(_Page_ 314.)
The alehouse in the city where Johnson used to go and sit with George
Psalmanazar was, no doubt, the club in Old Street, where he met also
'the metaphysical tailor,' the uncle of Hoole the poet (_post_, under
March 30, 1783). Psalmanazar is mentioned a third time by Boswell
(_post_, May 15, 1784) in a passage borrowed from Hawkins's edition of
Johnson's _Works_, xi. 206, where it is stated that 'Johnson said: "He
had never seen the close of the life of any one that he wished so much
his own to resemble as that of him, for its purity and devotion." He was
asked whether he ever contradicted him. "I should as soon," said he,
"have thought of contradicting a bishop." When he was asked whether he
had ever mentioned Formosa before him, he said, "he was afraid to
mention even China."' We learn from Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 547,
that 'Psalmanazar lived in Ironmonger Row, Old Street; in the
neighbourhood whereof he was so well known and esteemed, that, as Dr.
Hawkesworth once told me, scarce any person, even children, passed him
without shewing him the usual signs of respect.' In the list of the
writers of the _Universal History_ that Johnson drew up a few days
before his death his name is given as the historian of the Jews, Gauls,
and Spaniards (_post_, November, 1784). According to Mrs. Piozzi
(_Anecdotes_, p. 175):--'His pious and patient endurance of a tedious
illness, ending in an exemplary death, confirmed the strong impression
his merit had made upon the mind of Mr. Johnson. "It is so very
difficult," said he always, "for a sick man not to be a scoundrel."'
Johnson, in _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 102, mentions him as a man
'whose life was, I think, uniform.' Smollett, in _Humphry Clinker_ (in
Melford's Letter of June 10), describes him as one 'who, after having
drudged half a century in the literary mill, in all the simplicity and
abstinence of an Asiatic, subsists upon the charity of a few
booksellers, just sufficient to keep him from the parish.' A writer in
the _Annual Register_ for 1764 (ii. 71), speaking of the latter part of
his life, says:--'He was concerned in compiling and writing works of
credit, and lived exemplarily for many years.' He died a few days before
that memorable sixteenth day of May 1763, when Boswell first met
Johnson. It is a pity that no record has been kept of the club meetings
in Ironmonger Row, for then we should have seen Johnson in a new light.
Johnson in an alehouse club, with a metaphysical tailor on one side of
him, and an aged writer on the other side of him, 'who spoke English
with the city accent and coarsely enough,'[1370] and whom he would never
venture to contradict, is a Johnson that we cannot easily imagine.
Of the greater part of Psalmanazar's life we know next to
nothing--little, I believe, beyond the few facts that I have here
gathered together. His early years he has described in his _Memoirs_.
That he started as one of the most shameless impostors, and that he
remained a hypocrite and a cheat till he was fully forty, if not indeed
longer, his own narrative shows. That for many years he lived
laboriously, frugally, and honestly seems to be no less certain. How far
his _Memoirs_ are truthful is somewhat doubtful. In them he certainly
confesses the impudent trick which he had played in his youth, when he
passed himself off as a Formosan convert. He wished, he writes, 'to
undeceive the world by unravelling that whole mystery of iniquity' (p.
