[79] A gentleman, writing from Virginia to John Wesley, in 1735, about the need of educating the negro slaves in religion, says:—'Their masters generally neglect them, as though immortality was not the privilege of their souls in common with their own.' Wesley'sJournal, II. 288. But much nearer home Johnson might have found this criminal enforcement of ignorance. Burke, writing in 1779, about the Irish, accuses the legislature of 'condemning a million and a half of people to ignorance, according to act of parliament.' Burke'sCorres. ii. 294.
[80] Seepost, March 21, 1775, and Appendix.
[81] Johnson said very finely:—'Languages are the pedigree of nations.' Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 18, 1773.
[82] The Rev. Mr. John Campbell, Minister of the Parish of Kippen, near Stirling, who has lately favoured me with a long, intelligent, and very obliging letter upon this work, makes the following remark:—'Dr. Johnson has alluded to the worthy man employed in the translation of the New Testament. Might not this have afforded you an opportunity of paying a proper tribute of respect to the memory of the Rev. Mr. James Stuart, late Minister of Killin, distinguished by his eminent Piety, Learning and Taste? The amiable simplicity of his life, his warm benevolence, his indefatigable and successful exertions for civilizing and improving the Parish of which he was Minister for upwards of fifty years, entitle him to the gratitude of his country, and the veneration of all good men. It certainly would be a pity, if such a character should be permitted to sink into oblivion.' BOSWELL.
[83] Seven years later Johnson received from the Society some religious works in Erse. See post, June 24, 1774. Yet in his journey to the Hebrides, in 1773 (Works, ix. 101), he had to record of the parochial schools in those islands that 'by the rule of their institution they teachonlyEnglish, so that the natives read a language which they may never use or understand,'
[84] This paragraph shews Johnson's real estimation of the character and abilities of the celebrated Scottish Historian, however lightly, in a moment of caprice, he may have spoken of his works. BOSWELL.
[85] Seeante, i. 210.
[86] This is the person concerning whom Sir John Hawkins has thrown out very unwarrantable reflections both against Dr. Johnson and Mr. Francis Barber. BOSWELL. Seepost, under Oct. 20, 1784. In 1775, Heely, it appears, applied through Johnson for the post that was soon to be vacant of 'master of the tap' at Ranelagh House. 'He seems,' wrote Johnson, in forwarding his letter of application, 'to have a genius for an alehouse.'Piozzi Letters, i. 210. See alsopost, Aug. 12, 1784.
[87] See an account of him in theEuropean Magazine, Jan. 1786. BOSWELL. There we learn that he was in his time a grammar-school usher, actor, poet, the puffing partner in a quack medicine, and tutor to a youthful Earl. He was suspected of levying blackmail by threats of satiric publications, and he suffered from a disease which rendered him an object almost offensive to sight. He was born in 1738 or 1739, and died in 1771.
[88] It was republished inThe Repository, ii. 227, edition of 1790.
[89] The Hon. Thomas Hervey, whoseLetter to Sir Thomas Hanmerin 1742 was much read at that time. He was the second son of John, first Earl of Bristol, and one of the brothers of Johnson's early friend Henry Hervey. He died Jan. 20, 1775. MALONE. Seepost, April 6, 1775.
[90] Seepost, under Sept. 22, 1777, for another story told by Beauclerk against Johnson of a Mr. Hervey.
[91] Essays published in theDaily Gazetteerand afterwards collected into two vols.Gent. Mag. for 1748, P. 48.
[92] Mr. Croker regrets that Johnson employed his pen for hire in Hervey's 'disgusting squabbles,' and in a long note describes Hervey's letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer with whose wife he had eloped. But the attack to which Johnson was hired to reply was not made by Hanmer, but, as was supposed, by Sir C. H. Williams. Because a man has wronged another, he is not therefore to submit to the attacks of a third. Williams, moreover, it must be remembered, was himself a man of licentious character.
[93] Buckingham House, bought in 1761, by George III, and settled on Queen Charlotte. The present Buckingham Palace occupies the site. P. CUNNINGHAM. Here, according to Hawkins (Life, p. 470), Johnson met the Prince of Wales (George IV.) when a child, 'and enquired as to his knowledge of the Scriptures; the prince in his answers gave him great satisfaction.' Horace Walpole, writing of the Prince at the age of nineteen, says (Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 503):—'Nothing was coarser than his conversation and phrases; and it made men smile to find that in the palace of piety and pride his Royal Highness had learnt nothing but the dialect of footmen and grooms.'
[94] Dr. Johnson had the honour of contributing his assistance towards the formation of this library; for I have read a long letter from him to Mr. Barnard, giving the most masterly instructions on the subject. I wished much to have gratified my readers with the perusal of this letter, and have reason to think that his Majesty would have been graciously pleased to permit its publication; but Mr. Barnard, to whom I applied, declined it 'on his own account.' BOSWELL. It is given in Mr. Croker's edition, p. 196.
[95] The particulars of this conversation I have been at great pains to collect with the utmost authenticity from Dr. Johnson's own detail to myself; from Mr. Langton who was present when he gave an account of it to Dr. Joseph Warton, and several other friends, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's; from Mr. Barnard; from the copy of a letter written by the late Mr. Strahan the printer, to Bishop Warburton; and from a minute, the original of which is among the papers of the late Sir James Caldwell, and a copy of which was most obligingly obtained for me from his son Sir John Caldwell, by Sir Francis Lumm. To all these gentlemen I beg leave to make my grateful acknowledgements, and particularly to Sir Francis Lumm, who was pleased to take a great deal of trouble, and even had the minute laid before the King by Lord Caermarthen, now Duke of Leeds, then one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, who announced to Sir Francis the Royal pleasure concerning it by a letter, in these words: 'I have the King's commands to assure you, Sir, how sensible his Majesty is of your attention in communicating the minute of the conversation previous to its publication. As there appears no objection to your complying with Mr. Boswell's wishes on the subject, you are at full liberty to deliver it to that gentleman, to make such use of in hisLife of Dr. Johnson, as he may think proper.' BOSWELL. In 1790, Boswell published in a quarto sheet of eight pagesA conversation between His Most Sacred Majesty George III. and Samuel Johnson, LLD. Illustrated with Observations. By James Boswell, Esq. London. Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly in the Poultry. MDCCXC. Price Half-a-Guinea. Entered in the Hall-Book of the Company of Stationers. It is of the same impression as the first edition ofthe Life of Johnson.
[96] After Michaelmas, 1766. Seeante, ii. 25.
[97] Seepost, May, 31, 1769, note.
[98] Writing to Langton, on May 10, of the year before he had said, 'I read more than I did. I hope something will yet come on it.'Ante, ii. 20.
[99] Boswell and Goldsmith had in like manner urged him 'to continue his labours.' Seeante, i. 398, and ii. 15.
[100] Johnson had written to Lord Chesterfield in thePlan of his Dictionary(Works, v. 19), 'Ausonius thought that modesty forbade him to plead inability for a task to which Caesar had judged him equal:—Cur me posse negem posse quod ille pufat?' We may compare also a passage in Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary(ii. 377):—'THE KING. "I believe there is no constraint to be put upon real genius; nothing but inclination can set it to work. Miss Burney, however, knows best." And then hastily returning to me he cried; "What? what?" "No, sir, I—I—believe not, certainly," quoth I, very awkwardly, for I seemed taking a violent compliment only as my due; but I knew not how to put him off as I would another person.'
[101] In one part of the character of Pope (Works, viii. 319), Johnson seems to be describing himself:—'He certainly was in his early life a man of great literary curiosity; and when he wrote hisEssay on Criticismhad for his age a very wide acquaintance with books. When he entered into the living world, it seems to have happened to him as to many others, that he was less attentive to dead masters; he studied in the academy of Paracelsus, and made the universe his favourite volume…. His frequent references to history, his allusions to various kinds of knowledge, and his images selected from art and nature, with his observations on the operations of the mind and the modes of life, show an intelligence perpetually on the wing, excursive, vigorous, and diligent, eager to pursue knowledge, and attentive to retain it.' Seeante, i. 57.
