[235] 1Corinthians, xiii. 5.
[236] This passage, which is found in Act iii, is not in the acting copy ofDouglas.
[237] Malone was one of these gentlemen. Seepost, under June 30, 1784. Reynolds, after saying that eagerness for victory often led Johnson into acts of rudeness, while 'he was not thus strenuous for victory with his intimates in tête-à -tête conversations when there were no witnesses,' adds:—'Were I to write the Life of Dr. Johnson I would labour this point, to separate his conduct that proceeded from his passions, and what proceeded from his reason, from his natural disposition seen in his quiet hours.' Taylor'sReynolds, ii. 462.
[238] These words must have been in the other copy. They are not in that which was preferred. BOSWELL.
[239] On June 3 he wrote that he was suffering from 'a very serious and troublesome fit of the gout. I enjoy all the dignity of lameness. I receive ladies and dismiss them sitting.Painful pre-eminence.'Piozzi Letters, i. 337. 'Painful pre-eminence' comes from Addison'sCato, act iii. sc. 5. Pope, in hisEssay on Man, iv. 267, borrows the phrase:—
'Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view,Above life's weakness and its comforts too.'
It is humorously introduced into theRolliadin the description of theSpeaker:—
'There Cornewall sits, and oh! unhappy fate!Must sit for ever through the long debate.Painful pre-eminence! he hears, 'tis true,Fox, North, and Burke, but hears Sir Joseph too.'
[240] Dean Stanley (Memorials of Westminster Abbey, p. 297) says:— 'One expression at least has passed from the inscription into the proverbial Latin of mankind—
"Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit."'
In a note he adds:—'Professor Conington calls my attention to the fact that, if this were a genuine classical expression, it would beornaret. The slight mistake proves that it is Johnson's own.' The mistake, of course, is the Dean's and the Professor's, who did not take the trouble to ascertain what Johnson had really written. If we may trust Cradock, Johnson here gave in a Latin form what he had already said in English. 'When a bookseller ventured to say something rather slightingly of Dr. Goldsmith, Johnson retorted:—"Sir, Goldsmith never touches any subject but he adorns it." Once when I found the Doctor very low at his chambers I related this circumstance to him, and it instantly proved a cordial.' Cradock'sMemoirs, i. 231.
[241] According to Mr. Forster (Life of Goldsmith, i. 1), he was born on Nov. 10, 1728. There is a passage in Goldsmith'sBee, No. 2, which leads me to think that he himself held Nov. 12 as his birth-day. He says; 'I shall be sixty-two the twelfth of next November.' Now, asThe Beewas published in October 1759, he would be, not sixty-two, but just half that number—thirty-one on his next birth-day. It is scarcely likely that he selected the number and the date at random.
[242] Reynolds chose the spot in Westminster Abbey where the monument should stand. Northcote'sReynolds, i. 326.
[243] For A. Chamier, seeante, i. 478, note 1; andpost, April 9, 1778: for P. Metcalfe,post, under Dec. 20, 1782. W. Vachell seems only known to fame as having signed thisRound Robin, and attended Sir Joshua's funeral. Who Tho. Franklin was I cannot learn. He certainly was not Thomas Francklin, D.D., the Professor of Greek at Cambridge and translator ofSophoclesandLucian, mentionedpost, end of 1780. The Rev. Dr. Luard, the Registrar of that University, has kindly compared for me six of his signatures ranging from 1739 to 1770. In each of these thecis very distinct, while the writing is unlike the signature in theRound Robin.
[244] Horace Walpole wrote in Dec. of this year:—'The conversation of many courtiers was openly in favour of arbitrary power. Lord Huntingdon and Dr. Barnard, who was promised an Irish Bishopric, held such discourse publicly.'Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 91.
[245] He however upon seeing Dr. Warton's name to the suggestion, that the Epitaph should be in English, observed to Sir Joshua, 'I wonder that Joe Warton, a scholar by profession, should be such a fool.' He said too, 'I should have thought Mund Burke would have had more sense.' Mr. Langton, who was one of the company at Sir Joshua's, like a sturdy scholar, resolutely refused to sign theRound Robin. The Epitaph is engraved upon Dr. Goldsmith's monument without any alteration. At another time, when somebody endeavoured to argue in favour of its being in English, Johnson said, 'The language of the country of which a learned man was a native, is not the language fit for his epitaph, which should be in ancient and permanent language. Consider, Sir; how you should feel, were you to find at Rotterdam an epitaph upon Erasmusin Dutch!' For my own part I think it would be best to have Epitaphs written both in a learned language, and in the language of the country; so that they might have the advantage of being more universally understood, and at the same time be secured of classical stability. I cannot, however, but be of opinion, that it is not sufficiently discriminative. Applying to Goldsmith equally the epithets of 'Poetae,Historici,Physici,' is surely not right; for as to his claim to the last of those epithets, I have heard Johnson himself say, 'Goldsmith, Sir, will give us a very fine book upon the subject; but if he can distinguish a cow from a horse, that, I believe, may be the extent of his knowledge of natural history.' His book is indeed an excellent performance, though in some instances he appears to have trusted too much to Buffon, who, with all his theoretical ingenuity and extraordinary eloquence, I suspect had little actual information in the science on which he wrote so admirably. For instance, he tells us that thecowsheds her horns every two years; a most palpable errour, which Goldsmith has faithfully transferred into his book. It is wonderful that Buffon, who lived so much in the country, at his noble seat, should have fallen into such a blunder. I suppose he has confounded thecowwith thedeer. BOSWELL. Goldsmith says:—'At three years old the cow sheds its horns and new ones arise in their place, which continue as long as it lives.'Animated Nature, iii. 12. This statement remains in the second edition. Johnson said that the epitaph on Sir J. Macdonald 'should have been in Latin, as everything intended to be universal and permanent should be.' Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 5, 1773. He treated the notion of an English inscription to Smollett 'with great contempt, saying, "an English inscription would be a disgrace to Dr. Smollett."'Ib. Oct. 28, 1773.
[246] Beside this Latin Epitaph, Johnson honoured the memory of his friend Goldsmith with a short one in Greek. Seeante, July 5, 1774. BOSWELL.
[247] Seeante, Oct. 24, 1775.
[248] Upon a settlement of our account of expences on a Tour to the Hebrides, there was a balance due to me, which Dr. Johnson chose to discharge by sending books. BOSWELL.
[249] Seepost, under Nov. 29, 1777.
[250] Baretti told me that Johnson complained of my writing very long letters to him when I was upon the continent; which was most certainly true; but it seems my friend did not remember it. BOSWELL.
[251] Seeante, iii. 27.
[252] Seeante, i. 446, for Johnson's remedies against melancholy.
[253] It was not 'last year' but on June 22, 1772, that the negro, James Somerset—who had been brought to England by his master, had escaped from him, had been seized, and confined in irons on board a ship in The Thames that was bound for Jamaica, and had been brought on a writ ofHabeas Corpusbefore the Court of King's Bench was discharged by Lord Mansfield. Howell'sState Trials, xx. 79, and Lofft'sReports, 1772, p. 1. 'Lord Mansfield,' writes Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chief Justices, ii. 418), 'first established the grand doctrine that the air of England is too pure to be breathed by a slave.' According to Lord Campbell, Mansfield's judgment thus ended:—'The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it. Every man who comes into England is entitled to the protection of English law, whatever oppression he may heretofore have suffered, and whatever may be the colour of his skin:
'"Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses."
'Let the negro be discharged.'
