'With no poetick ardour fir'd,I press [press'd] the bed where Wilmot lay;That here he liv'd [lov'd], or here expir'd,Begets no numbers, grave or gay.'BOSWELL.
'With no poetick ardour fir'd,I press [press'd] the bed where Wilmot lay;That here he liv'd [lov'd], or here expir'd,Begets no numbers, grave or gay.'BOSWELL.
'With no poetick ardour fir'd,I press [press'd] the bed where Wilmot lay;That here he liv'd [lov'd], or here expir'd,Begets no numbers, grave or gay.'BOSWELL.
[545]Seeante, iv. 60, 187.
[546]Seeante, iv. 113 and 315.
[547]'This was written while Mr. Wilkes was Sheriff of London, and when it was to be feared he would rattle his chain a year longer as Lord Mayor.' Note to Campbell'sBritish Poets, p. 662. By 'here' the poet means atTyburn.
[548]With virtue weigh'd, what worthless trash is gold! BOSWELL.
[549]Since the first edition of this book, an ingenious friend has observed to me, that Dr. Johnson had probably been thinking on the reward which was offered by government for the apprehension of the grandson of King James II, and that he meant by these words to express his admiration of the Highlanders, whose fidelity and attachment had resisted the golden temptation that had been held out to them. BOSWELL.
[550]On the subject of Lady Margaret Macdonald, it is impossible to omit an anecdote which does much honour to Frederick, Prince of Wales. By some chance Lady Margaret had been presented to the princess, who, when she learnt what share she had taken in the Chevalier's escape, hastened to excuse herself to the prince, and exlain to him that she was not aware that Lady Margaret was the person who had harboured the fugitive. The prince's answer was noble: 'And wouldyounot have done the same, madam, had he come to you, as to her, in distress and danger? I hope—I am sure you would!' WALTER SCOTT.
[551]This old Scottishmember of parliament, I am informed, is still living (1785). BOSWELL.
[552]I cannot find that this account was ever published. Mr. Lumisden is mentionedante, ii. 401, note 2.
[553]This word is not in Johnson'sDictionary.
[554]Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 153) describes him in 1745 as 'a good-looking man of about five feet ten inches; his hair was dark red, and his eyes black. His features were regular, his visage long, much sunburnt and freckled, and his countenance thoughtful and melancholy.' When the Pretender was in London in 1750, 'he came one evening,' writes Dr. W. King (Anec. p. 199) 'to my lodgings, and drank tea with me; my servant, after he was gone, said to me, that he thought my new visitor very like Prince Charles. "Why," said I, "have you ever seen Prince Charles?" "No, Sir," said the fellow, "but this gentleman, whoever he may be, exactly resembles the busts which are sold in Red Lionstreet, and are said to be the busts of Prince Charles." The truth is, these busts were taken in plaster of Paris from his face. He has an handsome face and good eyes.'
[555]Sir Walter Scott, writing of his childhood, mentions 'the stories told in my hearing of the cruelties after the battle of Culloden. One or two of our own distant relations had fallen, and I remember of (sic) detesting the name of Cumberland with more than infant hatred.' Lockhart'sScott, i. 24. 'I was,' writes Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto, p. 190), 'in the coffee-house with Smollett when the news of the battle of Culloden arrived, and when London all over was in a perfect uproar of joy.' On coming out into the street, 'Smollett,' he continues, 'cautioned me against speaking a word, lest the mob should discover my country, and become insolent, "for John Bull," says he; "is as haughty and valiant to-night as he was abject and cowardly on the Black Wednesday when the Highlanders were at Derby." I saw not Smollett again for some time after, when he shewed me his manuscript of hisTears of Scotland. Smollett, though a Tory, was not a Jacobite, but he had the feelings of a Scotch gentleman on the reported cruelties that were said to be exercised after the battle of Culloden.' Seeante, ii. 374, for the madman 'beating his straw, supposing it was the Duke of Cumberland, whom he was punishing for his cruelties in Scotland in 1746.'
[556]'He was obliged to trust his life to the fidelity of above fifty individuals, and many of these were in the lowest paths of fortune. They knew that a price of £30,000 was set upon his head, and that by betraying him they should enjoy wealth and affluence.' Smollett'sHist. of England, iii. 184.
[557]'Que les hommes privés, qui se plaignent de leurs petites infortunes, jettent les yeux sur ce prince et sur ses ancêtres.'Siècle de Louis XV, ch. 25.
[558]'I never heard him express any noble or benevolent sentiments, or discover any sorrow or compassion for the misfortunes of so many worthy men who had suffered in his cause. But the most odious part of his character is his love of money, a vice which I do not remember to have been imputed by our historians to any of his ancestors, and is the certain index of a base and little mind. I have known this gentleman, with 2000 Louis d'ors in his strong box, pretend he was in great distress, and borrow money from a lady in Paris, who was not in affluent circumstances.' Dr. W. King'sAnec.p. 201. 'Lord Marischal,' writes Hume, 'had a very bad opinion of this unfortunate prince; and thought there was no vice so mean or atrocious of which he was not capable; of which he gave me several instances.' J. H. Burton'sHume, ii. 464.
[559]Siècle de Louis XIV, ch. 15. The accentuation of this passage, which was very incorrect as quoted by Boswell, I have corrected.
[560]By banishment he meant, I conjecture, transportation as a convict-slave to the American plantations.
[561]Wesley in hisJournal—the reference I have mislaid—seemed from this consideration almost to regret a reprieve that came to a penitent convict.