[102] Johnson thus describes Warburton (Works, viii. 288):—'About this time [1732] Warburton began to make his appearance in the first ranks of learning. He was a man of vigorous faculties, a mind fervid and vehement, supplied by incessant and unlimited enquiry, with wonderful extent and variety of knowledge.' Cradock (Memoirs, i. 188) says that 'Bishop Kurd always wondered where it was possible for Warburton to meet with certain anecdotes with which not only his conversation, but likewise his writings, abounded. "I could have readily informed him," said Mrs. Warburton, "for, when we passed our winters in London, he would often, after his long and severe studies, send out for a whole basketful of books from the circulating libraries; and at times I have gone into his study, and found him laughing, though alone."' Lord Macaulay was, in this respect, the Warburton of our age.
[103] The Rev. Mr. Strahan clearly recollects having been told by Johnson, that the King observed that Pope made Warburton a Bishop. 'True, Sir, (said Johnson,) but Warburton did more for Pope; he made him a Christian:' alluding, no doubt, to his ingenious Comments on theEssay on Man. BOSWELL. The statements both of the King and Johnson are supported by two passages in Johnson'sLife of Pope, (Works, viii. 289, 290). He says of Warburton's Comments:—'Pope, who probably began to doubt the tendency of his own work, was glad that the positions, of which he perceived himself not to know the full meaning, could by any mode of interpretation be made to mean well…. From this time Pope lived in the closest intimacy with his commentator, and amply rewarded his kindness and his zeal; for he introduced him to Mr. Murray, by whose interest he became preacher at Lincoln's Inn; and to Mr. Allen, who gave him his niece and his estate, and by consequence a bishoprick.' See also the account given by Johnson, in Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 21, 1773. Bishop Law in his Revised Preface to Archbishop King'sOrigin of Evil(1781), p. xvii, writes:—'I had now the satisfaction of seeing that those very principles which had been maintained by Archbishop King were adopted by Mr. Pope in his Essay on Man; this I used to recollect, and sometimes relate, with pleasure, conceiving that such an account did no less honour to the poet than to our philosopher; but was soon made to understand that anything of that kind was taken highly amiss by one [Warburton] who had once held the doctrine of that same Essay to be rank atheism, but afterwards turned a warm advocate for it, and thought proper to deny the account above-mentioned, with heavy menaces against those who presumed to insinuate that Pope borrowed anything from any man whatsoever.' Seepost, Oct. 10, 1779.
[104] In Gibbon'sMemoirs, a fine passage is quoted from Lowth's Defence of the University of Oxford, against Warburton's reproaches. 'I transcribe with pleasure this eloquent passage,' writes Gibbon, 'without inquiring whether in this angry controversy the spirit of Lowth himself is purified from the intolerant zeal which Warburton had ascribed to the genius of the place.' Gibbon'sMisc. Works, i. 47. See BOSWELL'SHebrides, Aug. 28, 1773.
[105] Seepost, April 15, 1773, where Johnson says that Lyttelton 'in hisHistorywrote the most vulgar Whiggism,' and April 10, 1776. Gibbon, who had reviewed it this year, says in hisMemoirs(Misc. Works, i. 207): 'The public has ratified my judgment of that voluminous work, in which sense and learning are not illuminated by a ray of genius.'
[106] Hawkins says of him (Life, p. 211):—'He obtained from one of those universities which would scarce refuse a degree to an apothecary's horse a diploma for that of doctor of physic.' He became a great compiler and in one year earned £1500. In the end he turned quack-doctor. He was knighted by the King of Sweden 'in return for a present to that monarch of hisVegetable System.' He at least thrice attacked Garrick (Murphy'sGarrick, pp. 136, 189, 212), who replied with three epigrams, of which the last is well-known:—
'For Farces and Physic his equal there scarce is;His Farces are Physic, his Physic a Farce is.'
Horace Walpole (Lettersiii. 372), writing on Jan. 3, 1761, said:—'Would you believe, what I know is fact, that Dr. Hill earned fifteen guineas a week by working for wholesale dealers? He was at once employed on six voluminous works of Botany, Husbandry, &c., published weekly.' Churchill in the Rescind thus writes of him:—
'Who could so nobly grace the motley list,Actor, Inspector, Doctor, Botanist?Knows any one so well—sure no one knows—At once to play, prescribe, compound, compose?'
Churchill'sPoems, i. 6. In theGent. Mag. xxii. 568, it is stated that he had acted pantomime, tragedy and comedy, and had been damned in all.
[107] Mr. Croker quotes Bishop Elrington, who says, 'Dr. Johnson was unjust to Hill, and showed thathedid not understand the subject.' Croker'sBoswell, p. 186.
[108] D'Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, i. 201) says that 'Hill, once when he fell sick, owned to a friend that he had over-fatigued himself with writing seven works at once, one of which was on architecture and another on cookery.' D'Israeli adds that Hill contracted to translate a Dutch work on insects for fifty guineas. As he was ignorant of the language, he bargained with another translator for twenty-five guineas. This man, who was equally ignorant, rebargained with a third, who perfectly understood his original, for twelve guineas.
[109] Gibbon (Misc. Works, v. 442), writing on Dec. 20, 1763, of theJournal des Savans, says:—'I can hardly express how much I am delighted with this journal; its characteristics are erudition, precision, and taste…. The father of all the rest, it is still their superior…. There is nothing to be wished for in it but a little more boldness and philosophy; but it is published under the Chancellor's eye.'
[110] Goldsmith, in hisPresent State of Polite Learning(ch. xi.), published in 1759, says;—'We have two literary reviews in London, with critical newspapers and magazines without number. The compilers of these resemble the commoners of Rome, they are all for levelling property, not by increasing their own, but by diminishing that of others…. The most diminutive son of fame or of famine has hisweand hisus, hisfirstlysand hissecondlys, as methodical as if bound in cow-hide and closed with clasps of brass. Were these Monthly Reviews and Magazines frothy, pert, or absurd, they might find some pardon, but to be dull and dronish is an encroachment on the prerogative of a folio.'
[111] Seepost, April 10, 1766.
[112] Mr. White, the Librarian of the Royal Society, has, at my request, kindly examined the records of the Royal Society, but has not been able to discover what the 'circumstance' was. Neither is any light thrown on it by Johnson's reviews of Birch'sHistory of the Royal SocietyandPhilosophical Transactions, vol. xlix. (ante, i. 309), which I have examined.
[113] 'Were you to converse with a King, you ought to be as easy and unembarrassed as with your own valet-de-chambre; but yet every look, word, and action should imply the utmost respect. What would be proper and well-bred with others much your superior, would be absurd and ill-bred with one so very much so.' Chesterfield'sLetters, iii. 203.
[114] Imlac thus described to Rasselas his interview with the Great Mogul:—'The emperor asked me many questions concerning my country and my travels; and though I cannot now recollect anything that he uttered above the power of a common man, he dismissed me astonished at his wisdom, and enamoured of his goodness.'Rasselas, chap. ix. Wraxall (Memoirs, edit. of 1884, i. 283) says that Johnson was no judge of a fine gentleman. 'George III,' he adds, 'was altogether destitute of these ornamental and adventitious endowments.' He mentions 'the oscillations of his body, the precipitation of his questions, none of which, it was said, would wait for an answer, and the hurry of his articulation.' Mr. Wheatley, in a note on this passage, quotes the opinion of 'Adams, the American Envoy, who said, the "King is, I really think, the most accomplished courtier in his dominions."'
