +round him; no very easy operation, as his size was remarkably large. His +defective sight, indeed, prevented him from enjoying the common sports; +and he once pleasantly remarked to me, 'how wonderfully well he had +contrived to be idle without them.' Lord Chesterfield, however, has +justly observed in one of his letters, when earnestly cautioning a +friend against the pernicious effects of idleness, that active sports +are not to be reckoned idleness in young people; and that the listless +torpor of doing nothing, alone deserves that name[154]. Of this dismal +inertness of disposition, Johnson had all his life too great a share. +Mr. Hector relates, that 'he could not oblige him more than by +sauntering away the hours of vacation in the fields, during which he was +more engaged in talking to himself than to his companion.' + +[Page 49: His fondness for romances.] + +Dr. Percy[155], the Bishop of Dromore, who was long intimately acquainted +with him, and has preserved a few anecdotes concerning him, regretting +that he was not a more diligent collector, informs me, that 'when a boy +he was immoderately fond of reading romances of chivalry, and he +retained his fondness for them through life; so that (adds his Lordship) +spending part of a summer[156] at my parsonage-house in the country, he +chose for his regular reading the old Spanish romance of _Felixmarte of +Hircania_, in folio, which he read quite through[157]. Yet I have heard +him attribute to these extravagant fictions that unsettled turn of mind +which prevented his ever fixing in any profession.' + +[Page 50: Stourbridge School.] + + +1725: ÆTAT. 16.--After having resided for some time at the house of his +uncle, Cornelius Ford[158], Johnson was, at the age of fifteen, removed to +the school of Stourbridge, in Worcestershire, of which Mr. Wentworth was +then master. This step was taken by the advice of his cousin, the +Reverend Mr. Ford, a man in whom both talents and good dispositions were +disgraced by licentiousness[159], but who was a very able judge of what +was right. + +At this school he did not receive so much benefit as was expected. It +has been said, that he acted in the capacity of an assistant to Mr. +Wentworth, in teaching the younger boys. 'Mr. Wentworth (he told me) was +a very able man, but an idle man, and to me very severe; but I cannot +blame him much. I was then a big boy; he saw I did not reverence him; +and that he should get no honour by me. I had brought enough with me, to +carry me through; and all I should get at his school would be ascribed +to my own labour, or to my former master. Yet he taught me a great +deal.' + +He thus discriminated, to Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, his progress at +his two grammar-schools. 'At one, I learnt much in the school, but +little from the master; in the other, I learnt much from the master, but +little in the school.' + +The Bishop also informs me, that 'Dr. Johnson's father, before he was +received at Stourbridge, applied to have him admitted as a scholar and +assistant to the Reverend Samuel Lea, M.A., head master of Newport +school, in Shropshire (a very diligent, good teacher, at that time in +high reputation, under whom Mr. Hollis[160] is said, in the Memoirs of his +Life, to have been also educated[161]). This application to Mr. Lea was +not successful; but Johnson had afterwards the gratification to hear +that the old gentleman, who lived to a very advanced age, mentioned it +as one of the most memorable events of his life, that 'he was very near +having that great man for his scholar.' + +He remained at Stourbridge little more than a year, and then returned +home, where he may be said to have loitered, for two years, in a state +very unworthy his uncommon abilities. He had already given several +proofs of his poetical genius, both in his school-exercises and in other +occasional compositions. Of these I have obtained a considerable +collection, by the favour of Mr. Wentworth, son of one of his masters, +and of Mr. Hector, his school-fellow and friend; from which I select the +following specimens: + +[Page 51: Johnson's youthful compositions.] + +_Translation of_ VIRGIL. Pastoral I. + +MELIBOEUS. + +Now, Tityrus, you, supine and careless laid, +Play on your pipe beneath this beechen shade; +While wretched we about the world must roam, +And leave our pleasing fields and native home, +Here at your ease you sing your amorous flame, +And the wood rings with Amarillis' name. + +TITYRUS. + +Those blessings, friend, a deity bestow'd, +For I shall never think him less than God; +Oft on his altar shall my firstlings lie, +Their blood the consecrated stones shall dye: +He gave my flocks to graze the flowery meads, +And me to tune at ease th' unequal reeds. + +MELIBOEUS. + +My admiration only I exprest, +(No spark of envy harbours in my breast) +That, when confusion o'er the country reigns, +To you alone this happy state remains. +Here I, though faint myself, must drive my goats, +Far from their ancient fields and humble cots. +This scarce I lead, who left on yonder rock +Two tender kids, the hopes of all the flock. +Had we not been perverse and careless grown, +This dire event by omens was foreshown; +Our trees were blasted by the thunder stroke, ) +And left-hand crows, from an old hollow oak, ) +Foretold the coming evil by their dismal croak. ) + + +_Translation of_ HORACE. Book I. Ode xxii. + +The man, my friend, whose conscious heart + With virtue's sacred ardour glows, +Nor taints with death the envenom'd dart, + Nor needs the guard of Moorish bows: + +Though Scythia's icy cliffs he treads, + Or horrid Africk's faithless sands; +Or where the fam'd Hydaspes spreads + His liquid wealth o'er barbarous lands. + +For while by Chloe's image charm'd, + Too far in Sabine woods I stray'd; +Me singing, careless and unarm'd, + A grizly wolf surprised, and fled. + +No savage more portentous stain'd + Apulia's spacious wilds with gore; +No fiercer Juba's thirsty land, + Dire nurse of raging lions, bore. + +Place me where no soft summer gale + Among the quivering branches sighs; +Where clouds condens'd for ever veil + With horrid gloom the frowning skies: + +Place me beneath the burning line, + A clime deny'd to human race; +I'll sing of Chloe's charms divine, + Her heav'nly voice, and beauteous face. + + +_Translation of_ HORACE. Book II. Ode ix. + +Clouds do not always veil the skies, + Nor showers immerse the verdant plain; +Nor do the billows always rise, + Or storms afflict the ruffled main. + +Nor, Valgius, on th' Armenian shores + Do the chain'd waters always freeze; +Not always furious Boreas roars, + Or bends with violent force the trees. + +But you are ever drown'd in tears, + For Mystes dead you ever mourn; +No setting Sol can ease your care, + But finds you sad at his return. + +The wise experienc'd Grecian sage + Mourn'd not Antilochus so long; +Nor did King Priam's hoary age + So much lament his slaughter'd son. + +Leave off, at length, these woman's sighs, + Augustus' numerous trophies sing; +Repeat that prince's victories, + To whom all nations tribute bring. + +Niphates rolls an humbler wave, + At length the undaunted Scythian yields, +Content to live the Roman's slave, + And scarce forsakes his native fields. + + +_Translation of part of the Dialogue between_ HECTOR _and_ + ANDROMACHE; +_from the Sixth Book of_ HOMER'S ILIAD. + +She ceas'd: then godlike Hector answer'd kind, +(His various plumage sporting in the wind) +That post, and all the rest, shall be my care; +But shall I, then, forsake the unfinished war? +How would the Trojans brand great Hector's name! +And one base action sully all my fame, +Acquired by wounds and battles bravely fought! +Oh! how my soul abhors so mean a thought. +Long since I learn'd to slight this fleeting breath, +And view with cheerful eyes approaching death +The inexorable sisters have decreed +That Priam's house, and Priam's self shall bleed: +The day will come, in which proud Troy shall yield, +And spread its smoking ruins o'er the field. +Yet Hecuba's, nor Priam's hoary age, +Whose blood shall quench some Grecian's thirsty rage, +Nor my brave brothers, that have bit the ground, +Their souls dismiss'd through many a ghastly wound, +Can in my bosom half that grief create, +As the sad thought of your impending fate: +When some proud Grecian dame shall tasks impose, +Mimick your tears, and ridicule your woes; +Beneath Hyperia's waters shall you sweat, +And, fainting, scarce support the liquid weight: +Then shall some Argive loud insulting cry, +Behold the wife of Hector, guard of Troy! +Tears, at my name, shall drown those beauteous eyes, +And that fair bosom heave with rising sighs! +Before that day, by some brave hero's hand +May I lie slain, and spurn the bloody sand. + + +_To a_ YOUNG LADY _on her_ BIRTH-DAY[162]. + +This tributary verse receive my fair, +Warm with an ardent lover's fondest pray'r. +May this returning day for ever find +Thy form more lovely, more adorn'd thy mind; +All pains, all cares, may favouring heav'n remove, +All but the sweet solicitudes of love! +May powerful nature join with grateful art, +To point each glance, and force it to the heart! +O then, when conquered crouds confess thy sway, +When ev'n proud wealth and prouder wit obey, +My fair, be mindful of the mighty trust, +Alas! 'tis hard for beauty to be just. +Those sovereign charms with strictest care employ; +Nor give the generous pain, the worthless joy: +With his own form acquaint the forward fool, +Shewn in the faithful glass of ridicule; +Teach mimick censure her own faults to find, ) +No more let coquettes to themselves be blind, ) +So shall Belinda's charms improve mankind. ) + + +THE YOUNG AUTHOUR[163]. + +When first the peasant, long inclin'd to roam, +Forsakes his rural sports and peaceful home, +Pleas'd with the scene the smiling ocean yields, +He scorns the verdant meads and flow'ry fields: +Then dances jocund o'er the watery way, +While the breeze whispers, and the streamers play: +Unbounded prospects in his bosom roll, +And future millions lift his rising soul; +In blissful dreams he digs the golden mine, +And raptur'd sees the new-found ruby shine. +Joys insincere! thick clouds invade the skies, +Loud roar the billows, high the waves arise; +Sick'ning with fear, he longs to view the shore, +And vows to trust the faithless deep no more. +So the young Authour, panting after fame, +And the long honours of a lasting name, +Entrusts his happiness to human kind, +More false, more cruel, than the seas or wind. +'Toil on, dull croud, in extacies he cries, +For wealth or title, perishable prize; +While I those transitory blessings scorn, +Secure of praise from ages yet unborn.' +This thought once form'd, all council comes too late, +He flies to press, and hurries on his fate; +Swiftly he sees the imagin'd laurels spread, +And feels the unfading wreath surround his head. +Warn'd by another's fate, vain youth be wise, +Those dreams were Settle's[164] once, and Ogilby's[165]: +The pamphlet spreads, incessant hisses rise, +To some retreat the baffled writer flies; +Where no sour criticks snarl, no sneers molest, +Safe from the tart lampoon, and stinging jest; +There begs of heaven a less distinguish'd lot, +Glad to be hid, and proud to be forgot. + + +EPILOGUE, _intended to have been spoken by a_ LADY _who was to personate +the Ghost of_ HERMIONE[166]. + +Ye blooming train, who give despair or joy, +Bless with a smile, or with a frown destroy; +In whose fair cheeks destructive Cupids wait, +And with unerring shafts distribute fate; +Whose snowy breasts, whose animated eyes, +Each youth admires, though each admirer dies; +Whilst you deride their pangs in barb'rous play, } +Unpitying see them weep, and hear them pray, } +And unrelenting sport ten thousand lives away; } +For you, ye fair, I quit the gloomy plains; +Where sable night in all her horrour reigns; +No fragrant bowers, no delightful glades, +Receive the unhappy ghosts of scornful maids. +For kind, for tender nymphs the myrtle blooms, +And weaves her bending boughs in pleasing glooms: +Perennial roses deck each purple vale, +And scents ambrosial breathe in every gale: +Far hence are banish'd vapours, spleen, and tears, +Tea, scandal, ivory teeth, and languid airs: +No pug, nor favourite Cupid there enjoys +The balmy kiss, for which poor Thyrsis dies; +Form'd to delight, they use no foreign arms, +Nor torturing whalebones pinch them into charms; +No conscious blushes there their cheeks inflame, +For those who feel no guilt can know no shame; +Unfaded still their former charms they shew, +Around them pleasures wait, and joys for ever new. +But cruel virgins meet severer fates; +Expell'd and exil'd from the blissful seats, +To dismal realms, and regions void of peace, +Where furies ever howl, and serpents hiss. +O'er the sad plains perpetual tempests sigh, +And pois'nous vapours, black'ning all the sky, +With livid hue the fairest face o'ercast, +And every beauty withers at the blast: +Where e'er they fly their lover's ghosts pursue, +Inflicting all those ills which once they knew; +Vexation, Fury, Jealousy, Despair, +Vex ev'ry eye, and every bosom tear; +Their foul deformities by all descry'd, +No maid to flatter, and no paint to hide. +Then melt, ye fair, while crouds around you sigh, +Nor let disdain sit lowring in your eye; +With pity soften every awful grace, +And beauty smile auspicious in each face; +To ease their pains exert your milder power, +So shall you guiltless reign, and all mankind adore.' + +[Page 57: His wide reading. ÆTAT. 19.] + +The two years which he spent at home, after his return from Stourbridge, +he passed in what he thought idleness[167], and was scolded by his father +for his want of steady application[168]. He had no settled plan of life, +nor looked forward at all, but merely lived from day to day. Yet he read +a great deal in a desultory manner, without any scheme of study, as +chance threw books in his way, and inclination directed him through +them. He used to mention one curious instance of his casual reading, +when but a boy. Having imagined that his brother had hid some apples +behind a large folio upon an upper shelf in his father's shop, he +climbed up to search for them. There were no apples; but the large folio +proved to be Petrarch, whom he had seen mentioned in some preface, as +one of the restorers of learning. His curiosity having been thus +excited, he sat down with avidity, and read a great part of the book. +What he read during these two years he told me, was not works of mere +amusement, 'not voyages and travels, but all literature, Sir, all +ancient writers, all manly: though but little Greek, only some of +Anacreon and Hesiod; but in this irregular manner (added he) I had +looked into a great many books, which were not commonly known at the +Universities, where they seldom read any books but what are put into +their hands by their tutors; so that when I came to Oxford, Dr. Adams, +now master of Pembroke College, told me I was the best qualified for the +University that he had ever known come there[169].' + +In estimating the progress of his mind during these two years, as well +as in future periods of his life, we must not regard his own hasty +confession of idleness; for we see, when he explains himself, that he +was acquiring various stores; and, indeed he himself concluded the +account with saying, 'I would not have you think I was doing nothing +then.' He might, perhaps, have studied more assiduously; but it may be +doubted whether such a mind as his was not more enriched by roaming at +large in the fields of literature than if it had been confined to any +single spot. The analogy between body and mind is very general, and the +parallel will hold as to their food, as well as any other particular. +The flesh of animals who feed excursively, is allowed to have a higher +flavour than that of those who are cooped up. May there not be the same +difference between men who read as their taste prompts and men who are +confined in cells and colleges to stated tasks? + +[Page 58: Johnson enters Oxford. A.D. 1728.] + +That a man in Mr. Michael Johnson's circumstances should think of +sending his son to the expensive University of Oxford, at his own +charge, seems very improbable. The subject was too delicate to question +Johnson upon. But I have been assured by Dr. Taylor that the scheme +never would have taken place had not a gentleman of Shropshire, one of +his schoolfellows, spontaneously undertaken to support him at Oxford, in +the character of his companion; though, in fact, he never received any +assistance whatever from that gentleman[170]. + +He, however, went to Oxford, and was entered a Commoner of Pembroke +College on the 31st of October, 1728[171], being then in his nineteenth +year[172]. + +[Page 59: His first tutor. ÆTAT. 19.] + +The Reverend Dr. Adams, who afterwards presided over Pembroke College +with universal esteem, told me he was present, and gave me some account +of what passed on the night of Johnson's arrival at Oxford[173]. On that +evening, his father, who had anxiously accompanied him, found means to +have him introduced to Mr. Jorden, who was to be his tutor. His being +put under any tutor reminds us of what Wood says of Robert Burton, +authour of the 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' when elected student of Christ +Church: 'for form's sake, _though he wanted not a tutor_, he was put +under the tuition of Dr. John Bancroft, afterwards Bishop of Oxon[174].' + +His father seemed very full of the merits of his son, and told the +company he was a good scholar, and a poet, and wrote Latin verses. His +figure and manner appeared strange to them; but he behaved modestly, and +sat silent, till upon something which occurred in the course of +conversation, he suddenly struck in and quoted Macrobius; and thus he +gave the first impression of that more extensive reading in which he had +indulged himself. + +His tutor, Mr. Jorden, fellow of Pembroke, was not, it seems, a man of +such abilities as we should conceive requisite for the instructor of +Samuel Johnson, who gave me the following account of him. 'He was a very +worthy man, but a heavy man, and I did not profit much by his +instructions. Indeed, I did not attend him much[175]. The first day after +I came to college I waited upon him, and then staid away four. On the +sixth, Mr. Jorden asked me why I had not attended. I answered I had been +sliding in Christ-Church meadow[176]. And this I said with as much +nonchalance as I am now[177] talking to you. I had no notion that I was +wrong or irreverent to my tutor[178]. BOSWELL: 'That, Sir, was great +fortitude of mind.' JOHNSON: 'No, Sir; stark insensibility[179].' + +[Page 60: The fifth of November. A.D. 1728.] + +The fifth of November[180] was at that time kept with great solemnity at +Pembroke College, and exercises upon the subject of the day were +required[181]. Johnson neglected to perform his, which is much to be +regretted; for his vivacity of imagination, and force of language, would +probably have produced something sublime upon the gunpowder plot[182]. To +apologise for his neglect, he gave in a short copy of verses, entitled +Somnium, containing a common thought; 'that the Muse had come to him in +his sleep, and whispered, that it did not become him to write on such +subjects as politicks; he should confine himself to humbler themes:' but +the versification was truly Virgilian[183]. + +[Page 61: Johnson's version of Pope's Messiah. ÆTAT. 19.] + +He had a love and respect for Jorden, not for his literature, but for +his worth. 'Whenever (said he) a young man becomes Jorden's pupil, he +becomes his son.' + +Having given such a specimen of his poetical powers, he was asked by Mr. +Jorden, to translate Pope's Messiah into Latin verse, as a Christmas +exercise. He performed it with uncommon rapidity, and in so masterly a +manner, that he obtained great applause from it, which ever after kept +him high in the estimation of his College, and, indeed, of all the +University[184]. + +It is said, that Mr. Pope expressed himself concerning it in terms of +strong approbation[185]. Dr. Taylor told me, that it was first printed for +old Mr. Johnson, without the knowledge of his son, who was very angry +when he heard of it. A Miscellany of Poems collected by a person of the +name of Husbands, was published at Oxford in 1731[186]. In that Miscellany +Johnson's Translation of the Messiah appeared, with this modest motto +from Scaliger's Poeticks. _Ex alieno ingenio Poeta, ex suo tantum +versificator_. + +[Page 62: Mr. Courtenays eulogy. A.D. 1728.] + +I am not ignorant that critical objections have been made to this and +other specimens of Johnson's Latin Poetry[187]. I acknowledge myself not +competent to decide on a question of such extreme nicety. But I am +satisfied with the just and discriminative eulogy pronounced upon it by +my friend Mr, Courtenay. + +'And with like ease his vivid lines assume +The garb and dignity of ancient Rome.-- +Let college _verse-men_ trite conceits express, +Trick'd out in splendid shreds of Virgil's dress; +From playful Ovid cull the tinsel phrase, +And vapid notions hitch in pilfer'd lays: +Then with mosaick art the piece combine, +And boast the glitter of each dulcet line: +Johnson adventur'd boldly to transfuse +His vigorous sense into the Latian muse; +Aspir'd to shine by unreflected light, +And with a Roman's ardour _think_ and write. +He felt the tuneful Nine his breast inspire, +And, like a master, wak'd the soothing lyre: +Horatian strains a grateful heart proclaim, +While Sky's wild rocks resound his Thralia's name[188]. +Hesperia's plant, in some less skilful hands, +To bloom a while, factitious heat demands: +Though glowing Maro a faint warmth supplies, +The sickly blossom in the hot-house dies: +By Johnson's genial culture, art, and toil, +Its root strikes deep, and owns the fost'ring soil; +Imbibes our sun through all its swelling veins, +And grows a native of Britannia's plains[189].' + +[Page 63: Johnson's 'morbid melancholy'. Ætat 19.] + +The 'morbid melancholy,' which was lurking in his constitution, and to +which we may ascribe those particularities, and that aversion to regular +life, which, at a very early period, marked his character, gathered such +strength in his twentieth year, as to afflict him in a dreadful manner. +While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the year 1729[190], +he felt himself overwhelmed with an horrible hypochondria, with +perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, +gloom, and despair, which made existence misery[191]. From this dismal +malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all his labours, +and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful +influence[192]. How wonderful, how unsearchable are the ways of GOD! +Johnson, who was blest with all the powers of genius and understanding +in a degree far above the ordinary state of human nature, was at the +same time visited with a disorder so afflictive, that they who know it +by dire experience, will not envy his exalted endowments. That it was, +in some degree, occasioned by a defect in his nervous system, that +inexplicable part of our frame, appears highly probable. He told Mr. +Paradise[193] that he was sometimes so languid and inefficient, that he +could not distinguish the hour upon the town-clock. + +[Page 64: Johnson consults Dr. Swinfen. A.D. 1729.] + +Johnson, upon the first violent attack of this disorder, strove to +overcome it by forcible exertions[194]. He frequently walked to Birmingham +and back again[195], and tried many other expedients, but all in vain. His +expression concerning it to me was 'I did not then know how to manage +it.' His distress became so intolerable, that he applied to Dr. Swinfen, +physician in Lichfield, his god-father, and put into his hands a state +of his case, written in Latin. Dr. Swinfen was so much struck with the +extraordinary acuteness, research, and eloquence of this paper, that in +his zeal for his godson he shewed it to several people. His daughter, +Mrs. Desmoulins, who was many years humanely supported in Dr. Johnson's +house in London, told me, that upon his discovering that Dr. Swinfen had +communicated his case, he was so much offended, that he was never +afterwards fully reconciled to him. He indeed had good reason to be +offended; for though Dr. Swinfen's motive was good, he inconsiderately +betrayed a matter deeply interesting and of great delicacy, which had +been entrusted to him in confidence; and exposed a complaint of his +young friend and patient, which, in the superficial opinion of the +generality of mankind, is attended with contempt and disgrace[196]. + +[Page 65: Johnson an hypochondriack. ÆTAT. 20.] + +But let not little men triumph upon knowing that Johnson was an +HYPOCHONDRIACK, was subject to what the learned, philosophical, and +pious Dr. Cheyne has so well treated under the title of 'The English +Malady[197].' Though he suffered severely from it, he was not therefore +degraded. The powers of his great mind might be troubled, and their full +exercise suspended at times; but the mind itself was ever entire. As a +proof of this, it is only necessary to consider, that, when he was at +the very worst, he composed that state of his own case, which shewed an +uncommon vigour, not only of fancy and taste, but of judgement. I am +aware that he himself was too ready to call such a complaint by the name +of _madness_[198]; in conformity with which notion, he has traced its +gradations, with exquisite nicety, in one of the chapters of his +RASSELAS[199]. But there is surely a clear distinction between a disorder +which affects only the imagination and spirits, while the judgement is +sound, and a disorder by which the judgement itself is impaired. This +distinction was made to me by the late Professor Gaubius of Leyden, +physician to the Prince of Orange, in a conversation which I had with +him several years ago, and he expanded it thus: 'If (said he) a man +tells me that he is grievously disturbed, for that he _imagines_ he sees +a ruffian coming against him with a drawn sword, though at the same time +he is _conscious_ it is a delusion, I pronounce him to have a disordered +imagination; but if a man tells me that he sees this, and in +consternation calls to me to look at it, I pronounce him to be _mad_.' + +[Page 66: Johnson's dread of insanity. A.D. 1729.] + +It is a common effect of low spirits or melancholy, to make those who +are afflicted with it imagine that they are actually suffering those +evils which happen to be most strongly presented to their minds. Some +have fancied themselves to be deprived of the use of their limbs, some +to labour under acute diseases, others to be in extreme poverty; when, +in truth, there was not the least reality in any of the suppositions; so +that when the vapours were dispelled, they were convinced of the +delusion. To Johnson, whose supreme enjoyment was the exercise of his +reason, the disturbance or obscuration of that faculty was the evil most +to be dreaded. Insanity, therefore, was the object of his most dismal +apprehension[200]; and he fancied himself seized by it, or approaching to +it, at the very time when he was giving proofs of a more than ordinary +soundness and vigour of judgement. That his own diseased imagination +should have so far deceived him, is strange; but it is stranger still +that some of his friends should have given credit to his groundless +opinion, when they had such undoubted proofs that it was totally +fallacious; though it is by no means surprising that those who wish to +depreciate him, should, since his death, have laid hold of this +circumstance, and insisted upon it with very unfair aggravation[201]. + +Amidst the oppression and distraction of a disease which very few have +felt in its full extent, but many have experienced in a slighter degree, +Johnson, in his writings, and in his conversation, never failed to +display all the varieties of intellectual excellence. In his march +through this world to a better, his mind still appeared grand and +brilliant, and impressed all around him with the truth of Virgil's noble +sentiment-- + +'_Igneus est ollis vigor et coelestis origo_.'[202] + +[Page 67: His reluctance to go to church. Ætat 20.] + +The history of his mind as to religion is an important article. I have +mentioned the early impressions made upon his tender imagination by his +mother, who continued her pious care with assiduity, but, in his +opinion, not with judgement. 'Sunday (said he) was a heavy day to me +when I was a boy. My mother confined me on that day, and made me read +"The Whole Duty of Man," from a great part of which I could derive no +instruction. When, for instance, I had read the chapter on theft, which +from my infancy I had been taught was wrong, I was no more convinced +that theft was wrong than before; so there was no accession of +knowledge. A boy should be introduced to such books, by having his +attention directed to the arrangement, to the style, and other +excellencies of composition; that the mind being thus engaged by an +amusing variety of objects, may not grow weary.' + +[Page 68: Law's Serious Call. A.D. 1729.] + +[Page 69: Johnson grounded in religion. Ætat 20.] + +He communicated to me the following particulars upon the subject of his +religious progress. 'I fell into an inattention to religion, or an +indifference about it, in my ninth year. The church at Lichfield, in +which we had a seat, wanted reparation[203], so I was to go and find a +seat in other churches; and having bad eyes, and being awkward about +this, I used to go and read in the fields on Sunday. This habit +continued till my fourteenth year; and still I find a great reluctance +to go to church[204]. I then became a sort of lax _talker_ against +religion, for I did not much _think_ against it; and this lasted till I +went to Oxford, where it would not be _suffered_[205]. When at Oxford, I +took up 'Law's _Serious Call to a Holy Life_,'[206] 'expecting to find it +a dull book (as such books generally are), and perhaps to laugh at it. +But I found Law quite an overmatch for me; and this was the first +occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion, after I became capable +of rational inquiry[207].' From this time forward religion was the +predominant object of his thoughts[208]; though, with the just sentiments +of a conscientious Christian, he lamented that his practice of its +duties fell far short of what it ought to be. + +This instance of a mind such as that of Johnson being first disposed, by +an unexpected incident, to think with anxiety of the momentous concerns +of eternity, and of 'what he should do to be saved[209],' may for ever be +produced in opposition to the superficial and sometimes profane contempt +that has been thrown upon, those occasional impressions which it is +certain many Christians have experienced; though it must be acknowledged +that weak minds, from an erroneous supposition that no man is in a state +of grace who has not felt a particular conversion, have, in some cases, +brought a degree of ridicule upon them; a ridicule of which it is +inconsiderate or unfair to make a general application. + +[Page 70: Johnson's studies at Oxford. A.D. 1729.] + +How seriously Johnson was impressed with a sense of religion, even in +the vigour of his youth, appears from the following passage in his +minutes kept by way of diary: Sept. 7[210], 1736. I have this day entered +upon my twenty-eighth year. 'Mayest thou, O God, enable me, for JESUS +CHRIST'S sake, to spend this in such a manner that I may receive comfort +from it at the hour of death, and in the day of judgement! Amen.' + +[Page 71: His rapid reading and composition. Ætat 20.] + +The particular course of his reading while at Oxford, and during the +time of vacation which he passed at home, cannot be traced. Enough has +been said of his irregular mode of study. He told me that from his +earliest years he loved to read poetry, but hardly ever read any poem to +an end; that he read Shakspeare at a period so early, that the speech of +the ghost in Hamlet terrified him when he was alone[211]; that Horace's +Odes were the compositions in which he took most delight, and it was +long before he liked his Epistles and Satires. He told me what he read +_solidly_ at Oxford was Greek; not the Grecian historians, but Homer[212] +and Euripides, and now and then a little Epigram; that the study of +which he was the most fond was Metaphysicks, but he had not read much, +even in that way. I always thought that he did himself injustice in his +account of what he had read, and that he must have been speaking with +reference to the vast portion of study which is possible, and to which a +few scholars in the whole history of literature have attained; for when +I once asked him whether a person, whose name I have now forgotten, +studied hard, he answered 'No, Sir; I do not believe he studied hard. I +never knew a man who studied hard. I conclude, indeed, from the effects, +that some men have studied hard, as Bentley and Clarke.' Trying him by +that criterion upon which he formed his judgement of others, we may be +absolutely certain, both from his writings and his conversation, that +his reading was very extensive. Dr. Adam Smith, than whom few were +better judges on this subject, once observed to me that 'Johnson knew +more books than any man alive.' He had a peculiar facility in seizing at +once what was valuable in any book, without submitting to the labour of +perusing it from beginning to end[213]. He had, from the irritability of +his constitution, at all times, an impatience and hurry when he either +read or wrote. A certain apprehension, arising from novelty, made him +write his first exercise at College twice over[214]; but he never took +that trouble with any other composition; and we shall see that his most +excellent works were struck off at a heat, with rapid exertion[215]. + +[Page 72: Johnson's rooms in College. A.D. 1729.] + +Yet he appears, from his early notes or memorandums in my possession, to +have at various times attempted, or at least planned, a methodical +course of study, according to computation, of which he was all his life +fond, as it fixed his attention steadily upon something without, and +prevented his mind from preying upon itself[216]. Thus I find in his +hand-writing the number of lines in each of two of Euripides' Tragedies, +of the Georgicks of Virgil, of the first six books of the Æneid, of +Horace's Art of Poetry, of three of the books of Ovid's Metamorphosis, +of some parts of Theocritus, and of the tenth Satire of Juvenal; and a +table, shewing at the rate of various numbers a day (I suppose verses to +be read), what would be, in each case, the total amount in a week, +month, and year[217]. + +No man had a more ardent love of literature, or a higher respect for it +than Johnson. His apartment in Pembroke College was that upon the second +floor, over the gateway. The enthusiasts of learning will ever +contemplate it with veneration. One day, while he was sitting in it +quite alone, Dr. Panting[218], then master of the College, whom he called +'a fine Jacobite fellow,' overheard[219] him uttering this soliloquy in +his strong, emphatick voice: 'Well, I have a mind to see what is done in +other places of learning. I'll go and visit the Universities abroad. +I'll go to France and Italy. I'll go to Padua[220].--And I'll mind my +business. For an _Athenian_ blockhead is the worst of all +blockheads[221].' + +[Page 73: Johnson a frolicksome fellow. Ætat 20.] + +Dr. Adams told me that Johnson, while he was at Pembroke College, 'was +caressed and loved by all about him, was a gay and frolicksome[222] +fellow, and passed there the happiest part of his life.' But this is a +striking proof of the fallacy of appearances, and how little any of us +know of the real internal state even of those whom we see most +frequently; for the truth is, that he was then depressed by poverty, and +irritated by disease. When I mentioned to him this account as given me +by Dr. Adams, he said, 'Ah, Sir, I was mad and violent. It was +bitterness which they mistook for frolick[223]. 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[224].' + +[Page 74: Dr. Adams. A.D. 1730.] + +The Bishop of Dromore observes in a letter to me, + +'The pleasure he took in vexing the tutors and fellows has been often +mentioned. But I have heard him say, what ought to be recorded to the +honour of the present venerable master of that College, the Reverend +William Adams, D.D., who was then very young, and one of the junior +fellows; that the mild but judicious expostulations of this worthy man, +whose virtue awed him, and whose learning he revered, made him really +ashamed of himself, "though I fear (said he) I was too proud to own it." + +'I have heard from some of his cotemporaries that he was generally seen +lounging at the College gate, with a circle of young students round him, +whom he was entertaining with wit, and keeping from their studies, if +not spiriting them up to rebellion against the College discipline, which +in his maturer years he so much extolled.' + +He very early began to attempt keeping notes or memorandums, by way of a +diary of his life. I find, in a parcel of loose leaves, the following +spirited resolution to contend against his natural indolence: + +'_Oct. 1729. Desidiæ valedixi; syrenis istius cantibus surdam posthac +aurem obversurus_.--I bid farewell to Sloth, being resolved henceforth +not to listen to her syren strains.' + +I have also in my possession a few leaves of another _Libellus_, or +little book, entitled ANNALES, in which some of the early particulars of +his history are registered in Latin. + +[Page 75: A nest of singing-birds. Ætat 21.] + +I do not find that he formed any close intimacies with his +fellow-collegians. But Dr. Adams told me that he contracted a love and +regard for Pembroke College, which he retained to the last. A short time +before his death he sent to that College a present of all his works, to +be deposited in their library[225]; and he had thoughts of leaving to it +his house at Lichfield; but his friends who were about him very properly +dissuaded him from it, and he bequeathed it to some poor relations[226]. +He took a pleasure in boasting of the many eminent men who had been +educated at Pembroke. In this list are found the names of Mr. Hawkins +the Poetry Professor[227], Mr. Shenstone, Sir William Blackstone, and +others[228]; not forgetting the celebrated popular preacher, Mr. George +Whitefield, of whom, though Dr. Johnson did not think very highly[229], it +must be acknowledged that his eloquence was powerful, his views pious +and charitable, his assiduity almost incredible; and, that since his +death, the integrity of his character has been fully vindicated. Being +himself a poet, Johnson was peculiarly happy in mentioning how many of +the sons of Pembroke were poets; adding, with a smile of sportive +triumph, 'Sir, we are a nest of singing birds[230].' + +[Page 76: Dr. Taylor at Christ Church. A.D. 1730.] + +[Page 77: Johnson's worn-out shoes. Ætat 21.] + +He was not, however, blind to what he thought the defects of his own +College; and I have, from the information of Dr. Taylor, a very strong +instance of that rigid honesty which he ever inflexibly preserved. +Taylor had obtained his father's consent to be entered of Pembroke, that +he might be with his schoolfellow Johnson, with whom, though some years +older than himself, he was very intimate. This would have been a great +comfort to Johnson. But he fairly told Taylor that he could not, in +conscience, suffer him to enter where he knew he could not have an able +tutor. He then made inquiry all round the University, and having found +that Mr. Bateman, of Christ Church, was the tutor of highest reputation, +Taylor was entered of that College[231]. Mr. Bateman's lectures were so +excellent, that Johnson used to come and get them at second-hand from +Taylor, till his poverty being so extreme that his shoes were worn out, +and his feet appeared through them, he saw that this humiliating +circumstance was perceived by the Christ Church men, and he came no +more[232]. He was too proud to accept of money, and somebody having set a +pair of new shoes at his door, he threw them away with indignation[233]. +How must we feel when we read such an anecdote of Samuel Johnson! + +His spirited refusal of an eleemosynary supply of shoes, arose, no +doubt, from a proper pride. But, considering his ascetick disposition at +times, as acknowledged by himself in his 'Meditations,' and the +exaggeration with which some have treated the peculiarities of his +character, I should not wonder to hear it ascribed to a principle of +superstitious mortification; as we are told by Tursellinus, in his Life +of St. Ignatius Loyola, that this intrepid founder of the order of +Jesuits, when he arrived at Goa, after having made a severe pilgrimage +through the Eastern deserts persisted in wearing his miserable shattered +shoes, and when new ones were offered him rejected them as an unsuitable +indulgence. + +[Page 78: Johnson leaves Oxford. A.D. 1731.] + +The _res angusta domi_[234] prevented him from having the advantage of a +complete academical education[235]. The friend to whom he had trusted for +support had deceived him. His debts in College, though not great, were +increasing[236]; and his scanty remittances from Lichfield, which had all +along been made with great difficulty, could be supplied no longer, his +father having fallen into a state of insolvency. Compelled, therefore, +by irresistible necessity, he left the College in autumn, 1731, without +a degree, having been a member of it little more than three years[237]. + +[Page 79: His destitute state. Ætat 22.] + +Dr. Adams, the worthy and respectable master of Pembroke College, has +generally had the reputation of being Johnson's tutor. The fact, +however, is, that in 1731 Mr. Jorden quitted the College, and his pupils +were transferred to Dr. Adams; so that had Johnson returned, Dr. Adams +_would have been his tutor_. It is to be wished, that this connection +had taken place. His equal temper, mild disposition, and politeness of +manners, might have insensibly softened the harshness of Johnson, and +infused into him those more delicate charities, those _petites morales_, +in which, it must be confessed, our great moralist was more deficient +than his best friends could fully justify. Dr. Adams paid Johnson this +high compliment. He said to me at Oxford, in 1776, 'I was his nominal +tutor[238]; but he was above my mark.' When I repeated it to Johnson, his +eyes flashed with grateful satisfaction, and he exclaimed, 'That was +liberal and noble.' + +[Page 80: Michael Johnson's death. A.D. 1731.] + +And now (I had almost said _poor_) Samuel Johnson returned to his native +city, destitute, and not knowing how he should gain even a decent +livelihood. His father's misfortunes in trade rendered him unable to +support his son[239]; and for some time there appeared no means by which +he could maintain himself. In the December of this year his father died. + +The state of poverty in which he died, appears from a note in one of +Johnson's little diaries of the following year, which strongly displays +his spirit and virtuous dignity of mind. + +'1732, _Julii_ 15. _Undecim aureos deposui, quo die quicquid ante matris +funus (quod serum sit precor) de paternis bonis sperari licet, viginti +scilicet libras, accepi. Usque adeo mihi fortuna fingenda est. Interea, +ne paupertate vires animi languescant, nee in flagilia egestas abigat, +cavendum_.--I layed by eleven guineas on this day, when I received +twenty pounds, being all that I have reason to hope for out of my +father's effects, previous to the death of my mother; an event which I +pray GOD may be very remote. I now therefore see that I must make my own +fortune. Meanwhile, let me take care that the powers of my mind may not +be debilitated by poverty, and that indigence do not force me into any +criminal act.' + +Johnson was so far fortunate, that the respectable character of his +parents, and his own merit, had, from his earliest years, secured him a +kind reception in the best families at Lichfield. Among these I can +mention Mr. Howard[240], Dr. Swinfen, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Levett[241], Captain +Garrick, father of the great ornament of the British stage; but above +all, Mr. Gilbert Walmsley[242], Register of the Prerogative Court of +Lichfield, whose character, long after his decease, Dr. Johnson has, in +his Life of Edmund Smith[243], thus drawn in the glowing colours of +gratitude: + +[Page 81: Gilbert Walmsley. Ætat 22.] + +'Of Gilbert Walmsley[244], thus presented to my mind, let me indulge +myself in the remembrance. I knew him very early; he was one of the +first friends that literature procured me, and I hope that, at least, my +gratitude made me worthy of his notice. + +'He was of an advanced age, and I was only not a boy, yet he never +received my notions with contempt. He was a whig, with all the virulence +and malevolence of his party; yet difference of opinion did not keep us +apart. I honoured him and he endured me. + +'He had mingled with the gay world without exemption from its vices or +its follies; but had never neglected the cultivation of his mind. His +belief of revelation was unshaken; his learning preserved his +principles; he grew first regular, and then pious. + +'His studies had been so various, that 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. Such was +his amplitude of learning, and such his copiousness of communication, +that it may be doubted whether a day now passes, in which I have not +some advantage from his friendship. + +'At this man's table I enjoyed many cheerful and instructive hours, with +companions, such as are not often found--with one who has lengthened, +and one who has gladdened life; with Dr. James[245], whose skill in +physick will be long remembered; and with David Garrick, whom I hoped to +have gratified with this character of our common friend. But what are +the hopes of man! I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has +eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the publick stock of +harmless pleasure[246].' + +[Page 82: Lichfield society. A.D. 1732.] + +In these families he passed much time in his early years. In most of +them, he was in the company of ladies, particularly at Mr. Walmsley's, +whose wife and sisters-in-law, of the name of Aston, and daughters of a +Baronet, were remarkable for good breeding; so that the notion which has +been industriously circulated and believed, that he never was in good +company till late in life, and, consequently had been confirmed in +coarse and ferocious manners by long habits, is wholly without +foundation. Some of the ladies have assured me, they recollected him +well when a young man, as distinguished for his complaisance. + +And that this politeness was not merely occasional and temporary, or +confined to the circles of Lichfield, is ascertained by the testimony of +a lady, who, in a paper with which I have been favoured by a daughter of +his intimate friend and physician, Dr. Lawrence, thus describes Dr. +Johnson some years afterwards: + +'As the particulars of the former part of Dr. Johnson's life do not seem +to be very accurately known, a lady hopes that the following information +may not be unacceptable. + +[Page 83: Molly Aston. Ætat 23.] + +'She remembers Dr. Johnson on a visit to Dr. Taylor, at Ashbourn, some +time between the end of the year 37, and the middle of the year 40; she +rather thinks it to have been after he and his wife were removed to +London[247]. During his stay at Ashbourn, he made frequent visits to Mr. +Meynell[248], at Bradley, where his company was much desired by the ladies +of the family, who were, perhaps, in point of elegance and +accomplishments, inferiour to few of those with whom he was afterwards +acquainted. Mr. Meynell's eldest daughter was afterwards married to Mr. +Fitzherbert[249], father to Mr. Alleyne Fitzherbert, lately minister to +the court of Russia. Of her, Dr. Johnson said, in Dr. Lawrence's study, +that she had the best understanding he ever met with in any human +being[250]. At Mr. Meynell's he also commenced that friendship with Mrs. +Hill Boothby[251], sister to the present Sir Brook Boothby, which +continued till her death. _The young woman whom he used to call Molly +Aston_[252], was sister to Sir Thomas Aston, and daughter to a Baronet; +she was also sister to the wife of his friend Mr. Gilbert Walmsley[253]. +Besides his intimacy with the above-mentioned persons, who were surely +people of rank and education, while he was yet at Lichfield he used to +be frequently at the house of Dr. Swinfen, a gentleman of a very ancient +family in Staffordshire, from which, after the death of his elder +brother, he inherited a good estate. He was, besides, a physician of +very extensive practice; but for want of due attention to the management +of his domestick concerns, left a very large family in indigence. One of +his daughters, Mrs. Desmoulins, afterwards found an asylum in the house +of her old friend, whose doors were always open to the unfortunate, and +who well observed the precept of the Gospel, for he "was kind to the +unthankful and to the evil[254]."' + +[Page 84: Johnson an usher. A.D. 1732.] + +In the forlorn state of his circumstances, he accepted of an offer to be +employed as usher in the school of Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire, +to which it appears, from one of his little fragments of a diary, that +he went on foot, on the 16th of July.--'_Julii 16. Bosvortiam pedes +petii_[255].' But it is not true, as has been erroneously related, that he +was assistant to the famous Anthony Blackwall, whose merit has been +honoured by the testimony of Bishop Hurd[256], who was his scholar; for +Mr. Blackwall died on the 8th of April, 1730[257], more than a year before +Johnson left the University[258]. + +This employment was very irksome to him in every respect, and he +complained grievously of it in his letters to his friend Mr. Hector, who +was now settled as a surgeon at Birmingham. The letters are lost; but +Mr. Hector recollects his writing 'that the poet had described the dull +sameness of his existence in these words, "_Vitam continet una dies_" +(one day contains the whole of my life); that it was unvaried as the +note of the cuckow; and that he did not know whether it was more +disagreeable for him to teach, or the boys to learn, the grammar rules.' +His general aversion to this painful drudgery was greatly enhanced by a +disagreement between him and Sir Wolstan Dixey, the patron of the +school, in whose house, I have been told, he officiated as a kind of +domestick chaplain, so far, at least, as to say grace at table, but was +treated with what he represented as intolerable harshness[259]; and, after +suffering for a few months such complicated misery[260], he relinquished a +situation which all his life afterwards he recollected with the +strongest aversion, and even a degree of horrour[261]. But it is probable +that at this period, whatever uneasiness he may have endured, he laid +the foundation of much future eminence by application to his studies. + +[Page 85: His life in Birmingham. Ætat 23.] + +Being now again totally unoccupied, he was invited by Mr. Hector to pass +some time with him at Birmingham, as his guest, at the house of Mr. +Warren, with whom Mr. Hector lodged and boarded. Mr. Warren was the +first established bookseller in Birmingham, and was very attentive to +Johnson, who he soon found could be of much service to him in his trade, +by his knowledge of literature; and he even obtained the assistance of +his pen in furnishing some numbers of a periodical Essay printed in the +news-paper, of which Warren was proprietor[262]. After very diligent +inquiry, I have not been able to recover those early specimens of that +particular mode of writing by which Johnson afterwards so greatly +distinguished himself. + +[Page 86: Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia. A.D. 1733.] + +He continued to live as Mr. Hector's guest for about six months, and +then hired lodgings in another part of the town[263], finding himself as +well situated at Birmingham[264] as he supposed he could be any where, +while he had no settled plan of life, and very scanty means of +subsistence. He made some valuable acquaintances there, amongst whom +were Mr. Porter, a mercer, whose widow he afterwards married, and Mr. +Taylor[265], who by his ingenuity in mechanical inventions, and his +success in trade, acquired an immense fortune. But the comfort of being +near Mr. Hector, his old school-fellow and intimate friend, was +Johnson's chief inducement to continue here. + +In what manner he employed his pen at this period, or whether he derived +from it any pecuniary advantage, I have not been able to ascertain. He +probably got a little money from Mr. Warren; and we are certain, that he +executed here one piece of literary labour, of which Mr. Hector has +favoured me with a minute account. Having mentioned that he had read at +Pembroke College a Voyage to Abyssinia, by Lobo, a Portuguese Jesuit, +and that he thought an abridgment and translation of it from the French +into English might be an useful and profitable publication, Mr. Warren +and Mr. Hector joined in urging him to undertake it. He accordingly +agreed; and the book not being to be found in Birmingham, he borrowed it +of Pembroke College. A part of the work being very soon done, one +Osborn, who was Mr. Warren's printer, was set to work with what was +ready, and Johnson engaged to supply the press with copy as it should be +wanted; but his constitutional indolence soon prevailed, and the work +was at a stand. Mr. Hector, who knew that a motive of humanity would be +the most prevailing argument with his friend, went to Johnson, and +represented to him, that the printer could have no other employment till +this undertaking was finished, and that the poor man and his family were +suffering. Johnson upon this exerted the powers of his mind, though his +body was relaxed. He lay in bed with the book, which was a quarto, +before him, and dictated while Hector wrote. Mr. Hector carried the +sheets to the press, and corrected almost all the proof sheets, very few +of which were even seen by Johnson. In this manner, with the aid of Mr. +Hector's active friendship, the book was completed, and was published in +1735, with LONDON upon the title-page, though it was in reality printed +at Birmingham, a device too common with provincial publishers. For this +work he had from Mr. Warren only the sum of five guineas[266]. + +This being the first prose work of Johnson, it is a curious object of +inquiry how much may be traced in it of that style which marks his +subsequent writings with such peculiar excellence; with so happy an +union of force, vivacity, and perspicuity. I have perused the book with +this view, and have found that here, as I believe in every other +translation, there is in the work itself no vestige of the translator's +own style; for the language of translation being adapted to the thoughts +of another person, insensibly follows their cast, and, as it were, runs +into a mould that is ready prepared[267]. + +Thus, for instance, taking the first sentence that occurs at the opening +of the book, p. 4. + +'I lived here above a year, and completed my studies in divinity; in +which time some letters were received from the fathers of Ethiopia, with +an account that Sultan Segned[268], Emperour of Abyssinia, was converted +to the church of Rome; that many of his subjects had followed his +example, and that there was a great want of missionaries to improve +these prosperous beginnings. Every body was very desirous of seconding +the zeal of our fathers, and of sending them the assistance they +requested; to which we were the more encouraged, because the Emperour's +letter informed our Provincial, that we might easily enter his dominions +by the way of Dancala; but, unhappily, the secretary wrote Geila[269] for +Dancala, which cost two of our fathers their lives.' + +Every one acquainted with Johnson's manner will be sensible that there +is nothing of it here; but that this sentence might have been composed +by any other man. + +But, in the Preface, the Johnsonian style begins to appear; and though +use had not yet taught his wing a permanent and equable flight, there +are parts of it which exhibit his best manner in full vigour. I had once +the pleasure of examining it with Mr. Edmund Burke, who confirmed me in +this opinion, by his superiour critical sagacity, and was, I remember, +much delighted with the following specimen: + +'The Portuguese traveller, contrary to the general vein of his +countrymen, has amused his reader with no romantick absurdity, or +incredible fictions; whatever he relates, whether true or not, is at +least probable; and he who tells nothing exceeding the bounds of +probability, has a right to demand that they should believe him who +cannot contradict him. + +'He appears, by his modest and unaffected narration, to have described +things as he saw them, to have copied nature from the life, and to have +consulted his senses, not his imagination. He meets with no basilisks +that destroy with their eyes, his crocodiles devour their prey without +tears, and his cataracts fall from the rocks without deafening the +neighbouring inhabitants[270]. + +'The reader will here find no regions cursed with irremediable +barrenness, or blessed with spontaneous fecundity; no perpetual gloom, +or unceasing sunshine; nor are the nations here described either devoid +of all sense of humanity, or consummate in all private or social +virtues. Here are no Hottentots without religious polity or articulate +language[271]; no Chinese perfectly polite, and completely skilled in all +sciences; he will discover, what will always be discovered by a diligent +and impartial enquirer, that wherever human nature is to be found, there +is a mixture of vice and virtue, a contest of passion and reason; and +that the Creator doth not appear partial in his distributions, but has +balanced, in most countries, their particular inconveniencies by +particular favours.' + +Here we have an early example of that brilliant and energetick +expression, which, upon innumerable occasions in his subsequent life, +justly impressed the world with the highest admiration. + +Nor can any one, conversant with the writings of Johnson, fail to +discern his hand in this passage of the Dedication to John Warren, Esq. +of Pembrokeshire, though it is ascribed to Warren the bookseller: + +'A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly +than an eminent degree of curiosity[272]; nor is that curiosity ever more +agreeably or usefully employed, than in examining the laws and customs +of foreign nations. I hope, therefore, the present I now presume to +make, will not be thought improper; which, however, it is not my +business as a dedicator to commend, nor as a bookseller to depreciate.' + +It is reasonable to suppose, that his having been thus accidentally led +to a particular study of the history and manners of Abyssinia, was the +remote occasion of his writing, many years afterwards, his admirable +philosophical tale[273], the principal scene of which is laid in that +country. + +[Page 90: Proposals to print Politian. A.D. 1734.] + +Johnson returned to Lichfield early in 1734, and in August[274] that year +he made an attempt to procure some little subsistence by his pen; for he +published proposals for printing by subscription the Latin Poems of +Politian[275]: '_Angeli Politiani Poemata Latina, quibus, Notas cum +historiâ Latinæ poeseos, à Petrarchæ ævo ad Politiani tempora deductâ, +et vitâ Politiani fusius quam antehac enarratâ, addidit_ SAM. +JOHNSON[276].' + +It appears that his brother Nathanael[277] had taken up his father's +trade; for it is mentioned that 'subscriptions are taken in by the +Editor, or N. Johnson, bookseller, of Lichfield.' Notwithstanding the +merit of Johnson, and the cheap price at which this book was offered, +there were not subscribers enough to insure a sufficient sale; so the +work never appeared, and probably, never was executed. + +[Page 91: First letter to Edward Cave. Ætat 25.] + +We find him again this year at Birmingham, and there is preserved the +following letter from him to Mr. Edward Cave[278], the original compiler +and editor of the _Gentleman's Magazine_: + +TO MR. CAVE. + +_Nov_. 25, 1734. + +'Sir, + +'As you appear no less sensible than your readers of the defects of your +poetical article, you will not be displeased, if, in order to the +improvement of it, I communicate to you the sentiments of a person, who +will undertake, on reasonable terms, sometimes to fill a column. + +'His opinion is, that the publick would not give you a bad reception, +if, beside the current wit of the month, which a critical examination +would generally reduce to a narrow compass, you admitted not only poems, +inscriptions, &c. never printed before, which he will sometimes supply +you with; but likewise short literary dissertations in Latin or English, +critical remarks on authours ancient or modern, forgotten poems that +deserve revival, or loose pieces, like Floyer's[279], worth preserving. By +this method, your literary article, for so it might be called, will, he +thinks, be better recommended to the publick than by low jests, awkward +buffoonery, or the dull scurrilities of either party. + +'If such a correspondence will be agreeable to you, be pleased to inform +me in two posts, what the conditions are on which you shall expect it. +Your late offer[280] gives me no reason to distrust your generosity. If +you engage in any literary projects besides this paper, I have other +designs to impart, if I could be secure from having others reap the +advantage of what I should hint. + +[Page 92: Verses on a sprig of myrtle. A.D. 1734.] + +'Your letter by being directed to _S. Smith_, to be left at the Castle +in[281] Birmingham, Warwickshire, will reach + +'Your humble servant.' + +Mr. Cave has put a note on this letter, 'Answered Dec. 2.' But whether +any thing was done in consequence of it we are not informed. + +Johnson had, from his early youth, been sensible to the influence of +female charms. When at Stourbridge school, he was much enamoured of +Olivia Lloyd, a young quaker, to whom he wrote a copy of verses, which I +have not been able to recover; but with what facility and elegance he +could warble the amorous lay, will appear from the following lines which +he wrote for his friend Mr. Edmund Hector. + +[Page 93: Boswell's controversy with Miss Seward. Ætat 25.] + +VERSES _to a_ LADY, _on receiving from her a_ SPRIG of MYRTLE. + +'What hopes, what terrours does thy gift create, +Ambiguous emblem of uncertain fate: +The myrtle, ensign of supreme command, +Consign'd by Venus to Melissa's hand; +Not less capricious than a reigning fair, +Now grants, and now rejects a lover's prayer. +In myrtle shades oft sings the happy swain, +In myrtle shades despairing ghosts complain; +The myrtle crowns the happy lovers' heads, +The unhappy lovers' grave the myrtle spreads: +O then the meaning of thy gift impart, +And ease the throbbings of an anxious heart! +Soon must this bough, as you shall fix his doom, +Adorn Philander's head, or grace his tomb[282].' + +[Page 94: Johnson's personal appearance. A.D. 1734.] + +His juvenile attachments to the fair sex were, however, very transient; +and it is certain that he formed no criminal connection whatsoever. Mr. +Hector, who lived with him in his younger days in the utmost intimacy +and social freedom, has assured me, that even at that ardent season his +conduct was strictly virtuous in that respect[283]; and that though he +loved to exhilarate himself with wine, he never knew him intoxicated but +once[284]. + +[Page 95: Mrs. Porter. Ætat 25.] + +In a man whom religious education has secured from licentious +indulgences, the passion of love, when once it has seized him, is +exceedingly strong; being unimpaired by dissipation, and totally +concentrated in one object. This was experienced by Johnson, when he +became the fervent admirer of Mrs. Porter, after her first husband's +death[285]. Miss Porter told me, that when he was first introduced to her +mother, his appearance was very forbidding: he was then lean and lank, +so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the +eye, and the scars of the scrophula were deeply visible[286]. He also wore +his hair[287], which was straight and stiff, and separated behind: and he +often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which +tended to excite at once surprize and ridicule[288]. Mrs. Porter was so +much engaged by his conversation that she overlooked all these external +disadvantages, and said to her daughter, 'this is the most sensible man +that I ever saw in my life.' + +Though Mrs. Porter was double the age of Johnson[289], and her person and +manner, as described to me by the late Mr. Garrick, were by no means +pleasing to others, she must have had a superiority of understanding and +talents, as she certainly inspired him with a more than ordinary +passion; and she having signified her willingness to accept of his hand, +he went to Lichfield to ask his mother's consent to the marriage, which +he could not but be conscious was a very imprudent scheme, both on +account of their disparity of years, and her want of fortune[290]. But +Mrs. Johnson knew too well the ardour of her son's temper, and was too +tender a parent to oppose his inclinations. + +[Page 96: Johnson's marriage. A.D. 1736.] + +I know not for what reason the marriage ceremony was not performed at +Birmingham; but a resolution was taken that it should be at Derby, for +which place the bride and bridegroom set out on horseback, I suppose in +very good humour. But though Mr. Topham Beauclerk used archly to mention +Johnson's having told him, with much gravity, 'Sir, it was a love +marriage on both sides,' I have had from my illustrious friend the +following curious account of their journey to church upon the nuptial +morn: + +9th July:--'Sir, she had read the old romances, and had got into her +head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her lover +like a dog. So, Sir, at first she told me that I rode too fast, and she +could not keep up with me; and, when I rode a little slower, she passed +me, and complained that I lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave +of caprice; and I resolved to begin as I meant to end. I therefore +pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her sight. The road lay +between two hedges, so I was sure she could not miss it; and I contrived +that she should soon come up with me. When she did, I observed her to be +in tears.' + +This, it must be allowed, was a singular beginning of connubial +felicity; but there is no doubt that Johnson, though he thus shewed a +manly firmness, proved a most affectionate and indulgent husband to the +last moment of Mrs. Johnson's life: and in his _Prayers and +Meditations_, we find very remarkable evidence that his regard and +fondness for her never ceased, even after her death. + +[Page 97: His School at Edial. Ætat 27.] + +He now set up a private academy[291], for which purpose he hired a large +house, well situated near his native city. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ +for 1736, there is the following advertisement: + +'At Edial, near Lichfield[292], in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are +boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by SAMUEL JOHNSON.' + +But the only pupils that were put under his care were the celebrated +David Garrick and his brother George, and a Mr. Offely, a young +gentleman of good fortune who died early. As yet, his name had nothing +of that celebrity which afterwards commanded the highest attention and +respect of mankind. Had such an advertisement appeared after the +publication of his _London_, or his _Rambler_, or his _Dictionary_, how +would it have burst upon the world! with what eagerness would the great +and the wealthy have embraced an opportunity of putting their sons under +the learned tuition of SAMUEL JOHNSON. The truth, however, is, that he +was not so well qualified for being a teacher of elements, and a +conductor in learning by regular gradations, as men of inferiour powers +of mind. His own acquisitions had been made by fits and starts, by +violent irruptions into the regions of knowledge; and it could not be +expected that his impatience would be subdued, and his impetuosity +restrained, so as to fit him for a quiet guide to novices. The art of +communicating instruction, of whatever kind, is much to be valued; and I +have ever thought that those who devote themselves to this employment, +and do their duty with diligence and success, are entitled to very high +respect from the community, as Johnson himself often maintained[293]. Yet +I am of opinion that the greatest abilities are not only not required +for this office, but render a man less fit for it. + +[Page 98: Garrick Johnson's pupil. A.D. 1736.] + +While we acknowledge the justness of Thomson's beautiful remark, + +'Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, +And teach[294] the young idea how to shoot!' + +we must consider that this delight is perceptible only by 'a mind at +ease,' a mind at once calm and clear; but that a mind gloomy and +impetuous like that of Johnson, cannot be fixed for any length of time +in minute attention, and must be so frequently irritated by unavoidable +slowness and errour in the advances of scholars, as to perform the duty, +with little pleasure to the teacher, and no great advantage to the +pupils[295]. Good temper is a most essential requisite in a Preceptor. +Horace paints the character as _bland_: + +'... _Ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi +Doctores, elementa velint ut discere_[296].' + +[Page 99: Mrs. Johnson. Ætat 27.] + +Johnson was not more satisfied with his situation as the master of an +academy, than with that of the usher of a school; we need not wonder, +therefore, that he did not keep his academy above a year and a half. +From Mr. Garrick's account he did not appear to have been profoundly +reverenced by his pupils. His oddities of manner, and uncouth +gesticulations, could not but be the subject of merriment to them; and, +in particular, the young rogues used to listen at the door of his +bed-chamber, and peep through the key-hole, that they might turn into +ridicule his tumultuous and awkward fondness for Mrs. Johnson, whom he +used to name by the familiar appellation of _Tetty_ or _Tetsey_, which, +like _Betty_ or _Betsey_, is provincially used as a contraction for +_Elisabeth_, her Christian name, but which to us seems ludicrous, when +applied to a woman of her age and appearance. Mr. Garrick described her +to me as very fat, with a bosom of more than ordinary protuberance, with +swelled cheeks of a florid red, produced by thick painting, and +increased by the liberal use of cordials; flaring and fantastick in her +dress, and affected both in her speech and her general behaviour. I have +seen Garrick exhibit her, by his exquisite talent of mimickry, so as to +excite the heartiest bursts of laughter; but he, probably, as is the +case in all such representations, considerably aggravated the +picture[297]. + +That Johnson well knew the most proper course to be pursued in the +instruction of youth, is authentically ascertained by the following +paper[298] in his own hand-writing, given about this period to a relation, +and now in the possession of Mr. John Nichols: + +'SCHEME _for the_ CLASSES _of a_ GRAMMAR SCHOOL. + +'When the introduction, or formation of nouns and verbs, is perfectly +mastered, let them learn: + +'Corderius by Mr. Clarke, beginning at the same time to translate out of +the introduction, that by this means they may learn the syntax. Then let +them proceed to: + +'Erasmus, with an English translation, by the same authour. + +'Class II. Learns Eutropius and Cornelius Nepos, or Justin, with the +translation. + +'N.B. The first class gets for their part every morning the rules which +they have learned before, and in the afternoon learns the Latin rules of +the nouns and verbs. + +[Page 100: A scheme of study. A.D. 1736.] + +'They are examined in the rules which they have learned every Thursday +and Saturday. + +'The second class does the same whilst they are in Eutropius; afterwards +their part is in the irregular nouns and verbs, and in the rules for +making and scanning verses. They are examined as the first. + +'Class III. Ovid's Metamorphoses in the morning, and Caesar's +Commentaries in the afternoon. + +'Practise in the Latin rules till they are perfect in them; afterwards +in Mr. Leeds's Greek Grammar. Examined as before. + +'Afterwards they proceed to Virgil, beginning at the same time to write +themes and verses, and to learn Greek; from thence passing on to Horace, +&c. as shall seem most proper. + +'I know not well what books to direct you to, because you have not +informed me what study you will apply yourself to. I believe it will be +most for your advantage to apply yourself wholly to the languages, till +you go to the University. The Greek authours I think it best for you to +read are these: + +'Cebes. +'Ælian. } +'Lucian by Leeds. } Attick. +'Xenophon. } +'Homer. Ionick. +'Theocritus. Dorick. +'Euripides. Attick and Dorick. + +'Thus you will be tolerably skilled in all the dialects, beginning with +the Attick, to which the rest must be referred. + +'In the study of Latin, it is proper not to read the latter authours, +till you are well versed in those of the purest ages; as Terence, Tully, +Cæsar, Sallust, Nepos, Velleius Paterculus, Virgil, Horace, Phædrus. + +'The greatest and most necessary task still remains, to attain a habit +of expression, without which knowledge is of little use. This is +necessary in Latin, and more necessary in English; and can only be +acquired by a daily imitation of the best and correctest authours. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +While Johnson kept his academy, there can be no doubt that he was +insensibly furnishing his mind with various knowledge; but I have not +discovered that he wrote any thing except a great part of his tragedy of +_Irene_. Mr. Peter Garrick, the elder brother of David, told me that he +remembered Johnson's borrowing the _Turkish History_[299] of him, in order +to form his play from it. When he had finished some part of it, he read +what he had done to Mr. Walmsley, who objected to his having already +brought his heroine into great distress, and asked him, 'how can you +possibly contrive to plunge her into deeper calamity?' Johnson, in sly +allusion to the supposed oppressive proceedings of the court of which +Mr. Walmsley was register, replied, 'Sir, I can put her into the +Spiritual Court!' + +[Page 101: Johnson tries his fortune in London. Ætat 27.] + +Mr. Walmsley, however, was well pleased with this proof of Johnson's +abilities as a dramatick writer, and advised him to finish the tragedy, +and produce it on the stage. + +Johnson now thought of trying his fortune in London, the great field of +genius and exertion, where talents of every kind have the fullest scope, +and the highest encouragement. It is a memorable circumstance that his +pupil David Garrick went thither at the same time[300], with intention to +complete his education, and follow the profession of the law, from which +he was soon diverted by his decided preference for the stage. + +This joint expedition of those two eminent men to the metropolis, was +many years afterwards noticed in an allegorical poem on Shakspeare's +Mulberry Tree, by Mr. Lovibond, the ingenious authour of _The Tears of +Old-May-day_[301]. + +They were recommended to Mr. Colson[302], an eminent mathematician and +master of an academy, by the following letter from Mr. Walmsley: + +[Page 102: Mr. Walmsley's Letter. A.D. 1737.] + +'To THE REVEREND MR. COLSON. + +'Lichfield, March 2, 1737. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I had the favour of yours, and am extremely obliged to you; but I +cannot say I had a greater affection for you upon it than I had before, +being long since so much endeared to you, as well by an early +friendship, as by your many excellent and valuable qualifications; and, +had I a son of my own, it would be my ambition, instead of sending him +to the University, to dispose of him as this young gentleman is. + +'He, and another neighbour of mine, one Mr. Samuel Johnson, set out this +morning for London together. Davy Garrick is to be with you early the +next week, and Mr. Johnson to try his fate with a tragedy, and to see to +get himself employed in some translation, either from the Latin or the +French. Johnson is a very good scholar and poet, and I have great hopes +will turn out a fine tragedy-writer. If it should any way lie in your +way, doubt[303] not but you would be ready to recommend and assist your +countryman. + +'G. WALMSLEY.' + +[Page 103: Like in London. Ætat 28.] + +How he employed himself upon his first coming to London is not +particularly known[304]. I never heard that he found any protection or +encouragement by the means of Mr. Colson, to whose academy David Garrick +went. Mrs. Lucy Porter told me, that Mr. Walmsley gave him a letter of +introduction to Lintot[305] his bookseller, and that Johnson wrote some +things for him; but I imagine this to be a mistake, for I have +discovered no trace of it, and I am pretty sure he told me that Mr. Cave +was the first publisher by whom his pen was engaged in London. + +He had a little money when he came to town, and he knew how he could +live in the cheapest manner. His first lodgings were at the house of Mr. +Norris, a staymaker, in Exeter-street, adjoining Catharine-street, in +the Strand. 'I dined (said he) very well for eight-pence, with very good +company, at the Pine Apple in New-street, just by. Several of them had +travelled. They expected to meet every day; but did not know one +another's names. It used to cost the rest a shilling, for they drank +wine; but I had a cut of meat for six-pence, and bread for a penny, and +gave the waiter a penny; so that I was quite well served, nay, better +than the rest, for they gave the waiter nothing[306].' + +[Page 104: Abstinence from wine. A.D. 1737.] + +He at this time, I believe, abstained entirely from fermented liquors: a +practice to which he rigidly conformed for many years together, at +different periods of his life[307]. + +[Page 105: An Irish Ofellus. Ætat 28.] + +His Ofellus in the _Art of Living in London_, I have heard him relate, +was an Irish painter, whom he knew at Birmingham, and who had practised +his own precepts of oeconomy for several years in the British +capital[308]. He assured Johnson, who, I suppose, was then meditating to +try his fortune in London, but was apprehensive of the expence, 'that +thirty pounds a year was enough to enable a man to live there without +being contemptible. He allowed ten pounds for clothes and linen. He said +a man might live in a garret at eighteen-pence a week; few people would +inquire where he lodged; and if they did, it was easy to say, 'Sir, I am +to be found at such a place.' By spending three-pence in a coffee-house, +he might be for some hours every day in very good company; he might dine +for six-pence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do without +supper. On _clean-shirt-day_ he went abroad, and paid visits.' I have +heard him more than once talk of this frugal friend, whom he recollected +with esteem and kindness, and did not like to have one smile at the +recital. 'This man (said he, gravely) was a very sensible man, who +perfectly understood common affairs: a man of a great deal of knowledge +of the world, fresh from life, not strained through books[309]. He +borrowed a horse and ten pounds at Birmingham. Finding himself master of +so much money, he set off for West Chester[310], in order to get to +Ireland. He returned the horse, and probably the ten pounds too, after +he got home.' + +[Page 106: Mr. Henry Hervey. A.D. 1737.] + +Considering Johnson's narrow circumstances in the early part of his +life, and particularly at the interesting aera of his launching into the +ocean of London, it is not to be wondered at, that an actual instance, +proved by experience of the possibility of enjoying the intellectual +luxury of social life, upon a very small income, should deeply engage +his attention, and be ever recollected by him as a circumstance of much +importance. He amused himself, I remember, by computing how much more +expence was absolutely necessary to live upon the same scale with that +which his friend described, when the value of money was diminished by +the progress of commerce. It maybe estimated that double the money might +now with difficulty be sufficient. + +Amidst this cold obscurity, there was one brilliant circumstance to +cheer him; he was well acquainted with Mr. Henry Hervey[311], one of the +branches of the noble family of that name, who had been quartered at +Lichfield as an officer of the army, and had at this time a house in +London, where Johnson was frequently entertained, and had an opportunity +of meeting genteel company. Not very long before his death, he mentioned +this, among other particulars of his life, which he was kindly +communicating to me; and he described this early friend, 'Harry Hervey,' +thus: 'He was a vicious man, but very kind to me. If you call a dog +HERVEY, I shall love him.' + +He told me he had now written only three acts of his _Irene_, and that +he retired for some time to lodgings at Greenwich, where he proceeded in +it somewhat further, and used to compose, walking in the Park[312]; but +did not stay long enough at that place to finish it. + +At this period we find the following letter from him to Mr. Edward Cave, +which, as a link in the chain of his literary history, it is proper to +insert: + +[Page 107: Johnson returns to Lichfield. Ætat 28.] + +'To MR. CAVE. + +'Greenwich, next door to the Golden Heart, +'Church-street, July 12, 1737. + +'SIR, + +'Having observed in your papers very uncommon offers of encouragement to +men of letters, I have chosen, being a stranger in London, to +communicate to you the following design, which, I hope, if you join in +it, will be of advantage to both of us. + +'The History of the Council of Trent having been lately translated into +French, and published with large Notes by Dr. Le Courayer[313], the +reputation of that book is so much revived in England, that, it is +presumed, a new translation of it from the Italian, together with Le +Courayer's Notes from the French, could not fail of a favourable +reception. + +'If it be answered, that the History is already in English, it must be +remembered, that there was the same objection against Le Courayer's +undertaking, with this disadvantage, that the French had a version by +one of their best translators, whereas you cannot read three pages of +the English History without discovering that the style is capable of +great improvements; but whether those improvements are to be expected +from the attempt, you must judge from the specimen, which, if you +approve the proposal, I shall submit to your examination. + +'Suppose the merit of the versions equal, we may hope that the addition +of the Notes will turn the balance in our favour, considering the +reputation of the Annotator. + +'Be pleased to favour me with a speedy answer, if you are not willing to +engage in this scheme; and appoint me a day to wait upon you, if you +are. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +It should seem from this letter, though subscribed with his own name, +that he had not yet been introduced to Mr. Cave. We shall presently see +what was done in consequence of the proposal which it contains. + +[Page 108: Irene. A.D. 1737.] + +In the course of the summer he returned to Lichfield, where he had left +Mrs. Johnson, and there he at last finished his tragedy, which was not +executed with his rapidity of composition upon other occasions, but was +slowly and painfully elaborated. A few days before his death, while +burning a great mass of papers, he picked out from among them the +original unformed sketch of this tragedy, in his own hand-writing, and +gave it to Mr. Langton, by whose favour a copy of it is now in my +possession. It contains fragments of the intended plot, and speeches for +the different persons of the drama, partly in the raw materials of +prose, partly worked up into verse; as also a variety of hints for +illustration, borrowed from the Greek, Roman, and modern writers. The +hand-writing is very difficult to be read, even by those who were best +acquainted with Johnson's mode of penmanship, which at all times was +very particular. The King having graciously accepted of this manuscript +as a literary curiosity, Mr. Langton made a fair and distinct copy of +it, which he ordered to be bound up with the original and the printed +tragedy; and the volume is deposited in the King's library[314]. His +Majesty was pleased to permit Mr. Langton to take a copy of it for +himself. + +The whole of it is rich in thought and imagery, and happy expressions; +and of the _disjecta membra_[315] scattered throughout, and as yet +unarranged, a good dramatick poet might avail himself with considerable +advantage. I shall give my readers some specimens of different kinds, +distinguishing them by the Italick character. + +'Nor think to say, here will I stop, +Here will I fix the limits of transgression, +Nor farther tempt the avenging rage of heaven. +When guilt like this once harbours in the breast, +Those holy beings, whose unseen direction +Guides through the maze of life the steps of man, +Fly the detested mansions of impiety, +And quit their charge to horrour and to ruin.' + +A small part only of this interesting admonition is preserved in the +play, and is varied, I think, not to advantage: + +'The soul once tainted with so foul a crime, +No more shall glow with friendship's hallow'd ardour, +Those holy beings whose superior care +Guides erring mortals to the paths of virtue, +Affrighted at impiety like thine, +Resign their charge to baseness and to ruin[316].' + '_I feel the soft infection +Flush in my cheek, and wander in my veins. +Teach me the Grecian arts of soft persuasion.' + +'Sure this is love, which heretofore I conceived the dream of idle +maids, and wanton poets.' + +'Though no comets or prodigies foretold the ruin of Greece, signs which +heaven must by another miracle enable us to understand, yet might it be +foreshewn, by tokens no less certain, by the vices which always bring it +on_.' + +This last passage is worked up in the tragedy itself, as follows: + +LEONTIUS. + +'----That power that kindly spreads +The clouds, a signal of impending showers, +To warn the wand'ring linnet to the shade, +Beheld, without concern, expiring Greece, +And not one prodigy foretold our fate. + +DEMETRIUS. + +'A thousand horrid prodigies foretold it; +A feeble government, eluded laws, +A factious populace, luxurious nobles, +And all the maladies of sinking States. +When publick villainy, too strong for justice, +Shows his bold front, the harbinger of ruin, +Can brave Leontius call for airy wonders, +Which cheats interpret, and which fools regard? +When some neglected fabrick nods beneath +The weight of years, and totters to the tempest, +Must heaven despatch the messengers of light, +Or wake the dead, to warn us of its fall[317]?' + +MAHOMET (to IRENE). 'I have tried thee, and joy to find that thou +deservest to be loved by Mahomet,--with a mind great as his own. Sure, +thou art an errour of nature, and an exception to the rest of thy sex, +and art immortal; for sentiments like thine were never to sink into +nothing. I thought all the thoughts of the fair had been to select the +graces of the day, dispose the colours of the flaunting (flowing) robe, +tune the voice and roll the eye, place the gem, choose the dress, and +add new roses to the fading cheek, but--sparkling.' + +[Page 110: Johnson settles in London. A.D. 1737.] + +Thus in the tragedy: + +'Illustrious maid, new wonders fix me thine; +Thy soul completes the triumphs of thy face: +I thought, forgive my fair, the noblest aim, +The strongest effort of a female soul +Was but to choose the graces of the day, +To tune the tongue, to teach the eyes to roll, +Dispose the colours of the flowing robe, +And add new roses to the faded cheek[318].' + +I shall select one other passage, on account of the doctrine which it +illustrates. IRENE observes, + +'That the Supreme Being will accept of virtue, whatever outward +circumstances it may be accompanied with, and may be delighted with +varieties of worship: _but is answered_, that variety cannot affect that +Being, who, infinitely happy in his own perfections, wants no external +gratifications; nor can infinite truth be delighted with falsehood; that +though he may guide or pity those he leaves in darkness, he abandons +those who shut their eyes against the beams of day.' + +Johnson's residence at Lichfield, on his return to it at this time, was +only for three months; and as he had as yet seen but a small part of the +wonders of the Metropolis, he had little to tell his townsmen. He +related to me the following minute anecdote of this period: 'In the last +age, when my mother lived in London, there were two sets of people, +those who gave the wall, and those who took it; the peaceable and the +quarrelsome. When I returned to Lichfield, after having been in London, +my mother asked me, whether I was one of those who gave the wall, or +those who took it. _Now_ it is fixed that every man keeps to the right; +or, if one is taking the wall, another yields it; and it is never a +dispute[319].' + +He now removed to London with Mrs. Johnson; but her daughter, who had +lived with them at Edial, was left with her relations in the country[320]. +His lodgings were for some time in Woodstock-street, near +Hanover-square, and afterwards in Castle-street, near Cavendish-square. +As there is something pleasingly interesting, to many, in tracing so +great a man through all his different habitations, I shall, before this +work is concluded, present my readers with an exact list of his lodgings +and houses, in order of time, which, in placid condescension to my +respectful curiosity, he one evening dictated to me[321], but without +specifying how long he lived at each. In the progress of his life I +shall have occasion to mention some of them as connected with particular +incidents, or with the writing of particular parts of his works. To +some, this minute attention may appear trifling; but when we consider +the punctilious exactness with which the different houses in which +Milton resided have been traced by the writers of his life, a similar +enthusiasm may be pardoned in the biographer of Johnson. + +[Page 111: The Gentleman's Magazine. Ætat 28.] + +His tragedy being by this time, as he thought, completely finished and +fit for the stage, he was very desirous that it should be brought +forward. Mr. Peter Garrick told me, that Johnson and he went together to +the Fountain tavern, and read it over, and that he afterwards solicited +Mr. Fleetwood, the patentee of Drury-lane theatre, to have it acted at +his house; but Mr. Fleetwood would not accept it, probably because it +was not patronized by some man of high rank[322]; and it was not acted +till 1749, when his friend David Garrick was manager of that theatre. + +_The Gentleman's Magazine_, begun and carried on by Mr. Edward Cave, +under the name of SYLVANUS URBAN[323], had attracted the notice and esteem +of Johnson, in an eminent degree, before he came to London as an +adventurer in literature. He told me, that when he first saw St. John's +Gate, the place where that deservedly popular miscellany[324] was +originally printed, he 'beheld it with reverence[325].' I suppose, indeed, +that every young authour has had the same kind of feeling for the +magazine or periodical publication which has first entertained him, and +in which he has first had an opportunity to see himself in print, +without the risk of exposing his name. I myself recollect such +impressions from '_The Scots Magazine_,' which was begun at Edinburgh in +the year 1739, and has been ever conducted with judgement, accuracy, and +propriety. I yet cannot help thinking of it with an affectionate regard. +Johnson has dignified the _Gentleman's Magazine_, by the importance with +which he invests the life of Cave; but he has given it still greater +lustre by the various admirable Essays which he wrote for it. + +[Page 112: A list of Johnson's writings. A.D. 1738.] + +Though Johnson was often solicited by his friends to make a complete +list of his writings, and talked of doing it, I believe with a serious +intention that they should all be collected on his own account, he put +it off from year to year, and at last died without having done it +perfectly. I have one in his own handwriting, which contains a certain +number[326]; I indeed doubt if he could have remembered every one of them, +as they were so numerous, so various, and scattered in such a +multiplicity of unconnected publications; nay, several of them published +under the names of other persons, to whom he liberally contributed from +the abundance of his mind. We must, therefore, be content to discover +them, partly from occasional information given by him to his friends, +and partly from internal evidence[327]. + +[Page 113: Edward Cave. Ætat 29.] + +His first performance in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, which for many +years was his principal source for employment and support, was a copy of +Latin verses, in March 1738, addressed to the editor in so happy a style +of compliment, that Cave must have been destitute both of taste and +sensibility had he not felt himself highly gratified[328]. + +[Page 114: 'Ad Urbanum.' A.D. 1738.] + +'_Ad_ URBANUM'. + +URBANE[329], _nullis fesse laboribus_, +URBANE, _nullis victe calumniis_[330], + Cui fronte sertum in eruditâ + Perpetuò viret et virebit; + +Quid moliatur gens imilantium, +Quid et minetur, solicitus parùm, + Vacare solis perge Musis, + Juxta animo studiisque felix. + +Linguæ procacis plumbea spicula, +Fidens, superbo frange silentio; + Victrix per obstantes catervas + Sedulitas animosa tendet. + +Intende nervos, fortis, inanibus +Risurus olim nisibus æmuli; + Intende jam nervos, habebis + Participes operæ Camoenas. + +Non ulla Musis pagina gratior, +Quam quæ severis ludicra jungere + Novit, fatigatamque nugis + Utilibus recreare mentem. + +Texente Nymphis serta Lycoride, +Rosæ ruborem sic viola adjuvat + Immista, sic Iris refulget + Æthereis variata fucis[331].' + +S.J. + +[Page 115: Reports of the Debates. Ætat 29.] + +[Page 116: Libels in the press. A.D. 1738.] + +It appears that he was now enlisted by Mr. Cave as a regular coadjutor +in his magazine, by which he probably obtained a tolerable livelihood. +At what time, or by what means, he had acquired a competent knowledge +both of French[332] and Italian[333], I do not know; but he was so well +skilled in them, as to be sufficiently qualified for a translator. That +part of his labour which consisted in emendation and improvement of the +productions of other contributors, like that employed in levelling +ground, can be perceived only by those who had an opportunity of +comparing the original with the altered copy. What we certainly know to +have been done by him in this way, was the Debates in both houses of +Parliament, under the name of 'The Senate of Lilliput,' sometimes with +feigned denominations of the several speakers, sometimes with +denominations formed of the letters of their real names, in the manner +of what is called anagram, so that they might easily be decyphered. +Parliament then kept the press in a kind of mysterious awe, which made +it necessary to have recourse to such devices. In our time it has +acquired an unrestrained freedom, so that the people in all parts of the +kingdom have a fair, open, and exact report of the actual proceedings of +their representatives and legislators, which in our constitution is +highly to be valued; though, unquestionably, there has of late been too +much reason to complain of the petulance with which obscure scribblers +have presumed to treat men of the most respectable character and +situation[334]. + +[Page 117: William Guthrie. Ætat 29.] + +This important article of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ was, for several +years, executed by Mr. William Guthrie, a man who deserves to be +respectably recorded in the literary annals of this country. He was +descended of an ancient family in Scotland; but having a small +patrimony, and being an adherent of the unfortunate house of Stuart, he +could not accept of any office in the state; he therefore came to +London, and employed his talents and learning as an 'Authour by +profession[335].' His writings in history, criticism, and politicks, had +considerable merit[336]. He was the first English historian who had +recourse to that authentick source of information, the Parliamentary +Journals; and such was the power of his political pen, that, at an early +period, Government thought it worth their while to keep it quiet by a +pension, which he enjoyed till his death. Johnson esteemed him enough to +wish that his life should be written[337]. The debates in Parliament, +which were brought home and digested by Guthrie, whose memory, though +surpassed by others who have since followed him in the same department, +was yet very quick and tenacious, were sent by Cave to Johnson for his +revision[338]; and, after some time, when Guthrie had attained to greater +variety of employment, and the speeches were more and more enriched by +the accession of Johnson's genius, it was resolved that he should do the +whole himself, from the scanty notes furnished by persons employed to +attend in both houses of Parliament. Sometimes, however, as he himself +told me, he had nothing more communicated to him than the names of the +several speakers, and the part which they had taken in the debate[339]. + +[Page 118: London, a Poem. A.D. 1738.] + +Thus was Johnson employed during some of the best years of his life, as +a mere literary labourer 'for gain, not glory[340],' solely to obtain an +honest support. He however indulged himself in occasional little +sallies, which the French so happily express by the term _jeux +d'esprit_, and which will be noticed in their order, in the progress of +this work. + +[Page 119: Oldham and Johnson compared. Ætat 29.] + +But what first displayed his transcendent powers, and 'gave the world +assurance of the MAN[341],' was his _London, a Poem, in Imitation of the +Third Satire of Juvenal_: which came out in May this year, and burst +forth with a splendour, the rays of which will for ever encircle his +name. Boileau had imitated the same satire with great success, applying +it to Paris; but an attentive comparison will satisfy every reader, that +he is much excelled by the English Juvenal. Oldham had also imitated it, +and applied it to London; all which performances concur to prove, that +great cities, in every age, and in every country, will furnish similar +topicks of satire[342]. Whether Johnson had previously read Oldham's +imitation, I do not know; but it is not a little remarkable, that there +is scarcely any coincidence found between the two performances, though +upon the very same subject. The only instances are, in describing London +as the _sink_ of foreign worthlessness: + +'----the _common shore_, +Where France does all her filth and ordure pour.' + +OLDHAM. + +'The _common shore_ of Paris and of Rome.' + +JOHNSON. + +and, + +'No calling or profession comes amiss, +A _needy monsieur_ can be what he please.' + +OLDHAM. + +'All sciences a _fasting monsieur_ knows.' + +JOHNSON. + +The particulars which Oldham has collected, both as exhibiting the +horrours of London, and of the times, contrasted with better days, are +different from those of Johnson, and in general well chosen, and well +exprest[343]. + +There are, in Oldham's imitation, many prosaick verses and bad rhymes, +and his poem sets out with a strange inadvertent blunder: + +'Tho' much concern'd to _leave_ my dear old friend, +I must, however, _his_ design commend +Of fixing in the country--.' + +[Page 120: The publication of London. A.D. 1738.] + +It is plain he was not going to leave his _friend_; his friend was going +to leave _him_. A young lady at once corrected this with good critical +sagacity, to + +'Tho' much concern'd to _lose_ my dear old friend.' + +There is one passage in the original, better transfused by Oldham than +by Johnson: + +'Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se, +Quàm quod ridiculos homines facit;' + +which is an exquisite remark on the galling meanness and contempt +annexed to poverty: JOHNSON'S imitation is, + +'Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, +Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.' + +OLDHAM'S, though less elegant, is more just: + +'Nothing in poverty so ill is borne, +As its exposing men to grinning scorn.' + +Where, or in what manner this poem was composed, I am sorry that I +neglected to ascertain with precision, from Johnson's own authority. He +has marked upon his corrected copy of the first edition of it, 'Written +in 1738;' and, as it was published in the month of May in that year, it +is evident that much time was not employed in preparing it for the +press. The history of its publication I am enabled to give in a very +satisfactory manner; and judging from myself, and many of my friends, I +trust that it will not be uninteresting to my readers. + +[Page 121: Johnson's letters to Cave. Ætat 29.] + +We may be certain, though it is not expressly named in the following +letters to Mr. Cave, in 1738, that they all relate to it: + + 'To MR. CAVE. + + 'Castle-street, Wednesday Morning. + [_No date_. 1738.] + +'SIR, + +'When I took the liberty of writing to you a few days ago, I did not +expect a repetition of the same pleasure so soon; for a pleasure I shall +always think it, to converse in any manner with an ingenious and candid +man; but having the inclosed poem in my hands to dispose of for the +benefit of the authour, (of whose abilities I shall say nothing, since I +send you his performance,) I believed I could not procure more +advantageous terms from any person than from you, who have so much +distinguished yourself by your generous encouragement of poetry; and +whose judgment of that art nothing but your commendation of my trifle[344] +can give me any occasion to call in question. I do not doubt but you +will look over this poem with another eye, and reward it in a different +manner, from a mercenary bookseller, who counts the lines he is to +purchase[345], and considers nothing but the bulk. I cannot help taking +notice, that, besides what the authour may hope for on account of his +abilities, he has likewise another claim to your regard, as he lies at +present under very disadvantageous circumstances of fortune. I beg, +therefore, that you will favour me with a letter to-morrow, that I may +know what you can afford to allow him, that he may either part with it +to you, or find out, (which I do not expect,) some other way more to his +satisfaction. + +'I have only to add, that as I am sensible I have transcribed it very +coarsely, which, after having altered it, I was obliged to do, I will, +if you please to transmit the sheets from the press, correct it for you; +and take the trouble of altering any stroke of satire which you may +dislike. + +'By exerting on this occasion your usual generosity, you will not only +encourage learning, and relieve distress, but (though it be in +comparison of the other motives of very small account) oblige in a very +sensible manner, Sir, + + 'Your very humble servant, + + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' + + + 'To MR. CAVE. + 'Monday, No. 6, Castle-street. + +SIR, + +'I am to return you thanks for the present you were so kind as to send +by me[346], and to intreat that you will be pleased to inform me by the +penny-post[347], whether you resolve to print the poem. If you please to +send it me by the post, with a note to Dodsley, I will go and read the +lines to him, that we may have his consent to put his name in the +title-page. As to the printing, if it can be set immediately about, I +will be so much the authour's friend, as not to content myself with mere +solicitations in his favour. I propose, if my calculation be near the +truth, to engage for the reimbursement of all that you shall lose by an +impression of 500; provided, as you very generously propose, that the +profit, if any, be set aside for the authour's use, excepting the +present you made, which, if he be a gainer, it is fit he should repay. I +beg that you will let one of your servants write an exact account of the +expense of such an impression, and send it with the poem, that I may +know what I engage for. I am very sensible, from your generosity on this +occasion, of your regard to learning, even in its unhappiest state; and +cannot but think such a temper deserving of the gratitude of those who +suffer so often from a contrary disposition. I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON[348].' + +[Page 122: Mrs. Carter. A.D. 1738.] + +'To MR. CAVE. + +[No date[349].] + +'SIR, + +'I waited on you to take the copy to Dodsley's: as I remember the number +of lines which it contains, it will be no longer than _Eugenio_[350], with +the quotations, which must be subjoined at the bottom of the page; part +of the beauty of the performance (if any beauty be allowed it) +consisting in adapting Juvenal's sentiments to modern facts and persons. +It will, with those additions, very conveniently make five sheets. And +since the expense will be no more, I shall contentedly insure it, as I +mentioned in my last. If it be not therefore gone to Dodsley's, I beg it +may be sent me by the penny-post, that I may have it in the evening. I +have composed a Greek epigram to Eliza[351], and think she ought to be +celebrated in as many different languages as Lewis le Grand[352]. Pray +send me word when you will begin upon the poem, for it is a long way to +walk. I would leave my Epigram, but have not daylight to transcribe +it[353]. I am, Sir, + +'Your's, &c., + +'SAM. JOHNSON[354].' + +[Page 123: Negotiations with Dodsley. Ætat 29.] + +'TO MR. CAVE. + +[No date.] + +'SIR, + +'I am extremely obliged by your kind letter, and will not fail to attend +you to-morrow with _Irene_, who looks upon you as one of her best +friends. + +'I was to day with Mr. Dodsley, who declares very warmly in favour of +the paper you sent him, which he desires to have a share in, it being, +as he says, _a creditable thing to be concerned in_. I knew not what +answer to make till I had consulted you, nor what to demand on the +authour's part, but am very willing that, if you please, he should have +a part in it, as he will undoubtedly be more diligent to disperse and +promote it. If you can send me word to-morrow what I shall say to him, I +will settle matters, and bring the poem with me for the press, which, as +the town empties, we cannot be too quick with. I am, Sir, + +'Your's, &c., + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +[Page 124: Payment for London. A.D. 1738.] + +To us who have long known the manly force, bold spirit, and masterly +versification of this poem, it is a matter of curiosity to observe the +diffidence with which its authour brought it forward into publick +notice, while he is so cautious as not to avow it to be his own +production; and with what humility he offers to allow the printer to +'alter any stroke of satire which he might dislike[355].' That any such +alteration was made, we do not know. If we did, we could not but feel an +indignant regret; but how painful is it to see that a writer of such +vigorous powers of mind was actually in such distress, that the small +profit which so short a poem, however excellent, could yield, was +courted as a 'relief.' + +It has been generally said, I know not with what truth, that Johnson +offered his _London_ to several booksellers, none of whom would purchase +it. To this circumstance Mr. Derrick alludes in the following lines of +his _Fortune, a Rhapsody_: + +'Will no kind patron JOHNSON own? +Shall JOHNSON friendless range the town? +And every publisher refuse +The offspring of his happy Muse[356]?' + +But we have seen that the worthy, modest, and ingenious Mr. Robert +Dodsley[357] had taste enough to perceive its uncommon merit, and thought +it creditable to have a share in it. The fact is, that, at a future +conference, he bargained for the whole property of it, for which he gave +Johnson ten guineas[358]; who told me, 'I might, perhaps, have accepted of +less; but that Paul Whitehead had a little before got ten guineas for a +poem and I would not take less than Paul Whitehead.' + +[Page 125: Paul Whitehead. Ætat 29.] + +I may here observe, that Johnson appeared to me to undervalue Paul +Whitehead upon every occasion when he was mentioned, and, in my opinion, +did not do him justice; but when it is considered that Paul Whitehead +was a member of a riotous and profane club[359], we may account for +Johnson's having a prejudice against him. Paul Whitehead was, indeed, +unfortunate in being not only slighted by Johnson, but violently +attacked by Churchill, who utters the following imprecation: + +'May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall?) +Be born a Whitehead, and baptiz'd a Paul[360]!' + +yet I shall never be persuaded to think meanly of the authour of so +brilliant and pointed a satire as _Manners_[361]. + +[Page 126: Was Richard Savage Thales? A.D. 1738.] + +Johnson's _London_ was published in May, 1738[362]; and it is remarkable, +that it came out on the same morning with Pope's satire, entitled +'1738[363];' so that England had at once its Juvenal and Horace[364] as +poetical monitors. The Reverend Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury, to +whom I am indebted for some obliging communications, was then a student +at Oxford, and remembers well the effect which _London_ produced. Every +body was delighted with it; and there being no name to it, the first buz +of the literary circles was 'here is an unknown poet, greater even than +Pope.' And it is recorded in the _Gentleman s Magazine_ of that year[365], +that it 'got to the second edition in the course of a week.' + +[Page 127: General Oglethorpe. Ætat 29.] + +One of the warmest patrons of this poem on its first appearance was +General Oglethorpe, whose 'strong benevolence of soul[366],' was unabated +during the course of a very long life[367]; though it is painful to think, +that he had but too much reason to become cold and callous, and +discontented with the world, from the neglect which he experienced of +his publick and private worth, by those in whose power it was to gratify +so gallant a veteran with marks of distinction. This extraordinary +person was as remarkable for his learning and taste, as for his other +eminent qualities; and no man was more prompt, active, and generous, in +encouraging merit. I have heard Johnson gratefully acknowledge, in his +presence, the kind and effectual support which he gave to his _London_, +though unacquainted with its authour. + +[Page 128: Pope admires _London_. A.D. 1738.] + +Pope, who then filled the poetical throne without a rival, it may +reasonably be presumed, must have been particularly struck by the sudden +appearance of such a poet; and, to his credit, let it be remembered, +that his feelings and conduct on the occasion were candid and liberal. +He requested Mr. Richardson, son of the painter[368], to endeavour to find +out who this new authour was. Mr. Richardson, after some inquiry, having +informed him that he had discovered only that his name was Johnson, and +that he was some obscure man, Pope said, 'he will soon be _déterré_[369].' +We shall presently see, from a note written by Pope, that he was himself +afterwards more successful in his inquiries than his friend. + +[Page 129: Johnson a 'true-born Englishman.' Ætat 29.] + +That in this justly-celebrated poem may be found a few rhymes[370] which +the critical precision of English prosody at this day would disallow, +cannot be denied; but with this small imperfection, which in the general +blaze of its excellence is not perceived, till the mind has subsided +into cool attention, it is, undoubtedly, one of the noblest productions +in our language, both for sentiment and expression. The nation was then +in that ferment against the court and the ministry, which some years +after ended in the downfall of Sir Robert Walpole; and as it has been +said, that Tories are Whigs when out of place, and Whigs, Tories when in +place; so, as a Whig administration ruled with what force it could, a +Tory opposition had all the animation and all the eloquence of +resistance to power, aided by the common topicks of patriotism, liberty, +and independence! Accordingly, we find in Johnson's _London_ the most +spirited invectives against tyranny and oppression, the warmest +predilection for his own country, and the purest love of virtue; +interspersed with traits of his own particular character and situation, +not omitting his prejudices as a 'true-born Englishman[371],' not only +against foreign countries, but against Ireland and Scotland[372]. On some +of these topicks I shall quote a few passages: + +[Page 130: Passages from LONDON. A.D. 1738.] + + 'The cheated nation's happy fav'rites see; + Mark whom the great caress, who frown on me.' + 'Has heaven reserv'd in pity to the poor, + No pathless waste, or undiscover'd shore? + No secret island in the boundless main? + No peaceful desert yet unclaim'd by Spain? + Quick let us rise, the happy seats explore, + And bear Oppression's insolence no more[373].' + + 'How, when competitors like these contend, + Can _surly Virtue_ hope to fix a friend?' + + 'This mournful truth is every where confess'd, + SLOW RISES WORTH, BY POVERTY DEPRESS'D[374]!' + +We may easily conceive with what feeling a great mind like his, cramped +and galled by narrow circumstances, uttered this last line, which he +marked by capitals. The whole of the poem is eminently excellent, and +there are in it such proofs of a knowledge of the world, and of a mature +acquaintance with life, as cannot be contemplated without wonder, when +we consider that he was then only in his twenty-ninth year, and had yet +been so little in the 'busy haunts of men[375].' + +[Page 131: Sir Robert Walpole. Ætat 29.] + +Yet, while we admire the poetical excellence of this poem, candour +obliges us to allow, that the flame of patriotism and zeal for popular +resistance with which it is fraught, had no just cause. There was, in +truth, no 'oppression;' the 'nation' was not 'cheated.' Sir Robert +Walpole was a wise and a benevolent minister, who thought that the +happiness and prosperity of a commercial country like ours, would be +best promoted by peace, which he accordingly maintained, with credit, +during a very long period. Johnson himself afterwards honestly +acknowledged the merit of Walpole, whom he called 'a fixed star;' while +he characterised his opponent, Pitt, as 'a meteor[376].' But Johnson's +juvenile poem was naturally impregnated with the fire of opposition, and +upon every account was universally admired. + +[Page 132: Appleby School. A.D. 1738.] + +Though thus elevated into fame, and conscious of uncommon powers, he had +not that bustling confidence, or, I may rather say, that animated +ambition, which one might have supposed would have urged him to +endeavour at rising in life. But such was his inflexible dignity of +character, that he could not stoop to court the great; without which, +hardly any man has made his way to a high station[377]. He could not +expect to produce many such works as his _London_, and he felt the +hardships of writing for bread; he was, therefore, willing to resume the +office of a schoolmaster, so as to have a sure, though moderate income +for his life; and an offer being made to him of the mastership of a +school[378], provided he could obtain the degree of Master of Arts, Dr. +Adams was applied to, by a common friend, to know whether that could be +granted him as a favour from the University of Oxford. But though he had +made such a figure in the literary world, it was then thought too great +a favour to be asked. + +Hawkins (_Life_, p. 61) says that 'Johnson went to Appleby in Aug. 1738, +and offered himself as a candidate for the mastership.' The date of 1738 +seems to be Hawkins's inference. If Johnson went at all, it was in 1739. +Pope, the friend of Swift, would not of course have sought Lord Gower's +influence with Swift. He applied to his lordship, no doubt, as a great +midland-county landowner, likely to have influence with the trustees. +Why, when the difficulty about the degree of M.A. was discovered, Pope +was not asked to solicit Swift cannot be known. See _post_, beginning of +1780 in BOSWELL'S account of the _Life of Swift_.] + +[Page 133: Pope's letter of recommendation.] + +Pope, without any knowledge of him but from his _London_, recommended +him to Earl Gower, who endeavoured to procure for him a degree from +Dublin, by the following letter to a friend of Dean Swift: + +'SIR, + +'Mr. Samuel Johnson (authour of _London_, a satire, and some other +poetical pieces) is a native of this country, and much respected by some +worthy gentlemen in his neighbourhood, who are trustees of a charity +school now vacant; the certain salary is sixty pounds a year, of which +they are desirous to make him master; but, unfortunately, he is not +capable of receiving their bounty, which _would make him happy for +life_, by not being a _Master of Arts_; which, by the statutes of this +school, the master of it must be. + +'Now these gentlemen do me the honour to think that I have interest +enough in you, to prevail upon you to write to Dean Swift, to persuade +the University of Dublin to send a diploma to me, constituting this poor +man Master of Arts in their University. They highly extol the man's +learning and probity; and will not be persuaded, that the University +will make any difficulty of conferring such a favour upon a stranger, if +he is recommended by the Dean. They say he is not afraid of the +strictest examination, though he is of so long a journey; and will +venture it, if the Dean thinks it necessary; choosing rather to die upon +the road, _than be starved to death in translating for booksellers_; +which has been his only subsistence for some time past. + +'I fear there is more difficulty in this affair, than those good-natured +gentlemen apprehend; especially as their election cannot be delayed +longer than the 11th of next month. If you see this matter in the same +light that it appears to me, I hope you will burn this, and pardon me +for giving you so much trouble about an impracticable thing; but, if you +think there is a probability of obtaining the favour asked, I am sure +your humanity, and propensity to relieve merit in distress, will incline +you to serve the poor man, without my adding any more to the trouble I +have already given you, than assuring you that I am, with great truth, +Sir, + +'Your faithful servant, + +'GOWER. + +'Trentham, Aug. 1, 1739.' + +[Page 134: Johnson's wish to practise law. A.D. 1738.] + +It was, perhaps, no small disappointment to Johnson that this +respectable application had not the desired effect; yet how much reason +has there been, both for himself and his country, to rejoice that it did +not succeed, as he might probably have wasted in obscurity those hours +in which he afterwards produced his incomparable works. + +About this time he made one other effort to emancipate himself from the +drudgery of authourship. He applied to Dr. Adams, to consult Dr. +Smalbroke of the Commons, whether a person might be permitted to +practice as an advocate there, without a doctor's degree in Civil Law. +'I am (said he) a total stranger to these studies; but whatever is a +profession, and maintains numbers, must be within the reach of common +abilities, and some degree of industry.' Dr. Adams was much pleased with +Johnson's design to employ his talents in that manner, being confident +he would have attained to great eminence. And, indeed, I cannot conceive +a man better qualified to make a distinguished figure as a lawyer; for, +he would have brought to his profession a rich store of various +knowledge, an uncommon acuteness, and a command of language, in which +few could have equalled, and none have surpassed him[379]. He who could +display eloquence and wit in defence of the decision of the House of +Commons upon Mr. Wilkes's election for Middlesex[380], and of the +unconstitutional taxation of our fellow-subjects in America[381], must +have been a powerful advocate in any cause. But here, also, the want of +a degree was an insurmountable bar. + +[Page 135: Paul Sarpi's History. Ætat 29.] + +He was, therefore, under the necessity of persevering in that course, +into which he had been forced; and we find, that his proposal from +Greenwich to Mr. Cave, for a translation of Father Paul Sarpi's History, +was accepted[382]. + +Some sheets of this translation were printed off, but the design was +dropt; for it happened, oddly enough, that another person of the name of +Samuel Johnson, Librarian of St. Martin's in the Fields, and Curate of +that parish, engaged in the same undertaking, and was patronised by the +Clergy, particularly by Dr. Pearce, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. +Several light skirmishes passed between the rival translators, in the +newspapers of the day; and the consequence was, that they destroyed each +other, for neither of them went on with the work. It is much to be +regretted, that the able performance of that celebrated genius FRA +PAOLO, lost the advantage of being incorporated into British literature +by the masterly hand of Johnson. + +[Page 136: Mr. Cave's insinuation. A.D. 1738.] + +I have in my possession, by the favour of Mr. John Nichols, a paper in +Johnson's hand-writing, entitled 'Account between Mr. Edward Cave and +Sam. Johnson, in relation to a version of Father Paul, &c. begun August +the 2d, 1738; 'by which it appears, that from that day to the 21st of +April, 1739, Johnson received for this work, £49 7_s_. in sums of one, +two, three, and sometimes four guineas at a time, most frequently two. +And it is curious to observe the minute and scrupulous accuracy with +which Johnson has pasted upon it a slip of paper, which he has entitled +Small Account,' and which contains one article, 'Sept. 9th, Mr. Cave +laid down 2s. 6d.' There is subjoined to this account, a list of some +subscribers to the work, partly in Johnson's handwriting, partly in that +of another person; and there follows a leaf or two on which are written +a number of characters which have the appearance of a short hand, which, +perhaps, Johnson was then trying to learn. + +'To MR. CAVE. + +'Wednesday. + +'SIR, + +'I did not care to detain your servant while I wrote an answer to your +letter, in which you seem to insinuate that I had promised more than I +am ready to perform. If I have raised your expectations by any thing +that may have escaped my memory, I am sorry; and if you remind me of it, +shall thank you for the favour. If I made fewer alterations than usual +in the Debates, it was only because there appeared, and still appears to +be, less need of alteration. The verses to Lady Firebrace[383] may be had +when you please, for you know that such a subject neither deserves much +thought, nor requires it. + +'The Chinese Stories[384] may be had folded down when you please to send, +in which I do not recollect that you desired any alterations to be made. + +'An answer to another query I am very willing to write, and had +consulted with you about it last night if there had been time; for I +think it the most proper way of inviting such a correspondence as may be +an advantage to the paper, not a load upon it. + +'As to the Prize Verses, a backwardness to determine their degrees of +merit is not peculiar to me. You may, if you please, still have what I +can say; but I shall engage with little spirit in an affair, which I +shall _hardly_ end to my own satisfaction, and _certainly_ not to the +satisfaction of the parties concerned[385]. + +'As to Father Paul, I have not yet been just to my proposal, but have +met with impediments, which, I hope, are now at an end; and if you find +the progress hereafter not such as you have a right to expect, you can +easily stimulate a negligent translator. + +'If any or all of these have contributed to your discontent, I will +endeavour to remove it; and desire you to propose the question to which +you wish for an answer. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +[Page 137: Impransus. Ætat 29.] + +'To MR. CAVE. + +[No date.] + +'SIR, + +'I am pretty much of your opinion, that the Commentary cannot be +prosecuted with any appearance of success; for as the names of the +authours concerned are of more weight in the performance than its own +intrinsick merit, the publick will be soon satisfied with it. And I +think the Examen should be pushed forward with the utmost expedition. +Thus, "This day, &c., An Examen of Mr. Pope's Essay, &c., containing a +succinct Account of the Philosophy of Mr. Leibnitz on the System of the +Fatalists, with a Confutation of their Opinions, and an Illustration of +the Doctrine of Free-will;" [with what else you think proper.] + +'It will, above all, be necessary to take notice, that it is a thing +distinct from the Commentary. + +'I was so far from imagining they stood still[386], that I conceived them +to have a good deal before-hand, and therefore was less anxious in +providing them more. But if ever they stand still on my account, it must +doubtless be charged to me; and whatever else shall be reasonable, I +shall not oppose; but beg a suspense of judgment till morning, when I +must entreat you to send me a dozen proposals, and you shall then have +copy to spare. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your's, _impransus_[387], + +'SAM. JOHNSON. + +'Pray muster up the Proposals if you can, or let the boy recall them +from the booksellers.' + +[Page 138: Mr. Macbean. A.D. 1738.] + +But although he corresponded with Mr. Cave concerning a translation of +Crousaz's _Examen_ of Pope's _Essay on Man_, and gave advice as one +anxious for its success, I was long ago convinced by a perusal of the +Preface, that this translation was erroneously ascribed to him; and I +have found this point ascertained, beyond all doubt, by the following +article in Dr. Birch's _Manuscripts in the British Museum_: + +'ELISÆ CARTERÆ. S. P. D. THOMAS BIRCH. + +'Versionem tuam Examinis Crousasiani jam perlegi. Summam styli et +elegantiam, et in re difficillimâ proprietatem, admiratus. + +'_Dabam Novemb_. 27° 1738[388].' + +Indeed Mrs. Carter has lately acknowledged to Mr. Seward, that she was +the translator of the _Examen_. + +It is remarkable, that Johnson's last quoted letter to Mr. Cave +concludes with a fair confession that he had not a dinner; and it is no +less remarkable, that, though in this state of want himself, his +benevolent heart was not insensible to the necessities of an humble +labourer in literature, as appears from the very next letter: + +'To MR. CAVE. + +[No date.] + +'DEAR SIR, + +'You may remember I have formerly talked with you about a Military +Dictionary. The eldest Mr. Macbean[389], who was with Mr. Chambers[390], +has very good materials for such a work, which I have seen, and will do +it at a very low rate[391]. I think the terms of War and Navigation might +be comprised, with good explanations, in one 8vo. Pica, which he is +willing to do for twelve shillings a sheet, to be made up a guinea at the +second impression. If you think on it, I will wait on you with him. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON. + +'Pray lend me Topsel on Animals[392].' + +[Page 139: Boethius De Consolatione. Ætat 29.] + +I must not omit to mention, that this Mr. Macbean was a native of +Scotland. + +In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of this year, Johnson gave a Life of +Father Paul; and he wrote the Preface to the Volume[393], [dagger] which, +though prefixed to it when bound, is always published with the Appendix, +and is therefore the last composition belonging to it. The ability and +nice adaptation with which he could draw up a prefatory address, was one +of his peculiar excellencies. + +It appears too, that he paid a friendly attention to Mrs. Elizabeth +Carter; for in a letter from Mr. Cave to Dr. Birch, November 28, this +year, I find 'Mr. Johnson advises Miss C. to undertake a translation of +_Boethius de Cons_, because there is prose and verse, and to put her +name to it when published.' This advice was not followed; probably from +an apprehension that the work was not sufficiently popular for an +extensive sale. How well Johnson himself could have executed a +translation of this philosophical poet, we may judge from the following +specimen which he has given in the _Rambler_: (_Motto to No. 7_.) + +'O qui perpetuâ mundum ratione gubernas, + Terrarum cælique sator! + Disjice terrenæ nebulas et pondera molis, + Atque tuo splendore mica! Tu namque serenum, + Tu requies tranquilla piis. Te cernere finis, + Principium, vector, dux, semita, terminus, idem.' + +'O thou whose power o'er moving worlds presides, + Whose voice created, and whose wisdom guides, + On darkling man in pure effulgence shine, + And cheer the clouded mind with light divine. +'Tis thine alone to calm the pious breast, + With silent confidence and holy rest; + From thee, great God! we spring, to thee we tend, + Path, motive, guide, original, and end!' + +[Page 140: Abridgments. A.D. 1739.] + +[Page 141: Marmor Norfolciensc. Ætat 30.] + +In 1739, beside the assistance which he gave to the Parliamentary +Debates, his writings in the _Gentleman's Magazine_[394] were, 'The Life +of Boerhaave,'[*] in which it is to be observed, that he discovers that +love of chymistry[395] which never forsook him; 'An Appeal to the publick +in behalf of the Editor;'[dagger] 'An Address to the Reader;'[dagger] +'An Epigram both in Greek and Latin to Eliza[396],'[*] and also English +verses to her[397];[*] and, 'A Greek Epigram to Dr. Birch[398].'[*] It has +been erroneously supposed, that an Essay published in that Magazine this +year, entitled 'The Apotheosis of Milton,' was written by Johnson; and +on that supposition it has been improperly inserted in the edition of +his works by the Booksellers, after his decease. Were there no positive +testimony as to this point, the style of the performance, and the name +of Shakspeare not being mentioned in an Essay professedly reviewing the +principal English poets, would ascertain it not to be the production of +Johnson. But there is here no occasion to resort to internal evidence; +for my Lord Bishop of Salisbury (Dr. Douglas) has assured me, that it +was written by Guthrie. His separate publications were[399], 'A Complete +Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage, from the malicious and +scandalous Aspersions of Mr. Brooke, Authour of Gustavus Vasa,'[*] being +an ironical Attack upon them for their Suppression of that Tragedy[400]; +and, 'Marmor Norfolciense; or an Essay on an ancient prophetical +Inscription in monkish Rhyme, lately discovered near Lynne in Norfolk, +by PROBUS BRITANNICUS.'[*] In this performance, he, in a feigned +inscription, supposed to have been found in Norfolk, the county of Sir +Robert Walpole, then the obnoxious prime minister of this country, +inveighs against the Brunswick succession, and the measures of +government consequent upon it[401]. To this supposed prophecy he added a +Commentary, making each expression apply to the times, with warm +Anti-Hanoverian zeal. + +This anonymous pamphlet, I believe, did not make so much noise as was +expected, and, therefore, had not a very extensive circulation[402]. Sir +John Hawkins relates[403], that, 'warrants were issued, and messengers +employed to apprehend the authour; who, though he had forborne to +subscribe his name to the pamphlet, the vigilance of those in pursuit of +him had discovered;' and we are informed, that he lay concealed in +Lambeth-marsh till the scent after him grew cold. This, however, is +altogether without foundation; for Mr. Steele, one of the Secretaries of +the Treasury, who amidst a variety of important business, politely +obliged me with his attention to my inquiry, informed me, that 'he +directed every possible search to be made in the records of the Treasury +and Secretary of State's Office, but could find no trace whatever of any +warrant having been issued to apprehend the authour of this pamphlet.' + +[Page 142: Reprint of Marmor Norfolciensc. A.D. 1739.] + +_Marmor Norfolciense_ became exceedingly scarce, so that I, for many +years, endeavoured in vain to procure a copy of it. At last I was +indebted to the malice of one of Johnson's numerous petty adversaries, +who, in 1775, published a new edition of it, 'with Notes and a +Dedication to SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. by TRIBUNUS;' in which some puny +scribbler invidiously attempted to found upon it a charge of +inconsistency against its authour, because he had accepted of a pension +from his present Majesty, and had written in support of the measures of +government. As a mortification to such impotent malice, of which there +are so many instances towards men of eminence, I am happy to relate, +that this _telum imbelle_[404] did not reach its exalted object, till +about a year after it thus appeared, when I mentioned it to him, +supposing that he knew of the re-publication. To my surprize, he had not +yet heard of it. He requested me to go directly and get it for him, +which I did. He looked at it and laughed, and seemed to be much diverted +with the feeble efforts of his unknown adversary, who, I hope, is alive +to read this account. 'Now (said he) here is somebody who thinks he has +vexed me sadly; yet, if it had not been for you, you rogue, I should +probably never have seen it.' + +[Page 143: 'Paper-sparing Pope.' Ætat 30.] + +As Mr. Pope's note concerning Johnson, alluded to in a former page, +refers both to his _London_, and his _Marmor Norfolciense_, I have +deferred inserting it till now. I am indebted for it to Dr. Percy, the +Bishop of Dromore, who permitted me to copy it from the original in his +possession. It was presented to his Lordship by Sir Joshua Reynolds, to +whom it was given by the son of Mr. Richardson the painter, the person +to whom it is addressed. I have transcribed it with minute exactness, +that the peculiar mode of writing, and imperfect spelling of that +celebrated poet, may be exhibited to the curious in literature. It +justifies Swift's epithet of 'paper-sparing Pope[405]' for it is written +on a slip no larger than a common message-card, and was sent to Mr. +Richardson, along with the _Imitation of Juvenal_. + +'This is imitated by one Johnson who put in for a Publick-school in +Shropshire,[406] but was disappointed. He has an infirmity of the +convulsive kind, that attacks him sometimes, so as to make him a sad +Spectacle. Mr. P. from the Merit of this Work which was all the +knowledge he had of him endeavour'd to serve him without his own +application; & wrote to my Ld gore, but he did not succeed. Mr. Johnson +published afterwds another Poem in Latin with Notes the whole very +Humerous call'd the Norfolk Prophecy.[407]' + +'P.' + +Johnson had been told of this note; and Sir Joshua Reynolds informed him +of the compliment which it contained, but, from delicacy, avoided +shewing him the paper itself. When Sir Joshua observed to Johnson that +he seemed very desirous to see Pope's note, he answered, 'Who would not +be proud to have such a man as Pope so solicitous in inquiring about +him?' + +[Page 144: Johnson's tricks of body. A.D. 1739.] + +The infirmity to which Mr. Pope alludes, appeared to me also, as I have +elsewhere[408] observed, to be of the convulsive kind, and of the nature +of that distemper called St. Vitus's dance; and in this opinion I am +confirmed by the description which Sydenham gives of that disease. 'This +disorder is a kind of convulsion. It manifests itself by halting or +unsteadiness of one of the legs, which the patient draws after him like +an ideot. If the hand of the same side be applied to the breast, or any +other part of the body, he cannot keep it a moment in the same posture, +but it will be drawn into a different one by a convulsion, +notwithstanding all his efforts to the contrary.' Sir Joshua Reynolds, +however, was of a different opinion, and favoured me with the following +paper. + +[Page 145: His dread of solitude. Ætat 30.] + +'Those motions or tricks of Dr. Johnson are improper'y called +convulsions[409]. He could sit motionless, when he was told so to do, as +well as any other man; my opinion is that it proceeded from a habit +which he had indulged himself in, of accompanying his thoughts with +certain untoward actions, and those actions always appeared to me as if +they were meant to reprobate some part of his past conduct. Whenever he +was not engaged in conversation, such thoughts were sure to rush into +his mind; and, for this reason, any company, any employment whatever, he +preferred to being alone[410]. The great business of his life (he said) +was to escape from himself; this disposition he considered as the +disease of his mind, which nothing cured but company. + +'One instance of his absence and particularity, as it is characteristick +of the man, may be worth relating. When he and I took a journey together +into the West, we visited the late Mr. Banks, of Dorsetshire; the +conversation turning upon pictures, which Johnson could not well see, he +retired to a corner of the room, stretching out his right leg as far as +he could reach before him, then bringing up his left leg, and stretching +his right still further on. The old gentleman observing him, went up to +him, and in a very courteous manner assured him, that though it was not +a new house, the flooring was perfectly safe. The Doctor started from +his reverie, like a person waked out of his sleep, but spoke not a +word.' + +While we are on this subject, my readers may not be displeased with +another anecdote, communicated to me by the same friend, from the +relation of Mr. Hogarth. + +[Page 146: Hogarth meets Johnson. A.D. 1739.] + +[Page 147: George the Second's cruelty. Ætat 30.] + +Johnson used to be a pretty frequent visitor at the house of Mr. +Richardson, authour of _Clarissa_, and other novels of extensive +reputation. Mr. Hogarth came one day to see Richardson, soon after the +execution of Dr. Cameron, for having taken arms for the house of Stuart +in 1745-6; and being a warm partisan of George the Second, he observed +to Richardson[411], that certainly there must have been some very +unfavourable circumstances lately discovered in this particular case, +which had induced the King to approve of an execution for rebellion so +long after the time when it was committed, as this had the appearance of +putting a man to death in cold blood[412], and was very unlike his +Majesty's usual clemency. While he was talking, he perceived a person +standing at a window in the room, shaking his head, and rolling himself +about in a strange ridiculous manner. He concluded that he was an ideot, +whom his relations had put under the care of Mr. Richardson, as a very +good man. To his great surprize, however, this figure stalked forwards +to where he and Mr. Richardson were sitting, and all at once took up the +argument, and burst out into an invective against George the Second, as +one, who, upon all occasions, was unrelenting and barbarous[413]; +mentioning many instances, particularly, that when an officer of high +rank had been acquitted by a Court Martial, George the Second had with +his own hand, struck his name off the list. In short, he displayed such +a power of eloquence, that Hogarth looked at him with astonishment, and +actually imagined that this ideot had been at the moment inspired. +Neither Hogarth nor Johnson were made known to each other at this +interview[414]. + +[1740[415]: ÆTAT. 31.]--In 1740 he wrote for the _Gentleman's Magazine_ +the 'Preface[416],'[dagger] 'Life of Sir Francis Drake,'[*] and the first +parts of those of 'Admiral Blake[417],'[*] and of 'Philip Baretier[418],' +both which he finished the following year. He also wrote an 'Essay on +Epitaphs[419],' and an 'Epitaph on Philips, a Musician,'[420] which was +afterwards published with some other pieces of his, in Mrs. Williams's +_Miscellanies_. This Epitaph is so exquisitely beautiful, that I +remember even Lord Kames, strangely prejudiced as he was against Dr. +Johnson, was compelled to allow it very high praise. It has been +ascribed to Mr. Garrick, from its appearing at first with the signature +G; but I have heard Mr. Garrick declare, that it was written by Dr. +Johnson, and give the following account of the manner in which it was +composed. Johnson and he were sitting together; when, amongst other +things, Garrick repeated an Epitaph upon this Philips by a Dr. Wilkes, +in these words: + +[Page 148: Epitaph on Philips. A.D. 1740.] + +'Exalted soul! whose harmony could please +The love-sick virgin, and the gouty ease; +Could jarring discord, like Amphion, move +To beauteous order and harmonious love; +Rest here in peace, till angels bid thee rise, +And meet thy blessed Saviour in the skies.' + +Johnson shook his head at these common-place funereal lines, and said to +Garrick, 'I think, Davy, I can make a better.' Then, stirring about his +tea for a little while, in a state of meditation, he almost extempore +produced the following verses: + +[Page 149: Epigram on Cibber. Ætat 31.] + +'Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove +The pangs of guilty power or[421] hapless love; +Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more, +Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before; +Sleep, undisturb'd, within this peaceful shrine, +Till angels wake thee with a note like thine[422]!' + +At the same time that Mr. Garrick favoured me with this anecdote, he +repeated a very pointed Epigram by Johnson, on George the Second and +Colley Cibber, which has never yet appeared, and of which I know not the +exact date[423]. Dr. Johnson afterwards gave it to me himself[424]: + +'Augustus still survives in Maro's strain, +And Spenser's verse prolongs Eliza's reign; +Great George's acts let tuneful Cibber sing; +For Nature form'd the Poet for the King.' + +[Page 150: One of Cromwell's speeches. A.D. 1741.] + +In 1741[425][*] he wrote for the _Gentleman's Magazine_ 'the Preface,'[*] +'Conclusion of his lives of Drake and Baretier,'[dagger] 'A free +translation of the Jests of Hierocles[426], with an Introduction;'[dagger] +and, I think, the following pieces: 'Debate on the Proposal of +Parliament to Cromwell, to assume the Title of King, abridged, modified, +and digested[427];'[dagger] 'Translation of Abbé Guyon's Dissertation on +the Amazons;'[dagger] 'Translation of Fontenelle's Panegyrick on Dr. +Morin.'[dagger] Two notes upon this appear to me undoubtedly his. He +this year, and the two following, wrote the _Parliamentary Debates_. He +told me himself, that he was the sole composer of them for those three +years only. He was not, however, precisely exact in his statement, which +he mentioned from hasty recollection; for it is sufficiently evident, +that his composition of them began November 19, 1740, and ended February +23, 1742-3[428]. + +It appears from some of Cave's letters to Dr. Birch, that Cave had +better assistance for that branch of his Magazine, than has been +generally supposed; and that he was indefatigable in getting it made as +perfect as he could. + +[Page 151: Cave's Parliamentary Debates. Ætat 32.] + +Thus, 21st July, 1735. 'I trouble you with the inclosed, because you +said you could easily correct what is here given for Lord C----ld's[429] +speech. I beg you will do so as soon as you can for me, because the +month is far advanced.' + +And 15th July, 1737. 'As you remember the debates so far as to perceive +the speeches already printed are not exact, I beg the favour that you +will peruse the inclosed, and, in the best manner your memory will +serve, correct the mistaken passages, or add any thing that is omitted. +I should be very glad to have something of the Duke of N--le's[430] +speech, which would be particularly of service. + +'A gentleman has Lord Bathurst's speech to add something to.' + +And July 3, 1744. 'You will see what stupid, low, abominable stuff is +put[431] upon your noble and learned friend's[432] character, such as I +should quite reject, and endeavour to do something better towards doing +justice to the character. But as I cannot expect to attain my desires in +that respect, it would be a great satisfaction, as well as an honour to +our work to have the favour of the genuine speech. It is a method that +several have been pleased to take, as I could show, but I think myself +under a restraint. I shall say so far, that I have had some by a third +hand, which I understood well enough to come from the first; others by +penny-post[433], and others by the speakers themselves, who have been +pleased to visit St. John's Gate, and show particular marks of their +being pleased[434].' + +[Page 152: Johnson's Parliamentary Debates. A.D. 1741.] + +There is no reason, I believe, to doubt the veracity of Cave. It is, +however, remarkable, that none of these letters are in the years during +which Johnson alone furnished the Debates, and one of them is in the +very year after he ceased from that labour. 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 accessary to the +propagation of falsehood.' And such was the tenderness of his +conscience, that a short time before his death he expressed his regret +for his having been the authour of fictions, which had passed for +realities[435]. + +He nevertheless agreed with me in thinking, that the debates which he +had framed were to be valued as orations upon questions of publick +importance. They have accordingly been collected in volumes, properly +arranged, and recommended to the notice of parliamentary speakers by a +preface, written by no inferior hand[436]. I must, however, observe, that +although there is in those debates a wonderful store of political +information, and very powerful eloquence, I cannot agree that they +exhibit the manner of each particular speaker, as Sir John Hawkins seems +to think. But, indeed, what opinion can we have of his judgement, and +taste in publick speaking, who presumes to give, as the characteristicks +of two celebrated orators, 'the deep-mouthed rancour of Pulteney[437], and +the yelping pertinacity of Pitt[438].' + +This year I find that his tragedy of _Irene_ had been for some time +ready for the stage, and that his necessities made him desirous of +getting as much as he could for it, without delay; for there is the +following letter from Mr. Cave to Dr. Birch, in the same volume of +manuscripts in the British Museum, from which I copied those above +quoted. They were most obligingly pointed out to me by Sir William +Musgrave, one of the Curators of that noble repository. + +[Page 153: Bibliotheca Harleiana. Ætat 32.] + +'Sept. 9, 1741. + +'I have put Mr. Johnson's play into Mr. Gray's[439] hands, in order to +sell it to him, if he is inclined to buy it; but I doubt whether he will +or not. He would dispose of the copy, and whatever advantage may be made +by acting it. Would your society[440], or any gentleman, or body of men +that you know, take such a bargain? He and I are very unfit to deal with +theatrical persons. Fleetwood was to have acted it last season, but +Johnson's diffidence or ----[441] prevented it.' + +I have already mentioned that _Irene_ was not brought into publick +notice till Garrick was manager of Drury-lane theatre. + +[Page 154: Osborne the bookseller. A.D. 1742.] + + +1742: ÆTAT. 33.--In 1742[442] he wrote for the _Gentleman's Magazine_ +the 'Preface,[dagger] the 'Parliamentary Debates,'[*] 'Essay on the +Account of the conduct of the Duchess of Marlborough,'[*] then the +popular topick of conversation. This 'Essay' is a short but masterly +performance. We find him in No. 13 of his _Rambler_, censuring a +profligate sentiment in that 'Account[443];' and again insisting upon it +strenuously in conversation[444]. 'An account of the Life of Peter +Burman,'[*] I believe chiefly taken from a foreign publication; as, +indeed, he could not himself know much about Burman; 'Additions to his +Life of Baretier;'[*] 'The Life of Sydenham,'[*] afterwards prefixed to +Dr. Swan's edition of his works; 'Proposals for Printing Bibliotheca +Harleiana, or a Catalogue of the Library of the Earl of Oxford[445].'[*] +His account of that celebrated collection of books, in which he displays +the importance to literature of what the French call a _catalogue +raisonné_, when the subjects of it are extensive and various, and it is +executed with ability, cannot fail to impress all his readers with +admiration of his philological attainments. It was afterwards prefixed +to the first volume of the Catalogue, in which the Latin accounts of +books were written by him. He was employed in this business by Mr. +Thomas Osborne the bookseller, who purchased the library for 13,000£., a +sum which Mr. Oldys[446] says, in one of his manuscripts, was not more +than the binding of the books had cost; yet, as Dr. Johnson assured me, +the slowness of the sale was such, that there was not much gained by it. +It has been confidently related, with many embellishments, that Johnson +one day knocked Osborne down in his shop, with a folio, and put his foot +upon his neck. 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[447].' + +[Page 155: A projected parliamentary history. Ætat 33.] + +A very diligent observer may trace him where we should not easily +suppose him to be found. I have no doubt that he wrote the little +abridgement entitled 'Foreign History,' in the _Magazine_ for December. +To prove it, I shall quote the Introduction. 'As this is that season of +the year in which Nature may be said to command a suspension of +hostilities, and which seems intended, by putting a short stop to +violence and slaughter, to afford time for malice to relent, and +animosity to subside; we can scarce expect any other accounts than of +plans, negotiations and treaties, of proposals for peace, and +preparations for war.' As also this passage: 'Let those who despise the +capacity of the Swiss, tell us by what wonderful policy, or by what +happy conciliation of interests, it is brought to pass, that in a body +made up of different communities and different religions, there should +be no civil commotions[448], though the people are so warlike, that to +nominate and raise an army is the same.' + +I am obliged to Mr. Astle[449] for his ready permission to copy the two +following letters, of which the originals are in his possession. Their +contents shew that they were written about this time, and that Johnson +was now engaged in preparing an historical account of the British +Parliament. + + + +'To MR. CAVE. + +[_No date_] + +'Sir, + +'I believe I am going to write a long letter, and have therefore taken a +whole sheet of paper. The first thing to be written about is our +historical design. + +'You mentioned the proposal of printing in numbers, as an alteration in +the scheme, but I believe you mistook, some way or other, my meaning; I +had no other view than that you might rather print too many of five +sheets, than of five and thirty. + +'With regard to what I shall say on the manner of proceeding, I would +have it understood as wholly indifferent to me, and my opinion only, not +my resolution. _Emptoris sit eligere_. + +'I think the insertion of the exact dates of the most important events +in the margin, or of so many events as may enable the reader to regulate +the order of facts with sufficient exactness, the proper medium between +a journal, which has regard only to time, and a history which ranges +facts according to their dependence on each other, and postpones or +anticipates according to the convenience of narration. I think the work +ought to partake of the spirit of history, which is contrary to minute +exactness, and of the regularity of a journal, which is inconsistent +with spirit. For this reason, I neither admit numbers or dates, nor +reject them. + +[Page 156: Payment for work. A.D. 1742.] + +'I am of your opinion with regard to placing most of the resolutions +&c., in the margin, and think we shall give the most complete account of +Parliamentary proceedings that can be contrived. The naked papers, +without an historical treatise interwoven, require some other book to +make them understood. I will date the succeeding facts with some +exactness, but I think in the margin. You told me on Saturday that I had +received money on this work, and found set down 13£. 2s. 6d., reckoning +the half guinea of last Saturday. As you hinted to me that you had many +calls for money, I would not press you too hard, and therefore shall +desire only, as I send it in, two guineas for a sheet of copy; the rest +you may pay me when it may be more convenient; and even by this +sheet-payment I shall, for some time, be very expensive. + +'The _Life of Savage_[450] I am ready to go upon; and in Great Primer, and +Pica notes, I reckon on sending in half a sheet a day; but the money for +that shall likewise lye by in your hands till it is done. With the +debates, shall not I have business enough? if I had but good pens. + +'Towards Mr. Savage's _Life_ what more have you got? I would willingly +have his trial, &c., and know whether his defence be at Bristol, and +would have his collection of poems, on account of the Preface.--_The +Plain Dealer_[451],--all the magazines that have anything of his, or +relating to him. + +'I thought my letter would be long, but it is now ended; and I am, Sir, + +'Yours, &c. SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'The boy found me writing this almost in the dark, when I could not +quite easily read yours. + +'I have read the Italian--nothing in it is well. + +'I had no notion of having any thing for the Inscription[452]. I hope you +don't think I kept it to extort a price. I could think of nothing, till +to day. If you could spare me another guinea for the history, I should +take it very kindly, to night; but if you do not I shall not think it an +injury.--I am almost well again.' + + + +'To MR. CAVE. + +'SIR, + +'You did not tell me your determination about the 'Soldier's Letter[453],' +which I am confident was never printed. I think it will not do by +itself, or in any other place, so well as the _Mag. Extraordinary_[454]. +If you will have it at all, I believe you do not think I set it high, +and I will be glad if what you give, you will give quickly. + +[Page 157: _Ad Lauram pariluram Epigramma_. Ætat 33.] + +'You need not be in care about something to print, for I have got the +State Trials, and shall extract Layer, Atterbury, and Macclesfield from +them, and shall bring them to you in a fortnight; after which I will try +to get the South Sea Report.' + +[_No date, nor signature_] + +I would also ascribe to him an 'Essay on the Description of China, from +the French of Du Halde[455].[dagger] + +His writings in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ in 1743, are, the +'Preface[456],'[dagger] the 'Parliamentary Debates,'[dagger] +'Considerations on the Dispute between Crousaz[457] and Warburton, on +Pope's Essay on Man;'[dagger] in which, while he defends Crousaz, he +shews an admirable metaphysical acuteness and temperance in +controversy[458]; 'Ad Lauram parituram Epigramma[459];'[*] and, 'A Latin +Translation of Pope's Verses on his Grotto[460];'[*] and, as he could +employ his pen with equal success upon a small matter as a great, I +suppose him to be the authour of an advertisement for Osborne, +concerning the great Harlcian Catalogue[461]. + +[Page 158: Friendship, an Ode. A.D. 1743.] + +But I should think myself much wanting, both to my illustrious friend +and my readers, did I not introduce here, with more than ordinary +respect, an exquisitely beautiful Ode, which has not been inserted in +any of the collections of Johnson's poetry, written by him at a very +early period, as Mr. Hector informs me, and inserted in the _Gentleman's +Magazine_ of this year. + +FRIENDSHIP, _an_ ODE.[*] + +'Friendship, peculiar boon of heav'n, + The noble mind's delight and pride, +To men and angels only giv'n, + To all the lower world deny'd. + +While love, unknown among the blest, + Parent of thousand wild desires, +The savage and the human breast + Torments alike with raging fires; + +With bright, but oft destructive, gleam, + Alike o'er all his lightnings fly; +Thy lambent glories only beam + Around the fav'rites of the sky. + +Thy gentle flows of guiltless joys + On fools and villains ne'er descend; +In vain for thee the tyrant sighs, + And hugs a flatterer for a friend. + +Directress of the brave and just, + O guide us through life's darksome way! +And let the tortures of mistrust + On selfish bosoms only prey. + +Nor shall thine ardours cease to glow, + When souls to blissful climes remove; +What rais'd our virtue here below, + Shall aid our happiness above.' + +[Page 159: Dr. James and Dr. Mead. Ætat 34.] + +Johnson had now an opportunity of obliging his schoolfellow Dr. James, +of whom he once observed, 'no man brings more mind to his +profession.[462]' James published this year his _Medicinal Dictionary_, in +three volumes folio. Johnson, as I understood from him, had written, or +assisted in writing, the proposals for this work; and being very fond of +the study of physick, in which James was his master, he furnished some +of the articles[463]. He, however, certainly wrote for it the Dedication +to Dr. Mead,[dagger] which is conceived with great address, to +conciliate the patronage of that very eminent man[464]. + +[Page 160: Dr. Birch. A.D. 1743.] + +It has been circulated, I know not with what authenticity, that Johnson +considered Dr. Birch as a dull writer, and said of him, 'Tom Birch is as +brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his +hand, than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his +faculties[465].' That the literature of this country is much indebted to +Birch's activity and diligence must certainly be acknowledged. We have +seen that Johnson honoured him with a Greek Epigram[466]; and his +correspondence with him, during many years, proves that he had no mean +opinion of him. + + + +'To DR. BIRCH. + +'Thursday, Sept. 29, 1743. + +'SIR, + +'I hope you will excuse me for troubling you on an occasion on which I +know not whom else I can apply to; I am at a loss for the Lives and +Characters of Earl Stanhope, the two Craggs, and the minister +Sunderland; and beg that you will inform [me] where I may find them, and +send any pamphlets, &c. relating to them to Mr. Cave, to be perused for +a few days by, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +His circumstances were at this time much embarrassed; yet his affection +for his mother was so warm, and so liberal, that he took upon himself a +debt of her's, which, though small in itself, was then considerable to +him. This appears from the following letter which he wrote to Mr. +Levett, of Lichfield, the original of which lies now before me. + +'To MR. LEVETT; IN LICHFIELD. + +'December 1, 1743. + +'SIR, + +'I am extremely sorry that we have encroached so much upon your +forbearance with respect to the interest, which a great perplexity of +affairs hindered me from thinking of with that attention that I ought, +and which I am not immediately able to remit to you, but will pay it (I +think twelve pounds,) in two months. I look upon this, and on the future +interest of that mortgage, as my own debt; and beg that you will be +pleased to give me directions how to pay it, and not mention it to my +dear mother. If it be necessary to pay this in less time, I believe I +can do it; but I take two months for certainty, and beg an answer +whether you can allow me so much time. I think myself very much obliged +to your forbearance, and shall esteem it a great happiness to be able to +serve you. I have great opportunities of dispersing any thing that you +may think it proper to make publick[467]. I will give a note for the +money, payable at the time mentioned, to any one here that you shall +appoint. I am, Sir, + +'Your most obedient, + +'And most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON. + +'At Mr. Osborne's, bookseller, in Gray's Inn.' + +[Page 161: The Life of Savage. Ætat 35.] + +[Page 162: Johnson's friendship with Savage. A.D. 1744.] + + +1744: ÆTAT. 35.--It does not appear that he wrote any thing in 1744 +for the _Gentleman's Magazine_, but the Preface.[Dagger] His _Life of +Baretier_ was now re-published in a pamphlet by itself. But he produced +one work this year, fully sufficient to maintain the high reputation +which he had acquired. This was _The Life of Richard Savage_;[*] a man, +of whom it is difficult to speak impartially, without wondering that he +was for some time the intimate companion of Johnson[468]; for his +character was marked by profligacy, insolence, and ingratitude[469]: yet, +as he undoubtedly had a warm and vigorous, though unregulated mind, had +seen life in all its varieties, and been much in the company of the +statesmen and wits of his time[470], he could communicate to Johnson an +abundant supply of such materials as his philosophical curiosity most +eagerly desired; and as Savage's misfortunes and misconduct had reduced +him to the lowest state of wretchedness as a writer for bread[471], his +visits to St. John's Gate naturally brought Johnson and him together[472]. + +[Page 163: Dining behind the screen. Ætat 35.] + +It is melancholy to reflect, that Johnson and Savage were sometimes in +such extreme indigence[473], that they could not pay for a lodging; so +that they have wandered together whole nights in the streets[474]. Yet in +these almost incredible scenes of distress, we may suppose that Savage +mentioned many of the anecdotes with which Johnson afterwards enriched +the life of his unhappy companion, and those of other Poets. + +[Page 164: Johnson in want of a lodging. A.D. 1744.] + +He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that one night in particular, when Savage +and he walked round St. James's-square for want of a lodging, they were +not at all depressed by their situation; but in high spirits and brimful +of patriotism, traversed the square for several hours, inveighed against +the minister, and 'resolved they would _stand by their country_[475].' + +I am afraid, however, that by associating with Savage, who was +habituated to the dissipation and licentiousness of the town, Johnson, +though his good principles remained steady, did not entirely preserve +that conduct, for which, in days of greater simplicity, he was remarked +by his friend Mr. Hector; but was imperceptibly led into some +indulgencies which occasioned much distress to his virtuous mind.