[459] She was his god-daughter. See _post_, May 10, 1784.
[460] 'Dr. Johnson gave a very droll account of the children of Mr.
Langton, "who," he said, "might be very good children, if they were let
alone; but the father is never easy when he is not making them do
something which they cannot do; they must repeat a fable, or a speech,
or the Hebrew alphabet, and they might as well count twenty for what
they know of the matter; however, the father says half, for he prompts
every other word."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 73. See _ante_, p.
20, note 2.
[461] A part of this letter having been torn off, I have, from the
evident meaning, supplied a few words and half-words at the ends and
beginnings of lines. BOSWELL.
[462] See vol. ii. p. 459. BOSWELL. She was Hector's widowed sister, and
Johnson's first love. In the previous October, writing of a visit to
Birmingham, he said:--'Mrs. Careless took me under her care, and told me
when I had tea enough.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 205.
[463] This letter cannot belong to this year. In it Johnson says of his
health, 'at least it is not worse.' But 1782 found him in very bad
health; he passed almost the whole of the year 'in a succession of
disorders' (_post_, p. 156). What he says of friendship renders it
almost certain that the letter was written while he had still Thrale;
and him he lost in April, 1781. Had it been written after June, 1779,
but before Thrale's death, the account given of health would have been
even better than it is (_ante_, iii. 397). It belongs perhaps to the
year 1777 or 1778.
[464] 'To a man who has survived all the companions of his youth ...
this full-peopled world is a dismal solitude.' _Rambler_, No. 69.
[465] See _ante_, i. 63.
[466] They met on these days in the years 1772, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 81, and
3.
[467] The ministry had resigned on the 20th. _Ante_, p. 139, note 1.
[468] Thirty-two years earlier he wrote in _The Rambler_, No. 53:-'In
the prospect of poverty there is nothing but gloom and melancholy; the
mind and body suffer together; its miseries bring no alleviation; it is
a state in which every virtue is obscured, and in which no conduct can
avoid reproach.' And again in No. 57:--'The prospect of penury in age is
so gloomy and terrifying, that every man who looks before him must
resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of
sparing.' See _ante_. 441.
[469] See _ante_, p. 128.
[470] Hannah More wrote in April of this year (_Memoirs_, i.
249):--'Poor Johnson is in a bad state of health. I fear his
constitution is broken up.' (Yet in one week he dined out four times.
_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 237.) At one of these dinners, 'I urged him,' she
continues (_ib_. p. 251) 'to take a _little_ wine. He replied, "I can't
drink a _little_, child; therefore, I never touch it. Abstinence is as
easy to me as temperance would be difficult." He was very good-humoured
and gay. One of the company happened to say a word about poetry, "Hush,
hush," said he, "it is dangerous to say a word of poetry before her; it
is talking of the art of war before Hannibal."'
[471] This book was published in 1781, and, according to Lowndes,
reached its seventh edition by 1787. See _ante_, i. 214.
[472] The clergyman's letter was dated May 4. _Gent. Mag._ 1786, p. 93.
Johnson is explaining the reason of his delay in acknowledging it.
[473] What follows appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ of May 29,
1782:--'A correspondent having mentioned, in the _Morning Chronicle_ of
December 12, the last clause of the following paragraph, as seeming to
favour suicide; we are requested to print the whole passage, that its
true meaning may appear, which is not to recommend suicide but exercise.
'Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are
decreed: but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the
association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be
disjoined by an easy separation. It was a principle among the ancients,
that acute diseases are from Heaven, and chronical from ourselves; the
dart of death, indeed, falls from Heaven, but we poison it by our own
misconduct: to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish
is generally his folly.' [_The Rambler_, No. 85.] BOSWELL.
[474] The Correspondence may be seen at length in the _Gent. Mag._ Feb.
1786. BOSWELL. Johnson, advising Dr. Taylor 'to take as much exercise as
he can bear,' says:-'I take the true definition of exercise to be labour
without weariness.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 461.
[475] Here he met Hannah More. 'You cannot imagine,' she writes
(_Memoirs_, i. 261), 'with what delight he showed me every part of his
own college. Dr. Adams had contrived a very pretty piece of gallantry.
We spent the day and evening at his house. After dinner, Johnson begged
to conduct me to see the College; he would let no one show it me but
himself. "This was my room; this Shenstone's." Then, after pointing out
all the rooms of the poets who had been of his college, "In short," said
he, "we were a nest of singing-birds." When we came into the
common-room, we spied a fine large print of Johnson, hung up that very
morning, with this motto:--_And is not Johnson ours, himself a host?_
Under which stared you in the face--_From Miss More's "Sensibility_."
This little incident amused us; but, alas! Johnson looks very ill
indeed--spiritless and wan. However, he made an effort to be cheerful.'
Miss Adams wrote on June 14, 1782:--'On Wednesday we had here a
delightful blue-stocking party. Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott and Miss More,
Dr. Johnson, Mr. Henderson, &c., dined here. Poor Dr. Johnson is in very
bad health, but he exerted himself as much as he could, and being very
fond of Miss More, he talked a good deal, and every word he says is
worth recording. He took great delight in showing Miss More every part
of Pembroke College, and his own rooms, &c., and told us many things
about himself when here. .. June 19, 1782. We dined yesterday for the
last time in the company with Dr. Johnson; he went away to-day. A warm
dispute arose; it was about cider or wine freezing, and all the spirit
retreating to the center.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS._
[476] 'I never retired to rest without feeling the justness of the
Spanish proverb, "Let him who sleeps too much borrow the pillow of a
debtor."' Johnson's _Works_, iv. 14.
[477] See _ante_, i. 441.
[478] Which I celebrated in the Church of England chapel at Edinburgh,
founded by Lord Chief Baron Smith, of respectable and pious
memory. BOSWELL.
[479] See _ante_, p. 80.
[480] The Reverend Mr. Temple, Vicar of St. Gluvias, Cornwall. BOSWELL.
See _ante_, i. 436, and ii. 316.
[481] 'He had settled on his eldest son,' says Dr. Rogers
(_Boswelliana_, p. 129), 'the ancestral estate, with an unencumbered
rental of £l,600 a year.' That the rental, whatever it was, was not
unencumbered is shewn by the passage from Johnson's letter, _post_, p.
155, note 4. Boswell wrote to Malone in 1791 (Croker's _Boswell_, p.
828):--'The clear money on which I can reckon out of my estate is
scarcely £900 a year.'
[482] Cowley's _Ode to Liberty_, Stanza vi.
[483] 'I do beseech all the succeeding heirs of entail,' wrote Boswell
in his will, 'to be kind to the tenants, and not to turn out old
possessors to get a little more rent.' Rogers's _Boswelliana, p. 186.
[484] Macleod, the Laird of Rasay. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 8.
[485] A farm in the Isle of Skye, where Johnson wrote his Latin Ode to
Mrs. Thrale. _Ib._ Sept. 6.
[486] Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on Oct. 4:--'Boswel's (sic) father is
dead, and Boswel wrote me word that he would come to London for my
advice. [The] advice which I sent him is to stay at home, and [busy]
himself with his own affairs. He has a good es[tate], considerably
burthened by settlements, and he is himself in debt. But if his wife
lives, I think he will be prudent.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S.
v. 462.
[487] Miss Burney wrote in the first week in December:--'Dr. Johnson was
in most excellent good humour and spirits.' She describes later on a
brilliant party which he attended at Miss Monckton's on the 8th, where
the people were 'superbly dressed,' and where he was 'environed with
listeners.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 186, and 190. See _ante_, p.
108, note 4.
[488] See _ante,_, iii. 337, where Johnson got 'heated' when Boswell
maintained this.
[489] See _ante_, in. 395.
[490] The greatest part of the copy, or manuscript of _The Lives of the
Poets_ had been given by Johnson to Boswell (_ante_, iv. 36).
[491] Of her twelve children but these three were living. She was
forty-one years old.
