[789] Sir Alexander Gordon, one of the Professors at Aberdeen. BOSWELL.
[790] This was a box containing a number of curious things which he had picked up in Scotland, particularly some horn spoons. BOSWELL.
[791] The Rev. Dr. Alexander Webster, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, a man of distinguished abilities, who had promised him information concerning the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. BOSWELL.
[792] The Macdonalds always laid claim to be placed on the right of the whole clans, and those of that tribe assign the breach of this order at Culloden as one cause of the loss of the day. The Macdonalds, placed on the left wing, refused to charge, and positively left the field unassailed and unbroken. Lord George Murray in vain endeavoured to urge them on by saying, that their behaviour would make the left the right, and that he himself would take the name of Macdonald. WALTER SCOTT.
[793] The whole of the first volume is Johnson's and three-quarters of the second. A second edition was published the following year, with a third volume added, which also contained pieces by Johnson, but no apology from Davies.
[794] 'When Davies printed theFugitive Pieceswithout his knowledge or consent; "How," said I, "would Pope have raved had he been served so?" "We should never," replied he, "have heard the last on't, to be sure; but then Pope was a narrow man: I will however," added he, "storm and blustermyselfa little this time;"—so went to London in all the wrath he could muster up. At his return I asked how the affair ended:
'"Why," said he, "I was a fierce fellow, and pretended to be very angry, and Thomas was a good-natured fellow, and pretended to be very sorry; sotherethe matter ended: I believe the dog loves me dearly. Mr. Thrale" (turning to my husband), "What shall you and I do that is good for Tom Davies? We will do something for him to be sure."' Piozzi'sAnec. p. 55.
[795]Prayers and Meditations, BOSWELL.
[796] The ancient Burgh of Prestick, in Ayrshire. BOSWELL.
[797] Perhaps Johnson imperfectly remembered, 'novae rediere in pristina vires.'AEneid, xii. 424.
[798] Seeante, i. 437. The decision was given on Feb. 22 against the perpetual right. 'By the above decision near 200,000£. worth of what was honestly purchased at public sale, and which was yesterday thought property, is now reduced to nothing…. The English booksellers have now no other security in future for any literary purchase they may make but the statute of the 8th of Queen Anne, which secures to the authors assigns an exclusive property for 14 years, to revert again to the author, and vest in him for 14 years more.'Ann. Reg. 1774, i. 95.
[799] Murphy was a barrister as well as author.
[800] Mr. Croker quotes a note by Malone to show that in the catalogue of Steevens's Library this book is described as a quarto,corio turcico foliis deauratis.
[801] A manuscript account drawn by Dr. Webster of all the parishes in Scotland, ascertaining their length, breadth, number of inhabitants, and distinguishing Protestants and Roman Catholicks. This book had been transmitted to government, and Dr. Johnson saw a copy of it in Dr. Webster's possession. BOSWELL.
[802] Beauclerk, three weeks earlier, had written to Lord Charlemont:—'Our club has dwindled away to nothing. Nobody attends but Mr. Chambers, and he is going to the East Indies. Sir Joshua and Goldsmith have got into such a round of pleasures that they have no time.' Charlemont'sLife, i. 350. Johnson, no doubt, had been kept away by illness (ante, p. 272).
[803] Mr. Fox, as Sir James Mackintosh informed me, was brought in by Burke. CROKER.
[804] Sir C. Bunbury was the brother of Mr. H. W. Bunbury, the caricaturist, who married Goldsmith's friend, the elder Miss Horneck—'Little Comedy' as she was called. Forster'sGoldsmith, ii. 147.
[805] Rogers (Table-Talk, p. 23) tells how Dr. Fordyce, who sometimes drank a good deal, was summoned to a lady patient when he was conscious that he had had too much wine. 'Feeling her pulse, and finding himself unable to count its beats, he muttered, "Drunk by G—." Next morning a letter from her was put into his hand. "She too well knew," she wrote, "that he had discovered the unfortunate condition in which she had been, and she entreated him to keep the matter secret in consideration of the enclosed (a hundred-pound bank-note)."'
[806] Steevens wrote to Garrick on March 6:—'Mr. C. Fox pays you but a bad compliment; as he appears, like the late Mr. Secretary Morris, to enter the society at a time when he hasnothing else to do. If thebon tonshould prove a contagious disorder among us, it will be curious to trace its progress. I have already seen it breaking out in Dr. G——[Goldsmith] under the form of many a waistcoat, but I believe Dr. G—— will be the last man in whom the symptoms of it will be detected.'Garrick Corres. i. 613. In less than a month poor Goldsmith was dead. Fox, just before his election to the club, had received through one of the doorkeepers of the House of Commons the following note:—'SIR,—His Majesty has thought proper to order a new commission of the Treasury to be made out, in which I do not perceive your name. NORTH.'
[807] See Boswell's answer,post, May 12.
[808] Seepost, April 16, 1775.
[809] Seeante, i. 122, note 2.
[810] Iona.
[811] 'I was induced,' he says, 'to undertake the journey by finding in Mr. Boswell a companion, whose acuteness would help my inquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation and civility of manners are sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel in countries less hospitable than we have passed.' Quoted by Boswell in hisHebrides, Aug. 18, 1773.
[812] Seepost, Nov. 16, 1776.
[813] Boswell wrote to Temple on May 8, 1779:—'I think Dr. Johnson never answered but three of my letters, though I have had numerous returns from him.'Letters of Boswell. Seepost, Sept. 29, 1777.
[814] Dr. Goldsmith died April 4, this year. BOSWELL. Boswell wrote to Garrick on April 11, 1774:—'Dr. Goldsmith's death would affect all the club much. I have not been so much affected with any event that has happened of a long time. I wish you would give me, who am at a distance, some particulars with regard to his last appearance.'Garrick Corres. i. 622.
[815] Seeante, p. 265.
[816] Seeante, ii. 27, and Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 29, 1773.
[817] These books Dr. Johnson presented to the Bodleian Library, BOSWELL.
[818] On the cover enclosing them, Dr. Johnson wrote, 'If my delay has given any reason for supposing that I have not a very deep sense of the honour done me by asking my judgement, I am very sorry.' BOSWELL.
[819] Seepost, March 20, 1776.
[820] 'Sir Joshua was much affected by the death of Goldsmith, to whom he had been a very sincere friend. He did not touch the pencil for that day, a circumstance most extraordinary for him who passedno day without a line. Northcote'sReynolds, i. 325.
[821] He owed his tailor £79, though he had paid him £110 in 1773. In this payment was included £35 for his nephew's clothes. We find such entries in his own bills as—'To Tyrian bloom satin grain and, garter blue silk beeches 8£ 2s. 7d. To Queen's-blue dress suit 11£ 17s. 0d. To your blue velvet suit 21£ 10s. 9d.' (Seeante, ii. 83.) Filby's son said to Mr. Prior:—'My father attributed no blame to Goldsmith; he had been a good customer, and had he lived would have paid every farthing.' Prior'sGoldsmith, ii. 232.
[822] 'Soon after Goldsmith's death certain persons dining with Sir Joshua commented rather freely on some part of his works, which, in their opinion, neither discovered talent nor originality. To this Dr. Johnson listened in his usual growling manner; when, at length, his patience being exhausted, he rose with great dignity, looked them full in the face, and exclaimed, "If nobody was suffered to abuse poor Goldy, but those who could write as well, he would have few censors."' Northcote'sReynolds, i. 327. To Goldsmith might be applied the words that Johnson wrote of Savage (Works, viii. 191):—'Vanity may surely be readily pardoned in him to whom life afforded no other comforts than barren praises, and the consciousness of deserving them. Those are no proper judges of his conduct who have slumbered away their time on the down of plenty; nor will any wise man presume to say, "Had I been in Savage's condition, I should have lived or written better than Savage."'
