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AUTOBIOGRAPHY
LETTERS AND LITERARY REMAINS
OF
MRS. PIOZZI (THRALE)
EDITED WITH NOTES
AND
AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF HER LIFE AND WRITINGS
BY
A. HAYWARD, ESQ. Q.C.
* * * * *
Welcome, Associate Forms, where'er we turn
Fill, Streatham's Hebe, the Johnsonian urn--St. Stephen's
* * * * *
In Two Volumes
VOL. I.
SECOND EDITION
LONDON
LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS
1861
* * * * *
PREFACE
TO
THE SECOND EDITION.
* * * * *
THE first edition of a work of this kind is almost necessarily
imperfect; since the editor is commonly dependent for a great deal of
the required information upon sources the very existence of which is
unknown to him till reminiscences are revived, and communications
invited, by the announcement or publication of the book. Some
valuable contributions reached me too late to be properly placed or
effectively worked up; some, too late to be included at all. The
arrangement in this edition will therefore, I trust, be found less
faulty than in the first, whilst the additions are large and
valuable. They principally consist of fresh extracts from Mrs.
Piozzi's private diary ("Thraliana"), amounting to more than fifty
pages; of additional marginal notes on books, and of copious extracts
from letters hitherto unpublished.
Amongst the effects of her friend Conway, the actor, after his
untimely death by drowning in North America, were a copy of Mrs.
Piozzi's "Travel Book" and a copy of Johnson's "Lives of the Poets,"
each enriched by marginal notes in her handwriting. Such of those in
the "Travel Book" as were thought worth printing appeared in "The
Atlantic Monthly" for June last, from which I have taken the liberty
of copying the best. The "Lives of the Poets" is now the property of
Mr. William Alexander Smith, of New York, who was so kind as to open
a communication with me on the subject, and to have the whole of the
marginal notes transcribed for my use at his expense.
Animated by the same liberal wish to promote a literary undertaking,
Mr. J.E. Gray, son of the Rev. Dr. Robert Gray, late Bishop of
Bristol, has placed at my disposal a series of letters from Mrs.
Piozzi to his father, extending over nearly twenty-five years (from
1797 to the year of her death) and exceeding a hundred in number.
These have been of the greatest service in enabling me to complete
and verify the summary of that period of her life.
So much light is thrown by the new matter, especially by the extracts
from "Thraliana," on the alleged rupture between Johnson and Mrs.
Piozzi, that I have re-cast or re-written the part of the
Introduction relating to it, thinking that no pains should be spared
to get at the merits of a controversy which now involves, not only
the moral and social qualities of the great lexicographer, but the
degree of confidence to be placed in the most brilliant and popular
of modern critics, biographers and historians. It is no impeachment
of his integrity, no detraction from the durable elements of his
fame, to offer proof that his splendid imagination ran away with him,
or that reliance on his wonderful memory made him careless of
verifying his original impressions before recording them in the most
gorgeous and memorable language.
No one likes to have foolish or erroneous notions imputed to him, and
I have pointed out some of the misapprehensions into which an able
writer in the "Edinburgh Review" (No. 231) has been hurried by his
eagerness to vindicate Lord Macaulay. Moreover, this struck me to be
as good a form as any for re-examining the subject in all its
bearings; and now that it has become common to reprint articles in a
collected shape, the comments of a first-rate review can no longer be
regarded as transitory.
I gladly seize the present opportunity to offer my best
acknowledgments for kind and valuable aid in various shapes, to the
Marquis of Lansdowne, His Excellency M. Sylvain Van de Weyer (the
Belgian Minister), the Viscountess Combermere, Mr. and the Hon. Mrs.
Monckton Milnes, the Hon. Mrs. Rowley, Miss Angharad Lloyd, and the
Rev. W.H. Owen, Vicar of St. Asaph and Dymerchion.
