Chapter 26

'Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart.'

Vanity of Human Wishes, l. 15.

[1098]Mr. Allen, the printer. BOSWELL. See ante, iii. 141, 269.

[1099]It was on this day that he wrote the prayer given below (p. 370) in which is found that striking line—'this world where much is to be done and little to be known.'

[1100]His letter to Dr. Heberden (Croker's Boswell, p. 789) shews that he had gone with Dr. Brocklesby to the last Academy dinner, when, as he boasted, 'he went up all the stairs to the pictures without stopping to rest or to breathe.'Ante, p. 270, note 2.

[1101]

Quid te exempta levatspinis de pluribus una?'Pluck out one thorn to mitigate thy pain,What boots it while so many more remain?'

FRANCIS. Horace, 2 Epistles, ii. 212.

[1102]See ante, iii. 4, note 2.

[1103]Sir Joshua's physician. He is mentioned by Goldsmith in his verses to the Miss Hornecks. Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 149.

[1104]How much balloons filled people's minds at this time is shewn by such entries as the following in Windham's Diary:-'Feb 7, 1784. Did not rise till past nine; from that time till eleven, did little more than indulge in idle reveries about balloons.' p. 3. 'July 20. The greater part of the time, till now, one o'clock, spent in foolish reveries about balloons.' p. 12. Horace Walpole wrote on Sept. 30 (Letters, viii. 505):—'I cannot fill my paper, as the newspapers do, with air-balloons; which though ranked with the invention of navigation, appear to me as childish as the flying kites of school-boys.' 'Do not write about the balloon,' wrote Johnson to Reynolds (post, p. 368), 'whatever else you may think proper to say.' In the beginning of the year he had written:—'It is very seriously true that a subscription of £800 has been raised for the wire and workmanship of iron wings.'Piozzi Letters, ii. 345.

[1105]It is remarkable that so good a Latin scholar as Johnson, should have been so inattentive to the metre, as by mistake to have written stellasinstead ofignes. BOSWELL.

[1106]

'Micat inter omnesJulium sidus, velut inter ignes Luna minores.''And like the Moon, the feebler fires among,Conspicuous shines the Julian star.'FRANCIS. Horace, Odes, i. 12. 46.

[1107]See ante, iii. 209.

[1108]

'The little blood that creeps within his veinsIs but just warmed in a hot fever's pains.'DRYDEN. Juvenal, Satires, x. 217.

[1109]Lunardi had made, on Sept. 15, the first balloon ascent in England. Gent. Mag. 1784, p. 711. Johnson wrote to Mr. Ryland on Sept. 18:—'I had this day in three letters three histories of the Flying Man in the great Balloon.' He adds:—'I live in dismal solitude.'Notes and Queries, 5th S. vii. 381.

[1110]'Sept. 27, 1784. Went to see Blanchard's balloon. Met Burke and D. Burke; walked with them to Pantheon to see Lunardi's. Sept. 29. About nine came to Brookes's, where I heard that the balloon had been burnt about four o'clock.' Windham's Diary, p. 24.

[1111]His love of London continually appears. In a letter from him to Mrs. Smart, wife of his friend the Poet, which is published in a well-written life of him, prefixed to an edition of his Poems, in 1791, there is the following sentence:-'To one that has passed so many years in the pleasures and opulence of London, there are few places that can give much delight.'

Once, upon reading that line in the curious epitaph quoted in The Spectator;

'Born in New-England, did in London die;'

he laughed and said, 'I do not wonder at this. It would have been strange, if born in London, he had died in New-England.' BOSWELL. Mrs. Smart was in Dublin when Johnson wrote to her. After the passage quoted by Boswell he continued:—'I think, Madam, you may look upon your expedition as a proper preparative to the voyage which we have often talked of. Dublin, though a place much worse than London, is not so bad as Iceland.' Smart's Poems, i. xxi. For Iceland seeante, i. 242. The epitaph, quoted inThe Spectator, No. 518, begins—

Here Thomas Sapper lies interred. Ah why!Born in New-England, did in London die.'

[1112]St. Mark, v. 34.

[1113]There is no record of this in the Gent. Mag. Among the 149 persons who that summer had been sentenced to death (ante, p. 328) who would notice these two?

[1114]See ante, p. 356, note 1

[1115]Johnson wrote for him a Dedication of his Tassoin 1763.Ante, i. 383.

