refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could find no other
asylum; nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude weary out his
benevolence' (_Essays_, i. 390). In his _Biography of Johnson_ (p. 388)
he says that Mrs. Williams's 'chief recommendations were her blindness
and her poverty.' No doubt in Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale are found
amusing accounts of the discord of the inmates of his house. But it is
abundantly clear that in Mrs. Williams's company he had for years found
pleasure. A few months after her death 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.... The amusements and
consolations of languor and depression are conferred by familiar and
domestic companions.... Such society I had with Levett and Williams'
(_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 341). To Mrs. Montagu he wrote:--'Thirty years
and more she had been my companion, and her death has left me very
desolate' (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 739). Boswell says that 'her departure
left a blank in his house' (_post_, Aug. 1783). 'By her death,' writes
Murphy, 'he was left in a state of destitution, with nobody but his
black servant to soothe his anxious moments' (Murphy's _Johnson_, p.
122). Hawkins (_Life_, p. 558) says that 'she had not only cheered him
in his solitude, and helped him to pass with comfort those hours which
otherwise would have been irksome to him, but had relieved him from
domestic cares, regulated and watched over the expenses of his house,
etc.' 'She had,' as Boswell says (_post_, Aug. 1783), 'valuable
qualities.' 'Had she had,' wrote Johnson, 'good humour and prompt
elocution, her universal curiosity and comprehensive knowledge would
have made her the delight of all that knew her' (_Piozzi Letters_, ii.
311). To Langton he wrote:--'I have lost a companion to whom I have had
recourse for domestic amusement for thirty years, and whose variety of
knowledge never was exhausted' (_post_, Sept. 29, 1783). 'Her
acquisitions,' he wrote to Dr. Burney, 'were many and her curiosity
universal; so that she partook of every conversation' (_post_, Sept.
1783). Murphy (_Life_ p. 72) says:--'She possessed uncommon talents,
and, though blind, had an alacrity of mind that made her conversation
agreeable, and even desirable.' According to Hawkins (_Life_, 322-4)
'she had acquired a knowledge of French and Italian, and had made great
improvements in literature. She was a woman of an enlightened
understanding. Johnson in many exigencies found her an able counsellor,
and seldom shewed his wisdom more than when he hearkened to her advice.'
Perhaps Johnson had her in his thoughts when, writing of Pope's last
years and Martha Blount, he said:--'Their acquaintance began early; the
life of each was pictured on the other's mind; their conversation
therefore was endearing, for when they met there was an immediate
coalition of congenial notions.' (Johnson's _Works_, viii. 304.) Miss
Mulso (Mrs. Chapone) writing to Mrs. Carter in 1753, says:--'I was
charmed with Mr. Johnson's behaviour to Mrs. Williams, which was like
that of a fond father to his daughter. She shewed very good sense, with
a great deal of modesty and humility; and so much patience and
cheerfulness under her misfortune that it doubled my concern for her'
(_Mrs. Chapone's Life_, p. 73). Miss Talbot wrote to Mrs. Carter in
1756:--'My mother the other day fell in love with your friend, Mrs.
Williams, whom we met at Mr. Richardson's [where Miss Mulso also had met
her], and is particularly charmed with the sweetness of her voice'
(Talbot and Carter _Corresp_. ii. 221). Miss Talbot was a niece of Lord
Chancellor Talbot. Hannah More wrote in 1774:--'Mrs. Williams is
engaging in her manners; her conversation lively and entertaining'
(More's _Memoirs_, i.49). Boswell, however, more than once complains
that she was 'peevish' (_post_, Oct. 26, 1769 and April 7, 1776). At a
time when she was very ill, and had gone into the country to try if she
could improve her health, Johnson wrote:--'Age, and sickness, and pride
have made her so peevish, that I was forced to bribe the maid to stay
with her by a secret stipulation of half-a-crown a week over her wages'
(_post_, July 22, 1777). Malone, in a note on August 2, 1763, says that
he thinks she had of her own 'about £35 or £40 a year.' This was in her
latter days; Johnson had prevailed on Garrick to give her a benefit and
Mrs. Montagu to give her a pension. She used, he adds, to help in the
house-work.