Where Lord Campbell found this speech, that is to say if he did not put it together himself, I cannot guess. Mansfield's judgment was very brief. He says in the conclusion:—'The only question before us is, whether the cause on the return [to the writ ofhabeas corpus] is sufficient. If it is, the negro must be remanded; if it is not, he must be discharged. Accordingly the return states that the slave departed, and refused to serve; whereupon he was kept to be sold abroad. So high an act of dominion must be recognised by the law of the country where it is used. The power of a master over his slave has been extremely different in different countries. The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political…. It is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences therefore may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.' Lofft'sReports, 1772, p. 19. 'The judgment of the court,' says Broom (Constitutional Law, 1885, p. 99), 'was delivered by Lord Mansfield, C.J., after some delay, and with evident reluctance.' The passage about the air of England that Campbell puts into Mansfield's mouth is found in Mr. Hargrave's argument on May 14, 1772, where he speaks of England as 'a soil whose air is deemed too pure for slaves to breathe in.' Lofft'sReports, p. 2. Mr. Dunning replied:—'Let me take notice, neither the air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe in, nor the laws of England have rejected servitude.'Ib. p. 12. Serjeant Davy rejoined:—'It has been asserted, and is now repeated by me, this air is too pure for a slave to breathe in. I trust I shall not quit this court without certain conviction of the truth of that assertion.'Ib. p. 17. Lord Mansfield said nothing about the air. The line from Virgil, with which Lord Campbell makes Mansfield's speech end, was 'the happily chosen motto' to Maclaurin's published argument for the negro; Joseph Knight,post, under Nov. 29, 1777.
[254] The son of Johnson's old friend, Mr. William Drummond. (See vol. ii. pp. 26-29.) He was a young man of such distinguished merit, that he was nominated to one of the medical professorships in the College of Edinburgh without solicitation, while he was at Naples. Having other views, he did not accept of the honour, and soon afterwards died. BOSWELL.
[255] In the third and subsequent editions the date is wrongly given as the 16th.
[256] A Florentine nobleman, mentioned by Johnson in hisNotes of his Tour in France[ante, Oct. 18, 1775]. I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with him in London, in the spring of this year. BOSWELL. Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson from Bath on May 16:—'Count Manucci would wait seven years to come with you; so do not disappoint the man, but bring him along with you. His delight in your company is like Boniface's exultation when the squire speaks Latin; for understand you he certainly cannot.'Piozzi Letters, i. 328. It was not the squire, but the priest, Foigard, who by his Latin did Boniface good.The Beaux Strategem, act iii. sc. 2.
[257]Pr. and Med. p. 151.
[258]St. James, i. 17.
[259] Seeante, ii. 175. Seven and even eight years later Paterson was still a student in need of Johnson's recommendation.Post, June 2, 1783, and April 5, 1784.
[260] Seeante, p. 58.
[261] Why his Lordship uses the epithetpleasantly, when speaking of a grave piece of reasoning, I cannot conceive. But different men have different notions of pleasantry. I happened to sit by a gentleman one evening at the Opera-house in London, who, at the moment whenMedeaappeared to be in great agony at the thought of killing her children, turned to me with a smile, and said, 'funnyenough.' BOSWELL.
[262] Dr. Johnson afterwards told me, that he was of opinion that a clergyman had this right. BOSWELL.
[263] Johnson, nearly three years earlier, had said of Granger:—'The dog is a Whig. I do not like much to see a Whig in any dress; but I hate to see a Whig in a parson's gown.' Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 24, 1773.
[264] 'I did my utmost,' wrote Horace Walpole (Letters, v. 168), 'to dissuade Mr. Granger from the dedication, and took especial pains to get myvirtuesleft out of the question.'
[265]
'In moderation placing all my glory,While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.'
Pope,Imitations of Horace, Bk. ii Sat. I. 1. 67.
[266] 'One of the dippers at Brighthelmstone, seeing Mr. Johnson swim in the year 1766, said:—"Why, Sir, you must have been a stout-hearted gentleman forty years ago."'Piozzi's Anec. p. 113. Johnson, in his verses entitled,In Rivum a Mola Stoana Lichfeldiæ diffluentem(Works, i. 163), writes:—
'Errat adhuc vitreus per prata virentia rivus,Quo toties lavi membra tenella puer;Hic delusa rudi frustrabar brachia motu,Dum docuit blanda voce natare pater.'
[267] For this and Dr. Johnson's other letters to Mr. Levett, I am indebted to my old acquaintance Mr. Nathaniel Thomas, whose worth and ingenuity have been long known to a respectable, though not a wide circle; and whose collection of medals would do credit to persons of greater opulence. BOSWELL.
[268] Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale shew the difference between modern Brighton and the Brighthelmstone of his days. Thus he writes:— 'Ashbourne, Sept. 27, 1777. I know not when I shall write again, now you are going to the world's end [i.e. Brighton].Extra anni solisque vias, where the post will be a long time in reaching you. I shall, notwithstanding all distance, continue to think on you.'Piozzi Letters, i. 387. 'Oct. 6, 1777. Methinks you are now a great way off; and if I come, I have a great way to come to you; and then the sea is so cold, and the rooms are so dull; yet I do love to hear the sea roar and my mistress talk—For when she talks, ye gods! how she will talk. I wish I were with you, but we are now near half the length of England asunder. It is frightful to think how much time must pass between writing this letter and receiving an answer, if any answer were necessary.'Ib. ii. 2.
[269] Boswell wrote to Temple on Nov. 3, 1780:—'I could not help smiling at the expostulation which you suggest to me to try with my father. It would do admirably with some fathers; but it would make mine much worse, for he cannot bear that his son should talk with him as a man. I can only lament his unmelting coldness to my wife and children, for I fear it is hopeless to think of his ever being more affectionate towards them. Yet it must be acknowledged that his paying £1000 of my debt some years ago was a large bounty. He allows me £300 a year.'Letters of Boswell, p. 255.
[270] Seeante, Aug. 27, 1775, note.
[271] Seeante, p. 48, note 4.
[272] 'He said to me often that the time he spent in this Tour was the pleasantest part of his life, and asked me if I would lose the recollection of it for five hundred pounds.' Boswell'sHebrides, under Nov. 22, 1773.
[273] Chap. viii. 10. A translation of this work is inBibliotheca Pastorum, ed. J. Ruskin, vol. i.
[274] 'The chief cause of my deficiency has been a life immethodical and unsettled, which breaks all purposes, confounds and suppresses memory, and perhaps leaves too much leisure to imagination.'Pr. and Med. p. 136.
[275] Johnson wrote to Boswell (ante, June 12, 1774):—'I have stipulated twenty-five for you to give in your own name.' The book was published early in 1775. On Feb. 25, 1775, he wrote:—'I am sorry that I could get no books for my friends in Scotland. Mr. Strahan has at last promised to send two dozen to you.' It is strange that not far short of two years passed before the books were sent.
[276] Boswell had 'expressed his extreme aversion to his father's second marriage.'Letters of Boswell, p. 255—On Sept. 2, 1775, he thus described his step-mother:—'His wife, whom in my conscience I cannot condemn for any capital bad quality, is so narrow-minded, and, I don't know how, so set upon keeping him under her own management, and so suspicious and so sourishly tempered that it requires the utmost exertion of practical philosophy to keep myself quiet.'Ib. p. 216.
[277] Seeante, Jan. 19 and May 6, 1775.
[278] Seeante, p. 86.
[279] Seeante, May 27, 1775.
[280] Macquarry was the chief of Ulva's Isle. 'He told us,' writes Boswell, 'his family had possessed Ulva for nine hundred years; but I was distressed to hear that it was soon to be sold for payment of his debts.' Boswell'sHebrides, Oct 16, 1773.
[281] Seeante, March 24, 1776.