5). He lays bare roguery enough, and in a spirit, it seems, of real
sorrow. Nevertheless there are passages which are not free from the
leaven of hypocrisy, and there are, I suspect, statements which are at
least partly false. Johnson, indeed, looked upon him as little less than
a saint; but then, as Sir Joshua Reynolds tells us, though 'Johnson was
not easily imposed upon by professions to honesty and candour, he
appeared to have little suspicion of hypocrisy in religion.'[1371] It was
in the year 1704 that Psalmanazar published his _Historical and
Geographical Description of Formosa_. So gross is the forgery that it
almost passes belief that it was widely accepted as a true narrative. He
gave himself out as a native of that island and a convert to
Christianity. He lied so foolishly as to maintain that in the Academies
of Formosa Greek was studied (p. 290). He asserted also that in an
island that is only about half as large as Ireland 18,000 boys were
sacrificed every year (p. 176). But his readers were for the most part
only too willing to be deceived; for in Protestant England his abuse of
the Jesuits covered a multitude of lies. Ere he had been three months in
London, he was, he writes (_Memoirs_, p. 179), 'cried up for a prodigy,
and not only the domestic, but even the foreign papers had helped to
blaze forth many things in his praise.' He was aided in his fraud by the
Rev. Dr. Innes, or Innys, a clergyman of the English Church, who by
means of his interesting convert pushed himself into the notice of
Compton, Bishop of London, and before long was made chaplain-general to
the English forces in Portugal (_Memoirs_, p. 191). The same man, as
Boswell tells us (_ante_, i. 359), by another impudent cheat, a second
time obtained 'considerable promotion.' Psalmanazar's book soon reached
a second edition, 'besides the several versions it had abroad' (p. 5).
Yet it is very dull reading--just such a piece of work as might be
looked for from a young man of little fancy, but gifted with a strong
memory. Nevertheless, the author's credit lasted so long, that for many
years he lived on a subscription 'which was founded on a belief of his
being a Formosan and a real convert to the Church of England' (p. 208).
He was even sent to Oxford to study, and had rooms in one of the
colleges--Christ Church, if I mistake not (p. 186). It was not only as a
student that he was sent by his dupes to that ancient seat of learning;
the Bishop of London hoped that he would 'teach the Formosan language to
a set of gentlemen who were afterwards to go with him to convert those
people to Christianity' (p. 161).
While he was living the life of a lying scoundrel, he was, he says (p.
192), 'happily restrained by Divine Grace,' so that 'all sense of
remorse was not extinguished,' and there was no fall into 'downright
infidelity.' At length he picked up Law's _Serious Call_, which moved
him, as later on it moved better men (_ante_, i. 68). Step by step he
got into a way of steady work, and lived henceforth a laborious and
honest life. It was in the year 1728, thirty-five years before his
death, that he began, he says, to write the narrative of his imposture
(p. 59). A dangerous illness and the dread of death had deeply moved
him, and filled him with the desire of leaving behind 'a faithful
narrative' which would 'undeceive the world.' Nineteen years later,
though he did not publish his narrative, he made a public confession of
his guilt. In the unsigned article on Formosa, which he wrote in 1747
for Bowen's _Complete System of Geography_ (ii. 251), he says,
'Psalmanaazaar [so he had at one time written his name] hath long since
ingenuously owned the contrary [of the truthfulness of his narrative]
though not in so public a manner, as he might perhaps have done, had not
such an avowment been likely to have affected some few persons who for
private ends took advantage of his youthful vanity to encourage him in
an imposture, which he might otherwise never had the thought, much less
the confidence, to have carried on. These persons being now dead, and
out of all danger of being hurt by it, he now gives us leave to assure
the world that the greatest part of that account was fabulous ... and
that he designs to leave behind him a faithful account of that unhappy
step, and other particulars of his life leading to it, to be published
after his death.'
In his _Memoirs_ he will not, he writes (p. 59), give any account 'of
his real country or family.' Yet it is quite clear from his own
narrative that he was born in the south of France. 'His pronunciation of
French had,' it was said, 'a spice of the Gascoin accent, and in that
provincial dialect he was so masterly that none but those born in the
country could excel him' (Preface, p. 1). If a town can be found that
answers to all that he tells of his birth-place, his whole account may
be true; but the circumstances that he mentions seem inconsistent. The
city in which he was born was twenty-four miles from an archiepiscopal
city in which there was a college of Jesuits (p. 67), and about sixty
miles from 'a noble great city full of gentry and nobility, of coaches,
and all kinds of grandeur,' the seat of a great university (pp. 76, 83).
