A heart so manly and so kind!”
In one place, we are told, that Allan Ramsay, the painter, was born in
1709, and died in 1784; (1) in another, that he died in 1784, in the
seventy-first year of his age. (2)
In one place, Mr. Croker says, that at the commencement of the intimacy
between Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, in 1765, the lady was twenty-five
years old. (3) In other places he says, that Mrs. Thrale’s thirty-fifth
year coincided with Johnson’s seventieth.(4) Johnson was born in 1709.
If, therefore, Mrs. Thrale’s thirty-fifth year coincided with Johnson’s
seventieth, she could have been only twenty-one years old in 1765. This
is not all. Mr. Croker, in another place, assigns the year 1777 as the
date of the complimentary lines which Johnson made on Mrs. Thrale’s
thirty-fifth birth-day. (5) If this date be correct, Mrs. Thrale must
have been born in 1742, and could have been only twenty-three when her
acquaintance with Johnson commenced. Mr. Croker therefore gives us three
different statements as to her age. Two of the three must be incorrect.
We will not decide between them; we will only say, that the reasons
which Mr. Croker gives for thinking that Mrs. Thrale was exactly
thirty-five years old when Johnson was seventy, appear to us utterly
frivolous.
(1) IV. 105.
(2) V. 281.
(3) I. 510.
(4) IV. 271. 322.
(5) III. 463. {371}Again, Mil Croker informs his readers
that “Lord Mansfield survived Johnson full ten years.” (1)
Lord Mansfield survived Dr. Johnson just eight years and a
quarter.
Johnson found in the Library of a French lady, whom he visited during
his short visit to Paris, some works which he regarded with great
disdain. “I looked,” says he, “into the books in the lady’s closet, and,
in contempt, showed them to Mr. Thrale. Prince Titi, Bibliothèque des
Fées, and other books.” (2) “The History of Prince Titi,” observes Mr.
Croker, “was said to be the autobiography of Frederick Prince of Wales,
but was probably written by Ralph his secretary.” A more absurd note
never was penned. The history of Prince Titi, to which Mr. Croker
refers, whether written by Prince Frederick or by Ralph, was certainly
never published. If Mr. Croker had taken the trouble to read with
attention that very passage in Park’s Royal and Noble Authors which he
cites as his authority, he would have seen that the manuscript was given
up to the government. Even if this memoir had been printed, it is not
very likely to find its way into a French lady’s bookcase. And would any
man in his senses speak contemptuously of a French lady, for having in
her possession an English work, so curious and interesting as a Life
of Prince Frederick, whether written by himself or by a confidential
secretary, must have been? The history at which Johnson laughed was a
very proper companion to the Bibliothèque des Fées, a fairy tale about
good Prince Titi and naughty Prince Violent. Mr. Croker may find it in
the Magasin des Enfans, the first French book which the little girls of
England read to their governesses.
(1) II. 151.
(2) III. 271.
{372}Mr. Croker states that Mr. Henry Bate, who afterwards assumed the
name of Dudley, was proprietor of the Morning Herald, and fought a duel
with George Robinson Stoney, in consequence of some attacks on Lady
Strathmore which appeared in that paper.(1) Now Mr. Bate was then
connected, not with the Morning Herald, but with the Morning Post; and
the dispute took place before the Morning Herald was in existence. The
duel was fought in January, 1777. The Chronicle of the Annual Register
for that year contains an account of the transaction, and distinctly
states that Mr. Bate was editor of the Morning Post. The Morning
Herald, as any person may see by looking at any number of it, was not
established till some years after this affair. For this blunder there
is, we must acknowledge, some excuse: for it certainly seems almost
incredible to a person living in our time that any human being should
ever have stooped to fight with a writer in the Morning Post.
“James de Duglas,” says Mr. Croker, “was requested by King Robert Bruce,
in his last hours, to repair, with his heart to Jerusalem, land humbly
to deposit it at the sepulchre of our Lord, which he did in 1329."(2)
Now, it is well known that he did no such thing, and for a very
sufficient reason, because he was killed by the way. Nor was it in
1329 that he set out. Robert Bruce died in 1329, and the expedition of
Douglas took place in the following year, “Quand le printems vint et
la saison,” says Froissart, in June, 1330, says Lord Hailes, whom Mr.
Croker cites as the authority for his statement.
Mr. Croker tells us that the great Marquis of Montrose was beheaded at
Edinburgh in 1650.(3) There is not
(1) V. 196.
(2) IV. 29.
(3) II. 526.
a {373}forward boy at any school in England who does not know that the
marquis was hanged. The account of the execution is one of the finest
passages in Lord Clarendon’s History. We can scarcely suppose that Mr.
