Forster'sGoldsmith, i. 204.
If this account is correctly printed, the sale must have been slow. The first edition (2 vols. 5s.) was published in Oct. 1761, (Gent. Mag. xxxi. 479). Johnson is called Dr. in the account; but he was not made an LL.D. till July 1765. Prior, in hisLife of Goldsmith(i. 459), publishes an account between Goldsmith and Newbery in which the first entry is:—
'1761. Oct. 14, 1 set ofThe Idler. . . . . £0 50 0.'
Johnson, as Newbery's papers show, a year later bought a copy ofGoldsmith'sLife of Nash;ib. p. 405.
[1004] Seeante, p. 306.
[1005] This paper may be found in Stockdale's supplemental volume of Johnson'sMiscellaneous Pieces. BOSWELL. Stockdale's supplemental volumes—for there are two—are vols. xii. and xiii. of what is known as 'Hawkins's edition.' In this paper (Works, iv. 450) he represents in a fable two vultures speculating on that mischievous being, man, 'who is the only beast who kills that which he does not devour,' who at times is seen to move in herds, while 'there is in every herd one that gives directions to the rest, and seems to be more eminently delighted with a wide carnage.'
[1006] 'Receipts forShakespeare.' WARTON.—BOSWELL.
[1007] 'Then of Lincoln College. Now Sir Robert Chambers, one of the Judges in India.' WARTON.—BOSWELL.
[1008] Old Mr. Langton's niece. Seepost,July 14, 1763.
[1009] 'Mr. Langton.' WARTON.—BOSWELL.
[1010] Boswell records:—'Lady Di Beauclerk told me that Langton had never been to see her since she came to Richmond, his head was so full of the militia and Greek. "Why," said I, "Madam, he is of such a length he is awkward and not easily moved." "But," said she, "if he had lain himself at his length, his feet had been in London, and his head might have been hereeodem die."'Boswelliana, p. 297.
[1011] 'Part of the impression of theShakespeare, which Dr. Johnson conducted alone, and published by subscription. This edition came out in 1765.' WARTON.—BOSWELL.
[1012] Stockdale records (Memoirs, ii. 191), that after he had entered on his charge as domestic tutor to Lord Craven's son, he called on Johnson, who asked him how he liked his place. On his hesitating to answer, he said: 'You must expect insolence.' He added that in his youth he had entertained great expectations from a powerful family. "At length," he said, "I found that their promises, and consequently my expectations, vanished into air…. But, Sir, they would have treated me much worse, if they had known that motives from which I paid my court to them were purely selfish, and what opinion I had formed of them." He added, that since he knew mankind, he had not, on any occasion, been the sport of such delusion and that he had never been disappointed by anyone but himself.'
[1013] This, and some of the other letters to Langton, were not received by Boswell till the first volume of the second edition had been carried through the press. He gave them as a supplement to the second volume. The date of this letter was there wrongly given as June 27, 1758. In the third edition it was corrected. Nevertheless the letter was misplaced as if the wrong date were the right one. Langton, as I have shewn (ante, p. 247), subscribed the articles at Oxford on July 7, 1757. He must have come into residence, as Johnson did (ante, p. 58), some little while before this subscription.
[1014] Major-General Alexander Dury, of the first regiment of foot-guards, who fell in the gallant discharge of his duty, near St. Cas, in the well-known unfortunate expedition against France, in 1758. His lady and Mr. Langton's mother was sisters. He left an only son, Lieutenant-Colonel Dury, who has a company in the same regiment. BOSWELL. The expedition had been sent against St. Malo early in September. Failing in the attempt, the land forces retreated to St. Cas, where, while embarking, they were attacked by the French. About 400 of our soldiers were made prisoners, and 600 killed and wounded.Ann. Reg.i.68.
[1015] Seepost, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell'sCollectanea.
[1016] Hawkins'sLife of Johnson, p. 365. BOSWELL. 'In the beginning of the year 1759 an event happened for which it might be imagined he was well prepared, the death of his mother, who had attained the age of ninety; but he, whose mind had acquired no firmness by the contemplation of mortality, was as little able to sustain the shock, as he would have been had this loss befallen him in his nonage.'
[1017] We may apply to Johnson in his behaviour to his mother what he said of Pope in his behaviour to his parents:—'Whatever was his pride, to them he was obedient; and whatever was his irritability, to them he was gentle. Life has among its soothing and quiet comforts few things better to give than such a son.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 281. InThe Idlerof January 27, 1759 (No. 41), Johnson shews his grief for his loss. 'The last year, the last day must come. It has come, and is past. The life which made my own life pleasant is at an end, and the gates of death are shut upon my prospects…. Such is the condition of our present existence that life must one time lose its associations, and every inhabitant of the earth must walk downward to the grave alone and unregarded, without any partner of his joy or grief, without any interested witness of his misfortunes or success. Misfortune, indeed, he may yet feel; for where is the bottom of the misery of man? But what is success to him that has none to enjoy it? Happiness is not found in self-contemplation; it is perceived only when it is reflected from another.' InRasselas(ch. xlv.) he makes a sage say with a sigh:—'Praise is to have an old man an empty sound. I have neither mother to be delighted with the reputation of her son, nor wife to partake the honours of her husband.' He here says once more what he had already said in hisLetter to Lord Chesterfield(ante, p. 261), and in thePreface to the Dictionary(ante, p. 297).
[1018] Writing to his Birmingham friend, Mr. Hector, on Oct. 7, 1756, he said:—'I have been thinking every month of coming down into the country, but every month has brought its hinderances. From that kind of melancholy indisposition which I had when we lived together at Birmingham I have never been free, but have always had it operating against my health and my life with more or less violence. I hope however to see all my friends, all that are remaining, in no very long time.'Notes and Queries, 6th S. iii. 301. No doubt his constant poverty and the need that he was under of making 'provision for the day that was passing over him' had had much to do in keeping him from a journey to Lichfield. A passage in one of his letters shews that fourteen years later the stage-coach took twenty-six hours in going from London to Lichfield. (Piozzi Letters, i. 55.) The return journey was very uncertain; for 'our carriages,' he wrote, 'are only such as pass through the place sometimes full and sometimes vacant.' A traveller had to watch for a place (ib. p. 51). As measured by time London was, in 1772, one hour farther from Lichfield than it now is from Marseilles. It is strange, when we consider the long separation between Johnson and his mother, that inRasselas, written just after her death, he makes Imlac say:-'There is such communication [in Europe] between distant places, that one friend can hardly be said to be absent from another.'Rasselas, chap, xi. His step-daughter, Miss Porter, though for many years she was well off, had never been to London.Post, March 23, 1776. Nay, according to Horace Walpole (Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 327), 'George III. had never seen the sea, nor ever been thirty miles from London at the age of thirty-four.'
[1019] For the letters written at this time by Johnson to his mother and Miss Porter, see Appendix B.
[1020]Rasselaswas published in two volumes, duodecimo, and was sold for five shillings. It was reviewed in theGent. Mag. for April, and was no doubt published in that month. In a letter to Miss Porter dated March 23, 1759 (See Appendix), Johnson says:—'I am going to publish a little story-book, which I will send you when it is out.' I may here remark that theGent. Mag. was published at the end of the month, or even later. Thus the number for April, 1759, contains news as late as April 30. The nameRasselasJohnson got from Lobo'sVoyage to Abyssinia. On p. 102 of that book he mentions 'Rassela Christos, Lieutenant-General to _Abysinia; Sultan Segued.' On p. 262 he explains the meaning of the first part of the word:—'There is now a Generalissimo established under the title ofRas, orChief.' The title still exists. Colonel Gordon mentions Ras Arya and Ras Aloula. The Rev. W. West, in hisIntroduction to Rasselas, p. xxxi (Sampson Low and Co.), says:—'The wordRas, which is common to the Amharic, Arabic, and Hebrew tongues, signifies ahead, and hence a prince, chief, or captain…. Sela Christos means either "Picture of Christ," or "For the sake of Christ."'
