Chapter 21

'Non illic urbes, non tu mirabere silvas:Una est injusti caerula forma maris.

Ovid. Amor.L. II. El. xi.

Nor groves nor towns the ruthless ocean shows;Unvaried still its azure surface flows.

BOSWELL.

[159]Seeante. ii. 229.

[160]My friend, General Campbell, Governour of Madras, tells me, that they madespeldingsin the East-Indies, particularly at Bombay, where they call themBambaloes. BOSWELL. Johnson had told Boswell that he was 'the mostunscottifiedof his countrymen.'Ante, ii. 242.

[161]'A small island, which neither of my companions had ever visited, though, lying within their view, it had all their lives solicited their notice.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 1.

[162]'The remains of the fort have been removed to assist in constructing a very useful lighthouse upon the island. WALTER SCOTT.

[163]

'Unhappy queen!Unwilling I forsook your friendly state.'

Dryden. [Aeneid, vi. 460.] BOSWELL.

[164]Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 331) says of his journey to London in 1758:—'It is to be noted that we could get no four-wheeled chaise till we came to Durham, those conveyances being then only in their infancy. Turnpike roads were only in their commencement in the north.' 'It affords a southern stranger,' wrote Johnson (Worksix. 2), 'a new kind of pleasure to travel so commodiously without the interruption of toll-gates.'

[165]Seeante, iii. 265, for Lord Shelburne's statement on this subject.

[166]Seeante, ii. 339, and iii. 205, note 4.

[167]Seeante, iii. 46.

[168]The passage quoted by Dr. Johnson is in theCharacter of the Assembly-man; Butler'sRemains, p. 232, edit. 1754:—'He preaches, indeed, both in season and out of season; for he rails at Popery, when the land is almost lost in Presbytery; and would cry Fire! Fire! in Noah's flood.'

There is reason to believe that this piece was not written by Butler, but by Sir John Birkenhead; for Wood, in hisAthenae Oxonienses, vol. ii. p. 640, enumerates it among that gentleman's works, and gives the following account of it:

'The Assembly-man(or the character of an assembly-man) written 1647,Lond.1662-3, in three sheets in qu. The copy of it was taken from the author by those who said they could not rob, because all was theirs; so excised what they liked not; and so mangled and reformed it, that it was no character of an Assembly, but of themselves. At length, after it had slept several years, the author published it to avoid false copies. It is also reprinted in a book entit.Wit and Loyalty revived, in a collection of some smart satyrs in verse and prose on the late times.Lond.1682, qu. said to be written by Abr. Cowley, Sir John Birkenhead, and Hudibras, alias Sam. Butler.'—For this information I am indebted to Mr. Reed, of Staple Inn. BOSWELL. This tract is in theHarleian Misc., ed. 1810, vi. 57. Mr. Reed's quotation differs somewhat from it.

[169]'When a Scotchman was talking against Warburton, Johnson said he had more literature than had been imported from Scotland since the days of Buchanan. Upon the other's mentioning other eminent writers of the Scotch; "These will not do," said Johnson, "Let us have some more of your northern lights; these are mere farthing candles."' Johnson'sWorks(1787), xi. 208. Dr. T. Campbell records (Diary, p. 61) that at the dinner at Mr. Dilly's, describedante, ii. 338, 'Dr. Johnson compared England and Scotland to two lions, the one saturated with his belly full, and the other prowling for prey. He defied any one to produce a classical book written in Scotland since Buchanan. Robertson, he said, used pretty words, but he liked Hume better; and neither of them would he allow to be more to Clarendon than a rat to a cat. "A Scotch surgeon may have more learning than an English one, and all Scotland could not muster learning enough for Lowth'sPrelections."' Seeante, ii. 363, and March 30, 1783.

[170]The poem is entitledGualterus Danistonus ad Amicos. It begins:—

'Dum studeo fungi fallentis munere vitae'

Which Prior imitates:—

'Studious the busy moments to deceive.'

Sir Walter Scott thought that the poem praised by Johnson was 'more likely the fine epitaph on John, Viscount of Dundee, translated by Dryden, and beginningUltime Scotoruml' Archibald Pitcairne, M.D., was born in 1652, and died in 1713.

[171]My Journal, from this day inclusive, was read by Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL. It was read by Johnson up to the second paragraph of Oct. 26. Boswell, it should seem, once at least shewed Johnson a part of the Journal from which he formed hisLife. Seeante, iii. 260, where he says:—'It delighted him on a review to find that his conversation teemed with point and imagery.'

[172]Seeante, ii. 20, note 4.

[173]Goldsmith, in hisPresent State of Polite Learning, published in 1759, says, (ch. x):—'When the great Somers was at the helm, patronage was fashionable among our nobility ... Since the days of a certain prime minister of inglorious memory [Sir Robert Walpole] the learned have been kept pretty much at a distance. ... The author, when unpatronised by the Great, has naturally recourse to the bookseller. There cannot be perhaps imagined a combination more prejudicial to taste than this. It is the interest of the one to allow as little for writing, and of the other to write as much as possible; accordingly tedious compilations and periodical magazines are the result of their joint endeavours.'

