A Critical Examination of G. Birkbeck Hill's "Johnsonian"

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Preface

Naturally I feel some hesitation in putting forward these strictures on Dr Birkbeck HilFs Editions: for has not Mr Leslie Stephen written of **The Life" that "The edition by Dr G. B. Hill is by far the best ; the notes throughout are of the highest utility ? " ("Diet. Nat. Biog.," vol. xxx. p. 46). And Mr Andrew I-»ang, has he not declared that, to the same editor we owe " The best edition of Bozzy — the most delightful of books — the best * Collections of Johnsoniana ? ' " {Longviatis Magazine^ February 1898, p. 374). Yet how reconcile this eulogium with the incredible catalogue of mistakes, misapprehensions, wild flounderings, and speculations, which are here set forth ? With such things present there cannot be "by far the best edition," or even a fairly good one. I do not profess to explain the discrepancy, but leave it to the reader to judge for himself.

February 1898,

Contents

The Preface and Dedication ......

Arrangement and Laying Out of the Work

The Editor's "Editing". ......

I

Here is a typical instance : Johnson once suggested to Cave various subjects for essays, such as " Forgotten Poems,'" or " Loose Pieces like Floyer's,'' a mere illustration of his suggestion. Boswell does quite enough in supplying this note : — " Sir John Floyer's treatise on the Cold Bath, Gcntlctnan^s Magazine^ I734) P' '97)" his purpose being to mark the subject of one of Johnson's contributions. " But," says the editor, " his letter shows how uncommon a thing a cold bath was.^^ Floyer, who, we are assured, recommended "general method of bleeding and purging before the patient uses the cold bath," continues : ** I have commonly cured the rickets by dipping children, etc., etc. (For mention of Floyer, see antc^ etc., and/<7j/, etc.;." This topic of bathing being started, we ^o back to Locke, "who in his * Treatise on Education' recommended cold bathing for children. Johnson, in his review of Lucas's * Essay on Waters ' {J>osty 1756), thus attacks cold bathing," etc. (passage quoted). Then we have Dr Lucas himself: " The old gentleman," he says, " that uses the cold bath," etc. — Literary Magazine .^ p. 229. After which we turn back to the text and find that Johnson was not thinking of any of these things or persons, but had merely suggested the subject for a paper !

Johnson once told a good story of a nobleman who wrote a bad play, and then bought up all the copies. At an election, the Duchess of Marlborough had it reprinted with a frontispiece representing an elephant dancing on a tight-rope. All that was wanting was the name of the nobleman — the anecdote, indeed, being suggested to Johnson by the droll rumour that he himself was taking lessons in dancing. Boswell, with his usual restraint, supplies this note. "William, the first Viscount Grimston." Dr B. Hill then starts on his erratic course. " Swift thus introduces him (Lord Grimston)," and Swift's verses are quoted. We next go off to Nichols, who, "in a note on this, says that the author wrote the play when he was a schoolboy." Boswell, observe, was not accountable for this statement, which had nothing to do with Johnson's story ; but the editor actively enters into controversy with Nichols on the point. "Two editions were published, apparently by Grimston himself, one

A CRlTiCAL EXAMItfATlOtf bearing his name but no date, and the other the date of 1705, but no name. By 1705 he was twenty-two years old — no longer a boy." It might be said that the statement is that the author wrote the play when a boy, which is consistent with publishing it when he was grown up. Having done with Nichols, the editor next supplies this extraordinary piece of information : " The former edition was published by Bernard Lintot at the Cross Keys, Fleet Street, and the latter by the same bookseller at the Middle Temple Gate,^^ What can this mean ? He then proceeds to point a moral : " The grossness of a young man of birth at this period is shown by the preface." No doubt, by " birth," Dr B. Hill means ** nobility " ; but it happened that the youth was not raised to the peerage until years afterwards. Then we return to further bibliographical details. " The third edition, with the elephant, etc., was published in 1736. There is another illustration in which an ass is bearing a coronet," etc., and, mark this — " Grimston's name is not given here, but there is a dedication," etc. "Three or four notes are added, one of which is very gross." All which proves that Dr B. Hill is "abroad," as it were, and has little notion of the relevancy of his various odds and ends.