[476] + +That Johnson was anxious that an authentick and favourable account of +his extraordinary friend should first get possession of the publick +attention, is evident from a letter which he wrote in the _Gentleman's +Magazine_ for August of the year preceding its publication. + +'MR. URBAN, + +'As your collections show how often you have owed the ornaments of your +poetical pages to the correspondence of the unfortunate and ingenious +Mr. Savage, I doubt not but you have so much regard to his memory as to +encourage any design that may have a tendency to the preservation of it +from insults or calumnies; and therefore, with some degree of assurance, +intreat you to inform the publick, that his life will speedily be +published by a person who was favoured with his confidence, and received +from himself an account of most of the transactions which he proposes to +mention, to the time of his retirement to Swansea in Wales. + +'From that period, to his death in the prison of Bristol, the account +will be continued from materials still less liable to objection; his own +letters, and those of his friends, some of which will be inserted in the +work, and abstracts of others subjoined in the margin. + +'It may be reasonably imagined, that others may have the same design; +but as it is not credible that they can obtain the same materials, it +must be expected they will supply from invention the want of +intelligence; and that under the title of "The Life of Savage," they +will publish only a novel, filled with romantick adventures, and +imaginary amours. You may therefore, perhaps, gratify the lovers of +truth and wit, by giving me leave to inform them in your Magazine, that +my account will be published in 8vo. by Mr. Roberts, in +Warwick-lane[477].' + +[_No signature_.] + +[Page 165: Reynolds reads THE LIFE OF SAVAGE. Ætat 35.] + +In February, 1744, it accordingly came forth from the shop of Roberts, +between whom and Johnson I have not traced any connection, except the +casual one of this publication[478]. In Johnson's _Life of Savage_, +although it must be allowed that its moral is the reverse +of--'_Respicere exemplar vita morumque jubebo_[479],' a very useful lesson +is inculcated, to guard men of warm passions from a too free indulgence +of them; and the various incidents are related in so clear and animated +a manner, and illuminated throughout with so much philosophy, that it is +one of the most interesting narratives in the English language. Sir +Joshua Reynolds told me, that upon his return from Italy[480] he met with +it in Devonshire, knowing nothing of its authour, and began to read it +while he was standing with his arm leaning against a chimney-piece. It +seized his attention so strongly, that, not being able to lay down the +book till he had finished it, when he attempted to move, he found his +arm totally benumbed. The rapidity with which this work was composed, is +a wonderful circumstance. Johnson has been heard to say, 'I wrote +forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the _Life of Savage_ at a +sitting; but then I sat up all night[481].' + +[Page 166: Resemblance of Johnson to Savage. A.D. 1744.] + +He exhibits the genius of Savage to the best advantage in the specimens +of his poetry which he has selected, some of which are of uncommon +merit. We, indeed, occasionally find such vigour and such point, as +might make us suppose that the generous aid of Johnson had been imparted +to his friend. Mr. Thomas Warton made this remark to me; and, in support +of it, quoted from the poem entitled _The Bastard_, a line, in which the +fancied superiority of one 'stamped in Nature's mint with extasy[482],' is +contrasted with a regular lawful descendant of some great and ancient +family: + +'No tenth transmitter of a foolish face[483].' + +But the fact is, that this poem was published some years before Johnson +and Savage were acquainted[484]. + +[Page 167: Johnson's prejudice against players. Ætat 35.] + +It is remarkable, that in this biographical disquisition there appears a +very strong symptom of Johnson's prejudice against players[485]; a +prejudice which may be attributed to the following causes: first, the +imperfection of his organs, which were so defective that he was not +susceptible of the fine impressions which theatrical excellence produces +upon the generality of mankind; secondly, the cold rejection of his +tragedy; and, lastly, the brilliant success of Garrick, who had been his +pupil, who had come to London at the same time with him, not in a much +more prosperous state than himself, and whose talents he undoubtedly +rated low, compared with his own. His being outstripped by his pupil in +the race of immediate fame, as well as of fortune, probably made him +feel some indignation, as thinking that whatever might be Garrick's +merits in his art, the reward was too great when compared with what the +most successful efforts of literary labour could attain. At all periods +of his life Johnson used to talk contemptuously of players[486]; but in +this work he speaks of them with peculiar acrimony; for which, perhaps, +there was formerly too much reason from the licentious and dissolute +manners of those engaged in that profession[487]. It is but justice to +add, that in our own time such a change has taken place, that there is +no longer room for such an unfavourable distinction[488]. + +[Page 168: Garrick's mistakes in emphasis. A.D. 1744.] + +His schoolfellow and friend, Dr. Taylor, told me a pleasant anecdote of +Johnson's triumphing over his pupil David Garrick. When that great actor +had played some little time at Goodman's fields, Johnson and Taylor went +to see him perform, and afterwards passed the evening at a tavern with +him and old Giffard[489]. Johnson, who was ever depreciating +stage-players, after censuring some mistakes in emphasis which Garrick +had committed in the course of that night's acting, said, 'the players, +Sir, have got a kind of rant, with which they run on, without any regard +either to accent or emphasis[490].' Both Garrick and Giffard were offended +at this sarcasm, and endeavoured to refute it; upon which Johnson +rejoined, 'Well now, I'll give you something to speak, with which you +are little acquainted, and then we shall see how just my observation is. +That shall be the criterion. Let me hear you repeat the ninth +Commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."' +Both tried at it, said Dr. Taylor, and both mistook the emphasis, which +should be upon _not_ and _false witness_[491]. Johnson put them right, and +enjoyed his victory with great glee. + +[Page 169: A review in THE CHAMPION. Ætat 35.] + +His _Life of Savage_ was no sooner published, than the following liberal +praise was given to it, in _The Champion_, a periodical paper: 'This +pamphlet is, without flattery to its authour, as just and well written a +piece as of its kind I ever saw; so that at the same time that it highly +deserves, it certainly stands very little in need of this +recommendation. As to the history of the unfortunate person, whose +memoirs compose this work, it is certainly penned with equal accuracy +and spirit, of which I am so much the better judge, as I know many of +the facts mentioned to be strictly true, and very fairly related. +Besides, it is not only the story of Mr. Savage, but innumerable +incidents relating to other persons, and other affairs, which renders +this a very amusing, and, withal, a very instructive and valuable +performance. The author's observations are short, significant, and just, +as his narrative is remarkably smooth, and well disposed. His +reflections open to all the recesses of the human heart; and, in a word, +a more just or pleasant, a more engaging or a more improving treatise, +on all the excellencies and defects of human nature, is scarce to be +found in our own, or, perhaps, any other language[492].' + +[Page 170: Parentage of Richard Savage. A.D. 1744.] + +Johnson's partiality for Savage made him entertain no doubt of his +story, however extraordinary and improbable. It never occurred to him to +question his being the son of the Countess of Macclesfield, of whose +unrelenting barbarity he so loudly complained, and the particulars of +which are related in so strong and affecting a manner in Johnson's life +of him. Johnson was certainly well warranted in publishing his +narrative, however offensive it might be to the lady and her relations, +because her alledged unnatural and cruel conduct to her son, and +shameful avowal of guilt, were stated in a _Life of Savage_ now lying +before me, which came out so early as 1727, and no attempt had been made +to confute it, or to punish the authour or printer as a libeller: but +for the honour of human nature, we should be glad to find the shocking +tale not true; and, from a respectable gentleman[493] connected with the +lady's family, I have received such information and remarks, as joined +to my own inquiries, will, I think, render it at least somewhat +doubtful, especially when we consider that it must have originated from +the person himself who went by the name of Richard Savage. + +If the maxim _falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus_, were to be received +without qualification, the credit of Savage's narrative, as conveyed to +us, would be annihilated; for it contains some assertions which, beyond +a question, are not true[494]. + +1. In order to induce a belief that Earl Rivers, on account of a +criminal connection with whom, Lady Macclesfield is said to have been +divorced from her husband, by Act of Parliament[495], had a peculiar +anxiety about the child which she bore to him, it is alledged, that his +Lordship gave him his own name, and had it duly recorded in the register +of St. Andrew's, Holborn[496]. I have carefully inspected that register, +but no such entry is to be found[497]. + +[Page 171: Lady Macclesfield's divorce. Ætat 35.] + +2. It is stated, that 'Lady Macclesfield having lived for some time upon +very uneasy terms with her husband, thought a publick confession of +adultery the most obvious and expeditious method of obtaining her +liberty[498];' and Johnson, assuming this to be true, stigmatises her with +indignation, as 'the wretch who had, without scruple, proclaimed herself +an adulteress[499].' But I have perused the Journals of both houses of +Parliament at the period of her divorce, and there find it authentically +ascertained, that so far from voluntarily submitting to the ignominious +charge of adultery, she made a strenuous defence by her Counsel; the +bill having been first moved 15th January, 1697, in the House of Lords, +and proceeded on, (with various applications for time to bring up +witnesses at a distance, &c.) at intervals, till the 3d of March, when +it passed. It was brought to the Commons, by a message from the Lords, +the 5th of March, proceeded on the 7th, 10th, 11th, 14th, and 15th, on +which day, after a full examination of witnesses on both sides, and +hearing of Counsel, it was reported without amendments, passed, and +carried to the Lords. + +[Page 172: Lady Macclesfield's alleged cruelty. A.D. 1744.] + +That Lady Macclesfield was convicted of the crime of which she was +accused, cannot be denied; but the question now is, whether the person +calling himself Richard Savage was her son. + +It has been said[500], that when Earl Rivers was dying, and anxious to +provide for all his natural children, he was informed by Lady +Macclesfield that her son by him was dead. Whether, then, shall we +believe that this was a malignant lie, invented by a mother to prevent +her own child from receiving the bounty of his father, which was +accordingly the consequence, if the person whose life Johnson wrote, was +her son; or shall we not rather believe that the person who then assumed +the name of Richard Savage was an impostor, being in reality the son of +the shoemaker, under whose wife's care[501] Lady Macclesfield's child was +placed; that after the death of the real Richard Savage, he attempted to +personate him; and that the fraud being known to Lady Macclesfield, he +was therefore repulsed by her with just resentment? + +There is a strong circumstance in support of the last supposition, +though it has been mentioned as an aggravation of Lady Macclesfield's +unnatural conduct, and that is, her having prevented him from obtaining +the benefit of a legacy left to him by Mrs. Lloyd his god-mother. For if +there was such a legacy left, his not being able to obtain payment of +it, must be imputed to his consciousness that he was not the real +person. The just inference should be, that by the death of Lady +Macclesfield's child before its god-mother, the legacy became lapsed, +and therefore that Johnson's Richard Savage was an impostor. If he had a +title to the legacy, he could not have found any difficulty in +recovering it; for had the executors resisted his claim, the whole +costs, as well as the legacy, must have been paid by them, if he had +been the child to whom it was given[502]. + +[Page 173: Lord Tyrconnel. Ætat 35.] + +The talents of Savage, and the mingled fire, rudeness, pride, meanness, +and ferocity of his character[503], concur in making it credible that he +was fit to plan and carry on an ambitious and daring scheme of +imposture, similar instances of which have not been wanting in higher +spheres, in the history of different countries, and have had a +considerable degree of success. + +Yet, on the other hand, to the companion of Johnson, (who through +whatever medium he was conveyed into this world,--be it ever so doubtful +'To whom related, or by whom begot[504],' was, unquestionably, a man of no +common endowments,) we must allow the weight of general repute as to his +_Status_ or parentage, though illicit; and supposing him to be an +impostor, it seems strange that Lord Tyrconnel, the nephew of Lady +Macclesfield, should patronise him, and even admit him as a guest in his +family[505]. Lastly, it must ever appear very suspicious, that three +different accounts of the Life of Richard Savage, one published in _The +Plain Dealer_, in 1724, another in 1727, and another by the powerful pen +of Johnson, in 1744, and all of them while Lady Macclesfield was alive, +should, notwithstanding the severe attacks upon her[506], have been +suffered to pass without any publick and effectual contradiction. + +[Page 174: Lady Macclesfield's latter career. A.D. 1744.] + +I have thus endeavoured to sum up the evidence upon the case, as fairly +as I can; and the result seems to be, that the world must vibrate in a +state of uncertainty as to what was the truth. + +This digression, I trust, will not be censured, as it relates to a +matter exceedingly curious, and very intimately connected with Johnson, +both as a man and an authour[507]. + +[Page 175: Observations of Shakespeare. Ætat 38.] + +He this year wrote the _Preface to the Harleian Miscellany_[508][*] The +selection of the pamphlets of which it was composed was made by Mr. +Oldys[509], a man of eager curiosity and indefatigable diligence, who +first exerted that spirit of inquiry into the literature of the old +English writers, by which the works of our great dramatick poet have of +late been so signally illustrated. + +In 1745 he published a pamphlet entitled _Miscellaneous Observations on +the Tragedy of Macbeth, with remarks on Sir T.H.'s (Sir Thomas Hammer's) +Edition of Shakspeare_.[*] To which he affixed, proposals for a new +edition of that poet[510]. + +As we do not trace any thing else published by him during the course of +this year, we may conjecture that he was occupied entirely with that +work. But the little encouragement which was given by the publick to his +anonymous proposals for the execution of a task which Warburton was +known to have undertaken, probably damped his ardour. His pamphlet, +however, was highly esteemed, and was fortunate enough to obtain the +approbation even of the supercilious Warburton himself, who, in the +Preface to his _Shakspeare_ published two years afterwards, thus +mentioned it: 'As to all those things which have been published under +the titles of _Essays, Remarks, Observations_, &c. on Shakspeare, if you +except some critical notes on _Macbeth_, given as a specimen of a +projected edition, and written, as appears, by a man of parts and +genius, the rest are absolutely below a serious notice.' + +Of this flattering distinction shewn to him by Warburton, a very +grateful remembrance was ever entertained by Johnson, who said, 'He +praised me at a time when praise was of value to me.' + +[Page 176: The Rebellion of 1745. A.D. 1746.] + + +1746: ÆTAT. 37.--In 1746 it is probable that he was still employed +upon his _Shakspeare_, which perhaps he laid aside for a time, upon +account of the high expectations which were formed of Warburton's +edition of that great poet[511]. It is somewhat curious, that his literary +career appears to have been almost totally suspended in the years 1745 +and 1746, those years which were marked by a civil war in Great-Britain, +when a rash attempt was made to restore the House of Stuart to the +throne. That he had a tenderness for that unfortunate House, is well +known; and some may fancifully imagine, that a sympathetick anxiety +impeded the exertion of his intellectual powers: but I am inclined to +think, that he was, during this time, sketching the outlines of his +great philological work[512]. + +[Page 177: Johnson not an ardent Jacobite. Ætat 38.] + +None of his letters during those years are extant, so far as I can +discover. This is much to be regretted. It might afford some +entertainment to see how he then expressed himself to his private +friends, concerning State affairs. Dr. Adams informs me, that 'at this +time a favourite object which he had in contemplation was _The Life of +Alfred_; in which, from the warmth with which he spoke about it, he +would, I believe, had he been master of his own will, have engaged +himself, rather than on any other subject.' + +[Page 178: Poems wrongly assigned to Johnson. A.D. 1747.] + + +1747: ÆTAT. 38.--In 1747 it is supposed that the _Gentleman's +Magazine_ for May was enriched by him with five[513] short poetical +pieces, distinguished by three asterisks. The first is a translation, or +rather a paraphrase, of a Latin Epitaph on Sir Thomas Hanmer. Whether +the Latin was his, or not, I have never heard, though I should think it +probably was, if it be certain that he wrote the English[514]; as to which +my only cause of doubt is, that his slighting character of Hanmer as an +editor, in his _Observations on Macbeth_, is very different from that in +the 'Epitaph.' It may be said, that there is the same contrariety +between the character in the _Observations_, and that in his own Preface +to Shakspeare[515]; but a considerable time elapsed between the one +publication and the other, whereas the _Observations_ and the 'Epitaph' +came close together. The others are 'To Miss----, on her giving the +Authour a gold and silk net-work Purse of her own weaving;' 'Stella in +Mourning;' 'The Winter's Walk;' 'An Ode;' and, 'To Lyce, an elderly +Lady.' I am not positive that all these were his productions[516]; but as +'The Winter's Walk' has never been controverted to be his, and all of +them have the same mark, it is reasonable to conclude that they are all +written by the same hand. Yet to the Ode, in which we find a passage +very characteristick of him, being a learned description of the gout, + +'Unhappy, whom to beds of pain +_Arthritick_ tyranny consigns;' + +there is the following note: 'The authour being ill of the gout:' but +Johnson was not attacked with that distemper till at a very late period +of his life[517]. May not this, however, be a poetical fiction? Why may +not a poet suppose himself to have the gout, as well as suppose himself +to be in love, of which we have innumerable instances, and which has +been admirably ridiculed by Johnson in his _Life of Cowley_[518]? I have +also some difficulty to believe that he could produce such a group of +_conceits_[519] as appear in the verses to Lyce, in which he claims for +this ancient personage as good a right to be assimilated to _heaven_, as +nymphs whom other poets have flattered; he therefore ironically ascribes +to her the attributes of the _sky_, in such stanzas as this: + +'Her teeth the _night_ with _darkness_ dies, + She's _starr'd_ with pimples o'er; +Her tongue like nimble _lightning_ plies, + And can with _thunder roar_.' + +But as at a very advanced age he could condescend to trifle in +_namby-pamby_[520] rhymes, to please Mrs. Thrale and her daughter, he may +have, in his earlier years, composed such a piece as this. + +It is remarkable, that in this first edition of _The Winters Walk_, the +concluding line is much more Johnsonian than it was afterwards printed; +for in subsequent editions, after praying Stella to 'snatch him to her +arms,' he says, + +'And _shield_ me from the _ills_ of life.' + +[Page 180: Verses on Lord Lovat. A.D. 1747.] + +Whereas in the first edition it is + +'And hide me from the _sight_ of life.' + +A horrour at life in general is more consonant with Johnson's habitual +gloomy cast of thought. + +I have heard him repeat with great energy the following verses, which +appeared in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for April this year; but I have +no authority to say they were his own. Indeed one of the best criticks +of our age[521] suggests to me, that 'the word _indifferently_ being used +in the sense of _without concern_' and being also very unpoetical, +renders it improbable that they should have been his composition. + + +'On Lord LOVAT'S _Execution_. + +'Pity'd by _gentle minds_ KILMARNOCK died; +The _brave_, BALMERINO, were on thy side; +RADCLIFFE, unhappy in his crimes of youth[522], +Steady in what he still mistook for truth, +Beheld his death so decently unmov'd, +The _soft_ lamented, and the _brave_ approv'd. +But LOVAT'S fate[523] indifferently we view, +True to no King, to no _religion_ true: +No _fair_ forgets the _ruin_ he has done; +No _child_ laments the _tyrant_ of his _son_; +No _tory_ pities, thinking what he was; +No _whig_ compassions, _for he left the cause_; +The _brave_ regret not, for he was not brave; +The _honest_ mourn not, knowing him a knave[524]!' + +[Page 181: A Prologue by Johnson. Ætat 38.] + +This year his old pupil and friend, David Garrick, having become joint +patentee and manager of Drury-lane theatre, Johnson honoured his opening +of it with a Prologue[525],[*] which for just and manly dramatick +criticism, on the whole range of the English stage, as well as for +poetical excellence[526], is unrivalled. Like the celebrated Epilogue to +the _Distressed Mother_,[527] it was, during the season, often called for +by the audience. The most striking and brilliant passages of it have +been so often repeated, and are so well recollected by all the lovers of +the drama and of poetry, that it would be superfluous to point them out. +In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for December this year, he inserted an +'Ode on Winter,' which is, I think, an admirable specimen of his genius +for lyrick poetry[528]. + +[Page 182: The Plan of the Dictionary. A.D. 1747.] + +But the year 1747 is distinguished as the epoch, when Johnson's arduous +and important work, his DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, was +announced to the world, by the publication of its Plan or _Prospectus_. + +How long this immense undertaking had been the object of his +contemplation, I do not know. I once asked him by what means he had +attained to that astonishing knowledge of our language, by which he was +enabled to realise a design of such extent, and accumulated difficulty. +He told me, that 'it was not the effect of particular study; but that it +had grown up in his mind insensibly.' I have been informed by Mr. James +Dodsley, that several years before this period, when Johnson was one day +sitting in his brother Robert's shop, he heard his brother suggest to +him, that a Dictionary of the English Language would be a work that +would be well received by the publick[529]; that Johnson seemed at first +to catch at the proposition, but, after a pause, said, in his abrupt +decisive manner, 'I believe I shall not undertake it.' That he, however, +had bestowed much thought upon the subject, before he published his +_Plan_, is evident from the enlarged, clear, and accurate views which it +exhibits; and we find him mentioning in that tract, that many of the +writers whose testimonies were to be produced as authorities, were +selected by Pope[530]; which proves that he had been furnished, probably +by Mr. Robert Dodsley, with whatever hints that eminent poet had +contributed towards a great literary project, that had been the subject +of important consideration in a former reign. + +[Page 183: Address of the Earl of Chesterfield. Ætat 38.] + +The booksellers who contracted with Johnson, single and unaided, for the +execution of a work, which in other countries has not been effected but +by the co-operating exertions of many, were Mr. Robert Dodsley, Mr. +Charles Hitch[531], Mr. Andrew Millar, the two Messieurs Longman, and the +two Messieurs Knapton. The price stipulated was fifteen hundred and +seventy-five pounds[532]. + +The _Plan_ was addressed to Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, then +one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State[533]; a nobleman who +was very ambitious of literary distinction, and who, upon being informed +of the design, had expressed himself in terms very favourable to its +success. There is, perhaps in every thing of any consequence, a secret +history which it would be amusing to know, could we have it +authentically communicated. Johnson told me[534], 'Sir, the way in which +the _Plan_ of my _Dictionary_ came to be inscribed to Lord Chesterfield, +was this: I had neglected to write it by the time appointed. Dodsley +suggested a desire to have it addressed to Lord Chesterfield. I laid +hold of this as a pretext for delay, that it might be better done, and +let Dodsley have his desire. I said to my friend, Dr. Bathurst, "Now if +any good comes of my addressing to Lord Chesterfield, it will be +ascribed to deep policy, when, in fact, it was only a casual excuse for +laziness."' + +[Page 184: The style of the PLAN. A.D. 1747.] + +It is worthy of observation, that the _Plan_ has not only the +substantial merit of comprehension, perspicuity, and precision, but that +the language of it is unexceptionably excellent; it being altogether +free from that inflation of style, and those uncommon but apt and +energetick words[535], which in some of his writings have been censured, +with more petulance than justice; and never was there a more dignified +strain of compliment than that in which he courts the attention of one +who, he had been persuaded to believe, would be a respectable patron. + +'With regard to questions of purity or propriety, (says he) I was once +in doubt whether I should not attribute to myself too much in attempting +to decide them, and whether my province was to extend beyond the +proposition of the question, and the display of the suffrages on each +side; but I have been since determined by your Lordship's opinion, to +interpose my own judgement, and shall therefore endeavour to support +what appears to me most consonant to grammar and reason. Ausonius +thought that modesty forbade him to plead inability for a task to which +Caesar had judged him equal: + +Cur me pesse negem posse quod ille putat[536]? + +'And I may hope, my Lord, that since you, whose authority in our +language is so generally acknowledged, have commissioned me to declare +my own opinion, I shall be considered as exercising a kind of vicarious +jurisdiction; and that the power which might have been denied to my own +claim, will be readily allowed me as the delegate of your Lordship.' + +[Page 185: The Earl of Orrery. Ætat 38.] + +This passage proves, that Johnson's addressing his _Plan_ to Lord +Chesterfield was not merely in consequence of the result of a report by +means of Dodsley, that the Earl favoured the design; but that there had +been a particular communication with his Lordship concerning it. Dr. +Taylor told me, that Johnson sent his _Plan_ to him in manuscript, for +his perusal; and that when it was lying upon his table, Mr. William +Whitehead[537] happened to pay him a visit, and being shewn it, was highly +pleased with such parts of it as he had time to read, and begged to take +it home with him, which he was allowed to do; that from him it got into +the hands of a noble Lord, who carried it to Lord Chesterfield[538]. When +Taylor observed this might be an advantage, Johnson replied, 'No, Sir; +it would have come out with more bloom, if it had not been seen before +by any body.' + +The opinion conceived of it by another noble authour, appears from the +following extract of a letter from the Earl of Orrery to Dr. Birch: + +'Caledon, Dec. 30, 1747. + +'I have just now seen the specimen of Mr. Johnson's Dictionary, +addressed to Lord Chesterfield. I am much pleased with the plan, and I +think the specimen is one of the best that I have ever read. Most +specimens disgust, rather than prejudice us in favour of the work to +follow; but the language of Mr. Johnson's is good, and the arguments are +properly and modestly expressed. However, some expressions may be +cavilled at, but they are trifles. I'll mention one. The _barren_ +Laurel. The laurel is not barren, in any sense whatever; it bears fruits +and flowers[539]. _Sed hae sunt nugae_, and I have great expectation from +the performance[540].' + +That he was fully aware of the arduous nature of the undertaking, he +acknowledges; and shews himself perfectly sensible of it in the +conclusion of his _Plan_[541]; but he had a noble consciousness of his own +abilities, which enabled him to go on with undaunted spirit[542]. + +[Page 186: The Dictionary of the French Academy. A.D. 1748.] + +Dr. Adams found him one day busy at his _Dictionary_, when the following +dialogue ensued. 'ADAMS. This is a great work, Sir. How are you to get +all the etymologies? JOHNSON. Why, Sir, here is a shelf with Junius, and +Skinner[543], and others; and there is a Welch gentleman who has published +a collection of Welch proverbs, who will help me with the Welch[544]. +ADAMS. But, Sir, how can you do this in three years? JOHNSON. Sir, I +have no doubt that I can do it in three years. ADAMS. But the French +Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile +their Dictionary. JOHNSON. Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let +me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen +hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.' With so +much ease and pleasantry could he talk of that prodigious labour which +he had undertaken to execute. + +The publick has had, from another pen[545], a long detail of what had been +done in this country by prior Lexicographers; and no doubt Johnson was +wise to avail himself of them, so far as they went: but the learned, yet +judicious research of etymology[546], the various, yet accurate display of +definition, and the rich collection of authorities, were reserved for +the superior mind of our great philologist[547]. For the mechanical part +he employed, as he told me, six amanuenses; and let it be remembered by +the natives of North-Britain, to whom he is supposed to have been so +hostile, that five of them were of that country. There were two +Messieurs Macbean; Mr. Shiels, who we shall hereafter see partly wrote +the _Lives of the Poets_ to which the name of Cibber is affixed[548]; Mr. +Stewart, son of Mr. George Stewart, bookseller at Edinburgh; and a Mr. +Maitland. The sixth of these humble assistants was Mr. Peyton, who, I +believe, taught French, and published some elementary tracts. + +[Page 187: Johnson's amanuenses. Ætat 38.] + +To all these painful labourers, Johnson shewed a never-ceasing kindness, +so far as they stood in need of it. The elder Mr. Macbean had afterwards +the honour of being Librarian to Archibald, Duke of Argyle, for many +years, but was left without a shilling. Johnson wrote for him a Preface +to _A System of Ancient Geography_; and, by the favour of Lord Thurlow, +got him admitted a poor brother of the Charterhouse[549]. For Shiels, who +died, of a consumption, he had much tenderness; and it has been thought +that some choice sentences in the _Lives of the Poets_ were supplied by +him[550]. Peyton, when reduced to penury, had frequent aid from the bounty +of Johnson, who at last was at the expense of burying both him and his +wife[551]. + +[Page 188: The upper room in Gough-square. A.D. 1748.] + +[Page 189: Authours quoted in THE DICTIONARY. Ætat 39.] + +While the _Dictionary_ was going forward, Johnson lived part of the time +in Holborn, part in Gough-square, Fleet-street; and he had an upper room +fitted up like a counting-house for the purpose, in which he gave to the +copyists their several tasks[552]. The words, partly taken from other +dictionaries, and partly supplied by himself, having been first written +down with spaces left between them, he delivered in writing their +etymologies, definitions, and various significations[553]. The authorities +were copied from the books themselves, in which he had marked the +passages with a black-lead pencil, the traces of which could easily be +effaced[554]. I have seen several of them, in which that trouble had not +been taken; so that they were just as when used by the copyists[555]. It +is remarkable, that he was so attentive in the choice of the passages in +which words were authorised, that one may read page after page of his +_Dictionary_ with improvement and pleasure; and it should not pass +unobserved, that he has quoted no authour whose writings had a tendency +to hurt sound religion and morality[556]. + +The necessary expense of preparing a work of such magnitude for the +press, must have been a considerable deduction from the price stipulated +to be paid for the copy-right. I understand that nothing was allowed by +the booksellers on that account; and I remember his telling me, that a +large portion of it having by mistake been written upon both sides of +the paper, so as to be inconvenient for the compositor, it cost him +twenty pounds to have it transcribed upon one side only. + +[Page 190: The Ivy Lane Club. A.D. 1748.] + +[Page 191: Mr. John Hawkins, an attorney. Ætat 39.] + +He is now to be considered as 'tugging at his oar[557],' as engaged in a +steady continued course of occupation, sufficient to employ all his time +for some years; and which was the best preventive of that constitutional +melancholy which was ever lurking about him, ready to trouble his quiet. +But his enlarged and lively mind could not be satisfied without more +diversity of employment, and the pleasure of animated relaxation[558]. He +therefore not only exerted his talents in occasional composition very +different from Lexicography, but formed a club in Ivy-lane, +Paternoster-row, with a view to enjoy literary discussion, and amuse his +evening hours. The members associated with him in this little society +were his beloved friend Dr. Richard Bathurst[559], Mr. Hawkesworth[560], +afterwards well known by his writings, Mr. John Hawkins, an attorney[561], +and a few others of different professions[562]. + +[Page 192: The Vision of Theodore. A.D. 1749.] + +In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for May of this year he wrote a 'Life of +Roscommon,'[*] with Notes, which he afterwards much improved, indented +the notes into text, and inserted it amongst his _Lives of the English +Poets_. + +Mr. Dodsley this year brought out his _Preceptor_, one of the most +valuable books for the improvement of young minds that has appeared in +any language; and to this meritorious work Johnson furnished 'The +Preface,'[*] containing a general sketch of the book, with a short and +perspicuous recommendation of each article; as also, 'The Vision of +Theodore the Hermit, found in his Cell,'[*] a most beautiful allegory of +human life, under the figure of ascending the mountain of Existence. The +Bishop of Dromore heard Dr. Johnson say, that he thought this was the +best thing he ever wrote[563]. + + +1749: ÆTAT. 40.--In January, 1749, he published _The Vanity of Human +Wishes, being the Tenth Satire of Juvenal imitated_[564]. He, I believe, +composed it the preceding year[565]. Mrs. Johnson, for the sake of country +air, had lodgings at Hampstead, to which he resorted occasionally, and +there the greatest part, if not the whole, of this _Imitation_ was +written[566]. The fervid rapidity with which it was produced, is scarcely +credible. I have heard him say, that he composed seventy lines of it in +one day, without putting one of them upon paper till they were +finished[567]. + +[Page 193: The payment of poets.] + +I remember when I once regretted to him that he had not given us more of +Juvenal's _Satires_, he said he probably should give more, for he had +them all in his head; by which I understood that he had the originals +and correspondent allusions floating in his mind, which he could, when +he pleased, embody and render permanent without much labour. Some of +them, however, he observed were too gross for imitation. + +The profits of a single poem, however excellent, appear to have been +very small in the last reign, compared with what a publication of the +same size has since been known to yield. I have mentioned, upon +Johnson's own authority, that for his _London_ he had only ten guineas; +and now, after his fame was established, he got for his _Vanity of Human +Wishes_ but five guineas more, as is proved by an authentick document in +my possession[568]. + +It will be observed, that he reserves to himself the right of printing +one edition of this satire, which was his practice upon occasion of the +sale of all his writings; it being his fixed intention to publish at +some period, for his own profit, a complete collection of his works[569]. + +His _Vanity of Human Wishes_ has less of common life, but more of a +philosophick dignity than his _London_. More readers, therefore, will be +delighted with the pointed spirit of _London_, than with the profound +reflection of _The Vanity of Human Wishes_[570]. Garrick, for instance, +observed in his sprightly manner, with more vivacity than regard to just +discrimination, as is usual with wits, 'When Johnson lived much with +the Herveys, and saw a good deal of what was passing in life, he wrote +his _London_, which is lively and easy. When he became more retired, he +gave us his _Vanity of Human Wishes_, which is as hard as Greek. Had he +gone on to imitate another satire, it would have been as hard as +Hebrew[571].' + +[Page 194: Lydiat's life. A.D. 1749.] + +But _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ is, in the opinion of the best judges, +as high an effort of ethick poetry as any language can shew. The +instances of variety of disappointment are chosen so judiciously and +painted so strongly, that, the moment they are read, they bring +conviction to every thinking mind. That of the scholar must have +depressed the too sanguine expectations of many an ambitious student[572]. +That of the warrior, Charles of Sweden, is, I think, as highly finished +a picture as can possibly be conceived. + +[Page 195: The conclusion of Johnson's poem. Ætat 40.] + +Were all the other excellencies of this poem annihilated, it must ever +have our grateful reverence from its noble conclusion; in which we are +consoled with the assurance that happiness may be attained, if we 'apply +our hearts[573]' to piety: + +'Where then shall hope and fear their objects find? +Shall dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind? +Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, +Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate? +Shall no dislike alarm, no wishes rise, +No cries attempt the mercy of the skies? +Enthusiast[574], cease; petitions yet remain, +Which Heav'n may hear, nor deem Religion vain. +Still raise for good the supplicating voice, +But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice. +Safe in His hand, whose eye discerns afar +The secret ambush of a specious pray'r; +Implore His aid, in His decisions rest, +Secure whate'er He gives He gives the best. +Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires, +And strong devotion to the skies aspires, +Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, +Obedient passions, and a will resign'd; +For love, which scarce collective man can fill, +For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill; +For faith, which panting for a happier seat, +Counts death kind Nature's signal for retreat. +These goods for man the laws of Heaven ordain, +These goods He grants, who grants the power to gain; +With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, +And makes the happiness she does not find.' + +[Page 196: IRENE on the stage. A.D. 1749.] + +Garrick being now vested with theatrical power by being manager of +Drury-lane theatre, he kindly and generously made use of it to bring out +Johnson's tragedy, which had been long kept back for want of +encouragement. But in this benevolent purpose he met with no small +difficulty from the temper of Johnson, which could not brook that a +drama which he had formed with much study, and had been obliged to keep +more than the nine years of Horace[575], should be revised and altered at +the pleasure of an actor[576]. Yet Garrick knew well, that without some +alterations it would not be fit for the stage. A violent dispute having +ensued between them, Garrick applied to the Reverend Dr. Taylor to +interpose. Johnson was at first very obstinate. 'Sir, (said he) the +fellow wants me to make Mahomet run mad, that he may have an opportunity +of tossing his hands and kicking his heels[577].' He was, however, at +last, with difficulty, prevailed on to comply with Garrick's wishes, so +as to allow of some changes; but still there were not enough. + +[Page 197: The Epilogue to IRENE. Ætat 40.] + +Dr. Adams was present the first night of the representation of _Irene_, +and gave me the following account: 'Before the curtain drew up, there +were catcalls whistling, which alarmed Johnson's friends. The Prologue, +which was written by himself in a manly strain, soothed the audience[578], +and the play went off tolerably, till it came to the conclusion, when +Mrs. Pritchard[579], the heroine of the piece, was to be strangled upon +the stage, and was to speak two lines with the bow-string round her +neck. The audience cried out "_Murder! Murder_[580]!" She several times +attempted to speak; but in vain. At last she was obliged to go off the +stage alive.' This passage was afterwards struck out, and she was +carried off to be put to death behind the scenes, as the play now has +it[581]. The Epilogue, as Johnson informed me, was written by Sir William +Yonge[582]. I know not how his play came to be thus graced by the pen of a +person then so eminent in the political world. + +Notwithstanding all the support of such performers as Garrick, Barry, +Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Pritchard, and every advantage of dress and +decoration, the tragedy of _Irene_ did not please the publick[583]. Mr. +Garrick's zeal carried it through for nine nights[584], so that the +authour had his three nights' profits; and from a receipt signed by him, +now in the hands of Mr. James Dodsley, it appears that his friend Mr. +Robert Dodsley gave him one hundred pounds for the copy, with his usual +reservation of the right of one edition[585]. + +[Page 198: IRENE as a poem. A.D. 1749.] + +[Page 199: Johnson no tragedy-writer. Ætat 40.] + +_Irene_, considered as a poem, is intitled to the praise of superiour +excellence[586]. Analysed into parts, it will furnish a rich store of +noble sentiments, fine imagery, and beautiful language; but it is +deficient in pathos, in that delicate power of touching the human +feelings, which is the principal end of the drama[587]. Indeed Garrick has +complained to me, that Johnson not only had not the faculty of producing +the impressions of tragedy, but that he had not the sensibility to +perceive them. His great friend Mr. Walmsley's prediction, that he would +'turn out a fine tragedy-writer[588],' was, therefore, ill-founded. +Johnson was wise enough to be convinced that he had not the talents +necessary to write successfully for the stage, and never made another +attempt in that species of composition[589]. + +[Page 200: Deference for the general opinion. A.D. 1749.] + +When asked how he felt upon the ill success of his tragedy, he replied, +'Like the Monument[590];' meaning that he continued firm and unmoved as +that column. And let it be remembered, as an admonition to the _genus +irritabile_[591] of dramatick writers, that this great man, instead of +peevishly complaining of the bad taste of the town, submitted to its +decision without a murmur. He had, indeed, upon all occasions, a great +deference for the general opinion[592]: 'A man (said he) who writes a +book, thinks himself wiser or wittier than the rest of mankind; he +supposes that he can instruct or amuse them, and the publick to whom he +appeals, must, after all, be the judges of his pretensions.' + +[Page 201: Johnson in the Green Room. Ætat 41.] + +On occasion of his play being brought upon the stage, Johnson had a +fancy that as a dramatick authour his dress should be more gay than what +he ordinarily wore; he therefore appeared behind the scenes, and even in +one of the side boxes, in a scarlet waistcoat, with rich gold lace, and +a gold-laced hat[593]. He humourously observed to Mr. Langton, that 'when +in that dress he could not treat people with the same ease as when in +his usual plain clothes[594].' Dress indeed, we must allow, has more +effect even upon strong minds than one should suppose, without having +had the experience of it. His necessary attendance while his play was in +rehearsal, and during its performance, brought him acquainted with many +of the performers of both sexes, which produced a more favourable +opinion of their profession than he had harshly expressed in his _Life +of Savage_[595]. With some of them he kept up an acquaintance as long as +he and they lived, and was ever ready to shew them acts of kindness. He +for a considerable time used to frequent the _Green Room_, and seemed to +take delight in dissipating his gloom, by mixing in the sprightly +chit-chat of the motley circle then to be found there[596]. Mr. David Hume +related to me from Mr. Garrick, that Johnson at last denied himself this +amusement, from considerations of rigid virtue; saying, 'I'll come no +more behind your scenes, David; for the silk stockings and white bosoms +of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.' + +[Page 202: The Rambler. A.D. 1750.] + + +1750: ÆTAT. 41.--In 1750 he came forth in the character for which he +was eminently qualified, a majestick teacher of moral and religious +wisdom. The vehicle which he chose was that of a periodical paper, which +he knew had been, upon former occasions, employed with great success. +The _Tatler, Spectator_, and _Guardian_, were the last of the kind +published in England, which had stood the test of a long trial[597]; and +such an interval had now elapsed since their publication, as made him +justly think that, to many of his readers, this form of instruction +would, in some degree, have the advantage of novelty. A few days before +the first of his _Essays_ came out, there started another competitor for +fame in the same form, under the title of _The _Tatler Revived_[598], +which I believe was 'born but to die[599].' Johnson was, I think, not very +happy in the choice of his title, _The Rambler_, which certainly is not +suited to a series of grave and moral discourses; which the Italians +have literally, but ludicrously translated by _Il Vagabondo_[600]; and +which has been lately assumed as the denomination of a vehicle of +licentious tales, _The Rambler's Magazine_. He gave Sir Joshua Reynolds +the following account of its getting this name: 'What _must_ be done, +Sir, _will_ be done. When I was to begin publishing that paper, I was at +a loss how to name it. I sat down at night upon my bedside, and resolved +that I would not go to sleep till I had fixed its title. _The Rambler_ +seemed the best that occurred, and I took it[601].' + +With what devout and conscientious sentiments this paper was undertaken, +is evidenced by the following prayer, which he composed and offered up +on the occasion: 'Almighty GOD, the giver of all good things, without +whose help all labour is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom +is folly; grant, I beseech Thee, that in this undertaking[602] thy Holy +Spirit may not be with-held from me, but that I may promote thy glory, +and the salvation of myself and others: grant this, O LORD, for the sake +of thy son JESUS CHRIST. Amen[603].' + +[Page 203: Revision of The Rambler. Ætat 41.] + +The first paper of the _Rambler_ was published on Tuesday the 20th of +March, 1750; and its authour was enabled to continue it, without +interruption, every Tuesday and Friday, till Saturday the 17th of March, +1752[604], on which day it closed. This is a strong confirmation of the +truth of a remark of his, which I have had occasion to quote +elsewhere[605], that 'a man may write at any time, if he will set himself +doggedly to it[606];' for, 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; having received no +assistance, except four billets in No. 10, by Miss Mulso, now Mrs. +Chapone[607]; No. 30, by Mrs. Catharine Talbot[608]; No. 97, by Mr. Samuel +Richardson, whom he describes in an introductory note as 'An author who +has enlarged the knowledge of human nature, and taught the passions to +move at the command of virtue;' and Nos. 44 and 100 by Mrs. Elizabeth +Carter. + +[Page 204: Johnson's rapid composition. A.D. 1750.] + +Posterity will be astonished when they are told, upon the authority of +Johnson himself, that many of these discourses, which we should suppose +had been laboured with all the slow attention of literary leisure, were +written in haste as the moment pressed, without even being read over by +him before they were printed[609]. It can be accounted for only in this +way; that by reading and meditation, and a very close inspection of +life, he had accumulated a great fund of miscellaneous knowledge, which, +by a peculiar promptitude of mind, was ever ready at his call, and which +he had constantly accustomed himself to clothe in the most apt and +energetick expression. 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[610]. + +[Page 205: Hints for the Rambler. Ætat 42.] + +Yet he was not altogether unprepared as a periodical writer; for I have +in my possession a small duodecimo volume, in which he has written, in +the form of Mr. Locke's _Common-Place Book_, a variety of hints for +essays on different subjects. He has marked upon the first blank leaf of +it, 'To the 128th page, collections for the _Rambler_;' and in another +place, 'In fifty-two there were seventeen provided; in 97-21; in +190-25.' At a subsequent period (probably after the work was finished) +he added, 'In all, taken of provided materials, 30[611].' + +Sir John Hawkins, who is unlucky upon all occasions, tells us, that +'this method of accumulating intelligence had been practised by Mr. +Addison, and is humourously described in one of the _Spectators_[612], +wherein he feigns to have dropped his paper of _notanda_, consisting of +a diverting medley of broken sentences and loose hints, which he tells +us he had collected, and meant to make use of. Much of the same kind is +Johnson's _Adversaria_[613]'. But the truth is, that there is no +resemblance at all between them. Addison's note was a fiction, in which +unconnected fragments of his lucubrations were purposely jumbled +together, in as odd a manner as he could, in order to produce a +laughable effect. Whereas Johnson's abbreviations are all distinct, and +applicable to each subject of which the head is mentioned. + +For instance, there is the following specimen: + +_Youth's Entry, &c_. + +'Baxter's account of things in which he had changed his mind as he grew +up. Voluminous.--No wonder.--If every man was to tell, or mark, on how +many subjects he has changed, it would make vols. but the changes not +always observed by man's self.--From pleasure to bus. [business] to +quiet; from thoughtfulness to reflect. to piety; from dissipation to +domestic. by impercept. gradat. but the change is certain. Dial[614] _non +progredi, progress. esse conspicimus_. Look back, consider what was +thought at some dist. period. + +'_Hope predom. in youth. Mind not willingly indulges unpleasing +thoughts_. The world lies all enameled before him, as a distant prospect +sun-gilt[615]; inequalities only found by coming to it. _Love is to be all +joy--children excellent_--Fame to be constant--caresses of the +great--applauses of the learned--smiles of Beauty. + +'_Fear of disgrace--bashfulness_--Finds things of less importance. +Miscarriages forgot like excellencies;--if remembered, of no import. +Danger of sinking into negligence of reputation. Lest the fear of +disgrace destroy activity. + +[Page 206: Hints for The Rambler. A.D. 1750.] + +'_Confidence in himself_. Long tract of life before him.--No thought of +sickness.--Embarrassment of affairs.--Distraction of family. Publick +calamities.--No sense of the prevalence of bad habits.--Negligent of +time--ready to undertake--careless to pursue--all changed by time. + +'_Confident of others_--unsuspecting as unexperienced--imagining himself +secure against neglect, never imagines they will venture to treat him +ill. Ready to trust; expecting to be trusted. Convinced by time of the +selfishness, the meanness, the cowardice, the treachery of men. + +'Youth ambitious, as thinking honours easy to be had. + +'Different kinds of praise pursued at different periods. Of the gay in +youth, dang. hurt, &c. despised. + +'Of the fancy in manhood. Ambit.--stocks--bargains.--Of the wise and +sober in old age--seriousness--formality--maxims, but general--only of +the rich, otherwise age is happy--but at last every thing referred to +riches--no having fame, honour, influence, without subjection to +caprice. + +'Horace[616]. + +'Hard it would be if men entered life with the same views with which +they leave it, or left as they enter it.--No hope--no undertaking--no +regard to benevolence--no fear of disgrace, &c. + +'Youth to be taught the piety of age--age to retain the honour of +youth.' + +This, it will be observed, is the sketch of Number 196 of the _Rambler_. +I shall gratify my readers with another specimen: + +'_Confederacies difficult; why_. + +[Page 207: Hints for The Rambler. Ætat 41.] + +'Seldom in war a match for single persons--nor in peace; therefore kings +make themselves absolute. Confederacies in learning--every great work +the work of one. _Bruy_. Scholar's friendship like ladies. Scribebamus, +&c. Mart.[617] the apple of discord--the laurel of discord--the poverty of +criticism. Swift's opinion of the power of six geniuses united[618]. That +union scarce possible. His remarks just; man a social, not steady +nature. Drawn to man by words, repelled by passions. Orb drawn by +attraction rep. [_repelled_] by centrifugal. + +'Common danger unites by crushing other passions--but they return. +Equality hinders compliance. Superiority produces insolence and envy. +Too much regard in each to private interest--too little. + +'The mischiefs of private and exclusive societies--the fitness of social +attraction diffused through the whole. The mischiefs of too partial love +of our country. Contraction of moral duties--[Greek: oi philoi on +philos][619]. + +'Every man moves upon his own center, and therefore repels others from +too near a contact, though he may comply with some general laws. + +'Of confederacy with superiours, every one knows the inconvenience. With +equals, no authority;--every man his own opinion--his own interest. + +'Man and wife hardly united;--scarce ever without children. Computation, +if two to one against two, how many against five? If confederacies were +easy--useless;--many oppresses many.--If possible only to some, +dangerous. _Principum amicitias_[620]'. + +Here we see the embryo of Number 45 of the _Adventurer_; and it is a +confirmation of what I shall presently have occasion to mention[621], that +the papers in that collection marked T. were written by Johnson. + +[Page 208: The Rambler's slow sale. A.D. 1750.] + +This scanty preparation of materials will not, however, much diminish +our wonder at the extraordinary fertility of his mind; for the +proportion which they bear to the number of essays which he wrote, is +very small; and it is remarkable, that those for which he had made no +preparation, are as rich and as highly finished as those for which the +hints were lying by him. It is also to be observed, that the papers +formed from his hints are worked up with such strength and elegance, +that we almost lose sight of the hints, which become like 'drops in the +bucket.' Indeed, in several instances, he has made a very slender use of +them, so that many of them remain still unapplied[622]. + +As the _Rambler_ was entirely the work of one man, there was, of course, +such a uniformity in its texture, as very much to exclude the charm of +variety[623]; and the grave and often solemn cast of thinking, which +distinguished it from other periodical papers, made it, for some time, +not generally liked. So slowly did this excellent work, of which twelve +editions have now issued from the press, gain upon the world at large, +that even in the closing number the authour says, 'I have never been +much a favourite of the publick[624].' + +[Page 209: George II. not an Augustus. Ætat 41.] + +Yet, very soon after its commencement, there were who felt and +acknowledged its uncommon excellence. Verses in its praise appeared in +the newspapers; and the editor of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ mentions, +in October, his having received several letters to the same purpose from +the learned[625]. _The Student, or Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany_, in +which Mr. Bonnell Thornton and Mr. Colman were the principal writers, +describes it as 'a work that exceeds anything of the kind ever published +in this kingdom, some of the _Spectators_ excepted--if indeed they may +be excepted.' And afterwards, 'May the publick favours crown his merits, +and may not the English, under the auspicious reign of GEORGE the +Second, neglect a man, who, had he lived in the first century, would +have been one of the greatest favourites of Augustus.' This flattery of +the monarch had no effect. It is too well known, that the second George +never was an Augustus to learning or genius[626]. + +[Page 210: Mrs. Johnson's praise of The Rambler. A.D. 1750.] + +Johnson told me, with an amiable fondness, a little pleasing +circumstance relative to this work. Mrs. Johnson, in whose judgement and +taste he had great confidence, said to him, after a few numbers of the +_Rambler_ had come out, 'I thought very well of you before; but I did +not imagine you could have written any thing equal to this[627].' Distant +praise, from whatever quarter, is not so delightful as that of a wife +whom a man loves and esteems. Her approbation may be said to 'come home +to his _bosom_;' and being so near, its effect is most sensible and +permanent. + +Mr. James Elphinston[628], who has since published various works, and who +was ever esteemed by Johnson as a worthy man, happened to be in Scotland +while the _Rambler_ was coming out in single papers at London. With a +laudable zeal at once for the improvement of his countrymen, and the +reputation of his friend, he suggested and took the charge of an edition +of those Essays at Edinburgh, which followed progressively the London +publication[629]. + +The following letter written at this time, though not dated, will show +how much pleased Johnson was with this publication, and what kindness +and regard he had for Mr. Elphinston. + +[Page 211: Letters to Mr. Elphinston. Ætat 41.] + +'To MR. JAMES ELPHINSTON. + +[No date.] + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I cannot but confess the failures of my correspondence, but hope the +same regard which you express for me on every other occasion, will +incline you to forgive me. I am often, very often, ill; and, when I am +well, am obliged to work: and, indeed, have never much used myself to +punctuality. You are, however, not to make unkind inferences, when I +forbear to reply to your kindness; for be assured, I never receive a +letter from you without great pleasure, and a very warm sense of your +generosity and friendship, which I heartily blame myself for not +cultivating with more care. In this, as in many other cases, I go wrong, +in opposition to conviction; for I think scarce any temporal good +equally to be desired with the regard and familiarity of worthy men. I +hope we shall be some time nearer to each other, and have a more ready +way of pouring out our hearts. + +'I am glad that you still find encouragement to proceed in your +publication, and shall beg the favour of six more volumes to add to my +former six, when you can, with any convenience, send them me. Please to +present a set, in my name, to Mr. Ruddiman[630], of whom, I hear, that his +learning is not his highest excellence. I have transcribed the mottos, +and returned them, I hope not too late, of which I think many very +happily performed. Mr. Cave has put the last in the magazine[631], in +which I think he did well. I beg of you to write soon, and to write +often, and to write long letters, which I hope in time to repay you; but +you must be a patient creditor. I have, however, this of gratitude, that +I think of you with regard, when I do not, perhaps, give the proofs +which I ought, of being, Sir, + +'Your most obliged and + +'Most humble servant. + +SAM. JOHNSON.' + +This year he wrote to the same gentleman another letter, +upon a mournful occasion, + +[Page 212: The death of a mother. A.D. 1750.] + +'To Mr. JAMES ELPHINSTON. + +September 25, 1750. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'You have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent +mother; and I hope you will not think me incapable of partaking of your +grief. I have a mother, now eighty-two years of age, whom, therefore, I +must soon lose[632], unless it please GOD that she rather should mourn for +me. I read the letters in which you relate your mother's death to Mrs. +Strahan[633], and think I do myself honour, when I tell you that I read +them with tears; but tears are neither to _you_ nor to _me_ of any +further use, when once the tribute of nature has been paid. The business +of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise +of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation. The greatest +benefit which one friend can confer upon another, is to guard, and +excite, and elevate his virtues. This your mother will still perform, if +you diligently preserve the memory of her life, and of her death: a +life, so far as I can learn, useful, wise, and innocent; and a death +resigned, peaceful, and holy. I cannot forbear to mention, that neither +reason nor revelation denies you to hope, that you may increase her +happiness by obeying her precepts; and that she may, in her present +state, look with pleasure upon every act of virtue to which her +instructions or example have contributed. Whether this be more than a +pleasing dream, or a just opinion of separate spirits, is, indeed, of no +great importance to us, when we consider ourselves as acting under the +eye of GOD: yet, surely, there is something pleasing in the belief, that +our separation from those whom we love is merely corporeal; and it may +be a great incitement to virtuous friendship, if it can be made +probable, that that union that has received the divine approbation shall +continue to eternity. + +'There is one expedient by which you may, in some degree, continue her +presence. If you write down minutely what you remember of her from your +earliest years, you will read it with great pleasure, and receive from +it many hints of soothing recollection, when time shall remove her yet +farther from you, and your grief shall be matured to veneration. To +this, however painful for the present, I cannot but advise you, as to a +source of comfort and satisfaction in the time to come; for all comfort +and all satisfaction is sincerely wished you by, dear Sir, + +'Your most obliged, most obedient, + +'And most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +[Page 213: Goldsmith's debt to Johnson. Ætat 41.] + +The _Rambler_ has increased in fame as in age. Soon after its first +folio edition was concluded, it was published in six duodecimo +volumes[634]; and its authour lived to see ten numerous editions of it in +London, beside those of Ireland and Scotland[635]. + +I profess myself to have ever entertained a profound veneration for the +astonishing force and vivacity of mind which the _Rambler_ exhibits. +That Johnson had penetration enough to see, and seeing would not +disguise the general misery of man in this state of being, may have +given rise to the superficial notion of his being too stern a +philosopher. But men of reflection will be sensible that he has given a +true representation of human existence, and that he has, at the same +time, with a generous benevolence displayed every consolation which our +state affords us; not only those arising from the hopes of futurity, but +such as may be attained in the immediate progress through life. He has +not depressed the soul to despondency and indifference. He has every +where inculcated study, labour, and exertion. Nay, he has shewn, in a +very odious light, a man whose practice is to go about darkening the +views of others, by perpetual complaints of evil, and awakening those +considerations of danger and distress, which are, for the most part, +lulled into a quiet oblivion. This he has done very strongly in his +character of Suspirius[636], from which Goldsmith took that of Croaker, in +his comedy of _The Good-Natured Man_[637], as Johnson told me he +acknowledged to him, and which is, indeed, very obvious[638]. + +[Page 214: The Beauties of Dr. Johnson. A.D. 1750.] + +To point out the numerous subjects which the _Rambler_ treats, with a +dignity and perspicuity which are there united in a manner which we +shall in vain look for any where else, would take up too large a portion +of my book, and would, I trust, be superfluous, considering how +universally those volumes are now disseminated. Even the most condensed +and brilliant sentences which they contain, and which have very properly +been selected under the name of _Beauties_[639], are of considerable bulk. +But I may shortly observe, that the _Rambler_ furnishes such an +assemblage of discourses on practical religion and moral duty, of +critical investigations, and allegorical and oriental tales, that no +mind can be thought very deficient that has, by constant study and +meditation, assimilated to itself all that may be found there. No. 7, +written in Passion-week on abstraction and self-examination[640], and No. +110, on penitence and the placability of the Divine Nature, cannot be +too often read. No. 54, on the effect which the death of a friend should +have upon us, though rather too dispiriting, may be occasionally very +medicinal to the mind. Every one must suppose the writer to have been +deeply impressed by a real scene; but he told me that was not the case; +which shews how well his fancy could conduct him to the 'house of +mourning[641].' Some of these more solemn papers, I doubt not, +particularly attracted the notice of Dr. Young, the authour of _The +Night Thoughts_, of whom my estimation is such, as to reckon his +applause an honour even to Johnson. I have seen some volumes of Dr. +Young's copy of the _Rambler_, in which he has marked the passages which +he thought particularly excellent, by folding down a corner of the page; +and such as he rated in a super-eminent degree, are marked by double +folds. I am sorry that some of the volumes are lost. Johnson was pleased +when told of the minute attention with which Young had signified his +approbation of his Essays. + +[Page 215: A Club in Essex. Ætat 41.] + +I will venture to say, that in no writings whatever can be found _more +bark and steel for the mind_, if I may use the expression; more that can +brace and invigorate every manly and noble sentiment. No. 32 on +patience, even under extreme misery, is wonderfully lofty, and as much +above the rant of stoicism, as the Sun of Revelation is brighter than +the twilight of Pagan philosophy. I never read the following sentence +without feeling my frame thrill: 'I think there is some reason for +questioning whether the body and mind are not so proportioned, that the +one can bear all which can be inflicted on the other; whether virtue +cannot stand its ground as long as life, and whether a soul well +principled, will not be sooner separated than subdued[642].' + +[Page 216: The character of Prospero. A.D. 1750.] + +[Page 217: The Style of The Rambler. Ætat 41.] + +Though instruction be the predominant purpose of the _Rambler_, yet it +is enlivened with a considerable portion of amusement. Nothing can be +more erroneous than the notion which some persons have entertained, that +Johnson was then a retired authour, ignorant of the world; and, of +consequence, that he wrote only from his imagination when he described +characters and manners. He said to me, that before he wrote that work, +he had been 'running about the world,' as he expressed it, more than +almost any body; and I have heard him relate, with much satisfaction, +that several of the characters in the _Rambler_ were drawn so naturally, +that when it first circulated in numbers, a club in one of the towns in +Essex imagined themselves to be severally exhibited in it, and were much +incensed against a person who, they suspected, had thus made them +objects of publick notice; nor were they quieted till authentick +assurance was given them, that the _Rambler_ was written by a person who +had never heard of any one of them[643]. Some of the characters are +believed to have been actually drawn from the life, particularly that of +Prospero from Garrick[644], who never entirely forgave its pointed +satire[645]. For instances of fertility of fancy, and accurate description +of real life, I appeal to No. 19, a man who wanders from one profession +to another, with most plausible reasons for every change. No. 34, female +fastidiousness and timorous refinement. No. 82, a Virtuoso who has +collected curiosities. No. 88[646], petty modes of entertaining a company, +and conciliating kindness. No. 182, fortune-hunting. No. 194-195, a +tutor's account of the follies of his pupil. No. 197-198, +legacy-hunting. He has given a specimen of his nice observation of the +mere external appearances of life, in the following passage in No. 179, +against affectation, that frequent and most disgusting quality: 'He that +stands to contemplate the crouds that fill the streets of a populous +city, will see many passengers whose air and motion it will be difficult +to behold without contempt and laughter; but if he examine what are the +appearances that thus powerfully excite his risibility, he will find +among them neither poverty nor disease, nor any involuntary or painful +defect. The disposition to derision and insult, is awakened by the +softness of foppery, the swell of insolence, the liveliness of levity, +or the solemnity of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk, +the formal strut, and the lofty mien; by gestures intended to catch the +eye, and by looks elaborately formed as evidences of importance.' + +Every page of the _Rambler_ shews a mind teeming with classical allusion +and poetical imagery: illustrations from other writers are, upon all +occasions, so ready, and mingle so easily in his periods, that the whole +appears of one uniform vivid texture. + +[Page 218: Johnson's masters in style. A.D. 1750.] + +[Page 219: A Great Personage. Ætat 41.] + +The style of this work has been censured by some shallow criticks as +involved and turgid, and abounding with antiquated and hard words. So +ill-founded is the first part of this objection, that I will challenge +all who may honour this book with a perusal, to point out any English +writer whose language conveys his meaning with equal force and +perspicuity. It must, indeed, be allowed, that the structure of his +sentences is expanded, and often has somewhat of the inversion of Latin; +and that he delighted to express familiar thoughts in philosophical +language; being in this the reverse of Socrates, who, it was said, +reduced philosophy to the simplicity of common life. But let us attend +to what he himself says in his concluding paper: 'When common words were +less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I +have familiarised the terms of philosophy, by applying them to popular +ideas[647].' And, as to the second part of this objection, upon a late +careful revision of the work, I can with confidence say, that it is +amazing how few of those words, for which it has been unjustly +characterised, are actually to be found in it; I am sure, not the +proportion of one to each paper. This idle charge has been echoed from +one babbler to another, who have confounded Johnson's Essays with +Johnson's _Dictionary_; and because he thought it right in a Lexicon of +our language to collect many words which had fallen into disuse, but +were supported by great authorities, it has been imagined that all of +these have been interwoven into his own compositions. That some of them +have been adopted by him unnecessarily, may, perhaps, be allowed; but, +in general they are evidently an advantage, for without them his stately +ideas would be confined and cramped. 'He that thinks with more extent +than another, will want words of larger meaning[648].' He once told me, +that he had formed his style upon that of Sir William Temple[649], and +upon Chambers's Proposal for his _Dictionary_[650]. He certainly was +mistaken; or if he imagined at first that he was imitating Temple, he +was very unsuccessful; for nothing can be more unlike than the +simplicity of Temple, and the richness of Johnson. Their styles differ +as plain cloth and brocade. Temple, indeed, seems equally erroneous in +supposing that he himself had formed his style upon Sandys's _View of +the State of Religion in the Western parts of the World_. + +The style of Johnson was, undoubtedly, much formed upon that of the +great writers in the last century, Hooker, Bacon, Sanderson, Hakewell, +and others; those 'GIANTS[651],' as they were well characterised by A +GREAT PERSONAGE[652], whose authority, were I to name him, would stamp a +reverence on the opinion. + +[Page 220: The motto to the Dictionary. A.D. 1750.] + +We may, with the utmost propriety, apply to his learned style that +passage of Horace, a part of which he has taken as the motto to his +_Dictionary_[653]: + +'Cum tabulis animum censoris sumet honesti; +Audebit quaecumque parùm splendoris habebunt +Et sine pondere erunt, et honore indigna ferentur, +Verba movere loco, quamvis invita recedant, +Et versentur adhuc intra penetralia Vesta. +Obscurata diu populo bonus eruet, atque +Proferet in lucem speciosa vocabula rerum, +Quae priscis memorala Calonibus alque Cethegis, +Nunc situs informis premit et deserta velustas: +Adsciscet nova, quae genitor produxerit usus: +Vehemens, et liquidus, puroque simillimus amni, +Fundet opes Latiumque beabit divile linguá.[654]' + +[Page 221: Johnson not a coiner of words. Ætat 41.] + +To so great a master of thinking, to one of such vast and various +knowledge as Johnson, might have been allowed a liberal indulgence of +that licence which Horace claims in another place: + +'Si forté necesse est +Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum, +Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis +Continget, dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter: +Et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem si +Græco fonte cadant, parce detorta. Quid autem +Cæcilio Plautoque dabit Romanus, ademptum +Virgilio Varioque? Ego cur, acquirere pauca +Si possum, invideor; cum lingua Catonis et Enni +Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum +Nomina protulerit? Licuit semperque licebit +Signatum præsente notá producere nomen[655].' + +Yet Johnson assured me, that he had not taken upon him to add more than +four or five words to the English language, of his own formation[656]; and +he was very much offended at the general licence, by no means 'modestly +taken' in his time, not only to coin new words, but to use many words in +senses quite different from their established meaning, and those +frequently very fantastical[657]. + +[Page 222: Johnson's influence on style. A.D. 1750.] + +Sir Thomas Brown[658], whose life Johnson wrote, was remarkably fond of +Anglo-Latian diction; and to his example we are to ascribe Johnson's +sometimes indulging himself in this kind of phraseology'. Johnson's +comprehension of mind was the mould for his language. Had his +conceptions been narrower, his expression would have been easier. His +sentences have a dignified march; and, it is certain, that his example +has given a general elevation to the language of his country, for many +of our best writers have approached very near to him; and, from the +influence which he has had upon our composition, scarcely any thing is +written now that is not better expressed than was usual before he +appeared to lead the national taste. + +[Page 223: Courtenay's lines on Johnson's school. Ætat 41.] + +This circumstance, the truth of which must strike every critical reader, +has been so happily enforced by Mr. Courtenay, in his _Moral and +Literary Character of Dr. Johnson_, that I cannot prevail on myself to +withhold it, notwithstanding his, perhaps, too great partiality for one +of his friends: + +'By nature's gifts ordain'd mankind to rule, +He, like a Titian, form'd his brilliant school; +And taught congenial spirits to excel, +While from his lips impressive wisdom fell. +Our boasted GOLDSMITH felt the sovereign sway: +From him deriv'd the sweet, yet nervous lay. +To Fame's proud cliff he bade our Raphael rise; +Hence REYNOLDS' pen with REYNOLDS' pencil vies. +With Johnson's flame melodious BURNEY glows, +While the grand strain in smoother cadence flows. +And you, MALONE, to critick learning dear. +Correct and elegant, refin'd though clear, +By studying him, acquir'd that classick taste, +Which high in Shakspeare's fane thy statue plac'd. +Near Johnson STEEVENS stands, on scenick ground, +Acute, laborious, fertile, and profound. +Ingenious HAWKESWORTH to this school we owe. +And scarce the pupil from the tutor know. +Here early parts accomplish'd JONES sublimes, +And science blends with Asia's lofty rhymes: +Harmonious JONES! who in his splendid strains +Sings Camdeo's sports, on Agra's flowery plains: +In Hindu fictions while we fondly trace +Love and the Muses, deck'd with Attick grace. +Amid these names can BOSWELL be forgot, +Scarce by North Britons now esteem'd a Scot[659]? +Who to the sage devoted from his youth, +Imbib'd from him the sacred love of truth; +The keen research, the exercise of mind, +And that best art, the art to know mankind.-- +Nor was his energy confin'd alone +To friends around his philosophick throne; +_Its influence wide improv'd our letter'd isle. +And lucid vigour marked the general style_: +As Nile's proud waves, swoln from their oozy bed. +First o'er the neighbouring meads majestick spread; +Till gathering force, they more and more expand. +And with new virtue fertilise the land.' + +Johnson's language, however, must be allowed to be too masculine for the +delicate gentleness of female writing. His ladies, therefore, seem +strangely formal, even to ridicule; and are well denominated by the +names which he has given them as Misella[660], Zozima, Properantia, +Rhodoclia. + +[Page 224: The styles of addison and Johnson. A.D. 1750.] + +It has of late been the fashion to compare the style of Addison and +Johnson, and to depreciate, I think very unjustly, the style of Addison +as nerveless and feeble[661], because it has not the strength and energy +of that of Johnson. Their prose may be balanced like the poetry of +Dryden and Pope. Both are excellent, though in different ways. Addison +writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers fancy that a wise and +accomplished companion is talking to them; so that he insinuates his +sentiments and taste into their minds by an imperceptible influence. +Johnson writes like a teacher. He dictates to his readers as if from an +academical chair. They attend with awe and admiration; and his precepts +are impressed upon them by his commanding eloquence. Addison's style, +like a light wine, pleases everybody from the first. Johnson's, like a +liquor of more body, seems too strong at first, but, by degrees, is +highly relished; and such is the melody of his periods, so much do they +captivate the ear, and seize upon the attention, that there is scarcely +any writer, however inconsiderable, who does not aim, in some degree, at +the same species of excellence. But let us not ungratefully undervalue +that beautiful style, which has pleasingly conveyed to us much +instruction and entertainment. Though comparatively weak, opposed to +Johnson's Herculean vigour, let us not call it positively feeble. Let us +remember the character of his style, as given by Johnson himself[662]: +'What he attempted, he performed; he is never feeble, and he did not +wish to be energetick; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His +sentences have neither studied amplitude, nor affected brevity: his +periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy[663]. 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[664].' + +[Page 225: Boswell's projected works. Ætat 41.] + +[Page 226: The last Rambler. A.D. 1750.] + +Though the _Rambler_ was not concluded till the year 1752, I shall, +under this year, say all that I have to observe upon it. Some of the +translations of the mottos by himself are admirably done. He +acknowledges to have received 'elegant translations' of many of them +from Mr. James Elphinston; and some are very happily translated by a Mr. +_F. Lewis_[665], of whom I never heard more, except that Johnson thus +described him to Mr. Malone: 'Sir, he lived in London, and hung loose +upon society.' The concluding paper of his _Rambler_ is at once +dignified and pathetick. I cannot, however, but wish that he had not +ended it with an unnecessary Greek verse, translated also into an +English couplet[666]. It is too much like the conceit of those dramatick +poets, who used to conclude each act with a rhyme; and the expression in +the first line of his couplet, '_Celestial powers_', though proper in +Pagan poetry, is ill suited to Christianity, with 'a conformity[667]' to +which he consoles himself. How much better would it have been, to have +ended with the prose sentence 'I shall never envy the honours which wit +and learning obtain in any other cause, if I can be numbered among the +writers who have given ardour to virtue, and confidence to truth[668].' + +His friend, Dr. Birch, being now engaged in preparing an edition of +Ralegh's smaller pieces, Dr. Johnson wrote the following letter to that +gentleman: + +'To DR. BIRCH. + +'Gough-square, May 12, 1750. + +'SIR, + +'Knowing that you are now preparing to favour the publick with a new +edition of Ralegh's[669] miscellaneous pieces, I have taken the liberty to +send you a Manuscript, which fell by chance within my notice. I perceive +no proofs of forgery in my examination of it; and the owner tells me, +that as _he_[670] has heard, the handwriting is Sir Walter's. If you +should find reason to conclude it genuine, it will be a kindness to the +owner, a blind person[671], to recommend it to the booksellers. I am, Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +[Page 227: Milton's grand-daughter. Ætat 41.] + +[Page 228: Lauder's imposition. A.D. 1751.] + +His just abhorrence of Milton's political notions was ever strong. But +this did not prevent his warm admiration of Milton's great poetical +merit, to which he has done illustrious justice, beyond all who have +written upon the subject. And this year he not only wrote a Prologue, +which was spoken by Mr. Garrick before the acting of _Comus_ at +Drury-lane theatre, for the benefit of Milton's grand-daughter, but took +a very zealous interest in the success of the charity[672]. On the day +preceding the performance, he published the following letter in the +'General Advertiser,' addressed to the printer of that paper: + +'SIR, + +'That a certain degree of reputation is acquired merely by approving the +works of genius, and testifying a regard to the memory of authours, is a +truth too evident to be denied; and therefore to ensure a participation +of fame with a celebrated poet, many who would, perhaps, have +contributed to starve him when alive, have heaped expensive pageants +upon his grave[673]. + +'It must, indeed, be confessed, that this method of becoming known to +posterity with honour, is peculiar to the great, or at least to the +wealthy; but an opportunity now offers for almost every individual to +secure the praise of paying a just regard to the illustrious dead, +united with the pleasure of doing good to the living. To assist +industrious indigence, struggling with distress and debilitated by age, +is a display of virtue, and an acquisition of happiness and honour. + +'Whoever, then, would be thought capable of pleasure in reading the +works of our incomparable Milton, and not so destitute of gratitude as +to refuse to lay out a trifle in rational and elegant entertainment, for +the benefit of his living remains, for the exercise of their own virtue, +the increase of their reputation, and the pleasing consciousness of +doing good, should appear at Drury-lane theatre to-morrow, April 5, when +_Comus_ will be performed for the benefit of Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, +grand-daughter to the author, and the only surviving branch of his +family. + +'N.B. There will be a new prologue on the occasion, written by the +author of _Irene[674], and spoken by Mr. Garrick; and, by particular +desire, there will be added to the Masque a dramatick satire, called +_Lethe_, in which Mr. Garrick will perform.' + +[Page 229: Douglas's MILTON NO PLAGIARY. Ætat 42.] + + +1751: ÆTAT. 42.--In 1751[675] we are to consider him as carrying on both +his _Dictionary_ and _Rambler_. But he also wrote _The Life of +Cheynel_[676],[*] in the miscellany called _The Student_; and the Reverend +Dr. Douglas having, with uncommon acuteness, clearly detected a gross +forgery and imposition upon the publick by William Lauder, a Scotch +schoolmaster, who had, with equal impudence and ingenuity, represented +Milton as a plagiary from certain modern Latin poets, Johnson, who had +been so far imposed upon as to furnish a Preface and Postscript to his +work, now dictated a letter for Lauder, addressed to Dr. Douglas, +acknowledging his fraud in terms of suitable contrition.[677] + +[Page 230: Johnson tricked by Lander. A.D. 1751.] + +This extraordinary attempt of Lauder was no sudden effort. He had +brooded over it for many years: and to this hour it is uncertain what +his principal motive was, unless it were a vain notion of his +superiority, in being able, by whatever means, to deceive mankind. To +effect this, he produced certain passages from Grotius, Masenius, and +others, which had a faint resemblance to some parts of the _Paradise +Lost_. In these he interpolated some fragments of Hog's Latin +translation of that poem, alledging that the mass thus fabricated was +the archetype from which Milton copied.[678] These fabrications he +published from time to time in the _Gentleman s Magazine_; and, exulting +in his fancied success, he in 1750 ventured to collect them into a +pamphlet, entitled _An Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the +Moderns in his Paradise Lost_. To this pamphlet Johnson wrote a +Preface[679], in full persuasion of Lauder's honesty, and a Postscript +recommending, in the most persuasive terms[680], a subscription for the +relief of a grand-daughter of Milton, of whom he thus speaks: + +'It is yet in the power of a great people to reward the poet whose name +they boast, and from their alliance to whose genius, they claim some +kind of superiority to every other nation of the earth; that poet, whose +works may possibly be read when every other monument of British +greatness shall be obliterated; to reward him, not with pictures or with +medals, which, if he sees, he sees with contempt, but with tokens of +gratitude, which he, perhaps, may even now consider as not unworthy the +regard of an immortal spirit.' + +[Page 231: Johnson's admiration of Milton. Ætat 42.] + +Surely this is inconsistent with 'enmity towards Milton,' which Sir John +Hawkins[681] imputes to Johnson upon this occasion, adding, + +'I could all along observe that Johnson seemed to approve not only of +the design, but of the argument; and seemed to exult in a persuasion, +that the reputation of Milton was likely to suffer by this discovery. +That he was not privy to the imposture, I am well persuaded; but that he +wished well to the argument, may be inferred from the Preface, which +indubitably was written by Johnson.' + +Is it possible for any man of clear judgement to suppose that Johnson, +who so nobly praised the poetical excellence of Milton in a Postscript +to this very 'discovery,' as he then supposed it, could, at the same +time, exult in a persuasion that the great poet's reputation was likely +to suffer by it? This is an inconsistency of which Johnson was +incapable; nor can any thing more be fairly inferred from the Preface, +than that Johnson, who was alike distinguished for ardent curiosity and +love of truth, was pleased with an investigation by which both were +gratified. That he was actuated by these motives, and certainly by no +unworthy desire to depreciate our great epick poet, is evident from his +own words; for, after mentioning the general zeal of men of genius and +literature 'to advance the honour, and distinguish the beauties of +_Paradise Lost_', he says, + +'Among the inquiries to which this ardour of criticism has naturally +given occasion, none is more obscure in itself, or more worthy of +rational curiosity, than a retrospect[682] of the progress of this mighty +genius in the construction of his work; a view of the fabrick gradually +rising, perhaps, from small beginnings, till its foundation rests in the +centre, and its turrets sparkle in the skies; to trace back the +structure through all its varieties, to the simplicity of its first +plan; to find what was first projected, whence the scheme was taken, how +it was improved, by what assistance it was executed, and from what +stores the materials were collected; whether its founder dug them from +the quarries of Nature, or demolished other buildings to embellish his +own.' + +Is this the language of one who wished to blast the laurels of +Milton[683]? + +[Page 232: Mrs. Anna Williams. A.D. 1751.] + +Though Johnson's circumstances were at this time far from being easy, +his humane and charitable disposition was constantly exerting itself. +Mrs. Anna Williams, daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a +woman of more than ordinary talents and literature, having come to +London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which +afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a constant +visitor at his house while Mrs. Johnson lived; and after her death, +having come under his roof in order to have an operation upon her eyes +performed with more comfort to her than in lodgings, she had an +apartment from him during the rest of her life, at all times when he had +a house[684]. + +[Page 233: Johnson's pleasure in her company. Ætat 43.] + +[Page 234: Death of Johnson's wife. A.D. 1752.] + + +1752: ÆTAT. 43.--In 1752 he was almost entirely occupied with his +_Dictionary_. The last paper of his _Rambler_ was published March 2[685], +this year; after which, there was a cessation for some time of any +exertion of his talents as an essayist. But, in the same year, Dr. +Hawkesworth, who was his warm admirer, and a studious imitator of his +style[686], and then lived in great intimacy with him, began a periodical +paper, entitled _The Adventurer_, in connection with other gentlemen, +one of whom was Johnson's much-loved friend, Dr. Bathurst; and, without +doubt, they received many valuable hints from his conversation, most of +his friends having been so assisted in the course of their works. + +[Page 235: Communications by dreams. Ætat 43.] + +That there should be a suspension of his literary labours during a part +of the year 1752, will not seem strange, when it is considered that soon +after closing his _Rambler_, he suffered a loss which, there can be no +doubt, affected him with the deepest distress[687]. For on the 17th of +March, O.S., his wife died. Why Sir John Hawkins should unwarrantably +take upon him even to _suppose_ that Johnson's fondness for her was +_dissembled_ (meaning simulated or assumed,) and to assert, that if it +was not the case, 'it was a lesson he had learned by rote[688],' I cannot +conceive; unless it proceeded from a want of similar feelings in his own +breast. To argue from her being much older than Johnson, or any other +circumstances, that he could not really love her, is absurd; for love is +not a subject of reasoning, but of feeling, and therefore there are no +common principles upon which one can persuade another concerning it. +Every man feels for himself, and knows how he is affected by particular +qualities in the person he admires, the impressions of which are too +minute and delicate to be substantiated in language. + +The following very solemn and affecting prayer was found after Dr. +Johnson's decease, by his servant, Mr. Francis Barber, who delivered it +to my worthy friend the Reverend Mr. Strahan[689], Vicar of Islington, who +at my earnest request has obligingly favoured me with a copy of it, +which he and I compared with the original. I present it to the world as +an undoubted proof of a circumstance in the character of my illustrious +friend, which though some whose hard minds I never shall envy, may +attack as superstitious, will I am sure endear him more to numbers of +good men[690]. I have an additional, and that a personal motive for +presenting it, because it sanctions what I myself have always maintained +and am fond to indulge. + +'April 26, 1752, being after 12 at Night of the 25th. + +'O Lord! Governour of heaven and earth, in whose hands are embodied and +departed Spirits, if thou hast ordained the Souls of the Dead to +minister to the Living, and appointed my departed Wife to have care of +me, grant that I may enjoy the good effects of her attention and +ministration, whether exercised by appearance, impulses, dreams[691] or in +any other manner agreeable to thy Government. Forgive my presumption, +enlighten my ignorance, and however meaner agents are employed, grant me +the blessed influences of thy holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our +Lord. Amen.' + +[Page 236: Johnson's love for his wife. A.D. 1752.] + +What actually followed upon this most interesting piece of devotion by +Johnson, we are not informed; but I, whom it has pleased GOD to afflict +in a similar manner to that which occasioned it, have certain experience +of benignant communication by dreams[692]. + +That his love for his wife was of the most ardent kind, and, during the +long period of fifty years, was unimpaired by the lapse of time, is +evident from various passages in the series of his _Prayers and +Meditations_, published by the Reverend Mr. Strahan, as well as from +other memorials, two of which I select, as strongly marking the +tenderness and sensibility of his mind. + +'March 28, 1753. I kept this day[693] as the anniversary of my Tetty's +death[694], with prayer and tears in the morning. In the evening I prayed +for her conditionally, if it were lawful.' + +[Page 237: Her wedding-ring. Ætat 43.] + +'April 23, 1753. I know not whether I do not too much indulge the vain +longings of affection; but I hope they intenerate my heart, and that +when I die like my Tetty, this affection will be acknowledged in a happy +interview, and that in the mean time I am incited by it to piety. I +will, however, not deviate too much from common and received methods of +devotion.' + +Her wedding-ring, when she became his wife, was, after her death, +preserved by him, as long as he lived, with an affectionate care, in a +little round wooden box, in the inside of which he pasted a slip of +paper, thus inscribed by him in fair characters, as follows: + + 'Eheu! + Eliz. Johnson, +Nupta Jul. 9° 1736, + Mortua, eheu! + Mart. 17° 1752[695]. + +After his death, Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful servant and residuary +legatee, offered this memorial of tenderness to Mrs. Lucy Porter, Mrs. +Johnson's daughter; but she having declined to accept of it, he had it +enamelled as a mourning ring for his old master, and presented it to his +wife, Mrs. Barber, who now has it. + +The state of mind in which a man must be upon the death of a woman whom +he sincerely loves, had been in his contemplation many years before. In +his _Irene_, we find the following fervent and tender speech of +Demetrius, addressed to his Aspasia: + +'From those bright regions of eternal day, +Where now thou shin'st amongst thy fellow saints, +Array'd in purer light, look down on me! +In pleasing visions and delusive dreams, +O! sooth my soul, and teach me how to lose thee[696].' + +[Page 238: The shock of separation. A.D. 1752.] + +I have, indeed, been told by Mrs. Desmoulins, who, before her marriage, +lived for some time with Mrs. Johnson at Hampstead[697], that she indulged +herself in country air and nice living, at an unsuitable expense[698], +while her husband was drudging in the smoke of London, and that she by +no means treated him with that complacency which is the most engaging +quality in a wife. But all this is perfectly compatible with his +fondness for her, especially when it is remembered that he had a high +opinion of her understanding, and that the impressions which her beauty, +real or imaginary, had originally made upon his fancy, being continued +by habit, had not been effaced, though she herself was doubtless much +altered for the worse. The dreadful shock of separation took place in +the night; and he immediately dispatched a letter to his friend, the +Reverend Dr. Taylor, which, as Taylor told me, expressed grief in the +strongest manner he had ever read; so that it is much to be regretted it +has not been preserved[699]. The letter was brought to Dr. Taylor, at his +house in the Cloisters, Westminster, about three in the morning; and as +it signified an earnest desire to see him, he got up, and went to +Johnson as soon as he was dressed, and found him in tears and in extreme +agitation. After being a little while together, Johnson requested him to +join with him in prayer. He then prayed extempore, as did Dr. Taylor; +and thus, by means of that piety which was ever his primary object, his +troubled mind was, in some degree, soothed and composed. + +The next day he wrote as follows: + +'To The Revernd Dr. Taylor. + +Dear Sir, + +'Let me have your company and instruction. Do not live away from me. My +distress is great. + +'Pray desire Mrs. Taylor to inform me what mourning I should buy for my +mother and Miss Porter, and bring a note in writing with you. + +'Remember me in your prayers, for vain is the help of man. + +'I am, dear Sir, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'March 18, 1752.' + +[Page 239: Francis Barber. Ætat 43.] + +[Page 240: Prayers for the dead. A.D. 1752.] + +That his sufferings upon the death of his wife were severe, beyond what +are commonly endured, I have no doubt, from the information of many who +were then about him, to none of whom I give more credit than to Mr. +Francis Barber, his faithful negro servant[700], who came into his family +about a fortnight after the dismal event. These sufferings were +aggravated by the melancholy inherent in his constitution; and although +he probably was not oftener in the wrong than she was, in the little +disagreements which sometimes troubled his married state[701], during +which, he owned to me, that the gloomy irritability of his existence was +more painful to him than ever, he might very naturally, after her death, +be tenderly disposed to charge himself with slight omissions and +offences, the sense of which would give him much uneasiness[702]. +Accordingly we find, about a year after her decease, that he thus +addressed the Supreme Being: 'O LORD, who givest the grace of +repentance, and hearest the prayers of the penitent, grant that by true +contrition I may obtain forgiveness of all the sins committed, and of +all duties neglected in my union with the wife whom thou hast taken from +me; for the neglect of joint devotion, patient exhortation, and mild +instruction[703].' The kindness of his heart, notwithstanding the +impetuosity of his temper, is well known to his friends; and I cannot +trace the smallest foundation for the following dark and uncharitable +assertion by Sir John Hawkins: 'The apparition of his departed wife was +altogether of the terrifick kind, and hardly afforded him a hope that +she was in a state of happiness[704].' That he, in conformity with the +opinion of many of the most able, learned, and pious Christians in all +ages, supposed that there was a middle state after death, previous to +the time at which departed souls are finally received to eternal +felicity, appears, I think, unquestionably from his devotions[705]: 'And, +O LORD, so far as it may be lawful in me[706], I commend to thy fatherly +goodness _the soul of my departed wife_; beseeching thee to grant her +whatever is best in her _present state_, and _finally to receive her to +eternal happiness_[707].' But this state has not been looked upon with +horrour, but only as less gracious. + +[Page 241: The funeral sermon on Mrs. Johnson. Ætat 43.] + +He deposited the remains of Mrs. Johnson in the church of Bromley, in +Kent[708], to which he was probably led by the residence of his friend +Hawkesworth at that place. The funeral sermon which he composed for her, +which was never preached, but having been given to Dr. Taylor, has been +published since his death[709], is a performance of uncommon excellence, +and full of rational and pious comfort to such as are depressed by that +severe affliction which Johnson felt when he wrote it. When it is +considered that it was written in such an agitation of mind, and in the +short interval between her death and burial, it cannot be read without +wonder[710]. + +From Mr. Francis Barber I have had the following authentick and artless +account of the situation in which he found him recently after his wife's +death: + +[Page 242: Johnson's friends in 1752.] + +He was in great affliction. Mrs. Williams was then living in his house, +which was in Gough-square. He was busy with the Dictionary. Mr. Shiels, +and some others of the gentlemen who had formerly written for him, used +to come about him. He had then little for himself, but frequently sent +money to Mr. Shiels when in distress[711]. The friends who visited him at +that time, were chiefly Dr. Bathurst[712], and Mr. Diamond, an apothecary +in Cork-street, Burlington-gardens, with whom he and Mrs. Williams +generally dined every Sunday. There was a talk of his going to Iceland +with him, which would probably have happened had he lived. There were +also Mr. Cave, Dr. Hawkesworth, Mr. Ryland[713], merchant on Tower Hill, +Mrs. Masters, the poetess[714], who lived with Mr. Cave, Mrs. Carter, and +sometimes Mrs. Macaulay[715], also Mrs. Gardiner, wife of a +tallow-chandler on Snow-hill, not in the learned way, but a worthy good +woman[716]; Mr. (now Sir Joshua) Reynolds[717]; Mr. Millar, Mr. Dodsley, +Mr. Bouquet, Mr. Payne of Paternoster-row, booksellers; Mr. Strahan, the +printer; the Earl of Orrery[718], Lord Southwell[719], Mr. Garrick. + +[Page 243: Robert Levet. Ætat 43.] + +Many are, no doubt, omitted in this catalogue of his friends, and, in +particular, his humble friend Mr. Robert Levet, an obscure practiser in +physick amongst the lower people, his fees being sometimes very small +sums, sometimes whatever provisions his patients could afford him; but +of such extensive practice in that way, that Mrs. Williams has told me, +his walk was from Hounsditch to Marybone. It appears from Johnson's +diary that their acquaintance commenced about the year 1746; and such +was Johnson's predilection for him, and fanciful estimation of his +moderate abilities, that I have heard him say he should not be +satisfied, though attended by all the College of Physicians, unless he +had Mr. Levet with him. Ever since I was acquainted with Dr. Johnson, +and many years before, as I have been assured by those who knew him +earlier, Mr. Levet had an apartment in his house, or his chambers, and +waited upon him every morning, through the whole course of his late and +tedious breakfast. He was of a strange grotesque appearance, stiff and +formal in his manner, and seldom said a word while any company was +present[720]. + +[Page 244: Sir Joshua Reynolds. A.D. 1752.] + +[Page 245: One of 'Dr. Johnson's school.' Ætat 43.] + +The circle of his friends, indeed, at this time was extensive and +various, far beyond what has been generally imagined. To trace his +acquaintance with each particular person, if it could be done, would be +a task, of which the labour would not be repaid by the advantage. But +exceptions are to be made; one of which must be a friend so eminent as +Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was truly his _dulce decus_[721], and with whom +he maintained an uninterrupted intimacy to the last hour of his life. +When Johnson lived in Castle-street, Cavendish-square, he used +frequently to visit two ladies, who lived opposite to him, Miss +Cotterells, daughters of Admiral Cotterell. Reynolds used also to visit +there, and thus they met[722]. Mr. Reynolds, as I have observed above[723], +had, from the first reading of his _Life of Savage_, conceived a very +high admiration of Johnson's powers of writing. His conversation no less +delighted him; and he cultivated his acquaintance with the laudable zeal +of one who was ambitious of general improvement[724]. Sir Joshua, indeed, +was lucky enough at their very first meeting to make a remark, which was +so much above the common-place style of conversation, that Johnson at +once perceived that Reynolds had the habit of thinking for himself. The +ladies were regretting the death of a friend, to whom they owed great +obligations; upon which Reynolds observed, 'You have, however, the +comfort of being relieved from a burthen of gratitude[725].' They were +shocked a little at this alleviating suggestion, as too selfish; but +Johnson defended it in his clear and forcible manner, and was much +pleased with the _mind_, the fair view of human nature, which it +exhibited, like some of the reflections of Rochefaucault. The +consequence was, that he went home with Reynolds, and supped with him. + +[Page 246: The Miss Cotterells. A.D. 1752.] + +Sir Joshua told me a pleasant characteristical anecdote of Johnson about +the time of their first acquaintance. When they were one evening +together at the Miss Cotterells', the then Duchess of Argyle and another +lady of high rank came in. Johnson thinking that the Miss Cotterells +were too much engrossed by them, and that he and his friend were +neglected, as low company of whom they were somewhat ashamed, grew +angry; and resolving to shock their supposed pride, by making their +great visitors imagine that his friend and he were low indeed, he +addressed himself in a loud tone to Mr. Reynolds, saying, 'How much do +you think you and I could get in a week, if we were to _work as hard_ as +we could?'--as if they had been common mechanicks[726]. + +[Page 247: Bennet Langton. Ætat 43.] + +His acquaintance with Bennet Langton, Esq. of Langton, in Lincolnshire, +another much valued friend, commenced soon after the conclusion of his +_Rambler_; which that gentleman, then a youth, had read with so much +admiration, that he came to London chiefly with the view of endeavouring +to be introduced to its authour[727]. By a fortunate chance he happened to +take lodgings in a house where Mr. Levet frequently visited; and having +mentioned his wish to his landlady, she introduced him to Mr. Levet, who +readily obtained Johnson's permission to bring Mr. Langton to him[728]; +as, indeed, Johnson, during the whole course of his life, had no +shyness, real or affected, but was easy of access to all who were +properly recommended, and even wished to see numbers at his _levee_[729], +as his morning circle of company might, with strict propriety, be +called. Mr. Langton was exceedingly surprised when the sage first +appeared. He had not received the smallest intimation of his figure, +dress, or manner. From perusing his writings, he fancied he should see a +decent, well-drest, in short, a remarkably decorous philosopher. Instead +of which, down from his bedchamber, about noon, came, as newly risen, a +huge uncouth figure, with a little dark wig which scarcely covered his +head, and his clothes hanging loose about him. But his conversation was +so rich, so animated, and so forcible, and his religious and political +notions so congenial with those in which Langton had been educated, that +he conceived for him that veneration and attachment which he ever +preserved. Johnson was not the less ready to love Mr. Langton, for his +being of a very ancient family; for I have heard him say, with pleasure, +'Langton, Sir, has a grant of free warren from Henry the Second; and +Cardinal Stephen Langton, in King John's reign, was of this family[730].' + +[Page 248: Topham Beauclerk. A.D. 1752.] + +Mr. Langton afterwards went to pursue his studies at Trinity College, +Oxford, where he formed an acquaintance with his fellow student, Mr. +Topham Beauclerk[731]; who, though their opinions and modes of life were +so different, that it seemed utterly improbable that they should at all +agree, had so ardent a love of literature, so acute an understanding, +such elegance of manners, and so well discerned the excellent qualities +of Mr. Langton, a gentleman eminent not only for worth and learning, but +for an inexhaustible fund of entertaining conversation[732], that they +became intimate friends. + +[Page 249: Topham Beauclerk. Ætat 43.] + +Johnson, soon after this acquaintance began, passed a considerable time +at Oxford[733]. He at first thought it strange that Langton should +associate so much with one who had the character of being loose, both in +his principles and practice; but, by degrees, he himself was fascinated. +Mr. Beauclerk's being of the St. Alban's family, and having, in some +particulars, a resemblance to Charles the Second, contributed, in +Johnson's imagination, to throw a lustre upon his other qualities[734]; +and, in a short time, the moral, pious Johnson, and the gay, dissipated +Beauclerk, were companions. 'What a coalition! (said Garrick, when he +heard of this;) I shall have my old friend to bail out of the +Round-house[735].' But I can bear testimony that it was a very agreeable +association. Beauclerk was too polite, and valued learning and wit too +much, to offend Johnson by sallies of infidelity or licentiousness; and +Johnson delighted in the good qualities of Beauclerk, and hoped to +correct the evil. Innumerable were the scenes in which Johnson was +amused by these young men. Beauclerk could take more liberty with him, +than any body with whom I ever saw him; but, on the other hand, +Beauclerk was not spared by his respectable companion, when reproof was +proper. Beauclerk had such a propensity to satire, that at one time +Johnson said to him, 'You never open your mouth but with intention to +give pain; and you have often given me pain, not from the power of what +you said, but from seeing your intention.' At another time applying to +him, with a slight alteration, a line of Pope, he said, + +'Thy love of folly, and thy scorn of fools.[736] + +'Every thing thou dost shews the one, and every thing thou say'st the +other.' At another time he said to him, 'Thy body is all vice, and thy +mind all virtue.' Beauclerk not seeming to relish the compliment, +Johnson said, 'Nay, Sir, Alexander the Great, marching in triumph into +Babylon, could not have desired to have had more said to him.' + +[Page 250: Johnson the Idle Apprentice. A.D. 1752.] + +Johnson was some time with Beauclerk at his house at Windsor, where he +was entertained with experiments in natural philosophy[737]. One Sunday, +when the weather was very fine, Beauclerk enticed him, insensibly, to +saunter about all the morning. They went into a church-yard, in the time +of divine service, and Johnson laid himself down at his ease upon one of +the tomb-stones. 'Now, Sir, (said Beauclerk) you are like Hogarth's Idle +Apprentice.' When Johnson got his pension, Beauclerk said to him, in the +humorous phrase of Falstaff, 'I hope you'll now purge and live cleanly +like a gentleman[738].' + +[Page 251: A frisk with Beuclerk and Langton. Ætat 44.] + +One night when Beauclerk and Langton had supped at a tavern in London, +and sat till about three in the morning, it came into their heads to go +and knock up Johnson, and see if they could prevail on him to join them +in a ramble. They rapped violently at the door of his chambers in the +Temple, till at last he appeared in his shirt, with his little black wig +on the top of his head, instead of a nightcap, and a poker in his hand, +imagining, probably, that some ruffians were coming to attack him. When +he discovered who they were, and was told their errand, he smiled, and +with great good humour agreed to their proposal: 'What, is it you, you +dogs! I'll have a frisk with you.' He was soon drest, and they sallied +forth together into Covent-Garden, where the greengrocers and fruiterers +were beginning to arrange their hampers, just come in from the country. +Johnson made some attempts to help them; but the honest gardeners stared +so at his figure and manner, and odd interference, that he soon saw his +services were not relished. They then repaired to one of the +neighbouring taverns, and made a bowl of that liquor called +"_Bishop_"[739], which Johnson had always liked; while in joyous contempt +of sleep, from which he had been roused, he repeated the festive lines, + +'Short, O short then be thy reign, +And give us to the world again!'[740] + +They did not stay long, but walked down to the Thames, took a boat, and +rowed to Billingsgate. Beauclerk and Johnson were so well pleased with +their amusement, that they resolved to persevere in dissipation for the +rest of the day: but Langton deserted them, being engaged to breakfast +with some young Ladies. Johnson scolded him for 'leaving his social +friends, to go and sit with a set of wretched _un-idea'd_ girls.' +Garrick being told of this ramble, said to him smartly, 'I heard of your +frolick t'other night. You'll be in the Chronicle.' Upon which Johnson +afterwards observed, '_He_ durst not do such a thing. His _wife_ would +not _let_ him!' + +[Page 252: The Adventurer. A.D. 1753.] + + +1753: ÆTAT. 44.--He entered upon this year 1753 with his usual piety, +as appears from the following prayer, which I transcribed from that part +of his diary which he burnt a few days before his death[741]: + +'Jan. 1, 1753, N. S. which I shall use for the future. + +'Almighty God, who hast continued my life to this day, grant that, by +the assistance of thy Holy Spirit, I may improve the time which thou +shall grant me, to my eternal salvation. Make me to remember, to thy +glory, thy judgements and thy mercies. Make me so to consider the loss +of my wife, whom thou hast taken from me, that it may dispose me, by thy +grace, to lead the residue of my life in thy fear. Grant this, O LORD, +for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen.' + +He now relieved the drudgery of his _Dictionary_, and the melancholy of +his grief, by taking an active part in the composition of _The +Adventurer_, in which he began to write April 10[742], marking his essays +with the signature T[743], by which most of his papers in that collection +are distinguished: those, however, which have that signature and also +that of _Mysargyrus_, were not written by him, but, as I suppose, by Dr. +Bathurst. Indeed Johnson's energy of thought and richness of language, +are still more decisive marks than any signature. As a proof of this, my +readers, I imagine, will not doubt that Number 39, on sleep, is his; for +it not only has the general texture and colour of his style, but the +authours with whom he was peculiarly conversant are readily introduced +in it in cursory allusion. The translation of a passage in Statius[744] +quoted in that paper, and marked C. B. has been erroneously ascribed to +Dr. Bathurst, whose Christian name was Richard. How much this amiable +man actually contributed to _The Adventurer_, cannot be known. Let me +add, that Hawkesworth's imitations of Johnson are sometimes so happy, +that it is extremely difficult to distinguish them, with certainty, from +the compositions of his great archetype. Hawkesworth was his closest +imitator, a circumstance of which that writer would once have been proud +to be told; though, when he had become elated by having risen into some +degree of consequence, he, in a conversation with me, had the provoking +effrontery to say he was not sensible of it[745]. + +[Page 253: A letter to Dr. Warton. Ætat 44.] + +Johnson was truly zealous for the success of _The Adventurer_; and very +soon after his engaging in it, he wrote the following letter: + +'TO THE REVEREND DR. JOSEPH WARTON. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I ought to have written to you before now, but I ought to do many +things which I do not; nor can I, indeed, claim any merit from this +letter; for being desired by the authours and proprietor of _The +Adventurer_ to look out for another hand, my thoughts necessarily fixed +upon you, whose fund of literature will enable you to assist them, with +very little interruption of your studies. + +'They desire you to engage to furnish one paper a month, at two guineas +a paper, which you may very readily perform. We have considered that a +paper should consist of pieces of imagination, pictures of life, and +disquisitions of literature. The part which depends on the imagination +is very well supplied, as you will find when you read the paper; for +descriptions of life, there is now a treaty almost made with an authour +and an authouress; and the province of criticism and literature they are +very desirous to assign to the commentator on Virgil. + +'I hope this proposal will not be rejected, and that the next post will +bring us your compliance. I speak as one of the fraternity, though I +have no part in the paper, beyond now and then a motto; but two of the +writers are my particular friends, and I hope the pleasure of seeing a +third united to them, will not be denied to, dear Sir, + +'Your most obedient, + +'And most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'March 8, 1753.' + +The consequence of this letter was, Dr. Warton's enriching the +collection with several admirable essays. + +[Page 254: Bathurst's papers in the Adventurer. A.D. 1753.] + +Johnson's saying 'I have no part in the paper beyond now and then a +motto,' may seem inconsistent with his being the authour of the papers +marked T. But he had, at this time, written only one number[746]; and +besides, even at any after period, he might have used the same +expression, considering it as a point of honour not to own them; for +Mrs. Williams told me that, 'as he had _given_ those Essays to Dr. +Bathurst, who sold them at two guineas each, he never would own them; +nay, he used to say he did not _write_ them: but the fact was, that he +_dictated_ them, while Bathurst wrote.' I read to him Mrs. Williams's +account; he smiled, and said nothing[747]. + +[Page 255: Mrs. Lennox. Ætat 45.] + +I am not quite satisfied with the casuistry by which the productions of +one person are thus passed upon the world for the productions of +another. I allow that not only knowledge, but powers and qualities of +mind may be communicated; but the actual effect of individual exertion +never can be transferred, with truth, to any other than its own original +cause. One person's child may be made the child of another person by +adoption, as among the Romans, or by the ancient Jewish mode of a wife +having children born to her upon her knees, by her handmaid. But these +were children in a different sense from that of nature. It was clearly +understood that they were not of the blood of their nominal parents. So +in literary children, an authour may give the profits and fame of his +composition to another man, but cannot make that other the real authour. +A Highland gentleman, a younger branch of a family, once consulted me if +he could not validly purchase the Chieftainship of his family, from the +Chief who was willing to sell it. I told him it was impossible for him +to acquire, by purchase, a right to be a different person from what he +really was; for that the right of Chieftainship attached to the blood of +primogeniture, and, therefore, was incapable of being transferred. I +added, that though Esau sold his birth-right, or the advantages +belonging to it, he still remained the first-born of his parents; and +that whatever agreement a Chief might make with any of the clan, the +Herald's Office could not admit of the metamorphosis, or with any +decency attest that the younger was the elder; but I did not convince +the worthy gentleman. + +Johnson's papers in _The Adventurer_ are very similar to those of _The +Rambler_; but being rather more varied in their subjects, and being +mixed with essays by other writers, upon topicks more generally +attractive than even the most elegant ethical discourses, the sale of +the work, at first, was more extensive. Without meaning, however, to +depreciate _The Adventurer_, I must observe that as the value of _The +Rambler_ came, in the progress of time, to be better known, it grew upon +the publick estimation, and that its sale has far exceeded that of any +other periodical papers since the reign of Queen Anne. + +In one of the books of his diary I find the following entry: + +'Apr. 3, 1753. I began the second vol. of my Dictionary, room being left +in the first for Preface, Grammar, and History, none of them yet begun. + +'O GOD, who hast hitherto supported me, enable me to proceed in this +labour, and in the whole task of my present state; that when I shall +render up, at the last day, an account of the talent committed to me, I +may receive pardon, for the sake of JESUS CHRIST. Amen.' + +He this year favoured Mrs. Lennox[748] with a Dedication[*] to the Earl of +Orrery, of her _Shakspeare Illustrated_. + +[Page 256: The Life of Edward Cave. A.D. 1754.] + + +1754: ÆTAT. 45.--IN 1754 I can trace nothing published by him, except +his numbers of _The Adventurer_, and 'The Life of Edward Cave,'[*] in +the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for February. In biography there can be no +question that he excelled, beyond all who have attempted that species of +composition; upon which, indeed, he set the highest value. To the minute +selection of characteristical circumstances, for which the ancients were +remarkable, he added a philosophical research, and the most perspicuous +and energetick language. Cave was certainly a man of estimable +qualities, and was eminently diligent and successful in his own +business[749], which, doubtless, entitled him to respect. But he was +peculiarly fortunate in being recorded by Johnson, who, of the narrow +life of a printer and publisher, without any digressions or adventitious +circumstances, has made an interesting and agreeable narrative[750]. + +The _Dictionary_, we may believe, afforded Johnson full occupation this +year. As it approached to its conclusion, he probably worked with +redoubled vigour, as seamen increase their exertion and alacrity when +they have a near prospect of their haven. + +[Page 257: Lord Chesterfield's neglect.] + +[Page 258: Lord Chesterfield's flattery. A.D. 1754.] + +Lord Chesterfield, to whom Johnson had paid the high compliment of +addressing to his Lordship the _Plan_ of his _Dictionary_, had behaved +to him in such a manner as to excite his contempt and indignation. The +world has been for many years amused with a story confidently told, and +as confidently repeated with additional circumstances[751], that a sudden +disgust was taken by Johnson upon occasion of his having been one day +kept long in waiting in his Lordship's antechamber, for which the reason +assigned was, that he had company with him; and that at last, when the +door opened, out walked Colley Gibber; and that Johnson was so violently +provoked when he found for whom he had been so long excluded, that he +went away in a passion, and never would return. I remember having +mentioned this story to George Lord Lyttelton, who told me, he was very +intimate with Lord Chesterfield; and holding it as a well-known truth, +defended Lord Chesterfield, by saying, that 'Gibber, who had been +introduced, familiarly by the back-stairs, had probably not been there +above ten minutes.' It may seem strange even to entertain a doubt +concerning a story so long and so widely current, and thus implicitly +adopted, if not sanctioned, by the authority which I have mentioned; but +Johnson himself assured me, that there was not the least foundation for +it. He told me, that there never was any particular incident which +produced a quarrel between Lord Chesterfield and him; but that his +Lordship's continued neglect was the reason why he resolved to have no +connection with him[752]. When the _Dictionary_ was upon the eve of +publication, Lord Chesterfield, who, it is said, had flattered himself +with expectations that Johnson would dedicate the work to him[753], +attempted, in a courtly manner, to sooth, and insinuate himself with the +Sage, conscious, as it should seem, of the cold indifference with which +he had treated its learned authour; and further attempted to conciliate +him, by writing two papers in _The World_[754], in recommendation of the +work; and it must be confessed, that they contain some studied +compliments, so finely turned, that if there had been no previous +offence, it is probable that Johnson would have been highly +delighted[755]. Praise, in general, was pleasing to him; but by praise +from a man of rank and elegant accomplishments, he was peculiarly +gratified. + +His Lordship says, + +'I think the publick in general, and the republick of letters in +particular, are greatly obliged to Mr. Johnson, for having undertaken, +and executed, so great and desirable a work. Perfection is not to be +expected from man; but if we are to judge by the various works of +Johnson[756] already published, we have good reason to believe, that he +will bring this as near to perfection as any man could do. The _Plan_ of +it, which he published some years ago, seems to me to be a proof of it. +Nothing can be more rationally imagined, or more accurately and +elegantly expressed. I therefore recommend the previous perusal of it to +all those who intend to buy the _Dictionary,_ and who, I suppose, are +all those who can afford it.' + + * * * * * + +'It must be owned, that our language is, at present, in a state of +anarchy, and hitherto, perhaps, it may not have been the worse for it. +During our free and open trade, many words and expressions have been +imported, adopted, and naturalized from other languages, which have +greatly enriched our own. Let it still preserve what real strength and +beauty it may have borrowed from others; but let it not, like the +Tarpeian maid, be overwhelmed and crushed by unnecessary ornaments[757]. +The time for discrimination seems to be now come. + +[Page 259: Lord Chesterfield's flattery. Ætat 45.] + +'Toleration, adoption, and naturalization have run their lengths. Good +order and authority are now necessary. But where shall we find them, +and, at the same time, the obedience due to them? We must have recourse +to the old Roman expedient in times of confusion, and chuse a dictator. +Upon this principle, I give my vote for Mr. Johnson to fill that great +and arduous post. And I hereby declare, that I make a total surrender of +all my rights and privileges in the English language, as a free-born +British subject, to the said Mr. Johnson, during the term of his +dictatorship. Nay more, I will not only obey him, like an old Roman, as +my dictator, but, like a modern Roman, I will implicitly believe in him +as my Pope, and hold him to be infallible while in the chair, but no +longer. More than this he cannot well require; for, I presume, that +obedience can never be expected, when there is neither terrour to +enforce, nor interest to invite it.' + + * * * * * + +'But a Grammar, a Dictionary, and a History of our Language through its +several stages, were still wanting at home, and importunately called for +from abroad. Mr. Johnson's labours will now, I dare say[758], very fully +supply that want, and greatly contribute to the farther spreading of our +language in other countries. Learners were discouraged, by finding no +standard to resort to; and, consequently, thought it incapable of any. +They will now be undeceived and encouraged.' + +This courtly device failed of its effect[759]. Johnson, who thought that +'all was false and hollow[760],' despised the honeyed words, and was even +indignant that Lord Chesterfield should, for a moment, imagine that he +could be the dupe of such an artifice. His expression to me concerning +Lord Chesterfield, upon this occasion, was, 'Sir, after making great +professions[761], he had, for many years, taken no notice of me; but when +my _Dictionary_ was coming out, he fell a scribbling in _The World_ +about it. Upon which, I wrote him a letter expressed in civil terms, but +such as might shew him that I did not mind what he said or wrote, and +that I had done with him[762].' + +[Page 260: Johnson's spelling. A.D. 1754.] + +This is that celebrated letter of which so much has been said, and about +which curiosity has been so long excited, without being gratified. I for +many years solicited Johnson to favour me with a copy of it[763], that so +excellent a composition might not be lost to posterity. He delayed from +time to time to give it me[764]; till at last in 1781, when we were on a +visit at Mr. Dilly's, at Southill in Bedfordshire, he was pleased to +dictate it to me from memory[765]. He afterwards found among his papers a +copy of it, which he had dictated to Mr. Baretti, with its title and +corrections, in his own handwriting. This he gave to Mr. Langton; adding +that if it were to come into print, he wished it to be from that copy. +By Mr. Langton's kindness, I am enabled to enrich my work with a perfect +transcript[766] of what the world has so eagerly desired to see. + +[Page 261: Johnson's letter to Lord Chesterfield. Ætat 45.] + +'TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. + +'February 7, 1755. + +'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_[767];--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 had 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[768], 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[769]; 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. + +[Page 263: His high opinion of Warburton. Ætat 45.] + +'Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any +favourer of learning[770], 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[771].' + +'While this was the talk of the town, (says Dr. Adams, in a letter to +me) I happened to visit Dr. Warburton, who finding that I was acquainted +with Johnson, desired me earnestly to carry his compliments to him, and +to tell him, that he honoured him for his manly behaviour in rejecting +these condescensions of Lord Chesterfield, and for resenting the +treatment he had received from him, with a proper spirit. Johnson was +visibly pleased with this compliment, for he had always a high opinion +of Warburton[772]. Indeed, the force of mind which appeared in this +letter, was congenial with that which Warburton himself amply +possessed[773].' + +[Page 264: For 'garret' read 'patron.' A.D. 1754.] + +There is a curious minute circumstance which struck me, in comparing the +various editions of Johnson's imitations of Juvenal. In the tenth +Satire, one of the couplets upon the vanity of wishes even for literary +distinction stood thus: + +'Yet think[774] what ills the scholar's life assail, +'Pride[775], envy, want, the _garret_, and the jail.' + +But after experiencing the uneasiness which Lord Chesterfield's +fallacious patronage made him feel, he dismissed the word _garret_ from +the sad group, and in all the subsequent editions the line stands + +'Pride, envy, want, the _Patron_[776], and the jail.' + +[Page 265: Defensive pride. Ætat 45.] + +That Lord Chesterfield must have been mortified by the lofty contempt, +and polite, yet keen satire with which Johnson exhibited him to himself +in this letter, it is impossible to doubt. He, however, with that glossy +duplicity which was his constant study, affected to be quite +unconcerned. Dr. Adams mentioned to Mr. Robert Dodsley that he was sorry +Johnson had written his letter to Lord Chesterfield. Dodsley, with the +true feelings of trade, said 'he was very sorry too; for that he had a +property in the _Dictionary_, to which his Lordship's patronage might +have been of consequence.' He then told Dr. Adams, that Lord +Chesterfield had shewn him the letter. 'I should have imagined (replied +Dr. Adams) that Lord Chesterfield would have concealed it.' 'Poh! (said +Dodsley) do you think a letter from Johnson could hurt Lord +Chesterfield? Not at all, Sir. It lay upon his table, where any body +might see it. He read it to me; said, "this man has great powers," +pointed out the severest passages, and observed how well they were +expressed.' This air of indifference, which imposed upon the worthy +Dodsley, was certainly nothing but a specimen of that dissimulation +which Lord Chesterfield inculcated as one of the most essential lessons +for the conduct of life[777]. His Lordship endeavoured to justify himself +to Dodsley from the charges brought against him by Johnson; but we may +judge of the flimsiness of his defence, from his having excused his +neglect of Johnson, by saying that 'he had heard he had changed his +lodgings, and did not know where he lived;' as if there could have been +the smallest difficulty to inform himself of that circumstance, by +inquiring in the literary circle with which his Lordship was well +acquainted, and was, indeed, himself one of its ornaments. + +Dr. Adams expostulated with Johnson, and suggested, that his not being +admitted when he called on him, was, probably, not to be imputed to Lord +Chesterfield; for his Lordship had declared to Dodsley, that 'he would +have turned off the best servant he ever had, if he had known that he +denied him to a man who would have been always more than welcome;' and, +in confirmation of this, he insisted on Lord Chesterfield's general +affability and easiness of access, especially to literary men. 'Sir, +(said Johnson) that is not Lord Chesterfield; he is the proudest man +this day existing[778].' 'No, (said Dr. Adams) there is one person, at +least, as proud; I think, by your own account, you are the prouder man +of the two.' 'But mine (replied Johnson, instantly) was defensive +pride.' This, as Dr. Adams well observed, was one of those happy turns +for which he was so remarkably ready. + +[Page 266: A wit among Lords. A.D. 1754.] + +Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord Chesterfield, +did not refrain from expressing himself concerning that nobleman with +pointed freedom: 'This man (said he) I thought had been a Lord among +wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords![779]' And when his +_Letters_ to his natural son were published, he observed, that 'they +teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.[780]' + +[Page 267: Chesterfield's Respectable Hottentot. Ætat 45.] + +The character of 'a respectable Hottentot,' in Lord Chesterfield's +letters[781], has been generally understood to be meant for Johnson, and I +have no doubt that it was. But I remember when the _Literary Property_ +of those letters was contested in the Court of Session in Scotland, and +Mr. Henry Dundas[782], one of the counsel for the proprietors, read this +character as an exhibition of Johnson, Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, +one of the Judges, maintained, with some warmth, that it was not +intended as a portrait of Johnson, but of a late noble Lord, +distinguished for abstruse science[783]. I have heard Johnson himself talk +of the character, and say that it was meant for George Lord Lyttelton, +in which I could by no means agree; for his Lordship had nothing of that +violence which is a conspicuous feature in the composition. Finding that +my illustrious friend could bear to have it supposed that it might be +meant for him, I said, laughingly, that there was one trait which +unquestionably did not belong to him; 'he throws his meat any where but +down his throat.' 'Sir, (said he,) Lord Chesterfield never saw me eat in +his life[784].' + +[Page 268: A beggarly Scotchman. A.D. 1754.] + +On the 6th of March came out Lord Bolingbroke's works, published by Mr. +David Mallet[785]. The wild and pernicious ravings, under the name of +_Philosophy_, which were thus ushered into the world, gave great offence +to all well-principled men. Johnson, hearing of their tendency[786], which +nobody disputed, was roused with a just indignation, and pronounced this +memorable sentence upon the noble authour and his editor. 'Sir, he was a +scoundrel, and a coward[787]: a scoundrel, for charging a blunderbuss +against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution +to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman, +to draw the trigger after his death[788]!' Garrick, who I can attest from +my own knowledge, had his mind seasoned with pious reverence, and +sincerely disapproved of the infidel writings of several, whom, in the +course of his almost universal gay intercourse with men of eminence, he +treated with external civility, distinguished himself upon this +occasion. Mr. Pelham having died on the very day on which Lord +Bolingbroke's works came out, he wrote an elegant Ode on his death, +beginning + +'Let others hail the rising sun, +I bow to that whose course is run;' + +in which is the following stanza: + +'The same sad morn, to Church and State +(So for our sins 'twas fix'd by fate,) + A double stroke was given; +Black as the whirlwinds of the North, +St. John's fell genius issued forth, + And Pelham fled to heaven[789].' + +[Page 270: Thomas Warton. A.D. 1754.] + +Johnson this year found an interval of leisure to make an excursion to +Oxford, for the purpose of consulting the libraries there. Of this, and +of many interesting circumstances concerning him, during a part of his +life when he conversed but little with the world, I am enabled to give a +particular account, by the liberal communications of the Reverend Mr. +Thomas Warton[790], who obligingly furnished me with several of our common +friend's letters, which he illustrated with notes. These I shall insert +in their proper places. + + + +'To THE REVEREND MR. THOMAS WARTON. + +'SIR, + +'It is but an ill return for the book with which you were pleased to +favour me[791], to have delayed my thanks for it till now. I am too apt to +be negligent; but I can never deliberately shew my disrespect to a man +of your character: and I now pay you a very honest acknowledgement, for +the advancement of the literature of our native country. You have shewn +to all, who shall hereafter attempt the study of our ancient authours, +the way to success; by directing them to the perusal of the books which +those authours had read. Of this method, Hughes[792] and men much greater +than Hughes, seem never to have thought. The reason why the authours, +which are yet read, of the sixteenth century, are so little understood, +is, that they are read alone; and no help is borrowed from those who +lived with them, or before them. Some part of this ignorance I hope to +remove by my book[793], which now draws towards its end; but which I +cannot finish to my mind, without visiting the libraries at Oxford, +which I, therefore, hope to see in a fortnight[794]. I know not how long I +shall stay, or where I shall lodge: but shall be sure to look for you at +my arrival, and we shall easily settle the rest. I am, dear Sir, + +'Your most obedient, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London] July 16, 1754.' + +[Page 271: Johnson's visit to Oxford. Ætat 45.] + +Of his conversation while at Oxford at this time, Mr. Warton preserved +and communicated to me the following memorial, which, though not written +with all the care and attention which that learned and elegant writer +bestowed on those compositions which he intended for the publick eye, is +so happily expressed in an easy style, that I should injure it by any +alteration: + +'When Johnson came to Oxford in 1754[795], the long vacation was +beginning, and most people were leaving the place. This was the first +time of his being there, after quitting the University. The next morning +after his arrival, he wished to see his old College, _Pembroke_. I went +with him. He was highly pleased to find all the College-servants[796] +which he had left there still remaining, particularly a very old +butler[797]; and expressed great satisfaction at being recognised by them, +and conversed with them familiarly. He waited on the master, Dr. +Radcliffe, who received him very coldly. Johnson at least expected, that +the master would order a copy of his Dictionary, now near publication: +but the master did not choose to talk on the subject, never asked +Johnson to dine, nor even to visit him, while he stayed at Oxford. After +we had left the lodgings, Johnson said to me, "_There_ lives a man, who +lives by the revenues of literature, and will not move a finger to +support it. If I come to live at Oxford, I shall take up my abode at +Trinity." We then called on the Reverend Mr. Meeke, one of the fellows, +and of Johnson's standing. Here was a most cordial greeting on both +sides. On leaving him, Johnson said, "I used to think Meeke had +excellent parts, when we were boys together at the College: but, alas! + +'"Lost in a convent's solitary gloom[798]!" + +'"I remember, at the classical lecture in the Hall, I could not bear +Meeke's superiority, and I tried to sit as far from him as I could, that +I might not hear him construe." + +[Page 272: Stories of old college days. A.D. 1754.] + +'As we were leaving the College, he said, "Here I translated Pope's +Messiah. Which do you think is the best line in it?--My own favourite +is, + +'_Vallis aromalicas fundit Saronica nubes_[799].'" + +'I told him, I thought it a very sonorous hexameter. I did not tell him, +it was not in the Virgilian style[800]. He much regretted that his _first_ +tutor[801] was dead; for whom he seemed to retain the greatest regard. He +said, "I once had been a whole morning sliding in Christ-Church Meadow, +and missed his lecture in logick. After dinner, he sent for me to his +room. I expected a sharp rebuke for my idleness, and went with a beating +heart. When we were seated, he told me he had sent for me to drink a +glass of wine with him, and to tell me, he was _not_ angry with me for +missing his lecture. This was, in fact, a most severe reprimand. Some +more of the boys were then sent for, and we spent a very pleasant +afternoon." Besides Mr. Meeke, there was only one other Fellow of +Pembroke now resident: from both of whom Johnson received the greatest +civilities during this visit, and they pressed him very much to have a +room in the College. + +'In the course of this visit (1754,) Johnson and I walked, three or four +times, to Ellsfield, a village beautifully situated about three miles +from Oxford, to see Mr. Wise, Radclivian librarian, with whom Johnson +was much pleased. At this place, Mr. Wise had fitted up a house and +gardens, in a singular manner, but with great taste. Here was an +excellent library; particularly, a valuable collection of books in +Northern literature, with which Johnson was often very busy. One day Mr. +Wise read to us a dissertation which he was preparing for the press, +intitled, "A History and Chronology of the fabulous Ages." Some old +divinities of Thrace, related to the Titans, and called the CABIRI, made +a very important part of the theory of this piece; and in conversation +afterwards, Mr. Wise talked much of his CABIRI. As we returned to Oxford +in the evening, I out-walked Johnson, and he cried out _Suffiamina_, a +Latin word which came from his mouth with peculiar grace, and was as +much as to say, _Put on your drag chain_. Before we got home, I again +walked too fast for him; and he now cried out, "Why, you walk as if you +were pursued by all the CABIRI in a body." In an evening, we frequently +took long walks from Oxford into the country, returning to supper. Once, +in our way home, we viewed the ruins of the abbies of Oseney and Rewley, +near Oxford. After at least half an hour's silence, Johnson said, "I +viewed them with indignation[802]!" We had then a long conversation on +Gothick buildings; and in talking of the form of old halls, he said, "In +these halls, the fire place was anciently always in the middle of the +room[803], till the Whigs removed it on one side."--About this time there +had been an execution of two or three criminals at Oxford on a Monday. +Soon afterwards, one day at dinner, I was saying that Mr. Swinton the +chaplain of the gaol, and also a frequent preacher before the +University, a learned man, but often thoughtless and absent, preached +the condemnation-sermon on repentance, before the convicts, on the +preceding day, Sunday; and that in the close he told his audience, that +he should give them the remainder of what he had to say on the subject, +the next Lord's Day. Upon which, one of our company, a Doctor of +Divinity, and a plain matter-of-fact man, by way of offering an apology +for Mr. Swinton, gravely remarked, that he had probably preached the +same sermon before the University: "Yes, Sir, (says Johnson) but the +University were not to be hanged the next morning." + +[Page 274: Rev. Mr. Meeke. A.D. 1754] + +'I forgot to observe before, that when he left Mr. Meeke, (as I have +told above) he added, "About the same time of life, Meeke was left +behind at Oxford to feed on a Fellowship, and I went to London to get my +living: now, Sir, see the difference of our literary characters!"' + +The following letter was written by Dr. Johnson to Mr. Chambers, of +Lincoln College, afterwards Sir Robert Chambers, one of the judges in +India[804]: + + + +'To MR. CHAMBERS OF LINCOLN COLLEGE. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'The commission which I delayed to trouble you with at your departure, I +am now obliged to send you; and beg that you will be so kind as to carry +it to Mr. Warton, of Trinity, to whom I should have written immediately, +but that I know not if he be yet come back to Oxford. + +'In the Catalogue of MSS. of Gr. Brit, see vol. I. pag. 18. MSS. Bodl. +MARTYRIUM xv. _martyrum sub Juliano, auctore Theophylacto_. + +'It is desired that Mr. Warton will inquire, and send word, what will be +the cost of transcribing this manuscript. + +'Vol. II, pag. 32. Num. 1022. 58. COLL. Nov.--_Commentaria in Acta +Apostol.--Comment. in Septem Epistolas Catholicas_. + +'He is desired to tell what is the age of each of these manuscripts: and +what it will cost to have a transcript of the two first pages of each. + +'If Mr. Warton be not in Oxford, you may try if you can get it done by +any body else; or stay till he comes, according to your own convenience. +It is for an Italian _literato_. + +'The answer is to be directed to his Excellency Mr. Zon, Venetian +Resident, Soho Square. + +'I hope, dear Sir, that you do not regret the change of London for +Oxford. Mr. Baretti is well, and Miss Williams[805]; and we shall all be +glad to hear from you, whenever you shall be so kind as to write to, +Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Nov. 21, 1754.' + +[Page 275: Johnson desires the Degree of M.A. Ætat 45.] + +The degree of Master of Arts, which, it has been observed[806], could not +be obtained for him at an early period of his life, was now considered +as an honour of considerable importance, in order to grace the +title-page of his _Dictionary_; and his character in the literary world +being by this time deservedly high, his friends thought that, if proper +exertions were made, the University of Oxford would pay him the +compliment[807]. + + + +'To THE REVEREND MR. THOMAS WARTON. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I am extremely obliged to you and to Mr. Wise, for the uncommon care +which you have taken of my interest[808]: if you can accomplish your kind +design, I shall certainly take me a little habitation among you. + +'The books which I promised to Mr. Wise[809], I have not been able to +procure: but I shall send him a _Finnick Dictionary_, the only copy, +perhaps, in England, which was presented me by a learned Swede: but I +keep it back, that it may make a set of my own books[810] of the new +edition, with which I shall accompany it, more welcome. You will assure +him of my gratitude. + +[Page 276: Collins the Poet. A.D. 1754.] + +'Poor dear Collins[811]!--Would a letter give him any pleasure? I have a +mind to write. + +'I am glad of your hindrance in your Spenserian design[812], yet I would +not have it delayed. Three hours a day stolen from sleep and amusement +will produce it. Let a Servitour[813] transcribe the quotations, and +interleave them with references, to save time. This will shorten the +work, and lessen the fatigue. + +'Can I do any thing to promoting the diploma? I would not be wanting to +co-operate with your kindness; of which, whatever be the effect, I shall +be, dear Sir, + +'Your most obliged, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London,] Nov. 28, 1754.' + +To THE SAME. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I am extremely sensible of the favour done me, both by Mr. Wise and +yourself. The book[814] cannot, I think, be printed in less than six +weeks, nor probably so soon; and I will keep back the title-page, for +such an insertion as you seem to promise me. Be pleased to let me know +what money I shall send you, for bearing the expence of the affair; and +I will take care that you may have it ready at your hand. + +[Page 277: The death of a Wife. Ætat 46.] + +'I had lately the favour of a letter from your brother, with some +account of poor Collins, for whom I am much concerned. I have a notion, +that by very great temperance, or more properly abstinence, he may yet +recover[815]. + +'There is an old English and Latin book of poems by Barclay, called "The +Ship of Fools;" at the end of which are a number of _Eglogues_; so he +writes it, from _Egloga_[816], which are probably the first in our +language. If you cannot find the book I will get Mr. Dodsley to send it +you. + +'I shall be extremely glad to hear from you again, to know, if the +affair proceeds[817]. I have mentioned it to none of my friends for fear +of being laughed at for my disappointment. + +'You know poor Mr. Dodsley has lost his wife; I believe he is much +affected. I hope he will not suffer so much as I yet suffer for the loss +of mine. + +[Greek: Oimoi. ti d oimoi; Onaeta gar peponthamen.][818]. + +I have ever since seemed to myself broken off from mankind; a kind of +solitary wanderer in the wild of life, without any direction, or fixed +point of view: a gloomy gazer on a world to which I have little +relation. Yet I would endeavour, by the help of you and your brother, to +supply the want of closer union, by friendship: and hope to have long +the pleasure of being, dear Sir, + +'Most affectionately your's, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London,] Dec. 21, 1754.' + + +1755: ÆTAT. 46.--In 1755 we behold him to great advantage; his degree +of Master of Arts conferred upon him, his _Dictionary_ published, his +correspondence animated, his benevolence exercised. + +[Page 278: Land after a vast sea of words. A.D. 1755.] + +'TO THE REVEREND MR. THOMAS WARTON. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I wrote to you some weeks ago, but believe did not direct accurately, +and therefore know not whether you had my letter. I would, likewise, +write to your brother, but know not where to find him. I now begin to +see land, after having wandered, according to Mr. Warburton's phrase, in +this vast sea of words. What reception I shall meet with on the shore, I +know not; whether the sound of bells, and acclamations of the people, +which Ariosto talks of in his last Canto[819], or a general murmur of +dislike, I know not: whether I shall find upon the coast a Calypso that +will court, or a Polypheme that will resist. But if Polypheme comes, +have at his eye. I hope, however, the criticks will let me be at peace; +for though I do not much fear their skill and strength, I am a little +afraid of myself, and would not willingly feel so much ill-will in my +bosom as literary quarrels are apt to excite. + +'Mr. Baretti is about a work for which he is in great want of +_Crescimbeni_, which you may have again when you please. + +'There is nothing considerable done or doing among us here. We are not, +perhaps, as innocent as villagers, but most of us seem to be as idle. I +hope, however, you are busy; and should be glad to know what you are +doing. + +'I am, dearest Sir, + +'Your humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London] Feb. 4, 1755.' + +TO THE SAME. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I received your letter this day, with great sense of the favour that +has been done me[820]; for which I return my most sincere thanks: and +entreat you to pay to Mr. Wise such returns as I ought to make for so +much kindness so little deserved. + +[Page 279: Dr. King. Ætat 46.] + +'I sent Mr. Wise the _Lexicon_, and afterwards wrote to him; but know +not whether he had either the book or letter. Be so good as to contrive +to enquire. + +'But why does my dear Mr. Warton tell me nothing of himself? Where hangs +the new volume[821]? Can I help? Let not the past labour be lost, for want +of a little more: but snatch what time you can from the Hall, and the +pupils[822], and the coffee-house, and the parks[823], and complete your +design. I am, dear Sir, &c, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London.] Feb. 4, 1755.' + +To THE SAME. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I had a letter last week from Mr. Wise, but have yet heard nothing from +you, nor know in what state my affair stands[824]; of which I beg you to +inform me, if you can, to-morrow, by the return of the post. + +'Mr. Wise sends me word, that he has not had the _Finnick Lexicon_ yet, +which I sent some time ago; and if he has it not, you must enquire after +it. However, do not let your letter stay for that. + +'Your brother, who is a better correspondent than you, and not much +better, sends me word, that your pupils keep you in College: but do they +keep you from writing too? Let them, at least, give you time to write +to, dear Sir, + +'Your most affectionate, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London,] Feb. 13, 1755,' + +To THE SAME, + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Dr. King[825] was with me a few minutes before your letter; this, +however, is the first instance in which your kind intentions to me have +ever been frustrated[826]. I have now the full effect of your care and +benevolence; and am far from thinking it a slight honour, or a small +advantage; since it will put the enjoyment of your conversation more +frequently in the power of, dear Sir, + +[Page 280: The Chancellor of Oxford's letter. A.D. 1755.] + +'Your most obliged and affectionate + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'P.S. I have enclosed a letter to the Vice-Chancellor[827], which you will +read; and, if you like it, seal and give him. + +'[London,] Feb. 1755.' + +As the Publick will doubtless be pleased to see the whole progress of +this well-earned academical honour, I shall insert the Chancellor of +Oxford's letter to the University[828], the diploma, and Johnson's letter +of thanks to the Vice-Chancellor. + +'_To the Reverend Dr_. HUDDESFORD, Vice-Chancellor _of the_ University +_of_ Oxford; _to be communicated to the Heads of Houses, and proposed in +Convocation_. + +'MR. VICE-CHANCELLOR, AND GENTLEMEN, + +'Mr. Samuel Johnson, who was formerly of Pembroke College, having very +eminently distinguished himself by the publication of a series of +essays, excellently calculated to form the manners of the people, and in +which the cause of religion and morality is every where maintained by +the strongest powers of argument and language; and who shortly intends +to publish a _Dictionary of the English Tongue_, formed on a new plan, +and executed with the greatest labour and judgement; I persuade myself +that I shall act agreeably to the sentiments of the whole University, in +desiring that it may be proposed in convocation to confer on him the +degree of Master of Arts by diploma, to which I readily give my consent; +and am, + +[Page 281: Diploma Magistri Johnson. Ætat 46.] + +'Mr. Vice-Chancellor, and Gentlemen, + +'Your affectionate friend and servant, + +'ARRAN[829].' + +'Grosvenor-street, Feb. 4, 1755.' + +Term. Seti. +Hilarii. +1755 + +'DIPLOMA MAGISTRI JOHNSON. + +'_CANCELLARIUS, Magistri et Scholares Universitatis Oxoniensis omnibus +ad quos hoc presens scriptum pervenerit, salutem in Domino sempiternam. + +'Cum eum in finem gradus academici à majoribus nostris instituti +fuerint, ut viri ingenio et doctriné præstantes titulis quoque prater +cæeteros insignirentur; cùmque vir doctissimus_ Samuel Johnson _è +Collegia Pembrochiensi, scriptis suis popularium mores informantibus +dudum literato orbi innotuerit; quin et linguæ patricæ tum ornandæ tum +stabiliendæ (Lexicon scilicet Anglicanum summo studio, summo à se +judicio congestum propediem editurus) etiam nunc utilissimam impendat +operam; Nos igitur Cancellarius, Magistri, et Scholares antedicti, nè +virum de literis humanioribus optimè meritum diulius inhonoratum +prætereamus, in solenni Convocatione Doctorum, Magistrorum, Regentium, +et non Regentium, decimo die Mensis Februarii Anno Domini Millesimo +Septingentesimo Quinquagesimo quinto habitú, præfatum virum_ Samuelem +Johnson (_conspirantibus omnium suffragiis) Magistrum in Artibus +renunciavimus et constituimus; eumque, virtute præsentis diplomatis, +singulis juribus privilegiis et honoribus ad istum gradum quòquà +pertinentibus frui et gaudere jussimus. + +'In cujiis rei testimonium sigillum Universitatis Oxoniensis præsentibus +apponi fecimus. + +'Datum in Domo nostræ Convocationis die 20° Mensis Feb. Anno Dom. +prædicto. + +'Diploma supra scriptum per Registrarium Iectum erat, et ex decreto +venerabilis Domús communi Universitatis sigillo munitum_'[830].' + +'DOM. DOCTORI HUDDESFORD, OXONIENSIS ACADEMIÆ VICE-CANCELLARIO. + +'INGRATUS planè et tibi et mihi videar, nisi quanto me gaudio +affecerint quos nuper mihi honores (te credo auctore) decrevit Senatus +Academicus, Iiterarum, quo lamen nihil levius, officio, significem: +ingratus etiam, nisi comitatem, quá vir eximius[831] mihi vestri +testimonium amoris in manus tradidit, agnoscam et laudem. Si quid est +undè rei lam gratæ accedat gratia, hoc ipso magis mihi placet, quod eo +tempore in ordines Academicos denuo cooptatus sim, quo tuam imminuere +auctoritatem, famamque Oxonii Iædere[832], omnibus modis conantur homines +vafri, nec tamen aculi: quibus ego, prout viro umbratico licuit, semper +restiti, semper restiturus. Qui enim, inter has rerum procellas, vel +Tibi vel Academiæ defuerit, illum virtuti et literis, sibique et +posteris, defuturum existimo. + +'S. JOHNSON.' + +[Page 282: Johnson's letter of thanks. A.D. 1755.] + +'To THE REVEREND MR. THOMAS WARTON. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'After I received my diploma, I wrote you a letter of thanks, with a +letter to the Vice-Chancellor, and sent another to Mr. Wise; but have +heard from nobody since, and begin to think myself forgotten. It is +true, I sent you a double letter[833], and you may fear an expensive +correspondent; but I would have taken it kindly, if you had returned it +treble: and what is a double letter to a _petty king_, that having +_fellowship and fines_, can sleep without a _Modus in his head_[834]? + +'Dear Mr. Warton, let me hear from you, and tell me something, I care +not what, so I hear it but from you. Something I will tell you:--I hope +to see my _Dictionary_ bound and lettered, next week;--_vastâ mole +superbus_. And I have a great mind to come to Oxford at Easter; but you +will not invite me. Shall I come uninvited, or stay here where nobody +perhaps would miss me if I went? A hard choice! But such is the world +to, dear Sir, + +'Your, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London] March 20, 1755.' + +[Page 283: A projected Review. Ætat 46.] + +To THE SAME. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Though not to write, when a man can write so well, is an offence +sufficiently heinous, yet I shall pass it by, I am very glad that the +Vice-Chancellor was pleased with my note. I shall impatiently expect you +at London, that we may consider what to do next. I intend in the winter +to open a _Bibliothèque_, and remember, that you are to subscribe a +sheet a year; let us try, likewise, if we cannot persuade your brother +to subscribe another. My book is now coming _in luminis oras_[835]. What +will be its fate I know not, nor think much, because thinking is to no +purpose. It must stand the censure of the _great vulgar and the +small_[836]; of those that understand it, and that understand it not. But +in all this, I suffer not alone: every writer has the same difficulties, +and, perhaps, every writer talks of them more than he thinks. + +[Page 284: Dr. Maty. A.D. 1755.] + +'You will be pleased to make my compliments to all my friends: and be so +kind, at every idle hour, as to remember, dear Sir, + +'Your, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London,] March 25, 1755.' + +Dr. Adams told me, that this scheme of a _Bibliothèque_ was a serious +one: for upon his visiting him one day, he found his parlour floor +covered with parcels of foreign and English literary journals, and he +told Dr. Adams he meant to undertake a Review. 'How, Sir, (said Dr. +Adams,) can you think of doing it alone? All branches of knowledge must +be considered in it. Do you know Mathematicks? Do you know Natural +History?' Johnson answered, 'Why, Sir, I must do as well as I can. My +chief purpose is to give my countrymen a view of what is doing in +literature upon the continent; and I shall have, in a good measure, the +choice of my subject, for I shall select such books as I best +understand.' Dr. Adams suggested, that as Dr. Maty had just then +finished his _Bibliothèque Britannique_[837], which was a well-executed +work, giving foreigners an account of British publications, he might, +with great advantage, assume him as an assistant. '_He_, (said Johnson) +the little black dog! I'd throw him into the Thames[838].' The scheme, +however, was dropped. + +[Page 285: Dr. Birch's letter. Ætat 46.] + +In one of his little memorandum-books I find the following hints for his +intended _Review or Literary Journal_: + +'_The Annals of Literature, foreign as welt as domestick_. Imitate Le +Clerk--Bayle--Barbeyrac. Infelicity of Journals in England. Works of the +learned. We cannot take in all. Sometimes copy from foreign Journalists. +Always tell.' + +'To DR. BIRCH. + +'March 29, 1755. + +'SIR, + +'I have sent some parts of my _Dictionary_, such as were at hand, for +your inspection. The favour which I beg is, that if you do not like +them, you will say nothing. I am, Sir, + +'Your most affectionate humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + + +'To MR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. + +Norfolk-street, April 23, 1755. + +Sir, + +'The part of your _Dictionary_ which you have favoured me with the sight +of has given me such an idea of the whole, that I most sincerely +congratulate the publick upon the acquisition of a work long wanted, and +now executed with an industry, accuracy, and judgement, equal to the +importance of the subject. You might, perhaps, have chosen one in which +your genius would have appeared to more advantage; but you could not +have fixed upon any other in which your labours would have done such +substantial service to the present age and to posterity. I am glad that +your health has supported the application necessary to the performance +of so vast a task; and can undertake to promise you as one (though +perhaps the only) reward of it, the approbation and thanks of every +well-wisher to the honour of the English language. I am, with the +greatest regard, + +'Sir, + +'Your most faithful and + +'Most affectionate humble servant, + +'THO. BIRCH.' + +Mr. Charles Burney, who has since distinguished himself so much in the +science of Musick, and obtained a Doctor's degree from the University of +Oxford, had been driven from the capital by bad health, and was now +residing at Lynne Regis, in Norfolk[839]. He had been so much delighted +with Johnson's _Rambler_ and the _Plan_ of his _Dictionary_, that when +the great work was announced in the news-papers as nearly finished, he +wrote to Dr. Johnson, begging to be informed when and in what manner his +_Dictionary_ would be published; intreating, if it should be by +subscription, or he should have any books at his own disposal, to be +favoured with six copies for himself and friends. + +[Page 286: Johnson's letter to Mr. Burney. A.D. 1755.] + +In answer to this application, Dr. Johnson wrote the following letter, +of which (to use Dr. Burney's own words) 'if it be remembered that it +was written to an obscure young man, who at this time had not much +distinguished himself even in his own profession, but whose name could +never have reached the authour of _The Rambler_, the politeness and +urbanity may be opposed to some of the stories which have been lately +circulated of Dr. Johnson's natural rudeness and ferocity.' + +'To MR. BURNKY, IN LYNNE REGIS, NORFOLK. + +'SIR, + +'If you imagine that by delaying my answer I intended to shew any +neglect of the notice with which you have favoured me, you will neither +think justly of yourself nor of me. Your civilities were offered with +too much elegance not to engage attention; and I have too much pleasure +in pleasing men like you, not to feel very sensibly the distinction +which you have bestowed upon me. + +'Few consequences of my endeavours to please or to benefit mankind have +delighted me more than your friendship thus voluntarily offered, which +now I have it I hope to keep, because I hope to continue to deserve it. + +'I have no _Dictionaries_ to dispose of for myself, but shall be glad to +have you direct your friends to Mr. Dodsley, because it was by his +recommendation that I was employed in the work. + +'When you have leisure to think again upon me, let me be favoured with +another letter; and another yet, when you have looked into my +_Dictionary_. If you find faults, I shall endeavour to mend them; if you +find none, I shall think you blinded by kind partiality: but to have +made you partial in his favour, will very much gratify the ambition of, +Sir, + +'Your most obliged + +'And most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Cough-square, Fleet-street, + +'April 8, 1755,' + +[Page 287: Andrew Millar. Ætat 46.] + +Mr. Andrew Millar, bookseller in the Strand, took the principal charge +of conducting the publication of Johnson's _Dictionary_; and as the +patience of the proprietors was repeatedly tried and almost exhausted, +by their expecting that the work would be completed within the time +which Johnson had sanguinely supposed, the learned authour was often +goaded to dispatch, more especially as he had received all the +copy-money, by different drafts, a considerable time before he had +finished his task[840]. When the messenger who carried the last sheet to +Millar returned, Johnson asked him, 'Well, what did he say?'--'Sir, +(answered the messenger) he said, thank GOD I have done with him.' 'I am +glad (replied Johnson, with a smile) that he thanks GOD for any +thing[841].' It is remarkable that those with whom Johnson chiefly +contracted for his literary labours were Scotchmen, Mr. Millar and Mr. +Strahan. Millar, though himself no great judge of literature, had good +sense enough to have for his friends very able men to give him their +opinion and advice in the purchase of copyright; the consequence of +which was his acquiring a very large fortune, with great liberality[842]. +Johnson said of him, 'I respect Millar, Sir; he has raised the price of +literature.' The same praise may be justly given to Panckoucke, the +eminent bookseller of Paris. Mr. Strahan's liberality, judgement, and +success, are well known. + +[Page 288: An Excursion to Langton deferred. A.D. 1755.] + +'To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ., AT LANGTON NEAR SPILSBY, LINCOLNSHIRE. + +'SIR, + +'It has been long observed, that men do not suspect faults which they do +not commit; your own elegance of manners, and punctuality of +complaisance, did not suffer you to impute to me that negligence of +which I was guilty, and which I have not since atoned. I received both +your letters, and received them with pleasure proportionate to the +esteem which so short an acquaintance strongly impressed, and which I +hope to confirm by nearer knowledge, though I am afraid that +gratification will be for a time withheld. + +'I have, indeed, published my Book[843], of which I beg to know your +father's judgement, and yours; and I have now staid long enough to watch +its progress into the world. It has, you see, no patrons, and, I think, +has yet had no opponents, except the criticks of the coffee-house, whose +outcries are soon dispersed into the air, and are thought on no more: +from this, therefore, I am at liberty, and think of taking the +opportunity of this interval to make an excursion; and why not then into +Lincolnshire? or, to mention a stronger attraction, why not to dear Mr. +Langton? I will give the true reason, which I know you will approve:--I +have a mother more than eighty years old, who has counted the days to +the publication of my book, in hopes of seeing me; and to her, if I can +disengage myself here, I resolve to go. + +'As I know, dear Sir, that to delay my visit for a reason like this, +will not deprive me of your esteem, I beg it may not lessen your +kindness. I have very seldom received an offer of friendship which I so +earnestly desire to cultivate and mature. I shall rejoice to hear from +you, till I can see you, and will see you as soon as I can; for when the +duty that calls me to Lichfield is discharged, my inclination will carry +me to Langton. I shall delight to hear the ocean roar, or see the stars +twinkle, in the company of men to whom Nature does not spread her +volumes or utter her voice in vain. + +'Do not, dear Sir, make the slowness of this letter a precedent for +delay, or imagine that I approved the incivility that I have committed; +for I have known you enough to love you, and sincerely to wish a further +knowledge; and I assure you, once more, that to live in a house that +contains such a father and such a son, will be accounted a very uncommon +degree of pleasure, by, dear Sir, your most obliged, and + +'Most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'May 6, 1755.' + +[Page 289: Letters to Mr. Warton. Ætat 46.] + +'To THE REVEREND MR. THOMAS WARTON. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I am grieved that you should think me capable of neglecting your +letters; and beg you will never admit any such suspicion again. I +purpose to come down next week, if you shall be there; or any other +week, that shall be more agreeable to you. Therefore let me know. I can +stay this visit but a week, but intend to make preparations for a longer +stay next time; being resolved not to lose sight of the University. How +goes Apollonius[844]? Don't let him be forgotten. Some things of this kind +must be done, to keep us up. Pay my compliments to Mr. Wise, and all my +other friends. I think to come to Kettel-Hall[845]. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most affectionate, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London,] May 13, 1755.' + +To THE SAME. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'It is strange how many things will happen to intercept every pleasure, +though it [be] only that of two friends meeting together. I have +promised myself every day to inform you when you might expect me at +Oxford, and have not been able to fix a time. The time, however, is, I +think, at last come; and I promise myself to repose in Kettel-Hall, one +of the first nights of the next week. I am afraid my stay with you +cannot be long; but what is the inference? We must endeavour to make it +chearful. I wish your brother could meet us, that we might go and drink +tea with Mr. Wise in a body. I hope he will be at Oxford, or at his nest +of British and Saxon antiquities[846]. I shall expect to see _Spenser_ +finished, and many other things begun. Dodsley is gone to visit the +Dutch. The _Dictionary_ sells well[847]. The rest of the world goes on as +it did. Dear Sir, + +[Page 290: Letters to Mr. Warton. A.D. 1755.] + +'Your most affectionate, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London,] June 10, 1755.' + +TO THE SAME. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'To talk of coming to you, and not yet to come, has an air of trifling +which I would not willingly have among you; and which, I believe, you +will not willingly impute to me, when I have told you, that since my +promise, two of our partners[848] are dead, and that I was solicited to +suspend my excursion till we could recover from our confusion. + +'I have not laid aside my purpose; for every day makes me more impatient +of staying from you. But death, you know, hears not supplications, nor +pays any regard to the convenience of mortals. I hope now to see you +next week; but next week is but another name for to-morrow, which has +been noted for promising and deceiving. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London,] June 24, 1755.' + +To THE SAME. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I told you, that among the manuscripts are some things of Sir Thomas +More. I beg you to pass an hour in looking on them, and procure a +transcript of the ten or twenty first lines of each, to be compared with +what I have; that I may know whether they are yet published. The +manuscripts are these: + +'Catalogue of Bodl. MS. pag. 122. F. 3. Sir Thomas More. + +'1. Fall of angels. 2. Creation and fall of mankind. 3. Determination of +the Trinity for the rescue of mankind. 4. Five lectures of our Saviour's +passion. 5. Of the institution of the sacrament, three lectures. 6. How +to receive the blessed body of our Lord sacramentally. 7. Neomenia, the +new moon. 8. _De tristitia, tædio, pavore, et oratione Christi, ante +captionem ejus_. + +'Catalogue, pag. 154. Life of Sir Thomas More. _Qu_. Whether Roper's? +Pag. 363. _De resignatione Magni Sigilli in manus Regis per D. Thomam +Morum_. Pag. 364. _Mori Defensio Morice_. + +'If you procure the young gentleman in the library to write out what you +think fit to be written, I will send to Mr. Prince the bookseller to pay +him what you shall think proper. + +'Be pleased to make my compliments to Mr. Wise, and all my friends. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your affectionate, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' +'[London] Aug. 7, 1755.' + +[Page 291: Publication of the DICTIONARY. Ætat 46.] + +The _Dictionary_, with a _Grammar and History of the English Language_, +being now at length published, in two volumes folio, the world +contemplated with wonder so stupendous a work achieved by one man, +while other countries had thought such undertakings fit only for whole +academies. Vast as his powers were, I cannot but think that his +imagination deceived him, when he supposed that by constant application +he might have performed the task in three years. Let the Preface be +attentively perused, in which is given, in a clear, strong, and glowing +style, a comprehensive, yet particular view of what he had done; and it +will be evident, that the time he employed upon it was comparatively +short. I am unwilling to swell my book with long quotations from what is +in every body's hands, and I believe there are few prose compositions in +the English language that are read with more delight, or are more +impressed upon the memory, than that preliminary discourse. One of its +excellencies has always struck me with peculiar admiration: I mean the +perspicuity with which he has expressed abstract scientifick notions. As +an instance of this, I shall quote the following sentence: 'When the +radical idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how can a +consecutive series be formed of senses in their own[849] nature +collateral?' We have here an example of what has been often said, and I +believe with justice, that there is for every thought a certain nice +adaptation of words which none other could equal, and which, when a man +has been so fortunate as to hit, he has attained, in that particular +case, the perfection of language. + +[Page 292: The Preface to the Dictionary. A.D. 1755.] + +The extensive reading which was absolutely necessary for the +accumulation of authorities, and which alone may account for Johnson's +retentive mind being enriched with a very large and various store of +knowledge and imagery, must have occupied several years. The Preface +furnishes an eminent instance of a double talent, of which Johnson was +fully conscious. Sir Joshua Reynolds heard him say, 'There are two +things which I am confident I can do very well: one is an introduction +to any literary work, stating what it is to contain, and how it should +be executed in the most perfect manner; the other is a conclusion, +shewing from various causes why the execution has not been equal to what +the authour promised to himself and to the publick.' + +How should puny scribblers be abashed and disappointed, when they find +him displaying a perfect theory of lexicographical excellence, yet at +the same time candidly and modestly allowing that he 'had not satisfied +his own expectations[850].' Here was a fair occasion for the exercise of +Johnson's modesty, when he was called upon to compare his own arduous +performance, not with those of other individuals, (in which case his +inflexible regard to truth would have been violated, had he affected +diffidence,) but with speculative perfection[851]; as he, who can outstrip +all his competitors in the race, may yet be sensible of his deficiency +when he runs against time. Well might he say, that 'the _English +Dictionary_ was written with little assistance of the learned[852],' for +he told me, that the only aid which he received was a paper containing +twenty etymologies, sent to him by a person then unknown, who he was +afterwards informed was Dr. Pearce, Bishop of Rochester[853]. The +etymologies, though they exhibit learning and judgement, are not, I +think, entitled to the first praise amongst the various parts of this +immense work. The definitions have always appeared to me such +astonishing proofs of acuteness of intellect and precision of language, +as indicate a genius of the highest rank[854]. This it is which marks the +superiour excellence of Johnson's _Dictionary_ over others equally or +even more voluminous, and must have made it a work of much greater +mental labour than mere Lexicons, or _Word-books_, as the Dutch call +them. They, who will make the experiment of trying how they can define a +few words of whatever nature, will soon be satisfied of the +unquestionable justice of this observation, which I can assure my +readers is founded upon much study, and upon communication with more +minds than my own. + +[Page 293: Erroneous definitions. Ætat 46.] + +A few of his definitions must be admitted to be erroneous. Thus, +_Windward_ and _Leeward_[855], though directly of opposite meaning, are +defined identically the same way; as to which inconsiderable specks it +is enough to observe, that his Preface announces that he was aware there +might be many such in so immense a work[856]; nor was he at all +disconcerted when an instance was pointed out to him. A lady once asked +him how he came to define _Pastern_ the _knee_ of a horse: instead of +making an elaborate defence, as she expected, he at once answered, +'Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance[857].' His definition of _Network_[858] +has been often quoted with sportive malignity[859], as obscuring a thing +in itself very plain. But to these frivolous censures no other answer is +necessary than that with which we are furnished by his own Preface. + +[Page 294: Humorous definitions. A.D. 1755.] + +'To explain, requires the use of terms less abstruse than that which is +to be explained, and such terms cannot always be found. For as nothing +can be proved but by supposing something intuitively known, and evident +without proof, so nothing can be defined but by the use of words too +plain to admit of definition[860]. Sometimes easier words are changed into +harder; as, _burial_, into _sepulture_ or _interment; dry_[861], into +_desiccative_; _dryness_, into _siccity_ or _aridity; fit_, into +_paroxism_; for the _easiest_ word, whatever it be, can never be +translated into one more easy.' + +[Page 295: Humorous definitions.] + +His introducing his own opinions, and even prejudices, under general +definitions of words, while at the same time the original meaning of the +words is not explained, as his _Tory_[862], _Whig_[863], _Pension_[864], +_Oats_[865], _Excise_[866], and a few more, cannot be fully defended, and +must be placed to the account of capricious and humorous indulgence[867]. +Talking to me upon this subject when we were at Ashbourne in 1777, he +mentioned a still stronger instance of the predominance of his private +feelings in the composition of this work, than any now to be found in +it. 'You know, Sir, Lord Gower forsook the old Jacobite interest. When I +came to the word _Renegado_, after telling that it meant "one who +deserts to the enemy, a revolter," I added, _Sometimes we say a +GOWER_[868]. Thus it went to the press; but the printer had more wit than +I, and struck it out.' + +[Page 296: Humorous definitions. A.D. 1756.] + +Let it, however, be remembered, that this indulgence does not display +itself only in sarcasm towards others, but sometimes in playful allusion +to the notions commonly entertained of his own laborious task. Thus: +'_Grub-street_, the name of a street in London, much inhabited by +writers of small histories, _dictionaries_, and temporary poems; whence +any mean production is called _Grub-street_[869].'--'_Lexicographer_, a +writer of dictionaries, a _harmless drudge_[870]'. + +[Page 297: The gloom of solitude. Ætat 46.] + +At the time when he was concluding his very eloquent Preface, Johnson's +mind appears to have been in such a state of depression[871], that we +cannot contemplate without wonder the vigorous and splendid thoughts +which so highly distinguish that performance. 'I (says he) 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[872].' That this indifference was rather a temporary than +an habitual feeling, appears, I think, from his letters to Mr. +Warton[873]; and however he may have been affected for the moment, certain +it is that the honours which his great work procured him, both at home +and abroad, were very grateful to him[874]. His friend the Earl of Corke +and Orrery, being at Florence, presented it to the _Academia della +Crusca_. That Academy sent Johnson their _Vocabulario_, and the French +Academy sent him their _Dictionnaire_, which Mr. Langton had the +pleasure to convey to him[875]. + +[Page 298: His melancholy at its meridian. A.D. 1755.] + +It must undoubtedly seem strange, that the conclusion of his Preface +should be expressed in terms so desponding, when it is considered that +the authour was then only in his forty-sixth year. But we must ascribe +its gloom to that miserable dejection of spirits to which he was +constitutionally subject, and which was aggravated by the death of his +wife two years before[876]. I have heard it ingeniously observed by a lady +of rank and elegance, that 'his melancholy was then at its meridian[877].' +It pleased GOD to grant him almost thirty years of life after this time; +and once, when he was in a placid frame of mind, he was obliged to own +to me that he had enjoyed happier days, and had many more friends, since +that gloomy hour than before[878]. + +[Page 299: Johnson's happiest days last. Ætat 46.] + +It is a sad saying, that 'most of those whom he wished to please had +sunk into the grave;' and his case at forty-five was singularly unhappy, +unless the circle of his friends was very narrow. I have often thought, +that as longevity is generally desired, and I believe, generally +expected, it would be wise to be continually adding to the number of our +friends, that the loss of some may be supplied by others. Friendship, +'the wine of life[879],' should like a well-stocked cellar, be thus +continually renewed; and it is consolatory to think, that although we +can seldom add what will equal the generous _first-growths_ of our +youth, yet friendship becomes insensibly old in much less time than is +commonly imagined, and not many years are required to make it very +mellow and pleasant. _Warmth_ will, no doubt, make a considerable +difference. Men of affectionate temper and bright fancy will coalesce a +great deal sooner than those who are cold and dull. + +[Page 300: Garrick's complimentary epigram. A.D. 1755.] + +The proposition which I have now endeavoured to illustrate was, at a +subsequent period of his life, the opinion of Johnson himself. He said +to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'If a man does not make new acquaintance as he +advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, +should keep his friendship _in constant repair_.' + +The celebrated Mr. Wilkes, whose notions and habits of life were very +opposite to his, but who was ever eminent for literature and vivacity, +sallied forth with a little _Jeu d'Esprit_ upon the following passage in +his Grammar of the English Tongue, prefixed to the _Dictionary_: '_H_ +seldom, perhaps never, begins any but the first syllable.' In an Essay +printed in _The Publick Advertiser_, this lively writer enumerated many +instances in opposition to this remark; for example, 'The authour of +this observation must be a man of a quick _apprehension_, and of a most +_compre-hensive_ genius.' The position is undoubtedly expressed with too +much latitude. + +This light sally, we may suppose, made no great impression on our +Lexicographer; for we find that he did not alter the passage till many +years afterwards[880]. + +He had the pleasure of being treated in a very different manner by his +old pupil Mr. Garrick, in the following complimentary Epigram[881]: + +'_On_ JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY, + +'Talk of war with a Briton, he'll boldly advance, +That one English soldier will beat ten of France; +Would we alter the boast from the sword to the pen, +Our odds are still greater, still greater our men: +In the deep mines of science though Frenchmen may toil, +Can their strength be compar'd to Locke, Newton, and Boyle? +Let them rally their heroes, send forth all their pow'rs, +Their verse-men and prose-men, then match them with ours! +First Shakspeare and Milton[882], like gods in the fight, +Have put their whole drama and epick to flight; +In satires, epistles, and odes, would they cope, +Their numbers retreat before Dryden and Pope; +And Johnson, well arm'd like a hero of yore, +Has beat forty French[883], and will beat forty more!' + +[Page 301: Zachariah Williams. Ætat 46.] + +Johnson this year gave at once a proof of his benevolence, quickness of +apprehension, and admirable art of composition, in the assistance which +he gave to Mr. Zachariah Williams, father of the blind lady whom he had +humanely received under his roof. Mr. Williams had followed the +profession of physick in Wales; but having a very strong propensity to +the study of natural philosophy, had made many ingenious advances +towards a discovery of the longitude, and repaired to London in hopes of +obtaining the great parliamentary reward[884]. He failed of success; but +Johnson having made himself master of his principles and experiments, +wrote for him a pamphlet, published in quarto, with the following title: +_An Account of an Attempt to ascertain the Longitude at Sea, by an exact +Theory of the Variation of the Magnetical Needle; with a Table of the +Variations at the most remarkable Cities in Europe, from the year 1660 +to 1680_.[Dagger] To diffuse it more extensively, it was accompanied +with an Italian translation on the opposite page, which it is supposed +was the work of Signor Baretti[885], an Italian of considerable +literature, who having come to England a few years before, had been +employed in the capacity both of a language-master and an authour, and +formed an intimacy with Dr. Johnson. This pamphlet Johnson presented to +the Bodleian Library[886]. On a blank leaf of it is pasted a paragraph cut +out of a news-paper, containing an account of the death and character of +Williams, plainly written by Johnson[887]. + +[Page 302: Joseph Baretti. A.D. 1755.] + +[Page 303: A scheme of life for Sunday. Ætat 47.] + +In July this year he had formed some scheme of mental improvement, the +particular purpose of which does not appear. But we find in his _Prayers +and Meditations_, p. 25, a prayer entitled 'On the Study of Philosophy, +as an Instrument of living;' and after it follows a note, 'This study +was not pursued.' + +On the 13th of the same month he wrote in his _Journal_ the following +scheme of life, for Sunday: + +'Having lived' (as he with tenderness of conscience expresses himself) +'not without an habitual reverence for the Sabbath, yet without that +attention to its religious duties which Christianity requires; + +'1. To rise early, and in order to it, to go to sleep early on Saturday. + +'2. To use some extraordinary devotion in the morning. + +'3. To examine the tenour of my life, and particularly the last week; +and to mark my advances in religion, or recession from it. + +'4. To read the Scripture methodically with such helps as are at hand. + +'5. To go to church twice. + +'6. To read books of Divinity, either speculative or practical. + +'7. To instruct my family. + +'8. To wear off by meditation any worldly soil contracted in the week.' + + +1756: ÆTAT. 47.--In 1756 Johnson found that the great fame of his +_Dictionary_ had not set him above the necessity of 'making provision +for the day that was passing over him[888].' + +[Page 304: Payment for the DICTIONARY. A.D. 1756.] + +No royal or noble patron extended a munificent hand to give independence +to the man who had conferred stability on the language of his country. +We may feel indignant that there should have been such unworthy neglect; +but we must, at the same time, congratulate ourselves, when we consider, +that to this very neglect, operating to rouse the natural indolence of +his constitution, we owe many valuable productions, which otherwise, +perhaps, might never have appeared. + +He had spent, during the progress of the work, the money for which he +had contracted to write his _Dictionary_. We have seen that the reward +of his labour was only fifteen hundred and seventy-five pounds; and when +the expence of amanuenses and paper, and other articles are deducted, +his clear profit was very inconsiderable. I once said to him, 'I am +sorry, Sir, you did not get more for your _Dictionary_'. His answer was, +'I am sorry, too. But it was very well. The booksellers are generous, +liberal-minded men[889].' He, upon all occasions, did ample justice to +their character in this respect[890]. He considered them as the patrons of +literature; and, indeed, although they have eventually been considerable +gainers by his _Dictionary_, it is to them that we owe its having been +undertaken and carried through at the risk of great expence, for they +were not absolutely sure of being indemnified. + +[Page 305: Johnson's opinion of booksellers. Ætat 47.] + +On the first day of this year we find from his private devotions, that +he had then recovered from sickness[891]; and in February that his eye was +restored to its use[892]. The pious gratitude with which he acknowledges +mercies upon every occasion is very edifying; as is the humble +submission which he breathes, when it is the will of his heavenly Father +to try him with afflictions. As such dispositions become the state of +man here, and are the true effects of religious discipline, we cannot +but venerate in Johnson one of the most exercised minds that our holy +religion hath ever formed. If there be any thoughtless enough to suppose +such exercise the weakness of a great understanding, let them look up to +Johnson and be convinced that what he so earnestly practised must have a +rational foundation. + +[Page 306: Christopher Smart. A.D. 1756.] + +His works this year were, an abstract or epitome, in octavo, of his +folio _Dictionary_, and a few essays in a monthly publication, entitled, +_The Universal Visiter_. Christopher Smart, with whose unhappy +vacillation of mind he sincerely sympathised, was one of the stated +undertakers of this miscellany; and it was to assist him that Johnson +sometimes employed his pen[893]. All the essays marked with two +_asterisks_ have been ascribed to him; but I am confident, from internal +evidence, that of these, neither 'The Life of Chaucer,' 'Reflections on +the State of Portugal,' nor an 'Essay on Architecture,' were written by +him. I am equally confident, upon the same evidence, that he wrote +'Further Thoughts on Agriculture[894];'[Dagger] being the sequel of a very +inferiour essay on the same subject, and which, though carried on as if +by the same hand, is both in thinking and expression so far above it, +and so strikingly peculiar, as to leave no doubt of its true parent; and +that he also wrote 'A Dissertation on the State of Literature and +Authours[895],'[Dagger] and 'A Dissertation on the Epitaphs written by +Pope.'[Dagger] The last of these, indeed, he afterwards added to his +_Idler_[896]. Why the essays truly written by him are marked in the same +manner with some which he did not write, I cannot explain; but with +deference to those who have ascribed to him the three essays which I +have rejected, they want all the characteristical marks of Johnsonian +composition. + +[Page 307: The Literary Magazine. Ætat 47.] + +He engaged also to superintend and contribute largely to another monthly +publication, entitled _The Literary Magazine, or Universal Review_; the +first number of which came out in May this year[897]. What were his +emoluments from this undertaking, and what other writers were employed +in it, I have not discovered. He continued to write in it, with +intermissions, till the fifteenth number; and I think that he never gave +better proofs of the force, acuteness, and vivacity of his mind, than in +this miscellany, whether we consider his original essays, or his reviews +of the works of others. The 'Preliminary Address'[Dagger] to the Publick +is a proof how this great man could embellish, with the graces of +superiour composition, even so trite a thing as the plan of a magazine. + +His original essays are, 'An Introduction to the Political State of +Great Britain[898];'[Dagger] 'Remarks on the Militia Bill[899];'[Dagger] +'Observations on his Britannick Majesty's Treaties with the Empress of +Russia and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel[900];'[Dagger] 'Observations on +the Present State of Affairs[901];'[Dagger] and 'Memoirs of Frederick III, +King of Prussia[902].'[Dagger] In all these he displays extensive +political knowledge and sagacity, expressed with uncommon energy and +perspicuity, without any of those words which he sometimes took a +pleasure in adopting in imitation of Sir Thomas Browne; of whose +_Christian Morals_ he this year gave an edition, with his 'Life'[*] +prefixed to it, which is one of Johnson's best biographical +performances. In one instance only in these essays has he indulged his +_Brownism_[903]. Dr. Robertson, the historian, mentioned it to me, as +having at once convinced him that Johnson was the author of the 'Memoirs +of the King of Prussia.' Speaking of the pride which the old King, the +father of his hero, took in being master of the tallest regiment in +Europe, he says, 'To review this towering regiment was his daily +pleasure; and to perpetuate it was so much his care, that when he met a +tall woman he immediately commanded one of his _Titanian_ retinue to +marry her, that they might _propagate procerity_[904]' For this +Anglo-Latian word _procerity_, Johnson had, however, the authority of +Addison[905]. + +[Page 309: The earthquake of Lisbon. Ætat 47.] + +His reviews are of the following books: 'Birch's History of the Royal +Society;'[Dagger] 'Murphy's Gray's Inn Journal;'[Dagger] 'Warton's Essay +on the Writings and Genius of Pope, Vol. I.'[Dagger] 'Hampton's +Translation of Polybius;'[Dagger] 'Blackwell's Memoirs of the Court of +Augustus;'[Dagger] 'Russel's Natural History of Aleppo[906];'[Dagger] 'Sir +Isaac Newton's Arguments in Proof of a Deity;'[Dagger] 'Borlase's +History of the Isles of Scilly;'[Dagger] 'Home's Experiments on +Bleaching;'[Dagger] 'Browne's Christian Morals;'[Dagger] 'Hales on +Distilling Sea-Water, Ventilators in Ships, and curing an ill Taste in +Milk;'[Dagger] 'Lucas's Essay on Waters;'[Dagger] 'Keith's Catalogue of +the Scottish Bishops;'[Dagger] 'Browne's History of Jamaica;'[Dagger] +'Philosophical Transactions, Vol. XLIX.'[Dagger] 'Mrs. Lennox's +Translation of Sully's Memoirs;'[*] 'Miscellanies by Elizabeth +Harrison;'[Dagger] 'Evans's Map and Account of the Middle Colonies in +America[907];'[Dagger] 'Letter on the Case of Admiral Byng;'[*] 'Appeal to +the People concerning Admiral Byng;'[*] 'Hanway's Eight Days Journey, +and Essay on Tea;'[*] 'The Cadet, a Military Treatise;'[Dagger] 'Some +further Particulars in Relation to the Case of Admiral Byng, by a +Gentleman of Oxford;'[*] 'The Conduct of the Ministry relating to the +present War impartially examined;'[Dagger] 'A Free Inquiry into the +Nature and Origin of Evil.'[*] All these, from internal evidence, were +written by Johnson; some of them I know he avowed, and have marked them +with an _asterisk_ accordingly[908]. + +[Page 310: Johnson's ardour for liberty. A.D. 1750.] + +Mr. Thomas Davies indeed, ascribed to him the Review of Mr. Burke's +'Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful;' and +Sir John Hawkins, with equal discernment, has inserted it in his +collection of Johnson's works: whereas it has no resemblance to +Johnson's composition, and is well known to have been written by Mr. +Murphy, who has acknowledged it to me and many others. + +It is worthy of remark, in justice to Johnson's political character, +which has been misrepresented as abjectly submissive to power, that his +'Observations on the present State of Affairs' glow with as animated a +spirit of constitutional liberty as can be found any where. Thus he +begins: + + 'The time is now come, in which every Englishman expects to be informed +of the national affairs; and in which he has a right to have that +expectation gratified. For, whatever may be urged by Ministers, or those +whom vanity or interest make the followers of ministers, concerning the +necessity of confidence in our governours, and the presumption of prying +with profane eyes into the recesses of policy, it is evident that this +reverence can be claimed only by counsels yet unexecuted, and projects +suspended in deliberation. But when a design has ended in miscarriage or +success, when every eye and every ear is witness to general discontent, +or general satisfaction, it is then a proper time to disentangle +confusion and illustrate obscurity; to shew by what causes every event +was produced, and in what effects it is likely to terminate; to lay down +with distinct particularity what rumour always huddles in general +exclamation, or perplexes by indigested[909] narratives; to shew whence +happiness or calamity is derived, and whence it may be expected; and +honestly to lay before the people what inquiry can gather of the past, +and conjecture can estimate of the future[910]'. + +[Page 311: Dr. Lucas. Ætat 47.] + +Here we have it assumed as an incontrovertible principle, that in this +country the people are the superintendants of the conduct and measures +of those by whom government is administered; of the beneficial effect of +which the present reign afforded an illustrious example, when addresses +from all parts of the kingdom controuled an audacious attempt to +introduce a new power subversive of the crown.[911] + +A still stronger proof of his patriotick spirit appears in his review of +an 'Essay on Waters, by Dr. Lucas;' of whom, after describing him as a +man well known to the world for his daring defiance of power, when he +thought it exerted on the side of wrong, he thus speaks: + +'The Irish ministers drove him from his native country by a +proclamation, in which they charged him with crimes of which they never +intended to be called to the proof, and oppressed by methods equally +irresistible by guilt and innocence. + +'Let the man thus driven into exile, for having been the friend of his +country, be received in every other place as a confessor of liberty; and +let the tools of power be taught in time, that they may rob, but cannot +impoverish[912].' + +Some of his reviews in this _Magazine_ are very short accounts of the +pieces noticed, and I mention them only that Dr. Johnson's opinion of +the works may be known; but many of them are examples of elaborate +criticism, in the most masterly style. In his review of the 'Memoirs of +the Court of Augustus,' he has the resolution to think and speak from +his own mind, regardless of the cant transmitted from age to age, in +praise of the ancient Romans[913]. Thus, + +'I know not why any one but a school-boy in his declamation should whine +over the Common-wealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of +the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, +grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of +themselves, and of one another[914].' + +[Page 312: Dr. Watts. A.D. 1756.] + +Again, + +'A people, who, while they were poor, robbed mankind; and as soon as +they became rich, robbed one another[915].' + +In his review of the _Miscellanies_ in prose and verse, published by +Elizabeth Harrison, but written by many hands, he gives an eminent proof +at once of his orthodoxy and candour: + +'The authours of the essays in prose seem generally to have imitated, or +tried to imitate, the copiousness and luxuriance of Mrs. Rowe[916], This, +however, is not all their praise; they have laboured to add to her +brightness of imagery, her purity of sentiments. The poets have had Dr. +_Watts_ before their eyes; a writer, who, if he stood not in the first +class of genius, compensated that defect by a ready application of his +powers to the promotion of piety. The attempt to employ the ornaments of +romance in the decoration of religion, was, I think, first made by Mr. +_Boyle's Martyrdom of Theodora_; but _Boyle's_ philosophical studies did +not allow him time for the cultivation of style; and the Completion of +the great design was reserved for Mrs. _Rowe_. Dr. _Watts_ was one of +the first who taught the Dissenters to write and speak like other men, +by shewing them that elegance might consist with piety[917]. They would +have both done honour to a better society[918], for they had that charity +which might well make their failings be forgotten, and with which the +whole Christian world might wish for communion. They were pure from all +the heresies of an age, to which every opinion is become a favourite +that the universal church has hitherto detested! + +[Page 313: Johnson's defence of tea. Ætat 47.] + +'This praise, the general interest of mankind requires to be given to +writers who please and do not corrupt, who instruct and do not weary. +But to them all human eulogies are vain, whom I believe applauded by +angels, and numbered with the just[919].' + +[Page 314: Johnson's reply to Hanway's attack. A.D. 1756.] + +His defence of tea against Mr. Jonas Hartway's violent attack upon that +elegant and popular beverage[920], shews how very well a man of genius can +write upon the slightest subject, when he writes, as the Italians say, +_con amore_: I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the +infusion of that fragrant leaf than Johnson[921]. The quantities which he +drank of it at all hours were so great, that his nerves must have been +uncommonly strong, not to have been extremely relaxed by such an +intemperate use of it[922]. He assured me, that he never felt the least +inconvenience from it; which is a proof that the fault of his +constitution was rather a too great tension of fibres, than the +contrary. Mr. Hanway wrote an angry answer to Johnson's review of his +_Essay on Tea_, and Johnson, after a full and deliberate pause, made a +reply to it; the only instance, I believe, in the whole course of his +life, when he condescended to oppose any thing that was written against +him[923]. I suppose when he thought of any of his little antagonists, he +was ever justly aware of the high sentiment of Ajax in _Ovid_: + +'Iste tulit pretium jam nunc certaminis hujus, +Qui, cùm victus erit, mecum certasse feretur[924].' + +But, indeed, the good Mr. Hanway laid himself so open to ridicule, that +Johnson's animadversions upon his attack were chiefly to make sport[925]. + +[Page 315: Admiral Byng. Ætat 47.] + +The generosity with which he pleads the cause of Admiral Byng is highly +to the honour of his heart and spirit. Though _Voltaire_ affects to be +witty upon the fate of that unfortunate officer, observing that he was +shot '_pour encourager les autres_[926],' the nation has long been +satisfied that his life was sacrificed to the political fervour of the +times. In the vault belonging to the Torrington family, in the church of +Southill[927], in Bedfordshire, there is the following Epitaph upon his +monument, which I have transcribed: + + 'TO THE PERPETUAL DISGRACE + OF PUBLIC JUSTICE, + THE HONOURABLE JOHN BYNG, ESQ. + ADMIRAL OF THE BLUE, + FELL A MARTYR TO POLITICAL + PERSECUTION, + MARCH 14, IN THE YEAR, 1757; + WHEN BRAVERY AND LOYALTY + WERE INSUFFICIENT SECURITIES + FOR THE LIFE AND HONOUR OF + A NAVAL OFFICER.' + +Johnson's most exquisite critical essay in the _Literary Magazine_, and +indeed any where, is his review[928] of Soame Jenyns's _Inquiry into the +Origin of Evil_. Jenyns was possessed of lively talents, and a style +eminently pure and easy, and could very happily play with a light +subject, either in prose or verse; but when he speculated on that most +difficult and excruciating question, the Origin of Evil, he ventured far +beyond his depth[929], and, accordingly, was exposed by Johnson, both with +acute argument and brilliant wit. I remember when the late Mr. +Bicknell's humourous performance, entitled _The Musical Travels of Joel +Collyer_[930], in which a slight attempt is made to ridicule Johnson, was +ascribed to Soame Jenyns, 'Ha! (said Johnson) I thought I had given him +enough of it.' + +[Page 316: Soame Jenyns. A.D. 1756.] + +His triumph over Jenyns is thus described by my friend Mr. Courtenay in +his _Poetical Review of the literary and moral Character of Dr. +Johnson_; a performance of such merit, that had I not been honoured with +a very kind and partial notice in it[931], I should echo the sentiments of +men of the first taste loudly in its praise: + +'When specious sophists with presumption scan +The source of evil hidden still from man; +Revive Arabian tales, and vainly hope +To rival St. John, and his scholar Pope: +Though metaphysicks spread the gloom of night, +By reason's star he guides our aching sight; +The bounds of knowledge marks, and points the way +To pathless wastes, where wilder'd sages stray; +Where, like a farthing link-boy, Jenyns stands, +And the dim torch drops from his feeble hands[932].' + +[Page 317: Draughts and cards. Ætat 47.] + +This year Mr. William Payne, brother of the respectable Bookseller[933] of +that name, published _An Introduction to the Game of Draughts_, to which +Johnson contributed a Dedication to the Earl of Rochford,[*] and a +Preface,[*] both of which are admirably adapted to the treatise to which +they are prefixed. Johnson, I believe, did not play at draughts after +leaving College[934], by which he suffered; for it would have afforded him +an innocent soothing relief from the melancholy which distressed him so +often. I have heard him regret that he had not learnt to play at +cards[935]; and the game of draughts we know is peculiarly calculated to +fix the attention without straining it. There is a composure and gravity +in draughts which insensibly tranquillises the mind; and, accordingly, +the Dutch are fond of it, as they are of smoaking, of the sedative +influence of which, though he himself never smoaked, he had a high +opinion[936]. Besides, there is in draughts some exercise of the +faculties; and, accordingly, Johnson wishing to dignify the subject in +his Dedication with what is most estimable in it, observes, + +'Triflers may find or make any thing a trifle; but since it is the great +characteristick of a wise man to see events in their courses, to obviate +consequences, and ascertain contingencies, your Lordship will think +nothing a trifle by which the mind is inured to caution, foresight, and +circumspection[937].' + +As one of the little occasional advantages which he did not disdain to +take by his pen, as a man whose profession was literature, he this year +accepted of a guinea[938] from Mr. Robert Dodsley, for writing the +introduction to _The London Chronicle_, an evening news-paper; and even +in so slight a performance exhibited peculiar talents. This Chronicle +still subsists, and from what I observed, when I was abroad, has a more +extensive circulation upon the Continent than any of the English +newspapers. It was constantly read by Johnson himself[939]; and it is but +just to observe, that it has all along been distinguished for good +sense, accuracy, moderation, and delicacy. + +[Page 318: Dr. Madden. A.D. 1756.] + +Another instance of the same nature has been communicated to me by the +Reverend Dr. Thomas Campbell, who has done himself considerable credit +by his own writings[940]. + +'Sitting with Dr. Johnson one morning alone, he asked me if I had known +Dr. Madden, who was authour of the premium-scheme in Ireland[941]. On my +answering in the affirmative, and also that I had for some years lived +in his neighbourhood, &c., he begged of me that when I returned to +Ireland, I would endeavour to procure for him a poem of Dr. Madden's +called _Boulter's Monument_. The reason (said he) why I wish for it, is +this: when Dr. Madden came to London, he submitted that work to my +castigation; and I remember I blotted a great many lines, and might have +blotted many more, without making the poem worse. However, the Doctor +was very thankful, and very generous, for he gave me ten guineas, _which +was to me at that time a great sum_[942].' + +[Page 319: Johnson's SHAKSPEARE. Ætat 47.] + +He this year resumed his scheme of giving an edition of _Shakspeare_ +with notes[943]. He issued Proposals of considerable length[944],[*] in +which he shewed that he perfectly well knew what a variety of research +such an undertaking required; but his indolence prevented him from +pursuing it with that diligence which alone can collect those scattered +facts that genius, however acute, penetrating, and luminous, cannot +discover by its own force. It is remarkable, that at this time his +fancied activity was for the moment so vigorous, that he promised his +work should be published before Christmas, 1757[945]. Yet nine years +elapsed before it saw the light[946]. His throes in bringing it forth had +been severe and remittent; and at last we may almost conclude that the +Caesarian operation was performed by the knife of Churchill, whose +upbraiding satire, I dare say, made Johnson's friends urge him to +dispatch[947], + +'He for subscribers bates his hook, +And takes your cash; but where's the book? +No matter where; wise fear, you know, +Forbids the robbing of a foe; +But what, to serve our private ends, +Forbids the cheating of our friends[948]?' + +[Page 320: Johnson refuses a country living. A.D. 1757.] + +About this period he was offered a living of considerable value in +Lincolnshire, if he were inclined to enter into holy orders. It was a +rectory in the gift of Mr. Langton, the father of his much valued +friend. But he did not accept of it; partly I believe from a +conscientious motive, being persuaded that his temper and habits +rendered him unfit for that assiduous and familiar instruction of the +vulgar and ignorant which he held to be an essential duty in a +clergyman[949]; and partly because his love of a London life was so +strong, that he would have thought himself an exile in any other place, +particularly if residing in the country[950]. Whoever would wish to see +his thoughts upon that subject displayed in their full force, may peruse +_The Adventurer_, Number 126[951]. + + +1757: ÆTAT. 48.].--In 1757 it does not appear that he published any +thing, except some of those articles in _The Literary Magazine_, which +have been mentioned. That magazine, after Johnson ceased to write in it, +gradually declined, though the popular epithet of _Antigallican_[952] was +added to it; and in July 1758 it expired. He probably prepared a part of +his _Shakspeare_ this year, and he dictated a speech on the subject of +an Address to the Throne, after the expedition to Rochfort, which was +delivered by one of his friends, I know not in what publick meeting.[953] +It is printed in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ for October 1785 as his, and +bears sufficient marks of authenticity. + +[Page 321: Irish literature. Ætat 48.] + +By the favour of Mr. Joseph Cooper Walker, of the Treasury, Dublin, I +have obtained a copy of the following letter from Johnson to the +venerable authour of _Dissertations on the History of Ireland_. + +[Page 322: The affinities of language. A.D. 1757.] + +'To CHARLES O'CONNOR, ESQ.[954] + +'SIR, + +'I have lately, by the favour of Mr. Faulkner,[955] seen your account of +Ireland, and cannot forbear to solicit a prosecution of your design. Sir +William Temple complains that Ireland is less known than any other +country, as to its ancient state.[956] The natives have had little +leisure, and little encouragement for enquiry; and strangers, not +knowing the language, have had no ability. + +'I have long wished that the Irish literature were cultivated.[957] +Ireland is known by tradition to have been once the seat of piety and +learning[958]; and surely it would be very acceptable to all those who are +curious either in the original of nations, or the affinities of +languages, to be further informed of the revolution of a people so +ancient, and once so illustrious. + +'What relation there is between the Welch and Irish language, or between +the language of Ireland and that of Biscay, deserves enquiry. Of these +provincial and unextended tongues, it seldom happens that more than one +are understood by any one man; and, therefore, it seldom happens that a +fair comparison can be made. I hope you will continue to cultivate this +kind of learning, which has too long lain neglected, and which, if it be +suffered to remain in oblivion for another century, may, perhaps, never +be retrieved. As I wish well to all useful undertakings, I would not +forbear to let you know how much you deserve in my opinion, from all +lovers of study, and how much pleasure your work has given to, Sir, + +'Your most obliged, + +'And most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, April 9, 1757.' + +'To THE REVEREND MR. THOMAS WARTON. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Dr. Marsili[959] of Padua, a learned gentleman, and good Latin poet, has +a mind to see Oxford. I have given him a letter to Dr. Huddesford[960], +and shall be glad if you will introduce him, and shew him any thing in +Oxford. + +'I am printing my new edition of _Shakspeare_. + +'I long to see you all, but cannot conveniently come yet. You might +write to me now and then, if you were good for any thing. But _honores +mulant mores_. Professors forget their friends[961]. I shall certainly +complain to Miss Jones[962]. I am, + +'Your, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London,] June 21, 1757.' + +'Please to make my compliments to Mr. Wise.' + +[Page 323: Subscribers to Johnson's SHAKSPEARE. Ætat 48.] + +Mr. Burney having enclosed to him an extract from the review of his +_Dictionary_ in the _Bibliothèque des Savans[963], and a list of +subscribers to his _Shakspeare_, which Mr. Burney had procured in +Norfolk, he wrote the following answer: + + + +'To MR. BURNEY, IN LYNNE, NORFOLK. + +'SIR, + +'That I may shew myself sensible of your favours, and not commit the +same fault a second time, I make haste to answer the letter which I +received this morning. The truth is, the other likewise was received, +and I wrote an answer; but being desirous to transmit you some proposals +and receipts, I waited till I could find a convenient conveyance, and +day was passed after day, till other things drove it from my thoughts; +yet not so, but that I remember with great pleasure your commendation of +my _Dictionary_. Your praise was welcome, not only because I believe it +was sincere, but because praise has been very scarce. A man of your +candour will be surprised when I tell you, that among all my +acquaintance there were only two, who upon the publication of my book +did not endeavour to depress me with threats of censure from the +publick, or with objections learned from those who had learned them from +my own Preface. Your's is the only letter of goodwill that I have +received; though, indeed, I am promised something of that sort from +Sweden. + +'How my new edition[964] will be received I know not; the subscription has +not been very successful. I shall publish about March. + +'If you can direct me how to send proposals, I should wish that they +were in such hands. + +'I remember, Sir, in some of the first letters with which you favoured +me, you mentioned your lady. May I enquire after her? In return for the +favours which you have shewn me, it is not much to tell you, that I wish +you and her all that can conduce to your happiness. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most obliged, + +'And most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Gough-square, Dec. 24, 1757.' + +[Page 324: Brothers and sisters. A.D. 1758.] + +In 1758 we find him, it should seem, in as easy and pleasant a state of +existence, as constitutional unhappiness ever permitted him to enjoy. + +'To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ., AT LANGTON, LINCOLNSHIRE[965]. + +'DEAREST SIR, + +'I must indeed have slept very fast, not to have been awakened by your +letter. None of your suspicions are true; I am not much richer than when +you left me; and, what is worse, my omission of an answer to your first +letter, will prove that I am not much wiser. But I go on as I formerly +did, designing to be some time or other both rich and wise; and yet +cultivate neither mind nor fortune. Do you take notice of my example, +and learn the danger of delay. When I was as you are now, towering in +the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at +forty-nine, what I now am. + +'But you do not seem to need my admonition. You are busy in acquiring +and in communicating knowledge, and while you are studying, enjoy the +end of study, by making others wiser and happier. I was much pleased +with the tale that you told me of being tutour to your sisters. I, who +have no sisters nor brothers, look with some degree of innocent envy on +those who may be said to be born to friends; and cannot see, without +wonder, how rarely that native union is afterwards regarded. It +sometimes, indeed, happens, that some supervenient cause of discord may +overpower this original amity; but it seems to me more frequently thrown +away with levity, or lost by negligence, than destroyed by injury or +violence. We tell the ladies that good wives make good husbands; I +believe it is a more certain position that good brothers make good +sisters. + +'I am satisfied with your stay at home, as Juvenal with his friend's +retirement to Cumæ: I know that your absence is best, though it be not +best for me. + +'Quamvis digressu veteris confusus amici, +Laudo tamen vacuis quod sedem figere Cumis +Destinet, atque unum civem donare Sibyllæ[966].' + +[Page 325: Dodsley's CLEONE. Ætat 49.] + +'_Langton_ is a good Cumæ, but who must be Sibylla? Mrs. Langton is as +wise as Sibyl, and as good; and will live, if my wishes can prolong +life, till she shall in time be as old. But she differs in this, that +she has not scattered her precepts in the wind, at least not those which +she bestowed upon you. + +'The two Wartons just looked into the town, and were taken to see +_Cleone_, where, David[967] says, they were starved for want of company to +keep them warm. David and Doddy[968] have had a new quarrel, and, I think, +cannot conveniently quarrel any more. _Cleone_ was well acted by all the +characters, but Bellamy[969] left nothing to be desired. I went the first +night, and supported it, as well as I might; for Doddy, you know, is my +patron[970], and I would not desert him. The play was very well received. +Doddy, after the danger was over, went every night to the stage-side, +and cried at the distress of poor Cleone[971]. + +[Page 326: Reynolds's prices for portraits. A.D. 1758.] + +'I have left off housekeeping[972], and therefore made presents of the +game which you were pleased to send me. The pheasant I gave to Mr. +Richardson[973], the bustard to Dr. Lawrence, and the pot I placed with +Miss Williams, to be eaten by myself. She desires that her compliments +and good wishes may be accepted by the family; and I make the same +request for myself. + +'Mr. Reynolds has within these few days raised his price to twenty +guineas a head[974], and Miss is much employed in miniatures[975]. I know +not any body [else] whose prosperity has encreased since you left them. + +[Page 327: Johnson's SHAKSPEARE delayed. Ætat 49.] + +'Murphy is to have his _Orphan of China_ acted next month; and is +therefore, I suppose, happy[976]. I wish I could tell you of any great +good to which I was approaching, but at present my prospects do not much +delight me; however, I am always pleased when I find that you, dear Sir, +remember, + +'Your affectionate, humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 9, 1758.' + +'TO MR. BURNEY, AT LYNNE, NORFOLK. + +'SIR, + +'Your kindness is so great, and my claim to any particular regard from +you so little, that I am at a loss how to express my sense of your +favours[977]; but I am, indeed, much pleased to be thus distinguished by +you. + +'I am ashamed to tell you that my _Shakspeare_ will not be out so soon +as I promised my subscribers; but I did not promise them more than I +promised myself. It will, however, be published before summer. + +'I have sent you a bundle of proposals, which, I think, do not profess +more than I have hitherto performed. I have printed many of the plays, +and have hitherto left very few passages unexplained; where I am quite +at a loss, I confess my ignorance, which is seldom done by +commentators[978]. + +'I have, likewise, enclosed twelve receipts; not that I mean to impose +upon you the trouble of pushing them, with more importunity than may +seem proper, but that you may rather have more than fewer than you shall +want. The proposals you will disseminate as there shall be an +opportunity. I once printed them at length in the _Chronicle_, and some +of my friends (I believe Mr. Murphy, who formerly wrote the _Gray's-Inn +Journal_) introduced them with a splendid encomium. + +[Page 328: The garret in Gough-square. A.D. 1758.] + +'Since the _Life of Browne_, I have been a little engaged, from time to +time, in the _Literary Magazine_, but not very lately. I have not the +collection by me, and therefore cannot draw out a catalogue of my own +parts, but will do it, and send it. Do not buy them, for I will gather +all those that have anything of mine in them, and send them to Mrs. +Burney, as a small token of gratitude for the regard which she is +pleased to bestow upon me. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most obliged + +'And most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, March 8, 1758.' + +Dr. Burney has kindly favoured me with the following memorandum, which I +take the liberty to insert in his own genuine easy style. I love to +exhibit sketches of my illustrious friend by various eminent hands. + +'Soon after this, Mr. Burney, during a visit to the capital, had an +interview with him in Gough-square, where he dined and drank tea with +him, and was introduced to the acquaintance of Mrs. Williams. After +dinner, Mr. Johnson proposed to Mr. Burney to go up with him into his +garret, which being accepted, he there found about five or six Greek +folios, a deal writing-desk, and a chair and a half. Johnson giving to +his guest the entire seat, tottered himself on one with only three legs +and one arm[979]. Here he gave Mr. Burney Mrs. Williams's history, and +shewed him some volumes of his _Shakspeare_ already printed, to prove +that he was in earnest. Upon Mr. Burney's opening the first volume, at +the _Merchant of Venice_, he observed to him, that he seemed to be more +severe on Warburton than Theobald. "O poor Tib.! (said Johnson) he was +ready knocked down to my hands; Warburton stands between me and him." +"But, Sir, (said Mr. Burney,) you'll have Warburton upon your bones, +won't you?" "No, Sir; he'll not come out: he'll only growl in his den." +"But you think, Sir, that Warburton is a superiour critick to Theobald?" +"O, Sir, he'd make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices[980]! The +worst of Warburton is, that he has a rage for saying something, when +there's nothing to be said." Mr. Burney then asked him whether he had +seen the letter which Warburton had written in answer to a pamphlet +addressed "To the most impudent Man alive[981]." He answered in the +negative. Mr. Burney told him it was supposed to be written by Mallet. +The controversy now raged between the friends of Pope and Bolingbroke; +and Warburton and Mallet were the leaders of the several parties[982]. + +[Page 330: The Idler. A.D. 1758.] + +Mr. Burney asked him then if he had seen Warburton's book against +Bolingbroke's _Philosophy_[983]? "No, Sir, I have never read Bolingbroke's +impiety, and therefore am not interested about its confutation."' + +On the fifteenth of April he began a new periodical paper, entitled _The +Idler_[984],[*] which came out every Saturday in a weekly news-paper, +called _The Universal Chronicle, or Weekly Gazette_, published by +Newbery[985]. These essays were continued till April 5, 1760. Of one +hundred and three, their total number, twelve were contributed by his +friends; of which, Numbers 33, 93, and 96, were written by Mr. Thomas +Warton; No. 67 by Mr. Langton; and Nos. 76, 79, and 82, by Sir Joshua +Reynolds; the concluding words of No. 82, 'and pollute his canvas with +deformity,' being added by Johnson, as Sir Joshua informed me[986]. + +_The Idler_ is evidently the work of the same mind which produced _The +Rambler_, but has less body and more spirit. It has more variety of real +life, and greater facility of language. He describes the miseries of +idleness, with the lively sensations of one who has felt them[987]; and in +his private memorandums while engaged in it, we find 'This year I hope +to learn diligence[988].' Many of these excellent essays were written as +hastily as an ordinary letter. Mr. Langton remembers Johnson, when on a +visit at Oxford[989], asking him one evening how long it was till the post +went out; and on being told about half an hour, he exclaimed, 'then we +shall do very well.' He upon this instantly sat down and finished an +_Idler_, which it was necessary should be in London the next day. Mr. +Langton having signified a wish to read it, 'Sir, (said he) you shall +not do more than I have done myself.' He then folded it up and sent it +off. + +Yet there are in _The Idler_ several papers which shew as much +profundity of thought, and labour of language, as any of this great +man's writings. No. 14, 'Robbery of Time;' No. 24, 'Thinking;' No. 41, +'Death of a Friend[990];' No. 43, 'Flight of Time;' No. 51, 'Domestick +greatness unattainable;' No. 52, 'Self-denial;' No. 58, 'Actual, how +short of fancied, excellence[991];' No. 89, 'Physical evil moral +goode[992];' and his concluding paper on 'The horrour of the last[993];' +will prove this assertion. I know not why a motto, the usual trapping of +periodical papers, is prefixed to very few of the _Idlers_, as I have +heard Johnson commend the custom: and he never could be at a loss for +one, his memory being stored with innumerable passages of the +classicks[994]. In this series of essays he exhibits admirable instances +of grave humour, of which he had an uncommon share. Nor on some +occasions has he repressed that power of sophistry which he possessed in +so eminent a degree. In No. 11, he treats with the utmost contempt the +opinion that our mental faculties depend, in some degree, upon the +weather; an opinion, which they who have never experienced its truth are +not to be envied; and of which he himself could not but be sensible, as +the effects of weather upon him were very visible. Yet thus he +declaims:-- + +[Page 332: Influence of the weather. A.D. 1758.] + +'Surely, nothing is more reproachful to a being endowed with reason, +than to resign its powers to the influence of the air, and live in +dependence on the weather and the wind for the only blessings which +nature has put into our power, tranquillity and benevolence. This +distinction of seasons is produced only by imagination operating on +luxury. To temperance, every day is bright; and every hour is propitious +to diligence. He that shall resolutely excite his faculties, or exert +his virtues, will soon make himself superiour to the seasons; and may +set at defiance the morning mist and the evening damp, the blasts of the +east, and the clouds of the south[995].' + +[Page 333: The attendants on a Court. Ætat 49.] + +'I think the Romans call it Stoicism[996].' + +But in this number of his _Idler_ his spirits seem to run riot; for in +the wantonness of his disquisition he forgets, for a moment, even the +reverence for that which he held in high respect[997]; and describes 'the +attendant on a _Court_,' as one 'whose business, is to watch the looks +of a being, weak and foolish as himself[998].' + +[Page 334: Johnson not a plagiary. A.D. 1758.] + +Alas! it is too certain, that where the frame has delicate fibres, and +there is a fine sensibility, such influences of the air are +irresistible. He might as well have bid defiance to the ague, the palsy, +and all other bodily disorders, Such boasting of the mind is false +elevation. + +His unqualified ridicule of rhetorical gesture or action is not, surely, +a test of truth; yet we cannot help admiring how well it is adapted to +produce the effect which he wished. 'Neither the judges of our laws, nor +the representatives of our people, would be much affected by laboured +gesticulation, or believe any man the more because he rolled his eyes, +or puffed his cheeks, or spread abroad his arms, or stamped the ground, +or thumped his breast; or turned his eyes sometimes to the ceiling, and +sometimes to the floor[999].' + +A casual coincidence with other writers, or an adoption of a sentiment +or image which has been found in the writings of another, and afterwards +appears in the mind as one's own, is not unfrequent. The richness of +Johnson's fancy, which could supply his page abundantly on all +occasions, and the strength of his memory, which at once detected the +real owner of any thought, made him less liable to the imputation of +plagiarism than, perhaps, any of our writers[1000]. In _The Idler_, +however, there is a paper[1001], in which conversation is assimilated to a +bowl of punch, where there is the same train of comparison as in a poem +by Blacklock, in his collection published in 1756[1002], in which a +parallel is ingeniously drawn between human life and that liquor. It +ends,-- + +'Say, then, physicians of each kind, +Who cure the body or the mind, +What harm in drinking can there be, +Since punch and life so well agree?' + +[Page 335: Profits on The Idler. Ætat 49.] + +To _The Idler_, when collected in volumes[1003], he added, beside the +'Essay on Epitaphs' and the 'Dissertation on those of Pope[1004],' an Essay +on the 'Bravery of the English common Soldiers.' He, however, omitted +one of the original papers, which in the folio copy is No. 22[1005]. + + + +'To THE REVEREND MR. THOMAS WARTON. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Your notes upon my poet were very acceptable. I beg that you will be so +kind as to continue your searches. It will be reputable to my work, and +suitable to your professorship, to have something of yours in the notes. +As you have given no directions about your name, I shall therefore put +it. I wish your brother would take the same trouble. A commentary must +arise from the fortuitous discoveries of many men in devious walks of +literature. Some of your remarks are on plays already printed: but I +purpose to add an Appendix of Notes, so that nothing comes too late. + +'You give yourself too much uneasiness, dear Sir, about the loss of the +papers[1006]. The loss is nothing, if nobody has found them; nor even then, +perhaps, if the numbers be known. You are not the only friend that has +had the same mischance. You may repair your want out of a stock, which +is deposited with Mr. Allen, of Magdalen-Hall; or out of a parcel which +I have just sent to Mr. Chambers[1007] for the use of any body that will be +so kind as to want them. Mr. Langtons are well; and Miss Roberts[1008], +whom I have at last brought to speak, upon the information which you +gave me, that she had something to say. + +'I am, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London] April 14, 1758.' + +[Page 336: Mr. Langton as an undergraduate. A.D. 1758.] + +'TO THE SAME. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'You will receive this by Mr. Baretti, a gentleman particularly intitled +to the notice and kindness of the Professor of poesy. He has time but +for a short stay, and will be glad to have it filled up with as much as +he can hear and see. + +'In recommending another to your favour, I ought not to omit thanks for +the kindness which you have shewn to myself. Have you any more notes on +Shakspeare? I shall be glad of them. + +'I see your pupil sometimes[1009]: his mind is as exalted as his +stature[1010]. I am half afraid of him; but he is no less amiable than +formidable. He will, if the forwardness of his spring be not blasted, be +a credit to you, and to the University. He brings some of my plays[1011] +with him, which he has my permission to shew you, on condition you will +hide them from every body else. + +[Page 337: Experience compared with expectation. Ætat 49.] + +'I am, dear Sir, &c. + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'[London,] June 1, 1758.' + +'To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ., OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Though I might have expected to hear from you, upon your entrance into +a new state of life at a new place, yet recollecting, (not without some +degree of shame,) that I owe you a letter upon an old account, I think +it my part to write first. This, indeed, I do not only from complaisance +but from interest; for living on in the old way, I am very glad of a +correspondent so capable as yourself, to diversify the hours. You have, +at present, too many novelties about you to need any help from me to +drive along your time. + +'I know not any thing more pleasant, or more instructive, than to +compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time +the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of +observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed[1012]. You, +who are very capable of anticipating futurity, and raising phantoms +before your own eyes, must often have imagined to yourself an academical +life, and have conceived what would be the manners, the views, and the +conversation, of men devoted to letters; how they would choose their +companions, how they would direct their studies, and how they would +regulate their lives. Let me know what you expected, and what you have +found. At least record it to yourself before custom has reconciled you +to the scenes before you, and the disparity of your discoveries to your +hopes has vanished from your mind. It is a rule never to be forgotten, +that whatever strikes strongly, should be described while the first +impression remains fresh upon the mind. + +[Page 338: A violent death. A.D. 1759.] + +'I love, dear Sir, to think on you, and therefore, should willingly +write more to you, but that the post will not now give me leave to do +more than send my compliments to Mr. Warton, and tell you that I am, +dear Sir, most affectionately, + +'Your very humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'June 28, 1757[1013].' + + + +'TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ., AT LANGTON, NEAR SPILSBY, +LINCOLNSHIRE. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I should be sorry to think that what engrosses the attention of my +friend, should have no part of mine. Your mind is now full of the fate +of Dury[1014]; but his fate is past, and nothing remains but to try what +reflection will suggest to mitigate the terrours of a violent death, +which is more formidable at the first glance, than on a nearer and more +steady view. A violent death is never very painful; the only danger is +lest it should be unprovided. But if a man can be supposed to make no +provision for death in war, what can be the state that would have +awakened him to the care of futurity? When would that man have prepared +himself to die, who went to seek death without preparation? What then +can be the reason why we lament more him that dies of a wound, than him +that dies of a fever? A man that languishes with disease, ends his life +with more pain, but with less virtue; he leaves no example to his +friends, nor bequeaths any honour to his descendants. The only reason +why we lament a soldier's death, is, that we think he might have lived +longer; yet this cause of grief is common to many other kinds of death +which are not so passionately bewailed. The truth is, that every death +is violent which is the effect of accident; every death, which is not +gradually brought on by the miseries of age, or when life is +extinguished for any other reason than that it is burnt out. He that +dies before sixty, of a cold or consumption, dies, in reality, by a +violent death; yet his death is borne with patience only because the +cause of his untimely end is silent and invisible. Let us endeavour to +see things as they are, and then enquire whether we ought to complain. +Whether to see life as it is, will give us much consolation, I know not; +but the consolation which is drawn from truth, if any there be, is solid +and durable; that which may be derived from errour must be, like its +original, fallacious and fugitive. I am, dear, dear Sir, your most +humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Sept. 21, 1758.' + +[Page 339: The death of Johnson's mother. Ætat 50.] + + +1759: ÆTAT. 50.--In 1759, in the month of January, his mother died at +the great age of ninety, an event which deeply affected him[1015]; not +that 'his mind had acquired no firmness by the contemplation of +mortality[1016];' but that his reverential affection for her was not +abated by years, as indeed he retained all his tender feelings even to +the latest period of his life[1017]. I have been told that he regretted +much his not having gone to visit his mother for several years, previous +to her death[1018]. But he was constantly engaged in literary labours which +confined him to London; and though he had not the comfort of seeing his +aged parent, he contributed liberally to her support[1019]. + +[Page 340: Rasselas. A.D. 1759.] + +Soon after this event, he wrote his _Rasselas_[1020], _Prince of +Abyssinia_; concerning the publication of which Sir John Hawkins guesses +vaguely and idly[1021], instead of having taken the trouble to inform +himself with authentick precision. Not to trouble my readers with a +repetition of the Knight's reveries, I have to mention, that the late +Mr. Strahan the printer told me, that Johnson wrote it, that with the +profits he might defray the expence of his mother's funeral, and pay +some little debts which she had left. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds that +he composed it in the evenings of one week, sent it to the press in +portions as it was written, and had never since read it over[1022]. Mr. +Strahan, Mr. Johnston, and Mr. Dodsley purchased it for a hundred +pounds[1023], but afterwards paid him twenty-five pounds more, when it came +to a second edition. + +[Page 342: Rasselas and Candide. A.D. 1759.] + +Considering the large sums which have been received for compilations, +and works requiring not much more genius than compilations[1024], we cannot +but wonder at the very low price which he was content to receive for +this admirable performance; which, though he had written nothing else, +would have rendered his name immortal in the world of literature. None +of his writings has been so extensively diffused over Europe; for it has +been translated into most, if not all, of the modern languages[1025]. This +Tale, with all the charms of oriental imagery, and all the force and +beauty of which the English language is capable, leads us through the +most important scenes of human life, and shews us that this stage of our +being is full of 'vanity and vexation of spirit[1026].' To those who look +no further than the present life, or who maintain that human nature has +not fallen from the state in which it was created, the instruction of +this sublime story will be of no avail. But they who think justly, and +feel with strong sensibility, will listen with eagerness and admiration +to its truth and wisdom. Voltaire's _Candide_, written to refute the +system of Optimism, which it has accomplished with brilliant success, is +wonderfully similar in its plan and conduct to Johnson's _Rasselas_; +insomuch, that I have heard Johnson say[1027], that if they had not been +published so closely one after the other that there was not time for +imitation, it would have been in vain to deny that the scheme of that +which came latest was taken from the other. Though the proposition +illustrated by both these works was the same, namely, that in our +present state there is more evil than good, the intention of the writers +was very different. Voltaire, I am afraid, meant only by wanton +profaneness to obtain a sportive victory over religion, and to discredit +the belief of a superintending Providence: Johnson meant, by shewing the +unsatisfactory nature of things temporal, to direct the hopes of man to +things eternal. _Rasselas_, as was observed to me by a very accomplished +lady, may be considered as a more enlarged and more deeply philosophical +discourse in prose, upon the interesting truth, which in his _Vanity of +Human Wishes_ he had so successfully enforced in verse. + +The fund of thinking which this work contains is such, that almost every +sentence of it may furnish a subject of long meditation. I am not +satisfied if a year passes without my having read it through; and at +every perusal, my admiration of the mind which produced it is so highly +raised, that I can scarcely believe that I had the honour of enjoying +the intimacy of such a man. + +[Page 343: Apparitions. Ætat 50.] + +I restrain myself from quoting passages from this excellent work, or +even referring to them, because I should not know what to select, or +rather, what to omit. I shall, however, transcribe one, as it shews how +well he could state the arguments of those who believe in the appearance +of departed spirits; a doctrine which it is a mistake to suppose that he +himself ever positively held[1028]: + +'If all your fear be of apparitions, (said the Prince,) I will promise +you safety: there is no danger from the dead; he that is once buried +will be seen no more. + +'That the dead are seen no more, (said Imlac,) I will not undertake to +maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and +of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom +apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, +which prevails[1029] as far as human nature is diffused, could become +universal only by its truth; those that never heard of one another, +would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make +credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very little weaken +the general evidence; and some who deny it with their tongues, confess +it by their fears.' + +Notwithstanding my high admiration of _Rasselas_, I will not maintain +that the 'morbid melancholy[1030]' in Johnson's constitution may not, +perhaps, have made life appear to him more insipid and unhappy than it +generally is; for I am sure that he had less enjoyment from it than I +have. Yet, whatever additional shade his own particular sensations may +have thrown on his representation of life, attentive observation and +close enquiry have convinced me, that there is too much of reality in +the gloomy picture. The truth, however, is, that we judge of the +happiness and misery of life differently at different times, according +to the state of our changeable frame. I always remember a remark made to +me by a Turkish lady, educated in France, '_Ma foi, Monsieur, notre +bonheur dépend de la façon que notre sang circule_.' This have I learnt +from a pretty hard course of experience, and would, from sincere +benevolence, impress upon all who honour this book with a perusal, that +until a steady conviction is obtained, that the present life is an +imperfect state, and only a passage to a better, if we comply with the +divine scheme of progressive improvement; and also that it is a part of +the mysterious plan of Providence, that intellectual beings must 'be +made perfect through suffering[1031];' there will be a continual recurrence +of disappointment and uneasiness. But if we walk with hope in 'the +mid-day sun' of revelation, our temper and disposition will be such, +that the comforts and enjoyments in our way will be relished, while we +patiently support the inconveniences and pains. After much speculation +and various reasonings, I acknowledge myself convinced of the truth of +Voltaire's conclusion, '_Après tout c èst un monde passable_[1032].' But we +must not think too deeply; + +'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise[1033],' + +is, in many respects, more than poetically just. Let us cultivate, under +the command of good principles, '_la théorie des sensations agréables_;' +and, as Mr. Burke once admirably counselled a grave and anxious +gentleman, 'live pleasant[1034].' + +[Page 344: 'Live pleasant.' A.D. 1759.] + +The effect of _Rasselas_, and of Johnson's other moral tales, is thus +beautifully illustrated by Mr. Courtenay: + +'Impressive truth, in splendid fiction drest, +Checks the vain wish, and calms the troubled breast; +O'er the dark mind a light celestial throws, +And sooths the angry passions to repose; +As oil effus'd illumes and smooths the deep, +When round the bark the swelling surges sweep[1035].' + +[Page 345: The Idler pirated. Ætat 50.] + +It will be recollected, that during all this year he carried on his +Idler[1036], and, no doubt, was proceeding, though slowly, in his edition +of _Shakspeare_. He, however, from that liberality which never failed, +when called upon to assist other labourers in literature, found time to +translate for Mrs. Lennox's English version of Brumoy, 'A Dissertation +on the Greek Comedy,'[dagger] and 'The General Conclusion of the +book.'[dagger] + +An inquiry into the state of foreign countries was an object that seems +at all times to have interested Johnson. Hence Mr. Newbery found no +great difficulty in persuading him to write the Introduction[*] to a +collection of voyages and travels published by him under the title of +_The World Displayed_; the first volume of which appeared this year, and +the remaining volumes in subsequent years. + +[Page 346: Parental tyranny. A.D. 1759.] + +I would ascribe to this year[1037] the following letter to a son of one of +his early friends at Lichfield, Mr. Joseph Simpson, Barrister, and +authour of a tract entitled _Reflections on the Study of the Law_. + +[Page 347: An excursion to Oxford. Ætat 50.] + +'If you married imprudently, you miscarried at your own hazard, at an +age when you had a right of choice. It would be hard if the man might +not choose his own wife, who has a right to plead before the Judges of +his country. + +'If your imprudence has ended in difficulties and inconveniences, you +are yourself to support them; and, with the help of a little better +health, you would support them and conquer them. Surely, that want which +accident and sickness produces, is to be supported in every region of +humanity, though there were neither friends nor fathers in the world. +You have certainly from your father the highest claim of charity, though +none of right; and therefore I would counsel you to omit no decent nor +manly degree of importunity. Your debts in the whole are not large, and +of the whole but a small part is troublesome. Small debts are like small +shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped +without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little +danger. You must, therefore, be enabled to discharge petty debts, that +you may have leisure, with security, to struggle with the rest. Neither +the great nor little debts disgrace you. I am sure you have my esteem +for the courage with which you contracted them, and the spirit with +which you endure them. I wish my esteem could be of more use. I have +been invited, or have invited myself, to several parts of the kingdom; +and will not incommode my dear Lucy by coming to Lichfield, while her +present lodging is of any use to her. I hope, in a few days, to be at +leisure, and to make visits. Whither I shall fly is matter of no +importance. A man unconnected is at home every where; unless he may be +said to be at home no where. I am sorry, dear Sir, that where you have +parents, a man of your merits should not have an home. I wish I could +give it you. I am, my dear Sir, + +'Affectionately yours, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +He now refreshed himself by an excursion to Oxford, of which the +following short characteristical notice, in his own words, is +preserved:-- + +'----[1039] is now making tea for me. I have been in my gown ever since I +came here[1040]. It was, at my first coming, quite new and handsome. I have +swum thrice, which I had disused for many years. I have proposed to +Vansittart[1041], climbing over the wall, but he has refused me. And I have +clapped my hands till they are sore, at Dr. King's speech[1042].' + +[Page 348: The great CHAM of literature. A.D. 1759.] + +His negro servant, Francis Barber, having left him, and been some time +at sea, not pressed as has been supposed, but with his own consent, it +appears from a letter to John Wilkes, Esq., from Dr. Smollet, that his +master kindly interested himself in procuring his release from a state +of life of which Johnson always expressed the utmost abhorrence. He +said, 'No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself +into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of +being drowned[1043].' And at another time, 'A man in a jail has more room, +better food, and commonly better company[1044].' The letter was as +follows:-- + +[Page 349: Johnson's black servant at sea. Ætat 50.] + +'Chelsea, March 16, 1759. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I am again your petitioner, in behalf of that great CHAM[1045] of +literature, Samuel Johnson. His black servant, whose name is Francis +Barber, has been pressed on board the Stag Frigate, Captain Angel, and +our lexicographer is in great distress. He says the boy is a sickly lad, +of a delicate frame, and particularly subject to a malady in his throat, +which renders him very unfit for his Majesty's service. You know what +manner of animosity the said Johnson has against you[1046]; and I dare say +you desire no other opportunity of resenting it than that of laying him +under an obligation. He was humble enough to desire my assistance on +this occasion, though he and I were never cater-cousins; and I gave him +to understand that I would make application to my friend Mr. Wilkes, +who, perhaps, by his interest with Dr. Hay and Mr. Elliot, might be able +to procure the discharge of his lacquey. It would be superfluous to say +more on the subject, which I leave to your own consideration; but I +cannot let slip this opportunity of declaring that I am, with the most +inviolable esteem and attachment, dear Sir, + +'Your affectionate, obliged, humble servant, + +'T. SMOLLET.' + +Mr. Wilkes, who upon all occasions has acted, as a private gentleman, +with most polite liberality, applied to his friend Sir George Hay, then +one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty; and Francis Barber was +discharged, as he has told me, without any wish of his own. He found his +old master in Chambers in the Inner Temple[1047], and returned to his +service. + +[Page 350: Life in Inner Temple-lane. A.D. 1759.] + +What particular new scheme of life Johnson had in view this year, I have +not discovered; but that he meditated one of some sort, is clear from +his private devotions, in which we find[1048], 'the change of outward +things which I am now to make;' and, 'Grant me the grace of thy Holy +Spirit, that the course which I am now beginning may proceed according +to thy laws, and end in the enjoyment of thy favour.' But he did not, in +fact, make any external or visible change[1049]. + +[Page 351: Blackfriars-bridge. Ætat 50.] + +At this time, there being a competition among the architects of London +to be employed in the building of Blackfriars-bridge, a question was +very warmly agitated whether semicircular or elliptical arches were +preferable. In the design offered by Mr. Mylne the elliptical form was +adopted, and therefore it was the great object of his rivals to attack +it. Johnson's regard for his friend Mr. Gwyn induced him to engage in +this controversy against Mr. Mylne[1050]; and after being at considerable +pains to study the subject, he wrote three several letters in the +_Gazetteer_, in opposition to his plan. + +If it should be remarked that this was a controversy which lay quite out +of Johnson's way, let it be remembered, that after all, his employing +his powers of reasoning and eloquence upon a subject which he had +studied on the moment, is not more strange than what we often observe in +lawyers, who, as _Quicquid agunt homines_[1051] is the matter of law-suits, +are sometimes obliged to pick up a temporary knowledge of an art or +science, of which they understood nothing till their brief was +delivered, and appear to be much masters of it. In like manner, members +of the legislature frequently introduce and expatiate upon subjects of +which they have informed themselves for the occasion. + +[Page 353: Relief of the French Prisoners. Ætat 51.] + + +1760: ÆTAT. 51].--In 1760 he wrote _An Address of the Painters to +George III. on his Accession to the Throne of these Kingdoms_,[dagger] +which no monarch ever ascended with more sincere congratulations from +his people. Two generations of foreign princes had prepared their minds +to rejoice in having again a King, who gloried in being 'born a +Briton[1052].' He also wrote for Mr. Baretti, the dedication[dagger] of +his _Italian and English Dictionary_ to the Marquis of Abreu, then +Envoy-Extraordinary from Spain at the Court of Great Britain. + +[Page 354: Mary Queen of Scots. A.D. 1760.] + +Johnson was now neither very idle, nor very busy with his _Shakspeare_; +for I can find no other public composition by him except an introduction +to the proceedings of the Committee for cloathing the French +Prisoners[1053];[*] one of the many proofs that he was ever awake to the +calls of humanity; and an account which he gave in the Gentlemen's +Magazine of Mr. Tytler's acute and able vindication of Mary Queen of +Scots.[*] The generosity of Johnson's feelings shines forth in the +following sentence:-- + +"It has now been fashionable, for near half a century, to defame and +vilify the house of Stuart and, to exalt and magnify the reign of +Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists, for the dead cannot +pay for praise; and who will, without reward, oppose the tide of +popularity? Yet there remains still among us, not wholly extinguished, a +zeal for truth, a desire of establishing right in opposition to +fashion[1054]". + +In this year I have not discovered a single private letter, written by +him to any of his friends. It should seem, however, that he had at this +period a floating intention of writing a history of the recent and +wonderful successes of the British arms in all quarters of the globe; +for among his resolutions or memorandums, September 18, 'send for books +for Hist. of War[1055].' How much is it to be regretted that this intention +was not fulfilled. His majestick expression would have carried down to +the latest posterity the glorious achievements of his country with the +same fervent glow which they produced on the mind of the time. He would +have been under no temptation to deviate in any degree from truth, which +he held very sacred, or to take a licence, which a learned divine told +me he once seemed, in a conversation, jocularly to allow to historians. + +[Page 355: Consecrated lies. Ætat 51.] + +'There are (said he) inexcusable lies, and consecrated lies. For +instance, we are told that on the arrival of the news of the unfortunate +battle of Fontenoy, every heart beat, and every eye was in tears. Now we +know, that no man eat his dinner the worse[1056], but there _should_ have +been all this concern; and to say there _was_, (smiling) may be reckoned +a consecrated lie.' + +This year Mr. Murphy, having thought himself ill-treated by the Reverend +Dr. Francklin, who was one of the writers of _The Critical Review_, +published an indignant vindication in _A Poetical Epistle to Samuel +Johnson, A.M_., in which he compliments Johnson in a just and elegant +manner: + +Transcendant Genius! whose prolific vein +Ne'er knew the frigid poet's toil and pain; +To whom APOLLO opens all his store, +And every Muse presents her sacred lore; +Say, pow'rful JOHNSON, whence thy verse is fraught +With so much grace and such energy of thought; +Whether thy JUVENAL instructs the age +In chaster numbers, and new-points his rage; +Or fair IRENE sees, alas! too late. +Her innocence exchang'd for guilty state; +Whatever you write, in every golden line +Sublimity and elegance combine; +Thy nervous phrase impresses every soul, +While harmony gives rapture to the whole.' + +[Page 356: Arthur Murphy. A.D. 1760.] + +Again, towards the conclusion: + +'Thou then, my friend, who seest the dang'rous strife +In which some demon bids me plunge my life, +To the Aonian fount direct my feet, +Say where the Nine thy lonely musings meet? +Where warbles to thy ear the sacred throng, +Thy moral sense, thy dignity of song? +Tell, for you can, by what unerring art +You wake to finer feelings every heart; +In each bright page some truth important give, +And bid to future times thy RAMBLER live[1057]? + +I take this opportunity to relate the manner in which an acquaintance +first commenced between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Murphy. During the +publication of _The Grays-Inn Journal_, a periodical paper which was +successfully carried on by Mr. Murphy alone, when a very young man, he +happened to be in the country with Mr. Foote; and having mentioned that +he was obliged to go to London in order to get ready for the press in +one of the numbers of that _Journal_, Foote said to him, 'You need not +to go on that account. Here is a French magazine, in which you will find +a very pretty oriental tale; translate that, and send it to your +printer.' Mr. Murphy having read the tale, was highly pleased with it, +and followed Foote's advice. When he returned to town, this tale was +pointed out to him in _The Rambler_, from whence it had been translated +into the French magazine. Mr. Murphy then waited upon Johnson, to +explain this curious incident. His talents, literature, and +gentleman-like manners, were soon perceived by Johnson, and a friendship +was formed which was never broken[1058]. + +[Page 357: Letter to Mr. Langston. Ætat 51.] + +'To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ., AT LANGTON, NEAR SPILSBY, LINCOLNSHIRE. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'You that travel about the world, have more materials for letters, than +I who stay at home; and should, therefore, write with frequency equal to +your opportunities. I should be glad to have all England surveyed by +you, if you would impart your observations in narratives as agreeable as +your last. Knowledge is always to be wished to those who can communicate +it well. While you have been riding and running, and seeing the tombs of +the learned, and the camps of the valiant, I have only staid at home, +and intended to do great things, which I have not done. Beau[1059] went +away to Cheshire, and has not yet found his way back. Chambers passed +the vacation at Oxford. + +'I am very sincerely solicitous for the preservation or curing of Mr. +Langton's sight, and am glad that the chirurgeon at Coventry gives him +so much hope. Mr. Sharpe is of opinion that the tedious maturation of +the cataract is a vulgar errour, and that it may be removed as soon as +it is formed. This notion deserves to be considered; I doubt whether it +be universally true; but if it be true in some cases, and those cases +can be distinguished, it may save a long and uncomfortable delay. + +'Of dear Mrs. Langton you give me no account; which is the less +friendly, as you know how highly I think of her, and how much I interest +myself in her health. I suppose you told her of my opinion, and likewise +suppose it was not followed; however, I still believe it to be right. + +[Page 358: Thomas Sheridan. A.D. 1761.] + +'Let me hear from you again, wherever you are, or whatever you are +doing; whether you wander or sit still, plant trees or make +_Rusticks_,[1060] play with your sisters or muse alone; and in return I +will tell you the success of Sheridan[1061], who at this instant is playing +Cato, and has already played Richard twice. He had more company the +second than the first night, and will make, I believe, a good figure in +the whole, though his faults seem to be very many; some of natural +deficience, and some of laborious affectation. He has, I think, no power +of assuming either that dignity or elegance which some men, who have +little of either in common life, can exhibit on the stage. His voice +when strained is unpleasing, and when low is not always heard. He seems +to think too much on the audience, and turns his face too often to the +galleries[1062]. + +'However, I wish him well; and among other reasons, because I like his +wife[1063]. + +'Make haste to write to, dear Sir, + +'Your most affectionate servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Oct. 18, 1760.' + +[Page 359: Instances of literary fraud. Ætat 52.] + + +1761: ÆTAT. 52.--In 1761 Johnson appears to have done little. He was +still, no doubt, proceeding in his edition of _Shakespeare_; but what +advances he made in it cannot be ascertained. He certainly was at this +time not active; for in his scrupulous examination of himself on Easter +eve, he laments, in his too rigorous mode of censuring his own conduct, +that his life, since the communion of the preceding Easter, had been +'dissipated and useless[1064].' He, however, contributed this year the +Preface[*] to _Rolt's Dictionary of Trade and Commerce_, in which he +displays such a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the subject, as +might lead the reader to think that its authour had devoted all his life +to it. I asked him whether he knew much of Rolt, and of his work. 'Sir, +(said he) I never saw the man, and never read the book. The booksellers +wanted a Preface to a _Dictionary of Trade and Commerce_. I knew very +well what such a Dictionary should be, and I wrote a Preface +accordingly.' Rolt, who wrote a great deal for the booksellers, was, as +Johnson told me, a singular character[1065]. Though not in the least +acquainted with him, he used to say, 'I am just come from Sam. Johnson.' +This was a sufficient specimen of his vanity and impudence. But he gave +a more eminent proof of it in our sister kingdom, as Dr. Johnson +informed me. When Akenside's _Pleasures of the Imagination_ first came +out, he did not put his name to the poem. Rolt went over to Dublin, +published an edition of it, and put his own name to it. Upon the fame of +this he lived for several months, being entertained at the best tables +as 'the ingenious Mr. Rolt[1066].' His conversation indeed, did not +discover much of the fire of a poet; but it was recollected, that both +Addison and Thomson were equally dull till excited by wine. Akenside +having been informed of this imposition, vindicated his right by +publishing the poem with its real authour's name. Several instances of +such literary fraud have been detected. The Reverend Dr. Campbell, of +St. Andrew's, wrote _An Enquiry into the original of Moral Virtue_, the +manuscript of which he sent to Mr. Innes, a clergyman in England, who +was his countryman and acquaintance. Innes published it with his own +name to it; and before the imposition was discovered, obtained +considerable promotion, as a reward of his merit[1067]. + +[Page 360: The Man of Feeling. A.D. 1781.] + +The celebrated Dr. Hugh Blair, and his cousin Mr. George Bannatine, when +students in divinity, wrote a poem, entitled, _The Resurrection_, copies +of which were handed about in manuscript. They were, at length, very +much surprised to see a pompous edition of it in folio, dedicated to the +Princess Dowager of Wales, by a Dr. Douglas, as his own. Some years ago +a little novel, entitled _The Man of Feeling_, was assumed by Mr. +Eccles, a young Irish clergyman, who was afterwards drowned near +Bath[1068]. He had been at the pains to transcribe the whole book, with +blottings, interlineations, and corrections, that it might be shewn to +several people as an original. It was, in truth, the production of Mr. +Henry Mackenzie, an Attorney in the Exchequer at Edinburgh, who is the +authour of several other ingenious pieces; but the belief with regard to +Mr. Eccles became so general, that it was thought necessary for +Messieurs Strahan and Cadell to publish an advertisement in the +newspapers, contradicting the report, and mentioning that they purchase +the copyright of Mr. Mackenzie[1069]. I can conceive this kind of fraud to +be very easily practised with successful effrontery. The _Filiation_ of +a literary performance is difficult of proof; seldom is there any +witness present at its birth. A man, either in confidence or by improper +means, obtains possession of a copy of it in manuscript, and boldly +publishes it as his own. The true authour, in many cases, may not be +able to make his title clear. Johnson, indeed, from the peculiar +features of his literary offspring, might bid defiance to any attempt to +appropriate them to others. + +'But Shakspeare's magick could not copied be, +Within that circle none durst walk but he[1070]!' + +[Page 361: Letter to Mr. Baretti. Ætat 52.] + +He this year lent his friendly assistance to correct and improve a +pamphlet written by Mr. Gwyn, the architect, entitled, _Thoughts on the +Coronation of George III_.[*] + +Johnson had now for some years admitted Mr. Baretti to his intimacy; nor +did their friendship cease upon their being separated by Baretti's +revisiting his native country, as appears from Johnson's letters to him. + +'To MR. JOSEPH BARETTI, AT MILAN[1071]. + +[Page 362: Baretti's knowledge of languages. A.D. 1761.] + +'You reproach me very often with parsimony of writing: but you may +discover by the extent of my paper, that I design to recompence rarity +by length. A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an +insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation;--a proof of +unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing +something. Yet it must be remembered, that he who continues the same +course of life in the same place, will have little to tell. One week and +one year are very like one another. The silent changes made by time are +not always perceived; and if they are not perceived, cannot be +recounted. I have risen and lain down, talked and mused, while you have +roved over a considerable part of Europe[1072]; yet I have not envied my +Baretti any of his pleasures, though, perhaps, I have envied others his +company: and I am glad to have other nations made acquainted with the +character of the English, by a traveller who has so nicely inspected our +manners, and so successfully studied our literature. I received your +kind letter from Falmouth, in which you gave me notice of your departure +for Lisbon, and another from Lisbon, in which you told me, that you were +to leave Portugal in a few days. To either of these how could any answer +be returned? I have had a third from Turin, complaining that I have not +answered the former. Your English style still continues in its purity +and vigour. With vigour your genius will supply it; but its purity must +be continued by close attention. To use two languages familiarly, and +without contaminating one by the other, is very difficult: and to use +more than two is hardly to be hoped[1073]. The praises which some have +received for their multiplicity of languages, may be sufficient to +excite industry, but can hardly generate confidence. + +'I know not whether I can heartily rejoice at the kind reception which +you have found, or at the popularity to which you are exalted. I am +willing that your merit should be distinguished; but cannot wish that +your affections may be gained. I would have you happy wherever you are: +yet I would have you wish to return to England. If ever you visit us +again, you will find the kindness of your friends undiminished. To tell +you how many enquiries are made after you, would be tedious, or if not +tedious, would be vain; because you may be told in a very few words, +that all who knew you wish you well; and that all that you embraced at +your departure, will caress you at your return: therefore do not let +Italian academicians nor Italian ladies drive us from your thoughts. You +may find among us what you will leave behind, soft smiles and easy +sonnets. Yet I shall not wonder if all our invitations should be +rejected: for there is a pleasure in being considerable at home, which +is not easily resisted. + +[Page 363: The Exhibition of Pictures. Ætat 52.] + +'By conducting Mr. Southwell[1074] to Venice, you fulfilled, I know, the +original contract: yet I would wish you not wholly to lose him from your +notice, but to recommend him to such acquaintance as may best secure him +from suffering by his own follies, and to take such general care both of +his safety and his interest as may come within your power. His relations +will thank you for any such gratuitous attention: at least they will not +blame you for any evil that may happen, whether they thank you or not +for any good. + +'You know that we have a new King and a new Parliament. Of the new +Parliament Fitzherbert[1075] is a member. We were so weary of our old King, +that we are much pleased with his successor; of whom we are so much +inclined to hope great things, that most of us begin already to believe +them. The young man is hitherto blameless; but it would be unreasonable +to expect much from the immaturity of juvenile years, and the ignorance +of princely education. He has been long in the hands of the Scots, and +has already favoured them more than the English will contentedly endure. +But, perhaps, he scarcely knows whom he has distinguished, or whom he +has disgusted. + +'The Artists have instituted a yearly Exhibition[1076] of pictures and +statues, in imitation, as I am told, of foreign academies. This year was +the second Exhibition. They please themselves much with the multitude of +spectators, and imagine that the English School will rise in reputation. +Reynolds is without a rival, and continues to add thousands to +thousands, which he deserves, among other excellencies, by retaining his +kindness for Baretti. This Exhibition has filled the heads of the +Artists and lovers of art. Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, +since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles[1077] to +rid us of our time, of that time which never can return. + +[Page 364: Johnson's indifference to pictures. A.D. 1761.] + +[Page 365: Monastick life. Ætat 52.] + +'I know my Baretti will not be satisfied with a letter in which I give +him no account of myself: yet what account shall I give him? I have not, +since the day of our separation, suffered or done any thing +considerable. The only change in my way of life is, that I have +frequented the theatre more than in former seasons. But I have gone +thither only to escape from myself. We have had many new farces, and the +comedy called _The Jealous Wife_[1078], which, though not written with much +genius, was yet so well adapted to the stage, and so well exhibited by +the actors, that it was crowded for near twenty nights. I am digressing +from myself to the play-house; but a barren plan must be filled with +episodes. Of myself I have nothing to say, but that I have hitherto +lived without the concurrence of my own judgment; yet I continue to +flatter myself, that, when you return, you will find me mended. I do not +wonder that, where the monastick life is permitted, every order finds +votaries, and every monastery inhabitants. Men will submit to any rule, +by which they may be exempted from the tyranny of caprice and of chance. +They are glad to supply by external authority their own want of +constancy and resolution, and court the government of others, when long +experience has convinced them of their own inability to govern +themselves[1079]. If I were to visit Italy, my curiosity would be more +attracted by convents than by palaces: though I am afraid that I should +find expectation in both places equally disappointed, and life in both +places supported with impatience and quitted with reluctance. That it +must be so soon quitted, is a powerful remedy against impatience; but +what shall free us from reluctance? Those who have endeavoured to teach +us to die well, have taught few to die willingly: yet I cannot but hope +that a good life might end at last in a contented death. + +'You see to what a train of thought I am drawn by the mention of myself. +Let me now turn my attention upon you. I hope you take care to keep an +exact journal, and to register all occurrences and observations[1080]; for +your friends here expect such a book of travels as has not been often +seen. You have given us good specimens in your letters from Lisbon. I +wish you had staid longer in Spain[1081], for no country is less known to +the rest of Europe; but the quickness of your discernment must make +amends for the celerity of your motions. He that knows which way to +direct his view, sees much in a little time. + +[Page 366: Chronology of the Scriptures. A.D. 1762.] + +'Write to me very often, and I will not neglect to write to you; and I +may, perhaps, in time, get something to write: at least, you will know +by my letters, whatever else they may have or want, that I continue to +be + +'Your most affectionate friend, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, June 10, 1761[1082].' + + +1762: ÆTAT. 53.--In 1762 he wrote for the Reverend Dr. Kennedy, Rector +of Bradley in Derbyshire, in a strain of very courtly elegance, a +Dedication to the King[*] of that gentleman's work, entitled, _A +complete System of Astronomical Chronology, unfolding the Scriptures_. +He had certainly looked at this work before it was printed; for the +concluding paragraph is undoubtedly of his composition, of which let my +readers judge: + +'Thus have I endeavoured to free Religion and History from the darkness +of a disputed and uncertain chronology; from difficulties which have +hitherto appeared insuperable, and darkness which no luminary of +learning has hitherto been able to dissipate. I have established the +truth of the Mosaical account, by evidence which no transcription can +corrupt, no negligence can lose, and no interest can pervert. I have +shewn that the universe bears witness to the inspiration of its +historian, by the revolution of its orbs and the succession of its +seasons; _that the stars in their courses fight against_[1083] incredulity, +that the works of GOD give hourly confirmation to the _law_, the +_prophets_, and the _gospel_, of which _one day telleth another, and one +night certifieth another_[1084]; and that the validity of the sacred +writings can never be denied, while the moon shall increase and wane, +and the sun shall know his going down[1085].' + +[Page 367: The care of living. Ætat 53.] + +He this year wrote also the Dedication[Dagger] to the Earl of Middlesex +of Mrs Lennox's _Female Quixote_[1086], and the Preface to the _Catalogue +of the Artists' Exhibition_.[Dagger] + +The following letter, which, on account of its intrinsick merit, it +would have been unjust both to Johnson and the publick to have +with-held, was obtained for me by the solicitation of my friend Mr. +Seward: + +'To DR. STAUNTON, (NOW SIR GEORGE STAUNTON, BARONET[1087].) + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I make haste to answer your kind letter, in hope of hearing again from +you before you leave us. I cannot but regret that a man of your +qualifications should find it necessary to seek an establishment in +Guadaloupe, which if a peace should restore to the French[1088], I shall +think it some alleviation of the loss, that it must restore likewise Dr. +Staunton to the English. + +'It is a melancholy consideration, that so much of our time is +necessarily to be spent upon the care of living, and that we can seldom +obtain ease in one respect but by resigning it in another; yet I suppose +we are by this dispensation not less happy in the whole, than if the +spontaneous bounty of Nature poured all that we want into our hands. A +few, if they were thus left to themselves, would, perhaps, spend their +time in laudable pursuits; but the greater part would prey upon the +quiet of each other, or, in the want of other objects, would prey upon +themselves. + +'This, however, is our condition, which we must improve and solace as we +can: and though we cannot choose always our place of residence, we may +in every place find rational amusements, and possess in every place the +comforts of piety and a pure conscience. + +'In America there is little to be observed except natural curiosities. +The new world must have many vegetables and animals with which +philosophers are but little acquainted. I hope you will furnish yourself +with some books of natural history, and some glasses and other +instruments of observation. Trust as little as you can to report; +examine all you can by your own senses. I do not doubt but you will be +able to add much to knowledge, and, perhaps, to medicine. Wild nations +trust to simples; and, perhaps, the Peruvian bark is not the only +specifick which those extensive regions may afford us. + +[Page 368: Improper expectations. A.D. 1762.] + +'Wherever you are, and whatever be your fortune, be certain, dear Sir, +that you carry with you my kind wishes; and that whether you return +hither, or stay in the other hemisphere[1089], to hear that you are happy +will give pleasure to, Sir, + +'Your most affectionate humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'June 1, 1762.' + +A lady having at this time solicited him to obtain the Archbishop of +Canterbury's patronage to have her son sent to the University, one of +those solicitations which are too frequent, where people, anxious for a +particular object, do not consider propriety, or the opportunity which +the persons whom they solicit have to assist them, he wrote to her the +following answer, with a copy of which I am favoured by the Reverend Dr. +Farmer[1090], Master of Emanuel College, Cambridge. + +'MADAM, + +'I hope you will believe that my delay in answering your letter could +proceed only from my unwillingness to destroy any hope that you had +formed. Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief +happiness which this world affords[1091]: but, like all other pleasures +immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and +expectations improperly indulged, must end in disappointment. If it be +asked, what is the improper expectation which it is dangerous to +indulge, experience will quickly answer, that it is such expectation as +is dictated not by reason, but by desire; expectation raised, not by the +common occurrences of life, but by the wants of the expectant; an +expectation that requires the common course of things to be changed, and +the general rules of action to be broken. + +[Page 369: Johnson's second letter to Baretti. Ætat 53.] + +'When you made your request to me, you should have considered, Madam, +what you were asking. You ask me to solicit a great man, to whom I never +spoke, for a young person whom I had never seen, upon a supposition +which I had no means of knowing to be true. There is no reason why, +amongst all the great, I should chuse to supplicate the Archbishop, nor +why, among all the possible objects of his bounty, the Archbishop should +chuse your son. I know, Madam, how unwillingly conviction is admitted, +when interest opposes it; but surely, Madam, you must allow, that there +is no reason why that should be done by me, which every other man may do +with equal reason, and which, indeed, no man can do properly, without +some very particular relation both to the Archbishop and to you. If I +could help you in this exigence by any proper means, it would give me +pleasure; but this proposal is so very remote from all usual methods, +that I cannot comply with it, but at the risk of such answer and +suspicions as I believe you do not wish me to undergo. + +'I have seen your son this morning; he seems a pretty youth, and will, +perhaps, find some better friend than I can procure him; but, though he +should at last miss the University, he may still be wise, useful, and +happy. I am, Madam, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'June 8, 1762.' + + +'To MR. JOSEPH BARETTI, AT MILAN. + +'London, July 20, 1762[1092]. + +'SIR, + +'However justly you may accuse me for want of punctuality in +correspondence, I am not so far lost in negligence as to omit the +opportunity of writing to you, which Mr. Beauclerk's passage through +Milan affords me. + +'I suppose you received the _Idlers_, and I intend that you shall soon +receive _Shakspeare_, that you may explain his works to the ladies of +Italy, and tell them the story of the editor, among the other strange +narratives with which your long residence in this unknown region has +supplied you. + +'As you have now been long away, I suppose your curiosity may pant for +some news of your old friends. Miss Williams and I live much as we did. +Miss Cotterel[1093] still continues to cling to Mrs. Porter, and +Charlotte[1094] is now big of the fourth child. Mr. Reynolds gets six +thousands a year[1095]. Levet is lately married, not without much suspicion +that he has been wretchedly cheated in his match[1096]. Mr. Chambers is +gone this day, for the first time, the circuit with the Judges. Mr. +Richardson is dead of an apoplexy[1097], and his second daughter has +married a merchant. + +[Page 370: Johnson's visit to Lichfield. A.D. 1762.] + +[Page 371: All happiness borrowed from hope. Ætat 53.] + +'My vanity, or my kindness, makes me flatter myself, that you would +rather hear of me than of those whom I have mentioned; but of myself I +have very little which I care to tell. Last winter I went down to my +native town[1098], where I found the streets much narrower and shorter than +I thought I had left them, inhabited by a new race of people, to whom I +was very little known. My play-fellows were grown old, and forced me to +suspect that I was no longer young. My only remaining friend has changed +his principles, and was become the tool of the predominant faction. My +daughter-in-law, from whom I expected most, and whom I met with sincere +benevolence, has lost the beauty and gaiety of youth, without having +gained much of the wisdom of age[1099]. I wandered about for five days, +[1100] and took the first convenient opportunity of returning to a place, +where, if there is not much happiness, there is, at least, such a +diversity of good and evil, that slight vexations do not fix upon the +heart[1101]. + +'I think in a few weeks to try another excursion[1102]; though to what end? +Let me know, my Baretti, what has been the result of your return to your +own country: whether time has made any alteration for the better, and +whether, when the first raptures of salutation were over, you did not +find your thoughts confessed their disappointment. + +'Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have no +greater occasions than the journey of a wit to his own town: yet such +pleasures and such pains make up the general mass of life; and as +nothing is little to him that feels it with great sensibility, a mind +able to see common incidents in their real state, is disposed by very +common incidents to very serious contemplations. Let us trust that a +time will come, when the present moment shall be no longer irksome; when +we shall not borrow all our happiness from hope, which at last is to end +in disappointment. + +'I beg that you will shew Mr. Beauclerk all the civilities which you +have in your power; for he has always been kind to me. + +'I have lately seen Mr. Stratico, Professor of Padua, who has told me of +your quarrel with an Abbot of the Celestine order; but had not the +particulars very ready in his memory. When you write to Mr. Marsili[1103], +let him know that I remember him with kindness. + +'May you, my Baretti, be very happy at Milan[1104], or some other place +nearer to, Sir, + +'Your most affectionate humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +[Page 372: The accession of George III. A.D. 1762.] + +[Page 373: Johnson's pension. Ætat 53.] + +The accession of George the Third to the throne of these kingdoms, +opened a new and brighter prospect to men of literary merit, who had +been honoured with no mark of royal favour in the preceding reign. His +present Majesty's education in this country, as well as his taste and +beneficence, prompted him to be the patron of science and the arts; and +early this year Johnson, having been represented to him as a very +learned and good man, without any certain provision, his Majesty was +pleased to grant him a pension of three hundred pounds a year[1105]. The +Earl of Bute, who was then Prime Minister, had the honour to announce +this instance of his Sovereign's bounty, concerning which, many and +various stories, all equally erroneous, have been propagated: +maliciously representing it as a political bribe to Johnson, to desert +his avowed principles, and become the tool of a government which he held +to be founded in usurpation. I have taken care to have it in my power to +refute them from the most authentick information. Lord Bute told me, +that Mr. Wedderburne, now Lord Loughborough, was the person who first +mentioned this subject to him[1106]. Lord Loughborough told me, that the +pension was granted to Johnson solely as the reward of his literary +merit, without any stipulation whatever, or even tacit understanding +that he should write for administration. His Lordship added, that he was +confident the political tracts which Johnson afterwards did write, as +they were entirely consonant with his own opinions, would have been +written by him though no pension had been granted to him[1107]. + +[Page 374: Johnson's interview with Lord Bute. A.D. 1762.] + +Mr. Thomas Sheridan and Mr. Murphy, who then lived a good deal both with +him and Mr. Wedderburne, told me, that they previously talked with +Johnson upon this matter, and that it was perfectly understood by all +parties that the pension was merely honorary. Sir Joshua Reynolds told +me, that Johnson called on him after his Majesty's intention had been +notified to him, and said he wished to consult his friends as to the +propriety of his accepting this mark of the royal favour, after the +definitions which he had given in his _Dictionary_ of _pension_ and +_pensioners_[1108]. He said he would not have Sir Joshua's answer till next +day, when he would call again, and desired he might think of it. Sir +Joshua answered that he was clear to give his opinion then, that there +could be no objection to his receiving from the King a reward for +literary merit; and that certainly the definitions in his _Dictionary_ +were not applicable to him. Johnson, it should seem, was satisfied, for +he did not call again till he had accepted the pension, and had waited +on Lord Bute to thank him. He then told Sir Joshua that Lord Bute said +to him expressly, 'It is not given you for anything you are to do, but +for what you have done.' His Lordship, he said, behaved in the +handsomest manner. He repeated the words twice, that he might be sure +Johnson heard them, and thus set his mind perfectly at ease. This +nobleman, who has been so virulently abused, acted with great honour in +this instance, and displayed a mind truly liberal. A minister of a more +narrow and selfish disposition would have availed himself of such an +opportunity to fix an implied obligation on a man of Johnson's powerful +talents to give him his support. + +[Page 375: Murphy's account of the pension. Ætat 53.] + +Mr. Murphy and the late Mr. Sheridan severally contended for the +distinction of having been the first who mentioned to Mr. Wedderburne +that Johnson ought to have a pension. When I spoke of this to Lord +Loughborough, wishing to know if he recollected the prime mover in the +business, he said, 'All his friends assisted:' and when I told him that +Mr. Sheridan strenuously asserted his claim to it, his Lordship said, +'He rang the bell.' And it is but just to add, that Mr. Sheridan told +me, that when he communicated to Dr. Johnson that a pension was to be +granted him, he replied in a fervour of gratitude, 'The English language +does not afford me terms adequate to my feelings on this occasion. I +must have recourse to the French. I am _pénétré_ with his Majesty's +goodness.' When I repeated this to Dr. Johnson, he did not contradict +it[1109]. + +His definitions of _pension_ and _pensioner_, partly founded on the +satirical verses of Pope[1110], which he quotes, may be generally true; and +yet every body must allow, that there may be, and have been, instances +of pensions given and received upon liberal and honourable terms. Thus, +then, it is clear, that there was nothing inconsistent or humiliating in +Johnson's accepting of a pension so unconditionally and so honourably +offered to him. + +[Page 376: Johnson's letter to Lord Bute. A.D. 1762.] + +But I shall not detain my readers longer by any words of my own, on a +subject on which I am happily enabled, by the favour of the Earl of +Bute, to present them with what Johnson himself wrote; his lordship +having been pleased to communicate to me a copy of the following letter +to his late father[1111], which does great honour both to the writer, and +to the noble person to whom it is addressed: + + + +'TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF BUTE. + +'MY LORD, + +'When the bills[1112] were yesterday delivered to me by Mr. Wedderburne, +I was informed by him of the future favours which his Majesty has, by +your Lordship's recommendation, been induced to intend for me. + +'Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is +bestowed; your Lordship's kindness includes every circumstance that can +gratify delicacy, or enforce obligation. You have conferred your favours +on a man who has neither alliance nor interest, who has not merited them +by services, nor courted them by officiousness; you have spared him the +shame of solicitation, and the anxiety of suspense. + +[Page 377: A visit to Devonshire. Ætat 53.] + +'What has been thus elegantly given, will, I hope, not be reproachfully +enjoyed; I shall endeavour to give your Lordship the only recompense +which generosity desires,--the gratification of finding that your +benefits are not improperly bestowed. I am, my Lord, + +'Your Lordship's most obliged, + +'Most obedient, and most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'July 20, 1762.' + +This year his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds paid a visit of some weeks to +his native country, Devonshire, in which he was accompanied by Johnson, +who was much pleased with this jaunt, and declared he had derived from +it a great accession of new ideas[1113]. He was entertained at the seats +of several noblemen and gentlemen in the West of England[1114]; but the +greatest part of the time was passed at Plymouth, where the magnificence +of the navy, the ship-building and all its circumstances, afforded him a +grand subject of contemplation. The Commissioner of the Dock-yard paid +him the compliment of ordering the yacht to convey him and his friend to +the Eddystone, to which they accordingly sailed. But the weather was so +tempestuous that they could not land[1115]. + +[Page 378: Johnson at Plymouth. A.D. 1762.] + +Reynolds and he were at this time the guests of Dr. Mudge[1116], the +celebrated surgeon, and now physician of that place, not more +distinguished for quickness of parts and variety of knowledge, than +loved and esteemed for his amiable manners; and here Johnson formed an +acquaintance with Dr. Mudge's father, that very eminent divine, the +Reverend Zachariah Mudge[1117], Prebendary of Exeter, who was idolised +in the west, both for his excellence as a preacher and the uniform +perfect propriety of his private conduct. He preached a sermon purposely +that Johnson might hear him; and we shall see afterwards that Johnson +honoured his memory by drawing his character[1118]. While Johnson was at +Plymouth, he saw a great many of its inhabitants, and was not sparing of +his very entertaining conversation. It was here that he made that frank +and truly original confession, that 'ignorance, pure ignorance,' was the +cause of a wrong definition in his _Dictionary_ of the word _pastern_ +[1119], to the no small surprise of the Lady who put the question +to him; who having the most profound reverence for his character, so as +almost to suppose him endowed with infallibility, expected to hear an +explanation (of what, to be sure, seemed strange to a common reader,) +drawn from some deep-learned source with which she was unacquainted. + +[Page 379: An enemy of the Dockers. Ætat 53.] + +Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom I was obliged for my information concerning +this excursion, mentions a very characteristical anecdote of Johnson +while at Plymouth. Having observed that in consequence of the Dock-yard +a new town[1120] had arisen about two miles off as a rival to the old; +and knowing from his sagacity, and just observation of human nature, that +it is certain if a man hates at all, he will hate his next neighbour; he +concluded that this new and rising town could not but excite the envy +and jealousy of the old, in which conjecture he was very soon confirmed; +he therefore set himself resolutely on the side of the old town, the +_established_ town, in which his lot was cast, considering it as a kind +of duty to _stand by_ it. He accordingly entered warmly into its +interests, and upon every occasion talked of the _dockers_, as the +inhabitants of the new town were called, as upstarts and aliens. +Plymouth is very plentifully supplied with water by a river brought into +it from a great distance, which is so abundant that it runs to waste in +the town. The Dock, or New-town, being totally destitute of water, +petitioned Plymouth that a small portion of the conduit might be +permitted to go to them, and this was now under consideration. Johnson, +affecting to entertain the passions of the place, was violent in +opposition; and, half-laughing at himself for his pretended zeal where +he had no concern, exclaimed, 'No, no! I am against the _dockers_; I am +a Plymouth-man. Rogues! let them die of thirst. They shall not have a +drop[1121]!' + +[Page 380: Johnson's third letter to Baretti. A.D. 1762.] + +Lord Macartney obligingly favoured me with a copy of the following +letter, in his own hand-writing, from the original, which was found, by +the present Earl of Bute, among his father's papers. + +'To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF BUTE. + +'MY LORD, + +'That generosity, by which I was recommended to the favour of his +Majesty, will not be offended at a solicitation necessary to make that +favour permanent and effectual. + +'The pension appointed to be paid me at Michaelmas I have not received, +and know not where or from whom I am to ask it. I beg, therefore, that +your Lordship will be pleased to supply Mr. Wedderburne with such +directions as may be necessary, which, I believe, his friendship will +make him think it no trouble to convey to me. + +'To interrupt your Lordship, at a time like this, with such petty +difficulties, is improper and unseasonable; but your knowledge of the +world has long since taught you, that every man's affairs, however +little, are important to himself. Every man hopes that he shall escape +neglect; and, with reason, may every man, whose vices do not preclude +his claim, expect favour from that beneficence which has been extended +to, + +'My Lord, + +'Your Lordship's + +'Most obliged + +'And + +'Most humble servant, + +'Temple Lane 'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Nov. 3, 1762.' + + +'TO MR. JOSEPH BARETTI, AT MILAN. + +'London, Dec. 21, 1762. + +SIR, + +[Page 381: Love and marriage. Ætat 53.] + +'You are not to suppose, with all your conviction of my idleness, that I +have passed all this time without writing to my Baretti. I gave a letter +to Mr. Beauclerk, who, in my opinion, and in his own, was hastening to +Naples for the recovery of his health[1122]; but he has stopped at Paris, +and I know not when he will proceed. Langton is with him. + +'I will not trouble you with speculations about peace and war. The good +or ill success of battles and embassies extends itself to a very small +part of domestick life: we all have good and evil, which we feel more +sensibly than our petty part of publick miscarriage or prosperity[1123]. +I am sorry for your disappointment, with which you seem more touched than +I should expect a man of your resolution and experience to have been, +did I not know that general truths are seldom applied to particular +occasions; and that the fallacy of our self-love extends itself as wide +as our interest or affections. Every man believes that mistresses are +unfaithful, and patrons capricious; but he excepts his own mistress, and +his own patron. We have all learned that greatness is negligent and +contemptuous, and that in Courts life is often languished away in +ungratified expectation; but he that approaches greatness, or glitters +in a Court, imagines that destiny has at last exempted him from the +common lot. + +'Do not let such evils overwhelm you as thousands have suffered, and +thousands have surmounted; but turn your thoughts with vigour to some +other plan of life, and keep always in your mind, that, with due +submission to Providence, a man of genius has been seldom ruined but by +himself[1124]. Your Patron's weakness or insensibility will finally do +you little hurt, if he is not assisted by your own passions. Of your love +I know not the propriety, nor can estimate the power; but in love, as in +every other passion, of which hope is the essence, we ought always to +remember the uncertainty of events. There is, indeed, nothing that so +much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with +an amiable woman; and if all would happen that a lover fancies, I know +not what other terrestrial happiness would deserve pursuit. But love and +marriage are different states. Those who are to suffer the evils +together, and to suffer often for the sake of one another, soon lose +that tenderness of look, and that benevolence of mind, which arose from +the participation of unmingled pleasure and successive amusement. A +woman, we are sure, will not be always fair; we are not sure she will +always be virtuous: and man cannot retain through life that respect and +assiduity by which he pleases for a day or for a month. I do not, +however, pretend to have discovered that life has any thing more to be +desired than a prudent and virtuous marriage; therefore know not what +counsel to give you. + +[Page 382: Johnson's Life of Collins. A.D. 1763.] + +'If you can quit your imagination of love and greatness, and leave your +hopes of preferment and bridal raptures to try once more the fortune of +literature and industry, the way through France is now open[1125]. We +flatter ourselves that we shall cultivate, with great diligence, the +arts of peace; and every man will be welcome among us who can teach us +any thing we do not know[1126]. For your part, you will find all your +old friends willing to receive you. + +'Reynolds still continues to increase in reputation and in riches. Miss +Williams, who very much loves you, goes on in the old way. Miss Cotterel +is still with Mrs. Porter. Miss Charlotte is married to Dean Lewis, and +has three children. Mr. Levet has married a street-walker[1127]. But the +gazette of my narration must now arrive to tell you, that Bathurst went +physician to the army, and died at the Havannah[1128]. + +'I know not whether I have not sent you word that Huggins[1129] and +Richardson[1130] are both dead. When we see our enemies and friends +gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the +general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed +for ever. + +'I pray GOD to bless you, and am, Sir, + +'Your most affectionate humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Write soon.' + +[Page 383: A dedication to the Queen. Ætat 54.] + + +1763: ÆTAT. 54.--In 1763 he furnished to _The Poetical Calendar_, +published by Fawkes and Woty, a character of Collins[*], which he +afterwards ingrafted into his entire life of that admirable poet[1131], +in the collection of lives which he wrote for the body of English poetry, +formed and published by the booksellers of London. His account of the +melancholy depression with which Collins was severely afflicted, and +which brought him to his grave, is, I think, one of the most tender and +interesting passages in the whole series of his writings[1132]. He also +favoured Mr. Hoole with the Dedication of his translation of _Tasso to +the Queen_,[*] which is so happily conceived and elegantly expressed, +that I cannot but point it out to the peculiar notice of my readers[1133]. + +[Page 384: Boswell's youthful compositions. A.D. 1763.] + +[Page 385: Johnson's quarrel with Sheridan. Ætat 54.] + +This is to me a memorable year; for in it I had the happiness to obtain +the acquaintance of that extraordinary man whose memoirs I am now +writing; an acquaintance which I shall ever esteem as one of the most +fortunate circumstances in my life. Though then but two-and-twenty[1134], I +had for several years read his works with delight and instruction, and +had the highest reverence for their authour, which had grown up in my +fancy into a kind of mysterious veneration[1135], by figuring to myself a +state of solemn elevated abstraction, in which I supposed him to live in +the immense metropolis of London. Mr. Gentleman, a native of Ireland, +who passed some years in Scotland as a player, and as an instructor in +the English language, a man whose talents and worth were depressed by +misfortunes[1136], had given me a representation of the figure and manner +of DICTIONARY JOHNSON, as he was then generally called[1137]; and during +my first visit to London, which was for three months in 1760, Mr. Derrick +the poet[1138], who was Gentleman's friend and countryman, flattered me +with hopes that he would introduce me to Johnson, an honour of which I +was very ambitious. But he never found an opportunity; which made me +doubt that he had promised to do what was not in his power; till Johnson +some years afterwards told me, 'Derrick, Sir, might very well have +introduced you. I had a kindness for Derrick, and am sorry he is dead.' + +In the summer of 1761 Mr. Thomas Sheridan was at Edinburgh, and +delivered lectures upon the English Language and Publick Speaking to +large and respectable audiences. I was often in his company, and heard +him frequently expatiate upon Johnson's extraordinary knowledge, +talents, and virtues, repeat his pointed sayings, describe his +particularities, and boast of his being his guest sometimes till two or +three in the morning. At his house I hoped to have many opportunities of +seeing the sage, as Mr. Sheridan obligingly assured me I should not be +disappointed. + +[Page 386: Sheridan's pension. A.D. 1763.] + +When I returned to London in the end of 1762, to my surprise and regret +I found an irreconcileable difference had taken place between Johnson +and Sheridan. A pension of two hundred pounds a year had been given to +Sheridan. Johnson, who, as has been already mentioned, thought +slightingly of Sheridan's art, upon hearing that he was also pensioned, +exclaimed, 'What! have they given _him_ a pension? Then it is time for +me to give up mine.' Whether this proceeded from a momentary +indignation, as if it were an affront to his exalted merit that a player +should be rewarded in the same manner with him, or was the sudden effect +of a fit of peevishness, it was unluckily said, and, indeed, cannot be +justified. Mr. Sheridan's pension was granted to him not as a player, +but as a sufferer in the cause of government, when he was manager of the +Theatre Royal in Ireland, when parties ran high in 1753[1139]. And it +must also be allowed that he was a man of literature, and had +considerably improved the arts of reading and speaking with distinctness +and propriety. + +Besides, Johnson should have recollected that Mr. Sheridan taught +pronunciation to Mr. Alexander Wedderburne[1140], whose sister was +married to Sir Harry Erskine[1141], an intimate friend of Lord Bute, who +was the favourite of the King; and surely the most outrageous Whig will +not maintain, that, whatever ought to be the principle in the disposal of +_offices_, a _pension_ ought never to be granted from any bias of court +connection. Mr. Macklin[1142], indeed, shared with Mr. Sheridan the honour +of instructing Mr. Wedderburne; and though it was too late in life for a +Caledonian to acquire the genuine English cadence, yet so successful +were Mr. Wedderburne's instructors, and his own unabating endeavours, +that he got rid of the coarse part of his Scotch accent, retaining only +as much of the 'native wood-note wild[1143],' as to mark his country; +which, if any Scotchman should affect to forget, I should heartily +despise him. Notwithstanding the difficulties which are to be +encountered by those who have not had the advantage of an English +education, he by degrees formed a mode of speaking to which Englishmen +do not deny the praise of elegance. Hence his distinguished oratory, +which he exerted in his own country as an advocate in the Court of +Session, and a ruling elder of the _Kirk_, has had its fame and ample +reward, in much higher spheres. When I look back on this noble person at +Edinburgh, in situations so unworthy of his brilliant powers, and behold +LORD LOUGHBOROUGH at London, the change seems almost like one of the +metamorphoses in _Ovid_; and as his two preceptors, by refining his +utterance, gave currency to his talents, we may say in the words of that +poet, '_Nam vos mutastis_[1144],' + +[Page 387: Lord Loughborough. Ætat 54.] + +I have dwelt the longer upon this remarkable instance of successful +parts and assiduity; because it affords animating encouragement to other +gentlemen of North-Britain to try their fortunes in the southern part of +the Island, where they may hope to gratify their utmost ambition; and +now that we are one people by the Union, it would surely be illiberal to +maintain, that they have not an equal title with the natives of any +other part of his Majesty's dominions. + +[Page 388: Sheridan's attack on Johnson. A.D. 1763.] + +[Page 389: Mrs. Sheridan. Ætat 54.] + +Johnson complained that a man who disliked him repeated his sarcasm to +Mr. Sheridan, without telling him what followed, which was, that after a +pause he added, 'However, I am glad that Mr. Sheridan has a pension, for +he is a very good man.' Sheridan could never forgive this hasty +contemptuous expression. It rankled in his mind; and though I informed +him of all that Johnson said, and that he would be very glad to meet him +amicably, he positively declined repeated offers which I made, and once +went off abruptly from a house where he and I were engaged to dine, +because he was told that Dr. Johnson was to be there[1145]. I have no +sympathetick feeling with such persevering resentment. It is painful +when there is a breach between those who have lived together socially +and cordially; and I wonder that there is not, in all such cases, a +mutual wish that it should be healed. I could perceive that Mr. Sheridan +was by no means satisfied with Johnson's acknowledging him to be a good +man[1146]. That could not sooth his injured vanity. I could not but smile, +at the same time that I was offended, to observe Sheridan in _The Life +of Swift_[1147], which he afterwards published, attempting, in the +writhings of his resentment, to depreciate Johnson, by characterising +him as 'A writer of gigantick fame in these days of little men;' that +very Johnson whom he once so highly admired and venerated. + +[Page 390: Mr. Thomas Davies. A.D. 1763.] + +This rupture with Sheridan deprived Johnson of one of his most agreeable +resources for amusement in his lonely evenings; for Sheridan's +well-informed, animated, and bustling mind never, suffered conversation +to stagnate; and Mrs. Sheridan[1148] was a most agreeable companion to an +intellectual man. She was sensible, ingenious, unassuming, yet +communicative. I recollect, with satisfaction, many pleasing hours which +I passed with her under the hospitable roof of her husband, who was to +me a very kind friend. Her novel, entitled _Memoirs of Miss Sydney +Biddulph_, contains an excellent moral while it inculcates a future +state of retribution[1149]; and what it teaches is impressed upon the +mind by a series of as deep distress as can affect humanity, in the +amiable and pious heroine who goes to her grave unrelieved, but resigned, +and full of hope of 'heaven's mercy.' Johnson paid her this high +compliment upon it: 'I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon +moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much[1150].' + +Mr. Thomas Davies the actor, who then kept a bookseller's shop in +Russel-street, Covent-garden[1151], told me that Johnson was very much his +friend, and came frequently to his house, where he more than once +invited me to meet him; but by some unlucky accident or other he was +prevented from coming to us. + +[Page 391: Mr. Davies's back-parlour. Ætat 54.] + +Mr. Thomas Davies was a man of good understanding and talents, with the +advantage of a liberal education[1152]. Though somewhat pompous, he was an +entertaining companion; and his literary performances[1153] have no +inconsiderable share of merit. He was a friendly and very hospitable +man. Both he and his wife, (who has been celebrated for her beauty[1154],) +though upon the stage for many years, maintained an uniform decency of +character; and Johnson esteemed them, and lived in as easy an intimacy +with them, as with any family which he used to visit[1155]. Mr. Davies +recollected several of Johnson's remarkable sayings, and was one of the +best of the many imitators of his voice and manner, while relating them. +He increased my impatience more and more to see the extraordinary man +whose works I highly valued, and whose conversation was reported to be +so peculiarly excellent. + +[Page 392: Boswell's introduction to Johnson. A.D. 1763.] + +[Page 393: His first record of Johnson's talk. Ætat 54.] + +At last, on Monday the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr. Davies's +back-parlour, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs. Davies, Johnson +unexpectedly came into the shop[1156]; and Mr. Davies having perceived him +through the glass-door in the room in which we were sitting, advancing +towards us,--he announced his aweful approach to me, somewhat in the +manner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet on +the appearance of his father's ghost, 'Look, my Lord, it comes.' I found +that I had a very perfect idea of Johnson's figure, from the portrait of +him painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds soon after he had published his +_Dictionary_, in the attitude of sitting in his easy chair in deep +meditation, which was the first picture his friend did for him, which +Sir Joshua very kindly presented to me, and from which an engraving has +been made for this work. Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully +introduced me to him. I was much agitated; and recollecting his +prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to +Davies, 'Don't tell where I come from.'--'From Scotland,' cried Davies +roguishly. 'Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I +cannot help it[1157].' I am willing to flatter myself that I meant this as +light pleasantry to sooth and conciliate him, and not as an humiliating +abasement at the expence of my country. But however that might be, this +speech was somewhat unlucky; for with that quickness of wit for which he +was so remarkable, he seized the expression 'come from Scotland,' which +I used in the sense of being of that country; and, as if I had said that +I had come away from it, or left it, retorted, 'That, Sir, I find, is +what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.' This stroke +stunned me a good deal; and when we had sat down, I felt myself not a +little embarrassed, and apprehensive of what might come next. He then +addressed himself to Davies: 'What do you think of Garrick? He has +refused me an order for the play for Miss Williams, because he knows the +house will be full, and that an order would be worth three shillings.' +Eager to take any opening to get into conversation with him, I ventured +to say, 'O, Sir, I cannot think Mr. Garrick would grudge such a trifle +to you.' 'Sir, (said he, with a stern look,) I have known David Garrick +longer than you have done: and I know no right you have to talk to me on +the subject.' Perhaps I deserved this check; for it was rather +presumptuous in me, an entire stranger, to express any doubt of the +justice of his animadversion upon his old acquaintance and pupil[1158]. I +now felt myself much mortified, and began to think that the hope which I +had long indulged of obtaining his acquaintance was blasted. And, in +truth, had not my ardour been uncommonly strong, and my resolution +uncommonly persevering, so rough a reception might have deterred me for +ever from making any further attempts. Fortunately, however, I remained +upon the field not wholly discomfited; and was soon rewarded by hearing +some of his conversation, of which I preserved the following short +minute, without marking the questions and observations by which it was +produced. + +'People (he remarked) may be taken in once, who imagine that an authour +is greater in private life than other men. Uncommon parts require +uncommon opportunities for their exertion. + +'In barbarous society, superiority of parts is of real consequence. +Great strength or great wisdom is of much value to an individual. But in +more polished times there are people to do every thing for money; and +then there are a number of other superiorities, such as those of birth +and fortune, and rank, that dissipate men's attention, and leave no +extraordinary share of respect for personal and intellectual +superiority. This is wisely ordered by Providence, to preserve some +equality among mankind.' + +[Page 394: Sheridan's lectures on Oratory. A.D. 1763.] + +'Sir, this book (_The Elements of Criticism_'[1159], which he had taken +up,) is a pretty essay, and deserves to be held in some estimation, +though much of it is chimerical.' + +Speaking of one who with more than ordinary boldness attacked publick +measures and the royal family, he said, + +'I think he is safe from the law, but he is an abusive scoundrel; and +instead of applying to my Lord Chief Justice to punish him, I would send +half a dozen footmen and have him well ducked[1160].' + +'The notion of liberty amuses the people of England, and helps to keep +off the _tædium vitæ_. When a butcher tells you that _his heart bleeds +for his country_, he has, in fact, no uneasy feeling.' + +'Sheridan will not succeed at Bath with his oratory. Ridicule has gone +down before him, and, I doubt, Derrick is his enemy[1161].' + +'Derrick may do very well, as long as he can outrun his character; but +the moment his character gets up with him, it is all over.' + +[Page 395: Boswell's first call on Johnson. Ætat 54.] + +It is, however, but just to record, that some years afterwards, when I +reminded him of this sarcasm, he said, 'Well, but Derrick has now got a +character that he need not run away from.' + +I was highly pleased with the extraordinary vigour of his conversation, +and regretted that I was drawn away from it by an engagement at another +place. I had, for a part of the evening, been left alone with him, and +had ventured to make an observation now and then, which he received very +civilly; so that I was satisfied that though there was a roughness in +his manner, there was no ill-nature in his disposition. Davies followed +me to the door, and when I complained to him a little of the hard blows +which the great man had given me, he kindly took upon him to console me +by saying, 'Don't be uneasy. I can see he likes you very well.' + +[Page 369: The Giant in his den. A.D. 1763.] + +A few days afterwards I called on Davies, and asked him if he thought I +might take the liberty of waiting on Mr. Johnson at his Chambers in the +Temple. He said I certainly might, and that Mr. Johnson would take it as +a compliment. So upon Tuesday the 24th of May, after having been +enlivened by the witty sallies of Messieurs Thornton[1162], Wilkes, +Churchill and Lloyd[1163], with whom I had passed the morning, I boldly +repaired to Johnson. His Chambers were on the first floor of No. 1, +Inner-Temple-lane, and I entered them with an impression given me by the +Reverend Dr. Blair[1164], of Edinburgh, who had been introduced to him not +long before, and described his having 'found the Giant in his den;' an +expression, which, when I came to be pretty well acquainted with +Johnson, I repeated to him, and he was diverted at this picturesque +account of himself. Dr. Blair had been presented to him by Dr. James +Fordyce[1165]. At this time the controversy concerning the pieces published +by Mr. James Macpherson, as translations of Ossian[1166], was at its +height. Johnson had all along denied their authenticity; and, what was +still more provoking to their admirers, maintained that they had no +merit. The subject having been introduced by Dr. Fordyce, Dr. Blair, +relying on the internal evidence of their antiquity, asked Dr. Johnson +whether he thought any man of a modern age could have written such +poems? Johnson replied, 'Yes, Sir, many men, many women, and many +children[1167].' Johnson, at this time, did not know that Dr. Blair had +just published a _Dissertation_, not only defending their authenticity, +but seriously ranking them with the poems of _Homer_ and _Virgil_; and +when he was afterwards informed of this circumstance, he expressed some +displeasure at Dr. Fordyce's having suggested the topick, and said, 'I +am not sorry that they got thus much for their pains. Sir, it was like +leading one to talk of a book when the authour is concealed behind the +door[1168].' + +[Page 397: Christopher Smart's madness. Ætat 54.] + +He received me very courteously; but, it must be confessed, that his +apartment, and furniture, and morning dress, were sufficiently uncouth. +His brown suit of cloaths looked very rusty; he had on a little old +shrivelled unpowdered wig, which was too small for his head; his +shirt-neck and knees of his breeches were loose; his black worsted +stockings ill drawn up; and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of +slippers. But all these slovenly particularities were forgotten the +moment that he began to talk. Some gentlemen, whom I do not recollect, +were sitting with him; and when they went away, I also rose; but he said +to me, 'Nay, don't go.' 'Sir, (said I,) I am afraid that I intrude upon +you. It is benevolent to allow me to sit and hear you.' He seemed +pleased with this compliment, which I sincerely paid him, and answered, +'Sir, I am obliged to any man who visits me.' I have preserved the +following short minute of what passed this day:-- + +'Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation +from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart shewed the +disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his +prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, +rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to +pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that +their understanding is not called in question.' + +Concerning this unfortunate poet, Christopher Smart, who was confined in +a mad-house, he had, at another time, the following conversation with +Dr. Burney:--BURNEY. 'How does poor Smart do, Sir; is he likely to +recover?' JOHNSON. 'It seems as if his mind had ceased to struggle with +the disease; for he grows fat upon it.' BURNEY. 'Perhaps, Sir, that may +be from want of exercise.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; he has partly as much +exercise as he used to have, for he digs in the garden. Indeed, before +his confinement, he used for exercise to walk to the ale-house; but he +was _carried_ back again. I did not think he ought to be shut up. His +infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying +with him[1169]; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. +Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no +passion for it.'--Johnson continued. 'Mankind have a great aversion to +intellectual labour[1170]; but even supposing knowledge to be easily +attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take +even a little trouble to acquire it.' + +[Page 398: Johnson's mode of life. A.D. 1763.] + +'The morality of an action depends on the motive from which we act. If I +fling half a crown to a beggar with intention to break his head, and he +picks it up and buys victuals with it, the physical effect is good; but, +with respect to me, the action is very wrong. So, religious exercises, +if not performed with an intention to please GOD, avail us nothing. As +our Saviour says of those who perform them from other motives, "Verily +they have their reward[1171]." + +'The Christian religion has very strong evidences[1172]. It, indeed, +appears in some degree strange to reason; but in History we have +undoubted facts, against which, reasoning _à priori_, we have more +arguments than we have for them; but then, testimony has great weight, +and casts the balance. I would recommend to every man whose faith is yet +unsettled, Grotius,--Dr. Pearson,--and Dr. Clarke[1173].' + +Talking of Garrick, he said, 'He is the first man in the world for +sprightly conversation.' + +When I rose a second time he again pressed me to stay, which I did. + +He told me, that he generally went abroad at four in the afternoon, and +seldom came home till two in the morning[1174]. I took the liberty to ask +if he did not think it wrong to live thus, and not make more use of his +great talents[1175]. He owned it was a bad habit. On reviewing, at the +distance of many years, my journal of this period, I wonder how, at my +first visit, I ventured to talk to him so freely, and that he bore it +with so much indulgence. + +[Page 399: Johnson the horse-rider. Ætat 54.] + +Before we parted, he was so good as to promise to favour me with his +company one evening at my lodgings; and, as I took my leave, shook me +cordially by the hand. It is almost needless to add, that I felt no +little elation at having now so happily established an acquaintance of +which I had been so long ambitious. + +My readers will, I trust, excuse me for being thus minutely +circumstantial, when it is considered that the acquaintance of Dr. +Johnson was to me a most valuable acquisition, and laid the foundation +of whatever instruction and entertainment they may receive from my +collections concerning the great subject of the work which they are now +perusing. + +I did not visit him again till Monday, June 13, at which time I +recollect no part of his conversation, except that when I told him I had +been to see Johnson ride upon three horses[1176], he said, 'Such a man, +Sir, should be encouraged; for his performances shew the extent of the +human powers in one instance, and thus tend to raise our opinion of the +faculties of man. He shews what may be attained by persevering +application; so that every man may hope, that by giving as much +application, although perhaps he may never ride three horses at a time, +or dance upon a wire, yet he may be equally expert in whatever +profession he has chosen to pursue.' + +He again shook me by the hand at parting, and asked me why I did not +come oftener to him. Trusting that I was now in his good graces, I +answered, that he had not given me much encouragement, and reminded him +of the check I had received from him at our first interview. 'Poh, poh! +(said he, with a complacent smile,) never mind these things. Come to me +as often as you can. I shall be glad to see you.' + +I had learnt that his place of frequent resort was the Mitre tavern in +Fleet-street, where he loved to sit up late, and I begged I might be +allowed to pass an evening with him there soon, which he promised I +should. A few days afterwards I met him near Temple-bar, about one +o'clock in the morning, and asked if he would then go to the Mitre. +'Sir, (said he) it is too late; they won't let us in. But I'll go with +you another night with all my heart.' + +[Page 400: A revolution in Boswell's life. A.D. 1763.] + +[Page 401: The Mitre. Ætat 54.] + +A revolution of some importance in my plan of life had just taken place; +for instead of procuring a commission in the footguards, which was my +own inclination[1177], I had, in compliance with my father's wishes, agreed +to study the law; and was soon to set out for Utrecht, to hear the +lectures of an excellent Civilian in that University, and then to +proceed on my travels. Though very desirous of obtaining Dr. Johnson's +advice and instructions on the mode of pursuing my studies, I was at +this time so occupied, shall I call it? or so dissipated, by the +amusements of London, that our next meeting was not till Saturday, June +25, when happening to dine at Clifton's eating-house, in Butcher-row[1178], +I was surprized to perceive Johnson come in and take his seat at another +table. The mode of dining, or rather being fed, at such houses in +London, is well known to many to be particularly unsocial, as there is +no Ordinary, or united company, but each person has his own mess, and is +under no obligation to hold any intercourse with any one. A liberal and +full-minded man, however, who loves to talk, will break through this +churlish and unsocial restraint. Johnson and an Irish gentleman got into +a dispute concerning the cause of some part of mankind being black. +'Why, Sir, said (Johnson,) it has been accounted for in three ways: +either by supposing that they are the posterity of Ham, who was cursed; +or that GOD at first created two kinds of men, one black and another +white; or that by the heat of the sun the skin is scorched, and so +acquires a sooty hue. This matter has been much canvassed among +naturalists, but has never been brought to any certain issue.' What the +Irishman said is totally obliterated from my mind; but I remember that +he became very warm and intemperate in his expressions; upon which +Johnson rose, and quietly walked away. When he had retired, his +antagonist took his revenge, as he thought, by saying, 'He has a most +ungainly figure, and an affectation of pomposity, unworthy of a man of +genius.' + +Johnson had not observed that I was in the room. I followed him, +however, and he agreed to meet me in the evening at the Mitre. I called +on him, and we went thither at nine. We had a good supper, and port +wine, of which he then sometimes drank a bottle. The orthodox +high-church sound of the MITRE,--the figure and manner of the celebrated +SAMUEL JOHNSON,--the extraordinary power and precision of his +conversation, and the pride arising from finding myself admitted as his +companion, produced a variety of sensations, and a pleasing elevation of +mind beyond what I had ever before experienced. I find in my journal the +following minute of our conversation, which, though it will give but a +very faint notion of what passed, is in some degree a valuable record; +and it will be curious in this view, as shewing how habitual to his mind +were some opinions which appear in his works. + +[Page 402: Cibber and Whitehead. A.D. 1763.] + +'Colley Cibber[1179], Sir, was by no means a blockhead; but by arrogating +to himself too much, he was in danger of losing that degree of +estimation to which he was entitled. His friends gave out that he +_intended_ his birth-day _Odes_ should be bad: but that was not the +case, Sir; for he kept them many months by him, and a few years before +he died he shewed me one of them, with great solicitude to render it as +perfect as might be, and I made some corrections, to which he was not +very willing to submit. I remember the following couplet in allusion to +the King and himself: + +"Perch'd on the eagle's soaring wing, +The lowly linnet loves to sing." + +Sir, he had heard something of the fabulous tale of the wren sitting +upon the eagle's wing, and he had applied it to a linnet. Gibber's +familiar style, however, was better than that which Whitehead has +assumed. _Grand_ nonsense is insupportable[1180]. Whitehead is but a +little man to inscribe verses to players.' + +I did not presume to controvert this censure, which was tinctured with +his prejudice against players[1181]; but I could not help thinking that a +dramatick poet might with propriety pay a compliment to an eminent +performer, as Whitehead has very happily done in his verses to Mr. +Garrick[1182]. + +[Page 403: The abruptness of Gray's Ode. Ætat 54.] + +'Sir, I do not think Gray a first-rate poet. He has not a bold +imagination, nor much command of words. The obscurity in which he has +involved himself will not persuade us that he is sublime[1183]. His +_Elegy in a Church-yard_ has a happy selection of images, but I don't +like what are called his great things. His _Ode_ which begins + + "Ruin seize thee, ruthless King, + Confusion on thy banners wait!" + +has been celebrated for its abruptness, and plunging into the subject +all at once[1184]. But such arts as these have no merit, unless when they +are original. We admire them only once; and this abruptness has nothing +new in it. We have had it often before. Nay, we have it in the old song +of Johnny Armstrong[1185]: + + "Is there ever a man in all Scotland + From the highest estate to the lowest degree, &c." + +And then, Sir, + + "Yes, there is a man in Westmoreland, + And Johnny Armstrong they do him call." + +There, now, you plunge at once into the subject. You have no previous +narration to lead you to it. The two next lines in that _Ode_ are, I +think, very good: + + "Though fann'd by conquest's crimson wing, + They mock the air with idle state[1186]."' + +[Page 404: Boswell opens his mind. A.D. 1763.] + +Here let it be observed, that although his opinion of Gray's poetry was +widely different from mine, and I believe from that of most men of +taste[1187], by whom it is with justice highly admired, there is +certainly much absurdity in the clamour which has been raised, as if he +had been culpably injurious to the merit of that bard, and had been +actuated by envy. Alas! ye little short-sighted criticks, could JOHNSON +be envious of the talents of any of his contemporaries? That his opinion +on this subject was what in private and in publick he uniformly expressed, +regardless of what others might think, we may wonder, and perhaps +regret; but it is shallow and unjust to charge him with expressing what +he did not think. + +Finding him in a placid humour, and wishing to avail myself of the +opportunity which I fortunately had of consulting a sage, to hear whose +wisdom, I conceived in the ardour of youthful imagination, that men +filled with a noble enthusiasm for intellectual improvement would gladly +have resorted from distant lands;--I opened my mind to him ingenuously, +and gave him a little sketch of my life, to which he was pleased to +listen with great attention[1188]. + +[Page 405: The differences of Christians. Ætat 54.] + +I acknowledged, that though educated very strictly in the principles of +religion, I had for some time been misled into a certain degree of +infidelity; but that I was come now to a better way of thinking, and was +fully satisfied of the truth of the Christian revelation, though I was +not clear as to every point considered to be orthodox. Being at all +times a curious examiner of the human mind, and pleased with an +undisguised display of what had passed in it, he called to me with +warmth, 'Give me your hand; I have taken a liking to you.' He then began +to descant upon the force of testimony, and the little we could know of +final causes; so that the objections of, why was it so? or why was it +not so? ought not to disturb us: adding, that he himself had at one +period been guilty of a temporary neglect of religion, but that it was +not the result of argument, but mere absence of thought[1189]. + +After having given credit to reports of his bigotry, I was agreeably +surprized when he expressed the following very liberal sentiment, which +has the additional value of obviating an objection to our holy religion, +founded upon the discordant tenets of Christians themselves: 'For my +part, Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree +in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and +rather political than religious[1190].' + +We talked of belief in ghosts. He said, 'Sir, I make a distinction +between what a man may experience by the mere strength of his +imagination, and what imagination cannot possibly produce. Thus, suppose +I should think that I saw a form, and heard a voice cry "Johnson, you +are a very wicked fellow, and unless you repent you will certainly be +punished;" my own unworthiness is so deeply impressed upon my mind, that +I might _imagine_ I thus saw and heard, and therefore I should not +believe that an external communication had been made to me. But if a +form should appear, and a voice should tell me that a particular man had +died at a particular place, and a particular hour, a fact which I had no +apprehension of, nor any means of knowing, and this fact, with all its +circumstances, should afterwards be unquestionably proved, I should, in +that case, be persuaded that I had supernatural intelligence imparted to +me.' + +[Page 406: The Cock-lane Ghost. A.D. 1763.] + +Here it is proper, once for all, to give a true and fair statement of +Johnson's way of thinking upon the question, whether departed spirits +are ever permitted to appear in this world, or in any way to operate +upon human life. He has been ignorantly misrepresented as weakly +credulous upon that subject; and, therefore, though I feel an +inclination to disdain and treat with silent contempt so foolish a +notion concerning my illustrious friend, yet as I find it has gained +ground, it is necessary to refute it. The real fact then is, that +Johnson had a very philosophical mind, and such a rational respect for +testimony, as to make him submit his understanding to what was +authentically proved, though he could not comprehend why it was so. +Being thus disposed, he was willing to inquire into the truth of any +relation of supernatural agency, a general belief of which has prevailed +in all nations and ages[1191]. But so far was he from being the dupe of +implicit faith, that he examined the matter with a jealous attention, +and no man was more ready to refute its falsehood when he had discovered +it. Churchill, in his poem entitled _The Ghost_, availed himself of the +absurd credulity imputed to Johnson, and drew a caricature of him under +the name of 'POMPOSO[1192],' representing him as one of the believers of +the story of a Ghost in Cock-lane, which, in the year 1762, had gained +very general credit in London[1193]. Many of my readers, I am convinced, +are to this hour under an impression that Johnson was thus foolishly +deceived. It will therefore surprise them a good deal when they are +informed upon undoubted authority, that Johnson was one of those by whom +the imposture was detected. The story had become so popular, that he +thought it should be investigated[1194]; and in this research he was +assisted by the Reverend Dr. Douglas[1195], now Bishop of Salisbury, the +great detector of impostures; who informs me, that after the gentlemen +who went and examined into the evidence were satisfied of its falsity, +Johnson wrote in their presence an account of it, which was published in +the newspapers and _Gentleman's Magazine_, and undeceived the world[1196]. + +[Page 408: Subordination. A.D. 1763.] + +Our conversation proceeded. 'Sir, (said he) I am a friend to +subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society[1197]. There +is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.' + +'Dr. Goldsmith is one of the first men we now have as an authour, and he +is a very worthy man too. He has been loose in his principles, but he is +coming right.' + +[Page 409: Scotch Landlords. Ætat 54.] + +I mentioned Mallet's tragedy of _Elvira_[1198], which had been acted the +preceding winter at Drury-lane, and that the Honourable Andrew +Erskine[1199], Mr. Dempster[1200], and myself, had joined in writing a +pamphlet, entitled, _Critical Strictures_, against it[1201]. That the +mildness of Dempster's disposition had, however, relented; and he had +candidly said, 'We have hardly a right to abuse this tragedy: for bad as +it is, how vain should either of us be to write one not near so good.' +JOHNSON. 'Why no, Sir; this is not just reasoning. You may abuse a +tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has +made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your +trade to make tables.' + +When I talked to him of the paternal estate to which I was heir, he +said, 'Sir, let me tell you, that to be a Scotch landlord, where you +have a number of families dependent upon you, and attached to you, is, +perhaps, as high a situation as humanity can arrive at. A merchant upon +the 'Change of London, with a hundred thousand pounds, is nothing; an +English Duke, with an immense fortune, is nothing; he has no tenants who +consider themselves as under his patriarchal care, and who will follow +him to the field upon an emergency.' + +His notion of the dignity of a Scotch landlord had been formed upon what +he had heard of the Highland Chiefs; for it is long since a lowland +landlord has been so curtailed in his feudal authority, that he has +little more influence over his tenants than an English landlord; and of +late years most of the Highland Chiefs have destroyed, by means too well +known, the princely power which they once enjoyed[1202]. + +[Page 410: Johnson's kindness of heart. A.D. 1763.] + +He proceeded: 'Your going abroad, Sir, and breaking off idle habits, may +be of great importance to you. I would go where there are courts and +learned men. There is a good deal of Spain that has not been +perambulated. I would have you go thither[1203]. A man of inferiour talents +to yours may furnish us with useful observations upon that country.' His +supposing me, at that period of life, capable of writing an account of +my travels that would deserve to be read, elated me not a little. + +I appeal to every impartial reader whether this faithful detail of his +frankness, complacency, and kindness to a young man, a stranger and a +Scotchman, does not refute the unjust opinion of the harshness of his +general demeanour. His occasional reproofs of folly, impudence, or +impiety, and even the sudden sallies of his constitutional irritability +of temper, which have been preserved for the poignancy of their wit, +have produced that opinion among those who have not considered that such +instances, though collected by Mrs. Piozzi into a small volume, and read +over in a few hours, were, in fact, scattered through a long series of +years; years, in which his time was chiefly spent in instructing and +delighting mankind by his writings and conversation, in acts of piety to +GOD, and good-will to men[1204]. + +I complained to him that I had not yet acquired much knowledge, and +asked his advice as to my studies[1205]. He said, 'Don't talk of study now. +I will give you a plan; but it will require some time to consider of +it.' 'It is very good in you (I replied,) to allow me to be with you +thus. Had it been foretold to me some years ago that I should pass an +evening with the authour of _The Rambler_, how should I have exulted!' +What I then expressed, was sincerely from the heart. He was satisfied +that it was, and cordially answered, 'Sir, I am glad we have met. I hope +we shall pass many evenings and mornings too, together.' We finished a +couple of bottles of port, and sat till between one and two in the +morning. + +[Page 411: Oliver Goldsmith. Ætat 54.] + +He wrote this year in the _Critical Review_ the account of 'Telemachus, +a Mask,' by the Reverend George Graham, of Eton College[1206]. The subject +of this beautiful poem was particularly interesting to Johnson, who had +much experience of 'the conflict of opposite principles,' which he +describes as 'The contention between pleasure and virtue, a struggle +which will always be continued while the present system of nature shall +subsist: nor can history or poetry exhibit more than pleasure triumphing +over virtue, and virtue subjugating pleasure.' + +[Page 412: Oliver Goldsmith. A.D. 1763.] + +As Dr. Oliver Goldsmith will frequently appear in this narrative, I +shall endeavour to make my readers in some degree acquainted with his +singular character. He was a native of Ireland, and a contemporary with +Mr. Burke at Trinity College, Dublin, but did not then give much promise +of future celebrity[1207]. He, however, observed to Mr. Malone, that +'though he made no great figure in mathematicks[1208], which was a study in +much repute there, he could turn an Ode of Horace into English better +than any of them.' He afterwards studied physick at Edinburgh, and upon +the Continent; and I have been informed, was enabled to pursue his +travels on foot[1209], partly by demanding at Universities to enter the +lists as a disputant, by which, according to the custom of many of them, +he was entitled to the premium of a crown, when luckily for him his +challenge was not accepted; so that, as I once observed to Dr. Johnson, +he _disputed_ his passage through Europe[1210]. He then came to England, +and was employed successively in the capacities of an usher to an +academy, a corrector of the press, a reviewer, and a writer for a +news-paper. He had sagacity enough to cultivate assiduously the +acquaintance of Johnson, and his faculties were gradually enlarged by +the contemplation of such a model. To me and many others it appeared +that he studiously copied the manner of Johnson[1211], though, indeed, upon +a smaller scale. + +At this time I think he had published nothing with his name[1212], though +it was pretty generally known that _one Dr. Goldsmith_ was the authour +of _An Enquiry into the present State of polite Learning in Europe_[1213], +and of _The Citizen of the World_[1214], a series of letters supposed to be +written from London by a Chinese. No man had the art of displaying with +more advantage as a writer, whatever literary acquisitions he made. +'_Nihil quod tetigit non ornavit_'[1215]. His mind resembled a fertile, but +thin soil. There was a quick, but not a strong vegetation, of whatever +chanced to be thrown upon it. No deep root could be struck. The oak of +the forest did not grow there; but the elegant shrubbery and the +fragrant parterre appeared in gay succession. It has been generally +circulated and believed that he was a mere fool in conversation[1216]; but, +in truth, this has been greatly exaggerated. + +He had, no doubt, a more than common share of that hurry of ideas which +we often find in his countrymen, and which sometimes produces a +laughable confusion in expressing them. He was very much what the French +call _un etourdi_[1217], and from vanity and an eager desire of being +conspicuous wherever he was, he frequently talked carelessly without +knowledge of the subject, or even without thought. His person was short, +his countenance coarse and vulgar, his deportment that of a scholar +awkwardly affecting the easy gentleman[1218]. Those who were in any way +distinguished, excited envy in him to so ridiculous an excess, that the +instances of it are hardly credible[1219]. When accompanying two beautiful +young ladies[1220] with their mother on a tour in France, he was seriously +angry that more attention was paid to them than to him[1221]; and once at +the exhibition of the _Fantoccini_[1222] in London, when those who sat next +him observed with what dexterity a puppet was made to toss a pike, he +could not bear that it should have such praise, and exclaimed with some +warmth, 'Pshaw! I can do it better myself[1223].' + +[Page 415: The Vicar of Wakefield. Ætat 54.] + +He, I am afraid, had no settled system of any sort[1224], so that his +conduct must not be strictly scrutinised; but his affections were social +and generous, and when he had money he gave it away very liberally. His +desire of imaginary consequence predominated over his attention to +truth. When he began to rise into notice, he said he had a brother who +was Dean of Durham[1225], a fiction so easily detected, that it is +wonderful how he should have been so inconsiderate as to hazard it. He +boasted to me at this time of the power of his pen in commanding money, +which I believe was true in a certain degree, though in the instance he +gave he was by no means correct. He told me that he had sold a novel for +four hundred pounds. This was his _Vicar of Wakefield_. But Johnson +informed me, that he had made the bargain for Goldsmith, and the price +was sixty pounds[1226]. 