[823] Mrs. Thrale's mother died the summer before (ante, p. 263). Most of her children died early. By 1777 she had lost seven out of eleven.Post, May 3, 1777.
[824] Johnson had not seen Langton since early in the summer of 1773. He was then suffering from a fever and an inflammation in the eye, for which he was twice copiously bled. (Pr. and Med. 130.) The following winter he was distressed by a cough. (Ibp. 135.) Neither of these illnesses was severe enough to be called dreadful. In the spring of 1770 he was very ill. (Ibp. 93.) On Sept. 18, 1771, he records:—'For the last year I have been slowly recovering from the violence of my last illness.' (Ibp. 104.) On April 18, 1772, in reviewing the last year, he writes:—'An unpleasing incident is almost certain to hinder my rest; this is the remainder of my last illness.' (Ibp. iii.) In the winter of 1772-3, he suffered from a cough. (Ibp. 121.) I think that he must mean the illness of 1770, though it is to be noticed that he wrote to Boswell on July 5, 1773:—'Except this eye [the inflamed eye] I am very well.' (Ante, p. 264.)
[825] 'Lord have mercy upon us.'
[826] See Johnson'sWorks, i. 172, for his Latin version. D'Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, vi. 368) says 'that Oldys [ante, i. 175] always asserted that he was the author of this song, and as he was a rigid lover of truth I doubt not that he wrote it. I have traced it through a dozen of collections since the year 1740, the first in which I find it.'
[827] Mr. Seward (Anec, ii. 466) gives the following version of these lines:
'Whoe'er thou art with reverence treadWhere Goldsmith's letter'd dust is laid.If nature and the historic page,If the sweet muse thy care engage.Lament him dead whose powerful mindTheir various energies combined.'
[828] Seeante, p. 265.
[829] At Lleweney, the house of Mrs. Thrale's cousin, Mr. Cotton, Dr. Johnson stayed nearly three weeks. Johnson'sJourney into North Wales, July 28, 1774. Mr. Fitzmaurice, Lord Shelburne's brother, had a house there in 1780; for Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on May 7 of that year:—'He has almost made me promise to pass part of the summer at Llewenny.'Piozzi Letters, ii. 113.
[830] Lord Hailes was Sir David Dalrymple. Seeante, i. 267. He is not to be confounded with Sir John Dalrymple, mentionedante, ii. 210.
[831]
E'en in a bishop I can spy desert;Seeker is decent, Rundel has a heart.'
Pope'sEpilogue to the Satires, ii. 70.
[832] In the first two editionsforenoon. Boswell, in three other passages, made the same change in the third edition.Forenoonperhaps he considered a Scotticism. The correction above being made in one of his letters, renders it likely that he corrected them before publication.
[833] Horace,Ars Poet. l. 373.
[834] 'Do not you long to hear the roarings of the old lion over the bleak mountains of the North?' wrote Steevens to Garrick.Garrick Corres, ii. 122.
[835] 'Aug. 16. We came to Penmanmaur by daylight, and found a way, lately made, very easy and very safe. It was cut smooth and enclosed between parallel walls; the outer of which secures the passenger from the precipice, which is deep and dreadful…. The sea beats at the bottom of the way. At evening the moon shone eminently bright: and our thoughts of danger being now past, the rest of our journey was very pleasant. At an hour somewhat late we came to Bangor, where we found a very mean inn, and had some difficulty to obtain lodging. I lay in a room where the other bed had two men.' Johnson'sJourney into North Wales.
[836] He did not go to the top of Snowdon. He says:—'On the side of Snowdon are the remains of a large fort, to which we climbed with great labour. I was breathless and harassed,'IbAug. 26.
[837] I had written to him, to request his interposition in behalf of a convict, who I thought was very unjustly condemned. BOSWELL.
[838] He had kept a journal which was edited by Mr. Duppa in 1816. It will be foundpost, in vol. v.
[839] 'When the general election broke up the delightful society in which we had spent some time at Beconsfield, Dr. Johnson shook the hospitable master of the house [Burke] kindly by the hand, and said, "Farewell my dear Sir, and remember that I wish you all the success which ought to be wished you, which can possibly be wished you indeed—by an honest man."' Piozzi'sAnec. p. 242. The dissolution was on Sept. 30. Johnson, with the Thrales, as hisJournalshows, had arrived at Beconsfield on the 24th. Seeante, ii. 222, for Johnson's opinion of Burke's honesty.
[840] Mr. Perkins was for a number of years the worthy superintendant of Mr. Thrale's great brewery, and after his death became one of the proprietors of it; and now resides in Mr. Thrale's house in Southwark, which was the scene of so many literary meetings, and in which he continues the liberal hospitality for which it was eminent. Dr. Johnson esteemed him much. He hung up in the counting-house a fine proof of the admirable mizzotinto of Dr. Johnson, by Doughty; and when Mrs. Thrale asked him somewhat flippantly, 'Why do you put him up in the counting-house?' he answered, 'Because, Madam, I wish to have one wise man there.' 'Sir,' (said Johnson,) 'I thank you. It is a very handsome compliment, and I believe you speak sincerely.' BOSWELL.
[841] In the news-papers. BOSWELL.
[842] 'Oct. 16, 1774. In Southwark there has been outrageous rioting; but I neither know the candidates, their connections, nor success.' Horace Walpole'sLetters, vi. 134. Of one Southwark election Mrs. Piozzi writes (Anec. p. 214):—'A Borough election once showed me Mr. Johnson's toleration of boisterous mirth. A rough fellow, a hatter by trade, seeing his beaver in a state of decay seized it suddenly with one hand, and clapping him on the back with the other. "Ah, Master Johnson," says he, "this is no time to be thinking abouthats." "No, no, Sir," replies our doctor in a cheerful tone, "hats are of no use now, as you say, except to throw up in the air and huzza with," accompanying his words with the true election halloo.'
[843] See Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 19, 1773. Johnson thus mentions him (Works, ix. 142):—'Here we had the last embrace of this amiable man, who, while these pages were preparing to attest his virtues, perished in the passage between Ulva and Inch Kenneth.'
[844] Alluding to a passage in a letter of mine, where speaking of hisJourney to the Hebrides, I say, 'But has notThe Patriotbeen an interruption, by the time taken to write it, and the time luxuriously spent in listening to its applauses?' BOSWELL.
[845] We had projected a voyage together up the Baltic, and talked of visiting some of the more northern regions. BOSWELL. See Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 16.
[846] Seeante, i. 72.
[847] John Hoole, the son of a London watchmaker, was born in Dec. 1727, and died on Aug. 2, 1803. At the age of seventeen he was placed as a clerk in the East-India House; but, like his successors, James and John Stuart Mill, he was an author as well as a clerk. Seeante, i. 383.
[848]Cleonice. BOSWELL. Nichols (Lit. Anec. ii. 407) says that asCleonicewas a failure on the stage 'Mr. Hoole returned a considerable part of the money which he had received for the copy-right, alleging that, as the piece was not successful on the stage, it could not be very profitable to the bookseller, and ought not to be a loss.'
[849] Seeante, i. 255.
[850] Seepost, March 20, 1776.
[851] 'The King,' wrote Horace Walpole on Jan. 21, 1775 (Letters, vi. 179), 'sent for the book in MS., and then wondering said, "I protest, Johnson seems to be a Papist and a Jacobite—so he did not know why he had been made to give him a pension."'