[174]In the first number ofThe Rambler, Johnson shews how attractive to an author is the form of publication which he was himself then adopting:—'It heightens his alacrity to think in how many places he shall have what he is now writing read with ecstacies to-morrow.'

[175]Yet he said 'the inhabitants of Lichfield were the most sober, decent people in England.'Ante, ii. 463.

[176]At the beginning of the eighteenth century, says Goldsmith, 'smoking in the rooms [at Bath] was permitted.' When Nash became King of Bath he put it down. Goldsmith'sWorks, ed. 1854, iv. 51. 'Johnson,' says Boswell (ante, i. 317), 'had a high opinion of the sedative influence of smoking.'

[177]Dr. Johnson used to practise this himself very much. BOSWELL.

[178]InThe Tatler, for May 24, 1709, we are told that 'rural esquires wear shirts half a week, and are drunk twice a day.' In the year 1720, Fenton urged Gay 'to sell as much South Sea stock as would purchase a hundred a year for life, "which will make you sure of a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton every day."' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 65. InTristram Shandy, ii. ch. 4, published in 1759, we read:—'It was in this year [about 1700] that my uncle began to break in upon the daily regularity of a clean shirt.' Inthe Spiritual Quixote, published in 1773 (i. 51), Tugwell says to his master:—'Your Worship belike has been used to shift you twice a week.' Mrs. Piozzi (Journey, i. 105, date of 1789) says that she heard in Milan 'a travelled gentleman telling his auditors how all the men in London,that were noble, put on a clean shirt every day.' Johnson himself owned that he had 'no passion for clean linen.'Ante, i. 397.

[179]Scott, inOld Mortality, ed. 1860, ix. 352, says:—'It was a universal custom in Scotland, that, when the family was at dinner, the outer-gate of the court-yard, if there was one, and if not, the door of the house itself, was always shut and locked.' In a note on this he says:—'The custom of keeping the door of a house or chateau locked during the time of dinner probably arose from the family being anciently assembled in the hall at that meal, and liable to surprise.'

[180]Johnson, writing of 'the chapel of the alienated college,' says:—'I was always by some civil excuse hindered from entering it.'Works, ix. 4.

[181]George Marline'sReliquiae divi Andreaewas published in 1797.

[182]Seeante, ii. 171, and iv. 75.

[183]Mr. Chambers says that Knox was buried in a place which soon after became, and ever since has been, a high-way; namely, the old church-yard of St. Giles in Edinburgh. Croker'sBoswell, p. 283.

[184]InThe Rambler, No. 82, Johnson makes a virtuoso write:—'I often lamented that I was not one of that happy generation who demolished the convents and monasteries, and broke windows by law.' He had in 1754 'viewed with indignation the ruins of the Abbeys of Oseney and Rewley near Oxford.' Ante, i. 273. Smollett, inHumphry Clinker(Letrer of Aug. 8), describes St. Andrews as 'the skeleton of a venerable city.'

[185]'Some talked of the right of society to the labour of individuals, and considered retirement as a desertion of duty. Others readily allowed that there was a time when the claims of the publick were satisfied, and when a man might properly sequester himself to review his life and purify his heart.'Rasselas, ch. 22.

[186]Seeante, ii. 423.

[187]Seeante, iv. 5, note 2, and v. 27.

[188]'He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a monastery. But, perhaps, every one is not able to stem the temptations of publick life, and, if he cannot conquer, he may properly retreat.'Rasselas, ch. 47. Seeante, ii. 435.

[189]'A youthful passion for abstracted devotion should not be encouraged.'Ante, ii. 10. The hermit inRasselas(ch. 21) says:—'The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.' In Johnson'sWorks(1787), xi. 203, we read that 'Johnson thought worse of the vices of retirement than of those of society.' Southey (Life of Wesley, i. 39) writes:—'Some time before John Wesley's return to the University, he had travelled many miles to see what is called "a serious man." This person said to him, "Sir, you wish to serve God and go to heaven. Remember, you cannot serve Him alone; you must therefore find companions or make them; the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion." Wesley never forgot these words.'

[190][Erga neon, boulai de meson euchai de gerunton.Hesiodi Fragmenta, Lipsiae 1840, p. 371]

Let youth in deeds, in counsel man engage;Prayer is the proper duty of old age.BOSWELL.

[191]One 'sorrowful scene' Johnson was perhaps too late in the year to see. Wesley, who visited St. Andrews on May 27, 1776, during the vacation, writes (Journal, iv. 75):—'What is left of St. Leonard's College is only a heap of ruins. Two colleges remain. One of them has a tolerable square; but all the windows are broke, like those of a brothel. We were informed the students do this before they leave the college.'

[192]'He was murdered by the ruffians of reformation, in the manner of which Knox has given what he himself calls a merry narrative.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 3. In May 1546 the Cardinal had Wishart the Reformer killed, and at the end of the same month he got killed himself.

[193]Johnson says (Works, ix. 5):—'The doctor, by whom it was shown, hoped to irritate or subdue my English vanity by telling me that we had no such repository of books in England.' He wrote to Mrs. Thrale (Piozzi Letters, i. 113):—'For luminousness and elegance it may vie at least with the new edifice at Streatham.' 'The new edifice' was, no doubt, the library of which he took the touching farewell.Ante, iv. 158.

