‘May 25, 1780.
Sir,
‘I know your disposition to second any literary attempt, and therefore venture upon the liberty of entreating you to procure from College or University registers, all the dates, or other informations which they can supply, relating to Ambrose Philips, Broome, and Gray, who were all of Cambridge, and of whose lives I am to give such accounts as I can gather. Be pleased to forgive this trouble from, Sir,
‘Your most humble servant,
‘SAM. JOHNSON.’
While Johnson was thus engaged in preparing a delightful literary entertainment for the world, the tranquillity of the metropolis of Great-Britain was unexpectedly disturbed, by the most horrid series of outrage that ever disgraced a civilised country. A relaxation of some of the severe penal provisions against our fellow-subjects of the Catholic communion had been granted by the legislature, with an opposition so inconsiderable that the genuine mildness of Christianity, united with liberal policy, seemed to have become general in this island[1321]. But a dark and malignant spirit of persecution soon shewed itself, in an unworthy petition for the repeal of the wise and humane statute. That petition was brought forward by a mob, with the evident purpose of intimidation, and was justly rejected. But the attempt was accompanied and followed by such daring violence as is unexampled in history. Of this extraordinary tumult, Dr. Johnson has given the following concise, lively, and just account in his _Letters to Mrs. Thrale[1322]:–
‘On Friday[1323], the good Protestants met in Saint George’s-Fields, at the summons of Lord George Gordon, and marching to Westminster, insulted the Lords and Commons, who all bore it with great tameness. At night the outrages began by the demolition of the mass-house by Lincoln’s-Inn.’
‘An exact journal of a week’s defiance of government I cannot give you. On Monday, Mr. Strahan[1324], who had been insulted, spoke to Lord Mansfield, who had I think been insulted too, of the licentiousness of the populace; and his Lordship treated it as a very slight irregularity. On Tuesday night[1325] they pulled down Fielding’s house, and burnt his goods in the street. They had gutted on Monday Sir George Savile’s house, but the building was saved. On Tuesday evening, leaving Fielding’s ruins, they went to Newgate to demand their companions who had been seized demolishing the chapel. The keeper could not release them but by the Mayor’s permission, which he went to ask; at his return he found all the prisoners released, and Newgate in a blaze. They then went to Bloomsbury, and fastened upon Lord Mansfield’s house, which they pulled down; and as for his goods, they totally burnt them[1326]. They have since gone to Caen-wood, but a guard was there before them. They plundered some Papists, I think, and burnt a mass-house[1327] in Moorfields the same night.’
‘On Wednesday I walked with Dr. Scott to look at Newgate, and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the Sessions-house at the Old-Bailey. There were not, I believe, a hundred; but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed, in full day. Such is the cowardice of a commercial place. On Wednesday they broke open the Fleet, and the King’s-Bench, and the Marshalsea, and Wood-street Compter, and Clerkenwell Bridewell, and released all the prisoners[1328].’
‘At night they set fire to the Fleet, and to the King’s-Bench, and I know not how many other places; and one might see the glare of conflagration fill the sky from many parts. The sight was dreadful. Some people were threatened: Mr. Strahan advised me to take care of myself. Such a time of terrour you have been happy in not seeing.’
‘The King said in Council, “That the magistrates had not done their duty, but that he would do his own;” and a proclamation was published, directing us to keep our servants within doors, as the peace was now to be preserved by force. The soldiers were sent out to different parts, and the town is now [_June_ 9] at quiet.’
‘The soldiers[1329] are stationed so as to be every where within call: there is no longer any body of rioters, and the individuals are hunted to their holes, and led to prison; Lord George was last night sent to the Tower. Mr. John Wilkes was this day[1330] in my neighbourhood, to seize the publisher of a seditious paper.’
‘Several chapels have been destroyed, and several inoffensive Papists have been plundered; but the high sport was to burn the gaols. This was a good rabble trick. The debtors and the criminals were all set at liberty; but of the criminals, as has always happened, many are already retaken; and two pirates have surrendered themselves, and it is expected that they will be pardoned.’
‘Government now acts again with its proper force; and we are all[1331] under the protection of the King and the law. I thought that it would be agreeable to you and my master to have my testimony to the publick security; and that you would sleep more quietly when I told you that you are safe.’