A duel took place between two gentlemen named Riddell and Cunningham, one of whom was killed. Boswell says Cunningham was his " near relation." Our editor makes researches, and finds that " Bos7velPs grandfather's grandmother v/^ls a Miss Cunningham ; I do not know how it is that this was a near connection." Then follows a jest at the Scotch. "In Scotland, I suppose, so much kindred as this makes two men relatives." But Boswell was not likely to be so absurd, for he says distinctly that the gentleman was his near relation ; and that he was so nearly connected is evident from the fact that Boswell was sent for by express to his bedside. I find in the pedigrees that Mrs Boswell had a cousin of the name.

When Johnson pleasantly uses a piece of slang " in the phrase of * Hockley-in-the-Hole,"' the editor gives no less than sixteen passages from all sorts and conditions of persons to illustrate the meaning I Johnson had said, jocosely enough, of a little girl : "I being a buck, had Miss in to make tea." What need of comment, research, or "editing" here? But Dr B. Hill must discuss the word " Miss." " The word," he says, " at this time was often used in a loose sense," and for fear of misapprehension, adds gravely : " Though Johnson could not have so used it." Not likely indeed. Then why introduce the eccentric sense at all ? But in proof of his theory he goes on to quote a story from Walpole : how the young Prince Frederick, when Kitty Fisher passed by, being asked, "Who that was? " had answered, "a Miss." Being told that all young ladies were Misses, he said that " she was a particular sort of a Miss that sold oranges." Thus it proved the " loose " sense of the word Miss. The late Peter Cunningham is next called in to prove the fact that orange girls were persons of light char.icter. And all this "skimble-skamble" on Johnson^s speech, " I had Miss in to tea" I

" On the 28th of April I went to Bath." Thus wrote Boswell. What could be added, unless a full ciccount of Bath, Prince Bladud, Miss Bumey, etc.? Dr B. Hill fancies he has "discovered " that all the Abbey bells were set ringing to welcome Boswell, and this purely gratuitous assumption requires forty lines to develop. Goldsmith, it seems, had declared in 1762 that a stranger was always thus welcomed. It does not matter that this was ten years before, and that Boswell himself makes no mention of the salute. "Humphrey Clinker" is then quoted

H

A CRtTICAL EXAMWATIOI^ with the same view. But are such speculations "editing"? Boswell next adds: " Mr and Mrs Thrale were gone to the Rooms." This inexpressibly shocks Dr B. Hill, who exclaims : "To the Rooms ! and their only son dead three days over one month ! " Then a quotation :

** That it should come to this, Hut two months dead ! " — Hamlet,

Is it an editor's function to be thus horrorstricken ? Nor was it altogether so heinous in the Thrales. " The Rooms " at Bath was the place of common resort — for conversation, for cards, or for music. They were both retired and public. It was natural that the bereaved pair should seek some mild distraction of the kind.

Boswell tells us of one Macbean, who was preparing " a Military Dictionary," and adds in a note : " This book was published." On which our editor : " I have not been able to find it." We are certain that Boswell would not have needlessly obtruded this note if he had not known of or seen the book. I took down Watt's " Bibliolheca," and lo ! there I was " able to find it '* at once, and in two places !

The following is a fair specimen of the note " brought in by head and shoulders." When Johnson received his degree of M.A., the Chancellor of the University wrote the usual letter of request, signing it " Arran." On which we are told all about the Arrans and the generations of Arrans ; how there were three of their family Chancellors, with the history of each. Then we hear of Richardson "writing in 1754 (* Cor.,* ii. 198)," etc. ; with a reference to Macaulay ("Essays," iii. 159). Then is introduced a Chancellor, not an Arran at all, " the Earl of Westmoreland, *old, dull Westmoreland,' as Walpole calls him" (" Letters," i. 290). All this on the bare signature " Arran."