[1021] Hawkins's Johnson, p. 367.
[1022] Seepost, June 2, 1781. Finding it then accidentally in a chaise with Mr. Boswell, he read it eagerly. This was doubtless long after his declaration to Sir Joshua Reynolds. MALONE.
[1023] Baretti told Malone that 'Johnson insisted on part of the money being paid immediately, and accordingly received £70. Any other person with the degree of reputation he then possessed would have got £400 for that work, but he never understood the art of making the most of his productions.' Prior'sMalone, p. 160. Some of the other circumstances there related by Baretti are not correct.
[1024] Hawkesworth received £6000 for his revision of Cook'sVoyages;post, May 7, 1773.
[1025] Seepost, March 4, 1773.
[1026]Ecclesiastes, i. 14.
[1027] Seepost, May 16, 1778. It should seem thatCandidewas published in the latter half of February 1759. Grimm in his letter of March 1, speaks of its having just appeared. 'M. de Voltaire vient de nous égayer par un petit roman.' He does not mention it in his previous letter of Feb. 15.Grimm, Carres. Lit. (edit. 1829), ii. 296. Johnson's letter to Miss Porter, quoted in the Appendix, shows that Rasselas was written before March 23; how much earlier cannot be known.Candideis in the May list of books in theGent. Mag. (pp. 233-5), price 2_s_. 6_d_., and with it two translations, each price 1_s_. 6_d_.
[1028] Seepost, June 13, 1763.
[1029] In the original,—'which, perhaps, prevails.'Rasselas, ch. xxxi.
[1030] This is the second time that Boswell puts 'morbid melancholy' in quotation marks (ante, p. 63). Perhaps he refers to a passage in Hawkins'sJohnson(p. 287), where the author speaks of Johnson's melancholy as 'this morbid affection, as he was used to call it.'
[1031] 'Perfect through sufferings.'Hebrews, ii. 10.
[1032] Perhaps the reference is to the conclusion ofLe Monde comme il va:—'Il résolut … de laisser allerle monde comme il va; car, dit il,si tout riest pas bien, tout est passable.'
[1033] Gray,On a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
[1034] Johnson writing to Mrs. Thrale said:—'Vivite lactiis one of the great rules of health.'Piozzi Letters, ii. 55. 'It was the motto of a bishop very eminent for his piety and good works in King Charles the Second's reign,Inservi Deo et laetare—"Serve God and be cheerful."' Addison'sFreeholder, No. 45.
[1035] Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL.
[1036] This paper was in such high estimation before it was collected into volumes, that it was seized on with avidity by various publishers of news-papers and magazines, to enrich their publications. Johnson, to put a stop to this unfair proceeding, wrote for theUniversal Chroniclethe following advertisement; in which there is, perhaps, more pomp of words than the occasion demanded:
'London, January 5, 1759. ADVERTISEMENT. The proprietors of the paper intitledThe Idler, having found that those essays are inserted in the news-papers and magazines with so little regard to justice or decency, that theUniversal Chronicle, in which they first appear, is not always mentioned, think it necessary to declare to the publishers of those collections, that however patiently they have hitherto endured these injuries, made yet more injurious by contempt, they have now determined to endure them no longer. They have already seen essays, for which a very large price is paid, transferred, with the most shameless rapacity, into the weekly or monthly compilations, and their right, at least for the present, alienated from them, before they could themselves be said to enjoy it. But they would not willingly be thought to want tenderness, even for men by whom no tenderness hath been shewn. The past is without remedy, and shall be without resentment. But those who have been thus busy with their sickles in the fields of their neighbours, are henceforward to take notice, that the time of impunity is at an end. Whoever shall, without our leave, lay the hand of rapine upon our papers, is to expect that we shall vindicate our due, by the means which justice prescribes, and which are warranted by the immemorial prescriptions of honourable trade. We shall lay hold, in our turn, on their copies, degrade them from the pomp of wide margin and diffuse typography, contract them into a narrow space, and sell them at an humble price; yet not with a view of growing rich by confiscations, for we think not much better of money got by punishment than by crimes. We shall, therefore, when our losses are repaid, give what profit shall remain to theMagdalens; for we know not who can be more properly taxed for the support of penitent prostitutes, than prostitutes in whom there yet appears neither penitence nor shame.' BOSWELL.
[1037] I think that this letter belongs to a later date, probably to 1765 or 1766. As we learn,post, April 10, 1776, Simpson was a barrister 'who fell into a dissipated course of life.' On July 2, 1765, Johnson records that he repaid him ten guineas which he had borrowed in the lifetime of Mrs. Johnson (his wife). He also lent him ten guineas more. If it was in 1759 that Simpson was troubled by small debts, it is most unlikely that Johnson let six years more pass without repaying him a loan which even then was at least of seven years' standing. Moreover, in this letter Johnson writes:—'I have been invited, or have invited myself, to several parts of the kingdom.' The only visits, it seems, that he paid between 1754-1762 were to Oxford in 1759 and to Lichfield in the winter of 1761-2. After 1762, when his pension gave him means, he travelled frequently. Besides all this, he says of his step-daughter:— 'I will not incommode my dear Lucy by coming to Lichfield, while her present lodging is of any use to her.' Miss Porter seems to have lived in his house till she had built one for herself. Though his letter to her of Jan. 10, 1764 (Croker'sBoswell, p. 163), shews that it was then building, yet she had not left his house on Jan. 14, 1766 (ib. p. 173).
'To JOSEPH SIMPSON, ESQ.
'Your father's inexorability not only grieves but amazes me[1038]: he is your father; he was always accounted a wise man; nor do I remember any thing to the disadvantage of his good-nature; but in his refusal to assist you there is neither good-nature, fatherhood, nor wisdom. It is the practice of good-nature to overlook faults which have already, by the consequences, punished the delinquent. It is natural for a father to think more favourably than others of his children; and it is always wise to give assistance while a little help will prevent the necessity of greater.
[1038] In theRambler, No. 148, entitled 'The cruelty of parental tyranny,' Johnson, after noticing the oppression inflicted by the perversion of legal authority, says:—'Equally dangerous and equally detestable are the cruelties often exercised in private families, under the venerable sanction of parental authority.' He continues:—'Even though no consideration should be paid to the great law of social beings, by which every individual is commanded to consult the happiness of others, yet the harsh parent is less to be vindicated than any other criminal, because he less provides for the happiness of himself.' See alsopost, March 29, 1779. A passage in one of Boswell'sLetters to Temple(p. 111) may also be quoted here:—'The time was when such a letter from my father as the one I enclose would have depressed; but I am now firm, and, as my revered friend, Mr. Samuel Johnson, used to say,I feel the privileges of an independent human being; however, it is hard that I cannot have the pious satisfaction of being well with my father.'
[1039] Perhaps 'Van,' for Vansittart.
[1040] Lord Stowell informs me that Johnson prided himself in being, during his visits to Oxford, accurately academic in all points: and he wore his gown almostostentatiously. CROKER.
[1041] Dr. Robert Vansittart, of the ancient and respectable family of that name in Berkshire. He was eminent for learning and worth, and much esteemed by Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL. Johnson perhaps proposed climbing over the wall on the day on which 'University College witnessed him drink three bottles of port without being the worse for it.'Post, April 7, 1778.