[1116]There was no information for which Dr. Johnson was less grateful that than for that which concerned the weather. It was in allusion to his impatience with those who were reduced to keep conversation alive by observations on the weather, that he applied the old proverb to himself. If any one of his intimate acquaintance told him it was hot or cold, wet or dry, windy or calm, he would stop them, by saying, 'Poh! poh! you are telling us that of which none but men in a mine or a dungeon can be ignorant. Let us bear with patience, or enjoy in quiet, elementary changes, whether for the better or the worse, as they are never secrets.' BURNEY. In The Idler, No. II, Johnson shews that 'an Englishman's notice of the weather is the natural consequence of changeable skies and uncertain seasons... In our island every man goes to sleep unable to guess whether he shall behold in the morning a bright or cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, or broken by a tempest. We therefore rejoice mutually at good weather, as at an escape from something that we feared; and mutually complain of bad, as of the loss of something that we hoped.' Seeante, i. 332, and iv. 353.

[1117]His Account of the Musical Performances in Commemoration of Handel. Seeante, p. 283.

[1118]The celebrated Miss Fanny Burney. BOSWELL.

[1119]Dr. Burney's letter must have been franked; otherwise there would have been no frugality, for each enclosure was charged as a separate letter.

[1120]He does not know, that is to say, what people of his acquaintance were in town, privileged to receive letters post free; such as members of either House of Parliament.

[1121]Consolationis clearly a blunder, Malone's conjecturemortificationseems absurd.

[1122]See ante, iii. 48, and iv. 177.

[1123]Windham visited him at Ashbourne in the end of August, after the former of these letters was written. See ante, p. 356.

[1124]This may refer, as Mr. Croker says, to Hamilton's generous offer, mentioned ante, p. 244. Yet Johnson, with his accurate mind, was not likely to assign to the spring an event of the previous November.

[1125]Johnson refers to Pope's lines on Walpole:—

'Seen him I have but in his happier hourOf social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power.'Satires. Epilogue, i. 29.

[1126]Son of the late Peter Paradise, Esq. his Britannick Majesty's Consul at Salonica, in Macedonia, by his lady, a native of that country. He studied at Oxford, and has been honoured by that University with the degree of LL.D. He is distinguished not only by his learning and talents, but by an amiable disposition, gentleness of manners, and a very general acquaintance with well-informed and accomplished persons of almost all nations. BOSWELL.

[1127]Bookseller to his Majesty. BOSWELL.

[1128]Mr. Cruikshank attended him as a surgeon the year before. Ante, p. 239.

[1129]Allan Ramsay, Esq. painter to his Majesty, who died Aug. 10, 1784, in the 71st year of his age, much regretted by his friends. BOSWELL. See ante, p. 260.

[1130]Northcote (Life of Reynolds, ii. 187) says that Johnson 'most probably refers to Sir Joshua's becoming painter to the King. 'I know,' he continues, 'that Sir Joshua expected the appointment would be offered to him on the death of Ramsay, and expressed his disapprobation with regard to soliciting for it; but he was informed that it was a necessary point of etiquette, with which at last he complied.' His 'furious purposes' should seem to have been his intention to resign the Presidency of the Academy, on finding that the place was not at once given him, and in the knowledge that in the Academy there was a party against him. Taylor'sReynolds, ii. 448.

[1131]See ante, p. 348.

[1132]The Chancellor had not, it should seem, asked the King. See ante, p. 350, note.

[1133]The Duke of Devonshire has kindly given me the following explanation of this term:—'It was formerly the custom at some (I believe several) of the large country-houses to have dinners at which any of the neighbouring gentry and clergy might present themselves as guests without invitation. The custom had been discontinued at Chatsworth before my recollection, and so far as I am aware is now only kept-up at Wentworth, Lord Fitzwilliam's house in Yorkshire, where a few public dinners are still given annually. I believe, however, that all persons intending to be present on such occasions are now expected to give notice some days previously. Public dinners were also given formerly by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and if I am not mistaken also by the Archbishop of York. I have myself been present at a public dinner at Lambeth Palace within the last fifty years or thereabouts, and I have been at one or more such dinners at Wentworth.' Since receiving this explanation I have read the following in the second part of the Greville Memoirs, i. 99:—'June 1, 1838. I dined yesterday at Lambeth, at the Archbishop's public dinner, the handsomest entertainment I ever saw. There were nearly a hundred people present, all full-dressed or in uniform. Nothing can be more dignified and splendid than the whole arrangement.'

