[241] Seepost, Dec. 1, 1743, note. Robert Levett, made famous by Johnson's lines (post, Jan. 20, 1782), was not of this family.
[242] Mr. Warton informs me, 'that this early friend of Johnson was entered a Commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, aged seventeen, in 1698; and is the authour of many Latin verse translations in theGent. Mag. (vol. xv. 102). One of them is a translation of:
'My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent.' &c.
He died Aug, 3, 1751, and a monument to his memory has been erected in the Cathedral of Lichfield, with an inscription written by Mr. Seward, one of the Prebendaries. BOSWELL.
[243] Johnson'sWorks, vii. 380.
[244] Seepost, 1780, note at end of Mr. Langton's 'Collection.'
[245] Seepost, 1743.
[246] SeepostApril 24, 1779.
[247] Hawkins (Life, p. 61) says that in August, 1738 (? 1739), Johnson went to Appleby, in Leicestershire, to apply for the mastership of Appleby School. This was after he and his wife had removed to London. It is likely that he visited Ashbourne.
[248] 'Old Meynell' is mentioned,post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's 'Collection,' as the author of 'the observation, "For anything I see, foreigners are fools;"' and 'Mr. Meynell,'post, April 1, 1779, as saying that 'The chief advantage of London is, that a man is alwaysso near his burrow.'
[249] Seepost, under March 16, 1759, note, and April 21, 1773. Mr. Alleyne Fitzherbert was created Lord St. Helens.
[250] Seepost, 1780, end of Mr. Langton's 'Collection.'
[251] Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on July 31, 1756, said, 'I find myself very unwilling to take up a pen, only to tell my friends that I am well, and indeed I never did exchange letters regularly but with dear Miss Boothby.'Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 304. At the end of thePiozzi Lettersare given some of his letters to her. They were republished together with her letters to him inAn Account of the Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, 1805.
[252] The words of Sir John Hawkins, P. 316. BOSWELL. 'When Mr. Thrale once asked Johnson which had been the happiest period of his past life, he replied, "it was that year in which he spent one whole evening with Molly Aston. That, indeed," said he, "was not happiness, it was rapture; but the thoughts of it sweetened the whole year." I must add that the evening alluded to was not passed tête-à-tête, but in a select company of which the present Lord Kilmorey was one. "Molly," says Dr. Johnson, "was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit and a whig; and she talked all in praise of liberty; and so I made this epigram upon her—She was the loveliest creature I ever saw—
'Liber ut esse velim suasistipulchra Maria;Ut maneam liber—pulchra Mariavale.'
'Will it do this way in English, Sir,' said I:—
'Persuasions to freedom fall oddlyfrom you;If freedom we seek—fair Maria,adieu!'
'It will do well enough,' replied he; 'but it is translated by a lady, and the ladies never loved Molly Aston.'" Piozzi'sAnec., p. 157. Seepost, May 8, 1778.
[253] Sir Thomas Aston, Bart., who died in January, 1724-5, left one son, named Thomas also, and eight daughters. Of the daughters, Catherine married Johnson's friend, the Hon. Henry Hervey [_post, 1737]; Margaret, Gilbert Walmsley. Another of these ladies married the Rev. Mr. Gastrell [the man who cut down Shakspeare's mulberry tree,post, March 25, 1776]; Mary, orMollyAston, as she was usually called, became the wife of Captain Brodie of the navy. MALONE.
[254] Luke vi. 35.
[255] If this was in 1732 it was on the morrow of the day on which he received his share of his father's property,ante, p. 80. A letter published inNotes and Queries, 6th S. x. 421, shews that for a short time he was tutor to the son of Mr. Whitby of Heywood.
[256] Bishop Hurd does not praise Blackwall, but the Rev. Mr. Budworth, headmaster of the grammar school at Brewood, who had himself been bred under Blackwall. MALONE. Mr. Nichols relates (post, Dec. 1784) that Johnson applied for the post of assistant to Mr. Budworth.
[257] SeeGent. Mag. Dec. 1784, p. 957. BOSWELL.
[258] Seeante, p. 78.
[259] The patron's manners were those of the neighbourhood. Hutton, writing of this town in 1770, says,—'The inhabitants set their dogs at me merely because I was a stranger. Surrounded with impassable roads, no intercourse with man to humanize the mind, no commerce to smooth their rugged manners, they continue the boors of nature.'Life, of W. Hutton, p. 45.
[260] It appears from a letter of Johnson's to a friend, dated Lichfield, July 27, 1732, that he had left Sir Wolstan Dixie's house recently, before that letter was written. MALONE.
[261] 'The despicable wretchedness of teaching,' wrote Carlyle, in his twenty-fourth year, when he was himself a teacher, 'can be known only to those who have tried it, and to Him who made the heart and knows it all. One meets with few spectacles more afflicting than that of a young man with a free spirit, with impetuous though honourable feelings, condemned to waste the flower of his life in such a calling; to fade in it by slow and sure corrosion of discontent; and at last obscurely and unprofitably to leave, with an indignant joy, the miseries of a world which his talents might have illustrated and his virtues adorned. Such things have been and will be. But surely in that better life which good men dream of, the spirit of a Kepler or a Milton will find a more propitious destiny.' Conway'sCarlyle, p. 176.
[262] This newspaper was theBirmingham Journal. In the office of theBirmingham Daily Postis preserved the number (No. 28) for May 21, 1733. It is believed to be the only copy in existence. Warren is described by W. Hutton (Life, p. 77) as one of the 'three eminent booksellers' in Birmingham in 1750. 'His house was "over against the Swan Tavern," in High Street; doubtless in one of the old half-timbered houses pulled down in 1838 [1850].' Timmins'sDr. Johnson in Birmingham, p. 4.
[263] 'In the month of June 1733, I find him resident in the house of a person named Jarvis, at Birmingham.' Hawkins, p. 21. His wife's maiden name was Jarvis or Jervis.
[264] In 1741, Hutton, a runaway apprentice, arrived at Birmingham. He says,—'I had never seen more than five towns, Nottingham, Derby, Burton, Lichfield and Walsall. The outskirts of these were composed of wretched dwellings, visibly stamped with dirt and poverty. But the buildings in the exterior of Birmingham rose in a style of elegance. Thatch, so plentiful in other places, was not to be met with in this. The people possessed a vivacity I had never beheld. I had been among dreamers, but now I saw men awake. Their very step along the street showed alacrity. Every man seemed to know what he was about. The faces of other men seemed tinctured with an idle gloom; but here with a pleasing alertness. Their appearance was strongly marked with the modes of civil life.'Life of W. Hutton, p. 41.
[265] Hutton, in his account of the Birmingham riots of 1791, describing the destruction of a Mr. Taylor's house, says,—'The sons of plunder forgot that the prosperity of Birmingham was owing to a Dissenter, father to the man whose property they were destroying;' ib. p. 181.
[266] Johnson, it should seem, did not think himself ill-used by Warren; for writing to Hector on April 15, 1755, he says,—'What news of poor Warren? I have not lost all my kindness for him.'Notes and Queries, 6th S. iii. 301.
[267] That it is by no means an exact translation Johnson'sPrefaceshows. He says that in the dissertations alone an exact translation has been attempted. The rest of the work he describes as an epitome.
[268] In the original,Segued.
[269] In the original,Zeila.
[270] Lobo, in describing a waterfall on the Nile, had said:—'The fall of this mighty stream from so great a height makes a noise that may be heard to a considerable distance; but I could not observe that the neighbouring inhabitants were at all deaf. I conversed with several, and was as easily heard by them as I heard them,' p. 101.
