writes:--'When I was at Ferney, in 1764, I mentioned our design to
Voltaire. He looked at me as if I had talked of going to the North Pole,
and said, "You do not insist on my accompanying you?" "No, Sir." "Then I
am very willing you should go."'
[1325] 'When he went through the streets he desired to have one to lead
him by the hand. They asked his opinion of the high church. He answered
that it was a large rock, yet there were some in St. Kilda much higher,
but that these were the best caves he ever saw; for that was the idea
which he conceived of the pillars and arches upon which the church
stands.' M. Martin's _Western Isles_, p. 297. Mr. Croker compares the
passage in _The Spectator_ (No. 50), in which an Indian king is made to
say of St. Paul's:--'It was probably at first an huge misshapen rock
that grew upon the top of the hill, which the natives of the country
(after having cut it into a kind of regular figure) bored and hollowed
with incredible pains and industry.'
[1326] Boswell, writing to Temple the next day, slightly varies these
words:--'He said, "My dear Boswell, it would give me great pain to part
with you, if I thought we were not to meet again."' _Letters of
Boswell_, p. 34.
[1327] Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 43) protests against 'the trite and
lavish praise of the happiness of our boyish years, which is echoed with
so much affectation in the world. That happiness I have never known,
that time I have never regretted. The poet may gaily describe the short
hours of recreation; but he forgets the daily tedious labours of the
school, which is approached each morning with anxious and reluctant
steps.' See _ante_, p. 44, and _post_, under Feb. 27, 1772.
[1328] About fame Gibbon felt much as Johnson did. 'I am disgusted,' he
wrote (_ib_. 272), 'with the affectation of men of letters, who complain
that they have renounced a substance for a shadow, and that their fame
(which sometimes is no insupportable weight) affords a poor compensation
for envy, censure, and persecution. My own experience, at least, has
taught me a very different lesson; twenty happy years have been animated
by the labour of my _History_, and its success has given me a name, a
rank, a character, in the world, to which I should not otherwise have
been entitled.'
[1329] See _ante_, p. 432.
[1330] See _ante_, p. 332.
[1331] This opinion was given by him more at large at a subsequent
period. See _Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 32 [Aug.
16]. BOSWELL. 'That Swift was its author, though it be universally
believed, was never owned by himself, nor very well proved by any
evidence; but no other claimant can be produced, and he did not deny it
when Archbishop Sharpe and the Duchess of Somerset, by showing it to the
Queen, debarred him from a bishoprick.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 197.
See also _post_, March 24, 1775. Stockdale records (_Memoirs_, ii. 61)
that Johnson said 'that if Swift really was the author of _The Tale of
the Tub_, as the best of his other performances were of a very inferior
merit, he should have hanged himself after he had written it.' Scott
(_Life of Swift_, ed. 1834, p. 77) says:--'Mrs. Whiteway observed the
Dean, in the latter years of his life [in 1735], looking over the
_Tale_, when suddenly closing the book he muttered, in an unconscious
soliloquy, "Good God! what a genius I had when I wrote that book!" She
begged it of him, who made some excuse at the moment; but on her
birthday he presented her with it inscribed, "From her affectionate
cousin." On observing the inscription, she ventured to say, "I wish,
Sir, you had said the gift of the author!" The Dean bowed, smiled
good-humouredly, and answered, "No, I thank you," in a very significant
manner.' There is this to be said of Johnson's incredulity about the
_Tale of a Tub_, that the _History of John Bull_ and the _Memoirs of
Martinus Scriblerus_, though both by Arbuthnot, were commonly assigned
to Swift and are printed in his _Works_.
[1332] 'Thomson thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a
man of genius; he looks round on Nature and on Life with the eye which
Nature bestows only on a poet;--the eye that distinguishes in everything
presented to its view whatever there is on which imagination can delight
to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and
attends to the minute.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 377. See _post_, ii.
63, and April 11, 1776.
[1333] Burke seems to be meant. See _post_, April 25, 1778, and
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, and Sept. 15, 1773.--It is strange
however that, while in these three places Boswell mentions Burke's name,
he should leave a blank here. In _Boswelliana_, p. 328, Boswell
records:--'Langton said Burke hammered his wit upon an anvil, and the
iron was cold. There were no sparks flashing and flying all about.'
[1334] In _Boswelliana_ (p. 214) this anecdote is thus given:--'Boswell
was talking to Mr. Samuel Johnson of Mr. Sheridan's enthusiasm for the
advancement of eloquence. "Sir," said Mr. Johnson, "it won't do. He
cannot carry through his scheme. He is like a man attempting to stride
the English Channel. Sir, the cause bears no proportion to the effect.
