[62] See _ante_, i. 211.
[63] See _post_, May 19, 1778.
[64] This alludes to the first sentence of the _ProA|mium_ of my Thesis.
'JURISPRUDENTAć studio nullum uberius, nullum generosius: in legibus enim
agitandis, populorum mores, variasque fortunA| vices ex quibus leges
oriuntur, contemplari simul solemus_' BOSWELL.
[65] 'Mr. Boswell,' says Malone, 'professed the Scotch and the English
law; but had never taken very great pains on the subject. His father,
Lord Auchinleck, told him one day, that it would cost him more trouble
to hide his ignorance in these professions than to show his knowledge.
This Boswell owned he had found to be true.' _European Magazine_, 1798,
p. 376. Boswell wrote to Temple in 1775:--'You are very kind in saying
that I may overtake you in learning. Believe me though that I have a
kind of impotency of study.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 181.
[66] This is a truth that Johnson often enforced. 'Very few,' said the
poet; 'live by choice: every man is placed in his present condition by
causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not
always willingly co-operate.' _Rasselas_, chap. 16. 'To him that lives
well,' answered the hermit, 'every form of life is good; nor can I give
any other rule for choice than to remove from all apparent evil.' _Ib_,
chap. 21. 'Young man,' said Omar, 'it is of little use to form plans of
life.' _The Idler_, No. 101.
[67] 'Hace sunt quae nostra _liceat_ te voce moneri.' _Aeneid_, iii.
461.
[68] The passage omitted explained the transaction to which the
preceding letter had alluded. BOSWELL.
[69] See _ante_, June 10, 1761.
[70] Mr. Croker says:--'It was by visiting Chambers, when a fellow of
University College, that Johnson became acquainted with Lord Stowell [at
that time William Scott]; and when Chambers went to India, Lord Stowell,
as he expressed it to me, seemed to succeed to his place in Johnson's
friendship.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 90, note. John Scott (Earl of
Eldon), Sir William Jones and Mr. Windham, were also members of
University College. The hall is adorned with the portraits of these five
men. An engraving of Johnson is in the Common Room.
[71] It is not easy to discover anything noble or even felicitous in
this Dedication. _Works_, v. 444.
[72] See _ante_, i. 148.
[73] See _ante_, i. 177, note 2.
[74] See _ante_, i. 158.
[75] See _ante_, i. 178, note 2.
[76] This poem is scarcely Johnson's, though all the lines but the third
in the following couplets may be his.
Whose life not sunk in sloth is free from care,
Nor tost by change, nor stagnant in despair;
Who with wise authors pass the instructive day
And wonder how the moments stole away;
Who not retired beyond the sight of life
Behold its weary cares, its noisy strife.'
[77] Johnson's additions to these three poems are not at all evident.
[78] In a note to the poem it is stated that Miss Williams, when, before
her blindness, she was assisting Mr. Grey in his experiments, was the
first that observed the emission of the electrical spark from a human
body. The best lines are the following:--
Now, hoary Sage, purse thy happy flight,
With swifter motion haste to purer light,
Where Bacon waits with Newton and with Boyle
To hail thy genius, and applaud thy toil;
Where intuition breaks through time and space,
And mocks experiment's successive race;
Sees tardy Science toil at Nature's laws,
And wonders how th' effect obscures the cause.
Yet not to deep research or happy guess
Is owed the life of hope, the death of peace.'
[79] A gentleman, writing from Virginia to John Wesley, in 1735, about
the need of educating the negro slaves in religion, says:--'Their
masters generally neglect them, as though immortality was not the
privilege of their souls in common with their own.' Wesley's _Journal_,
II. 288. But much nearer home Johnson might have found this criminal
enforcement of ignorance. Burke, writing in 1779, about the Irish,
accuses the legislature of 'condemning a million and a half of people to
ignorance, according to act of parliament.' Burke's _Corres_. ii. 294.
[80] See _post_, March 21, 1775, and Appendix.
[81] Johnson said very finely:--'Languages are the pedigree of nations.'
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 18, 1773.
[82] The Rev. Mr. John Campbell, Minister of the Parish of Kippen, near
Stirling, who has lately favoured me with a long, intelligent, and very
obliging letter upon this work, makes the following remark:--'Dr.
Johnson has alluded to the worthy man employed in the translation of the
New Testament. Might not this have afforded you an opportunity of paying
a proper tribute of respect to the memory of the Rev. Mr. James Stuart,
late Minister of Killin, distinguished by his eminent Piety, Learning
and Taste? The amiable simplicity of his life, his warm benevolence, his
indefatigable and successful exertions for civilizing and improving the
Parish of which he was Minister for upwards of fifty years, entitle him
to the gratitude of his country, and the veneration of all good men. It
certainly would be a pity, if such a character should be permitted to
sink into oblivion.' BOSWELL.
[83] Seven years later Johnson received from the Society some religious
works in Erse. See post, June 24, 1774. Yet in his journey to the
Hebrides, in 1773 (Works, ix. 101), he had to record of the parochial
schools in those islands that 'by the rule of their institution they
teach _only_ English, so that the natives read a language which they may
never use or understand,'
[84] This paragraph shews Johnson's real estimation of the character and
abilities of the celebrated Scottish Historian, however lightly, in a
moment of caprice, he may have spoken of his works. BOSWELL.
[85] See _ante_, i. 210.
[86] This is the person concerning whom Sir John Hawkins has thrown out
very unwarrantable reflections both against Dr. Johnson and Mr. Francis
Barber. BOSWELL. See _post_, under Oct. 20, 1784. In 1775, Heely, it
appears, applied through Johnson for the post that was soon to be vacant
of 'master of the tap' at Ranelagh House. 'He seems,' wrote Johnson, in
forwarding his letter of application, 'to have a genius for an
alehouse.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 210. See also _post_, Aug. 12, 1784.
[87] See an account of him in the _European Magazine_, Jan. 1786.