[194]'Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our desires are fixed upon the past, without looking forward to the future, an incessant wish that something were otherwise than it has been, a tormenting and harassing want of some enjoyment or possession which we have lost, and which no endeavours can possibly regain.'The Rambler, No. 47. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on the death of her son:—'Do not indulge your sorrow; try to drive it away by either pleasure or pain; for, opposed to what you are feeling, many pains will become pleasures.'Piozzi Letters, i. 310.

[195]See ante, ii. 151.

[196]The Pembroke College grace was written by Camden. It was as follows:—'Gratias tibi agimus, Deus misericors, pro acceptis a tua bonitate alimentis; enixe comprecantes ut serenissimum nostrum Regem Georgium, totam regiam familiam, populumque tuum universum tuta in pace semper custodies.'

[197]Sharp was murdered on May 3, 1679, in a moor near St. Andrews. Burnet'sHistory of his Own time, ed. 1818, ii. 82, and Scott'sOld Mortality, ed, 1860, ix. 297, and x. 203.

[198]'One of its streets is now lost; and in those that remain there is the silence and solitude of inactive indigence and gloomy depopulation.... St. Andrews seems to be a place eminently adapted to study and education.... The students, however, are represented as, at this time, not exceeding a hundred. I saw no reason for imputing their paucity to the present professors.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 4. A student, he adds, of lower rank could get his board, lodging, and instruction for less than ten pounds for the seven months of residence. Stockdale says (Memoirs, i. 238) that 'in St. Andrews, in 1756, for a good bedroom, coals, and the attendance of a servant I paid one shilling a week.'

[199]The Compleat Fencing-Master, by Sir William Hope. London, 1691.

[200]'In the whole time of our stay we were gratified by every mode of kindness, and entertained with all the elegance of lettered hospitality' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 3.

[201]Dugald Stewart (Life of Adam Smith, p. 107) writes:—'Mr. Smith observed to me not long before his death, that after all his practice in writing he composed as slowly, and with as great difficulty as at first. He added at the same time that Mr. Hume had acquired so great a facility in this respect, that the last volumes of hisHistorywere printed from his original copy, with a few marginal corrections.' Seeante, iii. 437 and iv. 12.

[202]Of these only twenty-five have been published: Johnson'sWorks, ix. 289-525. Seeante, iii. 19, note 3, and 181. Johnson wrote on April 20, 1778:—'I have made sermons, perhaps as readily as formerly.'Pr. and Med.p. 170. 'I should think,' said Lord Eldon, 'that no clergyman ever wrote as many sermons as Lord Stowell. I advised him to burn all his manuscripts of that kind. It is not fair to the clergymen to have it known he wrote them.' Twiss'sEldon, iii. 286. Johnson, we may be sure, had no copy of any of his sermons. That none of them should be known but those he wrote for Taylor is strange.

[203]He made the same statement on June 3, 1781 (ante, iv. 127), adding, 'I should be glad to see it [the translation] now.' This shows that he was not speaking of his translation ofLobo, as Mr. Croker maintains in a note on this passage. I believe he was speaking of his translation of Courayer'sLife of Paul Sarpi. Ante, i. 135.

[204]'As far as I am acquainted with modern architecture, I am aware of no streets which, in simplicity and manliness of style, or general breadth and brightness of effect, equal those of the New Town of Edinburgh. But, etc.' Ruskin'sLectures on Architecture and Painting, p. 2.

[205]Horace,Odes, ii. 14. 1.

[206]John Abernethy, a Presbyterian divine. His works in 7 vols. 8vo. were published in 1740-51.

[207]Leechman was principal of Glasgow University (post, Oct. 29). On his appointment to the Chair of Theology he had been prosecuted for heresy for having, in hisSermon on Prayer, omitted to state the obligation to pray in the name of Christ. Dr. A. Carlyle'sAuto. p. 69. One of his sermons was placed in Hume's hands, apparently that the author might have his suggestions in preparing a second edition. Hume says:—'First the addressing of our virtuous withes and desires to the Deity, since the address has no influence on him, is only a kind of rhetorical figure, in order to render these wishes more ardent and passionate. This is Mr. Leechman's doctrine. Now the use of any figure of speech can never be a duty. Secondly, this figure, like most figures of rhetoric, has an evident impropriety in it, for we can make use of no expression, or even thought, in prayers and entreaties, which does not imply that these prayers have an influence. Thirdly, this figure is very dangerous, and leads directly, and even unavoidably, to impiety and blasphemy,' etc. J.H. Burton'sHume, i. 161.

[208]Nichols (Lit. Anec.ii. 555) records:—'During the whole of my intimacy with Dr. Johnson he rarely permitted me to depart without some sententious advice.... His words at parting were, "Take care of your eternal salvation. Remember to observe the Sabbath. Let it never be a day of business, nor wholly a day of dissipation." He concluded his solemn farewell with, "Let my words have their due weight. They are the words of a dying man." I never saw him more.'

[209]Seeante, ii. 72.