[115] 'Dr. Warton made me a most obsequious bow…. He is what Dr. Johnson calls a rapturist, and I saw plainly he meant to pour forth much civility into my ears. He is a very communicative, gay, and pleasant converser, and enlivened the whole day by his readiness upon all subjects.' Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary, ii. 236. It is very likely that he is 'the ingenious writer' mentionedpost, 1780, in Mr. Langton's 'Collection,' of whom Johnson said, 'Sir, he is an enthusiast by rule.' Mr. Windham records that Johnson, speaking of Warton's admiration of fine passages, said:—'His taste is amazement' (misprintedamusement). Windham'sDiary, p. 20. In herMemoirs of Dr. Burney(ii. 82), Mme. D'Arblay says that Johnson 'at times, when in gay spirits, would take off Dr. Warton with the strongest humour; describing, almost convulsively, the ecstasy with which he would seize upon the person nearest to him, to hug in his arms, lest his grasp should be eluded, while he displayed some picture or some prospect.' In that humourous piece,Probationary Odes for the Laureateship(p. xliii), Dr. Joseph is made to hug his brother in his arms, when he sees him descend safely from the balloon in which he had composed hisOde. Thomas Warton is described in the same piece (p. 116) as 'a little, thick, squat, red-faced man.' There was for some time a coolness between Johnson and Dr. Warton. Warton, writing on Jan. 22, 1766, says:—'I only dined with Johnson, who seemed cold and indifferent, and scarce said anything to me; perhaps he has heard what I said of hisShakespeare, or rather was offended at what I wrote to him—as he pleases.' Wooll'sWarton, p. 312. Wooll says that a dispute took place between the two men at Reynolds's house. 'One of the company overheard the following conclusion of the dispute. JOHNSON. "Sir, I am not used to be contradicted." WARTON. "Better for yourself and friends, Sir, if you were; our admiration could not be increased, but our love might."'Ibp. 98.
[116]The Good-Natured Man,postp. 45.
[117] 'It has been said that the King only sought one interview with Dr. Johnson. There was nothing to complain of; it was a compliment paid by rank to letters, and once was enough. The King was more afraid of this interview than Dr. Johnson was; and went to it as a schoolboy to his task. But he did not want to have the trial repeated every day, nor was it necessary. The very jealousy of his self-love marked his respect; and if he thought the less of Dr. Johnson, he would have been more willing to risk the encounter.' Hazlitt'sConversations of Northcote, p. 45. It should seem that Johnson had a second interview with the King thirteen years later. In 1780, Hannah More records (Memoirs, i. 174):—'Johnson told me he had been with the King that morning, who enjoined him to add Spenser to hisLives of the Poets.' It is strange that, so far as I know, this interview is not mentioned by any one else. It is perhaps alluded to,post, Dec., 1784, when Mr. Nichols told Johnson that he wished 'he would gratify his sovereign by aLife of Spenser.'
[118] It is proper here to mention, that when I speak of his correspondence, I consider it independent of the voluminous collection of letters which, in the course of many years, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale, which forms a separate part of his works; and as a proof of the high estimation set on any thing which came from his pen, was sold by that lady for the sum of five hundred pounds. BOSWELL.
[119] He was away from the London 'near six months.' Seeante, ii. 30.
[120] On August 17 he recorded:—'I have communicated with Kitty, and kissed her. I was for some time distracted, but at last more composed. I commended my friends, and Kitty, Lucy, and I were much affected. Kitty is, I think, going to heaven.'Pr. and Med., p. 75.
[121]Pr. and Med., pp. 77 and 78. BOSWELL.
[122]Pr. and Med., p. 73. BOSWELL. On Aug. 17, he recorded:—'By abstinence from wine and suppers I obtained sudden and great relief, and had freedom of mind restored to me, which I have wanted for all this year, without being able to find any means of obtaining it.'Ibp. 74.
[123] Hawkins, in his second edition (p. 347) assigns it to Campbell, 'who,' he says, 'as well for the malignancy of his heart as his terrific countenance, was called horrible Campbell.'
[124] Seeante, i. 218.
[125] The book is as dull as it is indecent. The 'drollery' is of the following kind. Johnson is represented as saying:—'Without dubiety you misapprehend this dazzling scintillation of conceit in totality, and had you had that constant recurrence to my oraculous dictionary which was incumbent upon you from the vehemence of my monitory injunctions,' &c. p. 2.
[126]Pr. and Med., p. 81. BOSWELL. 'This day,' he wrote on his birthday, 'has been passed in great perturbation; I was distracted at church in an uncommon degree, and my distress has had very little intermission…. This day it came into my mind to write the history of my melancholy. On this I purpose to deliberate; I know not whether it may not too much disturb me.' Seepost, April 8, 1780.
[127] It is strange that Boswell nowhere quotes the lines inThe Good-Natured Man, in which Paoli is mentioned. 'That's from Paoli of Corsica,' said Lofty. Act v. sc. i.
[128] In the original, 'Pressedby.' Boswell, in thus changing the preposition, forgot what Johnson says in hisPlan of an English Dictionary(Works, v. 12):—'We say, according to the present modes of speech, The soldier diedofhis wounds, and the sailor perishedwithhunger; and every man acquainted with our language would be offended with a change of these particles, which yet seem originally assigned by chance.'
[129] Boswell, writing to Temple on March 24, says:—'My book has amazing celebrity; Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Walpole, Mrs. Macaulay, and Mr. Garrick have all written me noble letters about it. There are two Dutch translations going forward.'Letters of Boswell, p. 145. It met with a rapid sale. A third edition was called for within a year. Dilly, the publisher, must have done very well by it, as he purchased the copyright for one hundred guineas.Ib, p. 103. 'Pray read the new account of Corsica,' wrote Horace Walpole to Gray on Feb. 18, 1768 (Letters, v. 85). 'The author is a strange being, and has a rage of knowing everybody that ever was talked of. He forced himself upon me at Paris in spite of my teeth and my doors.' To this Gray replied:—'Mr. Boswell's book has pleased and moved me strangely; all, I mean, that relates to Paoli. He is a man born two thousand years after his time! The pamphlet proves, what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity.' InThe Letters of Boswell(p. 122) there is the following under date of Nov. 9, 1767:—'I am always for fixing some period for my perfection, as far as possible. Let it be when my account ofCorsicais published; I shall then have a character which I must support.' In April 16 of the following year, a few weeks after the book had come out, he writes:—'To confess to you at once, Temple, I have since my last coming to town been as wild as ever.' (p. 146.)
[130] Boswell used to put notices of his movements in the newspapers, such as—'James Boswell, Esq., is expected in town.'Public Advertiser, Feb. 28, 1768. 'Yesterday James Boswell, Esq., arrived from Scotland at his lodgings in Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly.'IbMarch 24, 1768. Prior'sGoldsmith, i. 449.
[131] Johnson was very ill during this visit. Mrs. Thrale had at the same time given birth to a daughter, and had been nursed by her mother. His thoughts, therefore, were turned on illness. Writing to Mrs. Thrale, he says:—'To roll the weak eye of helpless anguish, and see nothing on any side but cold indifference, will, I hope, happen to none whom I love or value; it may tend to withdraw the mind from life, but has no tendency to kindle those affections which fit us for a purer and a nobler state…. These reflections do not grow out of any discontent at C's [Chambers's] behaviour; he has been neither negligent nor troublesome; nor do I love him less for having been ill in his house. This is no small degree of praise.'Piozzi Letters, i. 13.
[132] Seeante, ii. 3, note.
[133] The editor of theLetters of Boswelljustly says (p. 149):—'The detail in theLife of Johnsonis rather scanty about this period; dissipation, theHistory of Corsica, wife-hunting, … interfered perhaps at this time with Boswell's pursuit of Dr. Johnson.'