[852] Boswell's little daughter. Boswell'sHebrides, Aug, 15, 1773.
[853] 'Bis dat qui cito dat, minimi gratia tarda pretii est.' Alciat'sEmblems, AlciatiOpera1538, p. 821.
[854] It was at the Turk's Head coffee-house in the Strand. Seeante, i. 450.
[855]Hamlet, act iii. sc. 2.
[856] 'Exegi monumentum ære perennius.' Horace,Odes, iii. 30. I.
[857] The second edition was not brought out till the year after Johnson's death. These mistakes remain uncorrected. Johnson'sWorks, ix. 44. 150.
[858] See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 23.
[859] In the Court of Session of Scotland an action is first tried by one of the Judges, who is called the Lord Ordinary; and if either party is dissatisfied, he may appeal to the whole Court, consisting of fifteen, the Lord President and fourteen other Judges, who have both in and out of Court the title of Lords, from the name of their estates; as, Lord Auchinleck, Lord Monboddo, &c. BOSWELL. Seeante, ii. 201, note 1.
[860] Johnson had thus written of him (Works, ix. 115):—'I suppose my opinion of the poems of Ossian is already discovered. I believe they never existed in any other form than that which we have seen. The editor, or author, never could show the original; nor can it be shown by any other. To revenge reasonable incredulity by refusing evidence is a degree of insolence with which the world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt.' Seeante, ii. 126.
[861]Taxation no Tyranny. Seepost, under March 21, 1775.
[862] Seeante, p. 265.
[863] In Tickell'sEpistle from the Hon. Charles Fox to the Hon. John Townshend(1779) are the following lines (p. 11):—
'Soon as to Brooks's thence thy footsteps bend,What gratulations thy approach attend!
See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise,And friendship give what cruel health denies.'
[864] It should be recollected, that this fanciful description of his friend was given by Johnson after he himself had become a water-drinker. BOSWELL. Johnson,post, April 18, 1775, describes one of his friends asmuddy. On April 12, 1776, in a discussion about wine, when Reynolds said to him, 'You have sat by, quite sober, and felt an envy of the happiness of those who were drinking,' he replied, 'Perhaps, contempt.' On April 28, 1778, he said to Reynolds: 'I won't argue any more with you, Sir. You are too far gone.' See alsoante, i. 313, note 3, where he said to him: 'Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?'
[865] See them inJournal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 337 [Oct. 17]. BOSWELL.
[866] He now sent me a Latin inscription for my historical picture of Mary Queen of Scots, and afterwards favoured me with an English translation. Mr. Alderman Boydell, that eminent Patron of the Arts, has subjoined them to the engraving from my picture.
'Maria Scotorum ReginaHomimun seditiosorumContumeliis lassata,Minis territa, clamoribus victaLibello, per quemRegno cedit,Lacrimans trepidansqueNomen apponit?'
'Mary Queen of Scots,Harassed, terrified, and overpoweredBy the insults, menaces,And clamoursOf her rebellious subjects,Sets her hand,With tears and confusion,To a resignation of the kingdom.'
Northcote (Life of Reynolds, ii. 234) calls Boydell 'the truest and greatest encourager of English art that England ever saw.'
[867] By the Boston Port-Bill, passed in 1774, Boston had been closed as a port for the landing and shipping of goods.Ann. Reg. xvii. 64.
[868] Becket, a bookseller in the Strand, was the publisher ofOssian.
[869] His Lordship, notwithstanding his resolution, did commit his sentiments to paper, and in one of his notes affixed to hisCollection of Old Scottish Poetry, he says, that 'to doubt the authenticity of those poems is a refinement in Scepticism indeed.' J. BLAKEWAY.
[870] Mr. Croker writes (Croker'sBoswell, p. 378, note):—'The original draft of these verses in Johnson's autograph is now before me. He had first written:—
'Sunt pro legitimis pectora pura sacris;'
he then wrote—
'Legitimas faciunt pura labella preces;'
which more nearly approaches Mr. Boswell's version, and alludes, happily I think, to the prayers having been read by the young lady…. The line as it stands in theWorks[Sint pro legitimis pura labella sacris, i. 167], is substituted in Mr. Langton's hand…. As I have reason to believe that Mr. Langton assisted in editing these Latinpoemata, I conclude that these alterations were his own.'
[871] The learned and worthy Dr. Lawrence, whom Dr. Johnson respected and loved as his physician and friend. BOSWELL. 'Dr. Lawrence was descended, as Sir Egerton Brydges informs me, from Milton's friend ['Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son.' Milton'sSonnets, xx.]. One of his sons was Sir Soulden Lawrence, one of the Judges of the King's Bench.' Croker'sBoswell, p. 734. Seepost, March 19, 1782.
[872] My friend has, in this letter, relied upon my testimony, with a confidence, of which the ground has escaped my recollection. BOSWELL. Lord Shelburne said: 'Like the generality of Scotch, Lord Mansfield had no regard to truth whatever.' Fitzmaurice'sShelburne, i. 89.
[873] Dr. Lawrence. See Johnson's letter to Warren Hastings of Dec. 20, 1774.Post, beginning of 1781.
[874] I have deposited it in the British Museum. BOSWELL. Mr. P. Cunningham says:—'Of all the MSS. which Boswell says he had deposited in the British Museum, only the copy of the letter to Lord Chesterfield has been found, and that was not deposited by him, but after his death, "pursuant to the intentions of the late James Boswell, Esq."' Croker'sBoswell, p. 430. The original letter to Macpherson was sold in Mr. Pocock's collection in 1875. It fetched £50, almost five times as much as Johnson was paid for hisLondon. It differs from the copy, if we can trust the auctioneer's catalogue, where the following passage is quoted:—'Mr. James Macpherson, I received your foolish and impudent note. Whatever insult is offered me, I will do my best to repel, and what I cannot do for myself the law shall do for me. I will not desist from detecting what I think a cheat from any fear of the menaces of a Ruffian.'
[875] In theGent. Mag. for 1773, p. 192, is announced: 'The Iliad of Homer. Translated by James Macpherson, Esq., 2 vols. 4to. £2 2s. Becket.' Hume writes:—'Finding the style of hisOssianadmired by some, he attempts a translation ofHomerin the very same style. He begins and finishes in six weeks a work that was for ever to eclipse the translation of Pope, whom he does not even deign to mention in his preface; but this joke was still more unsuccessful [than hisHistory of Britain].' J. H. Burton'sHume, i. 478. Hume says of him, that he had 'scarce ever known a man more perverse and unamiable.'Ibp. 470.
[876] 'Within a few feet of Johnson lies (by one of those singular coincidences in which the Abbey abounds) his deadly enemy, James Macpherson.' Stanley'sWestminster Abbey, p. 298.
[877]Hamlet, act iii. sc. I.
[878] 'Fear was indeed a sensation to which Dr. Johnson was an utter stranger, excepting when some sudden apprehensions seized him that he was going to die.' Piozzi'sAnec. p. 277. In this respect his character might be likened to that of Fearing, inPilgrim's Progress(Part ii), as described by Great-Heart:—'When he came to the Hill Difficulty, he made no stick at that, nor did he much fear the Lions; for you must know that his troubles were not about such things as these; his fear was about his acceptance at last.'
[879] See Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 18, 1773.
[880] Seeante, i. 249, where Garrick humorously foretold the Round-house for Johnson.
[881] Seeante, ii. 95.