[282] Mrs. Thrale gives a long but scarcely credible account of her quarrel with Baretti. It is very unlikely that he used to say to her eldest daughter 'that, if her mother died in a lying-in which happened while he lived here, he hoped Mr. Thrale would marry Miss Whitbred, who would be a pretty companion for her, and not tyrannical and overbearing like me.' Hayward'sPiozzi, ii. 336. No doubt in 1788 he attacked her brutally (seeante, p. 49). 'I could not have suspected him,' wrote Miss Burney, 'of a bitterness of invective so cruel, so ferocious.' Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary, iv. 185. The attack was provoked. Mrs. Piozzi, in January, 1788, published one of Johnson's letters, in which he wrote—at all events she says he wrote:—'Poor B——i! do not quarrel with him; to neglect him a little will be sufficient. He means only to be frank, and manly, and independent, and perhaps, as you say, a little wise. To be frank he thinks is to be cynical, and to be independent is to be rude. Forgive him, dearest lady, the rather because of his misbehaviour I am afraid he learnt part of me. I hope to set him hereafter a better example.'Piozzi Letters, i. 277. Malone, in 1789, speaks of 'the roughness for which Baretti was formerly distinguished.' Prior'sMalone, p. 391. Mrs. Thrale thus describes his departure: 'My daughter kept on telling me that Mr. Baretti was grown very old and very cross, would not look at her exercises, but said he would leave this house soon, for it was no better than Pandæmonium. The next day he packed up his cloke-bag, which he had not done for three years, and sent it to town; and while we were wondering what he would say about it at breakfast, he was walking to London himself, without taking leave of any one person, except it may be the girl, who owns they had much talk, in the course of which he expressed great aversion to me and even to her, who, [sic] he said, he once thought well of.' Hayward'sPiozzi, ii. 339. Baretti, in theEur. Mag. xiii. 398, told his story. He said:—'Madam took it into her head to give herself airs, and treat me with some coldness and superciliousness. I did not hesitate to set down at breakfast my dish of tea not half drank, go for my hat and stick that lay in the corner of the room, turn my back to the houseinsalutato hospite, and walk away to London without uttering a syllable.' In a marginal note onPiozzi Letters, i. 338, he says he left Streatham on June 4, 1776. 'I had,' he writes, 'by that time been in a manner one of the family during six years and a-half. Johnson had made me hope that Thrale would at last give me an annuity for my pains, but, never receiving a shilling from him or from her, I grew tired at last, and on some provocation from her left them abruptly.' It should seem that he afterwards made it up with them, for in a note on vol. ii. p. 191, he says of the day of Mr. Thrale's death, 'Johnson and I, and many other friends, were to dine with him that day.' The rest of the note, at all events, is inaccurate, for he says that 'Mrs. Thrale imparted to Johnson the news [of her husband's death],' whereas Johnson saw him die.
[283] Mrs. Piozzi says that this money was given to Baretti as a consolation for the loss of the Italian tour (ante, iii. 6). Hayward'sPiozzi, ii. 337.
[284] The Duke of York was present when Foote had the accident by which he lost his leg (ante, ii. 95). Moved by compassion, he obtained for him from the King a royal patent for performances at the Haymarket from May 14 to Sept. 14 in every year. He played but thrice after his retirement. Forster's Essays, ii. 400, 435.
[285] Strahan showed greater sagacity about Gibbon'sDecline and Fall, which had been declined by Elmsly. 'So moderate were our hopes,' writes Gibbon (Misc. Works, i. 223), 'that the original impression had been stinted to five hundred, till the number was doubled by the prophetic taste of Mr. Strahan.' Carrick called Strahan 'rather anobtuseman.'Post, April 9 1778.
[286] Seepost, Sept. 19, 1777, and April 20, 1781.
[287] Johnson, I believe, at this time suffered less than usual from despondency. Seeante, iii. 25, note 1. The passage in which these words are found applies to one day only. It is as follows:—'March 28. This day is Good Friday. It is likewise the day on which my poor Tetty was taken from me. My thoughts were disturbed in bed. I remembered that it was my wife's dying day, and begged pardon for all our sins, and commended her; but resolved to mix little of my own sorrows or cares with the great solemnity. Having taken only tea without milk I went to church; had time before service to commend my wife, and wished to join quietly in the service, but I did not hear well, and my mind grew unsettled and perplexed. Having rested ill in the night I slumbered at the sermon, which, I think, I could not as I sat perfectly hear…. At night I had some ease. L.D. [Laus Deo] I had prayed for pardon and peace.'Pr. and Med. p. 153. Hawkins, however (Life, p. 532), says, perhaps with considerable exaggeration, that at this time, 'he sunk into indolence, till his faculties seemed to be impaired; deafness grew upon him; long intervals of mental absence interrupted his conversation, and it was difficult to engage his attention to any subject. His friends concluded that his lamp was emitting its last rays, but the lapse of a short period gave them ample proofs to the contrary.' The proofs wereThe Lives of the Poets. Johnson himself says of this time:—'Days and months pass in a dream; and I am afraid that my memory grows less tenacious, and my observation less attentive.'Pr. and Med. 160.
[288]
'Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mindSees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.'
Pope'sEssay on Man, i. 99.
[289] '"I inherited," said Johnson, "a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober."' Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 16, 1773. Seeante, i. 65, andpost, Sept. 20, 1777.
[290]Pr. and Med. p. 155. BOSWELL.
[291]Pr. and Med. p. 158. BOSWELL.
[292] He continues:—'I passed the afternoon with such calm gladness of mind as it is very long since I felt before. I passed the night in such sweet uninterrupted sleep as I have not known since I slept at Fort Augustus.' Seepost, Nov. 21, 1778, where in a letter to Boswell he says:—'The best night that I have had these twenty years was at Fort Augustus.' In 1767 he mentions (Pr. and Med. p. 73) 'a sudden relief he once had by a good night's rest in Fetter Lane,' where he had lived many years before. His good nights must have been rare indeed.
[293] Bishop Percy says that he handed over to Johnson various memoranda which he had received from 'Goldsmith's brother and others of his family, to afford materials for aLife of Goldsmith, which Johnson was to write and publish for their benefit. But he utterly forgot them and the subject.' Prior successfully defends Johnson against the charge that he did not include Goldsmith'sLifeamong theLives of the Poets. 'The copy-right ofShe Stoops to Conquerwas the property of Carnan the bookseller (surviving partner of F. Newbery); and Carnan being "a most impracticable man and at variance with all his brethren," in the words of Malone to the Bishop, he refused his assent, and the project for the time fell to the ground.' But Percy clearly implies that it was a separate work and not one of theLivesthat Johnson had undertaken. See Prior'sGoldsmith, Preface, p. x. Malone, in a note on Boswell's letter of July 9, 1777, says:—'I collected some materials for aLife of Goldsmith, by Johnson's desire.' He goes on to mention the quarrel with Carnan. It should seem then that Johnson was gathering materials for Goldsmith'sLifebefore theLives of the Poetswere projected; that later on he intended to include it in that series, but being thwarted by Carnan that he did nothing.
[294] See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 24, 1773.
[295] 'I have often desired him not to call me Goldy.'Ib. Oct. 14.
[296] 'The Duke of Argyle was obliging enough to mount Dr. Johnson on a stately steed from his grace's stable. My friend was highly pleased, and Joseph [Boswell's Bohemian servant] said, "He now looks like a bishop."' Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 26.
[297] Seeante, ii. 196.
[298] Even Burke falls into the vulgarism of 'mutual friend.' See hisCorrespondence, i. 196, ii. 251. Goldsmith also writes of 'mutual acquaintance.' Cunningham'sGoldsmith's Works, iv. 48.
