the reason why Dr. Johnson collected the peels of squeezed oranges may
be found in the 58th [358th] Letter in Mrs. Piozzi's _Collection_, where
it appears that he recommended 'dried orange-peel, finely powdered,' as
a medicine. BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 330.
[637] There are two mistakes in this calculation, both perhaps due to
Boswell. _Eighty-four_ should be _eighty-eight_, and square-yards should
be _yards square_. 'If a wall cost £1000 a mile, £100 would build 176
yards of wall, which would form a square of 44 yards, and enclose an
area of 1936 square yards; and £200 would build 352 yards of wall, which
would form a square of 88 yards, and inclose an area of 7744 square
yards. The cost of the wall in the latter case, as compared with the
space inclosed, would therefore be reduced to one half.' _Notes and
Queries_, 1st S. x. 471.
[638] See _ante_, i. 318.
[639] 'Davies observes, in his account of Ireland, that no Irishman had
ever planted an orchard.' Johnson's _Works_, ix.7. 'At Fochabars [in the
Highlands] there is an orchard, which in Scotland I had never seen
before.' _Ib._ p. 21.
[640] Miss Burney this year mentions meeting 'Mr. Walker, the lecturer.
Though modest in science, he is vulgar in conversation.' Mme. D'Arblay's
_Diary_, ii. 237. Johnson quotes him, _Works_, viii. 474.
[641] 'Old Mr. Sheridan' was twelve years younger than Johnson. For his
oratory, see _ante_, i. 453, and _post_, April 28 and May 17, 1783.
[642] See _ante_, i. 358, when Johnson said of Sheridan:--'His voice
when strained is unpleasing, and when low is not always heard.'
[643] See _ante_, iii. 139.
[644] 'A more magnificent funeral was never seen in London,' wrote
Murphy (_Life of Garrick_, p. 349). Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii.
169), wrote on the day of the funeral:--'I do think the pomp of
Garrick's funeral perfectly ridiculous. It is confounding the immense
space between pleasing talents and national services.' He added, 'at
Lord Chatham's interment there were not half the noble coaches that
attended Garrick's.' _Ib_. p. 171. In his _Journal of the Reign of
George III_ (ii. 333), he says:--'The Court was delighted to see a more
noble and splendid appearance at the interment of a comedian than had
waited on the remains of the great Earl of Chatham.' Bishop Horne
(_Essays and Thoughts_, p. 283) has some lines on 'this grand parade of
woe,' which begin:--
'Through weeping London's crowded streets,
As Garrick's funeral passed,
Contending wits and nobles strove,
Who should forsake him last.
Not so the world behaved to _him_
Who came that world to save,
By solitary Joseph borne
Unheeded to his grave.'
Johnson wrote on April 30, 1782: 'Poor Garrick's funeral expenses are
yet unpaid, though the undertaker is broken.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 239.
Garrick was buried on Feb. 1, 1779, and had left his widow a large
fortune. Chatham died in May, 1778.
[645] Boswell had heard Johnson maintain this; _ante_, ii. 101.
[646] See _post_, p. 238, note 2.
[647] This duel was fought on April 21, between Mr. Riddell of the
Horse-Grenadiers, and Mr. Cunningham of the Scots Greys. Riddell had the
first fire, and shot Cunningham through the breast. After a pause of two
minutes Cunningham returned the fire, and gave Riddell a wound of which
he died next day. _Gent. Mag._ 1783, p. 362. Boswell's grandfather's
grandmother was a Miss Cunningham. Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 4. I do
not know that there was any nearer connection. In Scotland, I suppose,
so much kindred as this makes two men 'near relations.'
[648] 'Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the
other.' _St. Luke_, vi. 29. Had Miss Burney thought of this text, she
might have quoted it with effect against Johnson, who, criticising her
_Evelina_, said:--'You write Scotch, you say "the one,"--my dear,
that's not English. Never use that phrase again.' Mme. D'Arblay's
_Diary_, i. 84.
[649] 'Turn not thou away.' _St. Matthew_, v. 42.
[650] I think it necessary to caution my readers against concluding that
in this or any other conversation of Dr. Johnson, they have his serious
and deliberate opinion on the subject of duelling. In my _Journal of a
Tour to the Hebrides_, 3 ed. p. 386 [p. 366, Oct. 24], it appears that
he made this frank confession:--'Nobody at times, talks more laxly than
I do;' and, _ib_. p. 231 [Sept. 19, 1773], 'He fairly owned he could not
explain the rationality of duelling.' We may, therefore, infer, that he
could not think that justifiable, which seems so inconsistent with the
spirit of the Gospel. At the same time it must be confessed, that from
the prevalent notions of honour, a gentleman who receives a challenge is
reduced to a dreadful alternative. A remarkable instance of this is
furnished by a clause in the will of the late Colonel Thomas, of the
Guards, written the night before he fell in a duel, Sept. 3, 1783:--'In
the first place, I commit my soul to Almighty GOD, in hopes of his mercy
and pardon for the irreligious step I now (in compliance with the
unwarrantable customs of this wicked world) put myself under the
necessity of taking.' BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 179.
[651] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24 and Sept. 20. Dr. Franklin
(_Memoirs_, i. 177) says that when the assembly at Philadelphia, the
majority of which were Quakers, was asked by New England to supply
powder for some garrison, 'they would not grant money to buy powder,
because that was an ingredient of war; but they voted an aid of £3000 to
be appropriated for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat, or _other
grain_.' The Governor interpreted _other grain_ as gunpowder, without
any objection ever being raised.
[652] 'A gentleman falling off his horse brake his neck, which sudden
hap gave occasion of much speech of his former life, and some in this
judging world judged the worst. In which respect a good friend made this
good epitaph, remembering that of Saint Augustine, _Misericordia Domini
inter pontem et fontem_.
"My friend judge not me,
Thou seest I judge not thee;
Betwixt the stirrop and the ground,
Mercy I askt, mercy I found."'
_Camden's Remains_, ed. 1870, p. 420.
[653] 'In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life.'
_Prayer-book._
[654] Upon this objection the Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of
Brazennose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following
satisfactory observation:--'The passage in the Burial-service does not
mean the resurrection of the person interred, but the general
resurrection; it is in sure and certain hope of _the_ resurrection; not
_his_ resurrection. Where the deceased is really spoken of, the
expression is very different, "as our hope is this our brother doth"
[rest in Christ]; a mode of speech consistent with every thing but
absolute certainty that the person departed doth _not_ rest in Christ,
which no one can be assured of, without immediate revelation from
Heaven. In the first of these places also, "eternal life" does not
necessarily mean eternity of bliss, but merely the eternity of the
state, whether in happiness or in misery, to ensue upon the
resurrection; which is probably the sense of "the life everlasting," in
the Apostles' Creed. See _Wheatly and Bennet on the Common
Prayer_.' BOSWELL.
[655] Six days earlier the Lord-Advocate Dundas had brought in a bill
for the Regulation of the Government of India. Hastings, he said, should
be recalled. His place should be filled by 'a person of independent
fortune, who had not for object the repairing of his estate in India,
that had long been the nursery of ruined and decayed fortunes.' _Parl.
Hist_. xxiii. 757. Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on Nov. 22 of this
year:--'I believe corruption and oppression are in India at an enormous
height, but it has never appeared that they were promoted by the
Directors, who, I believe, see themselves defrauded, while the country
is plundered; but the distance puts their officers out of reach.' _Notes
and Queries_, 6th S. v. 482. See _ante_, p. 66.
[656] See _ante_, p. 113.
[657] Stockdale (_Memoirs_, ii. 57) says that, in 1770, the payment to
writers in the _Critical Review_ was two guineas a sheet, but that some
of the writers in _The Monthly Review_ received four guineas a sheet. As
these Reviews were octavos, each sheet contained sixteen pages. Lord
Jeffrey says that the writers in the _Edinburgh Review_ were at first
paid ten guineas a sheet. 'Not long after the _minimum_ was raised to
sixteen guineas, at which it remained during my reign, though two-thirds
of the articles were paid much higher--averaging, I should think, from
twenty to twenty-five guineas a sheet on the whole number.' Cockburn's
_Jeffrey_, i. 136.