A letter from Johnson, Boswell says, was forwarded from Carlisle to his house at Edinburgh. Our ingenious editor at once introduces Mr Arthur Young ("Tour Through the North of England," iv. 431, 5), "who describes in 1768 some of the roads along which Boswell was to travel nine years laler^ Then follows a long quotation on the " state of the roads," which, after all, might have been improved during the nine years. And all this on a letter addressed to Boswell at Carlisle, sent after him by post ! A pleasantly grotesque passage of Boswell's is the little sketch of the "Great Twalmlcy" and his " New Floodgate Iron," which Boswell explains in a note of about four lines. The Bishop of Killaloe had ironically defended Twalmleyas"a benefactor to his species," by applying, in a burlesque way, two lines from Virgil ; then the subject dropped. But Dr B. Hill intervenes, and in his own style gravely deals with this trivial matter. In a long note he gives the fiill passage from Virgil— four lines— with a "translation by Morris," in four lines more. Then, taking up the theme in his own person, he quotes classical passages in favour of the great Twalmley, who, he says, " might have justified himself by The Rambler^ No. 9 : * Every man, from the highest,' " etc. [follows the passage at length]. " All this is whtzt Twalmley did. He adorned an arl^^ — />. invented a sliding-door for a smoothing-iron — " he endeavoured to arrive at eminence, etc. He could also have defended himself by the example of i^neas : Sutn pins /'EfteaSy^ etc.

Mr Carlyle, the editor tells us, is in error in describing Johnson as a servitor (on which, it may be said, that " Boswell's Johnson " has no concern with Mr Carlyle's or any one else's misconceptions). " He was a commoner, as the above entry shows" — and Dr B. Hill refers to his own note. One would fancy that it had been uncertain whether Johnson had been a

A CXITJCAL EXAMINATION

IS commoner or a servitor, and that Dr B. Hill had "discovered'* the fact. But we turn to Boswell's text, and there read, " he was entered as a commoner " !

When M*Leod declared that he would rather drink punch with his tenants than claret in his own house at their expense, he was illustrating the good feeling of Scotch landlords for their dependants. Dr B. Hill gives two passages to prove excessive drinking by Irish gentlemen. There is no point or parallel in this. " laceration of mind^^ Boswell has printed in italics. " Laceraiiofty* says the editor, " was properly a term of surgery ; hence the italics,^* But was not ^^of mind^^ also in italics? and are those words " terms of surgery " also ? This is surely uncritical.

It is often amusing to see how shocked is our editor at certain expressions of his author. As when Gibbon and Langton were elected Professors at the Academy, Boswell said that it reminded him of Swift's " wicked Will Whiston, and good Mr Ditton." There was some pleasantry in this. " But," says our editor gravely, "this poem goes on so grossly and so offensively as regards one and the other, that Boswell's comparison was a gross insult to Langton as well as to Gibbon." Boswell was, of course, merely amused at the notion of the oddity of the good man and the heterodox man being chosen together. There are things as offensive in Gulliver, but to compare some one to Gulliver is not an insult. Again : " It is strange " — Dr Hill is always discovering something strange — " that Boswell nowhere quotes the lines in the * Good-natured Man,' in which Paoli is mentioned." This, as it is so " strange," must have been some compliment, or trait of character, or illustration, but the "lines" in question are simply, " thafs (a letter) from Paoli of Corsica." Boswell, with his usual acumen, saw that to quote this barren speech contributed nothing to the fame of his hero.

Boswell and his friend were invited to Slains Castle by the Errol family ; and the editor shows that it was to Johnson that the invitation was owing, he having been observed in the church by a lady who knew him. On which we have this gloss : " Boswell, /^r^^/x, was not unwilling that the reader should think that it was to him that the compliment was paid." Why "perhaps " ? No reason is given for this insinuation. But for it there is not a particle of foundation. For he distinctly disclaims all share in the business : "/ had never seen any of the family ^ but there had been a card of invitation written by Mr Boyd."

