Chapter 25

[946]

'—quae mollissima fandi Tempora.''—time wherein the word May softliest be said.'MORRIS. Virgil,Aeneids, iv. 293.

[947]Seeante, i. 71.

[948]Seeante, i. 203, note 6.

[949]Boswell began to eat dinners in the Inner Temple so early as 1775.Ante, ii. 377, note 1. He was not called till Hilary Term, 1786. Rogers'sBoswelliana, p. 143.

[950]Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Jones wrote two years earlier (Life, p. 268):—'Whether it be a wise part to live uncomfortably in order to die wealthy, is another question; but this I know by experience, and have heard old practitioners make the same observation, that a lawyer who is in earnest must be chained to his chambers and the bar for ten or twelve years together.'

[951]Johnson'sPrologue at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre. Works,i. 23.

[952]According to Mr. Seward, who published this account in hisAnecdotes,ii. 83, it was Mr. Langton's great-grandfather who drew it up.

[953]'My Lord said that his rule for his, health was to be temperate and keep himself warm. He never made breakfasts, but used in the morning to drink a glass of some sort of ale. That he went to bed at nine, and rose between six and seven, allowing himself a good refreshment for his sleep. That the law will admit of no rival, nothing to go even with it; but that sometimes one may for diversion read in the Latin historians of England, Hoveden and Matthew Paris, &c. But after it is conquered, it will admit of other studies. He said, a little law, a good tongue, and a good memory, would fit a man for the Chancery.' Seward'sAnecdotes, ii. 92.

[954]Wednesday was the 16th

[955]Seeante, i. 41.

[956]Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 372. BOSWELL.

[957]Seeante/, i. 155.

[958]The recommendation in this list of so many histories little agrees 'with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance' with which, according to Lord Macaulay, Johnson spoke of history. Macaulay'sEssays, ed. 1843, i. 403.

[959]Seeante, iii. 12.

[960]Northcote's account of Reynolds's table suits the description of this 'gentleman's mode of living.' 'A table prepared for seven or eight was often compelled to contain fifteen or sixteen.' There was a 'deficiency of knives and forks, plates and glasses. The attendance was in the same style.' There were 'two or three undisciplined domestics. The host left every one at perfect liberty to scramble for himself.' 'Rags' is certainly a strong word to apply to any of the company; but then strong words were what Johnson used. Northcote mentions 'the mixture of company.' Northcote'sReynolds, ii. 94-6. Seeante, iii. 375, note 2.

[961]The Mayor of Windsor. Rogers'sBoswelliana, p. 211.

[962]The passage occurs in Brooke'sEarl of Essex(1761) at the close of the first act, where Queen Elizabeth says:

'I shall henceforth seekFor other lights to truth; for righteous monarchs,Justly to judge, with their own eyes should see;To rule o'er freemen should themselves be free.'Notes and Queries, 5th S. viii. 456.

The play was acted at Drury Lane Theatre, old Mr. Sheridan taking the chief part. He it was who, in admiration, repeated the passage to Johnson which provoked the parody. Murphy'sGarrick, p. 234.

[963]'Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 284. BOSWELL. In a second letter (ib. p. 347) he says:—'Cator has a rough, manly independent understanding, and does not spoil it by complaisance.' Miss Burney accuses him of emptiness, verbosity and pomposity, all of which she describes in an amusing manner. Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary, ii. 47.

[964]'All general reflections upon nations and societies are the trite, thread-bare jokes of those who set up for wit without having any, and so have recourse to common-place.' Chesterfield'sLetters, i. 231.

[965]See vol. ii. p. 126. BOSWELL

[966]'"That may be so," replied the lady, "for ought I know, but they are above my comprehension." "I an't obliged to find you comprehension, Madam, curse me," cried he,'Roderick Random, ch. 53. '"I protest," cried Moses, "I don't rightly comprehend the force of your reasoning." "O, Sir," cried the Squire, "I am your most humble servant, I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too."'Vicar of Wakefield, ch. 7.

[967]In the first edition, 'as the Honourable Horace Walpole is often called;' in the second edition, 'as Horace, now Earl of Orford, &c.' Walpole succeeded to the title in Dec. 1791. In answer to congratulations he wrote (Letters, ix. 364):—'What has happened destroys my tranquillity.... Surely no man of seventy-four, unless superannuated, can have the smallest pleasure in sitting at home in his own room, as I almost always do, and being called by a new name.' He died March 2, 1797.

[968]InThe Rambler, No. 83, a character of a virtuoso is given which in many ways suits Walpole:—'It is never without grief that I find a man capable of ratiocination or invention enlisting himself in this secondary class of learning; for when he has once discovered a method of gratifying his desire of eminence by expense rather than by labour, and known the sweets of a life blest at once with the ease of idleness and the reputation of knowledge, he will not easily be brought to undergo again the toil of thinking, or leave his toys and trinkets for arguments and principles.'

[969]Walpole says:—'I do not think I ever was in a room with Johnson six times in my days.'Letters, ix. 319. 'The first time, I think, was at the Royal Academy. Sir Joshua said, "Let me present Dr. Goldsmith to you;" he did. "Now I will present Dr. Johnson to you." "No," said I, "Sir Joshua; for Dr. Goldsmith, pass—but you shall not present Dr. Johnson to me."'Journal &c. of Miss Berry, i. 305. In hisJournal of the Reign of George III, he speaks of Johnson as 'one of the venal champions of the Court,' 'a renegade' (i. 430); 'a brute,' 'an old decrepit hireling' (ib.p. 472); and as 'one of the subordinate crew whom to name is to stigmatize' (ib.ii. 5). In hisMemoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 297, he says:—'With a lumber of learning and some strong parts Johnson was an odious and mean character. His manners were sordid, supercilious, and brutal; his style ridiculously bombastic and vicious, and, in one word, with all the pedantry he had all the gigantic littleness of a country schoolmaster.'