[271] In the original,without religion, polity, or articulate language.
[272] SeeRambler, No. 103. BOSWELL. Johnson in other passages insisted on the high value of curiosity. In this sameRamblerhe says:—'Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.' In the allegory inRambler, No. 105, he calls curiosity his 'long-loved protectress,' who is known by truth 'among the most faithful of her followers.' In No. 150 he writes:—'Curiosity is in great and generous minds the first passion and the last; and perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties.' In No. 5 he assert that 'he that enlarges his curiosity after the works of nature demonstrably multiplies the inlets to happiness.'
[273] Rasselas,post, 1759.
[274] Hawkins (p. 163) gives the following extract from Johnson'sAnnales:—'Friday, August 27 (1734), 10 at night. This day I have trifled away, except that I have attended the school in the morning, I read to-night in Roger's sermoms. To-night I began the breakfast law (sic) anew.'
[275] May we not trace a fanciful similarity between Politian and Johnson? Huetius, speaking of Paulus Pelissonius Fontanerius, says, '… in quo Natura, ut olim in Angelo Politiano, deformitarem oris excellentis ingenii præstantia compensavit.'Comment, de reb. ad eum pertin. Edit. Amstel. 1718, p. 200. BOSWELL. In Paulus Pelissonius Fontanerius we have difficulty in detecting Mme. de Sévigné's friend, Pelisson, of whom M. de Guilleragues used the phrase, 'qu'il abusait de la permission qu'ont les hommes d'être laids.' SeeMme. de Sévigné's Letter, 5 Jan., 1674. CROKER.
[276] The book was to contain more than thirty sheets, the price to be two shillings and sixpence at the time of subscribing, and two shillings and sixpence at the delivery of a perfect book in quires. BOSWELL. 'Among the books in his library, at the time of his decease, I found a very old and curious edition of the works of Politian, which appeared to belong to Pembroke College, Oxford.' HAWKINS, p. 445. Seepost, Nov., 1784. In his last work he shews his fondness for modern Latin poetry. He says:—'Pope had sought for images and sentiments in a region not known to have been explored by many other of the English writers; he had consulted the modern writers of Latin poetry, a class of authors whom Boileau endeavoured to bring into contempt, and who are too generally neglected.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 299.
[277] A writer inNotes and Queries, 1st S. xii. 266, says 'that he has a letter written by Nathanael, in which he makes mention of his brother "scarcely using him with common civility," and says, "I believe I shall go to Georgia in about a fortnight!"' Nathanael died in Lichfield in 1737; seepost, Dec. 2, 1784, for his epitaph. Among the MSS. in Pembroke College Library are bills for books receipted by Nath. Johnson and by Sarah Johnson (his mother). She writes like a person of little education.
[278] Miss Cave, the grand-niece of Mr. Edward Cave, has obligingly shewn me the originals of this and the other letters of Dr. Johnson, to him, which were first published in theGent. Mag. [lv. 3], with notes by Mr. John Nichols, the worthy and indefatigable editor of that valuable miscellany, signed N.; some of which I shall occasionally transcribe in the course of this work. BOSWELL. I was able to examine some of these letters while they were still in the possession of one of Cave's collateral descendants, and I have in one or two places corrected errors of transcription.
[279] Sir John Floyer's Treatise on Cold Baths.Gent. Mag. 1734, p. 197. BOSWELL. This letter shews how uncommon a thing a cold bath was. Floyer, after recommending 'a general method of bleeding and purging' before the patient uses cold bathing, continues, 'I have commonly cured the rickets by dipping children of a year old in the bath every morning; and this wonderful effect has encouraged me to dip four boys at Lichfield in the font at their baptism, and none have suffered any inconvenience by it.' (For mention of Floyer, seeante, p. 42, andpost, March 27 and July 20, 1784.) Locke, in hisTreatise on Education, had recommended cold bathing for children. Johnson, in his review of Lucas'sEssay on Waters(post, 1756), thus attacks cold bathing:—'It is incident to physicians, I am afraid, beyond all other men, to mistake subsequence for consequence. "The old gentleman," says Dr. Lucas, "that uses the cold bath, enjoys in return an uninterrupted state of health." This instance does not prove that the cold bath produces health, but only that it will not always destroy it. He is well with the bath, he would have been well without it.'Literary Magazine, p. 229.
[280] A prize of fifty pounds for the best poem on 'Life, Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell.' SeeGent. Mag. vol. iv. p. 560. N. BOSWELL. 'Cave sometimes offered subjects for poems, and proposed prizes for the best performers. The first prize was fifty pounds, for which, being but newly acquainted with wealth, and thinking the influence of fifty pounds extremely great, he expected the first authors of the kingdom to appear as competitors; and offered the allotment of the prize to the universities. But when the time came, no name was seen among the writers that had ever been seen before; the universities and several private men rejected the province of assigning the prize.' Johnson'sWorks, vi. 432.
[281] I suspect that Johnson wrote 'the CastleInn, Birmingham.'
[282] Mrs. Piozzi gives the following account of this little composition from Dr. Johnson's own relation to her, on her inquiring whether it was rightly attributed to him:—'I think it is now just forty years ago, that a young fellow had a sprig of myrtle given him by a girl he courted, and asked me to write him some verses that he might present her in return. I promised, but forgot; and when he called for his lines at the time agreed on—Sit still a moment, (says I) dear Mund' [seepost, May 7, 1773, for Johnson's 'way of contracting the names of his friends'], 'and I'll fetch them thee—So stepped aside for five minutes, and wrote the nonsense you now keep such a stir about.'Anec. p. 34.
In my first edition I was induced to doubt the authenticity of this account, by the following circumstantial statement in a letter to me from Miss Seward, of Lichfield:—'I knowthose verses were addressed to Lucy Porter, when he was enamoured of her in his boyish days, two or three years before he had seen her mother, his future wife. He wrote them at my grandfather's, and gave them to Lucy in the presence of my mother, to whom he showed them on the instant. She used to repeat them to me, when I asked her forthe Verses Dr. Johnson gave her on a Sprig of Myrtle, which he had stolen or begged from her bosom. We all know honest Lucy Porter to have been incapable of the mean vanity of applying to herself a compliment notintendedfor her.' Such was this lady's statement, which I make no doubt she supposed to be correct; but it shews how dangerous it is to trust too implicitly to traditional testimony and ingenious inference; for Mr. Hector has lately assured me that Mrs. Piozzi's account is in this instance accurate, and that he was the person for whom Johnson wrote those verses, which have been erroneously ascribed to Mr. Hammond.
I am obliged in so many instances to notice Mrs. Piozzi's incorrectness of relation, that I gladly seize this opportunity of acknowledging, that however often, she is not always inaccurate.
The author having been drawn into a controversy with Miss Anna Seward, in consequence of the preceding statement, (which may be found in theGent. Mag. vol. liii. and liv.) received the following letter from Mr. Edmund Hector, on the subject:
'I am sorry to see you are engaged in altercation with a Lady, who seems unwilling to be convinced of her errors. Surely it would be more ingenuous to acknowledge, than to persevere.
'Lately, in looking over some papers I meant to burn, I found the original manuscript of theMyrtle, with the date on it, 1731, which I have inclosed.
'The true history (which I could swear to) is as follows: Mr. Morgan Graves, the elder brother of a worthy Clergyman near Bath, with whom I was acquainted, waited upon a lady in this neighbourhood, who at parting presented him the branch. He shewed it me, and wished much to return the compliment in verse. I applied to Johnson, who was with me, and in about half an hour dictated the verses which I sent to my friend.