[492] 'The family,' writes Dr. Burney, 'lived in the library, which used
to be the parlour. There they breakfasted. Over the bookcases were hung
Sir Joshua's portraits of Mr. Thrale's friends--Baretti, Burke, Burney,
Chambers, Garrick, Goldsmith, Johnson, Murphy, Reynolds, Lord Sandys,
Lord Westcote, and in the same picture Mrs. Thrale and her eldest
daughter.' Mr. Thrale's portrait was also there. Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_,
ii. 80, and Prior's _Malone_, p. 259.
[493] _Pr. and Med._ p. 214. BOSWELL.
[494] Boswell omits a line that follows this prayer:--'O Lord, so far
as, &c.,--Thrale.' This means, I think, 'so far as it might be lawful,
I prayed for Thrale.' The following day Johnson entered:--'I was called
early. I packed up my bundles, and used the foregoing prayer with my
morning devotions, somewhat, I think, enlarged. Being earlier than the
family, I read St. Paul's farewell in the _Acts_ [xx. 17-end], and then
read fortuitously in the gospels, which was my parting use of
the library.'
[495] Johnson, no doubt, was leaving Streatham because Mrs. Thrale was
leaving it. 'Streatham,' wrote Miss Burney, on Aug. 12 of this year, 'my
other home, and the place where I have long thought my residence
dependent only on my own pleasure, is already let for three years to
Lord Shelburne.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.151. Johnson was not yet
leaving the Thrale family, for he joined them at Brighton, and he was
living with them the following spring in Argyll-street. Nevertheless,
if, as all Mrs. Thrale's friends strongly held, her second marriage was
blameworthy, Boswell's remark admits of defence. Miss Burney in her
diary and letters keeps the secret which Mrs. Thrale had confided to her
of her attachment to Mr. Piozzi; but in the _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_,
which, as Mme. D'Arblay, she wrote long afterwards, she leaves little
doubt that Streatham was given up as a step towards the second marriage.
In 1782, on a visit there, she found that her father 'and all
others--Dr. Johnson not excepted--were cast into the same gulf of
general neglect. As Mrs. Thrale became more and more dissatisfied with
her own situation, and impatient for its relief, she slighted Johnson's
counsel, and avoided his society.' Mme. D'Arblay describes a striking
scene in which her father, utterly puzzled by 'sad and altered
Streatham,' left it one day with tears in his eyes. Another day, Johnson
accompanied her to London. 'His look was stern, though dejected, but
when his eye, which, however shortsighted, was quick to mental
perception, saw how ill at ease she appeared, all sternness subsided
into an undisguised expression of the strongest emotion, while, with a
shaking hand and pointing finger, he directed her looks to the mansion
from which they were driving; and when they faced it from the
coach-window, as they turned into Streatham Common, tremulously
exclaimed, "That house ...is lost to _me_... for ever."' Johnson's
letter to Langton of March 20, 1782 (_ante_, p. 145), in which he says
that he was 'musing in his chamber at Mrs. Thrale's,' shews that so
early as that date he foresaw that a change was coming. Boswell's
statement that 'Mrs. Thrale became less assiduous to please Johnson,'
might have been far more strongly worded. See Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_,
ii. 243-253. Lord Shelburne, who as Prime Minister was negotiating peace
with the United States, France, and Spain, hired Mrs. Thrale's house 'in
order to be constantly near London.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_,
iii. 242.
[496] Mr. Croker quotes the following from the _Rose MSS_.:--'Oct. 6,
Die Dominica, 1782. Pransus sum Streathamiae agninum crus coctum cum
herbis (spinach) comminutis, farcimen farinaceum cum uvis passis, lumbos
bovillos, et pullum gallinae: Turcicae; et post carnes missas, ficus,
uvas, non admodum maturas, ita voluit anni intemperies, cum malis
Persicis, iis tamen duris. Non laetus accubui, cibum modicè sumpsi, ne
intemperantiâ ad extremum peccaretur. Si recte memini, in mentem
venerunt epulae in exequiis Hadoni celebratae. Streathamiam
quando revisam?'
[497] 'Mr. Metcalfe is much with Dr. Johnson, but seems to have taken an
unaccountable dislike to Mrs. Thrale, to whom he never speaks.... He is
a shrewd, sensible, keen, and very clever man.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_,
ii. 172, 174. He, Burke, and Malone were Sir Joshua's executors.
Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 293.
[498] Boswell should have shown, for he must have known it, that Johnson
was Mrs. Thrale's guest at Brighton. Miss Burney was also of the party.
Her account of him is a melancholy one:--'Oct. 28. Dr. Johnson
accompanied us to a ball, to the universal amazement of all who saw him
there; but he said he had found it so dull being quite alone the
preceding evening, that he determined upon going with us; "for," said
he, "it cannot be worse than being alone."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.
161. 'Oct. 29. Mr. Pepys joined Dr. Johnson, with whom he entered into
an argument, in which he was so roughly confuted, and so severely
ridiculed, that he was hurt and piqued beyond all power of disguise,
and, in the midst of the discourse, suddenly turned from him, and,
wishing Mrs. Thrale goodnight, very abruptly withdrew. Dr. Johnson was
certainly right with respect to the argument and to reason; but his
opposition was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that I
was really quite grieved to see how unamiable he appeared, and how
greatly he made himself dreaded by all, and by many abhorred.' _Ib_. p.
163. 'Oct. 30. In the evening we all went to Mrs. Hatsel's. Dr. Johnson
was not invited.' _Ib_. p. 165. 'Oct. 31. A note came to invite us all,
except Dr. Johnson, to Lady Rothes's.' _Ib_. p. 168. 'Nov. 2. We went to
Lady Shelley's. Dr. Johnson again excepted in the invitation. He is
almost constantly omitted, either from too much respect or too much
fear. I am sorry for it, as he hates being alone.' _Ib_. p. 160. 'Nov.
7. Mr. Metcalfe called upon Dr. Johnson, and took him out an airing. Mr.
Hamilton is gone, and Mr. Metcalfe is now the only person out of this
house that voluntarily communicates with the Doctor. He has been in a
terrible severe humour of late, and has really frightened all the
people, till they almost ran from him. To me only I think he is now
kind, for Mrs. Thrale fares worse than anybody.' _Ib_. p. 177.
[499] '"Dr. Johnson has asked me," said Mr. Metcalfe, "to go with him to
Chichester, to see the cathedral, and I told him I would certainly go if
he pleased; but why I cannot imagine, for how shall a blind man see a
cathedral?" "I believe," quoth I [i.e. Miss Burney] "his blindness is as
much the effect of absence as of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at
times."' _Ib_. p. 174. For Johnson's eyesight, see _ante_, i. 41.
[500] The second letter is dated the 28th. Johnson says:--'I have looked
_often_,' &c.; but he does not say 'he has been _much_ informed,' but
only 'informed.' Both letters are in the _Gent. Mag._ 1784, p. 893.
[501] The reference is to Rawlinson's MS. collections for a continuation
of Wood's _Athenae_ (Macray's _Annals of the Bodleian_, p. 181).
[502] Jortin's sermons are described by Johnson as 'very elegant.'
_Ante_, in. 248. He and Thirlby are mentioned by him in the _Life of
Pope. Works_, viii. 254.
[503] Markland was born 1693, died 1776. His notes on some of Euripides'
_Plays_ were published at the expense of Dr. Heberden. Markland had
previously destroyed a great many other notes; writing in 1764 he
said:--'Probably it will be a long time (if ever) before this sort of
learning will revive in England; in which it is easy to foresee that
there must be a disturbance in a few years, and all public disorders are
enemies to this sort of literature.' _Gent. Mag._ 1778, P. 3l0. 'I
remember,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 252), 'when lamentation was
made of the neglect shown to Jeremiah Markland, a great philologist, as
some one ventured to call him: "He is a scholar undoubtedly, Sir,"
replied Dr. Johnson, "but remember that he would run from the world, and
that it is not the world's business to run after him. I hate a fellow
whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and [who]
does nothing when he is there but sit and _growl_; let him come out as I
do, and _bark_"' A brief account of him is given in the _Ann. Reg._
xix. 45.
[504] Nichols published in 1784 a brief account of Thirlby, nearly half
of it being written by Johnson. Thirlby was born in 1692 and died in
1753. 'His versatility led him to try the round of what are called the
learned professions.' His life was marred by drink and insolence.' His
mind seems to have been tumultuous and desultory, and he was glad to
catch any employment that might produce attention without anxiety; such
employment, as Dr. Battie has observed, is necessary for madmen.' _Gent.