It is setting up a candle at Whitechapel to give light at Westminster."'
See also _ante_, p. 385, and _post_. Oct. 16, 1969, April 18 and May
17, 1783.
[1335] Most likely Boswell himself. See _ante_, p. 410.
[1336] 'Let a Frenchman talk twice with a minister of state, he desires
no more to furnish out a volume.' Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xvi. 197.
Lord Chesterfield wrote from Paris in 1741:--'They [the Parisians]
despise us, and with reason, for our ill-breeding; on the other hand, we
despite them for their want of learning, and we are in the right of it.'
_Supplement to Chesterfield's Letters_, p. 49. See Boswell's _Hebrides_,
Oct. 14, 1773.
[1337] 'Dr. Johnson said that he had been told by an acquaintance of Sir
Isaac Newton, that in early life he started as a clamorous infidel.'
Seward's _Anecdotes_, ii. 324. In Brewster's _Life of Newton_ I find no
mention of early infidelity. On the contrary, Newton had been described
as one who 'had been a searcher of the Scriptures from his youth' (ii.
314). Brewster says that 'some foreign writers have endeavoured to shew
that his theological writings were composed at a late period of life,
when his mind was in its dotage.' It was not so, however. _Ib_. p. 315.
[1338] I fully intended to have followed advice of such weight; but
having staid much longer both in Germany and Italy than I proposed to
do, and having also visited Corsica, I found that I had exceeded the
time allowed me by my father, and hastened to France in my way
homewards. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 410.
[1339]
'Has heaven reserved, in pity to the poor,
No pathless waste, or undiscovered shore?
No secret island in the boundless main?
No peaceful desert, yet unclaimed by Spain?'
Johnson looked upon the discovery of America as a misfortune to mankind.
In _Taxation no Tyranny_ (_Works_, vi. 233) he says that 'no part of the
world has yet had reason to rejoice that Columbus found at last
reception and employment. In the same year, in a year hitherto
disastrous to mankind, by the Portuguese was discovered the passage of
the Indies, and by the Spaniards the coast of America.' On March 4,
1773, he wrote (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 248):--'I do not much wish well
to discoveries, for I am always afraid they will end in conquest and
robbery.' See _ante_, p. 308, note 2, and post, March 21, 1775, and
under Dec. 24, 1783.
[1340] See _ante_, p. 394, note 2.
[1341] _Letters written from Leverpoole, Chester, Corke, &c.,_ by Samuel
Derrick, 1767.
[1342] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 104 [Aug. 27,
1773]. BOSWELL.
[1343] Ibid. p. 142 [242, Sept. 22, 1773]. BOSWELL. Johnson added:--'but
it was nothing.' Derrick, in 1760, published Dryden's _Misc. Works_,
with an _Account of his Life_.
[1344] He published a biographical work, containing an account of
eminent writers, in three vols. 8vo. BOSWELL.
[1345]
'Thus the soft gifts of sleep conclude the day,
And stretched on bulks, as usual, poets lay.'
_The Dunciad_, ii. 420.
In _Humphry Clinker_, in the Letter of June 10, in which is described
the dinner given by S---- to the poor authors, of one of them it is
said:--'The only secret which he ever kept was the place of his
lodgings; but it was believed that during the heats of summer he
commonly took his repose upon a bulk.' Johnson defines _bulk_ as _a part
of a building jutting out_.
[1346] 'Knowledge is certainly one of the means of pleasure, as is
confessed by the natural desire which every mind feels of increasing its
ideas ... without knowing why we always rejoice when we learn, and
grieve when we forget.' _Rasselas_, ch. xi.
[1347] In the days of Old London Bridge, as Mr. Croker points out, even
when the tide would have allowed passengers to shoot it, those who were
prudent landed above the bridge, and walked to some wharf below it.
[1348] All who are acquainted with the history of religion, (the most
important, surely, that concerns the human mind,) know that the
appellation of Methodists was first given to a society of students in
the University of Oxford, who about the year 1730 were distinguished by
an earnest and _methodical_ attention to devout exercises. This
disposition of mind is not a novelty, or peculiar to any sect, but has
been, and still may be found, in many christians of every denomination.