[134] SeeBoswell'sHebrides, Aug. 15, 1773, for a discussion of the same question. Lord Eldon has recorded (Life, i. 106), that when he first went the Northern Circuit (about 1776-1780), he asked Jack Lee (post, March 20, 1778), who was not scrupulous in his advocacy, whether his method could be justified. 'Oh, yes,' he said, 'undoubtedly. Dr. Johnson had said that counsel were at liberty to state, as the parties themselves would state, what it was most for their interest to state.' After some interval, and when he had had his evening bowl of milk punch and two or three pipes of tobacco, he suddenly said, 'Come, Master Scott, let us go to bed. I have been thinking upon the questions that you asked me, and I am not quite so sure that the conduct you represented will bring a man peace at the last.' Lord Eldon, after stating pretty nearly what Johnson had said, continues:—'But it may be questioned whether even this can be supported.'
[135] Garrick brought out Hugh Kelly'sFalse Delicacyat Drury Lane six days before Goldsmith'sGood-Natured Manwas brought out at Covent Garden. 'It was the town talk,' says Mr. Forster (Life of Goldsmith, ii. 93), some weeks before either performance took place, 'that the two comedies were to be pitted against each other.'False Delicacyhad a great success. Ten thousand copies of it were sold before the season closed. (Ibp. 96.) 'Garrick's prologue toFalse Delicacy,' writes Murphy (Life of Garrick, p. 287), 'promised a moral and sentimental comedy, and with an air of pleasantry called it a sermon in five acts. The critics considered it in the same light, but the general voice was in favour of the play during a run of near twenty nights. Foote, at last, by a little piece calledPiety in Pattens, brought that species of composition into disrepute.' It is recorded in Johnson'sWorks(1787), xi. 201, that when some one asked Johnson whether they should introduce Hugh Kelly to him, 'No, Sir,' says he, 'I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.' Seepost, beginning of 1777.
[136]The Provoked Husband, or A Journey to London, by Vanbrugh and Colley Cibber. It was brought out in 1727-8. Seepost, June 3, 1784.
[137] Seeante, i. 213.
[138] April 6, 1772, and April 12, 1776.
[139] Richardson, writing on Dec. 7, 1756, to Miss Fielding, about her Familiar Letters, says:—'What a knowledge of the human heart! Well might a critical judge of writing say, as he did to me, that your late brother's knowledge of it was not (fine writer as he was) comparable to yours. His was but as the knowledge of the outside of a clock-work machine, while yours was that of all the finer springs and movements of the inside.'Richardson Corres. ii. 104. Mrs. Calderwood, writing of her visit to the Low Countries in 1756, says:—'All Richison's [Richardson's] books are translated, and much admired abroad; but for Fielding's the foreigners have no notion of them, and do not understand them, as the manners are so entirely English.'Letters, &c., of Mrs. Calderwood, p. 208
[140] InThe Provoked Husband, act iv. sc. 1.
[141] By Dr. Hoadley, brought out in 1747. 'This was the first good comedy from the time ofThe Provoked Husbandin 1727.' Murphy'sGarrick, p. 78.
[142] Madame Riccoboni, writing to Garrick from Paris on Sept. 7, 1768, says:—'On ne supporterait point ici l'indécence de Ranger. Les trèsindécens Françaisdeviennent délicats sur leur théâtre, à mesure qu'ils le sont moins dans leur conduite.'Garrick's Corres. ii. 548.
[143] 'The question in dispute was as to the heirship of Mr. Archibald Douglas. If he were really the son of Lady Jane Douglas, he would inherit large family estates; but if he were supposititious, then they would descend to the Duke of Hamilton. The Judges of the Court of Session had been divided in opinion, eight against seven, the Lord President Dundas giving the casting vote in favour of the Duke of Hamilton; and in consequence of it he and several other of the judges had, on the reversal by the Lords, their houses attacked by a mob. It is said, but not upon conclusive authority, that Boswell himself headed the mob which broke his own father's windows.'Letters of Boswell, p. 86. Seepost, April 27, 1773, and Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 24-26, 1773. Mr. J. H. Burton, in hisLife of Hume(ii. 150), says:—'Men about to meet each other in company used to lay an injunction on themselves not to open their lips on the subject, so fruitful was it in debates and brawls.' Boswell, according to the Bodleian catalogue, was the author ofDorando, A Spanish Tale, 1767. In this tale the Douglas cause is narrated under the thinnest disguise. It is reviewed in theGent. Mag. for 1767, p. 361.
[144] Seepost, under April 19, 1772, March 15, 1779, and June 2, 1781.
[145] Revd. Kenneth Macaulay. See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 27, 1773. He was the great-uncle of Lord Macaulay.
[146] Martin, in hisSt. Kilda(p. 38), had stated that the people of St. Kilda 'are seldom troubled with a cough, except at the Steward's landing. I told them plainly,' he continues, 'that I thought all this notion of infection was but a mere fancy, at which they seemed offended, saying, that never any before the minister and myself was heard to doubt of the truth of it, which is plainly demonstrated upon the landing of every boat.' The usual 'infected cough,' came, he says, upon his visit. Macaulay (History of St. Kilda, p. 204) says that he had gone to the island a disbeliever, but that by eight days after his arrival all the inhabitants were infected with this disease. See alsopost, March, 21, 1772, and Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 2, 1773.
[147] Seeante, July 1, 1763.
[148]Post, March 21, 1772.
[149] This is not the case. Martin (p. 9) says that the only landing place is inaccessible except under favour of a neap tide, a north-east or west wind, or with a perfect calm. He himself was rowed to St. Kilda, 'the inhabitants admiring to see us get thither contrary to the wind and tide' (p. 5).
[150] That for one kind of learning Oxford has no advantages, he shows in a letter that he wrote there on Aug. 4, 1777. 'I shall inquire,' he says, 'about the harvest when I come into a region where anything necessary to life is understood.'Piozzi Letters, i. 349. At Lichfield he reached that region. 'My barber, a man not unintelligent, speaks magnificently of the harvest;'Ibp. 351.
[151] Seepost, Sept. 14, 1777.
[152] Seeante, i. 116.
[153] The advancement had been very rapid. 'When Dr. Robertson's career commenced,' writes Dugald Stewart in hisLifeof that historian (p. 157), 'the trade of authorship was unknown in Scotland.' Smollet, inHumphry Clinker, published three years after this conversation, makes Mr. Bramble write (Letter of Aug. 8):—'Edinburgh is a hot-bed of genius. I have had the good fortune to be made acquainted with many authors of the first distinction; such as the two Humes [David Hume and John Home, whose names had the same pronunciation], Robertson, Smith, Wallace, Blair, Ferguson, Wilkie, &c.' To these might be added Smollett himself, Boswell, Reid, Beattie, Kames, Monboddo. Henry Mackenzie and Dr. Henry began to publish in 1771. Gibbon, writing to Robertson in 1779, says:—'I have often considered with some sort of envy the valuable society which you possess in so narrow a compass.' Stewart'sRobertson, p. 363.
[154] Seepost, April 30, 1773, where Johnson owned that he had not read Hume. J.H. Burton (Life of Hume, ii. 129), after stating that 'Hume was the first to add to a mere narrative of events an enquiry into the progress of the people, &c.,' says:—'There seems to be no room for the supposition that he had borrowed the idea from Voltaire'sEssai sur les Moeurs. Hume's ownPolitical Discoursesare as close an approach to this method of inquiry as the work of Voltaire; and if we look for such productions of other writers as may have led him into this train of thought, it would be more just to name Bacon and Montesquieu.'
[155] Seepost, May 8 and 13, 1778.
[156] Seepost, April 30, 1773, April 29, 1778, and Oct. 10, 1779.