[685] March 14. See _ante_, p. 203, note 1. He had grown weary of his
work. In the last _Rambler_ but one he wrote: 'When once our labour has
begun, the comfort that enables us to endure it is the prospect of its
end.... He that is himself weary will soon weary the public. Let him
therefore lay down his employment, whatever it be, who can no longer
exert his former activity or attention; let him not endeavour to
struggle with censure, or obstinately infest the stage, till a general
hiss commands him to depart.'
[686] How successful an imitator Hawkesworth was is shewn by the
following passage in the Carter and Talbot _Corresp_., ii. 109:--'I
discern Mr. Johnson through all the papers that are not marked A, as
evidently as if I saw him through the keyhole with the pen in his hand.'
[687] In the _Rambler_ for Feb. 25 of this year (No. 203) he wrote in
the following melancholy strain:--'Every period of life is obliged to
borrow its happiness from the time to come. In youth we have nothing
past to entertain us, and in age we derive little from retrospect but
hopeless sorrow. Yet the future likewise has its limits which the
imagination dreads to approach, but which we see to be not far distant.
The loss of our friends and companions impresses hourly upon us the
necessity of our own departure; we know that the schemes of man are
quickly at an end, that we must soon lie down in the grave with the
forgotten multitudes of former ages, and yield our place to others, who,
like us, shall be driven a while by hope or fear about the surface of
the earth, and then like us be lost in the shades of death.' In _Prayers
and Meditations_, pp. 12-15, in a service that he used on May 6, 'as
preparatory to my return to life to-morrow,' he prays:--'Enable me to
begin and perfect that reformation which I promised her, and to
persevere in that resolution which she implored Thee to continue, in the
purposes which I recorded in Thy sight when she lay dead before me.' See
_post_, Jan. 20, 1780. The author of _Memoirs of the Life and Writings
of Dr. Johnson_, 1785, says, p. 113, that on the death of his wife, 'to
walk the streets of London was for many a lonesome night Johnson's
constant substitute for sleep.'
[688] 'I have often been inclined to think that, if this fondness of
Johnson for his wife was not dissembled, it was a lesson that he had
learned by rote, and that, when he practised it, he knew not where to
stop till he became ridiculous.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 313
[689] The son of William Strahan, M.P., 'Johnson's old and constant
friend, Printer to His Majesty' (_post_, under April 20, 1781). He
attended Johnson on his death-bed, and published the volume called
_Prayers and Meditations_.
[690] Southey in his _Life of Wesley_, i. 359, writes:--'The universal
attention which has been paid to dreams in all ages proves that the
superstition is natural; and I have heard too many well-attested facts
(facts to which belief could not be refused upon any known laws of
evidence) not to believe that impressions are sometimes made in this
manner, and forewarnings communicated, which cannot be explained by
material philosophy or mere metaphysics.'
[691] Warburton in his _Divine Legation_, i. 284, quotes the 'famous
sepulchral inscription of the Roman widow.' 'Ita peto vos Manes
sanctissimi commendatum habeatis meum conjugem et velitis huic
indulgentissimi esse horis nocturnis ut eum videam,' etc.
[692] Mrs. Boswell died in June 1789. Johnson's prayer with Boswell's
comments on it was first inserted in the _Additions_ to the
second edition.
[693] Mrs. Johnson died on March 17, O. S., or March 28, N. S. The
change of style was made in September, 1752. He might have kept either
the 17th, or the 28th as the anniversary. In like manner, though he was
born on Sept. 7, after the change he kept the 18th as his birth-day. See
_post_, beginning of 1753, where he writes, 'Jan. 1, N. S., which I
shall use for the future.'