‘There has, indeed, been an universal panick from which the King was the first that recovered. Without the concurrence of his ministers, or the assistance of the civil magistrate, he put the soldiers in motion, and saved the town from calamities, such as a rabble’s government must naturally produce.’
‘The publick[1332] has escaped a very heavy calamity. The rioters attempted the Bank on Wednesday night, but in no great number; and like other thieves, with no great resolution. Jack Wilkes headed the party that drove them away. It is agreed, that if they had seized the Bank on Tuesday, at the height of the panick, when no resistance had been prepared, they might have carried irrecoverably away whatever they had found. Jack, who was always zealous for order and decency,[1333] declares that if he be trusted with power, he will not leave a rioter alive. There is, however, now no longer any need of heroism or bloodshed; no blue ribband[1334] is any longer worn[1335].’
Such was the end of this miserable sedition, from which London was delivered by the magnanimity of the Sovereign himself. Whatever some may maintain, I am satisfied that there was no combination or plan, either domestic or foreign; but that the mischief spread by a gradual contagion of frenzy, augmented by the quantities of fermented liquors, of which the deluded populace possessed themselves in the course of their depredations.
I should think myself very much to blame, did I here neglect to do justice to my esteemed friend Mr. Akerman, the keeper of Newgate, who long discharged a very important trust with an uniform intrepid firmness, and at the same time a tenderness and a liberal charity, which entitle him to be recorded with distinguished honour[1336].
Upon this occasion, from the timidity and negligence of magistracy on the one hand, and the almost incredible exertions of the mob on the other, the first prison of this great country was laid open, and the prisoners set free; but that Mr. Akerman, whose house was burnt, would have prevented all this, had proper aid been sent to him in due time, there can be no doubt.
Many years ago, a fire broke out in the brick part which was built as an addition to the old gaol of Newgate. The prisoners were in consternation and tumult, calling out, ‘We shall be burnt–we shall be burnt! Down with the gate–down with the gate!’ Mr. Akerman hastened to them, shewed himself at the gate, and having, after some confused vociferation of ‘Hear him–hear him!’ obtained a silent attention, he then calmly told them, that the gate must not go down; that they were under his care, and that they should not be permitted to escape: but that he could assure them, they need not be afraid of being burnt, for that the fire was not in the prison, properly so called, which was strongly built with stone; and that if they would engage to be quiet, he himself would come in to them, and conduct them to the further end of the building, and would not go out till they gave him leave. To this proposal they agreed; upon which Mr. Akerman, having first made them fall back from the gate, went in, and with a determined resolution, ordered the outer turnkey upon no account to open the gate, even though the prisoners (though he trusted they would not) should break their word, and by force bring himself to order it. ‘Never mind me, (said he,) should that happen.’ The prisoners peaceably followed him, while he conducted them through passages of which he had the keys, to the extremity of the gaol which was most distant from the fire. Having, by this very judicious conduct, fully satisfied them that there was no immediate risk, if any at all, he then addressed them thus: ‘Gentlemen, you are now convinced that I told you true. I have no doubt that the engines will soon extinguish this fire; if they should not, a sufficient guard will come, and you shall all be taken out and lodged in the Compters[1337]. I assure you, upon my word and honour, that I have not a farthing insured. I have left my house, that I might take care of you. I will keep my promise, and stay with you if you insist upon it; but if you will allow me to go out and look after my family and property, I shall[1338] be obliged to you.’ Struck with his behaviour, they called out, ‘Master Akerman, you have done bravely; it was very kind in you: by all means go and take care of your own concerns.’ He did so accordingly, while they remained, and were all preserved.
Johnson has been heard to relate the substance of this story with high praise, in which he was joined by Mr. Burke. My illustrious friend, speaking of Mr. Akerman’s kindness to his prisoners, pronounced this eulogy upon his character:–‘He who has long had constantly in his view the worst of mankind, and is yet eminent for the humanity of his disposition, must have had it originally in a great degree, and continued to cultivate it very carefully[1339].’
In the course of this month my brother David waited upon Dr. Johnson, with the following letter of introduction, which I had taken care should be lying ready on his arrival in London.
‘To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.
‘Edinburgh, April 29, 1780.