[157]An Essay on the Future Life of Brutes. By Richard Dean, Curate of Middleton, Manchester, 1767. The 'part of the Scriptures' on which the author chiefly relies is theEpistle to the Romans, viii. 19-23. He also finds support for his belief in 'those passages inIsaiahwhere the prophet speaks of new Heavens, and a new Earth, of the Lion as eating straw like the Ox, &c.' Vol. ii. pp. x, 4.
[158] The words that Addison's Cato uses as he lays his hand on his sword. Act v. sc. 1.
[159] I should think it impossible not to wonder at the variety of Johnson's reading, however desultory it may have been. Who could have imagined that the High Church of England-man would be so prompt in quotingMaupertuis, who, I am sorry to think, stands in the list of those unfortunate mistaken men, who call themselvesesprits forts. I have, however, a high respect for that Philosopher whom the Great Frederick of Prussia loved and honoured, and addressed pathetically in one of his Poems,—
'Maupertuis, cher Maupertuis,Que notre vie est peu de chose!'
There was in Maupertuis a vigour and yet a tenderness of sentiment, united with strong intellectual powers, and uncommon ardour of soul. Would he had been a Christian! I cannot help earnestly venturing to hope that he is one now. BOSWELL. Voltaire writing to D'Alembert on Aug. 25, 1759, says:—'Que dites-vous de Maupertuis, mort entre deux capucins?' Voltaire'sWorks, lxii. 94. The stanza from which Boswell quotes is as follows:—
'O Maupertuis, cher Maupertuis,Que notre vie est peu de chose!Cette fleur, qui brille aujourd'huiDemain se fane à peine éclose;Tout périt, tout est emportéPar la dure fatalitéDes arrtês de la destinée;Votre vertu, vos grands talentsNe pourront obtenir du tempsLe seul délai d'une journée.'_La vie est un Songe. Euvres deFrédéric II (edit. 1849), x. 40.
[160] Johnson does not giveConglobulatein hisDictionary; onlyconglobe. If he used the word it is not likely that he said 'conglobulatetogether.'
[161] Gilbert White, writing on Nov. 4, 1767, after mentioning that he had seen swallows roosting in osier-beds by the river, says:—'This seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water.' White'sSelborne, Letter xii. See alsopost, May 7, 1773.
[162]Travels from St. Petersburgh in Russia to divers parts of Asia. By John Bell, Glasgow, 1763: 4to. 2 vols.
[163] I. D'Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, i. 194) ranks this book among Literary Impostures. 'Du Halde never travelled ten leagues from Paris in his life; though he appears by his writings to be familiar with Chinese scenery.' Seeante, i. 136.
[164] Seepost, Oct. 10, 1779.
[165] Boswell, in his correspondence with Temple in 1767 and 1768, passes in review the various ladies whom he proposes to marry. The lady described in this paragraph—for the 'gentleman' is clearly Boswell—is 'the fair and lively Zelide,' a Dutch-woman. She was translating hisCorsicainto French. On March 24, 1768, he wrote, 'I must have her.' On April 26, he asked his father's permission to go over to Holland to see her. But on May 14 he forwarded to Temple one of her letters. 'Could,' he said, 'any actress at any of the theatres attack me with a keener—what is the word? not fury, something softer. The lightning that flashes with so much brilliance may scorch, and does not her esprit do so?'Letters of Boswell, pp. 144-150.
[166] In the original it issomenotmany. Johnson'sWorks, vii. 182.
[167]An account of the Manners and Customs of Italy, by Joseph Baretti, London, 1768. The book would be still more entertaining were it not written as a reply to Sharp'sLetters on Italy.Postunder April 29, 1776.
[168] Mrs. Piozzi wrote of him: 'His character is easily seen, and his soul above disguise, haughty and insolent, and breathing defiance against all mankind; while his powers of mind exceed most people's, and his powers of purse are so slight that they leave him dependent on all. Baretti is for ever in the state of a stream damned up; if he could once get loose, he would bear down all before him.' Hayward'sPiozzi, ii. 335.
[169] According to Hawkins (Life, p. 460), the watch was new this year, and was, he believed, the first Johnson ever had.
[170]St. John, ix. 4. InPr. and Med., p. 233, is the following:—'Ejaculation imploring diligence. "O God, make me to remember that the night cometh when no man can work."' Porson, in his witty attack on Sir John Hawkins, originally published in theGent. Mag. for 1787, quotes the inscription as a proof of Hawkins's Greek. 'Nux gar erchetai. The meaning is (says Sir John)For the night cometh. And so it is, Mr. Urban.' PorsonTracts, p. 337.
[171] He thus wrote of himself from Oxford to Mrs. Thrale:—'This little dog does nothing, but I hope he will mend; he is now readingJack the Giant-killer. Perhaps so noble a narrative may rouse in him the soul of enterprise.'Piozzi Letters, i. 9.
[172] Seeante, ii. 3
[173] Under the same date, Boswell thus begins a letter to Temple:—'Your moral lecture came to me yesterday in very good time, while I lay suffering severely for immorality. If there is any firmness at all in me, be assured that I shall never again behave in a manner so unworthy the friend of Paoli. My warm imagination looks forward with great complacency on the sobriety, the healthfulness, and the worth of my future life.'Letters of Boswell, p. 147
[174] Johnson so early as Aug. 21, 1766, had given him the same advice (ante, ii. 22). How little Boswell followed it is shewn by his letter to the Earl of Chatham, on April 8, 1767, in which he informed him of his intention to publish hisCorsica, and concluded:—'Could your Lordship find time to honour me now and then with a letter? I have been told how favourably your Lordship has spoken of me. To correspond with a Paoli and with a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of virtuous fame.'Chatham Corres., iii. 246. On the same day on which he wrote to Johnson, he said in a letter to Temple, 'Old General Oglethorpe, who has come to see me, and is with me often, just on account of my book, bids me not marry till I have first put the Corsicans in a proper situation. "You may make a fortune in the doing of it," said he; "or, if you do not, you will have acquired such a character as will entitle you to any fortune."'Letters of Boswell, p. 148. Four months later, Boswell wrote:—'By a private subscription in Scotland, I am sending this week £700 worth of ordnance [to Corsica] … It is really a tolerable train of artillery.'Ibp. 156. In 1769 he brought out a small volume entitledBritish Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans. By Several Hands. Collected and published by James Boswell, Esq.
[175] From about the beginning of the fourteenth century, Corsica had belonged to the Republic of Genoa. In the great rising under Paoli, the Corsicans would have achieved their independence, had not Genoa ceded the island to the crown of France.
[176] Boswell, writing to Temple on May 14 of this year, says:—'I am really thegreat mannow. I have had David Hume in the forenoon, and Mr. Johnson in the afternoon of the same day, visiting me. Sir J. Pringle and Dr. Franklin dined with me to-day; and Mr. Johnson and General Oglethorpe one day, Mr. Garrick alone another, and David Hume and some moreliteratianother, dine with me next week. I give admirable dinners and good claret; and the moment I go abroad again, which will be in a day or two, I set up my chariot. This is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and appearing like the friend of Paoli.'Letters of Boswell, p. 151.
[177] Seepost, April 12, 1778, and May 8, 1781.
[178] The talk arose no doubt from the general election that had just been held amid all the excitement about Wilkes. Dr. Franklin (Memoirs, iii. 307), in a letter dated April 16, 1768, describes the riots in London. He had seen 'the mob requiring gentlemen and ladies of all ranks as they passed in their carriages, to shout for Wilkes and liberty, marking the same words on all their coaches with chalk, and No. 45 on every door. I went last week to Winchester, and observed that for fifteen miles out of town there was scarce a door or window shutter next the road unmarked; and this continued here and there quite to Winchester.'
