A few pages back, it was said that the Doctor had dedicated the Plan
to Lord Chesterfield, himself a man of great abilities, who had wide
social influence and literary ability. Somehow, Chesterfield had
behaved in some manner to Johnson as to excite his anger. A story
had it that one day Johnson was kept waiting in Lord Chesterfield’s
ante-chamber with the footman’s explanation that company was present.
Johnson sat in impatience, an impatience which changed to wrath when
the door opened and Colley Cibber, a comedy actor, walked out. The sage
rose in anger, left the house and never called on Lord Chesterfield
again. Johnson denied that there was any truth in the story but told
Boswell that “his lordship’s continued neglect was the reason why he
resolved to have no connection with him.”
It must be remembered, as Leslie Stephen has pointed out, that the
art of life as expounded by Lord Chesterfield in his famous letters
differs from that as expounded by Johnson quite as much as “the elegant
diplomatist differs from the rough intellectual gladiator of Grub
Street.” So there were words. Things were said that stung. Thus:
“Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord
Chesterfield, did not refrain from expressing himself concerning that
nobleman with pointed freedom: ‘This man (said he) I thought had
been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!’
And when his Letters to his natural son were published, he observed
that ‘they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing
master.’”
Literary people are not free from the vice of backbiting, scandalizing
and petty talk any more than fishwives and Billingsgate porters. So we
find Lord Chesterfield calling Johnson a “respectable Hottentot” and
accusing him of “throwing his meat anywhere but down his throat.” And
in another place, the prince of elegant conduct and behavior is quoted
as having said of Johnson that he “was not only uncouth in manner and
warm in dispute, but behaved exactly in the same way to superiors,
equals and inferiors; and therefore, by a necessary consequence,
absurdly to two of the three.” So the breach grew.
When, in the course of time, the dictionary neared completion, Lord
Chesterfield tried in courtly manner to bridge the gulf of separation.
Some have believed that he yearned to see the great work dedicated to
him, others hold that he had no ulterior motive, but was frankly sorry
for the indifference with which he had treated the learned author.
Whatever the cause, there appeared, over his signature, two papers in
the World and they contained not only a high recommendation of the
work, but some studied compliments.
“I think the public in general,” it read, “and the republic of
letters in particular, are greatly obliged to Mr. Johnson for having
undertaken and executed so great and desirable a work. Perfection is
not to be expected from man; but if we are to judge by the various
works of Johnson already published, we have good reason to believe
that he will bring this to as near perfection as any man could do....
“It must be owned that our language is, at present, in a state of
anarchy, and hitherto, perhaps, it may not have been the worse for
it. During our free and open trade, many words and expressions have
been imported, adopted and naturalized from other languages which
have greatly enriched our own.... Good order and authority are now
necessary. But where shall we find them, and, at the same time,
the obedience due to them? We must have recourse to the old Roman
expedient in times of confusion, and choose a dictator. Upon this
principle, I give my vote for Mr. Johnson to fill that great and
arduous post. And I hereby declare that I make a total surrender
of all my rights and privileges in the English language, as a free
born British subject, to the said Mr. Johnson during the term of his
dictatorship....”
It failed of its intended effect. Johnson declared that the
Chesterfield letter did not ring true, was “all false and hollow,”
and that he would be no man’s dupe. Straightway he composed a letter
which he sent to Lord Chesterfield, and it is due to the nobleman to
note that, according to his friend, Mr. Robert Dodsley, the letter
“lay upon his table where anybody might see it. He (Lord Chesterfield)
read it to me: said, ‘this man has great powers,’ pointed out the
severest passages and observed how well they were expressed.” Johnson,
having sent the letter, had a remarkable delicacy with respect to its
circulation and, being asked for a copy by Lord Hardwicke, refused
with a smile, saying: “No, sir; I have hurt the dog too much already.”
Obviously, here were a couple of gentlemen, and possibly it would have
taken but little for each to have forgiven the other. The Johnson
letter follows:
“TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.
February 7, 1755.
“My Lord,
“I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of the World, that
two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were
written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished, is an honor, which,
being very little accustomed to favors from the great, I know not
well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.
“When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your Lordship,
I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment
of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast
myself _Le vainquer du vainquer de la terre_; that I might obtain
that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my
attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would
suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in
public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and
uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could, and no
man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
“Seven years, my Lord, have now passed, since I waited in your
outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time
I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which
it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the
verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of
encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not
expect, for I never had a Patron before.
“The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found
him a native of the rocks.
“Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man
struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground,
encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to
take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has
been delayed until I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am
solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it. I
hope it is no very cynical asperity, not to confess obligations where
no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public
should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has
enabled me to do for myself.
“Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any
favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should
conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long
wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with
so much exultation,
“My Lord,
“Your Lordship’s most humble
“Most obedient servant,
“SAM. JOHNSON.”
