[401] This softening was made in the later copies of thefirstedition. A second change seems to have been made. In the text, as given in Murphy's edition (1796, viii. 137), the last line of the passage stands:—'If he was sometimes wrong, he was often right.' Horace Walpole describes Grenville's 'plodding, methodic genius, which made him take the spirit of detail for ability.'Memoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 36. For the fine character that Burke drew of him see Payne'sBurke, i. 122. There is, I think, a hit at Lord Bute's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir F. Dashwood (Lord Le Despencer), who was described as 'a man to whom a sum of five figures was an impenetrable secret.' Walpole'sMemoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 172, note. He himself said, 'People will point at me, and cry, "there goes the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer that ever appeared."'Ibp. 250.
[402] Boswell, I suspect, quoted this passage from hearsay, for originally it stood:—'If he could have got the money, he could have counted it' (p. 68). In the British Museum there are copies of the first edition bothsoftenedandunsoftened.
[403]Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands. BOSWELL.
[404] By comparing the first with the subsequent editions, this curious circumstance of ministerial authorship may be discovered. BOSWELL.
[405]Navigationwas the common term for canals, which at that time were getting rapidly made. A writer inNotes and Queries, 6th, xi. 64, shows that Langton, as payment of a loan, undertook to pay Johnson's servant, Frank, an annuity for life, secured on profits from thenavigationof the River Wey in Surrey.
[406] It was, Mr. Chalmers told me, a saying about that time, 'Married a Countess Dowager of Rothes!' 'Why, everybody marries a Countess Dowager of Rothes!' And there were in fact, about 1772, three ladies of that name married to second husbands. CROKER. Mr. Langton married one of these ladies.
[407]The Hermit of Warkworth: A Ballad in three cantos. T. Davis, 25. 6d. Cradock (Memoirs, i. 207) quotes Johnson's parody on a stanza inThe Hermit:
'I put my hat upon my head,And walked into the Strand,And there I met another manWith his hat in his hand.'
'Mr. Garrick,' he continues, 'asked me whether I had seen Johnson's criticism on theHermit. "It is already," said he, "over half the town."'
[408] '"I am told," says a letter-writer of the day, "that Dr. Goldsmith now generally lives with his countryman, Lord Clare, who has lost his only son, Colonel Nugent."' Forster'sGoldsmith, ii. 228. 'The Haunch of Venisonwas written this year (1771), and appears to have been written for Lord Clare alone; nor was it until two years after the writer's death that it obtained a wider audience than his immediate circle of friends.'Ibp. 230. Seepost, April 17, 1778.
[409] Gibbon (Misc. Works, i. 222) mentions Mr. Strahan:—'I agreed upon easy terms with Mr. Thomas Cadell, a respectable bookseller, and Mr. William Strahan, an eminent printer, and they undertook the care and risk of the publication [of theDecline and Fall], which derived more credit from the name of the shop than from that of the author…. So moderate were our hopes, that the original impression had been stinted to five hundred, till the number was doubled by the prophetic taste of Mr. Strahan.' Hume, by his will, left to Strahan's care all his manuscripts, 'trusting,' he says, 'to the friendship that has long subsisted between us for his careful and faithful execution of my intentions.' J. H. Burton'sHume, ii. 494. Seeib. p. 512, for a letter written to Hume on his death-bed by Strahan.
[410] Dr. Franklin, writing of the year 1773, says (Memoirs, i. 398):—'An acquaintance (Mr. Strahan, M.P.) calling on me, after having just been at the Treasury, showed me what he styleda pretty thing, for a friend of his; it was an order for £150, payable to Dr. Johnson, said to be one half of his yearly pension.'
[411] Seepost, July 27, 1778.
[412] Hawkins (Life, p. 513) says that Mr. Thrale made the same attempt. 'He had two meetings with the ministry, who at first seemed inclined to find Johnson a seat.' 'Lord Stowell told me,' says Mr. Croker, 'that it was understood amongst Johnson's friends that Lord North was afraid that Johnson's help (as he himself said of Lord Chesterfield's) might have been sometimesembarrassing. "He perhaps thought, and not unreasonably," added Lord Stowell, "that, like the elephant in the battle, he was quite as likely to trample down his friends as his foes."' Lord Stowell referred to Johnson's letter to Chesterfield (ante, i. 262), in which he describes a patron as 'one who encumbers a man with help.'
[413] Boswell married his cousin Margaret Montgomerie on Nov. 25, 1769. On the same day his father married for the second time.Scots Mag. for 1769, p. 615. Boswell, in hisLetter to the People of Scotland(p. 55), published in 1785, describes his wife as 'a trueMontgomerie, whom I esteem, whom I love, after fifteen years, as on the day when she gave me her hand.' See hisHebrides, Aug. 14, 1773.
[414]
'Musis amicus, tristitiam et metusTradam, &c.
While in the Muse's friendship blest,Nor fear, nor grief, shall break my rest;Bear them, ye vagrant winds, away,And drown them in the Cretan Sea.'
FRANCIS. Horace,Odes, i. 26. I.
[415] Horace.Odes, i. 22. 5.
[416] Lord Elibank wrote to Boswell two years later:—'Old as I am, I shall be glad to go five hundred miles to enjoy a day of Mr. Johnson's company.' Boswell'sHebridesunder date of Sept. 12, 1773. Seeib. Nov. 10, andpost, April 5, 1776.
[417] Goldsmith wrote to Langton on Sept. 7, 1771:—'Johnson has been down upon a visit to a country parson, Doctor Taylor, and is returned to his old haunts at Mrs. Thrale's.' Goldsmith'sMisc. Works, i. 93.
[418] While Miss Burney was examining a likeness of Johnson, 'he no sooner discerned it than he began see-sawing for a moment or two in silence; and then, with a ludicrous half-laugh, peeping over her shoulder, he called out:—"Ah, ha! Sam Johnson! I see thee!—and an ugly dog thou art!"'Memoirs of Dr. Burney, ii. 180. In another passage (p. 197), after describing 'the kindness that irradiated his austere and studious features into the most pleased and pleasing benignity,' as he welcomed her and her father to his house, she adds that a lady who was present often exclaimed, 'Why did not Sir Joshua Reynolds paint Dr. Johnson when he was speaking to Dr. Burney or to you?'
[419] 'Johnson,' wrote Beattie from London on Sept. 8 of this year, 'has been greatly misrepresented. I have passed several entire days with him, and found him extremely agreeable.' Beattie'sLife, ed. 1824, p. 120.
[420] He was preparing the fourth edition, See _post, March 23, 1772.
[421] 'Sept. 18, 1771, 9 at night. I am now come to my sixty-third year. For the last year I have been slowly recovering both from the violence of my last illness, and, I think, from the general disease of my life: … some advances I hope have been made towards regularity. I have missed church since Easter only two Sundays…. But indolence and indifference has [sic] been neither conquered nor opposed.'Pr. and Med. p. 104.
[422] 'Let us search and try our ways.'Lamentationsiii. 40.
[423]Pr. and Med. p. 101 [105]. BOSWELL.
[424] Boswell forgets the fourth edition of hisDictionary. Johnson, in Aug. 1771 (ante, p. 142), wrote to Langton:—'I am engaging in a very great work, the revision of myDictionary.' InPr. and Med. p. 123, at Easter, 1773, as he 'reviews the last year,' he records:—'Of the spring and summer I remember that I was able in those seasons to examine and improve myDictionary, and was seldom withheld from the work but by my own unwillingness.'
[425] Thus translated by a friend:—
'In fame scarce second to the nurse of Jove,This Goat, who twice the world had traversed round,Deserving both her masters care and love,Ease and perpetual pasture now has found.'