BOSWELL. There we learn that he was in his time a grammar-school usher,
actor, poet, the puffing partner in a quack medicine, and tutor to a
youthful Earl. He was suspected of levying blackmail by threats of
satiric publications, and he suffered from a disease which rendered him
an object almost offensive to sight. He was born in 1738 or 1739, and
died in 1771.
[88] It was republished in _The Repository_, ii. 227, edition of 1790.
[89] The Hon. Thomas Hervey, whose _Letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer_ in 1742
was much read at that time. He was the second son of John, first Earl of
Bristol, and one of the brothers of Johnson's early friend Henry Hervey.
He died Jan. 20, 1775. MALONE. See _post_, April 6, 1775.
[90] See _post_, under Sept. 22, 1777, for another story told by
Beauclerk against Johnson of a Mr. Hervey.
[91] Essays published in the _Daily Gazetteer_ and afterwards collected
into two vols. _Gent. Mag_. for 1748, P. 48.
[92] Mr. Croker regrets that Johnson employed his pen for hire in
Hervey's 'disgusting squabbles,' and in a long note describes Hervey's
letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer with whose wife he had eloped. But the
attack to which Johnson was hired to reply was not made by Hanmer, but,
as was supposed, by Sir C. H. Williams. Because a man has wronged
another, he is not therefore to submit to the attacks of a third.
Williams, moreover, it must be remembered, was himself a man of
licentious character.
[93] Buckingham House, bought in 1761, by George III, and settled on
Queen Charlotte. The present Buckingham Palace occupies the site. P.
CUNNINGHAM. Here, according to Hawkins (_Life_, p. 470), Johnson met the
Prince of Wales (George IV.) when a child, 'and enquired as to his
knowledge of the Scriptures; the prince in his answers gave him great
satisfaction.' Horace Walpole, writing of the Prince at the age of
nineteen, says (_Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii.
503):--'Nothing was coarser than his conversation and phrases; and it
made men smile to find that in the palace of piety and pride his Royal
Highness had learnt nothing but the dialect of footmen and grooms.'
[94] Dr. Johnson had the honour of contributing his assistance towards
the formation of this library; for I have read a long letter from him to
Mr. Barnard, giving the most masterly instructions on the subject. I
wished much to have gratified my readers with the perusal of this
letter, and have reason to think that his Majesty would have been
graciously pleased to permit its publication; but Mr. Barnard, to whom I
applied, declined it 'on his own account.' BOSWELL. It is given in Mr.
Croker's edition, p. 196.
[95] The particulars of this conversation I have been at great pains to
collect with the utmost authenticity from Dr. Johnson's own detail to
myself; from Mr. Langton who was present when he gave an account of it
to Dr. Joseph Warton, and several other friends, at Sir Joshua
Reynolds's; from Mr. Barnard; from the copy of a letter written by the
late Mr. Strahan the printer, to Bishop Warburton; and from a minute,
the original of which is among the papers of the late Sir James
Caldwell, and a copy of which was most obligingly obtained for me from
his son Sir John Caldwell, by Sir Francis Lumm. To all these gentlemen I
beg leave to make my grateful acknowledgements, and particularly to Sir
Francis Lumm, who was pleased to take a great deal of trouble, and even
had the minute laid before the King by Lord Caermarthen, now Duke of
Leeds, then one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, who
announced to Sir Francis the Royal pleasure concerning it by a letter,
in these words: 'I have the King's commands to assure you, Sir, how
sensible his Majesty is of your attention in communicating the minute of
the conversation previous to its publication. As there appears no
objection to your complying with Mr. Boswell's wishes on the subject,
you are at full liberty to deliver it to that gentleman, to make such
use of in his _Life of Dr. Johnson_, as he may think proper.' BOSWELL.
In 1790, Boswell published in a quarto sheet of eight pages _A
conversation between His Most Sacred Majesty George III. and Samuel
Johnson, LLD. Illustrated with Observations. By James Boswell, Esq.
London. Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly in the Poultry.
MDCCXC. Price Half-a-Guinea. Entered in the Hall-Book of the Company of
Stationers_. It is of the same impression as the first edition of _the
Life of Johnson_.
[96] After Michaelmas, 1766. See _ante_, ii. 25.
[97] See _post_, May, 31, 1769, note.
[98] Writing to Langton, on May 10, of the year before he had said, 'I
read more than I did. I hope something will yet come on it.' _Ante_,
ii. 20.
[99] Boswell and Goldsmith had in like manner urged him 'to continue his
labours.' See _ante_, i. 398, and ii. 15.
[100] Johnson had written to Lord Chesterfield in the _Plan of his
Dictionary_ (_Works_, v. 19), 'Ausonius thought that modesty forbade him
to plead inability for a task to which Caesar had judged him
equal:--_Cur me posse negem posse quod ille pufat_?' We may compare also
a passage in Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_ (ii. 377):--'THE KING. "I believe
there is no constraint to be put upon real genius; nothing but
inclination can set it to work. Miss Burney, however, knows best." And
then hastily returning to me he cried; "What? what?" "No, sir,
I--I--believe not, certainly," quoth I, very awkwardly, for I seemed
taking a violent compliment only as my due; but I knew not how to put
him off as I would another person.'
[101] In one part of the character of Pope (_Works_, viii. 319), Johnson
seems to be describing himself:--'He certainly was in his early life a
man of great literary curiosity; and when he wrote his _Essay on
Criticism_ had for his age a very wide acquaintance with books. When he
entered into the living world, it seems to have happened to him as to
many others, that he was less attentive to dead masters; he studied in
the academy of Paracelsus, and made the universe his favourite
volume.... His frequent references to history, his allusions to various
kinds of knowledge, and his images selected from art and nature, with
his observations on the operations of the mind and the modes of life,
show an intelligence perpetually on the wing, excursive, vigorous, and
diligent, eager to pursue knowledge, and attentive to retain it.' See
_ante_, i. 57.