Such is the letter that Thomas Carlyle calls, “the far-famed blast of
doom proclaiming into the ear of Lord Chesterfield and through him to
the listening world, that patronage should be no more.” There was an
aftermath of a kind, for we have it on the authority of Hawkins that
Chesterfield sent two friends to Johnson with the message that were he
rich enough he would settle five hundred pounds a year on Johnson, but
he who was now “the great Cham of Literature,” made answer that if the
first peer of the realm made such an offer, he would show him the way
downstairs. “Dictionary Johnson” had won his kingdom and knew it. One
thinks of Nietzsche and his saying: “For him who is born to command,
humble self-effacement and self-abnegation are not virtues, but vices.”
The Dictionary concluded, Johnson rested awhile. In recognition of his
services, Oxford University gave him his M. A. degree which, in 1738,
was refused him. He knew that defeat at the desk which all literary
workers know. “A kind of strange oblivion has spread over me,” he said
in April, 1764, “so that I know not what has become of the last years,
and perceive that incidents and intelligence pass over me without
leaving any impression.” He was financially pinched too and in the
early part of 1756, Richardson, the novelist, lent him six guineas to
release him from arrest for debt. In 1759, his mother died at the age
of ninety. That shocked him into activity. He borrowed twelve guineas
to meet current expenses and sat down to write. In less than a week
he had finished the story Rasselas, sending the sheets to the printer
as they were finished, and for it he was paid a hundred pounds. The
greater part of the money he spent in the liquidation of debts and for
his mother’s funeral. Three years later Samuel Johnson left Grub Street
with a pension of three hundred a year settled on him by King George
III. “I hope,” said his friend Beauclerk, “you will now purge and live
cleanly like a gentleman.”
VI.
FROM GRUB STREET TO EASY STREET.
There followed days of comfort. Best of all comforts that came to
be Johnson’s, was his membership in the Literary Club which Sir
Joshua Reynolds had formed. Then indeed he could meet and talk with
choice spirits, for Burke was a member as also was Oliver Goldsmith.
Beauclerk, Sir John Hawkins, Adam Smith, Sheridan and other literary
lights were on the roll. One evening every week they met at the sign
of the Turk’s Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, and, having supped and
wined like gentlemen, discussed things dear to the heart of intelligent
men without inhibitions or prohibitions, until early morning. No
subject was barred and discussion was free. It was an improvement on a
coffee-house gathering, for bores and undesirables were not admitted.
From the record kept by Boswell, who first became acquainted with
Johnson the year before the Club was founded, (1763), it can be seen
that there was real sociability in the little circle. Further, it was
a wonderful age and topics came thick and fast. We can well imagine
some of them, such as the suicide of the boy poet and literary forger,
Chatterton: the account of Johnson’s Tour in the Hebrides with Boswell:
the story of Johnson’s meeting with the young king in Buckingham
Palace: the discussion of Fielding’s novels: the talk on Sterne’s
Tristram Shandy, greatest of quaint books; the reading of Percy’s
Reliques of Ancient Poetry: the debate on the novels of the bookseller
Richardson; the excitement when Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer was
played: the crowding round Johnson when he received the degree of LL.
D., in 1765, from Trinity College, Dublin: the heated arguments on
the authorship of the Letters of Junius: the doubts and despairs and
misgivings when the question of American taxation came up: the joy with
which Burke’s Speech on Conciliation with America was read: the talk
about Hume and his lack of orthodox religion: the diving into economics
and questions relating to political economy when the Wealth of Nations
stirred the English speaking world: the greetings when Boswell returned
from Corsica and the farewells and God-speeds when Johnson went to
Wales with the Thrales in 1774.
Johnson was mighty jealous of the exclusiveness of the club: much
opposed to the entrance into the magic circle of any unclubbable man.
Once, when Sir Joshua Reynolds was telling Garrick of its excellence,
“I’d like it much if I was a member,” said the actor manager. Sir
Joshua carried the message to Johnson. “He’ll be of us?” growled
the grand Cham. “How does he know we’ll permit him?” Then there
was a pause, after which he added: “Why, the first duke in England
has no right to use such language.” But Garrick had a friend in Sir
John Hawkins, too, and he put in a good word for Garrick. “Sir,”
said Johnson, “he will disturb us by his buffoonery.” Mr. Thrale was
appealed to and he interceded for Garrick. “If, sir, Garrick should
apply for membership, I shall blackball him,” declared the Doctor.
“Who, sir?” exclaimed the astonished Thrale. “Mr. Garrick?--your
friend, your companion--blackball him?” “Why, sir,” replied Johnson,
“I love my little David dearly--better than any or all his flatterers
do; but surely one ought to sit in a society like ours. ‘Unelbowed by a
gamster, pimp, or player.’”