[426] Cockburn (Life of Jeffrey, i. 4) says that the High School of Edinburgh, in 1781, 'was cursed by two under master, whose atrocities young men cannot be made to believe, but old men cannot forget, and the criminal law would not now endure.'
[427] Mr. Langton married the Countess Dowager of Rothes. BOSWELL.
[428] From school. Seeante, ii. 62.
[429] Seeante, i. 44.
[430] Johnson used to say that schoolmasters were worse than the Egyptian task-masters of old. 'No boy,' says he, 'is sure any day he goes to school to escape a whipping. How can the schoolmaster tell what the boy has really forgotten, and what he has neglected to learn?' Johnson'sWorks(1787), xi. 209. 'I rejoice,' writes J. S. Mill (Auto. p. 53), 'in the decline of the old, brutal, and tyrannical system of teaching, which, however, did succeed in enforcing habits of application; but the new, as it seems to me, is training up a race of men who be incapable of doing anything which is disagreeable to them.'
[431] Seeante, i. 373.
[432] Seeante, ii. 74.
[433] The ship in which Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander were to have sailed was the Endeavour. It was, they said, unfit for the voyage. The Admiralty altered it in such a way as to render it top-heavy. It was nearly overset on going down the river. Then it was rendered safe by restoring it to its former condition. When the explorers raised their former objections, they were told to take it or none.Ann. Reg. xv. 108. See also Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 18, 1773.
[434] I suspect thatRaleighis here an error of Mr. Boswell's pen forDrake. CROKER. Johnson had written Drake'sLife, and therefore must have had it well in mind that it was Drake who went round the world.
[435]Romeo and Juliet, act v. sc. 1.
'Edinburgh, May 3, 1792.
'As I suppose your great work will soon be reprinted, I beg leave to trouble you with a remark on a passage of it, in which I am a little misrepresented. Be not alarmed; the misrepresentation is not imputable to you. Not having the book at hand, I cannot specify the page, but I suppose you will easily find it. Dr. Johnson says, speaking of Mrs. Thrale's family, "Dr. Beattiesunk upon usthat he was married, or words to that purpose." I am not sure that I understandsunk upon us, which is a very uncommon phrase, but it seems to me to imply, (and others, I find, have understood it in the same sense,)studiously concealed from us his being married. Now, Sir, this was by no means the case. I could have no motive to conceal a circumstance, of which I never was nor can be ashamed; and of which Dr. Johnson seemed to think, when he afterwards became acquainted with Mrs. Beattie, that I had, as was true, reason to be proud. So far was I from concealing her, that my wife had at that time almost as numerous an acquaintance in London as I had myself; and was, not very long after, kindly invited and elegantly entertained at Streatham by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale.
'My request, therefore, is, that you would rectify this matter in your new edition. You are at liberty to make what use you please of this letter.
'My best wishes ever attend you and your family. Believe me to be, with the utmost regard and esteem, dear Sir,
'Your obliged and affectionate humble servant, J. BEATTIE.'
I have, from my respect for my friend Dr. Beattie, and regard to his extreme sensibility, inserted the foregoing letter, though I cannot but wonder at his considering as any imputation a phrase commonly used among the best friends. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker says there was a cause for the 'extreme sensibility.' 'Dr. Beattie was conscious that there was something that might give a colour to such an imputation. It became known, shortly after the date of this letter, that the mind of Mrs. Beattie had become deranged.' Beattie would have found in Johnson'sDictionaryan explanation ofsunk upon us—'To sink. To suppress; to conceal. "If sent with ready money to buy anything, and you happen to be out of pocket,sinkthe money and take up the goods on account."' Swift'sRules to Servants,Works, viii. 256.
[437] Seeante, i 450.
[438] Seeante, ii. 10.
[439] SeePost, April 15, 1778, note, and June 12, 1784.
[440] See ante, i. 405.
[441]St. John, xv. 24
[442] See note, p. 51 of this volume. BOSWELL.
[443] Seeante, ii. 105.
[444] The petition was presented on Feb. 6 of this year. By a majority thrown of 217 to 71 leave was refused for it to be brought up.Parl. Hist. xvii. 245-297. Gibbon, in a letter dated Feb. 8, 1772 (Misc. Works, ii. 74), congratulates Mr. Holroyd 'on the late victory of our dear mamma, the Church of England. She had, last Thursday, 71 rebellious sons, who pretended to set aside her will on account of insanity; but 217 worthy champions, headed by Lord North, Burke, and Charles Fox, though they allowed the thirty-nine clauses of her testament were absurd and unreasonable, supported the validity of it with infinite humour. By the by, Charles Fox prepared himself for that holy war by passing twenty-two hours in the pious exercise of hazard; his devotion cost him only about £500 per hour—in all, £11,000.' See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 19, 1773.
[445] 'Lord George Germayne,' writes Horace Walpole, 'said that he wondered the House did not take some steps on this subject with regard to the Universities, where boys were made to subscribe to the Articles without reading them—a scandalous abuse.'Journal of the Reign of George III, i. 11.
[446] Seeante, ii. 104.
[447] Burke had thus answered Boswell's proposal:—'What is that Scripture to which they are content to subscribe? The Bible is a vast collection of different treatises; a man who holds the divine authority of one may consider the other as merely human. Therefore, to ascertain Scripture you must have one Article more, and you must define what that Scripture is which you mean to teach.'Parl. Hist. xvii. 284.
[448] Dr. Nowell (post, June 11, 1784) had this year preached the fast sermon before the House of Commons on Jan. 30, the anniversary of the execution of Charles I, and received the usual vote of thanks.Parl. Hist. xvii. 245. On Feb. 25 the entry of the vote was, without a division, ordered to be expunged. On the publication of the sermon it had been seen that Nowell had asserted that George III was endued with the same virtues as Charles I, and that the members of the House were the descendants of those who had opposed that King.Ibp. 313, andAnn. Reg. xv. 79. On March 2, Mr. Montague moved for leave to bring in a bill to abolish the fast, but it was refused by 125 to 97.Parl. Hist. xvii. 319. The fast was abolished in 1859—thirteen years within the century that Johnson was ready to allow it. 'It is remarkable,' writes Horace Walpole, 'that George III had never from the beginning of his reign gone to church on the 30th of January, whereas George II always did.'Journal of the Reign of George III, i. 41.
[449] This passage puzzled Mr. Croker and Mr. Lockhart. The following extract from theGent. Mag. for Feb. 1772, p. 92, throws light on Johnson's meaning:—'This, say the opposers of the Bill, is putting it in the King's power to change the order of succession, as he may for ever prevent, if he is so minded, the elder branches of the family from marrying, and therefore may establish the succession in the younger. Be this as it may, is it not, in fact, converting the holy institution of marriage into a mere state contract?' See also the Protest of fourteen of the peers inParl. Hist. xvii. 391, andpost, April 15, 1773. Horace Walpole ends his account of the Marriage Bill by saying:—'Thus within three weeks were the Thirty-nine Articles affirmed and the New Testament deserted.'Journal of the Reign of George III, i. 37. How carelessly this Act was drawn was shown by Lord Eldon, when Attorney-General, in the case of the marriage of the Duke of Sussex to Lady Augusta Murray. 'Lord Thurlow said to me angrily at the Privy Council, "Sir, why have you not prosecuted under the Act of Parliament all the parties concerned in this abominable marriage?" To which I answered, "That it was a very difficult business to prosecute—that the Act had been drawn by Lord Mansfield andMr. Attorney-General Thurlow, and Mr. Solicitor-General Wedderburne, and unluckily they had made all parties present at the marriage guilty of felony; and as nobody could prove the marriage except a person who had been present at it, there could be no prosecution, because nobody present could be compelled to be a witness." This put an end to the matter.' Twiss'sEldon, i. 234.