[1134]Six weeks later he was willing to hear even of balloons, so long as he got a letter. 'You,' he wrote to Mr. Sastres, 'may always have something to tell: you live among the various orders of mankind, and may make a letter from the exploits, sometimes of the philosopher, and sometimes of the pickpocket. You see some balloons succeed and some miscarry, and a thousand strange and a thousand foolish things.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 412.

[1135]See ante, p. 349, note.

[1136]'He alludes probably to the place of King's Painter; which, since Burke's reforming the King's household expenses, had been reduced from £200 to £50 per annum.' Northcote's Reynolds, ii. 188. The place was more profitable than Johnson thought. 'It was worth having from the harvest it brought in by the multiplication of the faces of King and Queen as presents for ambassadors and potentates.' This is shewn by the following note in Sir Joshua's price-book:—'Nov. 28, 1789, remain in the Academy five Kings, four Queens; in the house two Kings and one Queen.' Taylor'sReynolds, ii. 449.

[1137]Mr. Nichols published in 1782 Anecdotes of William Bowyer, Printer. In 1812-15 he brought out this work, recast and enlarged, under the title ofLiterary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century. Seeante, p. 161.

[1138]In the original (which is in the British Museum) not hintsbutnames.

[1139]On Nov. 4, he wrote to Mr. Ryland:—'I have just received a letter in which you tell me that you love to hear from me, and I value such a declaration too much to neglect it. To have a friend, and a friend like you, may be numbered amongst the first felicities of life; at a time when weakness either of body or mind loses the pride and the confidence of self-sufficiency, and looks round for that help which perhaps human kindness cannot give, and which we yet are willing to expect from one another. I am at this time very much dejected.... I am now preparing myself for my return, and do not despair of some more monthly meetings [post, Appendix C]. To hear that dear Payne is better gives me great delight. I saw the draught of the stone [over Mrs. Johnson's grave,ante, p. 351]. Shall I ever be able to bear the sight of this stone? In your company I hope I shall.' Mr. Morrison'sAutographs, vol. ii.

[1140]To him as a writer might be generally applied what he said of Rochester:—'His pieces are commonly short, such as one fit of resolution would produce.' Works, vii. 159.

[1141]Odes, iv.7.Works, i. 137.

[1142]Against inqitisitive and perplexing thoughts. 'O LORD, my Maker and Protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which Thou hast required. When I behold the works of thy hands, and consider the course of thy providence, give me grace always to remember that thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways. And while it shall please Thee to continue me in this world, where much is to be done, and little to be known, teach me by thy Holy Spirit, to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted, let me serve Thee with active zeal and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge. Grant this, O LORD, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen.' BOSWELL.Pr. and Med.p. 219.

[1143]Life of Johnson, p. 599.

[1144]Porson with admirable humour satirised Hawkins for his attack on Barber. Gent. Mag.1787, p. 752, andPorson Tracts, p. 358. Baretti in hisTolondron, p. 149, says that 'Barber from his earliest youth served Johnson with the greatest affection and disinterestedness.'

[1145]Vol. ii. p. 30. BOSWELL.

[1146]I shall add one instance only to those which I have thought it incumbent on me to point out. Talking of Mr. Garrick's having signified his willingness to let Johnson have the loan of any of his books to assist him in his edition of Shakspeare [ante, ii. 192]; Sir John says, (p. 444,) 'Mr. Garrick knew not what risque he ran by this offer. Johnson had so strange a forgetfulness of obligations of this sort, that few who lent him books ever saw them again.' This surely conveys a most unfavourable insinuation, and has been so understood. Sir John mentions the single case of a curious edition of Politian [ante, i. 90], which he tells us, 'appeared to belong to Pembroke College, and which, probably, had been considered by Johnson as his own, for upwards of fifty years.' Would it not be fairer to consider this as an inadvertence, and draw no general inference? The truth is, that Johnson was so attentive, that in one of his manuscripts in my possession, he has marked in two columns, books borrowed, and books lent.

In Sir John Hawkins's compilation, there are, however, some passages concerning Johnson which have unquestionable merit. One of them I shall transcribe, in justice to a writer whom I have had too much occasion to censure, and to shew my fairness as the biographer of my illustrious friend: 'There was wanting in his conduct and behaviour, that dignity which results from a regular and orderly course of action, and by an irresistible power commands esteem. He could not be said to be a stayed man, nor so to have adjusted in his mind the balance of reason and passion, as to give occasion to say what may be observed of some men, that all they do is just, fit, and right.' [Hawkins's Johnson, p. 409.] Yet a judicious friend well suggests, 'It might, however, have been added, that such men are often merely just, and rigidly correct, while their hearts are cold and unfeeling; and that Johnson's virtues were of a much higher tone than those of thestayed, orderly man, here described.' BOSWELL.