Defending himself from a charge of being a reporter of private conversations, Boswell in a graceful passage asks, " How could any one be annoyed at his not gathering what grew on every hedge?" when "he had collected such fruits as the Nonpareil and the Bon Chretien^* There is a quaint touch here ; and by the use of the capitals he seemed to refer to the character of his great friend. But how does it strike our too literal editor ? " Both Nonpareil and Bon Chretien are in Johnsons Dictionary. Nonpareil is defined as a kind of apple, Bon Chretien a species of pear." This is literal indeed ! Again : in his "Diary" Johnson writes that two sheets of his "Tour" came to him for correction, viz. "F and G." This is plain enough, but our editor must make it plainer still : " F and G are the printer's signatures, by which it appears that at this time sheets B^ C, Z>, Ey had alrecuiy been printed P

" I have retained Boswell's spelling" (such as "aweful," etc.), the editor tells us, "for the reason that Boswell, in another work, had said that in case of a reprint he hoped that care would be taken of his orthography." On turni6 ing to the work, published twenty-three years before, we find that Boswell was speaking of only hao forms of spelling, the addition of ** k " to "public," and of "u" to such words as "humour," and he trusted that these forms would be adhered to. Dr B. Hill is scarcely justified in forcing or enlarging the meaning in this way.

Dr B. Hill is fond of making out "lists," to wit, " totting up " how many times Johnson was bled, or Boswell was drunk, or how many days the pair were together. It was natural, therefore, when he came to Bos well's proposal to edit Addison's Poems, that it should occur to him to make out a list of all Boswell's projected works. Accordingly, we are told that " he proposed also to publish Johnson's Poems, an account of his own travels, a collection of old Scottish tenures, etc., and a * H istory of James 1 V.' " These items professed to exhaust the matter. But later he begins to mend his hand : "In my list of Boswell's projected works (r////<% i. 225) I have omitted this, a ' History of Sweden,' ' so it now seemed complete. Later again, however, in a note, we are astonished to find the editor taking the subject up once more, and giving us quite a new list. It had now grown to ten items ; it looked as though our editor was picking up his information as he went along. However, here at last was a complete final list marked with numerals. But no— turning to the end of the book we find one more new and additional item. And where? Actually put into the index of Boswell's works ; " to which must be added *An Account of a Projected Tour in the Isle of Man'" (where it may be doubted if Boswell couid have given an account of a tour that was merely "projected," and had not been carried out). Still, we must take our information as we get it, in these "dribs and drabs," as it is called, and rejoice that we h^ve it at last in a complete shape. But what will be said if I can supple-* ment it with some half-a-dozen fresh items which have wholly escaped the editor, and which he is welcome to add to his list in his next edition ? Mistakes of dates occur through the work, such as the statement that Johnson's " Plan of the Dictionary'" was published in 1774 (vol. i. p. 176), and that Johnson had been sixteen years in London before he met Hogarth. As their meeting was in 1745-6, and Johnson only came to London in 1737, this cannot be accurate ; while the Plan was published over twenty years before the date mentioned.

IL

The note on Johnson's " sliding" is a strange one. Johnson mentions, when he came to college, that on one occasion he was " sliding " on the ice. " Sliding" is an important matter, and needs exhaustive treatment. " This," says our editor, with due gravity, " was on November 6, O.S., or November 17, N.S., a very early time for ice to bear.^^ Still there must be documentary evidence. " The first mention of frost that I find in the ne^vspapers of t/tat winter is in the Weekly Journal^ where," etc., and a quotation follows. Then is added, "the records of the meteorological observation began a few years later." This " sliding " passage is indeed full of odd things. His tutor Jordan had asked Johnson why he had not attended his lectures, and he answered with much nonchalance "that he had been sliding." This, he explained to Boswell, was " stark insensibility." In another late account he says that he went to his tutor with "a beating heart." Mr Croker thought the two accounts inconsistent ; but any one will see that they can be reconciled. Dr B. Hill has what he calls "a very simple explanation." The accounts refer to different hours of the same day : Johnson's " insensibility " belonged

A CRITICAL EXAMINATIOIf

. 17 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." All of which is rather mythical. There was but the one visit to the tutor, as any one who turns to the passages will see. Johnson went to him with a beating heart, dreading punishment, and at the same interview answered him stolidly, from a " stupid insensibility."

