Public_, which he wrote for the _Gent. Mag_. in 1739 (_Works_, v. 348),
he said:--'Nothing is more criminal in the opinion of many of them, than
for an author to enjoy more advantage from his own works than they are
disposed to allow him. This is a principle so well established among
them, that we can produce some who threatened printers with their
highest displeasure, for having dared to print books for those that
wrote them.' In the _Life of Savage_ (_ib_. viii. 132), written in 1744,
he writes of the 'avarice, by which the booksellers are frequently
incited to oppress that genius by which they are supported.' In the
_Life of Dryden_ (_ib_. vii. 299), written in 1779, he speaks of an
improvement. 'The general conduct of traders was much less liberal in
those times than in our own; their views were narrower, and their
manners grosser. To the mercantile ruggedness of that race the delicacy
of the poet was sometimes exposed.'
[891] _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 40 [25]. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote to
Miss Boothby on Dec. 30, 1755:--'If I turn my thoughts upon myself, what
do I perceive but a poor helpless being, reduced by a blast of wind to
weakness and misery?... Mr. Fitzherbert sent to-day to offer me some
wine; the people about me say I ought to accept it. I shall therefore be
obliged to him if he will send me a bottle.' _Pioszi Letters_, ii. 393.
[892] _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 27. BOSWELL
[893] See _post_, April 6, 1775. Kit Smart, once a Fellow of Pembroke
Hall, Cambridge, ended his life in the King's Bench Prison; 'where he
had owed to a small subscription, of which Dr. Burney was at the head, a
miserable pittance beyond the prison allowance. In his latest letter to
Dr. Burney, he passionately pleaded for a fellow-sufferer, "whom I
myself," he impressively adds, "have already assisted according to my
willing poverty." In another letter to the same friend he said:--"I
bless God for your good nature, which please to take for a receipt."'
_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 205, 280.
[894] In this Essay Johnson writes (_Works_, v. 315):--'I think there is
room to question whether a great part of mankind has yet been informed
that life is sustained by the fruits of the earth. I was once, indeed,
provoked to ask a lady of great eminence for genius, "Whether she knew
of what bread is made."'
[895] In _The Universal Visiter_ this Essay is entitled, 'Reflections on
the Present State of Literature;' and in Johnson's _Works_, v. 355, 'A
Project for the Employment of Authors.' The whole world, he says, is
turning author. Their number is so large that employment must be found
for them. 'There are some reasons for which they may seem particularly
qualified for a military life. They are used to suffer want of every
kind; they are accustomed to obey the word of command from their patrons
and their booksellers; they have always passed a life of hazard and
adventure, uncertain what may be their state on the next day.... There
are some whom long depression under supercilious patrons has so humbled
and crushed, that they will never have steadiness to keep their ranks.
But for these men there may be found fifes and drums, and they will be
well enough pleased to inflame others to battle, if they are not obliged
to fight themselves.'
[896] He added it also to his _Life of Pope_.
[897] 'This employment,' wrote Murphy (_Life_, p. 88), 'engrossed but
little of Johnson's time. He resigned himself to indolence, took no
exercise, rose about two, and then received the visits of his friends.
Authors long since forgotten waited on him as their oracle, and he gave
responses in the chair of criticism. He listened to the complaints, the
schemes, and the hopes and fears of a crowd of inferior writers, "who,"
he said, in the words of Roger Ascham, "lived, men knew not how, and
died obscure, men marked not when." He believed, that he could give a
better history of Grub Street than any man living. His house was filled
with a succession of visitors till four or five in the evening. During
the whole time he presided at his tea-table.' In _The Rambler_, No. 145,
Johnson takes the part of these inferior writers:--'a race of beings
equally obscure and equally indigent, who, because their usefulness is
less obvious to vulgar apprehensions, live unrewarded and die unpitied,
and who have been long exposed to insult without a defender, and to
censure without an apologist.'
[898] In this essay (_Works_, vi. 129) Johnson describes Canada as a
'region of desolate sterility,' 'a cold, uncomfortable, uninviting
region, from which nothing but furs and fish were to be had.'
[899] The bill of 1756 that he considers passed through the Commons but
was rejected by the Lords. It is curious as showing the comparative
population of the different counties, Devonshire was to furnish 3200
men--twice as many as Lancashire. Essex, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk were
each to furnish 1920 men; Lancashire, Surrey, Sussex, and Wiltshire
1600: Durham and Bedfordshire 800. From the three Ridings of Yorkshire
4800 were to be raised. The men were to be exercised every Sunday before
and after service. _The Literary Magazine_, p. 58.