[1147]'Lich, a dead carcase; whence Lichfield, the field of the dead, a city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians. Salve magna parens.'It is curious that in the Abridgment of theDictionaryhe struck out this salutation, though he left the rest of the article.Salve magna parens, (Hail, mighty parent) is from Virgil'sGeorgics, ii. 173. The Rev. T. Twining, when at Lichfield in 1797, says:—'I visited the famous large old willow-tree, which Johnson, they say, used to kiss when he came to Lichfield.'Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIII Century, p. 227.

[1148]The following circumstance, mutually to the honour of Johnson, and the corporation of his native city, has been communicated to me by the Reverend Dr. Vyse, from the Town-Clerk:—'Mr. Simpson has now before him, a record of the respect and veneration which the Corporation of Lichfield, in the year 1767, had for the merits and learning of Dr. Johnson. His father built the corner-house in the Market-place, the two fronts of which, towards Market and Broad-market-street, stood upon waste land of the Corporation, under a forty years' lease, which was then expired. On the 15th of August, 1767, at a common-hall of the bailiffs and citizens, it was ordered (and that without any solicitation,) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson, Doctor of Laws, of the encroachments at his house, for the term of ninety-nine years, at the old rent, which was five shillings. Of which, as Town-Clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure of informing him, and that he was desired to accept it, without paying any fine on the occasion, which lease was afterwards granted, and the Doctor died possessed of this property.' BOSWELL.

[1149]See vol. i. p. 37. BOSWELL.

[1150]According to Miss Seward, who was Mr. White's cousin, 'Johnson once called him "the rising strength of Lichfield."' Seward's Letters, i. 335.

[1151]The Rev. R. Warner, who visited Lichfield in 1801, gives in his Tour through the Northern Counties, i. 105, a fuller account. He is clearly wrong in the date of its occurrence, and in one other matter, yet his story may in the main be true. He says that Johnson's friends at Lichfield missed him one morning; the servants said that he had set off at a very early hour, whither they knew not. Just before supper he returned. He informed his hostess of his breach of filial duty, which had happened just fifty years before on that very day. 'To do away the sin of this disobedience, I this day went,' he said, 'in a chaise to—, and going into the market at the time of high business uncovered my head, and stood with it bare an hour, before the stall which my father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the standers-by, and the inclemency of the weather.' This penance may recall Dante's lines,—

'Quando vivea più glorioso, disse,Liberamente nel campo di Siena,Ogni vergogna deposta, s'affisse.''"When at his glory's topmost height," said he,"Respect of dignity all cast aside,Freely he fix'd him on Sienna's plain."'CARY. Dante, Purgatory. Cant. xi. l. 133.

[1152]

'How instinct varies in the grovelling swine,Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine.'Pope, Essay on Man, i. 221.

[1153]See ante, iii. 153, 296.

[1154]Mr. Burke suggested to me as applicable to Johnson, what Cicero, in his CATO MAJOR, says of Appius:—'Intentum enim animum tanquam arcum habebat, nec languescens succumbebat senectuti;' repeating, at the same time, the following noble words in the same passage:—'Ita enim senectus honesta est, si se ipsa defendit, si jus suum retinet, si nemini emancipata est, si usque ad extremum vitae spiritum vindicet jus suum.' BOSWELL. The last line runs in the original:-'si usque ad ultimum spiritum dominatur in suos.'Cato Major, xi. 38.

[1155]

'atrocemanimum Catonis.''Cato—Of spirit unsubdued.'FRANCIS. Horace, 2Odes, i. 24.

[1156]Yet Baretti, who knew Johnson well, in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, i.315, says:—'If ever Johnson took any delight in anything it was to converse with some old acquaintance. New people he never loved to be in company with, except ladies, when disposed to caress and flatter him.'