[658] See ante, ii. 344.
[659] See _ante_, iii.32.
[660] See _ante_, p. 206.
[661] _Monday_ is no doubt put by mistake for _Tuesday_, which was the
29th. Boswell had spent a considerable part of Monday the 28th with
Johnson (_ante_, p. 211).
[662]
'A fugitive from Heaven and prayer,
I mocked at all religious fear.'
FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, i.34. 1.
[663] He told Boswell (_ante_, i. 68) that he had been a sort of lax
talker against religion for some years before he went to Oxford, but
that there he took up Law's _Serious Call_ and found it quite an
overmatch for him. 'This,' he said, 'was the first occasion of my
thinking in earnest of religion after I became capable of rational
enquiry.' During the vacation of 1729 he had a serious illness (_ante_,
i. 63), which most likely was 'the sickness that brought religion back.'
[664] See _ante_, i. 93, 164, and _post_, under Dec. 2, 1784.
[665] Mr. Langton. See _ante_, ii. 254.
[666] See _ante_, ii. 249.
[667] Malloch continued to write his name thus, _after he came to
London_. His verses prefixed to the second edition of Thomson's _Winter_
are so subscribed. MALONE. 'Alias. A Latin word signifying otherwise;
as, Mallet, _alias_ Malloch; that is _otherwise_ Malloch.' The mention
of Mallet first comes in Johnson's own abridgment of his _Dictionary_.
In the earlier unabridged editions the definition concludes, 'often used
in the trials of criminals, whose danger has obliged them to change
their names; as Simpson _alias_ Smith, _alias_ Baker, &c.' For Mallet,
see _ante_, i. 268, and ii. 159.
[668] Perhaps Scott had this saying of Johnson's in mind when he made
Earl Douglas exclaim:--
'At first in heart it liked me ill,
When the King praised his clerkly skill.
Thanks to St. Bothan, son of mine,
Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line.'
_Marmion_, canto vi. 15.
[669] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 10.
[670] Johnson often maintained this diffusion of learning. Thus he
wrote:--'The call for books was not in Milton's age what it is in the
present. To read was not then a general amusement; neither traders, nor
often gentlemen, thought themselves disgraced by ignorance. The women
had not then aspired to literature nor was every house supplied with a
closet of knowledge.' _Works_, vii. 107. He goes on to mention 'that
general literature which now pervades the nation through all its ranks.'
_Works_, p. 108. 'That general knowledge which now circulates in common
talk was in Addison's time rarely to be found. Men not professing
learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and, in the female world, any
acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured.' _Ib_.
p.470. 'Of the _Essay on Criticism_, Pope declared that he did not
expect the sale to be quick, because "not one gentleman in sixty, even
of liberal education, could understand it." The gentlemen, and the
education of that time, seem to have been of a lower character than they
are of this.' _Ib_. viii. 243. See _ante_, iii. 3, 254. Yet he
maintained that 'learning has decreased in England, because learning
will not do so much for a man as formerly.' Boswell's _Hebrides,
post_, v. 80.
[671] Malone describes a call on Johnson in the winter of this year:--'I
found him in his arm-chair by the fire-side, before which a few apples
were laid. He was reading. I asked him what book he had got. He said the
_History of Birmingham_. Local histories, I observed, were generally
dull. "It is true, Sir; but this has a peculiar merit with me; for I
passed some of my early years, and married my wife there." [See _ante_,
i. 96.] I supposed the apples were preparing as medicine. "Why, no, Sir;
I believe they are only there because I want something to do. These are
some of the solitary expedients to which we are driven by sickness. I
have been confined this week past; and here you find me roasting apples,
and reading the _History of Birmingham_."' Prior's _Malone_, p. 92.
[672] On April 19, he wrote:--'I can apply better to books than I could
in some more vigorous parts of my life--at least than I _did_; and I
have one more reason for reading--that time has, by taking away my
companions, left me less opportunity of conversation.' Croker's
_Boswell_, p. 727.
[673] He told Mr. Windham that he had never read the _Odyssey_ through
in the original. Windham's _Diary_, p. 17. 'Fox,' said Rogers (_Table
Talk_, p. 92), 'used to read Homer through once every year. On my asking
him, "Which poem had you rather have written, the _Iliad_ or the
_Odyssey_?" he answered, "I know which I had rather read" (meaning the
_Odyssey_).'
[674] 'Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence
and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or
resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to
more delightful amusements.' Johnson's _Works_, iv. 145. Of Pope Johnson
wrote (_ib_. viii. 321):--'To make verses was his first labour, and to
mend them was his last. ... He was one of those few whose labour is
their pleasure.' Thomas Carlyle, in 1824, speaking of writing, says:--'I
always recoil from again engaging with it.' Froude's _Carlyle_, i. 213.
Five years later he wrote:--'Writing is a dreadful labour, yet not so
dreadful as _idleness_.' _Ib_. ii. 75. See _ante_, iii. 19.
[675] See _ante_, ii. 15.
[676] Miss Burney wrote to Mrs. Thrale in 1780:--'I met at Sir Joshua's
young Burke, who is made much ado about, but I saw not enough of him to
know why.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 416. Mrs. Thrale replied:--'I
congratulate myself on being quite of your opinion concerning Burke the
minor, whom I once met and could make nothing of.' _Ib_. p. 418. Miss
Hawkins (_Memoirs_, i. 304) reports, on Langton's authority, that Burke
said:--'How extraordinary it is that I, and Lord Chatham, and Lord
Holland, should each have a son so superior to ourselves.'
[677] Cruikshank, not Cruikshanks (see _post_, under Sept. 18, 1783, and
Sept. 4 1784). He had been Dr. Hunter's partner; he was not elected
(_Gent. Mag._ 1783, p. 626). Northcote, in quoting this letter, says
that 'Sir Joshua's influence in the Academy was not always answerable to
his desire. "Those who are of some importance everywhere else," he said,
"find themselves nobody when they come to the Academy."' Northcote's
_Reynolds_, ii. 145.
[678] William Hunter, scarcely less famous as a physician than his
youngest brother, John Hunter, as a surgeon.
[679] Let it be remembered by those who accuse Dr. Johnson of
illiberality that both were _Scotchmen_. BOSWELL.
[680] The following day he dined at Mrs. Garrick's. 'Poor Johnson,'
wrote Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 280), 'exerted himself exceedingly, but
he was very ill and looked so dreadfully, that it quite grieved me. He
is more mild and complacent than he used to be. His sickness seems to
have softened his mind, without having at all weakened it. I was struck
with the mild radiance of this setting sun.'
[681] In the winter of 1788-9 Boswell began a canvass of his own county,
He also courted Lord Lonsdale, in the hope of getting one of the seats
in his gift, who first fooled him and then treated him with great
brutality, _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 270, 294, 324.
[682] On April 6, 1780--'a day,' wrote Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii.
345), 'that ought for ever to be a red-lettered day'--Mr. Dunning made
this motion. It was carried by 233 to 215. _Parl. Hist._ xxi. 340-367.
[683] See _ante_, i. 355, and ii. 94 for Johnson's appeal to meals as a
measure of vexation.
[684] Johnson defines _cant_ as '1. A corrupt dialect used by beggars
and vagabonds. 2. A particular form of speaking peculiar to some certain
class or body of men. 3. A whining pretension to goodness in formal and
affected terms. 4. Barbarous jargon. 5. Auction.' I have noted the
following instances of his use of the word:--'I betook myself to a
coffee-house frequented by wits, among whom I learned in a short time
the _cant_ of criticism.' _The Rambler_, No.123. 'Every class of society
has its _cant_ of lamentation.' _Ib_. No.128. 'Milton's invention
required no assistance from the common _cant_ of poetry.' _Ib_. No.140.
'We shall secure our language from being overrun with _cant_, from being
crowded with low terms, the spawn of folly or affectation.' _Works_, v.