'I most solemnly declare, at that time Johnson was an entire stranger to the Porter family; and it was almost two years after that I introduced him to the acquaintance of Porter, whom I bought my cloaths of.
'If you intend to convince this obstinate woman, and to exhibit to the publick the truth of your narrative, you are at liberty to make what use you please of this statement.
'I hope you will pardon me for taking up so much of your time. Wishing youmultos et felices annos, I shall subscribe myself,
'Your obliged humble servant,
Birmingham, Jan. 9th, 1794.
BOSWELL. For a further account of Boswell's controversy with MissSeward, seepost, June 25, 1784.
[283] Seepost, beginning of 1744, April 28, 1783, and under Dec. 2, 1784.
[284] Seepost, near end of 1762, note.
[285] In the registry of St. Martin's Church, Birmingham, are the following entries:—'Baptisms, Nov. 8, 1715, Lucy, daughter of Henry Porter. Jan. 29, 1717 [O. S.], Jarvis Henry, son of Henry Porter. Burials, Aug. 3, 1734, Henry Porter of Edgbaston.' There were two sons; one, Captain Porter, who died in 1763 (Croker'sBoswell, p. 130), the other who died in 1783 (post, Nov. 29, 1783).
[286] According to Malone, Reynolds said that 'he had paid attention to Johnson's limbs; and far from being unsightly, he deemed them well formed.' Prior'sMalone, p. 175. Mrs. Piozzi says:—'His stature was remarkably high, and his limbs exceedingly large; his features were strongly marked, and his countenance particularly rugged; though the original complexion had certainly been fair, a circumstance somewhat unusual; his sight was near, and otherwise imperfect; yet his eyes, though of a light-grey colour, 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.' Piozzi'sAnec. p. 297. Seepost, end of the book, and Boswell'sHebrides, near the beginning.
[287] If Johnson wore his own hair at Oxford, it must have exposed him to ridicule. Graves, the author ofThe Spiritual Quixote, tells us that Shenstone had the courage to wear his own hair, though 'it often exposed him to the ill-natured remarks of people who had not half his sense. After I was elected at All Souls, where there was often a party of loungers in the gateway, on my expostulating with Mr. Shenstone for not visiting me so often as usual, he said, "he was ashamed to face his enemies in the gate."'
[288] Seepost, 1739.
[289] Mrs. Johnson was born on Feb. 4, 1688-9. MALONE. She was married on July 9, 1735, in St. Werburgh's Church, Derby, as is shewn by the following copy of the marriage register: '1735, July 9, Mar'd Sam'll Johnson of ye parish of St Mary's in Litchfield, and Eliz'th Porter of ye parish of St Phillip in Burmingham.'Notes and Queries, 4th S. vi. 44. At the time of their marriage, therefore, she was forty-six, and Johnson only two months short of twenty-six.
[290] The author of theMemoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr. Johnson, 1785, p. 25, says:—'Mrs. Porter's husband died insolvent, but her settlement was secured. She brought her second husband about seven or eight hundred pounds, a great part of which was expended in fitting up a house for a boarding-school.' That she had some money can be almost inferred from what we are told by Boswell and Hawkins. How other-wise was Johnson able to hire and furnish a large house for his school? Boswell says that he had but three pupils. Hawkins gives him a few more. 'His number,' he writes (p. 36) 'at no time exceeded eight, and of those not all were boarders.' After nearly twenty months of married life, when he went to London, 'he had,' Boswell says, 'a little money.' It was not till a year later still that he began to write for theGent. Mag. If Mrs. Johnson had not money, how did she and her husband live from July 1735 to the spring of 1738? It could scarcely have been on the profits made from their school. Inference, however, is no longer needful, as there is positive evidence. Mr. Timmins in hisDr. Johnson in Birmingham(p. 4) writes:—'My friend, Mr. Joseph Hill, says, A copy of an old deed which has recently come into my hands, shews that a hundred pounds of Mrs. Johnson's fortune was left in the hands of a Birmingham attorney named Thomas Perks, who died insolvent; and in 1745, a bulky deed gave his creditors 7_s_. 4_d_. in the pound. Among the creditors for £100 were "Samuel Johnson, gent., and Elizabeth his wife, executors of the last will and testament of Harry Porter, late of Birmingham aforesaid, woollen draper, deceased." Johnson and his wife were almost the only creditors who did not sign the deed, their seals being left void. It is doubtful, therefore, whether they ever obtained the amount of the composition £36 13_s_. 4_d_.'
[291] Sir Walter Scott has recorded Lord Auchinleck's 'sneer of most sovereign contempt,' while he described Johnson as 'a dominie, monan auld dominie; he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy.' Croker'sBoswell, p. 397, note.
[292] 'Edial is two miles west of Lichfield.' Harwood'sLichfield, p. 564.
[293] Johnson in more than one passage in his writings seems to have in mind his own days as a schoolmaster. Thus in theLife of Miltonhe says:—'This is the period of his life from which all his biographers seem inclined to shrink. They are unwilling that Milton should be degraded to a schoolmaster; but, since it cannot be denied that he taught boys, one finds out that he taught for nothing, and another that his motive was only zeal for the propagation of learning and virtue; and all tell what they do not know to be true, only to excuse an act which no wise man will consider as in itself disgraceful. His father was alive; his allowance was not ample; and he supplied its deficiencies by an honest and useful employment.' Johnson'sWorks, vii. 75. In theLife of Blackmorehe says:—'In some part of his life, it is not known when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school, an humiliation with which, though it certainly lasted but a little while, his enemies did not forget to reproach him, when he became conspicuous enough to excite malevolence; and let it be remembered for his honour, that to have been once a school-master is the only reproach which all the perspicacity of malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed upon his private life.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 36.
[294] In the originalTo teach. Seasons, Spring, l. 1149, Thomson is speaking, not of masters, but of parents.
[295] In theLife of Milton, Johnson records his own experience. 'Every man that has ever undertaken to instruct others can tell what slow advances he has been able to make, and how much patience it requires to recall vagrant inattention, to stimulate sluggish indifference, and to rectify absurd misapprehension.' Johnson'sWorks, vii. 76.
[296]
'As masters fondly soothe their boys to read With cakes and sweetmeats.'
Francis, Hor. i.Sat. I. 25.
[297] As Johnson kept Garrick much in awe when present, David, when his back was turned, repaid the restraint with ridicule of him and his dulcinea, which should be read with great abatement. PERCY. He was not consistent in his account, for 'he told Mrs. Thrale that she was alittle painted puppetof no value at all.' 'He made out,' Mrs. Piozzi continues, 'some comical scenes, by mimicking her in a dialogue he pretended to have overheard. I do not know whether he meant such stuff to be believed or no, it was so comical. The picture I found of her at Lichfield was very pretty, and her daughter said it was like. Mr. Johnson has told me that her hair was eminently beautiful, quiteblondelike that of a baby.' Piozzi'sAnec. p. 148.
[298] Mr. Croker points out that in this paper 'there are two separate schemes, the first for a school—the second for the individual studies of some young friend.'
[299] In theRambler, No. 122, Johnson, after stating that 'it is observed that our nation has been hitherto remarkably barren of historical genius,' praises Knolles, who, he says, 'in hisHistory of the Turks, has displayed all the excellencies that narration can admit.'