[1042]Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1785. BOSWELL. The speech was made on July 7, 1759, the last day of 'the solemnity of the installment' of the Earl of Westmoreland as Chancellor of the University. On the 3rd 'the ceremony began with a grand procession of noblemen, doctors, &c., in their proper habits, which passed through St. Mary's, and was there joined by the Masters of Arts in their proper habits; and from thence proceeded to the great gate of the Sheldonian Theatre, in which the most numerous and brilliant assembly of persons of quality and distinction was seated, that had ever been seen there on any occasion.'Gent. Mag. xxix. 342. Would that we had some description of Johnson, as, in his new and handsome gown, he joined the procession among the Masters! Seeante, p. 281.
[1043]Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 126 [Aug. 31]. BOSWELL. The chance of death from disease would seem also to have been greater on the ship than in a jail. InThe Idler(No. 38) Johnson estimates that one in four of the prisoners dies every year. In his Review of Hanway'sEssay on Tea(Works, vi. 31) he states that he is told that 'of the five or six hundred seamen sent to China, sometimes half, commonly a third part, perish in the voyage.' Seepost, April 10, 1778.
[1044]Ibid. p. 251 [Sept. 23]. BOSWELL.
[1045] In my first edition this word was printedChum, as it appears, in one of Mr. Wilkes'sMiscellanies, and I animadverted on Dr. Smollet's ignorance; for which let me propitiate themanesof that ingenious and benevolent gentleman. CHUM was certainly a mistaken reading forCham, the title of the Sovereign of Tartary, which is well applied to Johnson, the Monarch of Literature; and was an epithet familiar to Smollet. SeeRoderick Random, chap. 56. For this correction I am indebted to Lord Palmerston, whose talents and literary acquirements accord well with his respectable pedigree of TEMPLE BOSWELL.
After the publication of the second edition of this work, the author was furnished by Mr. Abercrombie, of Philadelphia, with the copy of a letter written by Dr. John Armstrong, the poet, to Dr. Smollet at Leghorne, containing the following paragraph:—'As to the K. Bench patriot, it is hard to say from what motive he published a letter of yours asking some triffling favour of him in behalf of somebody, for whom the great CHAM of literature, Mr. Johnson, had interested himself.' MALONE. In the first edition Boswell had said:—'Had Dr. Smollet been bred at an English University, he would have know that achumis a student who lives with another in a chamber common to them both. Achum of literatureis nonsense.'
[1046] In a note to that piece of bad book-making, Almon'sMemoirs of Wilkes(i. 47), this allusion is thus explained:-'A pleasantry of Mr. Wilkes on that passage in Johnson'sGrammar of the English Tongue, prefixed to the Dictionary—"Hseldom, perhaps never, begins any but the first syllable."' For this 'pleasantry' seeante, p. 300.
[1047] Mr. Croker says that he was not discharged till June 1760. Had he been discharged at once he would have found Johnson moving from Gough Square to Staple Inn; for in a letter to Miss Porter, dated March 23, 1739, given in the Appendix, Johnson said:-'I have this day moved my things, and you are now to direct to me at Staple Inn.'
[1048]Prayers and Meditations, pp. 30 [39] and 40. BOSWELL.
[1049] 'I have left off housekeeping' wrote Johnson to Langton on Jan. 9, 1759. Murphy (Life, p. 90), writing of the beginning of the year 1759, says:—'Johnson now found it necessary to retrench his expenses. He gave up his house in Gough Square. Mrs. Williams went into lodgings [Seepost, July 1, 1763]. He retired to Gray's-Inn, [he had first moved to Staple Inn], and soon removed to chambers in the Inner Temple-lane, where he lived in poverty, total idleness, and the pride of literature,Magni stat nominis umbra. Mr. Fitzherbert used to say that he paid a morning visit to Johnson, intending from his chambers to send a letter into the city; but, to his great surprise, he found an authour by profession without pen, ink, or paper.' (It was Mr. Fitzherbert, who sent Johnson some wine. Seeante, p. 305, note 2. See alsopost, Sept. 15, 1777). The following documents confirm Murphy's statement of Johnson's poverty at this time:
'May 19, 1759.
'I promise to pay to Mr. Newbery the sum of forty-two pounds, nineteen shillings, and ten pence on demand, value received. £42 19 10.
'Sam. Johnson.'
'March 20, 1760.
'I promise to pay to Mr. Newbery the sum of thirty pounds upon demand., £30 0 0.
'Sam. Johnson.'
In 1751 he had thrice borrowed money of Newbery, but the total amount of the loans was only four guineas. Prior'sGoldsmith, i. 340. With Johnson's want of pen, ink, and paper we may compare the account that he gives of Savage's destitution (Works, viii. 3):—'Nor had he any other conveniences for study than the fields or the streets allowed him; there he used to walk and form his speeches, and afterwards step into a shop, beg for a few moments the use of the pen and ink, and write down what he had composed upon paper which he had picked up by accident.' Hawkins (Life, p. 383) says that Johnson's chambers were two doors down the Inner Temple Lane. 'I have been told,' he continues, 'by his neighbour at the corner, that during the time he dwelt there, more inquiries were made at his shop for Mr. Johnson, than for all the inhabitants put together of both the Inner and Middle Temple.' In a court opening out of Fleet Street, Goldsmith at this very time was still more miserably lodged. In the beginning of March 1759, Percy found him 'employed in writing hisEnquiry into Polite Learningin a wretched dirty room, in which there was but one chair, and when he from civility offered it to his visitant, himself was obliged to sit in the window.'Goldsmith's Misc. Works, i. 61.
[1050] Sir John Hawkins (Life, p. 373) has given a long detail of it, in that manner vulgarly, but significantly, called rigmarole; in which, amidst an ostentatious exhibition of arts and artists, he talks of 'proportions of a column being taken from that of the human figure, andadjusted by Nature—masculine and feminine—in a man, sesquioctave of the head, and in a womansesquinonal;' nor has he failed to introduce a jargon of musical terms, which do not seem much to correspond with the subject, but serve to make up the heterogeneous mass. To follow the Knight through all this, would be an useless fatigue to myself, and not a little disgusting to my readers. I shall, therefore, only make a few remarks upon his statement.—He seems to exult in having detected Johnson in procuring 'from a person eminently skilled in Mathematicks and the principles of architecture, answers to a string of questions drawn up by himself, touching the comparative strength of semicircular and elliptical arches.' Now I cannot conceive how Johnson could have acted more wisely. Sir John complains that the opinion of that excellent mathematician, Mr. Thomas Simpson, did not preponderate in favour of the semicircular arch. But he should have known, that however eminent Mr. Simpson was in the higher parts of abstract mathematical science, he was little versed in mixed and practical mechanicks. Mr. Muller, of Woolwich Academy, the scholastick father of all the great engineers which this country has employed for forty years, decided the question by declaring clearly in favour of the elliptical arch.