8, St. James's Street:
Oct. 18th, 1861.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME
Origin and Materials of the Work
Object of the Introduction
Origin, Education, and Character of Thrale
Introduction of Johnson to the Thrales
Johnson's Habits at the Period
His Household
His Social Position
Society at Streatham
Blue Stocking Parties
Johnson's Fondness for Female Society
Nature of his Intimacy with Mrs. Thrale
His Verses to her
Her Age
Her Personal Appearance and Handwriting
Portraits of her
Boswell at Streatham
Her Behaviour to Johnson
Her Acquirements
Johnson's Estimate of her
Popular Estimate of her
Manners of her Time
Madame D'Arblay at Streatham
Her Account of Conversations there
Johnson's Politeness
Mrs. Thrale's Domestic Trials
Electioneering with Johnson
Thrale's Embarrassments, and Johnson's Advice
Johnson on Housekeeping and Dress
His Opinions on Marriage
Johnson in the Country
Johnson fond of riding in a Carriage, but a bad Traveller
His Want of Taste for Music or Painting
Tour in Wales
Tour in France
Baretti
Campbell's Diary
Mrs. Thrale's Account of her Quarrel with Baretti
His Account
Alleged Slight to Johnson
Miss Streatfield
Thrale's Infidelity
Madame D'Arblay as an Inmate
Dr. Burney
Mrs. Thrale canvassing Southwark
Attack by Rioters on the Brewhouse
Thrale's Illness and Winter in Grosvenor Square
Proposed Tour
Thrale's Death
His Will
Johnson as Executor
Her Management of the Brewery
Italian Translation
A strange Incident
Mrs. Montagu--Mr. Crutchley
Sale of the Brewery
Mrs. Thrale's Introduction to Piozzi
Scene with him at Dr. Burney's
Her early Impressions of him
Melancholy Reflections
Johnson's Regard for Thrale
Mrs. Thrale's and Johnson's Feelings towards each other
Johnson at Streatham after Thrale's Death
Piozzi--Verses to him
Johnson's Health
Self-Communings
Town Gossip
Verses on Pacchierotti
Fears for Johnson
Reports of her marrying again
Reasons for quitting Streatham
Resolution to quit approved by Johnson
Complaints of Johnson's Indifference
Piozzi--to marry or not to marry
Was Johnson driven out of Streatham
His Farewell to Streatham
His last Year there
Johnson and Mrs. Thrale at Brighton
Conflicting Feelings
Gives up Piozzi
Meditated Journey to Italy
Parting with Piozzi
Unkindness of Daughters
Position as regards Johnson
Objections to him as an Inmate
Parting with Piozzi
Verses to him on his Departure
Her undiminished Regard for Johnson proved by
their Correspondence
Character of Daughters
Madame D'Arblay, Scene with Johnson
Lord Brougham's Commentary
Correspondence with Johnson
Recall of Piozzi
Trip to London
Verses to Piozzi on his Return
Journey with Daughters
Feelings on Piozzi's Return, and Marriage
Objections to her Second Marriage discussed
Correspondence with Madame D'Arblay on the Marriage
Objections of Daughters--Lady Keith
Correspondence with Johnson as to the Marriage
Baretti's Story of her alleged Deceit
Her uniform Kindness to Johnson
Johnson's Feelings and Conduct
Miss Wynn's Commonplace Book
Johnson's unfounded Objections to the Marriage and erroneous
Impressions of Piozzi
Miss Seward's Account of his Loves
Misrepresentation and erroneous Theory of a Critic
Last Days and Death of Johnson
Lord Macaulay's Summary of Mrs. Piozzi's Treatment of Johnson
Life in Italy
Projected Work on Johnson
The Florence Miscellany
Correspondence with Cadell and Publication of the "Anecdotes"
Her alleged Inaccuracy, with Instances
H. Walpole
Peter Pindar
H. Walpole again
Hannah More
Marginal Notes on the "Anecdotes"
Extracts from Dr. Lort's Letters
Her Thoughts on her Return from Italy
Her Reception
Miss Seward's Impressions of her and Piozzi
Publication of the "Letters"
Opinions on them--Madame D'Arblay, Queen Charlotte, Hannah More, and
Miss Seward
Baretti's libellous Attacks
Her Character of him on his Death
"The Sentimental Mother"
"Johnson's Ghost"
The Travel Book
Offer to Cadell
Publication of the Book and Criticisms--Walpole and Miss Seward
Mrs. Piozzi's Theory of Style
Attacked by Walpole and Gifford
The Preface
Extracts
Anecdote of Goldsmith
Publication of her "Synonyms"--Gifford's Attack
Extract
Remarks on the Appearance of Boswell's Life of Johnson
"Retrospection"
Moore's Anecdotes of her and Piozzi
Lord Lansdowne's Visit and Impressions
Adoption and Education of Piozzi's Nephew, afterwards Sir John Salusbury
Life in Wales
Character and Habits of Piozzi
Brynbella
Illness and Death of Piozzi
Miss Thrale's Marriage
The Conway Episode
Anecdotes
Celebration of her Eightieth Birthday
Her Death and Will
Madame D'Arblay's Parallel between Mrs. Piozzi and Madame de Staël
Character of Mrs. Piozzi, Moral and Intellectual
* * * * *
AUTOBIOGRAPHY &c. OF MRS. PIOZZI
VOL. I
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION:
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MRS. PIOZZI.
Dr. Johnson was hailed the colossus of Literature by a generation who
measured him against men of no common mould--against Hume, Robertson,
Gibbon, Warburton, the Wartons, Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, Gray,
Goldsmith, and Burke. Any one of these may have surpassed the great
lexicographer in some branch of learning or domain of genius; but as
a man of letters, in the highest sense of the term, he towered
pre-eminent, and his superiority to each of them (except Burke) in
general acquirements, intellectual power, and force of expression,
was hardly contested by his contemporaries. To be associated with his
name has become a title of distinction in itself; and some members of
his circle enjoy, and have fairly earned, a peculiar advantage in
this respect. In their capacity of satellites revolving round the sun
of their idolatry, they attracted and reflected his light and heat.
As humble companions of their _Magnolia grandiflora_, they did more
than live with it[1]; they gathered and preserved the choicest of its
flowers. Thanks to them, his reputation is kept alive more by what
has been saved of his conversation than by his books; and his
colloquial exploits necessarily revive the memory of the friends (or
victims) who elicited and recorded them.
[Footnote 1: "Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j'ai vécu près
d'elle."--_Constant_.]