[102] Johnson thus describes Warburton (_Works_, viii. 288):--'About
this time [1732] Warburton began to make his appearance in the first
ranks of learning. He was a man of vigorous faculties, a mind fervid and
vehement, supplied by incessant and unlimited enquiry, with wonderful
extent and variety of knowledge.' Cradock (_Memoirs_, i. 188) says that
'Bishop Kurd always wondered where it was possible for Warburton to meet
with certain anecdotes with which not only his conversation, but
likewise his writings, abounded. "I could have readily informed him,"
said Mrs. Warburton, "for, when we passed our winters in London, he
would often, after his long and severe studies, send out for a whole
basketful of books from the circulating libraries; and at times I have
gone into his study, and found him laughing, though alone."' Lord
Macaulay was, in this respect, the Warburton of our age.
[103] The Rev. Mr. Strahan clearly recollects having been told by
Johnson, that the King observed that Pope made Warburton a Bishop.
'True, Sir, (said Johnson,) but Warburton did more for Pope; he made him
a Christian:' alluding, no doubt, to his ingenious Comments on the
_Essay on Man_. BOSWELL. The statements both of the King and Johnson are
supported by two passages in Johnson's _Life of Pope_, (_Works_, viii.
289, 290). He says of Warburton's Comments:--'Pope, who probably began
to doubt the tendency of his own work, was glad that the positions, of
which he perceived himself not to know the full meaning, could by any
mode of interpretation be made to mean well.... From this time Pope
lived in the closest intimacy with his commentator, and amply rewarded
his kindness and his zeal; for he introduced him to Mr. Murray, by whose
interest he became preacher at Lincoln's Inn; and to Mr. Allen, who gave
him his niece and his estate, and by consequence a bishoprick.' See also
the account given by Johnson, in Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 21, 1773.
Bishop Law in his Revised Preface to Archbishop King's _Origin of Evil_
(1781), p. xvii, writes:--'I had now the satisfaction of seeing that
those very principles which had been maintained by Archbishop King were
adopted by Mr. Pope in his Essay on Man; this I used to recollect, and
sometimes relate, with pleasure, conceiving that such an account did no
less honour to the poet than to our philosopher; but was soon made to
understand that anything of that kind was taken highly amiss by one
[Warburton] who had once held the doctrine of that same Essay to be rank
atheism, but afterwards turned a warm advocate for it, and thought
proper to deny the account above-mentioned, with heavy menaces against
those who presumed to insinuate that Pope borrowed anything from any man
whatsoever.' See _post_, Oct. 10, 1779.
[104] In Gibbon's _Memoirs_, a fine passage is quoted from Lowth's
Defence of the University of Oxford, against Warburton's reproaches. 'I
transcribe with pleasure this eloquent passage,' writes Gibbon, 'without
inquiring whether in this angry controversy the spirit of Lowth himself
is purified from the intolerant zeal which Warburton had ascribed to the
genius of the place.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 47. See BOSWELL'S
_Hebrides_, Aug. 28, 1773.
[105] See _post_, April 15, 1773, where Johnson says that Lyttelton 'in
his _History_ wrote the most vulgar Whiggism,' and April 10, 1776.
Gibbon, who had reviewed it this year, says in his _Memoirs_ (_Misc.
Works_, i. 207): 'The public has ratified my judgment of that voluminous
work, in which sense and learning are not illuminated by a ray
of genius.'
[106] Hawkins says of him (_Life_, p. 211):--'He obtained from one of
those universities which would scarce refuse a degree to an apothecary's
horse a diploma for that of doctor of physic.' He became a great
compiler and in one year earned AL1500. In the end he turned
quack-doctor. He was knighted by the King of Sweden 'in return for a
present to that monarch of his _Vegetable System_.' He at least thrice
attacked Garrick (Murphy's _Garrick_, pp. 136, 189, 212), who replied
with three epigrams, of which the last is well-known:--
'For Farces and Physic his equal there scarce is;
His Farces are Physic, his Physic a Farce is.'
Horace Walpole (_Letters_ iii. 372), writing on Jan. 3, 1761,
said:--'Would you believe, what I know is fact, that Dr. Hill earned
fifteen guineas a week by working for wholesale dealers? He was at once
employed on six voluminous works of Botany, Husbandry, &c., published
weekly.' Churchill in the Rescind thus writes of him:--
'Who could so nobly grace the motley list,
Actor, Inspector, Doctor, Botanist?
Knows any one so well--sure no one knows--
At once to play, prescribe, compound, compose?'
Churchill's _Poems_, i. 6. In the _Gent. Mag_. xxii. 568, it is stated
that he had acted pantomime, tragedy and comedy, and had been damned
in all.
[107] Mr. Croker quotes Bishop Elrington, who says, 'Dr. Johnson was
unjust to Hill, and showed that _he_ did not understand the subject.'
Croker's _Boswell_, p. 186.
[108] D'Israeli (_Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, i. 201) says
that 'Hill, once when he fell sick, owned to a friend that he had
over-fatigued himself with writing seven works at once, one of which was
on architecture and another on cookery.' D'Israeli adds that Hill
contracted to translate a Dutch work on insects for fifty guineas. As he
was ignorant of the language, he bargained with another translator for
twenty-five guineas. This man, who was equally ignorant, rebargained
with a third, who perfectly understood his original, for twelve guineas.
[109] Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, v. 442), writing on Dec. 20, 1763, of the
_Journal des Savans_, says:--'I can hardly express how much I am
delighted with this journal; its characteristics are erudition,
precision, and taste.... The father of all the rest, it is still their
superior.... There is nothing to be wished for in it but a little more
boldness and philosophy; but it is published under the Chancellor's eye.'