[300] Both of them used to talk pleasantly of this their first journey to London. Garrick, evidently meaning to embellish a little, said one day in my hearing, 'we rode and tied.' And the Bishop of Killaloe informed me, that at another time, when Johnson and Garrick were dining together in a pretty large company, Johnson humorously ascertaining the chronology of something, expressed himself thus: 'that was the year when I came to London with two-pence half-penny in my pocket.' Garrick overhearing him, exclaimed, 'eh? what do you say? with two-pence half-penny in your pocket?'—JOHNSON, 'Why yes; when I came with two-pence half-penny inmypocket, and thou, Davy, with three half-pence in thine.' BOSWELL.
[301] SeeGent. Mag., xxiv. 333.
[302] Mr. Colson was First Master of the Free School at Rochester. In 1739 he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. MALONE. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 49) says that 'by Gelidus the philosopher (Rambler, No. 24), Johnson meant to represent Colson.'
[303] This letter is printed in theGarrick Corres. i. 2. There we readI doubt not.
[304] One curious anecdote was communicated by himself to Mr. John Nichols. Mr. Wilcox, the bookseller, on being informed by him that his intention was to get his livelihood as an authour, eyed his robust frame attentively, and with a significant look, said, 'You had better buy a porter's knot.' He however added, 'Wilcox was one of my best friends.' BOSWELL. Hawkins (Life, p. 43) states that Johnson and Garrick had soon exhausted their small stock of money in London, and that on Garrick's suggestion they applied for a loan to Wilcox, of whom he had a slight knowledge. 'Representing themselves to him, as they really were, two young men, friends and travellers from the same place, and just arrived with a view to settle here, he was so moved with their artless tale, that on their joint note he advanced them all that their modesty would permit them to ask (five pounds), which was soon after punctually repaid.' Perhaps Johnson was thinking of himself when he recorded the advice given by Cibber to Fenton, 'When the tragedy of Mariamne was shewn to Cibber, it was rejected by him, with the additional insolence of advising Fenton to engage himself in some employment of honest labour, by which he might obtain that support which he could never hope from his poetry. The play was acted at the other theatre; and the brutal petulance of Cibber was confuted, though perhaps not shamed, by general applause.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 56. Adam Smith in theWealth of Nations(Book i. ch. 2) says that 'the difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street-porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education.' Wilcox's shop was in Little Britain. Benjamin Franklin, in 1725, lodged next door to him. 'He had,' says Franklin (Memoirs, i. 64), 'an immense collection of second-hand books. Circulating libraries were not then in use; but we agreed that on certain reasonable terms I might read any of his books.'
[305] Bernard Lintot (post, July 19, 1763) died Feb. 3, 1736.Gent. Mag. vi. 110. This, no doubt, was his son.
[306] Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 195) says that being in London in 1746 he dined frequently with a club of officers, where they had an excellent dinner at ten-pence. From what he adds it is clear that the tavern-keeper made his profit on the wine. At Edinburgh, four years earlier, he and his fellow-students used to get 'at four-pence a-head a very good dinner of broth and beef, and a roast and potatoes every day, with fish three or four times a-week, and all the small beer that was called for till the cloth was removed' (ib. p. 63). W. Hutton, who in 1750 opened a very small book-shop in Birmingham, for which he paid rent at a shilling a week, says (Life of Hutton, p. 84): 'Five shillings a week covered every expense; as food, rent, washing, lodging, &c.' He knew how to live wretchedly.
[307] On April 17, 1778, Johnson said: 'Early in life I drank wine; for many years I drank none. I then for some years drank a great deal. I then had a severe illness, and left it off, and I have never begun it again.' Somewhat the same account is given in Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 16, 1773. Roughly speaking, he seems to have been an abstainer from about 1736 to at least as late as 1757, and from about 1765 to the end of his life. In 1751 Hawkins (Life, p. 286) describes him as drinking only lemonade 'in a whole night spent in festivity' at the Ivy Lane Club. In 1757 he described himself 'as a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only tea' (Johnson'sWorks, vi. 21). It was, I believe, in his visit to Oxford in 1759 that 'University College witnessed his drinking three bottles of port without being the worse for it' (post, April 7, 1778). When he was living in the Temple (between 1760-65) he had the frisk with Langton and Beauclerk when they made a bowl ofBishop(post, 1753). On his birthday in 1760, he 'resolved to drink less strong liquors' (Pr. and Med. p. 42). In 1762 on his visit to Devonshire he drank three bottles of wine after supper. This was the only time Reynolds had seen him intoxicated. (Northcote'sReynolds, ii. 161). In 1763 he affected Boswell's nerves by keeping him up late to drink port with him (post, July 14, 1763). On April 21, 1764, he records: 'From the beginning of this year I have in some measure forborne excess of strong drink' (Pr. and Med. p. 51). On Easter Sunday he records: 'Avoided wine' (id. p. 55). On March 1, 1765, he is described at Cambridge as 'giving Mrs. Macaulay for his toast, and drinking her in two bumpers.' It was about this time that he had the severe illness (post, under Oct. 17, 1765, note). In Feb. 1766, Boswell found him no longer drinking wine. He shortly returned to it again; for on Aug. 2, 1767, he records, 'I have for some days forborne wine;' and on Aug. 17, 'By abstinence from wine and suppers I obtained sudden and great relief' (Pr. and Med. pp. 73, 4). According to Hawkins, Johnson said:—'After a ten years' forbearance of every fluid except tea and sherbet, I drank one glass of wine to the health of Sir Joshua Reynolds on the evening of the day on which he was knighted' (Hawkins'sJohnson's Works(1787), xi. 215). As Reynolds was knighted on April 21, 1769 (Taylor'sReynolds, i. 321), Hawkins's report is grossly inaccurate. In Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 16, 1773, andpost, March 16, 1776, we find him abstaining. In 1778 he persuaded Boswell to be 'a water-drinker upon trial' (post, April 28, 1778). On April 7, 1779, 'he was persuaded to drink one glass of claret that he might judge of it, not from recollection.' On March 20, 1781, Boswell found that Johnson had lately returned to wine. 'I drink it now sometimes,' he said, 'but not socially.' He seems to have generally abstained however. On April 20, 1781, he would not join in drinking Lichfield ale. On March 17, 1782, he made some punch for himself, by which in the night he thought 'both his breast and imagination disordered' (Pr. and Med. p. 205). In the spring of this year Hannah More urged him to take a little wine. 'I can't drink alittle, child,' he answered; 'therefore I never touch it' (H. More'sMemoirs, i. 251). On July 1, 1784, Beattie, who met him at dinner, says, 'he cannot be prevailed on to drink wine' (Beattie'sLife, p. 316). On his death-bed he refused any 'inebriating sustenance' (post, Dec. 1784). It is remarkable that writing to Dr. Taylor on Aug. 5, 1773, he said:—'Drink a great deal, and sleep heartily;' and that on June 23, 1776, he again wrote to him:—'I hope you presever in drinking. My opinion is that I have drunk too little, and therefore have the gout, for it is of my own acquisition, as neither my father had it nor my mother' (Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. pp. 422, 3). On Sept. 19, 1777 (post), he even 'owned that in his opinion a free use of wine did not shorten life.' Johnson disapproved of fermented liquors only in the case of those who, like himself and Boswell, could not keep from excess.
[308] Ofellus, or rather Ofella, is the 'rusticus, abnormis sapiens, crassaque Minerva' of Horace'sSatire, ii. 2. 3. What he teaches is briefly expressed in Pope's Imitation, ii. 2. 1:
'What, and how great, the virtue and the artTo live on little with a cheerful heart(A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine);Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine.'
In 1769 was published a worthless poem calledThe Art of Living in London; in which 'instructions were given to persons who live in a garret, and spend their evenings in an ale-house.'Gent. Mag. xxxix. 45. To this Boswell refers.