If the two most conspicuous among these have hitherto gained
notoriety rather than what is commonly understood by fame, a
discriminating posterity is already beginning to make reparation for
the wrong. Boswell's "Letters to Temple," edited by Mr. Francis, with
"Boswelliana," printed for the Philobiblion Society by Mr. Milnes,
led, in 1857, to a revisal of the harsh sentence passed on one whom
the most formidable of his censors, Lord Macaulay, has declared to be
not less decidedly the first of biographers, than Homer is the first
of heroic poets, Shakspeare the first of dramatists, or Demosthenes
the first of orators. The result was favourable to Boswell, although
the vulnerable points of his character were still more glaringly
displayed. The appeal about to be hazarded on behalf of Mrs. Piozzi,
will involve little or no risk of this kind. Her ill-wishers made the
most of the event which so injuriously affected her reputation at the
time of its occurrence; and the marked tendency of every additional
disclosure of the circumstances has been to elevate her. No candid
person will read her Autobiography, or her Letters, without arriving
at the conclusion that her long life was morally, if not
conventionally, irreproachable; and that her talents were sufficient
to confer on her writings a value and attraction of their own, apart
from what they possess as illustrations of a period or a school. When
the papers which form the basis of this work were laid before Lord
Macaulay, he gave it as his opinion that they afforded materials for
a "most interesting and durably popular volume."[1]
[Footnote 1: His letter, dated August 22, 1859, was addressed to Mr.
T. Longman. The editorship of the papers was not proposed to me till
after his death, and I had never any personal communication with him
on the subject; although in the Edinburgh Review for July 1857, I
ventured, with the same freedom which I have used in vindicating Mrs.
Piozzi, to dispute the paradoxical judgment he had passed on Boswell.
The materials which reached me after I had undertaken the work, and
of which he was not aware, would nearly fill a volume.]
They comprise:--
1. Autobiographical Memoirs.
2. Letters, mostly addressed to the late Sir James Fellowes.
3. Fugitive pieces of her composition, most of which have never
appeared in print.
4. Manuscript notes by her on Wraxall's Memoirs, and on her own
published works, namely: "Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson,
LL.D., during the last twenty years of his life," one volume, 1786:
"Letters to and from the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D., &c.," in two
volumes, 1788: "Observations and Reflections made in the course of a
journey through France, Italy, and Germany," in two volumes, 1789:
"Retrospection; or, Review of the most striking and important Events,
Characters, Situations, and their Consequences which the last
Eighteen Hundred Years have presented to the View of Mankind," in two
volumes, quarto, 1801.
The "Autobiographical Memoirs," and the annotated books, were given
by her to the late Sir James Fellowes, of Adbury House, Hants, M.D.,
F.R.S., to whom the letters were addressed. He and the late Sir John
Piozzi Salusbury were her executors, and the present publication
takes place in pursuance of an agreement with their personal
representatives, the Rev. G.A. Salusbury, Rector of Westbury, Salop,
and Captain J. Butler Fellowes.
Large and valuable additions to the original stock of materials have
reached me since the announcement of the work.
The Rev. Dr. Wellesley, Principal of New Inn Hall, has kindly placed
at my disposal his copy of Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (edition of
1816), plentifully sprinkled with marginal notes by Mrs. Piozzi.
The Rev. Samuel Lysons, of Hempsted Court, Gloucester, has liberally
allowed me the free use of his valuable collection of books and
manuscripts, including numerous letters from Mrs. Piozzi to his
father and uncle, the Rev. Daniel Lysons and Mr. Samuel Lysons.
From 1776 to 1809 Mrs. Piozzi kept a copious diary and note-book,
called "Thraliana." Johnson thus alludes to it in a letter of
September 6th, 1777: "As you have little to do, I suppose you are
pretty diligent at the 'Thraliana;' and a very curious collection
posterity will find it. Do not remit the practice of writing down
occurrences as they arise, of whatever kind, and be very punctual in
annexing the dates. Chronology, you know, is the eye of history. Do
not omit painful casualties or unpleasing passages; they make the
variegation of existence; and there are many passages of which I will
not promise, with Æneas, _et hæc olim meminisse juvabit_."
"Thraliana," which at one time she thought of burning, is now in the
possession of Mr. Salusbury, who deems it of too private and delicate
a character to be submitted to strangers, but has kindly supplied me
with some curious passages and much valuable information extracted
from it.
I shall have many minor obligations to acknowledge as I proceed.
Unless Mrs. Piozzi's character and social position are freshly
remembered, her reminiscences and literary remains will lose much of
their interest and utility. It has therefore been thought advisable
to recapitulate, by way of introduction, what has been ascertained
from other sources concerning her; especially during her intimacy
with Johnson, which lasted nearly twenty years, and exercised a
marked influence on his tone of mind.
"This year (1765)," says Boswell, "was distinguished by his (Johnson)
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.... 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 advisable 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. He acquired a large
fortune, and lived to be a 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; not 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.'"