[110] Goldsmith, in his _Present State of Polite Learning_ (ch. xi.),
published in 1759, says;--'We have two literary reviews in London, with
critical newspapers and magazines without number. The compilers of these
resemble the commoners of Rome, they are all for levelling property, not
by increasing their own, but by diminishing that of others.... The most
diminutive son of fame or of famine has his _we_ and his _us_, his
_firstlys_ and his _secondlys_, as methodical as if bound in cow-hide
and closed with clasps of brass. Were these Monthly Reviews and
Magazines frothy, pert, or absurd, they might find some pardon, but to
be dull and dronish is an encroachment on the prerogative of a folio.'
[111] See _post_, April 10, 1766.
[112] Mr. White, the Librarian of the Royal Society, has, at my request,
kindly examined the records of the Royal Society, but has not been able
to discover what the 'circumstance' was. Neither is any light thrown on
it by Johnson's reviews of Birch's _History of the Royal Society_ and
_Philosophical Transactions_, vol. xlix. (_ante_, i. 309), which I
have examined.
[113] 'Were you to converse with a King, you ought to be as easy and
unembarrassed as with your own valet-de-chambre; but yet every look,
word, and action should imply the utmost respect. What would be proper
and well-bred with others much your superior, would be absurd and
ill-bred with one so very much so.' Chesterfield's _Letters_, iii. 203.
[114] Imlac thus described to Rasselas his interview with the Great
Mogul:--'The emperor asked me many questions concerning my country and
my travels; and though I cannot now recollect anything that he uttered
above the power of a common man, he dismissed me astonished at his
wisdom, and enamoured of his goodness.' _Rasselas_, chap. ix. Wraxall
(_Memoirs_, edit. of 1884, i. 283) says that Johnson was no judge of a
fine gentleman. 'George III,' he adds, 'was altogether destitute of
these ornamental and adventitious endowments.' He mentions 'the
oscillations of his body, the precipitation of his questions, none of
which, it was said, would wait for an answer, and the hurry of his
articulation.' Mr. Wheatley, in a note on this passage, quotes the
opinion of 'Adams, the American Envoy, who said, the "King is, I really
think, the most accomplished courtier in his dominions."'
[115] 'Dr. Warton made me a most obsequious bow.... He is what Dr.
Johnson calls a rapturist, and I saw plainly he meant to pour forth much
civility into my ears. He is a very communicative, gay, and pleasant
converser, and enlivened the whole day by his readiness upon all
subjects.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 236. It is very likely that he
is 'the ingenious writer' mentioned _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's
'Collection,' of whom Johnson said, 'Sir, he is an enthusiast by rule.'
Mr. Windham records that Johnson, speaking of Warton's admiration of
fine passages, said:--'His taste is amazement' (misprinted _amusement_).
Windham's _Diary_, p. 20. In her _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_ (ii. 82), Mme.
D'Arblay says that Johnson 'at times, when in gay spirits, would take
off Dr. Warton with the strongest humour; describing, almost
convulsively, the ecstasy with which he would seize upon the person
nearest to him, to hug in his arms, lest his grasp should be eluded,
while he displayed some picture or some prospect.' In that humourous
piece, _Probationary Odes for the Laureateship_ (p. xliii), Dr. Joseph
is made to hug his brother in his arms, when he sees him descend safely
from the balloon in which he had composed his _Ode_. Thomas Warton is
described in the same piece (p. 116) as 'a little, thick, squat,
red-faced man.' There was for some time a coolness between Johnson and
Dr. Warton. Warton, writing on Jan. 22, 1766, says:--'I only dined with
Johnson, who seemed cold and indifferent, and scarce said anything to
me; perhaps he has heard what I said of his _Shakespeare_, or rather was
offended at what I wrote to him--as he pleases.' Wooll's _Warton_, p.
312. Wooll says that a dispute took place between the two men at
Reynolds's house. 'One of the company overheard the following conclusion
of the dispute. JOHNSON. "Sir, I am not used to be contradicted."
WARTON. "Better for yourself and friends, Sir, if you were; our
admiration could not be increased, but our love might."' _Ib_ p. 98.
[116] _The Good-Natured Man_, _post_ p. 45.
[117] 'It has been said that the King only sought one interview with Dr.
Johnson. There was nothing to complain of; it was a compliment paid by
rank to letters, and once was enough. The King was more afraid of this
interview than Dr. Johnson was; and went to it as a schoolboy to his
task. But he did not want to have the trial repeated every day, nor was
it necessary. The very jealousy of his self-love marked his respect; and
if he thought the less of Dr. Johnson, he would have been more willing
to risk the encounter.' Hazlitt's _Conversations of Northcote_, p. 45.
It should seem that Johnson had a second interview with the King
thirteen years later. In 1780, Hannah More records (_Memoirs_, i.
174):--'Johnson told me he had been with the King that morning, who
enjoined him to add Spenser to his _Lives of the Poets_.' It is strange
that, so far as I know, this interview is not mentioned by any one else.
It is perhaps alluded to, _post_, Dec., 1784, when Mr. Nichols told
Johnson that he wished 'he would gratify his sovereign by a _Life of
Spenser_.'
[118] It is proper here to mention, that when I speak of his
correspondence, I consider it independent of the voluminous collection
of letters which, in the course of many years, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale,
which forms a separate part of his works; and as a proof of the high
estimation set on any thing which came from his pen, was sold by that
lady for the sum of five hundred pounds. BOSWELL.
[119] He was away from the London 'near six months.' See _ante_, ii. 30.
[120] On August 17 he recorded:--'I have communicated with Kitty, and
kissed her. I was for some time distracted, but at last more composed. I
commended my friends, and Kitty, Lucy, and I were much affected. Kitty
is, I think, going to heaven.' _Pr. and Med., p. 75_.
[121] _Pr. and Med_., pp. 77 and 78. BOSWELL.
[122] _Pr. and Med_., p. 73. BOSWELL. On Aug. 17, he recorded:--'By
abstinence from wine and suppers I obtained sudden and great relief, and
had freedom of mind restored to me, which I have wanted for all this
year, without being able to find any means of obtaining it.' _Ib_ p. 74.