[309] 'Johnson this day, when we were by ourselves, observed how common it was for people to talk from books; to retail the sentiments of others, and not their own; in short, to converse without any originality of thinking. He was pleased to say, "You and I do not talk from books."' Boswell'sHebrides, Nov. 3, 1773.
[310] The passage to Ireland was commonly made from Chester.
[311] The honourable Henry Hervey, third son of the first Earl of Bristol, quitted the army and took orders. He married a sister of Sir Thomas Aston, by whom he got the Aston Estate, and assumed the name and arms of that family. Vide Collins'sPeerage. BOSWELL.
[312] The following brief mention of Greenwich Park in 1750 is found in one of Miss Talbot's Letters. 'Then when I come to talk of Greenwich—Did you ever see it? It was quite a new world to me, and a very charming one. Only on the top of a most inaccessible hill in the park, just as we were arrived at a view that we had long been aiming at, a violent clap of thunder burst over our heads.'—Carter and Talbot Corres, i. 345.
[313] At the Oxford Commemoration of 1733 Courayer returned thanks in his robes to the University for the honour it had done him two years before in presenting him with his degree.Dr. Johnson: His Friends and his Critics, p. 94.
[314] This library was given by George IV to the British Museum. CROKER.
[315] Ovid, Meta. iii. 724.
[316] Act iii. sc. 8.
[317] Act i. sc. 1.
[318] Act ii. sc. 7.
[319]Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 232 [Sept. 20, 1773]. BOSWELL.
[320] Johnson's letter to her of Feb. 6, 1759, shows that she was, at that time, living in his house at Lichfield. Miss Seward (Letters, i. 116) says that 'she boarded in Lichfield with his mother.' Some passages in other of his letters (Croker'sBoswell, pp. 144, 145, 173) lead me to think that she stayed on in this house till 1766, when she had built herself a house with money left her by her brother.
[321] Seepost, Oct. 10, 1779.
[322] He could scarcely have solicited a worse manager. Horace Walpole writing in 1744 (Letters, i. 332) says: 'The town has been trying all this winter to beat pantomimes off the stage very boisterously. Fleetwood, the master of Drury-Lane, has omitted nothing to support them as they supported his house. About ten days ago, he let into the pit great numbers of Bear-gardenbruisers(that is the term) to knock down everybody that hissed. The pit rallied their forces and drove them out.'
[323] It was not till volume v. that Cave's name was given on the title-page. In volumes viii. and ix., and volumes xii. to xvii. the name is Edward Cave, Jun. Cave in his examination before the House of Lords on April 30, 1747, said:—'That he was concerned in theGentleman's Magazineat first with his nephew; and since the death of his nephew he has done it entirely himself.'Parl. Hist. xiv. 59.
[324] Its sale, according to Johnson, was ten thousand copies.Post, April 25, 1778. So popular was it that before it had completed its ninth year the fifth edition of some of the earliest numbers was printed. Johnson'sWorks, v. 349. In theLife of CaveJohnson describes it as 'a periodical pamphlet, of which the scheme is known wherever the English language is spoken.'Ib. vi. 431.
[325] Yet the early numbers contained verses as grossly indecent as they were dull. Cave moreover advertised indecent books for sale at St. John's Gate, and in one instance, at least, the advertisement was in very gross language.
[326] Seepost, April 25, 1778.
[327] While in the course of my narrative I enumerate his writings, I shall take care that my readers shall not be left to waver in doubt, between certainty and conjecture, with regard to their authenticity; and, for that purpose, shall mark with anasterisk(*) those which he acknowledged to his friends, and with adagger(dagger) those which are ascertained to be his by internal evidence. When any other pieces are ascribed to him, I shall give my reasons. BOSWELL.
[328] Hawkins says that 'Cave had few of those qualities that constitute the character of urbanity. Upon the first approach of a stranger his practice was to continue sitting, and for a few minutes to continue silent. If at any time he was inclined to begin the discourse, it was generally by putting a leaf of theMagazinethen in the press into the hand of his visitor and asking his opinion of it. He was so incompetent a judge of Johnson's abilities that, meaning at one time to dazzle him with the splendour of some of those luminaries in literature who favoured him with their correspondence, he told him that, if he would in the evening be at a certain alehouse in the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell, he might have a chance of seeing Mr. Browne and another or two of the persons mentioned in the preceding note. [The note contained the names of some of Cave's regular writers.] Johnson accepted the invitation; and being introduced by Cave, dressed in a loose horseman's coat, and such a great bushy uncombed wig as he constantly wore, to the sight of Mr. Browne, whom he found sitting at the upper end of a long table, in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, had his curiosity gratified.' [Mr. Carlyle writes of 'bushy-wigged Cave;' but it was Johnson whose wig is described, and not Cave's. On p. 327 Hawkins again mentions his 'great bushy wig,' and says that 'it was ever nearly as impenetrable by a comb as a quickset hedge.'] Hawkins'sJohnson, pp. 45-50. Johnson, after mentioning Cave's slowness, says: 'The same chillness of mind was observable in his conversation; he was watching the minutest accent of those whom he disgusted by seeming inattention; and his visitant was surprised, when he came a second time, by preparations to execute the scheme which he supposed never to have been heard.' Johnson'sWorks, vi. 434.
[329] 'The first lines put one in mind of Casimir's Ode to Pope Urban:—
"Urbane, regum maxime, maximeUrbane vatum."
The Polish poet was probably at that time in the hands of a man who had meditated the history of the Latin poets.' Murphy'sJohnson, p. 42.
[330] Cave had been grossly attacked by rival booksellers; seeGent. Mag., viii. 156. Hawkins says (Life, p. 92), 'With that sagacity which we frequently observe, but wonder at, in men of slow parts, he seemed to anticipate the advice contained in Johnson's ode, and forbore a reply, though not his revenge.' This he gratified by reprinting in his own Magazine one of the most scurrilous and foolish attacks.
[331] A translation of this Ode, by an unknown correspondent, appeared in theMagazinefor the month of May following:
'Hail, URBAN! indefatigable man,Unwearied yet by all thy useful toil!Whom num'rous slanderers assault in vain;Whom no base calumny can put to foil.But still the laurel on thy learned browFlourishes fair, and shall for ever grow.
'What mean the servile imitating crew,What their vain blust'ring, and their empty noise,Ne'er seek: but still thy noble ends pursue,Unconquer'd by the rabble's venal voice.Still to the Muse thy studious mind apply,Happy in temper as in industry.
'The senseless sneerings of an haughty tongue,Unworthy thy attention to engage,Unheeded pass: and tho' they mean thee wrong,By manly silence disappoint their rage.Assiduous diligence confounds its foes,Resistless, tho' malicious crouds oppose.
'Exert thy powers, nor slacken in the course,Thy spotless fame shall quash all false reports:Exert thy powers, nor fear a rival's force,But thou shalt smile at all his vain efforts;Thy labours shall be crown'd with large success;The Muse's aid thy Magazine shall bless.
'No page more grateful to th' harmonious nineThan that wherein thy labours we survey;Where solemn themes in fuller splendour shine,(Delightful mixture,) blended with the gay,Where in improving, various joys we find,A welcome respite to the wearied mind.
'Thus when the nymphs in some fair verdant mead,Of various flowr's a beauteous wreath compose,The lovely violet's azure-painted headAdds lustre to the crimson-blushing rose.Thus splendid Iris, with her varied dye,Shines in the aether, and adorns the sky. BRITON.'