What is here stated regarding Thrale's origin, on the alleged
authority of Johnson, is incorrect. The elder Thrale was the nephew
of Halsey, the proprietor of the brewery whose daughter was married
to a nobleman (Lord Cobham), and he naturally nourished hopes of
being his uncle's successor. In the Abbey Church of St. Albans, there
is a monument to some members of the Thrale family who died between
1676 and 1704, adorned with a shield of arms and a crest on a ducal
coronet. Mrs. Thrale's marginal note on Boswell's account of her
husband's family is curious and characteristic:
"Edmund Halsey was son to a miller at St. Albans, with whom he
quarrelled, like Ralph in the 'Maid of the Mill,' and ran away to
London with a very few shillings in his pocket.[1] He was eminently
handsome, and old Child of the Anchor Brewhouse, Southwark, took him
in as what we call a broomstick clerk, to sweep the yard, &c. Edmund
Halsey behaved so well he was soon preferred to be a house-clerk, and
then, having free access to his master's table, married his only
daughter, and succeeded to the business upon Child's demise. Being
now rich and prosperous, he turned his eyes homewards, where he
learned that sister Sukey had married a hardworking man at Offley in
Hertfordshire, and had many children. He sent for one of them to
London (my Mr. Thrale's father); said he would make a man of him, and
did so: but made him work very hard, and treated him very roughly,
Halsey being more proud than tender, and his only child, a daughter,
married to Lord Cobham.
"Old Thrale, however, as these fine writers call him,--then a young
fellow, and, like his uncle, eminent for personal beauty,--made
himself so useful to Mr. Halsey that the weight of the business fell
entirely on him; and while Edmund was canvassing the borough and
visiting the viscountess, Ralph Thrale was getting money both for
himself and his principal: who, envious of his success with a wench
they both liked but who preferred the young man to the old one, died,
leaving him never a guinea, and he bought the brewhouse of Lord and
Lady Cobham, making an excellent bargain, with the money he had
saved."
[Footnote 1: In "Thraliana" she says: "strolled to London with only
4_s._ 6_d._ in his pocket."]
When, in the next page but one, Boswell describes Thrale as
presenting the character of a plain independent English squire, she
writes: "No, no! Mr. Thrale's manners presented the character of a
gay man of the town: like Millamant, in Congreve's comedy, he
abhorred the country and everything in it."
In "Thraliana" after a corresponding statement, she adds: "He (the
elder Thrale) educated his son and three daughters quite in a high
style. His son he wisely connected with the Cobhams and their
relations, Grenvilles, Lyttletons, and Pitts, to whom he lent money,
and they lent assistance of every other kind, so that my Mr. Thrale
was bred up at Stowe, and Stoke and Oxford, and every genteel place;
had been abroad with Lord Westcote, whose expenses old Thrale
cheerfully paid, I suppose, who was thus a kind of tutor to the young
man, who had not failed to profit by these advantages, and who was,
when he came down to Offley to see his father's birthplace, a very
handsome and well accomplished gentleman."
After expatiating on the advantages of birth, and the presumption of
new men in attempting to found a new system of gentility, Boswell
proceeds: "Mr. Thrale had married Miss Hester Lynch Salusbury, of
good Welsh extraction, 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 a very probable and the general
supposition; but it is not the truth. Mr. Murphy, who was intimate
with Mr. Thrale, having spoken very highly of Dr. Johnson, he was
requested to make them acquainted. 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 at Southwark
and in their villa at Streatham."
Long before this was written, Boswell had quarrelled with Mrs. Thrale
(as it is most convenient to call her till her second marriage), and
he takes every opportunity of depreciating her. He might at least,
however, have stated that, instead of sanctioning the "general
supposition" as to the introduction, she herself supplied the account
of it which he adopts. In her "Anecdotes" she says:
"The first time I ever saw this extraordinary man was in the year
1764, when Mr. Murphy, who had long been the friend and confidential
intimate of Mr. Thrale, persuaded him to wish for Johnson's
conversation, extolling it in terms which that of no other person
could have deserved, till we were only in doubt how to obtain his
company, and find an excuse for the invitation. The celebrity of Mr.
Woodhouse, a shoemaker, whose verses were at that time the subject of
common discourse, soon afforded a pretence[1], and Mr. Murphy brought
Johnson to meet him, giving me general caution not to be surprised at
his figure, dress, or behaviour[1].... Mr. Johnson liked his new
acquaintance so much, however, that from that time he dined with us
every Thursday through the winter, and in the autumn of the next year
he followed us to Brighthelmstone, whence we were gone before his
arrival; so he was disappointed and enraged, and wrote us a letter
expressive of anger, which we were very desirous to pacify, and to
obtain his company again if possible. Mr. Murphy brought him back to
us again very kindly, and from that time 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."
[Footnote 1: "He (Johnson) spoke with much contempt of the notice
taken of Woodhouse, the poetical shoemaker. He said that it was all
vanity and childishness, and that such objects were to those who
patronised them, mere mirrors of their own superiority. They had
better, said he, furnish the man with good implements for his trade,
than raise subscriptions for his poems. He may make an excellent
shoemaker, but can never make a good poet. A schoolboy's exercise may
be a pretty thing for a schoolboy, but it is no treat to a
man."--_Maxwell's Collectanea_.]
The "Anecdotes" were written in Italy, where she had no means of
reference. The account given in "Thraliana" has a greater air of
freshness, and proves Boswell right as to the year.
"It was on the second Thursday of the month of January, 1765, that I
first saw Mr. Johnson in a room. Murphy, whose intimacy with Mr.