'And, Sir, (said he,) a sufficient price too, when +it was sold; for then the fame of Goldsmith had not been elevated, as it +afterwards was, by his _Traveller_; and the bookseller had such faint +hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the manuscript by him a +long time, and did not publish it till after _The Traveller_ had +appeared[1227]. Then, to be sure, it was accidentally worth more +money[1228].' + +Mrs. Piozzi[1229] and Sir John Hawkins[1230] have strangely mis-stated the +history of Goldsmith's situation and Johnson's friendly interference, +when this novel was sold. I shall give it authentically from Johnson's +own exact narration:--'I received one morning a message from poor +Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power +to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I +sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly +went as soon as I was drest, and found that his landlady had arrested +him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that +he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a +glass before him[1231]. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be +calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be +extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, +which he produced to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit; told the +landlady I should soon return, and having gone to a bookseller, sold it +for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his +rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him +so ill[1232].' + +[Page 417: Dr. John Campbell. Ætat 54.] + +My next meeting with Johnson was on Friday the 1st of July, when he and +I and Dr. Goldsmith supped together at the Mitre. I was before this time +pretty well acquainted with Goldsmith, who was one of the brightest +ornaments of the Johnsonian school[1233]. Goldsmith's respectful attachment +to Johnson was then at its height; for his own literary reputation had +not yet distinguished him so much as to excite a vain desire of +competition with his great Master. He had increased my admiration of the +goodness of Johnson's heart, by incidental remarks in the course of +conversation, such as, when I mentioned Mr. Levet, whom he entertained +under his roof, 'He is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough +to Johnson;' and when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of whom +I had heard a very bad character, 'He is now become miserable, and that +insures the protection of Johnson.' + +Goldsmith attempted this evening to maintain, I suppose from an +affectation of paradox, 'that knowledge was not desirable on its own +account, for it often was a source of unhappiness.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, +that knowledge may in some cases produce unhappiness, I allow. But, upon +the whole, knowledge, _per se_, is certainly an object which every man +would wish to attain, although, perhaps, he may not take the trouble +necessary for attaining it[1234].' + +[Page 418: Churchill's attack on Johnson. A.D. 1763.] + +Dr. John Campbell[1235], the celebrated political and biographical writer, +being mentioned, Johnson said, 'Campbell is a man of much knowledge, and +has a good share of imagination. His _Herinipptis Redivivus_[1236] is very +entertaining, as an account of the Hermetick philosophy, and as +furnishing a curious history of the extravagancies of the human mind. If +it were merely imaginary it would be nothing at all. Campbell is not +always rigidly careful of truth in his conversation; but I do not +believe there is any thing of this carelessness in his books[1237]. +Campbell is a good man, a pious man. I am afraid he has not been in the +inside of a church for many years[1238]; but he never passes a church +without pulling off his hat[1239]. This shews that he has good +principles[1240]. I used to go pretty often to Campbell's on a Sunday +evening[1241] till I began to consider that the shoals of Scotchmen who +flocked about him might probably say, when any thing of mine was well +done, 'Ay, ay, he has learnt this of CAWMELL!' + +[Page 419: Churchill's poetry. Ætat 54.] + +He talked very contemptuously of Churchill's poetry, observing that 'it +had a temporary currency, only from its audacity of abuse, and being +filled with living names, and that it would sink into oblivion.' I +ventured to hint that he was not quite a fair judge, as Churchill had +attacked him violently. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I am a very fair judge. He +did not attack me violently till he found I did not like his poetry[1242]; +and his attack on me shall not prevent me from continuing to say what I +think of him, from an apprehension that it may be ascribed to +resentment. No, Sir, I called the fellow a blockhead[1243] at first, and I +will call him a blockhead still. However, I will acknowledge that I have +a better opinion of him now, than I once had; for he has shewn more +fertility than I expected[1244]. To be sure, he is a tree that cannot +produce good fruit: he only bears crabs. But, Sir, a tree that produces +a great many crabs is better than a tree which produces only a few.' + +[Page 420: Bonnell Thornton's ODE. A.D. 1763.] + +In this depreciation of Churchill's poetry I could not agree with +him[1245]. It is very true that the greatest part of it is upon the topicks +of the day, on which account, as it brought him great fame and profit at +the time[1246], it must proportionally slide out of the publick attention +as other occasional objects succeed. But Churchill had extraordinary +vigour both of thought and expression. His portraits of the players will +ever be valuable to the true lovers of the drama; and his strong +caricatures of several eminent men of his age, will not be forgotten by +the curious. Let me add, that there are in his works many passages which +are of a general nature[1247]; and his _Prophecy of Famine_ is a poem of no +ordinary merit. It is, indeed, falsely injurious to Scotland, but +therefore may be allowed a greater share of invention. + +Bonnell Thornton had just published a burlesque _Ode on St. Cecilia's +day, adapted to the ancient British musick, viz. the salt-box, the +Jew's-harp, the marrow-bones and cleaver, the humstrum or hurdy-gurdy, +&c_. Johnson praised its humour, and seemed much diverted with it. He +repeated the following passage:-- + +'In strains more exalted the salt-box shall join, +And clattering and battering and clapping combine; +With a rap and a tap while the hollow side sounds, +Up and down leaps the flap, and with rattling rebounds[1248]. + +I mentioned the periodical paper called _The Connoisseur[1249]_. He said it +wanted matter.--No doubt it has not the deep thinking of Johnson's +writings. But surely it has just views of the surface of life, and a +very sprightly manner. His opinion of _The World_ was not much higher +than of the _Connoisseur_. + +[Page 421: Tea with Miss Williams. Ætat 54.] + +Let me here apologize for the imperfect manner in which I am obliged to +exhibit Johnson's conversation at this period. In the early part of my +acquaintance with him, I was so wrapt in admiration of his extraordinary +colloquial talents, and so little accustomed to his peculiar mode of +expression, that I found it extremely difficult to recollect and record +his conversation with its genuine vigour and vivacity. In progress of +time, when my mind was, as it were, _strongly impregnated--with the +Johnsonian æther_, I could, with much more facility and exactness, carry +in my memory and commit to paper the exuberant variety of his wisdom and +wit. + +At this time _Miss_ Williams, as she was then called, though she did not +reside with him in the Temple under his roof, but had lodgings in +Bolt-court, Fleet-street[1250], had so much of his attention, that he every +night drank tea with her before he went home, however late it might be, +and she always sat up for him. This, it may be fairly conjectured, was +not alone a proof of his regard for _her_, but of his own unwillingness +to go into solitude, before that unseasonable hour at which he had +habituated himself to expect the oblivion of repose. Dr. Goldsmith, +being a privileged man, went with him this night, strutting away, and +calling to me with an air of superiority, like that of an esoterick over +an exoterick disciple of a sage of antiquity, 'I go to Miss Williams.' I +confess, I then envied him this mighty privilege, of which he seemed so +proud; but it was not long before I obtained the same mark of +distinction[1251]. + +On Tuesday the 5th of July, I again visited Johnson. He told me he had +looked into the poems of a pretty voluminous writer, Mr. (now Dr.) John +Ogilvie, one of the Presbyterian ministers of Scotland, which had lately +come out, but could find no thinking in them. BOSWELL. 'Is there not +imagination in them, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, there is in them what +_was_ imagination, but it is no more imagination in _him_, than sound is +sound in the echo. And his diction too is not his own. We have long ago +seen _white-robed innocence_, and _flower-bespangled meads_.' + +[Page 422: The immensity of London. A.D. 1763.] + +Talking of London, he observed, 'Sir, if you wish to have a just notion +of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its +great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes +and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the +multiplicity of human habitations which are crouded together, that the +wonderful immensity of London consists.'--I have often amused myself +with thinking how different a place London is to different people. They, +whose narrow minds are contracted to the consideration of some one +particular pursuit, view it only through that medium. A politician +thinks of it merely as the seat of government in its different +departments; a grazier, as a vast market for cattle; a mercantile man, +as a place where a prodigious deal of business is done upon 'Change; a +dramatick enthusiast, as the grand scene of theatrical entertainments; a +man of pleasure, as an assemblage of taverns, and the great emporium for +ladies of easy virtue. But the intellectual man is struck with it, as +comprehending the whole of human life in all its variety, the +contemplation of which is inexhaustible[1252]. + +[Page 423: Goldsmith's eagerness to shine. Ætat 54.] + +On Wednesday, July 6, he was engaged to sup with me at my lodgings in +Downing-street, Westminster. But on the preceding night my landlord +having behaved very rudely to me and some company who were with me, I +had resolved not to remain another night in his house. I was exceedingly +uneasy at the aukward appearance I supposed I should make to Johnson and +the other gentlemen whom I had invited, not being able to receive them +at home, and being obliged to order supper at the Mitre. I went to +Johnson in the morning, and talked of it as a serious distress. He +laughed, and said, 'Consider, Sir, how insignificant this will appear a +twelvemonth hence.'--Were this consideration to be applied to most of +the little vexatious incidents of life, by which our quiet is too often +disturbed, it would prevent many painful sensations. I have tried it +frequently, with good effect. 'There is nothing (continued he) in this +mighty misfortune; nay, we shall be better at the Mitre.' I told him +that I had been at Sir John Fielding's office, complaining of my +landlord, and had been informed, that though I had taken my lodgings for +a year, I might, upon proof of his bad behaviour, quit them when I +pleased, without being under an obligation to pay rent for any longer +time than while I possessed them. The fertility of Johnson's mind could +shew itself even upon so small a matter as this. 'Why, Sir, (said he,) I +suppose this must be the law, since you have been told so in Bow-street. +But, if your landlord could hold you to your bargain, and the lodgings +should be yours for a year, you may certainly use them as you think fit. +So, Sir, you may quarter two life-guardsmen upon him; or you may send +the greatest scoundrel you can find into your apartments; or you may say +that you want to make some experiments in natural philosophy, and may +burn a large quantity of assafoetida in his house.' + +I had as my guests this evening at the Mitre tavern, Dr. Johnson, Dr. +Goldsmith, Mr. Thomas Davies, Mr. Eccles, an Irish gentleman, for whose +agreeable company I was obliged to Mr. Davies, and the Reverend Mr. John +Ogilvie[1253], who was desirous of being in company with my illustrious +friend, while I, in my turn, was proud to have the honour of shewing one +of my countrymen upon what easy terms Johnson permitted me to live with +him. + +[Page 424: The lawfulness of rebellion. A.D. 1763.] + +Goldsmith, as usual, endeavoured, with too much eagerness, to +_shine_[1254], and disputed very warmly with Johnson against the well-known +maxim of the British constitution, 'the King can do no wrong;' +affirming, that 'what was morally false could not be politically true; +and as the King might, in the exercise of his regal power, command and +cause the doing of what was wrong, it certainly might be said, in sense +and in reason, that he could do wrong.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you are to +consider, that in our constitution, according to its true principles, +the King is the head; he is supreme; he is above every thing, and there +is no power by which he can be tried. Therefore, it is, Sir, that we +hold the King can do no wrong; that whatever may happen to be wrong in +government may not be above our reach, by being ascribed to Majesty[1255]. +Redress is always to be had against oppression, by punishing the +immediate agents. The King, though he should command, cannot force a +Judge to condemn a man unjustly; therefore it is the Judge whom we +prosecute and punish. Political institutions are formed upon the +consideration of what will most frequently tend to the good of the +whole, although now and then exceptions may occur. Thus it is better in +general that a nation should have a supreme legislative power, although +it may at times be abused. And then, Sir, there is this consideration, +that _if the abuse be enormous, Nature will rise up, and claiming her +original rights, overturn a corrupt political system_.' I mark this +animated sentence with peculiar pleasure, as a noble instance of that +truly dignified spirit of freedom which ever glowed in his heart, though +he was charged with slavish tenets by superficial observers; because he +was at all times indignant against that false patriotism, that pretended +love of freedom, that unruly restlessness, which is inconsistent with +the stable authority of any good government[1256]. + +This generous sentiment, which he uttered with great fervour, struck me +exceedingly, and stirred my blood to that pitch of fancied resistance, +the possibility of which I am glad to keep in mind, but to which I trust +I never shall be forced. + +[Page 425: A Scotchman's noblest prospect. Ætat 54.] + +'Great abilities (said he) are not requisite for an Historian; for in +historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are +quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of +invention. Imagination is not required in any high degree; only about as +much as is used in the lower kinds of poetry. Some penetration, +accuracy, and colouring will fit a man for the task, if he can give the +application which is necessary[1257].' + +'Bayle's _Dictionary_ is a very useful work for those to consult who +love the biographical part of literature, which is what I love most.' +[1258] + +Talking of the eminent writers in Queen Anne's reign, he observed, 'I +think Dr. Arbuthnot the first man among them[1259]. He was the most +universal genius, being an excellent physician, a man of deep learning, +and a man of much humour. Mr. Addison was, to be sure, a great man; his +learning was not profound; but his morality, his humour, and his +elegance of writing, set him very high.' + +Mr. Ogilvie was unlucky enough to choose for the topick of his +conversation the praises of his native country. He began with saying, +that there was very rich land round Edinburgh. Goldsmith, who had +studied physick there, contradicted this, very untruly, with a sneering +laugh[1260]. Disconcerted a little by this, Mr. Ogilvie then took new +ground, where, I suppose, he thought himself perfectly safe; for he +observed, that Scotland had a great many noble wild prospects. JOHNSON. +'I believe, Sir, you have a great many. Norway, too, has noble wild +prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild +prospects. But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a +Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England[1261]!' + +[Page 426: The influence of weather. A.D. 1763.] + +This unexpected and pointed sally produced a roar of applause. After +all, however, those, who admire the rude grandeur of Nature, cannot deny +it to Caledonia. + +On Saturday, July 9, I found Johnson surrounded with a numerous levee, +but have not preserved any part of his conversation. On the 14th we had +another evening by ourselves at the Mitre. It happening to be a very +rainy night, I made some common-place observations on the relaxation of +nerves and depression of spirits which such weather occasioned[1262]; +adding, however, that it was good for the vegetable creation. Johnson, +who, as we have already seen[1263], denied that the temperature of the air +had any influence on the human frame, answered, with a smile of +ridicule, 'Why yes, Sir, it is good for vegetables, and for the animals +who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those animals.' +This observation of his aptly enough introduced a good supper; and I +soon forgot, in Johnson's company, the influence of a moist atmosphere. + +[Page 427: Boswell's father. Ætat 54.] + +Feeling myself now quite at ease as his companion, though I had all +possible reverence for him, I expressed a regret that I could not be so +easy with my father[1264], though he was not much older than Johnson, and +certainly however respectable had not more learning and greater +abilities to depress me. I asked him the reason of this. JOHNSON. 'Why, +Sir, I am a man of the world. I live in the world, and I take, in some +degree, the colour of the world as it moves along. Your father is a +Judge in a remote part of the island, and all his notions are taken from +the old world. Besides, Sir, there must always be a struggle between a +father and son, while one aims at power and the other at +independence[1265].' I said, I was afraid my father would force me to be a +lawyer. JOHNSON. 'Sir, you need not be afraid of his forcing you to be a +laborious practising lawyer; that is not in his power. For as the +proverb says, "One man may lead a horse to the water, but twenty cannot +make him drink." He may be displeased that you are not what he wishes +you to be; but that displeasure will not go far. If he insists only on +your having as much law as is necessary for a man of property, and then +endeavours to get you into Parliament, he is quite in the right.' + +He enlarged very convincingly upon the excellence of rhyme over blank +verse in English poetry[1266]. I mentioned to him that Dr. Adam Smith, in +his lectures upon composition, when I studied under him in the College +of Glasgow, had maintained the same opinion strenuously, and I repeated +some of his arguments. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I was once in company with Smith, +and we did not take to each other[1267]; but had I known that he loved +rhyme as much as you tell me he does, I should have HUGGED him.' + +[Page 428: The evidences of Christianity. A.D. 1763.] + +Talking of those who denied the truth of Christianity, he said, 'It is +always easy to be on the negative side. If a man were now to deny that +there is salt upon the table, you could not reduce him to an absurdity. +Come, let us try this a little further. I deny that Canada is taken, and +I can support my denial by pretty good arguments. The French are a much +more numerous people than we; and it is not likely that they would allow +us to take it. "But the ministry have assured us, in all the formality +of _The Gazette_, that it is taken."--Very true. But the ministry have +put us to an enormous expence by the war in America, and it is their +interest to persuade us that we have got something for our money.--"But +the fact is confirmed by thousands of men who were at the taking of +it."--Ay, but these men have still more interest in deceiving us. They +don't want that you should think the French have beat them, but that +they have beat the French. Now suppose you should go over and find that +it is really taken, that would only satisfy yourself; for when you come +home we will not believe you. We will say, you have been bribed.--Yet, +Sir, notwithstanding all these plausible objections, we have no doubt +that Canada is really ours. Such is the weight of common testimony. How +much stronger are the evidences of the Christian religion!' + +'Idleness is a disease which must be combated; but I would not advise a +rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never +persisted in any plan for two days together. A man ought to read just as +inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little +good. A young man should read five hours in a day, and so may acquire a +great deal of knowledge[1268].' + +[Page 429: Johnson's pension. Ætat 54.] + +To a man of vigorous intellect and arduous curiosity like his own, +reading without a regular plan may be beneficial; though even such a man +must submit to it, if he would attain a full understanding of any of the +sciences. + +To such a degree of unrestrained frankness had he now accustomed me, +that in the course of this evening I talked of the numerous reflections +which had been thrown out against him[1269] on account of his having +accepted a pension from his present Majesty. 'Why, Sir, (said he, with a +hearty laugh,) it is a mighty foolish noise that they make[1270]. I have +accepted of a pension as a reward which has been thought due to my +literary merit; and now that I have this pension, I am the same man in +every respect that I have ever been[1271]; I retain the same principles. +It is true, that I cannot now curse (smiling) the House of Hanover; nor +would it be decent for me to drink King James's health in the wine that +King George gives me money to pay for. But, Sir, I think that the +pleasure of cursing the House of Hanover, and drinking King James's +health, are amply overbalanced by three hundred pounds a year.' + +[Page 430: Johnson's Jacobitism. A.D. 1763.] + +There was here, most certainly, an affectation of more Jacobitism than +he really had; and indeed an intention of admitting, for the moment, in +a much greater extent than it really existed, the charge of disaffection +imputed to him by the world[1272], merely for the purpose of shewing how +dexterously he could repel an attack, even though he were placed in the +most disadvantageous position; for I have heard him declare, that if +holding up his right hand would have secured victory at Culloden to +Prince Charles's army, he was not sure he would have held it up; so +little confidence had he in the right claimed by the house of Stuart, +and so fearful was he of the consequences of another revolution on the +throne of Great-Britain; and Mr. Topham Beauclerk assured me, he had +heard him say this before he had his pension. At another time he said to +Mr. Langton, 'Nothing has ever offered, that has made it worth my while +to consider the question fully.' He, however, also said to the same +gentleman, talking of King James the Second, 'It was become impossible +for him to reign any longer in this country.'[1273] He no doubt had an +early attachment to the House of Stuart; but his zeal had cooled as his +reason strengthened. Indeed I heard him once say, that 'after the death +of a violent Whig, with whom he used to contend with great eagerness, he +felt his Toryism much abated.'[1274] I suppose he meant Mr. Walmsley. +[1275] + +[Page 431: Whiggism. Ætat 54.] + +Yet there is no doubt that at earlier periods he was wont often to +exercise both his pleasantry and ingenuity in talking Jacobitism. My +much respected friend, Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury, has +favoured me with the following admirable instance from his Lordship's +own recollection. One day when dining at old Mr. Langton's where Miss +Roberts,[1276] his niece, was one of the company, Johnson, with his usual +complacent attention to the fair sex, took her by the hand and said, 'My +dear, I hope you are a Jacobite.' Old Mr. Langton, who, though a high +and steady Tory, was attached to the present Royal Family, seemed +offended, and asked Johnson, with great warmth, what he could mean by +putting such a question to his niece? 'Why, Sir, (said Johnson) I meant +no offence to your niece, I meant her a great compliment. A Jacobite, +Sir, believes in the divine right of Kings. He that believes in the +divine right of Kings believes in a Divinity. A Jacobite believes in the +divine right of Bishops. He that believes in the divine right of Bishops +believes in the divine authority of the Christian religion. Therefore, +Sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist nor a Deist. That cannot be said +of a Whig; for _Whiggism is a negation of all principle_[1277].' + +He advised me, when abroad, to be as much as I could with the Professors +in the Universities, and with the Clergy; for from their conversation I +might expect the best accounts of every thing in whatever country I +should be, with the additional advantage of keeping my learning alive. + +It will be observed, that when giving me advice as to my travels, Dr. +Johnson did not dwell upon cities, and palaces, and pictures, and shows, +and Arcadian scenes. He was of Lord Essex's opinion, who advises his +kinsman Roger Earl of Rutland, 'rather to go an hundred miles to speak +with one wise man, than five miles to see a fair town[1278].' + +[Page 432: Lord Hailes. A.D. 1763.] + +I described to him an impudent fellow[1279] from Scotland, who affected to +be a savage, and railed at all established systems. JOHNSON. 'There is +nothing surprizing in this, Sir. He wants to make himself conspicuous. +He would tumble in a hogstye, as long as you looked at him and called to +him to come out. But let him alone, never mind him, and he'll soon give +it over.' + +I added, that the same person maintained that there was no distinction +between virtue and vice. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, if the fellow does not +think as he speaks, he is lying; and I see not what honour he can +propose to himself from having the character of a lyar. But if he does +really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, +Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons[1280].' + +Sir David Dalrymple, now one of the Judges of Scotland by the title of +Lord Hailes, had contributed much to increase my high opinion of +Johnson, on account of his writings, long before I attained to a +personal acquaintance with him; I, in return, had informed Johnson of +Sir David's eminent character for learning and religion[1281]; and Johnson +was so much pleased, that at one of our evening meetings he gave him for +his toast. I at this time kept up a very frequent correspondence with +Sir David; and I read to Dr. Johnson to-night the following passage from +the letter which I had last received from him:-- + +'It gives me pleasure to think that you have obtained the friendship of +Mr. Samuel Johnson. He is one of the best moral writers which England +has produced. At the same time, I envy you the free and undisguised +converse with such a man. May I beg you to present my best respects to +him, and to assure him of the veneration which I entertain for the +authour of the _Rambler_ and of _Rasselas_? Let me recommend this last +work to you; with the _Rambler_ you certainly are acquainted. In +_Rasselas_ you will see a tender-hearted operator, who probes the wound +only to heal it. Swift, on the contrary, mangles human nature. He cuts +and slashes, as if he took pleasure in the operation, like the tyrant +who said, _Ita feri ut se sentiat emori_[1282].' + +[Page 433: Journal-keeping. Ætat 54.] + +Johnson seemed to be much gratified by this just and well-turned +compliment. + +He recommended to me to keep a journal of my life, full and +unreserved[1283]. He said it would be a very good exercise, and would yield +me great satisfaction when the particulars were faded from my +remembrance. I was uncommonly fortunate in having had a previous +coincidence of opinion with him upon this subject, for I had kept such a +journal for some time[1284]; and it was no small pleasure to me to have +this to tell him, and to receive his approbation. He counselled me to +keep it private, and said I might surely have a friend who would burn it +in case of my death. From this habit I have been enabled to give the +world so many anecdotes, which would otherwise have been lost to +posterity. I mentioned that I was afraid I put into my journal too many +little incidents. JOHNSON. 'There is nothing, Sir, too little for so +little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain +the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as +possible[1285].' + +[Page 434: Sir Thomas Robinson. A.D. 1763.] + +Next morning Mr. Dempster happened to call on me, and was so much struck +even with the imperfect account which I gave him of Dr. Johnson's +conversation, that to his honour be it recorded, when I complained that +drinking port and sitting up late with him affected my nerves for some +time after, he said, 'One had better be palsied at eighteen than not +keep company with such a man[1286].' + +[Page 435: The King of Prussia. Ætat 54.] + +On Tuesday, July 18[1287], I found tall Sir Thomas Robinson[1288] +sitting with Johnson. Sir Thomas said, that the king of Prussia valued +himself upon three things;--upon being a hero, a musician, and an +authour. JOHNSON. 'Pretty well, Sir, for one man. As to his being an +authour, I have not looked at his poetry; but his prose is poor stuff. +He writes just as you might suppose Voltaire's footboy to do, who has +been his amanuensis. He has such parts as the valet might have, and about +as much of the colouring of the style as might be got by transcribing his +works.' When I was at Ferney, I repeated this to Voltaire, in order to +reconcile him somewhat to Johnson, whom he, in affecting the English mode +of expression, had previously characterised as 'a superstitious dog;' but +after hearing such a criticism on Frederick the Great, with whom he was +then on bad terms, he exclaimed, 'An honest fellow[1289]!' + +But I think the criticism much too severe; for the _Memoirs of the House +of Brandenburgh_ are written as well as many works of that kind. His +poetry, for the style of which he himself makes a frank apology, +'_Jargonnant un François barbare_,' though fraught with pernicious +ravings of infidelity, has, in many places, great animation, and in some +a pathetick tenderness[1290]. + +Upon this contemptuous animadversion on the King of Prussia, I observed +to Johnson, 'It would seem then, Sir, that much less parts are necessary +to make a King, than to make an Authour; for the King of Prussia is +confessedly the greatest King now in Europe, yet you think he makes a +very poor figure as an Authour.' + +[Page 436: Johnson's library. A.D. 1763.] + +Mr. Levet this day shewed me Dr. Johnson's library, which was contained +in two garrets over his Chambers, where Lintot, son of the celebrated +bookseller of that name, had formerly his warehouse[1291]. I found a +number of good books, but very dusty and in great confusion[1292]. The +floor was strewed with manuscript leaves, in Johnson's own hand-writing, +which I beheld with a degree of veneration, supposing they perhaps might +contain portions of _The Rambler_ or of _Rasselas_. I observed an +apparatus for chymical experiments, of which Johnson was all his life +very fond[1293]. The place seemed to be very favourable for retirement +and meditation. Johnson told me, that he went up thither without +mentioning it to his servant, when he wanted to study, secure from +interruption; for he would not allow his servant to say he was not at +home when he really was. 'A servant's strict regard for truth, (said he) +must be weakened by such a practice. A philosopher may know that it is +merely a form of denial; but few servants are such nice distinguishers. +If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for _me_, have I not reason to +apprehend that he will tell many lies for _himself_.' I am, however, +satisfied that every servant, of any degree of intelligence, understands +saying his master is not at home, not at all as the affirmation of a +fact, but as customary words, intimating that his master wishes not to be +seen; so that there can be no bad effect from it. + +[Page 437: Copyright in books. Ætat 54.] + +Mr. Temple, now vicar of St. Gluvias, Cornwall[1294], who had been my +intimate friend for many years, had at this time chambers in +Farrar's-buildings, at the bottom of Inner Temple-lane, which he kindly +lent me upon my quitting my lodgings, he being to return to Trinity +Hall, Cambridge. I found them particularly convenient for me, as they +were so near Dr. Johnson's. + +On Wednesday, July 20, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Dempster, and my uncle Dr. +Boswell, who happened to be now in London, supped with me at these +Chambers. JOHNSON. 'Pity is not natural to man. Children are always +cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the +cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a +creature in distress, without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish +to relieve them. When I am on my way to dine with a friend, and finding +it late, have bid the coachman make haste, if I happen to attend when he +whips his horses, I may feel unpleasantly that the animals are put to +pain, but I do not wish him to desist. No, Sir, I wish him to drive on.' + +Mr. Alexander Donaldson, bookseller of Edinburgh, had for some time +opened a shop in London, and sold his cheap editions of the most popular +English books, in defiance of the supposed common-law right of _Literary +Property_[1295]. Johnson, though he concurred in the opinion which was +afterwards sanctioned by a judgement of the House of Lords[1296], that +there was no such right, was at this time very angry that the +Booksellers of London, for whom he uniformly professed much regard, +should suffer from an invasion of what they had ever considered to be +secure: and he was loud and violent against Mr. Donaldson. 'He is a +fellow who takes advantage of the law to injure his brethren; for, +notwithstanding that the statute secures only fourteen years of +exclusive right, it has always been understood by _the trade_[1297], that +he, who buys the copyright of a book from the authour, obtains a +perpetual property; and upon that belief, numberless bargains are made +to transfer that property after the expiration of the statutory term. +Now Donaldson, I say, takes advantage here, of people who have really an +equitable title from usage; and if we consider how few of the books, of +which they buy the property, succeed so well as to bring profit, we +should be of opinion that the term of fourteen years is too short; it +should be sixty years.' DEMPSTER. 'Donaldson, Sir, is anxious for the +encouragement of literature. He reduces the price of books, so that poor +students may buy them[1298].' JOHNSON, (laughing) 'Well, Sir, allowing +that to be his motive, he is no better than Robin Hood, who robbed the +rich in order to give to the poor.' + +[Page 439: Humes style. Ætat 54.] + +It is remarkable, that when the great question concerning Literary +Property came to be ultimately tried before the supreme tribunal of this +country, in consequence of the very spirited exertions of Mr. +Donaldson[1299], Dr. Johnson was zealous against a perpetuity; but he +thought that the term of the exclusive right of authours should be +considerably enlarged. He was then for granting a hundred years. + +The conversation now turned upon Mr. David Hume's style. JOHNSON. 'Why, +Sir, his style is not English; the structure of his sentences is +French[1300]. Now the French structure and the English structure may, in +the nature of things, be equally good. But if you allow that the English +language is established, he is wrong. My name might originally have been +Nicholson, as well as Johnson; but were you to call me Nicholson now, +you would call me very absurdly.' + +[Page 440: Merit set against fortune. A.D. 1763.] + +Rousseau's treatise on the inequality of mankind[1301] was at this time a +fashionable topick. It gave rise to an observation by Mr. Dempster, that +the advantages of fortune and rank were nothing to a wise man, who ought +to value only merit. JOHNSON. 'If man were a savage, living in the woods +by himself, this might be true; but in civilized society we all depend +upon each other, and our happiness is very much owing to the good +opinion of mankind. Now, Sir, in civilized society, external advantages +make us more respected. A man with a good coat upon his back meets with +a better reception than he who has a bad one[1302]. + +[Page 441: The 'advantages' of poverty. Ætat 54.] + +Sir, you may analyse this, and say what is there in it? But that will +avail you nothing, for it is a part of a general system. Pound St. +Paul's Church into atoms, and consider any single atom; it is, to be +sure, good for nothing: but, put all these atoms together, and you have +St. Paul's Church. So it is with human felicity, which is made up of +many ingredients, each of which may be shewn to be very insignificant. +In civilized society, personal merit will not serve you so much as money +will. Sir, you may make the experiment. Go into the street, and give one +man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will +respect you most. If you wish only to support nature, Sir William Petty +fixes your allowance at three pounds a year[1303] but as times are much +altered, let us call it six pounds. This sum will fill your belly, +shelter you from the weather, and even get you a strong lasting coat, +supposing it to be made of good bull's hide. Now, Sir, all beyond this +is artificial, and is desired in order to obtain a greater degree of +respect from our fellow-creatures. And, Sir, if six hundred pounds a +year procure a man more consequence, and, of course, more happiness than +six pounds a year, the same proportion will hold as to six thousand, and +so on as far as opulence can be carried. Perhaps he who has a large +fortune may not be so happy as he who has a small one; but that must +proceed from other causes than from his having the large fortune: for, +_caeteris paribus_, he who is rich in a civilized society, must be +happier than he who is poor; as riches, if properly used, (and it is a +man's own fault if they are not,) must be productive of the highest +advantages. Money, to be sure, of itself is of no use; for its only use +is to part with it. Rousseau, and all those who deal in paradoxes, are +led away by a childish desire of novelty[1304]. When I was a boy, I used +always to choose the wrong side of a debate, because most ingenious +things, that is to say, most new things, could be said upon it. Sir, +there is nothing for which you may not muster up more plausible +arguments, than those which are urged against wealth and other external +advantages. Why, now, there is stealing; why should it be thought a +crime? When we consider by what unjust methods property has been often +acquired, and that what was unjustly got it must be unjust to keep, +where is the harm in one man's taking the property of another from him? +Besides, Sir, when we consider the bad use that many people make of +their property, and how much better use the thief may make of it, it may +be defended as a very allowable practice. Yet, Sir, the experience of +mankind has discovered stealing to be so very bad a thing, that they +make no scruple to hang a man for it. When I was running about this town +a very poor fellow, I was a great arguer for the advantages of poverty; +but I was, at the same time, very sorry to be poor. Sir, all the +arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, shew it to +be evidently a great evil. You never find people labouring to convince +you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune.--So you +hear people talking how miserable a King must be; and yet they all wish +to be in his place[1305].' + +[Page 442: Great Kings always social. A.D. 1763.] + +It was suggested that Kings must be unhappy, because they are deprived +of the greatest of all satisfactions, easy and unreserved society. +JOHNSON. 'That is an ill-founded notion. Being a King does not exclude a +man from such society. Great Kings have always been social. The King of +Prussia, the only great King at present, is very social[1306]. Charles the +Second, the last King of England who was a man of parts, was social; and +our Henrys and Edwards were all social.' + +Mr. Dempster having endeavoured to maintain that intrinsick merit +_ought_ to make the only distinction amongst mankind. JOHNSON. 'Why, +Sir, mankind have found that this cannot be. How shall we determine the +proportion of intrinsick merit? Were that to be the only distinction +amongst mankind, we should soon quarrel about the degrees of it. Were +all distinctions abolished, the strongest would not long acquiesce, but +would endeavour to obtain a superiority by their bodily strength. But, +Sir, as subordination is very necessary for society, and contensions for +superiority very dangerous, mankind, that is to say, all civilized +nations, have settled it upon a plain invariable principle. A man is +born to hereditary rank; or his being appointed to certain offices, +gives him a certain rank. Subordination tends greatly to human +happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other +enjoyment than mere animal pleasure[1307].' + +[Page 443: Johnson's respect for rank. Ætat 54.] + +I said, I considered distinction of rank to be of so much importance in +civilised society, that if I were asked on the same day to dine with the +first Duke in England, and with the first man in Britain for genius, I +should hesitate which to prefer. JOHNSON. 'To be sure, Sir, if you were +to dine only once, and it were never to be known where you dined, you +would choose rather to dine with the first man for genius; but to gain +most respect, you should dine with the first Duke in England. For nine +people in ten that you meet with, would have a higher opinion of you for +having dined with a Duke; and the great genius himself would receive you +better, because you had been with the great Duke.' + +He took care to guard himself against any possible suspicion that his +settled principles of reverence for rank and respect for wealth were at +all owing to mean or interested motives; for he asserted his own +independence as a literary man. 'No man (said he) who ever lived by +literature, has lived more independently than I have done.' He said he +had taken longer time than he needed to have done in composing his +_Dictionary_. He received our compliments upon that great work with +complacency, and told us that the Academy _della Crusca_[1308] could +scarcely believe that it was done by one man. + +[Page 444: Sceptical innovators. A.D. 1763.] + +Next morning I found him alone, and have preserved the following +fragments of his conversation. Of a gentleman[1309] who was mentioned, he +said, 'I have not met with any man for a long time who has given me such +general displeasure. He is totally unfixed in his principles, and wants +to puzzle other people. I said his principles had been poisoned by a +noted infidel writer, but that he was, nevertheless, a benevolent good +man. JOHNSON. 'We can have no dependance upon that instinctive, that +constitutional goodness which is not founded upon principle. I grant you +that such a man may be a very amiable member of society. I can conceive +him placed in such a situation that he is not much tempted to deviate +from what is right; and as every man prefers virtue, when there is not +some strong incitement to transgress its precepts, I can conceive him +doing nothing wrong. But if such a man stood in need of money, I should +not like to trust him; and I should certainly not trust him with young +ladies, for _there_ there is always temptation. Hume, and other +sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any +expence. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they +have betaken themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield +such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull[1310]. If I +could have allowed myself to gratify my vanity at the expence of truth, +what fame might I have acquired. Every thing which Hume has advanced +against Christianity had passed through my mind long before he wrote. +Always remember this, that after a system is well settled upon positive +evidence, a few partial objections ought not to shake it. The human mind +is so limited, that it cannot take in all the parts of a subject, so +that there may be objections raised against any thing. There are +objections against a _plenum_, and objections against a _vacuum_; yet +one of them must certainly be true[1311].' + +[Page 445: The proofs of Christianity. Ætat 54.] + +I mentioned Hume's argument against the belief of miracles, that it is +more probable that the witnesses to the truth of them are mistaken, or +speak falsely, than that the miracles should be true[1312]. JOHNSON. +'Why, Sir, the great difficulty of proving miracles should make us very +cautious in believing them. But let us consider; although GOD has made +Nature to operate by certain fixed laws, yet it is not unreasonable to +think that he may suspend those laws, in order to establish a system +highly advantageous to mankind. Now the Christian religion is a most +beneficial system, as it gives us light and certainty where we were +before in darkness and doubt. The miracles which prove it are attested +by men who had no interest in deceiving us; but who, on the contrary, +were told that they should suffer persecution, and did actually lay down +their lives in confirmation of the truth of the facts which they +asserted. Indeed, for some centuries the heathens did not pretend to +deny the miracles; but said they were performed by the aid of evil +spirits. This is a circumstance of great weight. Then, Sir, when we take +the proofs derived from prophecies which have been so exactly fulfilled, +we have most satisfactory evidence. Supposing a miracle possible, as to +which, in my opinion, there can be no doubt, we have as strong evidence +for the miracles in support of Christianity, as the nature of the thing +admits.' + +At night Mr. Johnson and I supped in a private room at the Turk's Head +coffee-house, in the Strand[1313]. 'I encourage this house (said he;) for +the mistress of it is a good civil woman, and has not much business.' + +'Sir, I love the acquaintance of young people; because, in the first +place, I don't like to think myself growing old. In the next place, +young acquaintances must last longest, if they do last; and then, Sir, +young men have more virtue than old men; they have more generous +sentiments in every respect[1314]. I love the young dogs of this age: they +have more wit and humour and knowledge of life than we had; but then the +dogs are not so good scholars, Sir, in my early years I read very hard. +It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at +eighteen as I do now[1315]. My judgement, to be sure, was not so good; but +I had all the facts. I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old +gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and +acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will +find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task."' + +[Page 446: Remedies for melancholy. A.D. 1763.] + +This account of his reading, given by himself in plain words, +sufficiently confirms what I have already advanced upon the disputed +question as to his application. It reconciles any seeming inconsistency +in his way of talking upon it at different times; and shews that +idleness and reading hard were with him relative terms, the import of +which, as used by him, must be gathered from a comparison with what +scholars of different degrees of ardour and assiduity have been known to +do. And let it be remembered, that he was now talking spontaneously, and +expressing his genuine sentiments; whereas at other times he might be +induced from his spirit of contradiction, or more properly from his love +of argumentative contest, to speak lightly of his own application to +study. It is pleasing to consider that the old gentleman's gloomy +prophecy as to the irksomeness of books to men of an advanced age, which +is too often fulfilled, was so far from being verified in Johnson, that +his ardour for literature never failed, and his last writings had more +ease and vivacity than any of his earlier productions. + +He mentioned to me now, for the first time, that he had been distrest by +melancholy, and for that reason had been obliged to fly from study and +meditation, to the dissipating variety of life. Against melancholy he +recommended constant occupation of mind, a great deal of exercise, +moderation in eating and drinking, and especially to shun drinking at +night. He said melancholy people were apt to fly to intemperance for +relief, but that it sunk them much deeper in misery[1316]. He observed, +that labouring men who work hard, and live sparingly, are seldom or +never troubled with low spirits. + +[Page 447: Mrs. Macaulay's footman. Ætat 54.] + +[Page 448: Levelling up. A.D. 1763.] + +He again insisted on the duty of maintaining subordination of rank. +'Sir, I would no more deprive a nobleman of his respect, than of his +money. I consider myself as acting a part in the great system of +society, and I do to others as I would have them to do to me. I would +behave to a nobleman as I should expect he would behave to me, were I a +nobleman and he Sam. Johnson. Sir, there is one Mrs. Macaulay[1317] in this +town, a great republican. One day when I was at her house, I put on a +very grave countenance, and said to her, "Madam, I am now become a +convert to your way of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are +upon an equal footing; and to give you an unquestionable proof, Madam, +that I am in earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, well-behaved +fellow-citizen, your footman; I desire that he may be allowed to sit +down and dine with us[1318]." I thus, Sir, shewed her the absurdity of the +levelling doctrine. She has never liked me since. Sir, your levellers +wish to level _down_ as far as themselves; but they cannot bear +levelling _up_ to themselves. They would all have some people under +them; why not then have some people above them?' I mentioned a certain +authour who disgusted me by his forwardness, and by shewing no deference +to noblemen into whose company he was admitted. JOHNSON. 'Suppose a +shoemaker should claim an equality with him, as he does with a Lord; how +he would stare. "Why, Sir, do you stare? (says the shoemaker,) I do +great service to society. 'Tis true I am paid for doing it; but so are +you, Sir: and I am sorry to say it, paid better than I am, for doing +something not so necessary. For mankind could do better without your +books, than without my shoes." Thus, Sir, there would be a perpetual +struggle for precedence, were there no fixed invariable rules for the +distinction of rank, which creates no jealousy, as it is allowed to be +accidental.' + +He said, Dr. Joseph Warton was a very agreeable man, and his _Essay on +the Genius and Writings of Pope_, a very pleasing book. I wondered that +he delayed so long to give us the continuation of it[1319]. JOHNSON. 'Why, +Sir, I suppose he finds himself a little disappointed, in not having +been able to persuade the world to be of his opinion as to Pope.' + +We have now been favoured with the concluding volume, in which, to use a +parliamentary expression, he has _explained_, so as not to appear quite +so adverse to the opinion of the world, concerning Pope, as was at first +thought[1320]; and we must all agree that his work is a most valuable +accession to English literature. + +[Page 449: Sir James Macdonald. Ætat 54.] + +A writer of deserved eminence[1321] being mentioned, Johnson said, 'Why, +Sir, he is a man of good parts, but being originally poor, he has got a +love of mean company and low jocularity; a very bad thing, Sir. To laugh +is good, as to talk is good. But you ought no more to think it enough if +you laugh, than you are to think it enough if you talk. You may laugh in +as many ways as you talk; and surely _every_ way of talking that is +practised cannot be esteemed.' + +[Page 450: Mark's WESTERN ISLES. A.D. 1763.] + +I spoke of Sir James Macdonald[1322] as a young man of most distinguished +merit, who united the highest reputation at Eaton and Oxford, with the +patriarchal spirit of a great Highland Chieftain. I mentioned that Sir +James had said to me, that he had never seen Mr. Johnson, but he had a +great respect for him, though at the same time it was mixed with some +degree of terrour[1323]. JOHNSON. 'Sir, if he were to be acquainted with +me, it might lessen both.' + +[Page 451: A schoolboy's happiness. Ætat 54.] + +The mention of this gentleman led us to talk of the Western Islands of +Scotland, to visit which he expressed a wish that then appeared to me a +very romantick fancy, which I little thought would be afterwards +realised[1324]. He told me, that his father had put Martin's account of +those islands into his hands when he was very young, and that he was +highly pleased with it; that he was particularly struck with the St. +Kilda man's notion that the high church of Glasgow had been hollowed out +of a rock[1325]; a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnson had directed his +attention. He said he would go to the Hebrides with me, when I returned +from my travels, unless some very good companion should offer when I was +absent, which he did not think probable; adding, 'There are few people +to whom I take so much to as you.' And when I talked of my leaving +England, he said with a very affectionate air, 'My dear Boswell, I +should be very unhappy at parting, did I think we were not to meet +again[1326].' I cannot too often remind my readers, that although such +instances of his kindness are doubtless very flattering to me, yet I +hope my recording them will be ascribed to a better motive than to +vanity; for they afford unquestionable evidence of his tenderness and +complacency, which some, while they were forced to acknowledge his great +powers, have been so strenuous to deny. + +He maintained that a boy at school was the happiest of human beings[1327]. +I supported a different opinion, from which I have never yet varied, +that a man is happier; and I enlarged upon the anxiety and sufferings +which are endured at school. JOHNSON. 'Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is +not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him. Men +have a solicitude about fame[1328]; and the greater share they have of it, +the more afraid they are of losing it.' I silently asked myself, 'Is it +possible that the great SAMUEL JOHNSON really entertains any such +apprehension, and is not confident that his exalted fame is established +upon a foundation never to be shaken?' + +He this evening drank a bumper to Sir David Dalrymple[1329], 'as a man of +worth, a scholar, and a wit.' 'I have (said he) never heard of him +except from you; but let him know my opinion of him: for as he does not +shew himself much in the world, he should have the praise of the few who +hear of him.' + +[Page 452: The Tale Of A Tub. A.D. 1763.] + +On Tuesday, July 26, I found Mr. Johnson alone. It was a very wet day, +and I again complained of the disagreeable effects of such weather. +JOHNSON. 'Sir, this is all imagination, which physicians encourage; for +man lives in air, as a fish lives in water; so that if the atmosphere +press heavy from above, there is an equal resistance from below. To be +sure, bad weather is hard upon people who are obliged to be abroad; and +men cannot labour so well in the open air in bad weather, as in good: +but, Sir, a smith or a taylor, whose work is within doors, will surely +do as much in rainy weather, as in fair. Some very delicate frames, +indeed, may be affected by wet weather; but not common constitutions.' +[1330] + +We talked of the education of children; and I asked him what he thought +was best to teach them first. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is no matter what you +teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your +breeches first. Sir, you may stand disputing which is best to put in +first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are +considering which of two things you should teach your child first, +another boy has learnt them both.' + +On Thursday, July 28, we again supped in private at the Turk's Head +coffee-house. JOHNSON. 'Swift has a higher reputation than he deserves. +His excellence is strong sense; for his humour, though very well, is not +remarkably good. I doubt whether _The Tale of a Tub_ be his; for he +never owned it, and it is much above his usual manner[1331].' + +[Page 453: Mr. Thomas Sheridan's dulness. Ætat 54.] + +'Thompson, I think, had as much of the poet about him as most writers. +Every thing appeared to him through the medium of his favourite pursuit. +He could not have viewed those two candles burning but with a poetical +eye[1332].' + +'Has not ----[1333] a great deal of wit, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'I do not think +so, Sir. He is, indeed, continually attempting wit, but he fails. And I +have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in +seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it.' + +He laughed heartily, when I mentioned to him a saying of his concerning +Mr. Thomas Sheridan, which Foote took a wicked pleasure to circulate. +'Why, Sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a +great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of +stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.' 'So (said he,) I allowed him all his +own merit.' + +[Page 454: Experience the test of truth. A.D. 1763.] + +He now added, 'Sheridan cannot bear me. I bring his declamation to a +point. I ask him a plain question, 'What do you mean to teach?' Besides, +Sir, what influence can Mr. Sheridan have upon the language of this +great country, by his narrow exertions? Sir, it is burning a farthing +candle at Dover, to shew light at Calais[1334].' + +Talking of a young man[1335] who was uneasy from thinking that he was very +deficient in learning and knowledge, he said, 'A man has no reason to +complain who holds a middle place, and has many below him; and perhaps +he has not six of his years above him;--perhaps not one. Though he may +not know any thing perfectly, the general mass of knowledge that he has +acquired is considerable. Time will do for him all that is wanting.' + +The conversation then took a philosophical turn. JOHNSON. 'Human +experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test +of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great many minds, is +always of more strength, than what is produced by the mere workings of +any one mind, which, of itself, can do little. There is not so poor a +book in the world that would not be a prodigious effort were it wrought +out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators. +The French writers are superficial[1336]; because they are not scholars, +and so proceed upon the mere power of their own minds; and we see how +very little power they have.' + +[Page 455: The University of Salamancha. Ætat 54.] + +'As to the Christian religion, Sir, besides the strong evidence which we +have for it, there is a balance in its favour from the number of great +men who have been convinced of its truth, after a serious consideration +of the question. Grotius was an acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to +examine evidence, and he was convinced. Grotius was not a recluse, but a +man of the world, who certainly had no bias to the side of religion. Sir +Isaac Newton set out an infidel[1337], and came to be a very firm +believer.' + +He this evening again recommended to me to perambulate Spain[1338]. I said +it would amuse him to get a letter from me dated at Salamancha. JOHNSON. +'I love the University of Salamancha; for when the Spaniards were in +doubt as to the lawfulness of their conquering America, the University +of Salamancha gave it as their opinion that it was not lawful.' He spoke +this with great emotion, and with that generous warmth which dictated +the lines in his _London_, against Spanish encroachment[1339]. + +I expressed my opinion of my friend Derrick as but a poor writer. +JOHNSON. 'To be sure, Sir, he is; but you are to consider that his being +a literary man has got for him all that he has. It has made him King of +Bath[1340]. Sir, he has nothing to say for himself but that he is a +writer. Had he not been a writer, he must have been sweeping the +crossings in the streets, and asking halfpence from every body that past.' + +[Page 456: Mr. Derrick. A.D. 1763.] + +In justice, however, to the memory of Mr. Derrick, who was my first +tutor in the ways of London, and shewed me the town in all its variety +of departments, both literary and sportive, the particulars of which Dr. +Johnson advised me to put in writing, it is proper to mention what +Johnson, at a subsequent period, said of him both as a writer and an +editor: 'Sir, I have often said, that if Derrick's letters[1341] had been +written by one of a more established name, they would have been thought +very pretty letters[1342].' And, 'I sent Derrick to Dryden's relations to +gather materials for his life; and I believe he got all that I myself +should have got[1343].' + +Poor Derrick! I remember him with kindness. Yet I cannot withhold from +my readers a pleasant humourous sally which could not have hurt him had +he been alive, and now is perfectly harmless. In his collection of +poems, there is one upon entering the harbour of Dublin, his native +city, after a long absence. It begins thus: + +'Eblana! much lov'd city, hail! +Where first I saw the light of day.' + +And after a solemn reflection on his being 'numbered with forgotten +dead,' there is the following stanza: + +'Unless my lines protract my fame, + And those, who chance to read them, cry, +I knew him! Derrick was his name, + In yonder tomb his ashes lie.' + +Which was thus happily parodied by Mr. John Home, to whom we owe the +beautiful and pathetick tragedy of _Douglas_: + +'Unless my _deeds_ protract my fame, + _And he who passes sadly sings_, +I knew him! Derrick was his name, + _On yonder tree his carcase swings_!' + +[Page 457: A day at Greenwich. Ætat 54.] + +I doubt much whether the amiable and ingenious author of these burlesque +lines will recollect them, for they were produced extempore one evening +while he and I were walking together in the dining-room at Eglintoune +Castle, in 1760, and I have never mentioned them to him since. + +Johnson said once to me, 'Sir, I honour Derrick for his presence of +mind. One night, when Floyd[1344], another poor authour, was wandering +about the streets in the night, he found Derrick fast asleep upon a +bulk[1345]; upon being suddenly waked, Derrick started up, "My dear +Floyd, I am sorry to see you in this destitute state; will you go home +with me to _my lodgings_?"' + +I again begged his advice as to my method of study at Utrecht. 'Come, +(said he) let us make a day of it. Let us go down to Greenwich and dine, +and talk of it there.' The following Saturday was fixed for this +excursion. + +As we walked along the Strand to-night, arm in arm, a woman of the town +accosted us, in the usual enticing manner. 'No, no, my girl, (said +Johnson) it won't do.' He, however, did not treat her with harshness, +and we talked of the wretched life of such women; and agreed, that much +more misery than happiness, upon the whole, is produced by illicit +commerce between the sexes. + +[Page 458: The Desire of Knowledge. A.D. 1703.] + +On Saturday, July 30, Dr. Johnson and I took a sculler at the +Temple-stairs, and set out for Greenwich. I asked him if he really +thought a knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages an essential +requisite to a good education. JOHNSON. 'Most certainly, Sir; for those +who know them have a very great advantage over those who do not. Nay, +Sir, it is wonderful what a difference learning makes upon people even +in the common intercourse of life, which does not appear to be much +connected with it.' 'And yet, (said I) people go through the world very +well, and carry on the business of life to good advantage, without +learning.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, that may be true in cases where learning +cannot possibly be of any use; for instance, this boy rows us as well +without learning, as if he could sing the song of Orpheus to the +Argonauts, who were the first sailors.' He then called to the boy, 'What +would you give, my lad, to know about the Argonauts?' 'Sir (said the +boy,) I would give what I have.' Johnson was much pleased with his +answer, and we gave him a double fare. Dr. Johnson then turning to me, +'Sir, (said he) a desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; +and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to +give all that he has to get knowledge[1346].' + +We landed at the Old Swan[1347], and walked to Billingsgate, where we +took oars, and moved smoothly along the silver Thames. It was a very fine +day. We were entertained with the immense number and variety of ships +that were lying at anchor, and with the beautiful country on each side +of the river. + +[Page 459: The Methodists. Ætat 54.] + +[Page 460: A course of study. A.D. 1763.] + +I talked of preaching, and of the great success which those called +Methodists[1348] have. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is owing to their expressing +themselves in a plain and familiar manner, which is the only way to do +good to the common people, and which clergymen of genius and learning +ought to do from a principle of duty, when it is suited to their +congregations; a practice, for which they will be praised by men of +sense[1349]. To insist against drunkenness as a crime, because it debases +reason, the noblest faculty of man, would be of no service to the common +people: but to tell them that they may die in a fit of drunkenness, and +shew them how dreadful that would be, cannot fail to make a deep +impression. Sir, when your Scotch clergy give up their homely manner, +religion will soon decay in that country.' Let this observation, as +Johnson meant it, be ever remembered. + +I was much pleased to find myself with Johnson at Greenwich, which he +celebrates in his _London_ as a favourite scene. I had the poem in my +pocket, and read the lines aloud with enthusiasm: + +'On Thames's banks in silent thought we stood: +Where Greenwich smiles upon the silver flood: +Pleas'd[1350] with the seat which gave ELIZA birth, +We kneel, and kiss the consecrated earth.' + +He remarked that the structure of Greenwich hospital was too magnificent +for a place of charity, and that its parts were too much detached to +make one great whole. + +Buchanan, he said, was a very fine poet; and observed, that he was the +first who complimented a lady, by ascribing to her the different +perfections of the heathen goddesses[1351]; but that Johnston[1352] +improved upon this, by making his lady, at the same time, free from their +defects. + +He dwelt upon Buchanan's elegant verses to Mary Queen of Scots, _Nympha +Caledoniae_, &c., and spoke with enthusiasm of the beauty of Latin +verse. 'All the modern languages (said he) cannot furnish so melodious a +line as + +'Formosam resonare doces Amarillida silvas[1353].' + +[Page 461: Nature and Fleet-street. Ætat 54.] + +Afterwards he entered upon the business of the day, which was to give me +his advice as to a course of study. And here I am to mention with much +regret, that my record of what he said is miserably scanty. I recollect +with admiration an animating blaze of eloquence, which rouzed every +intellectual power in me to the highest pitch, but must have dazzled me +so much, that my memory could not preserve the substance of his +discourse[1354]; for the note which I find of it is no more than this:--'He +ran over the grand scale of human knowledge; advised me to select some +particular branch to excel in, but to acquire a little of every kind.' +The defect of my minutes will be fully supplied by a long letter upon +the subject which he favoured me with, after I had been some time at +Utrecht, and which my readers will have the pleasure to peruse in its +proper place. + +We walked in the evening in Greenwich Park. He asked me, I suppose, by +way of trying my disposition, 'Is not this very fine?' Having no +exquisite relish of the beauties of Nature[1355], and being more +delighted with 'the busy hum of men[1356],' I answered, 'Yes, Sir; but +not equal to Fleet-street[1357].' JOHNSON. 'You are right, Sir.' + +I am aware that many of my readers may censure my want of taste. Let me, +however, shelter myself under the authority of a very fashionable +Baronet[1358] in the brilliant world, who, on his attention being called +to the fragrance of a May evening in the country, observed, 'This may be +very well; but, for my part, I prefer the smell of a flambeau at the +play-house[1359].' + +[Page 462: Auchinleck. A.D. 1763.] + +We staid so long at Greenwich, that our sail up the river, in our return +to London, was by no means so pleasant as in the morning; for the night +air was so cold that it made me shiver. I was the more sensible of it +from having sat up all the night before, recollecting and writing in my +journal what I thought worthy of preservation; an exertion, which, +during the first part of my acquaintance with Johnson, I frequently +made. I remember having sat up four nights in one week, without being +much incommoded in the day time. + +Johnson, whose robust frame was not in the least affected by the cold, +scolded me, as if my shivering had been a paltry effeminacy, saying, +'Why do you shiver?' Sir William Scott,[1360] of the Commons, told me, that +when he complained of a headach in the post-chaise, as they were +travelling together to Scotland, Johnson treated him in the same manner: +'At your age, Sir, I had no head-ach.' It is not easy to make allowance +for sensations in others, which we ourselves have not at the time. We +must all have experienced how very differently we are affected by the +complaints of our neighbours, when we are well and when we are ill. In +full health, we can scarcely believe that they suffer much; so faint is +the image of pain upon our imagination: when softened by sickness, we +readily sympathize with the sufferings of others. + +We concluded the day at the Turk's Head coffee-house very socially. He +was pleased to listen to a particular account which I gave him of my +family, and of its hereditary estate, as to the extent and population of +which he asked questions, and made calculations; recommending, at the +same time, a liberal kindness to the tenantry, as people over whom the +proprietor was placed by Providence[1361]. He took delight in hearing my +description of the romantick seat of my ancestors. 'I must be there, +Sir, (said he) and we will live in the old castle; and if there is not a +room in it remaining, we will build one.' I was highly flattered, but +could scarcely indulge a hope that Auchinleck would indeed be honoured +by his presence, and celebrated by a description, as it afterwards was, +in his _Journey to the Western Islands_[1362]. + +[Page 463: Tea with Miss Williams. Ætat 54.] + +After we had again talked of my setting out for Holland, he said, 'I +must see thee out of England; I will accompany you to Harwich.' I could +not find words to express what I felt upon this unexpected and very +great mark of his affectionate regard. + +Next day, Sunday, July 31, I told him I had been that morning at a +meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. +JOHNSON. 'Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder +legs. It is not done well; but you are surprized to find it done at +all.' + +On Tuesday, August 2 (the day of my departure from London having been +fixed for the 5th,) Dr. Johnson did me the honour to pass a part of the +morning with me at my Chambers. He said, that 'he always felt an +inclination to do nothing.' I observed, that it was strange to think +that the most indolent man in Britain had written the most laborious +work, _The English Dictionary_. + +I mentioned an imprudent publication[1363], by a certain friend of his, at +an early period of life, and asked him if he thought it would hurt him. +JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; not much. It may, perhaps, be mentioned at an +election.' + +I had now made good my title to be a privileged man[1364], and was carried +by him in the evening to drink tea with Miss Williams, whom, though +under the misfortune of having lost her sight, I found to be agreeable +in conversation; for she had a variety of literature, and expressed +herself well; but her peculiar value was the intimacy in which she had +long lived with Johnson, by which she was well acquainted with his +habits, and knew how to lead him on to talk. + +[Page 464: Convocation. A.D. 1763.] + +After tea he carried me to what he called his walk, which was a long +narrow paved court in the neighbourhood, overshadowed by some trees. +There we sauntered a considerable time; and I complained to him that my +love of London and of his company was such, that I shrunk almost from +the thought of going away, even to travel, which is generally so much +desired by young men[1365]. He roused me by manly and spirited +conversation. He advised me, when settled in any place abroad, to study +with an eagerness after knowledge, and to apply to Greek an hour every +day; and when I was moving about, to read diligently the great book of +mankind. + +On Wednesday, August 3, we had our last social evening at the Turk's +Head coffee-house, before my setting out for foreign parts. I had the +misfortune, before we parted, to irritate him unintentionally. I +mentioned to him how common it was in the world to tell absurd stories +of him, and to ascribe to him very strange sayings. JOHNSON. 'What do +they make me say, Sir?' BOSWELL. 'Why, Sir, as an instance very strange +indeed, (laughing heartily as I spoke,) David Hume told me, you said +that you would stand before a battery of cannon, to restore the +Convocation to its full powers.' Little did I apprehend that he had +actually said this: but I was soon convinced of my errour; for, with a +determined look, he thundered out 'And would I not, Sir? Shall the +Presbyterian _Kirk_ of Scotland have its General Assembly, and the +Church of England be denied its Convocation?' He was walking up and down +the room while I told him the anecdote; but when he uttered this +explosion of high-church zeal, he had come close to my chair, and his +eyes flashed with indignation.[1366] I bowed to the storm, and diverted +the force of it, by leading him to expatiate on the influence which +religion derived from maintaining the church with great external +respectability. + +I must not omit to mention that he this year wrote _The Life of +Ascham_[dagger], and the Dedication to the Earl of Shaftesbury[dagger], +prefixed to the edition of that writer's English works, published by Mr. +Bennet[1367]. + +[Page 465: In the Harwich stage coach. Ætat 54.] + +[Page 466: Blacklock's poetry. A.D. 1763.] + +On Friday, August 5, we set out early in the morning in the Harwich +stage coach. A fat elderly gentlewoman, and a young Dutchman, seemed the +most inclined among us to conversation. At the inn where we dined, the +gentlewoman said that she had done her best to educate her children; and +particularly, that she had never suffered them to be a moment idle. +JOHNSON. 'I wish, madam, you would educate me too; for I have been an +idle fellow all my life.' 'I am sure, Sir, (said she) you have not been +idle.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, it is very true; and that gentleman there +(pointing to me,) has been idle. He was idle at Edinburgh. His father +sent him to Glasgow, where he continued to be idle. He then came to +London, where he has been very idle; and now he is going to Utrecht, +where he will be as idle as ever.' I asked him privately how he could +expose me so. JOHNSON. 'Poh, poh! (said he) they knew nothing about you, +and will think of it no more.' In the afternoon the gentlewoman talked +violently against the Roman Catholicks, and of the horrours of the +Inquisition. To the utter astonishment of all the passengers but myself, +who knew that he could talk upon any side of a question, he defended the +Inquisition, and maintained, that 'false doctrine should be checked on +its first appearance; that the civil power should unite with the church +in punishing those who dared to attack the established religion, and +that such only were punished by the Inquisition[1368].' He had in his +pocket '_Pomponius Mela de situ Orbis_,' in which he read occasionally, +and seemed very intent upon ancient geography. Though by no means +niggardly, his attention to what was generally right was so minute, that +having observed at one of the stages that I ostentatiously gave a +shilling to the coachman, when the custom was for each passenger to give +only six-pence, he took me aside and scolded me, saying that what I had +done would make the coachman dissatisfied with all the rest of the +passengers, who gave him no more than his due. This was a just +reprimand; for in whatever way a man may indulge his generosity or his +vanity in spending his money, for the sake of others he ought not to +raise the price of any article for which there is a constant demand. + +He talked of Mr. Blacklock's poetry, so far as it was descriptive of +visible objects; and observed, that 'as its authour had the misfortune +to be blind, we may be absolutely sure that such passages are +combinations of what he has remembered of the works of other writers who +could see. That foolish fellow, Spence, has laboured to explain +philosophically how Blacklock may have done, by means of his own +faculties, what it is impossible he should do[1369]. The solution, as I +have given it, is plain. Suppose, I know a man to be so lame that he is +absolutely incapable to move himself, and I find him in a different room +from that in which I left him; shall I puzzle myself with idle +conjectures, that, perhaps, his nerves have by some unknown change all +at once become effective? No, Sir; it it clear how he got into a +different room: he was _carried_.' + +[Page 467: Torture in Holland. Ætat 54.] + +Having stopped a night at Colchester[1370], Johnson talked of that town +with veneration, for having stood a siege for Charles the First. The +Dutchman alone now remained with us. He spoke English tolerably well; +and thinking to recommend himself to us by expatiating on the +superiority of the criminal jurisprudence of this country over that of +Holland, he inveighed against the barbarity of putting an accused person +to the torture, in order to force a confession[1371]. But Johnson was as +ready for this, as for the Inquisition. 'Why, Sir, you do not, I find, +understand the law of your own country. The torture in Holland is +considered as a favour to an accused person; for no man is put to the +torture there, unless there is as much evidence against him as would +amount to conviction in England. An accused person among you, therefore, +has one chance more to escape punishment, than those who are tried among +us.' + +[Page 468: Johnson's relish for good eating. A.D. 1763.] + +[Page 469: A critick of cookery. Ætat 54.] + +[Page 470: Studied behaviour. A.D. 1763.] + +At supper this night he talked of good eating with uncommon +satisfaction. 'Some people (said he,) have a foolish way of not minding, +or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly +very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who +does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else[1372].' He now +appeared to me _Jean Bull philosophe_, and he was, for the moment, not +only serious but vehement. Yet I have heard him, upon other occasions, +talk with great contempt of people who were anxious to gratify their +palates; and the 206th number of his _Rambler_ is a masterly essay +against gulosity[1373]. His practice, indeed, I must acknowledge, may be +considered as casting the balance of his different opinions upon this +subject; for I never knew any man who relished good eating more than he +did. When at table, he was totally absorbed in the business of the +moment; his looks seemed rivetted to his plate; nor would he, unless +when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention +to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite[1374], +which was so fierce, and indulged with such intenseness, that while in +the act of eating, the veins of his forehead swelled, and generally a +strong perspiration was visible[1375]. To those whose sensations were +delicate, this could not but be disgusting; and it was doubtless not very +suitable to the character of a philosopher, who should be distinguished +by self-command. But it must be owned, that Johnson, though he could be +rigidly _abstemious_, was not a _temperate_ man either in eating or +drinking. He could refrain, but he could not use moderately[1376]. He +told me, that he had fasted two days without inconvenience, and that he +had never been hungry but once[1377]. They who beheld with wonder how +much he eat upon all occasions when his dinner was to his taste, could +not easily conceive what he must have meant by hunger; and not only was +he remarkable for the extraordinary quantity which he eat, but he was, +or affected to be, a man of very nice discernment in the science of +cookery. He used to descant critically on the dishes which had been at +table where he had dined or supped, and to recollect very minutely what +he had liked[1378]. I remember, when he was in Scotland, his praising +'_Gordon's palates_', (a dish of palates at the Honourable Alexander +Gordon's) with a warmth of expression which might have done honour to +more important subjects. 'As for Maclaurin's imitation of a _made dish_, +it was a wretched attempt[1379].' He about the same time was so much +displeased with the performances of a nobleman's French cook, that he +exclaimed with vehemence, 'I'd throw such a rascal into the river;' and +he then proceeded to alarm a lady at whose house he was to sup[1380], by +the following manifesto of his skill: 'I, Madam, who live at a variety +of good tables, am a much better judge of cookery, than any person who +has a very tolerable cook, but lives much at home; for his palate is +gradually adapted to the taste of his cook; whereas, Madam, in trying by +a wider range, I can more exquisitely judge[1381].' When invited to dine, +even with an intimate friend, he was not pleased if something better +than a plain dinner was not prepared for him. I have heard him say on +such an occasion, 'This was a good dinner enough, to be sure; but it was +not a dinner to _ask_ a man to.' On the other hand, he was wont to +express, with great glee, his satisfaction when he had been entertained +quite to his mind. One day when we had dined with his neighbour and +landlord in Bolt-court, Mr. Allen, the printer, whose old housekeeper +had studied his taste in every thing, he pronounced this eulogy: 'Sir, +we could not have had a better dinner had there been a _Synod of +Cooks_[1382].' + +While we were left by ourselves, after the Dutchman had gone to bed, Dr. +Johnson talked of that studied behaviour which many have recommended and +practised. He disapproved of it; and said, 'I never considered whether I +should be a grave man, or a merry man, but just let inclination, for the +time, have its course[1383].' + +He flattered me with some hopes that he would, in the course of the +following summer, come over to Holland, and accompany me in a tour +through the Netherlands. + +I teized him with fanciful apprehensions of unhappiness. A moth having +fluttered round the candle, and burnt itself, he laid hold of this +little incident to admonish me; saying, with a sly look, and in a solemn +but quiet tone, 'That creature was its own tormentor, and I believe its +name was BOSWELL.' + +[Page 471: Bishop Berkley's sophistry. Ætat 54.] + +Next day we got to Harwich to dinner; and my passage in the packet-boat +to Helvoetsluys being secured, and my baggage put on board, we dined at +our inn by ourselves. I happened to say it would be terrible if he +should not find a speedy opportunity of returning to London, and be +confined to so dull a place. JOHNSON. 'Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to +use big words for little matters[1384]. It would _not_ be _terrible_, +though I _were_ to be detained some time here.' The practice of using +words of disproportionate magnitude, is, no doubt, too frequent every +where; but, I think, most remarkable among the French, of which, all who +have travelled in France must have been struck with innumerable +instances. + +We went and looked at the church, and having gone into it and walked up +to the altar, Johnson, whose piety was constant and fervent, sent me to +my knees, saying, 'Now that you are going to leave your native country, +recommend yourself to the protection of your CREATOR and REDEEMER.' + +[Page 472: Boswell embarks for Holland. A.D. 1763.] + +After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together +of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of +matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I +observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is +impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which +Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large +stone, till he rebounded from it, 'I refute it _thus_[1385].' This was a +stout exemplification of the _first truths of Pere Bouffier_[1386], or the +_original principles_ of Reid and of Beattie; without admitting which, +we can no more argue in metaphysicks, than we can argue in mathematicks +without axioms. To me it is not conceivable how Berkeley can be answered +by pure reasoning; but I know that the nice and difficult task was to +have been undertaken by one of the most luminous minds of the present +age, had not politicks 'turned him from calm philosophy aside[1387].' What +an admirable display of subtilty, united with brilliance, might his +contending with Berkeley have afforded us[1388]! How must we, when we +reflect on the loss of such an intellectual feast, regret that he should +be characterised as the man, + +'Who born for the universe narrow'd his mind, + And to party gave up what was meant for mankind[1389]?' + +My revered friend walked down with me to the beach, where we embraced +and parted with tenderness, and engaged to correspond by letters. I +said, 'I hope, Sir, you will not forget me in my absence.' JOHNSON. +'Nay, Sir, it is more likely you should forget me, than that I should +forget you.' As the vessel put out to sea, I kept my eyes upon him for a +considerable time, while he remained rolling his majestick frame in his +usual manner: and at last I perceived him walk back into the town, and +he disappeared[1390]. + +[Page 473: Johnson's first letter to Boswell. Ætat 54.] + +Utrecht seeming at first very dull to me, after the animated scenes of +London, my spirits were grievously affected; and I wrote to Johnson a +plaintive and desponding letter, to which he paid no regard. Afterwards, +when I had acquired a firmer tone of mind, I wrote him a second letter, +expressing much anxiety to hear from him. At length I received the +following epistle, which was of important service to me, and, I trust, +will be so to many others. + +'A MR. BOSWELL, À LA COUR DE L'EMPEREUR, UTRECHT. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'You are not to think yourself forgotten, or criminally neglected, that +you have had yet no letter from me. I love to see my friends, to hear +from them, to talk to them, and to talk of them; but it is not without a +considerable effort of resolution that I prevail upon myself to write. I +would not, however, gratify my own indolence by the omission of any +important duty, or any office of real kindness. + +[Page 474: Boswell's character sketched by Johnson. A.D. 1763.] + +'To tell you that I am or am not well, that I have or have not been in +the country, that I drank your health in the room in which we sat last +together, and that your acquaintance continue to speak of you with their +former kindness, topicks with which those letters are commonly filled +which are written only for the sake of writing, I seldom shall think +worth communicating; but if I can have it in my power to calm any +harassing disquiet, to excite any virtuous desire, to rectify any +important opinion, or fortify any generous resolution, you need not +doubt but I shall at least wish to prefer the pleasure of gratifying a +friend much less esteemed than yourself, before the gloomy calm of idle +vacancy. Whether I shall easily arrive at an exact punctuality of +correspondence, I cannot tell. I shall, at present, expect that you will +receive this in return for two which I have had from you. The first, +indeed, gave me an account so hopeless of the state of your mind, that +it hardly admitted or deserved an answer; by the second I was much +better pleased: and the pleasure will still be increased by such a +narrative of the progress of your studies, as may evince the continuance +of an equal and rational application of your mind to some useful +enquiry. + +'You will, perhaps, wish to ask, what study I would recommend. I shall +not speak of theology, because it ought not to be considered as a +question whether you shall endeavour to know the will of GOD. + +'I shall, therefore, consider only such studies as we are at liberty to +pursue or to neglect; and of these I know not how you will make a better +choice, than by studying the civil law, as your father advises, and the +ancient languages, as you had determined for yourself; at least resolve, +while you remain in any settled residence, to spend a certain number of +hours every day amongst your books. The dissipation of thought, of which +you complain, is nothing more than the vacillation of a mind suspended +between different motives, and changing its direction as any motive +gains or loses strength. If you can but kindle in your mind any strong +desire, if you can but keep predominant any wish for some particular +excellence or attainment, the gusts of imagination will break away, +without any effect upon your conduct, and commonly without any traces +left upon the memory. + +[Page 475: The Frisick language. Ætat 54.] + +'There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, +which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, that Nature +has given him something peculiar to himself. This vanity makes one mind +nurse aversion, and another actuate desires, till they rise by art much +above their original state of power; and as affectation, in time, +improves to habit, they at last tyrannise over him who at first +encouraged them only for show. Every desire is a viper in the bosom, +who, while he was chill, was harmless; but when warmth gave him +strength, exerted it in poison. You know a gentleman, who, when first he +set his foot in the gay world, as he prepared himself to whirl in the +vortex of pleasure, imagined a total indifference and universal +negligence to be the most agreeable concomitants of youth, and the +strongest indication of an airy temper and a quick apprehension. Vacant +to every object, and sensible of every impulse, he thought that all +appearance of diligence would deduct something from the reputation of +genius; and hoped that he should appear to attain, amidst all the ease +of carelessness, and all the tumult of diversion, that knowledge and +those accomplishments which mortals of the common fabrick obtain only by +mute abstraction and solitary drudgery. He tried this scheme of life +awhile, was made weary of it by his sense and his virtue; he then wished +to return to his studies; and finding long habits of idleness and +pleasure harder to be cured than he expected, still willing to retain +his claim to some extraordinary prerogatives, resolved the common +consequences of irregularity into an unalterable decree of destiny, and +concluded that Nature had originally formed him incapable of rational +employment. + +'Let all such fancies, illusive and destructive, be banished +henceforward from your thoughts for ever. Resolve, and keep your +resolution; choose, and pursue your choice. If you spend this day in +study, you will find yourself still more able to study to-morrow; not +that you are to expect that you shall at once obtain a complete victory. +Depravity is not very easily overcome. Resolution will sometimes relax, +and diligence will sometimes be interrupted; but let no accidental +surprise or deviation, whether short or long, dispose you to +despondency. Consider these failings as incident to all mankind. Begin +again where you left off, and endeavour to avoid the seducements that +prevailed over you before. + +'This, my dear Boswell, is advice which, perhaps, has been often given +you, and given you without effect. But this advice, if you will not take +from others, you must take from your own reflections, if you purpose to +do the duties of the station to which the bounty of Providence has +called you. + +'Let me have a long letter from you as soon as you can. I hope you +continue your journal, and enrich it with many observations upon the +country in which you reside. It will be a favour if you can get me any +books in the Frisick language, and can enquire how the poor are +maintained in the Seven Provinces. I am, dear Sir, + + 'Your most affectionate servant, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' + 'London, Dec. 8, 1763.' + +I am sorry to observe, that neither in my own minutes, nor in my letters +to Johnson, which have been preserved by him, can I find any information +how the poor are maintained in the Seven Provinces. But I shall extract +from one of my letters what I learnt concerning the other subject of his +curiosity. + +[Page 476: Johnson's visit to Langton. A.D. 1764.] + +'I have made all possible enquiry with respect to the Frisick language, +and find that it has been less cultivated than any other of the northern +dialects; a certain proof of which is their deficiency of books. Of the +old Frisick there are no remains, except some ancient laws preserved by +_Schotanus_ in his _Beschryvinge van die Heerlykheid van Friesland_; and +his _Historia Frisica_. I have not yet been able to find these books. +Professor Trotz, who formerly was of the University of Vranyken in +Friesland, and is at present preparing an edition of all the Frisick +laws, gave me this information. Of the modern Frisick, or what is spoken +by the boors at this day, I have procured a specimen. It is _Gisbert +Japix's Rymelerie_, which is the only book that they have. It is +amazing, that they have no translation of the bible, no treatises of +devotion, nor even any of the ballads and storybooks which are so +agreeable to country people. You shall have _Japix_ by the first +convenient opportunity. I doubt not to pick up _Schotanus_. Mynheer +Trotz has promised me his assistance.' + + +1764: ÆTAT. 55.] Early in 1764 Johnson paid a visit to the Langton +family, at their seat of Langton, in Lincolnshire, where he passed some +time, much to his satisfaction[1391]. His friend Bennet Langton, it will +not be doubted, did every thing in his power to make the place agreeable +to so illustrious a guest; and the elder Mr. Langton and his lady, being +fully capable of understanding his value, were not wanting in attention. +He, however, told me, that old Mr. Langton, though a man of considerable +learning, had so little allowance to make for his occasional 'laxity of +talk[1392],' that because in the course of discussion he sometimes +mentioned what might be said in favour of the peculiar tenets of the +Romish church, he went to his grave believing him to be of that +communion[1393]. + +Johnson, during his stay at Langton, had the advantage of a good +library, and saw several gentlemen of the neighbourhood. I have obtained +from Mr. Langton the following particulars of this period. + +He was now fully convinced that he could not have been satisfied with a +country living[1394]; for, talking of a respectable clergyman in +Lincolnshire, he observed, 'This man, Sir, fills up the duties of his +life well. I approve of him, but could not imitate him.' + +[Page 477: The Literary Club. Ætat 55.] + +To a lady who endeavoured to vindicate herself from blame for neglecting +social attention to worthy neighbours, by saying, 'I would go to them if +it would do them any good,' he said, 'What good, Madam, do you expect to +have in your power to do them? It is shewing them respect, and that is +doing them good.' + +So socially accommodating was he, that once when Mr. Langton and he were +driving together in a coach, and Mr. Langton complained of being sick, +he insisted that they should go out and sit on the back of it in the +open air, which they did. And being sensible how strange the appearance +must be, observed, that a countryman whom they saw in a field, would +probably be thinking, 'If these two madmen should come down, what would +become of me[1395]?' + +[Page 478: The Literary Club. A.D. 1764.] + +[Page 479: List of the members. Ætat 55.] + +Soon after his return to London, which was in February, was founded that +CLUB which existed long without a name, but at Mr. Garrick's funeral +became distinguished by the title of THE LITERARY CLUB[1396]. Sir Joshua +Reynolds had the merit of being the first proposer of it[1397], to which +Johnson acceded, and the original members were, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. +Johnson, Mr. Edmund Burke, Dr. Nugent[1398], Mr. Beauclerk, Mr. Langton, +Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Chamier[1399], and Sir John Hawkins[1400]. They met at +the Turk's Head, in Gerrard-street, Soho, one evening in every week, at +seven, and generally continued their conversation till a pretty late +hour[1401]. This club has been gradually increased to its present number, +thirty-five[1402]. After about ten years, instead of supping weekly, it +was resolved to dine together once a fortnight during the meeting of +Parliament. Their original tavern having been converted into a private +house, they moved first to Prince's in Sackville-street, then to Le +Telier's in Dover-street, and now meet at Parsloe's, St. James's-street +[1403]. Between the time of its formation, and the time at which this +work is passing through the press, (June 1792,)[1404] the following +persons, now dead, were members of it: Mr. Dunning, (afterwards Lord +Ashburton,) Mr. Samuel Dyer, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Shipley Bishop of St. +Asaph, Mr. Vesey, Mr. Thomas Warton and Dr. Adam Smith. The present +members are,--Mr. Burke, Mr. Langton, Lord Charlemont, Sir Robert +Chambers, Dr. Percy Bishop of Dromore, Dr. Barnard Bishop of Killaloe, +Dr. Marlay Bishop of Clonfert, Mr. Fox, Dr. George Fordyce, Sir William +Scott, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Charles Bunbury, Mr. Windham of Norfolk, Mr. +Sheridan, Mr. Gibbon, Sir William Jones, Mr. Colman, Mr. Steevens, Dr. +Burney, Dr. Joseph Warton, Mr. Malone, Lord Ossory, Lord Spencer, Lord +Lucan, Lord Palmerston, Lord Eliot, Lord Macartney, Mr. Richard Burke +junior, Sir William Hamilton, Dr. Warren, Mr. Courtenay, Dr. Hinchcliffe +Bishop of Peterborough, the Duke of Leeds, Dr. Douglas Bishop of +Salisbury, and the writer of this account. + +[Page 480: Garrick and the Literary Club. A.D. 1764.] + +Sir John Hawkins[1405] represents himself as a '_seceder_' from this +society, and assigns as the reason of his '_withdrawing_' himself from +it, that its late hours were inconsistent with his domestick +arrangements. In this he is not accurate; for the fact was, that he one +evening attacked Mr. Burke, in so rude a manner, that all the company +testified their displeasure; and at their next meeting his reception was +such, that he never came again[1406]. + +He is equally inaccurate with respect to Mr. Garrick, of whom he says, +'he trusted that the least intimation of a desire to come among us, +would procure him a ready admission; but in this he was mistaken. +Johnson consulted me upon it; and when I could find no objection to +receiving him, exclaimed,--"He will disturb us by his buffoonery;"--and +afterwards so managed matters that he was never formally proposed, and, +by consequence, never admitted[1407].' + +[Page 481: Grainger's Sugar Cane. Ætat 55.] + +In justice both to Mr. Garrick and Dr. Johnson, I think it necessary to +rectify this mis-statement. The truth is, that not very long after the +institution of our club, Sir Joshua Reynolds was speaking of it to +Garrick. 'I like it much, (said he,) I think I shall be of you.' When +Sir Joshua mentioned this to Dr. Johnson, he was much displeased with +the actor's conceit. '_He'll be of us_, (said Johnson) how does he know +we will _permit_ him? The first Duke in England has no right to hold +such language.' However, when Garrick was regularly proposed some time +afterwards, Johnson, though he had taken a momentary offence at his +arrogance, warmly and kindly supported him, and he was accordingly +elected, was a most agreeable member, and continued to attend our +meetings to the time of his death. + +Mrs. Piozzi has also given a similar misrepresentation of Johnson's +treatment of Garrick in this particular, as if he had used these +contemptuous expressions: 'If Garrick does apply, I'll black-ball +him.[1408] Surely, one ought to sit in a society like ours, + +'Unelbow'd by a gamester, pimp, or player[1409].' + +I am happy to be enabled by such unquestionable authority as that of Sir +Joshua Reynolds, as well as from my own knowledge, to vindicate at once +the heart of Johnson and the social merit of Garrick[1410]. + +[Page 482: Johnson's self-accusations. A.D. 1764.] + +In this year, except what he may have done in revising _Shakspeare_, we +do not find that he laboured much in literature. He wrote a review of +Grainger's _Sugar Cane, a Poem_, in the _London Chronicle_. He told me, +that Dr. Percy wrote the greatest part of this review; but, I imagine, +he did not recollect it distinctly, for it appears to be mostly, if not +altogether, his own[1411]. He also wrote in _The Critical Review_, an +account of Goldsmith's excellent poem, _The Traveller_[1412]. + +The ease and independence to which he had at last attained by royal +munificence, increased his natural indolence. In his _Meditations_ he +thus accuses himself:-- + +'Good Friday, April 20, 1764.--I have made no reformation; I have lived +totally useless, more sensual in thought, and more addicted to wine and +meat[1413].' + +And next morning he thus feelingly complains:-- + +'My indolence, since my last reception of the sacrament, has sunk into +grosser sluggishness, and my dissipation spread into wilder negligence. +My thoughts have been clouded with sensuality; and, except that from the +beginning of this year I have, in some measure, forborne excess of +strong drink, my appetites have predominated over my reason. A kind of +strange oblivion has overspread me, so that I know not what has become +of the last year; and perceive that incidents and intelligence pass over +me, without leaving any impression.' He then solemnly says, + +'This is not the life to which heaven is promised[1414];' and he earnestly +resolves an amendment. + +[Page 483: A severe attack of hypochondria. Ætat 55.] + +It was his custom to observe certain days with a pious abstraction; viz. +New-year's-day, the day of his wife's death, Good Friday, Easter-day, +and his own birth-day. He this year says[1415]:--'I have now spent +fifty-five years in resolving; having, from the earliest time almost +that I can remember, been forming schemes of a better life. I have done +nothing. The need of doing, therefore, is pressing, since the time of +doing is short. 0 GOD, grant me to resolve aright, and to keep my +resolutions, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen[1416].' + +Such a tenderness of conscience, such a fervent desire of improvement, +will rarely be found. It is, surely, not decent in those who are +hardened in indifference to spiritual improvement, to treat this pious +anxiety of Johnson with contempt. + +About this time he was afflicted with a very severe return of the +hypochondriack disorder, which was ever lurking about him. He was so +ill, as, notwithstanding his remarkable love of company, to be entirely +averse to society, the most fatal symptom of that malady. Dr. Adams told +me, that as an old friend he was admitted to visit him, and that he +found him in a deplorable state, sighing, groaning, talking to himself, +and restlessly walking from room to room. He then used this emphatical +expression of the misery which he felt: 'I would consent to have a limb +amputated to recover my spirits[1417].' + +[Page 484: Johnson's particularities. A.D. 1764.] + +Talking to himself was, indeed, one of his singularities ever since I +knew him. I was certain that he was frequently uttering pious +ejaculations; for fragments of the Lord's Prayer have been distinctly +overheard[1418]. His friend Mr. Thomas Davies, of whom Churchill says, + +'That Davies hath a very pretty wife[1419],' + +when Dr. Johnson muttered 'lead us not into temptation,' used with +waggish and gallant humour to whisper Mrs. Davies, 'You, my dear, are +the cause of this.' + +He had another particularity, of which none of his friends ever ventured +to ask an explanation[1420]. It appeared to me some superstitious habit, +which he had contracted early, and from which he had never called upon +his reason to disentangle him. This was his anxious care to go out or in +at a door or passage by a certain number of steps from a certain point, +or at least so as that either his right or his left foot, (I am not +certain which,) should constantly make the first actual movement when he +came close to the door or passage. Thus I conjecture: for I have, upon +innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly stop, and then seem to +count his steps with a deep earnestness; and when he had neglected or +gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, I have seen him go back +again, put himself in a proper posture to begin the ceremony, and, +having gone through it, break from his abstraction, walk briskly on, and +join his companion[1421]. A strange instance of something of this nature, +even when on horseback, happened when he was in the isle of Sky[1422]. +Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed him to go a good way about, rather than +cross a particular alley in Leicester-fields; but this Sir Joshua +imputed to his having had some disagreeable recollection associated +with it. + +[Page 486: Illness of Joshua Reynolds. A.D. 1765.] + +That the most minute singularities which belonged to him, and made very +observable parts of his appearance and manner, may not be omitted, it is +requisite to mention, that while talking or even musing as he sat in his +chair, he commonly held his head to one side towards his right shoulder, +and shook it in a tremulous manner, moving his body backwards and +forwards, and rubbing his left knee in the same direction, with the palm +of his hand. In the intervals of articulating he made various sounds +with his mouth, sometimes as if ruminating, or what is called chewing +the cud, sometimes giving a half whistle, some-times making his tongue +play backwards from the roof of his mouth, as if clucking like a hen, +and sometimes protruding it against his upper gums in front, as if +pronouncing quickly under his breath, _too, too, too_: all this +accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a +smile. Generally when he had concluded a period, in the course of a +dispute, by which time he was a good deal exhausted by violence and +vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a Whale. This I +supposed was a relief to his lungs; and seemed in him to be a +contemptuous mode of expression, as if he had made the arguments of his +opponent fly like chaff before the wind. + +I am fully aware how very obvious an occasion I here give for the +sneering jocularity of such as have no relish of an exact likeness; +which to render complete, he who draws it must not disdain the slightest +strokes. But if witlings should be inclined to attack this account, let +them have the candour to quote what I have offered in my defence. + +He was for some time in the summer at Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire, +on a visit to the Reverend Dr. Percy, now Bishop of Dromore. Whatever +dissatisfaction he felt at what he considered as a slow progress in +intellectual improvement, we find that his heart was tender, and his +affections warm, as appears from the following very kind letter: + + +'TO JOSHUA REYNOLDS, ESQ., IN LEICESTER-FIELDS, LONDON. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I did not hear of your sickness till I heard likewise of your recovery, +and therefore escaped that part of your pain, which every man must feel, +to whom you are known as you are known to me. + +'Having had no particular account of your disorder, I know not in what +state it has left you. If the amusement of my company can exhilarate the +languor of a slow recovery, I will not delay a day to come to you; for I +know not how I can so effectually promote my own pleasure as by pleasing +you, or my own interest as by preserving you, in whom, if I should lose +you, I should lose almost the only man whom I call a friend. + +'Pray let me hear of you from yourself, or from dear Miss Reynolds[1423]. +Make my compliments to Mr. Mudge. I am, dear Sir, + +'Your most affectionate + +'And most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'At the Rev. Mr. Percy's, at Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire, (by Castle +Ashby,) Aug. 19, 1764.' + +[Page 487: Johnson at Cambridge. Ætat 56.] + + +1765: ÆTAT. 56.--Early in the year 1765 he paid a short visit to the +University of Cambridge, with his friend Mr. Beauclerk. There is a +lively picturesque account of his behaviour on this visit, in _The +Gentleman's Magazine_ for March 1785, being an extract of a letter from +the late Dr. John Sharp. The two following sentences are very +characteristical:-- + +'He drank his large potations of tea with me, interrupted by many an +indignant contradiction, and many a noble sentiment,'--'Several persons +got into his company the last evening at Trinity, where, about twelve, +he began to be very great; stripped poor Mrs. Macaulay to the very skin, +then gave her for his toast, and drank her in two bumpers[1424].' + +The strictness of his self-examination and scrupulous Christian humility +appear in his pious meditation on Easter-day this year. + +'I purpose again to partake of the blessed sacrament; yet when I +consider how vainly I have hitherto resolved at this annual +commemoration of my Saviour's death, to regulate my life by his laws, I +am almost afraid to renew my resolutions.' + +The concluding words are very remarkable, and shew that he laboured +under a severe depression of spirits. + +'Since the last Easter I have reformed no evil habit, my time 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 over me_. +Good Lord deliver me[1425]!' + +[Page 488: Trinity College, Dublin. A.D. 1765.] + +No man was more gratefully sensible of any kindness done to him than +Johnson. There is a little circumstance in his diary this year, which +shews him in a very amiable light. + +'July 2.--I paid Mr. Simpson ten guineas, which he had formerly lent me +in my necessity and for which Tetty expressed her gratitude.' + +'July 8.--I lent Mr. Simpson ten guineas more[1426].' + +Here he had a pleasing opportunity of doing the same kindness to an old +friend, which he had formerly received from him. Indeed his liberality +as to money was very remarkable. The next article in his diary is, + +'July 16.--I received seventy-five pounds[1427]. Lent Mr. Davis +twenty-five.' + +Trinity College, Dublin, at this time surprised Johnson with a +spontaneous compliment of the highest academical honours, by creating +him Doctor of Laws[1428]. The diploma, which is in my possession, is as +follows: + +[Page 489: Johnson created Doctor of Laws. Ætat 56.] + +'_OMNIBUS ad quos præsentes literae pervenerint, salutem. Nos Præpositus +et Socii seniores Collegii sacrosanctæ et individuæ Trinitatis Reginæ +Elizabethæ juxta Dublin, testamur_, Samueli Johnson, _Armigero[1429], ob +egregiam scriptorum elegantiam et utilitatem, gratiam concessam fuisse +pro gradu Doctoratus in utroque Jure, octavo die Julii, Anno Domini +millesimo septingentesimo sexagesimo-quinto. In cujus rei testimonium +singulorum manus et sigillum quo in hisce utimur apposuimus; vicesimo +tertio die Julii, Anno Domini millesimo septingentesimo +sexagesimo-quinto. + + 'GUL. CLEMENT. FRAN. ANDREWS. R. MURRAY. + 'THO. WILSON. Præps. ROBtus LAW. + 'THO. LELAND. MICH. KEARNEY.' + +This unsolicited mark of distinction, conferred on so great a literary +character, did much honour to the judgement and liberal spirit of that +learned body. Johnson acknowledged the favour in a letter to Dr. Leland, +one of their number; but I have not been able to obtain a copy of it. +[1430] + +He appears this year to have been seized with a temporary fit of +ambition, for he had thoughts both of studying law and of engaging in +politics. His 'Prayer before the Study of Law' is truly admirable:-- + +'Sept. 26, 1765. + +'Almighty GOD, the giver of wisdom, without whose help resolutions are +vain, without whose blessing study is ineffectual; enable me, if it be +thy will, to attain such knowledge as may qualify me to direct the +doubtful, and instruct the ignorant; to prevent wrongs and terminate +contentions; and grant that I may use that knowledge which I shall +attain, to thy glory and my own salvation, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. +Amen[1431].' + +[Page 490: Johnson's introduction to the Thrales. A.D. 1765.] + +His prayer in the view of becoming a politician is entitled, 'Engaging +in POLITICKS with H----n,' no doubt his friend, the Right Honourable +William Gerard Hamilton[1432], for whom, during a long acquaintance, he had +a great esteem, and to whose conversation he once paid this high +compliment: 'I am very unwilling to be left alone, Sir, and therefore I +go with my company down the first pair of stairs, in some hopes that +they may, perhaps, return again. I go with you, Sir, as far as the +street-door.' In what particular department he intended to engage does +not appear, nor can Mr. Hamilton explain[1433]. His prayer is in general +terms:-- + +'Enlighten my understanding with knowledge of right, and govern my will +by thy laws, that no deceit may mislead me, nor temptation corrupt me; +that I may always endeavour to do good, and hinder evil[1434].' + +There is nothing upon the subject in his diary. + +[Page 491: Old Thrale. Ætat 56.] + +This year[1435] was distinguished by his being introduced into the family +of Mr. Thrale, one of the most eminent brewers in England, and Member of +Parliament for the borough of Southwark. Foreigners are not a little +amazed when they hear of brewers, distillers, and men in similar +departments of trade, held forth as persons of considerable consequence. +In this great commercial country it is natural that a situation which +produces much wealth should be considered as very respectable; and, no +doubt, honest industry is entitled to esteem. But, perhaps, the too +rapid advance of men of low extraction tends to lessen the value of that +distinction by birth and gentility, which has ever been found beneficial +to the grand scheme of subordination. Johnson used to give this account +of the rise of Mr. Thrale's father: 'He worked at six shillings a week +for twenty years in the great brewery, which afterwards was his own. The +proprietor of it had an only daughter, who was married to a nobleman. It +was not fit that a peer should continue the business. On the old man's +death, therefore, the brewery was to be sold. To find a purchaser for so +large a property was a difficult matter; and, after some time, it was +suggested, that it would be adviseable to treat with Thrale, a sensible, +active, honest man, who had been employed in the house, and to transfer +the whole to him for thirty thousand pounds, security being taken upon +the property. This was accordingly settled. In eleven years Thrale paid +the purchase-money[1436]. He acquired a large fortune, and lived to be +Member of Parliament for Southwark. But what was most remarkable was the +liberality with which he used his riches. He gave his son and daughters +the best education. The esteem which his good conduct procured him from +the nobleman who had married his master's daughter, made him be treated +with much attention; and his son, both at school and at the University +of Oxford, associated with young men of the first rank. His allowance +from his father, after he left college, was splendid; no less than a +thousand a year. This, in a man who had risen as old Thrale did, was a +very extraordinary instance of generosity. He used to say, 'If this +young dog does not find so much after I am gone as he expects, let him +remember that he has had a great deal in my own time.' + +The son, though in affluent circumstances, had good sense enough to +carry on his father's trade, which was of such extent, that I remember +he once told me, he would not quit it for an annuity of ten thousand a +year; 'Not (said he,) that I get ten thousand a year by it, but it is an +estate to a family.' Having left daughters only, the property was sold +for the immense sum of one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds[1437]; a +magnificent proof of what may be done by fair trade in no long period of +time. + +[Page 492: A new system of gentility. A.D. 1765.] + +There may be some who think that a new system of gentility[1438] might be +established, upon principles totally different from what have hitherto +prevailed. Our present heraldry, it may be said, is suited to the +barbarous times in which it had its origin. It is chiefly founded upon +ferocious merit, upon military excellence. Why, in civilised times, we +may be asked, should there not be rank and honours, upon principles, +which, independent of long custom, are certainly not less worthy, and +which, when once allowed to be connected with elevation and precedency, +would obtain the same dignity in our imagination? Why should not the +knowledge, the skill, the expertness, the assiduity, and the spirited +hazards of trade and commerce, when crowned with success, be entitled to +give those flattering distinctions by which mankind are so universally +captivated? + +Such are the specious, but false arguments for a proposition which +always will find numerous advocates, in a nation where men are every day +starting up from obscurity to wealth. To refute them is needless. The +general sense of mankind cries out, with irresistible force, 'Un +gentilhomme est toujours gentilhomme'[1439]. + +[Page 493: A new home for Johnson. Ætat 56.] + +Mr. Thrale had married Miss Hesther Lynch Salusbury, of good Welsh +extraction[1440], a lady of lively talents, improved by education. That +Johnson's introduction into Mr. Thrale's family, which contributed so +much to the happiness of his life, was owing to her desire for his +conversation, is very probable and a general supposition: but it is not +the truth. Mr. Murphy, who was intimate with Mr. Thrale[1441], having +spoken very highly of Dr. Johnson, he was requested to make them +acquainted[1442]. This being mentioned to Johnson, he accepted of an +invitation to dinner at Thrale's, and was so much pleased with his +reception, both by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, and they so much pleased with +him, that his invitations to their house were more and more frequent, +till at last he became one of the family, and an apartment was +appropriated to him, both in their house in Southwark, and in their +villa at Streatham[1443]. + +[Page 494: Mr. Thrale. A.D. 1765.] + +Johnson had a very sincere esteem for Mr. Thrale, as a man of excellent +principles, a good scholar, well skilled in trade, of a sound +understanding, and of manners such as presented the character of a plain +independent English 'Squire[1444]. As this family will frequently be +mentioned in the course of the following pages, and as a false notion +has prevailed that Mr. Thrale was inferiour, and in some degree +insignificant, compared with Mrs. Thrale, it may be proper to give a +true state of the case from the authority of Johnson himself in his own +words. + +[Page 495: Mrs. Thrale. Ætat 56.] + +'I know no man, (said he,) who is more master of his wife and family +than Thrale. If he but holds up a finger, he is obeyed. It is a great +mistake to suppose that she is above him in literary attainments[1445]. She +is more flippant; but he has ten times her learning: he is a regular +scholar; but her learning is that of a school-boy in one of the lower +forms.' My readers may naturally wish for some representation of the +figures of this couple. Mr. Thrale was tall, well proportioned, and +stately. As for Madam, or my Mistress[1446], by which epithets Johnson used +to mention Mrs. Thrale, she was short, plump, and brisk[1447]. She has +herself given us a lively view of the idea which Johnson had of her +person, on her appearing before him in a dark-coloured gown; 'You little +creatures should never wear those sort of clothes, however; they are +unsuitable in every way. What! have not all insects gay colours[1448]?' Mr. +Thrale gave his wife a liberal indulgence, both in the choice of their +company, and in the mode of entertaining them. He understood and valued +Johnson, without remission, from their first acquaintance to the day of +his death. Mrs. Thrale was enchanted with Johnson's conversation, for +its own sake, and had also a very allowable vanity in appearing to be +honoured with the attention of so celebrated a man. + +[Page 496: Johnson's SHAKSPEARE published. A.D. 1765.] + +Nothing could be more fortunate for Johnson than this connection[1449]. He +had at Mr. Thrale's all the comforts and even luxuries of life; his +melancholy was diverted, and his irregular habits lessened[1450] by +association with an agreeable and well-ordered family. He was treated +with the utmost respect, and even affection. The vivacity of Mrs. +Thrale's literary talk roused him to cheerfulness and exertion, even +when they were alone. But this was not often the case; for he found here +a constant succession of what gave him the highest enjoyment: the +society of the learned, the witty, and the eminent in every way, who +were assembled in numerous companies[1451], called forth his wonderful +powers, and gratified him with admiration, to which no man could be +insensible. + +[Page 497: Dr. Kenrick. Ætat 56.] + +In the October of this year[1452] he at length gave to the world his +edition of _Shakspeare_[1453], which, if it had no other merit but that of +producing his Preface[1454], in which the excellencies and defects of that +immortal bard are displayed with a masterly hand, the nation would have +had no reason to complain. A blind indiscriminate admiration of +Shakspeare had exposed the British nation to the ridicule of +foreigners[1455]. Johnson, by candidly admitting the faults of his poet, +had the more credit in bestowing on him deserved and indisputable +praise; and doubtless none of all his panegyrists have done him half so +much honour. Their praise was, like that of a counsel, upon his own side +of the cause: Johnson's was like the grave, well-considered, and +impartial opinion of the judge, which falls from his lips with weight, +and is received with reverence. What he did as a commentator has no +small share of merit, though his researches were not so ample, and his +investigations so acute as they might have been, which we now certainly +know from the labours of other able and ingenious criticks who have +followed him[1456]. He has enriched his edition with a concise account of +each play, and of its characteristick excellence. Many of his notes have +illustrated obscurities in the text, and placed passages eminent for +beauty in a more conspicuous light; and he has in general exhibited such +a mode of annotation, as may be beneficial to all subsequent editors[1457]. + +[Page 498: Johnson's attack on Voltaire. A.D. 1785.] + +His _Shakespeare_ was virulently attacked by Mr. William Kenrick, who +obtained the degree of LL.D. from a Scotch University, and wrote for the +booksellers in a great variety of branches. Though he certainly was not +without considerable merit, he wrote with so little regard to decency +and principles, and decorum[1458], and in so hasty a manner, that his +reputation was neither extensive nor lasting. I remember one evening, +when some of his works were mentioned, Dr. Goldsmith said, he had never +heard of them; upon which Dr. Johnson observed, 'Sir, he is one of the +many who have made themselves _publick_, without making themselves +_known_[1459].' + +A young student of Oxford, of the name of Barclay, wrote an answer to +Kenrick's review of Johnson's _Shakspeare_. Johnson was at first angry +that Kenrick's attack should have the credit of an answer. But +afterwards, considering the young man's good intention, he kindly +noticed him, and probably would have done more, had not the young man +died[1460]. + +[Page 499: Voltaire's reply. Ætat 56.] + +In his Preface to _Shakspeare_, Johnson treated Voltaire very +contemptuously, observing, upon some of his remarks, 'These are the +petty criticisms of petty wits[1461].' Voltaire, in revenge, made an attack +upon Johnson, in one of his numerous literary sallies, which I remember +to have read; but there being no general index to his voluminous works, +have searched in vain, and therefore cannot quote it[1462]. + +Voltaire was an antagonist with whom I thought Johnson should not +disdain to contend. I pressed him to answer. He said, he perhaps might; +but he never did. + +Mr. Burney having occasion to write to Johnson for some receipts for +subscriptions to his Shakspeare, which Johnson had omitted to deliver +when the money was paid[1463], he availed himself of that opportunity of +thanking Johnson for the great pleasure which he had received from the +perusal of his Preface to _Shakspeare_; which, although it excited much +clamour against him at first, is now justly ranked among the most +excellent of his writings. To this letter Johnson returned the following +answer:-- + +[Page 500: Resolutions at church.] + +'To CHARLES BURNEY ESQ. IN POLAND-STREET. + +'SIR, + +'I am sorry that your kindness to me has brought upon you so much +trouble, though you have taken care to abate that sorrow, by the +pleasure which I receive from your approbation. I defend my criticism in +the same manner with you. We must confess the faults of our favourite, +to gain credit to our praise of his excellencies. He that claims, either +in himself or for another, the honours of perfection, will surely injure +the reputation which he designs to assist. + +'Be pleased to make my compliments to your family. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most obliged + +'And most humble servant, + +'Sam. Johnson.' + +'Oct. 16, 1765.[1464]' + +From one of his journals I transcribed what follows: + +'At church, Oct. --65. + +'To avoid all singularity; _Bonaventura_[1465]. + +'To come in before service, and compose my mind by meditation, or by +reading some portions of scriptures. _Tetty_. + +'If I can hear the sermon, to attend it, unless attention be more +troublesome than useful. + +'To consider the act of prayer as a reposal of myself upon God, and a +resignation of 'all into his holy hand.' + + + + +APPENDIX A + + + +JOHNSON'S DEBATES IN PARLIAMENT. + + +(_Pages_ 118 _and_ 150.) + +The publication of the 'Debates' in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ began in +July 1732. The names of the speakers were not printed in full; Sir +Robert Walpole was disguised--if a disguise it can be called--as Sir +R----t W----le, and Mr. Pelham as Mr. P--lh--m. Otherwise the report was +open and avowed. During the first few years, however, it often happened +that no attempt was made to preserve the individuality of the members. +Thus in a debate on the number of seamen (_Gent. Mag_. v. 507), the +speeches of the 'eight chief speakers' were so combined as to form but +three. First come 'the arguments made use of for 30,000 men;' next, 'an +answer to the following effect;' and lastly, 'a reply that was in +substance as follows.' Each of these three speeches is in the first +person, though each is formed of the arguments of two members at least, +perhaps of many. In the report of a two days' debate in 1737, in which +there were fourteen chief speakers, the substance of thirteen of the +speeches was given in three (_ib_. vii. 746, 775). In July 1736 (_ib_. +vi. 363) we find the beginning of a great change. 'To satisfy the +impatience of his readers,' the publisher promises 'to give them +occasionally some entire speeches.' He prints one which likely enough +had been sent to him by the member who had spoken it, and adds that he +shall be 'grateful for any authentic intelligence in matters of such +importance and _tenderness_ as the speeches in Parliament' (_ib_. p. +365). Cave, in his examination before the House of Lords on April 30, +1747, on a charge of having printed in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ an +account of the trial of Lord Lovat, owned that 'he had had speeches sent +him by the members themselves, and had had assistance from some members +who have taken notes of other members' speeches' (_Parl. Hist_. xiv. +60). + +It was chiefly in the numbers of the _Magazine_ for the latter half of +each year that the publication took place. The parliamentary recess was +the busy time for reporters and printers. It was commonly believed that +the resolution on the Journals of the House of Commons against +publishing any of its proceedings was only in force while parliament was +sitting. But on April 13, 1738, it was unanimously resolved 'that it is +an high indignity to, and a notorious breach of the privilege of this +House to give any account of the debates, as well during the recess as +the sitting of parliament' (_Parl. Hist_. x. 812). It was admitted that +this privilege expired at the end of every parliament. When the +dissolution had come every one might publish what he pleased. With the +House of Lords it was far otherwise, for 'it is a Court of Record, and +as such its rights and privileges never die. It may punish a printer for +printing any part of its proceedings for thirty or forty years back' +(_ib_. p. 807). Mr. Winnington, when speaking to this resolution of +April 13, said that if they did not put a speedy stop to this practice +of reporting 'they will have every word that is spoken here by +_gentlemen_ misrepresented by _fellows_ who thrust themselves into our +gallery' (_ib_. p. 806). Walpole complained 'that he had been made to +speak the very reverse of what he meant. He had read debates wherein all +the wit, the learning, and the argument had been thrown into one side, +and on the other nothing but what was low, mean, and ridiculous' (_ib_. +p. 809). Later on, Johnson in his reports 'saved appearances tolerably +well; but took care that the WHIG DOGS should not have the best of it' +(Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 45). + +It was but a few days after he became a contributor to the _Magazine_ +that this resolution was passed. Parliament rose on May 20, and in the +June number the reports of the debates of the Senate of Lilliput began. +To his fertile mind was very likely due this humorous expedient by which +the resolution of the House was mocked. That he wrote the introduction +in which is narrated the voyage of Captain Gulliver's grandson to +Lilliputia can scarcely be doubted. It bears all the marks of his early +style. The Lords become Hurgoes, and the Commons Clinabs, Walpole +becomes Walelop, Pulteney Pulnub, and Pitt Ptit; otherwise the report is +much as it had been. At the end of the volume for 1739 was given a key +to all the names. The _London Magazine_ had boldly taken the lead. In +the May number, which was published at the close of the month, and +therefore after parliament had risen, began the report of the +proceedings and debates of a political and learned club of young +noblemen and gentlemen, who hoped one day to enter parliament, and who +therefore, the better to qualify themselves for their high position, +only debated questions that were there discussed. To the speakers were +given the names of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Thus we find the Hon. +Marcus Cato and the Right Hon. M. Tullius Cicero. By the key that was +published in 1742 Cicero was seen to be Walpole, and Cato, Pulteney. +What risks the publishers and writers ran was very soon shown. In +December 1740 the ministers proposed to lay an embargo on various +articles of food. As the members entered the House a printed paper was +handed to each, entitled _Considerations upon the Embargo_. Adam Smith +had just gone up as a young student to the University of Oxford. There +are 'considerations' suggested in this paper which the great authority +of the author of the _Wealth of Nations_ has not yet made pass current +as truths. The paper contained, moreover, charges of jobbery against +'great men,' though no one was named. It was at once voted a malicious +and scandalous libel, and the author, William Cooley, a scrivener, was +committed to Newgate. With him was sent the printer of the _Daily Post_, +in which part of the _Considerations_ had been published. After seven +weeks' imprisonment in the depth of winter in that miserable den, +'without sufficient sustenance to support life,' Cooley was discharged +on paying his fees. He was in knowledge more than a hundred years before +his time, and had been made to suffer accordingly. The printer would +have been discharged also, but the fees were more than he could pay. Two +months later he petitioned for mercy. The fees by that time were £121. +His petition was not received, and he was kept in prison till the close +of the session (_Parl. Hist_. xi. 867-894). + +Such were the risks run by Cave and Johnson and their fellow-workers. +That no prosecution followed was due perhaps to that dread of ridicule +which has often tempered the severity of the law. 'The Hurgolen Branard, +who in the former session was Pretor of Mildendo,' might well have been +unwilling to prove that he was Sir John Barnard, late Lord Mayor of +London. + +Johnson, it should seem, revised some of the earliest _Debates_. In a +letter to Cave which cannot have been written later than September 1738, +he mentions the alterations that he had made (_ante_, p. 136). The more +they were written by him, the less authentic did they become, for he was +not one of those 'fellows who thrust themselves into the gallery of the +House.' His employer, Cave, if we can trust his own evidence, had been +in the habit of going there and taking notes with a pencil (_Parl. +Hist_. xiv. 60). But Johnson, Hawkins says (_Life_, p. 122), 'never was +within the walls of either House.' According to Murphy (_Life_, p. 44), +he had been inside the House of Commons once. Be this as it may, in the +end the _Debates_ were composed by him alone (_ante_, p. 118). From that +time they must no longer be looked upon as authentic records, in spite +of the assertions of the Editor of the _Parl. Hist_. (xi. Preface). +Johnson told Boswell (_ante_, p. 118) 'that sometimes he had nothing +more communicated to him than the names of the several speakers, and the +part which they had taken in the debate;' sometimes 'he had scanty notes +furnished by persons employed to attend in both Houses of Parliament.' +Often, his Debates were written 'from no materials at all--the mere +coinage of his own imagination' (_post_, under Dec. 9, 1784). + +'He never wrote any part of his works with equal velocity. Three columns +of the _Magazine_ in an hour was no uncommon effort, which was faster +than most persons could have transcribed that quantity' (_ib_.). +According to Hawkins (_Life_, p. 99), 'His practice was to shut himself +up in a room assigned to him at St. John's Gate, to which he would not +suffer any one to approach, except the compositor or Cave's boy for +matter, which, as fast as he composed it, he tumbled out at the door.' + +From Murphy we get the following curious story:-- + +'That Johnson was the author of the debates during that period [Nov, +1740 to Feb. 1743] was not generally known; but the secret transpired +several years afterwards, and was avowed by himself on the following +occasion:--Mr. Wedderburne (now Lord Loughborough), Dr. Johnson, Dr. +Francis (the translator of _Horace_), the present writer, and others +dined with the late Mr. Foote. An important debate towards the end of +Sir Robert Walpole's administration being mentioned, Dr. Francis +observed, "that Mr. Pitt's speech on that occasion was the best he had +ever read." He added, "that he had employed eight years of his life in +the study of Demosthenes, and finished a translation of that celebrated +orator, with all the decorations of style and language within the reach +of his capacity; but he had met with nothing equal to the speech above +mentioned." Many of the company remembered the debate; and some passages +were cited with the approbation and applause of all present. During the +ardour of conversation, Johnson remained silent. As soon as the warmth +of praise subsided, he opened with these words:--"That speech I wrote in +a garret in Exeter Street." The company was struck with astonishment. +After staring at each other in silent amaze, Dr. Francis asked how that +speech could be written by him? "Sir," said Johnson, "I wrote it in +Exeter Street. I never had been in the gallery of the House of Commons +but once. Cave had interest with the door-keepers. He, and the persons +employed under him, gained admittance: they brought away the subject of +discussion, the names of the speakers, the side they took, and the order +in which they rose, together with notes of the arguments advanced in the +course of the debate. The whole was afterwards communicated to me, and I +composed the speeches in the form which they now have in the +Parliamentary Debates." To this discovery Dr. Francis made +answer:--"Then, sir, you have exceeded Demosthenes himself, for to say +that you have exceeded Francis's _Demosthenes_, would be saying +nothing." The rest of the company bestowed lavish encomiums on Johnson: +one, in particular, praised his impartiality; observing, that he dealt +out reason and eloquence with an equal hand to both parties. "That is +not quite true," said Johnson; "I saved appearances tolerably well, but +I took care that the WHIG DOGS should not have the best of it."' +Murphy's _Life of Johnson_, p. 343. + +Murphy, we must not forget, wrote from memory, for there is no reason to +think that he kept notes. That his memory cannot altogether be trusted +has been shown by Boswell (_ante_, p. 391, note 4). This dinner with +Foote must have taken place at least nineteen years before this account +was published, for so many years had Dr. Francis been dead. At the time +when Johnson was living in Exeter-street he was not engaged on the +magazine. Nevertheless the main facts may be true enough. Johnson +himself told Boswell (_post_, May 13, 1778) that in Lord Chesterfield's +_Miscellaneous Works_ (ii. 319) there were two speeches ascribed to +Chesterfield which he had himself entirely written. Horace Walpole +(_Letters_, i. 147) complained that the published report of his own +first speech 'did not contain one sentence of the true one.' Johnson, in +his preface to the _Literary Magazine_ of 1756, seems to confess what he +had done, unless, indeed, he was altogether making himself the mere +mouth-piece of the publisher. He says:--'We shall not attempt to give +any regular series of debates, or to amuse our readers with senatorial +rhetorick. The speeches inserted in other papers have been long known to +be fictitious, and produced sometimes by men who never heard the debate, +nor had any authentick information. We have no design to impose thus +grossly on our readers.' (_Works_, v. 363.) + +The secret that Johnson wrote these _Debates_ was indeed well kept. He +seems to be aimed at in a question that was put to Cave in his +examination before the House of Lords in 1747. 'Being asked "if he ever +had any person whom he kept in pay to make speeches for him," he said, +"he never had."' (_Parl. Hist_. xiv. 60.) Herein he lied in order, no +doubt, to screen Johnson. Forty-four years later Horace Walpole wrote +(_Letters_, ix. 319), 'I never knew Johnson wrote the speeches in the +_Gentleman's Magazine_ till he died.' Johnson told Boswell 'that as soon +as he found that they were thought genuine he determined that he would +write no more of them, "for he would not be accessory to the propagation +of falsehood."' (_Ante_, p. 152.) One of his _Debates_ was translated +into French, German, and Spanish (_Gent. Mag_. xiii. 59), and, no doubt, +was accepted abroad as authentic. When he learnt this his conscience +might well have received a shock. That it did receive a shock seems +almost capable of proof. It was in the number of the _Magazine_ for +February, 1743--at the beginning of March, that is to say--that the fact +of these foreign translations was made known. The last Debate that +Johnson wrote was for the 22nd day of February in that year. In 1740, +1741, and 1742, he had worked steadily at his _Debates_. The beginning +of 1743 found him no less busy. His task suddenly came to an end. Among +foreign nations his speeches were read as the very words of English +statesmen. To the propagation of such a falsehood as this he would no +longer be accessory. Fifteen years later Smollett quoted them as if they +were genuine (_History of England_, iii. 73). Here, however, Johnson's +conscience was void of offence; for 'he had cautioned him not to rely on +them, for that they were not authentic.' (Hawkins, _Life_, p. 129.) + +That they should generally have passed current shews how unacquainted +people at that time were with real debating. Even if we had not +Johnson's own statement, both from external and internal evidence we +could have known that they were for the most part 'the mere coinage of +his imagination.' They do not read like speeches that had ever been +spoken. 'None of them,' Mr. Flood said, 'were at all like real debates' +(_post_, under March 30, 1771). They are commonly formed of general +statements which suit any one speaker just as well as any other. The +scantier were the notes that were given him by those who had heard the +debate, the more he had to draw on his imagination. But his was an +imagination which supplied him with what was general much more readily +than with what was particular. Had De Foe been the composer he would +have scattered over each speech the most ingenious and probable matters +of detail, but De Foe and Johnson were wide as the poles asunder. +Neither had Johnson any dramatic power. His parliamentary speakers have +scarcely more variety than the characters in _Irene_. Unless he had been +a constant frequenter of the galleries of the two Houses, he could not +have acquired any knowledge of the style and the peculiarities of the +different members. Nay, even of their modes of thinking and their +sentiments he could have gained but the most general notions. Of +debating he knew nothing. It was the set speeches in _Livy_ and the old +historians that he took as his models. In his orations there is very +little of 'the tart reply;' there is, indeed, scarcely any examination +of an adversary's arguments. So general are the speeches that the order +in which they are given might very often without inconvenience be +changed. They are like a series of leading articles on both sides of the +question, but all written by one man. Johnson is constantly shifting his +character, and, like Falstaff and the Prince, playing first his own part +and then his opponent's. It is wonderful how well he preserves his +impartiality, though he does 'take care that the Whig dogs should not +have the best of it.' + +He not only took the greatest liberties in his reports, but he often +took them openly. Thus an army bill was debated in committee on Dec. 10, +1740, and again the following day on the report in the full House. 'As +in these two debates,' he writes, 'the arguments were the same, Mr. +Gulliver has thrown them into one to prevent unnecessary repetitions.' +(_Gent. Mag_. Dec. 1742, p. 676.) In each House during the winter of +1742-3 there was a debate on taking the Hanoverian troops into pay. The +debate in the Lords was spread over five numbers of the _Magazine_ in +the following summer and autumn. It was not till the spring of 1744 that +the turn of the Commons came, and then they were treated somewhat +scurvily. 'This debate,' says the reporter, who was Johnson, 'we thought +it necessary to contract by the omission of those arguments which were +fully discussed in the House of Hurgoes, and of those speakers who +produced them, lest we should disgust our readers by tedious +repetitions.' (_Ib_. xiv. 125.) Many of these debates have been reported +somewhat briefly by Bishop (afterwards Archbishop) Seeker. To follow his +account requires an accurate knowledge of the times, whereas Johnson's +rhetorick for the most part is easily understood even by one very +ignorant of the history of the first two Georges. Much of it might have +been spoken on almost any occasion, for or against almost any minister. +It is true that we here and there find such a correspondence between the +two reports as shews that Johnson, as he has himself told us, was at +times furnished with some information. But, on the other hand, we can no +less clearly see that he was often drawing solely on his imagination. +Frequently there is but the slightest agreement between the reports +given by the two men of the same speeches. Of this a good instance is +afforded by Lord Carteret's speech of Feb. 13, 1741. According to +Johnson 'the Hurgo Quadrert began in this manner':-- + +'As the motion which I am about to make is of the highest importance and +of the most extensive consequences; as it cannot but meet with all the +opposition which the prejudices of some and the interest of others can +raise against it; as it must have the whole force of ministerial +influence to encounter without any assistance but from justice and +reason, I hope to be excused by your Lordships for spending some time in +endeavouring to shew that it wants no other support; that it is not +founded upon doubtful suspicions but upon uncontestable facts,' and so +on for eight more lines. (_Gent. Mag_. xi. 339). + +The Bishop's note begins as follows:-- + +'CARTERET. I am glad to see the House so full. The honour of the nation +is at stake. And the oldest man hath not known such circumstances as we +are in. When storms rise you must see what pilots you have, and take +methods to make the nation easy. I shall (1) go through the foreign +transactions of several years; (2) The domestic; (3) Prove that what I +am about to propose is a parliamentary method.' (_Parl. Hist_. xi. +1047.) + +Still more striking is the difference in the two reports of a speech by +Lord Talbot on May 25, 1742. According to the _Gent. Mag_. xii. 519, +'the Hurgo Toblat spoke to this effect':-- + +'So high is my veneration for this great assembly that it is never +without the utmost efforts of resolution that I can prevail upon myself +to give my sentiments upon any question that is the subject of debate, +however strong may be my conviction, or however ardent my zeal.' + +The Bishop makes him say:-- + +'I rise up only to give time to others to consider how they will carry +on the debate.' (_Parl. Hist_. xii. 646.) + +On Feb. 13, 1741, the same Lord, being called to order for saying that +there were Lords who were influenced by a place, exclaimed, according to +the Bishop, '"By the eternal G--d, I will defend my cause everywhere." +But Lords calling to order, he recollected himself and made an excuse.' +(_Parl. Hist_. xi. 1063). In the _Gent. Mag_. xi. 4l9, 'the Hurgo Toblat +resumed:--"My Lords, whether anything has escaped from me that deserves +such severe animadversions your Lordships must decide."' + +Once at least in Johnson's reports a speech is given to the wrong +member. In the debate on the Gin Bill on Feb. 22, 1743 (_Gent. Mag_. +xiii. 696), though the Bishop's notes show that he did not speak, yet a +long speech is put into his mouth. It was the Earl of Sandwich who had +spoken at this turn of the debate. The editor of the _Parl. Hist_. (xii. +1398), without even notifying the change, coolly transfers the speech +from the 'decent' Seeker[1466], who was afterwards Primate, to the +grossly licentious Earl. A transference such as this is, however, but of +little moment. For the most part the speeches would be scarcely less +lifelike, if all on one side were assigned to some nameless Whig, and all +on the other side to some nameless Tory. It is nevertheless true that +here and there are to be found passages which no doubt really fell from +the speaker in whose mouth they are put. They mention some fact or +contain some allusion which could not otherwise have been known by +Johnson. Even if we had not Cave's word for it, we might have inferred +that now and then a member was himself his own reporter. Thus in the +_Gent. Mag_. for February 1744 (p. 68) we find a speech by Sir John St. +Aubyn that had appeared eight months earlier in the very same words in +the _London Magazine_. That Johnson copied a rival publication is most +unlikely--impossible, I might say. St. Aubyn, I conjecture, sent a copy +of his speech to both editors. In the _Gent. Mag_. for April 1743 (p. +184), a speech by Lord Percival on Dec. 10, 1742, is reported apparently +at full length. The debate itself was not published till the spring of +1744, when the reader is referred for this speech to the back number in +which it had already been inserted. (_Ib_. xiv. 123). + +The _London Magazine_ generally gave the earlier report; it was, +however, twitted by its rival with its inaccuracy. In one debate, it was +said, 'it had introduced instead of twenty speakers but six, and those +in a very confused manner. It had attributed to Caecilius words +remembered by the whole audience to be spoken by M. Agrippa.' (_Gent. +Mag_. xii. 512). The report of the debate of Feb. 13, 1741, in the +_London Magazine_ fills more than twenty-two columns of the _Parl. +Hist_. (xi. 1130) with a speech by Lord Bathurst. That he did speak is +shewn by Secker (_ib_. p. 1062). No mention of him is made, however, in +the report in the _Gent. Mag_. (xi. 339). But, on the other hand, it +reports eleven speakers, while the _London Magazine_ gives but five. +Secker shows that there were nineteen. Though the _London Magazine_ was +generally earlier in publishing the debates, it does not therefore +follow that Johnson had seen their reports when he wrote his. His may +have been kept back by Cave's timidity for some months even after they +had been set up in type. In the staleness of the debate there was some +safeguard against a parliamentary prosecution. + +Mr. Croker maintains (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 44) that Johnson wrote the +_Debates_ from the time (June 1738) that they assumed the _Lilliputian_ +title till 1744. In this he is certainly wrong. Even if we had not +Johnson's own statement, from the style of the earlier _Debates_ we +could have seen that they were not written by him. No doubt we come +across numerous traces of his work; but this we should have expected. +Boswell tells us that Guthrie's reports were sent to Johnson for +revision (_ante_, p. 118). Nay, even a whole speech now and then may be +from his hand. It is very likely that he wrote, for instance, the +_Debate_ on buttons and button-holes (_Gent. Mag_. viii. 627), and the +_Debate_ on the registration of seamen (_ib_. xi.). But it is absurd to +attribute to him passages such as the following, which in certain +numbers are plentiful enough long after June 1738. 'There never was any +measure pursued more consistent with, and more consequential of, the +sense of this House' (_ib_. ix. 340). 'It gave us a handle of making +such reprisals upon the Iberians as this Crown found the sweets of' +(_ib_. x. 281). 'That was the only expression that the least shadow of +fault was found with' (ib. xi. 292). + +'Johnson told me himself,' says Boswell (_ante_, p. 150), 'that he was +the sole composer of the _Debates_ for those three years only +(1741-2-3). He was not, however, precisely exact in his statement, which +he mentioned from hasty recollection; for it is sufficiently evident +that his composition of them began November 19, 1740, and ended February +23 [22], 1742-3.' Some difficulty is caused in following Boswell's +statement by the length of time that often elapsed between the debate +itself and its publication. The speeches that were spoken between Nov. +19, or, more strictly speaking, Nov. 25, 1740, and Feb. 22, 1743, were +in their publication spread through the _Magazine_ from July 1741 to +March, 1744. On Feb. 13, 1741, Lord Carteret in the House of 'Lords, and +Mr. Sandys, 'the Motion-maker[1467],' in the House of Commons, moved an +address to the King for the removal of Sir Robert Walpole. Johnson's +report of the debate in the Lords was published in the _Magazine_ for +the next July and August. The year went round. Walpole's ministry was +overthrown, and Walpole himself was banished to the House of Lords. A +second year went by. At length, in three of the spring numbers of 1743, +the debate on Sandys's motion was reported. It had been published in the +_London Magazine_ eleven months earlier. + +Cave, if he was tardy, nevertheless was careful that his columns should +not want variety. Thus in the number for July 1743, we have the middle +part of the debate in the Lords on Feb. 1, 1743, the end of the debate +in the Commons on March 9, 1742, and the beginning of another in the +Commons on the following March 23. From the number for July 1741 to the +number for March 1744 Johnson, as I have already said, was the sole +composer of the _Debates_. The irregularity with which they were given +at first sight seems strange; but in it a certain method can be +discovered. The proceedings of a House of Commons that had come to an +end might, as I have shown, be freely published. There had been a +dissolution after the session which closed in April 1741. The +publication of the _Debates_ of the old parliament could at once begin, +and could go on freely from month to month all the year round. But they +would not last for ever. In 1742, in the autumn recess, the time when +experience had shewn that the resolution of the House could be broken +with the least danger, the _Debates_ of the new parliament were +published. They were continued even in the short session before +Christmas. But the spring of 1743 saw a cautious return to the reports +of the old parliament. The session closed on April 21, and in the May +number the comparatively fresh _Debates_ began again. In one case the +report was not six months after date. In the beginning of 1744 this +publication went on even in the session, but it was confined to the +proceedings of the previous winter. + +The following table shews the order in which Johnson's Debates were +published:-- + +_Gentleman's _Debate or part +Magazine_. of debate of_ + +July, 1741 {Parliament was dissolved } Feb. 13, 1741 + { on April 25, 1741. } +Aug. " Feb. 13, " + +Sept. " {Jan. 27, " + {Mar. 2, " +Oct. " Mar. 2, " + +Nov. " Mar. 2, " + +Dec. " { The new Parliament met} Dec. 9, 1740 + { on Dec. 1. } + +_Gentleman's Debate or part +Magazine. of debate of_ + +Supplement to 1741 Dec. 2, " + Dec. 12," +Jan. 1742 Feb. 3, 1741 + Feb. 27, " +Feb. " Jan. 26, " + April 13, " +Mar. " Feb. 24, " + April 13, " +April " Jan. 27, " + Feb. 24, " +May " Nov. 25, 1740 +June " Nov. 25, " + April 8, 1741 +July " The session ended on July April 8, " + 15. Dec. 1, " + Dec. 4, " +Aug. " Dec. 4, " +Sept. " Dec. 4, " + Dec. 8, " +Oct. " Dec. 8, " + May 25, 1742 +Nov. " The Session opened on May 25, " + Nov. 16. +Dec. " May 25, " + June 1, " +Supplement to 1742 Dec. 10, 1740 + June 1, 1742 +Jan. 1743 Dec. 10, 1740 +Feb. " Feb. 13, 1741 +Mar. " Feb. 13, " +April " The Session ended on April 21 Feb. 13, " +May " Mar. 9, 1742 + Nov. 16, " +June " Mar. 9, " + Feb. 1, 1743 +July " Mar. 9, 1742 + Mar. 23, " + Feb. 1, 1743 +Aug. " Feb. 1, " +Sept. " Feb. 1, " +Oct. " Feb. 1, " +Nov. " Feb. 22, " +Dec. " The Session opened on Dec. 1 Feb. 22, " +Supplement to 1743 Feb. 22, " +Jan. 1744 Feb. 22, " +Feb. " Dec. 10, 1742 + Feb. 22, 1743 +Mar. " Dec. 10, 1742 + +During the rest of 1744 the debates were given in the old form, and in a +style that is a close imitation of Johnson's. Most likely they were +composed by Hawkesworth (_ante_, p. 252). In 1745 they were fewer in +number, and in 1746 the reports of the Senate of Lilliputia with its +Hurgoes and Clinabs passed away for ever. They had begun, to quote the +words of the Preface to the _Magazine_ for 1747, at a time when 'a +determined spirit of opposition in the national assemblies communicated +itself to almost every individual, multiplied and invigorated periodical +papers, and rendered politics the chief, if not the only object, of +curiosity.' They are a monument to the greatness of Walpole, and to the +genius of Johnson. Had that statesman not been overthrown, the people +would have called for these reports even though Johnson had refused to +write them. Had Johnson still remained the reporter, even though Walpole +no longer swayed the Senate of the Lilliputians, the speeches of that +tumultuous body would still have been read. For though they are not +debates, yet they have a vast vigour and a great fund of wisdom of their +own. + + * * * * * + + + + +APPENDIX B. + + +JOHNSON'S LETTERS TO HIS MOTHER AND MISS PORTER IN 1759. (_Page 340_.) + +Malone published seven of the following letters in the fourth edition, +and Mr. Croker the rest. + +'TO MRS. JOHNSON IN LICHFIELD. + +'HONOURED MADAM, + +'The account which Miss [Porter] gives me of your health pierces my +heart. God comfort and preserve you and save you, for the sake of Jesus +Christ. + +'I would have Miss read to you from time to time the Passion of our +Saviour, and sometimes the sentences in the Communion Service, beginning +"_Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will give +you rest_." + +'I have just now read a physical book, which inclines me to think that a +strong infusion of the bark would do you good. Do, dear mother, try it. + +'Pray, send me your blessing, and forgive all that I have done amiss to +you. And whatever you would have done, and what debts you would have +paid first, or any thing else that you would direct, let Miss put it +down; I shall endeavour to obey you. + +'I have got twelve guineas[1468] to send you, but unhappily am at a loss +how to send it to-night. If I cannot send it to-night, it will come by +the next post. + +'Pray, do not omit any thing mentioned in this letter: God bless you for +ever and ever. + +'I am your dutiful son, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 13, 1758[1469].' + + +'To Miss PORTER, AT MRS. JOHNSON'S, IN LICHFIELD. + +'MY DEAR Miss, + +'I think myself obliged to you beyond all expression of gratitude for +your care of my dear mother. God grant it may not be without success. +Tell Kitty[1470] that I shall never forget her tenderness for her +mistress. Whatever you can do, continue to do. My heart is very full. + +'I hope you received twelve guineas on Monday. I found a way of sending +them by means of the postmaster, after I had written my letter, and hope +they came safe. I will send you more in a few days. God bless you all. + +'I am, my dear, + +'Your most obliged + +'And most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 16, 1759. +'Over the leaf is a letter to my mother.' + +'DEAR HONOURED MOTHER, + +'Your weakness afflicts me beyond what I am willing to communicate to +you. I do not think you unfit to face death, but I know not how to bear +the thought of losing you. Endeavour to do all you [can] for yourself. +Eat as much as you can. + +'I pray often for you; do you pray for me. I have nothing to add to my +last letter. + +'I am, dear, dear mother + +'Your dutiful son, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 16, 1759.' + + +'To MRS. JOHNSON, IN LICHFIELD. + +'DEAR HONOURED MOTHER, + +'I fear you are too ill for long letters; therefore I will only tell +you, you have from me all the regard that can possibly subsist in the +heart. I pray God to bless you for evermore, for Jesus Christ's sake. +Amen. + +'Let Miss write to me every post, however short. + +'I am, dear mother, + +'Your dutiful son, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 18, 1759.' + + +'TO MISS PORTER, AT MRS. JOHNSON'S, IN LICHFIELD. + +'DEAR Miss, + +'I will, if it be possible, come down to you. God grant I may yet [find] +my dear mother breathing and sensible. Do not tell her, lest I +disappoint her. If I miss to write next post, I am on the road. + + 'I am, my dearest Miss, + 'Your most humble servant, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' +'Jan. 20, 1759.' + +_On the other side_. + +'DEAR HONOURED MOTHER[1471], + +'Neither your condition nor your character make it fit for me to say +much. You have been the best mother, and I believe the best woman in the +world. I thank you for your indulgence to me, and beg forgiveness of all +that I have done ill, and all that I have omitted to do well. God grant +you his Holy Spirit, and receive you to everlasting happiness, for Jesus +Christ's sake. Amen. Lord Jesus receive your spirit. Amen. + + 'I am, dear, dear mother, + 'Your dutiful son, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' +'Jan. 20, 1759.' + + +'TO MISS PORTER IN LICHFIELD. + +'You will conceive my sorrow for the loss of my mother, of the best +mother. If she were to live again surely I should behave better to her. +But she is happy, and what is past is nothing to her; and for me, since +I cannot repair my faults to her, I hope repentance will efface them. I +return you and all those that have been good to her my sincerest thanks, +and pray God to repay you all with infinite advantage. Write to me, and +comfort me, dear child. I shall be glad likewise, if Kitty will write to +me. I shall send a bill of twenty pounds in a few days, which I thought +to have brought to my mother; but God suffered it not. I have not power +or composure to say much more. God bless you, and bless us all. + + 'I am, dear Miss, + 'Your affectionate humble servant, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' +'Jan. 23, 1759[1472].' + + +'To Miss PORTER. + +(_The beginning is torn and lost_.) + + * * * * * + +'You will forgive me if I am not yet so composed as to give any +directions about any thing. But you are wiser and better than I, and I +shall be pleased with all that you shall do. It is not of any use for me +now to come down; nor can I bear the place. If you want any directions, +Mr. Howard[1473] will advise you. The twenty pounds I could not get a +bill for to-night, but will send it on Saturday. + +'I am, my dear, your affectionate servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Jan. 25, 1759.' + + * * * * * + +'To Miss PORTER. + +'DEAR Miss, + +'I have no reason to forbear writing, but that it makes my heart heavy, +and I had nothing particular to say which might not be delayed to the +next post; but had no thoughts of ceasing to correspond with my dear +Lucy, the only person now left in the world with whom I think myself +connected. There needed not my dear mother's desire, for every heart +must lean to somebody, and I have nobody but you; in whom I put all my +little affairs with too much confidence to desire you to keep receipts, +as you prudently proposed. + +'If you and Kitty will keep the house, I think I shall like it best. +Kitty may carry on the trade for herself, keeping her own stock apart, +and laying aside any money that she receives for any of the goods which +her good mistress has left behind her. I do not see, if this scheme be +followed, any need of appraising the books. My mother's debts, dear +mother, I suppose I may pay with little difficulty; and the little trade +may go silently forward. I fancy Kitty can do nothing better; and I +shall not want to put her out of a house, where she has lived so long, +and with so much virtue. I am very sorry that she is ill, and earnestly +hope that she will soon recover; let her know that I have the highest +value for her, and would do any thing for her advantage. Let her think +of this proposal. I do not see any likelier method by which she may pass +the remaining part of her life in quietness and competence. + +'You must have what part of the house you please, while you are inclined +to stay in it; but I flatter myself with the hope that you and I shall +some time pass our days together. I am very solitary and comfortless, +but will not invite you to come hither till I can have hope of making +you live here so as not to dislike your situation. Pray, my dearest, +write to me as often as you can. + +'I am, dear Madam, + +'Your affectionate humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON. + +'Feb. 6, 1759' + + + 'To Miss PORTER. + + 'DEAR MADAM, + + 'I thought your last letter long in coming; and did not require or +expect such an inventory of little things as you have sent me. I could +have taken your word for a matter of much greater value. I am glad that +Kitty is better; let her be paid first, as my dear, dear mother ordered, +and then let me know at once the sum necessary to discharge her other +debts, and I will find it you very soon. + +'I beg, my dear, that you would act for me without the least scruple, +for I can repose myself very confidently upon your prudence, and hope we +shall never have reason to love each other less. I shall take it very +kindly if you make it a rule to write to me once at least every week, +for I am now very desolate, and am loth to be universally forgotten. + + 'I am, dear sweet, + 'Your affectionate servant, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' +'March 1, 1759.' + + +'TO MISS PORTER. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'I beg your pardon for having so long omitted to write. One thing or +other has put me off. I have this day moved my things and you are now to +direct to me at Staple Inn, London. I hope, my dear, you are well, and +Kitty mends. I wish her success in her trade. I am going to publish a +little story book [_Rasselas_], which I will send you when it is out. +Write to me, my dearest girl, for I am always glad to hear from you. + + 'I am, my dear, your humble servant, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' +'March 23, 1759.' + + +'TO MISS PORTER. + +'DEAR MADAM, + +'I am almost ashamed to tell you that all your letters came safe, and +that I have been always very well, but hindered, I hardly know how, from +writing. I sent, last week, some of my works, one for you, one for your +aunt Hunter, who was with my poor dear mother when she died, one for Mr. +Howard, and one for Kitty. + +'I beg you, my dear, to write often to me, and tell me how you like my +little book. + + 'I am, dear love, your affectionate humble servant, + 'SAM. JOHNSON.' +'May 10, 1759.' + + + + +JOHNSON AT CAMBRIDGE. + +(Page 487.) + + +The following is the full extract of Dr. Sharp's letter giving an +account of Johnson's visit to Cambridge in 1765:-- + +'Camb. Mar. 1, 1765. + +'As to Johnson, you will be surprised to hear that I have had him in the +chair in which I am now writing. He has ascended my aërial citadel. He +came down on a Saturday evening, with a Mr. Beauclerk, who has a friend +at Trinity. Caliban, you may be sure, was not roused from his lair +before next day noon, and his breakfast probably kept him till night. I +saw nothing of him, nor was he heard of by any one, till Monday +afternoon, when I was sent for home to two gentlemen unknown. In +conversation I made a strange _faux pas_ about Burnaby Greene's poem, in +which Johnson is drawn at full length[1474]. He drank his large potations +of tea with me, interrupted by many an indignant contradiction, and many +a noble sentiment. He had on a better wig than usual, but, one whose +curls were not, like Sir Cloudesly's[1475], formed for 'eternal buckle.' +[1476] Our conversation was chiefly on books, you may be sure. He was +much pleased with a small _Milton_ of mine, published in the author's +lifetime, and with the Greek epigram on his own effigy, of its being the +picture, not of him, but of a bad painter[1477]. There are many manuscript +stanzas, for aught I know, in Milton's own handwriting, and several +interlined hints and fragments. We were puzzled about one of the +sonnets, which we thought was not to be found in Newton's edition[1478], +and differed from all the printed ones. But Johnson cried, "No, no!" +repeated the whole sonnet instantly, _memoriter_, and shewed it us in +Newton's book. After which he learnedly harangued on sonnet-writing, and +its different numbers. He tells me he will come hither again quickly, +and is promised "an habitation in Emanuel College[1479]." He went back to +town next morning; but as it began to be known that he was in the +university, several persons got into his company the last evening at +Trinity, where, about twelve, he began to be very great; stripped poor +Mrs. Macaulay to the very skin, then gave her for his toast, and drank +her in two bumpers.' (_Gent. Mag_. for 1785, p. 173.) + + * * * * * + + + + +APPENDIX D. + + +JOHNSON'S LETTER TO DR. LELAND. + +(Page 489.) + + +'TO THE REV. DR. LELAND. + +'SIR, + +'Among the names subscribed to the degree which I have had the honour of +receiving from the university of Dublin, I find none of which I have any +personal knowledge but those of Dr. Andrews and yourself. + +'Men can be estimated by those who know them not, only as they are +represented by those who know them; and therefore I flatter myself that +I owe much of the pleasure which this distinction gives me to your +concurrence with Dr. Andrews in recommending me to the learned society. + +'Having desired the Provost to return my general thanks to the +University, I beg that you, sir, will accept my particular and immediate +acknowledgements. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most obedient and most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'Johnson's-court, Fleet-street, + +London, Oct. 17, 1765.' + + * * * * * + + + + +APPENDIX E. + + +JOHNSON'S 'ENGAGING IN POLITICKS WITH H----N. + +(Page 490.) + + +In a little volume entitled _Parliamentary Logick_, by the Right Hon. +W.G. Hamilton, published in 1808, twelve years after the author's death, +is included _Considerations on Corn_, by Dr. Johnson (_Works_, v. 321). +It was written, says Hamilton's editor, in November 1766. A dearth had +caused riots. 'Those who want the supports of life,' Johnson wrote, +'will seize them wherever they can be found.' (_Ib_. p. 322.) He +supported in this tract the bounty for exporting corn. If more than a +year after he had engaged in politics with Mr. Hamilton nothing had been +produced but this short tract, the engagement was not of much +importance. But there was, I suspect, much more in it. Indeed, the +editor says (_Preface_, p. ix.) that 'Johnson had entered into some +engagement with Mr. Hamilton, occasionally to furnish him with his +sentiments on the great political topicks that should be considered in +Parliament.' Mr. Croker draws attention to a passage in Johnson's letter +to Miss Porter of Jan. 14, 1766 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 173) in which he +says: 'I cannot well come [to Lichfield] during the session of +parliament.' In the spring of this same year Burke had broken with +Hamilton, in whose service he had been. 'The occasion of our +difference,' he wrote, 'was not any act whatsoever on my part; it was +entirely upon his, by a voluntary but most insolent and intolerable +demand, amounting to no less than a claim of servitude during the whole +course of my life, without leaving to me at any time a power either of +getting forward with honour, or of retiring with tranquillity' (Burke's +_Corres_. i. 77). It seems to me highly probable that Hamilton, in +consequence of his having just lost, as I have shewn, Burke's services, +sought Johnson's aid. He had taken Burke 'as a companion in his +studies.' (_Ib_. p. 48.) 'Six of the best years of my life,' wrote +Burke, 'he took me from every pursuit of literary reputation or of +improvement of my fortune. In that time he made his own fortune (a very +great one).' (_Ib_. p. 67.) Burke had been recommended to Hamilton by +Dr. Warton. On losing him Hamilton, on Feb. 12, 1765, wrote to Warton, +giving a false account of his separation with Burke, and asking him to +recommend some one to fill his place--some one 'who, in addition to a +taste and an understanding of ancient authors, and what generally passes +under the name of scholarship, has likewise a share of modern knowledge, +and has applied himself in some degree to the study of the law.' By way +of payment he offers at once 'an income, which would neither be +insufficient for him as a man of letters, or disreputable to him as a +gentleman,' and hereafter 'a situation'--a post, that is to say, under +government. (Wooll's _Warton_, i. 299.) Warton recommended Chambers. +Chambers does not seem to have accepted the post, for we find him +staying on at Oxford (_post_, ii. 25, 46). Johnson had all the knowledge +that Hamilton required, except that of law. It is this very study that +we find him at this very time entering upon. All this shows that for +some time and to some extent an engagement was formed between him and +Hamilton. Boswell, writing to Malone on Feb. 25, 1791, while _The Life +of Johnson_ was going through the press, says:-- + +'I shall have more cancels. That _nervous_ mortal W. G. H. is not +satisfied with my report of some particulars _which I wrote down from +his own mouth_, and is so much agitated that Courtenay has persuaded me +to allow a _new edition_ of them by H. himself to be made at H.'s +expense.' + +(Croker's _Boswell_, p. 829). This would seem to show that there was +something that Hamilton wished to conceal. Horace Walpole (_Memoirs of +the Reign of George III_, iii. 402) does not give him a character for +truthfulness. He writes on one occasion:--'Hamilton denied it, but his +truth was not renowned.' Miss Burney, who met Hamilton fourteen years +after this, thus describes him:--'This Mr. Hamilton is extremely tall +and handsome; has an air of haughty and fashionable superiority; is +intelligent, dry, sarcastic, and clever. I should have received much +pleasure from his conversational powers, had I not previously been +prejudiced against him, by hearing that he is infinitely artful, double, +and crafty.' (Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 293). + + + * * * * * + + + + +APPENDIX F. + +JOHNSON'S FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE THRALES AND HIS SERIOUS ILLNESS. + +(_Page_ 490.) + + +Johnson (_Pr. and Med_. p. 191) writes:--'My first knowledge of Thrale +was in 1765.' In a letter to Mrs. Thrale, he says:--'You were but +five-and-twenty when I knew you first.' (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 284). As +she was born on Jan. 16/27, 1741, this would place their introduction in +1766. In another letter, written on July 8, 1784, he talks of her +'kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched.' +(_Ib_. ii. 376). Perhaps, however, he here spoke in round numbers. Mrs. +Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 125) says they first met in 1764. Mr. Thrale, she +writes, sought an excuse for inviting him. 'The celebrity of Mr. +Woodhouse (_post_, ii. 127), a shoemaker, whose verses were at that time +the subject of common discourse, soon afforded a 'pretence.' There is a +notice of Woodhouse in the _Gent. Mag_. for June, 1764 (p. 289). +Johnson, she says, dined with them every Thursday through the winter of +1764-5, and in the autumn of 1765 followed them to Brighton. In the +_Piozzi Letters_ (i. 1) there is a letter of his, dated Aug. 13, 1765, +in which he speaks of his intention to join them there. + +'From that time,' she writes, 'his visits grew more frequent till, in +the year 1766, his health, which he had always complained of, grew so +exceedingly bad, that he could not stir out of his room in the court he +inhabited for many _weeks_ together, I think _months_. Mr. Thrale's +attentions and my own now became so acceptable to him, that he often +lamented to us the horrible condition of his mind, which, he said, was +nearly distracted: and though he charged _us_ to make him odd solemn +promises of secrecy on so strange a subject, yet when we waited on him +one morning, and heard him, in the most pathetic terms, beg the prayers +of Dr. Delap [the Rector of Lewes] who had left him as we came in, I +felt excessively affected with grief, and well remember my husband +involuntarily lifted up one hand to shut his mouth, from provocation at +hearing a man so widely proclaim what he could at last persuade no one +to believe; and what, if true, would have been so unfit to reveal. Mr. +Thrale went away soon after, leaving me with him, and bidding me prevail +on him to quit his close habitation in the court, and come with us to +Streatham, where I undertook the care of his health, and had the honour +and happiness of contributing to its restoration.' + +It is not possible to reconcile the contradiction in dates between +Johnson and Mrs. Piozzi, nor is it easy to fix the time of this illness. +That before February, 1766, he had had an illness so serious as to lead +him altogether to abstain from wine is beyond a doubt. Boswell, on his +return to England in that month, heard it from his own lips (_post_, ii. +8). That this illness must have attacked him after March 1, 1765, when +he visited Cambridge, is also clear; for at that time he was still +drinking wine (_ante_, Appendix C). That he was unusually depressed in +the spring of this year is shewn by his entry at Easter (_ante_, p. +487). From his visit to Dr. Percy in the summer of 1764 (_ante_, p. 486) +to the autumn of 1765, we have very little information about him. For +more than two years he did not write to Boswell (_post_, ii. 1). Dr. +Adams (_ante_, p. 483) describes the same kind of attack as Mrs. Piozzi. +Its date is not given. Boswell, after quoting an entry made on Johnson's +birthday, Sept. 18, 1764, says 'about this time he was afflicted' with +the illness Dr. Adams describes. From Mrs. Piozzi, from Johnson's +account to Boswell, and from Dr. Adams we learn of a serious illness. +Was there more than one? If there was only one, then Boswell is wrong in +placing it before March 1, 1765, when Johnson was still a wine-drinker, +and Mrs. Piozzi is wrong in placing it after February, 1766, when he had +become an abstainer. Johnson certainly stayed at Streatham from before +Midsummer to October in 1766 (_post_, ii. 25, and _Pr. and Med_. p. 71), +and this fact lends support to Mrs. Piozzi's statement. But, on the +other hand, his meetings with Boswell in February of that year, and his +letters to Langton of March 9 and May 10 (_post_, ii. 16, 17), shew a +not unhappy frame of mind. Boswell, in his _Hebrides_ (Oct. 16, 1773), +speaks of Johnson's illness in 1766. If it was in 1766 that he was ill, +it must have been after May 10 and before Midsummer-day, and this period +is almost too brief for Mrs. Piozzi's account. It is a curious +coincidence that Cowper was introduced to the Unwins in the same year in +which Johnson, according to his own account, had his first knowledge of +the Thrales. (Southey's _Cowper_, i, 171.) + + * * * * * + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Post_, iv. 172. + +[2] _Post_, iii. 312. + +[3] _Post_, i. 324. + +[4] _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, ed. 1807, +vol. i. p. xi. + +[5] _Post_, iii. 230. + +[6] _Post_, i. 7. + +[7] _Post_, ii. 212. + +[8] _Post_, i. 7. + +[9] _Post_, iv. 444. + +[10] _Post_, ii. 100. + +[11] _Post_, iv. 429; v. 17. + +[12] _Post_, v. 117. + +[13] _Post_, i. 472, n. 4; iv. 260, n. 2; v. 405, n. 1, 454, n. 2; vi. +i-xxxvii. + +[14] _Post_, i. 60, n. 7. + +[15] _Post_, ii. 476. + +[16] _Post_, vi. xxxiv. + +[17] _Post_, iii. 462. + +[18] _Post_, vi. xxii. + +[19] _Post_, iv. 8, n. 3. + +[20] _Post_, i. 489, 518. + +[21] _Post_, iv. 223, n. 3. + +[22] _Post_, i. 39, n. 1. + +[23] _Post_, iii. 340, n. 2. + +[24] _Post_, i. 103, n. 3. + +[25] _Post_, i. 501. + +[26] _Post_, iii. 443. + +[27] _Post_, iii. 314. + +[28] _Post_, iii. 449. + +[29] _Post_, iii. 478. + +[30] _Post_, iii. 459. + +[31] _Post_, i. 189. n. 2. + +[32] i. 296, n. 3. + +[33] _Post_, vi. 289. + +[34] _Post_, ii. 350. + +[35] _Post_, iii. 137, n. 1; 389. + +[36] _Post_, i. 14 + +[37] _Post_, i. 7-8 + +[38] _Post_, i. 14-15. + +[39] _Post_, iv. 31, n. 3 + +[40] ii. 173-4. + +[41] vol. ii. p. 47. + +[42] Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1825, vol. v. p. 152. + +[43] Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1825, vol. v. p. 152. + +[44] See _Post_, ii. 35, 424-6, 441. + +[45] See _Post_, iv. 422. + +[46] _Correspondence of Edmund Burke_, ii. 425. + +[47] To this interesting and accurate publication I am indebted for many +valuable notes. + +[48] _Post_, iii. 51, n. 3. + +[49] Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1825, vol. iv. p. 446. + +[50] _Post_, i. 331, _n_. 7. + +[51] Johnson said of him:--'Sir Joshua Reynolds is the same all the year +round;' _post_, March 28, 1776. Boswell elsewhere describes him as 'he +who used to be looked upon as perhaps the most happy man in the world.' +_Letters of Boswell_, p. 344. + +[52] 'O noctes coenaeque Deum!' 'O joyous nights! delicious feasts! At +which the gods might be my guests. _Francis_. Horace, _Sat_, ii. 6. 65. + +[53] Six years before this Dedication Sir Joshua had conferred on him +another favour. 'I have a proposal to make to you,' Boswell had written +to him, 'I am for certain to be called to the English bar next February. +Will you now do my picture? and the price shall be paid out of the first +fees which I receive as a barrister in Westminster Hall. Or if that fund +should fail, it shall be paid at any rate five years hence by myself or +my representatives.' Boswell told him at the same time that the debts +which he had contracted in his father's lifetime would not be cleared +off for some years. The letter was endorsed by Sir Joshua:--'I agree to +the above conditions;' and the portrait was painted. Taylor's +_Reynolds_, ii. 477. + +[54] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773. + +[55] 'I surely have the art of writing agreeably. The Lord Chancellor +[Thurlow] told me he had read every word of my _Hebridian Journal_;' he +could not help it; adding, 'could you give a rule how to write a book +that a man _must_ read? I believe Longinus could not.' _Letters of +Boswell_, p. 322. + +[56] Boswell perhaps quotes from memory the following passage in +Goldsmith's _Life of Nash_:--'The doctor was one day conversing with +Locke and two or three more of his learned and intimate companions, with +that freedom, gaiety, and cheerfulness, which is ever the result of +innocence. In the midst of their mirth and laughter, the doctor, looking +from the window, saw Nash's chariot stop at the door. "Boys, boys," +cried the philosopher, "let us now be wise, for here is a fool coming."' +Cunningham's Goldsmith's _Works_, iv. 96. Dr. Warton in his criticism on +Pope's line + +'Unthought of frailties cheat us + in the wise,' + +(_Moral Essays_, i. 69) says:--'For who could imagine that Dr. Clarke +valued himself for his agility, and frequently amused himself in a +private room of his house in leaping over the tables and chairs.' +Warton's _Essay on Pope_, ii. 125. 'It is a good remark of Montaigne's,' +wrote Goldsmith, 'that the wisest men often have friends with whom they +do not care how much they play the fool.' Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 166. +Mr. Seward says in his _Anecdotes_, ii. 320, that 'in the opinion of Dr. +Johnson' Dr. Clarke was the most complete literary character that +England ever produced.' For Dr. Clarke's sermons see _post_, April +7, 1778. + +[57] See _post_, Oct. 16, 1769, note. + +[58] How much delighted would Boswell have been, had he been shewn the +following passage, recorded by Miss Burney, in an account she gives of a +conversation with the Queen:-- + +THE QUEEN:--'Miss Burney, have you heard that Boswell is going to +publish a life of your friend Dr. Johnson?' 'No, ma'am!' 'I tell you as +I heard, I don't know for the truth of it, and I can't tell what he will +do. He is so extraordinary a man that perhaps he will devise something +extraordinary.' _Mme. D'Artlay's Diary_, ii. 400. 'Dr. Johnson's +history,' wrote Horace Walpole, on June 20, 1785, 'though he is going to +have as many lives as a cat, might be reduced to four lines; but I shall +wait to extract the quintessence till Sir John Hawkins, Madame Piozzi, +and Mr. Boswell have produced their quartos.' Horace Walpole's +_Letters_, viii. 557. + +[59] The delay was in part due to Boswell's dissipation and +place-hunting, as is shewn by the following passages in his _Letters_ to +Temple:--'Feb. 24, 1788, I have been wretchedly dissipated, so that I +have not written a line for a fortnight.' p. 266. 'Nov. 28, 1789, +Malone's hospitality, and my other invitations, and particularly my +attendance at Lord Lonsdale's, have lost us many evenings.' _Ib_. p. +311. 'June 21, 1790, How unfortunate to be obliged to interrupt my work! +Never was a poor ambitious projector more mortified. I am suffering +without any prospect of reward, and only from my own folly.' _Ib_. +p. 326. + +[60] 'You cannot imagine what labour, what perplexity, what vexation I +have endured in arranging a prodigious multiplicity of materials, in +supplying omissions, in searching for papers, buried in different +masses, and all this besides the exertion of composing and polishing; +many a time have I thought of giving it up.' _Letters of Boswell_, +p. 311. + +[61] Boswell writing to Temple in 1775, says:--'I try to keep a journal, +and shall shew you that I have done tolerably; but it is hardly credible +what ground I go over, and what a variety of men and manners I +contemplate in a day; and all the time I myself am _pars magna_, for my +exuberant spirits will not let me listen enough.' _Ib_. p. 188. Mr. +Barclay said that 'he had seen Boswell lay down his knife and fork, and +take out his tablets, in order to register a good anecdote.' Croker's +_Boswell_, p. 837. The account given by Paoli to Miss Burney, shows that +very early in life Boswell took out his tablets:--'He came to my +country, and he fetched me some letter of recommending him; but I was of +the belief he might be an impostor, and I supposed in my minde he was an +espy; for I look away from him, and in a moment I look to him again, and +I behold his tablets. Oh! he was to the work of writing down all I say. +Indeed I was angry. But soon I discover he was no impostor and no espy; +and I only find I was myself the monster he had come to discern. Oh! he +is a very good man; I love him indeed; so cheerful, so gay, so pleasant! +but at the first, oh! I was indeed angry.' _Mme. D'Arblay's Diary_, ii. +155. Boswell not only recorded the conversations, he often stimulated +them. On one occasion 'he assumed,' he said, 'an air of ignorance to +incite Dr. Johnson to talk, for which it was often necessary to employ +some address.' See _post_, April 12, 1776. 'Tom Tyers,' said Johnson, +'described me the best. He once said to me, "Sir, you are like a ghost: +you never speak till you are spoken to."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 20, +1773. Boswell writing of this Tour said:--'I also may be allowed to +claim some merit in leading the conversation; I do not mean leading, as +in an orchestra, by playing the first fiddle; but leading as one does in +examining a witness--starting topics, and making him pursue them.' _Ib_. +Sept. 28. One day he recorded:--'I did not exert myself to get Dr. +Johnson to talk, that I might not have the labour of writing down his +conversation.' _Ib_. Sept. 7. His industry grew much less towards the +close of Johnson's life. Under May 8, 1781, he records:--'Of his +conversation on that and other occasions during this period, I neglected +to keep any regular record.' On May 15, 1783:--'I have no minute of any +interview with Johnson [from May 1] till May 15. 'May 15, 1784:--'Of +these days and others on which I saw him I have no memorials.' + +[62] It is an interesting question how far Boswell derived his love of +truth from himself, and how far from Johnson's training. He was one of +Johnson's _school_. He himself quotes Reynolds's observation, 'that all +who were of his _school_ are distinguished for a love of truth and +accuracy, which they would not have possessed in the same degree if they +had not been acquainted with Johnson' (_post_, under March 30, 1778). +Writing to Temple in 1789, he said:--'Johnson taught me to +cross-question in common life.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 280. His +quotations, nevertheless, are not unfrequently inaccurate. Yet to him +might fairly be applied the words that Gibbon used of Tillemont:--'His +inimitable accuracy almost assumes the character of genius.' Gibbon's +_Misc. Words_, i. 213. + +[63] 'The revision of my _Life of Johnson_, by so acute and knowing a +critic as Mr. Malone, is of most essential consequence, especially as he +is _Johnsonianissimum_.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 310. A few weeks +earlier he had written:--'Yesterday afternoon Malone and I made ready +for the press thirty pages of Johnson's _Life_; he is much pleased with +it; but I feel a sad indifference [he had lately lost his wife], and he +says, "I have not the use of my faculties."' _Ib_. p. 308. + +[64] Horace, _Odes_, i. 3. 1. + +[65] He had published an answer to Hume's _Essay on Miracles_. See +_post_, March 20, 1776. + +[66] Macleod asked if it was not wrong in Orrery to expose the defects +of a man [Swift] with whom he lived in intimacy, Johnson, 'Why no, Sir, +after the man is dead; for then it is done historically.' Boswell's +_Hebrides_, Sept. 22, 1773. See also _post_, Sept 17, 1777. + +[67] See Mr. Malone's Preface to his edition of Shakspeare. BOSWELL. + +[68] 'April 6, 1791. + +'My _Life of Johnson_ is at last drawing to a close.... I really hope to +publish it on the 25th current.... I am at present in such bad spirits +that I have every fear concerning it--that I may get no profit, nay, may +lose--that the Public may be disappointed, and think that I have done it +poorly--that I may make many enemies, and even have quarrels. Yet +perhaps the very reverse of all this may happen.' _Letters of +Boswell_, p. 335. + +'August 22, 1791. + +'My _magnum opus_ sells wonderfully; twelve hundred are now gone, and we +hope the whole seventeen hundred may be gone before Christmas.' _Ib_. +p. 342. + +Malone in his Preface to the fourth edition, dated June 20, 1804, says +that 'near four thousand copies have been dispersed.' The first edition +was in 2 vols., quarto; the second (1793) in 3 vols., octavo; the third +(1799), the fourth (1804), the fifth (1807), and the sixth (1811), were +each in 4 vols., octavo. The last four were edited by Malone, Boswell +having died while he was preparing notes for the third edition. + +[69] 'Burke affirmed that Boswell's _Life_ was a greater monument to +Johnson's fame than all his writings put together.' _Life of +Mackintosh_, i. 92. + +[70] It is a pamphlet of forty-two pages, under the title of _The +Principal Corrections and Additions to the First Edition of Mr. +Boswell's Life Of Johnson_. Price two shillings and sixpence. + +[71] Reynolds died on Feb. 23, 1792. + +[72] Sir Joshua in his will left £200 to Mr. Boswell 'to be expended, if +he thought proper, in the purchase of a picture at the sale of his +paintings, to be kept for his sake.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 636. + +[73] Of the seventy-five years that Johnson lived, he and Boswell did +not spend two years and two months in the same neighbourhood. Excluding +the time they were together on their tour to the Hebrides, they were +dwelling within reach of each other a few weeks less than two years. +Moreover, when they were apart, there were great gaps in their +correspondence. Between Dec. 8, 1763, and Jan. 14, 1766, and again +between Nov. 10, 1769 and June 20, 1771, during which periods they did +not meet, Boswell did not receive a single letter from Johnson. The +following table shows the times they were in the same neighbourhood. + +1763, May 16 to Aug. 6, London. +1766, a few days in February " +1768, " " March, Oxford. +1768, a few days in May, London. +1769, end of Sept. to Nov. 10, " +1772, March 21 to about May 10, " +1773, April 3 to May 10, " + " Aug. 14 to Nov. 22, Scotland. +1775, March 21 to April 18, London. + May 2 to May 23, " +1776, March 15 to May 16, London, Oxford, Birmingham, + with an interval of Lichfield, + about a fortnight, Ashbourne, + when Johnson was at and + Bath and Boswell at Bath. + London, +1777, Sept. 14 to Sept. 24, Ashbourne. +1778, March 18 to May 19, London. +1779, March 15 to May 3, " + " Oct. 4 to Oct. 18, " +1781, March 19 to June 5, London + and Southill. +1783, March 21 to May 30, London. +1784, May 5 to June 30, London + and Oxford. + +[74] + +'To shew what wisdom and what sense can do, +The poet sets Ulysses in our view.' + +_Francis_. Horace, _Ep_. i. 2. 17. + +[75] In his _Letter to the People of Scotland, p. 92, he wrote:--'Allow +me, my friends and countrymen, while I with honest zeal maintain _your_ +cause--allow me to indulge a little more my _own egotism_ and _vanity_. +They are the indigenous plants of my mind; they distinguish it. I may +prune their luxuriancy; but I must not entirely clear it of them; for +then I should be no longer "as I am;" and perhaps there might be +something not so good.' + +[76] See _post_, April 17, 1778, note. + +[77] Lord Macartney was the first English ambassador to the Court of +Pekin. He left England in 1792 and returned in 1794. + +[78] Boswell writing to Temple ten days earlier had said:--'Behold my +_hand_! the robbery is only of a few shillings; but the cut on my head +and bruises on my arms were sad things, and confined me to bed, in pain, +and fever, and helplessness, as a child, many days.... This shall be a +crisis in my life: I trust I shall henceforth be a sober regular man. +Indeed, my indulgence in wine has, of late years especially, been +excessive.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 346. + +[79] On this day his brother wrote to Mr. Temple: 'I have now the +painful task of informing you that my dear brother expired this morning +at two o'clock; we have both lost a kind, affectionate friend, and I +shall never have such another.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 357. What was +probably Boswell's last letter is as follows:-- + +'My Dear Temple, + +'I would fain write to you in my own hand, but really cannot. [These +words, which are hardly legible, and probably the last poor Boswell ever +wrote, afford the clearest evidence of his utter physical prostration.] +Alas, my friend, what a state is this! My son James is to write for me +what remains of this letter, and I am to dictate. The pain which +continued for so many weeks was very severe indeed, and when it went off +I thought myself quite well; but I soon felt a conviction that I was by +no means as I should be--so exceedingly weak, as my miserable attempt to +write to you afforded a full proof. All then that can be said is, that I +must wait with patience. But, O my friend! how strange is it that, at +this very time of my illness, you and Miss Temple should have been in +such a dangerous state. Much occasion for thankfulness is there that it +has not been worse with you. Pray write, or make somebody write +frequently. I feel myself a good deal stronger to-day, not withstanding +the scrawl. God bless you, my dear Temple! I ever am your old and +affectionate friend, here and I trust hereafter, + +'JAMES BOSWELL.' _Ib_. p. 353. + +[80] Malone died on May 25, 1812. + +[81] I do not here include his Poetical Works; for, excepting his Latin +Translation of Pope's _Messiah_, his _London_, and his _Vanity of Human +Wishes_ imitated from _Juvenal_; his Prologue on the opening of +Drury-Lane Theatre by Mr. Garrick, and his _Irene_, a Tragedy, they are +very numerous, and in general short; and I have promised a complete +edition of them, in which I shall with the utmost care ascertain their +authenticity, and illustrate them with notes and various readings. +BOSWELL. Boswell's meaning, though not well expressed, is clear enough. +Mr. Croker needlessly suggests that he wrote 'they are _not_ very +numerous.' Boswell a second time (_post_, under Aug. 12, 1784, note) +mentions his intention to edit Johnson's poems. He died without doing +it. See also _post_, 1750, Boswell's note on Addison's style. + +[82] The _Female Quixote_ was published in 1752. See _post_, 1762, note. + +[83] The first four volumes of the _Lives_ were published in 1779, the +last six in 1781. + +[84] See Dr. Johnson's letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated Ostick in Skie, +September 30, 1773:--'Boswell writes a regular Journal of our travels, +which I think contains as much of what I say and do, as of all other +occurrences together; "_for such a faithful chronicler_ is _Griffith_."' +BOSWELL. See _Piozzi Letters_, i. 159, where however we read '_as_ +Griffith.' + +[85] _Idler_, No. 84. BOSWELL.--In this paper he says: 'Those relations +are commonly of most value in which the writer tells his own story. He +that recounts the life of another ... lessens the familiarity of his +tale to increase its dignity ... and endeavours to hide the man that he +may produce a hero.' + +[86] 'It very seldom happens to man that his business is his pleasure. +What is done from necessity is so often to be done when against the +present inclination, and so often fills the mind with anxiety, that an +habitual dislike steals upon us, and we shrink involuntarily from the +remembrance of our task.... From this unwillingness to perform more than +is required of that which is commonly performed with reluctance it +proceeds that few authors write their own lives.' _Idler_, No. 102. See +also _post_, May 1, 1783. + +[87] Mrs. Piozzi records the following conversation with Johnson, which, +she says, took place on July 18, 1773. 'And who will be my biographer,' +said he, 'do you think?' 'Goldsmith, no doubt,' replied I; 'and he will +do it the best among us.' 'The dog would write it best to be sure,' +replied he; 'but his particular malice towards me, and general disregard +for truth, would make the book useless to all, and injurious to my +character.' 'Oh! as to that,' said I, 'we should all fasten upon him, +and force him to do you justice; but the worst is, the Doctor does not +_know_ your life; nor can I tell indeed who does, except Dr. Taylor of +Ashbourne.' 'Why Taylor,' said he, 'is better acquainted with my _heart_ +than any man or woman now alive; and the history of my Oxford exploits +lies all between him and Adams; but Dr. James knows my very early days +better than he. After my coming to London to drive the world about a +little, you must all go to Jack Hawkesworth for anecdotes: I lived in +great familiarity with him (though I think there was not much affection) +from the year 1753 till the time Mr. Thrale and you took me up. I +intend, however, to disappoint the rogues, and either make you write the +life, with Taylor's intelligence; or, which is better, do it myself +after outliving you all. I am now,' added he, 'keeping a diary, in hopes +of using it for that purpose sometime.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 31. How much +of this is true cannot be known. Boswell some time before this +conversation had told Johnson that he intended to write his Life, and +Johnson had given him many particulars (see _post_, March 31, 1772, and +April 11, 1773). He read moreover in manuscript most of Boswell's _Tour +to the Hebrides_, and from it learnt of his intention. 'It is no small +satisfaction to me to reflect,' Boswell wrote, 'that Dr. Johnson, after +being apprised of my intentions, communicated to me, at subsequent +periods, many particulars of his life.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. +14, 1773. + +[88] 'It may be said the death of Dr. Johnson kept the public mind in +agitation beyond all former example. No literary character ever excited +so much attention.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 3. + +[89] The greatest part of this book was written while Sir John Hawkins +was alive; and I avow, that one object of my strictures was to make him +feel some compunction for his illiberal treatment of Dr. Johnson. Since +his decease, I have suppressed several of my remarks upon his work. But +though I would not 'war with the dead' _offensively_, I think it +necessary to be strenuous in _defence_ of my illustrious friend, which I +cannot be without strong animadversions upon a writer who has greatly +injured him. Let me add, that though I doubt I should not have been very +prompt to gratify Sir John Hawkins with any compliment in his life-time, +I do now frankly acknowledge, that, in my opinion, his volume, however +inadequate and improper as a life of Dr. Johnson, and however +discredited by unpardonable inaccuracies in other respects, contains a +collection of curious anecdotes and observations, which few men but its +author could have brought together. BOSWELL. + +[90] 'The next name that was started was that of Sir John Hawkins; and +Mrs. Thrale said, "Why now, Dr. Johnson, he is another of those whom you +suffer nobody to abuse but yourself: Garrick is one too; for, if any +other person speaks against him, you brow-beat him in a minute." "Why +madam," answered he, "they don't know when to abuse him, and when to +praise him; I will allow no man to speak ill of David that he does not +deserve; and as to Sir John, why really I believe him to be an honest +man at the bottom; but to be sure he is penurious, and he is mean, and +it must be owned he has a degree of brutality, and a tendency to +savageness, that cannot easily be defended.... He said that Sir John and +he once belonged to the same club, but that as he eat no supper, after, +the first night of his admission he desired to be excused paying his +share." "And was he excused?" "O yes; for no man is angry at another for +being inferior to himself. We all scorned him, and admitted his plea. +For my part, I was such a fool as to pay my share for wine, though I +never tasted any. But Sir John was a most _unclubable man_."' Madame +D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 65. + +[91] 'In censuring Mr. [_sic_] J. Hawkins's book I say: "There is +throughout the whole of it a dark, uncharitable cast, which puts the +most unfavourable construction on my illustrious friend's conduct." +Malone maintains _cast_ will not do; he will have "malignancy." Is that +not too strong? How would "disposition" do?... Hawkins is no doubt very +malevolent. _Observe how he talks of me as quite unknown.' Letters of +Boswell_, p. 281. Malone wrote of Hawkins as follows: 'The bishop +[Bishop Percy of Dromore] concurred with every other person I have heard +speak of Hawkins, in saying that he was a most detestable fellow. He was +the son of a carpenter, and set out in life in the very lowest line of +the law. Dyer knew him well at one time, and the Bishop heard him give a +character of Hawkins once that painted him in the blackest colours; +though Dyer was by no means apt to deal in such portraits. Dyer said he +was a man of the most mischievous, uncharitable, and malignant +disposition. Sir Joshua Reynolds observed to me that Hawkins, though he +assumed great outward sanctity, was not only mean and grovelling in +dispostion, but absolutely dishonest. He never lived in any real +intimacy with Dr. Johnson, who never opened his heart to him, or had in +fact any accurate knowledge of his character.' Prior's _Malone_, pp. +425-7. See _post_, Feb. 1764, note. + +[92] Mrs. Piozzi. See _post_, under June 30, 1784. + +[93] Voltaire in his account of Bayle says: 'Des Maizeaux a écrit sa vie +en un gros volume; elle ne devait pas contenir six pages.' Voltaire's +_Works_, edition of 1819, xvii. 47. + +[94] Brit. Mus. 4320, Ayscough's Catal., Sloane MSS. BOSWELL.--Horace +Walpole describes Birch as 'a worthy, good-natured soul, full of +industry and activity, and running about like a young setting-dog in +quest of anything, new or old, and with no parts, taste, or judgment.' +Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 326. See _post_, Sept. 1743. + +[95] 'You have fixed the method of biography, and whoever will write a +life well must imitate you.' Horace Walpole to Mason; Walpole's +_Letters_, vi. 211. + +[96] 'I am absolutely certain that my mode of biography, which gives not +only a _History_ of Johnson's _visible_ progress through the world, and +of his publications, but a _view_ of his mind in his letters and +conversations, is the most perfect that can be conceived, and will be +more of a Life than any work that has ever yet appeared.' _Letters of +Boswell_, p. 265. + +[97] Pope's Prologue to Addison's _Cato_, 1. 4. + +[98] 'Boswell is the first of biographers. He has distanced all his +competitors so decidedly that it is not worth while to place them. +Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere.' Macaulay's _Essays_, i. 374. + +[99] See _post_, Sept. 17, 1777, and Malone's note of March 15, 1781, +and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22, 1773. Hannah More met Boswell when +he was carrying through the press his _Journal of a Tour to the +Hebrides_. 'Boswell tells me,' she writes, 'he is printing anecdotes of +Johnson, not his _Life_, but, as he has the vanity to call it, his +_pyramid_. I besought his tenderness for our virtuous and most revered +departed friend, and begged he would mitigate some of his asperities. He +said roughly: "He would not cut off his claws, nor make a tiger a cat, +to please anybody." It will, I doubt not, be a very amusing book, but, I +hope, not an indiscreet one; he has great enthusiasm and some fire.' H. +More's _Memoirs_, i. 403. + +[100] Rambler, No. 60. BOSWELL. + +[101] In the _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_. + +[102] 'Mason's _Life of Gray_ is excellent, because it is interspersed +with letters which show us the _man_. His _Life of Whitehead_ is not a +life at all, for there is neither a letter nor a saying from first to +last.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 265. + +[103] The Earl and Countess of Jersey, WRIGHT. + +[104] Plutarch's _Life of Alexander_, Langhorne's Translation. BOSWELL. + +[105] In the original, _revolving something_. + +[106] In the original, _and so little regard the manners_. + +[107] In the original, _and are rarely transmitted_. + +[108] _Rambler_, No. 60. BOSWELL. + +[109] Bacon's _Advancement of Learning_, Book I. BOSWELL. + +[110] Johnson's godfather, Dr. Samuel Swinfen, according to the author +of _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr. Johnson_, 1785, p. 10, was +at the time of his birth lodging with Michael Johnson. Johnson had +uncles on the mother's side, named Samuel and Nathanael (see _Notes and +Queries_, 5th S. v. 13), after whom he and his brother may have been +named. It seems more likely that it was his godfather who gave him +his name. + +[111] So early as 1709 _The Tatler_ complains of this 'indiscriminate +assumption.' 'I'll undertake that if you read the superscriptions to all +the offices in the kingdom, you will not find three letters directed to +any but Esquires.... In a word it is now _Populus Armigerorum_, a people +of Esquires, And I don't know but by the late act of naturalisation, +foreigners will assume that title as part of the immunity of being +Englishmen.' _The Tatler_, No. 19. + +[112] 'I can hardly tell who was my grandfather,' said Johnson. See +_post_, May 9, 1773. + +[113] Michael Johnson was born in 1656. He must have been engaged in the +book-trade as early as 1681; for in the _Life of Dryden_ his son says, +'The sale of Absalom and Achitophel was so large, that my father, an old +bookseller, told me, he had not known it equalled but by Sacheverell's +Trial.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 276. In the _Life of Sprat_ he is +described by his son as 'an old man who had been no careless observer of +the passages of those times.' Ib. 392. + +[114] Her epitaph says that she was born at Kingsnorton. Kingsnorton is +in Worcestershire, and not, as the epitaph says, 'in agro Varvicensi.' +When Johnson a few days before his death burnt his papers, some +fragments of his _Annals_ escaped the flames. One of these was never +seen by Boswell; it was published in 1805 under the title of _An Account +of the Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, from his Birth to his Eleventh Year, +written by himself_. In this he says (p. 14), 'My mother had no value +for my father's relations; those indeed whom we knew of were much lower +than hers.' Writing to Mrs. Thrale on his way to Scotland he said: 'We +changed our horses at Darlington, where Mr. Cornelius Harrison, a +cousin-german of mine, was perpetual curate. He was the only one of my +relations who ever rose in fortune above penury, or in character above +neglect.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 105. His uncle Harrison he described as +'a very mean and vulgar man, drunk every night, but drunk with little +drink, very peevish, very proud, very ostentatious, but luckily not +rich.' _Annals_, p. 28. In _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. x. 465, is given +the following extract of the marriage of Johnson's parents from the +Register of Packwood in Warwickshire:-- + +'1706. Mickell Johnsones of lichfield and Sara ford maried June the +9th.' + +[115] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 3) records that Johnson told her that 'his +father was wrong-headed, positive, and afflicted with melancholy.' + +[116] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 213 [Sept. 16]. +BOSWELL. + +[117] Stockdale in his _Memoirs_, ii. 102, records an anecdote told him +by Johnson of 'the generosity of one of the customers of his father. +"This man was purchasing a book, and pressed my father to let him have +it at a far less price than it was worth. When his other topics of +persuasion failed, he had recourse to one argument which, he thought, +would infallibly prevail:--You know, Mr. Johnson, that I buy an almanac +of you every year."' + +[118] Extract of a letter, dated 'Trentham, St. Peter's day, 1716,' +written by the Rev. George Plaxton, Chaplain at that time to Lord Gower, +which may serve to show the high estimation in which the Father of our +great Moralist was held: 'Johnson, the Litchfield 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; Allen cannot make a warrant without his +precedent, nor our quondam John Evans draw a recognizance _sine +directione Michaelis_.' _Gentleman's Magazine_, October, 1791. BOSWELL. + +[119] In _Notes and Queries_, 3rd S. v. 33, is given the following +title-page of one of his books: '[Greek: Pharmako-Basauos]: _or the +Touchstone of Medicines, etc_. By Sir John Floyer of the City of +Litchfield, Kt., M.D., of Queen's College, Oxford. London: Printed for +Michael Johnson, Bookseller, and are to be sold at his shops at +Litchfield and Uttoxiter, in Staffordshire; and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in +Leicestershire, 1687.' + +[120] Johnson writing of his birth says: 'My father being that year +sheriff of Lichfield, and to ride the circuit of the county [Mr. Croker +suggests city, not being aware that 'the City of Lichfield was a county +in itself.' See Harwood's _Lichfield_, p. 1. In like manner, in the +Militia Bill of 1756 (_post_ 1756) we find entered, 'Devonshire with +Exeter City and County,' 'Lincolnshire with Lincoln City and County'] +next day, which was a ceremony then performed with great pomp, he was +asked by my mother whom he would invite to the Riding; and answered, +"all the town now." He feasted the citizens with uncommon magnificence, +and was the last but one that maintained the splendour of the Riding.' +_Annals_, p. 10. He served the office of churchwarden in 1688; of +sheriff in 1709; of junior bailiff in 1718; and senior bailiff in 1725.' +Harwood's _Lichfield_, p. 449. + +[121] 'My father and mother had not much happiness from each other. They +seldom conversed; for my father could not bear to talk of his affairs, +and my mother being unacquainted with books cared not to talk of +anything else. Had my mother been more literate, they had been better +companions. She might have sometimes introduced her unwelcome topic with +more success, if she could have diversified her conversation. Of +business she had no distinct conception; and therefore her discourse was +composed only of complaint, fear, and suspicion. Neither of them ever +tried to calculate the profits of trade, or the expenses of living. My +mother concluded that we were poor, because we lost by some of our +trades; but the truth was, that my father, having in the early part of +his life contracted debts, never had trade sufficient to enable him to +pay them and maintain his family; he got something, but not enough.' +_Annals_, p. 14. Mr. Croker noticing the violence of Johnson's language +against the Excise, with great acuteness suspected 'some cause of +_personal animosity_;' this mention of the trade in parchment (an +_exciseable_ article) afforded a clue, which has led to the confirmation +of that suspicion. In the records of the Excise Board is to be found the +following letter, addressed to the supervisor of excise at Lichfield: +'July 27, 1725. The Commissioners received yours of the 22nd instant, +and since the justices would not give judgment against Mr. Michael +Johnson, _the tanner_, notwithstanding the facts were fairly against +him, the Board direct that the next time he offends, you do not lay an +information against him, but send an affidavit of the fact, that he may +be prosecuted in the Exchequer.' + +[122] See _post_, March 27, 1775. + +[123] 'I remember, that being in bed with my mother one morning, I was +told by her of the two places to which the inhabitants of this world +were received after death: one a fine place filled with happiness, +called Heaven; the other, a sad place, called Hell. That this account +much affected my imagination I do not remember.' _Annals_, p. 19. + +[124] Johnson's _Works_, vi. 406. + +[125] Mr. Croker disbelieves the story altogether. 'Sacheverel,' he +says, 'by his sentence pronounced in Feb. 1710, was interdicted for +three years from preaching; so that he could not have preached at +Lichfield while Johnson was under three years of age. Sacheverel, +indeed, made a triumphal progress through the midland counties in 1710; +and it appears by the books of the corporation of Lichfield that he was +received in that town, and complimented by the attendance of the +corporation, "and a present of three dozen of wine," on June 16, 1710; +but then "the _infant Hercules of Toryism_" was just _nine months_ old.' +It is quite possible that the story is in the main correct. Sacheverel +was received in Lichfield in 1710 on his way down to Shropshire to take +possession of a living. At the end of the suspension in March 1713 he +preached a sermon in London, for which, as he told Swift, 'a book-seller +gave him £100, intending to print 30,000' (Swift's _Journal to Stella_, +April 2, 1713). It is likely enough that either on his way up to town or +on his return journey he preached at Lichfield. In the spring of 1713 +Johnson was three years old. + +[126] See _post_, p. 48, and April 25,1778 note; and Boswell's +_Hebrides_, Oct. 28, 1773. + +[127] _Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson_, by Hester Lynch Piozzi, p. 11. Life of +Dr. Johnson_, by Sir John Hawkins, p. 6. BOSWELL. + +[128] 'My father had much vanity which his adversity hindered from being +fully exerted.' _Annals_, p. 14. + +[129] This anecdote of the duck, though disproved by internal and +external evidence, has nevertheless, upon supposition of its truth, been +made the foundation of the following ingenious and fanciful reflections +of Miss Seward, amongst the communications concerning Dr. Johnson with +which she has been pleased to favour me: 'These infant numbers contain +the seeds of those propensities which through his life so strongly +marked his character, of that poetick talent which afterwards bore such +rich and plentiful fruits; for, excepting his orthographick works, every +thing which Dr. Johnson wrote was Poetry, whose essence consists not in +numbers, or in jingle, but in the strength and glow of a fancy, to which +all the stores of nature and of art stand in prompt administration; and +in an eloquence which conveys their blended illustrations in a language +"more tuneable than needs or rhyme or verse to add more harmony." + +'The above little verses also shew that superstitious bias which "grew +with his growth, and strengthened with his strength," and, of late years +particularly, injured his happiness, by presenting to him the gloomy +side of religion, rather than that bright and cheering one which gilds +the period of closing life with the light of pious hope.' + +This is so beautifully imagined, that I would not suppress it. But like +many other theories, it is deduced from a supposed fact, which is, +indeed, a fiction. BOSWELL. + +[130] _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 27. BOSWELL. + +[131] Speaking himself of the imperfection of one of his eyes, he said +to Dr. Burney, 'the dog was never good for much.' MALONE. + +[132] Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 1, 1773. + +[133] 'No accidental position of a riband,' wrote Mrs. Piozzi, 'escaped +him, so nice was his observation, and so rigorous his demands of +propriety.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 287. Miss Burney says:-- +'Notwithstanding Johnson is sometimes so absent and always so +near-sighted, he scrutinizes into every part of almost everybody's +appearance [at Streatham].' And again she writes:--'his blindness is as +much the effect of absence [of mind] as of infirmity, for he sees +wonderfully at times. He can see the colour of a lady's top-knot, for he +very often finds fault with it.' Mme. D'Arblays _Diary_, i. 85, ii. 174. +'He could, when well, distinguish the hour on Lichfield town-clock.' +_Post_, p. 64. + +[134] See _post_, Sept. 22, 1777. + +[135] This was Dr. Swinfen's opinion, who seems also to have attributed +Johnson's short-sightedness to the same cause. 'My mother,' he says, +'thought my diseases derived from her family.' _Annals_, p. 12. When he +was put out at nurse, 'She visited me,' he says, 'every day, and used to +go different ways, that her assiduity might not expose her to ridicule.' + +[136] In 1738 Carte published a masterly 'Account of Materials, etc., +for a History of England with the method of his undertaking.' (_Gent. +Mag_. viii. 227.) He proposed to do much of what has been since done +under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. He asked for +subscriptions to carry on his great undertaking, for in its researches +it was to be very great. In 1744 the City of London resolved to +subscribe £50 for seven years (ib. xiv: 393). In vol. i. of his history, +which only came down to the reign of John (published in 1748), he went +out of his way to assert that the cure by the king's touch was not due +to the 'regal _unction_'; for he had known a man cured who had gone over +to France, and had been there 'touched by the eldest lineal descendant +of a race of kings who had not at that time been crowned or _anointed_.' +(ib. xviii. 13.) Thereupon the Court of Common Council by a unanimous +vote withdrew its subscription, (ib. 185.) The old Jacobites maintained +that the power did not descend to Mary, William, or Anne. It was for +this reason that Boswell said that Johnson should have been taken to +Rome; though indeed it was not till some years after he was 'touched' by +Queen Anne that the Pretender dwelt there. The Hanoverian kings never +'touched.' The service for the ceremony was printed in the _Book of +Common Prayer_ as late as 1719. (_Penny Cyclo_. xxi. 113.) 'It appears +by the newspapers of the time,' says Mr. Wright, quoted by Croker, 'that +on March 30, 1712, two hundred persons were touched by Queen Anne.' +Macaulay says that 'Charles the Second, in the course of his reign, +touched near a hundred thousand persons.... The expense of the ceremony +was little less than ten thousand pounds a year.' Macaulay's +_England_, ch. xiv. + +[137] See _post_, p. 91, note. + +[138] _Anecdotes_, p. 10. BOSWELL. + +[139] Johnson, writing of Addison's schoolmasters, says:--'Not to name +the school or the masters of men illustrious for literature is a kind of +historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously diminished. I +would therefore trace him through the whole process of his education.' +Johnson's _Works_, vii. 418. + +[140] Neither the British Museum nor the Bodleian Library has a copy. + +[141] 'When we learned _Propria qua maribus_, we were examined in the +Accidence; particularly we formed verbs, that is, went through the same +person in all the moods and tenses. This was very difficult to me, and I +was once very anxious about the next day, when this exercise was to be +performed in which I had failed till I was discouraged. My mother +encouraged me, and I proceeded better. When I told her of my good +escape, "We often," said she, dear mother! "come off best when we are +most afraid." She told me that, once when she asked me about forming +verbs I said, "I did not form them in an ugly shape." "You could not," +said she "speak plain; and I was proud that I had a boy who was forming +verbs" These little memorials soothe my mind.' _Annals_, p. 22. + +[142] 'This was the course of the school which I remember with pleasure; +for I was indulged and caressed by my master; and, I think, really +excelled the rest.' _Annals_, p. 23. + +[143] Johnson said of Hunter:--'Abating his brutality, he was a very +good master;' _post_. March 21, 1772. Steele in the _Spectator_, No. +157, two years after Johnson's birth, describes these savage tyrants of +the grammar-schools. 'The boasted liberty we talk of,' he writes, 'is +but a mean reward for the long servitude, the many heartaches and +terrors to which our childhood is exposed in going through a grammar +school.... No one who has gone through what they call a great school but +must remember to have seen children of excellent and ingenuous natures +(as has afterwards appeared in their manhood); I say no man has passed +through this way of education but must have seen an ingenuous creature +expiring with shame, with pale looks, beseeching sorrow and silent +tears, throw up its honest eyes and kneel or its tender kneeds to an +inexorable blockhead to be forgiven the false quantity of a word in +making a Latin verse.' Likely enough Johnson's roughness was in part due +to this brutal treatment; for Steele goes on to say:--'It is wholly to +this dreadful practise that we may attribute a certain hardiness and +ferocity which some men, though liberally educated, carry about them in +all their behaviour. To be bred like a gentleman, and punished like a +malefactor, must, as we see it does, produce that illiberal sauciness +which we see sometimes in men of letters.' + +[144] Johnson described him as 'a peevish and ill-tempered man,' and not +so good a scholar or teacher as Taylor made out. Once the boys perceived +that he did not understand a part of the Latin lesson; another time, +when sent up to the upper-master to be punished, they had to complain +that when they 'could not get the passage,' the assistant would not help +them. _Annals_, pp. 26, 32. + +[145] One of the contributors to the _Athenian Letters_. See _Gent. +Mag_. liv. 276. + +[146] Johnson, _post_, March 22, 1776, describes him as one 'who does +not get drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always muddy.' + +[147] A tradition had reached Johnson through his school-fellow Andrew +Corbet that Addison had been at the school and had been the leader in a +barring out. (Johnson's _Works_, vii. 419.) Garrick entered the school +about two years after Johnson left. According to Garrick's biographer, +Tom Davies (p. 3), 'Hunter was an odd mixture of the pedant and the +sportsman. Happy was the boy who could slily inform his offended master +where a covey of partridges was to be found; this notice was a certain +pledge of his pardon.' Lord Campbell in his _Lives of the Chief +Justices_, ii. 279, says:--'Hunter is celebrated for having flogged +seven boys who afterwards sat as judges in the superior courts at +Westminster at the same time. Among these were Chief Justice Wilmot, +Lord Chancellor Northington, Sir T. Clarke, Master of the Rolls, Chief +Justice Willes, and Chief Baron Parker. It is remarkable that, although +Johnson and Wilmot were several years class-fellows at Lichfield, there +never seems to have been the slightest intercourse between them in after +life; but the Chief Justice used frequently to mention the Lexicographer +as "a long, lank, lounging boy, whom he distinctly remembered to have +been punished by Hunter for idleness." Lord Campbell blunders here. +Northington and Clarke were from Westminster School (Campbell's +_Chancellors_, v. 176). The schoolhouse, famous though it was, was +allowed to fall into decay. A writer in the _Gent. Mag_. in 1794 (p. +413) says that 'it is now in a state of dilapidation, and unfit for the +use of either the master or boys.' + +[148] Johnson's observation to Dr. Rose, on this subject, deserves to be +recorded. Rose was praising the mild treatment of children at school, at +a time when flogging began to be less practised than formerly: 'But +then, (said Johnson,) they get nothing else: and what they gain at one +end, they lose at the other.' BURNEY. See _post_, under Dec. 17, 1775. + +[149] This passage is quoted from Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773. +Mr. Boyd had told Johnson that Lady Errol did not use force or fear in +educating her children; whereupon he replied, 'Sir, she is wrong,' and +continued in the words of the text. + +Gibbon in his _Autobiography_ says:--'The domestic discipline of our +ancestors has been relaxed by the philosophy and softness of the age: +and if my father remembered that he had trembled before a stern parent, +it was only to adopt with his son an opposite mode of behaviour.' +Gibbon's _Works_, i. 112. Lord Chesterfield writing to a friend on Oct. +18, 1752, says:--'Pray let my godson never know what a blow or a +whipping is, unless for those things for which, were he a man, he would +deserve them; such as lying, cheating, making mischief, and meditated +malice.' Chesterfield's _Misc. Works_, iv. 130. + +[150] Johnson, however, hated anything that came near to tyranny in the +management of children. Writing to Mrs. Thrale, who had told him that +she had on one occasion gone against the wish of her nurses, he +said:--'That the nurses fretted will supply me during life with an +additional motive to keep every child, as far as is possible, out of a +nurse's power. A nurse made of common mould will have a pride in +overcoming a child's reluctance. There are few minds to which tyranny is +not delightful; power is nothing but as it is felt, and the delight of +superiority is proportionate to the resistance overcome.' _Piozzi +Letters_, ii. 67. + +[151] 'Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed.' 2 Henry VI, act iv. +sc. 10. John Wesley's mother, writing of the way she had brought up her +children, boys and girls alike, says:--'When turned a year old (and some +before) they were taught to fear the rod, and to cry softly; by which +means they escaped abundance of correction they might otherwise have +had.' Wesley's _Journal_, i. 370. + +[152] 'There dwelt at Lichfield a gentleman of the name of Butt, to +whose house on holidays he was ever welcome. The children in the family, +perhaps offended with the rudeness of his behaviour, would frequently +call him the great boy, which the father once overhearing said:--'You +call him the great boy, but take my word for it, he will one day prove a +great man.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 6. + +[153] See _post_, March 22, 1776 and Johnson's visit to Birmingham in +Nov. 1784. + +[154] 'You should never suffer your son to be idle one minute. I do not +call play, of which he ought to have a good share, idleness; but I mean +sitting still in a chair in total inaction; it makes boys lazy and +indolent.' Chesterfield's _Misc. Works_, iv. 248. + +[155] The author of the _Reliques_. + +[156] The summer of 1764. + +[157] Johnson, writing of _Paradise Lost_, book ii. l. 879, says:--'In +the history of _Don Bellianis_, when one of the knights approaches, as I +remember, the castle of Brandezar, the gates are said to open, _grating +harsh thunder upon their brazen hinges_.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 76. See +_post_, March 27, 1776, where 'he had with him upon a jaunt Il Palmerino +d'Inghilterra.' Prior says of Burke that 'a very favourite study, as he +once confessed in the House of Commons, was the old romances, _Palmerin +of England_ and _Don Belianis of Greece_, upon which he had wasted much +valuable time.' Prior's _Burke_, p. 9. + +[158] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 2) says that the uncle was Dr. Joseph Ford 'a +physician of great eminence.' The son, Parson Ford, was Cornelius. In +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 15, 1773, Johnson mentions an uncle who very +likely was Dr. Ford. In _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. v. 13, it is shown +that by the will of the widow of Dr. Ford the Johnsons received £200 in +1722. On the same page the Ford pedigree is given, where it is seen that +Johnson had an uncle Cornelius. It has been stated that 'Johnson was +brought up by his uncle till his fifteenth year.' I understand Boswell +to say that Johnson, after leaving Lichfield School, resided for some +time with his uncle before going to Stourbridge. + +[159] He is said to be the original of the parson in Hogarth's _Modern +Midnight Conversation_. BOSWELL. + +In the _Life of Fenton_ Johnson describes Ford as 'a clergyman at that +time too well known, whose abilities, instead of furnishing convivial +merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to +excel among the virtuous and the wise.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 57. +Writing to Mrs. Thrale on July 8, 1771, he says, 'I would have been glad +to go to Hagley [close to Stourbridge] for I should have had the +opportunity of recollecting past times, and wandering _per montes notos +et flumina nota_, of recalling the images of sixteen, and reviewing my +conversations with poor Ford.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 42. See also _post_, +May 12, 1778. + +[160] See _post_, April 20, 1781. + +[161] As was likewise the Bishop of Dromore many years afterwards. +BOSWELL. + +[162] Mr. Hector informs me, that this was made almost _impromptu_, in +his presence. BOSWELL. + +[163] This he inserted, with many alterations, in the _Gentleman's +Magazine_, 1743 [p. 378]. BOSWELL. The alterations are not always for +the better. Thus he alters + +'And the long honours of a lasting name' + +into + +'And fir'd with pleasing hope of endless fame.' + +[164] Settle was the last of the city-poets; _post_, May 15, 1776. + +[165] 'Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great.' Dunciad, i. 141. + +[166] Some young ladies at Lichfield having proposed to act _The +Distressed Mother_, Johnson wrote this, and gave it to Mr. Hector to +convey it privately to them. BOSWELL. See _post_, 1747, for _The +Distressed Mother_. + +[167] Yet he said to Boswell:--'Sir, in my early years I read very hard. +It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at +eighteen as I do now' (_post_, July 21, 1763). He told Mr. Langton, that +'his great period of study was from the age of twelve to that of +eighteen' (Ib. note). He told the King that his reading had later on +been hindered by ill-health (_post_, Feb. 1767). + +[168] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 9) says that his father took him home, +probably with a view to bring him up to his own trade; for I have heard +Johnson say that he himself was able to bind a book. 'It were better +bind books again,' wrote Mrs. Thrale to him on Sept. 18, 1777, 'as you +did one year in our thatched summer-house.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 375. It +was most likely at this time that he refused to attend his father to +Uttoxeter market, for which fault he made atonement in his old age +(_post_, November, 1784). + +[169] Perhaps Johnson had his own early reading in mind when he thus +describes Pope's reading at about the same age. 'During this period of +his life he was indefatigably diligent and insatiably curious; wanting +health for violent, and money for expensive pleasures, and having +excited in himself very strong desires of intellectual eminence, he +spent much of his time over his books; but he read only to store his +mind with facts and images, seizing all that his authors presented with +undistinguishing voracity, and with an appetite for knowledge too eager +to be nice.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 239. + +[170] Andrew Corbet, according to Hawkins. Corbet had entered Pembroke +College in 1727. Dr. Swinfen, Johnson's god-father, was a member of the +College. I find the name of a Swinfen on the books in 1728. + +[171] In the Caution Book of Pembroke College are found the two +following entries:-- + +'Oct. 31, 1728. Recd. then of Mr. Samuel Johnson Commr. of Pem. Coll. ye +summ of seven Pounds for his Caution, which is to remain in ye Hands of +ye Bursars till ye said Mr. Johnson shall depart ye said College leaving +ye same fully discharg'd. + +Recd. by me, John Ratcliff, Bursar.' + +'March 26, 1740. At a convention of the Master and Fellows to settle the +accounts of the Caution it appear'd that the Persons Accounts +underwritten stood thus at their leaving the College: + +Caution not Repay'd +Mr. Johnson £7 0 0 +Battells not discharg'd +Mr. Johnson £7 0 0 + +Mr. Carlyle is in error in describing Johnson as a servitor. He was a +commoner as the above entry shows. Though he entered on Oct. 31, he did +not matriculate till Dec. 16. It was on Palm Sunday of this same year +that Rousseau left Geneva, and so entered upon his eventful career. +Goldsmith was born eleven days after Johnson entered (Nov. 10, 1728). +Reynolds was five years old. Burke was born before Johnson left Oxford. + +[172] He was in his twentieth year. He was born on Sept. 18, 1709, and +was therefore nineteen. He was somewhat late in entering. In his _Life +of Ascham_ he says, 'Ascham took his bachelor's degree in 1534, in the +eighteenth year of his age; a time of life at which it is more common +now to enter the universities than to take degrees.' Johnson's _Works_, +vi. 505. It was just after Johnson's entrance that the two Wesleys began +to hold small devotional meetings at Oxford. + +[173] Builders were at work in the college during all his residence. +'July 16, 1728. About a quarter of a year since they began to build a +new chapel for Pembroke Coll. next to Slaughter Lane.' Hearne's +_Remains_, iii. 9. + +[174] _Athen. Oxon_. edit. 1721, i. 627. BOSWELL. + +[175] Johnson would oftener risk the payment of a small fine than attend +his lectures.... Upon occasion of one such imposition he said to +Jorden:--"Sir, you have sconced [fined] me two pence for non-attendance +at a lecture not worth a penny." Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 9. A passage in +Whitefield's _Diary_ shows that the sconce was often greater. He once +neglected to give in the weekly theme which every Saturday had to be +given to the tutor in the Hall 'when the bell rang.' He was fined +half-a-crown. Tyerman's _Whitefield_, i. 22. In my time (1855-8) at +Pembroke College every Saturday when the bell rang we gave in our piece +of Latin prose--themes were things of the past. + +[176] This was on Nov. 6, O.S., or Nov. 17, N.S.--a very early time for +ice to bear. The first mention of frost that I find in the newspapers of +that winter is in the _Weekly Journal_ for Nov. 30, O.S.; where it is +stated that 'the passage by land and water [i.e. the Thames] is now +become very dangerous by the snow, frost, and ice.' The record of +meteorological observations began a few years later. + +[177] Oxford, 20th March, 1776. BOSWELL. + +[178] Mr. Croker discovers a great difference between this account and +that which Johnson gave to Mr. Warton (_post_, under July 16, 1754). +There is no need to have recourse, with Mr. Croker, 'to an ear spoiled +by flattery.' A very simple explanation may be found. The accounts refer +to different hours of the same day. Johnson's 'stark insensibility' +belonged to the morning, and his 'beating heart' to the afternoon. He +had been impertinent before dinner, and when he was sent for after +dinner 'he expected a sharp rebuke.' + +[179] It ought to be remembered that Dr. Johnson was apt, in his +literary as well as moral exercises, to overcharge his defects. Dr. +Adams informed me, that he attended his tutors lectures, and also the +lectures in the College Hall, very regularly. BOSWELL. + +[180] Early in every November was kept 'a great gaudy [feast] in the +college, when the Master dined in publick, and the juniors (by an +ancient custom they were obliged to comply with) went round the fire in +the hall.' Philipps's _Diary, Notes and Queries_, 2nd S., x. 443. We can +picture to ourselves among the juniors in November 1728, Samuel Johnson, +going round the fire with the others. Here he heard day after day the +Latin grace which Camden had composed for the society. 'I believe I can +repeat it,' Johnson said at St. Andrew's, 'which he did.' Boswell's +_Hebrides_, Aug. 19, 1773. + +[181] Seven years before Johnson's time, on Nov. 5, 'Mr. Peyne, Bachelor +of Arts, made an oration in the hall suitable to the day.' +Philipps's _Diary_. + +[182] Boswell forgot Johnson's criticism on Milton's exercises on this +day. 'Some of the exercises on Gunpowder Treason might have been +spared.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 119. + +[183] It has not been preserved. There are in the college library four +of his compositions, two of verse and two of prose. One of the copies of +verse I give _post_, under July 16, 1754. Both have been often printed. +As his prose compositions have never been published I will give one:-- + + 'Mea nec Falernae +Temperant Vites, neque Formiani Pocula Colles.' + +'Quaedam minus attente spectata absurda videntur, quae tamen penitus +perspecta rationi sunt consentanea. Non enim semper facta per se, verum +ratio occasioque faciendi sunt cogitanda. Deteriora ei offerre cui +meliorum ingens copia est, cui non ridiculum videtur? Quis sanus hirtam +agrestemque vestem Lucullo obtulisset, cujus omnia fere Serum opificia, +omnia Parmae vellera, omnes Tyri colores latuerunt? Hoc tamen fecisse +Horatium non puduit, quo nullus urbanior, nullus procerum convictui +magis assuetus. Maecenatem scilicet nôrat non quaesiturum an meliora +vina domi posset bibere, verum an inter domesticos quenquam propensiori +in se animo posset invenire. Amorem, non lucrum, optavit patronus ille +munifentissimus (_sic_). Pocula licet vino minus puro implerentur, satis +habuit, si hospitis vultus laetitia perfusus sinceram puramque amicitiam +testaretur. Ut ubi poetam carmine celebramus, non fastidit, quod ipse +melius posset scribere, verum poema licet non magni facit (_sic_), +amorem scriptoris libenter amplectitur, sic amici munuscula animum +gratum testantia licet parvi sint, non nisi a superbo et moroso +contemnentur. Deos thuris fumis indigere nemo certè unquam credidit, +quos tamen iis gratos putarunt, quia homines se non beneficiorum +immemores his testimoniis ostenderunt.' + +JOHNSON. + +[184] 'The accidental perusal of some Latin verses gained Addison the +patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards Provost of Queen's College, by +whose recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as a Demy' [a +scholar]. Johnson's _Works_, vii. 420. Johnson's verses gained him +nothing but 'estimation.' + +[185] He is reported to have said:--'The writer of this poem will leave +it a question for posterity, whether his or mine be the original.' +Hawkins, p. 13. + +[186] 'A Miscellany of Poems by several hands. Published by J. Husbands, +A.M., Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxon., Oxford. Printed by Leon. +Lichfield, near the East-Gate, In the year MDCCXXXI.' Among the +subscribers I notice the name of Richard Savage, Esq., for twenty +copies. It is very doubtful whether he paid for one. Pope did not +subscribe. Johnson's poem is thus mentioned in the preface:--'The +translation of Mr. Pope's Messiah was deliver'd to his Tutor as a +College Exercise by Mr. Johnson, a commoner of Pembroke College in +Oxford, and 'tis hoped will be no discredit to the excellent original.' + +[187] See _post_, under July 16, 1754. + +[188] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 6, 1773. + +[189] _Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. +Johnson,_ by John Courtenay, Esq., M.P. BOSWELL. + +[190] Hector, in his account of Johnson's early life, says:--'After a +long absence from Lichfield, when he returned, I was apprehensive of +something wrong in his constitution which might either impair his +intellect or endanger his life; but, thanks to Almighty God, my fears +have proved false.' Hawkins, p. 8. The college books show that Johnson +was absent but one week in the Long Vacation of 1729. It is by no means +unlikely that he went to Lichfield in that week to consult Dr. Swinfen +about his health. In that case his first attack, when he tried to +overcome the malady by frequently walking to Birmingham, must have been +at an earlier date. In his time students often passed the vacation at +the University. The following table shows the number of graduates and +undergraduates in residence in Pembroke College at the end of each +fourth week, from June to December 1729:-- + + Members in residence. + June 20, 1729 . . . 54 + July 18, " . . . 34 + Aug. 15, " . . . 25 + Sept. 12, " . . . 16 + Oct. 10, " . . . 30 + Nov. 7, " . . . 52 + Dec. 5, " . . . 49 + +At Christmas there were still sixteen men left in the college. That +under a zealous tutor the vacation was by no means a time of idleness is +shown by a passage in Wesley's _Journal_, in which he compares the +Scotch Universities with the English. 'In Scotland,' he writes, 'the +students all come to their several colleges in November, and return home +in May. So they _may_ study five months in the year, and lounge all the +rest! O where was the common sense of those who instituted such +colleges? In the English colleges everyone _may_ reside all the year, as +all my pupils did; and I should have thought myself little better than a +highwayman if I had not lectured them every day in the year but +Sundays.' Wesley's _Journal_, iv. 75. Johnson lived to see Oxford empty +in the Long Vacation. Writing on Aug. 1, 1775, he said:--'The place is +now a sullen solitude.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 294. + +[191] Johnson, perhaps, was thinking of himself when he thus criticised +the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. 'The variable weather of the +mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time +cloud reason without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit +that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own +design.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 431. + +[192] Writing in his old age to Hector, he said,--'My health has been +from my twentieth year such as has seldom afforded me a single day of +ease' (_post_, under March 21, 1782). Hawkins writes, that he once told +him 'that he knew not what it was to be totally free from pain.' +Hawkins, p. 396. + +[193] See _post_, Oct. 27, 1784, note. + +[194] In the _Rambler_, No. 85, he pointed out 'how much happiness is +gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation +of the body.' See _post_, July 21, 1763, for his remedies against +melancholy. + +[195] Thirty-two miles in all. Southey mentions that in 1728, the +Wesleys, to save the more money for the poor, began to perform their +journeys on foot. He adds,--'It was so little the custom in that age for +men in their rank of life to walk any distance, as to make them think it +a discovery that four or five-and-twenty miles are an easy and safe +day's journey.' Southey's _Wesley_, i. 52. + +[196] Boswell himself suffered from hypochondria. He seems at times to +boast of it, as Dogberry boasted of his losses; so that Johnson had some +reason for writing to him with seventy, as if he were 'affecting it from +a desire of distinction.' _Post_, July 2, 1776. + +[197] Johnson on April 7, 1776, recommended Boswell to read this book, +and again on July 2 of the same year. + +[198] On Dec. 24, 1754, writing of the poet Collins, who was either mad +or close upon it, he said,--'Poor dear Collins! I have often been near +his state.' Wooll's _Warton_, p. 229. 'I inherited,' Johnson said, 'a +vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at +least not sober.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 16, 1773. 'When I survey +my past life,' he wrote in 1777, 'I discover nothing but a barren waste +of time, with some disorders of body and disturbances of the mind very +near to madness.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 155. Reynolds recorded that 'what +Dr. Johnson said a few days before his death of his disposition to +insanity was no new discovery to those who were intimate with him.' +Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 455. See also _post_ Sept. 20, 1777. + +[199] Ch. 44. + +[200] 'Of the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and +alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason.' _Rasselas_, ch. 43. + +[201] Boswell refers to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_., pp. 77, 127), and Hawkins +(_Life_, pp. 287-8). + +[202] 'Quick in these seeds is might of fire and birth of heavenly +place.' Morris, _Aeneids_, vi. 730. + +[203] On Easter Sunday 1716 during service some pieces of stone from the +spire of St. Mary's fell on the roof of the church. The congregation, +thinking that the steeple was coming down, in their alarm broke through +the windows. Johnson, we may well believe, witnessed the scene. The +church was pulled down, and the new one was opened in Dec. 1721. +Harwood's _Lichfield_, p. 460. + +[204] 'Sept. 23, 1771. I have gone voluntarily to church on the week day +but few times in my life. I think to mend. April 9, 1773. I hope in time +to take pleasure in public worship. April 6, 1777. I have this year +omitted church on most Sundays, intending to supply the deficience in +the week. So that I owe twelve attendances on worship. I will make no +more such superstitious stipulations, which entangle the mind with +unbidden obligations.' _Pr. and Med_. pp. 108, 121, 161. In the +following passage in the _Life of Milton_, Johnson, no doubt, is +thinking of himself:--'In the distribution of his hours there was no +hour of prayer, either solitary or with his household; omitting public +prayers he omitted all.... That he lived without prayer can hardly be +affirmed; his studies and meditations were an habitual prayer. The +neglect of it in his family was probably a fault for which he condemned +himself, and which he intended to correct, but that death as too often +happens, intercepted his reformation.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 115. See +_post_, Oct. 10, 1779. + +[205] We may compare with this a passage in Verecundulus's letter in +_The Rambler_, No. 157:--'Though many among my fellow students [at the +university] took the opportunity of a more remiss discipline to gratify +their passions, yet virtue preserved her natural superiority, and those +who ventured to neglect were not suffered to insult her.' Oxford at this +date was somewhat wayward in her love for religion. Whitefield +records:--'I had no sooner received the sacrament publicly on a week-day +at St. Mary's, but I was set up as a mark for all the polite students +that knew me to shoot at. By this they knew that I was commenced +Methodist, for though there is a sacrament at the beginning of every +term, at which all, especially the seniors, are by statute obliged to be +present, yet so dreadfully has that once faithful city played the +harlot, that very few masters, and no undergraduates but the Methodists +attended upon it. I daily underwent some contempt at college. Some have +thrown dirt at me; others by degrees took away their pay from me.' +Tyerman's _Whitefield_, i. 19. Story, the Quaker, visiting Oxford in +1731, says, 'Of all places wherever I have been the scholars of Oxford +were the rudest, most giddy, and unruly rabble, and most mischievous.' +Story's _Journal_, p. 675. + +[206] John Wesley, who was also at Oxford, writing of about this same +year, says:--'Meeting now with Mr. Law's _Christian Perfection_ and +_Serious Call_ the light flowed in so mightily upon my soul that +everything appeared in a new view.' Wesley's _Journal_, i. 94. +Whitefield writes:--'Before I went to the University, I met with Mr. +Law's _Serious Call_, but had not then money to purchase it. Soon after +my coming up to the University, seeing a small edition of it in a +friend's hand I soon procured it. God worked powerfully upon my soul by +that and his other excellent treatise upon Christian perfection.' +Tyerman's _Whitefield_, i. 16. Johnson called the _Serious Call_ 'the +finest piece of hortatory theology in any language;' _post_, 1770. A few +months before his death he said:--'William Law wrote the best piece of +parenetic divinity; but William Law was no reasoner;' _post_, June 9, +1784. Law was the tutor of Gibbon's father, and he died in the house of +the historian's aunt. In describing the _Serious Call_ Gibbon +says:--'His precepts are rigid, but they are founded on the gospel; his +satire is sharp, but it is drawn from the knowledge of human life; and +many of his portraits are not unworthy of the pen of La Bruyère. If he +finds a spark of piety in his reader's mind he will soon kindle it to a +flame.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 21. + +[207] Mrs. Piozzi has given a strange fantastical account of the +original of Dr. Johnson's belief in our most holy religion. 'At the age +of ten years his mind was disturbed by scruples of infidelity, which +preyed upon his spirits, and made him very uneasy, the more so, as he +revealed his uneasiness to none, being naturally (as he said) of a +sullen temper, and reserved disposition. He searched, however, +diligently, but fruitlessly, for evidences of the truth of revelation; +and, at length, _recollecting_ a book he had once seen [_I suppose at +five years old_] in his father's shop, intitled _De veritate +Religionis_, etc., he began to think himself _highly culpable_ for +neglecting such a means of information, and took himself severely to +task for this sin, adding many acts of voluntary, and, to others, +unknown _penance_. The first opportunity which offered, of course, he +seized the book with avidity; but, on examination, _not finding himself +scholar enough to peruse its contents_, set his heart at rest; and not +thinking to enquire whether there were any English books written on the +subject, followed his usual amusements and _considered his conscience as +lightened of a crime_. He redoubled his diligence to learn the language +that contained the information he most wished for; but from the pain +which _guilt [namely having omitted to read what he did not +understand_,] had given him, he now began to deduce the soul's +immortality [_a sensation of pain in this world being an unquestionable +proof of existence in another_], which was the point that belief first +stopped at; _and from that moment resolving to be a Christian_, became +one of the most zealous and pious ones our nation ever produced.' +_Anecdotes_, p. 17. + +This is one of the numerous misrepresentations of this lively lady, +which it is worth while to correct; for if credit should be given to +such a childish, irrational, and ridiculous statement of the foundation +of Dr. Johnson's faith in Christianity, how little credit would be due +to it. Mrs. Piozzi seems to wish, that the world should think Dr. +Johnson also under the influence of that easy logick, _Stet pro ratione +voluntas_. BOSWELL. On April 28, 1783, Johnson said:--'Religion had +dropped out of my mind. It was at an early part of my life. Sickness +brought it back, and I hope I have never lost it since.' Most likely it +was the sickness in the long vacation of 1729 mentioned _ante_, p. 63. + +[208] In his _Life of Milton_, writing of _Paradise Lost_, he +says:--'But these truths are too important to be new; they have been +taught to our infancy; they have mingled with our solitary thoughts and +familiar conversations, and are habitually interwoven with the whole +texture of life.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 134. + +[209] Acts xvi. 30. + +[210] Sept. 7, Old Style, or Sept. 18, New Style. + +[211] 'He that peruses Shakespeare looks round alarmed, and starts to +find himself alone.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 71. 'I was many years ago so +shocked by Cordelia's death, that I know not whether I ever endured to +read again the last scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them +as an editor.' Ib. p. 175. + +[212] He told Mr. Windham that he had never read through the Odyssey +completely. Windham's _Diary_, p. 17. At college, he said, he had been +'very idle and neglectful of his studies.' Ib. + +[213] 'It may be questioned whether, except his Bible, he ever read a +book entirely through. Late in life, if any man praised a book in his +presence, he was sure to ask, 'Did you read it through?' If the answer +was in the affirmative, he did not seem willing to believe it.' Murphy's +_Johnson_, p. 12. It would be easy to show that Johnson read many books +right through, though, according to Mrs. Piozzi, he asked, 'was there +ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its +readers excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's +Progress?' Piozzi's Anec., p. 281. Nevertheless in Murphy's statement +there is some truth. See what has been just stated by Boswell, that 'he +hardly ever read any poem to an end,' and _post_, April 19, 1773 and +June 15, 1784. To him might be applied his own description of +Barretier:--'He had a quickness of apprehension and firmness of memory +which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and at the same time +to retain what he read, so as to be able to recollect and apply it. He +turned over volumes in an instant, and selected what was useful for his +purpose.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 390. + +[214] See _post_, June 15, 1784. Mr. Windham (_Diary_, p. 17) records +the following 'anecdote of Johnson's first declamation at college; +having neglected to write it till the morning of his being (sic) to +repeat it, and having only one copy, he got part of it by heart while he +was walking into the hall, and the rest he supplied as well as he could +extempore.' Mrs. Piozzi, recording the same ancedote, says that 'having +given the copy into the hand of the tutor who stood to receive it as he +passed, he was obliged to begin by chance, and continue on how he +could.... "A prodigious risk, however," said some one. "Not at all," +exclaims Johnson, "no man, I suppose, leaps at once into deep water who +does not know how to swim."' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 30. + +[215] He told Dr. Burney that he never wrote any of his works that were +printed, twice over. Dr. Burney's wonder at seeing several pages of his +_Lives of the Poets_, in Manuscript, with scarce a blot or erasure, drew +this observation from him. MALONE. 'He wrote forty-eight of the printed +octavo pages of the _Life of Savage_ at a sitting' (_post_, Feb. 1744), +and a hundred lines of the _Vanity of Human Wishes_ in a day (_post_, +under Feb. 15, 1766). The _Ramblers_ were written in haste as the moment +pressed, without even being read over by him before they were printed +(_post_, beginning of 1750). In the second edition, however, he made +corrections. 'He composed _Rasselas_ in the evenings of one week' +(_post_, under January, 1759). '_The False Alarm_ was written between +eight o'clock on Wednesday night and twelve o'clock on Thursday night.' +Piozzi's _Anec_., p. 41. '_The Patriot_' he says, 'was called for on +Friday, was written on Saturday' (_post_, Nov. 26, 1774). + +[216] 'When Mr. Johnson felt his fancy, or fancied he felt it, +disordered, his constant recurrence was to the study of arithmetic.' +Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 77. 'Ethics, or figures, or metaphysical reasoning, +was the sort of talk he most delighted in;' ib. p. 80. See _post_, +Sept. 24, 1777. + +[217] 'Sept. 18, 1764, I resolve to study the Scriptures; I hope in the +original languages. 640 verses every Sunday will nearly comprise the +Scriptures in a year.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 58. '1770, 1st Sunday after +Easter. The plan which I formed for reading the Scriptures was to read +600 verses in the Old Testament, and 200 in the New, every week;' ib. +p. 100. + +[218] 'August 1, 1715. This being the day on which the late Queen Anne +died, and on which George, Duke and Elector of Brunswick, usurped the +English throne, there was very little rejoicing in Oxford.... There was +a sermon at St. Marie's by Dr. Panting, Master of Pembroke.... He is an +honest gent. His sermon took no notice, at most very little, of the Duke +of Brunswick.' Hearne's _Remains_, ii. 6. + +[219] The outside wall of the gateway-tower forms an angle with the wall +of the Master's house, so that any one sitting by the open window and +speaking in a strong emphatic voice might have easily been overheard. + +[220] Goldsmith did go to Padua, and stayed there some months. Forster's +_Goldsmith_, i. 71. + +[221] I had this anecdote from Dr. Adams, and Dr. Johnson confirmed it. +Bramston, in his _Man of Taste_, has the same thought: 'Sure, of all +blockheads, scholars are the worst.' BOSWELL. Johnson's meaning, +however, is, that a scholar who is a blockhead must be the worst of all +blockheads, because he is without excuse. But Bramston, in the assumed +character of an ignorant coxcomb, maintains that _all_ scholars are +blockheads on account of their scholarship. J. BOSWELL, JUN. There is, I +believe, a Spanish proverb to the effect that, 'to be an utter fool a +man must know Latin.' A writer in _Notes and Queries_ (5th S. xii. 285) +suggests that Johnson had in mind Acts xvii. 21. + +[222] It was the practice in his time for a servitor, by order of the +Master, to go round to the rooms of the young men, and knocking at the +door to enquire if they were within; and if no answer was returned to +report them absent. Johnson could not endure this intrusion, and would +frequently be silent, when the utterance of a word would have ensured +him from censure, and would join with others of the young men in the +college in hunting, as they called it, the servitor who was thus +diligent in his duty, and this they did with the noise of pots and +candlesticks, singing to the tune of Chevy Chase the words in the +old ballad,-- + +'To drive the deer with hound and horn!' _Hawkins_, p. 12. Whitefield, +writing of a few years later, says:--'At this time Satan used to terrify +me much, and threatened to punish me if I discovered his wiles. It being +my duty, as servitor, in my turn to knock at the gentlemen's rooms by +ten at night, to see who were in their rooms, I thought the devil would +appear to me every stair I went up.' Tyerman's _Whitefield_, i. 20. + +[223] See _post_, June 12, 1784. + +[224] Perhaps his disregard of all authority was in part due to his +genius, still in its youth. In his _Life of Lyttelton_ he says:--'The +letters [Lyttelton's _Persian Letters_] have something of that +indistinct and headstrong ardour for liberty which a man of genius +always catches when he enters the world, and always suffers to cool as +he passes forward.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 488. + +[225] Dr. Hall [formerly Master of the College] says, 'Certainly not +all.' CROKER. + +[226] 'I would leave the interest of the fortune I bequeathed to a +college to my relations or my friends for their lives. It is the same +thing to a college, which is a permanent society, whether it gets the +money now or twenty years hence; and I would wish to make my relations +or friends feel the benefit of it;' _post_, April 17, 1778. Hawkins +(_Life_, p. 582,) says that 'he meditated a devise of his house to the +corporation of that city for a charitable use, but, it being freehold he +said, "I cannot live a twelvemonth, and the last statute of Mortmain +stands in my way."' The same statute, no doubt, would have hindered the +bequest to the College. + +[227] Garrick refused to act one of Hawkins's plays. The poet towards +the end of a long letter which he signed,--'Your much dissatisfied +humble servant,' said:--'After all, Sir, I do not desire to come to an +open rupture with you. I wish not to exasperate, but to convince; and I +tender you once more my friendship and my play.' _Garrick Corres_. ii. +8. See _post_, April 9, 1778. + +[228] See Nash's _History of Worcestershire_, vol. i. p. 529. BOSWELL. +To the list should be added, Francis Beaumont, the dramatic writer; Sir +Thomas Browne, whose life Johnson wrote; Sir James Dyer, Chief Justice +of the King's Bench, Lord Chancellor Harcourt, John Pym, Francis Rous, +the Speaker of Cromwell's parliament, and Bishop Bonner. WRIGHT. Some of +these men belonged to the ancient foundation of Broadgates Hall, which +in 1624 was converted into Pembroke College. It is strange that Boswell +should have passed over Sir Thomas Browne's name. Johnson in his life of +Browne says that he was 'the first man of eminence graduated from the +new college, to which the zeal or gratitude of those that love it most +can wish little better than that it may long proceed as it began.' +Johnson's _Works_, vi. 476. To this list Nash adds the name of the Revd. +Richard Graves, author of _The Spiritual Quixote_, who took his degree +of B.A. on the same day as Whitefield, whom he ridiculed in +that romance. + +[229] See _post_, Oct. 6, 1769, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, 1773. + +[230] In his _Life of Shenstone_ he writes:--'From school Shenstone was +sent to Pembroke College in Oxford, a society which for half a century +has been eminent for English poetry and elegant literature. Here it +appears that he found delight and advantage; for he continued his name +in the book ten years, though he took no degree.' Johnson's _Works_, +viii. 408. Johnson's name would seem to have been in like manner +continued for more than eleven years, and perhaps for the same reasons. +(_Ante_, p. 58 note.) Hannah More was at Oxford in June 1782, during one +of Johnson's visits to Dr. Adams. 'You cannot imagine,' she writes, +'with what delight Dr. Johnson showed me every part of his own +college.... After dinner he begged to conduct me to see the college; he +would let no one show it me but himself. "This was my room; this +Shenstone's." Then, after pointing out all the rooms of the poets who +had been of his college, "In short," said he, "we were a nest of +singing-birds. Here we walked, there we played at cricket." [It may be +doubted whether he ever played.] He ran over with pleasure the history +of the juvenile days he passed there. When we came into the Common Room, +we spied a fine large print of Johnson, framed and hung up that very +morning, with this motto: "And is not Johnson ours, himself a host;" +under which stared you in the face, "From Miss More's _Sensibility_"' +Hannah More's _Memoirs_, i. 261. At the end of 'the ludicrous analysis +of Pocockius' quoted by Johnson in the _Life of Edmund Smith_ are the +following lines:--'Subito ad Batavos proficiscor, lauro ab illis +donandus. Prius vero Pembrochienses voco ad certamen poeticum.' Smith +was at Christ Church. He seems to be mocking the neighbouring 'nest of +singing-birds.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 381. + +[231] Taylor matriculated on Feb. 24, 1729. Mr. Croker in his note has +confounded him with another John Taylor who matriculated more than a +year later. Richard West, writing of Christ Church in 1735, +says:--'Consider me very seriously here in a strange country, inhabited +by things that call themselves Doctors and Masters of Arts; a country +flowing with syllogisms and ale, where Horace and Virgil are equally +unknown.' Gray's _Letters_, ii. I. + +[232] + +'Si toga sordidula est et rupta + calceus alter +Pelle patet.' +'Or if the shoe be ript, or patches put.' + +Dryden, _Juvenal_, iii. 149. + +Johnson in his _London_, in describing 'the blockhead's insults,' while +he mentions 'the tattered cloak,' passes over the ript shoe. Perhaps the +wound had gone too deep to his generous heart for him to bear even to +think on it. + +[233] 'Yet some have refused my bounties, more offended with my +quickness to detect their wants than pleased with my readiness to +succour them.' _Rasselas_, ch. 25. 'His [Savage's] distresses, however +afflictive, never dejected him; in his lowest state he wanted not spirit +to assert the natural dignity of wit, and was always ready to repress +that insolence which the superiority of fortune incited; ... he never +admitted any gross familiarities, or submitted to be treated otherwise +than as an equal.... His clothes were worn out; and he received notice +that at a coffee-house some clothes and linen were left for him.... But +though the offer was so far generous, it was made with some neglect of +ceremonies, which Mr. Savage so much resented that he refused the +present, and declined to enter the house till the clothes that had been +designed for him were taken away.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 161 and 169. + +[234] + +'Haud facile emergunt quorum + virtutibus obstat +Res angusta domi.' + +Juvenal, _Sat_. iii. 164. + +Paraphrased by Johnson in his _London_, 'Slow rises worth by poverty +depressed.' + +[235] Cambridge thirty-six years later neglected Parr as Oxford +neglected Johnson. Both these men had to leave the University through +poverty. There were no open scholarships in those days. + +[236] Yet his college bills came to only some eight shillings a week. As +this was about the average amount of an undergraduate's bill it is clear +that, so far as food went, he lived, in spite of Mr. Carlyle's +assertion, as well as his fellow-students. + +[237] Mr. Croker states that 'an examination of the college books proves +that Johnson, who entered on the 31st October, 1728, remained there, +even during the vacations, to the 12th December, 1729, when he +personally left the college, and never returned--though his _name_ +remained on the books till 8th October, 1731.' I have gone into this +question at great length in my _Dr. Johnson: His Friends and His +Critics_, p. 329. I am of opinion that Mr. Croker's general conclusion +is right. The proof of residence is established, and alone established, +by the entries in the buttery books. Now these entries show that +Johnson, with the exception of the week in October 1729 ending on the +24th, was in residence till December 12, 1729. He seems to have returned +for a week in March 1730, and again for a week in the following +September. On three other weeks there is a charge against him of +fivepence in the books. Mr. Croker has made that darker which was +already dark enough by confounding, as I have shewn, two John Taylors +who both matriculated at Christ Church. Boswell's statement no doubt is +precise, but in this he followed perhaps the account given by Hawkins. +He would have been less likely to discover Hawkins's error from the fact +that, as Johnson's name was for about three years on the College books, +he was so long, in name at least, a member of the College. Had Boswell +seen Johnson's letter to Mr. Hickman, quoted by Mr. Croker (Croker's +_Boswell_, p. 20), he would at once have seen that Johnson could not +have remained at college for a little more than three years. For within +three years all but a day of his entrance at Pembroke, he writes to Mr. +Hickman from Lichfield, '_As I am yet unemployed_, I hope you will, if +anything should offer, remember and recommend, Sir, your humble servant, +Sam. Johnson.' + +In Boswell's _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_ (Aug. 15, 1773) there +is a very perplexing passage bearing on Johnson's residence at College. +'We talked of Whitefield. He said he was at the same college with him, +and knew him before he began to be better than other people.' Now +Johnson, as Boswell tells us, read this journal in manuscript. The +statement therefore seems to be well-established indeed. Yet Whitefield +did not matriculate till Nov. 7, 1732, a full year after Johnson, +according to Boswell, had left Oxford. We are told that, when Johnson +was living at Birmingham, he borrowed Lobo's _Abyssinia_ from the +library of Pembroke College. It is probable enough that a man who +frequently walked from Lichfield to Birmingham and back would have +trudged all the way to Oxford to fetch the book. In that case he might +have seen Whitefield. But Thomas Warton says that 'the first time of his +being at Oxford after quitting the University was in 1754' (_post_, +under July 16, 1754). + +[238] 'March 16, 1728-9. Yesterday in a Convocation Mr. Wm. Jorden of +Pembroke Coll. was elected the Univ. of Oxford rector of Astocke in com. +Wilts (which belongs to a Roman Catholic family).' Hearne's _Remains_, +iii. 17. His fellowship was filled up on Dec. 23, 1730. Boswell's +statement therefore is inaccurate. If Johnson remained at college till +Nov. 1731, he would have really been for at least ten months Adams's +pupil. We may assume that as his name remained on the books after Jorden +left so he was _nominally_ transferred to Adams. It is worthy of notice +that Thomas Warton, in the account that he gives of Johnson's visit to +Oxford in 1754, says:--'He much regretted that his _first_ tutor +was dead.' + +[239] According to Hawkins (_Life_, pp. 17, 582 and _post_, Dec. 9, +1784) Johnson's father was at one time a bankrupt. Johnson, in the +epitaph that he wrote for him (_post_, Dec. 2, 1784) describes him as +'bibliopola admodum peritus,' but 'rebus adversis diu conflictatus.' He +certainly did not die a bankrupt, as is shown by his leaving property to +his widow and son, and also by the following MS. letter, that is +preserved with two others of the same kind in Pembroke College. + +Ashby, April 19, 1736. + +Good Sr., + +I must truble you again, my sister who desiurs her survis to you, & begs +you will be so good if you can to pravale with Mr. Wumsley to paye you +the little money due to her you may have an opertunity to speak to him & +it will be a great truble for me to have a jerney for it when if he +pleasd he might paye it you, it is a poore case she had but little left +by Mr. Johnson but his books (not but he left her all he had) & those +sold at a poore reat, and be kept out of so small a sume by a gentleman +so well able to paye, if you will doe yr best for the widow will be +varey good in you, which will oblige yr reall freund JAMES BATE. + +To Mr. John Newton + +a Sider Seller at Litchfield. + +Pd. £5 to Mr. Newton. + +In another hand is written, + +To Gilbert Walmesley Esq. + +at Lichfield. + +And in a third hand, + +Pd. £5 to Mr. Newton. + +The exact amount claimed, as is Shewn by the letter, dated Jan. 31, +1735, was £5 6s. 4d. There is a yet earlier letter demanding payment of +£5 6s. 4d. as 'due to me' for books, signed D. Johnson, dated +Swarkstone, Aug. 21, 1733. It must be the same account. Perhaps D. +Johnson was the executor. He writes from Ashby, where Michael Johnson +had a branch business. But I know of no other mention of him or of James +Bate. John Newton was the father of the Bishop of Bristol. _Post_, June +3,1784, and Bishop Newton's _Works_, i. I. + +[240] Johnson, in a letter to Dr. Taylor, dated Aug. 18, 1763, advised +him, in some trouble that he had with his wife, 'to consult our old +friend Mr. Howard. His profession has acquainted him with matrimonial +law, and he is in himself a cool and wise man.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th +S. v. 342. See _post_, March 20, 1778, for mention of his son. + +[241] See _post_, Dec. 1, 1743, note. Robert Levett, made famous by +Johnson's lines (_post_, Jan. 20, 1782), was not of this family. + +[242] Mr. Warton informs me, 'that this early friend of Johnson was +entered a Commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, aged seventeen, in 1698; +and is the authour of many Latin verse translations in the _Gent. Mag_. +(vol. xv. 102). One of them is a translation of: + +'My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent.' &c. + +He died Aug, 3, 1751, and a monument to his memory has been erected in +the Cathedral of Lichfield, with an inscription written by Mr. Seward, +one of the Prebendaries. BOSWELL. + +[243] Johnson's _Works_, vii. 380. + +[244] See _post_, 1780, note at end of Mr. Langton's 'Collection.' + +[245] See _post_, 1743. + +[246] See _post_ April 24, 1779. + +[247] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 61) says that in August, 1738 (? 1739), +Johnson went to Appleby, in Leicestershire, to apply for the mastership +of Appleby School. This was after he and his wife had removed to London. +It is likely that he visited Ashbourne. + +[248] 'Old Meynell' is mentioned, _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's +'Collection,' as the author of 'the observation, "For anything I see, +foreigners are fools;"' and 'Mr. Meynell,' _post_, April 1, 1779, as +saying that 'The chief advantage of London is, that a man is always _so +near his burrow_.' + +[249] See _post_, under March 16, 1759, note, and April 21, 1773. Mr. +Alleyne Fitzherbert was created Lord St. Helens. + +[250] See _post_, 1780, end of Mr. Langton's 'Collection.' + +[251] Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on July 31, 1756, said, 'I find +myself very unwilling to take up a pen, only to tell my friends that I +am well, and indeed I never did exchange letters regularly but with dear +Miss Boothby.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 304. At the end of the +_Piozzi Letters_ are given some of his letters to her. They were +republished together with her letters to him in _An Account of the Life +of Dr. Samuel Johnson_, 1805. + +[252] The words of Sir John Hawkins, P. 316. BOSWELL. 'When Mr. Thrale +once asked Johnson which had been the happiest period of his past life, +he replied, "it was that year in which he spent one whole evening with +Molly Aston. That, indeed," said he, "was not happiness, it was rapture; +but the thoughts of it sweetened the whole year." I must add that the +evening alluded to was not passed tête-à-tête, but in a select company +of which the present Lord Kilmorey was one. "Molly," says Dr. Johnson, +"was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit and a whig; and she talked all in +praise of liberty; and so I made this epigram upon her--She was the +loveliest creature I ever saw-- + +'Liber ut esse velim suasisti + pulchra Maria; +Ut maneam liber--pulchra Maria + vale.' + +'Will it do this way in English, Sir,' said I:-- + +'Persuasions to freedom fall oddly + from you; +If freedom we seek--fair Maria, + adieu!' + +'It will do well enough,' replied he; 'but it is translated by a lady, +and the ladies never loved Molly Aston.'" Piozzi's _Anec_., p. 157. See +_post_, May 8, 1778. + +[253] Sir Thomas Aston, Bart., who died in January, 1724-5, left one +son, named Thomas also, and eight daughters. Of the daughters, Catherine +married Johnson's friend, the Hon. Henry Hervey [_post, 1737]; Margaret, +Gilbert Walmsley. Another of these ladies married the Rev. Mr. Gastrell +[the man who cut down Shakspeare's mulberry tree, _post_, March 25, +1776]; Mary, or _Molly_ Aston, as she was usually called, became the +wife of Captain Brodie of the navy. MALONE. + +[254] Luke vi. 35. + +[255] If this was in 1732 it was on the morrow of the day on which he +received his share of his father's property, _ante_, p. 80. A letter +published in _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. x. 421, shews that for a short +time he was tutor to the son of Mr. Whitby of Heywood. + +[256] Bishop Hurd does not praise Blackwall, but the Rev. Mr. Budworth, +headmaster of the grammar school at Brewood, who had himself been bred +under Blackwall. MALONE. Mr. Nichols relates (_post_, Dec. 1784) that +Johnson applied for the post of assistant to Mr. Budworth. + +[257] See _Gent. Mag_. Dec. 1784, p. 957. BOSWELL. + +[258] See _ante_, p. 78. + +[259] The patron's manners were those of the neighbourhood. Hutton, +writing of this town in 1770, says,--'The inhabitants set their dogs at +me merely because I was a stranger. Surrounded with impassable roads, no +intercourse with man to humanize the mind, no commerce to smooth their +rugged manners, they continue the boors of nature.' _Life, of W. +Hutton_, p. 45. + +[260] It appears from a letter of Johnson's to a friend, dated +Lichfield, July 27, 1732, that he had left Sir Wolstan Dixie's house +recently, before that letter was written. MALONE. + +[261] 'The despicable wretchedness of teaching,' wrote Carlyle, in his +twenty-fourth year, when he was himself a teacher, 'can be known only to +those who have tried it, and to Him who made the heart and knows it all. +One meets with few spectacles more afflicting than that of a young man +with a free spirit, with impetuous though honourable feelings, condemned +to waste the flower of his life in such a calling; to fade in it by slow +and sure corrosion of discontent; and at last obscurely and unprofitably +to leave, with an indignant joy, the miseries of a world which his +talents might have illustrated and his virtues adorned. Such things have +been and will be. But surely in that better life which good men dream +of, the spirit of a Kepler or a Milton will find a more propitious +destiny.' Conway's _Carlyle_, p. 176. + +[262] This newspaper was the _Birmingham Journal_. In the office of the +_Birmingham Daily Post_ is preserved the number (No. 28) for May 21, +1733. It is believed to be the only copy in existence. Warren is +described by W. Hutton (_Life_, p. 77) as one of the 'three eminent +booksellers' in Birmingham in 1750. 'His house was "over against the +Swan Tavern," in High Street; doubtless in one of the old half-timbered +houses pulled down in 1838 [1850].' Timmins's _Dr. Johnson in +Birmingham_, p. 4. + +[263] 'In the month of June 1733, I find him resident in the house of a +person named Jarvis, at Birmingham.' Hawkins, p. 21. His wife's maiden +name was Jarvis or Jervis. + +[264] In 1741, Hutton, a runaway apprentice, arrived at Birmingham. He +says,--'I had never seen more than five towns, Nottingham, Derby, +Burton, Lichfield and Walsall. The outskirts of these were composed of +wretched dwellings, visibly stamped with dirt and poverty. But the +buildings in the exterior of Birmingham rose in a style of elegance. +Thatch, so plentiful in other places, was not to be met with in this. +The people possessed a vivacity I had never beheld. I had been among +dreamers, but now I saw men awake. Their very step along the street +showed alacrity. Every man seemed to know what he was about. The faces +of other men seemed tinctured with an idle gloom; but here with a +pleasing alertness. Their appearance was strongly marked with the modes +of civil life.' _Life of W. Hutton_, p. 41. + +[265] Hutton, in his account of the Birmingham riots of 1791, describing +the destruction of a Mr. Taylor's house, says,--'The sons of plunder +forgot that the prosperity of Birmingham was owing to a Dissenter, +father to the man whose property they were destroying;' ib. p. 181. + +[266] Johnson, it should seem, did not think himself ill-used by Warren; +for writing to Hector on April 15, 1755, he says,--'What news of poor +Warren? I have not lost all my kindness for him.' _Notes and Queries_, +6th S. iii. 301. + +[267] That it is by no means an exact translation Johnson's _Preface_ +shows. He says that in the dissertations alone an exact translation has +been attempted. The rest of the work he describes as an epitome. + +[268] In the original, _Segued_. + +[269] In the original, _Zeila_. + +[270] Lobo, in describing a waterfall on the Nile, had said:--'The fall +of this mighty stream from so great a height makes a noise that may be +heard to a considerable distance; but I could not observe that the +neighbouring inhabitants were at all deaf. I conversed with several, and +was as easily heard by them as I heard them,' p. 101. + +[271] In the original, _without religion, polity, or articulate +language_. + +[272] See _Rambler_, No. 103. BOSWELL. Johnson in other passages +insisted on the high value of curiosity. In this same _Rambler_ he +says:--'Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of +a vigorous intellect.' In the allegory in _Rambler_, No. 105, he calls +curiosity his 'long-loved protectress,' who is known by truth 'among the +most faithful of her followers.' In No. 150 he writes:--'Curiosity is in +great and generous minds the first passion and the last; and perhaps +always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative +faculties.' In No. 5 he assert that 'he that enlarges his curiosity +after the works of nature demonstrably multiplies the inlets to +happiness.' + +[273] Rasselas, _post_, 1759. + +[274] Hawkins (p. 163) gives the following extract from Johnson's +_Annales_:--'Friday, August 27 (1734), 10 at night. This day I have +trifled away, except that I have attended the school in the morning, I +read to-night in Roger's sermoms. To-night I began the breakfast law +(sic) anew.' + +[275] May we not trace a fanciful similarity between Politian and +Johnson? Huetius, speaking of Paulus Pelissonius Fontanerius, says, '... +in quo Natura, ut olim in Angelo Politiano, deformitarem oris +excellentis ingenii præstantia compensavit.' _Comment, de reb. ad eum +pertin_. Edit. Amstel. 1718, p. 200. BOSWELL. In Paulus Pelissonius +Fontanerius we have difficulty in detecting Mme. de Sévigné's friend, +Pelisson, of whom M. de Guilleragues used the phrase, 'qu'il abusait de +la permission qu'ont les hommes d'être laids.' See _Mme. de Sévigné's +Letter_, 5 Jan., 1674. CROKER. + +[276] The book was to contain more than thirty sheets, the price to be +two shillings and sixpence at the time of subscribing, and two shillings +and sixpence at the delivery of a perfect book in quires. BOSWELL. +'Among the books in his library, at the time of his decease, I found a +very old and curious edition of the works of Politian, which appeared to +belong to Pembroke College, Oxford.' HAWKINS, p. 445. See _post_, Nov., +1784. In his last work he shews his fondness for modern Latin poetry. He +says:--'Pope had sought for images and sentiments in a region not known +to have been explored by many other of the English writers; he had +consulted the modern writers of Latin poetry, a class of authors whom +Boileau endeavoured to bring into contempt, and who are too generally +neglected.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 299. + +[277] A writer in _Notes and Queries_, 1st S. xii. 266, says 'that he +has a letter written by Nathanael, in which he makes mention of his +brother "scarcely using him with common civility," and says, "I believe +I shall go to Georgia in about a fortnight!"' Nathanael died in +Lichfield in 1737; see _post_, Dec. 2, 1784, for his epitaph. Among the +MSS. in Pembroke College Library are bills for books receipted by Nath. +Johnson and by Sarah Johnson (his mother). She writes like a person of +little education. + +[278] Miss Cave, the grand-niece of Mr. Edward Cave, has obligingly +shewn me the originals of this and the other letters of Dr. Johnson, to +him, which were first published in the _Gent. Mag_. [lv. 3], with notes +by Mr. John Nichols, the worthy and indefatigable editor of that +valuable miscellany, signed N.; some of which I shall occasionally +transcribe in the course of this work. BOSWELL. I was able to examine +some of these letters while they were still in the possession of one of +Cave's collateral descendants, and I have in one or two places corrected +errors of transcription. + +[279] Sir John Floyer's Treatise on Cold Baths. _Gent. Mag_. 1734, p. +197. BOSWELL. This letter shews how uncommon a thing a cold bath was. +Floyer, after recommending 'a general method of bleeding and purging' +before the patient uses cold bathing, continues, 'I have commonly cured +the rickets by dipping children of a year old in the bath every morning; +and this wonderful effect has encouraged me to dip four boys at +Lichfield in the font at their baptism, and none have suffered any +inconvenience by it.' (For mention of Floyer, see _ante_, p. 42, and +_post_, March 27 and July 20, 1784.) Locke, in his _Treatise on +Education_, had recommended cold bathing for children. Johnson, in his +review of Lucas's _Essay on Waters_ (_post_, 1756), thus attacks cold +bathing:--'It is incident to physicians, I am afraid, beyond all other +men, to mistake subsequence for consequence. "The old gentleman," says +Dr. Lucas, "that uses the cold bath, enjoys in return an uninterrupted +state of health." This instance does not prove that the cold bath +produces health, but only that it will not always destroy it. He is well +with the bath, he would have been well without it.' _Literary +Magazine_, p. 229. + +[280] A prize of fifty pounds for the best poem on 'Life, Death, +Judgement, Heaven, and Hell.' See _Gent. Mag_. vol. iv. p. 560. N. +BOSWELL. 'Cave sometimes offered subjects for poems, and proposed prizes +for the best performers. The first prize was fifty pounds, for which, +being but newly acquainted with wealth, and thinking the influence of +fifty pounds extremely great, he expected the first authors of the +kingdom to appear as competitors; and offered the allotment of the prize +to the universities. But when the time came, no name was seen among the +writers that had ever been seen before; the universities and several +private men rejected the province of assigning the prize.' Johnson's +_Works_, vi. 432. + +[281] I suspect that Johnson wrote 'the Castle _Inn_, Birmingham.' + +[282] Mrs. Piozzi gives the following account of this little composition +from Dr. Johnson's own relation to her, on her inquiring whether it was +rightly attributed to him:--'I think it is now just forty years ago, +that a young fellow had a sprig of myrtle given him by a girl he +courted, and asked me to write him some verses that he might present her +in return. I promised, but forgot; and when he called for his lines at +the time agreed on--Sit still a moment, (says I) dear Mund' [see _post_, +May 7, 1773, for Johnson's 'way of contracting the names of his +friends'], 'and I'll fetch them thee--So stepped aside for five minutes, +and wrote the nonsense you now keep such a stir about.' _Anec_. p. 34. + +In my first edition I was induced to doubt the authenticity of this +account, by the following circumstantial statement in a letter to me +from Miss Seward, of Lichfield:--'_I know_ those verses were addressed +to Lucy Porter, when he was enamoured of her in his boyish days, two or +three years before he had seen her mother, his future wife. He wrote +them at my grandfather's, and gave them to Lucy in the presence of my +mother, to whom he showed them on the instant. She used to repeat them +to me, when I asked her for _the Verses Dr. Johnson gave her on a Sprig +of Myrtle, which he had stolen or begged from her bosom_. We all know +honest Lucy Porter to have been incapable of the mean vanity of applying +to herself a compliment not _intended_ for her.' Such was this lady's +statement, which I make no doubt she supposed to be correct; but it +shews how dangerous it is to trust too implicitly to traditional +testimony and ingenious inference; for Mr. Hector has lately assured me +that Mrs. Piozzi's account is in this instance accurate, and that he was +the person for whom Johnson wrote those verses, which have been +erroneously ascribed to Mr. Hammond. + +I am obliged in so many instances to notice Mrs. Piozzi's incorrectness +of relation, that I gladly seize this opportunity of acknowledging, that +however often, she is not always inaccurate. + +The author having been drawn into a controversy with Miss Anna Seward, +in consequence of the preceding statement, (which may be found in the +_Gent. Mag_. vol. liii. and liv.) received the following letter from Mr. +Edmund Hector, on the subject: + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I am sorry to see you are engaged in altercation with a Lady, who seems +unwilling to be convinced of her errors. Surely it would be more +ingenuous to acknowledge, than to persevere. + +'Lately, in looking over some papers I meant to burn, I found the +original manuscript of the _Myrtle_, with the date on it, 1731, which I +have inclosed. + +'The true history (which I could swear to) is as follows: Mr. Morgan +Graves, the elder brother of a worthy Clergyman near Bath, with whom I +was acquainted, waited upon a lady in this neighbourhood, who at parting +presented him the branch. He shewed it me, and wished much to return the +compliment in verse. I applied to Johnson, who was with me, and in about +half an hour dictated the verses which I sent to my friend. + +'I most solemnly declare, at that time Johnson was an entire stranger to +the Porter family; and it was almost two years after that I introduced +him to the acquaintance of Porter, whom I bought my cloaths of. + +'If you intend to convince this obstinate woman, and to exhibit to the +publick the truth of your narrative, you are at liberty to make what use +you please of this statement. + +'I hope you will pardon me for taking up so much of your time. Wishing +you _multos et felices annos_, I shall subscribe myself, + +'Your obliged humble servant, + +'E. HECTOR.' + +_Birmingham_, +Jan. 9th, 1794. + +BOSWELL. For a further account of Boswell's controversy with Miss +Seward, see _post_, June 25, 1784. + +[283] See _post_, beginning of 1744, April 28, 1783, and under Dec. 2, +1784. + +[284] See _post_, near end of 1762, note. + +[285] In the registry of St. Martin's Church, Birmingham, are the +following entries:--'Baptisms, Nov. 8, 1715, Lucy, daughter of Henry +Porter. Jan. 29, 1717 [O. S.], Jarvis Henry, son of Henry Porter. +Burials, Aug. 3, 1734, Henry Porter of Edgbaston.' There were two sons; +one, Captain Porter, who died in 1763 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 130), the +other who died in 1783 (_post_, Nov. 29, 1783). + +[286] According to Malone, Reynolds said that 'he had paid attention to +Johnson's limbs; and far from being unsightly, he deemed them well +formed.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 175. Mrs. Piozzi says:--'His stature was +remarkably high, and his limbs exceedingly large; his features were +strongly marked, and his countenance particularly rugged; though the +original complexion had certainly been fair, a circumstance somewhat +unusual; his sight was near, and otherwise imperfect; yet his eyes, +though of a light-grey colour, were so wild, so piercing, and at times +so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the hearts of +all his beholders.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 297. See _post_, end of the +book, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, near the beginning. + +[287] If Johnson wore his own hair at Oxford, it must have exposed him +to ridicule. Graves, the author of _The Spiritual Quixote_, tells us +that Shenstone had the courage to wear his own hair, though 'it often +exposed him to the ill-natured remarks of people who had not half his +sense. After I was elected at All Souls, where there was often a party +of loungers in the gateway, on my expostulating with Mr. Shenstone for +not visiting me so often as usual, he said, "he was ashamed to face his +enemies in the gate."' + +[288] See _post_, 1739. + +[289] Mrs. Johnson was born on Feb. 4, 1688-9. MALONE. She was married +on July 9, 1735, in St. Werburgh's Church, Derby, as is shewn by the +following copy of the marriage register: '1735, July 9, Mar'd Sam'll +Johnson of ye parish of St Mary's in Litchfield, and Eliz'th Porter of +ye parish of St Phillip in Burmingham.' _Notes and Queries_, 4th S. vi. +44. At the time of their marriage, therefore, she was forty-six, and +Johnson only two months short of twenty-six. + +[290] The author of the _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr. +Johnson_, 1785, p. 25, says:--'Mrs. Porter's husband died insolvent, but +her settlement was secured. She brought her second husband about seven +or eight hundred pounds, a great part of which was expended in fitting +up a house for a boarding-school.' That she had some money can be almost +inferred from what we are told by Boswell and Hawkins. How other-wise +was Johnson able to hire and furnish a large house for his school? +Boswell says that he had but three pupils. Hawkins gives him a few more. +'His number,' he writes (p. 36) 'at no time exceeded eight, and of those +not all were boarders.' After nearly twenty months of married life, when +he went to London, 'he had,' Boswell says, 'a little money.' It was not +till a year later still that he began to write for the _Gent. Mag_. If +Mrs. Johnson had not money, how did she and her husband live from July +1735 to the spring of 1738? It could scarcely have been on the profits +made from their school. Inference, however, is no longer needful, as +there is positive evidence. Mr. Timmins in his _Dr. Johnson in +Birmingham_ (p. 4) writes:--'My friend, Mr. Joseph Hill, says, A copy of +an old deed which has recently come into my hands, shews that a hundred +pounds of Mrs. Johnson's fortune was left in the hands of a Birmingham +attorney named Thomas Perks, who died insolvent; and in 1745, a bulky +deed gave his creditors 7_s_. 4_d_. in the pound. Among the creditors +for £100 were "Samuel Johnson, gent., and Elizabeth his wife, executors +of the last will and testament of Harry Porter, late of Birmingham +aforesaid, woollen draper, deceased." Johnson and his wife were almost +the only creditors who did not sign the deed, their seals being left +void. It is doubtful, therefore, whether they ever obtained the amount +of the composition £36 13_s_. 4_d_.' + +[291] Sir Walter Scott has recorded Lord Auchinleck's 'sneer of most +sovereign contempt,' while he described Johnson as 'a dominie, monan +auld dominie; he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy.' Croker's +_Boswell_, p. 397, note. + +[292] 'Edial is two miles west of Lichfield.' Harwood's _Lichfield_, p. +564. + +[293] Johnson in more than one passage in his writings seems to have in +mind his own days as a schoolmaster. Thus in the _Life of Milton_ he +says:--'This is the period of his life from which all his biographers +seem inclined to shrink. They are unwilling that Milton should be +degraded to a schoolmaster; but, since it cannot be denied that he +taught boys, one finds out that he taught for nothing, and another that +his motive was only zeal for the propagation of learning and virtue; and +all tell what they do not know to be true, only to excuse an act which +no wise man will consider as in itself disgraceful. His father was +alive; his allowance was not ample; and he supplied its deficiencies by +an honest and useful employment.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 75. In the +_Life of Blackmore_ he says:--'In some part of his life, it is not known +when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school, an humiliation with +which, though it certainly lasted but a little while, his enemies did +not forget to reproach him, when he became conspicuous enough to excite +malevolence; and let it be remembered for his honour, that to have been +once a school-master is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of +malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life.' +Johnson's _Works_, viii. 36. + +[294] In the original _To teach. Seasons, Spring_, l. 1149, Thomson is +speaking, not of masters, but of parents. + +[295] In the _Life of Milton_, Johnson records his own experience. +'Every man that has ever undertaken to instruct others can tell what +slow advances he has been able to make, and how much patience it +requires to recall vagrant inattention, to stimulate sluggish +indifference, and to rectify absurd misapprehension.' Johnson's +_Works_, vii. 76. + +[296] + +'As masters fondly soothe their + boys to read +With cakes and sweetmeats.' + +_Francis_, Hor. i. _Sat_. I. 25. + +[297] As Johnson kept Garrick much in awe when present, David, when his +back was turned, repaid the restraint with ridicule of him and his +dulcinea, which should be read with great abatement. PERCY. He was not +consistent in his account, for 'he told Mrs. Thrale that she was a +_little painted puppet_ of no value at all.' 'He made out,' Mrs. Piozzi +continues, 'some comical scenes, by mimicking her in a dialogue he +pretended to have overheard. I do not know whether he meant such stuff +to be believed or no, it was so comical. The picture I found of her at +Lichfield was very pretty, and her daughter said it was like. Mr. +Johnson has told me that her hair was eminently beautiful, quite +_blonde_ like that of a baby.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 148. + +[298] Mr. Croker points out that in this paper 'there are two separate +schemes, the first for a school--the second for the individual studies +of some young friend.' + +[299] In the _Rambler_, No. 122, Johnson, after stating that 'it is +observed that our nation has been hitherto remarkably barren of +historical genius,' praises Knolles, who, he says, 'in his _History of +the Turks_, has displayed all the excellencies that narration +can admit.' + +[300] Both of them used to talk pleasantly of this their first journey +to London. Garrick, evidently meaning to embellish a little, said one +day in my hearing, 'we rode and tied.' And the Bishop of Killaloe +informed me, that at another time, when Johnson and Garrick were dining +together in a pretty large company, Johnson humorously ascertaining the +chronology of something, expressed himself thus: 'that was the year when +I came to London with two-pence half-penny in my pocket.' Garrick +overhearing him, exclaimed, 'eh? what do you say? with two-pence +half-penny in your pocket?'--JOHNSON, 'Why yes; when I came with +two-pence half-penny in _my_ pocket, and thou, Davy, with three +half-pence in thine.' BOSWELL. + +[301] See _Gent. Mag_., xxiv. 333. + +[302] Mr. Colson was First Master of the Free School at Rochester. In +1739 he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. +MALONE. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 49) says that 'by Gelidus the +philosopher (_Rambler_, No. 24), Johnson meant to represent Colson.' + +[303] This letter is printed in the _Garrick Corres_. i. 2. There we +read _I doubt not_. + +[304] One curious anecdote was communicated by himself to Mr. John +Nichols. Mr. Wilcox, the bookseller, on being informed by him that his +intention was to get his livelihood as an authour, eyed his robust frame +attentively, and with a significant look, said, 'You had better buy a +porter's knot.' He however added, 'Wilcox was one of my best friends.' +BOSWELL. Hawkins (_Life_, p. 43) states that Johnson and Garrick had +soon exhausted their small stock of money in London, and that on +Garrick's suggestion they applied for a loan to Wilcox, of whom he had a +slight knowledge. 'Representing themselves to him, as they really were, +two young men, friends and travellers from the same place, and just +arrived with a view to settle here, he was so moved with their artless +tale, that on their joint note he advanced them all that their modesty +would permit them to ask (five pounds), which was soon after punctually +repaid.' Perhaps Johnson was thinking of himself when he recorded the +advice given by Cibber to Fenton, 'When the tragedy of Mariamne was +shewn to Cibber, it was rejected by him, with the additional insolence +of advising Fenton to engage himself in some employment of honest +labour, by which he might obtain that support which he could never hope +from his poetry. The play was acted at the other theatre; and the brutal +petulance of Cibber was confuted, though perhaps not shamed, by general +applause.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 56. Adam Smith in the _Wealth of +Nations_ (Book i. ch. 2) says that 'the difference between the most +dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street-porter, +for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, +custom, and education.' Wilcox's shop was in Little Britain. Benjamin +Franklin, in 1725, lodged next door to him. 'He had,' says Franklin +(_Memoirs_, i. 64), 'an immense collection of second-hand books. +Circulating libraries were not then in use; but we agreed that on +certain reasonable terms I might read any of his books.' + +[305] Bernard Lintot (_post_, July 19, 1763) died Feb. 3, 1736. _Gent. +Mag_. vi. 110. This, no doubt, was his son. + +[306] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 195) says that being in London in 1746 +he dined frequently with a club of officers, where they had an excellent +dinner at ten-pence. From what he adds it is clear that the +tavern-keeper made his profit on the wine. At Edinburgh, four years +earlier, he and his fellow-students used to get 'at four-pence a-head a +very good dinner of broth and beef, and a roast and potatoes every day, +with fish three or four times a-week, and all the small beer that was +called for till the cloth was removed' (_ib_. p. 63). W. Hutton, who in +1750 opened a very small book-shop in Birmingham, for which he paid rent +at a shilling a week, says (_Life of Hutton_, p. 84): 'Five shillings a +week covered every expense; as food, rent, washing, lodging, &c.' He +knew how to live wretchedly. + +[307] On April 17, 1778, Johnson said: 'Early in life I drank wine; for +many years I drank none. I then for some years drank a great deal. I +then had a severe illness, and left it off, and I have never begun it +again.' Somewhat the same account is given in Boswell's _Hebrides_, +Sept. 16, 1773. Roughly speaking, he seems to have been an abstainer +from about 1736 to at least as late as 1757, and from about 1765 to the +end of his life. In 1751 Hawkins (_Life_, p. 286) describes him as +drinking only lemonade 'in a whole night spent in festivity' at the Ivy +Lane Club. In 1757 he described himself 'as a hardened and shameless +tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only tea' +(Johnson's _Works_, vi. 21). It was, I believe, in his visit to Oxford +in 1759 that 'University College witnessed his drinking three bottles of +port without being the worse for it' (_post_, April 7, 1778). When he +was living in the Temple (between 1760-65) he had the frisk with Langton +and Beauclerk when they made a bowl of _Bishop_ (_post_, 1753). On his +birthday in 1760, he 'resolved to drink less strong liquors' (_Pr. and +Med_. p. 42). In 1762 on his visit to Devonshire he drank three bottles +of wine after supper. This was the only time Reynolds had seen him +intoxicated. (Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 161). In 1763 he affected +Boswell's nerves by keeping him up late to drink port with him (_post_, +July 14, 1763). On April 21, 1764, he records: 'From the beginning of +this year I have in some measure forborne excess of strong drink' (_Pr. +and Med_. p. 51). On Easter Sunday he records: 'Avoided wine' (_id_. p. +55). On March 1, 1765, he is described at Cambridge as 'giving Mrs. +Macaulay for his toast, and drinking her in two bumpers.' It was about +this time that he had the severe illness (_post_, under Oct. 17, 1765, +note). In Feb. 1766, Boswell found him no longer drinking wine. He +shortly returned to it again; for on Aug. 2, 1767, he records, 'I have +for some days forborne wine;' and on Aug. 17, 'By abstinence from wine +and suppers I obtained sudden and great relief' (_Pr. and Med_. pp. 73, +4). According to Hawkins, Johnson said:--'After a ten years' forbearance +of every fluid except tea and sherbet, I drank one glass of wine to the +health of Sir Joshua Reynolds on the evening of the day on which he was +knighted' (Hawkins's _Johnson's Works_ (1787), xi. 215). As Reynolds was +knighted on April 21, 1769 (Taylor's _Reynolds_, i. 321), Hawkins's +report is grossly inaccurate. In Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 16, 1773, +and _post_, March 16, 1776, we find him abstaining. In 1778 he persuaded +Boswell to be 'a water-drinker upon trial' (_post_, April 28, 1778). On +April 7, 1779, 'he was persuaded to drink one glass of claret that he +might judge of it, not from recollection.' On March 20, 1781, Boswell +found that Johnson had lately returned to wine. 'I drink it now +sometimes,' he said, 'but not socially.' He seems to have generally +abstained however. On April 20, 1781, he would not join in drinking +Lichfield ale. On March 17, 1782, he made some punch for himself, by +which in the night he thought 'both his breast and imagination +disordered' (_Pr. and Med_. p. 205). In the spring of this year Hannah +More urged him to take a little wine. 'I can't drink a _little_, child,' +he answered; 'therefore I never touch it' (H. More's _Memoirs_, i. 251). +On July 1, 1784, Beattie, who met him at dinner, says, 'he cannot be +prevailed on to drink wine' (Beattie's _Life_, p. 316). On his death-bed +he refused any 'inebriating sustenance' (_post_, Dec. 1784). It is +remarkable that writing to Dr. Taylor on Aug. 5, 1773, he said:--'Drink +a great deal, and sleep heartily;' and that on June 23, 1776, he again +wrote to him:--'I hope you presever in drinking. My opinion is that I +have drunk too little, and therefore have the gout, for it is of my own +acquisition, as neither my father had it nor my mother' (_Notes and +Queries_, 6th S. v. pp. 422, 3). On Sept. 19, 1777 (_post_), he even +'owned that in his opinion a free use of wine did not shorten life.' +Johnson disapproved of fermented liquors only in the case of those who, +like himself and Boswell, could not keep from excess. + +[308] Ofellus, or rather Ofella, is the 'rusticus, abnormis sapiens, +crassaque Minerva' of Horace's _Satire_, ii. 2. 3. What he teaches is +briefly expressed in Pope's Imitation, ii. 2. 1: + +'What, and how great, the virtue and the art +To live on little with a cheerful heart +(A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine); +Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine.' + +In 1769 was published a worthless poem called _The Art of Living in +London_; in which 'instructions were given to persons who live in a +garret, and spend their evenings in an ale-house.' _Gent. Mag_. xxxix. +45. To this Boswell refers. + +[309] 'Johnson this day, when we were by ourselves, observed how common +it was for people to talk from books; to retail the sentiments of +others, and not their own; in short, to converse without any originality +of thinking. He was pleased to say, "You and I do not talk from books."' +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 3, 1773. + +[310] The passage to Ireland was commonly made from Chester. + +[311] The honourable Henry Hervey, third son of the first Earl of +Bristol, quitted the army and took orders. He married a sister of Sir +Thomas Aston, by whom he got the Aston Estate, and assumed the name and +arms of that family. Vide Collins's _Peerage_. BOSWELL. + +[312] The following brief mention of Greenwich Park in 1750 is found in +one of Miss Talbot's Letters. 'Then when I come to talk of +Greenwich--Did you ever see it? It was quite a new world to me, and a +very charming one. Only on the top of a most inaccessible hill in the +park, just as we were arrived at a view that we had long been aiming at, +a violent clap of thunder burst over our heads.'--_Carter and Talbot +Corres_, i. 345. + +[313] At the Oxford Commemoration of 1733 Courayer returned thanks in +his robes to the University for the honour it had done him two years +before in presenting him with his degree. _Dr. Johnson: His Friends and +his Critics_, p. 94. + +[314] This library was given by George IV to the British Museum. CROKER. + +[315] Ovid, Meta. iii. 724. + +[316] Act iii. sc. 8. + +[317] Act i. sc. 1. + +[318] Act ii. sc. 7. + +[319] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 232 [Sept. 20, +1773]. BOSWELL. + +[320] Johnson's letter to her of Feb. 6, 1759, shows that she was, at +that time, living in his house at Lichfield. Miss Seward (_Letters_, i. +116) says that 'she boarded in Lichfield with his mother.' Some passages +in other of his letters (Croker's _Boswell_, pp. 144, 145, 173) lead me +to think that she stayed on in this house till 1766, when she had built +herself a house with money left her by her brother. + +[321] See _post_, Oct. 10, 1779. + +[322] He could scarcely have solicited a worse manager. Horace Walpole +writing in 1744 (_Letters_, i. 332) says: 'The town has been trying all +this winter to beat pantomimes off the stage very boisterously. +Fleetwood, the master of Drury-Lane, has omitted nothing to support them +as they supported his house. About ten days ago, he let into the pit +great numbers of Bear-garden _bruisers_ (that is the term) to knock down +everybody that hissed. The pit rallied their forces and drove them out.' + +[323] It was not till volume v. that Cave's name was given on the +title-page. In volumes viii. and ix., and volumes xii. to xvii. the name +is Edward Cave, Jun. Cave in his examination before the House of Lords +on April 30, 1747, said:--'That he was concerned in the _Gentleman's +Magazine_ at first with his nephew; and since the death of his nephew he +has done it entirely himself.' _Parl. Hist_. xiv. 59. + +[324] Its sale, according to Johnson, was ten thousand copies. _Post_, +April 25, 1778. So popular was it that before it had completed its ninth +year the fifth edition of some of the earliest numbers was printed. +Johnson's _Works_, v. 349. In the _Life of Cave_ Johnson describes it as +'a periodical pamphlet, of which the scheme is known wherever the +English language is spoken.' _Ib_. vi. 431. + +[325] Yet the early numbers contained verses as grossly indecent as they +were dull. Cave moreover advertised indecent books for sale at St. +John's Gate, and in one instance, at least, the advertisement was in +very gross language. + +[326] See _post_, April 25, 1778. + +[327] While in the course of my narrative I enumerate his writings, I +shall take care that my readers shall not be left to waver in doubt, +between certainty and conjecture, with regard to their authenticity; +and, for that purpose, shall mark with an _asterisk_ (*) those which he +acknowledged to his friends, and with a _dagger_ (dagger) those which +are ascertained to be his by internal evidence. When any other pieces +are ascribed to him, I shall give my reasons. BOSWELL. + +[328] Hawkins says that 'Cave had few of those qualities that constitute +the character of urbanity. Upon the first approach of a stranger his +practice was to continue sitting, and for a few minutes to continue +silent. If at any time he was inclined to begin the discourse, it was +generally by putting a leaf of the _Magazine_ then in the press into the +hand of his visitor and asking his opinion of it. He was so incompetent +a judge of Johnson's abilities that, meaning at one time to dazzle him +with the splendour of some of those luminaries in literature who +favoured him with their correspondence, he told him that, if he would in +the evening be at a certain alehouse in the neighbourhood of +Clerkenwell, he might have a chance of seeing Mr. Browne and another or +two of the persons mentioned in the preceding note. [The note contained +the names of some of Cave's regular writers.] Johnson accepted the +invitation; and being introduced by Cave, dressed in a loose horseman's +coat, and such a great bushy uncombed wig as he constantly wore, to the +sight of Mr. Browne, whom he found sitting at the upper end of a long +table, in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, had his curiosity gratified.' [Mr. +Carlyle writes of 'bushy-wigged Cave;' but it was Johnson whose wig is +described, and not Cave's. On p. 327 Hawkins again mentions his 'great +bushy wig,' and says that 'it was ever nearly as impenetrable by a comb +as a quickset hedge.'] Hawkins's _Johnson_, pp. 45-50. Johnson, after +mentioning Cave's slowness, says: 'The same chillness of mind was +observable in his conversation; he was watching the minutest accent of +those whom he disgusted by seeming inattention; and his visitant was +surprised, when he came a second time, by preparations to execute the +scheme which he supposed never to have been heard.' Johnson's +_Works_, vi. 434. + +[329] 'The first lines put one in mind of Casimir's Ode to Pope Urban:-- + + "Urbane, regum maxime, maxime + Urbane vatum." + +The Polish poet was probably at that time in the hands of a man who had +meditated the history of the Latin poets.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 42. + +[330] Cave had been grossly attacked by rival booksellers; see _Gent. +Mag_., viii. 156. Hawkins says (_Life_, p. 92), 'With that sagacity +which we frequently observe, but wonder at, in men of slow parts, he +seemed to anticipate the advice contained in Johnson's ode, and forbore +a reply, though not his revenge.' This he gratified by reprinting in his +own Magazine one of the most scurrilous and foolish attacks. + +[331] A translation of this Ode, by an unknown correspondent, appeared +in the _Magazine_ for the month of May following: + + 'Hail, URBAN! indefatigable man, +Unwearied yet by all thy useful toil! + Whom num'rous slanderers assault in vain; +Whom no base calumny can put to foil. + But still the laurel on thy learned brow + Flourishes fair, and shall for ever grow. + + 'What mean the servile imitating crew, +What their vain blust'ring, and their empty noise, + Ne'er seek: but still thy noble ends pursue, +Unconquer'd by the rabble's venal voice. + Still to the Muse thy studious mind apply, + Happy in temper as in industry. + + 'The senseless sneerings of an haughty tongue, +Unworthy thy attention to engage, + Unheeded pass: and tho' they mean thee wrong, +By manly silence disappoint their rage. + Assiduous diligence confounds its foes, + Resistless, tho' malicious crouds oppose. + + 'Exert thy powers, nor slacken in the course, +Thy spotless fame shall quash all false reports: + Exert thy powers, nor fear a rival's force, +But thou shalt smile at all his vain efforts; + Thy labours shall be crown'd with large success; + The Muse's aid thy Magazine shall bless. + + 'No page more grateful to th' harmonious nine +Than that wherein thy labours we survey; + Where solemn themes in fuller splendour shine, +(Delightful mixture,) blended with the gay, + Where in improving, various joys we find, + A welcome respite to the wearied mind. + + 'Thus when the nymphs in some fair verdant mead, +Of various flowr's a beauteous wreath compose, + The lovely violet's azure-painted head +Adds lustre to the crimson-blushing rose. + Thus splendid Iris, with her varied dye, + Shines in the aether, and adorns the sky. BRITON.' + +BOSWELL. + +[332] 'I have some reason to think that at his first coming to town he +frequented Slaughter's coffee-house with a view to acquire a habit of +speaking French, but he never could attain to it. Lockman used the same +method and succeeded, as Johnson himself once told me.' Hawkins's +_Johnson_, p. 516. Lockman is _l'ilustre Lockman_ mentioned _post_, +1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_. It was at 'Old Slaughter's +Coffee-house, when a number of foreigners were talking loud about little +matters, that Johnson one evening said, "Does not this confirm old +Meynell's observation, _For anything I see, foreigners are fools_"?' +_post_, ib. + +[333] He had read Petrarch 'when but a boy;' _ante_, p. 57. + +[334] Horace Walpole, writing of the year 1770, about libels, says: +'Their excess was shocking, and in nothing more condemnable than in the +dangers they brought on the liberty of the press.' This evil was chiefly +due to 'the spirit of the Court, which aimed at despotism, and the +daring attempts of Lord Mansfield to stifle the liberty of the press. +His innovations had given such an alarm that scarce a jury would find +the rankest satire libellous.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iv. +167. Smollett in _Humphrey Clinker_ (published in 1771) makes Mr. +Bramble write, in his letter of June 2: 'The public papers are become +the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation; every +rancorous knave--every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend +half-a-crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a +newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom, +without running the least hazard of detection or punishment.' The +scribblers who had of late shewn their petulance were not always +obscure. Such scurrilous but humorous pieces as _Probationary Odes for +the Laureateship_, _The Rolliad_, and _Royal Recollections_, which were +all published while Boswell was writing _The Life of Johnson_, were +written, there can be little doubt, by men of position. In the first of +the three (p. 27) Boswell is ridiculed. He is made to say:--'I know +Mulgrave is a bit of a poet as well as myself; for I dined in company +once where he dined that very day twelve-month.' This evil of libelling +had extended to America. Benjamin Franklin (_Memoirs_, i. 148), writing +in 1784, says that 'libelling and personal abuse have of late years +become so disgraceful to our country. Many of our printers make no +scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of +the fairest characters.' + +[335] Boswell perhaps refers to a book published in 1758, called _The +Case of Authors by Profession. Gent. Mag_. xxviii. 130. Guthrie applies +the term to himself in the letter below. + +[336] How much poetry he wrote, I know not: but he informed me, that he +was the authour of the beautiful little piece, _The Eagle and Robin +Redbreast_, in the collection of poems entitled _The Union_, though it +is there said to be written by Archibald Scott, before the year 1600. +BOSWELL. Mr. P. Cunningham has seen a letter of Jos. Warton's which +states that this poem was written by his brother Tom, who edited the +volume. CROKER. + +[337] Dr. A. Carlyle in his _Autobiography_ (p. 191) describes a curious +scene that he witnessed in the British Coffee-house. A Captain Cheap +'was employed by Lord Anson to look out for a proper person to write his +voyage. Cheap had a predilection for his countrymen, and having heard of +Guthrie, he had come down to the coffee-house to inquire about him. Not +long after Cheap had sat down, Guthrie arrived, dressed in laced +clothes, and talking loud to everybody, and soon fell awrangling with a +gentleman about tragedy and comedy and the unities, &c., and laid down +the law of the drama in a peremptory manner, supporting his arguments +with cursing and swearing. I saw Cheap was astonished, when, going to +the bar, he asked who this was, and finding it was Guthrie he paid his +coffee and slunk off in silence.' Guthrie's meanness is shown by the +following letter in D'Israeli's _Calamities of Authors_, i. 5:-- + +'June 3, 1762. + +'My Lord, + +'In the year 1745-6 Mr. Pelham, then First Lord of the Treasury, +acquainted me that it was his Majesty's pleasure I should receive till +better provided for, which never has happened, 200£. a year, to be paid +by him and his successors in the Treasury. I was satisfied with the +august name made use of, and the appointment has been regularly and +quarterly paid me ever since. I have been equally punctual in doing the +Government all the services that fell within my abilities or sphere of +life, especially in those critical situations that call for unanimity in +the service of the Crown. + +'Your Lordship may possibly now suspect that I am an Author by +profession; you are not deceived; and will be less so, if you believe +that I am disposed to serve his Majesty under your Lordship's future +patronage and protection with greater zeal, if possible, than ever. + +'I have the honour to be + +'My Lord &c. + +'WILLIAM GUTHRIE.' + +The lord's name is not given. See _post_, spring of 1768, and 1780 in +Mr. Langton's _Collection_ for further mention of Guthrie. + +[338] Perhaps there were Scotticisms for Johnson to correct; for +Churchill in _The Author_, writing of Guthrie, asks:-- + +'With rude unnatural jargon to support Half _Scotch_, half _English_, a +declining Court + + * * * * * + +Is there not Guthrie?' + +_Churchill's Poems_, ii. 39. + +[339] See Appendix A. + +[340] Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, ii. l. 71. + +[341] 'To give the world assurance of a man.' _Hamlet_, Act iii. sc. 4. + +[342] In his _Life of Pope_ Johnson says: 'This mode of imitation ... +was first practised in the reign of Charles II. by Oldham and Rochester; +at least I remember no instances more ancient. It is a kind of middle +composition between translation and original design, which pleases when +the thoughts are unexpectedly applicable and the parallels lucky. It +seems to have been Pope's favourite amusement, for he has carried it +farther than any former poet.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 295. + +[343] I own it pleased me to find amongst them one trait of the manners +of the age in London, in the last century, to shield from the sneer of +English ridicule, which was some time ago too common a practice in my +native city of Edinburgh:-- + +'If what I've said can't from the town affright, +Consider other _dangers of the night_; +When brickbats are from upper stories thrown, +And _emptied chamberpots come pouring down +From garret windows_.' + +BOSWELL. + +See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 14, 1773, where Johnson, on taking his +first walk in Edinburgh, 'grumbled in Boswell's ear, "I smell you in the +dark."' I once spent a night in a town of Corsica, on the great road +between Ajaccio and Bastia, where, I was told, this Edinburgh practice +was universal. It certainly was the practice of the hotel. + +[344] His Ode _Ad Urbanum_ probably. NICHOLS. BOSWELL. + +[345] Johnson, on his death-bed, had to own that 'Cave was a penurious +paymaster; he would contract for lines by the hundred, and expect the +long hundred.' See _post_, Dec. 1784. + +[346] Cave sent the present by Johnson to the unknown author. + +[347] See _post_, p. 151, note 5. + +[348] The original letter has the following additional paragraph:--'I +beg that you will not delay your answer.' + +[349] In later life Johnson strongly insisted on the importance of fully +dating all letters. After giving the date in a letter to Mrs. Thrale, he +would add,--'Now there is a date, look at it' (_Piozzi Letters_, ii. +109); or, 'Mark that--you did not put the year to your last' (_Ib_. p. +112); or, 'Look at this and learn' (_Ib_. p. 138). She never did learn. +The arrangement of the letters in the _Piozzi Letters_ is often very +faulty. For an omission of the date by Johnson in late life see _post_, +under March 5, 1774. + +[350] A poem, published in 1737, of which see an account under April 30, +1773--BOSWELL. + +[351] The learned Mrs. Elizabeth Carter. BOSWELL. She was born Dec. +1717, and died Feb. 19, 1806. She never married. Her father gave her a +learned education. Dr. Johnson, speaking of some celebrated scholar +[perhaps Langton], said, 'that he understood Greek better than any one +whom he he had ever known, except Elizabeth Carter.' Pennington's +_Carter_, i. 13. Writing to her in 1756 he said, 'Poor dear Cave! I owed +him much; for to him I owe that I have known you' (_Ib_. p. 40). Her +father wrote to her on June 25, 1738:--'You mention Johnson; but that is +a name with which I am utterly unacquainted, Neither his scholastic, +critical, or poetical character ever reached my ears. I a little suspect +his judgement, if he is very fond of Martial' (_Ib_. p. 39). Since 1734 +she had written verses for the _Gent. Mag_. under the name of Eliza +(_Ib_. p. 37)! They are very poor. Her _Ode to Melancholy_ her +biographer calls her best. How bad it is three lines will show:-- + +'Here, cold to pleasure's airy forms, +Consociate with my sister worms, +And mingle with the dead.' + +_Gent. Mag_. ix. 599. + +Hawkins records that Johnson, upon hearing a lady commended for her +learning, said:--'A man is in general better pleased when he has a good +dinner upon his table than when his wife talks Greek. My old friend, +Mrs. Carter, could make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus.' +Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 205. Johnson, joining her with Hannah More +and Fanny Burney, said:--'Three such women are not to be found.' _Post_, +May 15, 1784. + +[352] See Voltaire's _Siécle de Louis XIV_, ch. xxv.. + +[353] At the end of his letter to Cave, quoted _post_, 1742, he +says:--'The boy found me writing this almost in the dark, when I could +not quite easily read yours.' A man who at times was forced to walk the +streets, for want of money to pay for a lodging, was likely also at +times to be condemned to idleness for want of a light. + +[354] At the back of this letter is written: 'Sir, Please to publish the +enclosed in your paper of first, and place to acc't of Mr. Edward Cave. +For whom I am, Sir, your hum. ser't J. Bland. St. John's Gate, April 6, +1738.' _London_ therefore was written before April 6. + +[355] Boswell misread the letter. Johnson does not offer to allow the +printer to make alterations. He says:--'I will take the trouble of +altering any stroke of satire which you may dislike.' The law against +libel was as unjust as it was severe, and printers ran a great risk. + +[356] Derrick was not merely a poet, but also Master of the Ceremonies +at Bath; _post_, May 16, 1763. For Johnson's opinion of _his_ 'Muse' see +_post_ under March 30, 1783. _Fortune, a Rhapsody_, was published in +Nov. 1751. _Gent. Mag_. xxi. 527. He is described in _Humphrey Clinker_ +in the letters of April 6 and May 6. + +[357] See _post_, March 20, 1776. + +[358] Six years later Johnson thus wrote of Savage's _Wanderer_:--'From +a poem so diligently laboured, and so successfully finished, it might be +reasonably expected that he should have gained considerable advantage; +nor can it without some degree of indignation and concern be told, that +he sold the copy for ten guineas.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 131. Mrs. +Piozzi sold in 1788 the copyright of her collection of Johnson's Letters +for £500; _post_, Feb. 1767. + +[359] The Monks of Medmenham Abbey. See Almon's _Life of Wilkes_, iii. +60, for Wilkes's account of this club. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, i. 92) +calls Whitehead 'an infamous, but not despicable poet.' + +[360] From _The Conference_, Churchill's _Poems_, ii. 15. + +[361] In the _Life of Pope_ Johnson writes:--'Paul Whitehead, a small +poet, was summoned before the Lords for a poem called _Manners_, +together with Dodsley his publisher. Whitehead, who hung loose upon +society, sculked and escaped; but Dodsley's shop and family made his +appearance necessary.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 297. _Manners_ was +published in 1739. Dodsley was kept in custody for a week. _Gent. Mag_. +ix. 104. 'The whole process was supposed to be intended rather to +intimidate Pope [who in his _Seventeen Hundred and Thirty-Eight_ had +given offence] than to punish Whitehead, and it answered that purpose.' +CHALMERS, quoted in _Parl. Hist_. x. 1325 + +[362] Sir John Hawkins, p. 86, tells us:--'The event is _antedated_, in +the poem of _London_; but in every particular, except the difference of +a year, what is there said of the departure of Thales, must be +understood of Savage, and looked upon as _true history_.' This +conjecture is, I believe, entirely groundless. I have been assured, that +Johnson said he was not so much as acquainted with Savage when he wrote +his _London_. If the departure mentioned in it was the departure of +Savage, the event was not _antedated_ but _foreseen_; for _London_ was +published in May, 1738, and Savage did not set out for Wales till July, +1739. However well Johnson could defend the credibility of _second +sight_ [see _post_, Feb. 1766], he did not pretend that he himself was +possessed of that faculty. BOSWELL. I am not sure that Hawkins is +altogether wrong in his account. Boswell does not state _of his own +knowledge_ that Johnson was not acquainted with Savage when he wrote +_London_. The death of Queen Caroline in Nov. 1737 deprived Savage of +her yearly bounty, and 'abandoned him again to fortune' (Johnson's +_Works_, viii. 166). The elegy on her that he composed on her birth-day +(March 1) brought him no reward. He was 'for some time in suspense,' but +nothing was done. 'He was in a short time reduced to the lowest degree +of distress, and often wanted both lodging and food' (_Ib_. p. 169). His +friends formed a scheme that 'he should retire into Wales.' 'While this +scheme was ripening' he lodged 'in the liberties of the Fleet, that he +might be secure from his creditors' (_Ib_. p. 170). After many delays a +subscription was at length raised to provide him with a small pension, +and he left London in July 1739 (_Ib_. p 173). _London_, as I have +shewn, was written before April 6, 1738. That it was written with great +rapidity we might infer from the fact that a hundred lines of _The +Vanity of Human Wishes_ were written in a day. At this rate _London_ +might have been the work of three days. That it was written in a very +short time seems to be shown by a passage in the first of these letters +to Cave. Johnson says:--'When I took the liberty of writing to you a few +days ago, I did not expect a repetition of the same pleasure so soon; +... but having the enclosed poem, &c.' It is probable that in these few +days the poem was written. If we can assume that Savage's elegy was sent +to the Court not later than March 1--it may have been sent earlier--and +that Johnson's poem was written in the last ten days of March, we have +three weeks for the intervening events. They are certainly not more than +sufficient, if indeed they are sufficient. The coincidence is certainly +very striking between Thales's retirement to 'Cambria's solitary shore' +and Savage's retirement to Wales. There are besides lines in the +poem--additions to Juvenal and not translations--which curiously +correspond with what Johnson wrote of Savage in his _Life_. Thus he says +that Savage 'imagined that he should be transported to scenes of flowery +felicity; ... he could not bear ... to lose the opportunity of +listening, without intermission, to the melody of the nightingale, which +he believed was to be heard from every bramble, and which he did not +fail to mention as a very important part of the happiness of a country +life' (_Ib_. p. 170). In like manner Thales prays to find:-- + +'Some pleasing bank where verdant osiers play, +Some peaceful vale, with nature's paintings gay. + + * * * * * + +There every bush with nature's musick rings; +There every breeze bears health upon its wings.' + +Mr. Croker objects that 'if Thales had been Savage, Johnson could never +have admitted into his poem two lines that point so forcibly at the +drunken fray, in which Savage stabbed a Mr. Sinclair, for which he was +convicted of _murder_:-- + +"Some frolic _drunkard_, reeling from a feast, +_Provokes_ a broil, and _stabs_ you in a jest."' + +But here Johnson is following Juvenal. Mr. Croker forgets that, if +Savage was convicted of murder, 'he was soon after admitted to bail, and +pleaded the King's pardon.' 'Persons of distinction' testified that he +was 'a modest inoffensive man, not inclined to broils or to insolence;' +the witnesses against him were of the lowest character, and his judge +had shewn himself as ignorant as he was brutal. Sinclair had been +drinking in a brothel, and Savage asserted that he had stabbed him 'by +the necessity of self defence' (_Ib_. p. 117). It is, however, not +unlikely that Wales was suggested to Johnson as Thales's retreat by +Swift's lines on Steele, in _Miscellanies in Prose and Verse_ (v. 181), +published only three years before _London_:-- + +'Thus Steele who owned what others writ, +And flourished by imputed wit, +From perils of a hundred jails +Withdrew to starve and die in Wales.' + +[363] The first dialogue was registered at Stationers' Hall, 12th May, +1738, under the title _One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight_. The +second dialogue was registered 17th July, 1738, as _One Thousand Seven +Hundred and Thirty Eight, Dialogue_ 2. Elwin's _Pope_, iii. 455. + +David Hume was in London this spring, finding a publisher for his first +work, _A Treatise of Human Nature_. J. H. Burton's _Hume_, i. 66. + +[364] Pope had published _Imitations of Horace_. + +[365] P. 269. BOSWELL. 'Short extracts from _London, a Poem_, become +remarkable for having got to the second edition in the space of a week.' +_Gent. Mag_. viii. 269. The price of the poem was one shilling. Pope's +satire, though sold at the same price, was longer in reaching its second +edition (_Ib_. p. 280). + +[366] + +'One driven by strong benevolence of soul +Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole.' + +Pope's _Imitations of Horace_, ii. 2. 276. + +'General Oglethorpe, died 1785, earned commemoration in Pope's gallery +of worthies by his Jacobite politics. He was, however, a remarkable man. +He first directed attention to the abuses of the London jails. His +relinquishment of all the attractions of English life and fortune for +the settlement of the colony of Georgia is as romantic a story at that +of Bishop Berkeley' (Pattison's _Pope_, p. 152). It is very likely that +Johnson's regard for Oglethorpe was greatly increased by the stand that +he and his brother-trustees in the settlement of Georgia made against +slavery (see _post_, Sept. 23, 1777). 'The first principle which they +laid down in their laws was that no slave should be employed. This was +regarded at the time as their great and fundamental error; it was +afterwards repealed' (Southey's _Wesley_, i. 75). In spite, however, of +Oglethorpe's 'strong benevolence of soul' he at one time treated Charles +Wesley, who was serving as a missionary in Georgia, with great brutality +(_Ib_. p. 88). According to Benjamin Franklin (_Memoirs_, i. 162) +Georgia was settled with little forethought. 'Instead of being made with +hardy industrious husbandmen, it was with families of broken +shop-keepers, and other insolvent debtors; many of idle habits, taken +out of the jails, who being set down in the woods, unqualified for +clearing land, and unable to endure the hardships of a new settlement, +perished in numbers, leaving many helpless children unprovided for.' +Johnson wished to write Oglethorpe's life; _post_, April 10, 1775. + +[367] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 548), writing of him 47 years +after _London_ was published, when he was 87 years old, says:--'His +eyes, ears, articulation, limbs, and memory would suit a boy, if a boy +could recollect a century backwards. His teeth are gone; he is a shadow, +and a wrinkled one; but his spirits and his spirit are in full bloom: +two years and a-half ago he challenged a neighbouring gentleman for +trespassing on his manor.' + +[368] Once Johnson being at dinner at Sir Joshua's in company with many +painters, in the course of conversation Richardson's _Treatise on +Painting_ happened to be mentioned, 'Ah!' said Johnson, 'I remember, +when I was at college, I by chance found that book on my stairs. I took +it up with me to my chamber, and read it through, and truly I did not +think it possible to say so much upon the art.' Sir Joshua desired of +one of the company to be informed what Johnson had said; and it being +repeated to him so loud that Johnson heard it, the Doctor seemed hurt, +and added, 'But I did not wish, Sir, that Sir Joshua should have been +told what I then said.