[332] 'I have some reason to think that at his first coming to town he frequented Slaughter's coffee-house with a view to acquire a habit of speaking French, but he never could attain to it. Lockman used the same method and succeeded, as Johnson himself once told me.' Hawkins'sJohnson, p. 516. Lockman isl'ilustre Lockmanmentionedpost, 1780, in Mr. Langton'sCollection. It was at 'Old Slaughter's Coffee-house, when a number of foreigners were talking loud about little matters, that Johnson one evening said, "Does not this confirm old Meynell's observation,For anything I see, foreigners are fools"?'post, ib.
[333] He had read Petrarch 'when but a boy;'ante, p. 57.
[334] Horace Walpole, writing of the year 1770, about libels, says: 'Their excess was shocking, and in nothing more condemnable than in the dangers they brought on the liberty of the press.' This evil was chiefly due to 'the spirit of the Court, which aimed at despotism, and the daring attempts of Lord Mansfield to stifle the liberty of the press. His innovations had given such an alarm that scarce a jury would find the rankest satire libellous.'Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 167. Smollett inHumphrey Clinker(published in 1771) makes Mr. Bramble write, in his letter of June 2: 'The public papers are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation; every rancorous knave—every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half-a-crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom, without running the least hazard of detection or punishment.' The scribblers who had of late shewn their petulance were not always obscure. Such scurrilous but humorous pieces asProbationary Odes for the Laureateship,The Rolliad, andRoyal Recollections, which were all published while Boswell was writingThe Life of Johnson, were written, there can be little doubt, by men of position. In the first of the three (p. 27) Boswell is ridiculed. He is made to say:—'I know Mulgrave is a bit of a poet as well as myself; for I dined in company once where he dined that very day twelve-month.' This evil of libelling had extended to America. Benjamin Franklin (Memoirs, i. 148), writing in 1784, says that 'libelling and personal abuse have of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of the fairest characters.'
[335] Boswell perhaps refers to a book published in 1758, calledThe Case of Authors by Profession. Gent. Mag. xxviii. 130. Guthrie applies the term to himself in the letter below.
[336] How much poetry he wrote, I know not: but he informed me, that he was the authour of the beautiful little piece,The Eagle and Robin Redbreast, in the collection of poems entitledThe Union, though it is there said to be written by Archibald Scott, before the year 1600. BOSWELL. Mr. P. Cunningham has seen a letter of Jos. Warton's which states that this poem was written by his brother Tom, who edited the volume. CROKER.
[337] Dr. A. Carlyle in hisAutobiography(p. 191) describes a curious scene that he witnessed in the British Coffee-house. A Captain Cheap 'was employed by Lord Anson to look out for a proper person to write his voyage. Cheap had a predilection for his countrymen, and having heard of Guthrie, he had come down to the coffee-house to inquire about him. Not long after Cheap had sat down, Guthrie arrived, dressed in laced clothes, and talking loud to everybody, and soon fell awrangling with a gentleman about tragedy and comedy and the unities, &c., and laid down the law of the drama in a peremptory manner, supporting his arguments with cursing and swearing. I saw Cheap was astonished, when, going to the bar, he asked who this was, and finding it was Guthrie he paid his coffee and slunk off in silence.' Guthrie's meanness is shown by the following letter in D'Israeli'sCalamities of Authors, i. 5:—
'June 3, 1762.
'My Lord,
'In the year 1745-6 Mr. Pelham, then First Lord of the Treasury, acquainted me that it was his Majesty's pleasure I should receive till better provided for, which never has happened, 200£. a year, to be paid by him and his successors in the Treasury. I was satisfied with the august name made use of, and the appointment has been regularly and quarterly paid me ever since. I have been equally punctual in doing the Government all the services that fell within my abilities or sphere of life, especially in those critical situations that call for unanimity in the service of the Crown.
'Your Lordship may possibly now suspect that I am an Author by profession; you are not deceived; and will be less so, if you believe that I am disposed to serve his Majesty under your Lordship's future patronage and protection with greater zeal, if possible, than ever.
'I have the honour to be
'My Lord &c.
The lord's name is not given. Seepost, spring of 1768, and 1780 inMr. Langton'sCollectionfor further mention of Guthrie.
[338] Perhaps there were Scotticisms for Johnson to correct; for Churchill inThe Author, writing of Guthrie, asks:—
'With rude unnatural jargon to support HalfScotch, halfEnglish, a declining Court
* * * * *
Is there not Guthrie?'
Churchill's Poems, ii. 39.
[339] See Appendix A.
[340] Pope,Imitations of Horace, ii. l. 71.
[341] 'To give the world assurance of a man.'Hamlet, Act iii. sc. 4.
[342] In hisLife of PopeJohnson says: 'This mode of imitation … was first practised in the reign of Charles II. by Oldham and Rochester; at least I remember no instances more ancient. It is a kind of middle composition between translation and original design, which pleases when the thoughts are unexpectedly applicable and the parallels lucky. It seems to have been Pope's favourite amusement, for he has carried it farther than any former poet.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 295.
[343] I own it pleased me to find amongst them one trait of the manners of the age in London, in the last century, to shield from the sneer of English ridicule, which was some time ago too common a practice in my native city of Edinburgh:—
'If what I've said can't from the town affright,Consider otherdangers of the night;When brickbats are from upper stories thrown,Andemptied chamberpots come pouring downFrom garret windows.'
See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 14, 1773, where Johnson, on taking his first walk in Edinburgh, 'grumbled in Boswell's ear, "I smell you in the dark."' I once spent a night in a town of Corsica, on the great road between Ajaccio and Bastia, where, I was told, this Edinburgh practice was universal. It certainly was the practice of the hotel.
[344] His OdeAd Urbanumprobably. NICHOLS. BOSWELL.
[345] Johnson, on his death-bed, had to own that 'Cave was a penurious paymaster; he would contract for lines by the hundred, and expect the long hundred.' Seepost, Dec. 1784.
[346] Cave sent the present by Johnson to the unknown author.
[347] Seepost, p. 151, note 5.
[348] The original letter has the following additional paragraph:—'I beg that you will not delay your answer.'
[349] In later life Johnson strongly insisted on the importance of fully dating all letters. After giving the date in a letter to Mrs. Thrale, he would add,—'Now there is a date, look at it' (Piozzi Letters, ii. 109); or, 'Mark that—you did not put the year to your last' (Ib. p. 112); or, 'Look at this and learn' (Ib. p. 138). She never did learn. The arrangement of the letters in thePiozzi Lettersis often very faulty. For an omission of the date by Johnson in late life seepost, under March 5, 1774.
[350] A poem, published in 1737, of which see an account under April 30, 1773—BOSWELL.
[351] The learned Mrs. Elizabeth Carter. BOSWELL. She was born Dec. 1717, and died Feb. 19, 1806. She never married. Her father gave her a learned education. Dr. Johnson, speaking of some celebrated scholar [perhaps Langton], said, 'that he understood Greek better than any one whom he he had ever known, except Elizabeth Carter.' Pennington'sCarter, i. 13. Writing to her in 1756 he said, 'Poor dear Cave! I owed him much; for to him I owe that I have known you' (Ib. p. 40). Her father wrote to her on June 25, 1738:—'You mention Johnson; but that is a name with which I am utterly unacquainted, Neither his scholastic, critical, or poetical character ever reached my ears. I a little suspect his judgement, if he is very fond of Martial' (Ib. p. 39). Since 1734 she had written verses for theGent. Mag. under the name of Eliza (Ib. p. 37)! They are very poor. HerOde to Melancholyher biographer calls her best. How bad it is three lines will show:—
'Here, cold to pleasure's airy forms,Consociate with my sister worms,And mingle with the dead.'
Gent. Mag. ix. 599.