II. 'This fugitive _cant_, which is always in a state of increase or
decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durable materials of a
language.' _Ib_. p.45. In a note on I _Henry VI_, act iii. sc.1, he
says: 'To _roam_ is supposed to be derived from the _cant_ of vagabonds,
who often pretended a pilgrimage to Rome.' See _ante_, iii. 197, for
'modern _cant_.'
[685] 'Custom,' wrote Sir Joshua, 'or politeness, or courtly manners has
authorised such an eastern hyperbolical style of compliment, that part
of Dr. Johnson's character for rudeness of manners must be put to the
account of scrupulous adherence to truth. His obstinate silence, whilst
all the company were in raptures, vying with each other who should
pepper highest, was considered as rudeness or ill-nature.' Taylor's
_Reynolds_, ii. 458.
[686] 'The shame is to impose words for ideas upon ourselves or others.'
Johnson's _Works_, vi. 64. See _ante_, p.122, where he says: 'There is a
middle state of mind between conviction and hypocrisy.' Bacon, in his
_Essay of Truth_, says: 'It is not the lie that passeth through the
mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth
the hurt.'
[687] See _ante_, p. 204.
[688] 'I dined and lay at Harrison's, where I was received with that
old-fashioned breeding which is at once so honourable and so
troublesome.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 144. Mr. Pleydell, in _Guy
Mannering_, ed. 1860, iv. 96, says: 'You'll excuse my old-fashioned
importunity. I was born in a time when a Scotchman was thought
inhospitable if he left a guest alone a moment, except when he slept.'
[689] See _ante_, ii. 167.
[690] See _ante_, i. 387.
[691] In Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 197, it is recorded that
Johnson said, 'Sheridan's writings on elocution were a continual
renovation of hope, and an unvaried succession of disappointments.'
According to the _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p. 288, he continued:--'If we
should have a bad harvest this year, Mr. Sheridan would say:--"It was
owing to the neglect of oratory."' See _ante_, p. 206.
[692] Burke, no doubt, was this 'bottomless Whig.' When Johnson said 'so
they _all_ are now,' he was perhaps thinking of the Coalition Ministry
in which Lord North and his friends had places.
[693] No doubt Burke, who was Paymaster of the Forces. He is Boswell's
'eminent friend.' See _ante_ ii.222, and _post_, Dec. 24, 1783, and
Jan.8, 1784. In these two consecutive paragraphs, though two people seem
to be spoken of, yet only one is in reality.
[694] I believe that Burke himself was present part of the time, and
that he was the gentleman who 'talked of _retiring_. On May 19 and 21 he
had in Parliament defended his action in restoring to office two clerks,
Powell and Bembridge, who had been dismissed by his predecessor, and he
had justified his reforms in the Paymaster's office. 'He awaited,' he
said, the 'judgement of the House. ...If they so far differed in
sentiment, he had only to say, _Nunc dimittis servum tuum.' Parl. Hist._
xxiii.919.
[695] A copy of _Evelina_ had been placed in the Bodleian. 'Johnson
says,' wrote Miss Burney, 'that when he goes to Oxford he will write my
name in the books, and my age when I writ them, and then,' he says, 'the
world may know that we _So mix our studies, and so joined our fame._ For
we shall go down hand in hand to posterity.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_,
i.429. The oldest copy of _Evelina_ now in the Bodleian is of an edition
published after Johnson's death. Miss Burney, in 1793, married General
D'Arblay, a French refugee.
[696] Macaulay maintained that Johnson had a hand in the composition of
_Cecilia_. He quotes a passage from it, and says:--'We say with
confidence, either Sam. Johnson or the Devil.' (_Essays_, ed. 1874, iv.
157.) That he is mistaken is shown by Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_ (ii. 172).
'Ay,' cried Dr. Johnson, 'some people want to make out some credit to me
from the little rogue's book. I was told by a gentleman this morning
that it was a very fine book, if it was all her own.' "It is all her
own," said I, "for me, I am sure, for I never saw one word of it before
it was printed."' On p. 196 she records the following:--'SIR JOSHUA.
"Gibbon says he read the whole five volumes in a day." "'Tis
impossible," cried Mr. Burke, "it cost me three days; and you know I
never parted with it from the day I first opened it."' See _post_, among
the imitators of Johnson's style, under Dec. 6, 1784.
[697] In Mr. Barry's printed analysis, or description of these pictures,
he speaks of Johnson's character in the highest terms. BOSWELL. Barry,
in one of his pictures, placed Johnson between the two beautiful
duchesses of Rutland and Devonshire, pointing to their Graces Mrs.
Montagu as an example. He expresses his 'reverence for his consistent,
manly, and well-spent life.' Barry's _Works_, ii. 339. Johnson, in his
turn, praises 'the comprehension of Barry's design.' _Piozzi Letters_,
ii. 256. He was more likely to understand it, as the pictures formed a
series, meant 'to illustrate one great maxim of moral truth, viz. that
the obtaining of happiness depends upon cultivating the human faculties.
We begin with man in a savage state full of inconvenience, imperfection,
and misery, and we follow him through several gradations of culture and
happiness, which, after our probationary state here, are finally
attended with beatitude or misery.' Barry's _Works_, ii. 323. Horace
Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 366) describes Barry's book as one 'which does
not want sense, though full of passion and self, and vulgarisms
and vanity.'
[698] Boswell had tried to bring about a third meeting between Johnson
and Wilkes. On May 21 he wrote:--'Mr. Boswell's compliments to Mr.
Wilkes. He finds that it would not be unpleasant to Dr. Johnson to dine
at Mr. Wilkes's. The thing would be so curiously benignant, it were a
pity it should not take place. Nobody but Mr. Boswell should be asked to
meet the doctor.' An invitation was sent, but the following answer was
returned:--'May 24, 1783. Mr. Johnson returns thanks to Mr. and Miss
Wilkes for their kind invitation; but he is engaged for Tuesday to Sir
Joshua Reynolds, and for Wednesday to Mr. Paradise.' Owing to Boswell's
return to Scotland, another day could not be fixed. Almon's _Wilkes_,
iv. 314, 321.
[699] 'If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the
place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.' _Ecclesiastes_, xi. 3.
[700] 'When a tree is falling, I have seen the labourers, by a trivial
jerk with a rope, throw it upon the spot where they would wish it should
lie. Divines, understanding this text too literally, pretend, by a
little interposition in the article of death, to regulate a person's
everlasting happiness. I fancy the allusion will hardly countenance
their presumption.' Shenstone's _Works_, ed. 1773, ii. 255.
[701] Hazlitt says that 'when old Baxter first went to Kidderminster to
preach, he was almost pelted by the women for maintaining from the
pulpit the then fashionable and orthodox doctrine, that "Hell was paved
with infants' skulls.'" _Conversations of Northcote_, p. 80.
[702] _Acts_, xvii. 24.
[703] Now the celebrated Mrs. Crouch. BOSWELL.
[704] Mr. Windham was at this time in Dublin, Secretary to the Earl of
Northington, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. BOSWELL. See
_ante_, p.200.
[705] Son of Mr. Samuel Paterson. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii.90, and
_post_, April 5, 1784.
[706] The late Keeper of the Royal Academy. He died on Jan. 23 of this
year. Reynolds wrote of him:--'He may truly be said in every sense, to
have been the father of the present race of artists.' Northcote's
_Reynolds_ ii.137.
[707] Mr. Allen was his landlord and next neighbour in Bolt-court.
_Ante_, iii. 141.
[708] Cowper mentions him in _Retirement_:--
'Virtuous and faithful Heberden! whose skill
Attempts no task it cannot well fulfill,
Gives melancholy up to nature's care,
And sends the patient into purer air.'
Cowper's _Poems_, ed. 1786, i. 272.
He is mentioned also by Priestley (_Auto._ ed. 1810, p.66) as one of his
chief benefactors. Lord Eldon, when almost a briefless barrister,
consulted him. 'I put my hand into my pocket, meaning to give him his
fee; but he stopped me, saying, "Are you the young gentleman who gained
the prize for the essay at Oxford?" I said I was. "I will take no fee
from you." I often consulted him; but he would never take a fee.'
Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 104.
[709] How much he had physicked himself is shewn by a letter of May 8.
'I took on Thursday,' he writes, 'two brisk catharticks and a dose of
calomel. Little things do me no good. At night I was much better. Next
day cathartick again, and the third day opium for my cough. I lived
without flesh all the three days.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.257. He had been
bled at least four times that year and had lost about fifty ounces of
blood. _Ante_, pp.142, 146. On Aug. 3, 1779, he wrote:--'Of the last
fifty days I have taken mercurial physick, I believe, forty.' _Notes and
Queries_, 6th S. v.461.
[710] An exact reprint of this letter is given by Professor Mayor in
_Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v.481. The omissions and the repetitions
'betray,' he says, 'the writer's agitation.' The postscript Boswell had
omitted. It is as follows:--'Dr. Brocklesby will be with me to meet Dr.
Heberden, and I shall have previously make (sic) master of the case as
well as I can.'
[711] Vol. ii. p.268, of Mrs. Thrale's _Collection_. BOSWELL. The
beginning of the letter is very touching:--'I am sitting down in no
cheerful solitude to write a narrative which would once have affected
you with tenderness and sorrow, but which you will perhaps pass over now
with the careless glance of frigid indifference. For this diminution of
regard, however, I know not whether I ought to blame you, who may have
reasons which I cannot know, and I do not blame myself, who have for a
great part of human life done you what good I could, and have never done
you evil.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 268. 'I have loved you,' he continued,
'with virtuous affection; I have honoured you with sincere esteem. Let
not all our endearments be forgotten, but let me have in this great
distress your pity and your prayers. You see I yet turn to you with my
complaints as a settled and unalienable friend; do not, do not drive me
from you, for I have not deserved either neglect or hatred.'
_Ib._ p.271.
[712] On Aug. 20 he wrote:--'I sat to Mrs. Reynolds yesterday for my
picture, perhaps the tenth time, and I sat near three hours with the
patience of _mortal born to bear_; at last she declared it quite
finished, and seems to think it fine. I told her it was _Johnson's
grimly ghost_. It is to be engraved, and I think _in glided_, &c., will
be a good inscription.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 302. Johnson is quoting
from Mallet's ballad of _Margaret's Ghost_:--
'Twas at the silent solemn hour,
When night and morning meet;
In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,
And stood at William's feet.'
_Percy Ballads_, in. 3, 16.
According to Northcote, Reynolds said of his sister's oil-paintings,
'they made other people laugh and him cry.' 'She generally,' Northcote
adds, 'did them by stealth.' _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 160.
[713] 'Nocte, inter 16 et 17 Junii, 1783.
Summe pater, quodcunque tuum de corpore Numen
Hoc statuat, precibus Christus adesse velit:
Ingenio parcas, nee sit mihi culpa rogasse,
Qua solum potero parte placere tibi.'
_Works_, i.159.
[714] According to the _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p.542, Dr. Lawrence died at
Canterbury on June 13 of this year, his second son died on the 15th.
But, if we may trust Munk's _Roll of the College of Physicians_, ii.153,
on the father's tomb-stone, June 6 is given as the day of his death. Mr.
Croker gives June 17 as the date, and June 19 as the day of the son's
death, and is puzzled accordingly.
[715] Poor Derrick, however, though he did not himself introduce me to
Dr. Johnson as he promised, had the merit of introducing me to Davies,
the immediate introductor. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i.385, 391.
[716] Miss Burney, calling on him the next morning, offered to make his
tea. He had given her his own large arm-chair which was too heavy for
her to move to the table. '"Sir," quoth she, "I am in the wrong chair."
"It is so difficult," cried he with quickness, "for anything to be wrong
that belongs to you, that it can only be I that am in the wrong chair to
keep you from the right one."' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, ii. 345.
[717] His Lordship was soon after chosen, and is now a member of THE
CLUB. BOSWELL. He was father of the future prime-minister, who was born
in the following year.
[718] He wrote on June 23:--'What man can do for man has been done for
me.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.278. Murphy (_Life_, p. 121) says that,
visiting him during illness, he found him reading Dr. Watson's
_Chymistry_ (_ante_, p. 118). 'Articulating with difficulty he
said:--"From this book he who knows nothing may learn a great deal, and
he who knows will be pleased to find his knowledge recalled to his mind
in a manner highly pleasing."'
[719] 'I have, by the migration of one of my ladies, more peace at home;
but I remember an old savage chief that says of the Romans with great
indignation-_ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant_ [_Tacitus,
Agricola_, c. xxx]. _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 259.
[720] 'July 23. I have been thirteen days at Rochester, and am just now
returned. I came back by water in a common boat twenty miles for a
shilling, and when I landed at Billingsgate, I carried my budget myself
to Cornhill before I could get a coach, and was not much incommoded'
_Ib_. ii.294. See _ante_, iv.8, 22, for mention of Rochester.
[721] Murphy (_Life_, p. 121) says that Johnson visited Oxford this
summer. Perhaps he was misled by a passage in the _Piozzi Letters_ (ii.
302) where Johnson is made to write:--'At Oxford I have just left
Wheeler.' For _left_ no doubt should be read _lost_. Wheeler died on
July 22 of this year. _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p. 629.
[722] This house would be interesting to Johnson, as in it Charles II,
'for whom he had an extraordinary partiality' (_ante_, ii. 341), lay hid
for some days after the battle of Worcester. Clarendon (vi. 540)
describes it 'as a house that stood alone from neighbours and from any
highway.' Charles was lodged 'in a little room, which had been made
since the beginning of the troubles for the concealment of delinquents.'
[723] 'I told Dr. Johnson I had heard that Mr. Bowles was very much
delighted with the expectation of seeing him, and he answered me:--"He
is so delighted that it is shocking. It is really shocking to see how
high are his expectations." I asked him why, and he said:--"Why, if any
man is expected to take a leap of twenty yards, and does actually take
one of ten, everybody will be disappointed, though ten yards may be more
than any other man ever leaped."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.260. On
Oct. 9, he wrote:--'Two nights ago Mr. Burke sat with me a long time.
We had both seen Stonehenge this summer for the first time.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii.315.
[724] Salisbury is eighty-two miles from Cornhill by the old coach-road.
Johnson seems to have been nearly fifteen hours on the journey.
[725] 'Aug. 13, 1783. I am now broken with disease, without the
alleviation of familiar friendship or domestic society. I have no middle
state between clamour and silence, between general conversation and
self-tormenting solitude. Levett is dead, and poor Williams is making
haste to die.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.301. 'Aug. 20. This has been a day
of great emotion; the office of the Communion of the Sick has been
performed in poor Mrs. Williams's chamber.' _Ib_. 'Sept. 22. Poor
Williams has, I hope, seen the end of her afflictions. She acted with
prudence and she bore with fortitude. She has left me.
"Thou thy weary [worldly] task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages."
[_Cymbeline_, act iv. sc. 2.]
Had she had good humour and prompt elocution, her universal curiosity
and comprehensive knowledge would have made her the delight of all that
knew her.' _Ib_. p. 311.
[726] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 354) described in 1756 such a companion as
he found in Mrs. Williams. He quotes Pope's _Epitaph on Mrs. Corbet_,
and continues:--'I have always considered this as the most valuable of
all Pope's epitaphs; the subject of it is a character not discriminated
by any shining or eminent peculiarities; yet that which really makes,
though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every
wise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languor
of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs, weary and disgusted,
from the ostentatious, the volatile and the vain. Of such a character
which the dull overlook, and the gay despise, it was fit that the value
should be made known, and the dignity established.' See _ante_, i.232.
[727] _Pr. and Med_. p. 226. BOSWELL.
[728] I conjecture that Mr. Bowles is the friend. The account follows
close on the visit to his house, and contains a mention of Johnson's
attendance at a lecture at Salisbury.
[729] A writer in _Notes and Queries_, 1st S. xii. 149, says:--'Mr.