[970]Seeante, i. 367.

[971]On May 26, 1791, Walpole wrote of Boswell'sLife of Johnson (Lettersix. 3l9):—'I expected amongst the excommunicated to find myself, but am very gently treated. I never would be in the least acquainted with Johnson; or, as Boswell calls it, I had not a just value for him; which the biographer imputes to my resentment for the Doctor's putting bad arguments (purposely out of Jacobitism) into the speeches which he wrote fifty years ago for my father in theGentleman's Magazine; which I did not read then, or ever knew Johnson wrote till Johnson died.' Johnson said of these Debates:—'I saved appearances tolerably well; but I took care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it.'Ante, i. 504. 'Lord Holland said that whenever Boswell came into a company where Horace Walpole was, Walpole would throw back his head, purse up his mouth very significantly, and not speak a word while Boswell remained.'Autobiographical Recollections of C. R. Leslie, i. 155. Walpole (Letters, viii. 44) says:—'Boswell, that quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was let in, which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. After tapping many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed oracle, he vented his errand.'

[972]Walpole wrote (Letters, vi. 44):—'IfThe School for WivesandThe Christmas Talewere laid to me, so wasThe Heroic Espistle. I could certainly have written the two former, but not the latter.' Seeante, iv. 113.

[973]The title given by Bishop Pearson to his collection of Hales's Writings is theGolden Remains of the Ever Memorable John Hales of Eaton College, &c. It was published in 1659.

[974]IHenry IV, act ii. sc. 4. 'Sir James Mackintosh remembers that, while spending the Christmas of 1793 at Beaconsfield, Mr. Burke said to him, 'Johnson showed more powers of mind in company than in his writings; but he argued only for victory; and when he had neither a paradox to defend, nor an antagonist to crush, he would preface his assent with "Why, no, Sir."' CROKER. Croker'sBoswell, p. 768.

[975]

Search then the ruling passion: There aloneThe wild are constant, and the cunning known;The fool consistent, and the false sincere;Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.'Pope,Moral Essays, i. 174.

'The publick pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit.'The Idler, No. 18.

[976]Ante, ii. 241, and iii. 325.

[977]Boswell refers to Cicero'sTreatise on Famous Orators.

[978]Boswell here falls into a mistake. About harvest-time in 1766, there were corn-riots owing to the dearness of bread. By the Act of the 15th of Charles II, corn, when under a certain price, might be legally exported. On Sept. 26, 1766, before this price had been reached, the Crown issued a proclamation to prohibit the exportation of grain. When parliament met in November, a bill of indemnity was brought in for those concerned in the late embargo. 'The necessity of the embargo was universally allowed;' it was the exercise by the Crown of a power of dispensing with the laws that was attacked. Some of the ministers who, out of office, 'had set up as the patrons of liberty,' were made the object 'of many sarcasms on the beaten subject of occasional patriotism.'Ann. Reg.x. 39-48, and Dicey'sLaw of the Constitution, p. 50.

[979]St. Mark, ii. 9.

[980]Anecdotes, p. 43. BOSWELL. The passage is from theSpeech on Conciliation with the Colonies, March 22, 1775. Payne'sBurke, i. 173. The image of the angel and Lord Bathurst was thus, according to Mrs. Piozzi, parodied by Johnson:—'Suppose, Mr. Speaker, that to Wharton, or to Marlborough, or to any of the eminent Whigs of the last age, the devil had, not with great impropriety, consented to appear.' Seeante, iii. 326, where Johnson said 'the first Whig was the Devil.'

[981]Boswell was stung by what Mrs. Piozzi wrote when recording this parody. She said that she had begged Johnson's leave to write it down directly. 'A trick,' she continues, 'which I have seen played on common occasions of sitting steadily [? stealthily] down at the other end of the room to write at the moment what should be said in company, either by Dr. Johnson or to him, I never practised myself, nor approved of in another. There is something so ill-bred, and so inclining to treachery in this conduct, that, were it commonly adopted, all confidence would soon be exiled from society.' Seepost, under June 30, 1784, where Boswell refers to this passage.

[982]

'Who'er offends, at some unlucky timeSlides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme.'

Pope,Imitations of Horace, 2 Satires, i. 78.

[983]On March 14, 1770, in a debate on the licentiousness of the press, Townshend joined together Johnson and Shebbeare. Burke, who followed him, said nothing about Johnson. Fitzherbert, speaking of Johnson as 'my friend,' defended him as 'a pattern of morality.'Cavendish Debates, i.514. On Feb. 16, 1774, when Fox drew attention to a 'vile libel' signedA South Briton, Townshend said 'Dr. Shebbeare and Dr. Johnson have been pensioned, but this wretched South Briton is to be prosecuted.' It was Fox, and not Burke, who on this occasion defended Johnson.Parl. Hist.xvii.1054. As Goldsmith was writingRetaliationat the very time that this second attack was made, it is very likely that it was the occasion, of the change in the line.