[123] Hawkins, in his second edition (p. 347) assigns it to Campbell,
'who,' he says, 'as well for the malignancy of his heart as his terrific
countenance, was called horrible Campbell.'
[124] See _ante_, i. 218.
[125] The book is as dull as it is indecent. The 'drollery' is of the
following kind. Johnson is represented as saying:--'Without dubiety you
misapprehend this dazzling scintillation of conceit in totality, and had
you had that constant recurrence to my oraculous dictionary which was
incumbent upon you from the vehemence of my monitory injunctions,'
&c. p. 2.
[126] _Pr. and Med_., p. 81. BOSWELL. 'This day,' he wrote on his
birthday, 'has been passed in great perturbation; I was distracted at
church in an uncommon degree, and my distress has had very little
intermission.... This day it came into my mind to write the history of
my melancholy. On this I purpose to deliberate; I know not whether it
may not too much disturb me.' See _post_, April 8, 1780.
[127] It is strange that Boswell nowhere quotes the lines in _The
Good-Natured Man_, in which Paoli is mentioned. 'That's from Paoli of
Corsica,' said Lofty. Act v. sc. i.
[128] In the original, 'Pressed _by_.' Boswell, in thus changing the
preposition, forgot what Johnson says in his _Plan of an English
Dictionary_ (_Works_, v. 12):--'We say, according to the present modes
of speech, The soldier died _of_ his wounds, and the sailor perished
_with_ hunger; and every man acquainted with our language would be
offended with a change of these particles, which yet seem originally
assigned by chance.'
[129] Boswell, writing to Temple on March 24, says:--'My book has
amazing celebrity; Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Walpole, Mrs. Macaulay, and Mr.
Garrick have all written me noble letters about it. There are two Dutch
translations going forward.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 145. It met with a
rapid sale. A third edition was called for within a year. Dilly, the
publisher, must have done very well by it, as he purchased the copyright
for one hundred guineas. _Ib_, p. 103. 'Pray read the new account of
Corsica,' wrote Horace Walpole to Gray on Feb. 18, 1768 (_Letters_, v.
85). 'The author is a strange being, and has a rage of knowing everybody
that ever was talked of. He forced himself upon me at Paris in spite of
my teeth and my doors.' To this Gray replied:--'Mr. Boswell's book has
pleased and moved me strangely; all, I mean, that relates to Paoli. He
is a man born two thousand years after his time! The pamphlet proves,
what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most valuable
book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with
veracity.' In _The Letters of Boswell_ (p. 122) there is the following
under date of Nov. 9, 1767:--'I am always for fixing some period for my
perfection, as far as possible. Let it be when my account of _Corsica_
is published; I shall then have a character which I must support.' In
April 16 of the following year, a few weeks after the book had come out,
he writes:--'To confess to you at once, Temple, I have since my last
coming to town been as wild as ever.' (p. 146.)
[130] Boswell used to put notices of his movements in the newspapers,
such as--'James Boswell, Esq., is expected in town.' _Public
Advertiser_, Feb. 28, 1768. 'Yesterday James Boswell, Esq., arrived from
Scotland at his lodgings in Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly.' _Ib_ March
24, 1768. Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. 449.
[131] Johnson was very ill during this visit. Mrs. Thrale had at the
same time given birth to a daughter, and had been nursed by her mother.
His thoughts, therefore, were turned on illness. Writing to Mrs. Thrale,
he says:--'To roll the weak eye of helpless anguish, and see nothing on
any side but cold indifference, will, I hope, happen to none whom I love
or value; it may tend to withdraw the mind from life, but has no
tendency to kindle those affections which fit us for a purer and a
nobler state.... These reflections do not grow out of any discontent at
C's [Chambers's] behaviour; he has been neither negligent nor
troublesome; nor do I love him less for having been ill in his house.
This is no small degree of praise.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 13.
[132] See _ante_, ii. 3, note.
[133] The editor of the _Letters of Boswell_ justly says (p. 149):--'The
detail in the _Life of Johnson_ is rather scanty about this period;
dissipation, the _History of Corsica_, wife-hunting, ... interfered
perhaps at this time with Boswell's pursuit of Dr. Johnson.'
[134] See _Boswell's_ Hebrides, Aug. 15, 1773, for a discussion of the
same question. Lord Eldon has recorded (_Life_, i. 106), that when he
first went the Northern Circuit (about 1776-1780), he asked Jack Lee
(_post_, March 20, 1778), who was not scrupulous in his advocacy,
whether his method could be justified. 'Oh, yes,' he said, 'undoubtedly.
Dr. Johnson had said that counsel were at liberty to state, as the
parties themselves would state, what it was most for their interest to
state.' After some interval, and when he had had his evening bowl of
milk punch and two or three pipes of tobacco, he suddenly said, 'Come,
Master Scott, let us go to bed. I have been thinking upon the questions
that you asked me, and I am not quite so sure that the conduct you
represented will bring a man peace at the last.' Lord Eldon, after
stating pretty nearly what Johnson had said, continues:--'But it may be
questioned whether even this can be supported.'
[135] Garrick brought out Hugh Kelly's _False Delicacy_ at Drury Lane
six days before Goldsmith's _Good-Natured Man_ was brought out at Covent
Garden. 'It was the town talk,' says Mr. Forster (_Life of Goldsmith_,
ii. 93), some weeks before either performance took place, 'that the two
comedies were to be pitted against each other.' _False Delicacy_ had a
great success. Ten thousand copies of it were sold before the season
closed. (_Ib_ p. 96.) 'Garrick's prologue to _False Delicacy_,' writes
Murphy (_Life of Garrick_, p. 287), 'promised a moral and sentimental
comedy, and with an air of pleasantry called it a sermon in five acts.