[1157]Johnson, thirty-four years earlier, wrote:—'I think there is some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not so proportioned that the one can bear all that can be inflicted on the other; whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as life, and whether a soul well principled will not be separated sooner than subdued.' The Rambler, No. 32. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:—'But what if I am seventy-two; I remember Sulpitius says of Saint Martin (now that's above your reading),Est animus victor annorum, et senectuti cedere nescius. Match me that among your young folks.'Piozzi Letters, ii. 177. On Sept. 2, 1784, he wrote to Mr. Sastres the Italian master:—'I have hope of standing the English winter, and of seeing you, and readingPetrarchat Bolt-court.'Ib. p. 407.

[1158]Life of Johnson, p. 7.

[1159]It is a most agreeable circumstance attending the publication of this Work, that Mr. Hector has survived his illustrious schoolfellow so many years; that he still retains his health and spirits; and has gratified me with the following acknowledgement: 'I thank you, most sincerely thank you, for the great and long continued entertainment your Life of Dr. Johnsonhas afforded me, and others, of my particular friends.' Mr. Hector, besides setting me right as to the verses on a sprig of Myrtle, (see vol. i. p. 92, note,) has favoured me with two English odes, written by Dr. Johnson, at an early period of his life, which will appear in my edition of his poems. BOSWELL. Seeante, i. 16, note 1.

[1160]The editor of the Biographia Britannica. Ante, iii. 174.

[1161]On Dec. 23, Miss Adams wrote to a friend:—'We are all under the sincerest grief for the loss of poor Dr. Johnson. He spent three or four days with my father at Oxford, and promised to come again; as he was, he said, nowhere so happy.' Pemb. Coll. MSS.

[1162]See ante, p. 293.

[1163]Mr. Strahan says (Preface, p. iv.) that Johnson, being hindered by illness from revising these prayers, 'determined to give the MSS., without revision, in charge to me. Accordingly one morning, on my visiting him by desire at an early hour, he put these papers into my hands, with instructions for committing them to the press, and with a promise to prepare a sketch of his own life to accompany them.' Whatever Johnson wished about the prayers, it passes belief that he ever meant for the eye of the world these minute accounts of his health and his feelings. Some parts indeed Mr. Strahan himself suppressed, as the Pemb. Coll. MSS. shew (ante, p. 84, note 4). It is curious that one portion at least fell into other hands (ante, ii. 476). There are other apparent gaps in the diary which raise the suspicion that it was only fragments that Mr. Strahan obtained. On the other hand Mr. Strahan had nothing to gain by the publication beyond notoriety (see his Preface, p. vi.). Dr. Adams, whose name is mentioned in the preface, expressed in a letter to theGent. Mag.1785, p. 755, his disapproval of the publication. Mr. Courtenay (Poetical Review, ed. 1786, p. 7), thus attacked Mr. Strahan:—

'Let priestly S—h—n in a godly fitThe tale relate, in aid of Holy Writ;Though candid Adams, by whom David fell [A],Who ancient miracles sustained so well,To recent wonders may deny his aid,Nor own a pious brother of the trade.'

[A] The Rev. Dr. Adams of Oxford, distinguished for his answer to David Hume's Essay on Miracles.

[1164]Johnson once said to Miss Burney of her brother Charles:—'I should be glad to see him if he were not your brother; but were he a dog, a cat, a rat, a frog, and belonged to you, I must needs be glad to see him.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 233. On Nov. 25 she called on him. 'He let me in, though very ill. He told me he was going to try what sleeping out of town might do for him. "I remember," said he, "that my wife, when she was near her end, poor woman, was also advised to sleep out of town; and when she was carried to the lodgings that had been prepared for her, she complained that the staircase was in very bad condition, for the plaster was beaten off the walls in many places." "Oh!" said the man of the house, "that's nothing but by the knocks against it of the coffins of the poor souls that have died in the lodgings." He laughed, though not without apparent secret anguish, in telling me this.' Miss Burney continues:—'How delightfully bright are his faculties, though the poor and infirm machine that contains them seems alarmingly giving way. Yet, all brilliant as he was, I saw him growing worse, and offered to go, which, for the first time I ever remember, he did not oppose; but most kindly pressing both my hands, "Be not," he said, in a voice of even tenderness, "be not longer in coming again for my letting you go now." I assured him I would be the sooner, and was running off, but he called me back in a solemn voice, and in a manner the most energetic, said:—"Remember me in your prayers."' Mme. D'Arblay'sDiary, ii. 327. Seeante, iii. 367, note 4.

[1165]Mr. Hector's sister and Johnson's first love. Ante, ii. 459.