[450] Seepost, May 9, 1773, and May 13, 1778.
[451] See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 25, 1773, where Johnson, discussing the same question, says:—'There is generally ascoundrelismabout a low man.'
[452] Mackintosh told Mr. Croker that this friend was Mr. Cullen, afterwards a judge by the name of Lord Cullen. InBoswelliana(pp. 250-2), Boswell mentions him thrice, and always as 'Cullen the mimick.' His manner, he says, was wretched, and his physiognomy worse than Wilkes's. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 268) says that 'Cullen possessed the talent of mimicry beyond all mankind; for his was not merely an exact imitation of voice and manner of speaking, but a perfect exhibition of every man's manner of thinking on every subject.' Carlyle mentions two striking instances of this.
[453] Seepost, May 15, 1776.
[454] 'The prince of Dublin printers,' as Swift called him. Swift'sWorks(1803), xviii. 288. He was taken off by Foote under the name of Peter Paragraph, inThe Orators, the piece in which he had meant to take off Johnson (ante, ii. 95). 'Faulkner consoled himself (pending his prosecution of the libeller) by printing the libel, and selling it most extensively.' Forster'sGoldsmith, i. 287. See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 29.
[455] Faulkner had lost one of his legs. 'When Foote had his accident (ante, ii. 95), "Now I shall take off old Faulkner indeed to the life," was the first remark he made when what he had to suffer was announced to him.' Forster'sEssays, ii. 400.
[456] A writer in theMonthly Review, lxxvi. 374 (no doubt Murphy), says:—'A large number of friends such as Johnson, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Murphy dined at Garrick's at Christmas, 1760. Foote was then in Dublin. It was said at table that he had been horse-whipped by an apothecary for taking him off upon the stage. "But I wonder," said Garrick, "that any man would show so much resentment to Foote; nobody ever thought it worth his while to quarrel with him in London." "And I am glad," said Johnson, "to find that the man is rising in the world." The anecdote was afterwards told to Foote, who in return gave out that he would in a short time produce the Caliban of literature on the stage. Being informed of this design, Johnson sent word to Foote, that, the theatre being intended for the reformation of vice, he would go from the boxes on the stage, and correct him before the audience, Foote abandoned the design. No ill-will ensued.'
[457] Seepost, May 15, 1776, where Johnson says:—'I turned Boswell loose at Lichfield, my native city, that he might see for once realcivility.
[458] In my list of Boswell's projected works (ante, i. 225, note 2) I have omitted this.
[459] Seepost, April 7, 1775.
[460] Boswell visited Ireland in the summer of 1760. Prior'sGoldsmith, i. 450.
[461] Puffendorf states that 'tutors and schoolmasters have a right to the moderate use of gentle discipline over their pupils'—viii. 3-10; adding, rather superfluously, Grotius'scaveat, that 'it shall not extend to a power of death.' CROKER.
[462] The brother of Sir J. Macdonald, mentionedante, i. 449. Johnson visited him in the Isle of Skye. 'He had been very well pleased with him in London, but he was dissatisfied at hearing heavy complaints of rents racked, and the people driven to emigration.' Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 2, 1773. He reproached him also with meanness as a host.
[463] Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, v. 449) points out that this conversation followed close on the appointment of 'the incompetent Bathurst' as Chancellor. 'Such a conversation,' he adds, 'would not have occurred during the chancellorship of Lord Hardwicke or Lord Somers.'
[464]
'But if at first he minds his hits,And drinks champagne among the wits,' &c.
Prior'sChameleon, 1. 39.
[465] 'Plain truth,dear Murray, needs no flowers of speech.' Pope thus addresses him in Epistle vi. Book i. of hisImitations of Horace, which he dedicated to him.
[466] Seeante, 386.
[467] Seepost, March 23, 1776.
[468] Afterwards Lord Ashburton. Described by Johnson (post, July 22, 1777), as 'Mr. Dunning, the great lawyer.'
[469] 'Having cleared his tongue from his native pronunciation, so as to be no longer distinguished as a Scot, he seems inclined to disencumber himself from all adherences of his original, and took upon him to change his name from ScotchMallochto EnglishMallet, without any imaginable reason of preference which the eye or ear can discover. What other proofs he gave of disrespect to his native country I know not, but it was remarked of him that he was the only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 464. Seeante, i. 268, andpost, April 28, 1783.
[470] Mr. Love was, so far as is known, the first who advised Boswell to keep a journal. When Boswell was but eighteen, writing of a journey he had taken, he says: 'I kept an exact journal, at the particular desire of my friend, Mr. Love, and sent it to him in sheets every post.'Letters of Boswell, p. 8.
[471] 'That's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.'Hamlet, iii. 2.
[472] Jeffrey wrote from Oxford, where he spent nine months in 1791-2:—'The only part of a Scotchman I mean to abandon is the language, and language is all I expect to learn in England.' (Cockburn'sJeffrey, i. 46). His biographer says:—'He certainly succeeded in the abandonment of his habitual Scotch. The change was so sudden and so complete, that it excited the surprise of his friends, and furnished others with ridicule for many years…. The result, on the whole, was exactly as described by Lord Holland, who said that though Jeffrey "had lost the broad Scotch at Oxford, he had only gained the narrow English."' Cockburn, in forgetfulness of Mallet's case, says that 'the acquisition of a pure English accent by a full-grown Scotchman is fortunately impossible.'
[473] Henry Dundas, afterwards Viscount Melville. Seepost, under Nov. 29, 1777. Boswell wrote to Temple on May 22, 1775:—'Harry Dundas is going to be made King's Advocate—Lord Advocate at thirty-three! I cannot help being angry and somewhat fretful at this; he has, to be sure, strong parts, but he is a coarse, unlettered, unfanciful dog.'Letters of Boswell, p. 195. Horace Walpole describes him as 'the rankest of all Scotchmen, and odious for that bloody speech that had fixed on him the nick-name ofStarvation!Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 479. On p. 637 he adds:—'The happily coined word "starvation" delivered a whole continent from the Northern harpies that meant to devour it.' The speech in which Dundas introducedstarvationwas made in 1775. Walpole'sLetters, viii. 30. SeeParl. Hist., xviii. 387. His character is drawn with great force by Cockburn.Life of Jeffrey, i. 77.
[474] The correspondent of Hume. See J. H. Burton'sHume, i. 320.
[475] Seepost, May 12, 1778.
[476] In thePlan(Works, v. 9), Johnson noticed the difference of the pronunciation ofgreat. 'Some words have two sounds which may be equally admitted as being equally defensible by authority. Thusgreatis differently used:—
'For Swift and him despised the farce of state,The sober follies of the wise and great.'—POPE.
'As if misfortune made the throne her seat,And none could be unhappy but the great.'—ROWE.
In thePreface to the Dictionary(Works, v. 25), Johnson says that 'the vowels are capriciously pronounced, and differently modified by accident or affectation, not only in every province, but in every mouth.' Swift gives both rhymes within ten lines:—
'My lord and he are grown so great—Always together, tête-à -tête.'
* * * * *
'You, Mr. Dean, frequent the great, Inform us, will the emperor treat?'Swift'sWorks(1803), x. 110.
[477] 'Dr. Henry More, of Cambridge, Johnson did not much affect; he was a Platonist, and, in Johnson's opinion, a visionary. He would frequently cite from him, and laugh at, a passage to this effect:—"At the consummation of all things, it shall come to pass that eternity shall shake hands with opacity"' Hawkins'sJohnson, p. 543.
[478] Seepost, April 17, 1778, and May 19, 1784.
[479] Seeante, i. 240, and ii. 105.
[480]Revelations, xiv. 2.