Garrick failed to understand his exclusion and made many diplomatic
inquiries. What had he done? Who disliked him? Had he been the subject
of conversation? Then one day Oliver Goldsmith took the matter up.
“It would,” he said, “give an agreeable variety to the meetings; for
there can be nothing new among us: we have, indeed, traveled over
one another’s minds.” That, the grand Cham would not allow, and he
was piqued at the suggestion. “Sir,” said he, “you have not traveled
over my mind, I assure you.” But Goldsmith’s plea won Sir Joshua, and
Garrick became a member. Shortly afterwards, Sir William Jones, the
Richard Burton of his day, was also admitted.
Boswell had almost as much difficulty in becoming a member as Garrick.
“The honor of being elected into the Club,” said the Bishop of St.
Asaph, “is not inferior to that of being representative of Westminster
and Surrey.” Boswell could show no credentials. What had he done?
What were his merits? For answer there was but one statement. He was
the follower of Johnson, and, moreover, according to the Cham, he was
clubable. Then there was a dark hint. So long as Boswell remained
unadmitted, no other name should become eligible. Boswell has left on
record the mental anxiety that was his while waiting to know the result
of the ballot, and he was the happiest of men when he learned at last
that the ballot was clear.
Like the late William Marion Reedy, Johnson was ever ready to offer
aid to literary aspirants. As Reedy brought to light many, Sara
Teasdale, Zoe Akins, Harris Merton Lyon, Edgar Lee Masters, Witter
Bynner, John L. Hervey, to name a few, so Samuel Johnson with his
advice and encouragement, and, often his influence, found an audience
for struggling writers and heartened them to renewed efforts. When
Goldsmith’s Traveler appeared, the first reception was unpromising.
Dr. Johnson gave it a favorable notice in the “Critical Review” and
that turned the trick. The public that likes its opinions ready-made
took notice. The Great Cham had approved so all must be well. Even the
illuminati were astonished that a mere drudge, a hack, a newspaper
essayist, should have written such a poem and before a year was ended
a fourth edition had gone to press and Goldsmith was acclaimed the
best poet of his day. At the club, one evening, a member tackled
Goldsmith. “What do you mean,” he asked, “by the last word in the first
line of your Traveler, remote, solitary, _slow_? Do you mean tardiness
of locomotion?” “Yes,” answered Goldsmith, flurried and inattentive.
But the protecting Johnson had also heard. “No, sir,” he interjected.
“You did not mean tardiness of locomotion; you meant that sluggishness
of mind which comes upon a man in solitude.” “Ah,” interjected the
poet, “_that_ was what I meant.” But that was sufficient to set rumor
going. There were additions to the story and, before long, it was
whispered that Goldsmith had not written the line in question. Then
in the startling manner in which whispering tongues can poison truth,
it became an open secret that Johnson had written the finest passages
in the poem. Johnson heard, and at once indicated the verses he had
contributed, nine in all and by no means the best. Further, he came out
with a paper, proclaiming The Traveler the finest poem that had seen
the light of print since the days of Pope.
“He (Goldsmith) imitates you, sir,” said Boswell.
“Why, no, sir,” answered Johnson. “Jack Hawksworth is one of my
imitators, but not Goldsmith. Goldy, sir, has great merit.”
“But, sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting so high in the
public estimation.”
But Johnson would not admit that. “Why, sir, he has, perhaps, got
_sooner_ to it by his intimacy with me.”
Johnson, indeed, discovered the native talent in Goldsmith and
sympathized with his struggle against poverty. Not only was he generous
with his literary criticism and advice but he went a step further,
checking him for his occasional extravagance and improvidence. Of one
incident in their acquaintance Johnson told the following tale:
“I received, one morning, a message from 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 dressed, 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 a bottle of Madeira and a
glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be
calm, and began to talk with him of the means by which he would be
extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press,
which he produced for me. I looked into it and saw its merit; told
the landlady I would 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.”
The novel so rescued was the immortal “Vicar of Wakefield” and in spite
of Johnson’s recommendation, the short-sighted publisher kept it for
nearly two years before giving it to the world.
Again, when Goldsmith’s play “The Good Natured Man,” was accepted,
Johnson was to the fore with his protecting kindness, attending
rehearsals, furnishing the prologue and counselling. The piece was
coldly received, and, in the evening after its first appearance,
Goldsmith went to Johnson with his troubles, weeping in an excess of
emotion. But that display the old Spartan disapproved. “No man,” said
he, “should be expected to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity.”
A little later, at a dinner, Goldsmith told the tale of his
appointment, making merry at his own mood and temporary pessimism,
for Goldsmith had the young boy’s temperament that kept him forever
flitting between the depths of gloom or the heights of good humor,
tears or laughter. He wound up his recital by saying: “When all were
gone, except Johnson here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I
would never write again.”