The critics considered it in the same light, but the general voice was
in favour of the play during a run of near twenty nights. Foote, at
last, by a little piece called _Piety in Pattens_, brought that species
of composition into disrepute.' It is recorded in Johnson's _Works_
(1787), xi. 201, that when some one asked Johnson whether they should
introduce Hugh Kelly to him, 'No, Sir,' says he, 'I never desire to
converse with a man who has written more than he has read.' See _post_,
beginning of 1777.
[136] _The Provoked Husband, or A Journey to London_, by Vanbrugh and
Colley Cibber. It was brought out in 1727-8. See _post_, June 3, 1784.
[137] See _ante_, i. 213.
[138] April 6, 1772, and April 12, 1776.
[139] Richardson, writing on Dec. 7, 1756, to Miss Fielding, about her
Familiar Letters, says:--'What a knowledge of the human heart! Well
might a critical judge of writing say, as he did to me, that your late
brother's knowledge of it was not (fine writer as he was) comparable to
yours. His was but as the knowledge of the outside of a clock-work
machine, while yours was that of all the finer springs and movements of
the inside.' _Richardson Corres_. ii. 104. Mrs. Calderwood, writing of
her visit to the Low Countries in 1756, says:--'All Richison's
[Richardson's] books are translated, and much admired abroad; but for
Fielding's the foreigners have no notion of them, and do not understand
them, as the manners are so entirely English.' _Letters, &c., of Mrs.
Calderwood_, p. 208
[140] In _The Provoked Husband_, act iv. sc. 1.
[141] By Dr. Hoadley, brought out in 1747. 'This was the first good
comedy from the time of _The Provoked Husband_ in 1727.' Murphy's
_Garrick_, p. 78.
[142] Madame Riccoboni, writing to Garrick from Paris on Sept. 7, 1768,
says:--'On ne supporterait point ici l'indA(C)cence de Ranger. Les
trA"sindA(C)cens FranASec.aisdeviennent dA(C)licats sur leur thA(C)Actre, A mesure
qu'ils le sont moins dans leur conduite.' _Garrick's Corres_. ii. 548.
[143] 'The question in dispute was as to the heirship of Mr. Archibald
Douglas. If he were really the son of Lady Jane Douglas, he would
inherit large family estates; but if he were supposititious, then they
would descend to the Duke of Hamilton. The Judges of the Court of
Session had been divided in opinion, eight against seven, the Lord
President Dundas giving the casting vote in favour of the Duke of
Hamilton; and in consequence of it he and several other of the judges
had, on the reversal by the Lords, their houses attacked by a mob. It is
said, but not upon conclusive authority, that Boswell himself headed the
mob which broke his own father's windows.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 86.
See _post_, April 27, 1773, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 24-26, 1773.
Mr. J. H. Burton, in his _Life of Hume_ (ii. 150), says:--'Men about to
meet each other in company used to lay an injunction on themselves not
to open their lips on the subject, so fruitful was it in debates and
brawls.' Boswell, according to the Bodleian catalogue, was the author of
_Dorando, A Spanish Tale_, 1767. In this tale the Douglas cause is
narrated under the thinnest disguise. It is reviewed in the _Gent. Mag_.
for 1767, p. 361.
[144] See _post_, under April 19, 1772, March 15, 1779, and June 2,
1781.
[145] Revd. Kenneth Macaulay. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 27, 1773.
He was the great-uncle of Lord Macaulay.
[146] Martin, in his _St. Kilda_ (p. 38), had stated that the people of
St. Kilda 'are seldom troubled with a cough, except at the Steward's
landing. I told them plainly,' he continues, 'that I thought all this
notion of infection was but a mere fancy, at which they seemed offended,
saying, that never any before the minister and myself was heard to doubt
of the truth of it, which is plainly demonstrated upon the landing of
every boat.' The usual 'infected cough,' came, he says, upon his visit.
Macaulay (_History of St. Kilda_, p. 204) says that he had gone to the
island a disbeliever, but that by eight days after his arrival all the
inhabitants were infected with this disease. See also _post_, March, 21,
1772, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 2, 1773.
[147] See _ante_, July 1, 1763.
[148] _Post_, March 21, 1772.
[149] This is not the case. Martin (p. 9) says that the only landing
place is inaccessible except under favour of a neap tide, a north-east
or west wind, or with a perfect calm. He himself was rowed to St. Kilda,
'the inhabitants admiring to see us get thither contrary to the wind and
tide' (p. 5).
[150] That for one kind of learning Oxford has no advantages, he shows
in a letter that he wrote there on Aug. 4, 1777. 'I shall inquire,' he
says, 'about the harvest when I come into a region where anything
necessary to life is understood.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 349. At Lichfield
he reached that region. 'My barber, a man not unintelligent, speaks
magnificently of the harvest;' _Ib_ p. 351.
[151] See _post_, Sept. 14, 1777.
[152] See _ante_, i. 116.
[153] The advancement had been very rapid. 'When Dr. Robertson's career
commenced,' writes Dugald Stewart in his _Life_ of that historian (p.
157), 'the trade of authorship was unknown in Scotland.' Smollet, in
_Humphry Clinker_, published three years after this conversation, makes
Mr. Bramble write (Letter of Aug. 8):--'Edinburgh is a hot-bed of
genius. I have had the good fortune to be made acquainted with many
authors of the first distinction; such as the two Humes [David Hume and
John Home, whose names had the same pronunciation], Robertson, Smith,
Wallace, Blair, Ferguson, Wilkie, &c.' To these might be added Smollett
himself, Boswell, Reid, Beattie, Kames, Monboddo. Henry Mackenzie and
Dr. Henry began to publish in 1771. Gibbon, writing to Robertson in
1779, says:--'I have often considered with some sort of envy the
valuable society which you possess in so narrow a compass.' Stewart's
_Robertson_, p. 363.