[210]'From the bank of the Tweed to St. Andrews I had never seen a single tree which I did not believe to have grown up far within the present century.... The variety of sun and shade is here utterly unknown.... A tree might be a show in Scotland as a horse in Venice. At St. Andrews Mr. Boswell found only one, and recommended it to my notice: I told him that it was rough and low, or looked as if I thought so. "This," said he, "is nothing to another a few miles off." I was still less delighted to hear that another tree was not to be seen nearer. "Nay," said a gentleman that stood by, "I know but of this and that tree in the county."' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 7 'In all this journey [so far as Slains Castle] I have not travelled an hundred yards between hedges, or seen five trees fit for the carpenter.'Piozzi Letters, i.120. Seeante, ii. 301.

[211]One of the Boswells of this branch was, in 1798, raised to the bench under the title of Lord Balmuto. It was his sister who was Boswell's step-mother. Rogers'sBoswelliana,pp. 4, 82.

[212]'The colony of Leuchars is a vain imagination concerning a certain fleet of Danes wrecked on Sheughy Dikes.' WALTER SCOTT. 'The fishing people on that coast have, however, all the appearance of being a different race from the inland population, and their dialect has many peculiarities.' LOCKHART. Croker'sBoswell, p. 286.

[213]'I should scarcely have regretted my journey, had it afforded nothing more than the sight of Aberbrothick.'Works, ix. 9.

[214]Johnson referred, I believe, to the last of Tillotson'sSermons preached upon Several Occasions, ed. 1673, p. 316, where the preacher says:—'Supposing theScriptureto be a Divine Revelation, and that these words (This is My Body), if they be in Scripture, must necessarily be taken in the strict and literal sense, I ask now, What greater evidence any man has that these words (This is My Body) are in the Bible than every man has that the bread is not changed in the sacrament? Nay, no man has so much, for we have only the evidence ofonesense that these words are in the Bible, but that the bread is not changed we have the concurring testimony ofseveralof our senses.'

[215]This also is Tillotson's argument. 'There is no more certain foundation for it [transubstantiation] in Scripture than for our Saviour's being substantially changed into all those things which are said of him, as that he is arock, avine, adoor, and a hundred other things.'Ib. p. 313.

[216]Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. SeeSt. John's Gospel, chap. vi. 53, and following verses. BOSWELL.

[217]Seeante, p. 26.

[218]Seeante, i. 140, note 5, and v. 50.

[219]Johnson, after saying that the inn was not so good as they expected, continues:—'But Mr. Boswell desired me to observe that the innkeeper was an Englishman, and I then defended him as well as I could.'Works, ix. 9.

[220]Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 29, 1775 (Piozzi Letters, i. 292):—' I hope I shall quickly come to Streatham...and catch a little gaiety among you.' On this Baretti noted in his copy:—'Thathe never caught. He thought and mused at Streatham as he did habitually everywhere, and seldom or never minded what was doing about him.' On the margin of i. 315 Baretti has written:—'Johnson mused as much on the road to Paris as he did in his garret in London as much at a French opera as in his room at Streatham.'

[221]A Biographical Sketch of Dr. Samuel Johnson,by Thomas Tyers, Esq. Seeante, iii. 308.

[222]This description of Dr. Johnson appears to have been borrowed from Tom Jones, bk. xi. ch. ii. 'The other who, like a ghost, only wanted to be spoke to, readily answered, '&c. BOSWELL.

[223]Perhaps he gave the 'shilling extraordinary' because he 'found a church,' as he says, 'clean to a degree unknown in any other part of Scotland.'Works, ix. 9.

[224]Seeante,iii. 22.

[225]Seeante,May 9, 1784. Yet Johnson says (Works, ix. 10):—'The magnetism of Lord Monboddo's conversation easily drew us out of our way.'

[226]There were several points of similarity between them; learning, clearness of head, precision of speech, and a love of research on many subjects which people in general do not investigate. Foote paid Lord Monboddo the compliment of saying, that he was an Elzevir edition of Johnson.

It has been shrewdly observed that Foote must have meant a diminutive, orpocketedition. BOSWELL. The latter part of this note is not in the first edition.

[227]Lord Elibank (post, Sept. 12) said that he would go five hundred miles to see Dr. Johnson; but Johnson never said more than he meant.

[228]Works, ix. 10. Of the road to Montrose he remarks:—'When I had proceeded thus far I had opportunities of observing, what I had never heard, that there were many beggars in Scotland. In Edinburgh the the proportion is, I think, not less than in London, and in the smaller places it is far greater than in English towns of the same extent. It must, however, be allowed that they are not importunate, nor clamorous. They solicit silently, or very modestly.'Ib.p. 9. Seepost, p. 116, note 2.

[229]James Mill was born on April 6, 1773, at Northwater Bridge, parish of Logie Pert, Forfar. The bridge was 'on the great central line of communication from the north of Scotland. The hamlet is right and left of the high road.' Bain'sLife of James Mill, p. 1. Boswell and Johnson, on their road to Laurence Kirk, must have passed close to the cottage in which he was lying, a baby not five months old.

[230]Seeante, i. 211.