Boswell once remarked, "Then Hume is not the worse for Beattie's attack," i.e, in his "Essay on Truth." On which the editor introduces an account of a certain picture by Reynolds, in which Beattic is depicted as "the Angel of Truth beating down the vices"; followed by Goldsmith's criticism of the same, at length. Then we are told that one of the figures is said to be a portrait of Hume— a notion which the editor confutes. On his own showing, therefore, there is no apropos in introducing the portrait at all. Next, we are oddly told " that Dr Hill Burton does not mention the * Essay on Truth.'" An edition of Boswell could be extended ad infinitum^ if we set down all the things that modem writers donH mention. Next we are assured that " Burns did not hold with Goldsmith, for he took Beattie's side," and a quotation follows.

It is surely needless to repeat in the notes the information given in the text. Boswell in his note speaks of " Dr Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury" ; but the editor in the next column tells us that " Dr Douglas was afterwards Bishop of Salisbury," and, moreover, refers us ^^ ante, p. 127," where we find, "Dr Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury."

" Boswell was no reader," our editor assures us— a rather wholesale assertion. Every critic will have been struck by the extent of Boswcll's reading— evidenced not so much by the number of happy quotations from most languages as by the tone of general information that pervades his book. But what is the proof offered by the editor ? "I wish," wrote Johnson, " you would enable yourself to borrow more ; " also BoswelPs own confession in 1775, " I have a time of impotency of study" (which many have); and again, " I have promised Dr Johnson to read when I get to Scotland." He had been idle, in fact, and dissipating, and could not then apply to study. But Johnson always gives his friend the highest praise for his reading and knowledge. —

The editor, as we have seen, is particularly severe where " morals " or questions of morals arise, and is often shocked at, or reprobates, sentiments or conduct that seem to deviate from his high standard, as in the well-known discussion between Dr Johnson and Lord Auchinleck. The latter, when pressed to name any Scotch religious work of merit, confessed to his son afterwards that he suddenly recollected having seen in a catalogue "Durham on the Galatians," with which he at once "downed" Johnson. There was something pleasant, if not humorous, in this little scene. But the editor deals with it very seriously, and sees here a regular breach of morality. " In the British Museum Catalogue I can find no work by Durham on the Galatians. Lord Auchinleck's triumph was more artful than honest." In other words, he had invented a religious treatise, and thus " lied," as Johnson might say, not only to the sage, but to his own son, to whom he said that he had seen the work. Well, on turning to the British Museum Catalogue, I find " Durham on the Revelations," which the old judge might very naturally have confounded with "the Galatians."

Again, there was an old friend of Johnson's, the well-known Dr James — of powder celebrity i8

A CRITICAL EXA^fINAT!ON

— and for whom he had a cordial affection. The editor, however, has discovered that Johnson " did not speak equally well of Dr James's morals.'' This is rather a serious charge, for ** morals" is a large word. He explains it in this way : " He will not," wrote Johnson, " pay for three box tickets which he took ; His a strange fellowJ'^ Who has not experienced something of this kind— a rich friend forgets to pay, or puts off paying, for some ticket, cab, etc., or is a little stingy — we tell it with a smile — " Uis a strange f€U<nu^'' but we do not thereby revile his "morals." Dr B. Hill has studied books, not character.

Once Johnson, pleased with a dinner, said, "It could not have been better had it been prepared by a * synod of cooks.'" Could anything be clearer or more intelligible, as a pleasant remark en passant? But listen to the editor : " When Johnson spoke of a * synod of cooks,' he ivas^ I conjecture^ thinking of Milton^ s * Synod of Gods^ in Beelzebub's speech in * Paradise Lost,' Book II., line 391." It gives one a sort of chill to read these solemnities. But if we must explain it all literally, and " by the card," Johnson was not thinking of Milton or Beelzebub, nor even of the Diocesan Synods of his own country ; he was drawing a humorous picture of the chefs assembled in council, grave as divines, and concocting their dinner.