[562]Hume describes how in 1753 (? 1750) the Pretender, on his secret visit to London, 'came to the house of a lady (who I imagined to be Lady Primrose) without giving her any preparatory information; and entered the room where she had a pretty large company with her, and was herself playing at cards. He was announced by the servant under another name. She thought the cards would have dropped from her hands on seeing him. But she had presence enough of mind to call him by the name he assumed.' J.H. Burton'sHume, ii. 462. Mr. Croker (Croker'sBoswell, p. 331) prints an autograph letter from Flora Macdonald which shows that Lady Primrose in 1751 had lodged £627 in a friend's hands for her behoof, and that she had in view to add more.
[563]It seems that the Pretender was only once in London, and that it was in 1750.Ante, i. 279, note 5. I suspect that 1759 is Boswell's mistake or his printer's. From what Johnson goes on to say it is clear that George II. was in Germany at the time of the Prince's secret visit. He was there the greater part of 1750, but not in 1753 or 1759. In 1750, moreover, 'the great army of the King of Prussia overawed Hanover.' Smollett'sEngland, iii. 297. This explains what Johnson says about the King of Prussia stopping the army in Germany.
[564]Seeante, iv. 165, 170.
[565]COMMENTARIES on the laws of England, book 1. chap. 3. BOSWELL.
[566]B. VI. chap. 3. Since I have quoted Mr. Archdeacon Paley upon one subject, I cannot but transcribe, from his excellent work, a distinguished passage in support of the Christian Revelation.—After shewing, in decent but strong terms, the unfairness of theindirectattempts of modern infidels to unsettle and perplex religious principles, and particularly the irony, banter, and sneer, of one whom he politely calls 'an eloquent historian,' the archdeacon thus expresses himself:—
'Seriousness is not constraint of thought; nor levity, freedom. Every mind which wishes the advancement of truth and knowledge, in the most important of all human researches, must abhor this licentiousness, as violating no less the laws of reasoning than the rights of decency. There is but one description of men to whose principles it ought to be tolerable. I mean that class of reasoners who can seelittlein christianity even supposing it to be true. To such adversaries we address this reflection.—HadJesus Christdelivered no other declaration than the following, "The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth,—they that have done well [good] unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation," [St. Johnv. 25] he had pronounced a message of inestimable importance, and well worthy of that splendid apparatus of prophecy and miracles with which his mission was introduced and attested:—a message in which the wisest of mankind would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts, and rest to their inquiries. It is idle to say that a future state had been discovered already.—It had been discovered as the Copernican System was;—it was one guess amongst many. He alone discovers whoproves, and no man can prove this point but the teacher who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from GOD.'—Book V. chap. 9.
If infidelity be disingenuously dispersed in every shape that is likely to allure, surprise, or beguile the imagination,—in a fable, a tale, a novel, a poem,—in books of travels, of philosophy, of natural history,—as Mr. Paley has well observed,—I hope it is fair in me thus to meet such poison with an unexpected antidote, which I cannot doubt will be found powerful. BOSWELL. The 'eloquent historian' was Gibbon. See Paley'sPrinciples, ed. 1786, p. 395.
[567]InThe Life of Johnson (ante, iii. 113), Boswell quotes these words, without shewing that they are his own; but italicises not fervour, but loyalty.
[568]'Whose service is perfect freedom.'Book of Common Prayer.
[569]Seeante, i. 353, note 1.
[570]Ovid,Ars Amatoria, iii. 121.
[571]
'This facile temper of the beauteous sexGreat Agamemnon, brave Pelides proved.'
'This facile temper of the beauteous sexGreat Agamemnon, brave Pelides proved.'
'This facile temper of the beauteous sexGreat Agamemnon, brave Pelides proved.'
These two lines follow the four which Boswell quotes.Agis, act iv.
[572]Agis, a tragedy, by John Home. BOSWELL.
[573]Seeante, p. 27.
[574]A misprint, I suppose, fordesigning.
[575]'Next in dignity to the laird is the tacksman; a large taker or leaseholder of land, of which he keeps part as a domain in his own hand, and lets part to under-tenants. The tacksman is necessarily a man capable of securing to the laird the whole rent, and is commonly a collateral relation.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 82.
[576]Alettre de cachet.
[577]Ante, p. 159.
[578]'It is related that at Dunvegan Lady Macleod, having poured out for Dr. Johnson sixteen cups of tea, asked him if a small basin would not save him trouble, and be more agreeable. "I wonder, Madam," answered he roughly, "why all the ladies ask me such questions. It is to save yourselves trouble, Madam, and not me." The lady was silent and resumed her task.' Northcote'sReynolds, i. 81.
[579]'In the garden-or rather the orchard which was formerly the garden-is a pretty cascade, divided into two branches, and called Rorie More's Nurse, because he loved to be lulled to sleep by the sound of it.' Lockhart'sScott, iv. 304.
[580]It has been said that she expressed considerable dissatisfaction at Dr. Johnson's rude behaviour at Dunvegan. Her grandson, the present Macleod, assures me that it was not so: 'they were all,' he says emphatically, 'delightedwith him.' CROKER. Mr. Croker refers, I think, to a communication from Sir Walter Scott, published in theCroker Corres. ii. 33. Scott writes:—'When wind-bound at Dunvegan, Johnson's temper became most execrable, and beyond all endurance, save that of his guide. The Highlanders, who are very courteous in their way, held him in great contempt for his want of breeding, but had an idea at the same time there was something respectable about him, they could not tell what, and long spoke of him as the Sassenachmohr, or large Saxon.'
[581]'I long to be again in civilized life.'Ante, p. 183.
[582]Seeante, iii. 406.
[583]Johnson refers, I think, to a passage inL'Esprit des Lois, Book xvi. chap. 4, where Montesquieu says:—'J'avoue que si ce que les relations nous disent était vrai, qu'à Bantam il y a dix femmes pour un homme, ce serait un cas bien particulier de la polygamie. Dans tout ceci je ne justifie pas les usages, mais j'en rends les raisons.'