[694] In _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 22, he recorded: 'The melancholy
of this day hung long upon me.' P. 53: 'April 22, 1764, Thought on
Tetty, dear, poor Tetty, with my eyes full.' P. 91: 'March 28, 1770.
This is the day on which, in 1752, I was deprived of poor, dear
Tetty.... When I recollect the time in which we lived together, my grief
for her departure is not abated; and I have less pleasure in any good
that befalls me because she does not partake it.' P. 170: 'April 20,
1778. Poor Tetty, whatever were our faults and failings, we loved each
other. I did not forget thee yesterday [Easter Sunday]. Couldest thou
have lived!' P. 210: 'March 28, 1782. This is the day on which, in 1752,
dear Tetty died. I have now uttered a prayer of repentance and
contrition; perhaps Tetty knows that I prayed for her. Perhaps Tetty is
now praying for me. God help me.' In a letter to Mrs. Thrale on the
occasion of the death of her son (dated March 30, 1776) he thus refers
to the loss of his wife:--'I know that a whole system of hopes, and
designs, and expectations is swept away at once, and nothing left but
bottomless vacuity. What you feel I have felt, and hope that your
disquiet will be shorter than mine.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 310. In a
letter to Mr. Elphinston, who had just lost his wife, written on July
27, 1778, he repeats the same thought:--'A loss such as yours lacerates
the mind, and breaks the whole system of purposes and hopes. It leaves a
dismal vacuity in life, which affords nothing on which the affections
can fix, or to which endeavour may be directed. All this I have known.'
Croker's _Boswell_, p. 66, note. See also _post_, his letter to Mr.
Warton of Dec. 21, 1754, and to Dr. Lawrence of Jan. 20, 1780.
[695] In the usual monthly list of deaths in the _Gent. Mag_. her name
is not given. Johnson did not, I suppose, rank among 'eminent persons.'
[696] Irene, Act i. sc. 1.
[697] See _post_, Nov. 16, 1784, note.
[698] The Anderdon MSS. contain an importunate letter, dated July 3,
1751, from one Mitchell, a tradesman in Chandos-street, pressing Johnson
to pay £2, due by his wife ever since August, 1749, and threatening
legal proceedings to enforce payment. This letter Mr. Boswell had
endorsed, 'Proof of Dr. Johnson's wretched circumstances in
1751.' CROKER.
[699] In the _Gent. Mag_. for February, 1794, (p. 100,) was printed a
letter pretending to be that written by Johnson on the death of his
wife. But it is merely a transcript of the 41st number of _The Idler_. A
fictitious date (March 17, 1751, O. S.) was added by some person
previous to this paper being sent to the publisher of that miscellany,
to give a colour to this deception. MALONE.
[700] Francis Barber was born in Jamaica, and was brought to England in
1750 by Colonel Bathurst, father of Johnson's very intimate friend, Dr.
Bathurst. He was sent, for some time, to the Reverend Mr. Jackson's
school, at Barton, in Yorkshire. The Colonel by his will left him his
freedom, and Dr. Bathurst was willing that he should enter into
Johnson's service, in which he continued from 1752 till Johnson's death,
with the exception of two intervals; in one of which, upon some
difference with his master, he went and served an apothecary in
Cheapside, but still visited Dr. Johnson occasionally; in another, he
took a fancy to go to sea. Part of the time, indeed, he was, by the
kindness of his master, at a school in Northamptonshire, that he might
have the advantage of some learning. So early and so lasting a
connection was there between Dr. Johnson and this humble friend.
BOSWELL. 'I believe that Francis was scarcely as much the object of Mr.
Johnson's personal kindness as the representative of Dr. Bathurst, for
whose sake he would have loved anybody or anything.' Piozzi's _Anec_.
p. 212.