[984]In the originalyet.

[985]

'Sis pecore et multa dives tellure licebit,Tibique Pactolus fluat.''Though wide thy land extends, and large thy fold,Though rivers roll for thee their purest gold.'

FRANCIS. Horace,Epodes, xv. 19.

[986]See Macaulay'sEssays, ed. 1843, i. 404, for Macaulay's appropriation and amplification of this passage.

[987]Seeante, ii. 168.

[988]Mr. Croker suggests the Rev. Martin Sherlock, an Irish Clergyman, 'who published in 1781 his own travels under the title ofLetters of an English Traveller translated from the French.' Croker'sBoswell, p. 770. Mason writes of him as 'Mister, or Monsieur, or Signor Sherlock, for I am told he is both [sic] French, English, and Italian in print.' Walpole'sLetters, viii. 202. I think, however, that Dr. Thomas Campbell is meant. HisPhilosophical Survey of the South of IrelandBoswell calls 'a very entertaining book, which has, however, one fault;—that it assumes the fictitious character of an Englishman.'Ante, ii. 339.

[989]See ante, iv. 49.

[990]This anecdote is not in the first two editions.

[991]See ante, in. 369.

[992]'I have heard,' says Hawkins (Life, p. 409), 'that in many instances, and in some with tears in his eyes, he has apologised to those whom he had offended by contradiction or roughness of behaviour.' Seeante, ii. 109, and 256, note 1.

[993]Johnson (Works, viii. 131) describes Savage's 'superstitious regard to the correction of his sheets ... The intrusion or omission of a comma was sufficient to discompose him, and he would lament an errour of a single letter as a heavy calamity.'

[994]Compositor in the Printing-house means, the person who adjusts the types in the order in which they are to stand for printing; and arranges what is called the form, from which an impression is taken. BOSWELL.

[995]This circumstance therefore alluded to in Mr. Courtenay's Poetical Characterof him is strictly true. My informer was Mrs. Desmoulins, who lived many years in Dr. Johnson's house. BOSWELL. The following are Mr. Courtenay's lines:—

'Soft-eyed compassion with a look benign,His fervent vows he offered at thy shrine;To guilt, to woe, the sacred debt was paid,And helpless females blessed his pious aid;Snatched from disease, and want's abandoned crew,Despair and anguish from their victims flew;Hope's soothing balm into their bosoms stole,And tears of penitence restored the soul.'

[996]The Cross Readingswere said to be formed 'by reading two columns of a newspaper together onwards,' whereby 'the strangest connections were brought about,' such as:—

'This morning the Right Hon. the Speakerwas convicted of keeping a disorderly house.Whereas the said barn was set on fire byan incendiary letter dropped early in the morning.By order of the Commissioners for PavingAn infallible remedy for the stone and gravel.The sword of state was carriedbefore Sir John Fielding and committed to Newgate.'

The New Foundling Hospital for Wit, i. 129. According to Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 217), 'Dr. Goldsmith declared, in the heat of his admiration of theseCross Readings, it would have given him more pleasure to have been the author of them than of all the works he had ever published of his own.' Horace Walpole (Letters, v. 30) writes:— 'Have you seen that delightful paper composed out of scraps in the newspapers? I laughed till I cried. I mean the paper that says:—

"This day his Majesty will go in great state to fifteen notorious common prostitutes."'

[997]One of these gentlemen was probably Mr. Musgrave (ante, ii. 343, note 2), who, says Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 295), when 'once he was singularly warm about Johnson's writing the lives of our famous prose authors, getting up and entreating him to set about the work immediately, he coldly replied, "Sit down, Sir."' Miss Burney says that 'the incense he paid Dr. Johnson by his solemn manner of listening, by the earnest reverence with which he eyed him, and by a theatric start of admiration every time he spoke, joined to the Doctor's utter insensibility to all these tokens, made me find infinite difficulty in keeping my countenance.' Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary, ii. 85. The other gentleman was perhaps Dr. Wharton.Ante, ii. 41, note 1.

[998]Probably Dr. Beattie. The number of letters in his name agrees with the asterisks given a few lines below. Ante, iii. 339, note 1, andpost, p. 330.

[999]Johnson, in his Dictionary, definescongé d'élireasthe king's permission royal to a dean and chapter in time of vacation, to choose a bishop.When Dr. Hampden was made Bishop of Hereford in 1848, the Dean resisted the appointment. H. C. Robinson records, on the authority of the Bishop's Secretary (Diary, iii. 311), that 'at the actual confirmation in Bow Church the scene was quite ludicrous. After the judge had told the opposers that he could not hear them, the citation for opposers to come forward was repeated, at which the people present laughed out, as at a play.'

[1000]This has been printed in other publications, 'fall to the ground.' But Johnson himself gave me the true expression which he had used as above; meaning that the recommendation left as little choice in the one case as the other. BOSWELL. One of the 'other publications is Hawkins's edition of Johnson'sWorks. See in it vol. xi. p. 216.

[1001]They are published in vol. xi. of Hawkins's edition of Johnson's Works. 1787, and are often quoted in my notes. It should be remembered that Steevens is not trustworthy. Seeante, iii. 281, and iv. 178.

[1002]See ante, ii. 96.

[1003]See ante, p. iii.

[1004]She Stoops to Conquerwas first acted on March 15, 1773. The King of Sardinia had died on Feb. 20.Gent. Mag. 1773, pp. 149, 151.