Mag._ 1784, pp. 260, 893.
[505] He was attacked, says Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 131), 'by
a slight paralytic affection, after an almost uninterrupted course of
good health for many years.' Miss Burney wrote on Dec. 28 to one of her
sisters:--'How can you wish any wishes [matrimonial wishes] about Sir
Joshua and me? A man who has had two shakes of the palsy!' Mme.
D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 218.
[506] Dr. Patten in Sept. 1781 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 699) informed
Johnson of Wilson's intended dedication. Johnson, in his reply,
said:--'What will the world do but look on and laugh when one scholar
dedicates to another?'
[507] On the same day he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'This, my dear Sir, is the
last day of a very sickly and melancholy year. Join your prayers with
mine, that the next may be more happy to us both. I hope the happiness
which I have not found in this world will by infinite mercy be granted
in another.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 462.
[508] 'Jan. 4, 1783. Dr. Johnson came so very late that we had all given
him up; he was very ill, and only from an extreme of kindness did he
come at all. When I went up to him to tell how sorry I was to find him
so unwell, "Ah," he cried, taking my hand and kissing it, "who shall ail
anything when Cecilia is so near? Yet you do not think how poorly I am."
All dinner time he hardly opened his mouth but to repeat to me:--"Ah!
you little know how ill I am." He was excessively kind to me in spite of
all his pain.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 228. _Cecilia_ was the name
of her second novel (_post_, May 26, 1783). On Jan. 10 he thus ended a
letter to Mr. Nichols:--'Now I will put you in a way of shewing me more
kindness. I have been confined by ilness (sic) a long time, and sickness
and solitude make tedious evenings. Come sometimes and see, Sir,
'Your humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
_MS_. in the British Museum.
[509] 'Dr. Johnson found here [at Auchinleck] Baxter's Anacreon, which
he told me he had long inquired for in vain, and began to suspect there
was no such book.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov.2. See _post_, under
Sept. 29, 1783.
[510] 'The delight which men have in popularity, fame, honour,
submission, and subjection of other men's minds, wills, or affections,
although these things may be desired for other ends, seemeth to be a
thing in itself, without contemplation of consequence, grateful and
agreeable to the nature of man.' Bacon's _Nat. Hist._ Exper. No. 1000.
See _ante_, ii. 178.
[511] In a letter to Dr. Taylor on Jan. 21 of this year, he attacked the
scheme of equal representation.' Pitt, on May 7, 1782, made his first
reform motion. Johnson thus ended his letter:--'If the scheme were more
reasonable, this is not a time for innovation. I am afraid of a civil
war. The business of every wise man seems to be now to keep his ground.'
_Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 481.
[512] See _ante_, i. 429, _post_, 170, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept.
30.
[513] The year after this conversation the General Election of 1784 was
held, which followed on the overthrow of the Coalition Ministry and the
formation of the Pitt Ministry in December, 1783. The 'King's friends'
were in a minority of one in the last great division in the old
Parliament; in the motion on the Address in the new Parliament they had
a majority of 168. _Parl. Hist._ xxiv. 744, 843. Miss Burney, writing in
Nov. 1788, when the King was mad, says that one of his physicians 'moved
me even to tears by telling me that none of their own lives would be
safe if the King did not recover, so prodigiously high ran the tide of
affection and loyalty. All the physicians received threatening letters
daily, to answer for the safety of their monarch with their lives! Sir
G. Baker had already been stopped in his carriage by the mob, to give an
account of the King; and when he said it was a bad one, they had
furiously exclaimed, "The more shame for you."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_,
iv. 336. Describing in 1789 a Royal tour in the West of England, she
writes of 'the crowds, the rejoicings, the hallooing and singing, and
garlanding and decorating of all the inhabitants of this old city
[Exeter], and of all the country through which we passed.' _Ib._ v. 48.
[514] Miss Palmer, Sir Joshua's niece, 'heard Dr. Johnson repeat these
verses with the tears falling over his cheek.' Taylor's _Reynolds_,
ii. 417.
[515] Gibbon remarked that 'Mr. Fox was certainly very shy of saying
anything in Johnson's presence.' _Ante_, iii. 267. See _post_, under
June 9, 1784, where Johnson said 'Fox is my friend.'
[516] Mr. Greville (_Journal_, ed. 1874, ii. 316) records the following
on the authority of Lord Holland:--'Johnson liked Fox because he
defended his pension, and said it was only to blame in not being large
enough. "Fox," he said, is a liberal man; he would always be _aut Caesar
aut nullus_; whenever I have seen him he has been _nullus_. Lord Holland
said Fox made it a rule never to talk in Johnson's presence, because he
knew all his conversations were recorded for publication, and he did not
choose to figure in them.' Fox could not have known what was not the
fact. When Boswell was by, he had reason for his silence; but otherwise
he might have spoken out. 'Mr. Fox,' writes Mackintosh (_Life_, i. 322)
'united, in a most remarkable degree, the seemingly repugnant characters
of the mildest of men and the most vehement of orators. In private life
he was so averse from parade and dogmatism as to be somewhat inactive in
conversation.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 283) tells how Fox spent a day
with him at Lausanne:--'Perhaps it never can happen again, that I should
enjoy him as I did that day, alone from ten in the morning till ten at
night. Our conversation never flagged a moment.' 'In London mixed
society,' said Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 74), 'Fox conversed little; but
at his own house in the country, with his intimate friends, he would
talk on for ever, with all the openness and simplicity of a child.'
[517] Sec _ante_, ii. 450.
[518] Most likely 'Old Mr. Sheridan.'
[519] See _ante_, ii. 166.
[520] Were I to insert all the stories which have been told of contests
boldly maintained with him, imaginary victories obtained over him, of
reducing him to silence, and of making him own that his antagonist had
the better of him in argument, my volumes would swell to an immoderate
size. One instance, I find, has circulated both in conversation and in
print; that when he would not allow the Scotch writers to have merit,
the late Dr. Rose, of Chiswick, asserted, that he could name one Scotch
writer, whom Dr. Johnson himself would allow to have written better than
any man of the age; and upon Johnson's asking who it was, answered,
'Lord Bute, when he signed the warrant for your pension.' Upon which
Johnson, struck with the repartee, acknowledged that this _was_ true.
When I mentioned it to Johnson, 'Sir, (said he,) if Rose said this, I
never heard it.' BOSWELL.
[521] This reflection was very natural in a man of a good heart, who was
not conscious of any ill-will to mankind, though the sharp sayings which
were sometimes produced by his discrimination and vivacity, which he
perhaps did not recollect, were, I am afraid, too often remembered with
resentment. BOSWELL. When, three months later on, he was struck with
palsy, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'I have in this still scene of life
great comfort in reflecting that I have given very few reason to hate
me. I hope scarcely any man has known me closely but for his benefit, or
cursorily but to his innocent entertainment. Tell me, you that know me
best, whether this be true, that according to your answer I may continue
my practice, or try to mend it.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 287. See _post_,
May 19, 1784. Passages such as the two following might have shewn him
why he had enemies. 'For roughness, it is a needless cause of
discontent; severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth hate.'
Bacon's _Essays_, No. xi. ''Tis possible that men may be as oppressive
by their parts as their power.' _The Government of the Tongue_, sect.
vii. See _ante_, i. 388, note 2.
[522] 'A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in
Scotland supports the people.' _Ante_, i. 294. Stockdale records
(_Memoirs_, ii. 191) that he heard a Scotch lady, after quoting this
definition, say to Johnson, 'I can assure you that in Scotland we give
oats to our horses as well as you do to yours in England.' He
replied:--'I am very glad, Madam, to find that you treat your horses as
well as you treat yourselves.'
[523] Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote:--'The prejudices he had to countries
did not extend to individuals. The chief prejudice in which he indulged
himself was against Scotland, though he had the most cordial friendship
with individuals. This he used to vindicate as a duty. ... Against the
Irish he entertained no prejudice; he thought they united themselves
very well with us; but the Scotch, when in England, united and made a
party by employing only Scotch servants and Scotch tradesmen. He held it
right for Englishmen to oppose a party against them.' Taylor's
_Reynolds_, ii. 460. See _ante_, ii. 242, 306, and Boswell's _Hebrides,
post_, v. 20.
