Life of Johnson, Volume 1 1709-1765 (part 3 of 4)

Life of Johnson, Volume 1 1709-1765 (part 3 of 4)

'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!'

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