[584]What my friend treated as so wild a supposition, has actually happened in the Western islands of Scotland, if we may believe Martin, who tells it of the islands of Col and Tyr-yi, and says that it is proved by the parish registers. BOSWELL. 'The Isle of Coll produces more boys than girls, and the Isle of Tire-iy more girls than boys; as if nature intended both these isles for mutual alliances, without being at the trouble of going to the adjacent isles or continent to be matched. The parish-book in which the number of the baptised is to be seen, confirms this observation.' Martin'sWestern Islands,p. 271.
[585]A Dissertation on the Gout, by W. Cadogan, M.D., 1771. It went through nine editions in its first year.
[586]This was a general reflection against Dr. Cadogan, when his very popular book was first published. It was said, that whatever precepts he might give to others, he himself indulged freely in the bottle. But I have since had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with him, and, if his own testimony may be believed, (and I have never heard it impeached,) his course of life has been conformable to his doctrine. BOSWELL.
[587]'April 7, 1765. I purpose to rise at eight, because, though I shall not yet rise early, it will be much earlier than I now rise, for I often lie till two.'Pr. and Med.p. 62. 'Sept. 18, 1771. My nocturnal complaints grow less troublesome towards morning; and I am tempted to repair the deficiencies of the night. I think, however, to try to rise every day by eight, and to combat indolence as I shall obtain strength.'Ib.p. 105. 'April 14, 1775. As my life has from my earliest years been wasted in a morning bed, my purpose is from Easter day to rise early, not later than eight.'Ib.p. 139.
[588]Seepost, Oct. 25.
[589]Seeante, iv. under Dec. 2, 1784.
[590]Miss Mulso (Mrs. Chapone) wrote in 1753:—'I had the assurance to dispute with Mr. Johnson on the subject of human malignity, and wondered to hear a man, who by his actions shews so much benevolence, maintain that the human heart is naturally malevolent, and that all the benevolence we see in the few who are good is acquired by reason and religion.'Life of Mrs. Chapone, p.73. Seepost, p. 214.
[591]This act was passed in 1746.
[592]Isaiah, ii. 4.
[593]Sir Walter Scott, after mentioning Lord Orford's (Horace Walpole)History of His Own Time, continues:—'The Memoirs of our Scots Sir George Mackenzie are of the same class—both immersed in little political detail, and the struggling skirmish of party, seem to have lost sight of the great progressive movements of human affairs.' Lockhart'sScottvii. 12.
[594]'Illum jura potius ponere quam de jure respondere dixisses; eique appropinquabant clientes tanquam judici potius quam advocato.' Mackenzie'sWorks, ed. 1716, vol. i. part 2, p. 7.
[595]'Opposuit ei providentia Nisbetum: qui summâ doctrinâ consummatâque eloquentiâ causas agebat, ut justitiae scalae in aequilibrio essent; nimiâ tamen arte semper utens artem suam suspectam reddebat. Quoties ergo conflixerunt, penes Gilmorum gloria, penes Nisbetum palma fuit; quoniam in hoc plus artis et cultus, in illo naturae et virium.'Ib.
[596]He often indulged himself in every species of pleasantry and wit. BOSWELL.
[597]But like the hawk, having soared with a lofty flight to a height which the eye could not reach, he was wont to swoop upon his quarry with wonderful rapidity. BOSWELL. These two quotations are part of the same paragraph, and are not even separated by a word.Ib.p. 6.
[598]Seeante, i. 453; iii. 323; iv. 276; and v. 32.
[599]Some years later he said that 'when Burke lets himself down to jocularity he is in the kennel.'Ante, iv. 276.
[600]Cicero and Demosthenes, no doubt, were brought in by the passage about Nicholson. Mackenzie continues:—'Hic primus nos a Syllogismorum servitute manumisit et Aristotelem Demostheni potius quam Ciceroni forum concedere coegit.' P. 6.
[601]Seeanteii. 435 and iv. 149, note 3.
[602]Seeante, i. 103.
[603]Seeanteii 436
[604]Seeante, i. 65.
[605]On Sept. 13, 1777, Johnson wrote:—'Boswell shrinks from the Baltick expedition, which, I think, is the best scheme in our power.'Ante, iii. 134, note 1.
[606]Seeante, ii. 59, note 1.
[607]Seeante, iii. 368.
[608]'Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning ... nor is caution ever so necessary as with associates or opponents of feeble minds.'The Idler, No. 92. In a letter to Dr. Taylor Johnson says:—'To help the ignorant commonly requires much patience, for the ignorant are always trying to be cunning.'Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 462. Churchill, inThe Journey(Poems, ed. 1766, ii. 327), says:—
''Gainst fools be guarded; 'tis a certain rule,Wits are safe things, there's danger in a fool.'
''Gainst fools be guarded; 'tis a certain rule,Wits are safe things, there's danger in a fool.'
''Gainst fools be guarded; 'tis a certain rule,Wits are safe things, there's danger in a fool.'
[609]Seeante, p. 173.
[610]
'For thee we dim the eyes, and stuff the headWith all such reading as was never read;For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,And write  about it, goddess, and about it.'
'For thee we dim the eyes, and stuff the headWith all such reading as was never read;For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,And write  about it, goddess, and about it.'
'For thee we dim the eyes, and stuff the headWith all such reading as was never read;For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,And write  about it, goddess, and about it.'
The Dunciad, iv. 249.