[900] In this paper are found the forcible words, 'The desperate remedy
of desperate distress,' which have been used since by orators. _Ib_.
p. 121.
[901] Johnson considers here the war in America between the English and
French, and shows a strong feeling for the natives who had been wronged
by both nations. 'Such is the contest that no honest man can heartily
wish success to either party.... The American dispute between the French
and us is only the quarrel of two robbers for the spoils of a
passenger.' The French had this in their favour, that they had treated
the natives better than we. 'The favour of the Indians which they enjoy
with very few exceptions among all the nations of the northern continent
we ought to consider with other thoughts; this favour we might have
enjoyed, if we had been careful to deserve it.' _Works_, vi. 114, 122.
[902] These Memoirs end with the year 1745. Johnson had intended to
continue them, for he writes:--'We shall here suspend our narrative.'
_Ib_. vi. 474.
[903] See _ante_, p. 221.
[904] The sentence continues:--'and produce heirs to the father's
habiliments.' _Ib_. vi. 436. Another instance may be adduced of his
_Brownism_ in the following line:--'The war continued in an
equilibration by alternate losses and advantages.' _Ib_ 473.
[905] In a letter from the Secretary of the Tall Club in _The Guardian_,
No. 108. 'If the fair sex look upon us with an eye of favour, we shall
make some attempts to lengthen out the human figure, and restore it to
its ancient procerity.'
[906] See _post_, March 23, 1783.
[907] 'As power is the constant and unavoidable consequence of learning,
there is no reason to doubt that the time is approaching when the
Americans shall in their turn have some influence on the affairs of
mankind, for literature apparently gains ground among them. A library is
established in Carolina and some great electrical discoveries were made
at Philadelphia...The fear that the American colonies will break off
their dependence on England I have always thought chimerical and vain
... They must be dependent, and if they forsake us, or be forsaken by
us, must fall into the hands of France.' _Literary Magazine_, pp.
293, 299.
[908] Johnson, I have no doubt, wrote the _Review of A True Account of
Lisbon since the Earthquake_, in which it is stated that the destruction
was grossly exaggerated. After quoting the writer at length, he
concludes:--'Such then is the actual, real situation of _that place
which once was_ Lisbon, and has been since gazetically and
pamphletically quite destroyed, consumed, annihilated! Now, upon
comparing this simple narration of things and facts with the false and
absurd accounts which have rather insulted and imposed upon us than
informed us, who but must see the enormous disproportion?...
Exaggeration and the absurdities ever faithfully attached to it are
inseparable attitudes of the ignorant, the empty, and the affected.
Hence those eloquent tropes so familiar in every conversation,
_monstrously pretty, vastly little_; ... hence your _eminent shoe-maker,
farriers, and undertakers_.... It is to the same muddy source we owe the
many falsehoods and absurdities we have been pestered with concerning
Lisbon. Thence your extravagantly sublime figures: _Lisbon is no more;
can be seen no more_, etc., ... with all the other prodigal effusions of
bombast beyond that stretch of time or temper to enumerate. _Ib_. p. 22.
See _post_, under March 30, 1778.
[909] In the original _undigested_.
[910] Johnson's _Works_, vi. 113.
[911] In the spring of 1784, after the king had taken advantage of Fox's
India Bill to dismiss the Coalition Ministry. See _post_, March
28, 1784.
[912] In Ireland there was no act to limit the duration of parliament.
One parliament sat through the whole reign of George II--thirty-three
years. Dr. Lucas, a Dublin physician, in attacking other grievances,
attacked also this. In 1749 he would have been elected member for
Dublin, had he not, on a charge of seditious writings, been committed by
the House of Commons to prison. He was to be confined, he was told, 'in
the common hall of the prison among the felons.' He fled to England,
which was all that the government wanted, and he practised as a
physician in London. In 1761 he was restored to the liberties of the
City of Dublin and was also elected one of its members. Hardy's _Lord
Charlemont_, i. 249, 299; and _Gent. Mag_., xx. 58 and xxxi. 236.
[913] Boswell himself falls into this 'cant.' See _post_, Sept. 23,
1777.
[914] Johnson's _Works_, vi. II.
[915] _Ib_. p. 13. He vigorously attacks the style in which these
'Memoirs' are written. 'Sometimes,' he writes, 'the reader is suddenly
ravished with a sonorous sentence, of which, when the noise is past, the
meaning does not long remain.' _Ib_. p. 15.