[481] Johnson, inThe Rambler, No. 78, describes man's death as 'a change not only of the place, but the manner of his being; an entrance into a state not simply which he knows not, but which perhaps he has not faculties to know.'
[482] This fiction is known to have been invented by Daniel Defoe, and was added to Drelincourt's book, to make it sell. The first edition had it not. MALONE. 'More than fifty editions have not exhausted its popularity. The hundreds of thousands who have bought the silly treatise of Drelincourt have borne unconscious testimony to the genius of De Foe.' Forster'sEssays, ii. 70.
[483] Seeante, i. 29.
[484] In hisLife of Akenside ( Works, viii. 475) he says:—'Of Akenside'sOdesnothing favourable can be said…. To examine such compositions singly cannot be required; they have doubtless brighter and darker parts; but when they are once found to be generally dull, all further labour may be spared; for to what use can the work be criticised that will not be read?' Seepost, April 10, 1776.
[485] Seepost, just before May 15, 1776.
[486] Seepost, Sept. 23, 1777.
[487] The account of his trial is entitled:—'The Grand Question in Religion Considered. Whether we shall obey God or Man; Christ or the Pope; the Prophets and Apostles, or Prelates and Priests. Humbly offered to the King and Parliament of Great Britain. By E. Elwall. With an account of the Author's Tryal or Prosecution at Stafford Assizes before Judge Denton. London.'No date. Elwall seems to have been a Unitarian Quaker. He was prosecuted for publishing a book against the doctrines of the Trinity, but was discharged, being, he writes, treated by the Judge with great humanity. In his pamphlet he says (p. 49):—'You see what I have already done in my former book. I have challenged the greatest potentates on earth, yea, even the King of Great Britain, whose true and faithful subject I am in all temporal things, and whom I love and honour; also his noble and valiant friend, John Argyle, and his great friends Robert Walpole, Charles Wager, and Arthur Onslow; all these can speak well, and who is like them; and yet, behold, none of all these cared to engage with their friend Elwall.' Seepost, May 7, 1773. Dr. Priestley had received an account of the trial from a gentleman who was present, who described Elwall as 'a tall man, with white hair, a large beard and flowing garments, who struck everybody with respect. He spoke about an hour with great gravity, fluency, and presence of mind.' The trial took place, he said, in 1726. 'It is impossible,' adds Priestley (Works, ed. 1831, ii. 417), 'for an unprejudiced person to read Elwall's account of his trial, without feeling the greatest veneration for the writer.' In truth, Elwall spoke with all the simple power of the best of the early Quakers.
[488] Boswell, in theHypochrondriack(London Mag. 1783, p. 290), writing on swearing, says:—'I have the comfort to think that my practice has been blameless in this respect.' He continues (p. 293):— 'To do the present age justice, there is much less swearing among genteel people than in the last age.'
[489] 'TheLife of Dr. Parnellis a task which I should very willingly decline, since it has been lately written by Goldsmith, a man of such variety of powers, and such felicity of performance, that he always seemed to do best that which he was doing…. What such an author has told, who would tell again? I have made an abstract from his larger narrative, and have this gratification from my attempt, that it gives me an opportunity of paying due tribute to the memory of Goldsmith. [Greek: Togargerasesti Thanonton].' Johnson'sWorks, vii. 398.
[490] Seeante, i. 26, andpost, April 11, 1773.
[491] 'Mr. Ruffhead says of fine passages that they are fine, and of feeble passages that they are feeble; but recommending poetical beauty is like remarking the splendour of sunshine; to those who can see it is unnecessary, and to those who are blind, absurd.'Gent. Mag. May, 1769, p. 255. The review in which this passage occurs, is perhaps in part Johnson's.
[492] Seeante, i. 448.
[493] Seepost, April 5, 1775.
[494] It was Lewis XIV who said it. 'Toutes les fois que je donne une place vacante, je fais cent mecontens et un ingrat.' Voltaire,Siecle de Louis XIV, ch. 26. 'When I give away a place,' said Lewis XIV, 'I make an hundred discontented, and one ungrateful.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 204.
[495] Seepost, May 15, 1783.
[496] This project has since been realized. Sir Henry Liddel, who made a spirited tour into Lapland, brought two rein-deer to his estate in Northumberland, where they bred; but the race has unfortunately perished. BOSWELL.
[497] Dr. Johnson seems to have meant the Address to the Reader with a KEY subjoined to it; which have been prefixed to the modern editions of that play. He did not know, it appears, that several additions were made toThe Rehearsalafter the first edition. MALONE. In hisLife of Dryden(Works, vii. 272) Johnson writes:—'Buckingham characterised Dryden in 1671 by the name of Bayes inThe Rehearsal…. It is said that this farce was originally intended against Davenant, who in the first draught was characterised by the name of Bilboa…. It is said, likewise, that Sir Robert Howard was once meant. The design was probably to ridicule the reigning poet, whoever he might be. Much of the personal satire, to which it might owe its first reception, is now lost or obscured.'
[498] 'The Pantheon,' wrote Horace Walpole (Letters, v. 489), a year later than this conversation, 'is still the most beautiful edifice in England.' Gibbon, a few weeks before Johnson's visit to the Pantheon, wrote:—'In point ofennuiand magnificence, the Pantheon is the wonder of the eighteenth century and of the British empire.' Gibbon'sMisc. Works, ii. 74. Evelina, in Miss Burners novel (vol. i. Letter xxiii.) contrasts the Pantheon and Ranelagh:—'I was extremely struck on entering the Pantheon with the beauty of the building, which greatly surpassed whatever I could have expected or imagined. Yet it has more the appearance of a chapel than of a place of diversion; and, though I was quite charmed with the magnificence of the room, I felt that I could not be as gay and thoughtless there as at Ranelagh; for there is something in it which rather inspires awe and solemnity than mirth and pleasure.' Ranelagh was at Chelsea, the Pantheon was in Oxford-street. Seeante, ii. 119, andpost, Sept. 23, 1777.
[499] Her husband, Squire Godfrey Bosville, Boswell (post, Aug. 24, 1780), calls 'my Yorkshirechief.' Their daughter was one of the young ladies whom he passes in review in his letters to Temple. 'What say you to my marrying? I intend next autumn to visit Miss Bosville in Yorkshire; but I fear, my lot being cast in Scotland, that beauty would not be content. She is, however, grave; I shall see.'Letters of Boswell, p. 81. She married Sir A. Macdonald, Johnson's inhospitable host in Sky (ante, ii. 157).
[500] InThe Adventurer, No. 120, Johnson, after describing 'a gay assembly,' continues:—'The world in its best state is nothing more than a larger assembly of beings, combining to counterfeit happiness which they do not feel.'Works, iv. 120.
[501] 'Sir Adam Fergusson, who by a strange coincidence of chances got in to be member of Parliament for Ayrshire in 1774, was the great-grandson of a messenger. I was talking with great indignation that the whole (? old) families of the county should be defeated by an upstart.'Boswelliana, p. 283.
[502] Seeante, ii. 60.
[503] Seeante, i. 424. Hume wrote of the judgment of Charles I. (Hist. of Eng. vii. 148):—'If ever, on any occasion, it were laudable to conceal truth from the populace, it must be confessed that the doctrine of resistance affords such an example; and that all speculative reasoners ought to observe with regard to this principle the same cautious silence which the laws in every species of government have ever prescribed to themselves.'
[504] 'All foreigners remark that the knowledge of the common people of England is greater than that of any other vulgar. This superiority we undoubtedly owe to the rivulets of intelligence [i. e. the newspapers] which are continually trickling among us, which every one may catch, and of which every one partakes.'Idler, No. 7. In a later number (30), he speaks very contemptuously of news-writers. 'In Sir Henry Wotton's jocular definition, _an ambassador is said to be a man of virtue sent abroad to tell lies for the advantage of his country. A newswriter isa man without virtue, who writes lies at home for his own profit.'