[882] 'It was,' writes Hawkins (Life, p. 491), 'an oak-plant of a tremendous size; a plant, I say, and not a shoot or branch, for it had had a root which, being trimmed to the size of a large orange, became the head of it. Its height was upwards of six feet, and from about an inch in diameter at the lower end, increased to near three; this he kept in his bed-chamber, so near the chair in which he constantly sat as to be within reach.' Macpherson, like Johnson, was a big man. Dr. A. Carlyle says (Auto. p. 398):—'He was good-looking, of a large size, with very thick legs, to hide which he generally wore boots, though not then the fashion. He appeared to me proud and reserved.'
[883] Boswell wrote to Temple on April 4:—'Mr. Johnson has allowed me to write out a supplement to his Journey.'Letters of Boswell, p. 186. On May 10 he wrote:—'I have not written out another line of my remarks on the Hebrides. I found it impossible to do it in London. Besides, Dr. Johnson does not seem very desirous that I should publish any supplement.Between ourselves, he is not apt to encourage one to share reputation with himself.'Ibp. 192.
[884] Colonel Newcome, when a lad, 'was for ever talking of India, and the famous deeds of Clive and Lawrence. His favourite book was a history of India—the history of Orme.' Thackeray'sNewcomes, ch. 76. Seepost, April 15, 1778.
[885]Richard II, act i. sc. 3. Seeante, i. 129.
[886] A passage in theNorth Briton, No. 34, shews how wide-spread this prejudice was. The writer gives his 'real, fair, and substantial objections to the administration of thisScot[Lord Bute]. The first is, that he is aScot. I am certain that reason could never believe that aScotwas fit to have the management ofEnglishaffairs. AScothath no more right to preferment in England than aHanoverianor aHottentot.' InHumphry Clinker(Letter of July 13) we read:—'From Doncaster northwards all the windows of all the inns are scrawled with doggrel rhymes in abuse of the Scotch nation.' Horace Walpole, writing of the contest between the House of Commons and the city in 1771, says of the Scotch courtiers:—'The Scotch wanted to come to blows, andwere at least not sorry to see the House of Commons so contemptible.'Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 301. 'What a nation is Scotland,' he wrote at the end of the Gordon Riots, 'in every reign engendering traitors to the State, and false and pernicious to the kings that favour it the most.'Letters, vii. 400. Seepost, March 21, 1783. Lord Shelburne, a man of a liberal mind, wrote:—'I can scarce conceive a Scotchman capable of liberality, and capable of impartiality.' After calling them 'a sad set of innate cold-hearted, impudent rogues,' he continues:—'It's a melancholy thing that there is no finding any other people that will take pains, or be amenable even to the best purposes.' Fitzmaurice'sShelburne, iii. 441. Hume wrote to his countryman, Gilbert Elliot, in 1764:—'I do not believe there is one Englishman in fifty, who, if he heard I had broke (sic) my neck to-night, would be sorry. Some, because I am not a Whig; some, because I am not a Christian; and all, because I am a Scotsman. Can you seriously talk of my continuing an Englishman? Am I, or are you, an Englishman?' Elliot replies:—'Notwithstanding all you say, we are both Englishmen; that is, true British subjects, entitled to every emolument and advantage that our happy constitution can bestow.' Burton'sHume, ii. 238, 240. Hume, in his prejudice against England, went far beyond Johnson in his prejudice against Scotland. In 1769 he wrote:—'I am delighted to see the daily and hourly progress of madness and folly and wickedness in England. The consummation of these qualities are the true ingredients for making a fine narrative in history, especially if followed by some signal and ruinous convulsion—as I hope will soon be the case with that pernicious people.'Ibp. 431. In 1770 he wrote:—'Our government has become a chimera, and is too perfect, in point of liberty, for so rude a beast as an Englishman; who is a man, a bad animal too, corrupted by above a century of licentiousness.'Ibp. 434.
[887] 'The love of planting,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'which has become almost a passion, is much to be ascribed to Johnson's sarcasms.' CrokerCorres. ii. 34. Lord Jeffrey wrote from Watford in 1833:—'What a country this old England is. In a circle of twenty miles from this spot (leaving out London and its suburbs), there is more old timber … than in all Scotland.' Cockburn'sJeffrey, i. 348. Seepost, March 21, 1775.
[888] See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 20.
[889] Even David Hume subscribed to the fund. He wrote in 1760:—'Certain it is that these poems are in every body's mouth in the Highlands, have been handed down from father to son, and are of an age beyond all memory and tradition. Adam Smith told me that the Piper of the Argyleshire militia repeated to him all those which Mr. Macpherson had translated. We have set about a subscription of a guinea or two guineas apiece, in order to enable Mr. Macpherson to undertake a mission into the Highlands to recover this poem, and other fragments of antiquity.' Mason'sGray, ii. 170. Hume changed his opinion. 'On going to London,' writes Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 276), 'he went over to the other side, and loudly affirmed the poems to be inventions of Macpherson. I happened to say one day, when he was declaiming against Macpherson, that I had met with nobody of his opinion but William Caddel of Cockenzie, and President Dundas, which he took ill, and was some time of forgetting.' Gibbon, in theDecline and Fall(vol. i. ch. 6), quoted Ossian, but added:—'Something of a doubtful mist still hangs over these Highland traditions; nor can it be entirely dispelled by the most ingenious researches of modern criticism.' On this Hume wrote to him on March 18, 1776:—'I see you entertain a great doubt with regard to the authenticity of the poems of Ossian…. Where a supposition is so contrary to common sense, any positive evidence of it ought never to be regarded. Men run with great avidity to give their evidence in favour of what flatters their passions and their national prejudices. You are therefore over and above indulgent to us in speaking of the matter with hesitation.' Gibbon'sMisc. Works, i. 225. So early as 1763 Hume had asked Dr. Blair for 'proof that these poems were not forged within these five years by James Macpherson.These proofs must not be arguments, but testimonies!' J. H. Burton'sHume, i. 466. Smollett, it should seem, believed in Ossian to the end. In Humphry Clinker, in the letter dated Sept. 3, he makes one of his characters write:—'The poems of Ossian are in every mouth. A famous antiquarian of this country, the laird of Macfarlane, at whose house we dined, can repeat them all in the original Gaelic.' See Boswell'sHebrides, Nov. 10.
[890] I find in his letters only Sir A. Macdonald (ante, ii. 157) of whom this can be said.
[891] SeeJournal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 520 [p. 431]. BOSWELL.
[892] For the letter, see the end of Boswell'sHebrides.
[893]Fossilistis not in Johnson'sDictionary.
[894] 'Rasay has little that can detain a traveller, except the laird and his family; but their power wants no auxiliaries. Such a seat of hospitality amidst the winds and waters fills the imagination with a delightful contrariety of images.'Works, ix. 62.
[895] Page 103. BOSWELL.
[896] From Skye he wrote:—'The hospitality of this remote region is like that of the golden age. We have found ourselves treated at every house as if we came to confer a benefit.'Piozzi Letters, i. 155.
[897] Seeante, i. 443, note 2.
[898] I observed with much regret, while the first edition of this work was passing through the press (Aug. 1790), that this ingenious gentleman was dead. BOSWELL.
[899] Seeante, p. 242.
[900] Seeante, i. 187.
[901] Seeante, ii. 121, 296, andpost, under March 30, 1783.
[902] Johnson (Works, ix. 158) says that 'the mediocrity of knowledge' obtained in the Scotch universities, 'countenanced in general by a national combination so invidious that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in particulars by a spirit of enterprise so vigorous that their enemies are constrained to praise it, enables them to find, or to make their way, to employment, riches, and distinction.'