[916] The author of _Friendship in Death_.
[917] In the _Lives of the Poets (Works, viii. 383) Johnson writes:--'Dr
Watts was one of the first authors that taught the Dissenters to court
attention by the graces of language. Whatever they had among them
before, whether of learning or acuteness, was commonly obscured and
blunted by coarseness and inelegance of style. He showed them that zeal
and purity might be expressed and enforced by polished diction.'
[918] 'Such he [Dr. Watts] was as every Christian Church would rejoice
to have adopted.' _Ib_. p. 380. See also _post_, July 7, 1777, and
May 19, 1778.
[919] Johnson's _Works_, vi. 79.
[920] Mr. Hanway would have had the support of Johnson's father, who, as
his son writes, 'considered tea as very expensive, and discouraged my
mother from keeping company with the neighbours, and from paying visits
or receiving them. She lived to say, many years after, that if the time
were to pass again, she would not comply with such unsocial
injunctions.' _Account of Johnson's Early Life_, p. 18. The Methodists,
ten years earlier than Hanway, had declared war on tea. 'After talking
largely with both the men and women Leaders,' writes Wesley, 'we agreed
it would prevent great expense, as well of health as of time and of
money, if the poorer people of our society could be persuaded to leave
off drinking of tea.' Wesley's _Journal_, i. 526. Pepys, writing in
1660, says: 'I did send for a cup of tee, (a China drink) of which I
never had drank before.' Pepys' _Diary_, i. 137. Horace Walpole
(_Letters_, i. 224) writing in 1743 says:--'They have talked of a new
duty on tea, to be paid by every housekeeper for all the persons in
their families; but it will scarce be proposed. Tea is so universal,
that it would make a greater clamour than a duty on wine.' In October
1734 tea was sold in London at the following prices:--Ordinary Bohca 9s.
per lb. Fine Bohca 10s. to 12s. per lb. Pekoe 15s. per lb. Hyson 20s. to
25s. per lb. _Gent. Mag_. iv. 575.
[921] Yet in his reply to Mr. Hanway he said (_Works_, vi. 33):--'I
allowed tea to be a barren superfluity, neither medicinal nor
nutritious, that neither supplied strength nor cheerfulness, neither
relieved weariness, nor exhilarated sorrow.' Cumberland writes
(_Memoirs_, i. 357):--'I remember when Sir Joshua Reynolds at my house
reminded Dr. Johnson that he had drank eleven cups, he replied: "Sir, I
did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of
tea?" And then laughing in perfect good humour he added:--"Sir, I should
have released the lady from any further trouble, if it had not been for
your remark; but you have reminded me that I want one of the dozen, and
I must request Mrs. Cumberland to round up my number."'
[922] In this Review Johnson describes himself as 'a hardened and
shameless tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with
only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely
time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the
midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 21.
That 'he never felt the least inconvenience from it' may well be
doubted. His nights were almost always bad. In 1774 he recorded:--'I
could not drink this day either coffee or tea after dinner. I know not
when I missed before.' The next day he recorded:--'Last night my sleep
was remarkably quiet. I know not whether by fatigue in walking, or by
forbearance of tea.' _Diary of a Journey into North Wales_, Aug. 4.
[923] See _post_, May, 1768.
[924]
'Losing, he wins, because his
name will be
Ennobled by defeat who durst
contend with me.'
DRYDEN, Ovid, _Meta_., xiii. 19.
[925] In Hanway's _Essay_ Johnson found much to praise. Hanway often
went to the root when he dealt with the evils of life. Thus he
writes:--'The introducing new habits of life is the most substantial
charity.' But he thus mingles sense and nonsense:--'Though tea and gin
have spread their baneful influence over this island and his Majesty's
other dominions, yet you may be well assured that the Governors of the
Foundling Hospital will exert their utmost skill and vigilance to
prevent the children under their care from being poisoned, or enervated,
by one or the other.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 26, 28.
[926] 'Et pourquoi tuer cet amiral? C'est, lui dit-on, parce qu'il n'a
pas fait tuer assez de monde; il a livré un combat à un amiral français,
et on a trouvé qu'il n'était pas assez près de lui. Mais, dit Candide,
l'amiral français était aussi loin de l'amiral anglais que celui-ci
l'était de l'autre. Cela est incontestable, lui répliquat-on; mais dans
ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour
encourager les autres.' _Candide_, ch. xxiii.