[505] Seepost, April 3, 1773.
[506] Probably Mr. Elphinston. Seeante, i. 210,post, April 19, 1773, and April i, 1779. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 493) wrote of a friend:—'He had overcome many disadvantages of his education, for he had been sent to a Jacobite seminary of one Elphinstone at Kensington, where his body was starved and his mind also. He returned to Edinburgh to college. He had hardly a word of Latin, and was obliged to work hard with a private tutor.'
[507] 'In progress of time Abel Sampson,probationerof divinity, was admitted to the privileges of a preacher.'Guy Mannering, chap. ii.
[508] In his Dictionary he definesheinousasatrocious; wicked in a high degree.
[509]Ephesians, v. 5.
[510] His second definition ofwhoremongerisone who converses with a fornicatress.
[511] It must not be presumed that Dr. Johnson meant to give any countenance to licentiousness, though in the character of an Advocate he made a just and subtle distinction between occasional and habitual transgression. BOSWELL.
[512] Erskine was born in 1750, entered the navy in 1764, the army in 1768, he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1776, was called to the Bar in 1778, was made a King's counsel in 1783, and Lord Chancellor in 1806. He died in 1823. Campbell'sChancellors, vi. 368-674.
[513] Johnson had called Churchill 'a blockhead.'Ante, i. 419. 'I have remarked,' said Miss Reynolds, 'that his dislike of anyone seldom prompted him to say much more than that the fellow is a blockhead.' Croker'sBoswell, p. 834. In like manner Goldsmith called Sterne a blockhead; for Mr. Forster (Life of Goldsmith, i. 260) is, no doubt, right in saying that the author ofTristram Shandyis aimed at in the following passage inThe Citizen of the World(Letter, 74):—'In England, if a bawdy blockhead thus breaks in on the community, he sets his whole fraternity in a roar; nor can he escape even though he should fly to nobility for shelter.' That Johnson did not think so lowly of Fielding's powers is shown by a compliment that he paid Miss Burney, on one of the characters inEvelina. '"Oh, Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith is the man!" cried he, laughing violently. "Harry Fielding never drew so good a character!"' Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary, i. 78.
[514] Richardson wrote of Fielding (Corres, vi. 154):—'Poor Fielding! I could not help telling his sister that I was equally surprised at and concerned for his continued lowness. Had your brother, said I, been born in a stable, or been a runner at a sponging-house, we should have thought him a genius, and wished he had had the advantage of a liberal education, and of being admitted into good company.' Other passages show Richardson's dislike or jealousy of Fielding. Thus he wrote:—'You guess that I have not readAmelia. Indeed, I have read but the first volume. I had intended to go through with it; but I found the characters and situations so wretchedly low and dirty that I imagined I could not be interested for any one of them.'Ibiv. 60. 'So long as the world will receive, Mr. Fielding will write,'Ibp. 285.
[515] Hannah More wrote in 1780 (Memoirs, i. 168), 'I never saw Johnson really angry with me but once. I alluded to some witty passage inTom Jones; he replied, "I am shocked to hear you quote from so vicious a book. I am sorry to hear you have read it: a confession which no modest lady should ever make. I scarcely know a more corrupt work!" He went so far as to refuse to Fielding the great talents which are ascribed to him, and broke out into a noble panegyric on his competitor, Richardson; who, he said, was as superior to him in talents as in virtue; and whom he pronounced to be the greatest genius that had shed its lustre on this path of literature.' Yet Miss Burney in her Preface toEvelinadescribes herself as 'exhilarated by the wit of Fielding and humour of Smollett.' It is strange that while Johnson thus condemned Fielding, he should 'with an ardent and liberal earnestness' have revised Smollett's epitaph. Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 28, 1773. Macaulay in hisSpeech on Copyright(Writings and Speeches, p. 615) said of Richardson's novels:—'No writings have done more to raise the fame of English genius in foreign countries. No writings are more deeply pathetic. No writings, those of Shakespeare excepted, show more profound knowledge of the human heart.' Horace. Walpole (Letters, iv. 305), on the other hand, spoke of Richardson as one 'who wrote those deplorably tedious lamentations,ClarissaandSir Charles Grandison, which are pictures of high life as conceived by a bookseller, and romances as they would be spiritualised by a methodist teacher.' Lord Chesterfield says ofSir Charles Grandison, that 'it is too long, and there is too much mere talk in it. Whenever he goesultra crepidaminto high life, he grossly mistakes the modes; but to do him justice he never mistakes nature, and he has surely great knowledge and skill both in painting and in interesting the heart.'Ibnote. Seeante, ii. 48.
[516]Ameliahe read through without stopping.Post, April 12, 1776. Shenstone (Works, iii. 70) writes of 'the tedious character of Parson Adams,' and calls the book 'a very mean performance; of which the greater part is unnatural and unhumorous.'
[517] Johnson wrote to Richardson ofClarissa, 'though the story is long, every letter is short.' He begged him to add anindex rerum, 'forClarissais not a performance to be read with eagerness, and laid aside for ever; but will be occasionally consulted by the busy, the aged, and the studious.' Richardson'sCorres, v. 281.
[518] 'Our immortal Fielding was of the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who draw their origin from the Counts of Habsburg, the lineal descendants of Eltrico, in the seventh century Duke of Alsace. Far different have been the fortunes of the English and German divisions of the family of Habsburg: the former, the knights and sheriffs of Leicestershire, have slowly risen to the dignity of a peerage: the latter, the Emperors of Germany and Kings of Spain, have threatened the liberty of the old, and invaded the treasures of the new world. The successors of Charles the Fifth may disdain their brethren of England; but the romance ofTom Jones, that exquisite picture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial, and the imperial eagle of the house of Austria.' Gibbon'sMisc. Works, i. 4. Richardson, five years afterTom Joneswas published, wrote (Corres, v. 275):—'Its run is over, even with us. Is it true that France had virtue enough to refuse a license for such a profligate performance?'
[519] Mr. Samuel Paterson, eminent for his knowledge of books. BOSWELL. In the first two editions this note does not appear, but Mr. Paterson is described as 'the auctioneer.' Seepost, Aug. 3, 1776.
[520] Mr. Paterson, in a pamphlet, produced some evidence to shew that his work was written before Sterne'sSentimental Journeyappeared. BOSWELL.
[521]Coryat's Crudities hastily gobled up in five Moneths Trauells in France, Sauoy, Italy, etc. London, 1611.
[522] 'Lord Erskine,' says Mr. Croker, 'was fond of this anecdote. He told it to me the first time that I was in his company, and often repeated it, boasting that he had been a sailor, a soldier, a lawyer, and a parson.'
[523] 185,000. 2Kings, xix. 35.
[524] Lord Chatham wrote on Oct. 12, 1766, to Lord Shelburne that he 'had extremely at heart to obtain this post for Lord Cardross, a young nobleman of great talents, learning, and accomplishments, and son of the Earl of Buchan, an intimate friend of Lord Chatham, from the time they were students together at Utrecht.'Chatham Corres. iii. 106. Horace Walpole wrote on Oct. 26, 'Sir James Gray goes to Madrid. The embassy has been sadly hawked about it.' Walpole'sLetters, v. 22. 'Sir James Gray's father was first a box-keeper, and then footman to James II.'Ibii. 366.
[525] Seeante, ii. 134, for Johnson's attack on Lord Chatham's 'feudal gabble.'
[526] In Boswell'sHebrides, on Aug. 25, 1773, Johnson makes much the same answer to a like statement by Boswell. Seepost, March 21, 1783.