Johnson himself was, in a dignified manner, a Methodist. In his
_Rambler_, No. 110, he mentions with respect 'the whole discipline of
regulated piety;' and in his _Prayers and Meditations_, many instances
occur of his anxious examination into his spiritual state. That this
religious earnestness, and in particular an observation of the influence
of the Holy Spirit, has sometimes degenerated into folly, and sometimes
been counterfeited for base purposes, cannot be denied. But it is not,
therefore, fair to decry it when genuine. The principal argument in
reason and good sense against methodism is, that it tends to debase
human nature, and prevent the generous exertions of goodness, by an
unworthy supposition that GOD will pay no regard to them; although it is
positively said in the scriptures that He 'will reward every man
according to his works.' [St. Matthew xvi. 27.] But I am happy to have
it [in] my power to do justice to those whom it is the fashion to
ridicule, without any knowledge of their tenets; and this I can do by
quoting a passage from one of their best apologists, Mr. Milner, who
thus expresses their doctrine upon this subject. 'Justified by faith,
renewed in his faculties, and constrained by the love of Christ, their
believer moves in the sphere of love and gratitude, and all his _duties_
flow more or less from this principle. And though _they are accumulating
for him in heaven a treasure of bliss proportioned to his faithfulness
and activity, and it is by no means inconsistent with his principles to
feel the force of this consideration_, yet love itself sweetens every
duty to his mind; and he thinks there is no absurdity in his feeling the
love of GOD as the grand commanding principle of his life.' _Essays on
several religious Subjects, &c., by Joseph Milner, A.M., Master of the
Grammar School of Kingston upon-Hull, 1789, p_. 11. BOSWELL. Southey
(_Life of Wesley_, i. 41), mentioning the names given at Oxford to
Wesley and his followers, continues:--'One person with less irreverence
and more learning observed, in reference to their methodical manner of
life, that a new sect of Methodists was sprung up, alluding to the
ancient school of physicians known by that name.' Wesley, in 1744, wrote
_The Humble Address to the King of the Societies in derision called
Methodists. Journal_, i. 437. He often speaks of 'the people called
Methodists,' but sometimes he uses the term without any qualification.
Mrs. Thrale, in 1780, wrote to Johnson:--'Methodist is considered always
a term of reproach, I trust, because I never yet did hear that any one
person called himself a Methodist.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 119.
[1349] Wesley said:--'We should constantly use the most common, little,
easy words (so they are pure and proper) which our language affords.
When first I talked at Oxford to plain people in the Castle [the prison]
or the town, I observed they gaped and stared. This quickly obliged me
to alter my style, and adopt the language of those I spoke to; and yet
there is a dignity in their simplicity, which is not disagreeable to
those of the highest rank.' Southey's _Wesley_, i. 431. See _post_,
1770, in Dr. Maxwell's _Collectanea_, Oct. 12, 1779, Aug. 30, 1780, and
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 10, 1773.
[1350] In the original, _struck_.
[1351] _Epigram_, Lib. ii. 'In Elizabeth. Angliae Reg.' MALONE.
[1352] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 23.
[1353] Virgil, _Eclogues_, i. 5. Johnson, when a boy, turned the line
thus:--'And the wood rings with Amarillis' name.' _Ante_, p. 51.
[1354] Boswell said of Paoli's talk about great men:--'I regret that the
fire with which he spoke upon such occasions so dazzled me, that I could
not recollect his sayings, so as to write them down when I retired from
his presence.' _Corsica_, p. 197.
[1355] More passages than one in Boswell's _Letters to Temple_ shew this
absence of relish. Thus in 1775 he writes:--'I perceive some dawnings of
taste for the country' (p. 216); and again:--'I will force a taste for
natural beauties' (p. 219).
[1356] Milton's _L'Allegro_, 1. 118.
[1357] See _post_, April 2, 1775, and April 17, 1778.
[1358] My friend Sir Michael Le Fleming. This gentleman, with all his
experience of sprightly and elegant life, inherits, with the beautiful
family Domain, no inconsiderable share of that love of literature, which
distinguished his venerable grandfather, the Bishop of Carlisle. He one
day observed to me, of Dr. Johnson, in a felicity of phrase, 'There is a
blunt dignity about him on every occasion.' BOSWELL.
[1359] Wordsworth's lines to the Baronet's daughter, Lady Fleming, might
be applied to the father:--
'Lives there a man whose sole delights
Are trivial pomp and city noise,
Hardening a heart that loathes or slights
What every natural heart enjoys?'
Wordsworth's _Poems_, iv. 338.
[1360] Afterwards Lord Stowell. He was a member of Doctors' Commons, the
college of Civilians in London, who practised in the Ecclesiastical
Courts and the Court of the Admiralty. See Boswell's _Hebrides_,
Aug. 14, 1773.
[1361] He repeated this advice on the death of Boswell's father, _post_,
Sept. 7, 1782.