[524] _Ante_, ii. 300.
[525] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 85) says that 'Dr. Johnson, commonly
spending the middle of the week at our house, kept his numerous family
in Fleet-street upon a settled allowance; but returned to them every
Saturday to give them three good dinners and his company, before he came
back to us on the Monday night.'
[526] Lord North's Ministry lasted from 1770, to March, 1782. It was
followed by the Rockingham Ministry, and the Shelburne Ministry, which
in its turn was at this very time giving way to the Coalition Ministry,
to be followed very soon by the Pitt Ministry.
[527] I have, in my _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_ [p. 200, Sept.
13], fully expressed my sentiments upon this subject. The Revolution was
_necessary_, but not a subject for _glory_; because it for a long time
blasted the generous feelings of _Loyalty_. And now, when by the
benignant effect of time the present Royal Family are established in our
_affections_, how unwise it is to revive by celebrations the memory of a
shock, which it would surely have been better that our constitution had
not required. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 3, and iv. 40, note 4.
[528] Johnson reviewed this book in 1756. _Ante_, i. 309.
[529] Johnson, four months later, wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's
daughters:--'Never think, my sweet, that you have arithmetick enough;
when you have exhausted your master, buy books. ... A thousand stories
which the ignorant tell and believe die away at once when the computist
takes them in his gripe.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 296. See _post_,
April 18, 1783.
[530] See _ante_, p. 116; also iii. 310, where he bore the same topic
impatiently when with Dr. Scott.
[531] See _ante_, ii. 357.
[532]
'See nations, slowly wise and meanly just,
To buried merit raise the tardy bust.'
Johnson's _Vanity of Human Wishes_.
[533] He was perhaps, thinking of Markland. _Ante_, p. 161, note 3.
[534] 'Dr. Johnson,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'was no complainer of
ill-usage. I never heard him even lament the disregard shown to
_Irene_.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 386. See _ante_, i. 200.
[535] Letter to the People of Scotland against the attempt to diminish
the number of the Lords of Session, 1785. BOSWELL. 'By Mr. Burke's
removal from office the King's administration was deprived of the
assistance of that affluent mind, which is so universally rich that, as
long as British literature and British politicks shall endure, it will
be said of Edmund Burke, _Regum equabat [sic] opes animis.'_ p.71.
[536] _Georgics_, iv. 132.
[537] See _ante_, iii. 56, note 2.
[538] Very likely Boswell.
[539] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22.
[540] Johnson had said:--'Lord Chesterfield is the proudest man this day
existing.' _Ante_, i. 265.
[541] Lord Shelburne. At this time he was merely holding office till a
new Ministry was formed. On April 5 he was succeeded by the Duke of
Portland. His 'coarse manners' were due to a neglected childhood. In the
fragment of his _Autobiography_ he describes 'the domestic brutality and
ill-usage he experienced at home,' in the South of Ireland. 'It cost
me,' he continues, 'more to unlearn the habits, manners, and principles
which I then imbibed, than would have served to qualify me for any
_rôle_ whatever through life.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 12, 16.
[542] Bentham, it is reported, said of of him that 'alone of his own
time, he was a "Minister who did not fear the people."' _Ib._ iii. 572.
[543] Malagrida, a Jesuit, was put to death at Lisbon in 1761, nominally
on a charge of heresy, but in reality on a suspicion of his having
sanctioned, as confessor to one of the conspirators, an attempt to
assassinate King Joseph of Portugal. Voltaire, _Siècle de Louis XV_, ch.
xxxviii. 'His name,' writes Wraxall (_Memoirs_, ed. 1815, i. 67), 'is
become proverbial among us to express duplicity.' It was first applied
to Lord Shelburne in a squib attributed to Wilkes, which contained a
vision of a masquerade. The writer, after describing him as masquerading
as 'the heir apparent of Loyola and all the College,' continues:--'A
little more of the devil, my Lord, if you please, about the eyebrows;
that's enough, a perfect Malagrida, I protest.' Fitzmaurice's
_Shelburne_, ii. 164. 'George III. habitually spoke of Shelburne as
"Malagrida," and the "Jesuit of Berkeley Square."' _Ib._ iii. 8. The
charge of duplicity was first made against Shelburne on the retirement
of Fox (the first Lord Holland) in 1763. 'It was the tradition of
Holland House that Bute justified the conduct of Shelburne, by telling
Fox that it was "a pious fraud." "I can see the fraud plainly enough,"
is said to have been Fox's retort, "but where is the piety?"' _Ib_. i.
226. Any one who has examined Reynolds's picture of Shelburne,
especially 'about the eyebrows,' at once sees how the name of Jesuit
was given.
[544] Beauclerk wrote to Lord Charlemont on Nov. 20, 1773:-'Goldsmith
the other day put a paragraph into the newspapers in praise of Lord
Mayor Townshend. [Shelburne supported Townshend in opposition to Wilkes
in the election of the Lord Mayor. Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, ii. 287.]
The same night we happened to sit next to Lord Shelburne at Drury Lane.
I mentioned the circumstance of the paragraph to him; he said to
Goldsmith that he hoped that he had mentioned nothing about Malagrida in
it. "Do you know," answered Goldsmith, "that I never could conceive the
reason why they call you Malagrida, _for_ Malagrida was a very good sort
of man." You see plainly what he meant to say, but that happy turn of
expression is peculiar to himself. Mr. Walpole says that this story is a
picture of Goldsmith's whole life.' _Life of Charlemont_, i. 344.
[545] Most likely Reynolds, who introduced Crabbe to Johnson. Crabbe's
_Works_, ed. 1834, ii. 11.
[546]
'I paint the cot,
As truth will paint it, and as Bards will not.
Nor you, ye Poor, of lettered scorn complain,
To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain;
O'ercome by labour, and bowed down by time,
Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme?
Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread,
By winding myrtles round your ruined shed?
Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower,
Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?'
_The Village_, book i.
See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 6.
[547] I shall give an instance, marking the original by Roman, and
Johnson's substitution in Italick characters:--
'In fairer scenes, where peaceful pleasures spring,
Tityrus, the pride of Mantuan swains, might sing:
But charmed by him, or smitten with his views,
Shall modern poets court the Mantuan muse?
From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray,
Where Fancy leads, or Virgil led the way?'
'_On Mincio's banks, in Caesar's bounteous reign,
If Tityrus found the golden age again,
Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong,
Mechanick echoes of the Mantuan song?_
From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray,
_Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way?._
Here we find Johnson's poetical and critical powers undiminished. I
must, however, observe, that the aids he gave to this poem, as to _The
Traveller_ and _Deserted Village_ of Goldsmith, were so small as by no
means to impair the distinguished merit of the authour. BOSWELL.
[548] In the _Gent. Mag._ 1763, pp. 602, 633, is a review of his
_Observations on Diseases of the Army_. He says that the register of
deaths of military men proves that more than eight times as many men
fall by what was called the gaol fever as by battle. His suggestions are
eminently wise. Lord Seaford, in 1835, told Leslie 'that he remembered
dining in company with Dr. Johnson at Dr. Brocklesby's, when he was a
boy of twelve or thirteen. He was impressed with the superiority of
Johnson, and his knocking everybody down in argument.' C.R. Leslie's
_Recollections_, i. 146.
[549] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 28.
[550] See _ante_, i. 433, and ii. 217, 358.
[551] "In his _Life of Swift_ (_Works_, viii. 205) he thus speaks of
this _Journal_:-'In the midst of his power and his politicks, he kept a
journal of his visits, his walks, his interviews with ministers, and
quarrels with his servant, and transmitted it to Mrs. Johnson and Mrs.
Dingley, to whom he knew that whatever befell him was interesting, and
no accounts could be too minute. Whether these diurnal trifles were
properly exposed to eyes which had never received any pleasure from the
presence of the dean, may be reasonably doubted: they have, however,
some odd attraction: the reader, finding frequent mention of names which
he has been used to consider as important, goes on in hope of
information; and, as there is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is
disappointed, he can hardly complain.'"