Croker has never read that passage; and yet we can scarcely suppose that
any person who has ever perused so noble and pathetic a story can have
utterly forgotten all its most striking circumstances.
“Lord Townshend,” says Mr. Croker, “was not secretary of state till
1720."(1) Can Mr. Croker possibly be ignorant that Lord Townshend was
made secretary of state at the accession of George I. in 1714, that
he continued to be secretary of state till he was displaced by the
intrigues of Sunderland and Stanhope at the close of 1710, and that he
returned to the office of secretary of state, not in 1720, but in 1721?
Mr. Croker, indeed, is generally unfortunate in his statements
respecting the Townshend family. He tells us that Charles Townshend, the
chancellor of the exchequer, was “nephew of the prime minister, and son
of a peer who was secretary of state, and leader of the House of Lords.”
(2) Charles Townshend was not nephew, but grandnephew, of the Duke
of Newcastle, not son, but grandson, of the Lord Townshend who was
secretary of state, and leader of the House of Lords.
“General Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga,” says Mr. Croker, “in March,
1778.” (3) General Burgoyne surrendered on the 17th of October, 1777.
“Nothing,” says Mr. Croker, “can be more unfounded than the assertion
that Byng fell a martyr _to political party_. By a strange coincidence
of circumstances, it happened that there was a total change of
administration between his condemnation and his death:
(1) III. 52.
(2) III. 368.
(3) IV. 222.
{374}so that one party presided at his trial, and another at his
execution: there can be no stronger proof that he was _not_ a political
martyr.” (1) Now what will our readers think of this writer, when we
assure them that this statement, so confidently made, respecting events
so notorious, is absolutely untrue? One and the same administration was
in office when the court-martial on Byng commenced its sittings, through
the whole trial, at the condemnation, and at the execution. In the month
of November, 1756, the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke resigned;
the Duke of Devonshire became first lord of the treasury, and Mr. Pitt,
secretary of state. This administration lasted till the month of April,
1757. Byng’s court-martial began to sit on the 28th of December, 1756.
He was shot on the 14th of March, 1757. There is something at once
diverting and provoking in the cool and authoritative manner in which
Mr. Croker makes these random assertions. We do not suspect him of
intentionally falsifying history. But of this high literary misdemeanour
we do without hesitation accuse him, that he has no adequate sense of
the obligation which a writer, who professes to relate facts, owes to
the public. We accuse him of a negligence and an ignorance analogous to
that _crassa negligentia,_ and that _crassa ignorantia_, on which
the law animadverts in magistrates and surgeons, even when malice and
corruption are not imputed. We accuse him of having undertaken a work
which, if not performed with strict accuracy, must be very much worse
than useless, and of having performed it as if the difference between
an accurate and an inaccurate statement was not worth the trouble of
looking into the most common book of reference.
(1) 1. 298.
{375}But we must proceed. These volumes contain mistakes more gross, if
possible, than any that we have yet mentioned. Boswell has recorded some
observations made by Johnson on the changes which had taken place in
Gibbon’s religious opinions. That Gibbon when a lad at Oxford turned
Catholic is well known.
“It is said,” cried Johnson, laughing, “that he has been a Mahommedan.”
“This sarcasm,” says the editor, “probably alludes to the tenderness
with which Gibbon’s malevolence to Christianity induced him to treat
Mahommedanism in his history.” Now the sarcasm was uttered in 1770; and
that part of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
which relates to Mahommedanism was not published till 1788, twelve years
after the date of this conversation, and near four years after the death
of Johnson. (1)
“It was in the year 1701,” says Mr. Croker, “that Goldsmith published
his Vicar of Wakefield. This
(1) _A defence of this blunder was attempted. That the
celebrated chapters in which Gibbon has traced the progress
of Mahommedanism were not written in 1776 could not be
denied. But it was confidently asserted that his partiality
to Mahommedanism appeared in his first volume. This
assertion is untrue. No passage which can by any art be
construed into the faintest indication of the faintest
partiality for Mahommedanism has ever been quoted or ever
will be quoted from the first volume of the History of the
Decline and Fall of the Woman Empire.
To what then, it has been asked, could Johnson allude?
Possibly to some anecdote or some conversation of which all
trace is lost. One conjecture may be offered, though with
diffidence. Gibbon tells us in his memoirs, that at Oxford
he took a fancy for studying Arabic, and was prevented from
doing so by the remonstrances of his tutor. Soon after this,
the young man fell in with Bossuet’s controversial writings,
and was speedily converted by them to the Roman Catholic
faith. The apostasy of a gentleman commoner would of course
be for a time the chief subject of conversation in the
common room of Magdalene. His whim about Arabic learning
would naturally be mentioned, and would give occasion to
some jokes about the probability of his turning Mussulman.