[231]There is some account of him in Chambers'sTraditions of Edinburgh, ed. 1825, ii. 173, and in Dr. A. Carlyle'sAuto.p. 136.

[232]G. Chalmers (Life of Ruddiman, p. 270) says:—'In May, 1790, Lord Gardenston declared that he still intended to erect a proper monument in his village to the memory of the late learned and worthy Mr. Ruddiman.' In 1792 Gardenston, in hisMiscellanies, p. 257, attacked Ruddiman. 'It has of late become fashionable,' he wrote, 'to speak of Ruddiman in terms of the highest respect.' The monument was never raised.

[233]A Letter to the Inhabitants of Laurence Kirk, by F. Garden.

[234]'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.'Hebrewsxiii, 2.

[235]This, I find, is considered as obscure. I suppose Dr. Johnson meant, that I assiduously and earnestly recommended myself to some of the members, as in a canvass for an election into parliament. BOSWELL. Seeante, ii, 235.

[236]Goldsmith inRetaliation, a few months later, wrote of William Burke:—'Would you ask for his merits? alas! he had none; What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his own.' Seeante, iii 362, note 2.

[237]Seeante, iii. 260, 390, 425.

[238]Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 252) wrote of Monboddo in 1782:—'He is such an extravagant adorer of the ancients, that he scarcely allows the English language to be capable of any excellence, still less the French. He said we moderns are entirely degenerated. I asked in what? "In everything," was his answer. He loves slavery upon principle. I asked him how he could vindicate such an enormity. He owned it was because Plutarch justified it. He is so wedded to system that, as Lord Barrington said to me the other day, rather than sacrifice his favourite opinion that men were born with tails, he would be contented to wear one himself.'

[239]Scott, in a note onGuy Mannering, ed. 1860, iv. 267, writes of Monboddo:—'The conversation of the excellent old man, his high, gentleman-like, chivalrous spirit, the learning and wit with which he defended his fanciful paradoxes, the kind and liberal spirit of his hospitality, must render thesenoctes coenaequedear to all who, like the author (though then young), had the honour of sitting at his board.'

[240]Lord Cockburn, writing of the title that Jeffrey took when he was raised to the Bench in 1834, said:—'The Scotch Judges are styledLords; a title to which long usage has associated feelings of reverence in the minds of the people, who could not now be soon made to respect or understandMr. Justice. During its strongly feudalised condition, the landholders of Scotland, who were almost the sole judges, were really known only by the names of their estates. It was an insult, and in some parts of the country it is so still, to call a laird by his personal, instead of his territorial, title. But this assumption of two names, one official and one personal, and being addressed by the one and subscribing by the other, is wearing out, and will soon disappear entirely.' Cockburn'sJeffrey, i. 365. Seepost, p. 111, note 1.

[241]Georgics, i. 1.

[242]Walter Scott used to tell an instance of Lord Monboddo's agricultural enthusiasm, that returning home one night after an absence (I think) on circuit, he went out with a candle to look at a field of turnips, then a novelty in Scotland. CROKER.

[243]Johnson says the same in hisLife of John Philips, and adds:— 'This I was told by Miller, the great gardener and botanist, whose experience was, that "there were many books written on the same subject in prose, which do not contain so much truth as that poem."'Works, vii. 234. Miller is mentioned in Walpole'sLetters, ii. 352:—'There is extreme taste in the park [Hagley]: the seats are not the best, but there is not one absurdity. There is a ruined castle built by Miller, that would get him his freedom, even of Strawberry: it has the true rust of the Barons' Wars.'

[244]Seeante, p. 27.

[245]My note of this is much too short.Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio. ['I strive to be concise, I prove obscure.' FRANCIS. Horace,Ars Poet. l. 25.] Yet as I have resolved thatthe very Journal which Dr. Johnson read, shall be presented to the publick, I will not expand the text in any considerable degree, though I may occasionally supply a word to complete the sense, as I fill up the blanks of abbreviation, in the writing; neither of which can be said to change the genuineJournal. One of the best criticks of our age conjectures that the imperfect passage above was probably as follows: 'In his book we have an accurate display of a nation in war, and a nation in peace; the peasant is delineated as truly as the general; nay, even harvest-sport, and the modes of ancient theft are described.' BOSWELL. 'One of the best criticks is, I believe, Malone, who had 'perused the original manuscript.' Seeante, p. 1; andpost, Oct. 26, and under Nov. 11.

[246]It was in the Parliament-house that 'the ordinary Lords of Session,' the Scotch Judges, that is to say, held their courts.Ante, p. 39.

[247]Dr. Johnson modestly said, he had not read Homer so much as he wished he had done. But this conversation shews how well he was acquainted with the Maeonian bard; and he has shewn it still more in his criticism upon Pope'sHomer, in hisLifeof that Poet. My excellent friend, Mr. Langton, told me, he was once present at a dispute between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke, on the comparative merits of Homer and Virgil, which was carried on with extraordinary abilities on both sides. Dr. Johnson maintained the superiority of Homer. BOSWELL. Johnson told Windham that he had never read through the Odyssey in the original. Windham'sDiary, p. 17. Seeante, iii. 193, and May 1, 1783.