When he left the great city for Avignon he speaks of himself as 'going
_down_ to Avignon' (p. 87). Thence he started on a pilgrimage to Rome,
and in order to avoid his native place, after he had gone no great way,
'he wheeled about to the left, to leave the place at some twenty or
thirty miles distance' (p. 101). He changed his mind, however, and
returned home. Thence he set off to join his father, who was 'near 500
miles off' in Germany (p. 60). 'The direct route was through the great
university city' and Lyons (p. 104). His birth-place then, if his
account is true, was on the road from Avignon to Rome, sixty miles from
a great university city and southwards of it, for through this
university city passed the direct road from his home to Lyons. It was,
moreover, sixty miles from an archiepiscopal city. I do not think that
such a place can be found. He says (p. 59) that he thought himself
'obliged out of respect to his country and family to conceal both, it
being but too common, though unjust, to censure them for the crimes of
private persons.' The excuse seems unsatisfactory, for he tells enough
to shew that he came from the South of France, while for his family
there was no need of care. It was, he writes, 'ancient but decayed,' and
he was the only surviving child. Of his father and mother he had heard
nothing since he started on the career of a pious rogue. They must have
been dead very many years by the time his _Memoirs_ were given to the
world. His story shews that at all events for the first part of his life
he had been one of the vainest of men, and vanity is commonly found
joined with a love of mystery. He is not consistent, moreover, in his
dates. On April 23, 1752, he was in the 73rd year of his age (p. 7); so
that he was born in either 1679 or 1680. When he joined his father he
was 'hardly full sixteen years old' (p. 112); yet it was a few years
after the Peace of Ryswick, which was signed on September 22, 1697. He
was, he says, 'but near twenty' when he wrote his _History of Formosa_
(p. 184). This was in the year 1704.
With his father he stayed but a short time, and then set out rambling
northwards. At Avignon, by shameless lying, he had obtained a pass 'as a
young student in theology, of Irish extract [_sic_] who had left his
country for the sake of religion' (p. 98). It was wonderful that his
fraud had escaped detection there, for he had kept his own name,
'because it had something of quality in it' (p. 99). He now resolved on
a more impudent pretence; for 'passing as an Irishman and a sufferer for
religion, did not only,' he writes, 'expose me to the danger of being
discovered, but came short of the merit and admiration I had expected
from it' (p. 112). He thereupon gave himself out as a Japanese convert,
and forged a fresh pass, 'clapping to it the old seal' (p. 116). He went
through different adventures, and at last enlisted in the army of the
Elector of Cologne--an 'unhappy herd, destitute of all sense of religion
and shamefacedness.' He got his discharge, but enlisted a second time,
'passing himself off for a Japanese and a heathen, under the name of
Salmanazar' (pp. 133-141). Later on he altered it, he says, 'by the
addition of a letter or two to make it somewhat different from that
mentioned in the _Book of Kings_' (Shalmaneser, II _Kings_, xvii. 3). In
his _Description of Formosa_ he wrote it Psalmanaazaar, and in later
life Psalmanazar. In his vanity he invented 'an awkward show of worship,
turning his face to the rising or setting sun, and pleased to be taken
notice of for so doing' (p. 144). He had moreover 'the ambition of
passing for a moral heathen' (p. 147). By way of singularity he next
took to living altogether upon raw flesh, roots, and herbs (p. 163).
It was when he was on garrison duty at Sluys that he became acquainted
with Innes, who was chaplain to a Scotch regiment that was in the pay of
the Dutch (p. 148). This man found in him a tool ready made to his hand.
He had at once seen through his roguery, but he used his knowledge only
to plunge him deeper in his guilt. By working on his fears and his
vanity and by small bribes he induced him to profess himself a convert
to the Church of England and to submit to baptism (p. 158). He brought
him over to London, and introduced him to the Bishop of London, and to
Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury (pp. 164, 179). Psalmanazar spoke
Latin fluently, but 'his Grace had either forgotten his, or being unused
to the foreign pronunciation was forced to have it interpreted to him by
Dr. Innes in English' (p. 178). The young impostor everywhere gave
himself out as a Formosan who had been entrapped by a Jesuit priest, and
brought to Avignon. 'There I could expect,' he wrote, 'no mercy from the
Inquisitors, if I had not in hypocrisy professed their religion'
(_History of Formosa_, p. 25). He was kept, he says, in a kind of
custody, 'but I trusted under God to my heels' (p. 24). It was Innes who
made him write this _History_.