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 236. Jonathan +Richardson the painter had published several works on painting before +Johnson went to college. He and his son, Jonathan Richardson, junior, +brought out together _Explanatory Notes on Paradise Lost_. + +[369] Sir Joshua Reynolds, from the information of the younger +Richardson. BOSWELL. See _post_, Oct. 16, 1769, where Johnson himself +relates this anecdote. According to Murphy, 'Pope said, "The author, +whoever he is, will not be long concealed;" alluding to the passage in +Terence [_Eun_. ii. 3, 4], _Ubi, ubi est, diu celari non potest_.' +Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 35. + +[370] Such as _far_ and _air_, which comes twice; _vain_ and _man_, +_despair_ and _bar_. + +[371] It is, however, remarkable, that he uses the epithet, which +undoubtedly, since the union between England and Scotland, ought to +denominate the natives of both parts of our island:-- + +'Was early taught a BRITON'S rights to prize.' + +BOSWELL. + +Swift, in his _Journal to Stella_ (Nov. 23, 1711), having to mention +England, continues:--'I never will call it _Britain_, pray don't call it +Britain.' In a letter written on Aug. 8, 1738, again mentioning England, +he adds,--'Pox on the modern phrase Great Britain, which is only to +distinguish it from Little Britain, where old clothes and old books are +to be bought and sold' (Swift's _Works_, 1803, xx. 185). George III +'gloried in being born a Briton;' _post_, 1760. Boswell thrice more at +least describes Johnson as 'a true-born Englishman;' _post_, under Feb. +7, 1775, under March 30, 1783, and Boswell's _Hebrides_ under Aug. 11, +1773. The quotation is from _Richard II_, Act i. sc. 3. + +[372] + +'For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land, +Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand? +There none are swept by sudden fate away, +But all, whom hunger spares, with age decay.' + +_London_, 1. 9-12. + +[373] In the _Life of Savage_, Johnson, criticising the settlement of +colonies, as it is considered by the poet and the politician, seems to +be criticising himself. 'The politician, when he considers men driven +into other countries for shelter, and obliged to retire to forests and +deserts, and pass their lives, and fix their posterity, in the remotest +corners of the world, to avoid those hardships which they suffer or fear +in their native place, may very properly enquire, why the legislature +does not provide a remedy for these miseries, rather than encourage an +escape from them. He may conclude that the flight of every honest man is +a loss to the community.... The poet guides the unhappy fugitive from +want and persecution to plenty, quiet, and security, and seats him in +scenes of peaceful solitude, and undisturbed repose.' Johnson's _Works_, +viii. 156. + +[374] Three years later Johnson wrote:--'Mere unassisted merit advances +slowly, if, what is not very common, it advances at all.' _Ib_. vi. 393. + +[375] 'The busy _hum_ of men.' Milton's _L'Allegro_, 1. 118. + +[376] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 21, 1773, and _post_, March 21, +1775, for Johnson's attack on Lord Chatham. In the _Life of Thomson_ +Johnson wrote:--'At this time a long course of opposition to Sir Robert +Walpole had filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man +felt the want, and with care for liberty, which was not in danger.' +Johnson's _Works_, viii. 370. Hawkins says (_Life_, p. 514);--'Of +Walpole he had a high opinion. He said of him that he was a fine fellow, +and that his very enemies deemed him so before his death. He honoured +his memory for having kept this country in peace many years, as also for +the goodness and placability of his temper.' Horace Walpole (_Letters_, +v. 509), says:--'My father alone was capable of acting on one great plan +of honesty from the beginning of his life to the end. He could for ever +wage war with knaves and malice, and preserve his temper; could know +men, and yet feel for them; could smile when opposed, and be gentle +after triumph.' + +[377] Johnson in the _Life of Milton_ describes himself:--'Milton was +naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and +disdainful of help or hindrance. From his contemporaries he neither +courted nor received support; there is in his writings nothing by which +the pride of other authors might be gratified, or favour gained; no +exchange of praise, nor solicitation of support.' Johnson's _Works_, +vii. 142. See _post_ Feb. 1766, for Johnson's opinion on 'courting +great men.' + +[378] In a billet written by Mr. Pope in the following year, this school +is said to have been in _Shropshire_; but as it appears from a letter +from Earl Gower, that the trustees of it were 'some worthy gentlemen in +Johnson's neighbourhood,' I in my first edition suggested that Pope must +have, by mistake, written Shropshire, instead of Staffordshire. But I +have since been obliged to Mr. Spearing, attorney-at-law, for the +following information:--'William Adams, formerly citizen and haberdasher +of London, founded a school at Newport, in the county of Salop, by deed +dated 27th November, 1656, by which he granted "the yearly sum of _sixty +pounds_ to such able and learned schoolmaster, from time to time, being +of godly life and conversation, who should have been educated at one of +the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, and had taken the degree of +_Master of Arts_, and was well read in the Greek and Latin tongues, as +should be nominated from time to time by the said William Adams, during +his life, and after the decease of the said William Adams, by the +Governours (namely, the Master and Wardens of the Haberdashers' Company +of the City of London) and their successors." The manour and lands out +of which the revenues for the maintenance of the school were to issue +are situate _at Knighton and Adbaston, in the county of Stafford_.' From +the foregoing account of this foundation, particularly the circumstances +of the salary being sixty pounds, and the degree of Master of Arts being +a requisite qualification in the teacher, it seemed probable that this +was the school in contemplation; and that Lord Gower erroneously +supposed that the gentlemen who possessed the lands, out of which the +revenues issued, were trustees of the charity. + +Such was probable conjecture. But in the _Gent. Mag_. for May, 1793, +there is a letter from Mr. Henn, one of the masters of the school of +Appleby, in Leicestershire, in which he writes as follows:-- + +'I compared time and circumstance together, in order to discover whether +the school in question might not be this of Appleby. Some of the +trustees at that period were "worthy gentlemen of the neighbourhood of +Litchfield." Appleby itself is not far from the neighbourhood of +Litchfield. The salary, the degree requisite, together with the _time of +election_, all agreeing with the statutes of Appleby. The election, as +said in the letter, "could not be delayed longer than the 11th of next +month," which was the 11th of September, just three months after the +annual audit-day of Appleby school, which is always on the 11th of June; +and the statutes enjoin _ne ullius praeceptorum electio diutius tribus +mensibus moraretur, etc_. + +'These I thought to be convincing proofs that my conjecture was not +ill-founded, and that, in a future edition of that book, the +circumstance might be recorded as fact. + +'But what banishes every shadow of doubt is the _Minute-book_ of the +school, which declares the headmastership to be _at that time_ VACANT.' + +I cannot omit returning thanks to this learned gentleman for the very +handsome manner in which he has in that letter been so good as to speak +of this work. BOSWELL. + +[379] 'What a pity it is, Sir,' said to him Sir William Scott, +afterwards Lord Stowell, 'that you did not follow the profession of the +law! You might have been Lord Chancellor of Great Britain' _Post_, +April 17, 1778. + +[380] See _post_, beginning of 1770. + +[381] See _post_, March 21, 1775. + +[382] In the _Weekly Miscellany_, October 21, 1738, there appeared the +following advertisement:--'Just published, Proposals for printing the +_History of the Council of Trent_, translated from the Italian of Father +Paul Sarpi; with the Authour's Life, and Notes theological, historical, +and critical, from the French edition of Dr. Le Courayer. To which are +added, Observations on the History, and Notes and Illustrations from +various Authours, both printed and manuscript. By S. Johnson. 1. The +work will consist of two hundred sheets, and be two volumes in quarto, +printed on good paper and letter. 2. The price will be 18_s_. each +volume, to be paid, half-a-guinea at the delivery of the first volume, +and the rest at the delivery of the second volume in sheets. 3. +Two-pence to be abated for every sheet less than two hundred. It may be +had on a large paper, in three volumes, at the price of three guineas; +one to be paid at the time of subscribing, another at the delivery of +the first, and the rest at the delivery of the other volumes. The work +is now in the press, and will be diligently prosecuted. Subscriptions +are taken in by Mr. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, Mr. Rivington in St. Paul's +Church-yard, by E. Cave at St. John's Gate, and the Translator, at No. +6, in Castle-street by Cavendish-square.' BOSWELL. + +[383] They afterwards appeared in the _Gent. Mag_. [viii. 486] with this +title--'_Verses to Lady Firebrace, at Bury Assizes_.' BOSWELL. + +[384] Du Halde's Description of China was then publishing by Mr. Cave in +weekly numbers, whence Johnson was to select pieces for the +embellishment of the _Magazine_. NICHOLS. BOSWELL. + +[385] The premium of forty pounds proposed for the best poem on the +Divine Attributes is here alluded to. NICHOLS. BOSWELL. + +[386] The Compositors in Mr. Cave's printing-office, who appear by this +letter to have then waited for copy. NICHOLS. BOSWELL. + +[387] Twenty years later, when he was lodging in the Temple, he had +fasted for two days at a time; 'he had drunk tea, but eaten no bread; +this was no intentional fasting, but happened just in the course of a +literary life.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 4, 1773. See _post_, Aug. +5, 1763. + +[388] Birch MSS. Brit. Mus. 4323. BOSWELL. + +[389] See _post_, under Dec. 30, 1747, and Oct. 24, 1780. + +[390] See _post_, 1750. + +[391] This book was published. BOSWELL. I have not been able to find it. + +[392] _The Historie of four-footed beasts and serpents_. By Edward +Topsell. London, 1607. Isaac Walton, in the _Complete Angler_, more than +once quotes Topsel. See p. 99 in the reprint of the first edition, where +he says:--'As our Topsel hath with great diligence observed.' + +[393] In this preface he describes some pieces as 'deserving no other +fate than to be hissed, torn, and forgotten. Johnson's _Works_, v. 346. + +[394] The letter to Mr. Urban in the January number of this year (p. 3) +is, I believe, by Johnson. + +[395] 'Yet did Boerhaave not suffer one branch of science to withdraw +his attention from others; anatomy did not withhold him from chymistry, +nor chymistry, enchanting as it is, from the study of botany.' Johnson's +_Works_, vi. 276. See _post_, under Sept. 9, 1779. + +[396] _Gent. Mag_. viii. 210, and Johnson's _Works_, i. 170. + +[397] What these verses are is not clear. On p. 372 there is an epigram +_Ad Elisam Popi Horto Lauras carpentem_, of which on p. 429 there are +three translations. That by Urbanus may be Johnson's. + +[398] _Ib_. p. 654, and Johnson's _Works_, i. 170. On p. 211 of this +volume of the _Gent. Mag_. is given the epigram 'To a lady who spoke in +defence of liberty.' This was 'Molly Aston' mentioned _ante_, p. 83. + +[399] To the year 1739 belongs _Considerations on the Case of Dr. +T[rapp]s Sermons. Abridged by Mr. Cave, 1739_; first published in the +_Gent. Mag_. of July 1787. (See _post_ under Nov. 5, 1784, note.) Cave +had begun to publish in the _Gent. Mag_. an abridgment of four sermons +preached by Trapp against Whitefield. He stopped short in the +publication, deterred perhaps by the threat of a prosecution for an +infringement of copy-right. 'On all difficult occasions,' writes the +Editor in 1787, 'Johnson was Cave's oracle; and the paper now before us +was certainly written on that occasion.' Johnson argues that abridgments +are not only legal but also justifiable. 'The design of an abridgment is +to benefit mankind by facilitating the attainment of knowledge ... for +as an incorrect book is lawfully criticised, and false assertions justly +confuted ... so a tedious volume may no less lawfully be abridged, +because it is better that the proprietors should suffer some damage, +than that the acquisition of knowledge should be obstructed with +unnecessary difficulties, and the valuable hours of thousands thrown +away.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 465. Whether we have here Johnson's own +opinion cannot be known. He was writing as Cave's advocate. See also +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 20, 1773. + +[400] In his _Life of Thomson_ Johnson writes:--'About this time the act +was passed for licensing plays, of which the first operation was the +prohibition of _Gustavus Vasa_, a tragedy of Mr. Brooke, whom the public +recompensed by a very liberal subscription; the next was the refusal of +_Edward and Eleonora_, offered by Thomson. It is hard to discover why +either play should have been obstructed.' Johnson's Works, viii. 373. + +[401] The Inscription and the Translation of it are preserved in the +_London Magazine_ for the year 1739, p. 244. BOSWELL. See Johnson's +_Works_, vi. 89. + +[402] It is a little heavy in its humour, and does not compare well with +the like writings of Swift and the earlier wits. + +[403] Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 72. + +[404] + +'Sic fatus senior, telumque imbelle sine ictu Conjecit.' 'So spake the +elder, and cast forth a toothless spear and vain.' + +Morris, _Æneids_, ii. 544. + +[405] + +'Get all your verses printed fair, + Then let them well be dried; +And Curll must have a special care + To leave the margin wide. +Lend these to paper-sparing Pope; + And when he sits to write, +No letter with an envelope + Could give him more delight.' + +_Advice to the Grub Street Verse-Writers_. (Swift's _Works_, 1803, xi +32.) Nichols, in a note on this passage, says:--'The original copy of +Pope's _Homer_ is almost entirely written on the covers of letters, and +sometimes between the lines of the letters themselves.' Johnson, in his +_Life of Pope_, writes:--'Of Pope's domestic character frugality was a +part eminently remarkable.... This general care must be universally +approved; but it sometimes appeared in petty artifices of parsimony, +such as the practice of writing his compositions on the back of letters, +as may be seen in the remaining copy of the _Iliad_, by which perhaps in +five years five shillings were saved.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 312. + +[406] See note, p. 132. BOSWELL. + +[407] The _Marmor Norfolciense_, price one shilling, is advertised in +the _Gent. Mag_. for 1739 (p. 220) among the books for April. + +[408] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 8. BOSWELL. + +[409] According to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'Every person who knew Dr. +Johnson must have observed that the moment he was left out of the +conversation, whether from his deafness or from whatever cause, but a +few minutes without speaking or listening, his mind appeared to be +preparing itself. He fell into a reverie accompanied with strange antic +gestures; but this he never did when his mind was engaged by the +conversation. These were therefore improperly called convulsions, which +imply involuntary contortions; whereas, a word addressed to him, his +attention was recovered. Sometimes, indeed, it would be near a minute +before he would give an answer, looking as if he laboured to bring his +mind to bear on the question' (Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 456). 'I still, +however, think,' wrote Boswell, 'that these gestures were involuntary; +for surely had not that been the case, he would have restrained them in +the public streets' (Boswell's _Hebrides_, under date of Aug. 11, 1773, +note). Dr. T. Campbell, in his _Diary of a Visit to England_, p. 33, +writing of Johnson on March 16, 1775, says:--'He has the aspect of an +idiot, without the faintest ray of sense gleaming from any one +feature--with the most awkward garb, and unpowdered grey wig, on one +side only of his head--he is for ever dancing the devil's jig, and +sometimes he makes the most driveling effort to whistle some thought in +his absent paroxysms.' Miss Burney thus describes him when she first saw +him in 1778:--'Soon after we were seated this great man entered. I have +so true a veneration for him that the very sight of him inspires me with +delight and reverence, notwithstanding the cruel infirmities to which he +is subject; for he has almost perpetual convulsive movements, either of +his hands, lips, feet, or knees, and sometimes of all together.' Mme. +D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 63. See _post_, under March 30, 1783, Boswell's +note on Johnson's peculiarities. + +[410] 'Solitude,' wrote Reynolds, 'to him was horror; nor would he ever +trust himself alone but when employed in writing or reading. He has +often begged me to go home with him to prevent his being alone in the +coach. Any company was better than none; by which he connected himself +with many mean persons whose presence he could command.' Taylor's +_Reynolds_, ii. 455. Johnson writing to Mrs. Thrale, said:--'If the +world be worth winning, let us enjoy it; if it is to be despised, let us +despise it by conviction. But the world is not to be despised but as it +is compared with something better. Company is in itself better than +solitude, and pleasure better than indolence.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 242. +In _The Idler_, No. 32, he wrote:--'Others are afraid to be alone, and +amuse themselves by a perpetual succession of companions; but the +difference is not great; in solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, +and in company we agree to dream in concert. The end sought in both is +forgetfulness of ourselves.' In _The Rambler_, No. 5, he wrote:--'It may +be laid down as a position which will seldom deceive, that when a man +cannot bear his own company, there is something wrong. He must fly from +himself, either because he feels a tediousness in life from the +equipoise of an empty mind ... or he must be afraid of the intrusion of +some unpleasing ideas, and, perhaps, is struggling to escape from the +remembrance of a loss, the fear of a calamity, or some other thought of +greater horror.' + +Cowper, whose temperament was in some respects not unlike Johnson's, +wrote:--'A vacant hour is my abhorrence; because, when I am not +occupied, I suffer under the whole influence of my unhappy temperament.' +Southey's _Cowper_, vi. 146. + +[411] Richardson was of the same way of thinking as Hogarth. Writing of +a speech made at the Oxford Commemoration of 1754 by the Jacobite Dr. +King (see _post_, Feb. 1755), he said:--'There cannot be a greater +instance of the lenity of the government he abuses than his pestilent +harangues so publicly made with impunity furnishes (_sic_) all his +readers with.'--_Rich. Corresp_. ii. 197. + +[412] Impartial posterity may, perhaps, be as little inclined as Dr. +Johnson was to justify the uncommon rigour exercised in the case of Dr. +Archibald Cameron. He was an amiable and truly honest man; and his +offence was owing to a generous, though mistaken principle of duty. +Being obliged, after 1746, to give up his profession as a physician, and +to go into foreign parts, he was honoured with the rank of Colonel, both +in the French and Spanish service. He was a son of the ancient and +respectable family of Cameron, of Lochiel; and his brother, who was the +Chief of that brave clan, distinguished himself by moderation and +humanity, while the Highland army marched victorious through Scotland. +It is remarkable of this Chief, that though he had earnestly +remonstrated against the attempt as hopeless, he was of too heroick a +spirit not to venture his life and fortune in the cause, when personally +asked by him whom he thought his prince. BOSWELL. + +Sir Walter Scott states, in his Introduction to _Redgauntlet_, that the +government of George II were in possession of sufficient evidence that +Dr. Cameron had returned to the Highlands, _not_, as he alleged on his +trial, for family affairs merely, but as the secret agent of the +Pretender in a new scheme of rebellion: the ministers, however, +preferred trying this indefatigable partisan on the ground of his +undeniable share in the insurrection of 1745, rather than rescuing +themselves and their master from the charge of harshness, at the expense +of making it universally known, that a fresh rebellion had been in +agitation so late as 1752. LOCKHART. He was executed on June 7, 1753. +_Gent. Mag_. xxiii. 292. Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chancellors_, v. +109) says:--'I regard his execution as a wanton atrocity.' Horace +Walpole, however, inclined to the belief that Cameron was engaged in a +new scheme of rebellion. Walpole's _Memoirs of George II_, i. 333. + +[413] Horace Walpole says that towards convicts under sentence of death +'George II's disposition in general was merciful, if the offence was not +murder.' He mentions, however, a dreadful exception, when the King sent +to the gallows at Oxford a young man who had been 'guilty of a most +trifling forgery,' though he had been recommended to mercy by the Judge, +who 'had assured him his pardon.' Mercy was refused, merely because the +Judge, Willes, 'was attached to the Prince of Wales.' It is very likely +that this was one of Johnson's 'instances,' as it had happened about +four years earlier, and as an account of the young man had been +published by an Oxonian. Walpole's _Memoirs of the Reign of George +II_, i. 175. + +[414] It is strange that when Johnson had been sixteen years in London +he should not be known to Hogarth by sight. 'Mr. Hogarth,' writes Mrs. +Piozzi, 'was used to be very earnest that I should obtain the +acquaintance, and if possible, the friendship of Dr. Johnson, "whose +conversation was to the talk of other men, like Titian's painting +compared to Hudson's," he said.... Of Dr. Johnson, when my father and he +were talking together about him one day, "That man," says Hogarth, "is +not contented with believing the Bible, but he fairly resolves, I think, +to believe nothing _but_ the Bible."' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 136. + +[415] On October 29 of this year James Boswell was born. + +[416] In this preface is found the following lively passage:--'The Roman +Gazetteers are defective in several material ornaments of style. They +never end an article with the mystical hint, _this occasions great +speculation_. They seem to have been ignorant of such engaging +introductions as, _we hear it is strongly reported_; and of that +ingenious, but thread-bare excuse for a downright lie, _it wants +confirmation_.' + +[417] The _Lives_ of Blake and Drake were certainly written with a +political aim. The war with Spain was going on, and the Tory party was +doing its utmost to rouse the country against the Spaniards. It was 'a +time,' according to Johnson, 'when the nation was engaged in a war with +an enemy, whose insults, ravages, and barbarities have long called for +vengeance.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 293. + +[418] Barretier's childhood surpassed even that of J. S. Mill. At the +age of nine he was master of five languages, Greek and Hebrew being two +of them. 'In his twelfth year he applied more particularly to the study +of the fathers.' At the age of fourteen he published _Anti-Artemonius; +sive initium evangelii S. Joannis adversus Artemonium vindicatum_. The +same year the University of Halle offered him the degree of doctor in +philosophy. 'His theses, or philosophical positions, which he printed, +ran through several editions in a few weeks.' He was a deep student of +mathematics, and astronomy was his favourite subject. His health broke +down under his studies, and he died in 1740 in the twentieth year of his +age. Johnson's _Works_, vi. 376. + +[419] He wrote also in 1756 _A Dissertation on the Epitaphs written by +Pope_. + +[420] See _post_, Oct. 16, 1769. + +[421] In the original _and_. _Gent. Mag_. x. 464. The title of this poem +as there given is:--'An epitaph upon the celebrated Claudy Philips, +Musician, who died very poor.' + +[422] The epitaph of Phillips is in the porch of Wolverhampton Church. +The prose part of it is curious:-- + + 'Near this place lies + Charles Claudius Phillips, + Whose absolute contempt of riches + and inimitable performances upon the + violin + made him the admiration of all that + knew him. + He was born in Wales, + made the tour of Europe, + and, after the experience of both + kinds of fortune, + Died in 1732.' + +Mr. Garrick appears not to have recited the verses correctly, the +original being as follows:-- + + 'Exalted soul, _thy various sounds_ could please + The love-sick virgin and the gouty ease; + Could jarring _crowds_, like old Amphion, move + To beauteous order and harmonious love; + Rest here in peace, till Angels bid thee rise, + And meet thy Saviour's _consort_ in the skies.' BLAKEWAY. + +_Consort_ is defined in Johnson's _Dictionary_ as _a number of +instruments playing together_. + +[423] I have no doubt that it was written in 1741; for the second line +is clearly a parody of a line in the chorus of Cibber's _Birthday Ode_ +for that year. The chorus is as follows: + +'While thou our Master of the Main +Revives Eliza's glorious reign, +The great Plantagenets look down, +And see _your_ race adorn your crown.' + +_Gent. Mag_. xi. 549. + +In the _Life of Barretier_ Johnson had also this fling at George +II:--'Princes are commonly the last by whom merit is distinguished.' +Johnson's _Works_, vi. 381. + +[424] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 23 and Nov. 21, 1773. + +[425] Hester Lynch Salusbury, afterwards Mrs. Thrale, and later on Mrs. +Piozzi, was born on Jan. 27, 1741. + +[426] This piece is certainly not by Johnson. It contains more than one +ungrammatical passage. It is impossible to believe that he wrote such a +sentence as the following:--'Another having a cask of wine sealed up at +the top, but his servant boring a hole at the bottom stole the greatest +part of it away; sometime after, having called a friend to taste his +wine, he found the vessel almost empty,' &c. + +[427] Mr. Carlyle, by the use of the term 'Imaginary Editors' +(_Cromwell's Letters and Speeches_, iii. 229), seems to imply that he +does not hold with Boswell in assigning this piece to Johnson. I am +inclined to think, nevertheless, that Boswell is right. If it is +Johnson's it is doubly interesting as showing the method which he often +followed in writing the Parliamentary Debates. When notes were given +him, while for the most part he kept to the speaker's train of thoughts, +he dealt with the language much as it pleased him. In the _Gent. Mag_. +Cromwell speaks as if he were wearing a flowing wig and were addressing +a Parliament of the days of George II. He is thus made to conclude +Speech xi:--'For my part, could I multiply my person or dilate my power, +I should dedicate myself wholly to this great end, in the prosecution of +which I shall implore the blessing of God upon your counsels and +endeavours.' _Gent. Mag_. xi. 100. The following are the words which +correspond to this in the original:--'If I could help you to many, and +multiply myself into many, that would be to serve you in regard to +settlement.... But I shall pray to God Almighty that He would direct you +to do what is according to His will. And this is that poor account I am +able to give of myself in this thing.' Carlyle's _Cromwell_, iii. 255. + +[428] See Appendix A. + +[429] Lord Chesterfield. + +[430] Duke of Newcastle. + +[431] I suppose in another compilation of the same kind. BOSWELL. + +[432] Doubtless, Lord Hardwick. BOSWELL. + +[433] The delivery of letters by the penny-post 'was originally confined +to the cities of London and Westminster, the borough of Southwark and +the respective suburbs thereof.' In 1801 the postage was raised to +twopence. The term 'suburbs' must have had a very limited signification, +for it was not till 1831 that the limits of this delivery were extended +to all places within three miles of the General Post Office. _Ninth +Report of the Commissioners of the Post Office_, 1837, p. 4. + +[434] Birch's _MSS. in the British Museum_, 4302. BOSWELL. + +[435] See _post_, Dec. 1784, in Nichols's _Anecdotes_. If we may trust +Hawkins, it is likely that Johnson's 'tenderness of conscience' cost +Cave a good deal; for he writes that, while Johnson composed the +_Debates_, the sale of the _Magazine_ increased from ten to fifteen +thousand copies a month. 'Cave manifested his good fortune by buying an +old coach and a pair of older horses.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, P. 123. + +[436] I am assured that the editor is Mr. George Chalmers, whose +commercial works are well known and esteemed. BOSWELL. + +[437] The characteristic of Pulteney's oratory is thus given in Hazlitts +_Northcole's Conversations_ (p. 288):--'Old Mr. Tolcher used to say of +the famous Pulteney--"My Lord Bath always speaks in blank verse."' + +[438] Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 100. BOSWELL. + +[439] A bookseller of London. BOSWELL + +[440] Not the Royal Society; but the Society for the encouragement of +learning, of which Dr. Birch was a leading member. Their object was to +assist authors in printing expensive works. It existed from about 1735 +to 1746, when having incurred a considerable debt, it was +dissolved. BOSWELL. + +[441] There is no erasure here, but a mere blank; to fill up which may +be an exercise for ingenious conjecture. BOSWELL. + +[442] Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on June 10, 1742, says:--'I propose +to get _Charles of Sweden_ ready for this winter, and shall therefore, +as I imagine, be much engaged for some months with the dramatic writers +into whom I have scarcely looked for many years. Keep _Irene_ close, you +may send it back at your leisure.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S., v. 303. +_Charles of Sweden_ must have been a play which he projected. + +[443] The profligate sentiment was, that 'to tell a secret to a friend +is no breach of fidelity, because the number of persons trusted is not +multiplied, a man and his friend being virtually the same.' +_Rambler_, No. 13. + +[444] _Journal of a tour to the Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 167. [Sept. 10, +1773.] BOSWELL. + +[445] This piece contains a passage in honour of some great critic. 'May +the shade, at least, of one great English critick rest without +disturbance; and may no man presume to insult his memory, who wants his +learning, his reason, or his wit.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 182. Bentley +had died on July 14 of this year, and there can be little question that +Bentley is meant. + +[446] See _post_, end of 1744. + +[447] 'There is nothing to tell, dearest lady, but that he was insolent +and I beat him, and that he was a blockhead and told of it, which I +should never have done.... I have beat many a fellow, but the rest had +the wit to hold their tongues.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 233. In the _Life of +Pope_ Johnson thus mentions Osborne:--'Pope was ignorant enough of his +own interest to make another change, and introduced Osborne contending +for the prize among the booksellers [_Dunciad_, ii. 167]. Osborne was a +man entirely destitute of shame, without sense of any disgrace but that +of poverty.... The shafts of satire were directed equally in vain +against Cibber and Osborne; being repelled by the impenetrable impudence +of one, and deadened by the impassive dulness of the other.' Johnson's +_Works_, viii. 302. + +[448] In the original _contentions_. + +[449] 'Dec. 21, 1775. In the Paper Office there is a wight, called +Thomas Astle, who lives like moths on old parchments.' Walpole's +_Letters_, vi. 299. + +[450] Savage died on Aug. 1, 1743, so that this letter is misplaced. + +[451] The Plain Dealer was published in 1724, and contained some account +of Savage. BOSWELL. + +[452] In the _Gent. Mag_. for Sept. 1743 (p. 490) there is an epitaph on +R----d S----e, Esq., which may perhaps be this inscription. 'His life +was want,' this epitaph declares. It is certainly not the Runick +Inscription in the number for March 1742, as Malone suggests; for the +earliest possible date of this letter is seventeen months later. + +[453] I have not discovered what this was. BOSWELL. + +[454] The _Mag.-Extraordinary_ is perhaps the Supplement to the December +number of each year. + +[455] This essay contains one sentiment eminently Johnsonian. The writer +had shown how patiently Confucius endured extreme indigence. He +adds:--'This constancy cannot raise our admiration after his former +conquest of himself; for how easily may he support pain who has been +able to resist pleasure.' _Gent. Mag_. xii. 355. + +[456] In this Preface there is a complaint that has been often +repeated--'All kinds of learning have given way to politicks.' + +[457] In the _Life of Pope_ (Johnson's _Works_, viii. 287) Johnson says +that Crousaz, 'however little known or regarded here, was no mean +antagonist' + +[458] It is not easy to believe that Boswell had read this essay, for +there is nothing metaphysical in what Johnson wrote. Two-thirds of the +paper are a translation from Crousaz. Boswell does not seem to have +distinguished between Crousaz's writings and Johnson's. We have here a +striking instance of the way in which Cave sometimes treated his +readers. One-third of this essay is given in the number for March, the +rest in the number for November. + +[459] + +Angliacas inter pulcherrima Laura puellas, + Mox uteri pondus depositura grave, +Adsit, Laura, tibi facilis Lucina dolenti, + Neve tibi noceat praenituisse Deae. + +Mr. Hector was present when this Epigram was made _impromptu_. The first +line was proposed by Dr. James, and Johnson was called upon by the +company to finish it, which he instantly did. BOSWELL. Macaulay +(_Essays_, i. 364) criticises Mr. Croker's criticism of this epigram. + +[460] The lines with which this poem is introduced seem to show that it +cannot be Johnson's. He was not the man to allow that haste of +performance was any plea for indulgence. They are as follows:--'Though +several translations of Mr. Pope's verses on his Grotto have already +appeared, we hope that the following attempt, which, we are assured, was +the casual amusement of half an hour during several solicitations to +proceed, will neither be unacceptable to our readers, nor (these +circumstances considered) dishonour the persons concerned by a hasty +publication.' _Gent. Mag_. xiii. 550. + +[461] See _Gent. Mag_. xiii. 560. I doubt whether this advertisement be +from Johnson's hand. It is very unlikely that he should make the +advertiser in one and the same paragraph when speaking of himself use +_us_ and _mine_. Boswell does not mention the Preface to vol. iii. of +the _Harkian Catalogue_. It is included in Johnson's _Works_ (v. 198). +Its author, be he who he may, in speaking of literature, says:--'I have +idly hoped to revive a taste well-nigh extinguished.' + +[462] Johnson did not speak equally well of Dr. James's morals. 'He will +not,' he wrote, 'pay for three box tickets which he took. It is a +strange fellow.' The tickets were no doubt for Miss Williams's benefit +(Croker's _Boswell_, 8vo. p. 101). See _ante_, p. 81, and _post_, March +28, 1776, end of 1780, note. + +[463] See _post_, April 5, 1776. + +[464] 'TO DR. MEAD. + +'SIR, + +'That the _Medicinal Dictionary_ is dedicated to you, is to be imputed +only to your reputation for superior skill in those sciences which I +have endeavoured to explain and facilitate: and you are, therefore, to +consider this address, if it be agreeable to you, as one of the rewards +of merit; and if, otherwise, as one of the inconveniences of eminence. + +'However you shall receive it, my design cannot be disappointed; because +this publick appeal to your judgement will shew that I do not found my +hopes of approbation upon the ignorance of my readers, and that I fear +his censure least, whose knowledge is most extensive. + +'I am, Sir, + +'Your most obedient + +'humble servant, + +'R. JAMES.' + +BOSWELL. See _post_, May 16, 1778, where Johnson said, 'Dr. Mead lived +more in the broad sunshine of life than almost any man.' + +[465] Johnson was used to speak of him in this manner:--'Tom is a lively +rogue; he remembers a great deal, and can tell many pleasant stories; +but a pen is to Tom a torpedo, the touch of it benumbs his hand and his +brain.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 209. Goldsmith in his _Life of Nash_ +(Cunningham's _Goldsmith's Works_, iv. 54) says:--'Nash was not born a +writer, for whatever humour he might have in conversation, he used to +call a pen his torpedo; whenever he grasped it, it benumbed all his +faculties.' It is very likely that Nash borrowed this saying from +Johnson. In Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 24, 1773, we read:--Dr. Birch +being mentioned, Dr. Johnson said he had more anecdotes than any man. I +said, Percy had a great many; that he flowed with them like one of the +brooks here. JOHNSON. "If Percy is like one of the brooks here, Birch +was like the River Thames. Birch excelled Percy in that as much as Percy +excels Goldsmith." Disraeli (_Curiosities of Literature_, iii, 425) +describes Dr. Birch as 'one to whom British history stands more indebted +than to any superior author. He has enriched the British Museum by +thousands of the most authentic documents of genuine secret history.' + +[466] _Ante_, p. 140. + +[467] In 1761 Mr. John Levett was returned for Lichfield, but on +petition was declared to be not duly elected (_Parl. Hist_. xv. 1088). +Perhaps he was already aiming at public life. + +[468] One explanation may be found of Johnson's intimacy with Savage and +with other men of loose character. 'He was,' writes Hawkins, 'one of the +most quick-sighted men I ever knew in discovering the good and amiable +qualities of others' (Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 50). 'He was,' says +Boswell (_post_, April 13, 1778), 'willing to take men as they are, +imperfect, and with a mixture of good and bad qualities.' How intimate +the two men were is shown by the following passage in Johnson's _Life of +Savage_:--'Savage left London in July, 1739, having taken leave with +great tenderness of his friends, and parted from the author of this +narrative with tears in his eyes.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 173. + +[469] As a specimen of his temper, I insert the following letter from +him to a noble Lord, to whom he was under great obligations, but who, on +account of his bad conduct, was obliged to discard him. The original was +in the hands of the late Francis Cockayne Cust, Esq., one of His +Majesty's Counsel learned in the law: + +'_Right Honourable_ BRUTE, _and_ BOOBY, + +'I find you want (as Mr. ---- is pleased to hint,) to swear away my +life, that is, the life of your creditor, because he asks you for a +debt.--The publick shall soon be acquainted with this, to judge whether +you are not fitter to be an Irish Evidence, than to be an Irish Peer.--I +defy and despise you. + +'I am, + +'Your determined adversary, + +'R. S.' + +BOSWELL. The noble Lord was no doubt Lord Tyrconnel. See Johnson's +_Works_, viii. 140. Mr. Cust is mentioned _post_, p. 170. + +[470] 'Savage took all opportunities of conversing familiarly with those +who were most conspicuous at that time for their power or their +influence; he watched their looser moments, and examined their domestic +behaviour with that acuteness which nature had given him, and which the +uncommon variety of his life had contributed to increase, and that +inquisitiveness which must always be produced in a vigorous mind by an +absolute freedom from all pressing or domestic engagements.' Johnson's +_Works_, viii. 135. + +[471] 'Thus he spent his time in mean expedients and tormenting +suspense, living for the greatest part in the fear of prosecutions from +his creditors, and consequently skulking in obscure parts of the town, +of which he was no stranger to the remotest corners.' _Ib_. p. 165. + +[472] Sir John Hawkins gives the world to understand, that Johnson, +'being an admirer of genteel manners, was captivated by the address and +demeanour of Savage, who, as to his exterior, was, to a remarkable +degree, accomplished.' Hawkins's _Life_, p. 52. But Sir John's notions +of gentility must appear somewhat ludicrous, from his stating the +following circumstance as presumptive evidence that Savage was a good +swordsman: 'That he understood the exercise of a gentleman's weapon, may +be inferred from the use made of it in that rash encounter which is +related in his life.' The dexterity here alluded to was, that Savage, in +a nocturnal fit of drunkenness, stabbed a man at a coffee-house, and +killed him; for which he was tried at the Old-Bailey, and found guilty +of murder. + +Johnson, indeed, describes him as having 'a grave and manly deportment, +a solemn dignity of mien; but which, upon a nearer acquaintance, +softened into an engaging easiness of manners.' [Johnson's _Works_, +viii. 187.] How highly Johnson admired him for that knowledge which he +himself so much cultivated, and what kindness he entertained for him, +appears from the following lines in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for +April, 1738, which I am assured were written by Johnson: + +_'Ad_ RICARDUM SAVAGE. + +'Humani studium generis cui pectore + fervet +O colat humanum te foveatque + genus.' + +BOSWELL. The epigram is inscribed Ad Ricardum Savage, Arm. Humani +Generis Amatorem. _Gent. Mag_. viii. 210. + +[473] The following striking proof of Johnson's extreme indigence, when +he published the _Life of Savage_, was communicated to the author, by +Mr. Richard Stow, of Apsley, in Bedfordshire, from the information of +Mr. Walter Harte, author of the _Life of Gustavus Adolphus_: + +'Soon after Savage's _Life_ was published, Mr. Harte dined with Edward +Cave, and occasionally praised it. Soon after, meeting him, Cave said, +'You made a man very happy t'other day.'--'How could that be,' says +Harte; 'nobody was there but ourselves.' Cave answered, by reminding him +that a plate of victuals was sent behind a screen, which was to Johnson, +dressed so shabbily, that he did not choose to appear; but on hearing +the conversation, was highly delighted with the encomiums on his book.' +MALONE. 'He desired much to be alone, yet he always loved good talk, and +often would get behind the screen to hear it.' Great-Heart's account of +Fearing; _Pilgrim's Progress_, Part II. Harte was tutor to Lord +Chesterfield's son. See _post_, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell's _Collectanea_, +and March 30, 1781. + +[474] 'Johnson has told me that whole nights have been spent by him and +Savage in a perambulation round the squares of Westminster, St. James's +in particular, when all the money they could both raise was less than +sufficient to purchase for them the shelter and sordid comforts of a +night's cellar.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, P. 53. Where was Mrs. Johnson +living at this time? This perhaps was the time of which Johnson wrote, +when, after telling of a silver cup which his mother had bought him, and +marked SAM. I., he says:--'The cup was one of the last pieces of plate +which dear Tetty sold in our distress.' _Account of Johnson's Early +Life_, p. 18. Yet it is not easy to understand how, if there was a +lodging for her, there was not one for him. She might have been living +with friends. We have a statement by Hawkins (p. 89) that there was 'a +temporary separation of Johnson from his wife.' He adds that, 'while he +was in a lodging in Fleet Street, she was harboured by a friend near the +Tower.' This separation, he insinuates, rose by an estrangement caused +by Johnson's 'indifference in the discharge of the domestic virtues.' It +is far more likely that it rose from destitution. + +Shenstone, in a letter written in 1743, gives a curious account of the +streets of London through which Johnson wandered. He says;--'London is +really dangerous at this time; the pickpockets, formerly content with +mere filching, make no scruple to knock people down with bludgeons in +Fleet Street and the Strand, and that at no later hour than eight +o'clock at night; but in the Piazzas, Covent Garden, they come in large +bodies, armed with _couteaus_, and attack whole parties, so that the +danger of coming out of the play-houses is of some weight in the +opposite scale, when I am disposed to go to them oftener than I ought.' +Shenstone's _Works_ (edit.), iii. 73. + +[475] 'Savage lodged as much by accident as he dined, and passed the +night sometimes in mean houses, ... and sometimes, when he had not money +to support even the expenses of these receptacles, walked about the +streets till he was weary, and lay down in the summer upon a bulk, or in +the winter, with his associates in poverty, among the ashes of a +glass-house. In this manner were passed those days and those nights +which nature had enabled him to have employed in elevated speculations, +useful studies, or pleasing conversation.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 159. + +[476] See _ante_, p. 94. + +[477] Cave was the purchaser of the copyright, and the following is a +copy of Johnson's receipt for the money:--'The 14th day of December, +received of Mr. Ed. Cave the sum of fifteen guineas, in full, for +compiling and writing _The Life of Richard Savage, Esq_., deceased; and +in full for all materials thereto applied, and not found by the said +Edward Cave. I say, received by me, SAM. JOHNSON. Dec. 14, 1743.' +WRIGHT. The title-page is as follows:--'An account of the Life of Mr. +Richard Savage, son of the Earl Rivers. London. Printed for J. Roberts, +in Warwick-Lane. MDCCXLIV. It reached a second edition in 1748, a third +in 1767, and a fourth in 1769. A French translation was published +in 1771. + +[478] Roberts published in 1745 Johnson's _Observations on Macbeth_. See +_Gent. Mag_. xv. 112, 224. + +[479] Horace, _Ars Poetica_ l. 317. + +[480] In the autumn of 1752. Northcote's _Reynolds_ i. 52 + +[481] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3rd ed. p. 35 [p. 55. Aug. +19, 1773]. BOSWELL. + +[482] 'mint _of_ ecstasy:' Savage's _Works_ (1777), ii. 91. + +[483] 'He lives to build, not boast a generous race: No tenth +transmitter of a foolish face.' _Ib_. + +[484] '_The Bastard_: A poem, inscribed with all due reverence to Mrs. +Bret, once Countess of Macclesfield. By Richard Savage, son of the late +Earl Rivers. London, printed for T. Worrall, 1728.' Fol. first edition. +P. CUNNINGHAM. Between Savage's character, as drawn by Johnson, and +Johnson himself there are many points of likeness. Each 'always +preserved a steady confidence in his own capacity,' and of each it might +be said:--'Whatever faults may be imputed to him, the virtue of +suffering well cannot be denied him.' Each 'excelled in the arts of +conversation and therefore willingly practised them.' In Savage's +refusal to enter a house till some clothes had been taken away that had +been left for him 'with some neglect of ceremonies,' we have the +counterpart of Johnson's throwing away the new pair of shoes that had +been set at his door. Of Johnson the following lines are as true as of +Savage:--'His distresses, however afflictive, never dejected him; in his +lowest state he wanted not spirit to assert the natural dignity of wit, +and was always ready to repress that insolence which the superiority of +fortune incited; ... he never admitted any gross familiarities, or +submitted to be treated otherwise than as an equal.' Of both men it +might be said that 'it was in no time of his life any part of his +character to be the first of the company that desired to separate.' Each +'would prolong his conversation till midnight, without considering that +business might require his friend's application in the morning;' and +each could plead the same excuse that, 'when he left his company, he was +abandoned to gloomy reflections.' Each had the same 'accurate judgment,' +the same 'quick apprehension,' the same 'tenacious memory.' In reading +such lines as the following who does not think, not of the man whose +biography was written, but of the biographer himself?--'He had the +peculiar felicity that his attention never deserted him; he was present +to every object, and regardful of the most trifling occurrences ... To +this quality is to be imputed the extent of his knowledge, compared with +the small time which he spent in visible endeavours to acquire it. He +mingled in cursory conversation with the same steadiness of attention as +others apply to a lecture.... His judgment was eminently exact both with +regard to writings and to men. The knowledge of life was indeed his +chief attainment.' Of Johnson's _London_, as of Savage's _The Wanderer_, +it might equally well be said:--'Nor can it without some degree of +indignation and concern be told that he sold the copy for ten guineas.' + +[485] 'Savage was now again abandoned to fortune without any other +friend than Mr. Wilks; a man who, whatever were his abilities or skill +as an actor, deserves at least to be remembered for his virtues, which +are not often to be found in the world, and perhaps less often in his +profession than in others. To be humane, generous, and candid is a very +high degree of merit in any case, but those qualities deserve still +greater praise when they are found in that condition which makes almost +every other man, for whatever reason, contemptuous, insolent, petulant, +selfish, and brutal.' _Johnson's Works_, viii. 107. + +[486] In his old age he wrote as he had written in the vigour of his +manhood:--'To the censure of Collier ... he [Dryden] makes little reply; +being at the age of sixty-eight attentive to better things than the +claps of a play-house.' Johnson's _Works_ vii. 295. See _post_, April +29, 1773, and Sept. 21, 1777. + +[487] Johnson, writing of the latter half of the seventeenth century, +says:--'The playhouse was abhorred by the Puritans, and avoided by those +who desired the character of seriousness or decency. A grave lawyer +would have debased his dignity, and a young trader would have impaired +his credit, by appearing in those mansions of dissolute licentiousness.' +Johnson's _Works_, vii. 270. The following lines in Churchill's +_Apology_ (_Poems_, i. 65), published in 1761, shew how strong, even at +that time, was the feeling against strolling players:-- + +'The strolling tribe, a despicable race, +Like wand'ring Arabs shift from place to place. +Vagrants by law, to Justice open laid, +They tremble, of the beadle's lash afraid, +And fawning cringe, for wretched means of life, +To Madam May'ress, or his Worship's Wife.' + +[488] Johnson himself recognises the change in the public +estimation:--'In Dryden's time,' he writes, 'the drama was very far from +that universal approbation which it has now obtained.' _Works_, +vii. 270. + +[489] Giffard was the manager of the theatre in Goodman's Fields, where +Garrick, on Oct. 19, 1741, made his first appearance before a London +audience. Murphy's _Garrick_, pp. 13, 16. + +[490] 'Colonel Pennington said, Garrick sometimes failed in emphasis; +as, for instance, in Hamlet, + +"I will speak _daggers_ to her; but use _none_;" + +instead of + +"I will _speak_ daggers to her; but _use_ none."' + +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 28, 1773. + +[491] I suspect Dr. Taylor was inaccurate in this statement. The +emphasis should be equally upon _shalt_ and _not_, as both concur to +form the negative injunction; and _false witness_, like the other acts +prohibited in the Decalogue, should not be marked by any peculiar +emphasis, but only be distinctly enunciated. BOSWELL. + +[492] This character of the _Life of Savage_ was not written by Fielding +as has been supposed, but most probably by Ralph, who, as appears from +the minutes of the partners of _The Champion_, in the possession of Mr. +Reed of Staple Inn, succeeded Fielding in his share of the paper, before +the date of that eulogium. BOSWELL. Ralph is mentioned in _The Dunciad_, +iii. 165. A curious account of him is given in Benjamin Franklin's +_Memoirs_, i. 54-87 and 245. + +[493] The late Francis Cockayne Cust, Esq., one of his Majesty's +Counsel. BOSWELL. + +[494] Savage's veracity was questioned, but with little reason; his +accounts, though not indeed always the same, were generally consistent. +'When he loved any man, he suppressed all his faults: and, when he had +been offended by him, concealed all his virtues: but his characters were +generally true so far as he proceeded; though it cannot be denied that +his partiality might have sometimes the effect of falsehood.' Johnson's +_Works_, viii. 190. + +[495] 1697. BOSWELL. + +[496] Johnson's _Works_, viii. 98. + +[497] The story on which Mr. Cust so much relies, that Savage was a +supposititious child, not the son of Lord Rivers and Lady Macclesfield, +but the offspring of a shoemaker, introduced in consequence of her real +son's death, was, without doubt, grounded on the circumstance of Lady +Macclesfield having, in 1696, previously to the birth of Savage, had a +daughter by the Earl Rivers, who died in her infancy; a fact which was +proved in the course of the proceedings on Lord Macclesfield's Bill of +Divorce. Most fictions of this kind have some admixture of truth in +them. MALONE. From _The Earl of Macclesfield's Case_, it appears that +'Anne, Countess of Macclesfield, under the name of Madam Smith, in Fox +Court, near Brook Street, Holborn, was delivered of a male child on the +16th of January, 1696-7, who was baptized on the Monday following, the +18th, and registered by the name of Richard, the son of John Smith, by +Mr. Burbridge; and, from the privacy, was supposed by Mr. Burbridge to +be "a by-blow or bastard."' It also appears, that during her delivery, +the lady wore a mask; and that Mary Pegler, on the next day after the +baptism, took a male child, whose mother was called Madam Smith, from +the house of Mrs. Pheasant, in Fox Court [running from Brook Street in +Gray's Inn Lane], who went by the name of Mrs. Lee. + +Conformable to this statement is the entry in the register of St. +Andrew's, Holborn, which is as follows, and which unquestionably records +the baptism of Richard Savage, to whom Lord Rivers gave his own +Christian name, prefixed to the assumed surname of his mother:--'Jan. +1696-7. Richard, son of John Smith and Mary, in Fox Court, in Gray's Inn +Lane, baptized the 18th.' BINDLEY. According to Johnson's account Savage +did not learn who his parents were till the death of his nurse, who had +always treated him as her son. Among her papers he found some letters +written by Lady Macclesfield's mother proving his origin. Johnson's +_Works_, viii. 102. Why these letters were not laid before the public is +not stated. Johnson was one of the least credulous of men, and he was +convinced by Savage's story. Horace Walpole, too, does not seem to have +doubted it. Walpole's _Letters_, i. cv. + +[498] Johnson's _Works_, viii. 97. + +[499] _Ib_. p. 142. + +[500] Johnson's _Works_, p. 101. + +[501] According to Johnson's account (Johnson's _Works_, viii. 102), the +shoemaker under whom Savage was placed on trial as an apprentice was not +the husband of his nurse. + +[502] He was in his tenth year when she died. 'He had none to prosecute +his claim, to shelter him from oppression, or call in law to the +assistance of justice.' _Ib_. p. 99. + +[503] Johnson's companion appears to have persuaded that lofty-minded +man, that he resembled him in having a noble pride; for Johnson, after +painting in strong colours the quarrel between Lord Tyrconnel and +Savage, asserts that 'the spirit of Mr. Savage, indeed, never suffered +him to solicit a reconciliation: he returned reproach for reproach, and +insult for insult.' [_Ib_. p. 141.] But the respectable gentleman to +whom I have alluded, has in his possession a letter, from Savage, after +Lord Tyrconnel had discarded him, addressed to the Reverend Mr. Gilbert, +his Lordship's Chaplain, in which he requests him, in the humblest +manner, to represent his case to the Viscount. BOSWELL. + +[504] 'How loved, how honoured once avails thee not, To whom related, or +by whom begot.' + +POPE'S _Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady_. + +[505] Trusting to Savage's information, Johnson represents this unhappy +man's being received as a companion by Lord Tyrconnel, and pensioned by +his Lordship, as if posteriour to Savage's conviction and pardon. But I +am assured, that Savage had received the voluntary bounty of Lord +Tyrconnel, and had been dismissed by him, long before the murder was +committed, and that his Lordship was very instrumental in procuring +Savage's pardon, by his intercession with the Queen, through Lady +Hertford. If, therefore, he had been desirous of preventing the +publication by Savage, he would have left him to his fate. Indeed I must +observe, that although Johnson mentions that Lord Tyrconnel's patronage +of Savage was 'upon his promise to lay aside his design of exposing the +cruelty of his mother,' [Johnson's _Works_, viii. 124], the great +biographer has forgotten that he himself has mentioned, that Savage's +story had been told several years before in _The Plain Dealer_; from +which he quotes this strong saying of the generous Sir Richard Steele, +that 'the inhumanity of his mother had given him a right to find every +good man his father.' [_Ib_. p. 104.] At the same time it must be +acknowledged, that Lady Macclesfield and her relations might still wish +that her story should not be brought into more conspicuous notice by the +satirical pen of Savage. BOSWELL. + +[506] According to Johnson, she was at Bath when Savage's poem of _The +Bastard_ was published. 'She could not,' he wrote, 'enter the +assembly-rooms or cross the walks without being saluted with some lines +from _The Bastard_. This was perhaps the first time that she ever +discovered a sense of shame, and on this occasion the power of wit was +very conspicuous; the wretch who had without scruple proclaimed herself +an adulteress, and who had first endeavoured to starve her son, then to +transport him, and afterwards to hang him, was not able to bear the +representation of her own conduct; but fled from reproach, though she +felt no pain from guilt, and left Bath with the utmost haste to shelter +herself among the crowds of London.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 141. + +[507] Miss Mason, after having forfeited the title of Lady Macclesfield +by divorce, was married to Colonel Brett, and, it is said, was well +known in all the polite circles. Colley Cibber, I am informed, had so +high an opinion of her taste and judgement as to genteel life, and +manners, that he submitted every scene of his _Careless Husband_ to Mrs. +Brett's revisal and correction. Colonel Brett was reported to be too +free in his gallantry with his Lady's maid. Mrs. Brett came into a room +one day in her own house, and found the Colonel and her maid both fast +asleep in two chairs. She tied a white handkerchief round her husband's +neck, which was a sufficient proof that she had discovered his intrigue; +but she never at any time took notice of it to him. This incident, as I +am told, gave occasion to the well-wrought scene of Sir Charles and Lady +Easy and Edging. BOSWELL. Lady Macclesfield died 1753, aged above 80. +Her eldest daughter, by Col. Brett, was, for the few last months of his +life, the mistress of George I, (Walpole's _Reminiscences_, cv.) Her +marriage ten years after her royal lover's death is thus announced in +the _Gent. Mag_., 1737:--'Sept. 17. Sir W. Leman, of Northall, Bart., to +Miss Brett [Britt] of Bond Street, an heiress;' and again next +month--'Oct. 8. Sir William Leman, of Northall, Baronet, to Miss Brett, +half sister to Mr. Savage, son to the late Earl Rivers;' for the +difference of date I know not how to account; but the second insertion +was, no doubt, made by Savage to countenance his own pretensions. CROKER. + +[508] 'Among the names of subscribers to the _Harleian Miscellany_ there +occurs that of "Sarah Johnson, bookseller in Lichfield."' +_Johnsoniana_, p. 466. + +[509] A brief account of Oldys is given in the _Gent. Mag_. liv. 161, +260. Like so many of his fellows he was thrown into the Fleet. 'After +poor Oldys's release, such was his affection for the place that he +constantly spent his evenings there.' + +[510] In the Feb. number of the _Gent. Mag_. for this year (p. 112) is +the following advertisement:--'Speedily will be published (price 1s.) +_Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth_, with remarks on +Sir T.H.'s edition of _Shakespear_; to which is affix'd proposals for a +new edition of _Shakespear_, with a specimen. Printed for J. Roberts in +Warwick Lane.' In the March number (p. 114), under the date of March 31, +it is announced that it will be published on April 6. In spite of the +two advertisements, and the title-page which agrees with the +advertisements, I believe that the Proposals were not published till +eleven years later (see _post_, end of 1756). I cannot hear of any copy +of the _Miscellaneous Observations_ which contains them. The +advertisement is a third time repeated in the April number of the _Gent. +Mag_. for 1745 (p. 224), but the Proposals are not this time mentioned. +Tom Davies the bookseller gives 1756 as the date of their publication +(_Misc. and Fugitive Pieces_, ii. 87). Perhaps Johnson or the +booksellers were discouraged by Hanmer's _Shakespeare_ as well as by +Warburton's. Johnson at the end of the _Miscellaneous Observations_ +says:--'After the foregoing pages were printed, the late edition of +_Shakespeare_ ascribed to Sir T. H. fell into my hands.' + +[511] 'The excellence of the edition proved to be by no means +proportionate to the arrogance of the editor.' _Cambridge +Shakespeare_, i. xxxiv. + +[512] 'When you see Mr. Johnson pray [give] my compliments, and tell him +I esteem him as a great genius--quite lost both to himself and the +world.' _Gilbert Walmesley to Garrick_, Nov. 3, 1746. _Garrick +Correspondence_, i. 45. Mr. Walmesley's letter does not shew that +Johnson was idle. The old man had expected great things from him. 'I +have great hopes,' he had written in 1737 (see _ante_, p. 102), 'that he +will turn out a fine tragedy writer.' In the nine years in which Johnson +had been in town he had done, no doubt, much admirable work; but by his +poem of _London_ only was he known to the public. His _Life of Savage_ +did not bear his name. His _Observations on Macbeth_ were published in +April, 1745; his _Plan of the Dictionary_ in 1747 [Transcriber's note: +Originally 1774, corrected in Errata.]. What was Johnson doing +meanwhile? Boswell conjectures that he was engaged on his _Shakespeare_ +and his _Dictionary_. That he went on working at his _Shakespeare_ when +the prospect of publishing was so remote that he could not issue his +proposals is very unlikely. That he had been for some time engaged on +his _Dictionary_ before he addressed Lord Chesterfield is shewn by the +opening sentences of the _Plan_. Mr. Croker's conjecture that he was +absent or concealed on account of some difficulties which had arisen +through the rebellion of 1745 is absurd. At no time of his life had he +been an ardent Jacobite. 'I have heard him declare,' writes Boswell, +'that if holding up his right hand would have secured victory at +Culloden to Prince Charles's army, he was not sure he would have held it +up;' _post_, July 14, 1763. 'He had never in his life been in a +nonjuring meeting-house;' _post_, June 9, 1784. + +For the fact that he wrote very little, if indeed anything, in the +_Gent. Mag_. during these years more than one reason may be given. In +the first place, public affairs take up an unusual amount of room in its +columns. Thus in the number for Dec. 1745 we read:--'Our readers being +too much alarmed by the present rebellion to relish with their usual +delight the _Debates in the Senate of Lilliput_ we shall postpone them +for a season, that we may be able to furnish out a fuller entertainment +of what we find to be more suitable to their present taste.' In the +Preface it is stated:--'We have sold more of our books than we desire +for several months past, and are heartily sorry for the occasion of it, +the present troubles.' During these years then much less space was given +to literature. But besides this, Johnson likely enough refused to write +for the _Magazine_ when it shewed itself strongly Hanoverian. He would +highly disapprove of _A New Protestant Litany_, which was written after +the following fashion:-- + +'May Spaniards, or French, all who join with a Highland, +In disturbing the peace of this our bless'd island, +Meet tempests on sea and halters on dry land. + We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.' + +_Gent. Mag_. xv. 551. + +He would be disgusted the following year at seeing the Duke of +Cumberland praised as 'the greatest man alive' (_Gent. Mag_. xvi. 235), +and sung in verse that would have almost disgraced Cibber (p. 36). It is +remarkable that there is no mention of Johnson's _Plan of a Dictionary_ +in the _Magazine_. Perhaps some coolness had risen between him and Cave. + +[513] Boswell proceeds to mention six. + +[514] In Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies, in which this paraphrase is +inserted, it is stated that the Latin epitaph was written by Dr. Freind. +I do not think that the English version is by Johnson. I should be sorry +to ascribe to him such lines as:-- + +'Illustrious age! how bright thy glories shone, +When Hanmer filled the chair--and Anne the throne.' + +[515] In the _Observations_, Johnson, writing of Hanmer, says:--'Surely +the weapons of criticism ought not to be blunted against an editor who +can imagine that he is restoring poetry while he is amusing himself with +alterations like these:-- + +For,--This is the sergeant + Who like a good and hardy soldier fought; +--This is the sergeant who + Like a _right_ good and hardy soldier fought. + +Such harmless industry may surely be forgiven, if it cannot be praised; +may he therefore never want a monosyllable who can use it with such +wonderful dexterity.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 93. In his Preface to +_Shakespeare_ published eighteen years later, he describes Hanmer as 'A +man, in my opinion, eminently qualified by nature for such studies.' +_Ib_. p. 139. The editors of the _Cambridge Shakespeare_ (i. xxxii) thus +write of Hanmer:-- + +'A country gentleman of great ingenuity and lively fancy, but with no +knowledge of older literature, no taste for research, and no ear for the +rhythm of earlier English verse, amused his leisure hours by scribbling +down his own and his friend's guesses in Pope's _Shakespeare_.' + +[516] In the _Universal Visiter_, to which Johnson contributed, the mark +which is affixed to some pieces unquestionably his, is also found +subjoined to others, of which he certainly was not the author. The mark +therefore will not ascertain the poems in question to have been written +by him. They were probably the productions of Hawkesworth, who, it is +believed, was afflicted with the gout. MALONE. + +It is most unlikely that Johnson wrote such poor poems as these. I shall +not easily be persuaded that the following lines are his:-- + +'Love warbles in the vocal groves, + And vegetation paints the plain.' + +'And love and hate alike implore + The skies--"That Stella mourn no more."' + +'The Winter's Walk' has two good lines, but these may have been supplied +by Johnson. The lines to 'Lyce, an elderly Lady,' would, if written by +him, have been taken as a satire on his wife. + +[517] See _post_ under Sept. 18, 1783. + +[518] See Johnson's _Works_, vii. 4, 34. + +[519] Boswell italicises _conceits_ to shew that he is using it in the +sense in which Johnson uses it in his criticism of Cowley:--'These +conceits Addison calls mixed wit; that is, wit which consists of +thoughts true in one sense of the expression and false in the other.' +_Ib_. vii 35. + +[520] _Namby Pamby_ was the name given to Ambrose Philips by Pope _Ib_. +viii. 395 + +[521] Malone most likely is meant. Mr. Croker says:--'Johnson has +"_indifferently_" in the sense of "_without concern_" in his +_Dictionary_, with this example from _Shakespeare_, "And I will look on +death indifferently."' Johnson however here defines indifferently as _in +a neutral state; without wish or aversion_; which is not the same as +_without concern_. The passage, which is from _Julius Caesar_, i. 2, is +not correctly given. It is-- + +'Set honour in one eye and death +i' the other +And I will look on both indifferently.' + +We may compare Johnson's use of _indifferent_ in his Letter to +Chesterfield, _post_, Feb. 7, 1755:--'The notice which you have been +pleased to take of my labours ... has been delayed till I am +indifferent, and cannot enjoy it.' + +[522] 'Radcliffe, when quite a boy, had been engaged in the rebellion of +1715, and being attainted had escaped from Newgate.... During the +insurrection [of 1745], having been captured on board a French vessel +bound for Scotland, he was arraigned on his original sentence which had +slumbered so long. The only trial now conceded to him was confined to +his identity. For such a course there was no precedent, except in the +case of Sir Walter Raleigh, which had brought shame upon the reign of +James I.' Campbell's _Chancellors_ (edit. 1846), v. 108. Campbell adds, +'his execution, I think, reflects great disgrace upon Lord Hardwicke +[the Lord Chancellor].' + +[523] In the original _end_. + +[524] "These verses are somewhat too severe on the extraordinary person +who is the chief figure in them, for he was undoubtedly brave. His +pleasantry during his solemn trial (in which, by the way, I have heard +Mr. David Hume observe, that we have one of the very few speeches of Mr. +Murray, now Earl of Mansfield, authentically given) was very remarkable. +When asked if he had any questions to put to Sir Everard Fawkener, who +was one of the strongest witnesses against him, he answered, 'I only +wish him joy of his young wife.' And after sentence of death, in the +horrible terms in cases of treason, was pronounced upon him, and he was +retiring from the bar, he said, 'Fare you well, my Lords, we shall not +all meet again in one place.' He behaved with perfect composure at his +execution, and called out '_Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori_?' + +'What joys, what glories round him wait, +Who bravely for his country dies!" + +FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, iii.2. 13. + +BOSWELL. + +'Old Lovat was beheaded yesterday,' wrote Horace Walpole on April 10, +1747, 'and died extremely well: without passion, affectation, +buffoonery, or timidity; his behaviour was natural and intrepid.' +_Letters_, ii. 77. + +[525] See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_. + +[526] My friend, Mr. Courtenay, whose eulogy on Johnson's Latin Poetry +has been inserted in this Work [_ante_, p. 62], is no less happy in +praising his English Poetry. + +But hark, he sings! the strain ev'n Pope admires; +Indignant virtue her own bard inspires. +Sublime as juvenal he pours his lays, +And with the Roman shares congenial praise;-- +In glowing numbers now he fires the age, +And Shakspeare's sun relumes the clouded stage. + +BOSWELL. + +[527] The play is by Ambrose Philips. 'It was concluded with the most +successful Epilogue that was ever yet spoken on the English theatre. The +three first nights it was recited twice; and not only continued to be +demanded through the run, as it is termed, of the play; but, whenever it +is recalled to the stage, where by peculiar fortune, though a copy from +the French, it yet keeps its place, the Epilogue is still expected, and +is still spoken.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 389. See _post_, April 21, +1773, note on Eustace Budgel. The Epilogue is given in vol. v. p. 228 of +Bonn's _Addison_, and the great success that it met with is described in +_The Spectator_, No. 341. + +[528] Such poor stuff as the following is certainly not by Johnson:-- + +'Let musick sound the voice of joy! + Or mirth repeat the jocund tale; +Let Love his wanton wiles employ, + And o'er the season wine prevail.' + +[529] 'Dodsley first mentioned to me the scheme of an English +Dictionary; but I had long thought of it.' _Post_, Oct. 10, 1779. + +[530] It would seem from the passage to which Boswell refers that Pope +had wished that Johnson should undertake the _Dictionary_. Johnson, in +mentioning Pope, says:--'Of whom I may be justified in affirming that +were he still alive, solicitous as he was for the success of this work, +he would not be displeased that I have undertaken it.' _Works_, v. 20. +As Pope died on May 30, 1744, this renders it likely that the work was +begun earlier than Boswell thought. + +[531] In the title-page of the first edition after the name of Hirch +comes that of L. Hawes. + +[532] 'During the progress of the work he had received at different +times the amount of his contract; and when his receipts were produced to +him at a tavern-dinner given by the booksellers, it appeared that he had +been paid a hundred pounds and upwards more than his due.' Murphy's +_Johnson_. p. 78. See _post_, beginning of 1756. + +[533] 'The truth is, that the several situations which I have been in +having made me long the _plastron_ [butt] of dedications, I am become as +callous to flattery as some people are to abuse.' Lord Chesterfield, +date of Dec. 15, 1755; Chesterfield's _Misc. Works_, iv. 266. + +[534] September 22, 1777, going from Ashbourne in Derbyshire, to see +Islam. BOSWELL. + +[535] Boswell here says too much, as the following passages in the +_Plan_ prove:--'Who upon this survey can forbear to wish that these +fundamental atoms of our speech might obtain the firmness and +immutability of the primogenial and constituent particles of matter?' +'Those translators who, for want of understanding the characteristical +difference of tongues, have formed a chaotick dialect of heterogeneous +phrases;' 'In one part refinement will be subtilised beyond exactness, +and evidence dilated in another beyond perspicuity.' Johnson's _Works_, +v. 12, 21, 22. + +[536] Ausonius, _Epigram_ i. 12. + +[537] Whitehead in 1757 succeeded Colley Cibber as poet-laureate, and +dying in 1785 was followed by Thomas Warton. From Warton the line of +succession is Pye, Southey, Wordsworth, Tennyson. See _post_, under +June 13, 1763. + +[538] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 176) likewise says that the manuscript passed +through Whitehead and 'other hands' before it reached Chesterfield. Mr. +Croker had seen 'a draft of the prospectus carefully written by an +amanuensis, but signed in great form by Johnson's own hand. It was +evidently that which was laid before Lord Chesterfield. Some useful +remarks are made in his lordship's hand, and some in another. Johnson +adopted all these suggestions.' + +[539] This poor piece of criticism confirms what Johnson said of Lord +Orrery:--'He grasped at more than his abilities could reach; tried to +pass for a better talker, a better writer, and a better thinker that he +was.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22, 1773. See _post_, under April +7, 1778. + +[540] Birch, _MSS. Brit. Mus_. 4303. BOSWELL. + +[541] 'When I survey the _Plan_ which I have laid before you, I cannot, +my Lord, but confess that I am frighted at its extent, and, like the +soldiers of Cæsar, look on Britain as a new world, which it is almost +madness to invade.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 21. + +[542] There might be applied to him what he said of +Pope:--"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. +He, indeed, who forms his opinion of himself in solitude without knowing +the powers of other men, is very liable to error; but it was the +felicity of Pope to rate himself at his real value." Johnson's _Works_, +viii, 237. + +[543] 'For the Teutonick etymologies I am commonly indebted to Junius +and Skinner.... Junius appears to have excelled in extent of learning +and Skinner in rectitude of understanding.... Skinner is often ignorant, +but never ridiculous: Junius is always full of knowledge, but his +variety distracts his judgment, and his learning is very frequently +disgraced by his absurdities.' _Ib_. v. 29. Francis Junius the younger +was born at Heidelberg in 1589, and died at Windsor, at the house of his +nephew Isaac Vossius, in 1678. His _Etymologicum Anglicanum_ was not +published till 1743. Stephen Skinner, M.D., was born in 1623, and died +in 1667. His _Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ_ was published in 1671. +Knight's _Eng. Cycle_. + +[544] Thomas Richards published in 1753 _Antiquæ Linguæ Britannicæ +Thesaurus_, to which is prefixed a _Welsh Grammar_ and a collection of +British proverbs. + +[545] See Sir John Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_ [p. 171], BOSWELL. + +[546] 'The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most part, +into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist.' Macaulay's +_Misc. Writings_, p. 382. See _post_, May 13, 1778, for mention of Horne +Tooke's criticism of Johnson's etymologies. + +[547] 'The etymology, so far as it is yet known, was easily found in the +volumes where it is particularly and professedly delivered ... But to +COLLECT the WORDS of our language was a task of greater difficulty: the +deficiency of dictionaries was immediately apparent; and when they were +exhausted, what was yet wanting must be sought by fortuitous and +unguided excursions into books, and gleaned as industry should find, or +chance should offer it, in the boundless chaos of a living speech.' +Johnson's _Works_, v. 31. + +[548] See _post_, under April 10, 1776. BOSWELL. + +[549] 'Mr. Macbean,' said Johnson in 1778, 'is a man of great learning, +and for his learning I respect him, and I wish to serve him. He knows +many languages, and knows them well; but he knows nothing of life. I +advised him to write a geographical dictionary; but I have lost all +hopes of his ever doing anything properly, since I found he gave as much +labour to Capua as to Rome.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i, 114. See _post_ +beginning of 1773, and Oct 24, 1780. + +[550] Boswell is speaking of the book published under the name of +_Cibber_ mentioned above, but 'entirely compiled,' according to Johnson, +by Shiels. See _post_, April 10, 1776. + +[551] See _Piozzi Letters_, i. 312, and _post_, May 21, 1775, note. + +[552] 'We ourselves, not without labour and risk, lately discovered +Gough Square.... and on the second day of search the very House there, +wherein the _English Dictionary_ was composed. It is the first or corner +house on the right hand, as you enter through the arched way from the +North-west ... It is a stout, old-fashioned, oak-balustraded house: "I +have spent many a pound and penny on it since then," said the worthy +Landlord: "here, you see, this bedroom was the Doctor's study; that was +the garden" (a plot of delved ground somewhat larger than a bed-quilt) +"where he walked for exercise; these three garret bedrooms" (where his +three [six] copyists sat and wrote) "were the place he kept +his--_pupils_ in": _Tempus edax rerum!_ Yet _ferax_ also: for our friend +now added, with a wistful look, which strove to seem merely historical: +"I let it all in lodgings, to respectable gentlemen; by the quarter or +the month; it's all one to me."--"To me also," whispered the ghost of +Samuel, as we went pensively our ways.' Carlyle's _Miscellanies_, edit, +of 1872, iv. 112. + +[553] Boswell's account of the manner in which Johnson compiled his +_Dictionary_ is confused and erroneous. He began his task (as he himself +expressly described to me), by devoting his first care to a diligent +perusal of all such English writers as were most correct in their +language, and under every sentence which he meant to quote he drew a +line, and noted in the margin the first letter of the word under which +it was to occur. He then delivered these books to his clerks, who +transcribed each sentence on a separate slip of paper, and arranged the +same under the word referred to. By these means he collected the several +words and their different significations; and when the whole arrangement +was alphabetically formed, he gave the definitions of their meanings, +and collected their etymologies from Skinner, Junius, and other writers +on the subject. PERCY. + +[554] 'The books he used for this purpose were what he had in his own +collection, a copious but a miserably ragged one, and all such as he +could borrow; which latter, if ever they came back to those that lent +them, were so defaced as to be scarce worth owning, and yet some of his +friends were glad to receive and entertain them as curiosities.' +Hawkins, p. 175. + +[555] In the copy that he thus marked of Sir Matthew Hale's _Primitive +Origination of Mankind_, opposite the passage where it is stated, that +'Averroes says that if the world were not eternal ... it could never +have been at all, because an eternal duration must necessarily have +anteceded the first production of the world,' he has written:--'This +argument will hold good equally against the writing that I now write.' + +[556] Boswell must mean 'whose writings _taken as a whole_ had a +tendency,' &c. Johnson quotes Dryden, and of Dryden he says:--'Of the +mind that can trade in corruption, and can deliberately pollute itself +with ideal wickedness for the sake of spreading the contagion in +society, I wish not to conceal or excuse the depravity. Such degradation +of the dignity of genius, such abuse of superlative abilities, cannot be +contemplated but with grief and indignation. What consolation can be had +Dryden has afforded by living to repent, and to testify his repentance.' +Johnson's _Works_, vii. 293. He quotes Congreve, and of Congreve he +says: 'It is acknowledged, with universal conviction, that the perusal +of his works will make no man better; and that their ultimate effect is +to represent pleasure in alliance with vice, and to relax those +obligations by which life ought to be regulated.' _Ib_. viii. 28. He +would not quote Dr. Clarke, much as he admired him, because he was not +sound upon the doctrine of the Trinity. _Post_, Dec., 1784, note. + +[557] In the _Plan to the Dictionary_, written in 1747, he describes his +task as one that 'may be successfully performed without any higher +quality than that of bearing burdens with dull patience, and beating the +track of the alphabet with sluggish resolution.' _Works_, v. 1. In 1751, +in the _Rambler_, No. 141, he thus pleasantly touches on his work: 'The +task of every other slave [except the 'wit'] has an end. The rower in +time reaches the port; the lexicographer at last finds the conclusion of +his alphabet.' On April 15, 1755, he writes to his friend Hector:--'I +wish, come of wishes what will, that my work may please you, as much as +it now and then pleased me, for I did not find dictionary making so very +unpleasant as it may be thought.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. 111, 301. +He told Dr. Blacklock that 'it was easier to him to write poetry than to +compose his _Dictionary_. His mind was less on the stretch in doing the +one than the other.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773. + +[558] The well-known picture of the company at Tunbridge Wells in Aug. +1748, with the references in Richardson's own writing, is given as a +frontispiece to vol. iii. of Richardson's _Correspondence_. There can be +no doubt that the figure marked by Richardson as Dr. Johnson is not +Samuel Johnson, who did not receive a doctor's degree till more than +four years after Richardson's death. + +[559] 'Johnson hardly ever spoke of Bathurst without tears in his eyes.' +Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 56. Mrs. Piozzi, after recording an anecdote that +he had related to her of his childhood, continues:--'"I cannot imagine," +said he, "what makes me talk of myself to you so, for I really never +mentioned this foolish story to anybody except Dr. Taylor, not even to +my dear, dear Bathurst, whom I loved better than ever I loved any human +creature; but poor Bathurst is dead!" Here a long pause and a few tears +ensued.' Piozzi's _Anec_., p. 18. Another day he said to her:--'Dear +Bathurst was a man to my very heart's content: he hated a fool, and he +hated a rogue, and he hated a Whig; he was a very good hater.' _Ib_. p. +83. In his _Meditations on Easter-Day_, 1764, he records:--'After sermon +I recommended Tetty in a prayer by herself; and my father, mother, +brother, and Bathurst in another.' _Pr. and Med_., p. 54. See also +_post_, under March 18, 1752, and 1780 in Mr. Langton's _Collection_. + +[560] Of Hawkesworth Johnson thus wrote: 'An account of Dr. Swift has +been already collected, with great diligence and acuteness, by Dr. +Hawkesworth, according to a scheme which I laid before him in the +intimacy of our friendship. I cannot therefore be expected to say much +of a life concerning which I had long since communicated my thoughts to +a man capable of dignifying his narrations with so much elegance of +language and force of sentiment.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 192. +Hawkesworth was an imitator of Johnson's style; _post_, under Jan. +1, 1753. + +[561] He was afterwards for several years Chairman of the Middlesex +justices, and upon occasion of presenting an address to the King, +accepted the usual offer of Knighthood. He is authour of 'A History of +Musick,' in five volumes in quarto. By assiduous attendance upon Johnson +in his last illness, he obtained the office of one of his executors; in +consequence of which, the booksellers of London employed him to publish +an edition of Dr. Johnson's works, and to write his Life. BOSWELL. This +description of Hawkins, as 'Mr. John Hawkins, an attorney,' is a reply +to his description of Boswell as 'Mr. James Boswell, a native of +Scotland.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 472. According to Miss Hawkins, +'Boswell complained to her father of the manner in which he was +described. Where was the offence? It was one of those which a +complainant hardly dares to embody in words; he would only repeat, +"Well, but _Mr. James Boswell_, surely, surely, _Mr. James Boswell_"' +Miss Hawkins's _Memoirs_, i. 235. Boswell in thus styling Hawkins +remembered no doubt Johnson's sarcasm against attorneys. See _post_, +1770, in Dr. Maxwell's _Collectanea_. Hawkins's edition of _Johnson's +Works_ was published in 1787-9, in 13 vols., 8vo., the last two vols. +being edited by Stockdale. In vol. xi. is a collection of Johnson's +sayings, under the name of _Apothegms_, many of which I quote in +my notes. + +[562] Boswell, it is clear, has taken his account of the club from +Hawkins, who writes:--'Johnson had, in the winter of 1749, formed a club +that met weekly at the King's Head, a famous beef-steak house in Ivy +Lane, near St. Paul's, every Tuesday evening. Thither he constantly +resorted with a disposition to please and be pleased. Our conversations +seldom began till after a supper so very solid and substantial as led us +to think that with him it was a dinner. + +'By the help of this refection, and no other incentive to hilarity than +lemonade, Johnson was in a short time after our assembling transformed +into a new creature; his habitual melancholy and lassitude of spirit +gave way; his countenance brightened.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, pp. 219, +250. Other parts of Hawkins's account do not agree with passages in +Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale written in 1783-4. 'I dined about a +fortnight ago with three old friends [Hawkins, Ryland, and Payne]; we +had not met together for thirty years. In the thirty years two of our +set have died.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 339. 'We used to meet weekly about +the year fifty.' _Ib_. p. 361. 'The people whom I mentioned in my letter +are the remnant of a little club that used to meet in Ivy Lane about +three and thirty years ago, out of which we have lost Hawkesworth and +Dyer, the rest are yet on this side the grave.' _Ib_. p. 363. Hawkins +says the club broke up about 1756 (_Life_, p. 361). Johnson in the first +of the passages says they had not met at all for thirty years--that is +to say, not since 1753; while in the last two passages he implies that +their weekly meetings came to an end about 1751. I cannot understand +moreover how, if Bathurst, 'his beloved friend,' belonged to the club, +Johnson should have forgotten it. Bathurst died in the expedition to the +Havannah about 1762. Two others of those given in Hawkins's list were +certainly dead by 1783. M'Ghie, who died while the club existed (_Ib_. +p. 361), and Dr. Salter. A writer in the _Builder_ (Dec. 1884) says, +'The King's Head was burnt down twenty-five years ago, but the cellarage +remains beneath No. 4, Alldis's dining-rooms, on the eastern side.' + +[563] Tom Tyers said that Johnson 'in one night composed, after +finishing an evening in Holborn, his _Hermit of Teneriffe_.' _Gent. +Mag_. for 1784, p. 901. The high value that he set on this piece may be +accounted for in his own words. 'Many causes may vitiate a writer's +judgment of his own works.... What has been produced without toilsome +efforts is considered with delight, as a proof of vigorous faculties and +fertile invention.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 110. He had said much the +same thirty years earlier in _The Rambler_ (No. 21). + +[564] 'On January 9 was published, long wished, another satire from +Juvenal, by the author of _London.' Gent. Mag_. xviii. 598, 9. + +[565] Sir John Hawkins, with solemn inaccuracy, represents this poem as +a consequence of the indifferent reception of his tragedy. But the fact +is, that the poem was published on the 9th of January, and the tragedy +was not acted till the 6th of the February following. BOSWELL. Hawkins +perhaps implies what Boswell says that he represents; but if so, he +implies it by denying it. Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 201. + +[566] 'I wrote,' he said, 'the first seventy lines in _The Vanity of +Human Wishes_ in the course of one morning in that small house beyond +the church at Hampstead.' _Works_ (1787), xi. 212. + +[567] See _post_ under Feb. 15, 1766. That Johnson did not think that in +hasty composition there is any great merit, is shewn by _The Rambler_, +No. 169, entitled _Labour necessary to excellence_. There he describes +'pride and indigence as the two great hasteners of modern poems.' He +continues:--'that no other method of attaining lasting praise [than +_multa dies et multa litura_] has been yet discovered may be conjectured +from the blotted manuscripts of Milton now remaining, and from the tardy +emission of Pope's compositions.' He made many corrections for the later +editions of his poem. + +[568] 'Nov. 25, 1748. I received of Mr. Dodsley fifteen guineas, for +which assign to him the right of copy of an imitation of the _Tenth +Satire of Juvenal_, written by me; reserving to myself the right of +printing one edition. SAM. JOHNSON.' + +'London, 29 June, 1786. A true copy, from the original in Dr. Johnson's +handwriting. JAS. DODSLEY. BOSWELL. + +_London_ was sold at a shilling a copy. Johnson was paid at the rate of +about 9-1/2_d_. a line for this poem; for _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ +at the rate of about 10_d_. a line. Dryden by his engagement with Jacob +Tonson (see Johnson's _Works_, vii. 298) undertook to furnish 10,000 +verses at a little over 6_d_. a verse. Goldsmith was paid for _The +Traveller_ £21, or about 11-1/2_d_. a line. + +[569] He never published it. See _post_ under Dec. 9, 1784. + +[570] 'Jan. 9, 1821. Read Johnson's _Vanity of Human Wishes_,--all the +examples and mode of giving them sublime, as well as the latter part, +with the exception of an occasional couplet. I do not so much admire the +opening. The first line, 'Let observation,' etc., is certainly heavy and +useless. But 'tis a grand poem--and so _true_!--true as the Tenth of +Juvenal himself. The lapse of ages changes all things--time--language-- +the earth--the bounds of the sea--the stars of the sky, and everything +"about, around, and underneath" man, _except man himself_. The infinite +variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead +but to disappointment.' _Byron_, vol. v. p. 66. WRIGHT. Sir Walter Scott +said 'that he had more pleasure in reading _London_, and _The Vanity of +Human Wishes _than any other poetical composition he could mention.' +Lockhart's _Scott_, iii. 269. Mr. Lockhart adds that 'the last line of +MS. that Scott sent to the press was a quotation from _The Vanity of +Human Wishes_.' Of the first lines + +'Let observation with extensive view +Survey mankind from China to Peru,' + +De Quincey quotes the criticism of some writer, who 'contends with some +reason that this is saying in effect:--"Let observation with extensive +observation observe mankind extensively."' De Quincey's _Works_, x. 72. + +[571] From Mr. Langton. BOSWELL. + +[572] In this poem one of the instances mentioned of unfortunate learned +men is _Lydiat_: + +'Hear Lydiat's life, and Galileo's end.' + +The history of Lydiat being little known, the following account of him +may be acceptable to many of my readers. It appeared as a note in the +Supplement to the _Gent. Mag_. for 1748, in which some passages +extracted from Johnson's poem were inserted, and it should have been +added in the subsequent editions.--A very learned divine and +mathematician, fellow of New College, Oxon, and Rector of Okerton, near +Banbury. He wrote, among many others, a Latin treatise _De Natura call_, +etc., in which he attacked the sentiments of Scaliger and Aristotle, not +bearing to hear it urged, _that some things are true in philosophy and +false in divinity_. He made above 600 Sermons on the harmony of the +Evangelists. Being unsuccessful in publishing his works, he lay in the +prison of Bocardo at Oxford, and in the King's Bench, till Bishop Usher, +Dr. Laud, Sir William Boswell, and Dr. Pink, released him by paying his +debts. He petitioned King Charles I. to be sent into Ethiopia, etc., to +procure MSS. Having spoken in favour of Monarchy and bishops, he was +plundered by the parliament forces, and twice carried away prisoner from +his rectory; and afterwards had not a shirt to shift him in three +months, without he borrowed it, and died very poor in 1646. BOSWELL. + +[573] Psalm xc. 12. + +[574] In the original _Inquirer_. + +[575] '... nonumque prematur in annum.' Horace, _Ars Poet_. l. 388. + +[576] 'Of all authors,' wrote Johnson, 'those are the most wretched who +exhibit their productions on the theatre, and who are to propitiate +first the manager and then the public. Many an humble visitant have I +followed to the doors of these lords of the drama, seen him touch the +knocker with a shaking hand, and after long deliberation adventure to +solicit entrance by a single knock.' _Works_, v. 360. + +[577] Mahomet was, in fact, played by Mr. Barry, and Demetrius by Mr. +Garrick: but probably at this time the parts were not yet cast. BOSWELL. + +[578] The expression used by Dr. Adams was 'soothed.' I should rather +think the audience was _awed_ by the extraordinary spirit and dignity of +the following lines: + +'Be this at least his praise, be this his pride, +To force applause no modern arts are tried: +Should partial catcalls all his hopes confound, +He bids no trumpet quell the fatal sound; +Should welcome sleep relieve the weary wit, +He rolls no thunders o'er the drowsy pit; +No snares to captivate the judgement spreads, +Nor bribes your eyes to prejudice your heads. +Unmov'd, though witlings sneer and rivals rail, +Studious to please, yet not asham'd to fail, +He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain, +With merit needless, and without it vain; +In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust; +Ye fops be silent, and ye wits be just!' + +BOSWELL. + +[579] Johnson said of Mrs. Pritchard's playing in general that 'it was +quite mechanical;' _post_, April 7, 1775. See also _post_ under +Sept. 30, 1783. + +[580] 'The strangling of Irene in the view of the audience was suggested +by Mr. Garrick.' Davies's _Garrick_, i. 128. Dryden in his _Essay of +Dramatick Poesie_ (edit. 1701, i. 13), says:--'I have observed that in +all our tragedies the audience cannot forbear laughing when the actors +are to die; 'tis the most comick part of the whole play.' 'Suppose your +Piece admitted, acted; one single ill-natured jest from the pit is +sufficient to cancel all your labours.' Goldsmith's _Present State of +Polite Learning_, chap. x. + +[581] In her last speech two of the seven lines are very bad:-- + +'Guilt and despair, pale spectres! grin around me, +And stun me with the yellings of damnation!' + +Act v. sc. 9. + +[582] Murphy referring to Boswell's statement says:--'The Epilogue, we +are told in a late publication, was written by Sir William Young. This +is a new discovery, but by no means probable. When the appendages to a +Dramatic Performance are not assigned to a friend, or an unknown hand, +or a person of fashion, they are always supposed to be written by the +author of the Play.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 154. He overlooks altogether +the statement in the _Gent. Mag_. (xix. 85) that the Epilogue is 'by +another hand.' Mr. Croker points out that the words 'as Johnson informed +me' first appear in the second edition. The wonder is that Johnson +accepted this Epilogue, which is a little coarse and a little profane. +Yonge was Secretary at War in Walpole's ministry. Walpole said of him +'that nothing but Yonge's character could keep down his parts, and +nothing but his parts support his character.' Horace Walpole's +_Letters_, i. 98, note. + +[583] I know not what Sir John Hawkins means by the _cold reception_ of +_Irene_. (See note, p. 192.) I was at the first representation, and most +of the subsequent. It was much applauded the first night, particularly +the speech on _to-morrow_ [Act iii. sc. 2]. It ran nine nights at least. +It did not indeed become a stock-play, but there was not the least +opposition during the representation, except the first night in the last +act, where Irene was to be strangled on the stage, which _John_ could +not bear, though a dramatick poet may stab or slay by hundreds. The +bow-string was not a Christian nor an ancient Greek or Roman death. But +this offence was removed after the first night, and Irene went off the +stage to be strangled.--BURNEY. + +[584] According to the _Gent. Mag_. (xix. 76) 'it was acted from Monday, +Feb. 6, to Monday, Feb. 20, inclusive.' A letter in the _Garrick +Corres_, (i. 32), dated April 3, 1745, seems to shew that so long a run +was uncommon. The writer addressing Garrick says:--'You have now +performed it [_Tancred_] for nine nights; consider the part, and whether +nature can well support the frequent repetition of such shocks. Permit +me to advise you to resolve not to act upon any account above three +times a week.' Yet against this may be set the following passage in the +_Rambler_, No. l23:--'At last a malignant author, whose performance I +had persecuted through the nine nights, wrote an epigram upon Tape the +critic, which drove me from the pit for ever.' Murphy writing in 1792 +said that _Irene_ had not been exhbited on any stage since its first +representation. Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 52. + +[585] Mr. Croker says that 'it appears by a MS. note in Isaac Reed's +copy of Murphy's Life, that the receipts of the third, sixth, and ninth +nights, after deducting sixty guineas a night for the expenses of the +house, amounted to £195 17s.: Johnson cleared therefore, with the +copyright, very nearly £300.' _Irene_ was sold at the price of 1s. 6d. a +copy (_Gent. Mag_. xix. 96); so that Dodsley must have looked for a very +large sale. + +[586] See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_ for Johnson's +estimate of _Irene_ in later life. + +[587] Aaron Hill (vol. ii. p. 355), in a letter to Mr. Mallett, gives +the following account of _Irene_ after having seen it: 'I was at the +anomalous Mr. Johnson's benefit, and found the play his proper +representative; strong sense ungraced by sweetness or decorum.' BOSWELL. + +[588] See _ante_, p. 102 + +[589] Murphy (_Life_, p. 53) says that some years afterwards, when he +knew Johnson to be in distress, he asked Garrick why he did not produce +another tragedy for his Lichfield friend? Garrick's answer was +remarkable: "When Johnson writes tragedy, declamation roars, and passion +sleeps: when Shakespeare wrote; he dipped his pen in his own heart." +Johnson was perhaps aware of the causes of his failure as a +tragedy-writer. In his criticism of Addison's _Cato_ he says: 'Of _Cato_ +it has been not unjustly determined that it is rather a poem in dialogue +than a drama, rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant language +than a representation of natural affections, or any state probable or +possible in human life ... The events are expected without solicitude, +and are remembered without joy or sorrow.... Its success has introduced +or confirmed among us the use of dialogue too declamatory, of +unaffecting elegance and chill philosophy.' _Works_, vii. 456. 'Johnson +thought: _Cato_ the best model of tragedy we had; yet he used to say, of +all things the most ridiculous would be to see a girl cry at the +representation of it.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 207. _Cato_, if +neglected, has added at least eight 'habitual quotations' to the +language (see Thackeray's _English Humourists_, p. 98). _Irene_ has +perhaps not added a single one. It has neverthingless some quotable +lines, such as-- + +'Crowds that hide a monarch from + himself.' Act i. sc. 4. +'To cant ... of reason to a lover.' + Act iii. sc. 1. +'When e'en as love was breaking + off from wonder, +And tender accents quiver'd on my + lips.' Ib. +'And fate lies crowded in a narrow + space.' Act iii. sc. 6. +'Reflect that life and death, affecting + sounds, +Are only varied modes of endless + being.' Act ii. sc. 8. +'Directs the planets with a careless + nod.' Ib. +'Far as futurity's untravell'd waste.' + Act iv. sc. 1. +'And wake from ignorance the + western world.' Act iv. sc. 2. +'Through hissing ages a proverbial + coward, +The tale of women, and the scorn + of fools.' Act iv. sc. 3. +'No records but the records of the + sky.' Ib. +'... thou art sunk beneath reproach.' + Act v. sc. 2. +'Oh hide me from myself.' + Act v. sc. 3. + +[590] Johnson wrote of Milton:--'I cannot but conceive him calm and +confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own +merit with steady consciousness, and waiting without impatience the +vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future generation.' +Johnson's _Works_, vii. 108. + +[591] + +'Genus irritabile vatum.' +'The fretful tribe of rival poets.' + +Francis, _Horace_, Ep. ii. 2. 102. + +[592] This deference he enforces in many passages in his writings; as +for instance:--'Dryden might have observed, that what is good only +because it pleases, cannot be pronounced good till it has been found to +please.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 252. 'The authority of Addison is +great; yet the voice of the people, when to please the people is the +purpose, deserves regard.' _Ib_. 376. 'About things on which the public +thinks long, it commonly attains to think right.' _Ib_. 456. 'These +apologies are always useless: "de gustibus non est disputandum;" men may +be convinced, but they cannot be pleased against their will.' _Ib_. +viii. 26. 'Of things that terminate in human life, the world is the +proper judge; to despise its sentence, if it were possible, is not just; +and if it were just, is not possible.' _Ib_. viii. 316. Lord +Chesterfield in writing to his son about his first appearance in the +world said, 'You will be tried and judged there, not as a boy, but as a +man; and from that moment _there is no appeal for character_.' Lord +Chesterfield's _Letters_, iii. 324. Addison in the _Guardian_, No. 98, +had said that 'men of the best sense are always diffident of their +private judgment, till it receives a sanction from the public. _Provoco +ad populum_, I appeal to the people, was the usual saying of a very +excellent dramatic poet, when he had any disputes with particular +persons about the justness and regularity of his productions.' See +_post_, March 23, 1783. + +[593] 'Were I,' he said, 'to wear a laced or embroidered waistcoat, it +should be very rich. I had once a very rich laced waistcoat, which I +wore the first night of my tragedy.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. +27, 1773. + +[594] 'Topham Beauclerc used to give a pleasant description of this +greenroom finery, as related by the author himself: 'But,' said Johnson, +with great gravity, 'I soon laid aside my gold-laced hat, lest it should +make me proud.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 52. In _The Idler_ (No. 62) we +have an account of a man who had longed to 'issue forth in all the +splendour of embroidery.' When his fine clothes were brought, 'I felt +myself obstructed,' he wrote, 'in the common intercourse of civility by +an uneasy consciousness of my new appearance; as I thought myself more +observed, I was more anxious about my mien and behaviour; and the mien +which if formed by care is commonly ridiculous.' + +[595] See _ante_, p. 167. + +[596] See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_. + +[597] _The Tatler_ came to an end on Jan 2, 1710-1; the first series of +_The Spectator_ on Dec 6, 1712; and the second series of _The Spectator_ +on December 20, 1714. + +[598] 'Two new designs have appeared about the middle of this month +[March, 1750], one entitled, _The Tatler Revived; or The Christian +Philosopher and Politician_, half a sheet, price 2_d_. (stamped); the +other, _The Rambler_, three half sheets (un-stamped); price 2_d_.' +_Gent. Mag_. xx. 126. + +[599] Pope's _Essay on Man_, ii. 10. + +[600] See _post_, under Oct. 12, 1779. + +[601] I have heard Dr. Warton mention, that he was at Mr. Robert +Dodsley's with the late Mr. Moore, and several of his friends, +considering what should be the name of the periodical paper which Moore +had undertaken. Garrick proposed _The Sallad_, which, by a curious +coincidence, was afterwards applied to himself by Goldsmith: + +'Our Garrick's a sallad, for in him we see +Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree!' + +[_Retaliation_, line II.] + +At last, the company having separated, without any thing of which they +approved having been offered, Dodsley himself thought of _The +World_. BOSWELL. + +[602] In the original MS. 'in this _my_ undertaking,' and below, 'the +salvation _both_ of myself and others.' + +[603] Prayers and Meditations, p. 9. BOSWELL. + +[604] In the original folio edition of the _Rambler_ the concluding +paper is dated Saturday, March 17. But Saturday was in fact March 14. +This circumstance is worth notice, for Mrs. Johnson died on the +17th. MALONE. + +[605] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3d edit. p. 28. [Aug. 16, +1773]. BOSWELL. + +[606] 'Gray had a notion not very peculiar, that he could not write but +at certain times, or at happy moments; a fantastic foppery, to which my +kindness for a man of learning and virtue wishes him to have been +superior.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 482. See _post_, under April +15, 1758. + +[607] Her correspondence with Richardson and Mrs. Carter was published +in 1807. + +[608] The correspondence between her and Mrs. Carter was published in +1808. + +[609] Dr. Birch says:--'The proprietor of the _Rambler_, Cave, told me +that copy was seldom sent to the press till late in the night before the +day of publication,' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 121, note. See _post_, April +12, 1776, and beginning of 1781. + +Johnson carefully revised the _Ramblers_ for the collected edition. The +editor of the Oxford edition of Johnson's _Works_ states (ii. x), that +'the alterations exceeded six thousand.' The following passage from the +last number affords a good instance of this revision. + +_First edition_. + +'I have never complied with temporary curiosity, nor furnished my +readers with abilities to discuss the topic of the day; I have seldom +exemplified my assertions by living characters; from my papers therefore +no man could hope either censures of his enemies or praises of himself, +and they only could be expected to peruse them, whose passions left them +leisure for the contemplation of abstracted truth, and whom virtue could +please by her native dignity without the assistance of modish +ornaments.' _Gent. Mag_. xxii. 117. + +_Revised edition_. + +'I have never complied with temporary curiosity, nor enabled my readers +to discuss the topic of the day; I have rarely exemplified my assertions +by living characters; in my papers no man could look for censures of his +enemies, or praises of himself; and they only were expected to peruse +them, whose passions left them leisure for abstracted truth, and whom +virtue could please by its naked dignity.' Johnson's _Works_, iii. 462. + +[610] 'Such relicks [Milton's early manuscripts] shew how excellence is +acquired; what we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do +with diligence.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 119. + +[611] Of the first 52 _Ramblers_ 49 were wholly by Johnson; of the last +156, 154. He seems to say that in the first 49, 17 were written from +notes, and in the last 154 only 13. + +[612] No. 46. + +[613] Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 268 [p. 265]. BOSWELL. + +[614] 'The sly shadow steals away upon the dial, and the quickest eye +can distinguish no more than that it is gone.' Glanville, quoted in +Johnson's _Dictionary_. + +[615] This most beautiful image of the enchanting delusion of youthful +prospect has not been used in any of Johnson's essays. BOSWELL. + +[616] From Horace (_Ars Poet_. 1. 175) he takes his motto for the +number:-- + +'Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum, +Multa recedentes adimunt.' +The blessings flowing in with life's full tide +Down with our ebb of life decreasing glide.' + +FRANCIS. + +[617] Lib. xii. 96 [95]. 'In Tuccam aemulum omnium suorum studiorum.' +MALONE. + +[618] 'There never appear,' says Swift, 'more than five or six men of +genius in an age; but if they were united, the world could not stand +before them.' Johnson's _Works_, iv. 18. + +[619] In the first edition this is printed [Greek: o philoi on philos]; +in the second, [Greek: o philoi on philos]; in the 'Corrections' to the +second, we find 'for [Greek: o] read [Greek: oi];' in the third it is +printed as above. In three editions we have therefore five readings of +the first word. See _post_, April 15, 1778, where Johnson says: + +'An old Greek said, "He that has friends has no friend,"' and April 24, +1779, where he says: 'Garrick had friends but no friend.' + +[620] + +'gravesque + Principum amicitias.' +'And fatal friendships of the guilty + great.' + +FRANCIS, Horace, _Odes_, ii. 1. 4. + +[621] 3 _Post_, under Jan. 1, 1753. + +[622] Sir John Hawkins has selected from this little collection of +materials, what he calls the 'Rudiments of two of the papers of the +_Rambler_.' But he has not been able to read the manuscript distinctly. +Thus he writes, p. 266, 'Sailor's fate any mansion;' whereas the +original is 'Sailor's life my aversion.' He has also transcribed the +unappropriated hints on _Writers for bread_, in which he decyphers these +notable passages, one in Latin, _fatui non famæ_, instead of _fami non +famæ_; Johnson having in his mind what Thuanus says of the learned +German antiquary and linguist, Xylander, who, he tells us, lived in such +poverty, that he was supposed _fami non famæ scribere_; and another in +French, _Degente de fate [fatu] et affamé a'argent_, instead of _Dégouté +de fame_, (an old word for _renommée_) _et affamé d'argent_. The +manuscript being written in an exceedingly small hand, is indeed very +hard to read; but it would have been better to have left blanks than to +write nonsense. BOSWELL. + +[623] When we know that of the 208 _Ramblers_ all but five were written +by Johnson, it is amusing to read a passage in one of Miss Talbot's +letters to Mrs. Carter, dated Oct. 20, 1750:--'Mr. Johnson would, I +fear, be mortified to hear that people know a paper of his own by the +sure mark of somewhat a little excessive, a little exaggerated in the +expression.' _Carter Corres_. i. 357. + +[624] The _Ramblers_ certainly were little noticed at first. Smart, the +poet, first mentioned them to me as excellent papers, before I had heard +any one else speak of them. When I went into Norfolk, in the autumn of +1751, I found but one person, (the Rev. Mr. Squires, a man of learning, +and a general purchaser of new books,) who knew anything of them. Before +I left Norfolk in the year 1760, the _Ramblers_ were in high favour +among persons of learning and good taste. Others there were, devoid of +both, who said that the _hard words_ in the _Rambler_ were used by the +authour to render his _Dictionary_ indispensably necessary. BURNEY. We +have notices of the _Rambler_ in the _Carter Corres_:--'May 28, 1750. +The author ought to be cautioned not to use over many hard words. In +yesterday's paper (a very pretty one indeed) we had _equiponderant, and +another so hard I cannot remember it [adscititious], both in one +sentence.' 'Dec. 17, 1750:--Mr. Cave complains of him for not admitting +correspondents; this does mischief. In the main I think he is to be +applauded for it. But why then does he not write now and then on the +living manners of the times?' In writing on April 22, 1752, just after +the _Rambler_ had come to an end, Miss Talbot says:--'Indeed 'tis a sad +thing that such a paper should have met with discouragement from wise +and learned and good people too. Many are the disputes it has cost me, +and not once did I come off triumphant.' Mrs. Carter replied:--'Many a +battle have I too fought for him in the country, out with little +success.' Murphy says:--'of this excellent production the number sold on +each day did not amount to five hundred; of course the bookseller, who +paid the author four guineas a week, did not carry on a successful +trade.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 59. + +[625] Richardson wrote to Cave on Aug. 9, 1750, after forty-one numbers +had appeared:--'I hope the world tastes them; for its own sake I hope +the world tastes them. The author I can only guess at. There is but one +man, I think, that could write them.' _Rich. Corres_, i. 165. Cave +replied:--'Mr. Johnson is the _Great Rambler_, being, as you observe, +the only man who can furnish two such papers in a week, besides his +other great business.' He mentioned the recommendation it received from +high quarters, and continued:--'Notwithstanding, whether the price of +two-pence, or the unfavourable season of their first publication hinders +the demand, no boast can be made of it.' Johnson had not wished his name +to be known. Cave says that 'Mr. Carrick and others, who knew the +author's powers and style from the first, unadvisedly asserting their +suspicions, overturned the scheme of secrecy.' _Ib_. pp. 168-170. + +[626] Horace Walpole, while justifying George II. against 'bookish men +who have censured his neglect of literature,' says:--'In truth, I +believe King George would have preferred a guinea to a composition as +perfect as _Alexander's Feast.' Reign of George II_, iii. 304. + +[627] 'Dr. Johnson said to an acquaintance of mine, "My other works are +wine and water; but my _Rambler_ is pure wine."' Rogers's _Table +Talk_, p. 10. + +[628] See _post_, April 5, 1772; April 19, 1773; and April 9, 1778. + +[629] It was executed in the printing-office of Sands, Murray, and +Cochran, with uncommon elegance, upon writing-paper, of a duodecimo +size, and with the greatest correctness; and Mr. Elphinston enriched it +with translations of the mottos. When completed, it made eight handsome +volumes. It is, unquestionably, the most accurate and beautiful edition +of this work; and there being but a small impression, it is now become +scarce, and sells at a very high price. BOSWELL. + +[630] Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, the learned grammarian of Scotland, well +known for his various excellent works, and for his accurate editions of +several authours. He was also a man of a most worthy private character. +His zeal for the Royal House of Stuart did not render him less estimable +in Dr. Johnson's eye. BOSWELL. + +[631] In the _Gent. Mag_. for Sept. 1750, and for Oct. 1752, +translations of many of the mottoes were given; but in each number there +are several of Elphinston's. Johnson seems to speak of only one. + +[632] Writing to Miss Porter on July 12, 1749, he said:--'I was afraid +your letter had brought me ill news of my mother, whose death is one of +the few calamities on which I think with terror.' Crokers _Boswell_, +p. 62. + +[633] Mr. Strahan was Elphinston's brother-in-law. _Post_, April 9, +1778. + +[634] In the _Gent. Mag_. for January, 1752, in the list of books +published is:--'A correct and beautiful edition of the Rambler in 4 +volumes, in 12mo. Price 12s.' The _Rambler_ was not concluded till the +following March. The remaining two volumes were published in July. +_Gent. Mag_. xxii. 338. + +[635] According to Hawkins (_Life_, P. 269) each edition consisted of +1250 copies. + +[636] No. 55 [59.]. BOSWELL. + +[637] Miss Burney records in her Diary that one day at Streatham, while +she and Mrs. Thrale 'were reading this Rambler, Dr. Johnson came in. We +told him what we were about. "Ah, madam!" cried he, "Goldsmith was not +scrupulous; but he would have been a great man had he known the real +value of his own internal resources."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 83. +See _post_, beginning of 1768. + +[638] It is possible that Mrs. Hardcastle's drive in _She Stoops to +Conquer_ was suggested by the _Rambler_, No. 34. In it a young gentleman +describes a lady's terror on a coach journey. 'Our whole conversation +passed in dangers, and cares, and fears, and consolations, and stories +of ladies dragged in the mire, forced to spend all the night on a heath, +drowned in rivers, or burnt with lightning.... We had now a new scene of +terror, every man we saw was a robber, and we were ordered sometimes to +drive hard, lest a traveller whom we saw behind should overtake us; and +sometimes to stop, lest we should come up to him who was passing before +us. She alarmed many an honest man by begging him to spare her life as +he passed by the coach.' + +[639] Dr. Johnson was gratified by seeing this selection, and wrote to +Mr. Kearsley, bookseller in Fleet-Street, the following note:-- + +'Mr. Johnson sends compliments to Mr. Kearsley, and begs the favour of +seeing him as soon as he can. Mr. Kearsley is desired to bring with him +the last edition of what he has honoured with the name of BEAUTIES. May +20, 1782.' BOSWELL. The correspondence, _post_, May 15, 1782, shews that +Johnson sent for this book, not because he was gratified, but because he +was accused, on the strength of one of the _Beauties_, of recommending +suicide. On that day, being in the country, he wrote: 'I never saw the +book but by casual inspection, and considered myself as utterly +disengaged from its consequences.' He adds:--'I hope some time in the +next week to have all rectified.' The letter of May 20 shews that on his +return to town he lost little time, if any, in sending for Kearsley. + +[640] See _post_, April 12, 1781. + +[641] Ecclesiastes vii. 4. + +[642] In the original '_separated sooner_ than subdued.' Johnson acted +up to what he said. When he was close on his end, 'all who saw him +beheld and acknowledged the _invictum animum Catonis_ ... Talking of his +illness he said:--"I will be conquered; I will not capitulate."' See +_post_, Oct. 1784. + +[643] In the _Spectator_, No. 568, Addison tells of a village in which +'there arose a current report that somebody had written a book against +the 'squire and the whole parish.' The book was _The Whole Duty of Man_. + +[644] 'The character of Prospero was, beyond all question, occasioned by +Garrick's ostentatious display of furniture and Dresden china.' Murphy's +_Johnson_, p. 144. If Garrick was aimed at, it is surprising that the +severity of the satire did not bring to an end, not only all friendship, +but even any acquaintance between the two men. The writer describes how +he and Prospero had set out in the world together, and how for a long +time they had assisted each other, till his friend had been lately +raised to wealth by a lucky project. 'I felt at his sudden shoot of +success an honest and disinterested joy.' Prospero reproached him with +his neglect to visit him at his new house. When however he went to see +him, he found that his friend's impatience 'arose not from any desire to +communicate his happiness, but to enjoy his superiority.' He was kept +waiting at the door, and when at length he was shewn up stairs, he found +the staircase carefully secured by mats from the pollution of his feet. +Prospero led him into a backroom, where he told him he always +breakfasted when he had not great company. After the visitor had endured +one act of insolence after another, he says:--'I left him without any +intention of seeing him again, unless some misfortune should restore his +understanding.' _Rambler_, No. 200. See _post_, May 15, 1776, where +Johnson, speaking of the charge of meanness brought against Garrick, +said, 'he might have been much better attacked for living with more +splendour than is suitable to a player.' + +[645] In C. C. Greville's _Journal_ (ii. 316) we have an instance how +stories about Johnson grew. He writes:--'Lord Holland told some stories +of Johnson and Garrick which he had heard from Kemble.... When Garrick +was in the zenith of his popularity, and grown rich, and lived with the +great, and while Johnson was yet obscure, the Doctor used to drink tea +with him, and he would say, "Davy, I do not envy you your money nor your +fine acquaintance, but I envy you your power of drinking such tea as +this." "Yes," said Garrick, "it is very good tea, but it is not my best, +nor that which I give to my Lord this and Sir somebody t'other."' There +can be little doubt that the whole story is founded on the following +passage in the character of Prospero: 'Breakfast was at last set, and, +as I was not willing to indulge the peevishness that began to seize me, +I commended the tea. Prospero then told me that another time I should +taste his finest sort, but that he had only a very small quantity +remaining, and reserved it for those whom he thought himself obliged to +treat with particular respect.' See _post_, April 10, 1778, where +Johnson maintained that Garrick bore his good-fortune with modesty. + +[646] No 98. + +[647] Yet his style did not escape the harmless shafts of pleasant +humour; for the ingenious Bonnell Thornton published a mock Rambler in +the _Drury-lane Journal_. BOSWELL. Murphy (_Life_, p. 157), criticising +the above quotation from Johnson, says:--'He forgot the observation of +Dryden: "If too many foreign words are poured in upon us, it looks as if +they were designed, not to assist the natives, but to conquer them."' + +[648] _Idler_, No. 70. BOSWELL. In the same number Johnson writes:--'Few +faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a +more numerous class of readers than the use of hard words.... But words +are hard only to those who do not understand them; and the critic ought +always to inquire, whether he is incommoded by the fault of the writer +or by his own. Every author does not write for every reader.' See +_post_, Sept. 19, 1777, where Johnson says:--'If Robertson's style be +faulty he owes it to me; that is, having too many words, and those too +big ones.' + +[649] The following passages in Temple's writings shew that a likeness +may be discovered between his style and Johnson's:--'There may be +firmness and constancy of courage from tradition as well as of belief: +nor, methinks, should any man know how to be a coward, that is brought +up with the opinion, that all of his nation or city have ever been +valiant.' Temple's _Works_, i. 167. 'This is a disease too refined for +this country and people, who are well, when they are not ill, and +pleased, when they are not troubled; are content, because they think +little of it; and seek their happiness in the common eases and +commodities of life, or the increase of riches; not amusing themselves +with the more speculative contrivances of passion, or refinements of +pleasure.' _Ib_. p. 170. 'They send abroad the best of their own butter +into all parts, and buy the cheapest out of Ireland, or the north of +England, for their own use. In short they furnish infinite luxury which +they never practise, and traffic in pleasures which they never taste.' +_Ib_. p. 195. See _post_, April 9, 1778, where Johnson says:--'Temple +was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose.' + +[650] Dean Stanley calls Ephraim Chambers 'the Father of Cyclopedias.' +_Memorials of Westminster Abbey_, p. 299, note. The epitaph which +Chambers wrote for himself the Dean gives as:--'Multis pervulgatus, +paucis notus, qui vitam inter lucem et umbram, nec eruditus nec +idioticis literis deditus, transegit.' In the _Gent. Mag_. for 1740, p. +262, the last line is given, no doubt correctly, as:--'Nec eruditus nec +idiota, literis deditus.' The second edition of Chambers's _Cyclopaedia_ +was published in 1738. There is no copy of his Proposal in the British +Museum or Bodleian. The resemblance between his style and Johnson's is +not great. The following passage is the most Johnsonian that I could +find:--'None of my predecessors can blame me for the use I have made of +them; since it is their own avowed practice. It is a kind of privilege +attached to the office of lexicographer; if not by any formal grant, yet +by connivance at least. I have already assumed the bee for my device, +and who ever brought an action of trover or trespass against that avowed +free-booter? 'Tis vain to pretend anything of property in things of this +nature. To offer our thoughts to the public, and yet pretend a right +reserved therein to oneself, if it be not absurd, yet it is sordid. The +words we speak, nay the breath we emit, is not more vague and common +than our thoughts, when divulged in print.' Chambers's Preface, +p. xxiii. + +[651] 'There were giants in the earth in those days.' _Gen_. vi. 4. + +[652] A GREAT PERSONAGE first appears in the second edition. In the +first edition we merely find 'by one whose authority,' &c. Boswell in +his _Hebrides_, Aug. 28, 1773, speaks of George III. as 'a Great +Personage.' In his _Letter to the People of Scotland_ (p. 90) he thus +introduces an anecdote about the King--and Paoli:--'I have one other +circumstance to communicate; but it is of the highest value. I +communicate it with a mixture of awe and fondness.--That Great +Personage, who is allowed by all to have the best _memory_ of any man +_born a Briton_, &c. In the _Probationary Odes for the Laureateship_, +published a few months after Boswell's _Letter_, a 'Great Personage' is +ludicrously introduced; pp. xxx. 63. + +[653] The first nine lines form the motto. + +[654] Horat. _Epist_. Lib. ii. Epist. ii. {1, 110} BOSWELL. + +But how severely with themselves proceed +The men, who write such verse as we can read! +Their own strict judges, not a word they spare +That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care, +Howe'er unwillingly it quits its place, +Nay, though at court, perhaps, it may find grace: +Such they'll degrade; and some-times, in its stead, +In downright charity revive the dead; +Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears, +Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years; +Command old words that long have slept to wake, +Words that wise Bacon or brave Rawleigh spake; +Or bid the new be English, ages hence, +(For use will father what's begot by sense;) +Pour the full tide of eloquence along, +Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong, +Rich with the treasures of each foreign tongue.' + +Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, ii. 2. 157 + +[655] 'Horat. _De Arte Poetica_. [1. 48.] BOSWELL. + +[656] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 29, 1773, where Boswell says that +up that date he had twice heard Johnson coin words, _peregrinity_ and +_depeditation_. + +[657] 'The words which our authors have introduced by their knowledge of +foreign languages, or ignorance of their own, by vanity or wantonness, +by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, I have registered as +they occurred, though commonly only to censure them, and warn others +against the folly of naturalizing useless foreigners to the injury of +the natives.... Our language for almost a century has, by the +concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original +Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and +phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recall it, by +making our ancient volumes the groundwork of style.... From the authors +which rose in the time of Elizabeth a speech might be formed adequate to +all the purposes of use and elegance.' Johnson's _Works_, v. pp. 31, 39. +See _post_. May 12, 1778. + +[658] If Johnson sometimes indulged his _Brownism_ (see _post_, +beginning of 1756), yet he saw much to censure in Browne's style. 'His +style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of heterogeneous +words, brought together from distant regions, with terms originally +appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the service of +another. He must however be confessed to have augmented our +philosophical diction.... His innovations are sometimes pleasing, and +his temerities happy.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 500. 'It is remarkable +that the pomp of diction, which has been objected to Johnson, was first +assumed in the _Rambler_. His _Dictionary_ was going on at the same +time, and in the course of that work, as he grew familiar with technical +and scholastic words, he thought that the bulk of his readers were +equally learned; or at least would admire the splendour and dignity of +the style.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 156. + +'The observation of his having imitated Sir Thomas Brown has been made +by many people; and lately it has been insisted on, and illustrated by a +variety of quotations from Brown, in one of the popular Essays written +by the Reverend Mr. Knox [the Essay is No. xxii. of _Winter Evenings_, +Knox's _Works_, ii 397], master of Tumbridge school, whom I have set +down in my list [_post_, under Dec. 6, 1784] of those who have sometimes +not unsuccessfully imitated Dr. Johnson's style. BOSWELL. + +[659] The following observation in Mr. Boswell's _Journal of a Tour to +the Hebrides_ [p. 9] may sufficiently account for that Gentleman's being +'now scarcely esteem'd a Scot' by many of his countrymen:--If he [Dr. +Johnson] was particularly prejudiced against the Scots, it was because +they were more in his way; because he thought their success in England +rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and because he +could not but see in them that nationality which, I believe, no +liberal-minded Scotchman will deny.' Mr. Boswell, indeed, is so free +from national prejudices, that he might with equal propriety have been +described as-- + +'Scarce by _South_ Britons now + esteem'd a Scot.' + COURTENAY. BOSWELL. + +[660] Malone says that 'Baretti used sometimes to walk with Johnson +through the streets at night, and occasionally entered into conversation +with the unfortunate women who frequent them, for the sake of hearing +their stories. It was from a history of one of these, which a girl told +under a tree in the King's Bench Walk in the Temple to Baretti and +Johnson, that he formed the story of Misella in the _Rambler_ [Nos. 170 +and 171].' Prior's _Malone_, p. 161. 'Of one [of these women] who was +very handsome he asked, for what she thought God had given her so much +beauty. She answered:--"To please gentlemen."' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. +321. See also _post_, under Dec. 2, 1784. + +[661] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 270) had said that 'the characteristics of +Addison's style are feebleness and inanity.' He was thus happily +ridiculed by Person:--'Soon after the publication of Sir John's book, a +parcel of Eton boys, not having the fear of God before their eyes, etc., +instead of playing truant, robbing orchards, annoying poultry, or +performing any other part of their school exercise, fell foul in print +(see the _Microcosm_, No. 36) upon his Worship's censure of Addison's +_middling_ style.... But what can you expect, as Lord Kames justly +observes, from a school where boys are taught to rob on the highway?' +Person, _Tracts_, p. 339. + +[662] _Works_, vii. 473. + +[663] When Johnson shewed me a proof-sheet of the character of Addison, +in which he so highly extols his style, I could not help observing, that +it had not been his own model, as no two styles could differ more from +each other.--'Sir, Addison had his style, and I have mine.'--When I +ventured to ask him, whether the difference did not consist in this, +that Addison's style was full of idioms, colloquial phrases, and +proverbs; and his own more strictly grammatical, and free from such +phraseology and modes of speech as can never be literally translated or +understood by foreigners; he allowed the discrimination to be just.--Let +any one who doubts it, try to translate one of Addison's _Spectators_ +into Latin, French, or Italian; and though so easy, familiar, and +elegant, to an Englishman, as to give the intellect no trouble; yet he +would find the transfusion into another language extremely difficult, if +not impossible. But a _Rambler_, _Adventurer_, or _Idler_, of Johnson, +would fall into any classical or European language, as easily as if it +had been originally conceived in it. BURNEY. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. +125) recounts how Johnson recommended Addison's works as a model for +imitation to Mr. Woodhouse, a poetical shoemaker. '"Give nights and +days, Sir, (said he) to the study of Addison, if you mean either to be a +good writer, or, what is more worth, an honest man." When I saw +something like the same expression in his criticism on that author, I +put him in mind of his past injunctions to the young poet, to which he +replied, "That he wished the shoemaker might have remembered them as +well."' Yet he says in his _Life of Pope ( Works_, viii. 284), 'He that +has once studiously formed a style rarely writes afterwards with +complete ease.' + +[664] I shall probably, in another work, maintain the merit of Addison's +poetry, which has been very unjustly depreciated. BOSWELL. He proposed +also to publish an edition of Johnson's poems (_ante_, p. 16), an +account of his own travels (_post_, April 17, 1778), a collection, with +notes, of old tenures and charters of Scotland (_post_, Oct. 27, 1779), +and a History of James IV. of Scotland, 'the patron,' as he said, 'of my +family' (Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 23, 1773). + +[665] Lewis thus happily translates the lines in _Martial_,-- + +'Diligat ilia senèm quondam: sed et ipsa marito, +Tunc quoque cum fuerit, non videatur, anus. +'Wrinkled with age, may mutual love and truth +To their dim eyes recall the bloom of youth.' + +_Rambler_, No. 167. + +Some of Johnson's own translations are happy, as:-- + +'Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem +Aut, gelidas hibernus aquas quum fuderit auster, +Securum somnos, imbre juvante, sequi! +'How sweet in sleep to pass the careless hours, +Lull'd by the beating winds and dashing show'rs.' + +_Ib_. No. 117. + + +[666] [Greek: Augon ek makaron antaxios eiae amoibae.] + +'Celestial powers! that piety regard, +From you my labours wait their last reward.' + +A modification of the Greek line is engraved on the scroll in Johnson's +monument in St. Paul's (_post_, Dec. 1784). + +[667] 'The essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute my +own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the precepts of +Christianity.... I therefore look back on this part of my work with +pleasure, which no blame or praise of man shall diminish or augment.' +_Rambler_, No. 208. + +[668] I have little doubt that this attack on the concluding verse is an +indirect blow at Hawkins, who had quoted the whole passage, and had +clearly thought it the more 'awful' on account of the couplet. See +Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 291. + +[669] In the original _Raleigh's_. + +[670] The italics are Boswell's. + +[671] Mrs. Williams is probably the person meant. BOSWELL. + +[672] 'In 1750, April 5, _Comus_ was played for her benefit. She had so +little acquaintance with diversion or gaiety, that she did not know what +was intended when a benefit was theatre was offered her. The profits of +the night were only £130, though Dr. Newton brought a large +contribution; and £20 were given by Tonson, a man who is to be praised +as often as he is named.... This was the greatest benefaction that +_Paradise Lost_ ever procured the author's descendants; and to this he +who has now attempted to relate his life had the honour of contributing +a Prologue.' Johnson's _Works, vii. 118_. In the _Gent. Mag_. (xx. 152) +we read that, as on 'April 4, the night first appointed, many in +convenient circumstances happened to disappoint the hopes of success, +the managers generously quitted the profits of another night, in which +the theatre was expected to be fuller. Mr. Samuel Johnson's prologue was +afterwards printed for Mrs. Foster's benefit.' + +[673] Johnson is thinking of Pope's lines-- + +'But still the great have kindness in reserve, +He helped to bury whom he helped to starve.' + +Prologue to the _Satires_, 1. 247. In the _Life of Milton_ he +writes:--'In our time a monument has been erected in Westminster Abbey +_To the author of Paradise Lost_ by Mr. Benson, who has in the +inscription bestowed more words upon himself than upon Milton.' +Johnson's _Works_, vii. 112. Pope has a hit at Benson in the _Dunciad_, +iii. 325:-- + +'On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ!' + +Moore, describing Sheridan's funeral, says:--'It was well remarked by a +French Journal, in contrasting the penury of Sheridan's latter years +with the splendour of his funeral, that "France is the place for a man +of letters to live in, and England the place for him to die in."' Moore +himself wrote:-- + +'How proud they can press to the funeral array +Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow-- +How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, +Whose pall shall be held up by Nobles to-morrow.' + +Moore's _Sheridan_, ii. 460-2. + +[674] Johnson's _Works_, i. 115. + +[675] Among the advertisements in the _Gent. Mag_. for February of this +year is the following:--'_An elegy wrote in a country churchyard, 6d_.' + +[676] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773. + +[677] 'Lest there should be any person, at any future period, absurd +enough to suspect that Johnson was a partaker in Lauder's fraud, or had +any knowledge of it, when he assisted him with his masterly pen, it is +proper here to quote the words of Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury, +at the time when he detected the imposition. 'It is to be hoped, nay it +is _expected_, that the elegant and nervous writer, whose judicious +sentiments and inimitable style point out the authour of Lauder's +Preface and Postscript, will no longer allow one to _plume himself with +his feathers_, who appeareth so little to deserve [his] assistance: an +assistance which I am persuaded would never have been communicated, had +there been the least suspicion of those facts which I have been the +instrument of conveying to the world in these sheets.' _Milton no +Plagiary_, 2nd edit. p. 78. And his Lordship has been pleased now to +authorise me to say, in the strongest manner, that there is no ground +whatever for any unfavourable reflection against Dr. Johnson, who +expressed the strongest indignation against Lauder. BOSWELL. To this +letter Lauder had the impudence to add a shameless postscript and some +'testimonies' concerning himself. Though on the face of it it is evident +that this postscript is not by Johnson, yet it is included in his works +(v. 283). The letter was dated Dec. 20, 1750. In the _Gent. Mag_. for +the next month (xxi. 47) there is the following paragraph:--'Mr. Lauder +confesses here and exhibits all his forgeries; for which he assigns one +motive in the book, and after asking pardon assigns another in the +postscript; he also takes an opportunity to publish several letters and +testimonials to his former character.' Goldsmith in Retaliation has a +hit at Lauder:-- + +'Here Douglas retires from his toils to relax, +The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks. +New Lauders and Bowers the Tweed shall cross over, +No countryman living their tricks to discover.' + +Dr. Douglas was afterwards Bishop of Salisbury (_ante_, p. 127). See +_post_, June 25, 1763, for the part he took in exposing the Cock Lane +Ghost imposture. + +[678] Scott writing to Southey in 1810 said:--'A witty rogue the other +day, who sent me a letter signed Detector, proved me guilty of stealing +a passage from one of Vida's Latin poems, which I had never seen or +heard of.' The passage alleged to be stolen ends with,-- + +'When pain and anguish wring the brow, +A ministering angel thou!' + +which in Vida _ad Eranen. El_. ii. v. 21, ran,-- + +'Cum dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor, +Fungeris angelico sola ministerio.' + +'It is almost needless to add,' says Mr. Lockhart, 'there are no such +lines.' _Life of Scott_, iii. 294. + +[679] The greater part of this Preface was given in the _Gent. Mag_. for +August 1747 (xvii. 404). + +[680] 'Persuasive' is scarcely a fit description for this noble outburst +of indignation on the part of one who knew all the miseries of poverty. +After quoting Dr. Newton's account of the distress to which Milton's +grand-daughter had been reduced, he says:--'That this relation is true +cannot be questioned: but surely the honour of letters, the dignity of +sacred poetry, the spirit of the English nation, and the glory of human +nature require--that it should be true no longer.... In an age, which +amidst all its vices and all its follies has not become infamous for +want of charity, it may be surely allowed to hope, that the living +remains of Milton will be no longer suffered to languish in distress.' +Johnson's _Works_, v. 270. + +[681] Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 275. + +[682] In the original _retrospection_. Johnson's _Works_, v. 268. + +[683] In this same year Johnson thus ends a severe criticism on _Samson +Agonistes_: 'The everlasting verdure of Milton's laurels has nothing to +fear from the blasts of malignity; nor can my attempt produce any other +effect than to strengthen their shoots by lopping their luxuriance.' +_The Rambler_, No. 140. 'Mr. Nichols shewed Johnson in 1780 a book +called _Remarks on Johnson's Life of Milton_, in which the affair of +Lauder was renewed with virulence. He read the libellous passage with +attention, and instantly wrote on the margin:--"In the business of +Lauder I was deceived; partly by thinking the man too frantic to be +fraudulent.'" Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 66. + +[684] 'Johnson turned his house,' writes Lord Macaulay, '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 out his +benevolence' (_Essays_, i. 390). In his _Biography of Johnson_ (p. 388) +he says that Mrs. Williams's 'chief recommendations were her blindness +and her poverty.' No doubt in Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale are found +amusing accounts of the discord of the inmates of his house. But it is +abundantly clear that in Mrs. Williams's company he had for years found +pleasure. A few months after her death he wrote to Mrs. Thrale: 'You +have more than once wondered at my complaint of solitude, when you hear +that I am crowded with visits. _Inopem me copia fecit_. Visitors are no +proper companions in the chamber of sickness.... The amusements and +consolations of languor and depression are conferred by familiar and +domestic companions.... Such society I had with Levett and Williams' +(_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 341). To Mrs. Montagu he wrote:--'Thirty years +and more she had been my companion, and her death has left me very +desolate' (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 739). Boswell says that 'her departure +left a blank in his house' (_post_, Aug. 1783). 'By her death,' writes +Murphy, 'he was left in a state of destitution, with nobody but his +black servant to soothe his anxious moments' (Murphy's _Johnson_, p. +122). Hawkins (_Life_, p. 558) says that 'she had not only cheered him +in his solitude, and helped him to pass with comfort those hours which +otherwise would have been irksome to him, but had relieved him from +domestic cares, regulated and watched over the expenses of his house, +etc.' 'She had,' as Boswell says (_post_, Aug. 1783), 'valuable +qualities.' 'Had she had,' wrote Johnson, 'good humour and prompt +elocution, her universal curiosity and comprehensive knowledge would +have made her the delight of all that knew her' (_Piozzi Letters_, ii. +311). To Langton he wrote:--'I have lost a companion to whom I have had +recourse for domestic amusement for thirty years, and whose variety of +knowledge never was exhausted' (_post_, Sept. 29, 1783). 'Her +acquisitions,' he wrote to Dr. Burney, 'were many and her curiosity +universal; so that she partook of every conversation' (_post_, Sept. +1783). Murphy (_Life_ p. 72) says:--'She possessed uncommon talents, +and, though blind, had an alacrity of mind that made her conversation +agreeable, and even desirable.' According to Hawkins (_Life_, 322-4) +'she had acquired a knowledge of French and Italian, and had made great +improvements in literature. She was a woman of an enlightened +understanding. Johnson in many exigencies found her an able counsellor, +and seldom shewed his wisdom more than when he hearkened to her advice.' +Perhaps Johnson had her in his thoughts when, writing of Pope's last +years and Martha Blount, he said:--'Their acquaintance began early; the +life of each was pictured on the other's mind; their conversation +therefore was endearing, for when they met there was an immediate +coalition of congenial notions.' (Johnson's _Works_, viii. 304.) Miss +Mulso (Mrs. Chapone) writing to Mrs. Carter in 1753, says:--'I was +charmed with Mr. Johnson's behaviour to Mrs. Williams, which was like +that of a fond father to his daughter. She shewed very good sense, with +a great deal of modesty and humility; and so much patience and +cheerfulness under her misfortune that it doubled my concern for her' +(_Mrs. Chapone's Life_, p. 73). Miss Talbot wrote to Mrs. Carter in +1756:--'My mother the other day fell in love with your friend, Mrs. +Williams, whom we met at Mr. Richardson's [where Miss Mulso also had met +her], and is particularly charmed with the sweetness of her voice' +(Talbot and Carter _Corresp_. ii. 221). Miss Talbot was a niece of Lord +Chancellor Talbot. Hannah More wrote in 1774:--'Mrs. Williams is +engaging in her manners; her conversation lively and entertaining' +(More's _Memoirs_, i.49). Boswell, however, more than once complains +that she was 'peevish' (_post_, Oct. 26, 1769 and April 7, 1776). At a +time when she was very ill, and had gone into the country to try if she +could improve her health, Johnson wrote:--'Age, and sickness, and pride +have made her so peevish, that I was forced to bribe the maid to stay +with her by a secret stipulation of half-a-crown a week over her wages' +(_post_, July 22, 1777). Malone, in a note on August 2, 1763, says that +he thinks she had of her own 'about £35 or £40 a year.' This was in her +latter days; Johnson had prevailed on Garrick to give her a benefit and +Mrs. Montagu to give her a pension. She used, he adds, to help in the +house-work. + +[685] March 14. See _ante_, p. 203, note 1. He had grown weary of his +work. In the last _Rambler_ but one he wrote: 'When once our labour has +begun, the comfort that enables us to endure it is the prospect of its +end.... He that is himself weary will soon weary the public. Let him +therefore lay down his employment, whatever it be, who can no longer +exert his former activity or attention; let him not endeavour to +struggle with censure, or obstinately infest the stage, till a general +hiss commands him to depart.' + +[686] How successful an imitator Hawkesworth was is shewn by the +following passage in the Carter and Talbot _Corresp_., ii. 109:--'I +discern Mr. Johnson through all the papers that are not marked A, as +evidently as if I saw him through the keyhole with the pen in his hand.' + +[687] In the _Rambler_ for Feb. 25 of this year (No. 203) he wrote in +the following melancholy strain:--'Every period of life is obliged to +borrow its happiness from the time to come. In youth we have nothing +past to entertain us, and in age we derive little from retrospect but +hopeless sorrow. Yet the future likewise has its limits which the +imagination dreads to approach, but which we see to be not far distant. +The loss of our friends and companions impresses hourly upon us the +necessity of our own departure; we know that the schemes of man are +quickly at an end, that we must soon lie down in the grave with the +forgotten multitudes of former ages, and yield our place to others, who, +like us, shall be driven a while by hope or fear about the surface of +the earth, and then like us be lost in the shades of death.' In _Prayers +and Meditations_, pp. 12-15, in a service that he used on May 6, 'as +preparatory to my return to life to-morrow,' he prays:--'Enable me to +begin and perfect that reformation which I promised her, and to +persevere in that resolution which she implored Thee to continue, in the +purposes which I recorded in Thy sight when she lay dead before me.' See +_post_, Jan. 20, 1780. The author of _Memoirs of the Life and Writings +of Dr. Johnson_, 1785, says, p. 113, that on the death of his wife, 'to +walk the streets of London was for many a lonesome night Johnson's +constant substitute for sleep.' + +[688] 'I have often been inclined to think that, if this fondness of +Johnson for his wife was not dissembled, it was a lesson that he had +learned by rote, and that, when he practised it, he knew not where to +stop till he became ridiculous.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 313 + +[689] The son of William Strahan, M.P., 'Johnson's old and constant +friend, Printer to His Majesty' (_post_, under April 20, 1781). He +attended Johnson on his death-bed, and published the volume called +_Prayers and Meditations_. + +[690] Southey in his _Life of Wesley_, i. 359, writes:--'The universal +attention which has been paid to dreams in all ages proves that the +superstition is natural; and I have heard too many well-attested facts +(facts to which belief could not be refused upon any known laws of +evidence) not to believe that impressions are sometimes made in this +manner, and forewarnings communicated, which cannot be explained by +material philosophy or mere metaphysics.' + +[691] Warburton in his _Divine Legation_, i. 284, quotes the 'famous +sepulchral inscription of the Roman widow.' 'Ita peto vos Manes +sanctissimi commendatum habeatis meum conjugem et velitis huic +indulgentissimi esse horis nocturnis ut eum videam,' etc. + +[692] Mrs. Boswell died in June 1789. Johnson's prayer with Boswell's +comments on it was first inserted in the _Additions_ to the +second edition. + +[693] Mrs. Johnson died on March 17, O. S., or March 28, N. S. The +change of style was made in September, 1752. He might have kept either +the 17th, or the 28th as the anniversary. In like manner, though he was +born on Sept. 7, after the change he kept the 18th as his birth-day. See +_post_, beginning of 1753, where he writes, 'Jan. 1, N. S., which I +shall use for the future.' + +[694] In _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 22, he recorded: 'The melancholy +of this day hung long upon me.' P. 53: 'April 22, 1764, Thought on +Tetty, dear, poor Tetty, with my eyes full.' P. 91: 'March 28, 1770. +This is the day on which, in 1752, I was deprived of poor, dear +Tetty.... When I recollect the time in which we lived together, my grief +for her departure is not abated; and I have less pleasure in any good +that befalls me because she does not partake it.' P. 170: 'April 20, +1778. Poor Tetty, whatever were our faults and failings, we loved each +other. I did not forget thee yesterday [Easter Sunday]. Couldest thou +have lived!' P. 210: 'March 28, 1782. This is the day on which, in 1752, +dear Tetty died. I have now uttered a prayer of repentance and +contrition; perhaps Tetty knows that I prayed for her. Perhaps Tetty is +now praying for me. God help me.' In a letter to Mrs. Thrale on the +occasion of the death of her son (dated March 30, 1776) he thus refers +to the loss of his wife:--'I know that a whole system of hopes, and +designs, and expectations is swept away at once, and nothing left but +bottomless vacuity. What you feel I have felt, and hope that your +disquiet will be shorter than mine.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 310. In a +letter to Mr. Elphinston, who had just lost his wife, written on July +27, 1778, he repeats the same thought:--'A loss such as yours lacerates +the mind, and breaks the whole system of purposes and hopes. It leaves a +dismal vacuity in life, which affords nothing on which the affections +can fix, or to which endeavour may be directed. All this I have known.' +Croker's _Boswell_, p. 66, note. See also _post_, his letter to Mr. +Warton of Dec. 21, 1754, and to Dr. Lawrence of Jan. 20, 1780. + +[695] In the usual monthly list of deaths in the _Gent. Mag_. her name +is not given. Johnson did not, I suppose, rank among 'eminent persons.' + +[696] Irene, Act i. sc. 1. + +[697] See _post_, Nov. 16, 1784, note. + +[698] The Anderdon MSS. contain an importunate letter, dated July 3, +1751, from one Mitchell, a tradesman in Chandos-street, pressing Johnson +to pay £2, due by his wife ever since August, 1749, and threatening +legal proceedings to enforce payment. This letter Mr. Boswell had +endorsed, 'Proof of Dr. Johnson's wretched circumstances in +1751.' CROKER. + +[699] In the _Gent. Mag_. for February, 1794, (p. 100,) was printed a +letter pretending to be that written by Johnson on the death of his +wife. But it is merely a transcript of the 41st number of _The Idler_. A +fictitious date (March 17, 1751, O. S.) was added by some person +previous to this paper being sent to the publisher of that miscellany, +to give a colour to this deception. MALONE. + +[700] Francis Barber was born in Jamaica, and was brought to England in +1750 by Colonel Bathurst, father of Johnson's very intimate friend, Dr. +Bathurst. He was sent, for some time, to the Reverend Mr. Jackson's +school, at Barton, in Yorkshire. The Colonel by his will left him his +freedom, and Dr. Bathurst was willing that he should enter into +Johnson's service, in which he continued from 1752 till Johnson's death, +with the exception of two intervals; in one of which, upon some +difference with his master, he went and served an apothecary in +Cheapside, but still visited Dr. Johnson occasionally; in another, he +took a fancy to go to sea. Part of the time, indeed, he was, by the +kindness of his master, at a school in Northamptonshire, that he might +have the advantage of some learning. So early and so lasting a +connection was there between Dr. Johnson and this humble friend. +BOSWELL. 'I believe that Francis was scarcely as much the object of Mr. +Johnson's personal kindness as the representative of Dr. Bathurst, for +whose sake he would have loved anybody or anything.' Piozzi's _Anec_. +p. 212. + +[701] 'I asked him,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. pp. 146-150), 'if he +ever disputed with his wife. "Perpetually," said he; "my wife had a +particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness +in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become +troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only +sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt +and useless lumber. A clean floor is so comfortable, she would say +sometimes by way of twitting; till at last I told her that I thought we +had had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the +ceiling." I asked him if he ever huffed his wife about his dinner. "So +often," replied he, "that at last she called to me and said, Nay, hold, +Mr. Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which +in a few minutes you will protest not eatable."' + +[702] 'When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses +for every weakness, and palliations of every fault; we recollect a +thousand endearments, which before glided off our minds without +impression, a thousand favours unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed; +and wish, vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive, +as that we may bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which +before we never understood.' _Rambler_, No. 54. + +[703] _Pr. and Med_. p. 19. BOSWELL. + +[704] Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 316. BOSWELL. + +[705] See _post_, Oct. 26, 1769, where the Roman Catholic doctrine of +purgatory or 'a middle state,' as Johnson calls it is discussed, and +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 25, 1773. + +[706] In the original, 'lawful _for_ me.' Much the same prayer Johnson +made for his mother. _Pr. and Med_. p. 38. On Easter Day, 1764, he +records:--'After sermon I recommended Tetty in a prayer by herself; and +my father, mother, brother, and Bathurst in another. I did it only once, +so far as it might be lawful for me.' _Ib_. p. 54. On the death of Mr. +Thrale he wrote, 'May God that delighteth in mercy _have had_ mercy on +thee.' _Ib_. p. 191; and later on, 'for Henry Thrale, so far as is +lawful, I humbly implore thy mercy in his present state.' _Ib_. p. 197. + +[707] _Pr. and Med_., p. 20. BOSWELL. + +[708] Shortly before his death (see _post,_ July 12, 1784) Johnson had a +stone placed over her grave with the following inscription:-- + +Hic conduntur reliquiae +ELIZABETHÆ +Antiqua Jarvisiorum Leicestrienses, ortae; +Formosae, cultae, ingeniosae, piae; +Uxoris, primis nuptiis, Henrici Porter, +Secundis Samuelis Johnson: +Qui multum amatam, diuque defletam +Hoc lapide contexit. +Obiit Londini Mense Mart. +A.D. MDCCLIII + +As Mrs. Johnson died in 1752, the date is wrong. + +[709] See _post_, Sept. 21. 1777. + +[710] He described her as a woman 'whom none, who were capable of +distinguishing either moral or intellectual excellence, could know +without esteem or tenderness. She was extensively charitable in her +judgements and opinions, grateful for every kindness that she received, +and willing to impart assistance of every kind to all whom her little +power enabled her to benefit. She passed through many months of languor, +weakness, and decay without a single murmur of impatience, and often +expressed her adoration of that mercy which granted her so long time for +recollection and penitence.' Johnson's _Works,_ ix. 523. + +[711] See _ante_, p. 187. + +[712] Dr. Bathurst, though a Physician of no inconsiderable merit, had +not the good fortune to get much practice in London. He was, therefore +willing to accept of employment abroad, and, to the regret of all who +knew him, fell a sacrifice to the destructive climate, in the expedition +against the Havannah. Mr. Langton recollects the following passage in a +letter from Dr. Johnson to Mr. Beauclerk: 'The Havannah is taken;--a +conquest too dearly obtained; for, Bathurst died before it. "_Vix +Priamus tanti totaque Troja fuit_."' BOSWELL. + +The quotation is from Ovid, _Heroides_, i. 4. Johnson (_post_, Dec. 21, +1762) wrote to Baretti, 'Bathurst went physician to the army, and died +at the Havannah.' Mr. Harwood in his _History of Lichfield_, p. 451, +gives two letters from Bathurst to Johnson dated 1757. In the postscript +to one he says:--'I know you will call me a lazy dog, and in truth I +deserve it; but I am afraid I shall never mend. I have indeed long known +that I can love my friends without being able to tell them so.... Adieu +my dearest friend.' He calls Johnson 'the best of friends, to whom I +stand indebted for all the little virtue and knowledge that I have.' +'Nothing,' he continues, 'I think, but absolute want can force me to +continue where I am.' Jamaica he calls 'this execrable region.' Hawkins +(_Life_, p. 235) says that 'Bathurst, before leaving England, confessed +to Johnson that in the course of ten years' exercise of his faculty he +had never opened his hand to more than one guinea.' Johnson perhaps had +Bathurst in mind when, many years later, he wrote:--'A physician in a +great city seems to be the mere plaything of fortune; his degree of +reputation is for the most part totally casual; they that employ him +know not his excellence; they that reject him know not his deficience. +By any acute observer, who had looked on the transactions of the medical +world for half a century, a very curious book might be written on the +_Fortune of Physicians_.' _Works_, viii. 471. + +[713] Mr. Ryland was one of the members of the old club in Ivy Lane who +met to dine in 1783. Mr. Payne was another, (_post_, end of 1783). + +[714] Johnson revised her volumes: _post_, under Nov. 19, 1783. + +[715] Catherine Sawbridge, sister of Mrs. [? Mr.] Alderman Sawbridge, +was born in 1733; but it was not till 1760 that she was married to Dr. +Macaulay, a physician; so that Barber's account was incorrect either in +date or name. CROKER. For Alderman Sawbridge see _post_, May 17, +1778, note. + +[716] See _post_, under Nov. 19, 1783. Johnson bequeathed to her a book +to keep as a token of remembrance (_post_, Dec. 9, 1784). I find her +name in the year 1765 in the list of subscribers to the edition of +Swift's _Works_, in 17 vols., so that perhaps she was more 'in the +learned way' than Barber thought. + +[717] Reynolds did not return to England from Italy till the October of +this year, seven months after Mrs. Johnson's death. Taylor's _Reynolds_, +i. 87. He writes of his 'thirty years' intimacy with Dr. Johnson.' He +must have known him therefore at least as early as 1754. _Ib_. ii. 454. + +[718] See _ante_, p. 185. + +[719] 'Lord Southwell,' said Johnson, 'was the most _qualitied_ man I +ever saw.' _Post_, March 23, 1783. + +[720] The account given of Levet in _Gent. Mag_. lv. 101, shews that he +was a man out of the common run. He would not otherwise have attracted +the notice of the French surgeons. The writer says:--'Mr. Levet, though +an Englishman by birth, became early in life a waiter at a coffee-house +in Paris. The surgeons who frequented it, finding him of an inquisitive +turn and attentive to their conversation, made a purse for him, and gave +him some instructions in their art. They afterwards furnished him with +the means of further knowledge, by procuring him free admission to such +lectures in pharmacy and anatomy as were read by the ablest professors +of that period.' When he lived with Johnson, 'much of the day was +employed in attendance on his patients, who were chiefly of the lowest +rank of tradesmen. The remainder of his hours he dedicated to Hunter's +lectures, and to as many different opportunities of improvement as he +could meet with on the same gratuitous conditions.' 'All his medical +knowledge,' said Johnson, 'and it is not inconsiderable, was obtained +through the ear. Though he buys books, he seldom looks into them, or +discovers any power by which he can be supposed to judge of an author's +merit.' 'Dr. Johnson has frequently observed that Levet was indebted to +him for nothing more than house-room, his share in a penny-loaf at +breakfast, and now and then a dinner on a Sunday. His character was +rendered valuable by repeated proof of honesty, tenderness, and +gratitude to his benefactor, as well as by an unwearied diligence in his +profession. His single failing was an occasional departure from +sobriety. Johnson would observe, "he was perhaps the only man who ever +became intoxicated through motives of prudence. He reflected that, if he +refused the gin or brandy offered him by some of his patients, he could +have been no gainer by their cure, as they might have had nothing else +to bestow on him. This habit of taking a fee, in whatever shape it was +exhibited, could not be put off by advice. He would swallow what he did +not like, nay what he knew would injure him, rather than go home with an +idea that his skill had been exerted without recompense. Though he took +all that was offered him, he demanded nothing from the poor."' The +writer adds that 'Johnson never wished him to be regarded as an +inferior, or treated him like a dependent.' Mrs. Piozzi says:--'When +Johnson raised contributions for some distressed author, or wit in want, +he often made us all more than amends by diverting descriptions of the +lives they were then passing in corners unseen by anybody but himself, +and that odd old surgeon whom he kept in his house to tend the +outpensioners, and of whom he said most truly and sublimely, that + +"In misery's darkest caverns known,"' etc. Piozzi's _Anec_., p. 118. + +'Levet, madam, is a brutal fellow, but I have a good regard for him; for +his brutality is in his manners, not in his mind.' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, i. 115. 'Whoever called in on Johnson at about midday found him +and Levet at breakfast, Johnson, in deshabille, as just risen from bed, +and Levet filling out tea for himself and his patron alternately, no +conversation passing between them. All that visited him at these hours +were welcome. A night's rest and breakfast seldom failed to refresh and +fit him for discourse, and whoever withdrew went too soon.' Hawkins's +_Johnson_, p. 435. + +How much he valued his poor friend he showed at his death, _post_, Jan. +20, 1782. + +[721] + +'O et praesidium et dulce decus meum.' +'My joy, my guard, and sweetest good.' + +CREECH. Horace, _Odes_, i. I. 2. + +[722] It was in 1738 that Johnson was living in Castle Street. At the +time of Reynolds's arrival in London in 1752 he had been living for some +years in Gough Square. Boswell, I suppose, only means to say that +Johnson's acquaintance with the Cotterells was formed when he lived in +their neighbourhood. Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, i. 69) says that the +Cotterells lived 'opposite to Reynolds's,' but his account seems based +on a misunderstanding of Boswell. + +[723] _Ante_, p. 165. + +[724] 'We are both of Dr. Johnson's school,' wrote Reynolds to some +friend. 'For my own part, I acknowledge the highest obligations to him. +He may be said to have formed my mind, and to have brushed from it a +great deal of rubbish. Those very persons whom he has brought to think +rightly will occasionally criticise the opinions of their master when he +nods. But we should always recollect that it is he himself who taught us +and enabled us to do it.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 461. Burke, writing +to Malone, said:--'You state very properly how much Reynolds owed to the +writings and conversation of Johnson; and nothing shews more the +greatness of Sir Joshua's parts than his taking advantage of both, and +making some application of them to his profession, when Johnson neither +understood nor desired to understand anything of painting.' _Ib_. p. +638. Reynolds, there can be little question, is thinking of Johnson in +the following passage in his _Seventh Discourse_:--'What partial and +desultory reading cannot afford may be supplied by the conversation of +learned and ingenious men, which is the best of all substitutes for +those who have not the means or opportunities of deep study. There are +many such men in this age: and they will be pleased with communicating +their ideas to artists, when they see them curious and docile, if they +are treated with that respect and deference which is so justly their +due. Into such society young artists, if they make it the point of their +ambition, will by degrees be admitted. There, without formal teaching, +they will insensibly come to feel and reason like those they live with, +and find a rational and systematic taste imperceptibly formed in their +minds, which they will know how to reduce to a standard, by applying +general truth to their own purposes, better perhaps than those to whom +they owned [?owed] the original sentiment.' Reynolds's _Works_, edit. +1824, i. 149. 