[179] In hisVindication of the Licensers of the Stage, he thus writes:—'If I might presume to advise them [the Ministers] upon this great affair, I should dissuade them from any direct attempt upon the liberty of the press, which is the darling of the common people, and therefore cannot be attacked without immediate danger.'Works, v. 344. On p. 191 of the same volume, he shows some of the benefits that arise in England from 'the boundless liberty with which every man may write his own thoughts.' See also in hisLife of Milton, the passage aboutAreopagitica,Ibvii. 82. The liberty of the press was likely to be 'a constant topic.' Horace Walpole (Memoirs of the Reign of George III, ii. 15), writing of the summer of 1764, says:—'Two hundred informations were filed against printers; a larger number than had been prosecuted in the whole thirty-three years of the last reign.'
[180] 'The sun has risen, and the corn has grown, and, whatever talk has been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly reaped it, and he that built a house was master of the door; the vexation excited by injustice suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by any private man, or single community, was local and temporary; it neither spread far nor lasted long.' Johnson'sWorks, vi. 170. See alsopost, March 31, 1772. Dr. Franklin (Memoirs, iii. 215) wrote to the Abbé Morellet, on April 22, 1787:—'Nothing can be better expressed than your sentiments are on this point, where you prefer liberty of trading, cultivating, manufacturing, &c., even to civil liberty, this being affected but rarely, the other every hour.'
[181] Seeante, July 6, 1763.
[182] Seeante, Oct. 1765.
[183] 'I was diverted with Paoli's English library. It consisted of:—Some broken volumes of theSpectatourandTatler; Pope'sEssay on Man;Gulliver's Travels; AHistory of Francein old English; and Barclay'sApology for the Quakers. I promised to send him some English books… I have sent him some of our best books of morality and entertainment, in particular the works of Mr. Samuel Johnson.' Boswell'sCorsica, p. 169.
[184] Johnson, as Boswell believed, only once 'in the whole course of his life condescended to oppose anything that was written against him.' (Seeante, i. 314.) In this he followed the rule of Bentley and of Boerhaave. 'It was said to old Bentley, upon the attacks against him, "why, they'll write you down." "No, Sir," he replied; "depend upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself."' Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 1 1773. Bentley shewed prudence in his silence. 'He was right,' Johnson said, 'not to answer; for, in his hazardous method of writing, he could not but be often enough wrong.' Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 10, 1773. 'Boerhaave was never soured by calumny and detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to confute them; "for they are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves."' Johnson'sWorks, vi. 288. Swift, in hisLines on Censurewhich begin,—
'Ye wise instruct me to endureAn evil which admits no cure.'
ends by saying:—
'The most effectual way to baulkTheir malice is—to let them talk.'Swift'sWorks, xi. 58.
Young, in hisSecond Epistle to Pope, had written:—
'Armed with this truth all critics I defy;For if I fall, by my own pen I die.'
Hume, in hisAuto. (p. ix.) says:—'I had a fixed resolution, which I inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body.' This is not quite true. See J. H. Burton'sLife of Hume, ii. 252, for an instance of a violent reply. The following passages in Johnson's writings are to the same effect:—'I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those that they provoke.'Piozzi Lettersii. 289. 'It is very rarely that an author is hurt by his critics. The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket.'Ibp. 110. 'The writer who thinks his works formed for duration mistakes his interest when he mentions his enemies. He degrades his own dignity by shewing that he was affected by their censures, and gives lasting importance to names, which, left to themselves would vanish from remembrance.' Johnson'sWorks, vii. 294. 'If it had been possible for those who were attacked to conceal their pain and their resentment, theDunciadmight have made its way very slowly in the world.'Ibviii. 276. Hawkins (Life of Johnson, p. 348) says that, 'against personal abuse Johnson was ever armed by a reflection that I have heard him utter:—"Alas! reputation would be of little worth, were it in the power of every concealed enemy to deprive us of it."' In hisParl. Debates(Works, x. 359), Johnson makes Mr. Lyttelton say:—'No man can fall into contempt but those who deserve it.' Addison inThe Freeholder, No. 40, says, that 'there is not a more melancholy object in the learned world than a man who has written himself down.' See also Boswell'sHebrides, near the end.
[185] Barber had entered Johnson's service in 1752 (ante, i. 239). Nine years before this letter was written he had been a sailor on board a frigate (ante, i. 348), so that he was somewhat old for a boy.
[186] Boswell, writing to Temple on May 14 of this year; says:—'Dr. Robertson is come up laden with hisCharles V.—three large quartos; he has been offered three thousand guineas for it.'Letters of Boswell, p. 152.
[187] In like manner the professors at Aberdeen and Glasgow seemed afraid to speak in his presence. See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug 23 and Oct 29, 1773. See alsopost, April 20, 1778.
[188] Seeante, July 28, 1763.
[189] Johnson, in inserting this letter, says (Works, viii. 374):—'I communicate it with much pleasure, as it gives me at once an opportunity of recording the fraternal kindness of Thomson, and reflecting on the friendly assistance of Mr. Boswell, from whom I received it.' Seepost, July 9, 1777, and June 18, 1778.
[190] Murphy, in hisLife of Garrick, p. 183, says that Garrick once brought Dr. Munsey—so he writes the name—to call on him. 'Garrick entered the dining-room, and turning suddenly round, ran to the door, and called out, "Dr. Munsey, where are you going?" "Up stairs to see the author," said Munsey. "Pho! pho! come down, the author is here." Dr. Munsey came, and, as he entered the room, said in his free way, "You scoundrel! I was going up to the garret. Who could think of finding an author on the first floor?"' Mrs. Montagu wrote to Lord Lyttelton from Tunbridge in 1760:—'The great Monsey (sic) came hither on Friday … He is great in the coffee-house, great in the rooms, and great on the pantiles.'Montagu Letters, iv. 291. In Rogers'sTable-Talk, p. 271, there is a curious account of him.
[191] Seeante, July 26, 1763.
[192] My respectable friend, upon reading this passage, observed, that he probably must have said not simply, 'strong facts,' but 'strong facts well arranged.' His lordship, however, knows too well the value of written documents to insist on setting his recollection against my notes taken at the time. He does not attempt totraversethe record. The fact, perhaps, may have been, either that the additional words escaped me in the noise of a numerous company, or that Dr. Johnson, from his impetuosity, and eagerness to seize an opportunity to make a lively retort, did not allow Dr. Douglas to finish his sentence. BOSWELL.
[193] 'It is boasted that between November [1712] and January, eleven thousand [ofThe Conduct of the Allies] were sold…. Yet surely whoever surveys this wonder-working pamphlet with cool perusal, will confess that it's efficacy was supplied by the passions of its readers; that it operates by the mere weight of facts, with very little assistance from the hand that produced them.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 203.
[194] 'Every great man, of whatever kind be his greatness, has among his friends those who officiously or insidiously quicken his attention to offences, heighten his disgust, and stimulate his resentment.'Ibviii 266.
[195] See the hard drawing of him in Churchill'sRosciad. BOSWELL. Seeante, i. 391, note 2.
[196] Fortalk, seepost, under March 30 1783.
[197] Seepost, Oct. 6, 1769, and May 8, 1778, where Johnson tosses Boswell.
[198] Seepost, Sept. 22, 1777, and Boswell'sHebrides, Nov. i, 1773.
[199] Seepost, Nov. 27, 1773, note, April 7, 1775, and under May 8, 1781.
[200] He wrote the character of Mr. Mudge. Seepost, under March 20, 1781.
[201] 'Sept. 18, 1769. This day completes the sixtieth year of my age…. The last year has been wholly spent in a slow progress of recovery.'Pr. and Med. p. 85.