[701] 'I asked him,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. pp. 146-150), 'if he
ever disputed with his wife. "Perpetually," said he; "my wife had a
particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness
in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become
troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only
sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt
and useless lumber. A clean floor is so comfortable, she would say
sometimes by way of twitting; till at last I told her that I thought we
had had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the
ceiling." I asked him if he ever huffed his wife about his dinner. "So
often," replied he, "that at last she called to me and said, Nay, hold,
Mr. Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which
in a few minutes you will protest not eatable."'
[702] 'When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses
for every weakness, and palliations of every fault; we recollect a
thousand endearments, which before glided off our minds without
impression, a thousand favours unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed;
and wish, vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive,
as that we may bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which
before we never understood.' _Rambler_, No. 54.
[703] _Pr. and Med_. p. 19. BOSWELL.
[704] Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 316. BOSWELL.
[705] See _post_, Oct. 26, 1769, where the Roman Catholic doctrine of
purgatory or 'a middle state,' as Johnson calls it is discussed, and
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 25, 1773.
[706] In the original, 'lawful _for_ me.' Much the same prayer Johnson
made for his mother. _Pr. and Med_. p. 38. On Easter Day, 1764, he
records:--'After sermon I recommended Tetty in a prayer by herself; and
my father, mother, brother, and Bathurst in another. I did it only once,
so far as it might be lawful for me.' _Ib_. p. 54. On the death of Mr.
Thrale he wrote, 'May God that delighteth in mercy _have had_ mercy on
thee.' _Ib_. p. 191; and later on, 'for Henry Thrale, so far as is
lawful, I humbly implore thy mercy in his present state.' _Ib_. p. 197.
[707] _Pr. and Med_., p. 20. BOSWELL.
[708] Shortly before his death (see _post,_ July 12, 1784) Johnson had a
stone placed over her grave with the following inscription:--
Hic conduntur reliquiae
ELIZABETHÆ
Antiqua Jarvisiorum Leicestrienses, ortae;
Formosae, cultae, ingeniosae, piae;
Uxoris, primis nuptiis, Henrici Porter,
Secundis Samuelis Johnson:
Qui multum amatam, diuque defletam
Hoc lapide contexit.
Obiit Londini Mense Mart.
A.D. MDCCLIII
As Mrs. Johnson died in 1752, the date is wrong.
[709] See _post_, Sept. 21. 1777.
[710] He described her as a woman 'whom none, who were capable of
distinguishing either moral or intellectual excellence, could know
without esteem or tenderness. She was extensively charitable in her
judgements and opinions, grateful for every kindness that she received,
and willing to impart assistance of every kind to all whom her little
power enabled her to benefit. She passed through many months of languor,
weakness, and decay without a single murmur of impatience, and often
expressed her adoration of that mercy which granted her so long time for
recollection and penitence.' Johnson's _Works,_ ix. 523.
[711] See _ante_, p. 187.
[712] Dr. Bathurst, though a Physician of no inconsiderable merit, had
not the good fortune to get much practice in London. He was, therefore
willing to accept of employment abroad, and, to the regret of all who
knew him, fell a sacrifice to the destructive climate, in the expedition
against the Havannah. Mr. Langton recollects the following passage in a
letter from Dr. Johnson to Mr. Beauclerk: 'The Havannah is taken;--a
conquest too dearly obtained; for, Bathurst died before it. "_Vix
Priamus tanti totaque Troja fuit_."' BOSWELL.
The quotation is from Ovid, _Heroides_, i. 4. Johnson (_post_, Dec. 21,
1762) wrote to Baretti, 'Bathurst went physician to the army, and died
at the Havannah.' Mr. Harwood in his _History of Lichfield_, p. 451,
gives two letters from Bathurst to Johnson dated 1757. In the postscript
to one he says:--'I know you will call me a lazy dog, and in truth I
deserve it; but I am afraid I shall never mend. I have indeed long known
that I can love my friends without being able to tell them so.... Adieu
my dearest friend.' He calls Johnson 'the best of friends, to whom I
stand indebted for all the little virtue and knowledge that I have.'