Hawkins records that Johnson, upon hearing a lady commended for her learning, said:—'A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table than when his wife talks Greek. My old friend, Mrs. Carter, could make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus.' Johnson'sWorks(1787), xi. 205. Johnson, joining her with Hannah More and Fanny Burney, said:—'Three such women are not to be found.'Post, May 15, 1784.
[352] See Voltaire'sSiécle de Louis XIV, ch. xxv..
[353] At the end of his letter to Cave, quotedpost, 1742, he says:—'The boy found me writing this almost in the dark, when I could not quite easily read yours.' A man who at times was forced to walk the streets, for want of money to pay for a lodging, was likely also at times to be condemned to idleness for want of a light.
[354] At the back of this letter is written: 'Sir, Please to publish the enclosed in your paper of first, and place to acc't of Mr. Edward Cave. For whom I am, Sir, your hum. ser't J. Bland. St. John's Gate, April 6, 1738.'Londontherefore was written before April 6.
[355] Boswell misread the letter. Johnson does not offer to allow the printer to make alterations. He says:—'I will take the trouble of altering any stroke of satire which you may dislike.' The law against libel was as unjust as it was severe, and printers ran a great risk.
[356] Derrick was not merely a poet, but also Master of the Ceremonies at Bath;post, May 16, 1763. For Johnson's opinion ofhis'Muse' seepostunder March 30, 1783.Fortune, a Rhapsody, was published in Nov. 1751.Gent. Mag. xxi. 527. He is described inHumphrey Clinkerin the letters of April 6 and May 6.
[357] Seepost, March 20, 1776.
[358] Six years later Johnson thus wrote of Savage'sWanderer:—'From a poem so diligently laboured, and so successfully finished, it might be reasonably expected that he should have gained considerable advantage; nor can it without some degree of indignation and concern be told, that he sold the copy for ten guineas.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 131. Mrs. Piozzi sold in 1788 the copyright of her collection of Johnson's Letters for £500;post, Feb. 1767.
[359] The Monks of Medmenham Abbey. See Almon'sLife of Wilkes, iii. 60, for Wilkes's account of this club. Horace Walpole (Letters, i. 92) calls Whitehead 'an infamous, but not despicable poet.'
[360] FromThe Conference, Churchill'sPoems, ii. 15.
[361] In theLife of PopeJohnson writes:—'Paul Whitehead, a small poet, was summoned before the Lords for a poem calledManners, together with Dodsley his publisher. Whitehead, who hung loose upon society, sculked and escaped; but Dodsley's shop and family made his appearance necessary.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 297.Mannerswas published in 1739. Dodsley was kept in custody for a week.Gent. Mag. ix. 104. 'The whole process was supposed to be intended rather to intimidate Pope [who in hisSeventeen Hundred and Thirty-Eighthad given offence] than to punish Whitehead, and it answered that purpose.' CHALMERS, quoted inParl. Hist. x. 1325
[362] Sir John Hawkins, p. 86, tells us:—'The event isantedated, in the poem ofLondon; but in every particular, except the difference of a year, what is there said of the departure of Thales, must be understood of Savage, and looked upon astrue history.' This conjecture is, I believe, entirely groundless. I have been assured, that Johnson said he was not so much as acquainted with Savage when he wrote hisLondon. If the departure mentioned in it was the departure of Savage, the event was notantedatedbutforeseen; forLondonwas published in May, 1738, and Savage did not set out for Wales till July, 1739. However well Johnson could defend the credibility ofsecond sight[seepost, Feb. 1766], he did not pretend that he himself was possessed of that faculty. BOSWELL. I am not sure that Hawkins is altogether wrong in his account. Boswell does not stateof his own knowledgethat Johnson was not acquainted with Savage when he wroteLondon. The death of Queen Caroline in Nov. 1737 deprived Savage of her yearly bounty, and 'abandoned him again to fortune' (Johnson'sWorks, viii. 166). The elegy on her that he composed on her birth-day (March 1) brought him no reward. He was 'for some time in suspense,' but nothing was done. 'He was in a short time reduced to the lowest degree of distress, and often wanted both lodging and food' (Ib. p. 169). His friends formed a scheme that 'he should retire into Wales.' 'While this scheme was ripening' he lodged 'in the liberties of the Fleet, that he might be secure from his creditors' (Ib. p. 170). After many delays a subscription was at length raised to provide him with a small pension, and he left London in July 1739 (Ib. p 173).London, as I have shewn, was written before April 6, 1738. That it was written with great rapidity we might infer from the fact that a hundred lines ofThe Vanity of Human Wisheswere written in a day. At this rateLondonmight have been the work of three days. That it was written in a very short time seems to be shown by a passage in the first of these letters to Cave. Johnson says:—'When I took the liberty of writing to you a few days ago, I did not expect a repetition of the same pleasure so soon; … but having the enclosed poem, &c.' It is probable that in these few days the poem was written. If we can assume that Savage's elegy was sent to the Court not later than March 1—it may have been sent earlier—and that Johnson's poem was written in the last ten days of March, we have three weeks for the intervening events. They are certainly not more than sufficient, if indeed they are sufficient. The coincidence is certainly very striking between Thales's retirement to 'Cambria's solitary shore' and Savage's retirement to Wales. There are besides lines in the poem—additions to Juvenal and not translations—which curiously correspond with what Johnson wrote of Savage in hisLife. Thus he says that Savage 'imagined that he should be transported to scenes of flowery felicity; … he could not bear … to lose the opportunity of listening, without intermission, to the melody of the nightingale, which he believed was to be heard from every bramble, and which he did not fail to mention as a very important part of the happiness of a country life' (Ib. p. 170). In like manner Thales prays to find:—
'Some pleasing bank where verdant osiers play,Some peaceful vale, with nature's paintings gay.
* * * * *
There every bush with nature's musick rings;There every breeze bears health upon its wings.'
Mr. Croker objects that 'if Thales had been Savage, Johnson could never have admitted into his poem two lines that point so forcibly at the drunken fray, in which Savage stabbed a Mr. Sinclair, for which he was convicted ofmurder:—
"Some frolicdrunkard, reeling from a feast,Provokesa broil, andstabsyou in a jest."'
But here Johnson is following Juvenal. Mr. Croker forgets that, if Savage was convicted of murder, 'he was soon after admitted to bail, and pleaded the King's pardon.' 'Persons of distinction' testified that he was 'a modest inoffensive man, not inclined to broils or to insolence;' the witnesses against him were of the lowest character, and his judge had shewn himself as ignorant as he was brutal. Sinclair had been drinking in a brothel, and Savage asserted that he had stabbed him 'by the necessity of self defence' (Ib. p. 117). It is, however, not unlikely that Wales was suggested to Johnson as Thales's retreat by Swift's lines on Steele, inMiscellanies in Prose and Verse(v. 181), published only three years beforeLondon:—
'Thus Steele who owned what others writ,And flourished by imputed wit,From perils of a hundred jailsWithdrew to starve and die in Wales.'
[363] The first dialogue was registered at Stationers' Hall, 12th May, 1738, under the titleOne Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight. The second dialogue was registered 17th July, 1738, asOne Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight, Dialogue2. Elwin'sPope, iii. 455.
David Hume was in London this spring, finding a publisher for his first work,A Treatise of Human Nature. J. H. Burton'sHume, i. 66.
[364] Pope had publishedImitations of Horace.
[365] P. 269. BOSWELL. 'Short extracts fromLondon, a Poem, become remarkable for having got to the second edition in the space of a week.'Gent. Mag. viii. 269. The price of the poem was one shilling. Pope's satire, though sold at the same price, was longer in reaching its second edition (Ib. p. 280).