Bowles had married a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, viz. Dinah, the
fourth daughter of Sir Thomas Frankland, and highly valued himself upon
this connection with the Protector.' He adds that Mr. Bowles was an
active Whig.
[730] Mr. Malone observes, 'This, however, was certainly a mistake, as
appears from the _Memoirs_ published by Mr. Noble. Had Johnson been
furnished with the materials which the industry of that gentleman has
procured, and with others which, it it is believed, are yet preserved in
manuscript, he would, without doubt, have produced a most valuable and
curious history of Cromwell's life.' BOSWELL.
[731] See _ante_, ii.358, note 3.
[732] _Short Notes for Civil Conversation_. Spedding's _Bacon_, vii.109.
[733] 'When I took up his _Life of Cowley_, he made me put it away to
talk. I could not help remarking how very like he is to his writing, and
how much the same thing it was to hear or to read him; but that nobody
could tell that without coming to Streatham, for his language was
generally imagined to be laboured and studied, instead of the mere
common flow of his thoughts. "Very true," said Mrs. Thrale, "he writes
and talks with the same ease, and in the same manner."' Mme. D'Arblay's
_Diary_, i. 120. What a different account is this from that given by
Macaulay:--'When he talked he clothed his wit and his sense in forcible
and natural expressions. As soon as he took his pen in his hand to write
for the public, his style became systematically vicious.' Macaulay's
_Essays_, edit. 1843, i.404. See _ante_, ii.96, note; iv.183; and
_post_, the end of the vol.
[734] See _ante_, ii.125, iii.254, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 14.
[735] Hume said:--'The French have more real politeness, and the English
the better method of expressing it. By real politeness I mean softness
of temper, and a sincere inclination to oblige and be serviceable, which
is very conspicuous in this nation, not only among the high, but low; in
so much that the porters and coachmen here are civil, and that, not only
to gentlemen, but likewise among themselves.' J.H. Burton's _Hume_,
i. 53.
[736] This is the third time that Johnson's disgust at this practice is
recorded. See _ante_, ii.403, and iii.352.
[737] See _ante_, iii.398, note 3.
[738] 'Sept. 22, 1783. The chymical philosophers have discovered a body
(which I have forgotten, but will enquire) which, dissolved by an acid,
emits a vapour lighter than the atmospherical air. This vapour is
caught, among other means, by tying a bladder compressed upon the body
in which the dissolution is performed; the vapour rising swells the
bladder and fills it. _Piozzi Letters_, ii.310. The 'body' was
iron-filings, the acid sulphuric acid, and the vapour nitrogen. The
other 'new kinds of air' were the gases discovered by Priestley.
[739] I do not wonder at Johnson's displeasure when the name of Dr.
Priestley was mentioned; for I know no writer who has been suffered to
publish more pernicious doctrines. I shall instance only three. First,
_Materialism_; by which _mind_ is denied to human nature; which, if
believed, must deprive us of every elevated principle. Secondly,
_Necessity_; or the doctrine that every action, whether good or bad, is
included in an unchangeable and unavoidable system; a notion utterly
subversive of moral government. Thirdly, that we have no reason to think
that the _future_ world, (which, as he is pleased to _inform_ us, will
be adapted to our _merely improved_ nature,) will be materially
different from _this_; which, if believed, would sink wretched mortals
into despair, as they could no longer hope for the 'rest that remaineth
for the people of GOD' [_Hebrews_, iv.9], or for that happiness which is
revealed to us as something beyond our present conceptions; but would
feel themselves doomed to a continuation of the uneasy state under which
they now groan. I say nothing of the petulant intemperance with which he
dares to insult the venerable establishments of his country.
As a specimen of his writings, I shall quote the following passage,
which appears to me equally absurd and impious, and which might have
been retorted upon him by the men who were prosecuted for burning his
house. 'I cannot, (says he,) as a _necessarian_, [meaning
_necessitarian_] hate _any man_; because I consider him as _being_, in
all respects, just what GOD has _made him to be_; and also as _doing
with respect to me_, nothing but what he was _expressly designed_ and
_appointed_ to do; GOD being the _only cause_, and men nothing more than
the _instruments_ in his hands to _execute all his pleasure_.'--
_Illustrations of Philosophical Necessity_, p. 111.
The Reverend Dr. Parr, in a late tract, appears to suppose that _'Dr.
Johnson not only endured, but almost solicited, an interview with Dr.
Priestley_. In justice to Dr. Johnson, I declare my firm belief that he
never did. My illustrious friend was particularly resolute in not giving
countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to
society. I was present at Oxford when Dr. Price, even before he had
rendered himself so generally obnoxious by his zeal for the French
Revolution, came into a company where Johnson was, who instantly left
the room. Much more would he have reprobated Dr. Priestley. Whoever
wishes to see a perfect delineation of this _Literary Jack of all
Trades_, may find it in an ingenious tract, entitled, 'A SMALL
WHOLE-LENGTH OF DR. PRIESTLEY,' printed for Rivingtons, in St. Paul's
Church-Yard. BOSWELL. See Appendix B.
[740] Burke said, 'I have learnt to think _better_ of mankind.' _Ante_,
iii.236.
[741] He wrote to his servant Frank from Heale on Sept. l6:--'As
Thursday [the 18th] is my birthday I would have a little dinner got, and
would have you invite Mrs. Desmoulins, Mrs. Davis that was about Mrs.
Williams, and Mr. Allen, and Mrs. Gardiner.' Croker's _Boswell_, p.739.
See _ante_, iii.157, note 3.
[742] Dr. Burney had just lost Mr. Bewley, 'the Broom Gentleman'
(_ante_, p. 134), and Mr. Crisp. Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, ii.323, 352.
For Mr. Crisp, see Macaulay's _Review_ of Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary.
Essays_, ed. 1874, iv.104.
[743] He wrote of her to Mrs. Montagu:--'Her curiosity was universal,
her knowledge was very extensive, and she sustained forty years of
misery with steady fortitude. Thirty years and more she had been my
companion, and her death has left me very desolate.' Croker's _Boswell_,
p. 739. This letter brought to a close his quarrel with Mrs. Montagu
(_ante_, p. 64).
[744] On Sept. 22 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'If excision should be
delayed, there is danger of a gangrene. You would not have me for fear
of pain perish in putrescence. I shall, I hope, with trust in eternal
mercy, lay hold of the possibility of life which yet remains.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii.312.
[745] Rather more than seven years ago. _Ante_, ii.82, note 2.
[746] Mrs. Anna Williams. BOSWELL.
[747] See _ante_, p. 163, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov 2.
[748] Dated Oct. 27. _Piozzi Letters_, ii.321.
[749] According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Letters_, ii.387), he said to Mrs.
Siddons:--'You see, Madam, wherever you go there are no seats to be
got.' Sir Joshua also paid her a fine compliment. 'He never marked his
own name [on a picture],' says Northcote, 'except in the instance of
Mrs. Siddons's portrait as the Tragic Muse, when he wrote his name upon
the hem of her garment. "I could not lose," he said, "the honour this
opportunity offered to me for my name going down to posterity on the hem
of your garment."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 246. In Johnson's _Works_,
ed. 1787, xi. 207, we read that 'he said of Mrs. Siddons that she
appeared to him to be one of the few persons that the two great
corrupters of mankind, money and reputation, had not spoiled.'
[750] 'Indeed, Dr. Johnson,' said Miss Monckton, 'you _must_ see Mrs.
Siddons.' 'Well, Madam, if you desire it, I will go. See her I shall
not, nor hear her; but I'll go, and that will do.' Mme. D'Arblay's
_Diary_, ii. 198.
[751] 'Mrs. Porter, the tragedian, was so much the favourite of her
time, that she was welcomed on the stage when she trod it by the help of
a stick.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 319.
[752] He said:--'Mrs. Clive was the best player I ever saw.' Boswell's
_Hebrides, post_, v. 126. See _ante_, p. 7. She was for many years the
neighbour and friend of Horace Walpole.