[903] Macpherson had great influence with the newspapers. Horace Walpole wrote in February, 1776:—'Macpherson, the Ossianite, had a pension of £600 a year from the Court, to supervise the newspapers.' In Dec. 1781, Walpole mentions the difficulty of getting 'a vindicatory paragraph' inserted in the papers, 'This was one of the great grievances of the time. Macpherson had a pension of £800 a year from Court for inspecting newspapers, and inserted what lies he pleased, and prevented whatever he disapproved of being printed.'Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 17, 483.
[904] This book was published in 1779 under the title of 'Remarks on Dr. Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides, by the Rev. Donald M'Nicol, A.M., Minister of Lismore, Argyleshire.' In 1817 it was reprinted at Glasgow together with Johnson'sJourney, in one volume. TheRemarksare a few pages shorter than theJourney. By 'another Scotchman,' Boswell certainly meant Macpherson.
[905] From a list in his hand-writing. BOSWELL.
[906] 'Such is the laxity of Highland conversation that the inquirer is kept in continual suspense, and by a kind of intellectual retrogradation, knows less as he hears more.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 47. 'The Highlanders are not much accustomed to be interrogated by others, and seem never to have thought upon interrogating themselves; so that, if they do not know what they tell to be true, they likewise do not distinctly perceive it to be false.'Ib114.
[907] Of hisJourney to the Western Islands of Scotland. BOSWELL. It was sold at five shillings a copy. It did not reach a second edition till 1785, when perhaps a fresh demand for it was caused by the publication of Boswell'sHebrides. Boswell, in a note,post, April 28, 1778, says that 4000 copies were sold very quickly. Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 39) says that Cadell told her that he had sold 4000 copies the first week. This, I think, must be an exaggeration. A German translation was brought out this same year.
[908] Boswell, on the way to London, wrote to Temple:—'I have continual schemes of publication, but cannot fix. I am still very unhappy with my father. We are so totally different that a good understanding is scarcely possible. He looks on my going to London just now as anexpedition, as idle and extravagant, when in reality it is highly improving to me, considering the company which I enjoy.'Letters of Boswell, p. 182.
[909] Seepost, under March 22, 1776.
[910] Seeante, p. 292.
[911] 'A Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry; and if falsehood flatters his vanity, will not be very diligent to detect it.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 116.
[912] At Slanes Castle in Aberdeenshire he wrote:—'I had now travelled two hundred miles in Scotland, and seen only one tree not younger than myself.'Works, ix. 17. Goldsmith wrote from Edinburgh on Sept. 26, 1753:—'Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape. No grove, nor brook lend their music to cheer the stranger, or make the inhabitants forget their poverty.' ForstersGoldsmith, i. 433.
[913] This, like his pamphlet onFalkland's Islands, was published without his name.
[914] See Appendix.
[915] Convicts were sent to nine of the American settlements. According to one estimate about 2,000 had been for many years sent annually. 'Dr. Lang, after comparing different estimates, concludes that the number sent might be about 50,000 altogether.'Penny Cyclo. xxv. 138. X.
[916] This 'clear and settled opinion' must have been formed in three days, and between Grantham and London. For from that Lincolnshire town he had written to Temple on March 18:—'As to American affairs, I have really not studied the subject; it is too much for me perhaps, or I am too indolent or frivolous. From the smattering which newspapers have given me, I have been of different minds several times. That I am a Tory, a lover of power in monarchy, and a discourager of much liberty in the people, I avow; but it is not clear to me that our colonies are completely our subjects.'Letters of Boswell, p. 180. Four years later he wrote to Temple:—'I must candidly tell you that I think you should not puzzle yourself with political speculations more than I do; neither of us is fit for that sort of mental labour.'Ib243. Seepost, Sept. 23, 1777, for a contest between Johnson and Boswell on this subject.
[917] Seeante, ii. 134.
[918] Johnson'sWorks, vi. 261.
[919] Four years earlier he had also attacked him.Ante, ii. 134, note 4.
[920] Lord Camden, formerly Chief Justice Pratt. Seeante, ii. 72, note 3; andpost, April 14, 1775.
[921] 'Our people,' wrote Franklin in 1751 (Memoirs, vi. 3, 10), 'must at least be doubled every twenty years.' The population he reckoned at upwards of one million. Johnson referred to this rule also in the following passage:—'We are told that the continent of North America contains three millions, not of men merely, but of whigs, of whigs fierce for liberty and disdainful of dominion; that they multiply with the fecundity of their own rattlesnakes, so that every quarter of a century doubles their number.'Works, vi. 227. Burke, in hisSpeech of Concilitation with America, a fortnight after Johnson's pamphlet appeared, said, 'your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations.' Payne'sBurke, i. 169.
[922] Dr. T. Campbell records on April 20, 1775 (Diary, p. 74), that 'Johnson said the first thing he would do would be to quarter the army on the cities, and if any refused free quarters, he would pull down that person's house, if it was joined to other houses; but would burn it if it stood alone. This and other schemes he proposed in the manuscript ofTaxation no Tyranny, but these, he said, the Ministry expunged. Seepost, April 15, 1778, where, talking of the Americans, Johnson exclaimed, 'he'd burn and destroy them.' On June 11, 1781, Campbell records (ib. p. 88) that Johnson said to him:—'Had we treated the Americans as we ought, and as they deserved, we should have at once razed all their towns and let them enjoy their forests.' Campbell justly describes this talk as 'wild rant.'
[923]
'He errs who deems obedience to a princeSlav'ry—a happier freedom never reignsThan with a pious monarch.'Stit. iii. 113. CROKER.
This volume was published in 1776. The copy in the library of PembrokeCollege, Oxford, bears the inscription in Johnson's hand: 'To Sir JoshuaReynolds from the Authour.' On the title-page Sir Joshua has writtenhis own name.
[924] R. B. Sheridan thought of joining in these attacks. In hisLifeby Moore (i. 151) fragments of his projected answer are given. He intended to attack Johnson on the side of his pension. One thought he varies three times. 'Such pamphlets,' he writes, 'will be as trifling and insincere as the venal quit-rent of a birth-day ode.' This again appears as 'The easy quit-rent of refined panegyric,' and yet again as 'The miserable quit-rent of an annual pamphlet.'
[925] Seepost, beginning of 1781.
[926] Boswell wrote to Temple on June 19, 1775:—'Yesterday I met Mr. Hume at Lord Kame's. They joined in attacking Dr. Johnson to an absurd pitch. Mr. Hume said he would give me half-a-crown for every page of hisDictionaryin which he could not find an absurdity, if I would give him half-a-crown for every page in which he did not find one: he talked so insolently really, that I calmly determined to be at him; so I repeated, by way of telling that Dr. Johnsoncouldbe touched, the admirable passage in your letter, how the Ministry had set him to write in a way that they "could not ask even their infidel pensioner Hume to write." When Hume asked if it was from an American, I said No, it was from an English gentleman. "Would agentlemanwrite so?" said he. In short, Davy was finely punished for his treatment of my revered friend; and he deserved it richly, both for his petulance to so great a character and for his talking so before me.'Letters of Boswell, p. 204. Hume's pension was £400. He obtained it through Lord Hertford, the English ambassador in Paris, under whom he had served as secretary to the embassy. J. H. Burton'sHume, ii. 289.
[927] Seepost, Aug. 24 1782.