[299] He means to imply, I suppose, that Johnson was the father of plantations. Seeante, under Feb. 7, 1775. note.
[300] For a character of this very amiable man, seeJournal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 36. [Aug. 17.] BOSWELL.
[301] By the then course of the post, my long letter of the 14th had not yet reached him. BOSWELL.
[302]History of Philip the Second. BOSWELL.
[303] Seeante, Jan. 21, 1775.
[304] Seeante, iii. 48.
[305] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Jan. 15, 1777, that he had had about twelve ounces of blood taken, and then about ten more, and that another bleeding was to follow. 'Yet I do not make it a matter of much form. I was to-day at Mrs. Gardiner's. When I have bled to-morrow, I will not give up Langton nor Paradise. But I beg that you will fetch me away on Friday. I do not know but clearer air may do me good; but whether the air be clear or dark, let me come to you.'Piozzi Letters, i. 344. Seepost, Sept. 16, 1777, note.
[306] Seeante, i. 411, and Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 24, 1773.
[307] Johnson tried in vain to buy this book at Aberdeen.Ib. Aug. 23.
[308] Seeante, May 12, 1775.
[309] No doubt herMiscellanies.Ante, ii. 25.
[310] See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 22.
[311] John_son_ is the most common English formation of the Sirname fromJohn; John_ston_ the Scotch. My illustrious friend observed that many North Britons pronounced his name in their own way. BOSWELL. Boswell (Hebrides, Oct. 21, 1773) tells of one Lochbuy who, 'being told that Dr. Johnson did not hear well, bawled out to him, "Are you of the Johnstons of Glencro, or of Ardnamurchan?"'
[312] Seepost, under Dec. 24, 1783.
[313] Johnson's old amanuensis.Ante, i. 187. Johnson described him as 'a man of great learning.' Croker'sBoswell, p. 654.
[314] On account of their differing from him as to religion and politicks. BOSWELL. Seepost, April 13, 1778. Mr. Croker says that 'the Club had, as its records show, for many of his latter years very little of his company.'
[315] Seeante, i. 225 note 2, July 4, 1774, and March 20, 1776.
[316] Boswell was no reader. 'I don't believe,' Johnson once said to him, 'you have borrowed from Waller. I wish you would enable yourself to borrow more.'Ante, April 16, 1775. Boswell wrote to Temple on March 18, 1775:—'I have a kind of impotency of study.' Two months later he wrote:—'I have promised to Dr. Johnson to read when I get to Scotland, and to keep an account of what I read. I shall let you know how I go on. My mind must be nourished.'Letters of Boswell, pp. 181, 195.
[317] Chesterfield'sLetters to his Sonwere published in 1774, and hisMiscellaneous Works, together withMemoirs and Letters to his Friends, early in 1777.
[318] 'Whatso it is, the Danaan folk, yea gift-bearing I fear.' Morris, Æneids, ii. 49.
[319] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on March 19, 1777:—'You are all young, and gay, and easy; but I have miserable nights, and know not how to make them better; but I shift pretty well a-days, and so have at you all at Dr. Burney's to-morrow.'Piozzi Letters, i. 345.
[320] A twelfth was born next year. Seepost, July 3, 1778.
[321] It was March 29.
[322]Pr. and Med. p. 155. BOSWELL
[323] Seeante, i. 341, note 3.
[324] Seeante, i. 439.
[325] Johnson's moderation in demanding so small a sum is extraordinary. Had he asked one thousand, or even fifteen hundred guineas, the booksellers, who knew the value of his name, would doubtless have readily given it. They have probably got five thousand guineas by this work in the course of twenty-five years. MALONE.
[326] Seepost, beginning of 1781.
[327] Seeante, ii. 272, note 2.
[328] Mr. Joseph Cooper Walker, of the Treasury, Dublin, who obligingly communicated to me this and a former letter from Dr. Johnson to the same gentleman (for which see vol. i. p. 321), writes to me as follows: —'Perhaps it would gratify you to have some account of Mr. O'Connor. He is an amiable, learned, venerable old gentleman, of an independent fortune, who lives at Belanagar, in the county of Roscommon; he is an admired writer, and Member of the Irish Academy.—The above Letter is alluded to in the Preface to the 2nd edit, of hisDissert, p. 3.'—Mr. O'Connor afterwards died at the age of eighty-two. See a well-drawn character of him in theGent. Mag. for August 1791. BOSWELL.
[329] Mr. Croker shows good reason for believing that in the original letter this parenthesis stood:—'if such there were.'
[330] Seeante, i. 292.
[331] 'Johnson had not heard of Pearce'sSermons, which I wondered at, considering that he wrote all theLifepublished by the Chaplain Derby, except what his Lordship wrote himself.'Letters of Boswell, p. 242. See ante, March 20, 1776.
[332] Boswell, it seems, is here quoting himself. See hisHebrides, 3rd edit. p. 201 (Sept. 13, 1773), where, however, he lays the emphasis differently, writing 'fervourof loyalty.'
[333] 'An old acquaintance' of the Bishop says that 'he struggled hard ten years ago to resign his Bishopric and the Deanery of Westminster, in which our gracious King was willing to gratify him; but upon a consultation of the Bishops they thought it could not be done with propriety; yet he was permitted to resign the Deanery.'Gent. Mag. 1775, p. 421.
[334] 'This person, it is said, was a stay-maker, but being a man of wit and parts he betook himself to study, and at a time when the discipline of the inns of court was scandalously lax, got himself called to the Bar, and practised at the quarter-sessions under me, but with little success. He became the conductor of a paper calledThe Public Ledgerand a writer for the stage, in which he met with some encouragement, till it was insinuated that he was a pensioner of the minister, and therefore a fit object of patriotic vengeance.' Hawkins'sJohnson, p. 518. Seeante, ii. 48 note, andpost, 1784, in Mr. Nichols's account of Johnson's last days.
[335] 'This address had the desired effect. The play was well received.' Murphy'sGarrick, p. 302. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield, 'Lucy [his step-daughter] thinks nothing of my prologue for Kelly, and says she has always disowned it.'Piozzi Letters, i. 352.
[336] It was composed at a time when Savage was generally without lodging, and often without meat. Much of it was written with pen and ink that were borrowed, on paper that had been picked up in the streets. The unhappy poet 'was obliged to submit himself wholly to the players, and admit with whatever reluctance the emendations of Mr. Cibber, which he always considered as the disgrace of his performance.' When it was brought out, he himself took the part of Overbury. 'He was so much ashamed of having been reduced to appear as a player, that he always blotted out his name from the list when a copy of his tragedy was to be shown to his friends.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 110-112.
[337] It was not at Drury-lane, but at Covent Garden theatre, that it was acted. MALONE.
[338] Part First, Chap 4. BOSWELL. Seeanteii. 225.
[339]Life of Richard Savage, by Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL.
[340] Seeante, i. 387, andpost, May 17, 1783.
[341] Sheridan joined the Literary Club in March, 1777.The RivalsandThe Duennawere brought out in 1775;The Trip to Scarboroughon Feb. 24, 1777, andThe School for Scandalin the following May. Moore (Life of Sheridan, i. 168), speaking ofThe Duenna, says, 'The run of this opera has, I believe, no parallel in the annals of the drama. Sixty-three nights was the career ofThe Beggar's Opera; butThe Duennawas acted no less than seventy-five times during the season.'The Trip to Scarboroughwas a failure. Johnson, therefore, doubtless referred toThe RivalsandThe Duenna.
[342] The date is wrongly given. Boswell says that he wrote again on June 23 (post, p. 120), and Johnson's letter of June 28 is in answer to both letters. The right date is perhaps June 9.