[753] She acted the heroine in _Irene. Ante_, i. 197. 'It is wonderful
how little mind she had,' he once said. _Ante_, ii. 348. See Boswell's
_Hebrides, post_, v. 126.
[754] See _ante_, iii. 183.
[755] See ante, iii. 184.
[756] 'Garrick's great distinction is his universality,' Johnson said.
'He can represent all modes of life, but that of an easy, fine-bred
gentleman.' Boswell's _Hebrides, post_, v. 126. See _ante_, iii. 35.
Horace Walpole wrote of Garrick in 1765 (_Letters_, iv. 335):--'Several
actors have pleased me more, though I allow not in so many parts. Quin
in Falstaff was as excellent as Garrick in _Lear_. Old Johnson far more
natural in everything he attempted; Mrs. Porter surpassed him in
passionate tragedy. Cibber and O'Brien were what Garrick could never
reach, coxcombs and men of fashion. Mrs. Clive is at least as perfect in
low comedy.'
[757] See _ante_, ii. 465.
[758] Mr. Kemble told Mr. Croker that 'Mrs. Siddons's pathos in the last
scene of _The Stranger_ quite overcame him, but he always endeavoured to
restrain any impulses which might interfere with his previous study of
his part.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 742. Diderot, writing of the
qualifications of a great actor, says:--'Je lui veux beaucoup de
jugement; je le veux spectateur froid et tranquille de la nature
humaine; qu'il ait par conséquent beaucoup de finesse, mais nulle
sensibilité, ou, ce qui est la même chose, l'art de tout imiter, et une
égale aptitude à toutes sortes de caractères et de rôles; s'il était
sensible, il lui serait impossible de jouer dix fois de suite le même
rôle avec la même chaleur et le même succès; très chaud à la première
représentation, il serait épuisé et froid comme le marble à la
troisième,' &c. Diderot's _Works_ (ed. 1821), iii. 274. See Boswell's
_Hebrides, post_, v. 46.
[759] My worthy friend, Mr. John Nichols, was present when Mr.
Henderson, the actor, paid a visit to Dr. Johnson; and was received in a
very courteous manner. See _Gent. Mag_. June, 1791.
I found among Dr. Johnson's papers, the following letter to him, from
the celebrated Mrs. Bellamy [_ante_, i. 326]:--
'To DR. JOHNSON.
'SIR,
'The flattering remembrance of the partiality you honoured me with, some
years ago, as well as the humanity you are known to possess, has
encouraged me to solicit your patronage at my Benefit.
'By a long Chancery suit, and a complicated train of unfortunate events,
I am reduced to the greatest distress; which obliges me, once more, to
request the indulgence of the publick.
'Give me leave to solicit the honour of your company, and to assure you,
if you grant my request, the gratification I shall feel, from being
patronized by Dr. Johnson, will be infinitely superiour to any advantage
that may arise from the Benefit; as I am, with the profoundest
respect, Sir,
'Your most obedient, humble servant, G. A. BELLAMY. No. 10 Duke-street,
St. James's, May 11, 1783.'
I am happy in recording these particulars, which prove that my
illustrious friend lived to think much more favourably of Players than
he appears to have done in the early part of his life. BOSWELL. Mr.
Nichols, describing Henderson's visit to Johnson, says:--'The
conversation turning on the merits of a certain dramatic writer, Johnson
said: "I never did the man an injury; but he would persist in reading
his tragedy to me."' _Gent. Mag_: 1791, p. 500.
[760] _Piozzi Letters_, vol. ii. p. 328. BOSWELL.
[761] _Piozzi Letters_, vol. ii. p. 342. BOSWELL. The letter to Miss
Thrale was dated Nov. 18. Johnson wrote on Dec. l3:--'You must all guess
again at my friend. It was not till Dec. 31 that he told the name.
[762] Miss Burney, who visited him on this day, records:--'He was, if
possible, more instructive, entertaining, good-humoured, and exquisitely
fertile than ever.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 284. The day before he
wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's little daughters:--'I live here by my own
self, and have had of late very bad nights; but then I have had a pig to
dinner which Mr. Perkins gave me. Thus life is chequered.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii. 327.
[763] See _ante_, i. 242.
[764] See _ante_, i. 242.
[765] Nos. 26 and 29.
[766] _Piozzi Letters_, i. 334. See _ante_, p. 75.
[767] He strongly opposed the war with America, and was one of Dr.
Franklin's friends. Franklin's _Memoirs_, ed. 1818, iii. 108.
[768] It was of this tragedy that the following story is told in
Rogers's _Table-Talk_, p. 177:--'Lord Shelburne could say the most
provoking things, and yet appear quite unconscious of their being so. In
one of his speeches, alluding to Lord Carlisle, he said:--"The noble
Lord has written a comedy." "No, a tragedy." "Oh, I beg pardon; I
thought it was a comedy."' See _ante_, p. 113. Pope, writing to Mr.
Cromwell on Aug. 19, 1709, says:--'One might ask the same question of a
modern life, that Rich did of a modern play: "Pray do me the favour,
Sir, to inform me is this your tragedy or your comedy?"' Pope's _Works_,
ed. 1812, vi. 81.
[769] Mrs. Chapone, when she was Miss Mulso, had written 'four billets
in _The Rambler_, No. 10.' _Ante_, i. 203. She was one of the literary
ladies who sat at Richardson's feet. Wraxall (_Memoirs_, ed. 1815, i.
155) says that 'under one of the most repulsive exteriors that any woman
ever possessed she concealed very superior attainments and extensive
knowledge.' Just as Mrs. Carter was often called 'the learned Mrs.
Carter,' so Mrs. Chapone was known as 'the admirable Mrs. Chapone.'
[770] See _ante_, iii. 373.
[771] A few copies only of this tragedy have been printed, and given to
the authour's friends. BOSWELL.
[772] Dr. Johnson having been very ill when the tragedy was first sent
to him, had declined the consideration of it. BOSWELL.
[773] Johnson refers, I suppose, to a passage in Dryden which he quotes
in his _Dictionary_ under _mechanick_:--'Many a fair precept in poetry
is like a seeming demonstration in mathematicks, very specious in the
diagram, but failing in the mechanick operation.'
[774]
'I could have borne my woes; that stranger Joy
Wounds while it smiles:--The long imprison'd wretch,
Emerging from the night of his damp cell,
Shrinks from the sun's bright beams; and that which flings
Gladness o'er all, to him is agony.' BOSWELL.
[775] Lord Cockburn (_Life of Lord Jeffrey_, i. 74) describing the
representation of Scotland towards the close of last century, and in
fact till the Reform Bill of 1832, says:--'There were probably not above
1500 or 2000 county electors in all Scotland; a body not too large to be
held, hope included, in Government's hand. The election of either the
town or the county member was a matter of such utter indifference to the
people, that they often only knew of it by the ringing of a bell, or by
seeing it mentioned next day in a newspaper.'
[776] Six years later, when he was _Praeses_ of the Quarter-Sessions, he
carried up to London an address to be presented to the Prince of Wales.
'This,' he wrote, 'will add something to my _conspicuousness_. Will that
word do?' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 295.
[777] This part of this letter was written, as Johnson goes on to say, a
considerable time before the conclusion. The Coalition Ministry, which
was suddenly dismissed by the King on Dec. 19, was therefore still in
power. Among Boswell's 'friends' was Burke. See _ante_, p. 223.
[778] On Nov. 22 he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'I feel the weight of solitude
very pressing; after a night of broken and uncomfortable slumber I rise
to a solitary breakfast, and sit down in the evening with no companion.
Sometimes, however, I try to read more and more.' _Notes and Queries_,
6th S. v. 482. On Dec. 27 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You have more than
once wondered at my complaint of solitude, when you hear that I am
crowded with visits. _Inopem me copia fecit_. Visitors are no proper
companions in the chamber of sickness. They come when I could sleep or
read, they stay till I am weary.... The amusements and consolations of
langour and depression are conferred by familiar and domestick
companions, which can be visited or called at will.... Such society I
had with Levett and Williams; such I had where I am never likely to have
it more.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 341.