'Another thing remarkable to shew how little Sir Joshua +crouched to the great is, that he never gave them their proper titles. I +never heard the words "your lordship" or "your ladyship" come from his +mouth; nor did he ever say "Sir" in speaking to any one but Dr. Johnson; +and when he did not hear distinctly what the latter said (which often +happened) he would then say "Sir?" that he might repeat it.' Northcote's +_Conversations_, p. 289. Gibbon called Johnson 'Reynolds's oracle.' +Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 149. See also _post_, under Dec. 29, 1778. + +[725] The thought may have been suggested to Reynolds by Johnson's +writings. In _The Rambler_, No. 87, he had said:--'There are minds so +impatient of inferiority, that their gratitude is a species of revenge, +and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but +because obligation is a pain.' In No. 166, he says:--'To be obliged is +to be in some respect inferior to another.' + +[726] Northcote tells the following story on the authority of Miss +Reynolds. It is to be noticed, however, that in her _Recollections_ +(Croker's _Boswell_, p. 832) the story is told somewhat differently. +Johnson, Reynolds and Miss Reynolds one day called on the Miss +Cotterells. 'Johnson was the last of the three that came in; when the +maid, seeing this uncouth and dirty figure of a man, and not conceiving +he could be one of the company, laid hold of his coat, just as he was +going up-stairs, and pulled him back again, saying, "You fellow, what is +your business here? I suppose you intended to rob the house." This most +unlucky accident threw him into such a fit of shame and anger that he +roared out like a bull, "What have I done? What have I done?"' +Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 73. + +[727] Johnson writing to Langton on January 9, 1759, describes him as +'towering in the confidence of twenty-one.' The conclusion of _The +Rambler_ was in March 1752, when Langton must have been only fourteen or +just fifteen at most; Johnson's first letter to him dated May 6, 1755, +shews that at that time their acquaintance had been but short. Langton's +subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles in the Register of the +University of Oxford was on July 7, 1757. Johnson's first letter to him +at Oxford is dated June 28, 1757. + +[728] See _post_, March 20, 1782. + +[729] 'My friend Maltby and I,' said Samuel Rogers, 'when we were very +young men, had a strong desire to see Dr. Johnson; and we determined to +call upon him, and introduce ourselves. We accordingly proceeded to his +house in Bolt Court; and I had my hand on the knocker when our courage +failed us, and we retreated. Many years afterwards I mentioned this +circumstance to Boswell, who said, "What a pity that you did not go +boldly in! He would have received you with all kindness."' Rogers's +_Table Talk_, p. 9. For Johnson's levee see _post_, 1770, in Dr. +Maxwell's _Collectanea_. + +[730] 'George Langton,' writes Mr. Best in his _Memorials_ (p. 66), +'shewed me his pedigree with the names and arms of the families with +which his own had intermarried. It was engrossed on a piece of parchment +about ten inches broad, and twelve to fifteen feet long. "It leaves off +at the reign of Queen Elizabeth," said he.' + +[731] Topham Beauclerk was the only son of Lord Sidney Beauclerk, fifth +son of the first Duke of St. Alban's. He was therefore the +great-grandson of Charles II. and Nell Gwynne. He was born in Dec. 1739. +In my _Dr. Johnson: His Friends and his Critics_ I have put together +such facts as I could find about Langton and Beauclerk. + +[732] Mr. Best describes Langton as 'a very tall, meagre, long-visaged +man, much resembling a stork standing on one leg near the shore in +Raphael's cartoon of the Miraculous Draught of Fishes. His manners were, +in the highest degree, polished; his conversation mild, equable and +always pleasing.' Best's _Memorials_, p. 62. Miss Hawkins writes:--'If I +were called on to name the person with whom Johnson might have been seen +to the fairest advantage, I should certainly name Mr. Langton.' Miss +Hawkins's _Memoirs_, i. 144. Mrs. Piozzi wrote in 1817:--'I remember +when to have Langton at a man's house stamped him at once a literary +character.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii. 203. + +[733] In the summer of 1759. See _post_, under April 15, 1758, and 1759. + +[734] Lord Charlemont said that 'Beauclerk possessed an exquisite taste, +various accomplishments, and the most perfect good breeding. He was +eccentric, often querulous, entertaining a contempt for the generality +of the world, which the politeness of his manners could not always +conceal; but to those whom he liked most generous and friendly. Devoted +at one time to pleasure, at another to literature, sometimes absorbed in +play, sometimes in books, he was altogether one of the most +accomplished, and when in good humour and surrounded by those who suited +his fancy, one of the most agreeable men that could possibly exist.' +Lord Charlemont's _Life_, i. 210. Hawkins writes (_Life_, p. 422) that +'over all his behaviour there beamed such a sunshine of cheerfulness and +good-humour as communicated itself to all around him.' Mrs. Piozzi said +of him:--'Topham Beauclerk (wicked and profligate as he wished to be +accounted) was yet a man of very strict veracity. Oh Lord! how I did +hate that horrid Beauclerk.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 348. Rogers +(_Table-Talk_, p. 40) said that 'Beauclerk was a strangely absent +person.' He once went to dress for a dinner-party in his own house. 'He +forgot all about his guests; thought that it was bed-time, and got into +bed. His servant, coming to tell him that his guests were waiting for +him, found him fast asleep.' + +[735] It was to the Round-house that Captain Booth was first taken in +Fielding's _Amelia_, Book i, chap. 2. + +[736] + +'Blends, in exception to all general rules, +Your taste of follies with our scorn of fools.' + +Pope, _Moral Essays_, ii. 275. + +[737] In the college which _The Club_ was to set up at St. Andrew's, +Beauclerk was to have the chair of natural philosophy. Boswell's +_Hebrides_, Aug. 25, 1773. Goldsmith, writing to Langton in 1771, says: +'Mr. Beauclerk is now going directly forward to become a second Boyle; +deep in chymistry and physics.' Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 283. Boswell +described to Temple, in 1775, Beauclerk's villa at Muswell Hill, with +its 'observatory, laboratory for chymical experiments.' Boswell's +_Letters_, p. 194. + +[738] 'I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should +do.' 1 Henry IV. Act v. sc. 4. + +[739] 'Bishop. A cant word for a mixture of wine, oranges, and sugar.' +Johnson's _Dictionary_. + +[740] Mr. Langton has recollected, or Dr. Johnson repeated, the passage +wrong. The lines are in Lord Lansdowne's Drinking Song to Sleep, and +run thus:-- + +'Short, very short be then thy reign, +For I'm in haste to laugh and drink again.' BOSWELL. + +Lord Lansdowne was the Granville of Pope's couplet-- + +'But why then publish? Granville the polite, +And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write.' + +_Prologue to the Satires,_ 1.135. + +[741] Boswell in _Hebrides_ (Aug. 18, 1773) says that Johnson, on +starting from Edinburgh, left behind in an open drawer in Boswell's +house 'one volume of a pretty full and curious Diary of his life, of +which I have a few fragments.' He also states (_post_, under Dec 9, +1784):--'I owned to him, that having accidentally seen them [two quarto +volumes of his _Life_] I had read a great deal in them.' It would seem +that he had also transcribed a portion. + +[742] This is inconsistent with what immediately follows, for No. 39 on +Sleep was published on March 20. + +[743] Hawkesworth in the last number of _The Adventurer_ says that he +had help at first from A.; 'but this resource soon failing, I was +obliged to carry on the publication alone, except some casual supplies, +till I obtained from the gentlemen who have distinguished their papers +by T and Z, such assistance as I most wished.' In a note he says that +the papers signed Z are by the Rev. Mr. Warton. The papers signed A are +written in a light style. In Southey's _Cowper_, i. 47, it is said that +Bonnell Thornton wrote them. + +[744] Boswell had read the passage carelessly. Statius is mentioned, but +the writer goes on to quote _Cowley_, whose Latin lines C. B. has +translated. Johnson's _Works_, iv. 10. + +[745] Malone says that 'Johnson was fond of him, but latterly owned that +Hawkesworth--who had set out a modest, humble man--was one of the many +whom success in the world had spoiled. He was latterly, as Sir Joshua +Reynolds told me, an affected insincere man, and a great coscomb in his +dress. He had no literature whatever.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 441. See +_post_, April 11 and May 7, 1773, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 3. + +[746] 'Johnson's statement to Warton is definite and is borne out by +internal evidence, if internal evidence can be needful when he had once +made a definite statement. The papers signed _Misargyrus_, the first of +which appeared on March 3, are all below his style. They were not, I +feel sure, written by him, and are improperly given in the Oxford +edition of his works. I do not find in them even any traces of his hand. +The paper on Sleep, No. 39, is I am almost sure, partly his, but I +believe it is not wholly. In the frequency of quotations in the first +part of it I see another, and probably a younger author. The passage on +the 'low drudgery of digesting dictionaries' is almost certainly his. +Dr. Bathurst, perhaps, wrote the Essay, and Johnson corrected it. +Whether it was Johnson's or not, it was published after the letter to +Dr. Warton was written. + +[747] See _post_, April 25, 1778, for an instance where Johnson's +silence did not imply assent. + +[748] 'One evening at the Club Johnson proposed to us the celebrating +the birth of Mrs. Lennox's first literary child, as he called her book, +[_The Life of Harriet Stuart_, a novel, published Dec. 1750] by a whole +night spent in festivity. Our supper was elegant, and Johnson had +directed that a magnificent hot apple-pie should make a part of it, and +this he would have stuck with bay-leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs. Lennox +was an authoress, and had written verses; and further, he had prepared +for her a crown of laurel, with which, but not till he had invoked the +Muses by some ceremonies of his own invention, he encircled her brows. +About five Johnson's face shone with meridian splendour, though his +drink had been only lemonade.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 286. See _post_, +1780, in Mr. Langton's 'Collection,' and May 15, 1784. + +[749] In a document in the possession of one of Cave's collateral +descendants which I have seen dated May 3, 1754, and headed, 'Present +state of the late Mr. Edward Cave's effects,' I found entered +'_Magazine_, £3,000. _Daily Advertiser_, £900.' The total value of the +effects was £8,708. + +[750] Johnson records of his friend that 'one of the last acts of reason +which he exerted was fondly to press the hand that is now writing this +little narrative.' _Works_, vi. 433. + +[751] See Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 189. + +[752] Lord Chesterfield writing to his son in 1751 (_Letters_, iii. 136) +said:--'People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of +mankind, as surgeons are to their bodily pains; they see and hear of +them all day long, and even of so many simulated ones, that they do not +know which has are real, and which are not. Other sentiments are +therefore to be applied to than those of mere justice and humanity; +their favour must be captivated by the _suaviter in modo_; their love of +ease disturbed by unwearied importunity; or their fears wrought upon by +a decent intimation of implacable, cool resentment: this is the true +_fortiter in re_! He was himself to experience an instance of the true +_fortiter in re_. + +[753] If Lord Chesterfield had read the last number of _The Rambler_ +(published in March, 1752) he could scarcely have flattered himself with +these expectations. Johnson, after saying that he would not endeavour to +overbear the censures of criticism by the influence of a patron, +added:--'The supplications of an author never yet reprieved him a moment +from oblivion; and, though greatness sometimes sheltered guilt, it can +afford no protection to ignorance or dulness. Having hitherto attempted +only the propagation of truth, I will not at last violate it by the +confession of terrors which I do not feel; having laboured to maintain +the dignity of virtue, I will not now degrade it by the meanness of +dedication.' + +[754] On Nov. 28 and Dec. 5, 1754. _The World_, by Adam Fitz-Adam, Jan. +1753 to Dec. 1765. The editor was Edward Moore. Among the contributors +were the Earls of Chesterfield and Corke, Horace Walpole, R. O. +Cambridge, and Soame Jenyns. See _post_, July 1, 1763. + +[755] With these papers as a whole Johnson would have been highly +offended. The anonymous writer hopes that his readers will not suspect +him 'of being a hired and interested puff of this work.' 'I most +solemnly protest,' he goes on to say, 'that neither Mr. Johnson, nor any +booksellers have ever offered me the usual compliment of a pair of +gloves or a bottle of wine.' It is a pretty piece of irony for a wealthy +nobleman solemnly to protest that he has not been bribed by a poor +author, whom seven years before he had repulsed from his door. But +Chesterfield did worse than this. By way of recommending a work of so +much learning and so much labour he tells a foolish story of an +assignation that had failed 'between a fine gentleman and a fine lady.' +The letter that had passed between them had been badly spelt, and they +had gone to different houses. 'Such examples,' he wrote, 'really make +one tremble; and will, I am convinced, determine my fair fellow-subjects +and their adherents to adopt and scrupulously conform to Mr. Johnson's +rules of true orthography.' Johnson, in the last year of his life, at a +time of great weakness and depression, defended the roughness of his +manner. 'I have done more good as I am. Obscenity and impiety have +always been repressed in my company' (_post_, June 11, 1784). + +[756] In the original 'Mr. Johnson.' + +[757] In the original 'unnecessary foreign ornaments.' + +[758] In the original, 'will now, and, I dare say.' + +[759] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 191) says that Chesterfield, further to +appease Johnson, sent to him Sir Thomas Robinson (see _post_, July 19, +1763), who was 'to apologise for his lordship's treatment of him, and to +make him tenders of his future friendship and patronage. Sir Thomas, +whose talent was flattery, was profuse in his commendations of Johnson +and his writings, and declared that, were his circumstances other than +they were, himself would settle £500 a year on him. 'And who are you,' +asked Johnson, 'that talk thus liberally?' 'I am,' said the other, 'Sir +Thomas Robinson, a Yorkshire baronet.' 'Sir,' replied Johnson, 'if the +first peer of the realm were to make me such an offer, I would shew him +the way down stairs.' + +[760] _Paradise Lost_, ii. 112. + +[761] Johnson, perhaps, was thinking of his interviews with +Chesterfield, when in his _Rambler_ on 'The Mischiefs of following a +Patron' (No. 163) he wrote:--'If you, Mr. Rambler, have ever ventured +your philosophy within the attraction of greatness, you know the force +of such language, introduced with a smile of gracious tenderness, and +impressed at the conclusion with an air of solemn sincerity.' + +[762] Johnson said to Garrick:--'I have sailed a long and painful voyage +round the world of the English language; and does he now send out two +cock-boats to tow me into harbour?' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 74. This +metaphor may perhaps have been suggested to Johnson by Warburton. 'I now +begin to see land, after having wandered, according to Mr. Warburton's +phrase, in this vast sea of words.' _Post_, Feb. 1, 1755. + +[763] See _post_, Nov. 22, 1779, and April 8, 1780. Sir Henry Ellis says +that 'address' in Johnson's own copy of his letter to Lord Chesterfield +is spelt twice with one _d_. Croker's _Corres_. ii. 44. In the series of +Letters by Johnson given in _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v, Johnson +writes _persuit_ (p. 325); 'I cannot _butt_ (p. 342); 'to retain +_council_' (p. 343); _harrassed_ (p. 423); _imbecillity_ (p. 482). In a +letter to Nichols quoted by me, _post_, beginning of 1783, he writes +_ilness_. He commonly, perhaps always, spelt _Boswell Boswel_, and +Nichols's name in one series of letters he spelt Nichols, Nichol, and +Nicol. _Post_, beginning of 1781, note. + +[764] Dr. Johnson appeared to have had a remarkable delicacy with +respect to the circulation of this letter; for Dr. Douglas, Bishop of +Salisbury, informs me that, having many years ago pressed him to be +allowed to read it to the second Lord Hardwicke, who was very desirous +to hear it (promising at the same time, that no copy of it should be +taken), Johnson seemed much pleased that it had attracted the attention +of a nobleman of such a respectable character; but after pausing some +time, declined to comply with the request, saying, with a smile, 'No, +Sir; I have hurt the dog too much already;' or words to that +purpose. BOSWELL. + +[765] See _post_, June 4, 1781. + +[766] In 1790, the year before the _Life of Johnson_ came out, Boswell +published this letter in a separate sheet of four quarto pages under the +following title:--_The celebrated Letter from Samuel Johnson, LL.D., to +Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield; Now first published with +Notes, by James Boswell, Esq., London. Printed by Henry Baldwin: for +Charles Dilly in the Poultry, MDCCXC. Price Half-a-Guinea. Entered in +the Hall-Book of the Company of Stationers_. It belongs to the same +impression as _The Life of Johnson_. + +[767] 'Je chante le vainqueur des vainqueurs de la terre.' Boileau, +_L'Art poétique_, iii. 272. + +[768] The following note is subjoined by Mr. Langton:--'Dr. Johnson, +when he gave me this copy of his letter, desired that I would annex to +it his information to me, that whereas it is said in the letter that "no +assistance has been received," he did once receive from Lord +Chesterfield the sum of ten pounds; but as that was so inconsiderable a +sum, he thought the mention of it could not properly find place in a +letter of the kind that this was.' BOSWELL. 'This surely is an +unsatisfactory excuse,' writes Mr. Croker. He read Johnson's letter +carelessly, as the rest of his note shews. Johnson says, that during the +seven years that had passed since he was repulsed from Chesterfield's +door he had pushed on his work without one act of assistance. These ten +pounds, we may feel sure, had been received before the seven years began +to run. No doubt they had been given in 1747 as an acknowledgement of +the compliment paid to Chesterfield in the _Plan_. He had at first been +misled by Chesterfield's one act of kindness, but he had long had his +eyes opened. Like the shepherd in Virgil (_Eclogues_, viii. 43) he could +say:--'_Nunc_ scio quid sit Amor.' + +[769] In this passage Dr. Johnson evidently alludes to the loss of his +wife. We find the same tender recollection recurring to his mind upon +innumerable occasions: and, perhaps no man ever more forcibly felt the +truth of the sentiment so elegantly expressed by my friend Mr. Malone, +in his Prologue to Mr. Jephson's tragedy of JULIA [_Julia or the Italian +Lover_ was acted for the first time on April 17, 1787. _Gent. Mag_. +1787, p. 354]:-- + +'Vain--wealth, and fame, and fortune's fostering care, +If no fond breast the splendid blessings share; +And, each day's bustling pageantry once past, +There, only there, our bliss is found at last.' BOSWELL. + +Three years earlier, when his wife was dying, he had written in one of +the last _Ramblers_ (No 203):--'It is necessary to the completion of +every good, that it be timely obtained; for whatever comes at the close +of life will come too late to give much delight ... What we acquire by +bravery or science, by mental or corporal diligence, comes at last when +we cannot communicate, and therefore cannot enjoy it.' Chesterfield +himself was in no happy state. Less than a month before he received +Johnson's letter he wrote (_Works_, iii. 308):--'For these six months +past, it seems as if all the complaints that ever attacked heads had +joined to overpower mine. Continual noises, headache, giddiness, and +impenetrable deafness; I could not stoop to write; and even reading, the +only resource of the deaf, was painful to me.' He wrote to his son a +year earlier (_Letters_, iv. 43), 'Reading, which was always a pleasure +to me in the time even of my greatest dissipation, is now become my only +refuge; and I fear I indulge it too much at the expense of my eyes. But +what can I do? I must do something. I cannot bear absolute idleness; my +ears grow every day more useless to me, my eyes consequently more +necessary. I will not hoard them like a miser, but will rather risk the +loss than not enjoy the use of them.' + +[770] '_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.' +Johnson's _Works_ v. 51. + +[771] Upon comparing this copy with that which Dr. Johnson dictated to +me from recollection, the variations are found to be so slight, that +this must be added to the many other proofs which he gave of the +wonderful extent and accuracy of his memory. To gratify the curious in +composition, I have deposited both the copies in the British +Museum. BOSWELL. + +[772] Soon after Edwards's _Canons of Criticism_ came out, Johnson was +dining at Tonson the Bookseller's with Hayman the Painter and some more +company. Hayman related to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that the conversation +having turned upon Edwards's book, the gentlemen praised it much, and +Johnson allowed its merit. But when they went farther, and appeared to +put that author upon a level with Warburton, 'Nay, (said Johnson,) he +has given him some smart hits to be sure; but there is no proportion +between the two men; they must not be named together. A fly, Sir, may +sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and +the other is a horse still.' BOSWELL. Johnson in his _Preface to +Shakespeare_ (_Works_, v. 141) wrote:--'Dr. Warburton's chief assailants +are the authors of _The Canons of Criticism_, and of _The Revisal of +Shakespeare's Text_.... The one stings like a fly, sucks a little blood, +takes a gay flutter and returns for more; the other bites like a +viper.... When I think on one with his confederates, I remember the +danger of Coriolanus, who was afraid that "girls with spits, and boys +with stones, should slay him in puny battle;" when the other crosses my +imagination, I remember the prodigy in _Macbeth_: + +"A falcon tow'ring in his pride of place, +Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd." + +Let me, however, do them justice. One is a wit and one a scholar.' + +[773] To Johnson might be applied what he himself said of Dryden:--'He +appears to have known in its whole extent the dignity of his character, +and to have set a very high value on his own powers and performances.' +_Works_, vii. 291. + +[774] In the original _Yet mark_. + +[775] In the original _Toil_. + +[776] In his _Dictionary_ he defined _patron_ as 'commonly a wretch who +supports with insolence and is paid with flattery.' This definition +disappears in the _Abridgement_, but remains in the fourth edition. + +[777] Chesterfield, when he read Johnson's letter to Dodsley, was acting +up to the advice that he had given his own son six years earlier +(_Letters_, ii. 172):--'When things of this kind [bons mots] happen to +be said of you, the most prudent way is to seem not to suppose that they +are meant at you, but to dissemble and conceal whatever degree of anger +you may feel inwardly: and, should they be so plain, that you cannot be +supposed ignorant of their meaning, so join in the laugh of the company +against yourself; acknowledge the hit to be a fair one, and the jest a +good one, and play off the whole thing in seeming good humour; but by no +means reply in the same way; which only shows that you are hurt, and +publishes the victory which you might have concealed.' + +[778] See _post_, March 23, 1783, where Johnson said that 'Lord +Chesterfield was dignified, but he was insolent;' and June 27, 1784, +where he said that 'his manner was exquisitely elegant.' + +[779] + +'Whate'er of mongrel no one class admits, +A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.' + +Pope's _Dunciad_, iv. 90. + +'A true choice spirit we admit; +With wits a fool, with fools a wit.' + +Churchill's _Duellist_' Book iii. + +'The solemn fop, significant and budge; +A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.' + +Cowper's _Poems_, _Conversation_, 1. 299. + +According to Rebecca Warner (_Original Letters_, p. 204), Johnson +telling Joseph Fowke about his refusal to dedicate his _Dictionary_ to +Chesterfield, said: 'Sir, I found I must have gilded a rotten post.' + +[780] That collection of letters cannot be vindicated from the serious +charge of encouraging, in some passages, one of the vices most +destructive to the good order and comfort of society, which his Lordship +represents as mere fashionable gallantry; and, in others, of inculcating +the base practice of dissimulation, and recommending, with +disproportionate anxiety, a perpetual attention to external elegance of +manners. But it must, at the same time, be allowed, that they contain +many good precepts of conduct, and much genuine information upon life +and manners, very happily expressed; and that there was considerable +merit in paying so much attention to the improvement of one who was +dependent upon his Lordship's protection; it has, probably, been +exceeded in no instance by the most exemplary parent; and though I can +by no means approve of confounding the distinction between lawful and +illicit offspring, which is, in effect, insulting the civil +establishment of our country, to look no higher; I cannot help thinking +it laudable to be kindly attentive to those, of whose existence we have, +in any way, been the cause. Mr. Stanhope's character has been unjustly +represented as diametrically opposite to what Lord Chesterfield wished +him to be. He has been called dull, gross, and awkward; but I knew him +at Dresden, when he was Envoy to that court; and though he could not +boast of the _graces_, he was, in truth, a sensible, civil, well-behaved +man. BOSWELL. See _post_, March 28, 1775, under April, 29, 1776, and +June 27, 1784. + +[781] Chesterfield's _Letters_, iii. 129. + +[782] Now one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State. BOSWELL. +Afterwards Viscount Melville. + +[783] Probably George, second Earl of Macclesfield, who was, in 1752, +elected President of the Royal Society. CROKER. Horace Walpole +(_Letters_, ii. 321) mentions him as 'engaged to a party for finding out +the longitude.' + +[784] In another work (_Dr. Johnson: His Friends and his Critics_, p. +214), I have shewn that Lord Chesterfield's 'Respectable Hottentot' was +not Johnson. From the beginning of 1748 to the end of 1754 Chesterfield +had no dealings of any kind with Johnson. At no time had there been the +slightest intimacy between the great nobleman and the poor author. +Chesterfield had never seen Johnson eat. The letter in which the +character is drawn opens with the epigram: + +Non amo te, Sabidi, nee possum dicere quare, +Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te. + +Chesterfield goes on to show 'how it is possible not to love anybody, +and yet not to know the reason why.... How often,' he says, 'have I, in +the course of my life, found myself in this situation with regard to +many of my acquaintance whom I have honoured and respected, without +being able to love.' He then instances the case of the man whom he +describes as a respectable Hottentot. It is clear that he is writing of +a man whom he knows well and who has some claim upon his affection. +Twice he says that it is impossible to love him. The date of this letter +is Feb. 28, 1751, more than three years after Johnson had for the last +time waited in Chesterfield's outward rooms. Moreover the same man is +described in three other letters (Sept. 22, 1749; Nov. 1749; and May 27, +1753), and described as one with whom Chesterfield lived on terms of +intimacy. In the two former of these letters he is called Mr. L. +Lyttelton did not become Sir George Lyttelton till Sept. 14, 1751. He +was raised to the peerage in 1757. Horace Walpole (_Reign of George +III_, i. 256) says of him:--'His ignorance of mankind, want of judgment, +with strange absence and awkwardness, involved him in mistakes and +ridicule.' Had Chesterfield's letter been published when it was written, +no one in all likelihood would have so much as dreamt that Johnson was +aimed at. But it did not come before the world till twenty-three years +later, when Johnson's quarrel with Chesterfield was known to every one, +when Johnson himself was at the very head of the literary world, and +when his peculiarities had become a matter of general interest. + +[785] About four years after this time Gibbon, on his return to England, +became intimate with Mr. and Mrs. Mallet. He thus wrote of them:--'The +most useful friends of my father were the Mallets; they received me with +civility and kindness at first on his account, and afterwards on my own; +and (if I may use Lord Chesterfield's words) I was soon _domesticated_ +in their house. Mr. Mallet, a name among the English poets, is praised +by an unforgiving enemy for the ease and elegance of his conversation, +and his wife was not destitute of wit or learning.' Gibbon's _Misc. +Works_, i 115. The 'unforgiving enemy' was Johnson, who wrote (_Works_, +viii. 468):--'His conversation was elegant and easy. The rest of his +character may, without injury to his memory, sink into silence.' Johnson +once said:--'I have seldom met with a man whose colloquial ability +exceeded that of Mallet.' Johnson's _Works_, 1787, xi. 214. See _post_, +March 27, 1772, and April 28, 1783; and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. +10, 1773. + +[786] Johnson had never read Bolingbroke's _Philosophy_. 'I have never +read Bolingbroke's impiety,' he said (_post_, under March 1, 1758). In +the memorable sentence that he, notwithstanding, pronounced upon the +author, he exposed himself to the retort which he had recorded in his +_Life of Boerhaave_ (_Works_, vi. 277). 'As Boerhaave was sitting in a +common boat, there arose a conversation among the passengers upon the +impious and pernicious doctrine of Spinosa, which, as they all agreed, +tends to the utter overthrow of all religion. Boerhaave sat and attended +silently to this discourse for some time, till one of the company ... +instead of confuting the positions of Spinosa by argument began to give +a loose to contumelious language and virulent invectives, which +Boerhaave was so little pleased with, that at last he could not forbear +asking him, whether he had ever read the author he declaimed against.' + +[787] Lord Shelburne said that 'Bolingbroke was both a political and +personal coward.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 29. + +[788] It was in the summer of this year that Murphy became acquainted +with Johnson. (See _post,_ 1760.) 'The first striking sentence that he +heard from him was in a few days after the publication of Lord +Bolingbroke's posthumous works. Mr. Garrick asked him, "if he had seen +them." "Yes, I have seen them." "What do you think of them?" "Think of +them!" He made a long pause, and then replied: "Think of them! a +scoundrel and a coward! A scoundrel who spent his life in charging a gun +against Christianity; and a coward, who was afraid of hearing the report +of his own gun; but left half-a-crown to a hungry Scotchman to draw the +trigger after his death!" His mind, at this time strained and over +laboured by constant exertion, called for an interval of repose and +indolence. But indolence was the time of danger; it was then that his +spirits, not employed abroad, turned with inward hostility against +himself.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 79, and Piozzi's _Anec_., p. 235. Adam +Smith, perhaps, had this saying of Johnson's in mind, when in 1776 he +refused the request of the dying Hume to edit after his death his +_Dialogues on Natural Religion_. Hume wrote back:--'I think your +scruples groundless. Was Mallet anywise hurt by his publication of Lord +Bolingbroke? He received an office afterwards from the present King and +Lord Bute, the most prudish man in the world.' Smith did not yield. J. +H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 491. + +[789] According to Horace Walpole (_Letters_, ii. 374), Pelham died of a +surfeit. As Johnson says (_Works_, viii. 310):--'The death of great men +is not always proportioned to the lustre of their lives. The death of +Pope was imputed by some of his friends to a silver saucepan, in which +it was his delight to heat potted lampreys.' Fielding in _The Voyage to +Lisbon_ (_Works_, x. 201) records:--'I was at the worst on that +memorable day when the public lost Mr. Pelham. From that day I began +slowly, as it were, to draw my feet out of the grave.' '"I shall now +have no more peace," the King said with a sigh; being told of his +Minister's death.' Walpole's _George II_, i. 378. + +[790] 'Thomas Warton, the younger brother of Dr. Warton, was a fellow of +Trinity College, Oxford. He was Poetry Professor from 1758 to 1768. +Mant's _Warton_, i. xliv. In 1785 he was made Poet Laureate. _Ib_. +lxxxiii. Mr. Mant, telling of an estrangement between Johnson and the +Wartons, says that he had heard 'on unquestionable authority that +Johnson had lamented, with tears in his eyes, that the Wartons had not +called on him for the last four years; and that he has been known to +declare that Tom Warton was the only man of genius whom he knew without +a heart.' _Ib_. xxxix. + +[791] 'Observations on Spenser's Fairy Queen, the first edition of which +was now just published.' WARTON. + +[792] 'Hughes published an edition of Spenser.' WARTON. See Johnson's +_Works_, vii.476. + +[793] 'His Dictionary.' WARTON. + +[794] 'He came to Oxford within a fortnight, and stayed about five +weeks. He lodged at a house called Kettel hall, near Trinity College. +But during this visit at Oxford, he collected nothing in the libraries +for his Dictionary.' WARTON. + +[795] Pitt this year described, in the House of Commons, a visit that he +had paid to Oxford the summer before. He and his friends 'were at the +window of the Angel Inn; a lady was desired to sing _God save great +George our King_. The chorus was re-echoed by a set of young lads +drinking at a college over the way [Queen's], but with additions of rank +treason.' Walpole's _George II_, i. 413. + +[796] A Fellow of Pembroke College, of Johnson's time, described the +college servants as in 'the state of servitude the most miserable that +can be conceived amongst so many masters.' He says that 'the kicks and +cuffs and bruises they submit to entitle them, when those who were +displeased relent,' to the compensation that is afforded by draughts of +ale. 'There is not a college servant, but if he have learnt to suffer, +and to be officious, and be inclined to tipple, may forget his cares in +a gallon or two of ale every day of his life.' _Dr. Johnson:--His +Friends, &c_., p. 45. + +[797] It was against the Butler that Johnson, in his college days, had +written an epigram:-- + +'Quid mirum Maro quod digne + canit arma virumque, + Quid quod putidulum nostra + Camoena sonat? +Limosum nobis Promus dat callidus + haustum; + Virgilio vires uva Falerna dedit. +Carmina vis nostri scribant + meliora Poetae? + Ingenium jubeas purior haustus + alat.' + +[798] Pope, _Eloisa to Abelard_, 1. 38. + +[799] Johnson or Warton misquoted the line. It stands:--'Mittit +aromaticas vallis Saronica nubes.' Husbands's _Miscellany_, p. 112. + +[800] De Quincey (_Works_, xiii. 162), after saying that Johnson did not +understand Latin 'with the elaborate and circumstantial accuracy +required for the editing critically of a Latin classic,' +continues:--'But if he had less than that, he also had more: he +_possessed_ that language in a way that no extent of mere critical +knowledge could confer. He wrote it genially, not as one translating +into it painfully from English, but as one using it for his original +organ of thinking. And in Latin verse he expressed himself at times with +the energy and freedom of a Roman.' + +[801] Mr. Jorden. See _ante_, p. 59. + +[802] Boswell (_Hebrides_, Aug. 19, 1773) says that Johnson looked at +the ruins at St. Andrew's 'with a strong indignation. I happened to ask +where John Knox was buried. Dr. Johnson burst out, "I hope in the +highway, I have been looking at his reformations."' + +[803] In Reasmus Philipps's _Diary_ it is recorded that in Pembroke +College early in every November 'was kept a great Gaudy [feast], when +the Master dined in public, and the juniors (by an ancient custom they +were obliged to observe) went round the fire in the hall.' _Notes & +Queries_, 2nd S. x. 443. + +[804] Communicated by the Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton, who had the +original. BOSWELL. In the imaginary college which was to be opened by +_The Club_ at St. Andrew's, Chambers was to be the professor of the law +of England. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 25, 1773; also _post_, July +5, 1773 and March 30, 1774. + +[805] I presume she was a relation of Mr. Zachariah Williams, who died +in his eighty-third year, July 12, 1755. When Dr. Johnson was with me at +Oxford, in 1755, he gave to the Bodleian Library a thin quarto of +twenty-one pages, a work in Italian, with an English translation on the +opposite page. The English titlepage is this: 'An Account of an Attempt +to ascertain the Longitude at Sea, by an exact Variation of the +Magnetical Needle, &c. By Zachariah Williams. London, printed for +Dodsley, 1755.' The English translation, from the strongest internal +marks, is unquestionably the work of Johnson. In a blank leaf, Johnson +has written the age, and time of death, of the authour Z. Williams, as I +have said above. On another blank leaf, is pasted a paragraph from a +newspaper, of the death and character of Williams, which is plainly +written by Johnson. He was very anxious about placing this book in the +Bodleian: and, for fear of any omission or mistake, he entered, in the +great Catalogue, the title-page of it with his own hand.' +WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +In this statement there is a slight mistake. The English account, which +was written by Johnson, was the _original_ the Italian was a +_translation_, done by Baretti. See _post_, end of 1755. MALONE. Johnson +has twice entered in his own hand that 'Zachariah Williams, died July +12, 1755, in his eighty-third year,' and also on the title-page that +he was 82. + +[806] See _ante_, p. 133. + +[807] The compliment was, as it were, a mutual one. Mr. Wise urged +Thomas Warton to get the degree conferred before the _Dictionary_ was +published. 'It is in truth,' he wrote, 'doing ourselves more honour than +him, to have such a work done by an Oxford hand, and so able a one too, +and will show that we have not lost all regard for good letters, as has +been too often imputed to us by our enemies.' Wooll's _Warton_, p. 228. + +[808] 'In procuring him the degree of Master of Arts by diploma at +Oxford.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[809] 'Lately fellow of Trinity College, and at this time Radclivian +librarian, at Oxford. He was a man of very considerable learning, and +eminently skilled in Roman and Anglo-Saxon antiquities. He died in +1767.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[810] No doubt _The Rambler_. + +[811] 'Collins (the poet) was at this time at Oxford, on a visit to Mr. +Warton; but labouring under the most deplorable languor of body, and +dejection of mind.' WARTON. BOSWELL. Johnson, writing to Dr. Warton on +March 8, 1754, thus speaks of Collins:-'I knew him a few years ago full +of hopes, and full of projects, versed in many languages, high in fancy, +and strong in retention. This busy and forcible mind is now under the +government of those who lately would not have been able to comprehend +the least and most narrow of its designs.' Wooll's _Warton_ 1. 219. +Again, on Dec. 24, 1754:--'Poor dear Collins! Let me know whether you +think it would give him pleasure if I should write to him. I have often +been near his state, and therefore have it in great commiseration.' +_Ib_. p. 229. Again, on April 15, 1756:--'That man is no common loss. +The moralists all talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and the +transitoriness of beauty: but it is yet more dreadful to consider that +the powers of the mind are equally liable to change, that understanding +may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire.' _Ib_. +p. 239. See _post_, beginning of 1763. + +[812] 'Of publishing a volume of observations on the best of Spenser's +works. It was hindered by my taking pupils in this College.' +WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[813] 'Young students of the lowest rank at Oxford are so called.' +WARTON.--BOSWELL. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 28, 1773. + +[814] 'His Dictionary.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[815] Johnson says (_Works_, viii. 403) that when Collins began to feel +the approaches of his dreadful malady 'with the usual weakness of men so +diseased he eagerly snatched that temporary relief with which the table +and the bottle flatter and seduce.' + +[816] 'Petrarch, finding nothing in the word _eclogue_ of rural meaning, +supposed it to be corrupted by the copiers, and therefore called his own +pastorals aeglogues, by which he meant to express the talk of goatherds, +though it will mean only the talk of goats. This new name was adopted by +subsequent writers.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 390. + +[817] 'Of the degree at Oxford.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[818] This verse is from the long-lost _Bellerophon_, a tragedy by +Euripides. It is preserved by Suidas. CHARLES BURNEY. 'Alas! but +wherefore alas? Man is born to sorrow.' + +[819] + +'Sento venir per allegrezza un tuono +Que frêmer l'aria, e rimbombar fa l'onrle:-- +Odo di squille,' &c. + +_Orlando Furioso_. c. xlvi. s. 2. + +[820] 'His degree had now past, according to the usual form, the +surrages of the heads of Colleges; but was not yet finally granted by +the University. It was carried without a single dissentient voice.' +WARTON. BOSWELL. + +[821] 'On Spenser.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[822] Lord Eldon wrote of him:--'Poor Tom Warton! He was a tutor at +Trinity; at the beginning of every term he used to send to his pupils to +know whether they would _wish_ to attend lecture that term.' Twiss's +_Eldon_, iii. 302. + +[823] The fields north of Oxford. + +[824] 'Of the degree.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[825] 'Principal of St. Mary Hall at Oxford. He brought with him the +diploma from Oxford.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. Dr. King (_Anec_. p. 196) says +that he was one of the Jacobites who were presented to the Pretender +when, in September 1750, he paid a stealthy visit to England. The +Pretender in 1783 told Sir Horace Mann that he was in London in that +very month and year and had met fifty of his friends, among whom was the +Earl of Westmoreland, the future Chancellor of the University of Oxford. +Mahon's _England_, iv. II. Hume places the visit in 1753. Burton's +_Hume_, ii. 462. See also in Boswell's _Hebrides_, the account of the +Young Pretender. In 1754, writes Lord Shelburne, 'Dr. King in his speech +upon opening the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, before a full theatre +introduced three times the word _Redeat_, pausing each time for a +considerable space, during which the most unbounded applause shook the +theatre, which was filled with a vast body of peers, members of +parliament, and men of property. Soon after the rebellion [of 1745], +speaking of the Duke of Cumberland, he described him as a man, _qui +timet omnia prater Deum_. I presented this same Dr. King to George III. +in 1760.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 35. + +[826] 'I suppose Johnson means that my _kind intention_ of being the +_first_ to give him the good news of the degree being granted was +_frustrated_, because Dr. King brought it before my intelligence +arrived.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[827] Dr. Huddesford, President of Trinity College.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[828] Extracted from the Convocation-Register, Oxford. BOSWELL. + +[829] The Earl of Arran, 'the last male of the illustrious House of +Ormond,' was the third Chancellor in succession that that family had +given to the University. The first of the three, the famous Duke of +Ormond, had, on his death in 1688, been succeeded by his grandson, the +young Duke. (Macaulay's _England_, iii. 159). He, on his impeachment and +flight from England in 1715, was succeeded by his brother, the Earl of +Arran. Richardson, writing in 1754 (_Carres_. ii. 198), said of the +University, 'Forty years ago it chose a Chancellor in despite of the +present reigning family, whose whole merit was that he was the brother +of a perjured, yet weak, rebel.' On Arran's death in 1758, the Earl of +Westmoreland, 'old dull Westmoreland' as Walpole calls him (_Letters_, +i. 290), was elected. It was at his installation that Johnson clapped +his hands till they were sore at Dr. King's speech (_post_, 1759). 'I +hear,' wrote Walpole of what he calls _the coronation at Oxford_, 'my +Lord Westmoreland's own retinue was all be-James'd with true-blue +ribands.' _Letters_, iii. 237. It is remarkable that this nobleman, who +in early life was a Whig, had commanded 'the body of troops which George +I. had been obliged to send to Oxford, to teach the University the only +kind of passive obedience which they did not approve.' Walpole's _George +II_, iii. 167. + +[830] The original is in my possession, BOSWELL. + +[831] We may conceive what a high gratification it must have been to +Johnson to receive his diploma from the hands of the great Dr. KING, +whose principles were so congenial with his own. BOSWELL. + +[832] Johnson here alludes, I believe, to the charge of disloyalty +brought against the University at the time of the famous contested +election for Oxfordshire in 1754. A copy of treasonable verses was +found, it was said, near the market-place in Oxford, and the grand jury +made a presentment thereon. 'We must add,' they concluded, 'that it is +the highest aggravation of this crime to have a libel of a nature so +false and scandalous, published in a famous University, &c. _Gent. Mag_. +xxiv. 339. A reward of £200 was offered in the _London Gazette_ for the +detection of the writer or publisher,' _Ib_. p. 377. + +[833] A single letter was a single piece of paper; a second piece of +paper, however small, or any inclosure constituted a double letter; it +was not the habit to prepay the postage. The charge for a single letter +to Oxford at this time was three-pence, which was gradually increased +till in 1812 it was eight-pence. _Penny Cyclo_. xviii. 455. + +[834] 'The words in Italicks are allusions to passages in Mr. Warton's +poem, called _The Progress of Discontent_, now lately published.' +WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +'And now intent on new designs, +Sighs for a fellowship--and fines. + + * * * * * + +These fellowships are pretty things, +We live indeed like petty kings. + + * * * * * + +And ev'ry night I went to bed, +Without a Modus in my head.' + +Warton's _Poems_, ii. 192. + +For _modus_ and _fines_ see _post_, April 25, 1778. + +[835] Lucretius, i. 23 + +[836] + +'Hence ye prophane; I hate ye all, +Both the Great Vulgar and the Small.' + +Cowley's _Imit. of Horace_, Odes, iii. 1. + +[837] _Journal Britannique_. It was to Maty that Gibbon submitted the +manuscript of his first work. Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 123. + +[838] Maty, as Prof. de Morgan pointed out, had in the autumn of 1755 +been guilty of 'wilful suppression of the circumstances of Johnson's +attack on Lord Chesterfield.' In an article in his _Journal_ he regrets +the absence from the _Dictionary_ of the _Plan_. 'Elle eût épargné à +l'auteur la composition d'une nouvelle préface, qui ne contient qu'en +partie les mêmes choses, et qu'on est tenté de regarder comme destinée à +faire perdre de vue quelques-unes des obligations que M. Johnson avait +contractées, et le Mécène qu'il avait choisi.' _Notes and Queries_, 2nd +S. iv. 341. + +[839] He left London in 1751 and returned to it in 1760. _Memoirs of Dr. +Barney_, i. 85, 133. + +[840] See _ante_, p. 183, note 2. + +[841] Sir John Hawkins, p. 341, inserts two notes as having passed +formally between Andrew Millar and Johnson, to the above effect. I am +assured this was not the case. In the way of incidental remark it was a +pleasant play of raillery. To have deliberately written notes in such +terms would have been morose. BOSWELL. + +[842] 'Talking one day of the patronage the great sometimes affect to +give to literature and literary men, "Andrew Millar," says Johnson, "is +the Maecenas of the age."' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 200. Horace +Walpole, writing on May 18, 1749 (_Letters_ ii. 163), says:--'Millar the +bookseller has done very generously by Fielding; finding _Tom Jones_, +for which he had given him six hundred pounds, sell so greatly, he has +since given him another hundred.' Hume writing on July 6, 1759, +says:--'Poor Andrew Millar is declared bankrupt; his debts amount to +above £40,000, and it is said his creditors will not get above three +shillings in the pound. All the world allows him to have been diligent +and industrious; but his misfortunes are ascribed to the extravagance of +his wife, a very ordinary case in this city.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. +64. He must soon have recovered his position, for Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. +p. 434) met Millar at Harrogate in 1763. In the inn were several +baronets, and great squires, members of parliament, who paid Millar +civility for the use of his two newspapers which came to him by every +post. 'Yet when he appeared in the morning, in his well-worn suit of +clothes, they could not help calling him Peter Pamphlet; for the +generous patron of Scotch authors, with his city wife and her niece, +were sufficiently ridiculous when they came into good company.' Mr. +Croker (_Boswell_, p. 630) says that Millar was the bookseller described +by Johnson, _post_, April 24, 1779. as 'habitually and equably drunk.' +He is, I think, mistaken. + +[843] His _Dictionary_. BOSWELL. + +[844] 'A translation of Apollonius Rhodius was now intended by Mr. +Warton.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[845] Kettel Hall is an ancient tenement built about the year 1615 by +Dr. Ralph Kettel, President of Trinity College, for the accommodation of +commoners of that Society. It adjoins the College; and was a few years +ago converted into a private house. MALONE. + +[846] 'At Ellsfield, a village three miles from Oxford.' +WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[847] It was published on April 15, 1755, in two vols. folio, price £4 +10_s_. bound. Johnson's _Works_, v. 51. + +[848] 'Booksellers concerned in his _Dictionary_.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. +'June 12, Mr. Paul Knapton, bookseller. June 18, Thos. Longman, Esq., +bookseller.' _Gent. Mag_., xxv. 284. The 'Esq.' perhaps is a sign that +even so early as 1755 the Longmans ranked higher than most of +their brethren. + +[849] 1. _Own_ not in the original. Johnson's _Works_, v. 36. + +[850] 'I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own +expectations.' Johnson's _Works_, p. 41. + +[851] In the _Plan of an English Dictionary_ (_ib_. p. 16) Johnson, +writing of 'the word _perfection_' says:--'Though in its philosophical +and exact sense it can be of little use among human beings, it is often +so much degraded from its original signification, that the academicians +have inserted in their work, _the perfection of a language_, and, with a +little more licentiousness, might have prevailed on themselves to have +added _the perfection of a Dictionary_.' In the Preface to the fourth +edition he writes:--'He that undertakes to compile a Dictionary +undertakes that, which if it comprehends the full extent of his design, +he knows himself unable to perform.' _Ib_. p. 52. + +[852] _Ib_. p. 51. + +[853] See _post_, under May 19, 1777. + +[854] See _ante_, p. 186, note 5. + +[855] He defines both _towards the wind_. The definitions remain +unchanged in the fourth edition, the last corrected by Johnson, and also +in the third edition of the abridgment, though this abridgment was made +by him. _Pastern_ also remains unaltered in this latter edition. In the +fourth edition he corrected it. 'The drawback of his character,' wrote +Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'is entertaining prejudices on very slight +foundations; giving an opinion, perhaps, first at random, but from its +being contradicted he thinks himself obliged always to support it, or, +if he cannot support, still not to acquiesce. Of this I remember an +instance of a defect or forgetfulness in his _Dictionary_. I asked him +how he came not to correct it in the second edition. "No," says he, +"they made so much of it that I would not flatter them by altering it."' +Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 461. + +[856] In his Preface (_Works_, v. 50) he anticipated errors and +laughter. 'A few wild blunders and risible absurdities, from which no +work of such multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly +with laughter and harden ignorance into contempt' In a letter written +nearly thirty years later he said:--'Dictionaries are like watches, the +worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite +true.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 406. + +[857] See _post_, under July 20, 1762. + +[858] 'Network. Anything reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, +with interstices between the intersections.' Reticulated is defined +'Made of network; formed with interstitial vacuities.' + +[859] 'That part of my work on which I expect malignity most frequently +to fasten is the _Explanation_.... Such is the fate of hapless +lexicography, that not only darkness, but light, impedes and distresses +it; things may be not only too little, but too much known, to be happily +illustrated.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 34. + +[860] In the original, 'to admit _a_ definition.' _Ib_. + +[861] In the original, '_drier.' Ib_. 38. + +[862] 'Tory. (A cant term derived, I suppose, from an Irish word +signifying a savage.) One who adheres to the ancient constitution of the +state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England: opposed +to a _whig_.' + +[863] 'Whig. The name of a faction.' Lord Marchmont (_post_, May 12, +1778) said that 'Johnson was the first that brought Whig and Tory into a +dictionary.' In this he was mistaken. In the fourth edition of Dr. Adam +Littleton's _Linguae Latinae Liber Dictionarius_, published in 1703, +_Whig_ is translated _Homo fanaticus, factiosus; Whiggism, Enthusiasmus, +Perduellio; Tory, bog-trotter or Irish robber, Praedo Hibernicus; Tory_ +opposed to whig, _Regiarum partium assertor_. These definitions are not +in the first edition, published in 1678. _A pensioner_ or _bride_ +[bribed] _person_ is rendered _Mercenarius. + +[864] 'Pension. An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In +England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling +for treason to his country.' _Pensioner_ is defined as 'One who is +supported by an allowance paid at the will of another; a dependant.' +These definitions remain in the fourth edition, corrected by Johnson +in 1773. + +[865] 'Oats. A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but +in Scotland supports the people.' See _post_, March 23, 1776, and March +21, 1783. 'Did you ever hear,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'of Lord +Elibank's reply when Johnson's famous definition of oats was pointed out +first to him. "Very true, and where will you find such _men_ and such +_horses_?"' Croker's _Carres_, ii. 35. + +[866] He thus defines Excise: 'A hateful tax levied upon commodities, +and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by +those to whom Excise is paid.' The Commissioners of Excise being +offended by this severe reflection, consulted Mr. Murray, then Attorney +General, to know whether redress could be legally obtained. I wished to +have procured for my readers a copy of the opinion which he gave, and +which may now be justly considered as history; but the mysterious +secrecy of office, it seems, would not permit it. I am, however, +informed, by very good authority, that its import was, that the passage +might be considered as actionable; but that it would be more prudent in +the board not to prosecute. Johnson never made the smallest alteration +in this passage. We find he still retained his early prejudice against +Excise; for in _The Idler_, No. 65, there is the following very +extraordinary paragraph: 'The authenticity of _Clarendon's_ history, +though printed with the sanction of one of the first Universities of the +world, had not an unexpected manuscript been happily discovered, would, +with the help of factious credulity, have been brought into question by +the two lowest of all human beings, a Scribbler for a party, and a +Commissioner of Excise.'--The persons to whom he alludes were Mr. John +Oldmixon, and George Ducket, Esq. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker obtained a copy +of the case. + +'_Case for the opinion of Mr. Attorney-General_. + +'Mr. Samuel Johnson has lately published "A Dictionary of the English +Language," in which are the following words:-- + +'"EXCISE, _n.s_. A hateful tax levied upon commodities and adjudged not +by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom +excise is paid." + +'_The author's definition being observed by the Commissioners of Excise, +they desire the favour of your opinion_. "Qu. Whether it will not be +considered as a libel, and if so, whether it is not proper to proceed +against the author, printers, and publishers thereof, or any and which +of them, by information, or how otherwise?" + +'I am of opinion that it is a libel. But under all the circumstances, I +should think it better to give him an opportunity of altering his +definition; and, in case he do not, to threaten him with an information. + +'29th Nov. 1755. W. Murray.' In one of the Parl. Debates of 1742 Johnson +makes Pitt say that 'it is probable that we shall detect bribery +descending through a long subordination of wretches combined against the +public happiness, from the prime minister surrounded by peers and +officers of state to the exciseman dictating politics amidst a company +of mechanics whom he debauches at the public expense, and lists in the +service of his master with the taxes which he gathers.' _Parl. Hist_., +xii. _570_. See _ante_, p. 36, note 5. + +[867] He defined _Favourite_ as 'One chosen as a companion by a +superiour; a mean wretch, whose whole business is by any means to +please:' and _Revolution_ as 'change in the state of a government or +country. It is used among us _kat hexochaen_ for the change produced by +the admission of King William and Queen Mary.' For these definitions +Wilkes attacked him in _The North Briton_, No. xii. In the fourth +edition Johnson gives a second definition of _patriot_:--'It is +sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government.' Premier and +_prime minister_ are not defined. _Post_, April 14, 1775. See also +_ante_, p. 264 note, for the definition of _patron_; and _post_, April +28, 1783 for that of _alias_. + +[868] 'There have been great contests in the Privy Council about the +trial of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford [on a charge of Jacobitism]: Lord +Gower pressed it extremely. He asked the Attorney-General his opinion, +who told him the evidence did not appear strong enough. Lord Gower +said:--"Mr. Attorney, you seem to be very lukewarm for your party." He +replied:--"My Lord, I never was lukewarm for my party, _nor ever was but +of one party_!"' Walpole's _Letters_, ii. 140. Mr. Croker assumes that +Johnson here 'attempted a pun, and wrote the name (as pronounced) Go'er. +Johnson was very little likely to pun, for 'he had a great contempt for +that species of wit.' _Post_, April 30, 1773. + +[869] Boswell omits the salutation which follows this definition: + +Chair Ithakae met haethla, met halgea pikra Haspasios teon oudas +ikanomai. + +'Dr. Johnson,' says Miss Burney, 'inquired if I had ever yet visited +_Grub-street_, but was obliged to restrain his anger when I answered +"No;" because he had never paid his respects to it himself. "However," +says he, "you and I, Burney, will go together; we have a very good right +to go, so we'll visit the mansions of our progenitors, and take up our +own freedom together."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 415. + +[870] Lord Bolingbroke had said (_Works_, in. 317): 'I approve the +devotion of a studious man at Christ Church, who was overheard in his +oratory entering into a detail with God, and acknowledging the divine +goodness in furnishing the world with makers of dictionaries. These men +court fame, as well as their betters, by such means as God has given +them to acquire it. They deserve encouragement while they continue to +compile, and neither affect wit, nor presume to reason.' Johnson himself +in _The Adventurer_, No. 39, had in 1753 described a class of men who +'employed their minds in such operations as required neither celerity +nor strength, in the low drudgery of collating copies, comparing +authorities, digesting dictionaries,' &c. Lord Monboddo, in his _Origin +of Language_, v. 273, says that 'J. C. Scaliger called the makers of +dictionaries _les portefaix de la république des lettres_.' + +[871] Great though his depression was, yet he could say with truth in +his Preface:--'Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress me +to negligence.' _Works_, v. 43. + +[872] _Ib_. p. 51. 'In the preface the author 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.' Macaulay's +_Misc. Writings_, p. 382. It is in _A Letter to John Dunning, Esq_. (p. +56) that Horne Tooke, or rather Horne, wrote:--'I could never read his +preface without shedding a tear.' See _post_, May 13, 1778. On Oct. 10, +1779, Boswell told Johnson, that he had been 'agreeably mistaken' in +saying:--'What would it avail me in this gloom of solitude?' + +[873] It appears even by many a passage in the Preface--one of the +proudest pieces of writing in our language. 'The chief glory,' he +writes, 'of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add +anything by my own writings to the reputation of English literature must +be left to time.' 'I deliver,' he says, 'my book to the world with the +spirit of a man that has endeavoured well.... 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 author, 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.' _Works_, v. pp. 49-51. Thomas Warton wrote +to his brother:--'I fear his preface will disgust by the expressions of +his consciousness of superiority, and of his contempt of patronage.' +Wooll's _Warton_, p. 231. + +[874] That praise was slow in coming is shown by his letter to Mr. +Burney, written two years and eight months after the publication of the +_Dictionary_. 'Your praise,' he wrote, 'was welcome, not only because I +believe it was sincere, but because praise has been very scarce.... +Yours is the only letter of good-will that I have received; though, +indeed, I am promised something of that sort from Sweden.' _Post_, +Dec. 24, 1757. + +[875] In the _Edinburgh Review_ (No. 1, 1755)--a periodical which only +lasted two years--there is a review by Adam Smith of Johnson's +_Dictionary_. Smith admits the 'very extraordinary merit' of the author. +'The plan,' however, 'is not sufficiently grammatical.' To explain what +he intends, he inserts 'an article or two from Mr. Johnson, and opposes +to them the same articles, digested in the manner which we would have +wished him to have followed.' He takes the words _but_ and _humour_. One +part of his definition of humour is curious--'something which comes upon +a man by fits, which he can neither command nor restrain, and which is +not perfectly consistent with true politeness.' This essay has not, I +believe, been reprinted. + +[876] She died in March 1752; the _Dictionary_ was published in April +1755. + +[877] In the Preface he writes (_Works_, v. 49):--'Much of my life has +been lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; +and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was passing +over me.' In his fine Latin poem [Greek: Inothi seauton] 'he has left,' +says Mr. Murphy (_Life_, p. 82), 'a picture of himself drawn with as +much truth, and as firm a hand, as can be seen in the portraits of +Hogarth or Sir Joshua Reynolds.' He wrote it after revising and +enlarging his _Dictionary_, and he sadly asks himself what is left for +him to do. + +Me, pensi immunis cum jam mihi reddor, inertis +Desidiae sors dura manet, graviorque labore +Tristis et atra quies, et tardae taedia vitae. +Nascuntur curis curae, vexatque dolorum +Importuna cohors, vacuae mala somnia mentis. +Nunc clamosa juvant nocturnae gaudia mensae, +Nunc loca sola placent; frustra te, somne, recumbens, +Alme voco, impatiens noctis, metuensque diei. +Omnia percurro trepidus, circum omnia lustro, +Si qua usquam pateat melioris semita vitae, +Nec quid agam invenio.... +Quid faciam? tenebrisne pigram damnare senectam +Restat? an accingar studiis gravioribus audax? +Aut, hoc si nimium est, tandem nova lexica poscam? + +Johnson's _Works_, i. 164. + +[878] A few weeks before his wife's death he wrote in _The Rambler_ (No. +196):--'The miseries of life would be increased beyond all human power +of endurance, if we were to enter the world with the same opinions as we +carry from it.' He would, I think, scarcely have expressed himself so +strongly towards his end. Though, as Dr. Maxwell records, in his +_Collectanea_ (_post_, 1770), 'he often used to quote with great pathos +those fine lines of Virgil:-- + +'Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi + Prima fugit, &c.' + +yet he owned, and the pages of Boswell amply testify, that it was in the +latter period of his life that he had his happiest days. + +[879] _Macbeth_, Act ii. sc. 3. + +[880] In the third edition, published in 1773, he left out the words +_perhaps never_, and added the following paragraph:-- + +'It sometimes begins middle or final syllables in words compounded, as +_block-head_, or derived from the Latin, as _compre-hended_.' BOSWELL. +In the _Abridgment_, which was published some years earlier, after +_never_ is added 'except in compounded words.' + +[881] It was published in the _Gent. Mag_. for April, 1755 (xxv. 190), +just below the advertisement of the _Dictionary_. + +[882] In the original, 'Milton and Shakespeare.' + +[883] The number of the French Academy employed in settling their +language. BOSWELL. + +[884] The maximum reward offered by a bill passed in 1714 was £20,000 +for a method that determined the longitude at sea to half a degree of a +great circle, or thirty geographical miles. For less accuracy smaller +rewards were offered. _Ann. Reg_. viii. 114. In 1765 John Harrison +received £7,500 for his chronometer; he had previously been paid £2,500; +_ib_. 128. In this Act of Parliament 'the legislature never contemplated +the invention of a _method_, but only of the means of making existing +methods accurate.' _Penny Cyclo_. xiv. 139. An old sea-faring man wrote +to Swift that he had found out the longitude. The Dean replied 'that he +never knew but two projectors, one of whom ruined himself and his +family, and the other hanged himself; and desired him to desist lest one +or other might happen to him.' Swift's _Works_ (1803), xvii. 157. In +_She Stoops to Conquer_ (Act i. sc. 2), when Tony ends his directions to +the travellers by telling them,--'coming to the farmer's barn you are to +turn to the right, and then to the left, and then to the right about +again, till you find out the old mill;' Marlow exclaims: 'Zounds, man! +we could as soon find out the longitude.' + +[885] Joseph Baretti, a native of Piedmont, came to England in 1750 (see +Preface to his _Account of Italy_, p. ix). He died in May, 1789. In his +_Journey from London to Genoa_ (ii. 276), he says that his father was +one of the two architects of the King of Sardinia. Shortly after his +death a writer in the _Gent. Mag_. (Iix. 469, 570), who was believed to +be Vincent, Dean of Westminster, thus wrote of him:--'Though his +severity had created him enemies, his talents, conversation, and +integrity had conciliated the regard of many valuable friends and +acquaintance. His manners were apparently rough, but not unsocial. His +integrity was in every period of his distresses constant and +unimpeached. His wants he never made known but in the last extremity. He +and Johnson had been friends in distress. One evening, when they had +agreed to go to the tavern, a foreigner in the streets, by a specious +tale of distress, emptied the Doctor's purse of the last half-guinea it +contained. When the reckoning came, what was his surprise upon his +recollecting that his purse was totally exhausted. Baretti had +fortunately enough to answer the demand, and has often declared that it +was impossible for him not to reverence a man, who could give away all +that he was worth, without recollecting his own distress.' See _post_, +Oct. 20, 1769. + +[886] See note by Mr. Warton, _ante_, p. 275. BOSWELL. + +[887] 'On Saturday the 12th, about twelve at night, died Mr. Zachariah +Williams, in his eighty-third year, after an illness of eight months, in +full possession of his mental faculties. He has been long known to +philosophers and seamen for his skill in magnetism, and his proposal to +ascertain the longitude by a peculiar system of the variation of the +compass. He was a man of industry indefatigable, of conversation +inoffensive, patient of adversity and disease, eminently sober, +temperate, and pious; and worthy to have ended life with better +fortune.' BOSWELL. + +[888] Johnson's _Works_, v. 49. Malone, in a note on this passage, +says:--'Johnson appears to have been in this year in great pecuniary +distress, having been arrested for debt; on which occasion Richardson +became his surety.' He refers to the following letter in the _Richardson +Corres_, v. 285:-- + +'To MR. RICHARDSON. + +'Tuesday, Feb. 19, 1756. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'I return you my sincerest thanks for the favour which you were pleased +to do me two nights ago. Be pleased to accept of this little book, which +is all that I have published this winter. The inflammation is come again +into my eye, so that I can write very little. I am, Sir, your most +obliged and most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +The 'little book' is not (as Mr. Croker suggests) Williams's +_Longitude_, for it was published in Jan. 1755 (_Gent. Mag_. xxv. 47); +but the _Abridgment of the Dictionary_, which was advertised in the +_Gent. Mag_. for Jan. 1756. Murphy says (_Life_, p. 86), that he has +before him a letter in Johnson's handwriting, which shows the distress +of the man who had written _The Rambler_, and finished the great work of +his _Dictionary_. It is directed to Mr. Richardson, and is as follows:-- + +'SIR,--I am obliged to entreat your assistance. I am now under an arrest +for five pounds eighteen shillings. Mr. Strahan, from whom I should have +received the necessary help in this case, is not at home, and I am +afraid of not finding Mr. Millar. If you will be so good as to send me +this sum, I will very gratefully repay you, and add it to all former +obligations. I am, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, + +'SAMUEL JOHNSON. + + 'Gough-Square, + 16 March.' + +In the margin of this letter there is a memorandum in these +words:--'March 16, 1756. Sent six guineas. Witness, Win. Richardson.' In +the _European Mag_., vii. 54, there is the following anecdote recorded, +for which Steevens most likely was the authority:--'I remember writing +to Richardson' said Johnson, 'from a spunging-house; and was so sure of +my deliverance through his kindness and liberality, that before his +reply was brought I knew I could afford to joke with the rascal who had +me in custody, and did so over a pint of adulterated wine, for which at +that instant I had no money to pay.' It is very likely that this +anecdote has no other foundation than Johnson's second letter to +Richardson, which is dated, not from a spunging-house, but from his own +residence. What kind of fate awaited a man who was thrown into prison +for debt is shown by the following passage in Wesley's _Journal_ (ii. +267), dated Feb. 3, 1753:--'I visited one in the Marshalsea prison, a +nursery of all manner of wickedness. O shame to man, that there should +be such a place, such a picture of hell upon earth!' A few days later he +writes:--'I visited as many more as I could. I found some in their cells +under ground; others in their garrets, half starved both with cold and +hunger, added to weakness and pain.' + +[889] In a Debate on the Copyright Bill on May 16, 1774, Governor +Johnstone said:--'It had been urged that Dr. Johnson had received an +after gratification from the booksellers who employed him to compile his +_Dictionary_. He had in his hand a letter from Dr. Johnson, which he +read, in which the doctor denied the assertion, but declared that his +employers fulfilled their bargain with him, and that he was satisfied.' +_Parl. Hist_. xvii. 1105. + +[890] He more than once attacked them. Thus in _An Appeal to the +Public_, which he wrote for the _Gent. Mag_. in 1739 (_Works_, v. 348), +he said:--'Nothing is more criminal in the opinion of many of them, than +for an author to enjoy more advantage from his own works than they are +disposed to allow him. This is a principle so well established among +them, that we can produce some who threatened printers with their +highest displeasure, for having dared to print books for those that +wrote them.' In the _Life of Savage_ (_ib_. viii. 132), written in 1744, +he writes of the 'avarice, by which the booksellers are frequently +incited to oppress that genius by which they are supported.' In the +_Life of Dryden_ (_ib_. vii. 299), written in 1779, he speaks of an +improvement. 'The general conduct of traders was much less liberal in +those times than in our own; their views were narrower, and their +manners grosser. To the mercantile ruggedness of that race the delicacy +of the poet was sometimes exposed.' + +[891] _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 40 [25]. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote to +Miss Boothby on Dec. 30, 1755:--'If I turn my thoughts upon myself, what +do I perceive but a poor helpless being, reduced by a blast of wind to +weakness and misery?... Mr. Fitzherbert sent to-day to offer me some +wine; the people about me say I ought to accept it. I shall therefore be +obliged to him if he will send me a bottle.' _Pioszi Letters_, ii. 393. + +[892] _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 27. BOSWELL + +[893] See _post_, April 6, 1775. Kit Smart, once a Fellow of Pembroke +Hall, Cambridge, ended his life in the King's Bench Prison; 'where he +had owed to a small subscription, of which Dr. Burney was at the head, a +miserable pittance beyond the prison allowance. In his latest letter to +Dr. Burney, he passionately pleaded for a fellow-sufferer, "whom I +myself," he impressively adds, "have already assisted according to my +willing poverty." In another letter to the same friend he said:--"I +bless God for your good nature, which please to take for a receipt."' +_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 205, 280. + +[894] In this Essay Johnson writes (_Works_, v. 315):--'I think there is +room to question whether a great part of mankind has yet been informed +that life is sustained by the fruits of the earth. I was once, indeed, +provoked to ask a lady of great eminence for genius, "Whether she knew +of what bread is made."' + +[895] In _The Universal Visiter_ this Essay is entitled, 'Reflections on +the Present State of Literature;' and in Johnson's _Works_, v. 355, 'A +Project for the Employment of Authors.' The whole world, he says, is +turning author. Their number is so large that employment must be found +for them. 'There are some reasons for which they may seem particularly +qualified for a military life. They are used to suffer want of every +kind; they are accustomed to obey the word of command from their patrons +and their booksellers; they have always passed a life of hazard and +adventure, uncertain what may be their state on the next day.... There +are some whom long depression under supercilious patrons has so humbled +and crushed, that they will never have steadiness to keep their ranks. +But for these men there may be found fifes and drums, and they will be +well enough pleased to inflame others to battle, if they are not obliged +to fight themselves.' + +[896] He added it also to his _Life of Pope_. + +[897] 'This employment,' wrote Murphy (_Life_, p. 88), 'engrossed but +little of Johnson's time. He resigned himself to indolence, took no +exercise, rose about two, and then received the visits of his friends. +Authors long since forgotten waited on him as their oracle, and he gave +responses in the chair of criticism. He listened to the complaints, the +schemes, and the hopes and fears of a crowd of inferior writers, "who," +he said, in the words of Roger Ascham, "lived, men knew not how, and +died obscure, men marked not when." He believed, that he could give a +better history of Grub Street than any man living. His house was filled +with a succession of visitors till four or five in the evening. During +the whole time he presided at his tea-table.' In _The Rambler_, No. 145, +Johnson takes the part of these inferior writers:--'a race of beings +equally obscure and equally indigent, who, because their usefulness is +less obvious to vulgar apprehensions, live unrewarded and die unpitied, +and who have been long exposed to insult without a defender, and to +censure without an apologist.' + +[898] In this essay (_Works_, vi. 129) Johnson describes Canada as a +'region of desolate sterility,' 'a cold, uncomfortable, uninviting +region, from which nothing but furs and fish were to be had.' + +[899] The bill of 1756 that he considers passed through the Commons but +was rejected by the Lords. It is curious as showing the comparative +population of the different counties, Devonshire was to furnish 3200 +men--twice as many as Lancashire. Essex, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk were +each to furnish 1920 men; Lancashire, Surrey, Sussex, and Wiltshire +1600: Durham and Bedfordshire 800. From the three Ridings of Yorkshire +4800 were to be raised. The men were to be exercised every Sunday before +and after service. _The Literary Magazine_, p. 58. + +[900] In this paper are found the forcible words, 'The desperate remedy +of desperate distress,' which have been used since by orators. _Ib_. +p. 121. + +[901] Johnson considers here the war in America between the English and +French, and shows a strong feeling for the natives who had been wronged +by both nations. 'Such is the contest that no honest man can heartily +wish success to either party.... The American dispute between the French +and us is only the quarrel of two robbers for the spoils of a +passenger.' The French had this in their favour, that they had treated +the natives better than we. 'The favour of the Indians which they enjoy +with very few exceptions among all the nations of the northern continent +we ought to consider with other thoughts; this favour we might have +enjoyed, if we had been careful to deserve it.' _Works_, vi. 114, 122. + +[902] These Memoirs end with the year 1745. Johnson had intended to +continue them, for he writes:--'We shall here suspend our narrative.' +_Ib_. vi. 474. + +[903] See _ante_, p. 221. + +[904] The sentence continues:--'and produce heirs to the father's +habiliments.' _Ib_. vi. 436. Another instance may be adduced of his +_Brownism_ in the following line:--'The war continued in an +equilibration by alternate losses and advantages.' _Ib_ 473. + +[905] In a letter from the Secretary of the Tall Club in _The Guardian_, +No. 108. 'If the fair sex look upon us with an eye of favour, we shall +make some attempts to lengthen out the human figure, and restore it to +its ancient procerity.' + +[906] See _post_, March 23, 1783. + +[907] 'As power is the constant and unavoidable consequence of learning, +there is no reason to doubt that the time is approaching when the +Americans shall in their turn have some influence on the affairs of +mankind, for literature apparently gains ground among them. A library is +established in Carolina and some great electrical discoveries were made +at Philadelphia...The fear that the American colonies will break off +their dependence on England I have always thought chimerical and vain +... They must be dependent, and if they forsake us, or be forsaken by +us, must fall into the hands of France.' _Literary Magazine_, pp. +293, 299. + +[908] Johnson, I have no doubt, wrote the _Review of A True Account of +Lisbon since the Earthquake_, in which it is stated that the destruction +was grossly exaggerated. After quoting the writer at length, he +concludes:--'Such then is the actual, real situation of _that place +which once was_ Lisbon, and has been since gazetically and +pamphletically quite destroyed, consumed, annihilated! Now, upon +comparing this simple narration of things and facts with the false and +absurd accounts which have rather insulted and imposed upon us than +informed us, who but must see the enormous disproportion?... +Exaggeration and the absurdities ever faithfully attached to it are +inseparable attitudes of the ignorant, the empty, and the affected. +Hence those eloquent tropes so familiar in every conversation, +_monstrously pretty, vastly little_; ... hence your _eminent shoe-maker, +farriers, and undertakers_.... It is to the same muddy source we owe the +many falsehoods and absurdities we have been pestered with concerning +Lisbon. Thence your extravagantly sublime figures: _Lisbon is no more; +can be seen no more_, etc., ... with all the other prodigal effusions of +bombast beyond that stretch of time or temper to enumerate. _Ib_. p. 22. +See _post_, under March 30, 1778. + +[909] In the original _undigested_. + +[910] Johnson's _Works_, vi. 113. + +[911] In the spring of 1784, after the king had taken advantage of Fox's +India Bill to dismiss the Coalition Ministry. See _post_, March +28, 1784. + +[912] In Ireland there was no act to limit the duration of parliament. +One parliament sat through the whole reign of George II--thirty-three +years. Dr. Lucas, a Dublin physician, in attacking other grievances, +attacked also this. In 1749 he would have been elected member for +Dublin, had he not, on a charge of seditious writings, been committed by +the House of Commons to prison. He was to be confined, he was told, 'in +the common hall of the prison among the felons.' He fled to England, +which was all that the government wanted, and he practised as a +physician in London. In 1761 he was restored to the liberties of the +City of Dublin and was also elected one of its members. Hardy's _Lord +Charlemont_, i. 249, 299; and _Gent. Mag_., xx. 58 and xxxi. 236. + +[913] Boswell himself falls into this 'cant.' See _post_, Sept. 23, +1777. + +[914] Johnson's _Works_, vi. II. + +[915] _Ib_. p. 13. He vigorously attacks the style in which these +'Memoirs' are written. 'Sometimes,' he writes, 'the reader is suddenly +ravished with a sonorous sentence, of which, when the noise is past, the +meaning does not long remain.' _Ib_. p. 15. + +[916] The author of _Friendship in Death_. + +[917] In the _Lives of the Poets (Works, viii. 383) Johnson writes:--'Dr +Watts was one of the first authors that taught the Dissenters to court +attention by the graces of language. Whatever they had among them +before, whether of learning or acuteness, was commonly obscured and +blunted by coarseness and inelegance of style. He showed them that zeal +and purity might be expressed and enforced by polished diction.' + +[918] 'Such he [Dr. Watts] was as every Christian Church would rejoice +to have adopted.' _Ib_. p. 380. See also _post_, July 7, 1777, and +May 19, 1778. + +[919] Johnson's _Works_, vi. 79. + +[920] Mr. Hanway would have had the support of Johnson's father, who, as +his son writes, 'considered tea as very expensive, and discouraged my +mother from keeping company with the neighbours, and from paying visits +or receiving them. She lived to say, many years after, that if the time +were to pass again, she would not comply with such unsocial +injunctions.' _Account of Johnson's Early Life_, p. 18. The Methodists, +ten years earlier than Hanway, had declared war on tea. 'After talking +largely with both the men and women Leaders,' writes Wesley, 'we agreed +it would prevent great expense, as well of health as of time and of +money, if the poorer people of our society could be persuaded to leave +off drinking of tea.' Wesley's _Journal_, i. 526. Pepys, writing in +1660, says: 'I did send for a cup of tee, (a China drink) of which I +never had drank before.' Pepys' _Diary_, i. 137. Horace Walpole +(_Letters_, i. 224) writing in 1743 says:--'They have talked of a new +duty on tea, to be paid by every housekeeper for all the persons in +their families; but it will scarce be proposed. Tea is so universal, +that it would make a greater clamour than a duty on wine.' In October +1734 tea was sold in London at the following prices:--Ordinary Bohca 9s. +per lb. Fine Bohca 10s. to 12s. per lb. Pekoe 15s. per lb. Hyson 20s. to +25s. per lb. _Gent. Mag_. iv. 575. + +[921] Yet in his reply to Mr. Hanway he said (_Works_, vi. 33):--'I +allowed tea to be a barren superfluity, neither medicinal nor +nutritious, that neither supplied strength nor cheerfulness, neither +relieved weariness, nor exhilarated sorrow.' Cumberland writes +(_Memoirs_, i. 357):--'I remember when Sir Joshua Reynolds at my house +reminded Dr. Johnson that he had drank eleven cups, he replied: "Sir, I +did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of +tea?" And then laughing in perfect good humour he added:--"Sir, I should +have released the lady from any further trouble, if it had not been for +your remark; but you have reminded me that I want one of the dozen, and +I must request Mrs. Cumberland to round up my number."' + +[922] In this Review Johnson describes himself as 'a hardened and +shameless tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with +only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely +time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the +midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 21. +That 'he never felt the least inconvenience from it' may well be +doubted. His nights were almost always bad. In 1774 he recorded:--'I +could not drink this day either coffee or tea after dinner. I know not +when I missed before.' The next day he recorded:--'Last night my sleep +was remarkably quiet. I know not whether by fatigue in walking, or by +forbearance of tea.' _Diary of a Journey into North Wales_, Aug. 4. + +[923] See _post_, May, 1768. + +[924] + +'Losing, he wins, because his + name will be +Ennobled by defeat who durst + contend with me.' + +DRYDEN, Ovid, _Meta_., xiii. 19. + +[925] In Hanway's _Essay_ Johnson found much to praise. Hanway often +went to the root when he dealt with the evils of life. Thus he +writes:--'The introducing new habits of life is the most substantial +charity.' But he thus mingles sense and nonsense:--'Though tea and gin +have spread their baneful influence over this island and his Majesty's +other dominions, yet you may be well assured that the Governors of the +Foundling Hospital will exert their utmost skill and vigilance to +prevent the children under their care from being poisoned, or enervated, +by one or the other.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 26, 28. + +[926] 'Et pourquoi tuer cet amiral? C'est, lui dit-on, parce qu'il n'a +pas fait tuer assez de monde; il a livré un combat à un amiral français, +et on a trouvé qu'il n'était pas assez près de lui. Mais, dit Candide, +l'amiral français était aussi loin de l'amiral anglais que celui-ci +l'était de l'autre. Cela est incontestable, lui répliquat-on; mais dans +ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour +encourager les autres.' _Candide_, ch. xxiii. + +[927] See _post_, June 3, 1781, when Boswell went to this church. + +[928] Johnson reprinted this Review in a small volume by itself. See +Johnson's _Works_, vi. 47, note. + +[929] + +'I have ventured, +Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, +This many summers in a sea of glory, +But far beyond my depth.' + +Henry VIII, Act iii. sc. 2. + +[930] _Musical Travels through England_, by Joel Collier [not Collyer], +Organist, 1774. This book was written in ridicule of Dr. Burney's +_Travels_, who, says his daughter, 'was much hurt on its first +appearance.' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, i. 259. + +[931] See _ante_, p. 223. + +[932] Some time after Dr. Johnson's death there appeared in the +newspapers and magazines an illiberal and petulant attack upon him, in +the form of an Epitaph, under the name of Mr. Soame Jenyns, very +unworthy of that gentleman, who had quietly submitted to the critical +lash while Johnson lived. It assumed, as characteristicks of him, all +the vulgar circumstances of abuse which had circulated amongst the +ignorant. It was an unbecoming indulgence of puny resentment, at a time +when he himself was at a very advanced age, and had a near prospect of +descending to the grave. I was truly sorry for it; for he was then +become an avowed, and (as my Lord Bishop of London, who had a serious +conversation with him on the subject, assures me) a sincere Christian. +He could not expect that Johnson's numerous friends would patiently bear +to have the memory of their master stigmatized by no mean pen, but that, +at least, one would be found to retort. Accordingly, this unjust and +sarcastick Epitaph was met in the same publick field by an answer, in +terms by no means soft, and such as wanton provocation only +could justify: + +'EPITAPH, + +'_Prepared for a creature_ not quite dead _yet_. + +'Here lies a little ugly nauseous elf, +Who judging only from its wretched self, +Feebly attempted, petulant and vain, +The "Origin of Evil" to explain. +A mighty Genius at this elf displeas'd, +With a strong critick grasp the urchin squeez'd. +For thirty years its coward spleen it kept, +Till in the duat the mighty Genius slept; +Then stunk and fretted in expiring snuff, +And blink'd at JOHNSON with its last poor puff.' + +BOSWELL. + +The epitaph is very likely Boswell's own. For Jenyns's conversion see +_post_, April 12 and 15, 1778. + +[933] Mr. John Payne, afterwards chief accountant of the Bank, one of +the four surviving members of the Ivy Lane Club who dined together in +1783. See Hawkins's _Johnson_, pp. 220, 563; and _post_, December, 1783. + +[934] See _post_, under March 19, 1776. + +[935] 'He said, "I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is +very useful in life; it generates kindness and consolidates society."' +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 21, 1773. + +[936] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3d edit. p. 48. [Aug. 19.] +BOSWELL. + +[937] Johnson's _Works_, p. 435. + +[938] He was paid at the rate of a little over twopence a line. For this +Introduction see _Ib_. 206. + +[939] See _post_, Oct. 26, 1769. + +[940] See _post_, April 5, 1775. + +[941] In 1740 he set apart the yearly sum of £100 to be distributed, by +way of premium, to the authors of the best inventions, &c., in Ireland. +Chalmers's _Biog. Dict_. + +[942] _Boulter's Monument. A Panegyrical Poem, sacred to the memory of +that great and excellent prelate and patriot, the Most Reverend Dr. Hugh +Boulter; Late Lord-Archbishop of Ardmagh, and Primate of All Ireland_. +Dublin, 1745. Such lines as the following might well have been blotted, +but of them the poem is chiefly formed:-- + +'My peaceful song in lays instructive paints +The first of mitred peers and Britain's saints.' p. 2. +'Ha! mark! what gleam is that which paints the air? +The blue serene expands! Is Boulter there?' p. 88. + +The poet addresses Boulter's successor Hoadley, who he says, + +'Shall equal him; while, like Elisha, you +Enjoy his spirit, and his mantle too.' p. 89. + +A note to _mantle_ says 'Alluding to the metropolitan pallium.' + +Boulter is the bishop in Pope's lines, (_Prologue to the Satires_, 1. +99):-- + +'Does not one table Bavius still admit? + +'Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit?' + +Pattison's _Pope's Satires_, p. 107. In the _Life of Addison_, Johnson +mentioning Dr. Madden adds:--'a name which Ireland ought to honour.' +Johnson's _Works_, vii. 455. + +[943] See _ante_, p. 175. Hawkins writes (_Life_, p. 363):--'I +congratulated him length, on his being now engaged in a work that suited +his genius. His answer was:--"I look upon this as I did upon the +_Dictionary_; it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or +desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to +writing that I know of."' + +[944] They have been reprinted by Mr. Malone, in the Preface to his +edition of _Shakspeare_. BOSWELL. + +[945] At Christmas, 1757, he said that he should publish about March, +1758 (_post_, Dec. 24, 1757). When March came he said that he should +publish before summer (_post_, March 1, 1758). + +[946] In what Johnson says of Pope's slow progress in translating the +_Iliad_, he had very likely his own case in view. 'Indolence, +interruption, business, and pleasure all take their turns of +retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that +can, and ten thousand that cannot be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and +multifarious performance was ever effected within the term originally +fixed in the undertaker's mind. He that runs against time has an +antagonist not subject to casualties.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 255. In +Prior's _Goldsmith_ (i. 238) we have the following extracts from letters +written by Grainger (_post_, March 21, 1776) to Dr. Percy:--'June 27, +1758. I have several times called on Johnson to pay him part of your +subscription [for his edition of _Shakespeare_]. I say, part, because he +never thinks of working if he has a couple of guineas in his pocket; but +if you notwithstanding order me, the whole shall be given him at once.' +'July 20, 1758. As to his _Shakespeare, movet sed non promovet_. I shall +feed him occasionally with guineas.' + +[947] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 440) says that 'Reynolds and some other of his +friends, who were more concerned for his reputation than himself seemed +to be, contrived to entangle him by a wager, or some other pecuniary +engagement, to perform his task by a certain time.' Just as Johnson was +oppressed by the engagement that he had made to edit _Shakespeare_, so +was Cowper by his engagement to edit _Milton_. 'The consciousness that +there is so much to do and nothing done is a burthen I am not able to +bear. _Milton_ especially is my grievance, and I might almost as well be +haunted by his ghost, as goaded with such continual reproaches for +neglecting him.' Southey's _Cowper_, vii. 163. + +[948] From _The Ghost_, Bk. iii. 1. 801. Boswell makes two slight errors +in quoting: 'You cash' should be 'their cash; and 'you know' should be +'we know.' + +[949] See _post_, April 17, 1778. + +[950] Mrs. Thrale writing to him in 1777, says:--'You would rather be +sick in London than well in the country.' _Piozzi Letters_. i. 394. Yet +Johnson, when he could afford to travel, spent far more time in the +country than is commonly thought. Moreover a great part of each summer +from 1766 to 1782 inclusive he spent at Streatham. + +[951] The motto to this number + +'Steriles nec legit arenas, +Ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere verum.' + +(Lucan). + +Johnson has thus translated:-- + +'Canst thou believe the vast eternal mind +Was e'er to Syrts and Libyan sands confin'd? +That he would choose this waste, this barren ground, +To teach the thin inhabitants around, +And leave his truth in wilds and deserts drown'd?' + +[952] It was added to the January number of 1758, but it was dropped in +the following numbers. + +[953] According to the note in the _Gent. Mag_. the speech was delivered +'at a certain respectable talking society.' The chairman of the meeting +is addressed as Mr. President. The speech is vigorously written and is, +I have no doubt, by Johnson. 'It is fit,' the speaker says, 'that those +whom for the future we shall employ and pay may know they are the +servants of a people that _expect duty for their money_. It is said an +address expresses some distrust of the king, or may tend to disturb his +quiet. An English king, Mr. President, has no great right to quiet when +his people are in misery.' + +[954] See _post_, May 19, 1777. + +[955] See _post_, March 21, 1772. + +[956] 'I have often observed with wonder, that we should know less of +Ireland than of any other country in Europe.' Temple's _Works_, iii. 82. + +[957] The celebrated oratour, Mr. Flood has shewn himself to be of Dr. +Johnson's opinion; having by his will bequeathed his estate, after the +death of his wife Lady Frances, to the University of Dublin; 'desiring +that immediately after the said estate shall come into their possession, +they shall appoint two professors, one for the study of the native Erse +or Irish language, and the other for the study of Irish antiquities and +Irish history, and for the study of any other European language +illustrative of, or auxiliary to, the study of Irish antiquities or +Irish history; and that they shall give yearly two liberal premiums for +two compositions, one in verse, and the other in prose, in the Irish +language.' BOSWELL. + +[958] Dr. T. Campbell records in his _Diary of a Visit to England_ (p. +62), that at the dinner at Messieurs Dilly's (_post_, April 5, 1775) he +'ventured to say that the first professors of Oxford, Paris, &c., were +Irish. "Sir," says Johnson, "I believe there is something in what you +say, and I am content with it, since they are not Scotch."' + +[959] 'On Mr. Thrale's attack of apoplexy in 1779, Johnson wrote to Mrs. +Thrale:--'I remember Dr. Marsigli, an Italian physician, whose seizure +was more violent than Mr. Thrale's, for he fell down helpless, but his +case was not considered as of much danger, and he went safe home, and is +now a professor at Padua.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 48. + +[960] 'Now, or late, Vice-Chancellor.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. He was +Vice-Chancellor when Johnson's degree was conferred (_ante_, p. 282), +but his term of office had now come to an end. + +[961] 'Mr. Warton was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in the +preceding year.' WARTON.-BOSWELL. + +[962] 'Miss Jones lived at Oxford, and was often of our parties. She was +a very ingenious poetess, and published a volume of poems; and, on the +whole, was a most sensible, agreeable, and amiable woman. She was a +sister to the Reverend River Jones, Chanter of Christ Church Cathedral +at Oxford, and Johnson used to call her the _Chantress_. I have heard +him often address her in this passage from _Il Penseroso_: + +"Thee, Chantress, oft the woods among I woo," etc. + +She died unmarried.' WHARTON + +[963] Tom. iii. p. 482. BOSWELL. + +[964] Of _Shakspeare_. BOSWELL. + +[965] This letter is misdated. It was written in Jan. 1759, and not in +1758. Johnson says that he is forty-nine. In Jan. 1758 he was +forty-eight. He mentions the performance of _Cleane_, which was at the +end of 1758; and he says that 'Murphy is to have his _Orphan of China_ +acted next month.' It was acted in the spring of 1759. + +[966] _Juvenal_, Sat. iii. 1. + +'Though grief and fondness in my breast rebel, +When injured Thales bids the town farewell, +Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend, +I praise the hermit, but regret the friend; +Resolved at length from vice and London far +To breathe in distant fields a purer air, +And fixed on Cambria's solitary shore +Give to St. David one true Briton more.' + +Johnson's _London_, l. 1. + +[967] Mr. Garrick. BOSWELL. + +[968] Mr. Dodsley, the Authour of _Cleone_. BOSWELL. Garrick, according +to Davies, had rejected Dodsley's _Cleone_, 'and had termed it a cruel, +bloody, and unnatural play.' Davies's _Garrick_, i. 223. Johnson himself +said of it:--'I am afraid there is more blood than brains.' _Post_, +1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_. The night it was brought out at +Covent Garden, Garrick appeared for the first time as Marplot in the +_Busy Body_ at Drury Lane. The next morning he wrote to congratulate +Dodsley on his success, and asked him at the same time to let him know +how he could support his interest without absolutely giving up his own. +To this Dodsley returned a cold reply. Garrick wrote back as follows:-- + +'Master Robert Dodsley, + +When I first read your peevish answer to my well-meant proposal to you, +I was much disturbed at it--but when I considered, that some minds +cannot bear the smallest portion of success, I most sincerely pitied +you; and when I found in the same letter, that you were graciously +pleased to dismiss me from your acquaintance, I could not but confess so +apparent an obligation, and am with due acknowledgements, + +Master Robert Dodsley, + +Your most obliged + +David Garrick.' + +Garrick _Corres_., i. 80 (where the letters that passed are wrongly +dated 1757). Mrs. Bellamy in her _Life_ (iii. 109) says that on the +evening of the performance she was provoked by something that Dodsley +said, 'which,' she continues, 'made me answer that good man with a +petulance which afterwards gave me uneasiness. I told him that I had a +reputation to lose as an actress; but, as for his piece, Mr. Garrick had +anticipated the damnation of it publicly, the preceding evening, at the +Bedford Coffee-house, where he had declared that it could not pass +muster, as it was the very worst piece ever exhibited.' Shenstone +(_Works_, iii. 288) writing five weeks after the play was brought out, +says:--'Dodsley is now going to print his fourth edition. He sold 2000 +of his first edition the very first day he published it.' The price was +eighteen-pence. + +[969] Mrs. Bellamy (_Life_, iii. 108) says that Johnson was present at +the last rehearsal. 'When I came to repeat, "Thou shalt not murder," Dr. +Johnson caught me by the arm, and that somewhat too briskly, saying, at +the same time, "It is a commandment, and must be spoken, Thou shalt +_not_ murder." As I had not then the honour of knowing personally that +great genius, I was not a little displeased at his inforcing his +instructions with so much vehemence.' The next night she heard, she +says, amidst the general applause, 'the same voice which had instructed +me in the commandment, exclaim aloud from the pit, "I will write a copy +of verses upon her myself." I knew that my success was insured.' See +_post_, May 11, 1783. + +[970] Dodsley had published his _London_ and his _Vanity of Human +Wishes_ (_ante_, pp. 124, 193), and had had a large share in the +_Dictionary_, (_ante_, p. 183). + +[971] It is to this that Churchill refers in the following lines:-- + +'Let them [the Muses] with Glover o'er Medea doze; +Let them with Dodsley wail Cleone's woes, +Whilst he, fine feeling creature, all in tears, +Melts as they melt, and weeps with weeping Peers.' + +_The Journey_. _Poems_, ii. 328. + +[972] See _post_ p. 350, note. + +[973] Mr. Samuel Richardson, authour of _Clarissa_. BOSWELL. + +[974] In 1753 when in Devonshire he charged five guineas a head +(Taylor's _Reynolds_, i. 89); shortly afterwards, when he removed to +London, twelve guineas (_ib_. p. 101); in 1764, thirty guineas; for a +whole length 150 guineas (_ib_. p. 224). Northcote writes that 'he +sometimes has lamented the being interrupted in his work by idle +visitors, saying, "those persons do not consider that my time is worth +to me five guineas an hour."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 83. + +[975] 'Miss Reynolds at first amused herself by painting miniature +portraits, and in that part of the art was particularly successful. In +her attempts at oil-painting, however, she did not succeed, which made +Reynolds say jestingly, that her pictures in that way made other people +laugh and him cry; and as he did not approve of her painting in oil, she +generally did it by stealth.' _Ib_. ii. 160. + +[976] Murphy was far from happy. The play was not produced till April; +by the date of Johnson's letter, he had not by any means reached the end +of what he calls 'the first, and indeed, the last, disagreeable +controversy that he ever had with Mr. Garrick.' Murphy's _Garrick_, +p. 213. + +[977] This letter was an answer to one in which was enclosed a draft for +the payment of some subscriptions to his _Shakspeare_. BOSWELL. + +[978] In the Preface he says:--(_Works_, v. 52) 'I have not passed over +with affected superiority what is equally difficult to the reader and to +myself, but where I could not instruct him, have owned my ignorance.' + +[979] Northcote gives the following account of this same garret in +describing how Reynolds introduced Roubiliac to Johnson. 'Johnson +received him with much civility, and took them up into a garret, which +he considered as his library; where, besides his books, all covered with +dust, there was an old crazy deal table, and a still worse and older +elbow chair, having only three legs. In this chair Johnson seated +himself, after having, with considerable dexterity and evident practice, +first drawn it up against the wall, which served to support it on that +side on which the leg was deficient.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 75. +Miss Reynolds improves on the account. She says that 'before Johnson had +the pension he literally dressed like a beggar; and, from what I have +been told, he as literally lived as such; at least as to common +conveniences in his apartments, wanting even a chair to sit on, +particularly in his study, where a gentleman who frequently visited him, +whilst writing his _Idlers_, constantly found him at his desk, sitting +on one with three legs; and on rising from it, he remarked that Dr. +Johnson never forgot its defect, but would either hold it in his hand, +or place it with great composure against some support, taking no notice +of its imperfection to his visitor. It was remarkable in Johnson, that +no external circumstances ever prompted him to make any apology, or to +seem even sensible of their existence.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 832. +There can be little question that she is describing the same room--a +room in a house in which Miss Williams was lodged, and most likely Mr. +Levet, and in which Mr. Burney dined; and in which certainly there must +have been chairs. Yet Mr. Carlyle, misled by her account, says:--'In his +apartments, at one time, there were unfortunately no chairs.' Carlyle's +_Miscellanies_, ed. 1872, iv. 127. + +[980] In his _Life of Pope_ (_Works_, viii. 272) Johnson calls Theobald +'a man of heavy diligence, with very slender powers.' In the Preface to +Shakspeare he admits that 'what little he did was commonly right.' _Ib_. +v. 137. The Editors of the _Cambridge Shakespeare_ on the other hand +say:--'Theobald, as an Editor, is incomparably superior to his +predecessors, and to his immediate successor Warburton, although the +latter had the advantage of working on his materials. Many most +brilliant emendations are due to him.' On Johnson's statement that +'Warburton would make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices,' they +write:--'From this judgment, whether they be compared as critics or +editors, we emphatically dissent.' _Cambridge Shakespeare_, i., xxxi., +xxxiv., note. Among Theobald's 'brilliant emendations' are 'a'babbled of +green fields' (_Henry V_, ii. 3), and 'lackeying the varying tide.' +(_Antony and Cleopatra_, i.4). + +[981] '_A familiar epistle_ [by Lord Bolingbroke] _to the most impudent +man living_, 1749.' _Brit. Mus. Catal_. + +[982] 'Mallet, by address or accident, perhaps by his dependence on the +prince [of Wales], found his way to Bolingbroke, a man whose pride and +petulance made his kindness difficult to gain or keep, and whom Mallet +was content to court by an act, which, I hope, was unwillingly +performed. When it was found that Pope had clandestinely printed an +unauthorised number of the pamphlet called _The Patriot King_, +Bolingbroke, in a fit of useless fury, resolved to blast his memory, and +employed Mallet (1749) as the executioner of his vengeance. Mallet had +not virtue, or had not spirit, to refuse the office; and was rewarded +not long after with the legacy of Lord Bolingbroke's works.' Johnson's +_Works_, viii. 467. See _ante_, p. 268, and Walpole's _Letters_, +ii. 159. + +[983] _A View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy in Four Letters to a +Friend_, 1754-5. + +[984] A paper under this name had been started seven years earlier. See +_Carter and Talbot Corres_., ii. 33. + +[985] In the two years in which Johnson wrote for this paper it saw many +changes. The first _Idler_ appeared in No. 2 of the _Universal Chronicle +or Weekly Gazette_, which was published not by Newbery, but by J. Payne. +On April 29, this paper took the title of _Payne's Universal Chronicle_, +etc. On Jan. 6, 1759, it resumed the old title and was published by R. +Stevens. On Jan. 5, 1760, the title was changed to _The Universal +Chronicle and Westminster Journal_, and it was published by W. Faden and +R. Stevens. On March 15, 1760, it was published by R. Stevens alone. The +paper consisted of eight pages. _The Idler_, which varied in length, +came first, and was printed in larger characters, much like a leading +article. The changes in title and ownership seem to show that in spite +of Johnson's contributions it was not a successful publication. + +[986] 'Those papers may be considered as a kind of syllabus of all +Reynolds's future discourses, and certainly occasioned him some thinking +in their composition. I have heard him say, that Johnson required them +from him on a sudden emergency, and on that account, he sat up the whole +night to complete them in time; and by it he was so much disordered, +that it produced a vertigo in his head.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 89, +Reynolds must have spoken of only one paper; as the three, appearing as +they did on Sept. 29, Oct. 20, and Nov. 10, could not have been required +at one time. + +[987] 'To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and +therefore every man endeavours with his utmost care to hide his poverty +from others, and his idleness from himself.' _The Idler_, No. 17. + +[988] Prayers and Meditations, p. 30 [36], BOSWELL. + +[989] In July, 1759. + +[990] This number was published a few days after his mother's death. It +is in the form of a letter, which is thus introduced:-'The following +letter relates to an affliction perhaps not necessary to be imparted to +the publick; but I could not persuade myself to suppress it, because I +think I know the sentiments to be sincere, and I feel no disposition to +provide for this day any other entertainment.' + +[991] In the table of contents the title of No. 58 is, 'Expectations of +pleasure frustrated.' In the original edition of _The Idler_ no titles +are given. In this paper he shews that 'nothing is more hopeless than a +scheme of merriment.' + +[992] In this paper he begins by considering, 'why the only thinking +being of this globe is doomed to think merely to be wretched, and to +pass his time from youth to age in fearing or in suffering calamities.' +He ends by asserting that 'of what virtue there is, misery produces far +the greater part.' + +[993] 'There are few things,' he writes, 'not purely evil, of which we +can say, without some emotion of uneasiness, _this is the last_.... The +secret horrour of the last is inseparable from a thinking being, whose +life is limited, and to whom death is dreadful.' + +[994] 'I asked him one day, why the _Idlers_ were published without +mottoes. He replied, that it was forborne the better to conceal himself, +and escape discovery. "But let us think of some now," said he, "for the +next edition. We can fit the two volumnes in two hours, can't we?" +Accordingly he recollected, and I wrote down these following (nine +mottoes) till come friend coming in, in about five minutes, put an end +to our further progress on the subject.' _Piossi Letters_, ii. 388. + +[995] See _post_, July 14 and 26, 1763, April 14, 1775, and Aug. 2, +1784, note for instances in which Johnson ridicules the notion that +weather and seasons have any necessary effect on man; also April 17, +1778. In the _Life of Milton_ (_Works_. vii. 102), he writes:--'this +dependence of the soul upon the seasons, those temporary and periodical +ebbs and flows of intellect, may, I suppose, justly be derided as the +fumes of vain imagination. _Sapiens dominabitur astro_. The author that +thinks himself weather-bound will find, with a little help from +hellebore, that he is only idle or exhausted. But while this notion has +possession of the head, it produces the inability with it supposes. Our +powers owe much of their energy to our hopes; _possunt quin posse +vidertur_.' Boswell records, in his _Hebrides_ (Aug. 16, 1773), that +when 'somebody talked of happy moments for composition,' Johnson +said:--'Nay, a man may write at any time, if he will set himself +_doggedly_ to it.' Reynolds, who Alas! avowed how much he had learnt +from Johnson (_ante_, p. 245), says much the same in his _Seventh +Discourse_: 'But when, in plain prose, we gravely talk of courting the +Muse in shady bowers; waiting the call and inspiration of Genius ... of +attending to times and seasons when the imagination shoots with the +greatest vigour, whether at the summer solstice or the vernal equinox +... when we talk such language or entertain such sentiments as these, we +generally rest contented with mere words, or at best entertain notions +not only groundless but pernicious.' Reynolds's _Works_, i. 150. On the +other hand, in 1773 Johnson recorded:--'Between Easter and Whitsuntide, +having always considered that time as propitious to study, I attempted +to learn the Low-Dutch language.' _Post_, under May 9, 1773. In _The +Rambler_, No. 80, he says:--'To the men of study and imagination the +winter is generally the chief time of labour. Gloom and silence produce +composure of mind and concentration of ideas.' In a letter to Mrs. +Thrale, written in 1775, he says:--'Most men have their bright and their +Cloudy days, at least they have days when they put their powers into +act, and days when they suffer them to repose.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. +265. In 1781 he wrote:--'I thought myself above assistance or +obstruction from the seasons; but find the autumnal blast sharp and +nipping, and the fading world an uncomfortable prospect.' _Ib_. ii. 220. +Again, in the last year of his life he wrote:--'The: weather, you know, +has not been balmy. I am now reduced to think, and am at least content +to talk, of the weather. Pride must have a fall.' _Post_, Aug. 2, 1784. + +[996] Addison's _Cato_, act i. sc. 4. + +[997] Johnson, reviewing the Duchess of Marlborough's attack on Queen +Mary, says (_Works_, vi. 8):--'This is a character so different from all +those that have been hitherto given of this celebrated princess, that +the reader stands in suspense, till he considers that ... it has +hitherto had this great advantage, that it has only been compared with +those of kings.' + +[998] Johnson had explained how it comes to pass that Englishmen talk so +commonly of the weather. He continues:--'Such is the reason of our +practice; and who shall treat it with contempt? Surely not the attendant +on a court, whose business is to watch the looks of a being weak and +foolish as himself, and whose vanity is to recount the names of men, who +might drop into nothing, and leave no vacuity.... The weather is a +nobler and more interesting subject; it is the present state of the +skies and of the earth, on which plenty and famine are suspended, on +which millions depend for the necessaries of life.' 'Garrick complained +that when he went to read before the court, not a look or a murmur +testified approbation; there was a profound stillness--every one only +watched to see what the king thought.' Hazlitt's _Conversations of +Northcote_, p. 262. + +[999] _The Idler_, No. 90. See _post_, April 3, 1773, where he declaims +against action in public speaking. + +[1000] He now and then repeats himself. Thus, in _The Idler_, No. 37, he +moralises on the story, how Socrates, passing through the fair at +Athens, cried out:--'How many things are here which I do not need!' +though he had already moralised on it in _the Adventurer_, Nos. 67, 119. + +[1001] No. 34. + +[1002] _Poems on Several Occasions_, by Thomas Blacklock, p. 179. See +_post_, Aug. 5, 1763, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773. + +[1003] 'Among the papers of Newbery, in the possession of Mr. Murray, is +the account rendered on the collection of _The Idler_ into two small +volumes, when the arrangement seems to have been that Johnson should +receive two-thirds of the profits. + +_The Idler_. + +'DR. £. s. d. +Paid for Advertising.. 20 0 6 +Printing two vols., 1,500 41 13 0 +Paper. . . . . . . 52 3 0 + * * * * * + £113 16 6 +Profit on the edition . 126 3 6 + * * * * * + £240 0 0 + * * * * * + 'CR. £. s. d. +1,500 Sets at 16£ per 100 240 0 0 + * * * * * +Dr. Johnson two-thirds 84 2 4 +Mr. Newbery one-third. 42 1 2 + * * * * * + £126 3 6 + * * * * * + +Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 204. + +If this account is correctly printed, the sale must have been slow. The +first edition (2 vols. 5s.) was published in Oct. 1761, (_Gent. Mag_. +xxxi. 479). Johnson is called Dr. in the account; but he was not made an +LL.D. till July 1765. Prior, in his _Life of Goldsmith_ (i. 459), +publishes an account between Goldsmith and Newbery in which the first +entry is:-- + + '1761. Oct. 14, 1 set of + _The Idler_. . . . . £0 50 0.' + +Johnson, as Newbery's papers show, a year later bought a copy of +Goldsmith's _Life of Nash_; _ib_. p. 405. + +[1004] See _ante_, p. 306. + +[1005] This paper may be found in Stockdale's supplemental volume of +Johnson's _Miscellaneous Pieces_. BOSWELL. Stockdale's supplemental +volumes--for there are two--are vols. xii. and xiii. of what is known as +'Hawkins's edition.' In this paper (_Works_, iv. 450) he represents in a +fable two vultures speculating on that mischievous being, man, 'who is +the only beast who kills that which he does not devour,' who at times is +seen to move in herds, while 'there is in every herd one that gives +directions to the rest, and seems to be more eminently delighted with a +wide carnage.' + +[1006] 'Receipts for _Shakespeare_.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[1007] 'Then of Lincoln College. Now Sir Robert Chambers, one of the +Judges in India.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[1008] Old Mr. Langton's niece. See _post,_ July 14, 1763. + +[1009] 'Mr. Langton.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[1010] Boswell records:--'Lady Di Beauclerk told me that Langton had +never been to see her since she came to Richmond, his head was so full +of the militia and Greek. "Why," said I, "Madam, he is of such a length +he is awkward and not easily moved." "But," said she, "if he had lain +himself at his length, his feet had been in London, and his head might +have been here _eodem die_."' _Boswelliana_, p. 297. + +[1011] 'Part of the impression of the _Shakespeare_, which Dr. Johnson +conducted alone, and published by subscription. This edition came out in +1765.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. + +[1012] Stockdale records (_Memoirs_, ii. 191), that after he had entered +on his charge as domestic tutor to Lord Craven's son, he called on +Johnson, who asked him how he liked his place. On his hesitating to +answer, he said: 'You must expect insolence.' He added that in his youth +he had entertained great expectations from a powerful family. "At +length," he said, "I found that their promises, and consequently my +expectations, vanished into air.... But, Sir, they would have treated me +much worse, if they had known that motives from which I paid my court to +them were purely selfish, and what opinion I had formed of them." He +added, that since he knew mankind, he had not, on any occasion, been the +sport of such delusion and that he had never been disappointed by anyone +but himself.' + +[1013] This, and some of the other letters to Langton, were not received +by Boswell till the first volume of the second edition had been carried +through the press. He gave them as a supplement to the second volume. +The date of this letter was there wrongly given as June 27, 1758. In the +third edition it was corrected. Nevertheless the letter was misplaced as +if the wrong date were the right one. Langton, as I have shewn (_ante_, +p. 247), subscribed the articles at Oxford on July 7, 1757. He must have +come into residence, as Johnson did (_ante_, p. 58), some little while +before this subscription. + +[1014] Major-General Alexander Dury, of the first regiment of +foot-guards, who fell in the gallant discharge of his duty, near St. +Cas, in the well-known unfortunate expedition against France, in 1758. +His lady and Mr. Langton's mother was sisters. He left an only son, +Lieutenant-Colonel Dury, who has a company in the same regiment. +BOSWELL. The expedition had been sent against St. Malo early in +September. Failing in the attempt, the land forces retreated to St. Cas, +where, while embarking, they were attacked by the French. About 400 of +our soldiers were made prisoners, and 600 killed and wounded. _Ann. +Reg_.i.68. + +[1015] See _post_, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell's _Collectanea_. + +[1016] Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 365. BOSWELL. 'In the beginning +of the year 1759 an event happened for which it might be imagined he was +well prepared, the death of his mother, who had attained the age of +ninety; but he, whose mind had acquired no firmness by the contemplation +of mortality, was as little able to sustain the shock, as he would have +been had this loss befallen him in his nonage.' + +[1017] We may apply to Johnson in his behaviour to his mother what he +said of Pope in his behaviour to his parents:--'Whatever was his pride, +to them he was obedient; and whatever was his irritability, to them he +was gentle. Life has among its soothing and quiet comforts few things +better to give than such a son.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 281. In _The +Idler_ of January 27, 1759 (No. 41), Johnson shews his grief for his +loss. 'The last year, the last day must come. It has come, and is past. +The life which made my own life pleasant is at an end, and the gates of +death are shut upon my prospects.... Such is the condition of our +present existence that life must one time lose its associations, and +every inhabitant of the earth must walk downward to the grave alone and +unregarded, without any partner of his joy or grief, without any +interested witness of his misfortunes or success. Misfortune, indeed, he +may yet feel; for where is the bottom of the misery of man? But what is +success to him that has none to enjoy it? Happiness is not found in +self-contemplation; it is perceived only when it is reflected from +another.' In _Rasselas_ (ch. xlv.) he makes a sage say with a +sigh:--'Praise is to have an old man an empty sound. I have neither +mother to be delighted with the reputation of her son, nor wife to +partake the honours of her husband.' He here says once more what he had +already said in his _Letter to Lord Chesterfield_ (_ante_, p. 261), and +in the _Preface to the Dictionary_ (_ante_, p. 297). + +[1018] Writing to his Birmingham friend, Mr. Hector, on Oct. 7, 1756, he +said:--'I have been thinking every month of coming down into the +country, but every month has brought its hinderances. From that kind of +melancholy indisposition which I had when we lived together at +Birmingham I have never been free, but have always had it operating +against my health and my life with more or less violence. I hope however +to see all my friends, all that are remaining, in no very long time.' +_Notes and Queries_, 6th S. iii. 301. No doubt his constant poverty and +the need that he was under of making 'provision for the day that was +passing over him' had had much to do in keeping him from a journey to +Lichfield. A passage in one of his letters shews that fourteen years +later the stage-coach took twenty-six hours in going from London to +Lichfield. (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 55.) The return journey was very +uncertain; for 'our carriages,' he wrote, 'are only such as pass through +the place sometimes full and sometimes vacant.' A traveller had to watch +for a place (_ib_. p. 51). As measured by time London was, in 1772, one +hour farther from Lichfield than it now is from Marseilles. It is +strange, when we consider the long separation between Johnson and his +mother, that in _Rasselas_, written just after her death, he makes Imlac +say:-'There is such communication [in Europe] between distant places, +that one friend can hardly be said to be absent from another.' +_Rasselas_, chap, xi. His step-daughter, Miss Porter, though for many +years she was well off, had never been to London. _Post_, March 23, +1776. Nay, according to Horace Walpole (_Memoirs of the Reign of George +III_, iv. 327), 'George III. had never seen the sea, nor ever been +thirty miles from London at the age of thirty-four.' + +[1019] For the letters written at this time by Johnson to his mother and +Miss Porter, see Appendix B. + +[1020] _Rasselas_ was published in two volumes, duodecimo, and was sold +for five shillings. It was reviewed in the _Gent. Mag_. for April, and +was no doubt published in that month. In a letter to Miss Porter dated +March 23, 1759 (See Appendix), Johnson says:--'I am going to publish a +little story-book, which I will send you when it is out.' I may here +remark that the _Gent. Mag_. was published at the end of the month, or +even later. Thus the number for April, 1759, contains news as late as +April 30. The name _Rasselas_ Johnson got from Lobo's _Voyage to +Abyssinia_. On p. 102 of that book he mentions 'Rassela Christos, +Lieutenant-General to _Abysinia; Sultan Segued.' On p. 262 he explains +the meaning of the first part of the word:--'There is now a +Generalissimo established under the title of _Ras_, or _Chief_.' The +title still exists. Colonel Gordon mentions Ras Arya and Ras Aloula. The +Rev. W. West, in his _Introduction to Rasselas_, p. xxxi (Sampson Low +and Co.), says:--'The word _Ras_, which is common to the Amharic, +Arabic, and Hebrew tongues, signifies a _head_, and hence a prince, +chief, or captain.... Sela Christos means either "Picture of Christ," or +"For the sake of Christ."' + +[1021] Hawkins's Johnson, p. 367. + +[1022] See _post_, June 2, 1781. Finding it then accidentally in a +chaise with Mr. Boswell, he read it eagerly. This was doubtless long +after his declaration to Sir Joshua Reynolds. MALONE. + +[1023] Baretti told Malone that 'Johnson insisted on part of the money +being paid immediately, and accordingly received £70. Any other person +with the degree of reputation he then possessed would have got £400 for +that work, but he never understood the art of making the most of his +productions.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 160. Some of the other circumstances +there related by Baretti are not correct. + +[1024] Hawkesworth received £6000 for his revision of Cook's _Voyages_; +_post_, May 7, 1773. + +[1025] See _post_, March 4, 1773. + +[1026] _Ecclesiastes_, i. 14. + +[1027] See _post_, May 16, 1778. It should seem that _Candide_ was +published in the latter half of February 1759. Grimm in his letter of +March 1, speaks of its having just appeared. 'M. de Voltaire vient de +nous égayer par un petit roman.' He does not mention it in his previous +letter of Feb. 15. _Grimm, Carres. Lit_. (edit. 1829), ii. 296. +Johnson's letter to Miss Porter, quoted in the Appendix, shows that +Rasselas was written before March 23; how much earlier cannot be known. +_Candide_ is in the May list of books in the _Gent. Mag_. (pp. 233-5), +price 2_s_. 6_d_., and with it two translations, each price 1_s_. 6_d_. + +[1028] See _post_, June 13, 1763. + +[1029] In the original,--'which, perhaps, prevails.' _Rasselas_, ch. +xxxi. + +[1030] This is the second time that Boswell puts 'morbid melancholy' in +quotation marks (ante, p. 63). Perhaps he refers to a passage in +Hawkins's _Johnson_ (p. 287), where the author speaks of Johnson's +melancholy as 'this morbid affection, as he was used to call it.' + +[1031] 'Perfect through sufferings.' _Hebrews_, ii. 10. + +[1032] Perhaps the reference is to the conclusion of _Le Monde comme il +va_:--'Il résolut ... de laisser aller _le monde comme il va_; car, dit +il, _si tout riest pas bien, tout est passable_.' + +[1033] Gray, _On a Distant Prospect of Eton College_. + +[1034] Johnson writing to Mrs. Thrale said:--'_Vivite lacti_ is one of +the great rules of health.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 55. 'It was the motto +of a bishop very eminent for his piety and good works in King Charles +the Second's reign, _Inservi Deo et laetare_--"Serve God and be +cheerful."' Addison's _Freeholder_, No. 45. + +[1035] Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL. + +[1036] This paper was in such high estimation before it was collected +into volumes, that it was seized on with avidity by various publishers +of news-papers and magazines, to enrich their publications. Johnson, to +put a stop to this unfair proceeding, wrote for the _Universal +Chronicle_ the following advertisement; in which there is, perhaps, more +pomp of words than the occasion demanded: + +'London, January 5, 1759. ADVERTISEMENT. The proprietors of the paper +intitled _The Idler_, having found that those essays are inserted in the +news-papers and magazines with so little regard to justice or decency, +that the _Universal Chronicle_, in which they first appear, is not +always mentioned, think it necessary to declare to the publishers of +those collections, that however patiently they have hitherto endured +these injuries, made yet more injurious by contempt, they have now +determined to endure them no longer. They have already seen essays, for +which a very large price is paid, transferred, with the most shameless +rapacity, into the weekly or monthly compilations, and their right, at +least for the present, alienated from them, before they could themselves +be said to enjoy it. But they would not willingly be thought to want +tenderness, even for men by whom no tenderness hath been shewn. The past +is without remedy, and shall be without resentment. But those who have +been thus busy with their sickles in the fields of their neighbours, are +henceforward to take notice, that the time of impunity is at an end. +Whoever shall, without our leave, lay the hand of rapine upon our +papers, is to expect that we shall vindicate our due, by the means which +justice prescribes, and which are warranted by the immemorial +prescriptions of honourable trade. We shall lay hold, in our turn, on +their copies, degrade them from the pomp of wide margin and diffuse +typography, contract them into a narrow space, and sell them at an +humble price; yet not with a view of growing rich by confiscations, for +we think not much better of money got by punishment than by crimes. We +shall, therefore, when our losses are repaid, give what profit shall +remain to the _Magdalens_; for we know not who can be more properly +taxed for the support of penitent prostitutes, than prostitutes in whom +there yet appears neither penitence nor shame.' BOSWELL. + +[1037] I think that this letter belongs to a later date, probably to +1765 or 1766. As we learn, _post_, April 10, 1776, Simpson was a +barrister 'who fell into a dissipated course of life.' On July 2, 1765, +Johnson records that he repaid him ten guineas which he had borrowed in +the lifetime of Mrs. Johnson (his wife). He also lent him ten guineas +more. If it was in 1759 that Simpson was troubled by small debts, it is +most unlikely that Johnson let six years more pass without repaying him +a loan which even then was at least of seven years' standing. Moreover, +in this letter Johnson writes:--'I have been invited, or have invited +myself, to several parts of the kingdom.' The only visits, it seems, +that he paid between 1754-1762 were to Oxford in 1759 and to Lichfield +in the winter of 1761-2. After 1762, when his pension gave him means, he +travelled frequently. Besides all this, he says of his step-daughter:-- +'I will not incommode my dear Lucy by coming to Lichfield, while her +present lodging is of any use to her.' Miss Porter seems to have lived +in his house till she had built one for herself. Though his letter to +her of Jan. 10, 1764 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 163), shews that it was +then building, yet she had not left his house on Jan. 14, 1766 (_ib_. +p. 173). + +'To JOSEPH SIMPSON, ESQ. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Your father's inexorability not only grieves but amazes me[1038]: he is +your father; he was always accounted a wise man; nor do I remember any +thing to the disadvantage of his good-nature; but in his refusal to +assist you there is neither good-nature, fatherhood, nor wisdom. It is +the practice of good-nature to overlook faults which have already, by +the consequences, punished the delinquent. It is natural for a father to +think more favourably than others of his children; and it is always wise +to give assistance while a little help will prevent the necessity +of greater. + +[1038] In the _Rambler_, No. 148, entitled 'The cruelty of parental +tyranny,' Johnson, after noticing the oppression inflicted by the +perversion of legal authority, says:--'Equally dangerous and equally +detestable are the cruelties often exercised in private families, under +the venerable sanction of parental authority.' He continues:--'Even +though no consideration should be paid to the great law of social +beings, by which every individual is commanded to consult the happiness +of others, yet the harsh parent is less to be vindicated than any other +criminal, because he less provides for the happiness of himself.' See +also _post_, March 29, 1779. A passage in one of Boswell's _Letters to +Temple_ (p. 111) may also be quoted here:--'The time was when such a +letter from my father as the one I enclose would have depressed; but I +am now firm, and, as my revered friend, Mr. Samuel Johnson, used to say, +_I feel the privileges of an independent human being_; however, it is +hard that I cannot have the pious satisfaction of being well with +my father.' + +[1039] Perhaps 'Van,' for Vansittart. + +[1040] Lord Stowell informs me that Johnson prided himself in being, +during his visits to Oxford, accurately academic in all points: and he +wore his gown almost _ostentatiously_. CROKER. + +[1041] Dr. Robert Vansittart, of the ancient and respectable family of +that name in Berkshire. He was eminent for learning and worth, and much +esteemed by Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL. Johnson perhaps proposed climbing over +the wall on the day on which 'University College witnessed him drink +three bottles of port without being the worse for it.' _Post_, April +7, 1778. + +[1042] _Gentleman's Magazine_, April, 1785. BOSWELL. The speech was made +on July 7, 1759, the last day of 'the solemnity of the installment' of +the Earl of Westmoreland as Chancellor of the University. On the 3rd +'the ceremony began with a grand procession of noblemen, doctors, &c., +in their proper habits, which passed through St. Mary's, and was there +joined by the Masters of Arts in their proper habits; and from thence +proceeded to the great gate of the Sheldonian Theatre, in which the most +numerous and brilliant assembly of persons of quality and distinction +was seated, that had ever been seen there on any occasion.' _Gent. Mag_. +xxix. 342. Would that we had some description of Johnson, as, in his new +and handsome gown, he joined the procession among the Masters! See +_ante_, p. 281. + +[1043] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3d edit. p. 126 [Aug. 31]. +BOSWELL. The chance of death from disease would seem also to have been +greater on the ship than in a jail. In _The Idler_ (No. 38) Johnson +estimates that one in four of the prisoners dies every year. In his +Review of Hanway's _Essay on Tea_ (_Works_, vi. 31) he states that he is +told that 'of the five or six hundred seamen sent to China, sometimes +half, commonly a third part, perish in the voyage.' See _post_, +April 10, 1778. + +[1044] _Ibid_. p. 251 [Sept. 23]. BOSWELL. + +[1045] In my first edition this word was printed _Chum_, as it appears, +in one of Mr. Wilkes's _Miscellanies_, and I animadverted on Dr. +Smollet's ignorance; for which let me propitiate the _manes_ of that +ingenious and benevolent gentleman. CHUM was certainly a mistaken +reading for _Cham_, the title of the Sovereign of Tartary, which is well +applied to Johnson, the Monarch of Literature; and was an epithet +familiar to Smollet. See _Roderick Random_, chap. 56. For this +correction I am indebted to Lord Palmerston, whose talents and literary +acquirements accord well with his respectable pedigree of +TEMPLE BOSWELL. + +After the publication of the second edition of this work, the author was +furnished by Mr. Abercrombie, of Philadelphia, with the copy of a letter +written by Dr. John Armstrong, the poet, to Dr. Smollet at Leghorne, +containing the following paragraph:--'As to the K. Bench patriot, it is +hard to say from what motive he published a letter of yours asking some +triffling favour of him in behalf of somebody, for whom the great CHAM +of literature, Mr. Johnson, had interested himself.' MALONE. In the +first edition Boswell had said:--'Had Dr. Smollet been bred at an +English University, he would have know that a _chum_ is a student who +lives with another in a chamber common to them both. A _chum of +literature_ is nonsense.' + +[1046] In a note to that piece of bad book-making, Almon's _Memoirs of +Wilkes_ (i. 47), this allusion is thus explained:-'A pleasantry of Mr. +Wilkes on that passage in Johnson's _Grammar of the English Tongue_, +prefixed to the Dictionary--"_H_ seldom, perhaps never, begins any but +the first syllable."' For this 'pleasantry' see _ante_, p. 300. + +[1047] Mr. Croker says that he was not discharged till June 1760. Had he +been discharged at once he would have found Johnson moving from Gough +Square to Staple Inn; for in a letter to Miss Porter, dated March 23, +1739, given in the Appendix, Johnson said:-'I have this day moved my +things, and you are now to direct to me at Staple Inn.' + +[1048] _Prayers and Meditations _, pp. 30 [39] and 40. BOSWELL. + +[1049] 'I have left off housekeeping' wrote Johnson to Langton on Jan. +9, 1759. Murphy (_Life_, p. 90), writing of the beginning of the year +1759, says:--'Johnson now found it necessary to retrench his expenses. +He gave up his house in Gough Square. Mrs. Williams went into lodgings +[See _post_, July 1, 1763]. He retired to Gray's-Inn, [he had first +moved to Staple Inn], and soon removed to chambers in the Inner +Temple-lane, where he lived in poverty, total idleness, and the pride of +literature, _Magni stat nominis umbra_. Mr. Fitzherbert used to say that +he paid a morning visit to Johnson, intending from his chambers to send +a letter into the city; but, to his great surprise, he found an authour +by profession without pen, ink, or paper.' (It was Mr. Fitzherbert, who +sent Johnson some wine. See _ante_, p. 305, note 2. See also _post_, +Sept. 15, 1777). The following documents confirm Murphy's statement of +Johnson's poverty at this time: + +'May 19, 1759. + +'I promise to pay to Mr. Newbery the sum of forty-two pounds, nineteen +shillings, and ten pence on demand, value received. £42 19 10. + +'Sam. Johnson.' + +'March 20, 1760. + +'I promise to pay to Mr. Newbery the sum of thirty pounds upon demand., +£30 0 0. + +'Sam. Johnson.' + +In 1751 he had thrice borrowed money of Newbery, but the total amount of +the loans was only four guineas. Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. 340. With +Johnson's want of pen, ink, and paper we may compare the account that he +gives of Savage's destitution (_Works_, viii. 3):--'Nor had he any other +conveniences for study than the fields or the streets allowed him; there +he used to walk and form his speeches, and afterwards step into a shop, +beg for a few moments the use of the pen and ink, and write down what he +had composed upon paper which he had picked up by accident.' Hawkins +(_Life_, p. 383) says that Johnson's chambers were two doors down the +Inner Temple Lane. 'I have been told,' he continues, 'by his neighbour +at the corner, that during the time he dwelt there, more inquiries were +made at his shop for Mr. Johnson, than for all the inhabitants put +together of both the Inner and Middle Temple.' In a court opening out of +Fleet Street, Goldsmith at this very time was still more miserably +lodged. In the beginning of March 1759, Percy found him 'employed in +writing his _Enquiry into Polite Learning_ in a wretched dirty room, in +which there was but one chair, and when he from civility offered it to +his visitant, himself was obliged to sit in the window.' _Goldsmith's +Misc. Works_, i. 61. + +[1050] Sir John Hawkins (Life, p. 373) has given a long detail of it, in +that manner vulgarly, but significantly, called rigmarole; in which, +amidst an ostentatious exhibition of arts and artists, he talks of +'proportions of a column being taken from that of the human figure, and +_adjusted by Nature_--masculine and feminine--in a man, sesquioctave of +the head, and in a woman _sesquinonal_;' nor has he failed to introduce +a jargon of musical terms, which do not seem much to correspond with the +subject, but serve to make up the heterogeneous mass. To follow the +Knight through all this, would be an useless fatigue to myself, and not +a little disgusting to my readers. I shall, therefore, only make a few +remarks upon his statement.--He seems to exult in having detected +Johnson in procuring 'from a person eminently skilled in Mathematicks +and the principles of architecture, answers to a string of questions +drawn up by himself, touching the comparative strength of semicircular +and elliptical arches.' Now I cannot conceive how Johnson could have +acted more wisely. Sir John complains that the opinion of that excellent +mathematician, Mr. Thomas Simpson, did not preponderate in favour of the +semicircular arch. But he should have known, that however eminent Mr. +Simpson was in the higher parts of abstract mathematical science, he was +little versed in mixed and practical mechanicks. Mr. Muller, of Woolwich +Academy, the scholastick father of all the great engineers which this +country has employed for forty years, decided the question by declaring +clearly in favour of the elliptical arch. + +It is ungraciously suggested, that Johnson's motive for opposing Mr. +Mylne's scheme may have been his prejudice against him as a native of +North Britain; when, in truth, as has been stated, he gave the aid of +his able pen to a friend, who was one of the candidates; and so far was +he from having any illiberal antipathy to Mr. Mylne, that he afterwards +lived with that gentleman upon very agreeable terms of acquaintance, and +dined with him at his house. Sir John Hawkins, indeed, gives full vent +to his own prejudice in abusing Blackfriars bridge, calling it 'an +edifice, in which beauty and symmetry are in vain sought for; by which +the citizens of London have perpetuated study their own disgrace, and +subjected a whole nation to the reproach of foreigners.' Whoever has +contemplated, _placido lumine_ [Horace, _Odes_, iv. 3, 2], this stately, +elegant, and airy structure, which has so fine an effect, especially on +approaching the capital on that quarter, must wonder at such unjust and +ill-tempered censure; and I appeal to all foreigners of good taste, +whether this bridge be not one of the most distinguished ornaments of +London. As to the stability of the fabrick, it is certain that the City +of London took every precaution to have the best Portland stone for it; +but as this is to be found in the quarries belonging to the publick, +under the direction of the Lords of the Treasury, it so happened that +parliamentary interest, which is often the bane of fair pursuits, +thwarted their endeavours. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, it is well +known that not only has Blackfriars-bridge never sunk either in its +foundation or in its arches, which were so much the subject of contest, +but any injuries which it has suffered from the effects of severe frosts +have been already, in some measure, repaired with sounder stone, and +every necessary renewal can be completed at a moderate expence. BOSWELL. +Horace Walpole mentions an ineffectual application made by the City to +Parliament in 1764 'for more money for their new bridge at Blackfriars,' +when Dr. Hay, one of the Lords of the Admiralty, 'abused the Common +Council, whose late behaviour, he said, entitled them to no favour.' +Walpole's _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, i. 390. The late +behaviour was the part taken by the City in Wilkes's case. It was the +same love of liberty no doubt that lost the City the Portland stone. +Smollett goes out of the way to praise his brother-Scot, Mr. Mylne, in +_Humphry Clinker_--'a party novel written,' says Horace Walpole, 'to +vindicate the Scots' (_Reign of George III_, iv. 328). In the letter +dated May 29, he makes Mr. Bramble say:--'The Bridge at Blackfriars is a +noble monument of taste and public spirit--I wonder how they stumbled +upon a work of such magnificence and utility.' + +[1051] Juvenal, _Sat_. i. 85. + +[1052] 'Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of +Briton.'--George III's first speech to his parliament. It appears from +the _Hardwicke Papers_, writes the editor of the _Parl. Hist. (xv. 982), +that after the draft of the speech had been settled by the cabinet, +these words and those that came next were added by the King's own hand. +Wilkes in his _Dedication of Mortimer_ (see _post_, May 15, 1776) +asserted that 'these endearing words, "Born,&c.," were permitted to be +seen in the royal orthography of Britain for Briton,' Almon's +_Works_, i. 84. + +[1053] In this _Introduction_ (_Works_, vi. 148) Johnson answers +objections that had been raised against the relief. 'We know that for +the prisoners of war there is no legal provision; we see their distress +and are certain of its cause; we know that they are poor and naked, and +poor and naked without a crime.... The opponents of this charity must +allow it to be good, and will not easily prove it not to be the best. +That charity is best of which the consequences are most extensive; the +relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal +affection.' The Committee for which Johnson's paper was written began +its work in Dec. 1759. In the previous month of October Wesley records +in his _Journal (ii. 461):--'I walked up to Knowle, a mile from Bristol, +to see the French prisoners. Above eleven hundred of them, we were +informed, were confined in that little place, without anything to lie on +but a little dirty straw, or anything to cover them but a few foul thin +rags, either by day or by night, so that they died like rotten sheep. I +was much affected, and preached in the evening on _Exodus_ xxiii. 9.' +Money was at once contributed, and clothing bought. 'It was not long +before contributions were set on foot in various parts of the Kingdom.' +On Oct. 24 of the following year, he records:--'I visited the French +prisoners at Knowle, and found many of them almost naked again.' _Ib_. +iii. 23. 'The prisoners,' wrote Hume (_Private Corres_. p. 55), +'received food from the public, but it was thought that their own +friends would supply them with clothes, which, however, was found after +some time to be neglected.' The cry arose that the brave and gallant +men, though enemies, were perishing with cold in prison; a subscription +was set on foot; great sums were given by all ranks of people; and, +notwithstanding the national foolish prejudices against the French, a +remarkable zeal everywhere appeared for this charity. I am afraid that +M. Rousseau could not have produced many parallel instances among his +heroes, the Greeks; and still fewer among the Romans. Baretti, in his +_Journey from London to Genoa_ (i. 62, 66), after telling how on all +foreigners, even on a Turk wearing a turban, 'the pretty appellation of +_French dog_ was liberally bestowed by the London rabble,' +continues:--'I have seen the populace of England contribute as many +shillings as they could spare towards the maintenance of the French +prisoners; and I have heard a universal shout of joy when their +parliament voted £100,000 to the Portuguese on hearing of the tremendous +earthquake.' + +[1054] Johnson's _Works_, vi. 81. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 16, +1773, where Johnson describes Mary as 'such a Queen as every man of any +gallantry of spirit would have sacrificed his life for.' 'There are,' +wrote Hume, 'three events in our history which may be regarded as +touchstones of party-men. An English Whig who asserts the reality of the +popish plot, an Irish Catholic who denies the massacre in 1641, and a +Scotch Jacobite who maintains the innocence of Queen Mary, must be +considered as men beyond the reach of argument or reason, and must be +left to their prejudices.' _History of England_, ed. 1802, v. 504. + +[1055] _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 42. BOSWELL. The following is his +entry on this day:-- + +'1760, Sept. 18. Resolved D[eo]j[uvante]' +To combat notions of obligation. +To apply to study. +To reclaim imagination. +To consult the resolves on Tetty's coffin. +To rise early. +To study religion. +To go to church. +To drink less strong liquors. +To keep a journal. +To oppose laziness, by doing what is to be done tomorrow. +Rise as early as I can. +Send for books for Hist. of War. +Put books in order. +Scheme of life.' + +[1056] See _post_, Oct. 19, 1769, and May 15, 1783, for Johnson's +measure of emotion, by eating. + +[1057] Mr. Croker points out that Murphy's _Epistle_ was an imitation of +Boileau's _Epître à Molière_. + +[1058] The paper mentioned in the text is No. 38 of the second series of +the _Grays Inn Journal_, published on June 15, 1754; which is a +translation from the French version of Johnson's _Rambler_, No. 190. +MALONE. Mrs. Piozzi relates how Murphy, used to tell before Johnson of +the first time they met. He found our friend all covered with soot, like +a chimney-sweeper, in a little room, with an intolerable heat and +strange smell, as if he had been acting Lungs in the _Alchymist_, making +aether. 'Come, come,' says Dr. Johnson, 'dear Murphy, the story is black +enough now; and it was a very happy day for me that brought you first to +my house, and a very happy mistake about the Ramblers.' Piozzi's _Anec_. +p. 235. Murphy quotes her account, Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 79. See also +_post_, 1770, where Dr. Maxwell records in his _Collectanea_ how Johnson +'very much loved Arthur Murphy.' Miss Burney thus describes him:--'He is +tall and well-made, has a very gentlemanlike appearance, and a quietness +of manner upon his first address that to me is very pleasing. His face +looks sensible, and his deportment is perfectly easy and polite.' A few +days later she records:--'Mr. Murphy was the life of the party; he was +in good spirits, and extremely entertaining; he told a million of +stories admirably well.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 195, 210. Rogers, +who knew Murphy well, says that 'towards the close of his life, till he +received a pension of £200 from the King, he was in great pecuniary +difficulties. He had eaten himself out of every tavern from the other +side of Temple-Bar to the west end of the town.' He owed Rogers a large +sum of money, which he never repaid. 'He assigned over to me the whole +of his works; and I soon found that he had already disposed of them to a +bookseller. One thing,' Rogers continues, 'ought to be remembered to his +honour; an actress with whom he had lived bequeathed to him all her +property, but he gave up every farthing of it to her relations.' He was +pensioned in 1803, and he died in 1805. Rogers's _Table-Talk_, p. 106. + +[1059] Topham Beauclerk, Esq. BOSWELL. + +[1060] Essays with that title, written about this time by Mr. Langton, +but not published. BOSWELL. + +[1061] Thomas Sheridan, born 1721, died 1788. He was the son of Swift's +friend, and the father of R. B. Sheridan (who was born in 1751), and the +great-great-grandfather of the present Earl of Dufferin. + +[1062] Sheridan was acting in Garrick's Company, generally on the nights +on which Garrick did not appear. Davies's _Garrick_, i. 299. Johnson +criticises his reading, _post_, April 18, 1783. + +[1063] Mrs. Sheridan was authour of _Memoirs of Miss Sydney Biddulph_, a +novel of great merit, and of some other pieces.--See her character, +_post_, beginning of 1763. BOSWELL. + +[1064] _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 44. BOSWELL. '1761. Easter Eve. +Since the communion of last Easter I have led a life so dissipated and +useless, and my terrours and perplexities have so much increased, that I +am under great depression and discouragement.' + +[1065] See _post_, April 6, 1775. + +[1066] I have had inquiry made in Ireland as to this story, but do not +find it recollected there. I give it on the authority of Dr. Johnson, to +which may be added that of the _biographical Dictionary_, and +_Biographia Dramatica_; in both of which it has stood many years. Mr. +Malone observes, that the truth probably is, not that an edition was +published with Rolt's name in the title-page, but, that the poem being +then anonymous, Rolt acquiesced in its being attributed to him in +conversation. BOSWELL. + +[1067] I have both the books. Innes was the clergyman who brought +Psalmanazar to England, and was an accomplice in his extraordinary +fiction. BOSWELL. It was in 1728 that Innes, who was a Doctor of +Divinity and Preacher-Assistant at St. Margaret's Westminster, published +this book. In his impudent Dedication to Lord Chancellor King he says +that 'were matters once brought to the melancholy pass that mankind +should become proselytes to such impious delusions' as Mandeville +taught, 'punishments must be annexed to virtue and rewards to vice.' It +was not till 1730 that Dr. Campbell 'laid open this imposture.' Preface, +p. xxxi. Though he was Professor of Ecclesiastical History in St. +Andrews, yet he had not, it should seem, heard of the fraud till then: +so remote was Scotland from London in those days. It was not till 1733 +that he published his own edition. For Psalmanazar, see _post_, +April 18, 1778. + +[1068] 'Died, the Rev. Mr. Eccles, at Bath. In attempting to save a boy, +whom he saw sinking in the Avon, he, together with the youth, were both +drowned.' _Gent. Mag_. Aug. 15, 1777. And in the magazine for the next +month are some verses on this event, with an epitaph, of which the +first line is, + +'Beneath this stone the "_Man of + Feeling_" lies.' + +CROKER. + +[1069] 'Harry Mackenzie,' wrote Scott in 1814, 'never put his name in a +title page till the last edition of his works.' Lockhart's _Scott_, iv. +178. He wrote also _The Man of the World_, which Johnson 'looked at, but +thought there was nothing in it.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 2, 1773. +Scott, however, called it 'a very pathetic tale.' Croker's _Boswell, p. +359. Burns, writing of his twenty-third year, says: '_Tristram Shandy_ +and the _Man of Feeling_ were my bosom favourites.' Currie's _Life of +Burns_, ed.1846. p. 21. + +[1070] From the Prologue to Dryden's adaptation of _The Tempest_. + +[1071] The originals of Dr. Johnson's three letters to Mr. baretti, +which are among the very best he ever wrote, were communicated to the +elegant monthly miscellany, _The European Magazine_, in which they first +appeared. BOSWELL. + +[1072] Baretti left London for Lisbon on Aug. 14, 1760. He went through +Portugal, Spain, and France to Antibes, whence he went by sea to Genoa, +where he arrived on Nov. 18. In 1770 he published a lively account of +his travels under the title of _A Journey from London to Genoa_. + +[1073] Malone says of Baretti that 'he was certainly a man of +extraordinary talents, and perhaps no one ever made himself so +completely master of a foreign language as he did of English.' Prior's +_Malone_, p. 392. Mrs. Piozzi gives the following 'instance of his skill +in our low street language. Walking in a field near Chelsea he met a +fellow, who, suspecting him from dress and manner to be a foreigner, +said sneeringly, "Come, Sir, will you show me the way to France?" "No, +Sir," says Baretti instantly, "but I will show you the way to Tyburn."' +He travelled with her in France. 'Oh how he would court the maids at the +inns abroad, abuse the men perhaps, and that with a facility not to be +exceeded, as they all confessed, by any of the natives. But so he could +in Spain, I find.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii. 347. + +[1074] Johnson was intimate with Lord Southwell, _ante_, p. 243. It +seems unlikely that Baretti merely conducted Mr. Southwell from Turin to +Venice; yet there is not a line in his _Journey_ to show that any +Englishman accompanied him from London to Turin. + +[1075] See _ante_, p. 350, note. + +[1076] The first of these annual exhibitions was opened on April 21, +1760, at the Room of the Society of Arts, in the Strand. 'As a +consequence of their success, grew the incorporation of a Society of +Artists in 1765, by seccession from which finally was constituted the +Royal Academy [In Dec. 1768].' Taylor's _Reynolds_, i. 179. For the +third exhibition Johnson wrote the Preface to the catalogue. In this, +speaking for the Committee of the Artists he says:--'The purpose of this +Exhibition is not to enrich the artist, but to advance the art; the +eminent are not flattered with preference, nor the obscure insulted with +contempt; whoever hopes to deserve public favour is here invited to +display his merit.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 101. + +[1077] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 318) says that Johnson told him 'that in his +whole life he was never capable of discerning the least resemblance of +any kind between a picture and the subject it was intended to +represent.' This, however must have been an exaggeration on the part +either of Hawkins or Johnson. His general ignorance of art is shown by +Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_., p. 98):--'Sir Joshua Reynolds mentioned some +picture as excellent. "It has often grieved me, sir," said Mr. Johnson, +"to see so much mind as the science of painting requires, laid out upon +such perishable materials: why do not you oftener make use of copper? I +could wish your superiority in the art you profess to be preserved in +stuff more durable than canvas." Sir Joshua urged the difficulty of +procuring a plate large enough for historical subjects. "What foppish +obstacles are these!" exclaims on a sudden Dr. Johnson. "Here is Thrale +has a thousand tun of copper; you may paint it all round if you will, I +suppose; it will serve him to brew in afterwards. Will it not, Sir?" to +my husband who sat by. Indeed his utter scorn of painting was such, that +I have heard him say, that he should sit very quietly in a room hung +round with the works of the greatest masters, and never feel the +slightest disposition to turn them, if their backs were outermost, +unless it might be for the sake of telling Sir Joshua that he _had_ +turned them.' Such a remark of Johnson's must not, however, be taken too +strictly. He often spoke at random, often with exaggeration. 'There is +in many minds a kind of vanity exerted to the disadvantage of +themselves.' This reflection of his is the opening sentence to the +number of the Idler (No. 45) in which he thus writes about +portrait-painting:--'Genius is chiefly exerted in historical pictures; +and the art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity +of his subject. But it is in painting as in life; what is greatest is +not always best. I should grieve to see Reynolds transfer to heroes and +to goddesses, to empty splendour and to airy fiction, that art which is +now employed in diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in +quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of +the dead.' It is recorded in Johnson's _Works_, (1787) xi. 208, that +'Johnson, talking with some persons about allegorical painting said, "I +had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know than all the +allegorical paintings they can show me in the world."' He bought prints +of Burke, Dyer, and Goldsmith--'Good impressions' he said to hang in a +little room that he was fitting up with prints. Croker's _Boswell_, p. +639. Among his effects that were sold after his death were 'sixty-one +portraits framed and glazed,' _post_, under Dec. 9, 1784. When he was at +Paris, and saw the picture-gallery at the Palais Royal, he entered in +his Diary:--'I thought the pictures of Raphael fine;' _post_, Oct. 16, +1775. The philosopher Hume was more insensible even than Johnson. Dr. +J.H. Burton says:--'It does not appear from any incident in his life, or +allusions in his letters, which I can remember, that he had ever really +admired a picture or a statue.' _Life of me_, ii. 134. + +[1078] By Colman--'There is nothing else new,' wrote Horace Walpole on +March 7, 1761 (_Letters,_ in. 382), 'but a very indifferent play, called +_The Jealous Wife_, so well acted as to have succeeded greatly.' + +[1079] In Chap. 47 of _Rasselas_ Johnson had lately considered monastic +life. Imlac says of the monks:--'Their time is regularly distributed; +one duty succeeds another, so that they are not left open to the +distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades of listless +inactivity.... He that lives well in the world is better than he that +lives well in a monastery. But perhaps every one is not able to stem the +temptations of publick life; and, if he cannot conquer, he may properly +retreat.' See also _post_, March 15, 1776, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, +Aug. 19, 1773. + +[1080] Baretti, in the preface to his _Journey_ (p. vi.), says that the +method of the book was due to Dr. Johnson. 'It was he that exhorted me +to write daily, and with all possible minuteness; it was he that pointed +out the topics which would most interest and most delight in a future +publication.' + +[1081] He advised Boswell to go to Spain. _Post_, June 25 and July 26, +1763. + +[1082] Dr. Percy records that 'the first visit Goldsmith ever received +from Johnson was on May 31, 1761, [ten days before this letter was +written] when he gave an invitation to him, and much other company, many +of them literary men, to a supper in his lodgings in Wine Office Court, +Fleet Street. Percy being intimate with Johnson, was desired to call +upon him and take him with him. As they went together the former was +much struck with the studied neatness of Johnson's dress. He had on a +new suit of clothes, a new wig nicely powdered, and everything about him +so perfectly dissimilar from his usual appearance that his companion +could not help inquiring the cause of this singular transformation. +"Why, Sir," said Johnson, "I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great +sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my +practice, and I am desirous this night to show him a better example."' +Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 62. + +[1083] _Judges_, v. 20. + +[1084] _Psalms_, xix. 2. + +[1085] _Psalms_, civ. 19. + +[1086] Boswell is ten years out in his date. This work was published in +1752. The review of it in the _Gent. Mag_. for that year, p. 146, was, I +believe, by Johnson. + +[1087] He accompanied Lord Macartney on his embassy to China in 1792. In +1797 he published his _Account of the Embassy_. + +[1088] It was taken in 1759, and restored to France in 1763. _Penny +Cyclo_. xi. 463. + +[1089] W. S. Landor (_Works_, ed. 1876, v. 99) says:--'Extraordinary as +were Johnson's intellectual powers, he knew about as much of poetry as +of geography. In one of his letters he talks of Guadaloupe as being in +another hemisphere. Speaking of that island, his very words are these: +"Whether you return hither or stay in another hemisphere."' Guadaloupe, +being in the West Indies, is in another hemisphere. + +[1090] See _post_, April 12, 1776. + +[1091] 'It is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded; +for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, +are less dreadful than its extinction.' _The Idler_, No. 58. See also +_post_, under March 30, 1783, where he ranks the situation of the Prince +of Wales as the happiest in the kingdom, partly on account of the +enjoyment of hope. + +[1092] Though Johnson wrote this same day to Lord Bute to thank him for +his pension, he makes no mention to Baretti of this accession to +his fortune. + +[1093] See _ante_, p. 245. Mrs. Porter, the actress, lived some time +with Mrs. Cotterel and her eldest daughter. CROKER. + +[1094] Miss Charlotte Cotterel, married to Dean Lewis. See _post_, Dec. +21, 1762. + +[1095] Reynolds's note-book shows that this year he had close on 150 +sitters. Taylor's _Reynolds_, i. 218. + +[1096] He married a woman of the town, who had persuaded him +(notwithstanding their place of congress was a small coalshed in Fetter +Lane) that she was nearly related to a man of fortune, but was +injuriously kept by him out of large possessions. She regarded him as a +physician already in considerable practice. He had not been married four +months, before a writ was taken out against him for debts incurred by +his wife. He was secreted; and his friend then procured him a protection +from a foreign minister. In a short time afterwards she ran away from +him, and was tried (providentially in his opinion) for picking pockets +at the Old Bailey. Her husband was with difficulty prevented from +attending the Court, in the hope she would be hanged. She pleaded her +own cause and was acquitted. A separation between them took place.' +_Gent. Mag_. lv. 101. + +[1097] Richardson had died more than a year earlier,--on July 4, 1761. +That Johnson should think it needful at the date of his letter to inform +Baretti of the death of so famous a writer shows how slight was the +communication between London and Milan. Nay, he repeats the news in his +letter of Dec. 21, 1762. + +[1098] On Dec. 8, 1765, he wrote to Hector:--'A few years ago I just +saluted Birmingham, but had no time to see any friend, for I came in +after midnight with a friend, and went away in the morning.' _Notes and +Queries_, 6th S. iii. 321. He passed through Birmingham, I conjecture, +on his visit to Lichfield. + +[1099] Writing to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield on July 20, 1767, he +says:--'Miss Lucy [Porter, his step-daughter, not his daughter-in-law, +as he calls her above] is more kind and civil than I expected, and has +raised my esteem by many excellencies very noble and resplendent, though +a little discoloured by hoary virginity. Everything else recalls to my +remembrance years, in which I proposed what I am afraid I have not done, +and promised myself pleasure which I have not found.' _Piozzi +Letters_, i. 4. + +[1100] In his _Journey into Wales_ (Aug. 24, 1774), he describes how +Mrs. Thrale visited one of the scenes of her youth. 