[1005]Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 170) describes how, in 1780, she went to one of Mrs. Ord's assemblies at a time when 'the mourning for some foreign Wilhelmina Jaquelina was not over. Every human creature was in deep mourning, and I, poor I, all gorgeous in scarlet. Even Jacobite Johnson was in deep mourning.'

[1006]In the tenth edition of the Rambler, published in 1784, the entry is still found:—'Milton, Mr. John, remarks on his versification.' In like manner we find:—'Shakspeare, Mr. William, his eminent success in tragi-comedy;' 'Spenser, Mr. Edmund, some imitations of his diction censured;' 'Cowley, Mr. Abraham, a passage in his writing illustrated.'

[1007]See ante, p. 116.

[1008]See ante, iii. 425, note 3.

[1009]Hawkins (Life, p. 571) writes:—'The plan for Johnson's visiting the Continent became so well known, that, as a lady then resident at Rome afterwards informed me, his arrival was anxiously expected throughout Italy.'

[1010]Edward Lord Thurlow. BOSWELL.

[1011]See ante, p. 179.

[1012]In 1778.

[1013]'With Lord Thurlow, while he was at the bar, Johnson was well acquainted. He said to Mr. Murphy twenty years ago, "Thurlow is a man of such vigour of mind that I never knew I was to meet him, but—I was going to tell a falsehood; I was going to say I was afraid of him, and that would not be true, for I was never afraid of any man—but I never knew that I was to meet Thurlow, but I knew I had something to encounter."' Monthly Reviewfor 1787, lxxvi. 382. Murphy, no doubt, was the writer. Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, ed. 1846, v.621) quotes from 'the Diary of a distinguished political character' an account of a meeting between Thurlow and Horne Tooke, in 1801. 'Tooke evidently came forward for a display, and as I considered his powers of conversation as surpassing those of any person I had ever seen (in point of skill and dexterity, and if necessary inlying), so I took for granted old grumbling Thurlow would be obliged to lower his top-sail to him—but it seemed as if the verylookandvoiceof Thurlow scared him out of his senses from the first moment. So Tooke tried to recruit himself by wine, and, though not generally a drinker, was very drunk, but all would not do.'

[1014]It is strange that Sir John Hawkins should have related that the application was made by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when he could so easily have been informed of the truth by inquiring of Sir Joshua. Sir John's carelessness to ascertain facts is very remarkable. BOSWELL.

[1015]There is something dreadful in the thought of the old man quietly going on with his daily life within a few hundred yards of this shocking scene of slaughter, this 'legal massacre,' to use his own words (ante, p. 188, note 3). England had a kind of Reign of Terror of its own; little thought of at the time or remembered since. Twenty-four men were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey Sessions that ended on April 28. On June 16 nine of these had the sentence commuted; the rest were hanged this day. Among these men was not a single murderer. Twelve of them had committed burglary, two a street robbery, and one had personated another man's name, with intent to receive his wages.Ann. Reg. xxvii, 193, andGent. Mag. liv. 379, 474. TheGent. Mag. recording the sentences, remarks:—'Convicts under sentence of death in Newgate and the gaols throughout the kingdom increase so fast, that, were they all to be executed, England would soon be marked among the nations as theBloody Country.' In the spring assizes the returns are given for ten towns. There were 88 capital convictions, of which 21 were at Winchester.Ib. 224. In the summer assizes and at the Old Bailey Sessions for July there were 149 capital convictions. At Maidstone a man on being sentenced 'gave three loud cheers, upon which the judge gave strict orders for his being chained to the floor of the dungeon.'Ib. pp. 311, 633. The hangman was to grow busier yet. This increase in the number of capital punishments was attributed by Romilly in great part to Madan'sThoughts on Executive Justice; 'a small tract, in which, by a mistaken application of the maxim "that the certainty of punishment is more efficacious than its severity for the prevention of crimes," he absurdly insisted on the expediency of rigidly enforcing, in every instance, our penal code, sanguinary and barbarous as it was. In 1783, the year before the book was published, there were executed in London only 51 malefactors; in 1785, the year after the book was published, there were executed 97; and it was recently after the publication of the book that was exhibited a spectacle unseen in London for a long course of years before, the execution of nearly 20 criminals at a time.'Life of Romilly, i. 89. Madan's Tract was published in the winter of 1784-5. Boswell's fondness for seeing executions is shewn,ante, ii. 93.

[1016]See ante, ii. 82, 104; iii. 290; and v. 7l.

[1017]A friend of mine happened to be passing by a field congregationin the environs of London, when a Methodist preacher quoted this passage with triumph. BOSWELL. On Dec. 26, 1784, John Wesley preached the condemned criminals' sermon to forty-seven who were under sentence of death. He records:—'The power of the Lord was eminently present, and most of the prisoners were in tears. A few days after, twenty of them died at once, five of whom died in peace. I could not but greatly approve of the spirit and behaviour of Mr. Villette, the Ordinary; and I rejoiced to hear that it was the same on all similar occasions.' Wesley'sJournal, ed. 1827, iv. 287.