[779] The confusion arising from the sudden dismissal of a Ministry
which commanded a large majority in the House of Commons had been
increased by the resignation, on Dec. 22, of Earl Temple, three days
after his appointment as Secretary of State. _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 238.
[780] 'News I know none,' wrote Horace Walpole on Dec. 30, 1783
(_Letters_, viii. 447), 'but that they are crying Peerages about the
streets in barrows, and can get none off.' Thirty-three peerages were
made in the next three years. (_Whitaker's Almanac_, 1886, p. 463.)
Macaulay tells how this December 'a troop of Lords of the Bedchamber, of
Bishops who wished to be translated, and of Scotch peers who wished to
be reelected made haste to change sides.' Macaulay's _Writings and
Speeches_, ed. 1871, p. 407.
[781] See _ante_, ii. 182. He died Oct. 28, 1788.
[782]'Prince Henry was the first encourager of remote navigation. What
mankind has lost and gained by the genius and designs of this prince it
would be long to compare, and very difficult to estimate. Much knowledge
has been acquired, and much cruelty been committed; the belief of
religion has been very little propagated, and its laws have been
outrageously and enormously violated. The Europeans have scarcely
visited any coast but to gratify avarice, and extend corruption; to
arrogate dominion without right, and practise cruelty without incentive.
Happy had it then been for the oppressed, if the designs of Henry had
slept in his bosom, and surely more happy for the oppressors.' Johnson's
_Works_, v. 219. See _ante_, ii. 478.
[783] 'The author himself,' wrote Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 220), 'is
the best judge of his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated on
the subject; no one is so sincerely interested in the event.'
[784] Mickle, speaking in the third person as the Translator, says:--
'He is happy to be enabled to add Dr. Johnson to the number of those
whose kindness for the man, and good wishes for the Translation, call
for his sincerest gratitude.' Mickle's _Lusiad_, p. ccxxv.
[785] A brief record, it should seem, is given, _ante_, iii. 37.
[786] See _ante_, iii. 106, 214.
[787] The author of _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr, Johnson_
says (p. 153) that it was Johnson who determined Shaw to undertake this
work. 'Sir,' he said, 'if you give the world a vocabulary of that
language, while the island of Great Britain stands in the Atlantic Ocean
your name will be mentioned.' On p. 156 is a letter by Johnson
introducing Shaw to a friend.
[788] 'Why is not the original deposited in some publick library?' he
asked. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 10.
[789] See ante, i. 190.
[790] See Appendix C.
[791] 'Dec. 27, 1873. The wearisome solitude of the long evenings did
indeed suggest to me the convenience of a club in my neighbourhood, but
I have been hindered from attending it by want of breath.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii. 340. 'Dec. 31. I have much need of entertainment;
spiritless, infirm, sleepless, and solitary, looking back with sorrow
and forward with terrour.' _Ib_, p. 343.
[792] '"I think," said Mr. Cambridge, "it sounds more like some club
that one reads of in _The Spectator_ than like a real club in these
times; for the forfeits of a whole year will not amount to those of a
single night in other clubs."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 290. Mr.
Cambridge was thinking of the Two-penny Club. _Spectator_, No. ix.
[793] I was in Scotland when this Club was founded, and during all the
winter. Johnson, however, declared I should be a member, and invented a
word upon the occasion: 'Boswell (said he) is a very _clubable_ man.'
When I came to town I was proposed by Mr. Barrington, and chosen. I
believe there are few societies where there is better conversation or
more decorum. Several of us resolved to continue it after our great
founder was removed by death. Other members were added; and now, above
eight years since that loss, we go on happily. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker says
'Johnson had already invented _unclubable_ for Sir J. Hawkins,' and
refers to a note by Dr. Burney (_ante_, i. 480, note I), in which
Johnson is represented as saying of Hawkins, while he was still a member
of the Literary Club:--'Sir John, Sir, is a very unclubable man.' But,
as Mr. Croker points out (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 164), 'Hawkins was not
knighted till long after he had left the club.' The anecdote, being
proved to be inaccurate in one point, may be inaccurate in another, and
may therefore belong to a much later date.
[794] See Appendix D.
[795] Ben Jonson wrote _Leges Convivales_ that were 'engraven in marble
over the chimney in the Apollo of the Old Devil Tavern, Temple Bar; that
being his Club Room.' Jonson's _Works_, ed. 1756, vii. 291.
[796] RULES.
'To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench
In mirth, which after no repenting draws.'--MILTON.
['To-day deep thoughts _resolve with me_ to drench
In mirth _that_, &c.' _Sonnets_, xxi.]
'The Club shall consist of four-and-twenty.
'The meetings shall be on the Monday, Thursday, and Saturday of every
week; but in the week before Easter there shall be no meeting.
'Every member is at liberty to introduce a friend once a week, but not
oftener.
'Two members shall oblige themselves to attend in their turn every night
from eight to ten, or to procure two to attend in their room.
'Every member present at the Club shall spend at least sixpence; and
every member who stays away shall forfeit three-pence.
'The master of the house shall keep an account of the absent members;
and deliver to the President of the night a list of the
forfeits incurred.
'When any member returns after absence, he shall immediately lay down
his forfeits; which if he omits to do, the President shall require.
'There shall be no general reckoning, but every man shall adjust his own
expences.
'The night of indispensable attendance will come to every member once a
month. Whoever shall for three months together omit to attend himself,
or by substitution, nor shall make any apology in the fourth month,
shall be considered as having abdicated the Club.
'When a vacancy is to be filled, the name of the candidate, and of the
member recommending him, shall stand in the Club-room three nights. On
the fourth he may be chosen by ballot; six members at least being
present, and two-thirds of the ballot being in his favour; or the
majority, should the numbers not be divisible by three.
'The master of the house shall give notice, six days before, to each of
those members whose turn of necessary attendance is come.
'The notice may be in these words:--"Sir, On ---- the ---- of ---- --
will be your turn of presiding at the Essex-Head. Your company is
therefore earnestly requested."
'One penny shall be left by each member for the waiter.'
Johnson's definition of a Club in this sense, in his _Dictionary_, is,
'An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.' BOSWELL.
[797] She had left him in the summer (_ante_, p. 233), but perhaps she
had returned.
[798] He received many acts of kindness from outside friends. On Dec. 31
he wrote:--'I have now in the house pheasant, venison, turkey, and ham,
all unbought. Attention and respect give pleasure, however late or
however useless. But they are not useless when they are late; it is
reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been
spent with the approbation of mankind.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 343.
[799] 'Dec. 16, 1783. I spent the afternoon with Dr. Johnson, who indeed
is very ill, and whom I could hardly tell how to leave. He was very,
very kind. Oh! what a cruel, heavy loss will he be! Dec. 30. I went to
Dr. Johnson, and spent the evening with him. He was very indifferent
indeed. There were some very disagreeable people with him; and he once
affected me very much by turning suddenly to me, and grasping my hand
and saying:--"The blister I have tried for my breath has betrayed some
very bad tokens; but I will not terrify myself by talking of them. Ah!
_priez Dieu pour moi_."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 293, 5. 'I
snatch,' he wrote a few weeks later, 'every lucid interval, and animate
myself with such amusements as the time offers.' _Piozzi Letters_,
ii. 349.
[800] He had written to her on Nov. 10. See Croker's _Boswell_, p. 742.
[801] Hawkins (_Life_, 562) says that this November Johnson said to
him:--'What a man am I, who have got the better of three diseases, the
palsy, the gout, and the asthma, and can now enjoy the conversation of
my friends, without the interruptions of weakness or pain.'
[802] 'The street [on London Bridge], which, before the houses fell to
decay, consisted of handsome lofty edifices, pretty regularly built, was
20 feet broad, and the houses on each side generally 26-1/2 feet deep.'
After 1746 no more leases were granted, and the houses were allowed to
run to ruin. In 1756-7 they were all taken down. Dodsley's _London and
its Environs_, ed. 1761, iv. 136-143.