[343] See Boswell'sHebrides, under Nov. 11, 1773.
[344] See pp. 29, 30, of this volume. BOSWELL.
[345] Johnson, describing 'the fond intimacy' of Quin and Thomson, says (Works, viii. 374):—'The commencement of this benevolence is very honourable to Quin, who is reported to have delivered Thomson, then known to him only for his genius, from an arrest by a very considerable present; and its continuance is honourable to both, for friendship is not always the sequel of obligation.'
[346] Seeante, ii. 63, andpost, June 18, 1778.
[347] Formerly Sub-preceptor to his present Majesty, and afterwards a Commissioner of Excise. MALONE.
[348] The physician and poet. He died in 1779.
[349] Boswell nine years earlier (ante, ii. 63) had heard Johnson accuse Thomson of gross sensuality.
[350] 'Savage, who lived much with Thomson, once told me he heard a lady remarking that she could gather from his works three parts of his character, that he was a great lover, a great swimmer, and rigorously abstinent; but, said Savage, he knows not any love but that of the sex; he was perhaps never in cold water in his life; and he indulges himself in all the luxury that comes within his reach.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 377.
[351] Dr. Johnson was not theeditorof this Collection ofThe English Poets; he merely furnished the biographical prefaces. MALONE. Seepost, Sept. 14, 1777.
[352] Seeante, under April 18, 1775.
[353] One letter he seems to have sent to him from this spot. Seeante, ii. 3, note 1.
[354] Dr. Johnson had himself talked of our seeing Carlisle together.Highwas a favourite word of his to denote a person of rank. He said to me, 'Sir, I believe we may at the house of a Roman Catholick lady in Cumberland; a high lady, Sir.' I afterwards discovered he meant Mrs. Strickland, sister of Charles Townley, Esq., whose very noble collection of pictures is not more to be admired, than his extraordinary and polite readiness in shewing it, which I and several of my friends have agreeably experienced. They who are possessed of valuable stores of gratification to persons of taste, should exercise their benevolence in imparting the pleasure. Grateful acknowledgments are due to Welbore Ellis Agar, Esq., for the liberal access which he is pleased to allow to his exquisite collection of pictures. BOSWELL.
[355] See Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 11, 1773.
[356] It is no doubt, on account of its brevity that Boswell in speaking of it writes:—'What is calledThe Life.'
[357] See Boswell'sHebrides, Oct, 29, 1773.
[358] Seeante, under Feb. 7, 1775.
[359] See post, p. 139.
[360] Seeante, i. 494.
[361] From Prior's imitation ofGualterus Danistonus ad Amicos; the poem mentioned by Boswell in hisHebrides, Aug. 18, 1773.
[362]Copyismanuscript for printing.
[363] Hawkins (Life, p. 521) says that the jury did not at the trial recommend Dodd to mercy. To one of the petitions 'Mrs. Dodd first got the hands of the jury that found the bill against her husband, and after that, as it is supposed, of the jury that tried him.' Ib. p. 527. He says that the public were at first very little interested in his fate, 'but by various artifices, and particularly the insertion of his name in public papers, with such palliatives as he and his friends could invent, never with the epithet ofunfortunate, they were betrayed into such an enthusiastic commiseration of his case as would have led a stranger to believe that himself had been no accessory to his distresses, but that they were the inflictions of Providence.' Ib. p. 520. Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on May 19:—'Poor Dodd was sentenced last week…. I am afraid he will suffer. The clergy seem not to be his friends. The populace, that was extremely clamorous against him, begins to pity him.Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 423.
[364] Horace Walpole says 'the criminal was raised to the dignity of a confessor in the eyes of the people—but an inexorable judge had already pronounced his doom. Lord Mansfield, who never felt pity, and never relented unless terrified, had indecently declared for execution even before the judges had given their opinion. An incident that seemed favourable weighed down the vigorous [qu. rigorous] scale. The Common Council had presented a petition for mercy to the king. Lord Mansfield, who hated the popular party as much as he loved severity, was not likely to be moved by such intercessors. At Court it grew the language that the king must discountenance such interposition.' Walpole adds that 'as an attempt to rescue Dodd might be apprehended, two thousand men were ordered to be reviewed in Hyde Park during the execution.'Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 125.
[365] Johnson, in the 'Observationsinserted in the newspapers' (post, p. 142), said 'that though the people cannot judge of the administration of justice so well as their governors, yet their voice has always been regarded. That if the people now commit an error, their error is on the part of mercy; and that perhaps history cannot shew a time in which the life of a criminal, guilty of nothing above fraud, was refused to the cry of nations, to the joint supplication of three and twenty thousand petitioners.' Hawkins'sJohnson, p. 528. Johnson's earnestness as a petitioner contrasts with the scornful way in which he had spoken of petitions. 'There must be no yielding to encourage this,' the minister might have answered in his own words.Ante, ii. 90.
[366] The king signs no sentences or death warrants; but out of respect to the Royal perogative of mercy, expressed by the old adage, 'The King's face gives grace,' the cases of criminals convicted in London, where the king is supposed to be resident, were reported to him by the recorder, that his Majesty might have an option of pardoning. Hence it was seriously doubted whether a recorder's report need or, indeed, could be made at Windsor. All his Majesty did on these occasions was, to express verbally his assent or dissent to or from the execution of the sentence; and, though the King was on such occasions attended by his Ministers and the great legal Privy Councillors, the business was not technically a council business, but the individual act of the King. On the accession of Queen Victoria, the nature of some cases that it might be necessary to report to her Majesty occasioned the abrogation of a practice which was certainly so far unreasonable that it made a difference between London and all the rest of the kingdom. CROKER. 'I was exceedingly shocked,' said Lord Eldon, 'the first time I attended to hear the Recorder's report, at the careless manner in which, as it appeared to me, it was conducted. We were called upon to decide on sentences affecting no less than the lives of men, and yet there was nothing laid before us to enable us to judge whether there had or had not been any extenuating circumstances; it was merely a recapitulation of the judge's opinion and the sentence. I resolved that I never would attend another report, without having read and duly considered the whole of the evidence of each case, and I never did.' Twiss'sEldon, i. 398.
[367] Under-Secretary of State and a member of the Literary Club.Ante, i. 478.
[368] Johnson does not here let Boswell know that he had written this address (post, p. 141). Wesley, two days before Dodd's execution, records (Journal, iv. 99):—'I saw Dr. Dodd for the last time. He was in exactly such a temper as I wished. He never at any time expressed the least murmuring or resentment at any one; but entirely and calmly gave himself up to the will of God. Such a prisoner I scarce ever saw before; much less such a condemned malefactor. I should think none could converse with him without acknowledging that God is with him.' In earlier years Wesley was more than once refused admittance to a man under sentence of death who was 'earnestly desirous' to speak with him. Wesley'sJournal, ed. 1827, i. 255, 292, 378.
[369] Between the Methodists and the Moravians there was no good-will. In 1749 the Moravians published a declaration that 'whosoever reckons that those persons in England who are usually called Moravians, and those who are called Methodists, are the same, he is mistaken.' Thereupon Wesley recorded in hisJournal, ii. l20:—'The Methodists, so called, heartily thank Brother Louis for his Declaration; as they count it no honour to be in any connexion either with him or his Brethren.'