[154] See _post_, April 30, 1773, where Johnson owned that he had not
read Hume. J.H. Burton (_Life of Hume_, ii. 129), after stating that
'Hume was the first to add to a mere narrative of events an enquiry into
the progress of the people, &c.,' says:--'There seems to be no room for
the supposition that he had borrowed the idea from Voltaire's _Essai sur
les Moeurs_. Hume's own _Political Discourses_ are as close an approach
to this method of inquiry as the work of Voltaire; and if we look for
such productions of other writers as may have led him into this train of
thought, it would be more just to name Bacon and Montesquieu.'
[155] See _post_, May 8 and 13, 1778.
[156] See _post_, April 30, 1773, April 29, 1778, and Oct. 10, 1779.
[157] _An Essay on the Future Life of Brutes_. By Richard Dean, Curate
of Middleton, Manchester, 1767. The 'part of the Scriptures' on which
the author chiefly relies is the _Epistle to the Romans_, viii. 19-23.
He also finds support for his belief in 'those passages in _Isaiah_
where the prophet speaks of new Heavens, and a new Earth, of the Lion as
eating straw like the Ox, &c.' Vol. ii. pp. x, 4.
[158] The words that Addison's Cato uses as he lays his hand on his
sword. Act v. sc. 1.
[159] I should think it impossible not to wonder at the variety of
Johnson's reading, however desultory it may have been. Who could have
imagined that the High Church of England-man would be so prompt in
quoting _Maupertuis_, who, I am sorry to think, stands in the list of
those unfortunate mistaken men, who call themselves _esprits forts_. I
have, however, a high respect for that Philosopher whom the Great
Frederick of Prussia loved and honoured, and addressed pathetically in
one of his Poems,--
'Maupertuis, cher Maupertuis,
Que notre vie est peu de chose!'
There was in Maupertuis a vigour and yet a tenderness of sentiment,
united with strong intellectual powers, and uncommon ardour of soul.
Would he had been a Christian! I cannot help earnestly venturing to hope
that he is one now. BOSWELL. Voltaire writing to D'Alembert on Aug. 25,
1759, says:--'Que dites-vous de Maupertuis, mort entre deux capucins?'
Voltaire's _Works_, lxii. 94. The stanza from which Boswell quotes is as
follows:--
'O Maupertuis, cher Maupertuis,
Que notre vie est peu de chose!
Cette fleur, qui brille aujourd'hui
Demain se fane A peine A(C)close;
Tout pA(C)rit, tout est emportA(C)
Par la dure fatalitA(C)
Des arrtA¬s de la destinA(C)e;
Votre vertu, vos grands talents
Ne pourront obtenir du temps
Le seul dA(C)lai d'une journA(C)e.'
_La vie est un Songe. Euvres de
FrA(C)dA(C)ric II (edit. 1849), x. 40.
[160] Johnson does not give _Conglobulate_ in his _Dictionary_; only
_conglobe_. If he used the word it is not likely that he said
'conglobulate _together_.'
[161] Gilbert White, writing on Nov. 4, 1767, after mentioning that he
had seen swallows roosting in osier-beds by the river, says:--'This
seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion (strange as it
is) of their retiring under water.' White's _Selborne_, Letter xii. See
also _post_, May 7, 1773.
[162] _Travels from St. Petersburgh in Russia to divers parts of Asia_.
By John Bell, Glasgow, 1763: 4to. 2 vols.
[163] I. D'Israeli (_Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, i. 194) ranks
this book among Literary Impostures. 'Du Halde never travelled ten
leagues from Paris in his life; though he appears by his writings to be
familiar with Chinese scenery.' See _ante_, i. 136.
[164] See _post_, Oct. 10, 1779.
[165] Boswell, in his correspondence with Temple in 1767 and 1768,
passes in review the various ladies whom he proposes to marry. The lady
described in this paragraph--for the 'gentleman' is clearly Boswell--is
'the fair and lively Zelide,' a Dutch-woman. She was translating his
_Corsica_ into French. On March 24, 1768, he wrote, 'I must have her.'
On April 26, he asked his father's permission to go over to Holland to
see her. But on May 14 he forwarded to Temple one of her letters.
'Could,' he said, 'any actress at any of the theatres attack me with a
keener--what is the word? not fury, something softer. The lightning that
flashes with so much brilliance may scorch, and does not her esprit do
so?' _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 144-150.
[166] In the original it is _some_ not _many_. Johnson's _Works_, vii.
182.
[167] _An account of the Manners and Customs of Italy_, by Joseph
Baretti, London, 1768. The book would be still more entertaining were it
not written as a reply to Sharp's _Letters on Italy_. _Post_ under
April 29, 1776.
[168] Mrs. Piozzi wrote of him: 'His character is easily seen, and his
soul above disguise, haughty and insolent, and breathing defiance
against all mankind; while his powers of mind exceed most people's, and
his powers of purse are so slight that they leave him dependent on all.
Baretti is for ever in the state of a stream damned up; if he could once
get loose, he would bear down all before him.' Hayward's _Piozzi_,
ii. 335.
[169] According to Hawkins (_Life_, p. 460), the watch was new this
year, and was, he believed, the first Johnson ever had.
[170] _St. John_, ix. 4. In _Pr. and Med_., p. 233, is the
following:--'Ejaculation imploring diligence. "O God, make me to
remember that the night cometh when no man can work."' Porson, in his
witty attack on Sir John Hawkins, originally published in the _Gent.
Mag_. for 1787, quotes the inscription as a proof of Hawkins's Greek.
'_Nux gar erchetai_. The meaning is (says Sir John) _For the night
cometh_. And so it is, Mr. Urban.' Porson _Tracts_, p. 337.
[171] He thus wrote of himself from Oxford to Mrs. Thrale:--'This little
dog does nothing, but I hope he will mend; he is now reading _Jack the
Giant-killer_. Perhaps so noble a narrative may rouse in him the soul of
enterprise.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 9.