[1166]The Rev. Dr. Taylor. BOSWELL.

[1167]See ante, ii. 474, and iii. 180.

[1168]'Reliquum est, [Greek: Sphartan elaches, tahutan khusmei].'Cicero,Epistolae ad Atticum, iv. 6. 'Spartam nactus es, hanc orna.' Erasmus,Adagiorum Chiliades, ed. 1559, p. 485.

[1169]Temple says of the spleen that it is a disease too refined for this country and people, who are well when they are not ill, and pleased when they are not troubled; are content, because they think little of it, and seek their happiness in the common eases and commodities of life, or the increase of riches; not amusing themselves with the more speculative contrivances of passion, or refinements of pleasure.' Temple's Works, ed. 1757, i. 170.

[1170]It is truly wonderful to consider the extent and constancy of Johnson's literary ardour, notwithstanding the melancholy which clouded and embittered his existence. Besides the numerous and various works which he executed, he had, at different times, formed schemes of a great many more, of which the following catalogue was given by him to Mr. Langton, and by that gentleman presented to his Majesty:

'DIVINITY.

'A small book of precepts and directions for piety; the hint taken from the directions in Morton's exercise.

'PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, and LITERATURE in general.

'History of Criticism, as it relates to judging of authours, from Aristotle to the present age. An account of the rise and improvements of that art; of the different opinions of authours, ancient and modern.

'Translation of the History of Herodian.

'New edition of Fairfax's Translation of Tasso, with notes, glossary, &c.

'Chaucer, a new edition of him, from manuscripts and old editions, with various readings, conjectures, remarks on his language, and the changes it had undergone from the earliest times to his age, and from his to the present: with notes explanatory of customs, &c., and references to Boccace, and other authours from whom he has borrowed, with an account of the liberties he has taken in telling the stories; his life, and an exact etymological glossary.

'Aristotle's Rhetorick, a translation of it into English.

'A Collection of Letters, translated from the modern writers, with some account of the several authours.

'Oldham's Poems, with notes, historical and critical.

'Roscommon's Poems, with notes.

'Lives of the Philosophers, written with a polite air, in such a manner as may divert as well as instruct.

'History of the Heathen Mythology, with an explication of the fables, both allegorical and historical; with references to the poets.

'History of the State of Venice, in a compendious manner.

'Aristotle's Ethicks, an English translation of them, with notes.

'Geographical Dictionary, from the French.

'Hierocles upon Pythagoras, translated into English, perhaps with notes. This is done by Norris.

'A book of Letters, upon all kinds of subjects.

'Claudian, a new edition of his works, cum notis variorum, in the manner of Burman.

'Tully's Tusculan Questions, a translation of them.

'Tully's De Naturâ Deorum, a translation of those books.

'Benzo's New History of the New World, to be translated.

'Machiavel's History of Florence, to be translated.

'History of the Revival of Learning in Europe, containing an account of whatever contributed to the restoration of literature; such as controversies, printing, the destruction of the Greek empire, the encouragement of great men, with the lives of the most eminent patrons and most eminent early professors of all kinds of learning in different countries.

'A Body of Chronology, in verse, with historical notes.

'A Table of the Spectators, Tatlers, and Guardians, distinguished by figures into six degrees of value, with notes, giving the reasons of preference or degradation.

'A Collection of Letters from English authours, with a preface giving some account of the writers; with reasons for selection, and criticism upon styles; remarks on each letter, if needful.

'A Collection of Proverbs from various languages. Jan. 6,—53.

'A Dictionary to the Common Prayer, in imitation of Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible. March, 52.

'A Collection of Stories and Examples, like those of Valerius Maximus. Jan. 10,—53.

'From Aelian, a volume of select Stories, perhaps from others. Jan.

28,-53.

'Collection of Travels, Voyages, Adventures, and Descriptions of Countries.

'Dictionary of Ancient History and Mythology.

'Treatise on the Study of Polite Literature, containing the history of learning, directions for editions, commentaries, &c.

'Maxims, Characters, and Sentiments, after the manner of Bruyère, collected out of ancient authours, particularly the Greek, with Apophthegms.

'Classical Miscellanies, Select Translations from ancient Greek and Latin authours.

'Lives of Illustrious Persons, as well of the active as the learned, in imitation of Plutarch.

'Judgement of the learned upon English authours.

'Poetical Dictionary of the English tongue.

'Considerations upon the present state of London.

'Collection of Epigrams, with notes and observations.