[370] Since they have been so much honoured by Dr. Johnson I shall here insert them:
'You know my solemn enthusiasm of mind. You love me for it, and I respect myself for it, because in so far I resemble Mr. Johnson. You will be agreeably surprized when you learn the reason of my writing this letter. I am at Wittemberg in Saxony. I am in the old church where the Reformation was first preached, and where some of the reformers lie interred. I cannot resist the serious pleasure of writing to Mr. Johnson from the Tomb of Melancthon. My paper rests upon the gravestone of that great and good man, who was undoubtedly the worthiest of all the reformers. He wished to reform abuses which had been introduced into the Church; but had no private resentment to gratify. So mild was he, that when his aged mother consulted him with anxiety on the perplexing disputes of the times, he advised her "to keep to the old religion." At this tomb, then, my ever dear and respected friend! I vow to thee an eternal attachment. It shall be my study to do what I can to render your life happy: and, if you die before me, I shall endeavour to do honour to your memory; and, elevated by the remembrance of you, persist in noble piety. May GOD, the Father of all beings, ever bless you! and may you continue to love,
'Your most affectionate friend, and devoted servant,'JAMES BOSWELL.''Sunday, Sept. 30, 1764.'
'To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.'Wilton-house, April 22, 1775.'My DEAR SIR,
'Every scene of my life confirms the truth of what you have told me, "there is no certain happiness in this state of being."—I am here, amidst all that you know is at Lord Pembroke's; and yet I am weary and gloomy. I am just setting out for the house of an old friend in Devonshire, and shall not get back to London for a week yet. You said to me last Good-Friday, with a cordiality that warmed my heart, that if I came to settle in London, we should have a day fixed every week, to meet by ourselves and talk freely. To be thought worthy of such a privilege cannot but exalt me. During my present absence from you, while, notwithstanding the gaiety which you allow me to possess, I am darkened by temporary clouds, I beg to have a few lines from you; a few lines merely of kindness, as—aviaticumtill I see you again. In yourVanity of Human Wishes, and in Parnell'sContentment, I find the only sure means of enjoying happiness; or, at least, the hopes of happiness. I ever am, with reverence and affection,
'Most faithfully yours,
[371] William Seward, Esq., F.R.S., editor ofAnecdotes of some distinguished persons, etc., in four volumes, 8vo., well known to a numerous and valuable acquaintance for his literature, love of the fine arts, and social virtues. I am indebted to him for several communications concerning Johnson. BOSWELL. Miss Burney frequently mentions him as visiting the Thrales. 'Few people do him justice,' said Mrs. Thrale to her, 'because as Dr. Johnson calls him, he is an abrupt young man; but he has excellent qualities, and an excellent understanding.' Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary, i. 141. Miss Burney, in one of her letters, says:—'Mr. Seward, who seems to be quite at home among them, appears to be a penetrating, polite, and agreeable young man. Mrs. Thrale says of him, that he does good to everybody, but speaks well of nobody.'Memoirs of Dr. Burney, ii. 89. He must not be confounded with the Rev. Mr. Seward of Lichfield.
[372] Seepost, under date of June 18, 1778.
[373] In the list of deaths in theGent. Mag. for 1779, p. 103, we find, 'Feb. 8. Isaac de Groot, great-grandson to the learned Grotius. He had long been supported by private donations, and at length was provided for in the Charterhouse, where he died.'
[374] The preceding letter. BOSWELL.
[375] This letter was addressed not to a Mr. Dilly, but to Mr. W. Sharp, Junior. SeeGent. Mag. 1787, p. 99. CROKER.
[376] Seeante, i. 312.
[377] Seeante, p. 101.
[378] See Boswell'sHebrides, Oct. 16.
[379] See ante, p. 86, andpost, under Nov. 29, 1777.
[380] Johnson gives bothepochaandepochin hisDictionary.
[381] Langton. Seeante, p. 48, andpost, Sept. 22, 1777.
[382] This very just remark I hope will be constantly held in remembrance by parents, who are in general too apt to indulge their own fond feelings for their children at the expence of their friends. The common custom of introducing them after dinner is highly injudicious. It is agreeable enough that they should appear at any other time; but they should not be suffered to poison the moments of festivity by attracting the attention of the company, and in a manner compelling them from politeness to say what they do not think. BOSWELL. Seeante, p. 28.
[383] Gibbon wrote to Garrick from Paris on Aug. 14:—'At this time of year the society of the Turk's-head can no longer be addressed as a corporate body, and most of the individual members are probably dispersed: Adam Smith in Scotland; Burke in the shades of Beaconsfield; Fox, the Lord or the devil knows where, etc. Be so good as to salute in my name those friends who may fall in your way. Assure Sir Joshua, in particular, that I have not lost my relish formanlyconversation and the society of the brown table.'Garrick Corres. ii. 256. I believe that in Gibbon's published letters no mention is found of Johnson.
[384] Seeante, ii. 159, andpost, April 4, 1778. Of his greatness at the Bar Lord Eldon has left the following anecdote;—'Mr. Dunning, being in very great business, was asked how he contrived to get through it all. He said, "I do one third of it, another third does itself, and the remaining third continues undone."' Twiss'sEldon, i. 327.
[385] It is not easy to detect Johnson in anything that comes even near an inaccuracy. Let me quote, therefore, a passage from one of his letters which shews that when he wrote to Mrs. Boswell he had not, as he seems to imply, eaten any of the marmalade:—'Aug. 4, 1777. I believe it was after I left your house that I received a pot of orange marmalade from Mrs. Boswell. We have now, I hope, made it up. I have not opened my pot.'Piozzi Letters, i. 350.
[386] Seeante, March 19, 1776.
[387] What it was that had occured is shewn by Johnson's letter to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 4:—'Boswell's project is disconcerted by a visit from a relation of Yorkshire, whom he mentions as the head of his clan [seeante, ii. 169, note 2]. Boszy, you know, make a huge bustle about all his own motions and all mine. I have inclosed a letter to pacify him, and reconcile him to the uncertainties of human life.'Piozzi Letters, i. 350.
[388] When she was about four months old, Boswell declared that she should have five hundred pounds of additional fortune, on account of her fondness for Dr. Johnson. See Boswell'sHebrides, Aug. 15, 1773. She died, says Malone, of a consumption, four months after her father.
[389] Seeante, March 23, 1776.
[390] By an odd mistake, in the first three editions we find a reading in this line to which Dr. Johnson would by no means have subscribed,winehaving been substituted fortime. That error probably was a mistake in the transcript of Johnson's original letter. The other deviation in the beginning of the line (virtueinstead of nature) must be attributed to his memory having deceived him. The verse quoted is the concluding line of a sonnet of Sidney's:—
'Who doth desire that chast his wife should bee,First be he true, for truth doth truth deserve;Then be he such, as she his worth may see,And, alwaies one, credit with her preserve:Not toying kynd nor causelessly unkynd,Nor stirring thoughts, nor yet denying right,Nor spying faults, nor in plaine errors blind,Never hard hand, nor ever rayns (reins) too light;As far from want, as far from vaine expence,Th' one doth enforce, the t'other doth entice:Allow good companie, but drive from thenceAll filthie mouths that glorie in their vice:This done, thou hast no more but leave the restTonature, fortune,time, and woman's breast.'
[391] 2 Corinthians, iv. 17.
[392] Boswell says (ante, i. 342):—'I am not satisfied if a year passes without my having readRasselasthrough.'
[393] It appears that Johnson, now in his sixty-eighth year, was seriously inclined to realise the project of our going up the Baltick, which I had started when we were in the Isle of Sky [Boswell'sHebrides, Sept. 16]; for he thus writes to Mrs. Thrale;Letters, vol. i. p. 366:—
'Ashbourne, Sept. 13, 1777.
'BOSWELL, I believe, is coming. He talks of being here to day: I shall be glad to see him: but he shrinks from the Baltick expedition, which, I think, is the best scheme in our power: what we shall substitute I know not. He wants to see Wales; but, except the woods ofBachycraigh, what is there in Wales, that can fill the hunger of ignorance, or quench the thirst of curiosity? We may, perhaps, form some scheme or other; but, in the phrase ofHockley in the Hole, it is a pity he has not abetter bottom.'