If such jokes were made, Johnson, who frequently visited
Oxford, was very likely to hear of them._
{376}leads the editor to observe a more serious inaccuracy of Mrs.
Piozzi, than Mr. Boswell notices, when he says Johnson left her table
to go and sell the Vicar of Wakefield for Goldsmith. Now Dr. Johnson was
not acquainted with the Thrales till 1765, four years after the book had
been published.” (1) Mr. Croker, in reprehending the fancied inaccuracy
of Mrs. Thrale, has himself shown a degree of inaccuracy, or, to speak
more properly, a degree of ignorance, hardly credible. In the first
place, Johnson became acquainted with the Thrales, not in 1765, but in
1764, and during the last weeks of 1764 dined with them every Thursday,
as is written in Mrs. Piozzi’s anecdotes. In the second place, Goldsmith
published the Vicar of Wakefield, not in 1761, but in 1766. Mrs. Thrale
does not pretend to remember the precise date of the summons which
called Johnson from her table to the help of his friend. She says only
that it was near the beginning of her acquaintance with Johnson, and
certainly not later than 1766. Her accuracy is therefore completely
vindicated. It was probably after one of her Thursday dinners in 1764
that the celebrated scene of the landlady, the sheriff’s officer, and
the bottle of Madeira, took place. (2)
The very page which contains this monstrous blunder, contains another
blunder, if possible, more monstrous still. Sir Joseph Mawbey, a foolish
member of Parliament, at whose speeches and whose pig-styes the wits
of Brookes’s were, fifty years ago, in the habit of laughing most
unmercifully, stated, on the authority of Garrick, that Johnson, while
sitting in a coffee-house
(1) V. 409.
(2) This paragraph has been altered; and a slight inaccuracy
immaterial to the argument, has been removed.
{377}at Oxford, about the time of his doctor’s degree, used some
contemptuous expressions respecting Home’s play and Macpherson’s Ossian.
“Many men,” he said, “many women, and many children, might have written
Douglas.” Mr. Croker conceives that he has detected an inaccuracy, and
glories over poor Sir Joseph in a most characteristic manner. “I have
quoted this anecdote solely with the view of showing to how little
credit hearsay anecdotes are in general entitled. Here is a story
published by Sir Joseph Mawbey, a member of the House of Commons, and a
person every way worthy of credit, who says he had it from Garrick. Now
mark: Johnson’s visit to Oxford, about the time of his doctor’s
degree, was in 1754, the first time he had been there since he left
the university. But Douglas was not acted till 1750, and Ossian not
published till 1760. All, therefore, that is new in Sir Joseph Mawbey’s
story is false.” (1) Assuredly we need not go far to find ample proof
that a member of the House of Commons may commit a very gross error. Now
mark, say we, in the language of Mr. Croker. The fact is, that Johnson
took his Master’s degree in 1754 (2) and his Doctor’s degree in 1775.
(3) In the spring of 1776, (4) he paid a visit to Oxford, and at this
visit a conversation respecting the works of Home and Macpherson might
have taken place, and, in all probability, did take place. The only real
objection to the story Mr. Croker has missed. Boswell states, apparently
on the best authority, that as early at least as the year 1703, Johnson,
in conversation with Blair, used the same expressions respecting Ossian,
which Sir Joseph represents him as having used respecting Douglas. (5)
Sir Joseph, or Garrick, confounded,
(1) V. 109.
(2) I. 262.
(3) III. 205.
(4) III. 326.
(5) I. 405.
{378}we suspect, the two stories. But their error is venial, compared
with that of Mr. Croker.
We will not multiply instances of this scandalous inaccuracy. It is
clear that a writer who, even when warned by the text on which he
is commenting, falls into such mistakes as these, is entitled to no
confidence whatever. Mr. Croker has committed an error of five years
with respect to the publication of Goldsmith’s novel, an error of twelve
years with respect to the publication of part of Gibbon’s History, an
error of twenty-one years with respect to an event in Johnson’s life
so important as the taking of the doctoral degree. Two of these three
errors he has committed, while ostentatiously displaying his own
accuracy, and correcting what he represents as the loose assertions of
others. How can his readers take on trust his statements concerning
the births, marriages, divorces, and deaths of a crowd of people, whose
names are scarcely known to this generation? It is not likely that a
person who is ignorant of what almost every body knows can know that of
which almost every body is ignorant. We did not open this book with any
wish to find blemishes in it. We have made no curious researches. The
work itself, and a very common knowledge of literary and political
history, have enabled us to detect the mistakes which we have pointed
out, and many other mistakes of the same kind. We must say, and we say
it with regret, that we do not consider the authority of Mr. Croker,
unsupported by other evidence, as sufficient to justify any writer who
may follow him in relating a single anecdote or in assigning a date to a
single event.