[803] In Lowndes's _Bibl. Man_. i. 328 is given a list of nearly fifty
of these books. Some of them were reprinted by Stace in 1810-13 in 6
vols. quarto. Dr. Franklin, writing of the books that he bought in his
boyhood says:--'My first acquisition was Bunyan's works in separate
little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's
_Historical Collections_; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap.
Forty volumes in all.' Franklin's _Memoirs_, i. 17.
[804] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale this same day:--'Alas, I had no sleep last
night, and sit now panting over my paper. _Dabit Deus his quoque finem.'
['This too the Gods shall end.' MORRIS, Virgil, _Aeneids_, 1.199.]
_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 347.
[805] Boswell's purpose in this _Letter_ was to recommend the Scotch to
address the King to express their satisfaction that the East India
Company Bill had been rejected by the House of Lords. _Ib_. p. 39. 'Let
us,' he writes, 'upon this awful occasion think only of _property_ and
_constitution_;' p. 42. 'Let me add,' he says in concluding, 'that a
dismission of the Portland Administration will probably disappoint an
object which I have most ardently at heart;' p. 42. He was thinking no
doubt of his 'expectations from the interest of an eminent person then
in power' (ante, p. 223.)
[806] On p. 4 Boswell condemns the claim of Parliament to tax the
American colonies as 'unjust and inexpedient.' 'This claim,' he says,
'was almost universally approved of in Scotland, where due consideration
was had of the advantage of raising regiments.' He continues:--'When
pleading at the bar of the House of Commons in a question concerning
taxation, I avowed that opinion, declaring that the man in the world for
whom I have the highest respect (Dr. Johnson) had not been able to
convince me that _Taxation was no Tyranny_.'
[807] Boswell wrote to Reynolds on Feb. 6:--'I intend to be in London
next month, chiefly to attend upon Dr. Johnson with respectful
affection.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 748.
[808] 'I have really hope from spring,' he wrote on Jan. 21, 'and am
ready, like Almanzor, to bid the sun _fly swiftly_, and _leave weeks and
months behind him_. The sun has looked for six thousand years upon the
world to little purpose, if he does not know that a sick man is almost
as impatient as a lover.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 347. Almanzor's speech
is at the end of Dryden's _Conquest of Granada_:--
'Move swiftly, Sun, and fly a lover's pace;
Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race.'
See _ante_, i. 332, where Johnson said, 'This distinction of seasons is
produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance every
day is bright,' and _post_, Aug. 2, 1784.
[809] He died in the following August at Dover, on his way home.
Walpole's _Letters_, viii. 494. See _ante_, iii. 250, 336, and _post_,
Aug. 19, 1784.
[810] On the last day of the old year he wrote:--'To any man who extends
his thoughts to national consideration, the times are dismal and gloomy.
But to a sick man, what is the publick?' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 344.
The original of the following note is in the admirable collection of
autographs belonging to my friend, Mr. M. M. Holloway:--
'TO THE REV. DR. TAYLOR,
'in Ashbourne,
'Derbyshire.
'DEAR SIR,
'I am still confined to the house, and one of my amusements is to write
letters to my friends, though they, being busy in the common scenes of
life, are not equally diligent in writing to me. Dr. Heberden was with
me two or three days ago, and told me that nothing ailed me, which I was
glad to hear, though I knew it not to be true. My nights are restless,
my breath is difficult, and my lower parts continue tumid.
'The struggle, you see, still continues between the two sets of
ministers: those that are _out_ and _in_ one can scarce call them, for
who is _out_ or _in_ is perhaps four times a day a new question. The
tumult in government is, I believe, excessive, and the efforts of each
party outrageously violent, with very little thought on any national
interest, at a time when we have all the world for our enemies, when the
King and parliament have lost even the titular dominion of America, and
the real power of Government every where else. Thus Empires are broken
down when the profits of administration are so great, that ambition is
satisfied with obtaining them, and he that aspires to greatness needs do
nothing more than talk himself into importance. He has then all the
power which danger and conquest used formerly to give; he can raise a
family and reward his followers.
'Mr. Burke has just sent me his Speech upon the affairs of India, a
volume of above a hundred pages closely printed. I will look into it;
but my thoughts seldom now travel to great distances.
'I would gladly know when you think to come hither, and whether this
year you will come or no. If my life be continued, I know not well how I
shall bestow myself.
'I am, Sir,
'Your affectionate &c.,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'London, Jan. 24, 1784.'
[811] See _post_, v. 48.
[812] See _post_, p. 271.
[813] I sent it to Mr. Pitt, with a letter, in which I thus expressed
myself:--'My principles may appear to you too monarchical: but I know
and am persuaded, they are not inconsistent with the true principles of
liberty. Be this as it may, you, Sir, are now the Prime Minister, called
by the Sovereign to maintain the rights of the Crown, as well as those
of the people, against a violent faction. As such, you are entitled to
the warmest support of every good subject in every department.' He
answered:--'I am extremely obliged to you for the sentiments you do me
the honour to express, and have observed with great pleasure the
_zealous and able support_ given to the CAUSE OF THE PUBLICK in the work
you were so good to transmit to me.' BOSWELL. Five years later, and two
years before _The Life of Johnson_ was published, Boswell wrote to
Temple:--'As to Pitt, he is an insolent fellow, but so able, that upon
the whole I must support him against the _Coalition_; but I will _work_
him, for he has behaved very ill to me. Can he wonder at my wishing for
preferment, when men of the first family and fortune in England struggle
for it?' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 295. Warburton said of Helvetius, whom
he disliked, that, if he had met him, 'he would have _worked_ him.'
Walpole's _Letters_, iv. 217.
[814] Out of this offer, and one of a like nature made in 1779 (_ante_,
iii. 418), Mr. Croker weaves a vast web of ridiculous suspicions.
[815] From his garden at Prestonfield, where he cultivated that plant
with such success, that he was presented with a gold medal by the
Society of London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and
Commerce. BOSWELL.
[816] In the original _effusion_. Johnson's _Works_, vii. 402.
[817] Who had written him a very kind letter. BOSWELL.
[818] On Jan. 12 the Ministry had been in a minority of 39 in a House of
425; on March 8 the minority was reduced to one in a House of 381.
Parliament was dissolved on the 25th. In the first division in the new
Parliament the Ministry were in a majority of 97 in a House of 369.
_Parl. Hist._ xxiv. 299, 744, 829.
[819] See _ante_, p. 241.
[820] 'In old Aberdeen stands the King's College, of which the first
president was Hector Boece, or Boethius, who may be justly reverenced as
one of the revivers of elegant learning.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 11.
[821] See _ante_, iii. 104.
[822] In his dining-room, no doubt, among 'the very respectable people'
whose portraits hung there. _Ante_, p. 203, note.
[823] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 466) wrote on March 30:--'The
nation is intoxicated, and has poured in Addresses of Thanks to the
Crown for exerting the prerogative _against_ the palladium of
the people.'
[824] The election lasted from April 1 to May 16. Fox was returned
second on the poll. _Ann. Reg._ xxvii. 190.
[825] He was returned also for Kirkwall, for which place he sat for
nearly a year, while the scrutiny of the Westminster election was
dragging on. _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 799.
[826] Hannah More wrote on March 8 (_Memoirs_, i. 310):--'I am sure you
will honour Mr. Langton, when I tell you he is come on purpose to stay
with Dr. Johnson, and that during his illness. He has taken a little
lodging in Fleet-street in order to be near, to devote himself to him.
He has as much goodness as learning, and that is saying a bold thing of
one of the first Greek scholars we have.'
[827] Floyer was the Lichfield physician on whose advice Johnson was
'_touched_' by Queen Anne. _Ante_, i. 42, 91, and _post_, July 20, 1784.
[828] To which Johnson returned this answer:--
'TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL OF PORTMORE.
'Dr. Johnson acknowledges with great respect the honour of Lord
Portmore's notice. He is better than he was; and will, as his Lordship
directs, write to Mr. Langton.
'Bolt-court, Fleet-street,