Such an ardour of mind, and vigour of enterprise, is admirable at any age: but more particularly so at the advanced period at which Johnson was then arrived. I am sorry now that I did not insist on our executing that scheme. Besides the other objects of curiosity and observation, to have seen my illustrious friend received, as he probably would have been, by a Prince so eminently distinguished for his variety of talents and acquisitions as the late King of Sweden; and by the Empress of Russia, whose extraordinary abilities, information, and magnanimity, astonish the world, would have afforded a noble subject for contemplation and record. This reflection may possibly be thought too visionary by the more sedate and cold-blooded part of my readers; yet I own, I frequently indulge it with an earnest, unavailing regret. BOSWELL. InThe Spectator, No. 436, Hockley in the Hole is described as 'a place of no small renown for the gallantry of the lower order of Britons.' Fielding mentions it inJonathan Wild, bk. i. ch. 2:— 'Jonathan married Elizabeth, daughter of Scragg Hollow, of Hockley in the Hole, Esq., and by her had Jonathan, who is the illustrious subject of these memoirs.' InThe Beggar's Opera, act i. Mrs. Peachum says to Filch: 'You should go to Hockley in the Hole, and to Marylebone, child, to learn valour. These are the schools that have bred so many brave men.' Hockley in the Hole was in Clerkenwell. That Johnson had this valour was shewn two years earlier, when he wrote to Mrs. Thrale about a sum of £14,000 that the Thrales had received: 'If I had money enough, what would I do? Perhaps, if you and master did not hold me, I might go to Cairo, and down the Red Sea to Bengal, and take a ramble in India. Would this be better than building and planting? It would surely give more variety to the eye, and more amplitude to the mind. Half fourteen thousand would send me out to see other forms of existence, and bring me back to describe them.'Piozzi Letters, i. 266. To the 'King of Sweden'latewas added in the second edition; Gustavus III having been assassinated in March 1792. The story is somewhere told that George III, on hearing the news, cried out, 'What, what, what! Shot, shot, shot!' The Empress of Russia was Catherine II.
[394] It so happened. The letter was forwarded to my house at Edinburgh. BOSWELL. Arthur Young (Tour through the North of England, iv. 431-5) describes, in 1768, some of the roads along which Boswell was to travel nine years later. 'I would advise all travellers to consider the country between Newcastle-under-Line and Preston as sea, and as soon think of driving into the ocean as venturing into such detestable roads. I am told the Derby way to Manchester is good, but further is not penetrable.' The road from Wigan to Preston he calls 'infernal,' and 'cautions all travellers, who may accidentally purpose to travel this terrible country, to avoid it as they would the devil; for a thousand to one they break their necks or their limbs. They will here meet with ruts which I actually measured four feet deep, and floating with mud only from a wet summer; what therefore must it be after a winter?'
[395] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Sept. 15, 1777:—'Last night came Boswell. I am glad that he is come. He seems to be very brisk and lively, and laughs a little at —— [no doubt Taylor].'Piozzi Letters, i. 368. On the 18th he wrote:—'Boswell is with us in good humour, and plays his part with his usual vivacity.' On this Baretti noted in his copy:—'That is, he makes more noise than anybody in company, talking and laughing loud.' On p. 216 in vol. i. he noted:—'Boswell is not quite right-headed in my humble opinion.'
[396] In theGent. Mag. for 1777, p. 458, it is described as a 'violent shock.'
[397] 'Grief has its time' he once said (post, June 2, 1781). 'Grief is a species of idleness,' he wrote to Mrs. Thrale (Piozzi Letters, i. 77). He constantly taught that it is a duty not to allow the mind to prey on itself. 'Gaiety is a duty when health requires it' (Croker'sBoswell, p. 529). 'Encourage yourself in bustle, and variety, and cheerfulness,' he wrote to Mrs. Thrale ten weeks after the death of her only surviving son (Piozzi Letters, i. 341). 'Even to think in the most reasonable manner,' he said at another time, 'is for the present not useful as not to think.'Ibi. 202. When Mr. Thrale died, he wrote to his widow:—'I think business the best remedy for grief, as soon as it can be admitted.'Ib. ii 197. To Dr. Taylor Johnson wrote:—'Sadness only multiplies self.'Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 461.
[398] 'There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved, nor will by me at least be thought worthy of esteem.'Piozzi Letters, ii. 198. Against this Baretti has written in the margin:— 'Johnson never grieved much for anything. His trade was wisdom.' Seeante, ii. 94.
[399] Seeante, iii 19. Mr. Croker gives a reference to p. 136 of his edition. Turning to it we find an account of Johnson, who rode upon three horses. It would seem from this that, because John=Jack, therefore Johnson=Jackson.
[400] Mr. Croker remarks on this:—'Johnson evidently thought, either that Ireland is generally mountainous, or that Mr. Burke came from a part which was: but he was mistaken.' The allusion may well be, not to Burke as a native of Ireland, but to him as a student of national politics and economy, to whom any general reflections on the character of mountaineers would be welcome. In Johnson'sWorks(1787), xi. 201, it is stated that 'it was the philosophy of the book that Burke thought well of.'
[401] Mr. Langley, I have little doubt, is the Mr. L—— of the following passage in Johnson's letter, written from Ashbourne on July 12, 1775:—'Mr. L—— and the Doctor still continue at variance; and the Doctor is afraid and Mr. L—— not desirous of a reconciliation. I therefore step over at by-times, and of by-times I have enough.'Piozzi Letters, i. 267.
[402] Seeante, ii. 52.
[403] George Garrick. See Murphy'sJohnson, p. 141.
[404] Seeante, March 26, 1776, andpost, Sept. 21, 1777.
[405] 'While Lord Bathurst held the Great Seal, an attempt was in vain made to corrupt him by a secret offer to Lady Bathurst of three thousand guineas for the living of St. George's, Hanover Square. The offer was traced to the famous Dr. Dodd, then a King's Chaplain, and he was immediately dismissed.' Campbell'sChancellors, v. 464. See Walpole'sJournal of the Reign of George III, i. 298.
[406] Horace Walpole, who accompanied Prince Edward to a service at the Magdalen House in 1760, thus describes the service (Letters, iii. 282): —'As soon as we entered the chapel the organ played, and the Magdalens sung a hymn in parts. You cannot imagine how well. The chapel was dressed with orange and myrtle, and there wanted nothing but a little incense to drive away the devil,—or to invite him. Prayers then began, psalms and a sermon; the latter by a young clergyman, one Dodd, who contributed to the Popish idea one had imbibed, by haranguing entirely in the French style, and very eloquently and touchingly. He apostrophised the lost sheep, who sobbed and cried from their souls: so did my Lady Hertford and Fanny Pelham, till, I believe, the city dames took them both for Jane Shores. The confessor then turned to the audience, and addressed himself to his Royal Highness, whom he called most illustrious prince, beseeching his protection. In short, it was a very pleasing performance, and I gotthe most illustriousto desire it might be printed.' Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 503) heard Dodd preach in 1769. 'We had,' he says, 'difficulty to get tolerable seats, the crowd of genteel people was so great. The unfortunate young women were in a latticed gallery, where you could only see those who chose to be seen. The preacher's text was, "If a man look on a woman to lust after her," &c. The text itself was shocking, and the sermon was composed with the least possible delicacy, and was a shocking insult on a sincere penitent, and fuel for the warm passions of the hypocrites. The fellow was handsome, and delivered his discourse remarkably well for a reader. When he had finished, there were unceasing whispers of applause, which I could not help contradicting aloud, and condemning the whole institution, as well as the exhibition of the preacher, ascontra bonos mores, and a disgrace to a Christian city.' Goldsmith in 1774 exposed Dodd as a 'quacking divine' in hisRetaliation. He describes Dr. Douglas as a 'The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks,' and he continues,—
'But now he is gone, and we want a detector,Our Dodds shall be pious, our Kenricks shall lecture.'