[202] In which place he has been succeeded by Bennet Langton, Esq. When that truly religious gentleman was elected to this honorary Professorship, at the same time that Edward Gibbon, Esq., noted for introducing a kind of sneering infidelity into his Historical Writings, was elected Professor in Ancient History, in the room of Dr. Goldsmith, I observed that it brought to my mind, 'Wicked Will Whiston and good Mr. Ditton.' I am now also of that admirable institution as Secretary for Foreign Correspondence, by the favour of the Academicians, and the approbation of the Sovereign. BOSWELL. Goldsmith, writing to his brother in Jan., 1770, said:—'The King has lately been pleased to make me Professor of Ancient History in a Royal Academy of Painting, which he has just established, but there is no salary annexed, and I took it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to myself. Honours to one in my situation are something like ruffles to one that wants a shirt.' Prior'sGoldsmith, ii. 221. 'Wicked Will Whiston,' &c., comes from Swift'sOde for Music, On the Longitude(Swift'sWorks, ed. 1803, xxiv. 39), which begins,—
'The longitude miss'd onBy wicked Will Whiston;And not better hit onBy good Master Ditton.'
It goes on so grossly and so offensively as regards one and the other, that Boswell's comparison was a great insult to Langton as well as to Gibbon.
[203] It has this inscription in a blank leaf:—'Hunc librum D.D. Samuel Johnson, eo quod hic loci studiis interdum vacaret.' Of this library, which is an old Gothick room, he was very fond. On my observing to him that some of themodernlibraries of the University were more commodious and pleasant for study, as being more spacious and airy, he replied, 'Sir, if a man has a mind toprance, he must study at Christ-Church and All-Souls.' BOSWELL.
[204] During this visit he seldom or never dined out. He appeared to be deeply engaged in some literary work. Miss Williams was now with him at Oxford. BOSWELL. It was more likely the state of his health which kept him at home. Writing from Oxford on June 27 of this year to Mrs. Thrale, who had been ill, he says:—'I will not increase your uneasiness with mine. I hope I grow better. I am very cautious and very timorous.'Piozzi Letters, i. 21.
[205] Boswell wrote a letter, signed with his own name, to theLondon Magazinefor 1769 (p. 451) describing the Jubilee. It is followed by a print of himself 'in the dress of an armed Corsican chief,' and by an account, no doubt written by himself. It says:—'Of the most remarkable masks upon this occasion was James Boswell, Esq., in the dress of an armed Corsican chief. He entered the amphitheatre about twelve o'clock. On the front of his cap was embroidered in gold letters,Viva La Liberta; and on one side of it was a handsome blue feather and cockade, so that it had an elegant, as well as a warlike appearance. He wore no mask, saying that it was not proper for a gallant Corsican. So soon as he came into the room he drew universal attention.' Cradock (Memoirs, i. 217) gives a melancholy account of the festival. The preparations were all behind-hand and the weather was stormy. 'There was a masquerade in the evening, and all zealous friends endeavoured to keep up the spirit of it as long as they could, till they were at last informed that the Avon was rising so very fast that no delay could be admitted. The ladies of our party were conveyed by planks from the building to the coach, and found that the wheels had been two feet deep in water.' Garrick in 1771 was asked by the Stratford committee to join them in celebrating a Jubilee every year, as 'the most likely method to promote the interest and reputation of their town.' Boswell caught at the proposal eagerly, and writing to Garrick said:—'I please myself with the prospect of attending you at several more Jubilees at Stratford-upon-Avon.'Garrick Corres. i. 414, 435.
[206] Garrick's correspondents not seldom spoke disrespectfully of Johnson. Thus, Mr. Sharp, writing to him in 1769, talks of 'risking the sneer of one of Dr. Johnson's ghastly smiles.'Ibi. 334. Dr. J. Hoadly, in a letter dated July 25, 1775, says:—'Mr. Good-enough has written a kind of parody of Puffy Pensioner'sTaxation no Tyranny, under the noble title ofResistance no Rebellion.'Ibii. 68.
[207] See ante, i. 181.
[208] In the Preface to myAccount of Corsica, published in 1768, I thus express myself:
'He who publishes a book affecting not to be an authour, and professing an indifference for literary fame, may possibly impose upon many people such an idea of his consequence as he wishes may be received. For my part, I should be proud to be known as an authour, and I have an ardent ambition for literary fame; for, of all possessions, I should imagine literary fame to be the most valuable. A man who has been able to furnish a book, which has been approved by the world, has established himself as a respectable character in distant society, without any danger of having that character lessened by the observation of his weaknesses. To preserve an uniform dignity among those who see us every day, is hardly possible; and to aim at it, must put us under the fetters of perpetual restraint. The authour of an approved book may allow his natural disposition an easy play, and yet indulge the pride of superior genius, when he considers that by those who know him only as an authour, he never ceases to be respected. Such an authour, when in his hours of gloom and discontent, may have the consolation to think, that his writings are, at that very time, giving pleasure to numbers; and such an authour may cherish the hope of being remembered after death, which has been a great object to the noblest minds in all ages.' BOSWELL. His preface to the third edition thus ends:—'When I first ventured to send this book into the world, I fairly owned an ardent desire for literary fame. I have obtained my desire: and whatever clouds may overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors, with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something worthy.' The dedication of the first edition and the preface of the third are both dated Oct. 29—one 1767, and the other 1768. Oct. 29 was his birthday.
[209] Paoli's father had been one of the leaders of the Corsicans in their revolt against Genoa in 1734. Paoli himself was chosen by them as their General-in-chief in 1755. In 1769 the island was conquered by the French. He escaped in an English ship, and settled in England. Here he stayed till 1789, when Mirabeau moved in the National Assembly the recall of all the Corsican patriots. Paoli was thereupon appointed by Louis XVI. Lieutenant-general and military commandant in Corsica. He resisted the violence of the Convention, and was, in consequence, summoned before it. Refusing to obey, an expedition was sent to arrest him. Napoleon Buonaparte fought in the French army, but Paoli's party proved the stronger. The islanders sought the aid of Great Britain, and offered the crown of Corsica to George III. The offer was accepted, but by an act of incredible folly, not Paoli, but Sir Gilbert Eliot, was made Viceroy. Paoli returned to England, where he died in 1807, at the age of eighty-two. In 1796 Corsica was abandoned by the English. By the Revolution it ceased to be a conquered province, having been formally declared an integral part of France. At the present day the Corsicans are proud of being citizens of that great country; no less proud, however, are they of Pascal Paoli, and of the gallant struggle for independence of their forefathers.
[210] According to theAnn. Reg. (xii. 132) Paoli arrived in London on Sept. 21. He certainly was in London on Oct. 10, for on that day he was presented by Boswell to Johnson. Yet Wesley records in hisJournal(iii. 370) on Oct. 13:—'I very narrowly missed meeting the great Pascal Paoli. He landed in the dock [at Portsmouth] but a very few minutes after I left the waterside. Surely He who hath been with him from his youth up hath not sent him into England for nothing.' In thePublic Advertiserfor Oct. 4 there is the following entry, inserted no doubt by Boswell:—'On Sunday last General Paoli, accompanied by James Boswell, Esq., took an airing in Hyde Park in his coach.' PriorsGoldsmith, i. 450. Horace Walpole writes:—'Paoli's character had been so advantageously exaggerated by Mr. Boswell's enthusiastic and entertaining account of him, that the Opposition were ready to incorporate him in the list of popular tribunes. The Court artfully intercepted the project; and deeming patriots of all nations equally corruptible, bestowed a pension of £1000 a year on the unheroic fugitive.'Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iii. 387.
[211] Johnson, writes Mrs. Piozzi (Anec., p. 228), ridiculed a friend 'who, looking out on Streatham Common from our windows, lamented the enormous wickedness of the times, because some bird-catchers were busy there one fine Sunday morning. "While half the Christian world is permitted," said Johnson, "to dance and sing and celebrate Sunday as a day of festivity, how comes your puritanical spirit so offended with frivolous and empty deviations from exactness? Whoever loads life with unnecessary scruples, Sir," continued he, "provokes the attention of others on his conduct, and incurs the censure of singularity, without reaping the reward of superior virtue."' See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 20, 1773.