[1362] Johnson (_Works_, ix. 159) describes 'the sullen dignity of the
old castle.' See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 4. 1773.
[1363] Probably Burke's _Vindication of Natural Society_, published in
1756 when Burke was twenty-six.
[1364] See _ante_, p. 421.
[1365] Boswell wrote to Temple on July 28, 1763:--'My departure fills me
with a kind of gloom that quite overshadows my mind. I could almost weep
to think of leaving dear London, and the calm retirement of the Inner
Temple. This is very effeminate and very young, but I cannot help it.'
_Letters of Boswell_, p. 46.
[1366] Mrs. Piozzi says (_Anec_. p. 297) that 'Johnson's eyes were so
wild, so piercing, and at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the
first emotion in the hearts of all his beholders.'
[1367] Johnson was, in fact, the editor of this work, as appears from a
letter of Mr. T. Davies to the Rev. Edm. Bettesworth:--'Reverend Sir,--I
take the liberty to send you Roger Ascham's works in English. Though Mr.
Bennet's name is in the title, the editor was in reality Mr. Johnson,
the author of the _Rambler_, who wrote the life of the author, and added
several notes. Mr. Johnson gave it to Mr. Bennet, for his advantage,'
&c.--CROKER. Very likely Davies exaggerated Johnson's share in the book.
Bennet's edition was published, not in 1763, but in 1761.
[1368] 'Lord Sheffield describes the change in Gibbon's opinions caused
by the reign of terror:--'He became a warm and zealous advocate for
every sort of old establishment. I recollect in a circle where French
affairs were the topic and some Portuguese present, he, seemingly with
seriousness, argued in favour of the Inquisition at Lisbon, and said he
would not, at the present moment, give up even that old establishment.'
_Gibbons's Misc. Works_, i. 328. One of Gibbon's correspondents told him
in 1792, that the _Wealth of Nations_ had been condemned by the
Inquisition on account of 'the lowness of its style and the looseness of
the morals which it inculcates.' _Ib_. ii. 479. See also _post_, May
7, 1773.
[1369] Johnson wrote on Aug. 17, 1773:--'This morning I saw at breakfast
Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, who does not remember to have seen light,
and is read to by a poor scholar in Latin, Greek, and French. He was
originally a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence.'
_Piozzi Letters_, i. 110. See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773.
Spence published an _Account of Blacklock_, in which he meanly omitted
any mention of Hume's great generosity to the blind poet. J. H. Burton's
_Hume_, i. 392. Hume asked Blacklock whether he connected colour and
sound. 'He answered, that as he met so often with the terms expressing
colours, he had formed some false associations, but that they were of
the intellectual kind. The illumination of the sun, for instance, he
supposed to resemble the presence of a friend.' _Ib_. p. 389.
[1370] They left London early and yet they travelled only 51 miles that
day. The whole distance to Harwich is 71 miles. Paterson's
_Itinerary_, i. 323.
[1371] Mackintosh (_Life_, ii. 162) writing of the time of William III,
says that 'torture was legal in Scotland, and familiar in every country
of Europe but England. Was there a single writer at that time who had
objected to torture? I think not.' In the _Gent. Mag_. for 1742 (p. 660)
it is stated that 'the King of Prussia has forbid the use of torture in
his dominions.' In 1747 (p. 298) we read that Dr. Blackwell, an English
physician, had been put to the torture in Sweden. Montesquieu in the
_Esprit des Lois_, vi. 17, published in 1748, writing of 'la question ou
torture centre les criminels,' says:--'Nous voyons aujourd'hui une
nation très-bien policée [la nation anglaise] la rejeter sans
inconvénient. Elle n'est donc pas nécessaire par sa nature.' Boswell in
1765 found that Paoli tortured a criminal with fire. _Corsica_, p. 158.
Voltaire, in 1777, after telling how innocent men had been put to death
with torture in the reign of Lewis XIV, continues--'Mais un roi a-t-il
le temps de songer à ces menus details d'horreurs au milieu de ses
fètes, de ses conquêtes, et de ses mattresses? Daignez vous en occuper,
ô Louis XVI, vous qui n'avez aucune de ces distractions!' Voltaire's
_Works_, xxvi. 332. Johnson, two years before Voltaire thus wrote, had
been shown _la chambre de question_--the torture-chamber-_in Paris_.
_Post_, Oct. 17, 1775. It was not till the Revolution that torture was
abolished in France. One of the Scotch judges in 1793, at the trial of
Messrs. Palmer and Muir for sedition (_post_, June 3, 1781, note),
'asserted that now the torture was banished, there was no adequate
punishment for sedition.' _Parl. Hist_. xxx. 1569.