[527] Seeante, i. 343, 405, andpost, April 10, 1772.
[528] 'I cannot,' wrote John Wesley, (Journal, iv. 74), 'give up to all Deists in Great Britain the existence of witchcraft, till I give up the credit of all history, sacred and profane. And at the present time, I have not only as strong but stronger proofs of this from eye and ear witnesses than I have of murder; so that I cannot rationally doubt of one any more the than the other.'
[529] See this curious question treated by him with most acute ability,Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 33. [Aug. 16.] BOSWELL. Johnson, in hisObservations on Macbeth(Works, v. 55-7), shews his utter disbelief in witchcraft. 'These phantoms,' he writes, 'have indeed appeared more frequently in proportion as the darkness of ignorance has been more gross; but it cannot be shewn that the brightest gleams of knowledge have at any time been sufficient to drive them out of the world.' He describes the spread of the belief in them in the middle ages, and adds:—'The reformation did not immediately arrive at its meridian, and though day was gradually increasing upon us, the goblins of witchcraft still continued to hover in the twilight.' Seepost, April 8, 1779 and 1780, in Mr. Langton'sCollection.
[530] The passage to which Johnson alluded is to be found (I conjecture) in thePhoenissae, I. 1120. J. BOSWELL, JUN.
[531] Boswell (Letters, p. 324), on June 21, 1790, described to Temple the insults of that 'brutal fellow,' Lord Lonsdale, and continued:—'In my fretfulness I used such expressions as irritated him almost to fury, so that he used such expressions towards me that I should have, according to the irrational laws of honour sanctioned by the world, been under the necessity of risking my life, had not an explanation taken place.' Boswell's eldest son, Sir Alexander Boswell, lost his life in a duel.
[532] Johnson might have quoted the lieutenant inTom Jones, Book vii. chap. 13. 'My dear boy, be a good Christian as long as you live: but be a man of honour too, and never put up an affront; not all the books, nor all the parsons in the world, shall ever persuade me to that. I love my religion very well, but I love my honour more. There must be some mistake in the wording of the text, or in the translation, or in the understanding it, or somewhere or other. But however that be, a man must run the risk, for he must preserve his honour.' Seepost, April 19, 1773, and April 20, 1783, and Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 19, 1773.
[533] Oglethorpe was born in 1698. In 1714 he entered the army. Prince Eugene's campaigns against the Turks in which Oglethorpe served were in 1716-17. Rose'sBiog. Dict. vii. 266 and x. 381. He was not therefore quite so young as Boswell thought.
[534] In the first two editionsBender. Belgrade was taken by Eugene in 1717.
[535] 'Idem velle atque idem nolle ea demum firma amicitia est.' Sallust,Catilina, xx. 4.
[536] More than one conjecture has been hazarded as to the passage to which Johnson referred. I believe that he was thinking of the lines—
'Et variis albae junguntur saepe columbae;Et niger a viridi turtur amatur ave.'
Sappho to Phaon, line 37.
'Turtles and doves of differing hues unite,And glossy jet is paired with shining white.' (POPE.)
Goldsmith had said that people to live in friendship together must have the same likings and aversions. Johnson thereupon calls to mind Sappho, who had shown that there could be love where there was little likeness.
[537] It was not published till after Goldsmith's death. It is in the list of new books in theGent. Mag. for Aug. 1774, p. 378. Seepost, under June 22, 1776, the note on Goldsmith's epitaph.
[538] 'Upon my opening the door the young women broke off their discourse, but my landlady's daughters telling them that it was nobody but the Gentleman (for that is the name that I go by in the neighbourhood as well as in the family), they went on without minding me.'Spectator, No. 12.
[539] The author also of theBallad of Cumnor Hall. See Scott's _Introduction to Kenilworth. Bishop Horne says that 'Mickle inserted in theLusiadan angry note against Garrick, who, as he thought, had used him ill by rejecting a tragedy of his.' Shortly afterwards, he saw Garrick act for the first time. The play wasLear. 'During the first three acts he said not a word. In a fine passage of the fourth he fetched a deep sigh, and turning to a friend, "I wish," said he, "the note was out of my book."' Horne'sEssays, ed. 1808, p. 38. Seepost, under Dec. 24, 1783, and Garrick's letter in Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 23,1773.
[540] The farmer's son told Mr. Prior that 'he had felt much reluctance in erasing during necessary repairs these memorials.' Prior'sGoldsmith, ii. 335.
[541] Seeante, ii. 178.
[542] Here was a blank, which may be filled up thus:—'was told by an apparition;'—the writer being probably uncertain whether he was asleep or awake, when his mind was impressed with the solemn presentiment with which the fact afterwards happened so wonderfully to correspond. BOSWELL. 'Lord Hardinge, when Secretary at War,' writes Mr. Croker, 'informed me, that it appears that Colonel Sir Thomas Prendergast, of the twenty-second foot, was killed at Malplaquet, Aug. 31, 1709; but no trace can be found of anyColonelCecil in the army at that period. Colonel W. Cecil, who was sent to the Tower in 1744, could hardly have been, in 1709, of the age and rank which Oglethorpe's anecdote seems to imply.' Prendergast, or Prendergrass, in the year 1696, informed the government of the plot to assassinate William III., in which Friend was one of the leaders. Macaulay (Hist. of Eng. chap. 21), calls Prendergrass 'a Roman Catholic gentleman of known courage and honour.' Swift, attacking Prendergast's son, attacks Prendergast himself:—
'What! thou the spawn of him who shamed our isle,Traitor, assassin, and informer vile.'
Swift'sWorks, xi. 319.
[543] Locke says:—'When once it comes to be a trial of skill, contest for mastery betwixt you and your child, you must be sure to carry it, whatever blows it costs, if a nod or words will not prevail.' He continues:—'A prudent and kind mother of my acquaintance was, on such an occasion, forced to whip her little daughter, at her first coming home from nurse, eight times successively the same morning, before she could master her stubbornness, and obtain a compliance in a very easy and indifferent matter…. As this was the first time, so I think it was the last, too, she ever struck her.'Locke on Education(ed. 1710), p. 96.
[544] Andrew Crosbie, arguing for the schoolmaster, had said:—'Supposing it true that the respondent had been provoked to use a little more severity than he wished to do, it might well be justified on account of the ferocious and rebellious behaviour of his scholars, some of whom cursed and swore at him, and even went so far as to wrestle with him, in which case he was under a necessity of subduing them as he best could.'Scotch Appeal Cases, xvii. p. 214. The judgment of the House of Lords is given in Paton'sReports of Cases upon Appeal from Scotland, ii. 277, as follows:—'A schoolmaster, appointed by the Magistrates and Town Council of Cambelton, without any mention being made as to whether his office was for life or at pleasure: Held that it was a public office, and that he was liable to be dismissed for a just and reasonable cause, and that acts of cruel chastisement of the boys were a justifiable cause for his dismissal; reversing the judgment of the Court of Session…. The proof led before his dismission went to shew that scarce a day passed without some of the scholars coming home with their heads cut, and their bodies discoloured. He beat his pupils with wooden squares, and sometimes with his fists, and used his feet by kicking them, and dragged them by the hair of the head. He had also entered into the trade of cattle grazing and farming—dealt in black cattle—in the shipping business—and in herring fishing.'
[545] These six Methodists were in 1768 expelled St. Edmund's Hall, by the Vice-Chancellor, acting as 'visitor.' Nominally they were expelled for their ignorance; in reality for their active Methodism. That they were 'mighty ignorant fellows' was shown, but ignorance was tolerated at Oxford. One of their number confessed his ignorance, and declined all examination. But 'as he was represented to be a man of fortune, and declared that he was not designed for holy orders, the Vice-Chancellor did not think fit to remove him for this reason only, though he was supposed to be one of "the righteous over-much."'Dr. Johnson: His Friends and his Critics, pp. 51-57. Horace Walpole, Whig though he was, thought as Johnson. 'Oxford,' he wrote (Lettersv. 97), 'has begun with these rascals, and I hope Cambridge will wake.'