Thrale had been of many years' standing, was one day dining with us
at our house in Southwark, and was zealous that we should be
acquainted with Johnson, of whose moral and literary character he
spoke in the most exalted terms; and so whetted our desire of seeing
him soon that we were only disputing _how_ he should be invited,
_when_ he should be invited, and what should be the pretence. At last
it was resolved that one Woodhouse, a shoemaker, who had written some
verses, and been asked to some tables, should likewise be asked to
ours, and made a temptation to Mr. Johnson to meet him: accordingly
he came, and Mr. Murphy at four o'clock brought Mr. Johnson to
dinner. We liked each other so well that the next Thursday was
appointed for the same company to meet, exclusive of the shoemaker,
and since then Johnson has remained till this day our constant
acquaintance, visitor, companion, and friend."
In the "Anecdotes" she goes on to say that when she and her husband
called on Johnson one morning in Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, he
gave way to such an uncontrolled burst of despair regarding the world
to come, that Mr. Thrale tried to stop his mouth by placing one hand
before it, and desired her to prevail on him to quit his close
habitation for a period and come with them to Streatham. He complied,
and took up his abode with them from before Midsummer till after
Michaelmas in that year. During the next sixteen years a room in each
of their houses was set apart for him.
The principal difficulty at first was to induce him to live peaceably
with her mother, who took a strong dislike to him, and constantly led
the conversation to topics which he detested, such as foreign news
and politics. He revenged himself by writing to the newspapers
accounts of events which never happened, for the sole purpose of
mystifying her; and probably not a few of his mischievous fictions
have passed current for history. They made up their differences
before her death, and a Latin epitaph of the most eulogistic order
from his pen is inscribed upon her tomb.
It had been well for Mrs. Thrale and her guests if there had existed
no more serious objection to Johnson as an inmate. At the
commencement of the acquaintance, he was fifty-six; an age when
habits are ordinarily fixed: and many of his were of a kind which it
required no common temper and tact to tolerate or control. They had
been formed at a period when he was frequently subjected to the worst
extremities of humiliating poverty and want. He describes Savage,
without money to pay for a night's lodging in a cellar, walking about
the streets till he was weary, and sleeping in summer upon a bulk or
in winter amongst the ashes of a glass-house. He was Savage's
associate on several occasions of the sort. He told Sir Joshua
Reynolds that, one night in particular, when Savage and he walked
round St. James's Square for want of a lodging, they were not at all
depressed; but in high spirits, and brimful of patriotism, traversed
the square for several hours, inveighed against the minister, and
"resolved they would stand by their country." Whilst at college he
threw away the shoes left at his door to replace the worn-out pair in
which he appeared daily. His clothes were in so tattered a state
whilst he was writing for the "Gentleman's Magazine" that, instead of
taking his seat at Cave's table, he sate behind a screen and had his
victuals sent to him.
Talking of the symptoms of Christopher Smart's madness, he said,
"Another charge was that he did not love clean linen; and I have no
passion for it."
His deficiency in this respect seems to have made a lasting
impression on his hostess. Referring to a couplet in "The Vanity of
Human Wishes":--
"Through all his veins the fever of renown
_Spreads_ from the strong contagion of the gown,"
"he had desired me (says Boswell) to change _spreads_ into _burns._ I
thought this alteration not only cured the fault, but was more
poetical, as it might carry an allusion to the shirt by which
Hercules was inflamed." She has written in the margin: "Every fever
burns I believe; but Bozzy could think only on Nessus' dirty shirt,
or Dr. Johnson's." In another marginal note she disclaims that
attention to the Doctor's costume for which Boswell gives her credit,
when, after relating how he had been called into a shop by Johnson to
assist in the choice of a pair of silver buckles, he adds: "Probably
this alteration in dress had been suggested by Mrs. Thrale, by
associating with whom his external appearance was much improved." She
writes: "it was suggested by Mr. Thrale, not by his wife."
In general his wigs were very shabby, and their foreparts were burned
away by the near approach of the candle, which his short-sightedness
rendered necessary in reading. At Streatham, Mr. Thrale's valet had
always a better wig ready, with which he met Johnson at the parlour
door when dinner was announced, and as he went up stairs to bed, the
same man followed him with another.
One of his applications to Cave for a trifling advance of money is
signed _Impransus_ (Dinnerless); and he told Boswell that he could
fast two days without inconvenience, and had never been hungry but
once. What he meant by hungry is not easy to explain, for his every
day manner of eating was that of a half-famished man. When at table,
he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment; his looks were
riveted to his plate, till he had satisfied his appetite; which was
indulged with such in-* tenseness, that the veins of his forehead
swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible. Until he
left off drinking fermented liquors altogether, he acted on the maxim
"claret for boys, port for men, brandy for heroes." He preferred the
strongest because he said it did its work (_i.e._ intoxicate) the
soonest. He used to pour capillaire into his port wine, and melted
butter into his chocolate. His favourite dishes are accurately
enumerated by Peter Pindar:
MADAME PIOZZI _(loquitur)._
"Dear Doctor Johnson loved a leg of pork,
And hearty on it would his grinders work:
He lik'd to eat it so much over done,
That _one_ might shake the flesh from off the bone.