It is ungraciously suggested, that Johnson's motive for opposing Mr. Mylne's scheme may have been his prejudice against him as a native of North Britain; when, in truth, as has been stated, he gave the aid of his able pen to a friend, who was one of the candidates; and so far was he from having any illiberal antipathy to Mr. Mylne, that he afterwards lived with that gentleman upon very agreeable terms of acquaintance, and dined with him at his house. Sir John Hawkins, indeed, gives full vent to his own prejudice in abusing Blackfriars bridge, calling it 'an edifice, in which beauty and symmetry are in vain sought for; by which the citizens of London have perpetuated study their own disgrace, and subjected a whole nation to the reproach of foreigners.' Whoever has contemplated,placido lumine[Horace,Odes, iv. 3, 2], this stately, elegant, and airy structure, which has so fine an effect, especially on approaching the capital on that quarter, must wonder at such unjust and ill-tempered censure; and I appeal to all foreigners of good taste, whether this bridge be not one of the most distinguished ornaments of London. As to the stability of the fabrick, it is certain that the City of London took every precaution to have the best Portland stone for it; but as this is to be found in the quarries belonging to the publick, under the direction of the Lords of the Treasury, it so happened that parliamentary interest, which is often the bane of fair pursuits, thwarted their endeavours. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, it is well known that not only has Blackfriars-bridge never sunk either in its foundation or in its arches, which were so much the subject of contest, but any injuries which it has suffered from the effects of severe frosts have been already, in some measure, repaired with sounder stone, and every necessary renewal can be completed at a moderate expence. BOSWELL. Horace Walpole mentions an ineffectual application made by the City to Parliament in 1764 'for more money for their new bridge at Blackfriars,' when Dr. Hay, one of the Lords of the Admiralty, 'abused the Common Council, whose late behaviour, he said, entitled them to no favour.' Walpole'sMemoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 390. The late behaviour was the part taken by the City in Wilkes's case. It was the same love of liberty no doubt that lost the City the Portland stone. Smollett goes out of the way to praise his brother-Scot, Mr. Mylne, inHumphry Clinker—'a party novel written,' says Horace Walpole, 'to vindicate the Scots' (Reign of George III, iv. 328). In the letter dated May 29, he makes Mr. Bramble say:—'The Bridge at Blackfriars is a noble monument of taste and public spirit—I wonder how they stumbled upon a work of such magnificence and utility.'
[1051] Juvenal,Sat. i. 85.
[1052] 'Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton.'—George III's first speech to his parliament. It appears from theHardwicke Papers, writes the editor of the _Parl. Hist. (xv. 982), that after the draft of the speech had been settled by the cabinet, these words and those that came next were added by the King's own hand. Wilkes in hisDedication of Mortimer(seepost, May 15, 1776) asserted that 'these endearing words, "Born,&c.," were permitted to be seen in the royal orthography of Britain for Briton,' Almon'sWorks, i. 84.
[1053] In thisIntroduction(Works, vi. 148) Johnson answers objections that had been raised against the relief. 'We know that for the prisoners of war there is no legal provision; we see their distress and are certain of its cause; we know that they are poor and naked, and poor and naked without a crime…. The opponents of this charity must allow it to be good, and will not easily prove it not to be the best. That charity is best of which the consequences are most extensive; the relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal affection.' The Committee for which Johnson's paper was written began its work in Dec. 1759. In the previous month of October Wesley records in his _Journal (ii. 461):—'I walked up to Knowle, a mile from Bristol, to see the French prisoners. Above eleven hundred of them, we were informed, were confined in that little place, without anything to lie on but a little dirty straw, or anything to cover them but a few foul thin rags, either by day or by night, so that they died like rotten sheep. I was much affected, and preached in the evening onExodusxxiii. 9.' Money was at once contributed, and clothing bought. 'It was not long before contributions were set on foot in various parts of the Kingdom.' On Oct. 24 of the following year, he records:—'I visited the French prisoners at Knowle, and found many of them almost naked again.'Ib. iii. 23. 'The prisoners,' wrote Hume (Private Corres. p. 55), 'received food from the public, but it was thought that their own friends would supply them with clothes, which, however, was found after some time to be neglected.' The cry arose that the brave and gallant men, though enemies, were perishing with cold in prison; a subscription was set on foot; great sums were given by all ranks of people; and, notwithstanding the national foolish prejudices against the French, a remarkable zeal everywhere appeared for this charity. I am afraid that M. Rousseau could not have produced many parallel instances among his heroes, the Greeks; and still fewer among the Romans. Baretti, in hisJourney from London to Genoa(i. 62, 66), after telling how on all foreigners, even on a Turk wearing a turban, 'the pretty appellation ofFrench dogwas liberally bestowed by the London rabble,' continues:—'I have seen the populace of England contribute as many shillings as they could spare towards the maintenance of the French prisoners; and I have heard a universal shout of joy when their parliament voted £100,000 to the Portuguese on hearing of the tremendous earthquake.'
[1054] Johnson'sWorks, vi. 81. See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 16, 1773, where Johnson describes Mary as 'such a Queen as every man of any gallantry of spirit would have sacrificed his life for.' 'There are,' wrote Hume, 'three events in our history which may be regarded as touchstones of party-men. An English Whig who asserts the reality of the popish plot, an Irish Catholic who denies the massacre in 1641, and a Scotch Jacobite who maintains the innocence of Queen Mary, must be considered as men beyond the reach of argument or reason, and must be left to their prejudices.'History of England, ed. 1802, v. 504.
[1055]Prayers and Meditations, p. 42. BOSWELL. The following is his entry on this day:—
'1760, Sept. 18. Resolved D[eo]j[uvante]'To combat notions of obligation.To apply to study.To reclaim imagination.To consult the resolves on Tetty's coffin.To rise early.To study religion.To go to church.To drink less strong liquors.To keep a journal.To oppose laziness, by doing what is to be done tomorrow.Rise as early as I can.Send for books for Hist. of War.Put books in order.Scheme of life.'
[1056] Seepost, Oct. 19, 1769, and May 15, 1783, for Johnson's measure of emotion, by eating.
[1057] Mr. Croker points out that Murphy'sEpistlewas an imitation of Boileau'sEpître à Molière.
[1058] The paper mentioned in the text is No. 38 of the second series of theGrays Inn Journal, published on June 15, 1754; which is a translation from the French version of Johnson'sRambler, No. 190. MALONE. Mrs. Piozzi relates how Murphy, used to tell before Johnson of the first time they met. He found our friend all covered with soot, like a chimney-sweeper, in a little room, with an intolerable heat and strange smell, as if he had been acting Lungs in theAlchymist, making aether. 'Come, come,' says Dr. Johnson, 'dear Murphy, the story is black enough now; and it was a very happy day for me that brought you first to my house, and a very happy mistake about the Ramblers.' Piozzi'sAnec. p. 235. Murphy quotes her account, Murphy'sJohnson, p. 79. See alsopost, 1770, where Dr. Maxwell records in hisCollectaneahow Johnson 'very much loved Arthur Murphy.' Miss Burney thus describes him:—'He is tall and well-made, has a very gentlemanlike appearance, and a quietness of manner upon his first address that to me is very pleasing. His face looks sensible, and his deportment is perfectly easy and polite.' A few days later she records:—'Mr. Murphy was the life of the party; he was in good spirits, and extremely entertaining; he told a million of stories admirably well.' Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary, i. 195, 210. Rogers, who knew Murphy well, says that 'towards the close of his life, till he received a pension of £200 from the King, he was in great pecuniary difficulties. He had eaten himself out of every tavern from the other side of Temple-Bar to the west end of the town.' He owed Rogers a large sum of money, which he never repaid. 'He assigned over to me the whole of his works; and I soon found that he had already disposed of them to a bookseller. One thing,' Rogers continues, 'ought to be remembered to his honour; an actress with whom he had lived bequeathed to him all her property, but he gave up every farthing of it to her relations.' He was pensioned in 1803, and he died in 1805. Rogers'sTable-Talk, p. 106.
[1059] Topham Beauclerk, Esq. BOSWELL.
[1060] Essays with that title, written about this time by Mr. Langton, but not published. BOSWELL.
[1061] Thomas Sheridan, born 1721, died 1788. He was the son of Swift's friend, and the father of R. B. Sheridan (who was born in 1751), and the great-great-grandfather of the present Earl of Dufferin.
[1062] Sheridan was acting in Garrick's Company, generally on the nights on which Garrick did not appear. Davies'sGarrick, i. 299. Johnson criticises his reading,post, April 18, 1783.
[1063] Mrs. Sheridan was authour ofMemoirs of Miss Sydney Biddulph, a novel of great merit, and of some other pieces.—See her character,post, beginning of 1763. BOSWELL.