[546] Much such an expulsion as this Johnson had justified in hisLife of Cheynel(Works, vi. 415). 'A temper of this kind,' he wrote, 'is generally inconvenient and offensive in any society, but in a place of education is least to be tolerated … He may be justly driven from a society, by which he thinks himself too wise to be governed, and in which he is too young to teach, and too opinionative to learn.'
[547] Johnson wrote far otherwise of the indulgence shown to Edmund Smith, the poet. 'The indecency and licentiousness of his behaviour drew upon him, Dec. 24, 1694, while he was yet only bachelor, a publick admonition, entered upon record, in order to his expulsion. Of this reproof the effect is not known. He was probably less notorious. At Oxford, as we all know, much will be forgiven to literary merit…. Of his lampoon upon Dean Aldrich, [Smith was a Christ-Church man], I once heard a single line too gross to be repeated. But he was still a genius and a scholar, and Oxford was unwilling to lose him; he was endured with all his pranks and his vices two years longer; but on Dec. 20, 1705, at the instance of all the Canons, the sentence declared five years before was put in execution. The execution was, I believe, silent and tender.'Works, vii. 373-4.
[548] See post, p. 193, note i.
[549] 'Our bottle-conversation,' wrote Addison, 'is infected with party-lying.'The Spectator, No. 507.
[550] Mrs. Piozzi, in herAnecdotes, p. 261, has given an erroneous account of this incident, as of many others. She pretends to relate it from recollection, as if she herself had been present; when the fact is that it was communicated to her by me. She has represented it as a personality, and the true point has escaped her. BOSWELL. She tells the story against Boswell. 'I fancy Mr. B—— has not forgotten,' she writes.
[551] See post, April 11, 1776.
[552] Johnson, in his Dictionary, definesmanufactureras aworkman; an artificer.
[553] Johnson had no fear of popular education. In his attack on Jenyns'sEnquiry(ante, i. 315), he wrote (Works, vi. 56):—'Though it should be granted that those who areborn to poverty and drudgeryshould not bedeprivedby animproper educationof theopiateofignorance, even this concession will not be of much use to direct our practice, unless it be determined, who are those that areborn to poverty. To entail irreversible poverty upon generation after generation, only because the ancestor happened to be poor, is in itself cruel, if not unjust…. I am always afraid of determining on the side of envy or cruelty. The privileges of education may sometimes be improperly bestowed, but I shall always fear to withhold them, lest I should be yielding to the suggestions of pride, while I persuade myself that I am following the maxims of policy.' InThe Idler, No. 26, he attacked those who 'hold it little less than criminal to teach poor girls to read and write,' and who say that 'they who are born to poverty are born to ignorance, and will work the harder the less they know.'
[554] Tacitus's Agricola, ch. xii, was no doubt quoted in reference to the shortness of the northern winter day.
[555] It is remarkable, that Lord Monboddo, whom, on account of his resembling Dr. Johnson in some particulars, Foote called an Elzevir edition of him, has, by coincidence, made the very same remark.Origin and Progress of Language, vol. iii. 2nd ed. p. 219. BOSWELL. See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 21, note.
[556] On Saturday night Johnson recorded:—'I resolved last Easter to read within the year the whole Bible, a very great part of which I had never looked upon. I read the Greek Testament without construing, and this day concluded the Apocalypse…. Easter Day. After twelve at night. The day is now begun on which I hope to begin a new course, [Greek: hosper aph husplaeggon], [as if from the starting-place.]
My hopes are from this time—To rise early,To waste less time,To appropriate something to charity.'
A week later he recorded:—'It is a comfort to me that at last, in my sixty-third year, I have attained to know even thus hastily, confusedly, and imperfectly, what my Bible contains. I have never yet read the Apocrypha. I have sometimes looked into the Maccabees, and read a chapter containing the question,Which is the strongest?I think, in Esdras' [I Esdras, ch. iii. v. 10].Pr. and Med. pp. 112-118.
[557]Pr. and Med. p. iii. BOSWELL.
[558] 'Perfect through sufferings.'Hebrews, ii. 10.
[559] 'I was always so incapable of learning mathematics,' wrote Horace Walpole (Letters, ix. 467), 'that I could not even get by heart the multiplication table, as blind Professor Sanderson honestly told me, above three-score years ago, when I went to his lectures at Cambridge. After the first fortnight he said to me, "Young man, it would be cheating you to take your money; for you never can learn what I am trying to teach you." I was exceedingly mortified, and cried; for, being a Prime Minister's son, I had firmly believed all the flattery with which I had been assured that my parts were capable of anything.'
[560] Reynolds said:—'Out of the great number of critics in this metropolis who all pretend to knowledge in pictures, the greater part must be mere pretenders only. Taste does not come by chance; it is a long and laborious task to acquire it.' Northcote'sReynolds, i. 264.
[561] 'Jemmy Boswell,' wrote John Scott (afterwards Lord Eldon), 'called upon me, desiring to know what would be my definition of taste. I told him I must decline defining it, because I knew he would publish it. He continued his importunities in frequent calls, and in one complained much that I would not give him it, as he had that morning got Henry Dundas's, Sir A. Macdonald's, and J. Anstruther's definitions. "Well, then," I said, "Boswell, we must have an end of this. Taste, according to my definition, is the judgment which Dundas, Macdonald, Anstruther, and you manifested when you determined to quit Scotland and to come into the south. You may publish this if you please."' Twiss'sEldon, i. 303. Seepost, April 10, 1778, note for Lord Eldon.
[562] Johnson (Works, viii. 220) says that 'Swift's delight was in simplicity. That he has in his works no metaphor, as has been said, is not true; but his few metaphors seem to be received rather by necessity than choice. He studied purity…. His style was well suited to his thoughts…. He pays no court to the passions; he excites neither surprise nor admiration; he always understands himself, and his reader always understands him; the peruser of Swift wants little previous knowledge; it will be sufficient that he is acquainted with common words and common things; … [his style] instructs, but it does not persuade.' Hume describes Swift's style as one which he 'can approve, but surely can never admire. It has no harmony, no eloquence, no ornament, and not much correctness, whatever the English may imagine.' J. H. Burton'sHume, ii. 413.
[563] Johnson's Works, v. 146.
[564] Dr. Warton wrote on Jan. 22, 1766:—'Garrick is entirely off from Johnson, and cannot, he says, forgive him his insinuating that he withheld his old editions, which always were open to him; nor, I suppose, his never mentioning him in all his works.' Wooll'sWarton, p. 313. Beauclerk wrote to Lord Charlemont in 1773:—'If you do not come here, I will bring all the club over to Ireland to live with you, and that will drive you here in your own defence, Johnsonshall spoil your books, Goldsmith pull your flowers, and Boswell talk to you: stay then if you can.' Charlemont'sLife, i. 347. Yet Garrick had lent Johnson some books, for Johnson wrote to him on Oct. 10, 1766:—'I return you thanks for the present of theDictionary, and will take care to return you [qu. your] other books.'Garrick Corres, i. 245. Steevens, who had edited Johnson'sShakespeare, wrote to Garrick:—'I have taken the liberty to introduce your name, becauseI have foundno reason to say that the possessors of the old quartos were not sufficiently communicative.'Ibp. 501. Mme. D'Arblay describes how 'Garrick, giving a thundering stamp on some mark on the carpet that struck his eye—not with passion or displeasure, but merely as if from singularity—took off Dr. Johnson's voice in a short dialogue with himself that had passed the preceding week. "David! Will you lend me yourPetrarca?" "Y-e-s, Sir!" "David! you sigh?" "Sir—you shall have it certainly." "Accordingly," Mr. Garrick continued, "the book, stupendously bound, I sent to him that very evening. But scarcely had he taken it in his hands, when, as Boswell tells me, he poured forth a Greek ejaculation and a couplet or two from Horace, and then in one of those fits of enthusiasm which always seem to require that he should spread his arms aloft, he suddenly pounces my poorPetrarcaover his head upon the floor. And then, standing for several minutes lost in abstraction, he forgot probably that he had ever seen it."' Dr. Burney'sMemoirs, i. 352. Seepost, under Aug. 12, 1784.