'Observations on the English language, relating to words, phrases, and modes of Speech.

'Minutiae Literariae, Miscellaneous reflections, criticisms, emendations, notes.

'History of the Constitution.

'Comparison of Philosophical and Christian Morality, by sentences collected from the moralists and fathers.

'Plutarch's Lives, in English, with notes.

'POETRY and works of IMAGINATION.

'Hymn to Ignorance.

'The Palace of Sloth,—a vision.

'Coluthus, to be translated.

'Prejudice,—a poetical essay.

'The Palace of Nonsense,—a vision.'

Johnson's extraordinary facility of composition, when he shook off his constitutional indolence, and resolutely sat down to write, is admirably described by Mr. Courtenay, in his Poetical Review, which I have several times quoted:

'While through life's maze he sent a piercing view,His mind expansive to the object grew.With various stores of erudition fraught,The lively image, the deep-searching thought,Slept in repose;—but when the moment press'd,The bright ideas stood at once confess'd;Instant his genius sped its vigorous rays,And o'er the letter'd world diffus'd a blaze:As womb'd with fire the cloud electrick flies,And calmly o'er th' horizon seems to rise;Touch'd by the pointed steel, the lightning flows,And all th' expanse with rich effulgence glows.'

We shall in vain endeavour to know with exact precision every production of Johnson's pen. He owned to me, that he had written about forty sermons; but as I understood that he had given or sold them to different persons, who were to preach them as their own, he did not consider himself at liberty to acknowledge them. Would those who were thus aided by him, who are still alive, and the friends of those who are dead, fairly inform the world, it would be obligingly gratifying a reasonable curiosity, to which there should, I think, now be no objection. Two volumes of them, published since his death, are sufficiently ascertained; see vol. iii. p. 181. I have before me, in his hand-writing, a fragment of twenty quarto leaves, of a translation into English of Sallust, De Bella Catilinario. When it was done I have no notion; but it seems to have no very superior merit to mark it as his. Beside the publications heretofore mentioned, I am satisfied, from internal evidence, to admit also as genuine the following, which, notwithstanding all my chronological care, escaped me in the course of this work:

'Considerations on the Case of Dr. Trapp's Sermons,' + published in 1739, in the Gentleman's Magazine. [These Considerations were published, not in 1739, but in 1787.Ante, i. 140, note 5.] It is a very ingenious defence of the right ofabridgingan authour's work, without being held as infringing his property. This is one of the nicest questions in theLaw of Literature; and I cannot help thinking, that the indulgence of abridging is often exceedingly injurious to authours and booksellers, and should in very few cases be permitted. At any rate, to prevent difficult and uncertain discussion, and give an absolute security to authours in the property of their labours, no abridgement whatever should be permitted, till after the expiration of such a number of years as the Legislature may be pleased to fix.

But, though it has been confidently ascribed to him, I cannot allow that he wrote a Dedication to both Houses of Parliament of a book entitled The Evangelical History Harmonized. He was nocroaker; no declaimer againstthe times. [Seeante, ii. 357.] He would not have written, 'That we are fallen upon an age in which corruption is not barely universal, is universally confessed.' Nor 'Rapine preys on the publick without opposition, and perjury betrays it without inquiry.' Nor would he, to excite a speedy reformation, have conjured up such phantoms of terrour as these: 'A few years longer, and perhaps all endeavours will be in vain. We may be swallowed by an earthquake: we may be delivered to our enemies.' This is not Johnsonian.

There are, indeed, in this Dedication, several sentences constructed upon the model of those of Johnson. But the imitation of the form, without the spirit of his style, has been so general, that this of itself is not sufficient evidence. Even our newspaper writers aspire to it. In an account of the funeral of Edwin, the comedian, in The Diaryof Nov. 9, 1790, that son of drollery is thus described: 'A man who had so often cheered the sullenness of vacancy, and suspended the approaches of sorrow.' And inThe Dublin Evening Post, August 16, 1791, there is the following paragraph: 'It is a singular circumstance, that, in a city like this, containing 200,000 people, there are three months in the year during which no place of publick amusement is open. Long vacation is here a vacation from pleasure, as well as business; nor is there any mode of passing the listless evenings of declining summer, but in the riots of a tavern, or the stupidity of a coffee-house.'