[248]Johnson ten years earlier told Boswell that he loved most 'the biographical part of literature.'Ante, i. 425. Goldsmith said of biography:—'It furnishes us with an opportunity of giving advice freely and without offence.... Counsels as well as compliments are best conveyed in an indirect and oblique manner, and this renders biography as well as fable a most convenient vehicle for instruction. An ingenious gentleman was asked what was the best lesson for youth; he answered, "The life of a good man." Being again asked what was the next best, he replied, "The life of a bad one."' Prior'sGoldsmith, i. 395.

[249]Seeante, p. 57.

[250]Ten years later he said:—'There is now a great deal more learning in the world than there was formerly; for it is universally diffused.'Ante, April 29,1783. Windham (Diary, p. 17) records 'Johnson's opinion that I could not name above five of my college acquaintances who read Latin with sufficient ease to make it pleasurable.'

[251]Seeante, ii. 352.

[252]'Warburton, whatever was his motive, undertook without solicitation to rescue Pope from the talons of Crousaz, by freeing him from the imputation of favouring fatality, or rejecting revelation; and from month to month continued a vindication of theEssay on Manin the literary journal of that time, called theRepublick of Letters'Johnson'sWorks, viii. 289. Pope wrote to Warburton of theEssay on Man:—'You understand my work better than I do myself.' Pope'sWorks, ed. 1886, ix. 211.

[253]Seeante, ii. 37, note I, and Pope'sWorks, ed. 1886, ix. 220. Allen was Ralph Allen of Prior Park near Bath, to whom Fielding dedicatedAmelia, and who is said to have been the original of Allworthy inTom Jones. It was he of whom Pope wrote:—

'Let low-born Allen, with an awkward shame,Do good by stealth and blush to find it fame.'

Epilogue to the Satires, i. 135.

Low-bornin later editions was changed tohumble. Warburton not only married his niece, but, on his death, became in her right owner of Prior Park.

[254]Mr. Mark Pattison (Satires of Pope, p. 158) points out Warburton's 'want of penetration in that subject [metaphysics] which he considered more peculiarly his own.' He said of 'the late Mr. Baxter' (Andrew Baxter, not Richard Baxter), that 'a few pages of his reasoning have not only more sense and substance than all the elegant discourses of Dr. Berkeley, but infinitely better entitle him to the character of a great genius.'

[255]It is of Warburton that Churchill wrote inThe Duellist (Poems,ed. 1766, ii. 82):—

'To prove his faith which all admitIs at least equal to his wit,And make himself a man of note,He in defence of Scripture wrote;So long he wrote, and long about it,That e'en believers 'gan to doubt it.'

[256]I find some doubt has been entertained concerning Dr. Johnson's meaning here. It is to be supposed that he meant, 'when a king shall again be entertained in Scotland.' BOSWELL.

[257]Perhaps among these ladies was the Miss Burnet of Monboddo, on whom Burns wrote an elegy.

[258]In theRambler, No. 98, entitledThe Necessity of Cultivating Politeness, Johnson says:—'The universal axiom in which all complaisance is included, and from which flow all the formalities which custom has established in civilized nations, is,That no man shall give any preference to himself.'In the same paper, he says that 'unnecessarily to obtrude unpleasing ideas is a species of oppression.'

[259]Act ii. sc. 5.

[260]Perhaps he was referring to Polyphemus's club, which was

'Of height and bulk so vastThe largest ship might claim it for a mast.'

Pope'sOdyssey, ix. 382.

Or to Agamemnon's sceptre:—

'Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear.'

Iliad, i. 310.

[261]'We agreed pretty well, only we disputed in adjusting the claims of merit between a shopkeeper of London and a savage of the American wildernesses. Our opinions were, I think, maintained on both sides without full conviction; Monboddo declared boldly for the savage, and I, perhaps for that reason, sided with the citizen.'Piozzi Letters, i. 115.

[262]

'Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,From Macedonia's madman to the Swede;The whole strange purpose of their lives to find,Or make, an enemy of all mankind!Not one looks backward, onward still he goes,Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nose.'

Essay on Man,iv. 219.

[263]Maccaroniis not in Johnson'sDictionary. Horace Walpole (Letters, iv. 178) on Feb. 6, 1764, mentions 'the Maccaroni Club, which is composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying-glasses.' On the following Dec. 16 he says:—'The Maccaroni Club has quite absorbed Arthur's; for, you know, old fools will hobble after young ones.'Ib.p. 302. Seepost, Sept. 12, forbuck.

[264]'We came late to Aberdeen, where I found my dear mistress's letter, and learned that all our little people were happily recovered of the measles. Every part of your letter was pleasing.'Piozzi Letters, i. 115. For Johnson's use of the wordmistressin speaking of Mrs. Thrale seeante, i. 494.

[265]Seeante, ii. 455. 'They taught us,' said one of the Professors, 'to raise cabbage and make shoes, How they lived without shoes may yet be seen; but in the passage through villages it seems to him that surveys their gardens, that when they had not cabbage they had nothing.'Piozzi Letters, i. 116. Johnson in the same letter says that 'New Aberdeen is built of that granite which is used for thenewpavement in London.'