Boswell described Hawkins as " Mr John Hawkins, an attorney." " In thus styling Hawkins, he remembered, no doubt, Johnson's sarcasm against attorneys." Thus Dr B. Hill : " No doubt." Nothing of the kind. There was no connection between Boswell's speech and Johnson's sarcasm, which was " that he did not like to speak ill of a gentleman behind his back, but he believed he was an attorney." Which prompts Dr B. Hill to engender a new and rather grotesque theory that Johnson "had some motive for his ill-will towards them (the attorneys)," just as he had towards excisemen. And what is the ground for this speculation ? That when describing, in his poem, the various bad characters that infested the streets of London, Johnson had used the phrase, "The fell attorney prowls for prey." These are all morbid imaginings. Miss Hawkins expressly states that Boswell used the offensive description of her father because the latter had described him as " Mr James Boswell, a native of Scotland," instead of "the celebrated," or well-known Mr Boswell.

"I mentioned to him," says Boswell, "a respectable person in Scotland whom he knew." Now, who could see any obscurity here.^ But we have a long disquisition on the meaning of the word " respectable." In those days " it was still a term of high praise." The dictum, as it is needless, we might let pass. But it must be proved by quotations, firstly from Johnson's Dictionary ; secondly, from "The Tour" ; thirdly, from Dr Franklin ; fourthly, from the Gentleman's Magazine; fifthly, from Hannah More ; sixthly, from Gibbon ; seventhly, from George III.; eighthly, from Lord Chesterfield! All these personages, it seems, used " respectable " as " a term of praise."

When Mrs Thrale contemptuously described Boswell as "sitting steadily down at the other end of the room " to take notes of the conversation, the editor suggests that "stealthily" should be read. But Mrs Thrale meant that Boswell pursued his work with a sort of obtuse purpose or " doggedness," regardless of remark. He never had any idea of " stealthiness " in his task. The Prince of Wales had promised to attend the Royal Academy Exhibition, and Johnson wrote that "when we had waited an hour and a half he sent us word that he could not come.*' This quite puts the editor in a rage. " The First

Gentleman of Europe was twenty-one years old when he treated men like Johnson and Reynolds with this insolence." From this rhapsody one would fancy it was the banquet or a deputation when a number of important people, such as Johnson and Reynolds, were kept waiting. Johnson meant that they were expecting the Prince for an hour and a half, it being the opening of the Exhibition, which was attended by hundreds. There was no " insolence " in this ; he was so far polite that he sent his excuses; neither had the Prince at that time any claim to be " First Gentleman in Europe." And, finally, the anecdote is not in Boswell.

Sometimes our editor indulges in a joke. On the mention of " Jackson the all-knowing," we have this most singular note : " Mr Croker gives a reference to p. 136 of his edition. Turning to it, we find an account of Johnson, who rode upon three horses. It would seem from this that because John = Jack, therefore Johnson = Jackson." This tone of treating Boswell's great book is surely indecorous. No one of true editorial tact would indulge in such a remark. Besides, it is merely a slip of the index matter, and there are many as bad in the editor's own index. It was, further, a not unnatural mistake, the eyes being deceived by the likeness of the two names.

Boswell speaks of one of Hogarth's prints which, with others, " was pasted on the walls of the dining-room at Streatham." This trifling matter seems clear enough, save to Dr B. Hill. He wonders " whether pasted is strictly used^^ and thinks it likely " that a wealthy brewer would have afforded Hogarth a frame." He cannot see that it was no question of saving or " affording," but of decoration ; this pasting of prints on screens and walls has often been seen in old houses. What, too, is the " strict use " of the word "pasted"? No one could speak of a frame being " pasted " to a wall, even in the less strict use of " pasted." At any rate, Boswell had seen the pictures, and says they were " pasted."