'Nothing,' he continues, 'I think, but absolute want can force me to
continue where I am.' Jamaica he calls 'this execrable region.' Hawkins
(_Life_, p. 235) says that 'Bathurst, before leaving England, confessed
to Johnson that in the course of ten years' exercise of his faculty he
had never opened his hand to more than one guinea.' Johnson perhaps had
Bathurst in mind when, many years later, he wrote:--'A physician in a
great city seems to be the mere plaything of fortune; his degree of
reputation is for the most part totally casual; they that employ him
know not his excellence; they that reject him know not his deficience.
By any acute observer, who had looked on the transactions of the medical
world for half a century, a very curious book might be written on the
_Fortune of Physicians_.' _Works_, viii. 471.
[713] Mr. Ryland was one of the members of the old club in Ivy Lane who
met to dine in 1783. Mr. Payne was another, (_post_, end of 1783).
[714] Johnson revised her volumes: _post_, under Nov. 19, 1783.
[715] Catherine Sawbridge, sister of Mrs. [? Mr.] Alderman Sawbridge,
was born in 1733; but it was not till 1760 that she was married to Dr.
Macaulay, a physician; so that Barber's account was incorrect either in
date or name. CROKER. For Alderman Sawbridge see _post_, May 17,
1778, note.
[716] See _post_, under Nov. 19, 1783. Johnson bequeathed to her a book
to keep as a token of remembrance (_post_, Dec. 9, 1784). I find her
name in the year 1765 in the list of subscribers to the edition of
Swift's _Works_, in 17 vols., so that perhaps she was more 'in the
learned way' than Barber thought.
[717] Reynolds did not return to England from Italy till the October of
this year, seven months after Mrs. Johnson's death. Taylor's _Reynolds_,
i. 87. He writes of his 'thirty years' intimacy with Dr. Johnson.' He
must have known him therefore at least as early as 1754. _Ib_. ii. 454.
[718] See _ante_, p. 185.
[719] 'Lord Southwell,' said Johnson, 'was the most _qualitied_ man I
ever saw.' _Post_, March 23, 1783.
[720] The account given of Levet in _Gent. Mag_. lv. 101, shews that he
was a man out of the common run. He would not otherwise have attracted
the notice of the French surgeons. The writer says:--'Mr. Levet, though
an Englishman by birth, became early in life a waiter at a coffee-house
in Paris. The surgeons who frequented it, finding him of an inquisitive
turn and attentive to their conversation, made a purse for him, and gave
him some instructions in their art. They afterwards furnished him with
the means of further knowledge, by procuring him free admission to such
lectures in pharmacy and anatomy as were read by the ablest professors
of that period.' When he lived with Johnson, 'much of the day was
employed in attendance on his patients, who were chiefly of the lowest
rank of tradesmen. The remainder of his hours he dedicated to Hunter's
lectures, and to as many different opportunities of improvement as he
could meet with on the same gratuitous conditions.' 'All his medical
knowledge,' said Johnson, 'and it is not inconsiderable, was obtained
through the ear. Though he buys books, he seldom looks into them, or
discovers any power by which he can be supposed to judge of an author's
merit.' 'Dr. Johnson has frequently observed that Levet was indebted to
him for nothing more than house-room, his share in a penny-loaf at
breakfast, and now and then a dinner on a Sunday. His character was
rendered valuable by repeated proof of honesty, tenderness, and
gratitude to his benefactor, as well as by an unwearied diligence in his
profession. His single failing was an occasional departure from
sobriety. Johnson would observe, "he was perhaps the only man who ever
became intoxicated through motives of prudence. He reflected that, if he
refused the gin or brandy offered him by some of his patients, he could
have been no gainer by their cure, as they might have had nothing else
to bestow on him. This habit of taking a fee, in whatever shape it was
exhibited, could not be put off by advice. He would swallow what he did
not like, nay what he knew would injure him, rather than go home with an
idea that his skill had been exerted without recompense. Though he took
all that was offered him, he demanded nothing from the poor."' The
writer adds that 'Johnson never wished him to be regarded as an
inferior, or treated him like a dependent.' Mrs. Piozzi says:--'When
Johnson raised contributions for some distressed author, or wit in want,
he often made us all more than amends by diverting descriptions of the
lives they were then passing in corners unseen by anybody but himself,
and that odd old surgeon whom he kept in his house to tend the
outpensioners, and of whom he said most truly and sublimely, that
"In misery's darkest caverns known,"' etc. Piozzi's _Anec_., p. 118.