[1064]Prayers and Meditations, p. 44. BOSWELL. '1761. Easter Eve. Since the communion of last Easter I have led a life so dissipated and useless, and my terrours and perplexities have so much increased, that I am under great depression and discouragement.'
[1065] Seepost, April 6, 1775.
[1066] I have had inquiry made in Ireland as to this story, but do not find it recollected there. I give it on the authority of Dr. Johnson, to which may be added that of thebiographical Dictionary, andBiographia Dramatica; in both of which it has stood many years. Mr. Malone observes, that the truth probably is, not that an edition was published with Rolt's name in the title-page, but, that the poem being then anonymous, Rolt acquiesced in its being attributed to him in conversation. BOSWELL.
[1067] I have both the books. Innes was the clergyman who brought Psalmanazar to England, and was an accomplice in his extraordinary fiction. BOSWELL. It was in 1728 that Innes, who was a Doctor of Divinity and Preacher-Assistant at St. Margaret's Westminster, published this book. In his impudent Dedication to Lord Chancellor King he says that 'were matters once brought to the melancholy pass that mankind should become proselytes to such impious delusions' as Mandeville taught, 'punishments must be annexed to virtue and rewards to vice.' It was not till 1730 that Dr. Campbell 'laid open this imposture.' Preface, p. xxxi. Though he was Professor of Ecclesiastical History in St. Andrews, yet he had not, it should seem, heard of the fraud till then: so remote was Scotland from London in those days. It was not till 1733 that he published his own edition. For Psalmanazar, seepost, April 18, 1778.
[1068] 'Died, the Rev. Mr. Eccles, at Bath. In attempting to save a boy, whom he saw sinking in the Avon, he, together with the youth, were both drowned.'Gent. Mag. Aug. 15, 1777. And in the magazine for the next month are some verses on this event, with an epitaph, of which the first line is,
'Beneath this stone the "Man ofFeeling" lies.'
[1069] 'Harry Mackenzie,' wrote Scott in 1814, 'never put his name in a title page till the last edition of his works.' Lockhart'sScott, iv. 178. He wrote alsoThe Man of the World, which Johnson 'looked at, but thought there was nothing in it.' Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 2, 1773. Scott, however, called it 'a very pathetic tale.' Croker's _Boswell, p. 359. Burns, writing of his twenty-third year, says: 'Tristram Shandyand theMan of Feelingwere my bosom favourites.' Currie'sLife of Burns, ed.1846. p. 21.
[1070] From the Prologue to Dryden's adaptation ofThe Tempest.
[1071] The originals of Dr. Johnson's three letters to Mr. baretti, which are among the very best he ever wrote, were communicated to the elegant monthly miscellany,The European Magazine, in which they first appeared. BOSWELL.
[1072] Baretti left London for Lisbon on Aug. 14, 1760. He went through Portugal, Spain, and France to Antibes, whence he went by sea to Genoa, where he arrived on Nov. 18. In 1770 he published a lively account of his travels under the title ofA Journey from London to Genoa.
[1073] Malone says of Baretti that 'he was certainly a man of extraordinary talents, and perhaps no one ever made himself so completely master of a foreign language as he did of English.' Prior'sMalone, p. 392. Mrs. Piozzi gives the following 'instance of his skill in our low street language. Walking in a field near Chelsea he met a fellow, who, suspecting him from dress and manner to be a foreigner, said sneeringly, "Come, Sir, will you show me the way to France?" "No, Sir," says Baretti instantly, "but I will show you the way to Tyburn."' He travelled with her in France. 'Oh how he would court the maids at the inns abroad, abuse the men perhaps, and that with a facility not to be exceeded, as they all confessed, by any of the natives. But so he could in Spain, I find.' Hayward'sPiozzi, ii. 347.
[1074] Johnson was intimate with Lord Southwell,ante, p. 243. It seems unlikely that Baretti merely conducted Mr. Southwell from Turin to Venice; yet there is not a line in hisJourneyto show that any Englishman accompanied him from London to Turin.
[1075] Seeante, p. 350, note.
[1076] The first of these annual exhibitions was opened on April 21, 1760, at the Room of the Society of Arts, in the Strand. 'As a consequence of their success, grew the incorporation of a Society of Artists in 1765, by seccession from which finally was constituted the Royal Academy [In Dec. 1768].' Taylor'sReynolds, i. 179. For the third exhibition Johnson wrote the Preface to the catalogue. In this, speaking for the Committee of the Artists he says:—'The purpose of this Exhibition is not to enrich the artist, but to advance the art; the eminent are not flattered with preference, nor the obscure insulted with contempt; whoever hopes to deserve public favour is here invited to display his merit.' Northcote'sReynolds, i. 101.
[1077] Hawkins (Life, p. 318) says that Johnson told him 'that in his whole life he was never capable of discerning the least resemblance of any kind between a picture and the subject it was intended to represent.' This, however must have been an exaggeration on the part either of Hawkins or Johnson. His general ignorance of art is shown by Mrs. Piozzi (Anec., p. 98):—'Sir Joshua Reynolds mentioned some picture as excellent. "It has often grieved me, sir," said Mr. Johnson, "to see so much mind as the science of painting requires, laid out upon such perishable materials: why do not you oftener make use of copper? I could wish your superiority in the art you profess to be preserved in stuff more durable than canvas." Sir Joshua urged the difficulty of procuring a plate large enough for historical subjects. "What foppish obstacles are these!" exclaims on a sudden Dr. Johnson. "Here is Thrale has a thousand tun of copper; you may paint it all round if you will, I suppose; it will serve him to brew in afterwards. Will it not, Sir?" to my husband who sat by. Indeed his utter scorn of painting was such, that I have heard him say, that he should sit very quietly in a room hung round with the works of the greatest masters, and never feel the slightest disposition to turn them, if their backs were outermost, unless it might be for the sake of telling Sir Joshua that hehadturned them.' Such a remark of Johnson's must not, however, be taken too strictly. He often spoke at random, often with exaggeration. 'There is in many minds a kind of vanity exerted to the disadvantage of themselves.' This reflection of his is the opening sentence to the number of the Idler (No. 45) in which he thus writes about portrait-painting:—'Genius is chiefly exerted in historical pictures; and the art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life; what is greatest is not always best. I should grieve to see Reynolds transfer to heroes and to goddesses, to empty splendour and to airy fiction, that art which is now employed in diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead.' It is recorded in Johnson'sWorks, (1787) xi. 208, that 'Johnson, talking with some persons about allegorical painting said, "I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world."' He bought prints of Burke, Dyer, and Goldsmith—'Good impressions' he said to hang in a little room that he was fitting up with prints. Croker'sBoswell, p. 639. Among his effects that were sold after his death were 'sixty-one portraits framed and glazed,'post, under Dec. 9, 1784. When he was at Paris, and saw the picture-gallery at the Palais Royal, he entered in his Diary:—'I thought the pictures of Raphael fine;'post, Oct. 16, 1775. The philosopher Hume was more insensible even than Johnson. Dr. J.H. Burton says:—'It does not appear from any incident in his life, or allusions in his letters, which I can remember, that he had ever really admired a picture or a statue.'Life of me, ii. 134.
[1078] By Colman—'There is nothing else new,' wrote Horace Walpole on March 7, 1761 (Letters,in. 382), 'but a very indifferent play, calledThe Jealous Wife, so well acted as to have succeeded greatly.'
[1079] In Chap. 47 ofRasselasJohnson had lately considered monastic life. Imlac says of the monks:—'Their time is regularly distributed; one duty succeeds another, so that they are not left open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades of listless inactivity…. He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a monastery. But perhaps every one is not able to stem the temptations of publick life; and, if he cannot conquer, he may properly retreat.' See alsopost, March 15, 1776, and Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 19, 1773.