[928] Dr. T. Campbell records on March 16 of this year (Diary, p. 36):—'Thrale asked Dr. Johnson what Sir Joshua Reynolds said ofTaxation no Tyranny. "Sir Joshua," quoth the Doctor, "has not read it." "I suppose," quoth Thrale, "he has been very busy of late." "No," says the Doctor, "but I never look at his pictures, so he won't read my writings." He asked Johnson if he had got Miss Reynold's opinion, for she, it seems, is a politician. "As to that," quoth the Doctor, "it is no great matter, for she could not tell after she had read it on which said of the question Mr. Burke's speech was."'
[929] W.G. Hamilton.
[930] Seepost, Nov. 19, 1783.
[931] Sixteen days after this pamphlet was published, Lord North, as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, proposed that the degree of Doctor in Civil Law should be conferred on Johnson (post, p. 331). Perhaps the Chancellor in this was cheaply rewarding the service that had been done to the Minister. Seeante, ii. 373.
[932] Johnson'sJourney to the Western Islands of Scotland, ed. 1785, p. 256. [Johnson'sWorks, ix. 108.] BOSWELL. Seeante, ii. 10, note 3.
[933] He had written to Temple six days earlier:—'Second sight pleases my superstition which, you know, is not small, and being not of the gloomy but the grand species, is an enjoyment; and I go further than Mr. Johnson, for the facts which I heard convinced me.'Letters of Boswell, p. 179. When ten years later he published hisTour, he said (Nov. 10, 1773) that he had returned from the Hebrides with a considerable degree of faith; 'but,' he added, 'since that time my belief in those stories has been much weakened.'
[934] This doubt has been much agitated on both sides, I think without good reason. See Addison's _Freeholder, May 4, 1714.The Freeholderwas published from Dec. 1715 to June 1716. In the number for May 4 there is no mention ofThe Tale of a Tub;An Apology for the Tale of a Tub(Swift'sWorks, ed. 1803, iii. 20);—Dr. Hawkesworth's Preface to Swift'sWorks, and Swift's Letter to Tooke the Printer, and Tooke's Answer, in that collection;—Sheridan'sLife of Swift;—Mr. Courtenay's note on p. 3 of hisPoetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson; and Mr. Cooksey'sEssay on the Life and Character of John Lord Somers, Baron of Evesham.
Dr. Johnson here speaks only to theinternal evidence. I take leave to differ from him, having a very high estimation of the powers of Dr. Swift. HisSentiments of a Church-of-England-man, hisSermon on the Trinity, and other serious pieces, prove his learning as well as his acuteness in logick and metaphysicks; and his various compositions of a different cast exhibit not only wit, humour, and ridicule; but a knowledge 'of nature, and art, and life:' a combination therefore of those powers, when (as theApologysays,) 'the authour was young, his invention at the heighth, and his reading fresh in his head,' might surely produceThe Tale of a Tub. BOSWELL.
[935] 'HisTale of a Tubhas little resemblance to his other pieces. It exhibits a vehemence and rapidity of mind, a copiousness of images and vivacity of diction such as he afterwards never possessed, or never exerted. It is of a mode so distinct and peculiar that it must be considered by itself; what is true of that is not true of anything else which he has written.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 220. At the conclusion of theLife of Swift(ib. 228), Johnson allows him one great merit:—'It was said in a preface to one of the Irish editions that Swift had never been known to take a single thought from any writer, ancient or modern. This is not literally true; but perhaps no writer can easily be found that has borrowed so little, or that in all his excellencies and all his defects has so well maintained his claim to be considered as original.' Seeante, i. 452.
[936] Johnson in hisDictionary, under the articleshave, quotes Swift in one example, and in the nextGulliver's Travels, not admitting, it should seem, that Swift had written that book.
[937] See Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 26, 1773. David Hume wrote of Home'sAgis:—'I own, though I could perceive fine strokes in that tragedy, I never could in general bring myself to like it: the author, I thought, had corrupted his taste by the imitation of Shakespeare, whom he ought only to have admired.' J.H. Burton'sHume, i. 392. AboutDouglashe wrote:—'I am persuaded it will be esteemed the best, and by French critics the only tragedy of our language.'Ibii. 17. Hume perhaps admired it the more as it was written, to use his own words, 'by a namesake of mine.'Ibi. 316.Homeis pronouncedHume. He often wrote of his friend as 'Mr. John Hume,aliasHome.' A few days before his death he added the following codicil to his will:—'I leave to my friend Mr. John Home, of Kilduff, ten dozen of my old claret at his choice; and one single bottle of that other liquor called port. I also leave to him six dozen of port, provided that he attests, under his hand, signed JohnHume, that he has himself alone finished that bottle at two sittings. By this concession he will at once terminate the only two differences that ever arose between us concerning temporal matters.'Ibii. 506. Sir Walter Scott wrote in hisDiaryin 1827:—'I finished the review of John Home's works, which, after all, are poorer than I thought them. Good blank verse, and stately sentiment, but something luke-warmish, exceptingDouglas, which is certainly a masterpiece. Even that does not stand the closet. Its merits are for the stage; and it is certainly one of the best acting plays going.' Lockhart'sScott, ix. 100.
[938] Sheridan, says Mr. S. Whyte (Miscellanea Nova, p. 45), brought outDouglasat the Dublin Theatre. The first two nights it had great success. The third night was as usual to be the author's. It had meanwhile got abroad that he was a clergyman. This play was considered a profanation, a faction was raised, and the third night did not pay its expenses. It was Whyte who suggested that, by way of consolation, Sheridan should give Home a gold medal. The inscription said that he presented it to him 'for having enriched the stage with a perfect tragedy.' Whyte took the medal to London. When he was close at his journey's end, 'I was,' he writes, 'stopped by highwaymen, and preserved the medal by the sacrifice of my purse at the imminent peril of my life.'
[939]
'No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims,Molière's old stubble in a moment flames.'
TheNonjurorwas 'a comedy thrashed out of Molière'sTartuffe.'TheDunciad, i. 253.
[940] Seepost, June 9, 1784; also Macaulay'sEngland, ch. xiv. (ed. 1874, v. 94), for remarks on what Johnson here says.
[941] Seeante, i. 318, where his name is speltMadden.
[942] This was not merely a cursory remark; for in hisLife of Fentonhe observes, 'With many other wise and virtuous men, who at that time of discord and debate (about the beginning of this century) consulted conscience [whether] well or ill informed, more than interest, he doubted the legality of the government; and refusing to qualify himself for publick employment, by taking the oaths [by the oaths] required, left the University without a degree.' This conduct Johnson calls 'perverseness of integrity.' [Johnson'sWorks, viii. 54.
The question concerning the morality of taking oaths, of whatever kind, imposed by the prevailing power at the time, rather than to be excluded from all consequence, or even any considerable usefulness in society, has been agitated with all the acuteness of casuistry. It is related, that he who devised the oath of abjuration, profligately boasted, that he had framed a test which should 'damn one half of the nation, and starve the other.' Upon minds not exalted to inflexible rectitude, or minds in which zeal for a party is predominant to excess, taking that oath against conviction may have been palliated under the plea of necessity, or ventured upon in heat, as upon the whole producing more good than evil.
At a county election in Scotland, many years ago, when there was a warm contest between the friends of the Hanoverian succession, and those against it, the oath of abjuration having been demanded, the freeholders upon one side rose to go away. Upon which a very sanguine gentleman, one of their number, ran to the door to stop them, calling out with much earnestness, 'Stay, stay, my friends, and let us swear the rogues out of it!' BOSWELL. Johnson, writing of the oaths required under the Militia Bill of 1756, says:—'The frequent imposition of oaths has almost ruined the morals of this unhappy nation, and of a nation without morals it is of small importance who shall be king.'Lit. Mag. 1756, i. 59.