The doctor frowned his disapproval, hearing this. “All this,” he said,
“I thought had been a secret between you and me, and I am sure I would
not have said anything about it for the world.”
On another occasion Johnson took Goldsmith in hand. It was when the
latter had been cast down by a vindictive attack upon him by a self
appointed critic of whom the world now knows nothing. “Never mind,
sir,” said the Doctor. “A man whose business it is to be talked of is
much helped by being attacked. Fame, sir, is a shuttlecock; if it be
struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground; to
keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.”
In the case of Goldsmith’s “She Stoops to Conquer,” Johnson used every
effort to get it produced. He firmly believed in it, although the
manager of Covent Garden theater was dead against it and even the
principal players, when, after weeks of uncertainty, it was put in
rehearsal, declined their parts. But Johnson was like an everlasting
rock, and, by his efforts, it was produced on Monday, March 15, 1778.
On the production of it, he wrote to Boswell, saying: “I know of no
comedy for many years, that has so much exhilarated an audience; it has
answered so much the great end of comedy, making an audience merry,”
and time has amply demonstrated the correctness of Johnson’s taste,
for the display has lived up to its old reputation as an acting work
as distinct from a purely literary one. As I write this, I notice an
announcement of the play being given in London, England, to crowded and
delighted audiences.
Johnson’s advocacy of Goldsmith is shown again in the incident telling
of the discussion anent the Roman History. To Boswell, he said:
“Whether we take Goldsmith as a poet, as a comic writer, or as a
historian, he stands in the first class.”
“A historian!” cried the astonished Boswell, who knew that Goldsmith
had undertaken the writing of the two big volumes as a piece of hack
work, to keep the wolf from the door, “My dear sir, you surely will
not rank his compilation of the Roman History with the works of other
historians of his age.”
“Why, who are before him?” asked Johnson.
“Hume--Robertson--Lord Lyttleton,” answered Boswell, forgetting perhaps
for the moment and in the heat of the argument, Johnson’s antipathy to
all things Scotch.
“I have not read Hume,” said Johnson, “but doubtless Goldsmith’s
History is better than the verbiage of Robertson, or the foppery of
Dalrymple.”
“But will you not admit the superiority of Robertson, in whose history
we find such penetration, such painting?” queried the Scot.
But Johnson was stubborn. “Sir, you must consider how that penetration
and that painting is employed. It is not history, it is imagination.
He who describes what he never saw draws from fancy. Robertson paints
minds as Sir Joshua paints faces, in a history piece; he imagines a
heroic countenance. You must look upon Robertson’s work as a menace,
and try it by that standard. History it is not. Besides, sir, it is
the great excellence of a writer to put into his book as much as his
book will hold. Goldsmith has done this in his history. Now Robertson
might have put twice as much in his book. Robertson is like a man who
has packed wool in gold; the wool takes up more room than the gold.
No, sir, I always thought Robertson would be crushed with his own
weight--would be buried under his own ornaments. Goldsmith tells you
shortly all you want to know; Robertson detains you a great deal too
long. No man will read Robertson’s cumbrous detail a second time; but
Goldsmith’s plain narrative will please again and again. I would say
to Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils,
‘Read over your compositions, and whenever you meet with a passage
which you think is particularly fine, strike it out!’--Goldsmith’s
abridgement is better than that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and, I
venture to say, that if you compare him with Vertot in the same places
of Roman history, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the
art of compiling, and of saying everything he has to say in a pleasing
manner. He is now writing a Natural History, and will make it as
entertaining as a Persian tale.”
Johnson’s prediction as to the Persian tale quality of the Natural
History was verified. The charming style of the book makes it as
entertaining as Darwin’s Voyage in the Beagle or any of the books of
Fabre. While it was in preparation, there were many talks with Johnson
on the ways of animals. One is particularly happy, the more especially
as it shows Johnson’s sturdy common sense opposed to Goldsmith’s happy
credulity. They were talking of the custom of the natives of Otaheite
in dog eating and Goldsmith had said that the Chinese also used dogs
as food and that a dog butcher in China was as common as any other
butcher. “When he walks abroad,” said Goldsmith, “all the dogs fall
upon him.”
“That is not owing to his killing dogs,” said Johnson. “I remember a
butcher at Lichfield, whom a dog that was in the house where I lived,
always attacked. It is the smell of carnage which provokes this, let
the animals he has killed be what they may.”
“Yes,” said Goldsmith, “there is a general abhorrence in animals at the
signs of massacre. If you put a tub full of blood into a stable, the
horses are likely to go mad.”
“I doubt that,” said Johnson.
“Nay, sir, it is a fact well authenticated,” persisted Goldsmith.
“You had better prove it before you put it in your book on Natural
History,” suggested Thrale. “You may do it in my stable if you will.”