In the confession of his fraud Psalmanazar seems to keep back nothing.
His repentance appears to be sincere, and his later life, there can be
little question, was regular. Yet, as I have said, even his confessions
apparently are not free from the old leaven of hypocrisy. It is indeed
very hard, if not altogether impossible, for a man who has passed forty
years and more as a lying hypocrite altogether to 'clear his mind of
cant.' In writing of the time when he was still living the life of a
lying scoundrel, he says:--'I have great reason to acknowledge it the
greatest mercy that could befall me, that I was so well grounded in the
principles and evidence of the Christian religion, that neither the
conversation of the then freethinkers, as they loved to stile
themselves, and by many of whom I was severely attacked, nor the
writings of Hobbes, Spinosa, &c. against the truth of Divine revelation
could appear to me in any other light than as the vain efforts of a
dangerous set of men to overturn a religion, the best founded and most
judiciously calculated to promote the peace and happiness of mankind,
both temporal and eternal' (_Memoirs_, p. 192). Two pages further on he
writes, a little boastfully it seems, of having had 'some sort of
gallantry with the fair sex; with many of whom, even persons of fortune
and character, of sense, wit, and learning, I was become,' he continues,
'a great favourite, and might, if I could have overcome my natural
sheepishness and fear of a repulse, have been more successful either by
way of matrimony or intrigue.' He goes on:--'I may truly say, that
hardly any man who might have enjoyed so great a variety ever indulged
himself in so few instances of the unlawful kind as I have done.' He
concludes this passage in his writings by 'thankfully acknowledging that
there must have been some secret providence that kept me from giving
such way to unlawful amours as I might otherwise have done, to the ruin
of my health, circumstances,' &c.
When he came to wish for an honest way of life he was beset with
difficulties. 'What a deadly wound,' he writes, 'must such an unexpected
confession have given to my natural vanity, and what a mortification
would it have been to such sincere honest people [as my friends] to hear
it from my mouth!' (p. 213.) This was natural enough. That he long
hesitated, like a coward, on the brink is not to be cast in his teeth,
seeing that at last he took the plunge. But then in speaking of the time
when he weakly repeated, and to use his own words, 'as it were confirmed
anew,' his old falsehoods, he should not have written that 'as the
assurance of God's mercy gave me good grounds to hope, so that hope
inspired me with a design to use all proper means to obtain it, and
leave the issue of it to his Divine Providence' (p. 214). The only
proper means to obtain God's mercy was at once to own to all the world
that he had lied. It is only the Tartuffes and the Holy Willies who,
whilst they persist in their guilt, talk of leaving the issue to the
Divine Providence of God.
Since this Appendix was in type I have learnt, through the kindness of
Mr. C.E. Doble, the editor of Hearne's _Remarks and Collections_, ed.
1885, that a passage in that book (i. 271), confirms my conjecture that
Psalmanazar was lodged in Christ Church when at Oxford. Hearne says
(July 9, 1706):--'Mr. Topping of Christ Church ... also tells me that
Salmanezzer, the famous Formosan, when he left Christ Church (where he
resided while in Oxon) left behind him a Book in MSt., wherein a
distinct acct was given of the Consular and Imperial coyns by himself.'
Mr. Doble has also pointed out to me in the first edition of the
_Spectator_ the following passage at the end of No. 14:--
'ADVERTISEMENT.
'On the first of April will be performed at the Play-house in the
Hay-market an opera call'd _The Cruelty of Atreus_. N.B. The Scene
wherein Thyestes eats his own children is to be performed by the famous
Mr. Psalmanazar lately arrived from Formosa: The whole Supper being set
to Kettle-drums.'
* * * * *