[1018]I trust that THE CITY OF LONDON, now happily in unison with THE COURT, will have the justice and generosity to obtain preferment for this Reverend Gentleman, now a worthy old servant of that magnificent Corporation. BOSWELL. In like manner, Boswell in 1768 praised the Rev. Mr. Moore, Mr. Villette's predecessor. 'Mr. Moore, the Ordinary of Newgate, discharged his duty with much earnestness and a fervour for which I and all around me esteemed and loved him. Mr. Moore seems worthy of his office, which, when justly considered, is a very important one.' London Mag.1783, p. 204. For the quarrel between the City and the Court, seeante, iii. 201.

[1019]See ante, i. 387.

[1020]Knox in Winter Evenings, No. xi. (Works, ii. 348), attacks Johnson's biographers for lowering his character by publishing his private conversation. 'Biography,' he complains, 'is every day descending from its dignity.' Seeante, i. 222, note 1.

[1021]Piozzi Letters, ii. 256.

[1022]Johnson wrote on April 15:—'I am still very weak, though my appetite is keen and my digestion potent. ... I now think and consult to-day what I shall eat to-morrow. This disease likewise will, I hope, be cured.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 362. Beattie, who dined with Johnson on June 27, wrote:—'Wine, I think, would do him good, but he cannot be prevailed on to drink it. He has, however, a voracious appetite for food. I verily believe that on Sunday last he ate as much to dinner as I have done in all for these ten days past.' Forbes'sBeattie, ed. 1824, p. 315. It was said that Beattie latterly indulged somewhat too much in wine.Ib. p. 432.

[1023]Horace Walpole wrote in April 1750 (Letters, ii. 206):—'There is come from France a Madame Bocage who has translated Milton: my Lord Chesterfield prefers the copy to the original; but that is not uncommon for him to do, who is the patron of bad authors and bad actors. She has written a play too, which was damned, and worthy my lord's approbation.' It was this lady who bade her footman blow into the spout of the tea-pot.Ante, ii. 403. Dr. J. H. Burton writes of her in hisLife of Hume, ii. 213:—'The wits must praise her bad poetry if they frequented her house. "Elle était d'une figure aimable," says Grimm, "elle est bonne femme; elle est riche; elle pouvait fixer chez elle les gens d'esprit et de bonne compagnie, sans les mettre dans l'embarras de lui parler avec peu de sincérité de sa Colombiade ou de ses Amazones."'

[1024]It is the sea round the South Pole that she describes in her Elegy(notOde). The description begins:—

'While o'er the deep in many a dreadful form,The giant Danger howls along the storm,Furling the iron sails with numbed hands,Firm on the deck the great Adventurer stands;Round glitt'ring mountains hear the billows rave,And the vast ruin thunder on the wave.'

In the Gent. Mag.1793, p. 197, were given extracts abusive of Johnson from some foolish letters that passed between Miss Seward and Hayley, a poet her equal in feebleness. Boswell, in hisCorrections and Additions to the First Edition(ante, i.10), corrected an error into which he had been led by Miss Seward (ante, i.92, note 2). She, in theGent. Mag.for 1793, p.875, defended herself and attacked him. His reply is found on p.1009. He says:—'As my book was to be areal history, and not anovel, it was necessary to suppress all erroneous particulars, however entertaining.' (Ante, ii 467, note 4.) He continues:—'So far from having any hostile disposition towards this Lady, I have, in myLife of Dr. Johnson...quoted a compliment paid by him to one of her poetical pieces; and I have withheld his opinion of herself, thinking that she might not like it. I am afraid it has reached her by some other means; and thus we may account for various attacks by her on her venerable townsman since his decease...What are we to think of the scraps of letters between her and Mr. Hayley, impotently attempting to undermine the noble pedestal on which the publick opinion has placed Dr. Johnson?'

[1025]See ante, i.265, and iv. 174.

[1026]'Johnson said he had once seen Mr. Stanhope at Dodsley's shop, and was so much struck with his awkward manners and appearance that he could not help asking Mr. Dodsley who he was.' Johnson's Works, (1787) xi.209.

[1027]Chesterfield was Secretary of State from Nov. 1746 to Feb. 1748. His letters to his son extend from 1739 to 1768.

[1028]Foote had taken off Lord Chesterfield in The Cozeners. Mrs. Aircastle trains her son Toby in the graces. She says to her husband:—'Nothing but grace! I wish you would read some latePosthumous Letters; you would then know the true value of grace.' Act ii. sc. 2.

[1029]See ante, p.78, note 1.

[1030]See a pamphlet entitled Remarks on the Characters of the Court of Queen Anne, included in Swift'sWorks, ed. 1803, vi. 163.

[1031]Carleton, according to the Memoirs, made his first service in the navy in 1672—seventeen years before the siege of Derry. There is no mention of this siege in the book.

[1032]'He had obtained, by his long service, some knowledge of the practic part of an engineer.' Preface to the Memoirs.

[1033]Nearly 200 pages in Bohn's edition. See ante, i. 71, for Johnson's rapid reading.

[1034]Lord Mahon (War of the Succession in Spain, Appendix, p. 131) proves that a Captain Carleton really served. 'It is not impossible,' he says, 'that the MS. may have been intrusted to De Foe for the purpose of correction or revision...TheMemoirsare most strongly marked with internal proofs of authenticity.' Lockhart (Life of Scott, iii. 84) says:—'It seems to be now pretty generally believed that Carleton'sMemoirswere among the numberless fabrications of De Foe; but in this case (if the fact indeed be so), as in that of hisCavalier, he no doubt had before him the rude journal of some officer.' Dr. Burton (Reign of Queen Anneii. 173) says that MSS. in the British Museum disprove 'the possibility of De Foe's authorship.'