'Levet, madam, is a brutal fellow, but I have a good regard for him; for
his brutality is in his manners, not in his mind.' Mme. D'Arblay's
_Diary_, i. 115. 'Whoever called in on Johnson at about midday found him
and Levet at breakfast, Johnson, in deshabille, as just risen from bed,
and Levet filling out tea for himself and his patron alternately, no
conversation passing between them. All that visited him at these hours
were welcome. A night's rest and breakfast seldom failed to refresh and
fit him for discourse, and whoever withdrew went too soon.' Hawkins's
_Johnson_, p. 435.
How much he valued his poor friend he showed at his death, _post_, Jan.
20, 1782.
[721]
'O et praesidium et dulce decus meum.'
'My joy, my guard, and sweetest good.'
CREECH. Horace, _Odes_, i. I. 2.
[722] It was in 1738 that Johnson was living in Castle Street. At the
time of Reynolds's arrival in London in 1752 he had been living for some
years in Gough Square. Boswell, I suppose, only means to say that
Johnson's acquaintance with the Cotterells was formed when he lived in
their neighbourhood. Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, i. 69) says that the
Cotterells lived 'opposite to Reynolds's,' but his account seems based
on a misunderstanding of Boswell.
[723] _Ante_, p. 165.
[724] 'We are both of Dr. Johnson's school,' wrote Reynolds to some
friend. 'For my own part, I acknowledge the highest obligations to him.
He may be said to have formed my mind, and to have brushed from it a
great deal of rubbish. Those very persons whom he has brought to think
rightly will occasionally criticise the opinions of their master when he
nods. But we should always recollect that it is he himself who taught us
and enabled us to do it.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 461. Burke, writing
to Malone, said:--'You state very properly how much Reynolds owed to the
writings and conversation of Johnson; and nothing shews more the
greatness of Sir Joshua's parts than his taking advantage of both, and
making some application of them to his profession, when Johnson neither
understood nor desired to understand anything of painting.' _Ib_. p.
638. Reynolds, there can be little question, is thinking of Johnson in
the following passage in his _Seventh Discourse_:--'What partial and
desultory reading cannot afford may be supplied by the conversation of
learned and ingenious men, which is the best of all substitutes for
those who have not the means or opportunities of deep study. There are
many such men in this age: and they will be pleased with communicating
their ideas to artists, when they see them curious and docile, if they
are treated with that respect and deference which is so justly their
due. Into such society young artists, if they make it the point of their
ambition, will by degrees be admitted. There, without formal teaching,
they will insensibly come to feel and reason like those they live with,
and find a rational and systematic taste imperceptibly formed in their
minds, which they will know how to reduce to a standard, by applying
general truth to their own purposes, better perhaps than those to whom
they owned [?owed] the original sentiment.' Reynolds's _Works_, edit.
1824, i. 149. 'Another thing remarkable to shew how little Sir Joshua
crouched to the great is, that he never gave them their proper titles. I
never heard the words "your lordship" or "your ladyship" come from his
mouth; nor did he ever say "Sir" in speaking to any one but Dr. Johnson;
and when he did not hear distinctly what the latter said (which often
happened) he would then say "Sir?" that he might repeat it.' Northcote's
_Conversations_, p. 289. Gibbon called Johnson 'Reynolds's oracle.'
Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 149. See also _post_, under Dec. 29, 1778.