A veal pye too, with sugar crammed and plums,
Was wondrous grateful to the Doctor's gums.
Though us'd from morn to night on fruit to stuff,
He vow'd his belly never had enough."
Mr. Thackeray relates in his "Irish Sketches" that on his asking for
currant jelly for his venison at a public dinner, the waiter replied,
"It's all gone, your honour, but there's some capital lobster sauce
left." This would have suited Johnson equally well, or better: he was
so fond of lobster sauce that he would call for the sauce-boat and
pour the whole of its remaining contents over his plum pudding. A
clergyman who once travelled with him relates, "The coach halted as
usual for dinner, which seemed to be a deeply interesting business to
Johnson, who vehemently attacked a dish of stewed carp, using his
fingers only in feeding himself." At the dinner when he passed his
celebrated sentence on the leg of mutton--"That it was as bad as bad
could be: ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-dressed"--the
ladies, his fellow-passengers, observed his loss or equanimity with
wonder.
Two of Mrs. Thrale's marginal notes on Boswell refer to her
illustrious friend's mode of eating. On his reported remark, that "a
dog will take a small bit of meat as readily as a large, when both
are before him," she adds, "which Johnson would never have done."
When Boswell, describing the dinner with Wilkes at Davies', says, "No
man eat more heartily than Johnson, or loved better what was nice and
delicate," she strikes in with--"What was gustful rather: what was
strong that he could taste it, what was tender that he could chew
it."
When Boswell describes him as occupied for a considerable time in
reading the "Memoirs of Fontenelle," leaning and swinging upon the
low gate into the court (at Streatham) without his hat, her note is:
"I wonder how he liked the story of the asparagus,"--an obvious hint
at his selfish habits of indulgence at table.
With all this he affected great nicety of palate, and did not like
being asked to a plain dinner. "It was a good dinner enough," he
would remark, "but it was not a dinner to ask a man to." He was so
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 in reference to one of his Edinburgh hosts he said, "As for
Maclaurin's imitation of a made dish, it was a wretched attempt."
His voice was loud, and his gesticulations, voluntary or involuntary,
singularly uncouth. He had superstitious fancies about crossing
thresholds or squares in the carpet with the right or left leg
foremost, and when he did not appear at dinner might be found vainly
endeavouring to pass a particular spot in the anteroom. He loved late
hours, or more properly (say Mrs. Thrale) hated early ones. Nothing
was more terrifying to him than the idea of going to bed, which he
never would call going to rest, or suffer another to call it so. "I
lie down that my acquaintance may sleep; but I lie down to endure
oppressive misery, and soon rise again to pass the night in anxiety
and pain." When people could be induced to sit up with him, they were
often amply compensated by his rich flow of mind; but the resulting
sacrifice of health and comfort in an establishment where this
sitting up became habitual, was inevitably great.[1] Instead of being
grateful, he always maintained that no one forbore his own
gratification for the purpose of pleasing another, and "if one did
sit up, it was probably to amuse oneself." Boswell excuses his wife
for not coinciding in his enthusiasm, by admitting that his
illustrious friend's irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as
turning the candles with their ends downwards when they did not burn
bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not
but be displeasing to a lady. He was generally last at breakfast, but
one morning happened to be first and waited some time alone; when
afterwards twitted by Mrs. Thrale with irregularity, he replied,
"Madam, I do not like to come down to vacuity."
[Footnote 1: Dr. Burney states that in 1765 "he very frequently met
Johnson at Streatham, where they had many long conversations, after
sitting up as long as the fire and candles lasted, and much longer
than the patience of the servants subsisted."]
He was subject to dreadful fits of depression, caused or accompanied
by compunction for venial or fancied sins, by the fear of death or
madness--(the only things he did fear), and by ingrained ineradicable
disease. When Boswell speaks of his "striving against evil," "Ay,"
she writes in the margin, "and against the King's evil."
If his early familiarity with all the miseries of destitution,
aggravated by disease, had increased his natural roughness and
irritability, on the other hand it had helped largely to bring out
his sterling virtues,--his discriminating charity, his genuine
benevolence, his well-timed generosity, his large-hearted sympathy
with real suffering. But he required it to be material and positive,
and scoffed at mere mental or sentimental woes. "The sight of people
who want food and raiment is so common in great cities, that a surly
fellow like me has no compassion to spare for wounds given only to
vanity or softness." He said it was enough to make a plain man sick
to hear pity lavished on a family reduced by losses to exchange a
fine house for a snug cottage; and when condolence was demanded for a
lady of rank in mourning for a baby, he contrasted her with a
washerwoman with half-a-dozen children dependent on her daily labour
for their daily bread.[1]
[Footnote 1: "It's weel wi' you gentles that can sit in the house wi'
handkerchers at your een when ye lose a friend; but the like o' us
maun to our wark again, if our hearts were beating as hard as any
hammer."--_The Antiquary_. For this very reason the "gentles"
commonly suffer most.]