[1080] Baretti, in the preface to hisJourney(p. vi.), says that the method of the book was due to Dr. Johnson. 'It was he that exhorted me to write daily, and with all possible minuteness; it was he that pointed out the topics which would most interest and most delight in a future publication.'
[1081] He advised Boswell to go to Spain.Post, June 25 and July 26, 1763.
[1082] Dr. Percy records that 'the first visit Goldsmith ever received from Johnson was on May 31, 1761, [ten days before this letter was written] when he gave an invitation to him, and much other company, many of them literary men, to a supper in his lodgings in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street. Percy being intimate with Johnson, was desired to call upon him and take him with him. As they went together the former was much struck with the studied neatness of Johnson's dress. He had on a new suit of clothes, a new wig nicely powdered, and everything about him so perfectly dissimilar from his usual appearance that his companion could not help inquiring the cause of this singular transformation. "Why, Sir," said Johnson, "I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice, and I am desirous this night to show him a better example."' Goldsmith'sMisc. Works, i. 62.
[1083]Judges, v. 20.
[1084]Psalms, xix. 2.
[1085]Psalms, civ. 19.
[1086] Boswell is ten years out in his date. This work was published in 1752. The review of it in theGent. Mag. for that year, p. 146, was, I believe, by Johnson.
[1087] He accompanied Lord Macartney on his embassy to China in 1792. In 1797 he published hisAccount of the Embassy.
[1088] It was taken in 1759, and restored to France in 1763.Penny Cyclo. xi. 463.
[1089] W. S. Landor (Works, ed. 1876, v. 99) says:—'Extraordinary as were Johnson's intellectual powers, he knew about as much of poetry as of geography. In one of his letters he talks of Guadaloupe as being in another hemisphere. Speaking of that island, his very words are these: "Whether you return hither or stay in another hemisphere."' Guadaloupe, being in the West Indies, is in another hemisphere.
[1090] Seepost, April 12, 1776.
[1091] 'It is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded; for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are less dreadful than its extinction.'The Idler, No. 58. See alsopost, under March 30, 1783, where he ranks the situation of the Prince of Wales as the happiest in the kingdom, partly on account of the enjoyment of hope.
[1092] Though Johnson wrote this same day to Lord Bute to thank him for his pension, he makes no mention to Baretti of this accession to his fortune.
[1093] Seeante, p. 245. Mrs. Porter, the actress, lived some time with Mrs. Cotterel and her eldest daughter. CROKER.
[1094] Miss Charlotte Cotterel, married to Dean Lewis. Seepost, Dec. 21, 1762.
[1095] Reynolds's note-book shows that this year he had close on 150 sitters. Taylor'sReynolds, i. 218.
[1096] He married a woman of the town, who had persuaded him (notwithstanding their place of congress was a small coalshed in Fetter Lane) that she was nearly related to a man of fortune, but was injuriously kept by him out of large possessions. She regarded him as a physician already in considerable practice. He had not been married four months, before a writ was taken out against him for debts incurred by his wife. He was secreted; and his friend then procured him a protection from a foreign minister. In a short time afterwards she ran away from him, and was tried (providentially in his opinion) for picking pockets at the Old Bailey. Her husband was with difficulty prevented from attending the Court, in the hope she would be hanged. She pleaded her own cause and was acquitted. A separation between them took place.'Gent. Mag. lv. 101.
[1097] Richardson had died more than a year earlier,—on July 4, 1761. That Johnson should think it needful at the date of his letter to inform Baretti of the death of so famous a writer shows how slight was the communication between London and Milan. Nay, he repeats the news in his letter of Dec. 21, 1762.
[1098] On Dec. 8, 1765, he wrote to Hector:—'A few years ago I just saluted Birmingham, but had no time to see any friend, for I came in after midnight with a friend, and went away in the morning.'Notes and Queries, 6th S. iii. 321. He passed through Birmingham, I conjecture, on his visit to Lichfield.
[1099] Writing to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield on July 20, 1767, he says:—'Miss Lucy [Porter, his step-daughter, not his daughter-in-law, as he calls her above] is more kind and civil than I expected, and has raised my esteem by many excellencies very noble and resplendent, though a little discoloured by hoary virginity. Everything else recalls to my remembrance years, in which I proposed what I am afraid I have not done, and promised myself pleasure which I have not found.'Piozzi Letters, i. 4.
[1100] In hisJourney into Wales(Aug. 24, 1774), he describes how Mrs. Thrale visited one of the scenes of her youth. 'She remembered the rooms, and wandered over them with recollection of her childhood. This species of pleasure is always melancholy. The walk was cut down and the pond was dry. Nothing was better.'
[1101] This is a very just account of the relief which London affords to melancholy minds. BOSWELL.
[1102] To Devonshire.
[1103] Seeante, p. 322.
[1104] Dr. T. Campbell (Diary of a visit to England, p. 32) recorded on March 16, 1775, that 'Baretti said that now he could not live out of London. He had returned a few years ago to his own country, but he could not enjoy it; and he was obliged to return to London to those connections he had been making for near thirty years past.' Baretti had come to England in 1750 (ante, p. 302), so that thirty years is an exaggeration.
[1105] How great a sum this must have been in Johnson's eyes is shown by a passage in hisLife of Savage(Works, viii. 125). Savage, he says, was received into Lord Tyrconnel's family and allowed a pension of £200 a year. 'His presence,' Johnson writes, 'was sufficient to make any place of publick entertainment popular; and his approbation and example constituted the fashion. So powerful is genius when it is invested with the glitter of affluence!' In the last summer of his life, speaking of the chance of his pension being doubled, he said that with six hundred a year 'a man would have the consciousness that he should pass the remainder of his lifein splendour, how long soever it might be.'Post, June 30, 1784. David Hume writing in 1751, says:—'I have £50 a year, a £100 worth of books, great store of linens and fine clothes, and near £100 in my pocket; along with order, frugality, a strong spirit of independency, good health, a contented humour, and an unabating love of study. In these circumstances I must esteem myself one of the happy and fortunate.' J. H. Burton'sHume, i. 342. Goldsmith, in hisPresent State of Polite Learning(chap, vii), makes the following observation on pensions granted in France to authors:—'The French nobility have certainly a most pleasing way of satisfying the vanity of an author without indulging his avarice. A man of literary merit is sure of being caressed by the great, though seldom enriched. His pension from the crown just supplies half a competence, and the sale of his labours makes some small addition to his circumstances; thus the author leads a life of splendid poverty, and seldom becomes wealthy or indolent enough to discontinue an exertion of those abilities by which he rose.' Whether Johnson's pension led to his writing less than he would otherwise have done may be questioned. It is true that in the next seventeen years he did little more than finish his edition ofShakespeare, and write hisJourney to the Western Islandsand two or three political pamphlets. But since he wrote the last number ofThe Idlerin the spring of 1760 he had done very little. His mind, which, to use Murphy's words (Life, p. 80), had been 'strained and overlaboured by constant exertion,' had not recovered its tone. It is likely, that without the pension he would not have lived to write the second greatest of his works—theLives of the Poets.
[1106] Mr. Forster (Life of Goldsmith, i. 281) says:—'Bute's pensions to his Scottish crew showing meaner than ever in Churchill's daring verse, it occurred to the shrewd and wary Wedderburne to advise, for a set off, that Samuel Johnson should be pensioned.'The Prophecy of Faminein which Churchill's attack was made on the pensioned Scots was published in Jan. 1763, nearly half a year after Johnson's pension was conferred.