[611]Genius is chiefly exerted in historical pictures; and the art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life; what is greatest is not always best. I should grieve to see Reynolds transfer to heroes and to goddesses, to empty splendour and to airy fiction, that art which is now employed in diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead.'The Idler, No. 45. 'Southey wrote thirty years later:—'I find daily more and more reason to wonder at the miserable ignorance of English historians, and to grieve with a sort of despondency at seeing how much that has been laid up among the stores of knowledge has been neglected and utterly forgotten.' Southey'sLife, ii. 264. On another occasion he said of Robertson:—'To write his introduction toCharles V, without reading theseLaws[theLawsof Alonso the Wise], is one of the thousand and one omissions for which he ought to be called rogue, as long as his volumes last.Ib. p. 318
[612]
'That eagle's fate and mine are one,Which on the shaft that made him die,Espy'd a feather of his own,Wherewith he wont to soar so high.'Epistle to a Lady.
'That eagle's fate and mine are one,Which on the shaft that made him die,Espy'd a feather of his own,Wherewith he wont to soar so high.'Epistle to a Lady.
'That eagle's fate and mine are one,Which on the shaft that made him die,Espy'd a feather of his own,Wherewith he wont to soar so high.'Epistle to a Lady.
Anderson'sPoets, v. 480.
[613]Seeante, iii. 271.
[614]'In England there may be reason for raising the rents (in a certain degree) where the value of lands is increased by accession of commerce, ...but here (contrary to all policy) the great men begin at the wrong end, with squeezing the bag, before they have helped the poor tenant to fill it; by the introduction of manufactures.' Pennant'sScotland, ed. 1772, p. 191.
[615]Boswell refers, not to a passage inPennant, but to Johnson's admission that in his dispute with Monboddo, 'he might have taken the side of the savage, had anybody else taken the side of the shopkeeper.'Ante, p. 83.
[616]'Boswell, with some of his troublesome kindness, has informed this family and reminded me that the 18th of September is my birthday. The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.'Piozzi Letters, i. 134. Seeante, iii. 157.
[617]'At Dunvegan I had tasted lotus, and was in danger of forgetting that I was ever to depart, till Mr. Boswell sagely reproached me with my sluggishness and softness.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 67.
[618]Johnson wrote of the ministers:—'I saw not one in the islands whom I had reason to think either deficient in learning, or irregular in life; but found several with whom I could not converse without wishing, as my respect increased, that they had not been Presbyterians.'Ib. p. 102.
[619]Seeante, p. 142.
[620]Seeante, ii. 28.
[621]
'So horses they affirm to beMere engines made by geometry,And were invented first from engines,As Indian Britons were from penguins.'
'So horses they affirm to beMere engines made by geometry,And were invented first from engines,As Indian Britons were from penguins.'
'So horses they affirm to beMere engines made by geometry,And were invented first from engines,As Indian Britons were from penguins.'
Hudibras, part i. canto 2, line 57. Z. Gray, in a note on these lines, quotes Selden's note on Drayton'sPolyolbion:—'About the year 1570, Madoc, brother to David Ap Owen, Prince of Wales, made a sea-voyage to Florida; and by probability those names of Capo de Breton in Norimberg, and Penguin in part of the Northern America, for a white rock and a white-headed bird, according to the British, were relicts of this discovery.'
[622]Published in Edinburgh in 1763.
[623]See ante, ii. 76. 'Johnson used to say that in all family disputes the odds were in favour of the husband from his superior knowledge of life and manners.' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 210.
[624]He wrote to Dr. Taylor:—' Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.'Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 342.
[625]As I have faithfully recorded so many minute particulars, I hope I shall be pardoned for inserting so flattering an encomium on what is now offered to the publick. BOSWELL.
[626]Seeante, iv. 109, note 1.
[627]'The islanders of all degrees, whether of rank or understanding, universally admit it, except the ministers, who universally deny it, and are suspected to deny it in consequence of a system, against conviction.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 106.
[628]The true story of this lady, which happened in this century, is as frightfully romantick as if it had been the fiction of a gloomy fancy. She was the wife of one of the Lords of Session in Scotland, a man of the very first blood of his country. For some mysterious reasons, which have never been discovered, she was seized and carried off in the dark, she knew not by whom, and by nightly journeys was conveyed to the Highland shores, from whence she was transported by sea to the remote rock of St. Kilda, where she remained, amongst its few wild inhabitants, a forlorn prisoner, but had a constant supply of provisions, and a woman to wait on her. No inquiry was made after her, till she at last found means to convey a letter to a confidential friend, by the daughter of a Catechist, who concealed it in a clue of yarn. Information being thus obtained at Edinburgh, a ship was sent to bring her off; but intelligence of this being received, she was conveyed to M'Leod's island of Herries, where she died.
In CARSTARE'S STATE PAPERS we find an authentick narrative of Connor [Conn], a catholick priest, who turned protestant, being seized by some of Lord Seaforth's people, and detained prisoner in the island of Herries several years; he was fed with bread and water, and lodged in a house where he was exposed to the rains and cold. Sir James Ogilvy writes (June 18, 1667[1697]), that the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Advocate, and himself, were to meet next day, to take effectual methods to have this redressed. Connor was then still detained; p. 310.—This shews what private oppression might in the last century be practised in the Hebrides.
In the same collection [in a letter dated Sept. 15, 1700], the Earl of Argyle gives a picturesque account of an embassy from thegreatM'Neilof Barra, as that insular Chief used to be denominated:—'I received a letter yesterday from M'Neil of Barra, who lives very far off, sent by a gentleman in all formality, offering his service, which had made you laugh to see his entry. His style of his letter runs as if he were of another kingdom.'—Page 643. BOSWELL.
