'Anna Norton, Henrici Porter
Filia
Nuper de Edgberston in Com. Warw. Generosi;
Vidua Thomae Norton....
Haec annis et pietate matura vitam deposuit.
Maii 14, 1698.'
_A Brief Description of the Collegiate Church of St. Mary in Warwick_,
published by Grafton and Reddell, Birmingham; no date.
_Mrs. Williams's account of Mrs. Johnson and her sons by her former
marriage_. (Vol. i, p. 95.)
The following note by Malone I failed to quote in the right place. It
is copied from a paper, written by Lady Knight.
'Mrs. Williams's account of Mrs. Johnson was, that she had a good
understanding and great sensibility, but inclined to be satirical. Her
first husband died insolvent [this is a mistake, see _ante_, i. 95,
n. 3]; her sons were much disgusted with her for her second marriage;
... however, she always retained her affection for them. While they
[Mr. and Mrs. Johnson] resided in Gough Square, her son, the officer,
knocked at the door, and asked the maid if her mistress was at home.
She answered, "Yes, Sir, but she is sick in bed." "Oh," says he, "if
it's so, tell her that her son Jervis called to know how she did;" and
was going away. The maid begged she might run up to tell her mistress,
and, without attending his answer, left him. Mrs. Johnson, enraptured
to hear her son was below, desired the maid to tell him she longed to
embrace him. When the maid descended the gentleman was gone, and poor
Mrs. Johnson was much agitated by the adventure; it was the only time
he ever made an effort to see her. Dr. [Mr.] Johnson did all he could
to console his wife, but told Mrs. Williams: "Her son is uniformly
undutiful; so I conclude, like many other sober men, he might once in
his life be drunk, and in that fit nature got the better of his pride."'
_Johnson's application for the mastership of the Grammar School at
Solihull in Warwickshire_.
(Vol. i, p. 96.)
Johnson, a few weeks after his marriage, applied for the mastership of
Solihull Grammar School, as is shown by the following letter, preserved
in the Pembroke College MSS., addressed to Mr. Walmsley, and quoted by
Mr. Croker. I failed to insert it in my notes.
_'Solihull, the 30 August 1735._
'SIR,
'I was favoured with yours of the 13th inst. in due time, but deferred
answering it til now, it takeing up some time to informe the Foeofees
of the contents thereof; and before they would return an Answer, desired
some time to make enquiry of the caracter of Mr. Johnson, who all agree
that he is an excellent scholar, and upon that account deserves much
better than to be schoolmaster of Solihull. But then he has the caracter
of being a very haughty, ill-natured gent., and that he has such a way of
distorting his Face (which though he can't help) the gent, think it
may affect some young ladds; for these two reasons he is not approved
on, the late master Mr. Crompton's huffing the Foeofees being stil in
their memory. However, we are all exstreamly obliged to you for thinking
of us, and for proposeing so good a schollar, but more especially is,
dear sir,
'Your very humble servant,
'HENRY GRESWOLD.'
_Johnson's knowledge of Italian_.
(Vol. i, p. 115.)
Boswell says that he does not know 'at what time, or by what means
Johnson had acquired a competent knowledge of Italian.' In my note
on this I say 'he had read Petrarch "when but a boy."' As Petrarch
wrote chiefly in Latin, it is quite possible that Johnson did not
acquire his knowledge of Italian so early as I had thought.
_Johnson's deference for the general opinion_.
(Vol. i, p. 200.)
Miss Burney records an interesting piece of criticism by Johnson. 'There
are,' he said, 'three distinct kinds of judges upon all new authors or
productions; the first are those who know no rules, but pronounce
entirely from their natural taste and feelings; the second are those who
know and judge by rules; and the third are those who know, but are above
the rules. These last are those you should wish to satisfy. Next to them
rate the natural judges; but ever despise those opinions that are formed
by the rules.'--_Mine. D'Arblay's Diary_, i. 180. Later on she writes:
--'The natural feelings of untaught hearers ought never to be slighted;
and Dr. Johnson has told me the same a thousand times;' ib. ii. 128.
_Johnson in the Green Room_.
(Vol. i, p. 201.)
Mr. Richard Herne Shepherd, in _Watford's Antiquarian_ for January,
1887, p. 34, asserts that the actual words which Johnson used when
he told Garrick that he would no longer frequent his Green Room were
indecent; so indecent that Mr. Shepherd can only venture to satisfy
those whom he calls students by informing them of them privately. For
proof of this charge against the man whose boast it was that 'obscenity
had always been repressed in his company' (_ante_, iv. 295) he brings
forward John Wilkes. The story, indeed, as it is told by Boswell, is
not too trustworthy, for he had it through Hume from Garrick. As it
reaches Mr. Shepherd it comes from Garrick through Wilkes. Garrick, no
doubt, as Johnson says (_ante_, v. 391), was, as a companion, 'restrained
by some principle,' and had 'some delicacy of feeling.' Nevertheless,
in his stories, he was, we may be sure, no more on oath than a man is
in lapidary inscriptions (_ante_, ii. 407). It is possible that he
reported Johnson's very words to Hume, and that Hume did not change
them in reporting them to Boswell. Whatever they were, they were spoken
in 1749 and published in 1791, when Johnson had been dead six years,
Garrick twelve years, and Hume fourteen years. It is idle to dream that
they can now be conjecturally emended. But it is worse than idle to
bring in as evidence John Wilkes. What entered his ear as purity itself
might issue from his mouth as the grossest obscenity. He had no delicacy
of feeling. No principle restrained him. When he comes to bear testimony,
and aims a shaft at any man's character, the bow that he draws is drawn
with the weakness of the hand of a worn-out and shameless profligate.
Mr. Shepherd quotes an unpublished letter of Boswell to Wilkes, dated
Rome, April 22, 1765, to show 'that the two men had become familiars,
not only long before Wilkes's famous meeting with Dr. Johnson was brought
about, but before even the friendship of Boswell himself with Johnson
had been consolidated.' It needs no unpublished letters to show that. It
must be known to every attentive reader of Boswell. See _ante_, i. 395,
and ii. 11.
_Frederick III, King of Prussia_.
(Vol. i, p. 308.)
Boswell should have written Frederick II.
_Boswell's visit to Rousseau and Voltaire_.
(Vol. i, p. 434; and vol. ii, p. 11.)
_Boswell to Andrew Mitchell, Esq., His Britannic Majesty's
Minister at Berlin_.
'Berlin, 28 August, 1764.
... 'I have had another letter from my father, in which he continues of
opinion that travelling is of very little use, and may do a great deal
of harm. ... I esteem and love my father, and I am determined to do what
is in my power to make him easy and happy. But you will allow that I
may endeavour to make him happy, and at the same time not to be too hard
upon myself. I must use you so much with the freedom of a friend as to
tell you that with the vivacity which you allowed me I have a melancholy
disposition. I have made excursions into the fields of amusement, perhaps
of folly. I have found that amusement and folly are beneath me, and that
without some laudable pursuit my life must be insipid and wearisome.....
My father seems much against my going to Italy, but gives me leave to go
from this, and pass some months in Paris. I own that the words of the
Apostle Paul, "I must see Rome," are strongly _borne in_ upon my mind. It
would give me infinite pleasure. It would give taste for a life-time,
and I should go home to Auchinleck with serene contentment.'