[552] On his fifty-fifth birthday he recorded:--'I resolve to keep a
journal both of employment and of expenses. To keep accounts.' _Pr. and
Med_. 59. See _post_, Aug. 25, 1784, where he writes to Langton:--'I am
a little angry at you for not keeping minutes of your own _acceptum et
expensum_, and think a little time might be spared from Aristophanes for
the _res familiares_.'
[553] This Mr. Chalmers thought was George Steevens. CROKER. D'Israeli
(_Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, vi. 76) describes Steevens as
guilty of 'an unparalleled series of arch deception and malicious
ingenuity.' He gives curious instances of his literary impostures. See
_ante_, iii. 281, and _post_, May 15, 1784.
[554] If this be Lord Mansfield, Boswell must use _late_ in the sense of
_in retirement_; for Mansfield was living when the _Life of Johnson_ was
published. He retired in 1788. Johnson in 1772, said that he had never
been in his company (_ante_, ii. 158). The fact that Mansfield is
mentioned in the previous paragraph adds to the probability that he
is meant.
[555] See _ante_, ii. 318.
[556] In Scotland, Johnson spoke of Mansfield's 'splendid talents.'
Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11.
[557] 'I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other
men.' 2 _ Henry IV_, act i. sc. 2.
[558] Knowing as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory his
Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable
appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions upon him,
must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved
and stiff. If it be so, and he might be an agreeable man if he would, we
cannot be sorry that he misses his aim. BOSWELL. Wedderburne, afterwards
Lord Loughborough, is mentioned (_ante_, ii. 374), and again in Murphy's
_Life of Johnson_, p. 43, as being in company with Johnson and Foote.
Boswell also has before (_ante_, i. 387) praised the elegance of his
oratory. Henry Mackenzie (_Life of John Home_, i. 56) says that
Wedderburne belonged to a club at the British Coffee-house, of which
Garrick, Smollett, and Dr. Douglas were members.
[559] Boswell informed the people of Scotland in the Letter that he
addressed to them in 1785 (p. 29), that 'now that Dr. Johnson is gone to
a better world, he (Boswell) bowed the intellectual knee to _Lord
Thurlow_.' See _post_, June 22, 1784.
[560] Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 27.
[561]
'Charged with light summer-rings his fingers sweat,
Unable to support a gem of weight.'
DRYDEN. Juvenal, _Satires_, i. 29.
[562] He had published a series of seventy _Essays_ under the title of
_The Hypochondriack_ in the _London Magazine_ from 1777 to 1783.
[563] Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 365. The common reading, however, is
'Nullum numen _habes_,' &c. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 218) records this
saying, but with a variation. '"For," says Mr. Johnson, "though I do not
quite agree with the proverb, that _Nullum numen adest si sit
prudentia_, yet we may very well say, that _Nullum numen adest, ni sit
prudentia."'
[564] It has since appeared. BOSWELL.
[565] Miss Burney mentions meeting Dr. Harington at Bath in 1780. 'It is
his son,' she writes, 'who published those very curious remains of his
ancestor [Sir John Harington] under the title _Nugae Antiquae_ which my
father and all of us were formerly so fond of.' Mme. D'Arblay's
_Diary_, i. 341.
[566]
'For though they are but trifles, thou
Some value didst to them allow.'
Martin's _Catullus_, p. 1.
[567]
--Underneath this rude, uncouth disguise,
A genius of extensive knowledge lies.'
FRANCIS. Horace, _Satires_, i. 3. 33.
[568] He would not have been a troublesome patient anywhere, for,
according to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 275),'he required less attendance,
sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature.'
[569] 'That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow
much excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe
that the mind grows old with the body; and that he whom we are now
forced to confess superiour is hastening daily to a level with
ourselves.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 212.
[570] With the following elucidation of the saying-_Quos Deus_ (it
should rather be-_Quem Jupiter) vult perdere, prius dementat_-Mr.
Boswell was furnished by Mr. Pitts:--'Perhaps no scrap of Latin whatever
has been more quoted than this. It occasionally falls even from those
who are scrupulous even to pedantry in their Latinity, and will not
admit a word into their compositions, which has not the sanction of the
first age. The word _demento_ is of no authority, either as a verb
active or neuter.--After a long search for the purpose of deciding a
bet, some gentlemen of Cambridge found it among the fragments of
Euripides, in what edition I do not recollect, where it is given as a
translation of a Greek Iambick: [Greek: Ou Theos thelei apolesoi'
apophreuai.]
'The above scrap was found in the hand-writing of a suicide of fashion,
Sir D. O., some years ago, lying on the table of the room where he had
destroyed himself. The suicide was a man of classical acquirements: he
left no other paper behind him.'
Another of these proverbial sayings,
_Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim,_
I, in a note on a passage in _The Merchant of Venice_ [act iii. sc. 5],
traced to its source. It occurs (with a slight variation) in the
_Alexandreis_ of Philip Gualtier (a poet of the thirteenth century),
which was printed at Lyons in 1558. Darius is the person addressed:--
--Quò tendis inertem,
Rex periture, fugam? nescis, heu! perdite, nescis
Quern fugias: hostes incurris dum fugis hostem;
_Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim._
A line not less frequently quoted was suggested for enquiry in a note on
_The Rape of Lucrece:--
Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris--_:
But the author of this verse has not, I believe, been discovered.
MALONE. The 'Greek lambick' in the above note is not Greek. To a learned
friend I owe the following note. 'The _Quem Jupiter vult perdere_, &c.,
is said to be a translation of a fragment of _Euripides_ by Joshua
Barnes. There is, I believe, no such fragment at all. In Barnes's
_Euripides_, Cantab. 1694, fol. p. 515, is a fragment of Euripides with
a note which may explain the muddle of Boswell's correspondent:--
"[Greek: otau de daimonn handri porsunae kaka ton noun heblapse proton,]"
on which Barnes writes:--"Tale quid in Franciados nostrae [probably his
uncompleted poem on Edward III.] l. 3. _Certe ille deorum Arbiter
ultricem cum vult extendere dextram Dementat prius._"' See _ante_, ii.
445, note 1. Sir D. O. is, perhaps, Sir D'Anvers Osborne, whose death is
recorded in the _Gent. Mag._ 1753, p. 591. 'Sir D'Anvers Osborne, Bart.,
Governor of New York, soon after his arrival there; _in his garden.'
Solamen miseris, &c._, is imitated by Swift in his _Verses on Stella's
Birthday_, 1726-7:--
'The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes.'
Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xi. 22. The note on _Lucrece_ was, I
conjecture, on line 1111:--
'Grief best is pleased with grief's society.'
[571]
'FAUSTUS--
"Tu quoque, ut hîc video, non es ignarus amorum."
'FORTUNATUS--
"Id commune malum; semel insanivimus omnes."'
Baptistae Mantuani Carmelitae _Adolescentia, seu Bucolica_. Ecloga I,
published in 1498. 'Scaliger,' says Johnson (_Works_, viii. 391),
'complained that Mantuan's Bucolicks were received into schools, and
taught as classical. ... He was read, at least in some of the inferiour
schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of the present
[eighteenth] century.'
[572] See _ante_, i. 368.
[573] See _ante_, i. 396.
[574] I am happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his
enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking
particularities pointed out:--Miss Hunter, a niece of his friend
Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his extraordinary
motions, said to him, 'Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do you make such strange
gestures?' 'From bad habit,' he replied. 'Do you, my dear, take care to
guard against bad habits.' This I was told by the young lady's brother
at Margate. BOSWELL. Boswell had himself told Johnson of some of them,
at least in writing. Johnson read in manuscript his _Journal of a Tour
to the Hebrides_. Boswell says in a note on Oct. 12:--'It is remarkable
that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his own
peculiar habits, without saying anything on the subject, which I hoped
he would have done.'
[575] See _ante_, ii. 42, note 2, and iii. 324.
[576] Johnson, after stating that some of Milton's manuscripts prove
that 'in the early part of his life he wrote with much care,'
continues:--'Such reliques show how excellence is acquired; what we hope
ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.'