[1035]Lord Chesterfield (Letters, ii. 109) writing to his son on Nov. 29, 1748, says of Mr. Eliot:—'Imitate that application of his, which has made him know all thoroughly, and to the bottom. He does not content himself with the surface of knowledge; but works in the mine for it, knowing that it lies deep.'

[1036]The Houghton Collection was sold in 1779 by the third Earl of Orford, to the Empress of Russia for £40,555. (Walpole's Letters, vii. 227, note 1.)

Horace Walpole wrote on Aug. 4 of that year (ib. p. 235):—'Well! adieu to Houghton! about its mad master I shall never trouble myself more. From the moment he came into possession, he has undermined every act of my father that was within his reach, but, having none of that great man's sense or virtues, he could only lay wild hands on lands and houses; and since he has stript Houghton of its glory, I do not care a straw what he does with the stone or the acres.'

[1037]This museum at Alkerington near Manchester is described in the Gent. Mag. 1773, p.219. A proposal was made in Parliament to buy it for the British Museum.Ib. 1783, p. 919. On July 8, 1784, a bill enabling Lever to dispose of it by lottery passed the House of Commons.Ib. 1784, p.705.

[1038]Johnson defines intuitionassight of anything; immediate knowledge; andsagacityasquickness of scent; acuteness of discovery.

[1039]In the first edition it stands 'A gentleman' and below instead of Mr. ——, Mr. ——. In the second edition Mr. —— becomes Mr. ——. In the third editionyoungis added. Young Mr. Burke is probably meant. As it stood in the second edition it might have been thought that Edmund Burke was the gentleman; the more so as Johnson often denied his want of wit.

[1040]Hamlet, act i. sc. 2.

[1041]See ante, i. 372, note 1.

[1042]Windham says (Diary, p. 34) that when Dr. Brocklesby made this offer 'Johnson pressed his hands and said, "God bless you through Jesus Christ, but I will take no money but from my sovereign." This, if I mistake not, was told the King through West.' Dr. Brocklesby wrote to Burke, on July 2, 1788, to make him 'an instant present of £1000, which,' he continues, 'for years past, by will, I had destined as a testimony of my regard on my decease.' Burke, accepting the present, said:—'I shall never be ashamed to have it known, that I am obliged to one who never can be capable of converting his kindness into a burthen.' Burke'sCorres.iii.78. Seeante, p. 263, for the just praise bestowed by Johnson on physicians in hisLife of Garth.

[1043]See ante, ii. 194.

[1044]Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p 375. BOSWELL.

[1045]Rogers (Table-Talk, p. 45) describes him as 'a very handsome, gentlemanly, and amiable person. Mme. D'Arblay tells how one evening at Dr. Burney's home, when Signor Piozzi was playing on the piano, 'Mrs. Thrale stealing on tip-toe behind him, ludicrously began imitating him. Dr. Burney whispered to her, "Because, Madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the attention of all who in that one point are otherwise gifted?"' Mrs. Thrale took this rebuke very well. This was her first meeting with Piozzi. It was in Mr. Thrale's life-time.Memoirs of Dr. Burney, ii. 110.

[1046]Dr. Johnson's letter to Sir John Hawkins, Life, p. 570. BOSWELL. The last time Miss Burney saw Johnson, not three weeks before his death, he told her that the day before he had seen Miss Thrale. 'I then said:—"Do you ever, Sir, hear from mother?" "No," cried he, "nor write to her. I drive her quite from my mind. If I meet with one of her letters, I burn it instantly. I have burnt all I can find. I never speak of her, and I desire never to hear of her more. I drive her, as I said, wholly from my mind."' Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary, ii. 328.

[1047]See ante, i. 493.

[1048]Anec. p. 293. BOSWELL.

[1049]'The saying of the old philosopher who observes, "that he who wants least is most like the gods who want nothing," was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson, who on his own part required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. Conversation was all he required to make him happy.' Piozzi's Anec. p.275. Miss Burney's account of the life at Streatham is generally very cheerful. I suspect that the irksome confinement described by Mrs. Piozzi was not felt by her till she became attached to Mr. Piozzi. This caused a great change in her behaviour and much unhappiness. (Ante, p. 138, note 4.) He at times treated her harshly. (Ante, p. 160, note.) Two passages in her letters to Miss Burney shew a want of feeling in her for a man who for nearly twenty years had been to her almost as a father. On Feb. 18, 1784, she writes:—'Johnson is in a sad way doubtless; yet he may still with care last another twelve-month, and every week's existence is gain to him, who, like good Hezekiah, wearies Heaven with entreaties for life. I wrote him a very serious letter the other day.' On March 23 she writes:—' My going to London would be a dreadful expense, and bring on a thousand inquiries and inconveniences—visits to Johnson and from Cator.' It is likely that in other letters there were like passages, but these letters Miss Burney 'for cogent reasons destroyed.' Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary, ii. 305, 7, 8.

1050'Bless'd paper credit! last and best supply!That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!'

Pope, Moral Essays, iii. 39.

[1051]Who has been pleased to furnish me with his remarks. BOSWELL. No doubt Malone, who says, however: 'On the whole the publick is indebted to her for her lively, though very inaccurate and artful, account of Dr. Johnson.' Prior's Malone, p. 364.

[1052]See ante, iii. 81.

[1053]Anec.p. 183. BOSWELL.