Mr. Croker shows almost as much ignorance and heedlessness in his
criticisms as in his statements concerning {379}facts. Dr. Johnson said,
very reasonably as it appears to us, that some of the satires of Juvenal
are too gross for imitation. Mr. Croker, who, by the way, is angry with
Johnson for defending Prior’s tales against the charge of indecency,
resents this aspersion on Juvenal, and indeed refuses to believe that
the doctor can have said any thing so absurd. He probably said--some
_passages_ of them--for there are none of Juvenal’s satires to which
the same objection may be made as to one of Horace’s, that it is
_altogether_ gross and licentious. (1) Surely Mr. Croker can never have
read the second and ninth satires of Juvenal.
Indeed the decisions of this editor on points of classical learning,
though pronounced in a very authoritative tone, are generally such that,
if a schoolboy under our care were to utter them, our soul assuredly
should not spare for his crying. It is no disgrace to a gentleman who
has been engaged during near thirty years in political life that he has
forgotten his Greek and Latin. But he becomes justly ridiculous if,
when no longer able to construe a plain sentence, he affects to sit in
judgment on the most delicate questions of style and metre. From one
blunder, a blunder which no good scholar would have made, Mr. Croker
was saved, as he informs us, by Sir Robert Peel, who quoted a passage
exactly in point from Horace. We heartily wish that Sir Robert,
whose classical attainments are well known, had been more frequently
consulted. Unhappily he was not always at his friend’s elbow; and we
have therefore a rich abundance of the strangest errors. Boswell has
preserved a poor epigram by Johnson, inscribed “Ad Lan ram parituram.”
Mr. Croker censures the poet for applying the word puella to a lady in
(1) I. 167
{380}Laura’s situation, and for talking of the beauty of Lucina.
“Lucina,” he says, “was never lamed for her beauty.” (1) If Sir Robert
Peel had seen this note, he probably would have again refuted Mr.
Croker’s criticisms by an appeal to Horace. In the secular ode, Lucina
is used as one of the names of Diana, and the beauty of Diana is
extolled by all the most orthodox doctors of the ancient mythology, from
Homer in his Odyssey, to Claudian in his Rape of Proserpine. In another
ode, Horace describes Diana as the goddess who assists the “laborantes
utero paellas.” But we are ashamed to detain our readers with this
fourth-form learning.
Boswell found, in his tour to the Hebrides, an inscription written by
a Scotch minister. It runs thus: “Joannes Macleod, &c., gentis suæ
Philarchus, &c., Floræ Macdonald matrimoniali vinculo conjugatus turrem
hanc Beganodunensem proævorum habitaculum longe vetustissimum, diu
penitus labefactatam, anno æræ vulgaris mdcdxxxvi. instauravit.”--“The
minister,” says Mr. Croker, “seems to have been no contemptible
Latinist. Is not Philarchus a very happy term to express the paternal
and kindly authority of the head of a clan?” (2) The composition of this
eminent Latinist, short as it is, contains several words that are just
as much Coptic as Latin, to say nothing of the incorrect structure
of the sentence. The word Philarchus, even if it were a happy term
expressing a paternal and kindly authority, would prove nothing for the
minister’s Latin, whatever it might prove for his Greek. But it is clear
that the word Philarchus means, not a man who rules by love, but a man
who loves rule. The Attic writers of the best age used
(1) I. 133.
(II.) 458.
[Illustration: 0387]
{381}the word [Greek] in the sense which we assign to it. Would Mr.
Croker translate [Greek], a man who acquires wisdom by means of love, or
[Greek], a man who makes money by means of love? In fact, it requires no
Bentley or Casaubon to perceive, that Philarchus is merely a false
spelling for Phylarchus, the chief of a tribe.
Mr. Johnson was not a first-rate Greek scholar; but he knew more Greek
than most boys when they leave school; and no schoolboy could venture to
use the word [Greek] in the sense which Mr. Croker ascribes to it
without imminent danger of a flogging.
Mr. Croker has also given us a specimen of his skill in translating
Latin. Johnson wrote a note in which he consulted his friend Dr.
Lawrence, on the propriety of losing some blood. The note contains these
words:--“Si per te licet, imperatur nuncio Holderum ad me deducere.”
Johnson should rather have written “imperatum est.” But the meaning of
the words is perfectly clear. “If you say yes, the messenger has orders
to bring Holder to me.” Mr. Broker translates the words as follows: “If
you consent, pray tell the