Sir Walter Scott says:—'I have seen Lady Grange's Journal. She had become privy to some of the Jacobite intrigues, in which her husband, Lord Grange (an Erskine, brother of the Earl of Mar, and a Lord of Session), and his family were engaged. Being on indifferent terms with her husband, she is said to have thrown out hints that she knew as much as would cost him his life. The judge probably thought with Mrs. Peachum, that it is rather an awkward state of domestic affairs, when the wife has it in her power to hang the husband. Lady Grange was the more to be dreaded, as she came of a vindictive race, being the grandchild [according to Mr. Chambers, the child] of that Chiesley of Dalry, who assassinated Sir George Lockhart, the Lord President. Many persons of importance in the Highlands were concerned in removing her testimony. The notorious Lovat, with a party of his men, were the direct agents in carrying her off; and St. Kilda, belonging then to Macleod, was selected as the place of confinement. The name by which she was spoken or written of wasCorpach, an ominous distinction, corresponding to what is calledsubjectin the lecture-room of an anatomist, orshotin the slang of the Westport murderers' [Burke and Hare]. Sir Walter adds that 'it was said of M'Neil of Barra, that when he dined, his bagpipes blew a particular strain, intimating that all the world might go to dinner.' Croker'sBoswell, p. 341.
[629]I doubt the justice of my fellow-traveller's remark concerning the French literati, many of whom, I am told, have considerable merit in conversation, as well as in their writings. That of Monsieur de Buffon, in particular, I am well assured, is highly instructive and entertaining. BOSWELL. Seeante, iii. 253.
[630]Horace Walpole, writing of 1758, says:—'Prize-fighting, in which we had horribly resembled the most barbarous and most polite nations, was suppressed by the legislature.'Memoirs of the Reign of George II, iii. 99. According to Mrs. Piozzi (Anec.p. 5), Johnson said that his 'father's brother, Andrew, kept the ring in Smithfield (where they wrestled and boxed) for a whole year, and never was thrown or conquered. Mr. Johnson was,' she continues, 'very conversant in the art of boxing.' She had heard him descant upon it 'much to the admiration of those who had no expectation of his skill in such matters.'
[631]Seeante, ii. 179, 226, and iv. 211.
[632]Seeante, p. 98.
[633]Seeante, i, 110.
[634]Seeante, i. 398, and ii. 15, 35, 441.
[635]Gibbon, thirteen years later, writing to Lord Sheffield about the commercial treaty with France, said (Misc. Works, ii. 399):—'I hope both nations are gainers; since otherwise it cannot be lasting; and such double mutual gain is surely possible in fair trade, though it could not easily happen in the mischievous amusements of war and gaming.'
[636]Johnson (Works, viii. 139), writing of gratitude and resentment, says:—'Though there are few who will practise a laborious virtue, there will never be wanting multitudes that will indulge an easy vice.'
[637]Aul. Gellius, lib. v. c. xiv. BOSWELL.
[638]'The difficulties in princes' business are many and great; but the greatest difficulty is often in their own mind. For it is common with princes, saith Tacitus, to will contradictories.Sunt plerumque regum voluntates vehementes, et inter se contrariae. For it is the solecism of power to think to command the end, and yet not to endure the mean.' Bacon'sEssays, No. xix.
[639]Yet Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Sept. 30:—'I am now no longer pleased with the delay; you can hear from me but seldom, and I cannot at all hear from you. It comes into my mind that some evil may happen.'Piozzi Letters, i. 148. On Oct. 15 he wrote to Mr. Thrale:—'Having for many weeks had no letter, my longings are very great to be informed how all things are at home, as you and mistress allow me to call it.... I beg to have my thoughts set at rest by a letter from you or my mistress.'Ib. p. 166. Seeante, iii. 4.
[640]Sir Walter Scott thus describes Dunvegan in 1814:—'The whole castle occupies a precipitous mass of rock overhanging the lake, divided by two or three islands in that place, which form a snug little harbour under the walls. There is a court-yard looking out upon the sea, protected by a battery, at least a succession of embrasures, for only two guns are pointed, and these unfit for service. The ancient entrance rose up a flight of steps cut in the rock, and passed into this court-yard through a portal, but this is now demolished. You land under the castle, and walking round find yourself in front of it. This was originally inaccessible, for a brook coming down on the one side, a chasm of the rocks on the other, and a ditch in front, made it impervious. But the late Macleod built a bridge over the stream, and the present laird is executing an entrance suitable to the character of this remarkable fortalice, by making a portal between two advanced towers, and an outer court, from which he proposes to throw a draw-bridge over to the high rock in front of the castle.' Lockhart'sScott, ed. 1839, iv. 303.
[641]
'Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube;Quae dat Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus.'
'Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube;Quae dat Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus.'
'Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube;Quae dat Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus.'
[642]Johnson says of this castle:—'It is so nearly entire, that it might have easily been made habitable, were there not an ominous tradition in the family, that the owner shall not long outlive the reparation. The grandfather of the present laird, in defiance of prediction, began the work, but desisted in a little time, and applied his money to worse uses.'Works, ix. 64.
[643]Macaulay (Essays, ed. 1843, i. 365) ends a lively piece of criticism on Mr. Croker by saying:—'It requires no Bentley or Casaubon to perceive that Philarchus is merely a false spelling for Phylarchus, the chief of a tribe.'
[644]Seeante, i. 180.
[645]Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1814:—'The monument is now nearly ruinous, and the inscription has fallen down.' Lockhart'sScott, iv. 308.
[646]'Wheel carriages they have none, but make a frame of timber, which is drawn by one horse, with the two points behind pressing on the ground. On this they sometimes drag home their sheaves, but often convey them home in a kind of open pannier, or frame of sticks, upon the horse's back.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 76. 'The young Laird of Col has attempted what no islander perhaps ever thought on. He has begun a road capable of a wheel-carriage. He has carried it about a mile.'Ib. p. 128.