[927] See _post_, June 3, 1781, when Boswell went to this church.
[928] Johnson reprinted this Review in a small volume by itself. See
Johnson's _Works_, vi. 47, note.
[929]
'I have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth.'
Henry VIII, Act iii. sc. 2.
[930] _Musical Travels through England_, by Joel Collier [not Collyer],
Organist, 1774. This book was written in ridicule of Dr. Burney's
_Travels_, who, says his daughter, 'was much hurt on its first
appearance.' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, i. 259.
[931] See _ante_, p. 223.
[932] Some time after Dr. Johnson's death there appeared in the
newspapers and magazines an illiberal and petulant attack upon him, in
the form of an Epitaph, under the name of Mr. Soame Jenyns, very
unworthy of that gentleman, who had quietly submitted to the critical
lash while Johnson lived. It assumed, as characteristicks of him, all
the vulgar circumstances of abuse which had circulated amongst the
ignorant. It was an unbecoming indulgence of puny resentment, at a time
when he himself was at a very advanced age, and had a near prospect of
descending to the grave. I was truly sorry for it; for he was then
become an avowed, and (as my Lord Bishop of London, who had a serious
conversation with him on the subject, assures me) a sincere Christian.
He could not expect that Johnson's numerous friends would patiently bear
to have the memory of their master stigmatized by no mean pen, but that,
at least, one would be found to retort. Accordingly, this unjust and
sarcastick Epitaph was met in the same publick field by an answer, in
terms by no means soft, and such as wanton provocation only
could justify:
'EPITAPH,
'_Prepared for a creature_ not quite dead _yet_.
'Here lies a little ugly nauseous elf,
Who judging only from its wretched self,
Feebly attempted, petulant and vain,
The "Origin of Evil" to explain.
A mighty Genius at this elf displeas'd,
With a strong critick grasp the urchin squeez'd.
For thirty years its coward spleen it kept,
Till in the duat the mighty Genius slept;
Then stunk and fretted in expiring snuff,
And blink'd at JOHNSON with its last poor puff.'
BOSWELL.
The epitaph is very likely Boswell's own. For Jenyns's conversion see
_post_, April 12 and 15, 1778.
[933] Mr. John Payne, afterwards chief accountant of the Bank, one of
the four surviving members of the Ivy Lane Club who dined together in
1783. See Hawkins's _Johnson_, pp. 220, 563; and _post_, December, 1783.
[934] See _post_, under March 19, 1776.
[935] 'He said, "I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is
very useful in life; it generates kindness and consolidates society."'
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 21, 1773.
[936] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3d edit. p. 48. [Aug. 19.]
BOSWELL.
[937] Johnson's _Works_, p. 435.
[938] He was paid at the rate of a little over twopence a line. For this
Introduction see _Ib_. 206.
[939] See _post_, Oct. 26, 1769.
[940] See _post_, April 5, 1775.
[941] In 1740 he set apart the yearly sum of £100 to be distributed, by
way of premium, to the authors of the best inventions, &c., in Ireland.
Chalmers's _Biog. Dict_.
[942] _Boulter's Monument. A Panegyrical Poem, sacred to the memory of
that great and excellent prelate and patriot, the Most Reverend Dr. Hugh
Boulter; Late Lord-Archbishop of Ardmagh, and Primate of All Ireland_.
Dublin, 1745. Such lines as the following might well have been blotted,
but of them the poem is chiefly formed:--
'My peaceful song in lays instructive paints
The first of mitred peers and Britain's saints.' p. 2.
'Ha! mark! what gleam is that which paints the air?
The blue serene expands! Is Boulter there?' p. 88.
The poet addresses Boulter's successor Hoadley, who he says,
'Shall equal him; while, like Elisha, you
Enjoy his spirit, and his mantle too.' p. 89.
A note to _mantle_ says 'Alluding to the metropolitan pallium.'
Boulter is the bishop in Pope's lines, (_Prologue to the Satires_, 1.
99):--
'Does not one table Bavius still admit?
'Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit?'
Pattison's _Pope's Satires_, p. 107. In the _Life of Addison_, Johnson
mentioning Dr. Madden adds:--'a name which Ireland ought to honour.'
Johnson's _Works_, vii. 455.
[943] See _ante_, p. 175. Hawkins writes (_Life_, p. 363):--'I
congratulated him length, on his being now engaged in a work that suited
his genius. His answer was:--"I look upon this as I did upon the
_Dictionary_; it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or
desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to
writing that I know of."'