[266]'In Aberdeen I first saw the women in plaids.'Piozzi Letters, i. 116.

[267]Seven years later Mackintosh, on entering King's College, found there the son of Johnson's old friend, 'the learned Dr. Charles Burney, finishing his term at Aberdeen.' Among his fellow-students were also some English Dissenters, among them Robert Hall. Mackintosh'sLife,i. 10, 13. In Forbes'sLife of Beattie(ed. 1824, p. 169) is a letter by Beattie, dated Oct. 15, 1773, in which the English and Scotch Universities are compared. Colman, in hisRandom Records,ii. 85, gives an account of his life at Aberdeen as a student.

[268]Lord Bolingbroke (Works, iii. 347) in 1735 speaks of 'the little care that is taken in the training up our youth,' and adds, 'surely it is impossible to take less.' Seeante, ii. 407, and iii. 12.

[269]London, 2d May, 1778. Dr. Johnson acknowledged that he was himself the authour of the translation above alluded to, and dictated it to me as follows:—

Quos laudet vates Graius Romanus et AnglusTres tria temporibus secla dedere suis.Sublime ingenium Graius; Romanus habebatCarmen grande sonans; Anglus utrumque tulit.Nil majus Natura capit: clarare prioresQuae potuere duos tertius unus habet. BOSWELL.

It was on May 2, 1778, that Johnson attacked Boswell with such rudeness that he kept away from him for a week.Ante, iii. 337.

[270]'We were on both sides glad of the interview, having not seen nor perhaps thought on one another for many years; but we had no emulation, nor had either of us risen to the other's envy, and our old kindness was easily renewed.'Piozzi Letters, i. 117.

[271]Johnson wrote on Sept. 30:—'Barley-broth is a constant dish, and is made well in every house. A stranger, if he is prudent, will secure his share, for it is not certain that he will be able to eat anything else.'Piozzi Letters, i. p. 160.

[272]Seeante. p. 24.

[273]Genesis, ix. 6.

[274]My worthy, intelligent, and candid friend, Dr. Kippis, informs me, that several divines have thus explained the mediation of our Saviour. What Dr. Johnson now delivered, was but a temporary opinion; for he afterwards was fully convinced of thepropitiatory sacrifice, as I shall shew at large in my future work,The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.BOSWELL. For Dr. Kippis seeante, iii. 174, and for Johnson on the propitiatory sacrifice, iv. 124.

[275]Malachi, iv. 2.

[276]St. Luke, ii 32.

[277]'Healinginhis wings,'Malachi, iv. 2.

[278]'He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.'St. Mark, xvi. 16.

[279]Mr. Langton. Seeante, ii. 254, 265.

[280]Spedding'sBacon, vii. 271. The poem is also given inThe Golden Treasury, p. 37; where, however, 'limnsthewater' is changed into 'limnsonwater.'

[281]'Addison now returned to his vocation, and began to plan literary occupations for his future life. He purposed a tragedy on the death of Socrates... He engaged in a nobler work, a defence of the Christian religion, of which part was published after his death.' Johnson'sWorks, vii. 441, and Addison'sWorks, ed. 1856, v. 103.

[282]Dr. Beattie was so kindly entertained in England, that he had not yet returned home. BOSWELL. Beattie was staying in London till his pension got settled. Early in July he had been told that he was to have a pension of £200 a year (ante, ii. 264, note 2). It was not till Aug. 20 that it was conferred. On July 9, he, in company with Sir Joshua Reynolds, received the degree of D.C.L. at Oxford. On Aug. 24, he had a long interview with the King; 'who asked,' Beattie records, 'whether we had any good preachers at Aberdeen. I said "Yes," and named Campbell and Gerard, with whose names, however, I did not find that he was acquainted.' It was this same summer that Reynolds painted him in 'the allegorical picture representing the triumph of truth over scepticism and infidelity' (post, Oct. 1, note). Forbes'sBeattie, ed. 1824, pp. 151-6, 167.

[283]Dr. Johnson's burgess-ticket was in these words:—'Aberdoniae, vigesimo tertio die mensis Augusti, anno Domini millesimo septingentesimo septuagesimo tertio, in presentia honorabilium virorum, Jacobi Jopp, armigeri, praepositi, Adami Duff, Gulielmi Young, Georgii Marr, et Gulielmi Forbes, Balivorum, Gulielmi Rainie Decani guildae, et Joannis Nicoll Thesaurarii dicti burgi. 'Quo die vir generosus et doctrina clarus, Samuel Johnson, LL.D. receptus et admissus fuit in municipes et fratres guildae: praefati burgi de Aberdeen. In deditissimi amoris et affectus ac eximiae observantiae tesseram, quibus dicti Magistratus eum amplectuntur. Extractum per me, ALEX. CARNEGIE.' BOSWELL. 'I was presented with the freedom of the city, not in a gold box, but in good Latin. Let me pay Scotland one just praise; there was no officer gaping for a fee; this could have been said of no city on the English side of the Tweed.'Piozzi Letters, i. 117. Baretti, in a MS. note on this passage, says:—'Throughout England nothing is done for nothing. Stop a moment to look at the rusticks mowing a field, and they will presently quit their work to come to you, and ask something to drink.' Aberdeen conferred its freedom so liberally about this time that it is surprising that Boswell was passed over. George Colman the younger, when a youth of eighteen, was sent to King's College. He says in his worthlessRandom Records, ii. 99:—'I had scarcely been a week in Old Aberdeen, when the Lord Provost of the New Town invited me to drink wine with him one evening in the Town Hall; there I found a numerous company assembled. The object of this meeting was soon declared to me by the Lord Provost, who drank my health, and presented me with the freedom of the City.' Two of his English fellow-students, of a little older standing, had, he said, received the same honour. His statement seemed to me incredible; but by the politeness of the Town-clerk, W. Gordon, Esq., I have found out that in the main it is correct. Colman, with one of the two, was admitted as an Honorary Burgess on Oct. 8, 1781, being described asvir generosus; the other had been admitted earlier. The population of Aberdeen and its suburbs in 1769 was, according to Pennant, 16,000. Pennant'sTour, p. 117.