[366]
'One driven by strong benevolence of soulShall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole.'
Pope'sImitations of Horace, ii. 2. 276.
'General Oglethorpe, died 1785, earned commemoration in Pope's gallery of worthies by his Jacobite politics. He was, however, a remarkable man. He first directed attention to the abuses of the London jails. His relinquishment of all the attractions of English life and fortune for the settlement of the colony of Georgia is as romantic a story at that of Bishop Berkeley' (Pattison'sPope, p. 152). It is very likely that Johnson's regard for Oglethorpe was greatly increased by the stand that he and his brother-trustees in the settlement of Georgia made against slavery (seepost, Sept. 23, 1777). 'The first principle which they laid down in their laws was that no slave should be employed. This was regarded at the time as their great and fundamental error; it was afterwards repealed' (Southey'sWesley, i. 75). In spite, however, of Oglethorpe's 'strong benevolence of soul' he at one time treated Charles Wesley, who was serving as a missionary in Georgia, with great brutality (Ib. p. 88). According to Benjamin Franklin (Memoirs, i. 162) Georgia was settled with little forethought. 'Instead of being made with hardy industrious husbandmen, it was with families of broken shop-keepers, and other insolvent debtors; many of idle habits, taken out of the jails, who being set down in the woods, unqualified for clearing land, and unable to endure the hardships of a new settlement, perished in numbers, leaving many helpless children unprovided for.' Johnson wished to write Oglethorpe's life;post, April 10, 1775.
[367] Horace Walpole (Letters, viii. 548), writing of him 47 years afterLondonwas published, when he was 87 years old, says:—'His eyes, ears, articulation, limbs, and memory would suit a boy, if a boy could recollect a century backwards. His teeth are gone; he is a shadow, and a wrinkled one; but his spirits and his spirit are in full bloom: two years and a-half ago he challenged a neighbouring gentleman for trespassing on his manor.'
[368] Once Johnson being at dinner at Sir Joshua's in company with many painters, in the course of conversation Richardson'sTreatise on Paintinghappened to be mentioned, 'Ah!' said Johnson, 'I remember, when I was at college, I by chance found that book on my stairs. I took it up with me to my chamber, and read it through, and truly I did not think it possible to say so much upon the art.' Sir Joshua desired of one of the company to be informed what Johnson had said; and it being repeated to him so loud that Johnson heard it, the Doctor seemed hurt, and added, 'But I did not wish, Sir, that Sir Joshua should have been told what I then said.' Northcote'sReynolds, i. 236. Jonathan Richardson the painter had published several works on painting before Johnson went to college. He and his son, Jonathan Richardson, junior, brought out togetherExplanatory Notes on Paradise Lost.
[369] Sir Joshua Reynolds, from the information of the younger Richardson. BOSWELL. Seepost, Oct. 16, 1769, where Johnson himself relates this anecdote. According to Murphy, 'Pope said, "The author, whoever he is, will not be long concealed;" alluding to the passage in Terence [Eun. ii. 3, 4],Ubi, ubi est, diu celari non potest.' Murphy'sJohnson, p. 35.
[370] Such asfarandair, which comes twice;vainandman,despairandbar.
[371] It is, however, remarkable, that he uses the epithet, which undoubtedly, since the union between England and Scotland, ought to denominate the natives of both parts of our island:—
'Was early taught a BRITON'S rights to prize.'
Swift, in hisJournal to Stella(Nov. 23, 1711), having to mention England, continues:—'I never will call itBritain, pray don't call it Britain.' In a letter written on Aug. 8, 1738, again mentioning England, he adds,—'Pox on the modern phrase Great Britain, which is only to distinguish it from Little Britain, where old clothes and old books are to be bought and sold' (Swift'sWorks, 1803, xx. 185). George III 'gloried in being born a Briton;'post, 1760. Boswell thrice more at least describes Johnson as 'a true-born Englishman;'post, under Feb. 7, 1775, under March 30, 1783, and Boswell'sHebridesunder Aug. 11, 1773. The quotation is fromRichard II, Act i. sc. 3.
[372]
'For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land,Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand?There none are swept by sudden fate away,But all, whom hunger spares, with age decay.'
London, 1. 9-12.
[373] In theLife of Savage, Johnson, criticising the settlement of colonies, as it is considered by the poet and the politician, seems to be criticising himself. 'The politician, when he considers men driven into other countries for shelter, and obliged to retire to forests and deserts, and pass their lives, and fix their posterity, in the remotest corners of the world, to avoid those hardships which they suffer or fear in their native place, may very properly enquire, why the legislature does not provide a remedy for these miseries, rather than encourage an escape from them. He may conclude that the flight of every honest man is a loss to the community…. The poet guides the unhappy fugitive from want and persecution to plenty, quiet, and security, and seats him in scenes of peaceful solitude, and undisturbed repose.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 156.
[374] Three years later Johnson wrote:—'Mere unassisted merit advances slowly, if, what is not very common, it advances at all.'Ib. vi. 393.
[375] 'The busyhumof men.' Milton'sL'Allegro, 1. 118.
[376] See Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 21, 1773, andpost, March 21, 1775, for Johnson's attack on Lord Chatham. In theLife of ThomsonJohnson wrote:—'At this time a long course of opposition to Sir Robert Walpole had filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man felt the want, and with care for liberty, which was not in danger.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 370. Hawkins says (Life, p. 514);—'Of Walpole he had a high opinion. He said of him that he was a fine fellow, and that his very enemies deemed him so before his death. He honoured his memory for having kept this country in peace many years, as also for the goodness and placability of his temper.' Horace Walpole (Letters, v. 509), says:—'My father alone was capable of acting on one great plan of honesty from the beginning of his life to the end. He could for ever wage war with knaves and malice, and preserve his temper; could know men, and yet feel for them; could smile when opposed, and be gentle after triumph.'
[377] Johnson in theLife of Miltondescribes himself:—'Milton was naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and disdainful of help or hindrance. From his contemporaries he neither courted nor received support; there is in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified, or favour gained; no exchange of praise, nor solicitation of support.' Johnson'sWorks, vii. 142. SeepostFeb. 1766, for Johnson's opinion on 'courting great men.'
[378] In a billet written by Mr. Pope in the following year, this school is said to have been inShropshire; but as it appears from a letter from Earl Gower, that the trustees of it were 'some worthy gentlemen in Johnson's neighbourhood,' I in my first edition suggested that Pope must have, by mistake, written Shropshire, instead of Staffordshire. But I have since been obliged to Mr. Spearing, attorney-at-law, for the following information:—'William Adams, formerly citizen and haberdasher of London, founded a school at Newport, in the county of Salop, by deed dated 27th November, 1656, by which he granted "the yearly sum ofsixty poundsto such able and learned schoolmaster, from time to time, being of godly life and conversation, who should have been educated at one of the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, and had taken the degree ofMaster of Arts, and was well read in the Greek and Latin tongues, as should be nominated from time to time by the said William Adams, during his life, and after the decease of the said William Adams, by the Governours (namely, the Master and Wardens of the Haberdashers' Company of the City of London) and their successors." The manour and lands out of which the revenues for the maintenance of the school were to issue are situateat Knighton and Adbaston, in the county of Stafford.' From the foregoing account of this foundation, particularly the circumstances of the salary being sixty pounds, and the degree of Master of Arts being a requisite qualification in the teacher, it seemed probable that this was the school in contemplation; and that Lord Gower erroneously supposed that the gentlemen who possessed the lands, out of which the revenues issued, were trustees of the charity.