_Works_, vii. 119. Lord Chesterfield (_Letters_, iii. 146) had made the
same rule as Johnson:--'I was,' he writes, 'early convinced of the
importance and powers of eloquence; and from that moment I applied
myself to it. I resolved not to utter one word even in common
conversation that should not be the most expressive and the most elegant
that the language could supply me with for that purpose; by which means
I have acquired such a certain degree of habitual eloquence, that I must
now really take some pains if I would express myself very inelegantly.'
[577] 'Dr. Johnson,' wrote Malone in 1783, 'is as correct and elegant in
his common conversation as in his writings. He never seems to study
either for thoughts or words. When first introduced I was very young;
yet he was as accurate in his conversation as if he had been talking to
the first scholar in England.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 92. See _post_,
under Aug. 29, 1783.
[578] See _ante_, iii. 216.
[579] See _ante_, ii. 323.
[580] The justness of this remark is confirmed by the following story,
for which I am indebted to Lord Eliot:--A country parson, who was
remarkable for quoting scraps of Latin in his sermons, having died, one
of his parishioners was asked how he liked his successor. 'He is a very
good preacher,' was his answer, 'but no _latiner_.' BOSWELL. For the
original of Lord Eliot's story see Twells's _Life of Dr. E. Pocock_, ed.
1816, p. 94. Reynolds said that 'Johnson always practised on every
occasion the rule of speaking his best, whether the person to whom he
addressed himself was or was not capable of comprehending him. "If,"
says he, "I am understood, my labour is not lost. If it is above their
comprehension, there is some gratification, though it is the admiration
of ignorance;" and he said those were the most sincere admirers; and
quoted Baxter, who made a rule never to preach a sermon without saying
something which he knew was beyond the comprehension of his audience, in
order to inspire their admiration.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 456.
Addison, in _The Spectator_, No. 221, tells of a preacher in a country
town who outshone a more ignorant rival, by quoting every now and then a
Latin sentence from one of the Fathers. 'The other finding his
congregation mouldering every Sunday, and hearing at length what was the
occasion of it, resolved to give his parish a little Latin in his turn;
but being unacquainted with any of the Fathers, he digested into his
sermons the whole book of _Quae Genus_, adding, however, such
explications to it as he thought might be for the benefit of his people.
He afterwards entered upon _As in praesenti_, which he converted in the
same manner to the use of his parishioners. This in a very little time
thickened his audience, filled his church, and routed his antagonist.'
[581] See _ante_, ii. 96
[582] '"Well," said he, "we had good talk." BOSWELL. "Yes, Sir; you
tossed and gored several persons."' _Ante,_ ii. 66.
[583] Dr. J. H. Burton says of Hume (_Life, ii. 31_):--'No Scotsman
could write a book of respectable talent without calling forth his loud
and warm eulogiums. Wilkie was to be the Homer, Blacklock the Pindar,
and Home the Shakespeare or something still greater of his country.' See
_ante_, ii. 121, 296, 306.
[584] _The Present State of Music in France and Italy,_ I vol. 1771, and
_The Present State of Music in Germany, &c.,_ 2 vols. 1773. Johnson must
have skipped widely in reading these volumes, for though Dr. Burney
describes his travels, yet he writes chiefly of music.
[585] Boswell's son James says that he heard from his father, that the
passage which excited this strong emotion was the following:--
'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more:
I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew;
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;
Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save:
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?'
[586] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 338) mentions this book at some
length. On March 13, 1780, he wrote:--'Yesterday was published an
octavo, pretending to contain the correspondence of Hackman and Miss Ray
that he murdered.' See _ante_, iii. 383.
[587] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 547), recording how Johnson used to meet
Psalmanazar at an ale-house, says that Johnson one day 'remarked on the
human mind, that it had a necessary tendency to improvement, and that it
would frequently anticipate instruction. "Sir," said a stranger that
overheard him, "that I deny; I am a tailor, and have had many
apprentices, but never one that could make a coat till I had taken great
pains in teaching him."' See _ante_, iii. 443. Robert Hall was
influenced in his studies by 'his intimate association in mere childhood
with a tailor, one of his father's congregation, who was an acute
metaphysician.' Hall's _Works_, vi. 5.
[588] Johnson had never been in Grub-street. _Ante_, i. 296, note 2.
[589] The Honourable Horace Walpole, late Earl of Orford, thus bears
testimony to this gentleman's merit as a writer:--'Mr. Chambers's
_Treatise on Civil Architecture_ is the most sensible book, and the most
exempt from prejudices, that ever was written on that science.'--Preface
to _Anecdotes of Painting in England_. BOSWELL. Chambers was the
architect of Somerset House. See _ante_, p. 60, note 7.
[590] The introductory lines are these:--'It is difficult to avoid
praising too little or too much. The boundless panegyricks which have
been lavished upon the Chinese learning, policy, and arts, shew with
what power novelty attracts regard, and how naturally esteem swells into
admiration. I am far from desiring to be numbered among the exaggerators
of Chinese excellence. I consider them as great, or wise, only in
comparison with the nations that surround them; and have no intention to
place them in competition either with the antients or with the moderns
of this part of the world; yet they must be allowed to claim our notice
as a distinct and very singular race of men: as the inhabitants of a
region divided by its situation from all civilized countries, who have
formed their own manners, and invented their own arts, without the
assistance of example.' BOSWELL.
[591] The last execution at Tyburn was on Nov. 7, 1783, when one man was
hanged. The first at Newgate was on the following Dec. 9, when ten were
hanged. _Gent. Mag._ 1783, pp. 974, 1060.
[592] We may compare with this 'loose talk' Johnson's real opinion, as
set forth in _The Rambler_, No. 114, entitled:--_The necessity of
proportioning punishments to crimes_. He writes:--'The learned, the
judicious, the pious Boerhaave relates that he never saw a criminal
dragged to execution without asking himself, "Who knows whether this man
is not less culpable than me?" On the days when the prisons of this city
are emptied into the grave, let every spectator of this dreadful
procession put the same question to his own heart. Few among those that
crowd in thousands to the legal massacre, and look with carelessness,
perhaps with triumph, on the utmost exacerbations of human misery, would
then be able to return without horror and dejection.' He continues:--'It
may be observed that all but murderers have, at their last hour, the
common sensations of mankind pleading in their favour.... They who would
rejoice at the correction of a thief, are yet shocked at the thought of
destroying him. His crime shrinks to nothing compared with his misery,
and severity defeats itself by exciting pity.'
[593] Richardson, in his _Familiar Letters_, No. 160, makes a country
gentleman in town describe the procession of five criminals to Tyburn,
and their execution. He should have heard, he said, 'the exhortation
spoken by the bell-man from the wall of St. Sepulchre's church-yard;
but the noise of the officers and the mob was so great, and the silly
curiosity of people climbing into the cart to take leave of the
criminals made such a confused noise that I could not hear them. They
are as follow: "All good people pray heartily to God for these poor
sinners, who now are going to their deaths; for whom this great bell
doth toll. You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable
tears.... Lord have mercy upon you! Christ have mercy upon you!" which
last words the bell-man repeats three times. All the way up Holborn the
crowd was so great, as at every twenty or thirty yards to obstruct the
passage; and wine, notwithstanding a late good order against that
practice, was brought the malefactors, who drank greedily of it. After
this the three thoughtless young men, who at first seemed not enough
concerned, grew most shamefully daring and wanton. They swore, laughed,
and talked obscenely. At the place of execution the scene grew still
more shocking; and the clergyman who attended was more the subject of
ridicule than of their serious attention. The psalm was sung amidst the
curses and quarrelling of hundreds of the most abandoned and profligate
of mankind. As soon as the poor creatures were half-dead, I was much
surprised to see the populace fall to haling and pulling the carcases
with so much earnestness as to occasion several warm rencounters and
broken heads. These, I was told, were the friends of the persons
executed, or such as for the sake of tumult chose to appear so; and some
persons sent by private surgeons to obtain bodies for dissection.' The
psalm is mentioned in a note on the line in _The Dunciad_, i. 4l, 'Hence
hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines:'--'It is an ancient English custom,'
says Pope, 'for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution
at Tyburn.'