Lord Macaulay thus portrays the objects of Johnson's hospitality as
soon as he had got a house to cover them. "It was the home of the
most extraordinary assemblage of inmates that ever was brought
together. At the head of the establishment he had placed an old lady
named Williams, whose chief recommendations were her blindness and
her poverty. But in spite of her murmurs and reproaches, he gave an
asylum to another lady who was as poor as herself, Mrs. Desmoulins,
whose family he had known many years before in Staffordshire. Room
was found for the daughter of Mrs. Desmoulins, and for another
destitute damsel, who was generally addressed as Mrs. Carmichael, but
whom her generous host called Polly. An old quack doctor called
Levet, who bled and dosed coalheavers and hackney coachmen, and
received for fees crusts of bread, bits of bacon, glasses of gin, and
sometimes a little copper, completed this menagerie."[1]
[Footnote 1: Miscellaneous Writings, vol. i. p. 293.]
Mrs. Williams was the daughter of a physician, and of a good Welsh
family, who did not leave her dependent on Johnson. She is termed by
Madame D'Arblay a very pretty poet, and was treated with uniform
respect by him.[1] All the authorities for the account of Levet were
collected by Hawkins[2]: from these it appears that his patients were
"chiefly of the lowest class of tradesmen," and that, although he
took all that was offered him by way of fee, including meat and
drink, he demanded nothing from the poor, nor was known in any
instance to have enforced the payment of even what was justly his
due. Hawkins adds that he (Levet) had acted for many years in the
capacity of surgeon and apothecary to Johnson under the direction of
Dr. Lawrence.
[Footnote 1: Miss Cornelia Knight, in her "Autobiography," warmly
vindicates her respectability, and refers to a memoir, by Lady
Knight, in the "European Magazine" for Oct. 1799.]
[Footnote 2: Life of Johnson, p. 396-400.]
"When fainting Nature called for aid,
And hovering death prepared the blow,
His vigorous remedy display'd
The power of Art without the show;
No summons mocked by chill delay,
_No petty gains disdained by pride,_
The modest wants of every day
The toil of every day supplied."
Johnson's verses, compared with Lord Macaulay's prose, strikingly
shew how the same subject can be degraded or elevated by the mode of
treatment; and how easily the historian or biographer, who expands
his authorities by picturesque details, may brighten or darken
characters at will.
To complete the picture of Johnson's interior, it should be added
that the inmates of his house were quarrelling from, morning to night
with one another, with his negro servant, or with himself. In one of
his letters to Mrs. Thrale, he says, "Williams hates everybody: Levet
hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams: Desmoulins hates them
both: Poll (Miss Carmichael) loves none of them." In a conversation
at Streatham, reported by Madame D'Arblay, the _menagerie_ was thus
humorously described:--
"_Mrs. Thrale_.--Mr. Levet, I suppose, Sir, has the office of keeping
the hospital in health? for he is an apothecary.
"_Dr. J_.--Levet, Madam, is a brutal fellow, but I have a good regard
for him; for his brutality is in his manners, not his mind.
"_Mr. Thrale_.--But how do you get your dinners drest?
"_Dr. J_.--Why De Mullin has the chief management of the kitchen; but
our roasting is not magnificent, for we have no jack.
"_Mr. T_.--No jack? Why how do they manage without?
"_Dr. J_.--Small joints, I believe, they manage with a string, and
larger are done at the tavern. I have some thoughts (with a profound
gravity) of buying a jack, because I think a jack is some credit to a
house.
"_Mr. T_.--Well, but you will have a spit, too?
"_Dr. J_.--No, Sir, no; that would be superfluous; for we shall never
use it; and if a jack is seen, a spit will be presumed!
"_Mrs. T_.--But pray, Sir, who is the Poll you talk of? She that you
used to abet in her quarrels with Mrs. Williams, and call out,' At
her again, Poll! Never flinch, Poll!'
"_Dr. J_.--Why I took to Poll very well at first, but she won't do
upon a nearer examination.
"_Mrs. T_.--How came she among you, Sir?
"_Dr. J_.--Why I don't rightly remember, but we could spare her very
well from us. Poll is a stupid slut; I had some hopes of her at
first; but when I talked to her tightly and closely, I could make
nothing of her; she was wiggle waggle, and I could never persuade her
to be categorical."
The effect of an unbroken residence with such inmates, on a man of
irritable temper subject to morbid melancholy, may be guessed; and
the merit of the Thrales in rescuing him from it, and in soothing
down his asperities, can hardly be over-estimated. Lord Macaulay
says, they were flattered by finding that a man so widely celebrated
preferred their house to every other in London; and suggests that
even the peculiarities which seem to unfit him for civilised society,
including his gesticulations, his rollings, his puffings, his
mutterings, and the ravenous eagerness with which he devoured his
food, increased the interest which his new associates took in him.
His hostess does not appear to have viewed them in that light, and
she was able to command the best company of the intellectual order
without the aid of a "lion," or a bear. If his conversation attracted
many, it drove away many, and silenced more. He accounted for the
little attention paid him by the great, by saying that "great lords
and great ladies do not like to have their mouths stopped," as if
this was peculiar to them as a class. "My leddie," remarks Cuddie in
"Old Mortality," "canna weel bide to be contradicted, as I ken
neabody likes, if they could help themselves."