[944] They have been reprinted by Mr. Malone, in the Preface to his
edition of _Shakspeare_. BOSWELL.
[945] At Christmas, 1757, he said that he should publish about March,
1758 (_post_, Dec. 24, 1757). When March came he said that he should
publish before summer (_post_, March 1, 1758).
[946] In what Johnson says of Pope's slow progress in translating the
_Iliad_, he had very likely his own case in view. 'Indolence,
interruption, business, and pleasure all take their turns of
retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that
can, and ten thousand that cannot be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and
multifarious performance was ever effected within the term originally
fixed in the undertaker's mind. He that runs against time has an
antagonist not subject to casualties.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 255. In
Prior's _Goldsmith_ (i. 238) we have the following extracts from letters
written by Grainger (_post_, March 21, 1776) to Dr. Percy:--'June 27,
1758. I have several times called on Johnson to pay him part of your
subscription [for his edition of _Shakespeare_]. I say, part, because he
never thinks of working if he has a couple of guineas in his pocket; but
if you notwithstanding order me, the whole shall be given him at once.'
'July 20, 1758. As to his _Shakespeare, movet sed non promovet_. I shall
feed him occasionally with guineas.'
[947] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 440) says that 'Reynolds and some other of his
friends, who were more concerned for his reputation than himself seemed
to be, contrived to entangle him by a wager, or some other pecuniary
engagement, to perform his task by a certain time.' Just as Johnson was
oppressed by the engagement that he had made to edit _Shakespeare_, so
was Cowper by his engagement to edit _Milton_. 'The consciousness that
there is so much to do and nothing done is a burthen I am not able to
bear. _Milton_ especially is my grievance, and I might almost as well be
haunted by his ghost, as goaded with such continual reproaches for
neglecting him.' Southey's _Cowper_, vii. 163.
[948] From _The Ghost_, Bk. iii. 1. 801. Boswell makes two slight errors
in quoting: 'You cash' should be 'their cash; and 'you know' should be
'we know.'
[949] See _post_, April 17, 1778.
[950] Mrs. Thrale writing to him in 1777, says:--'You would rather be
sick in London than well in the country.' _Piozzi Letters_. i. 394. Yet
Johnson, when he could afford to travel, spent far more time in the
country than is commonly thought. Moreover a great part of each summer
from 1766 to 1782 inclusive he spent at Streatham.
[951] The motto to this number
'Steriles nec legit arenas,
Ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere verum.'
(Lucan).
Johnson has thus translated:--
'Canst thou believe the vast eternal mind
Was e'er to Syrts and Libyan sands confin'd?
That he would choose this waste, this barren ground,
To teach the thin inhabitants around,
And leave his truth in wilds and deserts drown'd?'
[952] It was added to the January number of 1758, but it was dropped in
the following numbers.
[953] According to the note in the _Gent. Mag_. the speech was delivered
'at a certain respectable talking society.' The chairman of the meeting
is addressed as Mr. President. The speech is vigorously written and is,
I have no doubt, by Johnson. 'It is fit,' the speaker says, 'that those
whom for the future we shall employ and pay may know they are the
servants of a people that _expect duty for their money_. It is said an
address expresses some distrust of the king, or may tend to disturb his
quiet. An English king, Mr. President, has no great right to quiet when
his people are in misery.'
[954] See _post_, May 19, 1777.
[955] See _post_, March 21, 1772.
[956] 'I have often observed with wonder, that we should know less of
Ireland than of any other country in Europe.' Temple's _Works_, iii. 82.
[957] The celebrated oratour, Mr. Flood has shewn himself to be of Dr.
Johnson's opinion; having by his will bequeathed his estate, after the
death of his wife Lady Frances, to the University of Dublin; 'desiring
that immediately after the said estate shall come into their possession,
they shall appoint two professors, one for the study of the native Erse
or Irish language, and the other for the study of Irish antiquities and
Irish history, and for the study of any other European language
illustrative of, or auxiliary to, the study of Irish antiquities or
Irish history; and that they shall give yearly two liberal premiums for
two compositions, one in verse, and the other in prose, in the Irish
language.' BOSWELL.
[958] Dr. T. Campbell records in his _Diary of a Visit to England_ (p.
62), that at the dinner at Messieurs Dilly's (_post_, April 5, 1775) he
'ventured to say that the first professors of Oxford, Paris, &c., were
Irish. "Sir," says Johnson, "I believe there is something in what you
say, and I am content with it, since they are not Scotch."'