I have not thought it necessary to specify every copy of verses written by Johnson, it being my intention to, publish an authentick edition of all his Poetry, with notes. BOSWELL. This Catalogue, as Mr. Boswell calls it, is by Dr. Johnson intitledDesigns. It seems from the hand that it was written early in life: from the marginal dates it appears that some portions were added in 1752 and 1753. CROKER.

[1171]On April 19 of this year he wrote: 'When I lay sleepless, I used to drive the night along by turning Greek epigrams into Latin. I know not if I have not turned a hundred.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 364. Forty-five years earlier he described how Boerhaave, 'when he lay whole days and nights without sleep, found no method of diverting his thoughts so effectual as meditation upon his studies, and often relieved and mitigated the sense of his torments by the recollection of what he had read, and by reviewing those stores of knowledge which he had reposited in his memory.'Works, vi. 284.

[1172]Mr. Cumberland assures me, that he was always treated with great courtesy by Dr. Johnson, who, in his Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 68 thus speaks of that learned, ingenious, and accomplished gentleman: 'The want of company is an inconvenience: but Mr. Cumberland is a million.' BOSWELL. Northcote, according to Hazlitt (Conversations of Northcote, p. 275), said that Johnson and his friends 'never admitted C——[Cumberland] as one of the set; Sir Joshua did not invite him to dinner. If he had been in the room, Goldsmith would have flown out of it as if a dragon had been there. I remember Garrick once saying, "D—n hisdish-cloutface; his plays would never do, if it were not for my patching them up and acting in them."'

[1173]See ante, p. 64, note 2.

[1174]Dr. Parr said, "There are three great Grecians in England: Porson is the first; Burney is the third; and who is the second I need not tell"' Field's Parr, ii. 215.

[1175]'Dr. Johnson,' said Parr, 'was an admirable scholar.... The classical scholar was forgotten in the great original contributor to the literature of his country.' Ib.i. 164. 'Upon his correct and profound knowledge of the Latin language,' he wrote, 'I have always spoken with unusual zeal and unusual confidence.' Johnson'sParr, iv. 679. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec.p. 54) recounts a 'triumph' gained by Johnson in a talk on Greek literature.

[1176]Ante, iii. 172.

[1177]We must smile at a little inaccuracy of metaphor in the Preface to the Transactions, which is written by Mr. Burrowes. Thecritick of the style ofJOHNSON having, with a just zeal for literature, observed, that the whole nation are called on to exert themselves, afterwards says: 'They arecalled onby everytyewhich can have a laudable influence on the heart of man.' BOSWELL.

[1178]Johnson's wishing to unite himself with this rich widow, was much talked of, but I believe without foundation. The report, however, gave occasion to a poem, not without characteristical merit, entitled, 'Ode to Mrs. Thrale, by Samuel Johnson, LL.D. on their supposed approaching Nuptials; printed for Mr. Faulder in Bond-street.' I shall quote as a specimen the first three stanzas:—

'If e'er my fingers touch'd the lyre,In satire fierce, in pleasure gay;Shall not my THRALIA'S smiles inspire?Shall Sam refuse the sportive lay?My dearest Lady! view your slave,Behold him as your very Scrub;Eager to write, as authour grave,Or govern well, the brewing-tub.To rich felicity thus raised,My bosom glows with amorous fire;Porter no longer shall be praised,'Tis I MYSELF amThrale's Entire'

[1179]See ante, ii. 44.

[1180]'Higledy piggledy,—Conglomeration and confusion.

'Hodge-podge,—A culinary mixture of heterogeneous ingredients: applied metaphorically to all discordant combinations.

'Tit for Tat,—Adequate retaliation.

'Shilly Shally,—Hesitation and irresolution.

'Fee! fau! fum!—Gigantic intonations.

Rigmarole,-Discourse, incoherent and rhapsodical.

'Crincum-crancum,—Lines of irregularity and involution.

'Dingdong—Tintinabulary chimes, used metaphorically to signify dispatch and vehemence.' BOSWELL. In all the editions that I have examined the sentence in the text beginning with 'annexed,' and ending with 'concatenation,' is printed as if it were Boswell's. It is a quotation from vol. ii. p. 93 of Colman's book. ForScrub, seeante, iii. 70, note 2.

[1181]Seeante, iii. 173.

[1182]History of America, vol. i. quarto, p. 332. BOSWELL.

[1183]Gibbon (Misc. Works, i. 219) thus writes of his own style:—'The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation; three times did I compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect.' Seeante, p. 36, note 1.

[1184]Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. chap. iv.

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