[594] The rest of these miscellaneous sayings were first given in the
_Additions to Dr. Johnson's Life_ at the beginning of vol. I of the
second edition.
[595] Hume (_Auto_. p. 6) speaks of Hurd as attacking him 'with all the
illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility which distinguish the
Warburtonian school.' 'Hurd,' writes Walpole, 'had acquired a great name
by several works of slender merit, was a gentle, plausible man,
affecting a singular decorum that endeared him highly to devout old
ladies.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 50. He is best known
to the present generation by his impertinent notes on Addison's _Works_.
By reprinting them, Mr. Bohn did much to spoil what was otherwise an
excellent edition of that author. See _ante_, p. 47, note 2.
[596] The Rev. T. Twining, one of Dr. Burney's friends, wrote in
1779:--'You use a form of reference that I abominate, i.e. the latter,
the former. "As long as you have the use of your tongue and your pen,"
said Dr. Johnson to Dr. Burney, "never, Sir, be reduced to that shift."'
_Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIIIth
Century_, p. 72.
[597] 'A shilling was now wanted for some purpose or other, and none of
them happened to have one; I begged that I might lend one. "Ay, do,"
said the Doctor, "I will borrow of you; authors are like privateers,
always fair game for one another."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 212.
[598] See _ante_, i. 129, note 3.
[599] See _post_, June 3, 1784, where he uses almost the same words.
[600] What this period was Boswell seems to leave intentionally vague.
Johnson knew Lord Shelburne at least as early as 1778 (_ante_, iii.
265). He wrote to Dr. Taylor on July 22, 1782:--'Shelburne speaks of
Burke in private with great malignity.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v.
462. The company commonly gathered at his house would have been
displeasing to Johnson. Priestley, who lived with Shelburne seven years,
says (_Auto_. p. 55) that a great part of the company he saw there was
like the French philosophers, unbelievers in Christianity, and even
professed atheists: men 'who had given no proper attention to
Christianity, and did not really know what it was.' Johnson was intimate
with Lord Shelburne's brother. _Ante_, ii. 282, note 3.
[601] Johnson being asked his opinion of this Essay, answered, 'Why,
Sir, we shall have the man come forth again; and as he has proved
Falstaff to be no coward, he may prove Iago to be a very good
character.' BOSWELL.
[602] A writer in the _European Magazine_, xxx. 160, says that Johnson
visited Lord Shelburne at Bowood. At dinner he repeated part of his
letter to Lord Chesterfield (_ante_, i. 261). A gentleman arrived late.
Shelburne, telling him what he had missed, went on:-'I dare say the
Doctor will be kind enough to give it to us again.' 'Indeed, my Lord, I
will not. I told the circumstance first for my own amusement, but I will
not be dragged in as story-teller to a company.' In an argument he used
some strong expressions, of which his opponent took no notice, Next
morning 'he went up to the gentleman with great good-nature, and said,
"Sir, I have found out upon reflection that I was both warm and wrong in
my argument with you last night; for the first of which I beg your
pardon, and for the second, I thank you for setting me right."' It is
clear that the second of these anecdotes is the same as that told by Mr.
Morgann of Johnson and himself, and that the scene has been wrongly
transferred from Wickham to Bowood. The same writer says that it was
between Derrick and Boyce--not Derrick and Smart--that Johnson, in the
story that follows, could not settle the precedency.
[603] See ante, i. 124, 394.
[604] See ante, i. 397.
[605] What the great TWALMLEY was so proud of having invented, was
neither more nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing
linen. BOSWELL.
[606]
'Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi,
Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat,
Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti,
Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes.'
_Aeneid_, vi. 660.
'Lo, they who in their country's fight
sword-wounded bodies bore;
Lo, priests of holy life and chaste,
while they in life had part;
Lo, God-loved poets, men who spake
things worthy Phoebus' heart,
And they who bettered life on earth
by new-found mastery.'
MORRIS. Virgil, _Aeneids_, vi. 660. The great Twalmley might have
justified himself by _The Rambler_, No. 9:--'Every man, from the
highest to the lowest station, ought to warm his heart and animate his
endeavours with the hopes of being useful to the world, by advancing the
art which it is his lot to exercise; and for that end he must
necessarily consider the whole extent of its application, and the whole
weight of its importance.... Every man ought to endeavour at eminence,
not by pulling others down, but by raising himself, and enjoy the
pleasure of his own superiority, whether imaginary or real, without
interrupting others in the same felicity.' All this is what Twalmley
did. He adorned an art, he endeavoured at eminence, and he inoffensively
enjoyed the pleasure of his own superiority. He could also have defended
himself by the example of Aeneas, who, introducing himself, said:--
'Sum pius Aeneas .....
... fama super aethera notus.'
_Aeneid_, i. 378. I fear that Twalmley met with the neglect that so
commonly befalls inventors. In the _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p. 719, I find in
the list of 'B-nk-ts,' Josiah Twamley, the elder, of Warwick,
ironmonger.
[607] 'Sir, Hume is a Tory by chance, as being a Scotchman; but not upon
a principle of duty, for he has no principle. If he is anything, he is a
Hobbist.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30. Horace Walpole's opinion was
very different. 'Are not atheism and bigotry first cousins? Was not
Charles II. an atheist and a bigot? and does Mr. Hume pluck a stone from
a church but to raise an altar to tyranny?' _Letters_, v. 444. Hume
wrote in 1756:--'My views of _things_ are more conformable to Whig
principles; my representations of _persons_ to Tory prejudices.' J.H.
Burton's _Hume_, ii. 11. Hume's Toryism increased with years. He says in
his _Autobiography/_ (p. xi.) that all the alterations which he made in
the later editions of his _History of the Stuarts_, 'he made invariably
to the Tory side.' Dr. Burton gives instances of these; _Life of Hume_,
ii. 74. Hume wrote in 1763 that he was 'too much infected with the
plaguy prejudices of Whiggism when he began the work.' _Ib_. p. 144. In
1770 he wrote:--'I either soften or expunge many villainous, seditious
Whig strokes which had crept into it.' _Ib_. p. 434. This growing hatred
of Whiggism was, perhaps, due to pique. John Home, in his notes of
Hume's talk in the last weeks of his life, says: 'He recurred to a
subject not unfrequent with him--that is, the design to ruin him as an
author, by the people that were ministers at the first publication of
his _History_, and called themselves Whigs.' _Ib_. p. 500. As regards
America, Hume was with the Whigs, as Johnson had perhaps learnt from
their common friend, Mr. Strahan. 'He was,' says Dr. Burton, 'far more
tolerant of the sway of individuals over numbers, which he looked upon
as the means of preserving order and civilization, than of the
predominance of one territory over another, which he looked upon as
subjugation.' _Ib_. p. 477. Quite at the beginning of the struggle he
foretold that the Americans would not be subdued, unless they broke in
pieces among themselves. _Ib_. p. 482. He was not frightened by the
prospect of the loss of our supremacy. He wrote to Adam Smith:--'My
notion is that the matter is not so important as is commonly imagined.
Our navigation and general commerce may suffer more than our
manufactures.' _Ib_. p. 484. Johnson's charge against Hume that he had
no principle, is, no doubt, a gross one; yet Hume's advice to a
sceptical young clergyman, who had good hope of preferment, that he
should therefore continue in orders, was unprincipled enough. 'It is,'
he wrote, 'putting too great a respect on the vulgar and on their
superstitions to pique one's self on sincerity with regard to them. Did
ever one make it a point of honour to speak truth to children or madmen?
If the thing were worthy being treated gravely, I should tell him that
the Pythian oracle, with the approbation of Xenophon, advised every one
to worship the gods--[Greek: nomo poleos]. I wish it were still in my
power to be a hypocrite in this particular. The common duties of society
usually require it; and the ecclesiastical profession only adds a little
more to an innocent dissimulation, or rather simulation, without which
it is impossible to pass through the world.' _Ib/_. p. 187.