[284]'King's College in Aberdeen was an exact model of the University of Paris. Its founder, Bishop [not Archbishop] Elphinstone, had been a Professor at Paris and at Orleans.' Burton'sScotland, ed. 1873, iii. 404. On p. 20, Dr. Burton describes him as 'the rich accomplished scholar and French courtier Elphinstone, munificently endowing a University after the model of the University of Paris.'

[285]Boswell projected the following works:—1. An edition ofJohnson's Poems. Ante, i. 16. 2. A work in which the merit of Addison's poetry shall be maintained,ib. p. 225. 3. AHistory of Sweden, ii. 156. 4. ALife of Thomas Ruddiman, ib.p. 216. 5. An edition of Walton'sLivesiii. 107. 6. AHistory of the Civil War inGreat Britain in1745 and 1746,ib., p. 162.

7. ALife of Sir Robert Sibbald, ib.p. 227. 8 An account of his own Travels,ib. p. 300. 9. A Collection, with notes, of old tenures and charters of Scotland,ib. p. 414, note 3. 10. AHistory of James IV.11. 'A quarto volume to be embellished with fine plates, on the subject of the controversy (ante, ii. 367) occasioned by theBeggar's Opera.' Murray'sJohnsoniana, ed. 1836, p. 502.

Thomas Boswell received from James IV. the estate of Auchinleck.Ante, ii. 413. Seepost, Nov. 4.

[286]Mackintosh says, in hisLife, i. 9:—'In October, 1780, I was admitted into the Greek class, then taught by Mr. Leslie, who did not aspire beyond teaching us the first rudiments of the language; more would, I believe, have been useless to his scholars.'

[287]'Boswell was very angry that the Aberdeen professors would not talk.'Piozzi Letters, i. 118. Dr. Robertson and Dr. Blair, whom Boswell, five years earlier, invited to meet Johnson at supper, 'with an excess of prudence hardly opened their lips' (ante, ii. 63). At Glasgow the professors did not dare to talk much (post, Oct. 29). On another occasion when Johnson came in, the company 'were all as quiet as a school upon the entrance of the headmaster.'Ante, iii. 332.

[288]Dr. Beattie says that this printer was Strahan. He had seen the letter mentioned by Gerard, and many other letters too from the Bishop to Strahan. 'They were,' he continues, 'very particularly acquainted.' He adds that 'Strahan was eminently skilled in composition, and had corrected (as he told me himself) the phraseology of both Mr. Hume and Dr. Robertson.' Forbes'sBeattie, ed. 1824, p. 341.

[289]An instance of this is given in Johnson'sWorks, viii. 288:—'Warburton had in the early part of his life pleased himself with the notice of inferior wits, and corresponded with the enemies of Pope. A letter was produced, when he had perhaps himself forgotten it, in which he tells Concanen, "Dryden, I observe, borrows for want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius; Milton out of pride, and Addison out of modesty."'

[290]'Goldsmith asserted that Warburton was a weak writer. "Warburton," said Johnson, "may be absurd, but he will never be weak; he flounders well."' Stockdale'sMemoirs, ii. 64. See Appendix A.

[291]The Doctrine of Grace; or the Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit vindicated from the Insults of Infidelity and the Abuses of Fanaticism, 1762.

[292]A Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester, occasioned by his Tract on the Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit, by John Wesley, 1762.

[293]Malone records:—'I could not find from Mr. Walpole that his father [Sir Robert] read any other book but Sydenham in his retirement.' To his admiration of Sydenham his death was attributed; for it led him to treat himself wrongly when he was suffering from the stone. Prior'sMalone, p. 387. Johnson wrote aLife of Sydenham. In it he ridicules the notion that 'a man eminent for integritypractised Medicine by chance, and grew wise only by murder.'Works, vi. 409.

[294]All this, as Dr. Johnson suspected at the time, was the immediate invention of his own lively imagination; for there is not one word of it in Mr. Locke's complimentary performance. My readers will, I have no doubt, like to be satisfied, by comparing them; and, at any rate, it may entertain them to read verses composed by our great metaphysician, when a Bachelor in Physick. AUCTORI, IN TRACTATUM EJUS DE FEBRIBUS.

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