[647]Captain Phipps had sailed in May of this year, and in the neighbourhood of Spitzbergen had reached the latitude of more than 80°. He returned to England in the end of September.Gent. Mag. 1774, p. 420.
[648]Aeneid, vi. II.
[649]'In the afternoon, an interval of calm sunshine courted us out to see a cave on the shore, famous for its echo. When we went into the boat, one of our companions was asked in Erse by the boatmen, who they were that came with him. He gave us characters, I suppose to our advantage, and was asked, in the spirit of the Highlands, whether I could recite a long series of ancestors. The boatmen said, as I perceived afterwards, that they heard the cry of an English ghost. This, Boswell says, disturbed him.... There was no echo; such is the fidelity of report.'Piozzi Letters, i. 156.
[650]'Laworlowsignifies a hill:ex. gr.Wardlaw, guard hill, Houndslow, the dog's hill.' Blackie'sEtymological Geography, p. 103.
[651]Pepys often mentions them. At first he praises them highly, but of one of the later ones—Tryphon—he writes:—'The play, though admirable, yet no pleasure almost in it, because just the very same design, and words, and sense, and plot, as every one of his plays have, any one of which would be held admirable, whereas so many of the same design and fancy do but dull one another.' Pepys'sDiary, ed. 1851, v. 63.
[652]The second and third earls are passed over by Johnson. It was the fourth earl who, as Charles Boyle, had been Bentley's antagonist. Of this controversy a full account is given in Lord Macaulay'sLife of Atterbury.
[653]The fifth earl, John. Seeante, i. 185, and iii. 249.
[654]Seeante, i. 9, and iii. 154.
[655]Seeante, ii. 129, and iii. 183.
[656]The young lord was married on the 8th of May, 1728, and the father's will is dated the 6th of Nov. following. 'Having,' says the testator, 'never observed that my son hath showed much taste or inclination, either for the entertainment or knowledge which study and learning afford, I give and bequeath all my books and mathematical instruments [with certain exceptions] to Christchurch College, in Oxford.' CROKER.
[657]HisLife of Swiftis written in the form ofLetters to his Son, the Hon. Hamilton Boyle.The fifteenth Letter, in which he finishes his criticism ofGulliver's Travels, affords a good instance of this 'studied variety of phrase.' 'I may finish my letter,' he writes, 'especially as the conclusion of it naturally turns my thoughts from Yahoos to one of the dearest pledges I have upon earth, yourself, to whom I am a most
Affectionate Father,'ORRERY.'
Affectionate Father,'ORRERY.'
Affectionate Father,'ORRERY.'
Seeante, i. 275-284, for Johnson's letters to Thomas Warton, many of which end 'in studied varieties of phrase.'
[658]The Conquest of Granadawas dedicated to the Duke of York. The conclusion is as follows:—'If at any time Almanzor fulfils the parts of personal valour and of conduct, of a soldier and of a general; or, if I could yet give him a character more advantageous that what he has, of the most unshaken friend, the greatest of subjects, and the best of masters; I should then draw all the world a true resemblance of your worth and virtues; at least as far as they are capable of being copied by the mean abilities of,
'Sir,
'Your Royal Highness's
'Most humble, and most
'Obedient servant,
'J. DRYDEN.'
'J. DRYDEN.'
[659]On the day of his coronation he was asked to pardon four young men who had broken the law against carrying arms. 'So long as I live,' he replied, 'every criminal must die.' 'He was inexorable in individual cases; he adhered to his laws with a rigour that amounted to cruelty, while in the framing of general rules we find him mild, yielding, and placable.' Ranke'sPopes, ed. 1866, i. 307, 311.
[660]Seeante, iii. 239, where he discusses the question of shooting a highwayman.
[661]InThe Rambler, No. 78, he says:—'I believe men may be generally observed to grow less tender as they advance in age.'
[662]He passed over his ownLife of Savage.
[663]'When I was a young fellow, I wanted to write theLife of Dryden' Ante, iii. 71.
[664]Seeante, p. 117.
[665]'I asked a very learned minister in Sky, who had used all arts to make me believe the genuineness of the book, whether at last he believed it himself; but he would not answer. He wished me to be deceived for the honour of his country; but would not directly and formally deceive me. Yet has this man's testimony been publickly produced, as of one that heldFingalto be the work of Ossian.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 115.
[666]A young lady had sung to him an Erse song. He asked her, 'What is that about? I question if she conceived that I did not understand it. For the entertainment of the company, said she. But, Madam, what is the meaning of it? It is a love song. This was all the intelligence that I could obtain; nor have I been able to procure the translation of a single line of Erse.'Piozzi Letters, i. 146. Seepost, Oct. 16
[667]This droll quotation, I have since found, was from a song in honour of the Earl of Essex, calledQueen Elisabeth's Champion, which is preserved in a collection of Old Ballads, in three volumes, published in London in different years, between 1720 and 1730. The full verse is as follows:—
'Oh! then bespoke the prentices all,Living in London, both proper and tall,In a kind letter sent straight to the Queen,For Essex's sake they would fight all.Raderer too, tandaro te,Raderer, tandorer, tan do re.'BOSWELL.
'Oh! then bespoke the prentices all,Living in London, both proper and tall,In a kind letter sent straight to the Queen,For Essex's sake they would fight all.Raderer too, tandaro te,Raderer, tandorer, tan do re.'BOSWELL.
'Oh! then bespoke the prentices all,Living in London, both proper and tall,In a kind letter sent straight to the Queen,For Essex's sake they would fight all.Raderer too, tandaro te,Raderer, tandorer, tan do re.'BOSWELL.