[1107] For hisFalkland's Islands'materials were furnished to him by the ministry' (post, 1771). 'The Patriotwas called for,' he writes, 'by my political friends' (post, Nov. 26, 1774). 'ThatTaxation no Tyrannywas written at the desire of those who were then in power, I have no doubt,' writes Boswell (post, under March 21, 1775). 'Johnson complained to a friend that, his pension having been given to him as a literary character, he had been applied to by administration to write political pamphlets' (Ib.). Are these statements inconsistent with what Lord Loughborough said, and with Boswell's assertion (Ib.) that 'Johnson neither asked nor received from government any reward whatsoever for his political labours?' I think not. I think that, had Johnson unpensioned been asked by the Ministry to write these pamphlets, he would have written them. He would have been pleased by the compliment, and for pay would have trusted to the sale. Speaking of the first two of these pamphlets—the third had not yet appeared—he said, 'Except what I had from the booksellers, I did not get a farthing by them' (post, March 21, 1772). They had not cost him much labour.The False Alarmwas written between eight o'clock of one night and twelve o'clock of the next. It went through three editions in less than two months (post, 1770).The Patriotwas written on a Saturday (post, Nov. 26, 1774). At all events Johnson had received his pension for more than seven years before he did any work for the ministry. In Croft'sLife of Young, which Johnson adopted (Works, viii. 422), the following passage was perhaps intended to be a defence of Johnson as a writer for the Ministry:—'Yet who shall say with certainty that Young was a pensioner? In all modern periods of this country, have not the writers on one side been regularly called hirelings, and on the other patriots?'
[1108] Seeante, p. 294.
[1109] Murphy's account is nearly as follows (Life, p. 92):—'Lord Loughborough was well acquainted with Johnson; but having heard much of his independent spirit, and of the downfall of Osborne the bookseller (ante, p. 154), he did not know but his benevolence might be rewarded with a folio on his head. He desired me to undertake the task. I went to the chambers in the Inner Temple Lane, which, in fact, were the abode of wretchedness. By slow and studied approaches the message was disclosed. Johnson made a long pause; he asked if it was seriously intended. He fell into a profound meditation, and his own definition of a pensioner occurred to him. He desired to meet next day, and dine at the Mitre Tavern. At that meeting he gave up all his scruples. On the following day Lord Loughborough conducted him to the Earl of Bute. The conversation that passed was in the evening related to me by Dr. Johnson. He expressed his sense of his Majesty's bounty, and thought himself the more highly honoured, as the favour was not bestowed on him for having dipped his pen in faction. "No, Sir," said Lord Bute, "it is not offered to you for having dipped your pen in faction, nor with a design that you ever should."' The reviewer of Hawkins'sJohnsonin theMonthly Review, lxxvi. 375, who was, no doubt, Murphy, adds a little circumstance:—'On the next day Mr. Murphy was in the Temple Lane soon after nine;he got Johnson up and dressed in due time; and saw him set off at eleven.' Malone's note on what Lord Bute said to Johnson is as follows:—'This was said by Lord Bute, as Dr. Burney was informed by Johnson himself, in answer to a question which he put, previously to his acceptance of the intended bounty: "Pray, my Lord, what am I expected to do for this pension?"'
[1110]
'In Britain's senate he a seat obtainsAnd one more pensioner St. Stephen gains.'
Moral Essays, iii. 392.
Johnson left the definition ofpensionandpensionerunchanged in the fourth edition of theDictionary, corrected by him in 1773.
[1111] He died on March 10, 1792. This paragraph and the letter are not in the first two editions.
[1112] The Treasury, Home Office, Exchequer of Receipt and Audit Office Records have been searched for a warrant granting a pension to Dr. Johnson without success. In 1782, by Act of Parliament all pensions on the Civil List Establishment were from that time to be paid at the Exchequer. In the Exchequer Order Book, Michaelmas 1782, No. 46, p. 74, the following memorandum occurs:—"Memdum. 3 Dec. 1782. There was issued to the following persons (By order 6th of Nov. 1782) the sums set against their names respectively, etc.:—Persons names: Johnson Saml, LL.D. Pensions p. ann. £300. Due to 5 July 1782, two quarters, £150."
This pension was paid at the Exchequer from that time to the quarter ending 10 Oct. 1784. 'It is clear that the pension was payable quarterly [for confirmation of this, seepost, Nov. 3, 1762, and July 16, 1765] and at the old quarter days, July 5, Oct. 10, Jan. 5, April 5, though payment was sometimes delayed. [Once he was paid half-yearly; seepost, under March 20, 1771.] The expression "bills" was a general term at the time for notes, cheques, and warrants, and no doubt covered some kind of Treasury warrant.' The above information I owe to the kindness of my friend Mr. Leonard H. Courtney, M.P., late Financial Secretary to the Treasury. The 'future favours' are the future payments. His pension was not for life, and depended therefore entirely on the king's pleasure (seepost, under March 21, 1775). The following letter in theGrenville Papers, ii. 68, seems to show that Johnson thought the pension due on thenewquarter-day:—
'DR. JOHNSON To MR. GRENVILLE.
'July 2, 1763.
'Be pleased to pay to the bearer seventy-five pounds, being the quarterly payment of a pension granted by his Majesty, and due on the 24th day of June last, to Sir,
'Your most humble servant,
[1113] They left London on Aug. 16 and returned to it on Sept. 26. Taylor'sReynolds, i. 214. Northcote records of this visit:—'I remember when Mr. Reynolds was pointed out to me at a public meeting, where a great crowd was assembled, I got as near to him as I could from the pressure of the people to touch the skirt of his coat, which I did with great satisfaction to my mind.' Northcote'sReynolds, i. 116. In like manner Reynolds, when a youth, had in a great crowd touched the hand of Pope.Ib, p. 19. Pope, when a boy of eleven, 'persuaded some friends to take him to the coffee-house which Dryden frequented.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 236. Who touched old Northcote's hand? Has the apostolic succession been continued?—Since writing these lines I have read with pleasure the following passage in Mr. Ruskin'sPraeterita, chapter i. p. 16:—'When at three-and-a-half I was taken to have my portrait painted by Mr. Northcote, I had not been ten minutes alone with him before I asked him why there were holes in his carpet.' Dryden, Pope, Reynolds, Northcote, Ruskin, so runs the chain of genius, with only one weak link in it.
[1114] At one of these seats Dr. Amyat, Physician in London, told me he happened to meet him. In order to amuse him till dinner should be ready, he was taken out to walk in the garden. The master of the house, thinking it proper to introduce something scientifick into the conversation, addressed him thus: 'Are you a botanist, Dr. Johnson:' 'No, Sir, (answered Johnson,) I am not a botanist; and, (alluding no doubt, to his near sightedness) should I wish to become a botanist, I must first turn myself into a reptile.' BOSWELL.
[1115] Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. 285) says:—'The roughness of the language used on board a man of war, where he passed a week on a visit to Captain Knight, disgusted him terribly. He asked an officer what some place was called, and received for answer that it was where the loplolly man kept his loplolly; a reply he considered as disrespectful, gross and ignorant.' Mr. Croker says that Captain Knight of theBelleislelay for a couple of months in 1762 in Plymouth Sound. Croker'sBoswell, p. 480. It seems unlikely that Johnson passed a whole week on ship-board.Loplolly, orLoblolly, is explained inRoderick Random, chap. xxvii. Roderick, when acting as the surgeon's assistant on a man of war, 'suffered,' he says, 'from the rude insults of the sailors and petty officers, among whom I was known by the name ofLobolly Boy.'
[1116] He was the father of Colonel William Mudge, distinguished by his trigonometrical survey of England and Wales. WRIGHT.
[1117] 'I have myself heard Reynolds declare, that the elder Mr. Mudge was, in his opinion, the wisest man he had ever met with in his life. He has always told me that he owed his first disposition to generalise, and to view things in the abstract, to him.' Northcote'sReynolds, i. 112, 115.