Seepost, April 7, 1778.
[407] The fifth earl, the successor of the celebrated earl. On Feb. 22, 1777, Dodd was convicted of forging a bond for £4,200 in his name;Ann. Reg. xx. 168. The earl was unfortunate in his tutors, for he had been also under Cuthbert Shaw (ante, ii 31 note 2).
[408] Mr. Croker quotes the following letter of Dodd, dated 1750:—'I spent yesterday afternoon with Johnson, the celebrated author ofThe Rambler, who is of all others the oddest and most peculiar fellow I ever saw. He is six feet high, has a violent convulsion in his head, and his eyes are distorted. He speaks roughly and loud, listens to no man's opinions, thoroughly pertinacious of his own. Good sense flows from him in all he utters, and he seems possessed of a prodigious fund of knowledge, which he is not at all reserved in communicating; but in a manner so obstinate, ungenteel, and boorish, as renders it disagreeable and dissatisfactory. In short it is impossible for words to describe him. He seems often inattentive to what passes in company, and then looks like a person possessed by some superior spirit. I have been reflecting on him ever since I saw him. He is a man of most universal and surprising genius, but in himself particular beyond expression.' Dodd was born in 1729.
[409] 'One of my best and tenderest friends,' Johnson called him,post, July 31, 1784. Seepost, April 10, 1778.
[410]The Convict's Address to his Unhappy Brethren: Being a Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Dodd, Friday, June 6, 1777, in the Chapel of Newgate, while under sentence of death, for forging the name of the Earl of Chesterfield on a bond for £4,200. Sold by the booksellers and news-carriers. Price Two-pence. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield on Aug. 9:—'Lucy said, "When I read Dr. Dodd's sermon to the prisoners, I said Dr. Johnson could not make a better."'
Piozzi Letters, i. 352. Seepost, p. 167.
[411] 'What must I do to be saved?'Actsxvi. 30.
[412] 'And finally we must commend and entrust our souls to Him who died for the sins of men; with earnest wishes and humble hopes that He will admit us with the labourers who entered the vineyard at the last hour, and associate us with the thief whom he pardoned on the cross.' p. 14.
[413]The Gent. Mag. for 1777 (p. 450) says of this address:—'As none but a convict could have written this, all convicts ought to read it; and we therefore recommend its being framed, and hung up in all prisons.' Mr. Croker, italicisingcouldand suppressing the latter part of the sentence, describes it as a criticism that must have been offensive to Johnson. The writer's meaning is simple enough. The address, he knew, was delivered in the Chapel of Newgate by a prisoner under sentence of death. If, instead of 'written' he had said 'delivered,' his meaning would have been quite clear.
[414] Having unexpectedly, by the favour of Mr. Stone, of London Field, Hackney, seen the original in Johnson's hand-writing, of 'The Petition of the City of London to his Majesty, in favour of Dr. Dodd,' I now present it to my readers, with such passages as were omitted in-closed in crotchets, and the additions or variations marked in Italicks.
'That William Dodd, Doctor of Laws, now lying under sentence of deathin your Majesty's gaol of Newgate, for the crime of forgery, has for a great part of his life set a useful and laudable example of diligence in his calling, [and as we have reason to believe, has exercised his ministry with great fidelity and efficacy,]which, in many instances, has produced the most happy effect.
'That he has been the first institutor, [or]anda very earnest and active promoter of several modes of useful charity, and [that] therefore [he] may be considered as having been on many occasions a benefactor to the publick.
'[That when they consider his past life, they are willing to suppose his late crime to have been not the consequence of habitual depravity, but the suggestion of some sudden and violent temptation.]
'[That]Your Petitionerstherefore considering his case, as in some of its circumstances unprecedented and peculiar,and encouraged by your Majesty's known clemency, [they] most humbly recommend the said William Dodd to [his] your Majesty's most gracious consideration, in hopes that he will be found not altogether [unfit]unworthyto stand an example of Royal Mercy.' BOSWELL.
[415] His Speech at the Old Bailey, when found guilty. BOSWELL.
[416] In the second edition he is described as 'now Lord Hawkesbury.' He had entered public life as Lord Bute's private secretary, and, according to Horace Walpole, continued in it as his tool.'Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 70, 115. Walpole speaks of him as one of 'the Jesuits of the Treasury' (Ib. p. 110), and 'the director or agent of all the King's secret counsels. His appearance was abject, his countenance betrayed a consciousness of secret guilt; and, though his ambition and rapacity were insatiate, his demeanour exhibited such a want of spirit, that had he stood forth as Prime Minister, which he really was, his very look would have encouraged opposition.'Ib. p. 135. The third Earl of Liverpool wrote to Mr. Croker on Dec. 7, 1845: —'Very shortly before George III's accession my father became confidential secretary of Lord Bute, if you can call secretary a man who all through his life was so bad a penman that he always dictated everything, and of whom, although I have a house full of papers, I have scarcely any in his own hand.'Croker Corres. iii. 178. The editor is in error in saying that the Earl of Liverpool who wrote this was son of the Prime Minister. He was his half-brother.
[417] Burke wrote to Garrick of Fitzherbert:—'You know and love him; but I assure you, until we can talk some late matters over, you, even you, can have no adequate idea of the worth of that man.'Garrick Corres. i. 190. Seeante, i. 82.
[418] 'I remember a man,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (Synonomy, i. 2l7), 'much delighted in by the upper ranks of society, who upon a trifling embarrassment in his affairs hanged himself behind the stable door, to the astonishment of all who knew him as the liveliest companion and most agreeable converser breathing. "What upon earth," said one at our house, "could have made—[Fitzherbert] hang himself?" "Why, just his having a multitude of acquaintance," replied Dr. Johnson, "and ne'er a friend."' Seeante, ii. 228.
[419] Dr. Gisborne, Physician to his Majesty's Household, has obligingly communicated to me a fuller account of this story than had reached Dr. Johnson. The affected Gentleman was the late John Gilbert Cooper, Esq., author of aLife of Socrates, and of some poems in Dodsley'sCollection. Mr. Fitzherbert found him one morning, apparently, in such violent agitation, on account of the indisposition of his son, as to seem beyond the power of comfort. At length, however, he exclaimed, 'I'll write an Elegy.' Mr. Fitzherbert being satisfied, by this, of the sincerity of his emotions, slyly said, 'Had not you better take a postchaise and go and see him?' It was the shrewdness of the insinuation which made the story be circulated. BOSWELL. Malone writes:—'Mr. Cooper was the last of thebenevolistsor sentimentalists, who were much in vogue between 1750 and 1760, and dealt in general admiration of virtue. They were all tenderness in words; their finer feeling evaporated in the moment of expression, for they had no connection with their practice.' Prior'sMalone, p. 427. Seeante, ii. 129. This fashion seems to have reached Paris a few years later. Mme. Riccoboni wrote to Garrick on May 3, 1769:—'Dans notre brillante capitale, où dominent les airs et la mode, s'attendrir, s'émouvoir, s'affliger, c'est le bon ton du moment. La bonté, la sensibilité, la tendre humanité sont devenues la fantaisie universelle. On ferait volontiers des malheureux pour goûter la douceur de les plaindre.' GarrickCorres. ii. 561.