Johnson was in the zenith of his fame when literature, politics, and
fashion began to blend together again by hardly perceptible shades,
like the colours in shot-silk, as they had partially done in the
Augustan age of Queen Anne. One marked sign was the formation of the
Literary Club (The Club, as it still claims to be called), which
brought together Fox, Burke, Gibbon, Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick,
Reynolds, and Beauclerc, besides blackballing a bishop (the Bishop of
Chester), and a lord-chancellor (Camden).[1] Yet it is curious to
observe within how narrow a circle of good houses the Doctor's
engagements were restricted. Reynolds, Paoli, Beauclerc, Allan
Ramsay, Hoole, Dilly, Strahan, Lord Lucan, Langton, Garrick, and the
Club formed his main reliance as regards dinners; and we find Boswell
recording with manifest symptoms of exultation in 1781: "I dined with
him at a bishop's where were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Berenger, and
some more company. He had dined the day before at another bishop's."
His reverence for the episcopal bench well merited some return on
their part. Mr. Seward saw him presented to the Archbishop of York,
and described his bow to an Archbishop as such a studied elaboration
of homage, such an extension of limb, such a flexion of body, as have
seldom or ever been equalled. The lay nobility were not equally
grateful, although his deference for the peerage was extreme. Except
in Scotland or on his travels, he is seldom found dining with a
nobleman.
[Footnote 1: Canning was blackballed the first time he was proposed.
He was elected in 1798, Mr. Windham being his proposer, and Dr.
Burney his seconder.]
It is therefore hardly an exaggeration to say that he owed more
social enjoyment to the Thrales than to all the rest of his
acquaintance put together. Holland House alone, and in its best days,
would convey to persons living in our time an adequate conception of
the Streatham circle, when it comprised Burke, Reynolds, Garrick,
Goldsmith, Boswell, Murphy, Dr. Burney and his daughter, Mrs.
Montagu, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Crewe, Lord Loughborough, Dunning
(afterwards Lord Ashburton), Lord Mulgrave, Lord Westcote, Sir Lucas
and Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Pepys, Major Holroyd afterwards Lord
Sheffield, the Bishop of London and Mrs. Porteous, the Bishop of
Peterborough and Mrs. Hinchcliffe, Miss Gregory, Miss Streatfield,
&c. As at Holland House, the chief scene of warm colloquial contest
or quiet interchange of mind was the library, a large and handsome
room, which the pencil of Reynolds gradually enriched with portraits
of all the principal persons who had conversed or studied in it. To
supply any deficiencies on the shelves, a hundred pounds, Madame
D'Arblay states, was placed at Johnson's disposal to expend in books;
and we may take it for granted that any new publication suggested by
him was ordered at once. But a bookish couple, surrounded by a
literary set, were surely not exclusively dependent on him for this
description of help, nor laid under any extraordinary obligation by
reason of it. Whilst the "Lives of the Poets" was in progress, Dr.
Johnson "would frequently produce one of the proof sheets to
embellish the breakfast table, which was always in the library, and
was certainly the most sprightly and agreeable meeting of the day."
... "These proof sheets Mrs. Thrale was permitted to read aloud, and
the discussions to which they led were in the highest degree
entertaining."[1]
[Footnote 1: "Memoirs of Dr. Burney," &c., by his daughter, Madame
D'Arblay. In three volumes, 1832. Vol. ii. p. 173-178.]
It was mainly owing to his domestication with the Thrales that he
began to frequent drawing-rooms at an age when the arm-chair at home
or at the club has an irresistible charm for most men of sedentary
pursuits. It must be admitted that the evening parties in which he
was seen, afforded a chance of something better than the "unidead
chatter of girls," with an undue fondness for which he reproached
Langton; for the _Blue Stocking_ clubs had just come into
fashion,--so called from a casual allusion to the blue stockings of
an _habitué_, Mr. Stillingfleet.[1] Their founders were Mrs. Vesey
and Mrs. Montagu; but according to Madame D'Arblay, "more bland and
more gleeful than that of either of them, was the personal celebrity
of Mrs. Thrale. Mrs. Vesey, indeed, gentle and diffident, dreamed not
of any competition, but Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Thrale had long been
set up as rival candidates for colloquial eminence, and each of them
thought the other alone worthy to be her peer. Openly therefore when
they met, they combated for precedence of admiration, with placid
though high-strained intellectual exertion on the one side, and an
exuberant pleasantry or classical allusion or quotation on the other;
without the smallest malice in either."
[Footnote 1: The first of these was then (about 1768) in the meridian
of its lustre, but had been instituted many years previously at Bath,
It owed its name to an apology made by Mr. Stillingfleet in declining
to accept an invitation to a literary meeting at Mrs. Vesey's, from
not being, he said, in the habit of displaying a proper equipment for
an evening assembly. "Pho, pho," said she, "don't mind dress. Come in
your blue stockings." With which words, humorously repeating them as
he entered the apartment of the chosen coterie, Mr. Stillingfleet
claimed permission for entering according to order. And these words,
ever after, were fixed, in playful stigma, upon Mrs. Vesey's
associations. _(Madame D'Arblay.)_ Boswell also traces the term to
Stillingfleet's blue stockings; and Hannah More's "Bas-Bleu" gave it
a permanent place in literature.]
A different account of the origin of Bluestocking parties was given
by Lady Crewe to a lady who has allowed me to copy her note of the
conversation, made at the time (1816):