[565] The gentleman most likely is Boswell (ante, ii. 14, note 1). I suspect that this anecdote belongs toante, April 14, when 'Johnson was not in the most genial humour.' Boswell, while showing that Mrs. Piozzi misrepresented an incident of that evening 'as a personality,' would be afraid of weakening his case by letting it be seen that Johnson on that occasion was very personal. Since writing this I have noticed that Dr. T. Campbell records in hisDiary, p. 53, that on April 1, 1775, he was dining at Mr. Thrale's with Boswell, when many of Johnson's 'bon-mots were retailed. Boswell arguing in favour of a cheerful glass, adduced the maximin vino veritas. "Well," says Johnson, "and what then, unless a man has lived a lie." Boswell then urged that it made a man forget all his cares. "That to be sure," says Johnson, "might be of use, if a man sat by such a person as you."' Campbell's account confirms what Boswell asserts (ante, ii. 188) that Mrs. Piozzi had the anecdote from him.
[566] No. 150. The quotation is from Francis Osborne'sAdvice to a Son. Swift, inThe Tatler, No. 230, ranks Osborne with some other authors, who 'being men of the Court, and affecting the phrases then in fashion, are often either not to be understood, or appear perfectly ridiculous.'
[567] See post, May 13, 1778, and June 30, 1784.
[568] Mrs. Piozzi, to whom I told this anecdote, has related it, as if the gentleman had given 'thenatural history of the mouse.'Anec. p. 191. BOSWELL. The gentleman was very likely Dr. Vansittart, who is mentioned just before. (Seeante, i. 348, note 1.) Mrs. Thrale, in 1773, wrote to Johnson of 'the man that saw the mouse.' PiozziLetters, i. 186. From Johnson's answer (ib. p. 197) it seems that she meant Vansittart. Mr. Croker says 'this proves that Johnson himself sanctioned Mrs. Piozzi's version of the story—mouse versus flea.' Mr. Croker has an odd notion of what constitutes both a proof and a sanction.
[569] Lord Shelburne says that 'William Murray [Lord Mansfield] was sixteen years of age when he came out of Scotland, and spoke such broad Scotch that he stands entered in the University books at Oxford as born as Bath, the Vice-Chancellor mistakingBath for Perth.' Fitzmaurice'sShelburne, i. 87.
[570] The asterisks seem to show that Beattie and Robertson are meant. This is rendered more probable from the fact that the last paragraph is about Scotchmen.
[571] Seeante, ii. 51.
[572] Boswell's friend was very likely his brother David, who had long resided in Valencia. In that case, Johnson came round to Boswell's opinion, for he wrote, 'he will find Scotland but a sorry place after twelve years' residence in a happier climate;'post, April 29, 1780.
[573] Seeante, i.443, note 2.
[574] Wilson against Smith and Armour. BOSWELL.
[575] Lord Kames, in hisHistorical Law Tracts. BOSWELL.
[576] 'Covin. A deceitful agreement between two or more to the hurt of another.' Johnson'sDictionary.
[577] Lord Kames (Sketches of the History of Man, iv. 168) says:—'The undisciplined manners of our forefathers in Scotland made a law necessary, that whoever intermeddled irregularly with the goods of a deceased person should be subjected to pay all his debts, however extensive. A due submission to legal authority has in effect abrogated that severe law, and it is now [1774] scarce ever heard of.' Scott introduces Lord Kames inRedgauntlet, at the end of chap. I of theNarrative:—'"What's the matter with the auld bitch next?" said an acute metaphysical judge, though somewhat coarse in his manners, aside to his brethren.' In Boswell's poemThe Court of Session Garland, where the Scotch judges each give judgment, we read:—
'Alemore the judgment as illegal blames,"Tis equity, you bitch," replies my Lord Kames.'
Chambers'sTraditions of Edinburgh, ii. 161. Mr. Chambers adds (p. 171) that when Kames retired from the Bench, 'after addressing his brethren in a solemn speech, in going out at the door of the court room, he turned about, and casting them a last look, cried, in his usual familiar tone, "Fare ye a' weel, ye bitches."'
[578] At this time there were no civil juries in Scotland. 'But this was made up for, to a certain extent, by the Supreme Court, consisting of no fewer than fifteen judges; who formed a sort of judicial jury, and were dealt with as such. The great mass of the business was carried on by writing.' Cockbarn'sJeffery, i. 87. Seepost, Jan. 19, 1775, note.
[579] In like manner, he had discovered theLife of Cheynelto be Johnson's. Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 17, 1774.
[580] TheEssay on Truth, published in May, 1770. Beattie wrote on Sept. 30, 1772:—'The fourth edition of myEssayis now in the press.' Forbes'sBeattie, ed. 1824, p. 134. Three translations—French, Dutch, and German—had, it seems, already appeared.Ibp. 121. 'Mr. Johnson made Goldsmith a comical answer one day, when seeming to repine at the success of Beattie'sEssay on Truth. "Here's such a stir," said he, "about a fellow that has written one book, and I have written many." "Ah, Doctor," says he, "there go two and forty sixpences you know to one guinea."' Piozzi'sAnec. p. 179. See Boswell'sHebrides, Oct 1, 1773.
[581] Seeante, ii. 144, 183.
[582] On the same day he wrote to Dr. Taylor:—'Your uneasiness at the misfortunes of your relations, I comprehend perhaps too well. It was an irresistible obtrusion of a disagreeable image, which you always wished away, but could not dismiss, an incessant persecution of a troublesome thought, neither to be pacified nor ejected. Such has of late been the state of my own mind. I had formerly great command of my attention, and what I did not like could forbear to think on. But of this power, which is of the highest importance to the tranquillity of life, I have been so much exhausted, that I do not go into a company towards night, in which i foresee anything disagreeable, nor enquire after anything to which I am not indifferent, lest something, which I know to be nothing, should fasten upon my imagination, and hinder me from sleep.'Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 383. On Oct. 6 he wrote to Dr. Taylor:—'I am now within a few hours of being able to send the wholeDictionaryto the press [ante, ii. 155], and though I often went sluggishly to the work, I am not much delighted at the completion. My purpose is to come down to Lichfield next week.'Ibp. 422. He stayed some weeks there and in Ashbourne.Piozzi Letters, i. 55-70.
[583] Seeante, ii. 141, note 3.
[584] 'While of myself I yet may think, while breath my body sways.' Morris's Aeneids, iv. 336.
[585] It should seem that this dictionary work was not unpleasant to Johnson; for Stockdale records (Memoirs, ii. 179) that about 1774, having told him that he had declined to edit a new edition of Chambers'sDictionary of the Arts and Sciences, 'Johnson replied that if I would not undertake, he would. I expressed my astonishment that, in his easy circumstances, he should think of preparing a new edition of a tedious, scientific dictionary. "Sir," said he, "I like that muddling work." He allowed some time to go by, during which another editor was found—Dr. Rees. Immediately after this intelligence he called on me, and his first words were:—"It is gone, Sir."'