[1372] 'A cheerful and good heart will have a care of his meat and
drink.' _Ecclesiasticus_, xxx. 25.
'Verecundari neminem apud mensam decet,
Nam ibi de divinis atque humanis cernitur.'
_Trinummus_, act 2, sc. 4.
Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 149) records that 'Johnson often said, "that
wherever the dinner is ill got, there is poverty, or there is avarice,
or there is stupidity; in short, the family is somehow grossly wrong;
for," continued he, "a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of
anything than he does of his dinner; and if he cannot get that well
dressed, he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other things."' Yet he
'used to say that a man who rode out for an appetite consulted but
little the dignity of human nature.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 204.
[1373] This essay is more against the practices of the parasite than
gulosity. It is entitled _The art of living at the cost of others_.
Johnson wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's children:--'Gluttony is, I think,
less common among women than among men. Women commonly eat more
sparingly, and are less curious in the choice of meat; but if once you
find a woman gluttonous, expect from her very little virtue. Her mind is
enslaved to the lowest and grossest temptation.' _Piozzi Letters_,
ii. 298.
[1374] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 355) mentions 'the greediness with which he
ate, his total inattention to those among whom he was seated, and his
profound silence at the moment of refection.'
[1375] Cumberland (_Memoirs_, i. 357) says:--'He fed heartily, but not
voraciously, and was extremely courteous in his commendations of any
dish that pleased his palate.'
[1376] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 10, 1780:--'Last week I saw
flesh but twice and I think fish once; the rest was pease. You are
afraid, you say, lest I extenuate myself too fast, and are an enemy to
violence; but did you never hear nor read, dear Madam, that every man
has his _genius_, and that the great rule by which all excellence is
attained and all success procured, is to follow _genius_; and have you
not observed in all our conversations that my _genius_ is always in
extremes; that I am very noisy or very silent; very gloomy or very
merry; very sour or very kind? And would you have me cross my _genius_
when it leads me sometimes to voracity and sometimes to abstinence?'
_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 166.
[1377] 'This,' he told Boswell, 'was no intentional fasting, but
happened just in the course of a literary life.' Boswell's _Hebrides_,
Oct. 4, 1773. See _post_, April 17, 1778.
[1378] In the last year of his life, when he knew that his appetite was
diseased, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'I have now an inclination to luxury
which even your table did not excite; _for till now my talk was more
about the dishes than my thoughts_. I remember you commended me for
seeming pleased with my dinners when you had reduced your table; I am
able to tell you with great veracity, that I never knew when the
reduction began, nor should have known what it was made, had not you
told me. _I now think and consult to-day what I shall eat to-morrow.
This disease will, I hope, be cured_.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 362.
[1379] Johnson's visit to Gordon and Maclaurin are just mentioned in
Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11, 1772.
[1380] The only nobleman with whom he dined 'about the same time' was
Lord Elibank. After dining with him, 'he supped,' says Boswell, 'with my
wife and myself.' _Ib_.
[1381] See _post_, April 15, 1778.
[1382] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 102) says, 'Johnson's own notions about
eating were nothing less than delicate; a leg of pork boiled till it
dropped from the bone, a veal-pie with plums and sugar, or the outside
cut of a salt buttock of beef were his favourite dainties.' Cradock saw
Burke at a tavern dinner send Johnson a very small piece of a pie, the
crust of which was made with bad butter. 'Johnson soon returned his
plate for more. Burke exclaimed:--"I am glad that you are able so well
to relish this pie." Johnson, not at all pleased that what he ate should
ever be noticed, retorted:--"There is a time of life, Sir, when a man
requires the repairs of a table."' Cradock's _Memoirs_, i. 229. A
passage in Baretti's _Italy_, ii. 316, seems to show that English eating
in general was not delicate. 'I once heard a Frenchman swear,' he
writes, 'that he hated the English, "parce qu'ils versent du beurre
fondu sur leur veau rod."'
[1383] 'He had an abhorrence of affectation,' said Mr. Langton. _Post_,
1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_.
[1384] At college he would not let his companions say _prodigious_.
_Post_, April 17, 1778.
[1385] See _post_, Sept. 19, 1777, and 1780 in Mr. Langton's
_Collection_. Dugald Stewart quotes a saying of Turgot:--'He who had
never doubted of the existence of matter might be assured he had no turn
for metaphysical disquisitions.' _Life of Reid_, p. 416.
[1386] Claude Buffier, born 1661, died 1737. Author of _Traité
despremières vérités et de la source de nos jugements_.
[1387]