[943] Dr. Harwood sent me the following extract from the book containing the proceedings of the corporation of Lichfield: '19th July, 1712. Agreed that Mr. Michael Johnson be, and he is hereby elected a magistrate and brother of their incorporation; a day is given him to Thursday next to take the oath of fidelity and allegiance, and the oath of a magistrate. Signed, &c.'—'25th July, 1712. Mr. Johnson took the oath of allegiance and that he believed there was no transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper before, &c.'—CROKER.
[944] A parody onMacbeth, act ii. sc. 2.
[945] Lord Southampton asked Bishop Watson of Llandaff 'how he was to bring up his son so as to make him get forwards in the world. "I know of but one way," replied the Bishop; "give him parts and poverty." "Well then," replied Lord S., "if God has given him parts, I will manage as to the poverty."' H. C. Robinson'sDiary, i. 337. Lord Eldon said that Thurlow promised to give him a post worth about £160 a year, but he never did. 'In after life,' said Eldon, 'I inquired of him why he had not fulfilled his promise. His answer was curious:—"It would have been your ruin. Young men are very apt to be content when they get something to live upon; so when I saw what you were made of, I determined to break my promise to make you work;" and I dare say he was right, for there is nothing does a young lawyer so much good as to be half starved.' Twiss'sEldon, i. 134.
[946] In New Street, near Gough Square, in Fleet Street, whither in February 1770 the King's printinghouse was removed from what is still called Printing House Square. CROKER. Dr. Spottiswoode, the late President of the Royal Society, was the great-grandson of Mr. Strahan.
[947] Seepost, under March 30, 1783.
[948] Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on April 8 of this year:—'I have placed young Davenport in the greatest printing house in London, and hear no complaint of him but want of size, which will not hinder him much. He may when he is a journeyman always get a guinea a week.'Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 422. Mr. Jewitt in theGent. Mag. for Dec. 1878, gives an account of this lad. He was the orphan son of a clergyman, a friend of the Rev. W. Langley, Master of Ashbourne School (seepost, Sept. 14, 1777). Mr. Langley asked Johnson's help 'in procuring him a place in some eminent printing office.' Davenport wrote to Mr. Langley nearly eight years later:—'According to your desire, I consulted Dr. Johnson about my future employment in life, and he very laconically told me "to work hard at my trade, as others had done before me." I told him my size and want of strength prevented me from getting so much money as other men. "Then," replied he, "you must get as much as you can."' The boy was nearly sixteen when he was apprenticed, and had learnt enough Latin to quote Virgil, so that there was nothing in Johnson's speech beyond his understanding.
[949] Seven years afterwards, Johnson described this evening. Miss Monckton had told him that he must see Mrs. Siddons. 'Well, Madam,' he answered, 'if you desire it, I will go. See her I shall not, nor hear her; but I'll go, and that will do. The last time I was at a play, I was ordered there by Mrs. Abington, or Mrs. Somebody, I do not well remember who; but I placed myself in the middle of the first row of the front boxes, to show that when I was called I came.' Mme. D' Arblay'sDiary, ii. 199. At Fontainebleau he went—to a comedy (post, Oct. 19, 1775), so that it was not 'the last time he was at a play.'
[950] 'One evening in the oratorio season of 1771,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. 72), 'Mr. Johnson went with me to Covent Garden theatre. He sat surprisingly quiet, and I flattered myself that he was listening to the music. When we were got home he repeated these verses, which he said he had made at the oratorio:—
"In Theatre, March 8, 1771.Tertii verso quater orbe lustri,Quid theatrales tibi, Crispe, pompae?Quam decet canos male literatesSera voluptas!Tene mulceri fidibus canoris?Tene cantorum modulis stupere?Tene per pictas, oculo elegante,Currere formas?Inter aequales, sine felle liber,Codices veri studiosus interRectius vives. Sua quisque carpalGaudia gratus.Lusibus gaudet puer otiosis,Luxus oblectat juvenem theatri,At seni fluxo sapienter utiTempore restat."'
(Works, i. 166.)
[951]Bon Ton, or High Life above Stairs, by Garrick. He made King the comedian a present of this farce, and it was acted for the first time on his benefit-a little earlier in the month. Murphy'sGarrick, pp. 330, 332
[952] 'August, 1778. An epilogue of Mr. Garrick's toBonducawas mentioned, and Dr. Johnson said it was a miserable performance:—"I don't know," he said, "what is the matter with David; I am afraid he is grown superannuated, for his prologues and epilogues used to be incomparable."' Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary, i. 64.
[953] 'Scottish brethren and architects, who had bought Durham Yard, and erected a large pile of buildings under the affected name of the Adelphi. These men, of great taste in their profession, were attached particularly to Lord Bute and Lord Mansfield, and thus by public and private nationality zealous politicians.' Walpole'sMemoirs of the Reign of George III. iv. 173. Hume wrote to Adam Smith in June 1772, at a time where there was 'a universal loss of credit':—'Of all the sufferers, I am the most concerned for the Adams. But their undertakings were so vast, that nothing could support them. They must dismiss 3000 workmen, who, comprehending the materials, must have expended above £100,000 a year. To me the scheme of the Adelphi always appeared so imprudent, that my wonder is how they could have gone on so long.' J. H. Burton'sHume, ii, 460. Garrick lived in the Adelphi.
[954] 'Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes, Beholds his own hereditary skies.' DRYDEN, Ovid,Meta. i. 85.
[955] Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 213) says that she was made 'the umpire in a trial of skill between Garrick and Boswell, which could most nearly imitate Dr. Johnson's manner. I remember I gave it for Boswell in familiar conversation, and for Garrick in reciting poetry.'
[956] 'Gesticular mimicry and buffoonery Johnson hated, and would often huff Garrick for exercising it his presence.' Hawkins'sJohnson, p. 386.
[957] In the first two editions Johnson is represented as only saying, 'Davy is futile.'
[958] My noble friend Lord Pembroke said once to me at Wilton, with a happy pleasantry and some truth, that 'Dr. Johnson's sayings would not appear so extraordinary, were it not for hisbow-wow way.' The sayings themselves are generally of sterling merit; but, doubtless, hismannerwas an addition to their effect; and therefore should be attended to as much as may be. It is necessary however, to guard those who were not acquainted with him, against overcharged imitations or caricatures of his manner, which are frequently attempted, and many of which are second-hand copies from the late Mr. Henderson the actor, who, though a good mimick of some persons, did not represent Johnson correctly. BOSWELL.
[959] See 'Prosodia Rationalis; or, an Essay towards establishing the Melody and Measure of Speech, to be expressed and perpetuated by peculiar Symbols.' London, 1779. BOSWELL.
[960] I use the phrasein score, as Dr. Johnson has explained it in hisDictionary:—'Asong inSCORE, the words with the musical notes of a song annexed.' But I understand that in scientific property it means all the parts of a musical composition noted down in the characters by which it is established to the eye of the skillful. BOSWELL. It wasdeclamationthat Steele pretended to reduce to notation by new characters. This he called themelodyof speech, not the harmony, which is the term inscoreimplies. BURNEY.
[961] Johnson, in hisLife of Gray(Works, viii. 481), spoke better of him. 'What has occurred to me from the slight inspection of hisLetters, in which my understanding has engaged me, is, that his mind had a large gap; that his curiosity was unlimited, and his judgment cultivated.' Horace Walpole (Letters, ii 128) allowed that he was bad company. 'Sept. 3, 1748. I agree with you most absolutely in your opinion about Gray; he is the worst company in the world. From a melancholy turn, from living reclusely, and from a little too much dignity, he never converses easily; all his words are measured and chosen, his writings are admirable; he himself is not agreeable.'