[172] See _ante_, ii. 3
[173] Under the same date, Boswell thus begins a letter to
Temple:--'Your moral lecture came to me yesterday in very good time,
while I lay suffering severely for immorality. If there is any firmness
at all in me, be assured that I shall never again behave in a manner so
unworthy the friend of Paoli. My warm imagination looks forward with
great complacency on the sobriety, the healthfulness, and the worth of
my future life.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 147
[174] Johnson so early as Aug. 21, 1766, had given him the same advice
(_ante_, ii. 22). How little Boswell followed it is shewn by his letter
to the Earl of Chatham, on April 8, 1767, in which he informed him of
his intention to publish his _Corsica_, and concluded:--'Could your
Lordship find time to honour me now and then with a letter? I have been
told how favourably your Lordship has spoken of me. To correspond with a
Paoli and with a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in
the pursuit of virtuous fame.' _Chatham Corres_., iii. 246. On the same
day on which he wrote to Johnson, he said in a letter to Temple, 'Old
General Oglethorpe, who has come to see me, and is with me often, just
on account of my book, bids me not marry till I have first put the
Corsicans in a proper situation. "You may make a fortune in the doing of
it," said he; "or, if you do not, you will have acquired such a
character as will entitle you to any fortune."' _Letters of Boswell_, p.
148. Four months later, Boswell wrote:--'By a private subscription in
Scotland, I am sending this week AL700 worth of ordnance [to Corsica] ...
It is really a tolerable train of artillery.' _Ib_ p. 156. In 1769 he
brought out a small volume entitled _British Essays in favour of the
Brave Corsicans. By Several Hands_. Collected and published by James
Boswell, Esq.
[175] From about the beginning of the fourteenth century, Corsica had
belonged to the Republic of Genoa. In the great rising under Paoli, the
Corsicans would have achieved their independence, had not Genoa ceded
the island to the crown of France.
[176] Boswell, writing to Temple on May 14 of this year, says:--'I am
really the _great man_ now. I have had David Hume in the forenoon, and
Mr. Johnson in the afternoon of the same day, visiting me. Sir J.
Pringle and Dr. Franklin dined with me to-day; and Mr. Johnson and
General Oglethorpe one day, Mr. Garrick alone another, and David Hume
and some more _literati_ another, dine with me next week. I give
admirable dinners and good claret; and the moment I go abroad again,
which will be in a day or two, I set up my chariot. This is enjoying the
fruit of my labours, and appearing like the friend of Paoli.' _Letters
of Boswell_, p. 151.
[177] See _post_, April 12, 1778, and May 8, 1781.
[178] The talk arose no doubt from the general election that had just
been held amid all the excitement about Wilkes. Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_,
iii. 307), in a letter dated April 16, 1768, describes the riots in
London. He had seen 'the mob requiring gentlemen and ladies of all ranks
as they passed in their carriages, to shout for Wilkes and liberty,
marking the same words on all their coaches with chalk, and No. 45 on
every door. I went last week to Winchester, and observed that for
fifteen miles out of town there was scarce a door or window shutter next
the road unmarked; and this continued here and there quite to
Winchester.'
[179] In his _Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage_, he thus
writes:--'If I might presume to advise them [the Ministers] upon this
great affair, I should dissuade them from any direct attempt upon the
liberty of the press, which is the darling of the common people, and
therefore cannot be attacked without immediate danger.' _Works_, v. 344.
On p. 191 of the same volume, he shows some of the benefits that arise
in England from 'the boundless liberty with which every man may write
his own thoughts.' See also in his _Life of Milton_, the passage about
_Areopagitica_, _Ib_ vii. 82. The liberty of the press was likely to be
'a constant topic.' Horace Walpole (_Memoirs of the Reign of George
III_, ii. 15), writing of the summer of 1764, says:--'Two hundred
informations were filed against printers; a larger number than had been
prosecuted in the whole thirty-three years of the last reign.'
[180] 'The sun has risen, and the corn has grown, and, whatever talk has
been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly
reaped it, and he that built a house was master of the door; the
vexation excited by injustice suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by
any private man, or single community, was local and temporary; it
neither spread far nor lasted long.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 170. See
also _post_, March 31, 1772. Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, iii. 215) wrote to
the AbbA(C) Morellet, on April 22, 1787:--'Nothing can be better expressed
than your sentiments are on this point, where you prefer liberty of
trading, cultivating, manufacturing, &c., even to civil liberty, this
being affected but rarely, the other every hour.'
[181] See _ante_, July 6, 1763.
[182] See _ante_, Oct. 1765.
[183] 'I was diverted with Paoli's English library. It consisted
of:--Some broken volumes of the _Spectatour_ and _Tatler_; Pope's _Essay
on Man_; _Gulliver's Travels_; A _History of France_ in old English; and
Barclay's _Apology for the Quakers_. I promised to send him some English
books... I have sent him some of our best books of morality and
entertainment, in particular the works of Mr. Samuel Johnson.' Boswell's
_Corsica_, p. 169.
[184] Johnson, as Boswell believed, only once 'in the whole course of
his life condescended to oppose anything that was written against him.'
(See _ante_, i. 314.) In this he followed the rule of Bentley and of
Boerhaave. 'It was said to old Bentley, upon the attacks against him,
"why, they'll write you down." "No, Sir," he replied; "depend upon it,
no man was ever written down but by himself."' Boswell's _Hebrides_,
Oct. 1 1773. Bentley shewed prudence in his silence. 'He was right,'
Johnson said, 'not to answer; for, in his hazardous method of writing,
he could not but be often enough wrong.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 10,
1773. 'Boerhaave was never soured by calumny and detraction, nor ever
thought it necessary to confute them; "for they are sparks," said he,
"which, if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves."' Johnson's
_Works_, vi. 288. Swift, in his _Lines on Censure_ which begin,--
'Ye wise instruct me to endure
An evil which admits no cure.'
ends by saying:--
'The most effectual way to baulk
Their malice is--to let them talk.'
Swift's _Works_, xi. 58.