[1054]Hannah More. She, with her sisters, had kept a boarding-school at Bristol.

[1055]She first saw Johnson in June, 1774. According to her Memoirs(i. 48) he met her 'with good humour in his countenance, and continued in the same pleasant humour the whole of the evening.' She called on him in Bolt Court. One of her sisters writes:—'Miss Reynolds told the doctor of all our rapturous exclamations [about him] on the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said, "She was a silly thing."'Ib. p. 49. 'He afterwards mentioned to Miss Reynolds how much he had been touched with the enthusiasm of the young authoress, which was evidently genuine and unaffected.'Ib. p. 50. She met him again in the spring of 1775. Her sister writes:—'The old genius was extremely jocular, and the young one very pleasant. They indeed tried which could "pepper the highest" [Goldsmith'sRetaliation], and it is not clear to me that he was really the highest seasoner.'Ib. p. 54. From the Mores we know nothing of his reproof. He had himself said of 'a literary lady'—no doubt Hannah More—'I was obliged to speak to Miss Reynolds to let her know that I desired she would not flatter me so much.'Ante, iii.293. Miss Burney records a story she had from Mrs. Thrale, 'which,' she continues, 'exceeds, I think, in its severity all the severe things I have yet heard of Dr. Johnson's saying. When Miss More was introduced to him, she began singing his praise in the warmest manner. For some time he heard her with that quietness which a long use of praise has given him: she then redoubled her strokes, till at length he turned suddenly to her, with a stern and angry countenance, and said, "Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having."' Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary, i.103. Shortly afterwards Miss Burney records (ib. p. 121) that Mrs. Thrale said to him:—'We have told her what you said to Miss More, and I believe that makes her afraid.' He replied:—'Well, and if she was to serve me as Miss More did, I should say the same thing to her.' We have therefore three reports of what he said—one from Mrs. Thrale indirectly, one from her directly, and the third from Malone. However severe the reproof was, the Mores do not seem to have been much touched by it. At all events they enjoyed the meeting with Johnson, and Hannah More needed a second reproof that was conveyed to her through Miss Reynolds.

[1056]Anec.p. 202. BOSWELL.

[1057]See ante, i. 40, 68, 92, 415, 481; ii. 188, 194; iii. 229; andpost, v. 245, note 2.

[1058]Anec.p. 44. BOSWELL. Seeante, p. 318,note1, where I quote the passage.

[1059]Ib. p. 23. BOSWELL.

[1060]Ib. p. 45. Mr. Hayward says:—'She kept a copious diary and notebook calledThralianafrom 1776 to 1809. It is now,'[1861]he continues, 'in the possession of Mr. Salusbury, who deems it of too private and delicate a character to be submitted to strangers, but has kindly supplied me with some curious passages from it.' Hayward'sPiozzi, i. 6.

[1061]Ib. p. 51 [192]. BOSWELL.

[1062]Anec.p. 193 [51]. BOSWELL.

[1063]Johnson, says Murphy, (Life, p. 96) 'felt not only kindness, but zeal and ardour for his friends.' 'Who,' he asks (ib. p. 144), 'was more sincere and steady in his friendships?' 'Numbers,' he says (ib. p. 146), 'still remember with gratitude the friendship which he shewed to them with unaltered affection for a number of years.'

[1064]See ante, ii. 285, and iii. 440.

[1065]Johnson's Works, i. 152, 3.

[1066]In vol. ii. of the Piozzi Letterssome of these letters are given.

[1067]He gave Miss Thrale lessons in Latin. Mme. D'Arblay's Diary,i. 243 and 427.

[1068]Anec.p. 258. BOSWELL.

[1069]George James Cholmondeley, Esq., grandson of George, third Earl of Cholmondeley, and one of the Commissioners of Excise; a gentleman respected for his abilities, and elegance of manners. BOSWELL. When I spoke to him a few years before his death upon this point, I found him very sore at being made the topic of such a debate, and very unwilling to remember any thing about either the offence or the apology. CROKER.

[1070]Letters to Mrs. Thrale,vol. ii. p. 12. BOSWELL.

[1071]Mrs. Piozzi (Anec.p. 258) lays the scene of this anecdote 'in some distant province, either Shropshire or Derbyshire, I believe.' Johnson drove through these counties with the Thrales in 1774 (ante, ii. 285). If the passage in the letter refers to the same anecdote—and Mrs. Piozzi does not, so far as I know, deny it—more than three years passed before Johnson was told of his rudeness. Baretti, in a MS. note onPiozzi Letters, ii. 12, says that the story was 'Mr. Cholmondeley's running away from his creditors.' In this he is certainly wrong; yet if Mr. Cholmondeley had run away, and others gave the same explanation of the passage, his soreness is easily accounted for.

[1072]Anec. p. 23. BOSWELL.

[1073]Ib. p. 302. BOSWELL.

[1074]Rasselas, chap, xvii

[1075]Paradise Lost, iv. 639.

[1076]Anec. p. 63. BOSWELL.

[1077]'Johnson one day, on seeing an old terrier lie asleep by the fire-side at Streatham, said, "Presto, you are, if possible, a more lazy dog that I am."' Johnson's Works, ed. 1787, xi. 203.