[1118] Seepost, under March 20, 1781.
[1119] Seeante, p. 293. BOSWELL.
[1120] The present Devonport.
[1121] A friend of mine once heard him, during this visit, exclaim with the utmost vehemence 'Ihatea Docker.' BLAKEWAY. Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 118) says that Reynolds took Johnson to dine at a house where 'he devoured so large a quantity of new honey and of clouted cream, besides drinking large potations of new cyder, that the entertainer found himself much embarrassed between his anxious regard for the Doctor's health and his fear of breaking through the rules of politeness, by giving him a hint on the subject. The strength of Johnson's constitution, however, saved him from any unpleasant consequences.' 'Sir Joshua informed a friend that he had never seen Dr. Johnson intoxicated by hard drinking but once, and that happened at the time that they were together in Devonshire, when one night after supper Johnson drank three bottles of wine, which affected his speech so much that he was unable to articulate a hard word, which occurred in the course of his conversation. He attempted it three times but failed; yet at last accomplished it, and then said, "Well, Sir Joshua, I think it is now time to go to bed."'Ib. ii. 161. One part of this story however is wanting in accuracy, and therefore all may be untrue. Reynolds at this time was not knighted. Johnson said (post, April 7, 1778): 'I did not leave off wine because I could not bear it; I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worse for it. University College has witnessed this.' See howeverpost, April 24, 1779, where he said:—'I used to slink home when I had drunk too much;' alsoante, p. 103, andpost, April 28, 1783.
[1122] George Selwyn wrote:—'Topham Beauclerk is arrived. I hear he lost £10,000 to a thief at Venice, which thief, in the course of the year, will be at Cashiobury.' (The reference to this quotation I have mislaid.)
[1123] Two years later he repeated this thought in the lines that he added to Goldsmith'sTraveller.Post, under Feb. 1766.
[1124] We may compare with this what 'old Bentley' said:—'Depend upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself.' Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 1, 1773.
[1125] The preliminaries of peace between England and France had been signed on Nov. 3 of this year.Ann Reg. v. 246.
[1126] Of Baretti'sTravels through Spain, &c., Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'That Baretti's book would please you all I made no doubt. I know not whether the world has ever seen suchTravelsbefore. Those whose lot it is to ramble can seldom write, and those who know how to write very seldom ramble.'PiozziLetters, i. 32.
[1127] Seeante, p. 370.
[1128] Seeante, p. 242, note 1.
[1129] Huggins had quarrelled with Johnson and Baretti (Croker'sBoswell, 129, note). See alsopost, 1780, in Mr. Langton'sCollection.
[1130] Seeante, p. 370.
[1131] Cowper, writing in 1784 about Collins, says:—'Of whom I did not know that he existed till I found him there'—in theLives of the Poets, that is to say. Southey'sCowper, v. II.
[1132] To this passage Johnson, nearly twenty years later, added the following (Works, viii. 403):—'Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converse, and whom I yet remember with tenderness.'
[1133] 'MADAM. To approach the high and the illustrious has been in all ages the privilege of Poets; and though translators cannot justly claim the same honour, yet they naturally follow their authours as attendants; and I hope that in return for having enabled TASSO to diffuse his fame through the British dominions, I may be introduced by him to the presence of YOUR MAJESTY.
TASSO has a peculiar claim to YOUR MAJESTY'S favour, as follower and panegyrist of the House ofEste, which has one common ancestor with the House of HANOVER; and in reviewing his life it is not easy to forbear a wish that he had lived in a happier time, when he might, among the descendants of that illustrious family, have found a more liberal and potent patronage.
I cannot but observe, MADAM, how unequally reward is proportioned to merit, when I reflect that the happiness which was withheld from TASSO is reserved for me; and that the poem which once hardly procured to its authour the countenance of the Princess of Ferrara, has attracted to its translator the favourable notice of a BRITISH QUEEN.
Had this been the fate of TASSO, he would have been able to have celebrated the condescension of YOUR MAJESTY in nobler language, but could not have felt it with more ardent gratitude, than MADAM, Your MAJESTY'S Most faithful and devoted servant.'—BOSWELL.
[1134] Young though Boswell was, he had already tried his hand at more than one kind of writing. In 1761 he had published anonymously anElegy on the Death of an Amiable Young Lady, with anEpistle from Menalcas to Lycidas. (Edinburgh, Donaldson.) The Elegy is full of such errors as 'Thou liv'd,' 'Thou led,' but is recommended by a puffing preface and three letters—one of which is signed J—B. About the same time he brought out a piece that was even more impudent. It wasAn Ode to Tragedy. By a gentleman of Scotland. (Edinburgh, Donaldson, 1761. Price sixpence.) In the 'Dedication to James Boswell, Esq.,' he says:—'I have no intention to pay you compliments—To entertain agreeable notions of one's own character is a great incentive to act with propriety and spirit. But I should be sorry to contribute in any degree to your acquiring an excess of self-sufficiency … I own indeed that when … to display my extensive erudition, I have quoted Greek, Latin and French sentences one after another with astonishing celerity; or have got into myOld-hock humourand fallen a-raving about princes and lords, knights and geniuses, ladies of quality and harpsichords; you, with a peculiar comic smile, have gently reminded me of theimportance of a man to himself, and slily left the room with the witty Dean lying open at—P.P.clerk of this parish. [Swift'sWorks, ed. 1803, xxiii. 142.] I, Sir, who enjoy the pleasure of your intimate acquaintance, know that many of your hours of retirement are devoted to thought.' TheOdeis serious. He describes himself as having
'A soul by nature formed to feel Grief sharper than the tyrant's steel, And bosom big with swelling thought From ancient lore's remembrance brought.'
In the winter of 1761-2 he had helped as a contributor and part-editor in bringing out aCollection of Original Poems. (Boswell and Erskine's Letters, p. 27.) His next publication, also anonymous, wasThe Club at Newmarket, written, as the Preface says, 'in the Newmarket Coffee Room, in which the author, being elected a member of the Jockey Club, had the happiness of passing several sprightly good-humoured evenings.' It is very poor stuff. In the winter of 1762-3 he joined in writing theCritical Strictures, mentionedpost, June 25, 1763. Just about the time that he first met Johnson he and his friend the Hon. Andrew Erskine had published in their own names a very impudent little volume of the correspondence that had passed between them. Of this I published an edition with notes in 1879, together with Boswell'sJournal of a Tour to Corsica. (Messrs. Thos. De La Rue & Co.).
[1135] Boswell, in 1768, in the preface to the third edition of hisCorsicadescribed 'the warmth of affection and the dignity of veneration' with which he never ceased to think of Mr. Johnson.
[1136] In theGarrick Carres, (ii. 83) there is a confused letter from this unfortunate man, asking Garrick for the loan of five guineas. He had a scheme for delivering dramatic lectures at Eton and Oxford; 'but,' he added, 'my externals have so unfavourable an appearance that I cannot produce myself with any comfort or hope of success.' Garrick sent him five guineas. He had been a Major in the army, an actor, and dramatic author. 'For the last seven years of his life he struggled under sickness and want to a degree of uncommon misery.'Gent. Mag. for 1784, p. 959.
[1137] As great men of antiquity such as ScipioAfricanushad an epithet added to their names, in consequence of some celebrated action, so my illustrious friend was often calledDICTIONARY JOHNSON, from that wonderful atchievement of genius and labour, hisDictionary of the English Language; the merit of which I contemplate with more and more admiration. BOSWELL. In like manner we have 'Hermes Harris,' 'Pliny Melmoth,' 'Demosthenes Taylor,' 'Persian Jones,' 'Abyssinian Bruce,' 'Microscope Baker,' 'Leonidas Glover,' 'Hesiod Cooke,' and 'Corsica Boswell.'