'Studious the busy moments to deceive.'
Sir Walter Scott thought that the poem praised by Johnson was 'more
likely the fine epitaph on John, Viscount of Dundee, translated by
Dryden, and beginning _Ultime Scotoruml_' Archibald Pitcairne, M.D., was
born in 1652, and died in 1713.
[171] My Journal, from this day inclusive, was read by Dr. Johnson.
BOSWELL. It was read by Johnson up to the second paragraph of Oct. 26.
Boswell, it should seem, once at least shewed Johnson a part of the
Journal from which he formed his _Life_. See _ante_, iii. 260, where he
says:--'It delighted him on a review to find that his conversation
teemed with point and imagery.'
[172] See _ante_, ii. 20, note 4.
[173] Goldsmith, in his _Present State of Polite Learning_, published in
1759, says, (ch. x):--'When the great Somers was at the helm, patronage
was fashionable among our nobility ... Since the days of a certain prime
minister of inglorious memory [Sir Robert Walpole] the learned have been
kept pretty much at a distance. ... The author, when unpatronised by the
Great, has naturally recourse to the bookseller. There cannot be perhaps
imagined a combination more prejudicial to taste than this. It is the
interest of the one to allow as little for writing, and of the other to
write as much as possible; accordingly tedious compilations and
periodical magazines are the result of their joint endeavours.'
[174] In the first number of _The Rambler_, Johnson shews how attractive
to an author is the form of publication which he was himself then
adopting:--'It heightens his alacrity to think in how many places he
shall have what he is now writing read with ecstacies to-morrow.'
[175] Yet he said 'the inhabitants of Lichfield were the most sober,
decent people in England.' _Ante_, ii. 463.
[176] At the beginning of the eighteenth century, says Goldsmith,
'smoking in the rooms [at Bath] was permitted.' When Nash became King of
Bath he put it down. Goldsmith's _Works_, ed. 1854, iv. 51. 'Johnson,'
says Boswell (_ante_, i. 317), 'had a high opinion of the sedative
influence of smoking.'
[177] Dr. Johnson used to practise this himself very much. BOSWELL.
[178] In _The Tatler_, for May 24, 1709, we are told that 'rural
esquires wear shirts half a week, and are drunk twice a day.' In the
year 1720, Fenton urged Gay 'to sell as much South Sea stock as would
purchase a hundred a year for life, "which will make you sure of a clean
shirt and a shoulder of mutton every day."' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 65.
In _Tristram Shandy_, ii. ch. 4, published in 1759, we read:--'It was in
this year [about 1700] that my uncle began to break in upon the daily
regularity of a clean shirt.' In _the Spiritual Quixote_, published in
1773 (i. 51), Tugwell says to his master:--'Your Worship belike has been
used to shift you twice a week.' Mrs. Piozzi (_Journey_, i. 105, date of
1789) says that she heard in Milan 'a travelled gentleman telling his
auditors how all the men in London, _that were noble_, put on a clean
shirt every day.' Johnson himself owned that he had 'no passion for
clean linen.' _Ante_, i. 397.
[179] Scott, in _Old Mortality_, ed. 1860, ix. 352, says:--'It was a
universal custom in Scotland, that, when the family was at dinner, the
outer-gate of the court-yard, if there was one, and if not, the door of
the house itself, was always shut and locked.' In a note on this he
says:--'The custom of keeping the door of a house or chateau locked
during the time of dinner probably arose from the family being anciently
assembled in the hall at that meal, and liable to surprise.'
[180] Johnson, writing of 'the chapel of the alienated college,'
says:--'I was always by some civil excuse hindered from entering it.'
_Works_, ix. 4.
[181] George Marline's _Reliquiae divi Andreae_ was published in 1797.
[182] See _ante_, ii. 171, and iv. 75.
[183] Mr. Chambers says that Knox was buried in a place which soon after
became, and ever since has been, a high-way; namely, the old church-yard
of St. Giles in Edinburgh. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 283.
[184] In _The Rambler_, No. 82, Johnson makes a virtuoso write:--'I
often lamented that I was not one of that happy generation who
demolished the convents and monasteries, and broke windows by law.' He
had in 1754 'viewed with indignation the ruins of the Abbeys of Oseney
and Rewley near Oxford.' Ante, i. 273. Smollett, in _Humphry Clinker_
(Letrer of Aug. 8), describes St. Andrews as 'the skeleton of a
venerable city.'
[185] 'Some talked of the right of society to the labour of individuals,
and considered retirement as a desertion of duty. Others readily allowed
that there was a time when the claims of the publick were satisfied, and
when a man might properly sequester himself to review his life and
purify his heart.' _Rasselas_, ch. 22.
[186] See _ante_, ii. 423.
[187] See _ante_, iv. 5, note 2, and v. 27.
[188] 'He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well
in a monastery. But, perhaps, every one is not able to stem the
temptations of publick life, and, if he cannot conquer, he may properly
retreat.' _Rasselas_, ch. 47. See _ante_, ii. 435.
[189] 'A youthful passion for abstracted devotion should not be
encouraged.' _Ante_, ii. 10. The hermit in _Rasselas_ (ch. 21)
says:--'The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not
certainly devout.' In Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 203, we read that
'Johnson thought worse of the vices of retirement than of those of
society.' Southey (_Life of Wesley_, i. 39) writes:--'Some time before
John Wesley's return to the University, he had travelled many miles to
see what is called "a serious man." This person said to him, "Sir, you
wish to serve God and go to heaven. Remember, you cannot serve Him
alone; you must therefore find companions or make them; the Bible knows
nothing of solitary religion." Wesley never forgot these words.'
[190] [Erga neon, boulai de meson euchai de gerunton. _Hesiodi
Fragmenta_, Lipsiae 1840, p. 371]
Let youth in deeds, in counsel man engage;
Prayer is the proper duty of old age.