[1078]Upon mentioning this to my friend Mr. Wilkes, he, with his usual readiness, pleasantly matched it with the following sentimental anecdote. He was invited by a young man of fashion at Paris, to sup with him and a lady, who had been for some time his mistress, but with whom he was going to part. He said to Mr. Wilkes that he really felt very much for her, she was in such distress; and that he meant to make her a present of two hundred louis-d'ors. Mr. Wilkes observed the behaviour of Mademoiselle, who sighed indeed very piteously, and assumed every pathetick air of grief; but eat no less than three French pigeons, which are as large as English partridges, besides other things. Mr. Wilkes whispered the gentleman, 'We often say in England,Excessive sorrow is exceeding dry, but I never heardExcessive sorrow is exceeding hungry. Perhapsonehundred will do.' The gentleman took the hint. BOSWELL.

[1079]See post, p. 367, for the passage omitted.

[1080]Sir Joshua Reynolds, on account of the excellence both of the sentiment and expression of this letter, took a copy of it which he shewed to some of his friends; one of whom, who admired it, being allowed to peruse it leisurely at home, a copy was made, and found its way into the newspapers and magazines. It was transcribed with some inaccuracies. I print it from the original draft in Johnson's own hand-writing. BOSWELL. Hawkins writes (Life, p. 574):—'Johnson, upon being told that it was in print, exclaimed in my hearing, "I am betrayed," but soon after forgot, as he was ever ready to do all real or supposed injuries, the error that made the publication possible.'

[1081]Cowper wrote of Thurlow:—'I know well the Chancellor's benevolence of heart, and how much he is misunderstood by the world. When he was young he would do the kindest things, and at an expense to himself which at that time he could ill afford, and he would do them too in the most secret manner.' Southey's Cowper, vii. 128. Yet Thurlow did not keep his promise made to Cowper when they were fellow-clerks in an attorney's office. 'Thurlow, I am nobody, and shall be always nobody, and you will be chancellor. You shall provide for me when you are.' He smiled, and replied, 'I surely will.'Ib.i. 41. When Cowper sent him the first volume of his poems, 'he thought it not worth his while,' the poet writes, 'to return me any answer, or to take the least notice of my present.'Ib.xv. 176. Mr. (afterwards Sir) W. Jones, in two letters to Burke, speaks of Thurlow as the [Greek: thaerion] (beast). 'I heard last night, with surprise and affliction,' he wrote on Feb. 15, 1783,'that the [Greek: thaerion] was to continue in office. Now I can assure you from my own positive knowledge (and I know him well), that although he hatesourspecies in general, yet his particular hatred is directed against none more virulently than against Lord North, and the friends of the late excellent Marquis.' Burke'sCorres.ii. 488, and iii. 10.

[1082]'Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of unbounded power when an aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by his writings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of infirmities and sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to enable him, during the winter or two which might still remain to him, to draw his breath more easily in the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained; and before Christmas the author of the English Dictionaryand of theLives of the Poetshad gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke of Fleet-street.'Macaulay's Writings and Speeches,ed. 1871, p. 413. Just before Macaulay, with monstrous exaggeration, says that Gibbon, 'forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on the shores of Lake Leman.' This poverty of Gibbon would have been 'splendour' to Johnson. Debrett's Royal Kalendar, for 1795 (p. 88), shews that there were twelve Lords of the King's Bedchamber receiving each £1000 a year, and fourteen Grooms of the Bedchamber receiving each, £500 a year. As Burns was made a gauger, so Johnson might have been made a Lord, or at least a Groom of the Bedchamber. It is not certain that Pitt heard of the application for an increased pension. Mr. Croker quotes from Thurlow's letter to Reynolds of Nov. 18, 1784:—'It was impossible for me to take the King's pleasure on the suggestion I presumed to move. I am an untoward solicitor.' Whether he consulted Pitt cannot be known. Mr. Croker notices a curious obliteration in this letter. The Chancellor had written:—'It would have suited the purpose better, if nobody had heard of it, except Dr. Johnson, you and J. Boswell.'Boswellhas been erased—'artfully' too, says—Mr. Croker-so that 'the sentence appears to run, "except Dr. Johnson, you, and I."' Mr. Croker, with his usual suspiciousness, suspects 'an uncandid trick.' But it is very likely that Thurlow himself made the obliteration, regardless of grammar. He might easily have thought that it would have been better still had Boswell not been in the secret.

[1083]See ante, iii. 176.

[1084]On June 11 Boswell and Johnson were together (ante, p. 293). The date perhaps should be July 11. The letter that follows next is dated July 12.

[1085]'Even in our flight from vice some virtue lies.' FRANCIS. Horace, i. Epistles, I. 41.

[1086]See vol. ii. p. 258. BOSWELL.

[1087]Mrs. Johnson died in 1752. See ante, i. 241, note 2.

[1088]See Appendix.

[1089]Printed in his Works[i. 150]. BOSWELL. Seeante, i. 241, note 2.

[1090]He wrote to Mr. Ryland on the same day:—'Be pleased to let the whole be done with privacy that I may elude the vigilance of the papers.' Notes and Queries, 5th S. vii. 381.

[1091]Boileau, Art Poétique, chant iv.

[1092]This is probably an errour either of the transcript or the press. Removesseems to be the word intended. MALONE.

[1093]See ante, i. 332, andpostp. 360.

[1094]See ante, p. 267.

[1095]I have heard Dr. Johnson protest that he never had quite as much as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 103.

[1096]At the Essex Head, Essex-street. BOSWELL.

[1097]Juvenal, Satires, x. 8:—

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