[212] The first edition of Hume'sHistory of Englandwas full of Scotticisms, many of which he corrected in subsequent editions. MALONE. According to Mr. J. H. Burton (Life of Hume, ii. 79), 'He appears to have earnestly solicited the aid of Lyttelton, Mallet, and others, whose experience of English composition might enable them to detect Scotticisms.' Mr. Burton gives instances of alterations made in the second edition. He says also that 'in none of his historical or philosophical writings does any expression used by him, unless in those cases where a Scotticism has escaped his vigilance, betray either the district or the county of his origin.'Ibi. 9. Hume was shown in manuscript Reid'sInquiry into the Human Mind. Though it was an attack on his own philosophy, yet in reading it 'he kept,' he says, 'a watchful eye all along over the style,' so that he might point out any Scotticisms.Ibii. 154. Nevertheless, as Dugald Stewart says in hisLife of Robertson(p. 214), 'Hume fails frequently both in purity and grammatical correctness.' Even in his later letters I have noticed Scotticisms.
[213] In 1763 Wilkes, as author ofThe North Briton, No. 45, had been arrested on 'a general warrant directed to four messengers to take up any persons without naming or describing them with any certainty, and to bring them, together with their papers.' Such a warrant as this Chief Justice Pratt (Lord Camden) declared to be 'unconstitutional, illegal, and absolutely void.'Ann. Reg. vi. 145.
[214] See Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 24, 1773.
[215] In the Spring of this year, at a meeting of the electors of Southwark, 'instructions' had been presented to Mr. Thrale and his brother-member, of which the twelfth was:—'That you promote a bill for shortening the duration of Parliaments.'Gent. Mag. xxxix. 162.
[216] This paradox Johnson had exposed twenty-nine years earlier, in hisLife of Sir Francis Drake,Works, vi. 366. InRasselas, chap. xi., he considers also the same question. Imlac is 'inclined to conclude that, if nothing counteracts the natural consequence of learning, we grow more happy as our minds take a wider range.' He then enumerates the advantages which civilisation confers on the Europeans. 'They are surely happy,' said the prince, 'who have all these conveniences.' 'The Europeans,' answered Imlac, 'are less unhappy than we, but they are not happy. Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed.' Writing to Mrs. Thrale from Skye, Johnson said: 'The traveller wanders through a naked desert, gratified sometimes, but rarely, with the sight of cows, and now and then finds a heap of loose stones and turf in a cavity between rocks, where a being born with all those powers which education expands, and all those sensations which culture refines, is condemned to shelter itself from the wind and rain. Philosophers there are who try to make themselves believe that this life is happy, but they believe it only while they are saying it, and never yet produced conviction in a single mind.'Piozzi Letters, i. 150. Seepost, April 21 and May 7, 1773, April 26, 1776, and June 15, 1784.
[217] James Burnet, a Scotch Lord of Session, by the title of Lord Monboddo. 'He was a devout believer in the virtues of the heroic ages, and the deterioration of civilised mankind; a great contemner of luxuries, insomuch that he never used a wheel carriage.' WALTER SCOTT, quoted in Croker'sBoswell, p. 227. There is some account of him in Chambers'sTraditions of Edinburgh, ii. 175. In hisOrigin of Language, to which Boswell refers in his next note, after praising Henry Stephen for hisGreek Dictionary, he continues:—'But to compile a dictionary of a barbarous language, such as all the modern are compared with the learned, is a work which a man of real genius, rather than undertake, would choose to die of hunger, the most cruel, it is said, of all deaths. I should, however, have praised this labour of Doctor Johnson's more, though of the meanest kind,' &c. Monboddo'sOrigin of Language, v. 274. On p. 271, he says:—'Dr. Johnson was the most invidious and malignant man I have ever known.' Seepost, March 21, 1772, May 8, 1773, and Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 21, 1773.
[218] His Lordship having frequently spoken in an abusive manner of Dr. Johnson, in my company, I on one occasion during the life-time of my illustrious friend could not refrain from retaliation, and repeated to him this saying. He has since published I don't know how many pages in one of his curious books, attempting, in much anger, but with pitiful effect, to persuade mankind that my illustrious friend was not the great and good man which they esteemed and ever will esteem him to be. BOSWELL.
[219] Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 108) says:—'Mr. Johnson was indeed unjustly supposed to be a lover of singularity. Few people had a more settled reverence for the world than he, or was less captivated by new modes of behaviour introduced, or innovations on the long-received customs of common life.' In writing to Dr. Taylor to urge him to take a certain course, he says:—'This I would have you do, not in compliance with solicitation or advice, but as a justification of yourself to the world;the world has always a right to be regarded.'Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 343. InThe Adventurer, No. 131, he has a paper on 'Singularities.' After quoting Fontenelle's observation on Newton that 'he was not distinguished from other men by any singularity, either natural or affected,' he goes on:—'Some may be found who, supported by the consciousness of great abilities, and elevated by a long course of reputation and applause, voluntarily consign themselves to singularity, affect to cross the roads of life because they know that they shall not be jostled, and indulge a boundless gratification of will, because they perceive that they shall be quietly obeyed…. Singularity is, I think, in its own nature universally and invariably displeasing.' Writing of Swift, he says (Works, viii. 223):—'Whatever he did, he seemed willing to do in a manner peculiar to himself, without sufficiently considering that singularity, as it implies a contempt of the general practice, is a kind of defiance which justly provokes the hostility of ridicule; he, therefore, who indulges peculiar habits is worse than others, if he be not better.' Seeante, Oct. 1765, the record in hisJournal:—'At church. To avoid all singularity.'
[220] 'He had many other particularities, for which he gave sound and philosophical reasons. As this humour still grew upon him he chose to wear a turban instead of a periwig; concluding very justly that a bandage of clean linen about his head was much more wholesome, as well as cleanly, than the caul of a wig, which is soiled with frequent perspirations.'Spectator, No. 576.
[221] Seepost, June 28, 1777, note.
[222] 'Depend upon it,' he said, 'no woman is the worse for sense and knowledge.' Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 19; 1773—See, however,post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection, where he says:—'Supposing a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome'
[223]
'Though Artemisia talks by fitsOf councils, classics, fathers, wits;Reads Malbranche, Boyle, and Locke:Yet in some things, methinks she fails;'Twere well if she would pare her nails,And wear a cleaner smock.'
SWIFT.Imitation of English Poets, Works, xxiv. 6.
[224]A Wife, a poem, 1614. BOSWELL.
[225] In the originalthat.
[226] What a succession of compliments was paid by Johnson's old school-fellow, whom he met a year or two later in Lichfield, who 'has had, as he phrased it,a matter of four wives, for which' added Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, 'neither you nor I like him much the better.'Piozzi Letters, i. 41.
[227] Mr. Langton married the widow of the Earl of Rothes;post, March 20, 1771.
[228] Horace Walpole, writing of 1764, says:—'As one of my objects was to raise the popularity of our party, I had inserted a paragraph in the newspapers observing that the abolition of vails to servants had been set on foot by the Duke of Bedford, and had been opposed by the Duke of Devonshire. Soon after a riot happened at Ranelagh, in which the footmen mobbed and ill-treated some gentlemen who had been active in that reformation.'Memoirs of the Reign of George III, ii. 3.
[229]
'Alexis shunned his fellow swains,Their rural sports and jocund strains,(Heaven guard us all from Cupid's bow!)He lost his crook, he left his flocks;And wandering through the lonely rocks,He nourished endless woe.'
The Despairing Shepherd.
[230] 'In his amorous effusions Prior is less happy; for they are not dictated by nature or by passion, and have neither gallantry nor tenderness. They have the coldness of Cowley without his wit, the dull exercises of a skilful versifier, resolved at all adventures to write something about Chloe, and trying to be amorous by dint of study…. In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 15, 22.