[962] In the original, 'Give ample room and verge enough.' In theLife of Gray(Works, vii. 486) Johnson says that the slaughtered bards 'are called upon to "Weave the warp, and weave the woof," perhaps with no great propriety; for it is by crossing thewoofwith thewarpthat men weave thewebor piece; and the first line was dearly bought by the admission of its wretched correspondent, "Give ample room and verge enough." He has, however, no other line as bad.' Seeante, i. 402.
[963] This word, which is in the first edition, is not in the second or third.
[964] 'The Church-yardabounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo. The four stanzas, beginning "Yet even these bones," are to me original. I have never seen the notions in any other place; yet he that reads them here persuades himself that he has always felt them. Had Gray written often thus, it had been vain to blame, and useless to praise him.'Works, viii. 487. Goldsmith, in hisLife of Parnell(Misc. Works, iv. 25), thus seems to sneer atThe Elegy:—'TheNight Pieceon death deserves every praise, and, I should suppose, with very little amendment, might be made to surpass all those night pieces andchurch-yard scenesthat have since appeared.'
[965] Mr. Croker says, 'no doubt Lady Susan Fox who, in 1773, married Mr. William O'Brien, an actor.' It was in 1764 that she was married, so that it is not likely that she was the subject of this talk. See Horace Valpole'sLetters, iv. 221.
[966] Mrs. Thrale's marriage with Mr. Piozzi.
[967] Seeante, i. 408.
[968] Boswell was of the same way of thinking as Squire Western, who 'did indeed consider a parity of fortune and circumstances to be physically as necessary an ingredient in marriage as difference of sexes, or any other essential; and had no more apprehension of his daughter falling in love with a poor man than with any animal of a different species.'Tom Jones, bk. vi. ch. 9.
[969]
'Temptanda via est, qua me quoque possimTollere humo victorque virum volitare per ora.''New ways I must attempt, my grovelling nameTo raise aloft, and wing my flight to fame.'
DRYDEN, Virgil,Georg. iii. 9. 'Chesterfield was at once the most distinguished orator in the Upper House, and the undisputed sovereign of wit and fashion. He held this eminence for about forty years. At last it became the regular custom of the higher circles to laugh whenever he opened his mouth, without waiting for hisbon mot. He used to sit at White's, with a circle of young men of rank around him, applauding every syllable that he uttered.' Macaulay'sLife, i. 325.
[970] With the Literary Club, as is shewn by Boswell's letter of April 4, 1775, in which he says:—'I dine on Friday at the Turk's Head, Gerrard Street, with our Club, who now dine once a month, and sup every Friday.'Letters of Boswell, p. 186. The meeting of Friday, March 24, is describedante, p. 318, and that of April 7,post, p. 345.
[971] Very likely Boswell (ante, ii. 84, note 3).
[972] In theGarrick Corres. (ii. 141) is a letter dated March 4, 1776, from (to use Garrick's own words) 'that worst of bad women, Mrs. Abington, to ask my playing for her benefit.' It is endorsed by Garrick:—'A copy of Mother Abington's Letter about leaving the stage.'
[973] Twenty years earlier he had recommended to Miss Boothby as a remedy for indigestion dried orange-peel finely powdered, taken in a glass of hot red port. 'I would not,' he adds, 'have you offer it to the Doctor as my medicine. Physicians do not love intruders.'Piozzi Letters, ii. 397. Seepost, April 18, 1783.
[974] The misprint ofChancellorforGentlemenis found in both the second and third editions. It is not in the first.
[975] Extracted from the Convocation Register, Oxford. BOSWELL.
[976] The original is in my possession. He shewed me the Diploma, and allowed me to read it, but would not consent to my taking a copy of it, fearing perhaps that I should blaze it abroad in his life-time. His objection to this appears from his 99th letter to Mrs. Thrale, whom in that letter he thus scolds for the grossness of her flattery of him:—'The other Oxford news is, that they have sent me a degree of Doctor of Laws, with such praises in the Diploma as perhaps ought to make me ashamed: they are very like your praises. I wonder whether I shall ever shew it [themin the original] to you.'
It is remarkable that he never, so far as I know, assumed his title ofDoctor, but called himselfMr. Johnson, as appears from many of his cards or notes to myself; and I have seen many from him to other persons, in which he uniformly takes that designation. I once observed on his table a letter directed to him with the addition ofEsquire, and objected to it as being a designation inferiour to that of Doctor; but he checked me, and seemed pleased with it, because, as I conjectured, he liked to be sometimes taken out of the class of literary men, and to be merelygenteel,—un gentilhomme comme un autre. Boswell. See post, March 30, 1781, where Johnson applies the title to himself in speaking, and April 13, 1784, where he does in writing, and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 15, 1773, note.
[977] 'To make a man pleased with himself, let me tell you, is doing a very great thing.'Post, April 28, 1778.
[978] 'The original is in the hands of Dr. Forthergril, then Vice-Chancellor, who made this transcript.' T. WARTON—BOSWELL.
[979] Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, as is shewn byPiozzi Letters, i. 213.
[980] 'That the design [of theDunciad] was moral, whatever the author might tell either his readers or himself, I am not convinced. The first motive was the desire of revenging the contempt with which Theobald had treated hisShakespeareand regaining the honour which he had lost, by crushing his opponent.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 338.
[981]
'Daughter of Chaos and old Night,Cimmerian Muse, all hail!That wrapt in never-twinkling gloom canst write,And shadowest meaning with thy dusky veil!What Poet sings and strikes the strings?It was the mighty Theban spoke.He from the ever-living lyreWith magic hand elicits fire.Heard ye the din of modern rhymers bray?It was cool M-n; or warm G-y,Involv'd in tenfold smoke.'
Colman'sProse on Several Occasions, ii. 273.
[982] 'TheseOdes,' writes Colman, 'were a piece of boys' play with my schoolfellow Lloyd, with whom they were written in concert.'Ibi. xi. In theConnoisseur(ante, i. 420) they had also written in concert. 'Their humour and their talents were well adapted to what they had undertaken; and Beaumont and Fletcher present what is probably the only parallel instance of literary co-operation so complete, that the portions written by the respective parties are undistinguishable.' Southey'sCowper, i. 47.
[983]Ante, i. 402.
[984] Boswell writing to Temple two days later, recalled the time 'when you and I sat up all night at Cambridge and read Gray with a noble enthusiasm; when we first used to read Mason'sElfrida, and when we talked of that elegant knot of worthies, Gray, Mason, Walpole, &c.'Letters of Boswell, p. 185.
[985] 'I have heard Mr. Johnson relate how he used to sit in some coffee-house at Oxford, and turn M——'sC-r-ct-u-sinto ridicule for the diversion of himself and of chance comers-in. "TheElf—da," says he, "was too exquisitely pretty; I could make no fun out of that."' Piozzi'sAnec. p. 37. I doubt whether Johnson used the wordfun, which he describes in hisDictionaryas 'a low cant [slang] word.'
[986] Seepost, March 26, 1779, and Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 1, and under Nov. 11, 1773. According to Dr. T. Campbell (Diary, p. 36), Johnson, on March 16, had said thatTaxation no Tyrannydid not sell.
[987] Six days later he wrote to Dr. Taylor:—'The patriots pelt me with answers. Four pamphlets, I think, already, besides newspapers and reviews, have been discharged against me. I have tried to read two of them, but did not go through them.'Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 422.