[668]La Condamine describes a tribe called the Tameos, on the north side of the river Tiger in South America, who have a word forthree. He continues:—'Happily for those who have transactions with them, their arithmetic goes no farther. The Brazilian tongue, a language spoken by people less savage, is equally barren; the people who speak it, where more than three is to be expressed, are obliged to use the Portuguese.' Pinkerton'sVoyages, xiv. 225.
[669]'It was Addison's practice, when he found any man invincibly wrong, to flatter his opinions by acquiescence, and sink him yet deeper in absurdity. This artifice of mischief was admired by Stella; and Swift seems to approve her admiration.' Johnson'sWorks, vii. 450. Swift, in hisCharacter of Mrs. Johnson(Stella), says:—'Whether this proceeded from her easiness in general, or from her indifference to persons, or from her despair of mending them, or from the same practice which she much liked in Mr. Addison, I cannot determine; but when she saw any of the company very warm in a wrong opinion, she was more inclined to confirm them in it than oppose them. The excuse she commonly gave, when her friends asked the reason, was, "That it prevented noise and saved time." Swift'sWorks, xiv. 254.
[670]In the Appendix to Blair'sCritical Dissertation on the Poems of OssianMacqueen is mentioned as one of his authorities for his statements.
[671]Seeante, iv. 262, note.
[672]I think it but justice to say, that I believe Dr. Johnson meant to ascribe Mr. M'Queen's conduct to inaccuracy and enthusiasm, and did not mean any severe imputation against him. BOSWELL.
[673]In Baretti's trial (ante, ii. 97, note I) he seems to have given his evidence clearly. What he had to say, however, was not much.
[674]Boswell had spoken before to Johnson about this omission.Ante, ii. 92.
[675]It has been triumphantly asked, 'Had not the plays of Shakspeare lain dormant for many years before the appearance of Mr. Garrick? Did he not exhibit the most excellent of them frequently for thirty years together, and render them extremely popular by his own inimitable performance?' He undoubtedly did. But Dr. Johnson's assertion has been misunderstood. Knowing as well as the objectors what has been just stated, he must necessarily have meant, that 'Mr. Garrick did not asa critickmake Shakspeare better known; he did notillustrateany onepassagein any of his plays by acuteness of disquisition, or sagacity of conjecture: and what had been done with any degree of excellence inthatway was the proper and immediate subject of his preface. I may add in support of this explanation the following anecdote, related to me by one of the ablest commentators on Shakspeare, who knew much of Dr. Johnson: 'Now I have quitted the theatre, cries Garrick, I will sit down and read Shakspeare.' ''Tis time you should, exclaimed Johnson, for I much doubt if you ever examined one of his plays from the first scene to the last.' BOSWELL. According to Davies (Life of Garrick, i. 120) during the twenty years' management of Drury Lane by Booth, Wilks and Cibber (about 1712-1732) not more than eight or nine of Shakspeare's plays were acted, whereas Garrick annually gave the public seventeen or eighteen.Romeo and Juliethad lain neglected near 80 years, when in 1748-9 Garrick brought it out, or rather a hash of it. 'Otway had made some alteration in the catastrophe, which Mr. Garrick greatly improved by the addition of a scene, which was written with a spirit not unworthy of Shakespeare himself.'Ib. p. 125. Murphy (Life of Garrick, p. 100), writing of this alteration, says:—'The catastrophe, as it now stands, is the most affecting in the whole compass of the drama.' Davies says (p. 20) that shortly before Garrick's time 'a taste for Shakespeare had been revived. The ladies had formed themselves into a society under the title of The Shakespeare Club. They bespoke every week some favourite play of his.' This revival was shown in the increasing number of readers of Shakespeare. It was in 1741 that Garrick began to act. In the previous sixteen years there had been published four editions of Pope'sShakespeareand two of Theobald's. In the next ten years were published five editions of Hanmer'sShakespeare, and two of Warburton's, besides Johnson'sObservations on Macbeth.Lowndes'sBibl. Man.ed. 1871, p. 2270.
[676]In her foolishEssay on Shakespeare, p. 15. Seeante, ii. 88.
[677]No man has less inclination to controversy than I have, particularly with a lady. But as I have claimed, and am conscious of being entitled to credit for the strictest fidelity, my respect for the publick obliges me to take notice of an insinuation which tends to impeach it.
Mrs. Piozzi (late Mrs. Thrale), to herAnecdotes of Dr. Johnson, added the following postscript:—
'Naples, Feb.10, 1786.
'Since the foregoing went to the press, having seen a passage from Mr. Boswell'sTour to the Hebrides,in which it is said, thatI could not get through Mrs. Montague's "Essay on Shakspeare,"I do not delay a moment to declare, that, on the contrary, I have always commended it myself, and heard it commended by every one else; and few things would give me more concern than to be thought incapable of tasting, or unwilling to testify my opinion of its excellence.'
It is remarkable that this postscript is so expressed, as not to point out the person who said that Mrs. Thrale could not get through Mrs. Montague's book; and therefore I think it necessary to remind Mrs. Piozzi, that the assertion concerning her was Dr. Johnson's, and not mine. The second observation that I shall make on this postscript is, that it does not deny the fact asserted, though I must acknowledge from the praise it bestows on Mrs. Montague's book, it may have been designed to convey that meaning.
