_A letter about a cancel in Johnson's 'Journey to the Western Islands
of Scotland', dated Nov. 30_, 1774.[In the possession of Messrs. Pearson
and Co., 46, Pall Mall.]
'SIR,
'I waited on you this morning having forgotten your new engagement; for
this you must not reproach me, for if I had looked upon your present
station with malignity I could not have forgotten it. I came to consult
you upon a little matter that gives me some uneasiness. In one of the
pages there is a severe censure of the clergy of an English Cathedral
which I am afraid is just, but I have since recollected that from me
it may be thought improper, for the Dean did me a kindness about forty
years ago. He is now very old, and I am not young. Reproach can do
him no good, and in myself I know not whether it is zeal or wantonness.
Can a leaf be cancelled without too much trouble? tell me what I shall
do. I have no settled choice, but I would not wish to allow the charge.
To cancel it seems the surer side. Determine for me.
'I am, Sir, Your most humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Nov. 30, 1774.
'Tell me your mind: if you will cancel it I will write something to fill
up the vacuum. Please to direct to the borough.'
Mr. Strahan's 'new engagement' was in the House of Commons at Westminster,
to which he had been elected for the first time as member for Malmesbury.
The new Parliament had met on Nov. 29, the day before the date of
Johnson's letter (_Parl. Hist_, xviii. 23).
The leaf that Johnson cancelled contained pages 47, 48 in the first
edition of his _Journey to the Western Islands_. It corresponds with
pages 19-30 in vol. ix. of Johnson's _Works_ (ed. 1825), beginning
with the words 'could not enter,' and ending 'imperfect constitution.'
The excision is marked by a ridge of paper, which was left that the
revised leaf might be attached to it. Johnson describes how the lead
which covered the Cathedrals of Elgin and Aberdeen had been stripped
off by the order of the Scottish Council, and shipped to be sold in
Holland. He continues:--'Let us not however make too much haste to
despise our neighbours. Our own cathedrals are mouldering by unregarded
dilapidation. It seems to be part of the despicable philosophy of the
time to despise monuments of sacred magnificence, and we are in danger
of doing that deliberately, which the Scots did not do but in the
unsettled state of an imperfect constitution.'
In the copy of the first edition in the Bodleian Library, which had
belonged to Gough the antiquary, there is written in his hand, as a
foot-note to 'neighbours': 'There is now, as I have heard, a body
of men not less decent or virtuous than the Scottish Council, longing
to melt the lead of an English Cathedral. What they shall melt, it
were just that they should swallow.' It can scarcely be doubted that
this is the suppressed passage. The English Cathedral to which Johnson
refers was, I believe, Lichfield. 'The roof,' says Harwood (History of
Lichfield, p. 75), 'was formerly covered with lead, but now with slate.'
Addenbroke, who had been Dean since 1745, was, we may assume, very old
at the time when Johnson wrote. I had at first thought it not unlikely
that it was Dr. Thomas Newton, Dean of St. Paul's and Bishop of Bristol,
who was censured. He was a Lichfield man, and was known to Johnson (see
_ante_, iv. 285, n. 3). He was, however, only seventy years old. I am
informed moreover by the Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson, the learned editor
of _Documents illustrating the History of St. Paul's_, that it is
very improbable that at this time the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's
entertained such a thought.
My friend Mr. C. E. Doble has kindly furnished me with the following
curious parallel to Johnson's suppressed wish about the molten lead.
'The chappell of our Lady [at Wells], late repayred by Stillington,
a place of great reverence and antiquitie, was likewise defaced, and
such was their thirst after lead (I would they had drunke it scalding)
that they tooke the dead bodies of bishops out of their leaden coffins,
and cast abroad the carkases skarce throughly putrified.'--Harington's
_Nuga Antiquae_, ii. 147 (ed. 1804).
In the postscript Johnson says 'Please to direct to the borough.' He
was staying in Mr. Thrale's town-house in the Borough of Southwark.
(See _ante_, i, 493.)