'She remembered the +rooms, and wandered over them with recollection of her childhood. This +species of pleasure is always melancholy. The walk was cut down and the +pond was dry. Nothing was better.' + +[1101] This is a very just account of the relief which London affords to +melancholy minds. BOSWELL. + +[1102] To Devonshire. + +[1103] See _ante_, p. 322. + +[1104] Dr. T. Campbell (_Diary of a visit to England_, p. 32) recorded +on March 16, 1775, that 'Baretti said that now he could not live out of +London. He had returned a few years ago to his own country, but he could +not enjoy it; and he was obliged to return to London to those +connections he had been making for near thirty years past.' Baretti had +come to England in 1750 (_ante_, p. 302), so that thirty years is an +exaggeration. + +[1105] How great a sum this must have been in Johnson's eyes is shown by +a passage in his _Life of Savage_ (_Works_, viii. 125). Savage, he says, +was received into Lord Tyrconnel's family and allowed a pension of £200 +a year. 'His presence,' Johnson writes, 'was sufficient to make any +place of publick entertainment popular; and his approbation and example +constituted the fashion. So powerful is genius when it is invested with +the glitter of affluence!' In the last summer of his life, speaking of +the chance of his pension being doubled, he said that with six hundred a +year 'a man would have the consciousness that he should pass the +remainder of his life _in splendour_, how long soever it might be.' +_Post_, June 30, 1784. David Hume writing in 1751, says:--'I have £50 a +year, a £100 worth of books, great store of linens and fine clothes, and +near £100 in my pocket; along with order, frugality, a strong spirit of +independency, good health, a contented humour, and an unabating love of +study. In these circumstances I must esteem myself one of the happy and +fortunate.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, i. 342. Goldsmith, in his _Present +State of Polite Learning_ (chap, vii), makes the following observation +on pensions granted in France to authors:--'The French nobility have +certainly a most pleasing way of satisfying the vanity of an author +without indulging his avarice. A man of literary merit is sure of being +caressed by the great, though seldom enriched. His pension from the +crown just supplies half a competence, and the sale of his labours makes +some small addition to his circumstances; thus the author leads a life +of splendid poverty, and seldom becomes wealthy or indolent enough to +discontinue an exertion of those abilities by which he rose.' Whether +Johnson's pension led to his writing less than he would otherwise have +done may be questioned. It is true that in the next seventeen years he +did little more than finish his edition of _Shakespeare_, and write his +_Journey to the Western Islands_ and two or three political pamphlets. +But since he wrote the last number of _The Idler_ in the spring of 1760 +he had done very little. His mind, which, to use Murphy's words (_Life_, +p. 80), had been 'strained and overlaboured by constant exertion,' had +not recovered its tone. It is likely, that without the pension he would +not have lived to write the second greatest of his works--the _Lives of +the Poets_. + +[1106] Mr. Forster (_Life of Goldsmith_, i. 281) says:--'Bute's pensions +to his Scottish crew showing meaner than ever in Churchill's daring +verse, it occurred to the shrewd and wary Wedderburne to advise, for a +set off, that Samuel Johnson should be pensioned.' _The Prophecy of +Famine_ in which Churchill's attack was made on the pensioned Scots was +published in Jan. 1763, nearly half a year after Johnson's pension was +conferred. + +[1107] For his _Falkland's Islands_ 'materials were furnished to him by +the ministry' (_post_, 1771). '_The Patriot_ was called for,' he writes, +'by my political friends' (_post_, Nov. 26, 1774). 'That _Taxation no +Tyranny_ was written at the desire of those who were then in power, I +have no doubt,' writes Boswell (_post_, under March 21, 1775). 'Johnson +complained to a friend that, his pension having been given to him as a +literary character, he had been applied to by administration to write +political pamphlets' (_Ib_.). Are these statements inconsistent with +what Lord Loughborough said, and with Boswell's assertion (_Ib_.) that +'Johnson neither asked nor received from government any reward +whatsoever for his political labours?' I think not. I think that, had +Johnson unpensioned been asked by the Ministry to write these pamphlets, +he would have written them. He would have been pleased by the +compliment, and for pay would have trusted to the sale. Speaking of the +first two of these pamphlets--the third had not yet appeared--he said, +'Except what I had from the booksellers, I did not get a farthing by +them' (_post_, March 21, 1772). They had not cost him much labour. _The +False Alarm_ was written between eight o'clock of one night and twelve +o'clock of the next. It went through three editions in less than two +months (_post_, 1770). _The Patriot_ was written on a Saturday (_post_, +Nov. 26, 1774). At all events Johnson had received his pension for more +than seven years before he did any work for the ministry. In Croft's +_Life of Young_, which Johnson adopted (_Works_, viii. 422), the +following passage was perhaps intended to be a defence of Johnson as a +writer for the Ministry:--'Yet who shall say with certainty that Young +was a pensioner? In all modern periods of this country, have not the +writers on one side been regularly called hirelings, and on the other +patriots?' + +[1108] See _ante_, p. 294. + +[1109] Murphy's account is nearly as follows (_Life_, p. 92):--'Lord +Loughborough was well acquainted with Johnson; but having heard much of +his independent spirit, and of the downfall of Osborne the bookseller +(_ante_, p. 154), he did not know but his benevolence might be rewarded +with a folio on his head. He desired me to undertake the task. I went to +the chambers in the Inner Temple Lane, which, in fact, were the abode of +wretchedness. By slow and studied approaches the message was disclosed. +Johnson made a long pause; he asked if it was seriously intended. He +fell into a profound meditation, and his own definition of a pensioner +occurred to him. He desired to meet next day, and dine at the Mitre +Tavern. At that meeting he gave up all his scruples. On the following +day Lord Loughborough conducted him to the Earl of Bute. The +conversation that passed was in the evening related to me by Dr. +Johnson. He expressed his sense of his Majesty's bounty, and thought +himself the more highly honoured, as the favour was not bestowed on him +for having dipped his pen in faction. "No, Sir," said Lord Bute, "it is +not offered to you for having dipped your pen in faction, nor with a +design that you ever should."' The reviewer of Hawkins's _Johnson_ in +the _Monthly Review_, lxxvi. 375, who was, no doubt, Murphy, adds a +little circumstance:--'On the next day Mr. Murphy was in the Temple Lane +soon after nine; _he got Johnson up and dressed in due time_; and saw +him set off at eleven.' Malone's note on what Lord Bute said to Johnson +is as follows:--'This was said by Lord Bute, as Dr. Burney was informed +by Johnson himself, in answer to a question which he put, previously to +his acceptance of the intended bounty: "Pray, my Lord, what am I +expected to do for this pension?"' + +[1110] + +'In Britain's senate he a seat obtains +And one more pensioner St. Stephen gains.' + +_Moral Essays_, iii. 392. + +Johnson left the definition of _pension_ and _pensioner_ unchanged in +the fourth edition of the _Dictionary_, corrected by him in 1773. + +[1111] He died on March 10, 1792. This paragraph and the letter are not +in the first two editions. + +[1112] The Treasury, Home Office, Exchequer of Receipt and Audit Office +Records have been searched for a warrant granting a pension to Dr. +Johnson without success. In 1782, by Act of Parliament all pensions on +the Civil List Establishment were from that time to be paid at the +Exchequer. In the Exchequer Order Book, Michaelmas 1782, No. 46, p. 74, +the following memorandum occurs:--"Memdum. 3 Dec. 1782. There was issued +to the following persons (By order 6th of Nov. 1782) the sums set +against their names respectively, etc.:--Persons names: Johnson Saml, +LL.D. Pensions p. ann. £300. Due to 5 July 1782, two quarters, £150." + +This pension was paid at the Exchequer from that time to the quarter +ending 10 Oct. 1784. 'It is clear that the pension was payable quarterly +[for confirmation of this, see _post_, Nov. 3, 1762, and July 16, 1765] +and at the old quarter days, July 5, Oct. 10, Jan. 5, April 5, though +payment was sometimes delayed. [Once he was paid half-yearly; see +_post_, under March 20, 1771.] The expression "bills" was a general term +at the time for notes, cheques, and warrants, and no doubt covered some +kind of Treasury warrant.' The above information I owe to the kindness +of my friend Mr. Leonard H. Courtney, M.P., late Financial Secretary to +the Treasury. The 'future favours' are the future payments. His pension +was not for life, and depended therefore entirely on the king's pleasure +(see _post_, under March 21, 1775). The following letter in the +_Grenville Papers_, ii. 68, seems to show that Johnson thought the +pension due on the _new_ quarter-day:-- + +'DR. JOHNSON To MR. GRENVILLE. + +'July 2, 1763. + +'SIR, + +'Be pleased to pay to the bearer seventy-five pounds, being the +quarterly payment of a pension granted by his Majesty, and due on the +24th day of June last, to Sir, + +'Your most humble servant, + +'SAM. JOHNSON.' + +[1113] They left London on Aug. 16 and returned to it on Sept. 26. +Taylor's _Reynolds_, i. 214. Northcote records of this visit:--'I +remember when Mr. Reynolds was pointed out to me at a public meeting, +where a great crowd was assembled, I got as near to him as I could from +the pressure of the people to touch the skirt of his coat, which I did +with great satisfaction to my mind.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 116. In +like manner Reynolds, when a youth, had in a great crowd touched the +hand of Pope. _Ib_, p. 19. Pope, when a boy of eleven, 'persuaded some +friends to take him to the coffee-house which Dryden frequented.' +Johnson's _Works_, viii. 236. Who touched old Northcote's hand? Has the +apostolic succession been continued?--Since writing these lines I have +read with pleasure the following passage in Mr. Ruskin's _Praeterita_, +chapter i. p. 16:--'When at three-and-a-half I was taken to have my +portrait painted by Mr. Northcote, I had not been ten minutes alone with +him before I asked him why there were holes in his carpet.' Dryden, +Pope, Reynolds, Northcote, Ruskin, so runs the chain of genius, with +only one weak link in it. + +[1114] At one of these seats Dr. Amyat, Physician in London, told me he +happened to meet him. In order to amuse him till dinner should be ready, +he was taken out to walk in the garden. The master of the house, +thinking it proper to introduce something scientifick into the +conversation, addressed him thus: 'Are you a botanist, Dr. Johnson:' +'No, Sir, (answered Johnson,) I am not a botanist; and, (alluding no +doubt, to his near sightedness) should I wish to become a botanist, I +must first turn myself into a reptile.' BOSWELL. + +[1115] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. 285) says:--'The roughness of the language +used on board a man of war, where he passed a week on a visit to Captain +Knight, disgusted him terribly. He asked an officer what some place was +called, and received for answer that it was where the loplolly man kept +his loplolly; a reply he considered as disrespectful, gross and +ignorant.' Mr. Croker says that Captain Knight of the _Belleisle_ lay +for a couple of months in 1762 in Plymouth Sound. Croker's _Boswell_, p. +480. It seems unlikely that Johnson passed a whole week on ship-board. +_Loplolly_, or _Loblolly_, is explained in _Roderick Random_, chap. +xxvii. Roderick, when acting as the surgeon's assistant on a man of war, +'suffered,' he says, 'from the rude insults of the sailors and petty +officers, among whom I was known by the name of _Lobolly Boy_.' + +[1116] He was the father of Colonel William Mudge, distinguished by his +trigonometrical survey of England and Wales. WRIGHT. + +[1117] 'I have myself heard Reynolds declare, that the elder Mr. Mudge +was, in his opinion, the wisest man he had ever met with in his life. He +has always told me that he owed his first disposition to generalise, and +to view things in the abstract, to him.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. +112, 115. + +[1118] See _post_, under March 20, 1781. + +[1119] See _ante_, p. 293. BOSWELL. + +[1120] The present Devonport. + +[1121] A friend of mine once heard him, during this visit, exclaim with +the utmost vehemence 'I _hate_ a Docker.' BLAKEWAY. Northcote (Life of +Reynolds, i. 118) says that Reynolds took Johnson to dine at a house +where 'he devoured so large a quantity of new honey and of clouted +cream, besides drinking large potations of new cyder, that the +entertainer found himself much embarrassed between his anxious regard +for the Doctor's health and his fear of breaking through the rules of +politeness, by giving him a hint on the subject. The strength of +Johnson's constitution, however, saved him from any unpleasant +consequences.' 'Sir Joshua informed a friend that he had never seen Dr. +Johnson intoxicated by hard drinking but once, and that happened at the +time that they were together in Devonshire, when one night after supper +Johnson drank three bottles of wine, which affected his speech so much +that he was unable to articulate a hard word, which occurred in the +course of his conversation. He attempted it three times but failed; yet +at last accomplished it, and then said, "Well, Sir Joshua, I think it is +now time to go to bed."' _Ib_. ii. 161. One part of this story however +is wanting in accuracy, and therefore all may be untrue. Reynolds at +this time was not knighted. Johnson said (_post_, April 7, 1778): 'I did +not leave off wine because I could not bear it; I have drunk three +bottles of port without being the worse for it. University College has +witnessed this.' See however _post_, April 24, 1779, where he said:--'I +used to slink home when I had drunk too much;' also _ante_, p. 103, and +_post_, April 28, 1783. + +[1122] George Selwyn wrote:--'Topham Beauclerk is arrived. I hear he +lost £10,000 to a thief at Venice, which thief, in the course of the +year, will be at Cashiobury.' (The reference to this quotation I +have mislaid.) + +[1123] Two years later he repeated this thought in the lines that he +added to Goldsmith's _Traveller_. _Post_, under Feb. 1766. + +[1124] We may compare with this what 'old Bentley' said:--'Depend upon +it, no man was ever written down but by himself.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, +Oct. 1, 1773. + +[1125] The preliminaries of peace between England and France had been +signed on Nov. 3 of this year. _Ann Reg_. v. 246. + +[1126] Of Baretti's _Travels through Spain, &c_., Johnson wrote to Mrs. +Thrale:--'That Baretti's book would please you all I made no doubt. I +know not whether the world has ever seen such _Travels_ before. Those +whose lot it is to ramble can seldom write, and those who know how to +write very seldom ramble.' _Piozzi_ Letters, i. 32. + +[1127] See _ante_, p. 370. + +[1128] See _ante_, p. 242, note 1. + +[1129] Huggins had quarrelled with Johnson and Baretti (Croker's +_Boswell_, 129, note). See also _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's +_Collection_. + +[1130] See _ante_, p. 370. + +[1131] Cowper, writing in 1784 about Collins, says:--'Of whom I did not +know that he existed till I found him there'--in the _Lives of the +Poets_, that is to say. Southey's _Cowper_, v. II. + +[1132] To this passage Johnson, nearly twenty years later, added the +following (_Works_, viii. 403):--'Such was the fate of Collins, with +whom I once delighted to converse, and whom I yet remember with +tenderness.' + +[1133] 'MADAM. To approach the high and the illustrious has been in all +ages the privilege of Poets; and though translators cannot justly claim +the same honour, yet they naturally follow their authours as attendants; +and I hope that in return for having enabled TASSO to diffuse his fame +through the British dominions, I may be introduced by him to the +presence of YOUR MAJESTY. + +TASSO has a peculiar claim to YOUR MAJESTY'S favour, as follower and +panegyrist of the House of _Este_, which has one common ancestor with +the House of HANOVER; and in reviewing his life it is not easy to +forbear a wish that he had lived in a happier time, when he might, among +the descendants of that illustrious family, have found a more liberal +and potent patronage. + +I cannot but observe, MADAM, how unequally reward is proportioned to +merit, when I reflect that the happiness which was withheld from TASSO +is reserved for me; and that the poem which once hardly procured to its +authour the countenance of the Princess of Ferrara, has attracted to its +translator the favourable notice of a BRITISH QUEEN. + +Had this been the fate of TASSO, he would have been able to have +celebrated the condescension of YOUR MAJESTY in nobler language, but +could not have felt it with more ardent gratitude, than MADAM, Your +MAJESTY'S Most faithful and devoted servant.'--BOSWELL. + +[1134] Young though Boswell was, he had already tried his hand at more +than one kind of writing. In 1761 he had published anonymously an _Elegy +on the Death of an Amiable Young Lady_, with an _Epistle from Menalcas +to Lycidas_. (Edinburgh, Donaldson.) The Elegy is full of such errors as +'Thou liv'd,' 'Thou led,' but is recommended by a puffing preface and +three letters--one of which is signed J--B. About the same time he +brought out a piece that was even more impudent. It was _An Ode to +Tragedy_. By a gentleman of Scotland. (Edinburgh, Donaldson, 1761. Price +sixpence.) In the 'Dedication to James Boswell, Esq.,' he says:--'I have +no intention to pay you compliments--To entertain agreeable notions of +one's own character is a great incentive to act with propriety and +spirit. But I should be sorry to contribute in any degree to your +acquiring an excess of self-sufficiency ... I own indeed that when ... +to display my extensive erudition, I have quoted Greek, Latin and French +sentences one after another with astonishing celerity; or have got into +my _Old-hock humour_ and fallen a-raving about princes and lords, +knights and geniuses, ladies of quality and harpsichords; you, with a +peculiar comic smile, have gently reminded me of the _importance of a +man to himself_, and slily left the room with the witty Dean lying open +at--P.P. _clerk of this parish_. [Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xxiii. +142.] I, Sir, who enjoy the pleasure of your intimate acquaintance, know +that many of your hours of retirement are devoted to thought.' The _Ode_ +is serious. He describes himself as having + +'A soul by nature formed to feel Grief sharper than the tyrant's steel, +And bosom big with swelling thought From ancient lore's +remembrance brought.' + +In the winter of 1761-2 he had helped as a contributor and part-editor +in bringing out a _Collection of Original Poems_. (_Boswell and +Erskine's Letters_, p. 27.) His next publication, also anonymous, was +_The Club at Newmarket_, written, as the Preface says, 'in the Newmarket +Coffee Room, in which the author, being elected a member of the Jockey +Club, had the happiness of passing several sprightly good-humoured +evenings.' It is very poor stuff. In the winter of 1762-3 he joined in +writing the _Critical Strictures_, mentioned _post_, June 25, 1763. Just +about the time that he first met Johnson he and his friend the Hon. +Andrew Erskine had published in their own names a very impudent little +volume of the correspondence that had passed between them. Of this I +published an edition with notes in 1879, together with Boswell's +_Journal of a Tour to Corsica_. (Messrs. Thos. De La Rue & Co.). + +[1135] Boswell, in 1768, in the preface to the third edition of his +_Corsica_ described 'the warmth of affection and the dignity of +veneration' with which he never ceased to think of Mr. Johnson. + +[1136] In the _Garrick Carres_, (ii. 83) there is a confused letter from +this unfortunate man, asking Garrick for the loan of five guineas. He +had a scheme for delivering dramatic lectures at Eton and Oxford; 'but,' +he added, 'my externals have so unfavourable an appearance that I cannot +produce myself with any comfort or hope of success.' Garrick sent him +five guineas. He had been a Major in the army, an actor, and dramatic +author. 'For the last seven years of his life he struggled under +sickness and want to a degree of uncommon misery.' _Gent. Mag_. for +1784, p. 959. + +[1137] As great men of antiquity such as Scipio _Africanus_ had an +epithet added to their names, in consequence of some celebrated action, +so my illustrious friend was often called _DICTIONARY JOHNSON_, from +that wonderful atchievement of genius and labour, his _Dictionary of the +English Language_; the merit of which I contemplate with more and more +admiration. BOSWELL. In like manner we have 'Hermes Harris,' 'Pliny +Melmoth,' 'Demosthenes Taylor,' 'Persian Jones,' 'Abyssinian Bruce,' +'Microscope Baker,' 'Leonidas Glover,' 'Hesiod Cooke,' and +'Corsica Boswell.' + +[1138] See _ante_, p. 124. He introduced Boswell to Davies, who was 'the +immediate introducer.' _Post_, under June 18, 1783, note. + +[1139] On March 2, 1754 (not 1753), the audience called for a repetition +of some lines which they applied against the government. 'Diggs, the +actor, refused by order of Sheridan, the manager, to repeat them; +Sheridan would not even appear on the stage to justify the prohibition. +In an instant the audience demolished the inside of the house, and +reduced it to a shell.' Walpole's _Reign of George II_, i. 389, and +_Gent. Mag_. xxiv. 141. Sheridan's friend, Mr. S. Whyte, says +(_Miscellanea Nova, p. 16):--'In the year 1762 Sheridan's scheme for an +_English Dictionary_ was published. That memorable year he was nominated +for a pension.' He quotes (p. 111) a letter from Mrs. Sheridan, dated +Nov. 29, 1762, in which she says:--'I suppose you must have heard that +the King has granted him a pension of 200£. a year, merely as an +encouragement to his undertaking.' + +[1140] See _post_, March 28, 1776. + +[1141] Horace Walpole describes Lord Bute as 'a man that had passed his +life in solitude, and was too haughty to admit to his familiarity but +half a dozen silly authors and flatterers. Sir Henry Erskine, a military +poet, Home, a tragedy-writing parson,' &c. _Mem. of the Reign of George +III_, i. 37. + +[1142] See _post_, March 28, 1776. + +[1143] 'Native wood-_notes_ wild.' Milton's _L'Allegro_, l. 134 + +[1144] + +'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas +Corpora. Di coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas) +Adspirate meis.' +'Of bodies changed to various forms I sing:-- +Ye Gods from whence these miracles did spring +Inspired, &c.'--DRYDEN, Ov. _Met_. i.i. + +See _post_ under March 30, 1783, for Lord Loughborough. + +[1145] See _post_, May 17, 1783, and June 24, 1784. Sheridan was not of +a forgiving nature. For some years he would not speak to his famous son: +yet he went with his daughters to the theatre to see one of his pieces +performed. 'The son took up his station by one of the side scenes, +opposite to the box where they sat, and there continued, unobserved, to +look at them during the greater part of the night. On his return home he +burst into tears, and owned how deeply it had gone to his heart, "to +think that _there_ sat his father and his sisters before him, and yet +that he alone was not permitted to go near them."' Moore's +_Sheridan_, i. 167. + +[1146] As Johnson himself said:--'Men hate more steadily than they love; +and if I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the +better of this by saying many things to please him.' _Post_, Sept. +15, 1777. + +[1147] P. 447. BOSWELL. 'There is another writer, at present of gigantic +fame in these days of little men, who has pretended to scratch out a +life of Swift, but so miserably executed as only to reflect back on +himself that disgrace which he meant to throw upon the character of the +Dean.' _The Life of Doctor Swift_, Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, ii. 200. +There is a passage in the _Lives of the Poets_ (_Works_, viii. 43) in +which Johnson might be supposed playfully to have anticipated this +attack. He is giving an account of Blackmore's imaginary _Literary Club +of Lay Monks_, of which the hero was 'one Mr. Johnson.' 'The rest of the +_Lay Monks_,' he writes, 'seem to be but feeble mortals, in comparison +with the gigantick Johnson.' See also _post_, Oct. 16, 1769. Horace +Walpole (_Letters_, v. 458) spoke no less scornfully than Sheridan of +Johnson and his contemporaries. On April 27, 1773, after saying that he +should like to be intimate with Anstey (the author of the _New Bath +Guide_), or with the author of the _Heroic Epistle_, he continues:--'I +have no thirst to know the rest of my contemporaries, from the absurd +bombast of Dr. Johnson down to the silly Dr. Goldsmith; though the +latter changeling has had bright gleams of parts, and the former had +sense, till he changed it for words, and sold it for a pension. Don't +think me scornful. Recollect that I have seen Pope and lived with Gray.' + +[1148] Johnson is thus mentioned by Mrs. Sheridan in a letter dated, +Blois, Nov. 16, 1743, according to the _Garrick Corres_, i. 17, but the +date is wrongly given, as the Sheridans went to Blois in 1764: 'I have +heard Johnson decry some of the prettiest pieces of writing we have in +English; yet Johnson is an honourable man--that is to say, he is a good +critic, and in other respects a man of enormous talents.' + +[1149] My position has been very well illustrated by Mr. Belsham of +Bedford, in his _Essay on Dramatic Poetry_. 'The fashionable doctrine +(says he) both of moralists and criticks in these times is, that virtue +and happiness are constant concomitants; and it is regarded as a kind of +dramatick impiety to maintain that virtue should not be rewarded, nor +vice punished in the last scene of the last act of every tragedy. This +conduct in our modern poets is, however, in my opinion, extremely +injudicious; for, it labours in vain to inculcate a doctrine in theory, +which every one knows to be false in fact, _viz_. that virtue in real +life is always productive of happiness; and vice of misery. Thus +Congreve concludes the Tragedy of _The Mourning Bride_ with the +following foolish couplet:-- + +'For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, +And though a late, a sure reward succeeds.' + +'When a man eminently virtuous, a Brutus, a Cato, or a Socrates, finally +sink under the pressure of accumulated misfortune, we are not only led +to entertain a more indignant hatred of vice than if he rose from his +distress, but we are inevitably induced to cherish the sublime idea that +a day of future retribution will arrive when he shall receive not merely +poetical, but real and substantial justice.' _Essays Philosophical, +Historical, and Literary_, London, 1791, vol. II. 8vo. p. 317. + +This is well reasoned and well expressed. I wish, indeed, that the +ingenious authour had not thought it necessary to introduce any +_instance_ of 'a man eminently virtuous;' as he would then have avoided +mentioning such a ruffian as Brutus under that description. Mr. Belsham +discovers in his _Essays_ so much reading and thinking, and good +composition, that I regret his not having been fortunate enough to be +educated a member of our excellent national establishment. Had he not +been nursed in nonconformity, he probably would not have been tainted +with those heresies (as I sincerely, and on no slight investigation, +think them) both in religion and politicks, which, while I read, I am +sure, with candour, I cannot read without offence. BOSWELL. Boswell's +'position has been illustrated' with far greater force by Johnson. 'It +has been the boast of some swelling moralists, that every man's fortune +was in his own power, that prudence supplied the place of all other +divinities, and that happiness is the unfailing consequence of virtue. +But surely the quiver of Omnipotence is stored with arrows against which +the shield of human virtue, however adamantine it has been boasted, is +held up in vain; we do not always suffer by our crimes; we are not +always protected by our innocence.' _The Adventurer_, No. 120. See also +_Rasselas_, chap. 27. + +[1150] 'Charles Fox said that Mrs. Sheridan's _Sydney Biddulph_ was the +best of all modern novels. By the by [R. B.] Sheridan used to declare +that _he_ had never read it.' Rogers's _Table-Talk_, p. 90. The editor +says, in a note on this passage:--'The incident in _The School for +Scandal_ of Sir Oliver's presenting himself to his relations in disguise +is manifestly taken by Sheridan from his mother's novel.' + +[1151] No. 8.--The very place where I was fortunate enough to be +introduced to the illustrious subject of this work, deserves to be +particularly marked. I never pass by it without feeling reverence and +regret. BOSWELL. + +[1152] Johnson said:--'Sir, Davies has learning enough to give credit to +a clergyman.' _Post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_. The spiteful +Steevens thus wrote about Davies:--'His concern ought to be with the +outside of books; but Dr. Johnson, Dr. Percy, and some others have made +such a coxcomb of him, that he is now hardy enough to open volumes, turn +over their leaves, and give his opinions of their contents. Did I ever +tell you an anecdote of him? About ten years ago I wanted the Oxford +_Homer_, and called at Davies's to ask for it, as I had seen one thrown +about his shop. Will you believe me, when I assure you he told me "he +had but one, and that he kept for _his own reading_?"' _Garrick +Corres_. i. 608. + +[1153] Johnson, writing to Beattie, _post_, Aug 21, 1780, says:--'Mr. +Davies has got great success as an author, generated by the corruption +of a bookseller.' His principal works are _Memoirs of Garrick_, 1780, +and _Dramatic Miscellanies_, 1784. + +[1154] Churchill, in the _Rosciad_, thus celebrated his wife and mocked +his recitation:-- + +'With him came mighty Davies. On my life +That Davies hath a very pretty wife:-- +Statesman all over!--In plots famous grown!-- +He mouths a sentence, as curs mouth a bone.' + +Churchill's _Poems_, i. 16. + +See _post_, under April 20, 1764, and March 20, 1778. Charles Lamb in a +note to his _Essay on the Tragedies of Shakespeare_ says of Davies, that +he 'is recorded to have recited the _Paradise Lost_ better than any man +in England in his day (though I cannot help thinking there must be some +mistake in this tradition).' Lamb's _Works_, ed. 1840, p. 517. + +[1155] See Johnson's letter to Davies, _post_, June 18, 1783. + +[1156] Mr. Murphy, in his _Essay on the Life and Genius of Dr. Johnson_, +[p. 106], has given an account of this meeting considerably different +from mine, I am persuaded without any consciousness of errour. His +memory, at the end of near thirty years, has undoubtedly deceived him, +and he supposes himself to have been present at a scene, which he has +probably heard inaccurately described by others. In my note _taken on +the very day_, in which I am confident I marked every thing material +that passed, no mention is made of this gentleman; and I am sure, that I +should not have omitted one so well known in the literary world. It may +easily be imagined that this, my first interview with Dr. Johnson, with +all its circumstances, made a strong impression on my mind, and would be +registered with peculiar attention. BOSWELL. + +[1157] See _post_, April 8, 1775. + +[1158] That this was a momentary sally against Garrick there can be no +doubt; for at Johnson's desire he had, some years before, given a +benefit-night at his theatre to this very person, by which she had got +two hundred pounds. Johnson, indeed, upon all other occasions, when I +was in his company, praised the very liberal charity of Garrick. I once +mentioned to him, 'It is observed, Sir, that you attack Garrick +yourself, but will suffer nobody else to do it.' JOHNSON, (smiling) +'Why, Sir, that is true.' BOSWELL. See _post_, May 15, 1776, and +April 17, 1778. + +[1159] By Henry Home, Lord Kames, 3 vols. Edinburgh, 1762. See _post_, +Oct. 16, 1769. 'Johnson laughed much at Lord Kames's opinion that war +was a good thing occasionally, as so much valour and virtue were +exhibited in it. "A fire," says Johnson, "might as well be thought a +good thing; there is the bravery and address of the firemen employed in +extinguishing it; there is much humanity exerted in saving the lives and +properties of the poor sufferers; yet after all this, who can say a fire +is a good thing?"' Johnson's _Works_, (1787) xi. 209. + +[1160] No. 45 of the _North Briton_ had been published on April 23. +Wilkes was arrested under a general warrant on April 30. On May 6 he was +discharged from custody by the Court of Common Pleas, before which he +had been brought by a writ of _Habeas Corpus_. A few days later he was +served with a subpoena upon an information exhibited against him by the +Attorney-General in the Court of King's Bench. He did not enter an +appearance, holding, as he said, the serving him with the subpoena as a +violation of the privilege of parliament. _Parl. Hist_. xv. 1360. + +[1161] Mr. Sheridan was then reading lectures upon Oratory at Bath, +where Derrick was Master of the Ceremonies; or, as the phrase is, KING. +BOSWELL. Dr. Parr, who knew Sheridan well, describes him 'as a +wrong-headed, whimsical man.' 'I remember,' he continues, 'hearing one +of his daughters, in the house where I lodged, triumphantly repeat +Dryden's _Ode upon St. Cecilia's Day_, according to the instruction +given to her by her father. Take a sample:-- + +"_None_ but the brave +None but the _brave_. +None _but_ the brave deserve the fair." + +Naughty Richard [R. B. Sheridan], like Gallio, seemed to care nought for +these things.' Moore's _Sheridan_, i. 9, 11. Sheridan writing from +Dublin on Dec. 7, 1771, says:--'Never was party violence carried to such +a height as in this session; the House [the Irish House of Parliament] +seldom breaking up till eleven or twelve at night. From these contests +the desire of improving in the article of elocution is become very +general. There are no less than five persons of rank and fortune now +waiting my leisure to become my pupils.' _Ib_. p. 60. See _post_, +July 28, 1763. + +[1162] Bonnell Thornton. See _post_ July 1, 1763. + +[1163] Lloyd was one of a remarkable group of Westminster boys. He was a +school-fellow not only of Churchill, the elder Colman, and Cumberland, +buy also of Cowper and Warren Hastings. Bonnell Thornton was a few years +their senior. Not many weeks after this meeting with Boswell, Lloyd was +in the Fleet prison. Churchill in _Indepence_(_Poems_ ii 310) thus +addresses the Patrons of the age:-- + +'Hence, ye vain boasters, to the Fleet repair +And ask, with blushes ask if Lloyd is there.' + +Of the four men who thus enlivened Boswell, two were dead before the end +of the following year. Churchill went first. When Lloyd heard of his +death, '"I shall follow poor Charles," was all he said, as he went to +the bed from which he never rose again.' Thornton lived three or four +years longer, Forster's _Essays_, ii 217, 270, 289. See also his _Life +of Goldsmith_ i. 264, for an account how 'Lloyd invited Goldsmith to sup +with some friends of Grub Street, and left him to pay the reckoning.' +Thornton, Lloyd, Colman, Cowper, and Joseph Hill, to whom Cowper's +famous _Epistle_ was addressed, had at one time been members of the +Nonsense Club. Southey's _Cowper_, i. 37. + +[1164] The author of the well-known sermons, see _post_, under Dec. 21, +1776. + +[1165] See _post_, under Dec. 9, 1784. + +[1166] See _post_, Feb. 7, 1775, under Dec. 24, 1783, and Boswell's +_Hebrides_, Nov. 10, 1773. + +[1167] 'Sir,' he said to Reynolds, 'a man might write such stuff for +ever, if he would _abandon_ his mind to it;' _post_, under March +30, 1783. + +[1168] 'Or behind the screen' some one might have added, _ante_, i. 163. + +[1169] Wesley was told that a whole waggon-load of Methodists had been +lately brought before a Justice of the Peace. When he asked what they +were charged with, one replied, 'Why they pretended to be better than +other people, and besides they prayed from morning to night.' Wesley's +_Journal_, i. 361. See also _post_, 1780, near the end of Mr. Langton's +_Collection_. + +[1170] 'The progress which the understanding makes through a book has' +he said, 'more pain than pleasure in it;' _post_, May 1, 1783. + +[1171] _Matthew_, vi. 16. + +[1172] Boswell, it is clear, in the early days of his acquaintance with +Johnson often led the talk to this subject. See _post_, June 25, July +14, 21, and 28, 1763. + +[1173] See _post_, April 7, 1778. + +[1174] He finished his day, 'however late it might be,' by taking tea at +Miss Williams's lodgings; _post_, July 1, 1763. + +[1175] See _post_, under Feb. 15, 1766, Feb. 1767, March 20, 1776, and +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 20, 1773, where Johnson says:--'I have been +trying to cure my laziness all my life, and could not do it.' It was +this kind of life that caused so much of the remorse which is seen in +his _Prayers and Meditations_. + +[1176] Horace Walpole writing on June 12, 1759 (_Letters_, iii. 231), +says:--'A war that reaches from Muscovy to Alsace, and from Madras to +California, don't produce an article half so long as Mr. Johnson's +riding three horses at once.' I have a curious copper-plate showing +Johnson standing on one, or two, and leading a third horse in full +speed.' It bears the date of November 1758. See _post_, April 3, 1778. + +[1177] In the impudent _Correspondence_ (pp. 63, 65) which Boswell and +Andrew Erskine published this year, Boswell shows why he wished to enter +the Guards. 'My fondness for the Guards,' he writes, 'must appear very +strange to you, who have a rooted antipathy at the glare of scarlet. But +I must inform you, that there is a city called London, for which I have +as violent an affection as the most romantic lover ever had for his +mistress.... I am thinking of the brilliant scenes of happiness, which I +shall enjoy as an officer of the guards. How I shall be acquainted with +all the grandeur of a court, and all the elegance of dress and +diversions; become a favourite of ministers of state, and the adoration +of ladies of quality, beauty, and fortune! How many parties of pleasure +shall I have in town! How many fine jaunts to the noble seats of dukes, +lords, and members of parliament in the country! I am thinking of the +perfect knowledge which I shall acquire of men and manners, of the +intimacies which I shall have the honour to form with the learned and +ingenious in every science, and of the many amusing literary anecdotes +which I shall pick up,' etc. Boswell, in his _Hebrides_ (Aug. 18, 1773), +says of himself:--'His inclination was to be a soldier; but his father, +a respectable Judge, had pressed him into the profession of the law.' + +[1178] A row of tenements in the Strand, between Wych Street and Temple +Bar, and 'so called from the butchers' shambles on the south side.' +(_Strype_, B. iv. p. 118.) Butcher Row was pulled down in 1813, and the +present Pickett Street erected in its stead. P. CUNNINGHAM. In _Humphry +Clinker_, in the letter of June 10, one of the poor authors is described +as having been 'reduced to a woollen night-cap and living upon +sheep's-trotters, up three pair of stairs backward in Butcher Row.' + +[1179] Cibber was poet-laureate from 1730 to 1757. Horace Walpole +describes him as 'that good humoured and honest veteran, so unworthily +aspersed by Pope, whose _Memoirs_, with one or two of his comedies, will +secure his fame, in spite of all the abuse of his contemporaries.' His +successor Whitehead, Walpole calls 'a man of a placid genius.' _Reign of +George II_, iii. 81. See _ante_, pp. 149, 185, and _post_, Oct. 19, +1769, May 15, 1776, and Sept. 21, 1777. + +[1180] The following quotations show the difference of style in the two +poets:-- + + COLLEY GIBBER. + + 'When her pride, fierce in arms, + Would to Europe give law; + At her cost let her come, + To our cheer of huzza! + Not lightning with thunder more terrible darts, + Than the burst of huzza from our bold _British_ hearts.' + + _Gent. Mag_. xxv. 515. + + WM. WHITEHEAD. + + 'Ye guardian powers, to whose command, + At Nature's birth, th' Almighty mind + The delegated task assign'd + To watch o'er Albion's favour'd land, + What time your hosts with choral lay, + Emerging from its kindred deep, + Applausive hail'd each verdant steep, + And white rock, glitt'ring to the new-born day!' + + _Ib_. xxix. 32. + +[1181] See _ante_, p. 167. + +[1182] 'Whitehead was for some while Garrick's "reader" of new plays for +Drury-lane.' Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 41. See _post_, April 25, 1778, +note. The verses to Garrick are given in Chalmers's _English Poets_, +xvii. 222. + +[1183] 'In 1757 Gray published _The Progress of Poetry_ and _The Bard_, +two compositions at which the readers of poetry were at first content to +gaze in mute amazement. Some that tried them confessed their inability +to understand them.... Garrick wrote a few lines in their praise. Some +hardy champions undertook to rescue them from neglect; and in a short +time many were content to be shown beauties which they could not see.' +Johnson's _Works_, viii. 478. See _post_, March 28, and April 2, 1775, +and 1780 in Mr. Langton's _Collection_. Goldsmith, no doubt, attacked +Gray among 'the misguided innovators,' of whom he said in his _Life of +Parnell_:--'They have adopted a language of their own, and call upon +mankind for admiration. All those who do not understand them are silent, +and those who make out their meaning are willing to praise to show they +understand.' Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, iv. 22. + +[1184] Johnson, perhaps, refers to the anonymous critic quoted by Mason +in his notes on this Ode, who says:--'This abrupt execration plunges the +reader into that sudden fearful perplexity which is designed to +predominate through the whole.' Mason's _Gray_, ed. 1807, i. 96. + +[1185] 'Of the first stanza [of _The Bard_] the abrupt beginning has +been celebrated; but technical beauties can give praise only to the +inventor. It is in the power of any man to rush abruptly upon his +subject that has read the ballad of _Johnny Armstrong_.' Johnson's +_Works_, viii. 485. + +[1186] My friend Mr. Malone, in his valuable comments on Shakspeare, has +traced in that great poet the _disjecta membra_ of these lines. BOSWELL. +Gray, in the edition of _The Bard_ of the year 1768, in a note on these +lines had quoted from _King John_, act v. sc. 1:--'Mocking the air with +colours idly spread.' Gosse's _Gray_, i. 41. But Malone quotes also from +_Macbeth_, act i. sc. 2:-- + +'Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky +And fan our people cold.' + +'Out of these passages,' he said, 'Mr. Gray seems to have framed the +first stanza of his celebrated _Ode_.' Malone's _Shakespeare_, xv. 344. + +[1187] Cradock records (_Memoirs_, 1.230) that Goldsmith said to +him:--'You are so attached to Kurd, Gray, and Mason, that you think +nothing good can proceed but out of that formal school;--now, I'll mend +Gray's _Elegy_ by leaving out an idle word in every line. + +"The curfew tolls the knell of day, +The lowing herd winds o'er the lea +The ploughman homeward plods his way +And---" + +Enough, enough, I have no ear for more.' + +[1188] So, less than two years later, Boswell opened his mind to Paoli. +'My time passed here in the most agreeable manner. I enjoyed a sort of +luxury of noble sentiment. Paoli became more affable with me. I made +myself known to him.' Boswell's _Corsica_, p. 167. + +[1189] See _ante_, p. 67. + +[1190] See _post_, Sept. 22, 1777. + +[1191] See _post_, March 30, 1778, where in speaking of the appearance +of spirits after death he says:--'All argument is against it; but all +belief is for it.' See also _ante_, p. 343, and _post_, April 15, 1778, +under May 4, 1779, April 15, 1781, and June 12, 1784. + +[1192] The caricature begins:-- + +'Pomposo, insolent and loud +Vain idol of a _scribbling_ crowd, +Whose very name inspires an awe +Whose ev'ry word is Sense and Law.' + +Churchill's _Poems_, i. 216. + +[1193] The chief impostor, a man of the name of Parsons, had, it should +seem, set his daughter to play the part of the ghost in order to pay out +a grudge against a man who had sued him for a debt. The ghost was made +to accuse this man of poisoning his sister-in-law, and to declare that +she should only be at ease in her mind if he were hanged. 'When Parsons +stood on the Pillory at the end of Cock Lane, instead of being pelted, +he had money given him.' _Gent. Mag_. xxxii. 43, 82, and xxxiii. 144. + +[1194] Horace Walpole, writing on Feb. 2, 1762 (_Letters_, iii. 481), +says:--'I could send you volumes on the Ghost, and I believe, if I were +to stay a little, I might send its _life_, dedicated to my Lord +Dartmouth, by the Ordinary of Newgate, its two great patrons. A drunken +parish clerk set it on foot out of revenge, the Methodists have adopted +it, and the whole town of London think of nothing else.... I went to +hear it, for it is not an _apparition_, but an _audition_, ... the Duke +of York, Lady Northumberland, Lady Mary Coke, Lord Hertford, and I, all +in one Hackney-coach: it rained torrents; yet the lane was full of mob, +and the house so full we could not get in.' See _post_, April 10, 1778. + +[1195] Described by Goldsmith in _Retaliation_ as 'The scourge of +impostors, the terror of quacks.' See _ante_, p. 229. + +[1196] The account was as follows:--'On the night of the 1st of February +[1762] many gentlemen eminent for their rank and character were, by the +invitation of the Reverend Mr. Aldrich, of Clerkenwell, assembled at his +house, for the examination of the noises supposed to be made by a +departed spirit, for the detection of some enormous crime. + +'About ten at night the gentlemen met in the chamber in which the girl, +supposed to be disturbed by a spirit, had, with proper caution, been put +to bed by several ladies. They sat rather more than an hour, and hearing +nothing, went down stairs, when they interrogated the father of the +girl, who denied, in the strongest terms, any knowledge or belief +of fraud. + +'The supposed spirit had before publickly promised, by an affirmative +knock, that it would attend one of the gentlemen into the vault under +the Church of St. John, Clerkenwell, where the body is deposited, and +give a token of her presence there, by a knock upon her coffin; it was +therefore determined to make this trial of the existence or veracity of +the supposed spirit. + +'While they were enquiring and deliberating, they were summoned into the +girl's chamber by some ladies who were near her bed, and who had heard +knocks and scratches. When the gentlemen entered, the girl declared that +she felt the spirit like a mouse upon her back, and was required to hold +her hands out of bed. From that time, though the spirit was very +solemnly required to manifest its existence by appearance, by impression +on the hand or body of any present, by scratches, knocks, or any other +agency, no evidence of any preter-natural power was exhibited. + +'The spirit was then very seriously advertised that the person to whom +the promise was made of striking the coffin, was then about to visit the +vault, and that the performance of the promise was then claimed. The +company at one o'clock went into the church, and the gentleman to whom +the promise was made, went with another into the vault. The spirit was +solemnly required to perform its promise, but nothing more than silence +ensued: the person supposed to be accused by the spirit, then went down +with several others, but no effect was perceived. Upon their return they +examined the girl, but could draw no confession from her. Between two +and three she desired and was permitted to go home with her father. + +'It is, therefore, the opinion of the whole assembly, that the child has +some art of making or counterfeiting a particular noise, and that there +is no agency of any higher cause.' BOSWELL. _Gent. Mag_. xxxii. 81. The +following MS. letter is in the British Museum:-- + +'REVD. SIR, + +The appointment for the examination stands as it did when I saw you +last, viz., between 8 and 9 this evening. Mr. Johnson was applied to by +a friend of mine soon after you left him, and promised to be with us. +Should be glad, if convenient, you'd show him the way hither. Mrs. +Oakes, of Dr. Macauley's recommendation, I should be glad to have here +on the occasion; and think it would do honour to the list of examiners +to have Dr. Macauley with us. + +I am, Dear Sir, +your most obedient servant, +STE. ALDRICH. + +If Dr Macauley can conveniently attend, should be glad you'd acquaint +Lord Dartmouth with it, who seemed to be at loss to recommend a +gentleman of the faculty at his end of the town. + +St. John's Square. Monday noon. + +To the Revd. Dr. Douglas.' + +Endorsed 'Mr. Aldrich, Feb. 1762, about the Cock Lane +ghost.--Examination at his house.' + +[1197] Boswell was with Paoli when news came that a Corsican under +sentence of death 'had consented to accept of his life, upon condition +of becoming hangman. This made a great noise among the Corsicans, who +were enraged at the creature, and said their nation was now disgraced. +Paoli did not think so. He said to me:--"I am glad of this. It will be +of service. It will contribute to form us to a just subordination. As we +must have Corsican tailours, and Corsican shoemakers, we must also have +a Corsican hangman."' Boswell's _Corsica_, p. 201. See _post_, July 20 +and 21, 1763, April 13, 1773, and March 28, 1775. + +[1198] 'Mallet's Dramas had their day, a short day, and are forgotten.' +Johnson's _Works_, viii. 468. + +[1199] See _ante_, p. 384, note. + +[1200] 'A man had heard that Dempster was very clever, and therefore +expected that he could say nothing but good things. Being brought +acquainted, Mr. Dempster said to him with much politeness, "I hope, Sir, +your lady and family are well." "Ay, ay, man," said he, "pray where is +the great wit in that speech?"' _Boswelliana_, p. 307. Mr. Dempster is +mentioned by Burns in _The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer to the Scotch +Representatives in the House of Commons_:--'Dempster, a true-blue Scot +I'se warran.' In 1769 he was elected member for the Forfar Boroughs. +_Parl. Hist_. xvi. 453. + +[1201] _The Critical Review_, in which Mallet himself sometimes wrote, +characterised this pamphlet as 'the crude efforts of envy, petulance and +self conceit.' There being thus three epithets, we, the three authours, +had a humourous contention how each should be appropriated. BOSWELL. + +[1202] Johnson (_Works_, ix. 86) talks of the chiefs 'gradually +degenerating from patriarchal rulers to rapacious landlords.' In +Boswell's _Hebrides_, the subject is often examined. + +[1203] See _ante_, i. 365. + +[1204] 'Dr. Burney spoke with great warmth of affection of Dr. Johnson; +said he was the kindest creature in the world when he thought he was +loved and respected by others. He would play the fool among friends, but +he required deference. It was necessary to ask questions and make no +assertion. If you said two and two make four, he would say, "How will +you prove that, Sir?" Dr. Burney seemed amiably sensitive to every +unfavourable remark on his old friend.' H. C. Robinson's _Diary_, +iii. 485. + +[1205] See _post_, April 24, 1777, note, and Oct. l0, 1779, where he +consults Johnson about the study of Greek. He formed wishes, scarcely +plans of study but never studied. + +[1206] See _post_, Feb. 18, 1777. It was Graham who so insulted +Goldsmith by saying:--''Tis not you I mean, Dr. _Minor_; 'tis Dr. +_Major_ there.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773. + +[1207] See _post_, Sept. 19, 1777. + +[1208] Of Mathematics Goldsmith wrote:--'This seems a science to which +the meanest intellects are equal.' See _post_, March 15, 1776, note. + +[1209] In his _Present State of Polite Learning_, ch. 13 (_Misc. Works_, +i. 266), Goldsmith writes:--'A man who is whirled through Europe in a +post-chaise, and the pilgrim who walks the grand tour on foot, will form +very different conclusions. _Haud inexpertus loquor_.' The last three +words are omitted in the second edition. + +[1210] George Primrose in the _Vicar of Wakefield_ (ch. 20), after +describing these disputations, says:--'In this manner I fought my way +towards England.' + +[1211] Dr. Warton wrote to his brother on Jan. 22, 1766:--'Of all solemn +coxcombs Goldsmith is the first; yet sensible--but affects to use +Johnson's hard words in conversation.' Wooll's _Warton_, p. 312. + +[1212] It was long believed that the author of one of Goldsmith's early +works was Lord Lyttelton. '"Whenever I write anything," said Goldsmith, +"I think the public _make a point_ to know nothing about it." So the +present book was issued as a _History of England in a series of Letters +from a Nobleman to his Son_. The persuasion at last became general that +the author was Lord Lyttelton, and the name of that grave good lord is +occasionally still seen affixed to it on the bookstalls.' Forster's +_Goldsmith_, i. 301. The _Traveller_ was the first of his works to which +he put his name. It was published in 1764. 16. p. 364. + +[1213] Published in 1759. + +[1214] Published in 1760-1. + +[1215] See his Epitaph in Westminster Abbey, written by Dr. Johnson. +BOSWELL. + +'Qui nullum fere scribendi genus +Non tetigit, +Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.' + +_Post_, under June 22, 1776. + +[1216] In allusion to this, Mr. Horace Walpole, who admired his +writings, said he was 'an inspired ideot;' and Garrick described him +as one + +'----for shortness call'd Noll, +Who wrote like an angel, and +talk'd like poor Poll.' + +Sir Joshua Reynolds mentioned to me that he frequently heard Goldsmith +talk warmly of the pleasure of being liked, and observe how hard it +would be if literary excellence should preclude a man from that +satisfaction, which he perceived it often did, from the envy which +attended it; and therefore Sir Joshua was convinced that he was +intentionally more absurd, in order to lessen himself in social +intercourse, trusting that his character would be sufficiently supported +by his works. If it indeed was his intention to appear absurd in +company, he was often very successful. But with due deference to Sir +Joshua's ingenuity, I think the conjecture too refined. BOSWELL. + +Horace Walpole's saying of the 'inspired ideot' is recorded in Davies's +_Garrick_, ii. 151. Walpole, in his _Letters_, describes Goldsmith as 'a +changeling that has had bright gleams of parts,' (v. 458); 'a fool, the +more wearing for having some sense,' (vi. 29); 'a poor soul that had +sometimes parts, though never common sense,' (_ib_. p. 73); and 'an +idiot, with once or twice a fit of parts,' (_ib_. p. 379). +Garrick's lines-- + +'Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, +Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll,' + +are his imaginary epitaph on Goldsmith, which, with the others, gave +rise to _Retaliation_. Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 405. + +[1217] Rousseau accounting for the habit he has 'de balbutier +promptement des paroles sans idées,' continues, 'je crois que voilà de +quoi faire assez comprendre comment n'étant pas un sot, j'ai cependant +souvent passé pour l'être, même chez des gens en état de bien juger.... +Le parti que j'ai pris d'écrire et de me cacher est précisément celui +qui me convenait. Moi présent on n'aurait jamais su ce que je valois, on +ne l'aurait pas soupconné même.' _Les Confessions_, Livre iii. See +_post_, April 27, 1773, where Boswell admits that 'Goldsmith was often +very fortunate in his witty contests, even when he entered the lists +with Johnson himself:' and April 30, 1773, where Reynolds says of him: +'There is no man whose company is more liked.' + +[1218] Northcote, a few weeks before his death, said to Mr. +Prior:--'When Goldsmith entered a room, Sir, people who did not know him +became for a moment silent from awe of his literary reputation; when he +came out again, they were riding upon his back.' Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. +440. According to Dr. Percy:--'His face was marked with strong lines of +thinking. His first appearance was not captivating; but when he grew +easy and cheerful in company, he relaxed into such a display of good +humour as soon removed every unfavourable impression.' Goldsmith's +_Misc. Works_, i. 117. + +[1219] 'Dr. Goldsmith told me, he himself envied Shakespeare.' Walpole's +_Letters_, vi. 379. Boswell, later on (_post_, May 9, 1773), says:--'In +my opinion Goldsmith had not more of it [an envious disposition] than +other people have, but only talked of it freely.' See also _post_, April +12, 1778. According to Northcote, 'Sir Joshua said that Goldsmith +considered public notoriety or fame as one great parcel, to the whole of +which he laid claim, and whoever partook of any part of it, whether +dancer, singer, slight of hand man, or tumbler, deprived him of his +right.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 248. See _post_, April 7, 1778, where +Johnson said that 'Goldsmith was not an agreeable companion, for he +talked always for fame;' and April 9, 1778. + +[1220] Miss Hornecks, one of whom is now married to Henry Bunbury, Esq., +and the other to Colonel Gwyn. BOSWELL. + +[1221] 'Standing at the window of their hotel [in Lisle] to see a +company of soldiers in the Square, the beauty of the sisters Horneck +drew such marked admiration, that Goldsmith, heightening his drollery +with that air of solemnity so generally a point in his humour and so +often more solemnly misinterpreted, turned off from the window with the +remark that elsewhere _he_ too could have his admirers. The Jessamy +Bride, Mrs. Gwyn, was asked about the occurrence not many years ago; +remembered it as a playful jest; and said how shocked she had +subsequently been "to see it adduced in print as a proof of his envious +disposition."' Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 217. + +[1222] Puppets. + +[1223] He went home with Mr. Burke to supper; and broke his shin by +attempting to exhibit to the company how much better he could jump over +a stick than the puppets. BOSWELL. Mr. Hoole was one day in a coach with +Johnson, when 'Johnson, who delighted in rapidity of pace, and had been +speaking of Goldsmith, put his head out of one of the windows to see +they were going right, and rubbing his hands with an air of satisfaction +exclaimed:--"This man drives fast and well; were Goldsmith here now he +would tell us he could do better."' Prior's _Goldsmith_, ii. 127. + +[1224] See _post_, April 9, 1773; also April 9, 1778, where Johnson +says, 'Goldsmith had no settled notions upon any subject.' + +[1225] I am willing to hope that there may have been some mistake as to +this anecdote, though I had it from a Dignitary of the Church. Dr. Isaac +Goldsmith, his near relation, was Dean of Cloyne, in 1747. BOSWELL. This +note first appears in the second edition. + +[1226] Mr. Welsh, in _A Bookseller of the Last Century_, p. 58, quotes +the following entry from an account-book of B. Collins of Salisbury, the +printer of the first edition of the _Vicar_:--'_Vicar of Wakefield_, 2 +vols. 12mo., 1/3rd. B. Collins, Salisbury, bought of Dr. Goldsmith, the +author, October 28, 1762, £21.' Goldsmith, it should seem from this, as +Collins's third share was worth twenty guineas, was paid not sixty +pounds, but sixty guineas. Collins shared in many of the ventures of +Newbery, Goldsmith's publisher. Mr. Welsh says (_ib_. p. 61) that +Collins's accounts show 'that the first three editions resulted in a +loss.' If this was so, the booksellers must have been great bunglers, +for the book ran through three editions in six or seven months. +Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 425. + +[1227] The Traveller (price one shilling and sixpence) was published in +December 1764, and _The Vicar of Wakefield_ in March 1766. In August +1765 the fourth edition of _The Traveller_ appeared, and the ninth in +the year Goldsmith died. He received for it £21. Forster's _Goldsmith_, +i. 364, 374, 409. See _ante_, p. 193, note i. + +[1228] '"Miss Burney," said Mrs. Thrale [to Dr. Johnson], "is fond of +_The Vicar of Wakefield_, and so am I. Don't you like it, Sir?" "No, +madam, it is very faulty; there is nothing of real life in it, and very +little of nature. It is a mere fanciful performance."' Mme. D'Arblay's +_Diary_, i. 83. 'There are a hundred faults in this Thing,' said +Goldsmith in the preface, 'and a hundred things might be said to prove +them beauties. But it is needless. A book may be amusing with numerous +errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity.' See _post_, +April 25, 1778. + +[1229] _Anecdotes of Johnson_, p. 119. BOSWELL. + +[1230] _Life of Johnson_, p. 420. BOSWELL. + +[1231] In his imprudence he was like Savage, of whom Johnson says +(_Works_, viii. 161):--'To supply him with money was a hopeless attempt; +for no sooner did he see himself master of a sum sufficient to set him +free from care for a day, than he became profuse and luxurious.' When +Savage was 'lodging in the liberties of the Fleet, his friends sent him +every Monday a guinea, which he commonly spent before the next morning, +and trusted, after his usual manner, the remaining part of the week to +the bounty of fortune.' _Ib_. p. 170. + +[1232] It may not be improper to annex here Mrs. Piozzi's account of +this transaction, in her own words, as a specimen of the extreme +inaccuracy with which all her anecdotes of Dr. Johnson are related, or +rather discoloured and distorted:--'I have forgotten the year, but it +could scarcely, I think, be later than 1765 or 1766 that he was _called +abruptly from our house after dinner_, and returning _in about three +hours_, said he had been with an enraged authour, whose landlady pressed +him for payment within doors, while the bailiffs beset him without; that +he was _drinking himself drunk_ with Madeira, to drown care, and +fretting over a novel, which, when _finished_, was to be his _whole +fortune_, but _he could not get it done for distraction_, nor could he +step out of doors to offer it for sale. Mr. Johnson, therefore, sent +away the bottle, and went to the bookseller, recommending the +performance, and _desiring some immediate relief_; which when he brought +back to the writer, _he called the 'woman of the house directly to +partake of punch, and pass their time in merriment.' Anecdotes of Dr. +Johnson_, p. 119. BOSWELL. The whole transaction took place in 1762, as +is shown, _ante_, p. 415, note 1; Johnson did not know the Thrales +till 1764. + +[1233] Through Goldsmith Boswell became acquainted with Reynolds. In his +_Letter to the People of Scotland_ (p. 99), he says:--'I exhort you, my +friends and countrymen, in the words of my departed _Goldsmith_, who +gave me many nodes _Atticae_, and gave me a jewel of the finest +water--the acquaintance of Sir Joshua Reynolds.' + +[1234] See _post_, July 30, 1763. + +[1235] See _post_, March 20, 1776, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 17, +1773. + +[1236] See _post_, March 15, 1776. + +[1237] 'Dr. Campbell was an entertaining story-teller, which [_sic_] +sometimes he rather embellished; so that the writer of this once heard +Dr. Johnson say:--"Campbell will lie, but he never lies on paper."' +_Gent. Mag_. for 1785, p. 969. + +[1238] I am inclined to think that he was misinformed as to this +circumstance. I own I am jealous for my worthy friend Dr. John Campbell. +For though Milton could without remorse absent himself from publick +worship [Johnson's _Works_, vii. 115] I cannot. On the contrary, I have +the same habitual impressions upon my mind, with those of a truely +venerable Judge, who said to Mr. Langton, 'Friend Langton, if I have not +been at church on Sunday, I do not feel myself easy.' Dr. Campbell was a +sincerely religious man. Lord Macartney, who is eminent for his variety +of knowledge, and attention to men of talents, and knew him well, told +me, that when he called on him in a morning, he found him reading a +chapter in the Greek New Testament, which he informed his Lordship was +his constant practice. The quantity of Dr. Campbell's composition is +almost incredible, and his labours brought him large profits. Dr. Joseph +Warton told me that Johnson said of him, 'He is the richest authour that +ever grazed the common of literature.' BOSWELL. + +[1239] See _post_, April 7, 1778. Campbell complied with one of the +_Monita Padagogica_ of Erasmus. 'Si quem praeteribis natu grandem, +magistratum, sacerdotem, doctorem.... memento aperire caput.... Itidem +facito quum praeteribis asdem sacram.' Erasmus's _Colloquies_, ed. +1867, i. 36. + +[1240] Reynolds said of Johnson:--'He was not easily imposed upon by +professions to honesty and candour; but he appeared to have little +suspicion of hypocrisy in religion.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 459. +Boswell, in one of his penitent letters, wrote to Temple on July 21, +1790:--'I am even almost inclined to think with you, that my great +oracle Johnson did allow too much credit to good principles, without +good practice.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 327. + +[1241] Campbell lived in 'the large new-built house at the +north-west-corner of Queen Square, Bloomsbury, whither, particularly on +a Sunday evening, great numbers of persons of the first eminence for +science and literature resorted for the enjoyment of conversation.' +Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 210. + +[1242] Churchill, in his first poem, _The Rosciad_ (Poems, i. 4), +mentions Johnson without any disrespect among those who were thought +of as judge. + +'For Johnson some, but Johnson, it was feared, +Would be too grave; and Sterne too gay appeared.' + +In The Author (ib. ii. 36), if I mistake not, he grossly alludes to the +convulsive disorder to which Johnson was subject. Attacking the +pensioners he says--the italics are his own:-- + +'Others, _half-palsied_ only, mutes become, +And what makes Smollett write makes Johnson dumb.' + +[1243] See _post_, April 6, 1772, where Johnson called Fielding a +blockhead. + +[1244] Churchill published his first poem, _The Rosciad_, in March or +April 1761 (_Gent. Mag_. xxxi. 190); _The Apology_ in May or June (_Ib_. +p. 286); _Night_ in Jan. 1762 (_Ib_. xxxii. 47); The First and Second +Parts of The Ghost in March (_ib_. p. 147); The Third Part in the autumn +(_ib_. p. 449); _The Prophecy of Famine _in Jan. 1763 (_ib_. xxxiii. +47), and _The Epistle to Hogarth_ in this month of July (_ib_. p. 363). +He wrote the fourth part of _The Ghost_, and nine more poems, and died +on Nov. 4, 1764, aged thirty-two or thirty-three. + +[1245] 'Cowper had a higher opinion of Churchill than of any other +contemporary writer. "It is a great thing," he said, "to be indeed a +poet, and does not happen to more than one man in a century; but +Churchill, the great Churchill, deserved that name." He made him, more +than any other writer, his model.' Southey's _Cowper_, i. 87, 8. + +[1246] Mr. Forster says that 'Churchill asked five guineas for the +manuscript of _The Rosciad_ (according to Southey, but Mr. Tooke says he +asked twenty pounds).' Finding no purchaser he brought the poem out at +his own risk. Mr. Forster continues:--'The pulpit had starved him on +forty pounds a year; the public had given him a thousand pounds in two +months.' Forster's _Essays_, ii. 226, 240. As _The Rosciad _was sold at +one shilling a copy, it seems incredible that such a gain could have +been made, even with the profits of _The Apology_ included. 'Blotting +and correcting was so much Churchill's abhorrence that I have heard from +his publisher he once energetically expressed himself, that it was like +cutting away one's own flesh.' D'Israeli's _Curiosities of Literature_, +ed. 1834, iii. 129. D'Israeli 'had heard that after a successful work he +usually precipitated the publication of another, relying on its +crudeness being passed over by the public curiosity excited by its +better brother. He called this getting double pay, for thus he secured +the sale of a hurried work.' + +[1247] In the opening lines of _Gotham,_ Bk. iii, there is a passage of +great beauty and tenderness. + +[1248] In 1769 I set Thornton's burlesque _Ode_. It was performed at +Ranelagh in masks, to a very crowded audience, as I was told; for I then +resided in Norfolk. BURNEY. Dr. Burney's note cannot be correct. He came +to reside in London in 1760 (_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 133) The Ode is +in the list of 'new books, published' in the _Gent. Mag_. for June 1763, +and is described as having been performed at Ranelagh. + +[1249] _The Connoisseur_ was started by Thornton and Colman in 1754. +Cowper and Lloyd were contributors. Southey's _Cowper_, i. 46, 49, 65. + +[1250] See _ante_, p. 350, note. + +[1251] See _post_, Aug. 2, 1763, and Oct. 26, 1769. + +[1252] See _post_. Sept. 20, 1777, note. + +[1253] The northern bard mentioned page 421. When I asked Dr. Johnson's +permission to introduce him, he obligingly agreed; adding, however, with +a sly pleasantry, 'but he must give us none of his poetry.' It is +remarkable that Johnson and Churchill, however much they differed in +other points, agreed on this subject. See Churchill's _Journey_. + +['Under dark Allegory's flimsy veil + Let Them with Ogilvie spin out a tale + Of rueful length,' + Churchill's _Poems_, ii. 329.] + +It is, however, but justice to Dr. Ogilvie to observe, that his _Day of +Judgement_ has no inconsiderable share of merit. BOSWELL. + +[1254] 'Johnson said:--"Goldsmith should not be for ever attempting to +_shine_ in conversation."' _Post_, April 27, 1773. See also _post_, +May 7, 1773. + +[1255] Fifteen years later Lord George Germaine, Secretary of State, +asserted in a debate 'that the King "was his own Minister," which +Charles Fox took up admirably, lamenting that His Majesty "was his own +_unadvised_ Minister."' Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George +III_, ii. 314. + +[1256] 'The general story of mankind will evince that lawful and settled +authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed.... Men are +easily kept obedient to those who have temporal dominion in their hands, +till their veneration is dissipated by such wickedness and folly as can +neither be defended nor concealed.' _The Rambler_, No. 50. See _post_, +March 31, 1772. + +[1257] 'It is natural to believe ... that no writer has a more easy task +than the historian. The philosopher has the works of omniscience to +examine.... The poet trusts to his invention.... But the happy historian +has no other labour than of gathering what tradition pours down before +him, or records treasure for his use.' _The Rambler_, No. 122. + +[1258] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 21, 1773. + +[1259] 'Arbuthnot was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his +profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, +and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active +imagination; a scholar with great brilliancy of wit; a wit, who in the +crowd of life retained and discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal.' +Johnson's _Works_, viii. 296. + +[1260] Goldsmith wrote from Edinburgh in 1753:--'Shall I tire you with a +description of this unfruitful country, where I must lead you over their +hills all brown with heath, or their vallies scarce able to feed a +rabbit? Man alone seems to be the only creature who has arrived to the +natural size in this poor soil. Every part of the country presents the +same dismal landscape.' Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 433. + +[1261] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 10, 1773. + +[1262] Johnson would suffer none of his friends to fill up chasms in +conversation with remarks on the weather: 'Let us not talk of the +weather.' BURNEY. + +[1263] See _ante_, p. 332. + +[1264] Boswell wrote to Temple on Sept. 9, 1767:--'How unaccountable is +it that my father and I should be so ill together! He is a man of sense +and a man of worth; but from some unhappy turn in his disposition he is +much dissatisfied with a son whom you know. I write to him with warmth, +with an honest pride, wishing that he should think of me as I am; but my +letters shock him, and every expression in them is interpreted +unfavourably. To give you an instance, I send you a letter I had from +him a few days ago. How galling is it to the friend of Paoli to be +treated so! I have answered him in my own style; I will be myself.' +_Letters of Boswell_, p. 110. In the following passage in one of his +_Hypochondriacks_ he certainly describes his father. 'I knew a father +who was a violent Whig, and used to attack his son for being a Tory, +upbraiding him with being deficient in "noble sentiments of liberty," +while at the same time he made this son live under his roof in such +bondage, that he was not only afraid to stir from home without leave, +like a child, but durst scarcely open his mouth in his father's +presence. This was sad living. Yet I would rather see such an excess of +awe than a degree of familiarity between father and son by which all +reverence is destroyed.' _London Mag_. 1781, p. 253. + +[1265] Boswell, the day after this talk, wrote:--'I have had a long +letter from my father, full of affection and good counsel. Honest man! +he is now very happy: it is amazing to think how much he has had at +heart, my pursuing the road of civil life.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 25. + +[1266] Gray, says Nicholls, 'disliked all poetry in blank verse, except +Milton.' Gray's _Works_, ed. 1858, v. 36. Goldsmith, in his _Present +State of Polite Learning_ (ch. xi.), wrote in 1759:--'From a desire in +the critic of grafting the spirit of ancient languages upon the English +have proceeded of late several disagreeable instances of pedantry. Among +the number, I think, we may reckon blank verse. Nothing but the greatest +sublimity of subject can render such a measure pleasing; however, we now +see it used upon the most trivial occasions.' On the same page he speaks +of 'the tuneless flow of our blank verse.' See _post_, 1770, in Dr. +Maxwell's _Collectanea_ and the beginning of 1781, under _The Life of +Milton_, for Johnson's opinion of blank verse. + +[1267] 'Johnson told me, that one day in London, when Dr. Adam Smith was +boasting of Glasgow, he turned to him and said, "Pray, Sir, have you +ever seen Brentford?'" Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 29, 1773. See _post_, +April 29, 1778. + +[1268] 'He advised me to read just as inclination prompted me, which +alone, he said, would do me any good; for I had better go into company +than read a set task. He said, too, that I should prescribe to myself +five hours a day, and in these hours gratify whatever literary desires +may spring up.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 28. The Editor of these +_Letters_ compares Tranio's advice:-- + +'No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en: +In brief, Sir, study what you most affect.' + +_Taming of the Shrew_, act i. sc. I. + +'Johnson used to say that no man read long together with a folio on his +table. "Books," said he, "that you may carry to the fire, and hold +readily in your hand, are the most useful after all."' Johnson's _Works_ +(1787), xi. 197. See also _The Idler_, No. 67, and _post_, April 12, +1776, and under Sept. 22, 1777. + +[1269] Wilkes, among others, had attacked him in Aug. 1762 in _The North +Briton_, Nos. xi. and xii. + +[1270] When I mentioned the same idle clamour to him several years +afterwards, he said, with a smile, 'I wish my pension were twice as +large, that they might make twice as much noise.' BOSWELL. + +[1271] In one thing at least he was changed. He could now indulge in the +full bent, to use his own words (_Works_, viii. l36), 'that +inquisitiveness which must always be produced in a vigorous mind, by an +absolute freedom from all pressing or domestick engagements.' + +[1272] See _post_, April 13, 1773, Sept. 17 and 19, 1777, March 21, +1783, and June 9, 1784. Lord Shelburne says:--'After the Revolution the +Tory and Jacobite parties had become almost identified by their together +opposing the Court for so many years, and still more by the persecution +which they suffered in common, for it was the policy of Sir Robert +Walpole to confound them as much as possible, so as to throw the +Jacobite odium upon every man who opposed government.' Fitzmaurice's +_Shelburne_, i. 35. Lord Bolingbroke (_Works_, iii. 28) complains that +the writers on the side of the ministry 'frequently throw out that every +man is a friend to the Pretender who is not a friend of Walpole.' + +[1273] See _post_, April 6, 1775 + +[1274] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 402 [Nov. 10]. +BOSWELL. + +[1275] Mr. Walmsley died in 1751 (_ante_, p. 81). Johnson left Lichfield +in 1737. Unless Mr. Walmsley after 1737 visited London from time to +time, he can scarcely be meant. + +[1276] See _ante_, p. 336. + +[1277] He used to tell, with great humour, from my relation to him, the +following little story of my early years, which was literally true: +'Boswell, in the year 1745, was a fine boy, wore a white cockade, and +prayed for King James, till one of his uncles (General Cochran) gave him +a shilling on condition that he should pray for King George, which he +accordingly did. So you see (says Boswell) that _Whigs of all ages are +made the same way_.' BOSWELL. Johnson, in his _Dictionary_ under +_Whiggism_, gives only one quotation, namely, from Swift: 'I could quote +passages from fifty pamphlets, wholly made up of whiggism and atheism.' +See _post_, April 28, 1778, where he said: 'I have always said, the +first _Whig_ was the Devil;' and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 21 and Nov. +8, 1773. To Johnson's sayings might be opposed one of Lord Chatham's in +the House of Lords: 'There are some distinctions which are inherent in +the nature of things. There is a distinction between right and +wrong--between Whig and Tory.' _Parl. Hist_. xvi. 1107. + +[1278] _Letter to Rutland on Travel_, 16mo. 1569. BOSWELL. This letter +is contained in a little volume entitled, _Profitable Instructions; +describing what special observations are to be taken by travellers in +all nations, states and countries; pleasant and profitable. By the three +much admired, Robert, late Earl of Essex, Sir Philip Sidney, and +Secretary Davison. London. Printed for Benjamin Fisher, at the Sign of +the Talbot, without Aldersgate_. 1633. (Lowndes gives the date of 1613, +but the earliest edition seems to be this of 1633.) The letter from +which Boswell quotes is entitled, _The late E. of E. his advice to the +E. of R. in his Travels_. It is dated Greenwich, Jan. 4, 1596. Mr. +Spedding (Bacon's _Works_, ix. 4) suggests that 'it may have been +(wholly or in part) written by Bacon.' + +[1279] Boswell (_Boswelliana_, p. 210) says that this 'impudent fellow' +was Macpherson. + +[1280] Boswell repeated this saying and some others to Paoli. 'I felt an +elation of mind to see Paoli delighted with the sayings of Mr. Johnson, +and to hear him translate them with Italian energy to the Corsican +heroes.' Here Boswell describes the person as 'a certain authour.' +Boswell's _Corsica_, p. 199 + +[1281] Boswell thus takes him off in his comic poem _The Court of +Session Garland_:-- + +'"This cause," cries Hailes, "to judge I can't pretend, For _justice_, I +percieve, wants an _e_ at the end."' + +Mr. R. Chambers, in a note on this, says:--'A story is told of Lord +Hailes once making a serious objection to a law-paper, an in consequence +to the whole suit, on account of the word _justice_ being thus spelt. +_Traditions of Edinburgh_, ii. 161. Burke says that he 'found him to be +a clever man, and generally knowing.' Burke's _Corres_. iii. 301. See +_ante_ p. 267, and _post_ May 12, 1774 and Boswell's _Hebrides_, +Aug. 17, 1773. + +[1282] 'Ita feri ut se mori sentiat.' Suetonius, _Caligula_, chap. xxx. + +[1283] Johnson himself was constantly purposing to keep a journal. On +April 11, 1773, he told Boswell 'that he had twelve or fourteen times +attempted to keep a journal of his life,' _post_, April 11, 1773. The +day before he had recorded:--'I hope from this time to keep a journal.' +_Pr. and Med_. p. 124. Like records follow, as:--'Sept. 24, 1773. My +hope is, for resolution I dare no longer call it, to divide my time +regularly, and to keep such a journal of my time, as may give me comfort +in reviewing it.' _Ib_. p. 132. 'April 6, 1777. My purpose once more is +To keep a journal.' _Ib_. p. 161. 'Jan. 2, 1781. My hope is To keep a +journal.' _Ib_. p. 188. See also _post_, April 14, 1775, and April +10, 1778. + +[1284] Boswell, when he was only eighteen, going with his father to the +[Scotch] Northern Circuit, 'kept,' he writes, 'an exact journal.' +_Letters of Boswell_, p. 8. In the autumn of 1762 he also kept a journal +which he sent to Temple to read. _Ib_. p. 19. + +[1285] 'It has been well observed, that the misery of man proceeds not +from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations +continually repeated.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 333. 'The main of life +is indeed composed of small incidents and petty occurrences.' _Ib_. ii. +322. Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, i. 199) says:--'Human felicity is produced +not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by +little advantages that occur every day.' + +[1286] Boswell wrote the next day:--'We sat till between two and three. +He took me by the hand cordially, and said, "My dear Boswell, I love you +very much." Now Temple, can I help indulging vanity?' _Letters of +Boswell_, p. 27. Fourteen years later Boswell was afraid that he kept +Johnson too late up. 'No, Sir,' said he, 'I don't care though I sit all +night with you.' _Post_, Sept. 23, 1777. See also _post_, April 7, 1779, +where Johnson, speaking of these early days, said to Boswell, 'it was +not the _wine_ that made your head ache, but the sense that I put +into it.' + +[1287] Tuesday was the 19th. + +[1288] 'The elder brother of the first Lord Rokeby, called long Sir +Thomas Robinson, on account of his height, and to distinguish him from +Sir Thomas Robinson, first Lord Grantham. It was on his request for an +epigram that Lord Chesterfield made the distich:-- + +"Unlike my subject will I make my song, +It shall be witty, and it shan't be long," + +and to whom he said in his last illness, "Ah, Sir Thomas, it will be +sooner over with me than it would be with you, for I am dying by +inches." Lord Chesterfield was very short.' CROKER. Southey, writing of +Rokeby Hall, which belonged to Robinson, says that 'Long Sir Thomas +found a portrait of Richardson in the house; thinking Mr. Richardson a +very unfit personage to be suspended in effigy among lords, ladies, and +baronets, he ordered the painter to put him on the star and blue riband, +and then christened the picture Sir Robert Walpole.' Southey's _Life_, +iii. 346. See also _ante_, p. 259 note 2, and _post_, 1770, near the end +of Dr. Maxwell's _Collectanea_. + +[1289] Johnson (_Works_, vi. 440) had written of Frederick the Great in +1756:--'His skill in poetry and in the French language has been loudly +praised by Voltaire, a judge without exception if his honesty were equal +to his knowledge.' Boswell, in his _Hypochondriacks_, records a +conversation that he had with Voltaire on memory:--'I asked him if he +could give me any notion of the situation of our ideas which we have +totally forgotten at the time, yet shall afterwards recollect. He +paused, meditated a little, and acknowledged his ignorance in the spirit +of a philosophical poet by repeating as a very happy allusion a passage +in Thomson's _Seasons_--"Aye," said he, "Where sleep the winds when it +is calm?"' _London Mag_. 1783, p. 157. The passage is in Thomson's +_Winter_, l. 116:-- + +'In what far-distant region of the sky, +Hush'd in deep silence, sleep ye when 'tis calm?' + +[1290] See _post_, ii. 54, note 3. + +[1291] Bernard Lintot, the father, published Pope's _Iliad_ and +_Odyssey_. Over the sale of the _Odyssey_ a quarrel arose between the +two men. Johnson's _Works_, viii. 251, 274. Lintot is attacked in the +_Dunciad_, i. 40 and ii. 53; He was High-Sheriff for Sussex in 1736--the +year of his death. _Gent. Mag_. vi. 110. The son is mentioned in +Johnson's _Works_, viii. 282. + +[1292] 'July 19, 1763. I was with Mr. Johnson to-day. I was in his +garret up four pair of stairs; it is very airy, commands a view of St. +Paul's and many a brick roof. He has many good books, but they are all +lying in confusion and dust.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 30. On Good +Friday, 1764, Johnson made the following entry:--'I hope to put my rooms +in order: Disorder I have found one great cause of idleness.' On his +birth-day in the same year he wrote:--'To-morrow I purpose to regulate +my room.' _Pr. and Med_. pp. 50, 60. + +[1293] See _ante_, p. 140, and _post_, under Sept. 9, 1779. + +[1294] Afterwards Rector of Mamhead, Devonshire. He is the grandfather +of the present Bishop of London. He and Boswell had been fellow-students +at the University of Edinburgh, and seemed in youth to have had an equal +amount of conceit. 'Recollect,' wrote Boswell, 'how you and I flattered +ourselves that we were to be the greatest men of our age.' _Letters of +Boswell_, p. 159. They began to correspond at least as early as 1758. +The last letter was one from Boswell on his death-bed. Johnson thus +mentions Temple (_Works_, viii. 480):--'Gray's character I am willing to +adopt, as Mr. Mason has done, from a letter written to my friend Mr. +Boswell by the Revd. Mr. Temple, Rector of St. Gluvias in Cornwall; and +am as willing as his warmest well-wisher to believe it true.' + +[1295] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 240) quotes the following by Edmund Smith, +and written some time after 1708:--'It will sound oddly to posterity, +that, in a polite nation, in an enlightened age, under the direction of +the most literary property in 1710, whether by wise, most learned, and +most generous encouragers of knowledge in the world, the property of a +mechanick should be better secured than that of a scholar! that the +poorest manual operations should be more valued than the noblest +products of the brain! that it should be felony to rob a cobbler of a +pair of shoes, and no crime to deprive the best authour of his whole +subsistence! that nothing should make a man a sure title to his own +writings but the stupidity of them!' See _post_, May 8, 1773, and Feb.7, +1774; and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17 and 20, 1773. + +[1296] The question arose, after the passing of the first statute +respecting literary property in 1710, whether by certain of its +provisions this perpetual copyright at common law was extinguished for +the future. The question was solemnly argued before the Court of King's +Bench, when Lord Mansfield presided, in 1769. The result was a decision +in favour of the common-law right as unaltered by the statute, with the +disapproval however of Mr. Justice Yates. In 1774 the same point was +brought before the House of Lords, and the decision of the court below +reversed by a majority of six judges in eleven, as Lord Mansfield, who +adhered to the opinion of the minority, declined to interfere; it being +very unusual, from motives of delicacy, for a peer to support his own +judgment on appeal to the House of Lords. _Penny Cylco_. viii. I. See +_post_, Feb. 7, 1774. Lord Shelburne, on Feb 27, 1774, humourously +describes the scene in the Lords to the Earl of Chatham:--'Lord +Mansfield showed himself the merest Captain Bobadil that, I suppose, +ever existed in real life. You can, perhaps, imagine to yourself the +Bishop of Carlyle, an old metaphysical head of a college, reading a +paper, not a speech, out of an old sermon book, with very bad sight +leaning on the table, Lord Mansfield sitting at it, with eyes of fixed +melancholy looking at him, knowing that the bishop's were the only eyes +in the House who could not meet his; the judges behind him, full of rage +at being drawn into so absurd an opinion, and abandoned in it by their +chief; the Bishops waking, as your Lordship knows they do, just before +they vote, and staring on finding something the matter; while Lord +Townshend was close to the bar, getting Mr. Dunning to put up his glass +to look at the head of criminal justice.' _Chatham Corres_. iv. 327. + +[1297] See _post_ April 15 1778, note. + +[1298] Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_ iii. 178), complaining of the high prices +of English books, describes 'the excessive artifices made use of to puff +up a paper of verses into a pamphlet, a pamphlet into an octavo, and an +octavo into a quarto with white-lines, exorbitant margins, &c., to such +a degree that the selling of paper seems now the object, and printing on +it only the pretence.' + +[1299] Boswell was on friendly terms with him. He wrote to Erskine on +Dec. 2, 1761:--'I am just now returned from eating a most excellent pig +with the most magnificent Donaldson.' _Boswell and Erskine +Correspondence_, p. 20. + +[1300] Dr. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 516) says that Lord Mansfield this year +(1769) 'talking of Hume and Robertson's _Histories_, said that though he +could point out few or no faults in them, yet, when he was reading their +books, he did not think he was reading English.' See _post_, ii. 72, for +Hume's Scotticisms. Hume went to France in 1734 when he was 23 years old +and stayed there three years. Hume's _Autobiography_, p. vii. He never +mastered French colloquially. Lord Charlemont, who met him in Turin in +1748, says:--'His speech in English was rendered ridiculous by the +broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if possible, still more +laughable.' Hardy's _Charlemont_, i. 15. Horace Walpole, who met him in +Paris in 1765, writes (_Letters_, iv. 426):--'Mr. Hume is the only thing +in the world that they [the French] believe implicitly; which they must +do, for I defy them to understand any language that he speaks.' Gibbon +(_Misc. Works_, i. 122) says of Hume's writings:--'Their careless +inimitable beauties often forced me to close the volume with a mixed +sensation of delight and despair.' Dr. Beattie (_Life_, p. 243) wrote on +Jan. 5, 1778:--'We who live in Scotland are obliged to study English +from books, like a dead language, which we understand, but cannot +speak.' He adds:--'I have spent some years in labouring to acquire the +art of giving a vernacular cast to the English we write.' Dr. A. Carlyle +(_Auto_, p. 222) says:--'Since we began to affect speaking a foreign +language, which the English dialect is to us, humour, it must be +confessed, is less apparent in conversation.' + +[1301] _Discours sur L'origine et les fondemens de l'inégalité parmi les +hommes_, 1754. + +[1302] 'I have indeed myself observed that my banker ever bows lowest to +me when I wear my full-bottomed wig, and writes me Mr. or Esq., +accordingly as he sees me dressed.' _Spectator_, No. 150. + +[1303] Mr. Croker, quoting Mr. Wright, says:--'_See his Quantulumanque_ +(sic) _concerning Money_.' I have read Petty's _Quantulumcunque_, but do +not find the passage in it. + +[1304] Johnson told Dr. Burney that Goldsmith said, when he first began +to write, he determined to commit to paper nothing but what was _new_; +but he afterwards found that what was _new_ was false, and from that +time was no longer solicitous about novelty. BURNEY. Mr. Forster (_Life +of Goldsmith_, i. 421) says that this note 'is another instance of the +many various and doubtful forms in which stories about Johnson and +Goldsmith are apt to appear when once we lose sight of the trustworthy +Boswell. This is obviously a mere confused recollection of what is +correctly told by Boswell [_post_, March 26, 1779].' There is much truth +in Mr. Forster's general remark: nevertheless Burney likely enough +repeated to the best of his memory what he had himself heard +from Johnson. + +[1305] 'Their [the ancient moralists'] arguments have been, indeed, so +unsuccessful, that I know not whether it can be shewn, that by all the +wit and reason which this favourite cause has called forth a single +convert was ever made; that even one man has refused to be rich, when to +be rich was in his power, from the conviction of the greater happiness +of a narrow fortune.' Johnson's _Works_, ii. 278. See _post_, June 3, +1781, and June 3, Sept. 7, and Dec. 7, 1782. + +[1306] Johnson (_Works_, vi. 440) shows how much Frederick owed to 'the +difficulties of his youth.' 'Kings, without this help from temporary +infelicity, see the world in a mist, which magnifies everything near +them, and bounds their view to a narrow compass, which few are able to +extend by the mere force of curiosity.' He next points out what Cromwell +'owed to the private condition in which he first entered the world;' and +continues:--'The King of Prussia brought to the throne the knowledge of +a private man, without the guilt of usurpation. Of this general +acquaintance with the world there may be found some traces in his whole +life. His conversation is like that of other men upon common topicks, +his letters have an air of familiar elegance, and his whole conduct is +that of a man who has to do with men.' + +[1307] See _ante_ p. 408 + +[1308] See _ante_, p. 298. + +[1309] That this was Mr. Dempster seems likely from the _Letters of +Boswell_ (p. 34), where Boswell says:--'I had prodigious satisfaction to +find Dempster's sophistry (which he has learnt from Hume and Rousseau) +vanquished by the solid sense and vigorous reasoning of Johnson. +Dempster,' he continues, 'was as happy as a vanquished argumentator +could be.' The character of the 'benevolent good man' suits Dempster +(see _post_, under Feb. 7, 1775, where Boswell calls him 'the virtuous +and candid Dempster'), while that of the 'noted infidel writer' suits +Hume. We find Boswell, Johnson, and Dempster again dining together on +May 9, 1772. + +[1310] + +'Thou wilt at best but suck a bull, +Or sheer swine, all cry and no wool.' + +_Hudibras_, Part i. Canto I. 1. 851. + +Dr. Z. Grey, in his note on these lines, quotes the proverbial saying +'As wise as the Waltham calf that went nine times to suck a bull.' He +quotes also from _The Spectator_, No. 138, the passage where the Cynic +said of two disputants, 'One of these fellows is milking a ram, and the +other holds the pail.' + +[1311] The writer of the article _Vacuum_ in the _Penny Cyclo_. (xxvi. +76), quoting Johnson's words, adds:--'That is, either all space is full +of matter, or there are parts of space which have no matter. The +alternative is undeniable, and the inference to which the modern +philosophy would give the greatest probablility is, that all space is +full of matter in the common sense of the word, but really occupied by +particles of matter with vacuous interstices.' + +[1312] 'When any one tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I +immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable that this +person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact which he +relates should really have happened.' Humes _Essay on Miracles_, Part i. +See _post_ Sept. 22 1777, where Boswell again quoted this passage. + +[1313] A coffee-house over against Catherine Street, now the site of a +tourists' ticket office. _Athenaeum_, No. 3041. + +[1314] Stockdale records (_Memoirs_, i. 202) that Johnson once said to +him:--'Whenever it is the duty of a young and old man to act at the same +time with a spirit of independence and generosity; we may always have +reason to hope that the young man will ardently perform, and to fear +that the old man will desert, his duty.' + +[1315] Boswell thus writes of this evening:--'I learn more from him than +from any man I ever was with. He told me a very odd thing, that he knew +at eighteen as much as he does now; that is to say, his judgment is much +stronger, but he had then stored up almost all the facts he has now, and +he says that he has led but an idle life; only think, Temple, of that!' +_Letters of Boswell_, p. 34. See _ante_, p. 56, and _post_, ii. 36. He +told Windham in 1784 'that he read Latin with as much ease when he went +to college as at present.' Windham's _Diary_, p. 17. + +[1316] Johnson in 1739 wrote of 'those distempers and depressions, from +which students, not well acquainted with the constitution of the human +body, sometimes fly for relief to wine instead of exercise, and purchase +temporary ease, by the hazard of the most dreadful consequences.' +_Works_, vi. 271. In _The Rambler_, No. 85, he says:--'How much +happiness is gained, and how much misery is escaped, by frequent and +violent agitation of the body.' Boswell records (_Hebrides_, Sept. 24, +1773):--'Dr. Johnson told us at breakfast, that he rode harder at a +fox-chace than anybody.' Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 206) says:--'He +certainly rode on Mr. Thrale's old hunter with a good firmness, and, +though he would follow the hounds fifty miles an end sometimes, would +never own himself either tired or amused. I think no praise ever went so +close to his heart, as when Mr. Hamilton called out one day upon +Brighthelmstone Downs, "Why Johnson rides as well, for aught I see, as +the most illiterate fellow in England."' He wrote to Mrs. Thrale in +1777:--'No season ever was finer. Barley, malt, beer and money. There is +the series of ideas. The deep logicians call it a _sorites_. _I hope my +master will no longer endure the reproach of not keeping me a horse_.' +_Piozzi Letters_, i. 360. See _post_, March 19 and 28, 1776, Sept. 20, +1777, and Nov. 21, 1778. + +[1317] This _one_ Mrs. Macaulay was the same personage who afterwards +made herself so much known as 'the celebrated female historian.' +BOSWELL. Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 234) tells the following story of +Mrs. Macaulay's daughter:--'Desirous from civility to take some notice +of her, and finding she was reading _Shakespeare_, I asked her if she +was not delighted with many parts of _King John_. "I never read the +_Kings_, ma'am," was the truly characteristic reply.' See _post_, April +13, 1773, and May 15, 1776. + +[1318] This speech was perhaps suggested to Johnson by the following +passage in _The Government of the Tongue_ (p. 106)--a book which he +quotes in his _Dictionary_:--'Lycurgus once said to one who importuned +him to establish a popular parity in the state, "Do thou," says he, +"begin it first in thine own family."' + +[1319] The first volume was published in 1756, the second in 1782. + +[1320] Warton, to use his own words, 'did not think Pope at the head of +his profession. In other words, in that species of poetry wherein Pope +excelled, he is superior to all mankind; and I only say that this +species of poetry is not the most excellent one of the art.' He disposes +the English poets in four classes, placing in the first only Spenser, +Shakespeare, and Milton. 'In the second class should be ranked such as +possessed the true poetical genius in a more moderate degree, but who +had noble talents for moral, ethical, and panegyrical poetry.' In this +class, in his concluding volume, he says, 'we may venture to assign Pope +a place, just above Dryden. Yet, to bring our minds steadily to make +this decision, we must forget, for a moment, the divine _Music Ode of +Dryden_; and may, perhaps, then be compelled to confess that though +Dryden be the greater genius, yet Pope is the better artist.' Warton's +_Essay_, i. i, vii. and ii. 404. See _post_, March 31, 1772. + +[1321] Mr. Croker believes Joseph Warton was meant. His father, however, +had been Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and was afterwards Vicar of +Basingstoke and Cobham, and Professor of Poetry in his own University, +so that the son could scarcely be described as being 'originally poor.' +It is, no doubt, after Boswell's fashion to introduce in consecutive +paragraphs the same person once by name and once anonymously; but then +the 'certain author who disgusted Boswell by his forwardness,' mentioned +just before Warton, may be Warton himself. + +[1322] 'When he arrived at Eton he could not make a verse; that is, he +wanted a point indispensable with us to a certain rank in our system. +But this wonderful boy, having satisfied the Master [Dr. Barnard] that +he was an admirable scholar, and possessed of genius, was at once placed +at the head of a form. He acquired the rules of Latin verse; tried his +powers; and perceiving that he could not rise above his rivals in +Virgil, Ovid, or the lyric of Horace, he took up the _sermoni propiora_, +and there overshadowed all competitors. In the following lines he +describes the hammer of the auctioneer with a mock sublimity which turns +Horace into Virgil:-- + +'Jam-jamque cadit, celerique recursu +Erigitur, lapsum retrahens, perque aera nutat.' + +Nichols's _Lit. Anec_. viii. 547. + +Horace Walpole wrote of him in Sept. 1765 (_Letters_, iv. 411):--'He is +a very extraordinary young man for variety of learning. He is rather too +wise for his age, and too fond of showing it; but when he has seen more +of the world, he will choose to know less.' He died at Rome in the +following year. Hume, on hearing the news, wrote to Adam Smith:--'Were +you and I together, dear Smith, we should shed tears at present for the +death of poor Sir James Macdonald. We could not possibly have suffered a +greater loss than in that valuable young man.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, +ii. 349. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 5, 1773. + +[1323] Boswell says that Macdonald had for Johnson 'a _great_ terrour.' +(_Boswelliana_, p. 216.) Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, i. 329) +says:--'It is a fact that a certain nobleman, an intimate friend of +Reynolds, had strangely conceived in his mind such a formidable idea of +all those persons who had gained great fame as literary characters, that +I have heard Sir Joshua say, he verily believed he could no more have +prevailed upon this noble person to dine at the same table with Johnson +and Goldsmith than with two tigers.' According to Mr. Seward +(_Biographiana_, p. 600), Mrs. Cotterell having one day asked Dr. +Johnson to introduce her to a celebrated writer, 'Dearest madam,' said +he, 'you had better let it alone; the best part of every author is in +general to be found in his book, I assure you.' Mr. Seward refers to +_The Rambler_, No. 14, where Johnson says that 'there has often been +observed a manifest and striking contrariety between the life of an +authour and his writings.' + +[1324] See _post_, Jan. 19, 1775. In his _Hebrides_ (p. i) Boswell +writes:--'When I was at Ferney, in 1764, I mentioned our design to +Voltaire. He looked at me as if I had talked of going to the North Pole, +and said, "You do not insist on my accompanying you?" "No, Sir." "Then I +am very willing you should go."' + +[1325] 'When he went through the streets he desired to have one to lead +him by the hand. They asked his opinion of the high church. He answered +that it was a large rock, yet there were some in St. Kilda much higher, +but that these were the best caves he ever saw; for that was the idea +which he conceived of the pillars and arches upon which the church +stands.' M. Martin's _Western Isles_, p. 297. Mr. Croker compares the +passage in _The Spectator_ (No. 50), in which an Indian king is made to +say of St. Paul's:--'It was probably at first an huge misshapen rock +that grew upon the top of the hill, which the natives of the country +(after having cut it into a kind of regular figure) bored and hollowed +with incredible pains and industry.' + +[1326] Boswell, writing to Temple the next day, slightly varies these +words:--'He said, "My dear Boswell, it would give me great pain to part +with you, if I thought we were not to meet again."' _Letters of +Boswell_, p. 34. + +[1327] Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 43) protests against 'the trite and +lavish praise of the happiness of our boyish years, which is echoed with +so much affectation in the world. That happiness I have never known, +that time I have never regretted. The poet may gaily describe the short +hours of recreation; but he forgets the daily tedious labours of the +school, which is approached each morning with anxious and reluctant +steps.' See _ante_, p. 44, and _post_, under Feb. 27, 1772. + +[1328] About fame Gibbon felt much as Johnson did. 'I am disgusted,' he +wrote (_ib_. 272), 'with the affectation of men of letters, who complain +that they have renounced a substance for a shadow, and that their fame +(which sometimes is no insupportable weight) affords a poor compensation +for envy, censure, and persecution. My own experience, at least, has +taught me a very different lesson; twenty happy years have been animated +by the labour of my _History_, and its success has given me a name, a +rank, a character, in the world, to which I should not otherwise have +been entitled.' + +[1329] See _ante_, p. 432. + +[1330] See _ante_, p. 332. + +[1331] This opinion was given by him more at large at a subsequent +period. See _Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 32 [Aug. +16]. BOSWELL. 'That Swift was its author, though it be universally +believed, was never owned by himself, nor very well proved by any +evidence; but no other claimant can be produced, and he did not deny it +when Archbishop Sharpe and the Duchess of Somerset, by showing it to the +Queen, debarred him from a bishoprick.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 197. +See also _post_, March 24, 1775. Stockdale records (_Memoirs_, ii. 61) +that Johnson said 'that if Swift really was the author of _The Tale of +the Tub_, as the best of his other performances were of a very inferior +merit, he should have hanged himself after he had written it.' Scott +(_Life of Swift_, ed. 1834, p. 77) says:--'Mrs. Whiteway observed the +Dean, in the latter years of his life [in 1735], looking over the +_Tale_, when suddenly closing the book he muttered, in an unconscious +soliloquy, "Good God! what a genius I had when I wrote that book!" She +begged it of him, who made some excuse at the moment; but on her +birthday he presented her with it inscribed, "From her affectionate +cousin." On observing the inscription, she ventured to say, "I wish, +Sir, you had said the gift of the author!" The Dean bowed, smiled +good-humouredly, and answered, "No, I thank you," in a very significant +manner.' There is this to be said of Johnson's incredulity about the +_Tale of a Tub_, that the _History of John Bull_ and the _Memoirs of +Martinus Scriblerus_, though both by Arbuthnot, were commonly assigned +to Swift and are printed in his _Works_. + +[1332] 'Thomson thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a +man of genius; he looks round on Nature and on Life with the eye which +Nature bestows only on a poet;--the eye that distinguishes in everything +presented to its view whatever there is on which imagination can delight +to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and +attends to the minute.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 377. See _post_, ii. +63, and April 11, 1776. + +[1333] Burke seems to be meant. See _post_, April 25, 1778, and +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, and Sept. 15, 1773.--It is strange +however that, while in these three places Boswell mentions Burke's name, +he should leave a blank here. In _Boswelliana_, p. 328, Boswell +records:--'Langton said Burke hammered his wit upon an anvil, and the +iron was cold. There were no sparks flashing and flying all about.' + +[1334] In _Boswelliana_ (p. 214) this anecdote is thus given:--'Boswell +was talking to Mr. Samuel Johnson of Mr. Sheridan's enthusiasm for the +advancement of eloquence. "Sir," said Mr. Johnson, "it won't do. He +cannot carry through his scheme. He is like a man attempting to stride +the English Channel. Sir, the cause bears no proportion to the effect. +It is setting up a candle at Whitechapel to give light at Westminster."' +See also _ante_, p. 385, and _post_. Oct. 16, 1969, April 18 and May +17, 1783. + +[1335] Most likely Boswell himself. See _ante_, p. 410. + +[1336] 'Let a Frenchman talk twice with a minister of state, he desires +no more to furnish out a volume.' Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xvi. 197. +Lord Chesterfield wrote from Paris in 1741:--'They [the Parisians] +despise us, and with reason, for our ill-breeding; on the other hand, we +despite them for their want of learning, and we are in the right of it.' +_Supplement to Chesterfield's Letters_, p. 49. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, +Oct. 14, 1773. + +[1337] 'Dr. Johnson said that he had been told by an acquaintance of Sir +Isaac Newton, that in early life he started as a clamorous infidel.' +Seward's _Anecdotes_, ii. 324. In Brewster's _Life of Newton_ I find no +mention of early infidelity. On the contrary, Newton had been described +as one who 'had been a searcher of the Scriptures from his youth' (ii. +314). Brewster says that 'some foreign writers have endeavoured to shew +that his theological writings were composed at a late period of life, +when his mind was in its dotage.' It was not so, however. _Ib_. p. 315. + +[1338] I fully intended to have followed advice of such weight; but +having staid much longer both in Germany and Italy than I proposed to +do, and having also visited Corsica, I found that I had exceeded the +time allowed me by my father, and hastened to France in my way +homewards. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 410. + +[1339] + +'Has heaven reserved, in pity to the poor, +No pathless waste, or undiscovered shore? +No secret island in the boundless main? +No peaceful desert, yet unclaimed by Spain?' + +Johnson looked upon the discovery of America as a misfortune to mankind. +In _Taxation no Tyranny_ (_Works_, vi. 233) he says that 'no part of the +world has yet had reason to rejoice that Columbus found at last +reception and employment. In the same year, in a year hitherto +disastrous to mankind, by the Portuguese was discovered the passage of +the Indies, and by the Spaniards the coast of America.' On March 4, +1773, he wrote (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 248):--'I do not much wish well +to discoveries, for I am always afraid they will end in conquest and +robbery.' See _ante_, p. 308, note 2, and post, March 21, 1775, and +under Dec. 24, 1783. + +[1340] See _ante_, p. 394, note 2. + +[1341] _Letters written from Leverpoole, Chester, Corke, &c.,_ by Samuel +Derrick, 1767. + +[1342] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 104 [Aug. 27, +1773]. BOSWELL. + +[1343] Ibid. p. 142 [242, Sept. 22, 1773]. BOSWELL. Johnson added:--'but +it was nothing.' Derrick, in 1760, published Dryden's _Misc. Works_, +with an _Account of his Life_. + +[1344] He published a biographical work, containing an account of +eminent writers, in three vols. 8vo. BOSWELL. + +[1345] + +'Thus the soft gifts of sleep conclude the day, +And stretched on bulks, as usual, poets lay.' + +_The Dunciad_, ii. 420. + +In _Humphry Clinker_, in the Letter of June 10, in which is described +the dinner given by S---- to the poor authors, of one of them it is +said:--'The only secret which he ever kept was the place of his +lodgings; but it was believed that during the heats of summer he +commonly took his repose upon a bulk.' Johnson defines _bulk_ as _a part +of a building jutting out_. + +[1346] 'Knowledge is certainly one of the means of pleasure, as is +confessed by the natural desire which every mind feels of increasing its +ideas ... without knowing why we always rejoice when we learn, and +grieve when we forget.' _Rasselas_, ch. xi. + +[1347] In the days of Old London Bridge, as Mr. Croker points out, even +when the tide would have allowed passengers to shoot it, those who were +prudent landed above the bridge, and walked to some wharf below it. + +[1348] All who are acquainted with the history of religion, (the most +important, surely, that concerns the human mind,) know that the +appellation of Methodists was first given to a society of students in +the University of Oxford, who about the year 1730 were distinguished by +an earnest and _methodical_ attention to devout exercises. This +disposition of mind is not a novelty, or peculiar to any sect, but has +been, and still may be found, in many christians of every denomination. +Johnson himself was, in a dignified manner, a Methodist. In his +_Rambler_, No. 110, he mentions with respect 'the whole discipline of +regulated piety;' and in his _Prayers and Meditations_, many instances +occur of his anxious examination into his spiritual state. That this +religious earnestness, and in particular an observation of the influence +of the Holy Spirit, has sometimes degenerated into folly, and sometimes +been counterfeited for base purposes, cannot be denied. But it is not, +therefore, fair to decry it when genuine. The principal argument in +reason and good sense against methodism is, that it tends to debase +human nature, and prevent the generous exertions of goodness, by an +unworthy supposition that GOD will pay no regard to them; although it is +positively said in the scriptures that He 'will reward every man +according to his works.' [St. Matthew xvi. 27.] But I am happy to have +it [in] my power to do justice to those whom it is the fashion to +ridicule, without any knowledge of their tenets; and this I can do by +quoting a passage from one of their best apologists, Mr. Milner, who +thus expresses their doctrine upon this subject. 'Justified by faith, +renewed in his faculties, and constrained by the love of Christ, their +believer moves in the sphere of love and gratitude, and all his _duties_ +flow more or less from this principle. And though _they are accumulating +for him in heaven a treasure of bliss proportioned to his faithfulness +and activity, and it is by no means inconsistent with his principles to +feel the force of this consideration_, yet love itself sweetens every +duty to his mind; and he thinks there is no absurdity in his feeling the +love of GOD as the grand commanding principle of his life.' _Essays on +several religious Subjects, &c., by Joseph Milner, A.M., Master of the +Grammar School of Kingston upon-Hull, 1789, p_. 11. BOSWELL. Southey +(_Life of Wesley_, i. 41), mentioning the names given at Oxford to +Wesley and his followers, continues:--'One person with less irreverence +and more learning observed, in reference to their methodical manner of +life, that a new sect of Methodists was sprung up, alluding to the +ancient school of physicians known by that name.' Wesley, in 1744, wrote +_The Humble Address to the King of the Societies in derision called +Methodists. Journal_, i. 437. He often speaks of 'the people called +Methodists,' but sometimes he uses the term without any qualification. +Mrs. Thrale, in 1780, wrote to Johnson:--'Methodist is considered always +a term of reproach, I trust, because I never yet did hear that any one +person called himself a Methodist.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 119. + +[1349] Wesley said:--'We should constantly use the most common, little, +easy words (so they are pure and proper) which our language affords. +When first I talked at Oxford to plain people in the Castle [the prison] +or the town, I observed they gaped and stared. This quickly obliged me +to alter my style, and adopt the language of those I spoke to; and yet +there is a dignity in their simplicity, which is not disagreeable to +those of the highest rank.' Southey's _Wesley_, i. 431. See _post_, +1770, in Dr. Maxwell's _Collectanea_, Oct. 12, 1779, Aug. 30, 1780, and +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 10, 1773. + +[1350] In the original, _struck_. + +[1351] _Epigram_, Lib. ii. 'In Elizabeth. Angliae Reg.' MALONE. + +[1352] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 23. + +[1353] Virgil, _Eclogues_, i. 5. Johnson, when a boy, turned the line +thus:--'And the wood rings with Amarillis' name.' _Ante_, p. 51. + +[1354] Boswell said of Paoli's talk about great men:--'I regret that the +fire with which he spoke upon such occasions so dazzled me, that I could +not recollect his sayings, so as to write them down when I retired from +his presence.' _Corsica_, p. 197. + +[1355] More passages than one in Boswell's _Letters to Temple_ shew this +absence of relish. Thus in 1775 he writes:--'I perceive some dawnings of +taste for the country' (p. 216); and again:--'I will force a taste for +natural beauties' (p. 219). + +[1356] Milton's _L'Allegro_, 1. 118. + +[1357] See _post_, April 2, 1775, and April 17, 1778. + +[1358] My friend Sir Michael Le Fleming. This gentleman, with all his +experience of sprightly and elegant life, inherits, with the beautiful +family Domain, no inconsiderable share of that love of literature, which +distinguished his venerable grandfather, the Bishop of Carlisle. He one +day observed to me, of Dr. Johnson, in a felicity of phrase, 'There is a +blunt dignity about him on every occasion.' BOSWELL. + +[1359] Wordsworth's lines to the Baronet's daughter, Lady Fleming, might +be applied to the father:-- + +'Lives there a man whose sole delights +Are trivial pomp and city noise, +Hardening a heart that loathes or slights +What every natural heart enjoys?' + +Wordsworth's _Poems_, iv. 338. + +[1360] Afterwards Lord Stowell. He was a member of Doctors' Commons, the +college of Civilians in London, who practised in the Ecclesiastical +Courts and the Court of the Admiralty. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, +Aug. 14, 1773. + +[1361] He repeated this advice on the death of Boswell's father, _post_, +Sept. 7, 1782. + +[1362] Johnson (_Works_, ix. 159) describes 'the sullen dignity of the +old castle.' See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 4. 1773. + +[1363] Probably Burke's _Vindication of Natural Society_, published in +1756 when Burke was twenty-six. + +[1364] See _ante_, p. 421. + +[1365] Boswell wrote to Temple on July 28, 1763:--'My departure fills me +with a kind of gloom that quite overshadows my mind. I could almost weep +to think of leaving dear London, and the calm retirement of the Inner +Temple. This is very effeminate and very young, but I cannot help it.' +_Letters of Boswell_, p. 46. + +[1366] Mrs. Piozzi says (_Anec_. p. 297) that 'Johnson's eyes were so +wild, so piercing, and at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the +first emotion in the hearts of all his beholders.' + +[1367] Johnson was, in fact, the editor of this work, as appears from a +letter of Mr. T. Davies to the Rev. Edm. Bettesworth:--'Reverend Sir,--I +take the liberty to send you Roger Ascham's works in English. Though Mr. +Bennet's name is in the title, the editor was in reality Mr. Johnson, +the author of the _Rambler_, who wrote the life of the author, and added +several notes. Mr. Johnson gave it to Mr. Bennet, for his advantage,' +&c.--CROKER. Very likely Davies exaggerated Johnson's share in the book. +Bennet's edition was published, not in 1763, but in 1761. + +[1368] 'Lord Sheffield describes the change in Gibbon's opinions caused +by the reign of terror:--'He became a warm and zealous advocate for +every sort of old establishment. I recollect in a circle where French +affairs were the topic and some Portuguese present, he, seemingly with +seriousness, argued in favour of the Inquisition at Lisbon, and said he +would not, at the present moment, give up even that old establishment.' +_Gibbons's Misc. Works_, i. 328. One of Gibbon's correspondents told him +in 1792, that the _Wealth of Nations_ had been condemned by the +Inquisition on account of 'the lowness of its style and the looseness of +the morals which it inculcates.' _Ib_. ii. 479. See also _post_, May +7, 1773. + +[1369] Johnson wrote on Aug. 17, 1773:--'This morning I saw at breakfast +Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, who does not remember to have seen light, +and is read to by a poor scholar in Latin, Greek, and French. He was +originally a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence.' +_Piozzi Letters_, i. 110. See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773. +Spence published an _Account of Blacklock_, in which he meanly omitted +any mention of Hume's great generosity to the blind poet. J. H. Burton's +_Hume_, i. 392. Hume asked Blacklock whether he connected colour and +sound. 'He answered, that as he met so often with the terms expressing +colours, he had formed some false associations, but that they were of +the intellectual kind. The illumination of the sun, for instance, he +supposed to resemble the presence of a friend.' _Ib_. p. 389. + +[1370] They left London early and yet they travelled only 51 miles that +day. The whole distance to Harwich is 71 miles. Paterson's +_Itinerary_, i. 323. + +[1371] Mackintosh (_Life_, ii. 162) writing of the time of William III, +says that 'torture was legal in Scotland, and familiar in every country +of Europe but England. Was there a single writer at that time who had +objected to torture? I think not.' In the _Gent. Mag_. for 1742 (p. 660) +it is stated that 'the King of Prussia has forbid the use of torture in +his dominions.' In 1747 (p. 298) we read that Dr. Blackwell, an English +physician, had been put to the torture in Sweden. Montesquieu in the +_Esprit des Lois_, vi. 17, published in 1748, writing of 'la question ou +torture centre les criminels,' says:--'Nous voyons aujourd'hui une +nation très-bien policée [la nation anglaise] la rejeter sans +inconvénient. Elle n'est donc pas nécessaire par sa nature.' Boswell in +1765 found that Paoli tortured a criminal with fire. _Corsica_, p. 158. +Voltaire, in 1777, after telling how innocent men had been put to death +with torture in the reign of Lewis XIV, continues--'Mais un roi a-t-il +le temps de songer à ces menus details d'horreurs au milieu de ses +fètes, de ses conquêtes, et de ses mattresses? Daignez vous en occuper, +ô Louis XVI, vous qui n'avez aucune de ces distractions!' Voltaire's +_Works_, xxvi. 332. Johnson, two years before Voltaire thus wrote, had +been shown _la chambre de question_--the torture-chamber-_in Paris_. +_Post_, Oct. 17, 1775. It was not till the Revolution that torture was +abolished in France. One of the Scotch judges in 1793, at the trial of +Messrs. Palmer and Muir for sedition (_post_, June 3, 1781, note), +'asserted that now the torture was banished, there was no adequate +punishment for sedition.' _Parl. Hist_. xxx. 1569. + +[1372] 'A cheerful and good heart will have a care of his meat and +drink.' _Ecclesiasticus_, xxx. 25. + +'Verecundari neminem apud mensam decet, +Nam ibi de divinis atque humanis cernitur.' + _Trinummus_, act 2, sc. 4. + +Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 149) records that 'Johnson often said, "that +wherever the dinner is ill got, there is poverty, or there is avarice, +or there is stupidity; in short, the family is somehow grossly wrong; +for," continued he, "a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of +anything than he does of his dinner; and if he cannot get that well +dressed, he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other things."' Yet he +'used to say that a man who rode out for an appetite consulted but +little the dignity of human nature.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 204. + +[1373] This essay is more against the practices of the parasite than +gulosity. It is entitled _The art of living at the cost of others_. +Johnson wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's children:--'Gluttony is, I think, +less common among women than among men. Women commonly eat more +sparingly, and are less curious in the choice of meat; but if once you +find a woman gluttonous, expect from her very little virtue. Her mind is +enslaved to the lowest and grossest temptation.' _Piozzi Letters_, +ii. 298. + +[1374] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 355) mentions 'the greediness with which he +ate, his total inattention to those among whom he was seated, and his +profound silence at the moment of refection.' + +[1375] Cumberland (_Memoirs_, i. 357) says:--'He fed heartily, but not +voraciously, and was extremely courteous in his commendations of any +dish that pleased his palate.' + +[1376] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 10, 1780:--'Last week I saw +flesh but twice and I think fish once; the rest was pease. You are +afraid, you say, lest I extenuate myself too fast, and are an enemy to +violence; but did you never hear nor read, dear Madam, that every man +has his _genius_, and that the great rule by which all excellence is +attained and all success procured, is to follow _genius_; and have you +not observed in all our conversations that my _genius_ is always in +extremes; that I am very noisy or very silent; very gloomy or very +merry; very sour or very kind? And would you have me cross my _genius_ +when it leads me sometimes to voracity and sometimes to abstinence?' +_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 166. + +[1377] 'This,' he told Boswell, 'was no intentional fasting, but +happened just in the course of a literary life.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, +Oct. 4, 1773. See _post_, April 17, 1778. + +[1378] In the last year of his life, when he knew that his appetite was +diseased, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'I have now an inclination to luxury +which even your table did not excite; _for till now my talk was more +about the dishes than my thoughts_. I remember you commended me for +seeming pleased with my dinners when you had reduced your table; I am +able to tell you with great veracity, that I never knew when the +reduction began, nor should have known what it was made, had not you +told me. _I now think and consult to-day what I shall eat to-morrow. +This disease will, I hope, be cured_.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 362. + +[1379] Johnson's visit to Gordon and Maclaurin are just mentioned in +Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11, 1772. + +[1380] The only nobleman with whom he dined 'about the same time' was +Lord Elibank. After dining with him, 'he supped,' says Boswell, 'with my +wife and myself.' _Ib_. + +[1381] See _post_, April 15, 1778. + +[1382] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 102) says, 'Johnson's own notions about +eating were nothing less than delicate; a leg of pork boiled till it +dropped from the bone, a veal-pie with plums and sugar, or the outside +cut of a salt buttock of beef were his favourite dainties.' Cradock saw +Burke at a tavern dinner send Johnson a very small piece of a pie, the +crust of which was made with bad butter. 'Johnson soon returned his +plate for more. Burke exclaimed:--"I am glad that you are able so well +to relish this pie." Johnson, not at all pleased that what he ate should +ever be noticed, retorted:--"There is a time of life, Sir, when a man +requires the repairs of a table."' Cradock's _Memoirs_, i. 229. A +passage in Baretti's _Italy_, ii. 316, seems to show that English eating +in general was not delicate. 'I once heard a Frenchman swear,' he +writes, 'that he hated the English, "parce qu'ils versent du beurre +fondu sur leur veau rod."' + +[1383] 'He had an abhorrence of affectation,' said Mr. Langton. _Post_, +1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_. + +[1384] At college he would not let his companions say _prodigious_. +_Post_, April 17, 1778. + +[1385] See _post_, Sept. 19, 1777, and 1780 in Mr. Langton's +_Collection_. Dugald Stewart quotes a saying of Turgot:--'He who had +never doubted of the existence of matter might be assured he had no turn +for metaphysical disquisitions.' _Life of Reid_, p. 416. + +[1386] Claude Buffier, born 1661, died 1737. Author of _Traité +despremières vérités et de la source de nos jugements_. + +[1387] + +'Not when a gilt buffet's reflected pride +Turns you from sound philosophy aside.' + +Pope's _Satires_, ii. 5. + +[1388] Mackintosh (_Life_, i. 71) said that 'Burke's treatise on the +_Sublime and Beautiful_ is rather a proof that his mind was not formed +for pure philosophy; and if we may believe Boswell that it was once the +intention of Mr. Burke to have written against Berkeley, we may be +assured that he would not have been successful in answering that great +speculator; or, to speak more correctly, that he could not have +discovered the true nature of the questions in dispute, and thus have +afforded the only answer consistent with the limits of the human +faculties.' + +[1389] Goldsmith's _Retaliation_. + +[1390] I have the following autograph letter written by Johnson to Dr. +Taylor three weeks after Boswell's departure. + +'DEAR SIR, + +'Having with some impatience reckoned upon hearing from you these two +last posts, and been disappointed, I can form to myself no reason for +the omission but your perturbation of mind, or disorder of body arising +from it, and therefore I once more advise removal from Ashbourne as the +proper remedy both for the cause and the effect. + +'You perhaps ask, whither should I go? any whither where your case is +not known, and where your presence will cause neither looks nor +whispers. Where you are the necessary subject of common talk, you will +not safely be at rest. + +'If you cannot conveniently write to me yourself let somebody write for +you to + +'Dear Sir, + +'Your most affectionate, + +'SAM. JOHNSON. + +'August 25, 1763. + +'To the Reverend Dr. Taylor + in Ashbourne, + Derbyshire.' + +Five other letters on the same subject are given in _Notes and Queries_, +6th S. v. pp. 324, 342, 382. Taylor and his wife 'never lived very well +together' (p. 325), and at last she left him. On May 22nd of the next +year Johnson congratulated Taylor 'upon the happy end of so vexatious an +affair, the happyest [sic] that could be next to reformation and +reconcilement' (p. 382). Taylor did not follow the advice to leave +Ashbourne; for on Sept. 3 Johnson wrote to him:--'You seem to be so well +pleased to be where you are, that I shall not now press your removal; +but do not believe that every one who rails at your wife wishes well to +you. A small country town is not the place in which one would chuse to +quarrel with a wife; every human being in such places is a spy.' +_Ib_. p. 343. + +[1391] According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 210) he was accompanied by +his black servant Frank. 'I must have you know, ladies,' said he, 'that +Frank has carried the empire of Cupid further than most men. When I was +in Lincolnshire so many years ago he attended me thither; and when we +returned home together, I found that a female haymaker had followed him +to London for love.' If this story is generally true, it bears the mark +of Mrs. Piozzi's usual inaccuracy. The visit was paid early in the year, +and was over in February; what haymakers were there at that season? + +[1392] Boswell by his quotation marks refers, I think, to his +_Hebrides_, Oct. 24, 1773, where Johnson says:--'Nobody, at times, talks +more laxly than I do.' See also _post_, ii. 73. + +[1393] See _post_, April 26, 1776, for old Mr. Langton's slowness of +understanding. + +[1394] See _ante_, i. 320. + +[1395] Mr. Best (_Memorials_, p. 65) thus writes of a visit to +Langton:--'We walked to the top of a very steep hill behind the house. +Langton said, "Poor dear Dr. Johnson, when he came to this spot, turned +back to look down the hill, and said he was determined to take a roll +down. When we understood what he meant to do, we endeavoured to dissuade +him; but he was resolute, saying, he had not had a roll for a long time; +and taking out of his lesser pockets whatever might be in them, and +laying himself parallel with the edge of the hill, he actually +descended, turning himself over and over till he came to the bottom." +This story was told with such gravity, and with an air of such +affectionate remembrance of a departed friend, that it was impossible to +suppose this extraordinary freak an invention of Mr. Langton.' It must +have been in the winter that he had this roll. + +[1396] Boswell himself so calls it in a Mr. letter to Temple written +three or four months after Garrick's death, _Letters of Boswell_, p. +242. See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 25, 1773. + +[1397] Malone says:--'Reynolds was the original founder of our Literary +Club about the year 1762, the first thought of which he started to Dr. +Johnson at his own fireside.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 434. Mrs. Piozzi +(_Anec_. p. 122) says:--'Johnson called Reynolds their Romulus, or said +somebody else of the company called him so, which was more likely.' +According to Hawkins (_Life_, p. 425) the Club was founded in the winter +of 1763, i.e. 1763-4. + +[1398] Dr. Nugent, a physician, was Burke's father-in-law. Macaulay +(_Essays_, i. 407) says:--'As we close Boswell's book, the club-room is +before us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the +lemons for Johnson.' It was from Mrs. Piozzi that Macaulay learnt of the +omelet. Nugent was a Roman Catholic, and it was on Friday that the Club +before long came to meet. We may assume that he would not on that day +eat meat. 'I fancy,' Mrs. Piozzi writes (_Anec_. p. 122), 'Dr. Nugent +ordered an omelet sometimes on a Friday or Saturday night; for I +remember Mr. Johnson felt very painful sensations at the sight of that +dish soon after his death, and cried:--"Ah my poor dear friend! I shall +never eat omelet with _thee_ again!" quite in an agony.' Dr. Nugent, in +the imaginary college at St. Andrews, was to be the professor of physic. +Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 25, 1773. + +[1399] Mr. Andrew Chamier was of Huguenot descent, and had been a +stock-broker. He was a man of liberal education. 'He acquired such a +fortune as enabled him, though young, to quit business, and become, what +indeed he seemed by nature intended for, a gentleman.' Hawkins's +_Johnson_, p. 422. In 1764 he was Secretary in the War Office. In 1775 +he was appointed Under Secretary of State. Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. +310. He was to be the professor of commercial politics in the imaginary +college. Johnson passed one of his birth-days at his house; _post_, +under Sept. 9, 1779, note. + +[1400] 'It was Johnson's intention,' writes Hawkins (_Life_, p. 423), +'that their number should not exceed nine.' Nine was the number of the +Ivy Lane Club (_ante_, p. 190). Johnson, I suppose, looked upon nine as +the most _clubable_ number. 'It was intended,' says Dr. Percy, 'that if +only two of these chanced to meet for the evening, they should be able +to entertain each other.' Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 70. Hawkins adds +that 'Mr. Dyer (_post_, 1780 in Mr. Langton's _Collection_), a member of +the Ivy Lane Club, who for some years had been abroad, made his +appearance among us, and was cordially received.' According to Dr. +Percy, by 1768 not only had Hawkins formally withdrawn, but Beauclerk +had forsaken the club for more fashionable ones. 'Upon this the Club +agreed to increase their number to twelve; every new member was to be +elected by ballot, and one black ball was sufficient for exclusion. Mr. +Beauclerk then desired to be restored to the Society, and the following +new members were introduced on Monday, Feb. 15, 1768; Sir R. Chambers, +Dr. Percy and Mr. Colman.' Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 72. In the list +in Croker's _Boswell_, ed. 1844, ii. 326, the election of Percy and +Chambers is placed in 1765. + +[1401] Boswell wrote on April 4, 1775:--'I dine, Friday, at the Turk's +Head, Gerrard-street, with our Club, Sir Joshua Reynolds, etc., who now +dine once a month, and sup every Friday.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 186. +In 1766, Monday was the night of meeting. _Post_, May 10, 1766. In Dec. +1772 the night was changed to Friday. Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 72. +Hawkins says (_Life_, pp. 424, 5):--'We seldom got together till nine; +preparing supper took up till ten; and by the time that the table was +cleared, it was near eleven. Our evening toast was the motto of Padre +Paolo, _Esto perpetua! Esto perpetua_ was being soon not Padre Paolo's +motto, but his dying prayer. 'As his end evidently approached, the +brethren of the convent came to pronounce the last prayers, with which +he could only join in his thoughts, being able to pronounce no more than +these words, "_Esto perpetua_" mayst thou last for ever; which was +understood to be a prayer for the prosperity of his country.' Johnson's +_Works_, vi. 269. + +[1402] See _post_, March 14, 1777. + +[1403] 'After 1783 it removed to Prince's in Sackville-street, and on +his house being soon afterwards shut up, it removed to Baxter's, which +subsequently became Thomas's, in Dover-street. In January 1792 it +removed to Parsloe's, in St. James's-street; and on February 26, 1799, +to the Thatched-house in the same street.' Forster's _Goldsmith_ i. 311. + +[1404] The second edition is here spoken of. MALONE. + +[1405] _Life of Johnson_, p. 425. BOSWELL. + +[1406] From Sir Joshua Reynolds. BOSWELL. The Knight having refused to +pay his portion of the reckoning for supper, because he usually eat no +supper at home, Johnson observed, 'Sir John, Sir, is a very _unclubable_ +man.' BURNEY. Hawkins (_Life_, p. 231) says that 'Mr. Dyer had +contracted a fatal intimacy with some persons of desperate fortunes, who +were dealers in India stock, at a time when the affairs of the company +were in a state of fluctuation.' Malone, commenting on this passage, +says that 'under these words Mr. Burke is darkly alluded to, together +with his cousin.' He adds that the character given of Dyer by Hawkins +'is discoloured by the malignant prejudices of that shallow writer, who, +having quarrelled with Mr. Burke, carried his enmity even to Mr. Burke's +friends.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 419. See also _ante_, p. 27. Hawkins +(_Life_, p. 420) said of Goldsmith:--'As he wrote for the booksellers, +we at the Club looked on him as a mere literary drudge, equal to the +task of compiling and translating, but little capable of original, and +still less of poetical composition.' + +[1407] _Life of Johnson_, p. 425. BOSWELL. Hawkins is 'equally +inaccurate' in saying' that Johnson was so constant at our meetings as +never to absent himself.' (_Ib_. p. 424.) See _post_, Johnson's letter +to Langton of March 9, 1766, where he says:--'Dyer is constant at the +Club; Hawkins is remiss; I am not over diligent.' + +[1408] Letters to and from Dr. Johnson. Vol. ii. p. 278 [387]. BOSWELL. +The passage is as follows:--'"If he _does_ apply," says our Doctor to +Mr. Thrale, "I'll black-ball him." "Who, Sir? Mr. Garrick, your friend, +your companion,--black-ball him!" "Why, Sir, I love my little David +dearly, better than all or any of his flatterers do, but surely one +ought, &c."' + +[1409] Pope's _Moral Essays_, iii. 242. + +[1410] Malone says that it was from him that Boswell had his account of +Garrick's election, and that he had it from Reynolds. He adds that +'Johnson warmly supported Garrick, being in reality a very tender +affectionate man. He was merely offended at the actors conceit.' He +continues:--'On the former part of this story it probably was that +Hawkins grounded his account that Garrick never was of the Club, and +that Johnson said he never ought to be of it. And thus it is that this +stupid biographer, and the more flippant and malicious Mrs. Piozzi have +miscoloured and misrepresented almost every anecdote that they have +pretented to tell of Dr. Johnson.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 392. Whatever +was the slight cast upon Garrick, he was nevertheless the sixth new +member elected. Four, as I have shown, were added by 1768. The next +elections were in 1773 (Croker's _Boswell_, ed. 1844. ii. 326), when +five were added, of whom Garrick was the second, and Boswell the fifth. +In 1774 five more were elected, among whom were Fox and Gibbon. Hannah +More (_Memoirs_, i. 249) says that 'upon Garrick's death, when +numberless applications were made to succeed him [in the Club], Johnson +was deaf to them all. He said, "No, there never could be found any +successor worthy of such a man;" and he insisted upon it there should be +a year's widowhood in the club, before they thought of a new election.' + +[1411] Grainger wrote to Percy on April 6, 1764:--'Sam. Johnson says he +will review it in _The Critical_' In August, 1765, he wrote:--'I am +perfectly satisfied with the reception the _Sugar Cane_ has met with, +and am greatly obliged to you and Mr. Johnson for the generous care you +took of it in my absence.' Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. 238. He was absent in +the West Indies. He died on Dec. 16, 1766. _Ib_. p. 241. The review of +the _Sugar Cane_ in the _Critical Review_ (p. 270) is certainly by +Johnson. The following passage is curious:--'The last book begins with a +striking invocation to the genius of Africa, and goes on to give proper +instructions for the buying and choice of negroes.... The poet talks of +this ungenerous commerce without the least appearance of detestation; +but proceeds to direct these purchasers of their fellow-creatures with +the same indifference that a groom would give instructions for +choosing a horse. + +'Clear roll their ample eye; their tongue be red; + Broad swell their chest; their shoulders wide expand; + Not prominent their belly; clean and strong + Their thighs and legs in just proportion rise.' + +See also _post_, March 21, 1776. + +[1412] Johnson thus ends his brief review:--'Such in the poem on which +we now congratulate the public as on a production to which, since the +death of Pope, it not be easy to find anything equal.' _Critical +Review_, p. 462. + +[1413] _Pr. and Med_. p. 50. BOSWELL. He adds:-- + +'I hope + To put my rooms in order. + Disorder I have found one great cause of idleness.' + +[1414] _Ib_. p. 51. BOSWELL. + +[1415] It was on his birth-day that he said this. He wrote on the same +day:--'I have outlived many friends. I have felt many sorrows. I have +made few improvements.' + +[1416] _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 58. BOSWELL. In his _Vision of +Theodore_ (_Works_, ix. 174) he describes the state of mind which he has +recorded in his Meditations:--'There were others whose crime it was +rather to neglect Reason than to disobey her; and who retreated from the +heat and tumult of the way, not to the bowers of Intemperance, but to +the maze of Indolence. They had this peculiarity in their condition, +that they were always in sight of the road of Reason, always wishing for +her presence, and always resolving to return to-morrow.' + +[1417] See Appendix F. + +[1418] It used to be imagined at Mr. Thrale's, when Johnson retired to a +window or corner of the room, by perceiving his lips in motion, and +hearing a murmur without audible articulation, that he was praying: but +this was not _always_ the case, for I was once, perhaps unperceived by +him, writing at a table, so near the place of his retreat, that I heard +him repeating some lines in an ode of Horace, over and over again, as if +by iteration, to exercise the organs of speech, and fix the ode in +his memory: + + Audiet cives acuisse ferrum + Quo graves Persas melius perirent, + Audiet pugnas.... + Odes, i. 2, 21. + ['Our sons shall hear, shall hear to latest times, + Of Roman arms with civil gore imbrued, + Which better had the Persian foe subdued.' + _Francis_.] + +It was during the American War. BURNEY. Boswell in his _Hebrides_ (Oct. +12, 1773) records, 'Dr. Johnson is often uttering pious ejaculations, +when he appears to be talking to himself; for sometimes his voice grows +stronger, and parts of the Lord's Prayer are heard.' In the same passage +he describes other 'particularities,' and adds in a note:--'It is +remarkable that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his +own peculiar habits, without saying anything on the subject, which I +hoped he would have done.' See _post_, Dec. 1784, note. + +[1419] Churchill's _Poems_, i. 16. See _ante_, p. 391. + +[1420] 'It is in vain to try to find a meaning in every one of his +particularities, which, I suppose, are mere habits contracted by chance; +of which every man has some that are more or less remarkable.' Boswell's +_Hebrides_, Oct. 12, 1773. 'The love of symmetry and order, which is +natural to the mind of man, betrays him sometimes into very whimsical +fancies. "This noble principle," says a French author, "loves to amuse +itself on the most trifling occasions. You may see a profound +philosopher," says he, "walk for an hour together in his chamber, and +industriously treading at every step upon every other board in the +flooring."' _The Spectator_, No. 632. + +[1421] Mr. S. Whyte (_Miscellanea Nova_, p. 49) tells how from old Mr. +Sheridan's house in Bedford-street, opposite Henrietta-street, with an +opera-glass he watched Johnson approaching. 'I perceived him at a good +distance working along with a peculiar solemnity of deportment, and an +awkward sort of measured step. Upon every post as he passed along, he +deliberately laid his hand; but missing one of them, when he had got at +some distance he seemed suddenly to recollect himself, and immediately +returning carefully performed the accustomed ceremony, and resumed his +former course, not omitting one till he gained the crossing. This, Mr. +Sheridan assured me, was his constant practice.' + +[1422] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 316. BOSWELL. +'The day that we left Talisker, he bade us ride on. He then turned the +head of his horse back towards Talisker, stopped for some time; then +wheeled round to the same direction with ours, and then came briskly +after us.' Boswell's _Hebrides_', Oct. 12, 1773. + +[1423] Sir Joshua's sister, for whom Johnson had a particular affection, +and to whom he wrote many letters which I have seen, and which I am +sorry her too nice delicacy will not permit to be published. BOSWELL. +'Whilst the company at Mr. Thrale's were speculating upon a microscope +for the mind, Johnson exclaimed:--"I never saw one that would bear it, +except that of my dear Miss Reynolds, and hers is very near to purity +itself."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 80. Once, said Northcote, there was +a coolness between her and her brother. She wished to set forth to him +her grievances in a letter. Not finding it easy to write, she consulted +Johnson, 'who offered to write a letter himself, which when copied +should pass as her own.' This he did. It began: 'I am well aware that +complaints are always odious, but complain I must.' Such a letter as +this she saw would not pass with Sir Joshua as her own, and so she could +not use it. _Ib_. p. 203. Of Johnson's letters to her Malone published +one, and Mr. Croker several more. Mme. D'Arblay, in the character she +draws of her (_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 332), says that 'Dr. Johnson +tried in vain to cure her of living in an habitual perplexity of mind +and irresolution of conduct, which to herself was restlessly tormenting, +and to all around her was teazingly wearisome.' + +[1424] See Appendix C. + +[1425] _Pr. and Med_. p. 61. BOSWELL. + +[1426] See _ante_, p. 346. + +[1427] His quarter's pension. See _ante_, P. 376. + +[1428] Mr. Croker, misunderstanding a passage in Hawkins, +writes:--'Hawkins says that he disliked to be called Doctor, as +reminding him that he had been a schoolmaster.' What Hawkins really says +(_Life_, p. 446) is this:--'His attachment to Oxford prevented Johnson +from receiving this honour as it was intended, and he never assumed the +title which it conferred. He was as little pleased to be called Doctor +in consequence of it, as he was with the title of _Domine_, which a +friend of his once incautiously addressed him by. He thought it alluded +to his having been a schoolmaster.' It is clear that 'it' in the last +line refers only to the title of _Domine_. Murphy (_Life_, p. 98) says +that Johnson never assumed the title of Doctor, till Oxford conferred on +him the degree. Boswell states (_post_, March 31, 1775, note):--'It is +remarkable that he never, so far as I know, assumed his title of +_Doctor_, but called himself _Mr_. Johnson.' In this, as I show there, +Boswell seems to be not perfectly accurate. I do not believe Hawkins's +assertion that Johnson 'was little pleased to be called Doctor in +consequence of his Dublin degree.' In Boswell's Hebrides, most of which +was read by him before he received his Oxford degree, he is commonly +styled Doctor. Boswell says in a note on Aug. 15, 1773:--'It was some +time before I could bring myself to call him Doctor.' Had Johnson +disliked the title it would have been known to Boswell. Mrs. Thrale, it +is true, in her letters' to him, after he had received both his degrees, +commonly speaks of him as Mr. Johnson. We may assume that he valued his +Oxford degree of M.A. more highly than the Dublin degree of LL.D.; for +in the third edition of the _Abridgment of his Dictionary_, published in +1766, he is styled Samuel Johnson, A.M. In his _Lives of the Poets_ he +calls himself simply Samuel Johnson. He had by that time risen above +degrees. In his _Journey to the Hebrides_ (_Works_, ix. 14), after +stating that 'An English or Irish doctorate cannot be obtained by a very +young man,' he continues:--'It is reasonable to suppose ... that he who +is by age qualified to be a doctor, has in so much time gained learning +sufficient not to disgrace the title, or wit sufficient not to +desire it.' + +[1429] Trinity College made him, it should seem, _Armiger_ at the same +time that it made him Doctor of Laws. + +[1430] See Appendix D for this letter. + +[1431] _Pr. and Med_. p. 66. BOSWELL. + +[1432] _Single-speech_ Hamilton, as he was commonly called, though in +the House of Commons he had spoken more than once. For above thirty +sessions together, however, he held his tongue. Prior's _Burke_, p. 67. + +[1433] See Appendix E for an explanation. + +[1434] _Pr. and Med_. p. 67 BOSWELL. + +[1435] See Appendix F. + +[1436] Mr. Blakeway, in a note on this passage, says:--'The predecessor +of old Thrale was Edmund Halsey, Esq.; the nobleman who married his +daughter was Lord Cobham. The family of Thrale was of some consideration +in St. Albans; in the Abbey-church is a handsome monument to the memory +of Mr. John Thrale, late of London, merchant, who died in 1704.' He +describes the arms on the monument. Mr. Hayward, in _Mrs. Piozzis +Autobiography_, i. 9, quotes her marginal note on this page in Boswell. +She says that Edmund Halsey, son of a miller at St. Albans, married the +only daughter of his master, old Child, of the Anchor Brewhouse, +Southwark, and succeeded to the business upon Child's death. 'He sent +for one of his sister's sons to London (my Mr. Thrale's father); said he +would make a man of him, and did so; but made him work very hard, and +treated him very roughly.' He left him nothing at his death, and Thrale +bought the brewery of Lord and Lady Cobham. + +[1437] See _post_, under April 4, 1781, and June 16, 1781. + +[1438] Mrs. Burney informs me that she heard Dr. Johnson say, 'An +English Merchant is a new species of Gentleman.' He, perhaps, had in his +mind the following ingenious passage in _The Conscious Lovers_, act iv. +scene ii, where Mr. Sealand thus addresses Sir John Bevil: 'Give me +leave to say, that we merchants are a species of gentry that have grown +into the world this last century, and are as honourable, and almost as +useful as you landed-folks, that have always thought yourselves so much +above us; for your trading forsooth is extended no farther than a load +of hay, or a fat ox.--You are pleasant people indeed! because you are +generally bred up to be lazy, therefore, I warrant your industry is +dishonourable.' BOSWELL. + +_The Conscious Lovers_ is by Steele. 'I never heard of any plays fit for +a Christian to read,' said Parson Adams, 'but _Cato_ and _The Conscious +Lovers_; and I must own, in the latter there are some things almost +solemn enough for a sermon.' _Joseph Andrews_, Book III, chap. xi. + +[1439] In the first number of _The Hypochondriack_ Boswell writes:--'It +is a saying in feudal treatises, "Semel Baro semper Baro_," "Once a +baron always a baron."' _London Mag_. 1777, p. 493. He seems of Mr. +Thrale's inferiority by speaking of him as Thrale and his house as +Thrale's. See _post_, April 5 and 12, 1776, April 7, 1778, and under +March 30, 1783. He never, I believe, is thus familiar in the case of +Beauclerk, Burke, Langton, and Reynolds. + +[1440] For her extraction see Hayward's _Mrs. Piozzi_, i. 238. + +[1441] Miss Burney records in May 1779, how one day at Streatham 'Mr. +Murphy met with a very joyful reception; and Mr. Thrale, for the first +time in his life, said he was "a good fellow;" for he makes it a sort of +rule to salute him with the title of "scoundrel," or "rascal." They are +very old friends; and I question if Mr. Thrale loves any man so well.' +Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 210. + +[1442] From the _Garrick Corres_, i. 116, it seems that Murphy +introduced Garrick to the Thrales. He wrote to him on May 13, +1760:--'You stand engaged to Mr. Thrale for Wednesday night. You need +not apprehend drinking; it is a very easy house.' + +[1443] Murphy (_Life_, p. 98) says that Johnson's introduction to the +Thrales 'contributed more than anything else to exempt him from the +solicitudes of life.' He continues that 'he looks back to the share he +had in that business with self congratulation, since he knows the +tenderness which from that time soothed Johnson's cares at Streatham, +and prolonged a valuable life.' Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale from +Lichfield on July 20, 1767:--'I have found nothing that withdraws my +affections from the friends whom I left behind, or which makes me less +desirous of reposing at that place which your kindness and Mr. Thrale's +allows me to call my _home_.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 4. From Mull, on Oct. +15, 1773, he wrote:--'Having for many weeks had no letter, my longings +are very great to be informed how all things are at home, as you and +mistress allow me to call it.' _Ib_. p. 166. Miss Burney in 1778 wrote +that 'though Dr. Johnson lives almost wholly at Streatham, he always +keeps his apartments in town.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 58. Johnson +(_Works_, viii. 381) tells how, in the house of Sir Thomas Abney, 'Dr. +Watts, with a constancy of friendship and uniformity of conduct not +often to be found, was treated for thirty-six years with all the +kindness that friendship could prompt, and all the attention that +respect could dictate.' He continues:--'A coalition like this, a state +in which the notions of patronage and dependence were overpowered by the +perception of reciprocal benefits, deserves a particular memorial.' It +was such a coalition which he formed with the Thrales--a coalition in +which, though the benefits which he received were great, yet those which +he conferred were still greater. + +[1444] On this Mrs. Piozzi notes:--'No, no! Mr. Thrale's manners +presented the character of a gay man of the town; like Millamant, in +Congreve's comedy, he abhorred the country and everything in it.' +Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 10. Mrs. Millamant, in _The Way of the World_, +act iv. sc. iv., says:--'I loathe the country and everything that +relates to it.' + +[1445] 'It is but justice to Mr. Thrale to say, that a more ingenuous +frame of mind no man possessed. His education at Oxford gave him the +habits of a gentleman; his amiable temper recommended his conversation, +and the goodness of his heart made him a sincere friend.' Murphy's +_Johnson_, p. 99. Johnson wrote of him to Mrs. Thrale:--'He must keep +well, for he is the pillar of the house; and you must get well, or the +house will hardly be worth propping.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 340. See +_post_, April 18, 1778. Mme. D'Arblay (_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 104) +gives one reason for Thrale's fondness for Johnson's society. 'Though +entirely a man of peace, and a gentleman in his character, he had a +singular amusement in hearing, instigating, and provoking a war of +words, alternating triumph and overthrow, between clever and ambitious +colloquial combatants, where there was nothing that could inflict +disgrace upon defeat.' + +[1446] In like manner he called Mr. Thrale _Master_ or _My master_. 'I +hope Master's walk will be finished when I come back.' _Piozzi Letters_, +i. 355. 'My master may plant and dig till his pond is an ocean.' _Ib_. +p. 357. See _post_, July 9, 1777. + +[1447] Miss Burney thus described her in 1776:--'She is extremely lively +and chatty; and showed none of the supercilious or pedantic airs so +scoffingly attributed to women of learning or celebrity; on the +contrary, she is full of sport, remarkably gay, and excessively +agreeable. I liked her in everything except her entrance into the room, +which was rather florid and flourishing, as who should say, "It is +I!--No less a person than Mrs. Thrale!" However, all that ostentation +wore out in the course of the visit, which lasted the whole morning; and +you could not have helped liking her, she is so very entertaining-- +though not simple enough, I believe, for quite winning your heart.' +_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 88. + +[1448] _Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes_, p. 279. BOSWELL. + +[1449] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Oct. 13, 1777:--'I cannot but +think on your kindness and my master's. Life has upon the whole fallen +short, very short, of my early expectation; but the acquisition of such +a friendship, at an age when new friendships are seldom acquired, is +something better than the general course of things gives man a right to +expect. I think on it with great delight; I am not very apt to be +delighted.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 7. Johnson's friends suffered from +this connection. See _post_, March 20, 1778, where it is said that 'at +Streatham he was in a great measure absorbed from the society of his +old friends.' + +[1450] Yet one year he recorded:--'March 3, I have never, I thank God, +since new year's day deviated from the practice of rising. In this +practice I persisted till I went to Mr. Thrale's sometime before +Midsummer; the irregularity of that family broke my habit of rising. I +was there till after Michaelmas.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 458, note. +Hawkins places this in 1765; but Johnson states (_Pr. and Med_. p. 71), +'I returned from Streatham, Oct. 1, --66, having lived there more than +three months.' + +[1451] Boswell wrote to Temple in 1775:--'I am at present in a +_tourbillon_ of conversations; but how come you to throw in the Thrales +among the Reynoldses and the Beauclerks? Mr. Thrale is a worthy, +sensible man, and has the wits much about his house; but he is not one +himself. Perhaps you mean Mrs. Thrale.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 192. +Murphy (_Life_, p. 141) says:--'It was late in life before Johnson had +the habit of mixing, otherwise than occasionally, with polite company. +At Mr. Thrale's he saw a constant succession of well-accomplished +visitors. In that society he began to wear off the rugged points of his +own character. The time was then expected when he was to cease being +what George Garrick, brother to the celebrated actor, called him the +first time he heard him converse. "A TREMENDOUS COMPANION"' + +[1452] Johnson wrote to Dr. Warton on Oct. 9:--'Mrs. Warton uses me +hardly in supposing that I could forget so much kindness and civility as +she showed me at Winchester.' Wooll's _Warton_, p. 309. Malone on this +remarks:--'It appears that Johnson spent some time with that gentleman +at Winchester in this year.' I believe that Johnson is speaking of the +year 1762, when, on his way to Devonshire, he passed two nights in that +town. See Taylor's _Reynolds_, i. 214. + +[1453] It was in 1745 that he published his _Observations on Macbeth_, +as a specimen of his projected edition (_ante_, p. 175). In 1756 he +issued _Proposals_ undertaking that his work should be published before +Christmas, 1757 (p. 318). On June 21, 1757, he writes:--'I am printing +my new edition of _Shakspeare_' (p. 322). On Dec. 24 of the same year he +says, 'I shall publish about March' (p. 323). On March 8, 1758, he +writes:--'It will be published before summer.... I have printed many of +the plays' (p. 327). In June of the same year Langton took some of the +plays to Oxford (p. 336). Churchill's _Ghost_ (Parts 1 and 2) was +published in the spring of 1762 (p. 319). On July 20, 1762, Johnson +wrote to Baretti, 'I intend that you shall soon receive Shakspeare' (p. +369). In October 1765 it was published. + +[1454] According to Mr. Seward (_Anec_. ii. 464), 'Adam Smith styled it +the most manly piece of criticism that was ever published in +any country.' + +[1455] George III, at all events, did not share in this blind +admiration. 'Was there ever,' cried he, 'such stuff as great part of +Shakespeare? only one must not say so. But what think you? What? Is +there not sad stuff? What? What?' 'Yes, indeed, I think so, Sir, though +mixed with such excellencies that--' 'O!' cried he, laughing +good-humouredly, 'I know it is not to be said! but it's true. Only it's +Shakespeare, and nobody dare abuse him.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, +ii, 398. + +[1456] That Johnson did not slur his work, as has been often said, we +have the best of all evidence--his own word. 'I have, indeed,' he writes +(_Works_, v. 152), 'disappointed no opinion more than my own; yet I have +endeavoured to perform my task with no slight solicitude. Not a single +passage in the whole work has appeared to me corrupt which I have not +attempted to restore; or obscure which I have not attempted to +illustrate.' + +[1457] Steevens wrote to Garrick:--'To say the truth, the errors of +Warburton and Johnson are often more meritorious than such corrections +of them as the obscure industry of Mr. Farmer and myself can furnish. +Disdaining crutches, they have sometimes had a fall; but it is my duty +to remember, that I, for my part, could not have kept on my legs at all +without them.' _Garrick Corres_. ii, 130. 'Johnson's preface and notes +are distinguished by clearness of thought and diction, and by masterly +common sense.' _Cambridge Shakespeare_, i. xxxvi. + +[1458] Kenrick later on was the gross libeller of Goldsmith, and the far +grosser libeller of Garrick. 'When proceedings were commenced against +him in the Court of King's Bench [for the libel on Garrick], he made at +once the most abject submission and retractation.' Prior's _Goldsmith_, +i. 294. In the _Garrick Carres_, (ii. 341) is a letter addressed to +Kenrick, in which Garrick says:--'I could have honoured you by giving +the satisfaction of a gentleman, _if you could_ (as Shakespeare says) +_have screwed your courage to the sticking place_, to have taken it.' It +is endorsed:--'This was not sent to the scoundrel Dr. Kenrick.... It was +judged best not to answer any more of Dr. Kenrick's notes, he had +behaved so unworthily.' + +[1459] Ephraim Chambers, in the epitaph that he made for himself +(_ante_, p. 219), had described himself as _multis pervulgatus paucis +notus_.' _Gent. Mag_. x. 262. + +[1460] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 1, 1773. + +[1461] Johnson had joined Voltaire with Dennis and Rymer. 'Dennis and +Rymer think Shakespeare's Romans not sufficiently Roman; and Voltaire +censures his kings as not completely royal. Dennis is offended that +Menenius, a senator of Rome, should play the buffoon; and Voltaire, +perhaps, thinks decency violated when the Danish usurper is represented +as a drunkard. But Shakespeare always makes nature predominate over +accident.... His story requires Romans or kings, but he thinks only on +men. He knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of all +dispositions; and wanting a buffoon, he went into the senate-house for +that which the senate-house would certainly have afforded him. He was +inclined to show an usurper and a murderer, not only odious, but +despicable; he therefore added drunkenness to his other qualities, +knowing that kings love wine like other men, and that wine exerts its +natural power upon kings. These are the petty cavils of petty _minds_; a +poet overlooks the casual distinction of country and condition, as a +painter, satisfied with the figure, neglects the drapery.' Johnson's +_Works_, v. 109. Johnson had previously attacked Voltaire, in his +_Memoirs of Frederick the Great_. (_Ante_, i. 435, note 2.) In these +_Memoirs_ he writes:--'Voltaire has asserted that a large sum was raised +for her [the Queen of Hungary's] succour by voluntary subscriptions of +the English ladies. It is the great failing of a strong imagination to +catch greedily at wonders. He was misinformed, and was perhaps unwilling +to learn, by a second enquiry, a truth less splendid and amusing.' _Ib_. +vi. 455. See _post_, Oct. 27, 1779. + +[1462] 'Voltaire replied in the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_. (_Works_, +xxxiii. 566.) 'J'ai jeté les yeux sur une édition de Shakespeare, donnée +par le sieur Samuel Johnson. J'y ai vu qu'on y traite de _petits +esprits_ les étrangers qui sont étonnés que dans les pièces de ce grand +Shakespeare _un sénateur romain fasse le bouffon; et gu'un roi paraisse +sur le théâtre en ivrogne_. Je ne veux point soupçonner le sieur Johnson +d'ètre un mauvais plaisant, et d'aimer trop le vin; mais je trouve un +peu extraordinaire qu'il compte la bouffonnerie et l'ivrognerie parmi +les beautes du théatre tragique; la raison qu'il en donne n'est pas +moins singulière. _Le poète_, dit-il, _dédaigne ces distinctions +accidentelles de conditions et de pays, comme un peintre qui, content +d'avoir peint la figure, néglige la draperie_. La comparaison serait +plus juste, s'il parlait d'un peintre qui, dans un sujet noble, +introduirait des grotesques ridicules, peindrait dans la bataille +d'Arbelles Alexandre-le Grand monte sur un âne, et la femme de Darius +buvant avec des goujats dans un cabaret.' Johnson, perhaps, had this +attack in mind when, in his _Life of Pope_ (_Works_, viii. 275), he thus +wrote of Voltaire:--'He had been entertained by Pope at his table, when +he talked with so much grossness, that Mrs. Pope was driven from the +room. Pope discovered by a trick that he was a spy for the court, and +never considered him as a man worthy of confidence.' + +[1463] See _post_, under May 8, 1781. + +[1464] See _post_, ii. 74. + +[1465] He was probably proposing to himself the model of this excellent +person, who for his piety was named _the Seraphic Doctor_. BOSWELL. + +[1466] + +'E'en in a bishop I can spy desert, +Secker is decent, Rundel has a heart.' + +Pope. _Epil, Sat_. II. 70. + +[1467] So Smollett calls him in his _History of England_, iii. 16. + +[1468] Six of these twelve guineas Johnson appears to have borrowed from +Mr. Allen, the printer. See Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 366 +n. MALONE. + +[1469] Written by mistake for 1759. On the _outside_ of the letter of +the 13th was written by another hand--'Pray acknowledge the receipt of +this by return of post, without fail.' MALONE. + +[1470] Catherine Chambers, Mrs. Johnson's maid-servant. She died in +October, 1767. MALONE. See _post_, ii. 43. + +[1471] This letter was written on the second leaf of the preceding, +addressed to Miss Porter. MALONE. + +[1472] Mrs. Johnson probably died on the 20th or 21st January, and was +buried on the day this letter was written. MALONE. On the day on which +his mother was buried Johnson composed a prayer, as being 'now about to +return to the common comforts and business of the world.' _Pr. and Med_. +p. 38. After his wife''s death he had allowed forty days to pass before +his 'return to life.' See _ante_, p. 234, note 2. + +[1473] See _ante_, p. 80. + +[1474] Barnaby Greene had just published _The Laureat, a Poem_, in which +Johnson is abused. It is in the February list of books in the _Gent. +Mag_. for 1765. + +[1475] Sir Cloudesly Shovel's monument is thus mentioned by Addison in +_The Spectator_, No. 26:--'It has very often given me great offence; +instead of the brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguishing +character of that plain gallant man, he is represented on his tomb by +the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and reposing himself +upon velvet cushions under a canopy of state.' + +[1476] + +'That live-long wig, which Gorgon's self might own, +Eternal buckle takes in Parian stone.' + +Pope's _Moral Essays_, iii. 295. + +[1477] Milton's Epigram is in his _Sylvarum Liber_, and is entitled _In +Effigiei ejus Sculptorem_. + +[1478] Johnson's acquaintance, Bishop Newton (_post_, June 3, 1784), +published an edition of _Milton_. + +[1479] It was no doubt by the Master of Emanuel College, his friend +Dr. Farmer (_ante_, p. 368), that Johnson was promised 'an habitation' +there. + + +THE END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 +by Boswell, ed. 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