What Mrs. Thrale's opinion is or was, or what she may or may not have said to Dr. Johnson concerning Mrs. Montague's book, it is not necessary for me to enquire. It is only incumbent on me to ascertain what Dr. Johnson said to me. I shall therefore confine myself to a very short state of the fact. The unfavourable opinion of Mrs. Montague's book, which Dr. Johnson, is here reported to have given, is, known to have been that which he uniformly expressed, as many of his friends well remember. So much, for the authenticity of the paragraph, as far as it relates to his own sentiments. The words containing the assertion, to which Mrs. Piozzi objects, are printed from my manuscript Journal, and were taken down at the time. The Journal was read by Dr. Johnson, who pointed out some inaccuracies, which I corrected, but did not mention any inaccuracy in the paragraph in question: and what is still more material, and very flattering to me, a considerable part of my Journal, containing this paragraph,was read several years ago by, Mrs. Thrale herself[seeante, ii. 383], who had it for some time in her possession, and returned it to me, without intimating that Dr. Johnson had mistaken her sentiments.
When the first edition of my Journal was passing through the press, it occurred to me that a peculiar delicacy was necessary to be observed in reporting the opinion of one literary lady concerning the performance of another; and I had such scruples on that head, that in the proof sheet I struck out the name of Mrs. Thrale from the above paragraph, and two or three hundred copies of my book were actually printed and published without it; of these Sir Joshua Reynolds's copy happened to be one. But while the sheet was working off, a friend, for whose opinion I have great respect, suggested that I had no right to deprive Mrs. Thrale of the high honour which Dr. Johnson had done her, by stating her opinion along with that of Mr. Beauclerk, as coinciding with, and, as it were, sanctioning his own. The observation appeared to me so weighty and conclusive, that I hastened to the printing-house, and, as a piece of justice, restored Mrs. Thrale to that place from which a too scrupulous delicacy had excluded her. On this simple state of facts I shall make no observation whatever. BOSWELL. This note was first published in the form of a letter to the Editor ofThe Gazetteeron April 17, 1786.
[678]Seeante, p. 215, for his knowledge of coining and brewing, andpost, p. 263, for his knowledge of threshing and thatching. Now and then, no doubt, 'he talked ostentatiously,' as he had at Fort George about Gunpowder (ante, p. 124). In theGent. Mag.for 1749, p. 55, there is a paper on theConstruction of Fireworks, which I have little doubt is his. The following passage is certainly Johnsonian:—'The excellency of a rocket consists in the largeness of the train of fire it emits, the solemnity of its motion (which should be rather slow at first, but augmenting as it rises), the straightness of its flight, and the height to which it ascends.'
[679]Perhaps Johnson refers to Stephen Hales'sStatical Essays(London, 1733), in which is an account of experiments made on the blood and blood-vessels of animals.
[680]Evidence was given at the Tichborne Trial to shew that it takes some years to learn the trade.
[681]Not the very tavern, which was burned down in the great fire. P. CUNNINGHAM.
[682]I do not see why I might not have been of this club without lessening my character. But Dr. Johnson's caution against supposing one's self concealed in London, may be very useful to prevent some people from doing many things, not only foolish, but criminal. BOSWELL.
[683]Seeante, iii. 318.
[684]Johnson definesairyasgay, sprightly, full of mirth, &c.
[685]'A man would be drowned by claret before it made him drunk.'Ante, iii. 381.
[686]Ante, p. 137.
[687]Seeanteii. 261.
[688]Lord Chesterfield wrote in 1747 (Misc. Works, iv. 231):— Drinking is a most beastly vice in every country, but it is really a ruinous one to Ireland; nine gentlemen in ten in Ireland are impoverished by the great quantity of claret, which from mistaken notions of hospitality and dignity, they think it necessary should be drunk in their houses. This expense leaves them no room to improve their estates by proper indulgence upon proper conditions to their tenants, who must pay them to the full, and upon the very day, that they may pay their wine-merchants.' In 1754 he wrote (ib.p.359):—If it would but please God by his lightning to blast all the vines in the world, and by his thunder to turn all the wines now in Ireland sour, as I most sincerely wish he would, Ireland would enjoy a degree of quiet and plenty that it has never yet known.'
[689]Seeante, p. 95.
[690]'The sea being broken by the multitude of islands does not roar with so much noise, nor beat the storm with such foamy violence as I have remarked on the coast of Sussex. Though, while I was in the Hebrides, the wind was extremely turbulent, I never saw very high billows.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 65.
[691]Johnson this day thus wrote of Mr. M'Queen to Mrs. Thrale:—'You find that all the islanders even in these recesses of life are not barbarous. One of the ministers who has adhered to us almost all the time is an excellent scholar.'Piozzi Letters,i. 157.
[692]Seepost, Nov. 6.
[693]This was a dexterous mode of description, for the purpose of his argument; for what he alluded to was, a Sermon published by the learned Dr. William Wishart, formerly principal of the college at Edinburgh, to warn menagainstconfiding in a death-bedrepentanceof the inefficacy of which he entertained notions very different from those of Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL.
[694]The Rev. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 441) thus writes of the English clergy whom he met at Harrogate in 1763:—'I had never seen so many of them together before, and between this and the following year I was able to form a true judgment of them. They are, in general—I mean the lower order—divided into bucks and prigs; of which the first, though inconceivably ignorant, and sometimes indecent in their morals, yet I held them to be most tolerable, because they were unassuming, and had no other affectation but that of behaving themselves like gentlemen. The other division of them, the prigs, are truly not to be endured, for they are but half learned, are ignorant of the world, narrow-minded, pedantic, and overbearing. And now and then you meet with arara aviswho is accomplished and agreeable, a man of the world without licentiousness, of learning without pedantry, and pious without sanctimony; but thisisarara avis'.
[695]Seeante, i. 446, note 1.
[696]Johnson definesmanagein this senseto train a horse to graceful action, and quotes Young:—