[608] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 48) says that Johnson told her that in
writing the story of Gelaleddin, the poor scholar (_Idler_, No. 75), who
thought to fight his way to fame by his learning and wit, 'he had his
own outset into life in his eye.' Gelaleddin describes how 'he was
sometimes admitted to the tables of the viziers, where he exerted his
wit and diffused his knowledge; but he observed that where, by endeavour
or accident he had remarkably excelled, he was seldom invited a second
time.' See _ante_, p. 116.
[609] See ante, p. 115.
[610] Bar. BOSWELL.
[611] Nard. BOSWELL.
[612] Barnard. BOSWELL.
[613] It was reviewed in the _Gent. Mag_. 1781, p. 282, where it is said
to have been written by Don Gabriel, third son of the King of Spain.
[614] Though 'you was' is very common in the authors of the last century
when one person was addressed, I doubt greatly whether Johnson ever so
expressed himself.
[615] See _ante_, i. 311.
[616] Horace Walpole (_Letters_ v. 85) says, 'Boswell, like Cambridge,
has a rage of knowing anybody that ever was talked of.' Miss Burney
records 'an old trick of Mr. Cambridge to his son George, when listening
to a dull story, in saying to the relator "Tell the rest of that to
George."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 274. See _ante_, ii. 361.
[617] Virgil, _Eclogues_, i. 47.
[618] 'Mr. Johnson,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 21), 'was
exceedingly disposed to the general indulgence of children, and was even
scrupulously and ceremoniously attentive not to offend them. He had
strongly persuaded himself of the difficulty people always find to erase
early impressions either of kindness or resentment.'
[619] _Ante_, ii.171, iv.75; also _post_, May 15, 1784.
[620] Johnson, on May 1, 1780, wrote of the exhibition dinner:--'The
apartments were truly very noble. The pictures, for the sake of a
sky-light, are at the top of the house; there we dined, and I sat over
against the Archbishop of York. See how I live when I am not under
petticoat government.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 111. It was Archbishop
Markham whom he met; he is mentioned by Boswell in his _Hebrides, post_,
v. 37. In spite of the 'elaboration of homage' Johnson could judge
freely of an archbishop. He described the Archbishop of Tuam as 'a man
coarse of voice and inelegant of language.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 300.
[621] By Lord Perceval, afterwards Earl of Egmont. He carried, writes
Horace Walpole (_Letters_, ii. 144), 'the Westminster election at the
end of my father's ministry, which he amply described in the history of
his own family, a genealogical work called the _History of the House of
Yvery_, a work which cost him three thousand pounds; and which was so
ridiculous, that he has since tried to suppress all the copies. It
concluded with the description of the Westminster election, in these or
some such words:--"And here let us leave this young nobleman struggling
for the dying liberties of his country."'
[622] Five days earlier Johnson made the following entry in his
Diary:--'1783, April 5. I took leave of Mrs. Thrale. I was much moved. I
had some expostulations with her. She said that she was likewise
affected. I commended the Thrales with great good-will to God; may my
petitions have been heard.' Hawkins's _Life_, p. 553. This was not 'a
formal taking of leave,' as Hawkins says. She was going to Bath (Mme.
D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 264). On May-day he wrote to her on the death of
one of her little girls:--'I loved her, for she was Thrale's and yours,
and, by her dear father's appointment, in some sort mine: I love you
all, and therefore cannot without regret see the phalanx broken, and
reflect that you and my other dear girls are deprived of one that was
born your friend. To such friends every one that has them has recourse
at last, when it is discovered and discovered it seldom fails to be,
that the fortuitous friendships of inclination or vanity are at the
mercy of a thousand accidents.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 255. He was sadly
thinking how her friendship for him was rapidly passing away.
[623] Johnson modestly ended his account of the tour by saying:--'I
cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on national manners are the
thoughts of one who has seen but little.' _Works_, ix. 161. See
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 22.
[624] See _ib_. Oct. 21.
[625] She says that he was 'the genuine author of the first volume. An
ingenious physician,' she continues, 'with the assistance of several
others, continued the work until the eighth volume.' Mrs. Manley's
_History of her own Life and Times_, p. 15--a gross, worthless book.
Swift satirised her in _Corinna, a Ballad_. Swift's _Works_ (1803),
x. 94.
[626] The real authour was I. P. Marana, a Genoese, who died at Paris in
1693. John Dunton in his _Life_ says, that Mr. _William Bradshaw_
received from Dr. Midgeley forty shillings a sheet for writing part of
the _Turkish Spy_; but I do not find that he any where mentions _Sault_
as engaged in that work. MALONE.
[627] See _ante_, ii. 355, iii. 46, and iv. 139.
[628] This was in June, 1783, and I find in Mr. Windham's private diary
(which it seems this conversation induced him to keep) the following
memoranda of Dr. Johnson's advice: 'I have no great timidity in my own
disposition, and am no encourager of it in others. Never be afraid to
think yourself fit for any thing for which your friends think you fit.
_You will become an able negotiator--a very pretty rascal_. No one in
Ireland wears even the mask of incorruption; no one professes to do for
sixpence what he can get a shilling for doing. Set sail, and see where
the winds and the waves will carry you. Every day will improve another.
_Dies diem docet_, by observing at night where you failed in the day,
and by resolving to fail so no more.' CROKER. The Whigs thought he made
'a very pretty rascal' in a very different way. On his opposition to
Whitbread's bill for establishing parochial schools, Romilly wrote
(_Life_, ii. 2l6), 'that a man so enlightened as Windham should take the
same side (which he has done most earnestly) would excite great
astonishment, if one did not recollect his eager opposition a few months
ago to the abolition of the slave trade.' He was also 'most strenuous in
opposition' to Romilly's bill for repealing the act which made it a
capital offence to steal to the amount of forty shillings in a
dwelling-house, _Ib_. p. 316.
[629] We accordingly carried our scheme into execution, in October,
1792; but whether from that uniformity which has in modern times, in a
great degree, spread through every part of the Metropolis, or from our
want of sufficient exertion, we were disappointed. BOSWELL.
[630] Piozzi's _Anecdotes_, p. 193. See _post_, under June 30, 1784.
[631] Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 139-143) says that the picture,
which was execrable beyond belief, was exhibited in an empty room. Lowe,
in 1769 (not in 1771 as Northcote says), gained the gold medal of the
Academy for the best historical picture. (_Gent. Mag_. 1770, p. 587.)
Northcote says that the award was not a fair one. He adds that Lowe,
being sent to Rome by the patronage of the Academy, was dissatisfied
with the sum allowed him. 'When Sir Joshua said that he knew from
experience that it was sufficient, Lowe pertly answered "that it was
possible for a man to live on guts and garbage."' He died at an obscure
lodging in Westminster, in 1793. There is, wrote Miss Burney, 'a certain
poor wretch of a villainous painter, one Mr. Lowe, whom Dr. Johnson
recommends to all the people he thinks can afford to sit for their
picture. Among these he applied to Mr. Crutchley [one of Mr. Thrale's
executors]. "But now," said Mr. Crutchley to me, "I have not a notion of
sitting for my picture--for who wants it? I may as well give the man
the money without; but no, they all said that would not do so well, and
Dr. Johnson asked me to give _him_ my picture." "And I assure you, Sir,"
says he, "I shall put it in very good company, for I have portraits of
some very respectable people in my dining-room." After all I could say I
was obliged to go to the painter's. And I found him in such a condition!
a room all dirt and filth, brats squalling and wrangling... "Oh!" says
I, "Mr. Lowe, I beg your pardon for running away, but I have just
recollected another engagement; so I poked three guineas in his hand,
and told him I would come again another time, and then ran out of the
house with all my might."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.41. A
correspondent of the _Examiner_ writing on May 28, 1873, said that he
had met one of Lowe's daughters, 'who recollected,' she told him, 'when
a child, sitting on Dr. Johnson's knee and his making her repeat the
Lord's Prayer.' She was Johnson's god-daughter. By a committee
consisting of Milman, Thackeray, Dickens, Carlyle and others, an annuity
fund for her and her sister was raised. Lord Palmerston gave a large
subscription.
[632] See _post_, May 15, 1783.
[633] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, _post_, v. 48.
[634] See _ante_, p. 171.
[635] Quoted by Boswell, _ante_, iii. 324.