‘MY DEAR SIR,
‘This will be delivered to you by my brother David, on his return from Spain. You will be glad to see the man who vowed to “stand by the old castle of Auchinleck, with heart, purse, and sword;” that romantick family solemnity devised by me, of which you and I talked with complacency upon the spot. I trust that twelve years of absence have not lessened his feudal attachment; and that you will find him worthy of being introduced to your acquaintance.
‘I have the honour to be,
‘With affectionate veneration,
‘My dear Sir,
‘Your most faithful humble servant,
‘JAMES BOSWELL.’
Johnson received him very politely, and has thus mentioned him in a letter to Mrs. Thrale[1340]: ‘I have had with me a brother of Boswell’s, a Spanish merchant,[1341] whom the war has driven from his residence at Valentia; he is gone to see his friends, and will find Scotland but a sorry place after twelve years’ residence in a happier climate. He is a very agreeable man, and speaks no Scotch.’
‘To DR. BEATTIE, AT ABERDEEN.
‘Sir,
‘More years[1342] than I have any delight to reckon, have past since you and I saw one another; of this, however, there is no reason for making any reprehensory complaint–_Sic fata ferunt[1343]_. But methinks there might pass some small interchange of regard between us. If you say, that I ought to have written, I now write; and I write to tell you, that I have much kindness for you and Mrs. Beattie; and that I wish your health better, and your life long. Try change of air, and come a few degrees Southwards: a softer climate may do you both good; winter is coming on; and London will be warmer, and gayer, and busier, and more fertile of amusement than Aberdeen.
‘My health is better; but that will be little in the balance, when I tell you that Mrs. Montagu has been very ill, and is I doubt now but weakly. Mr. Thrale has been very dangerously disordered; but is much better, and I hope will totally recover. He has withdrawn himself from business the whole summer. Sir Joshua and his sister are well; and Mr. Davies has got great success as an authour,[1344] generated by the corruption of a bookseller.[1345] More news I have not to tell you, and therefore you must be contented with hearing, what I know not whether you much wish to hear[1346], that I am, Sir,
‘Your most humble servant,
‘SAM. JOHNSON.’
‘Bolt-court, Fleet-street,
August 21, 1780.’
‘To JAMES BOSWELL, Esq.
‘DEAR SIR,
‘I find you have taken one of your fits of taciturnity, and have resolved not to write till you are written to; it is but a peevish humour, but you shall have your way.
‘I have sat at home in Bolt-court, all the summer, thinking to write the _Lives_, and a great part of the time only thinking. Several of them, however, are done, and I still think to do the rest.
‘Mr. Thrale and his family have, since his illness, passed their time first at Bath, and then at Brighthelmston; but I have been at neither place. I would have gone to Lichfield, if I could have had time, and I might have had time if I had been active; but I have missed much, and done little.
‘In the late disturbances, Mr. Thrale’s house and stock were in great danger; the mob was pacified at their first invasion, with about fifty pounds in drink and meat; and at their second, were driven away by the soldiers[1347]. Mr. Strahan got a garrison into his house, and maintained them a fortnight; he was so frighted that he removed part of his goods. Mrs. Williams took shelter in the country.
‘I know not whether I shall get a ramble this autumn[1348]; it is now about the time when we were travelling. I have, however, better health than I had then, and hope you and I may yet shew ourselves on some part of Europe, Asia, or Africa[1349]. In the mean time let us play no trick, but keep each other’s kindness by all means in our power.
‘The bearer of this is Dr. Dunbar, of Aberdeen, who has written and published a very ingenious book[1350], and who I think has a kindness for me, and will, when he knows you, have a kindness for you.
‘I suppose your little ladies are grown tall; and your son is become a learned young man. I love them all, and I love your naughty lady, whom I never shall persuade to love me. When the _Lives_ are done, I shall send them to complete her collection, but must send them in paper, as for want of a pattern, I cannot bind them to fit the rest.
‘I am, Sir,
‘Yours most affectionately,
‘SAM. JOHNSON.’
‘London, Aug. 21, 1780.’
This year he wrote to a young clergyman[1351] in the country, the following very excellent letter, which contains valuable advice to Divines in general:–
‘Dear Sir,
‘Not many days ago Dr. Lawrence shewed me a letter, in which you make mention of me: I hope, therefore, you will not be displeased that I endeavour to preserve your good-will by some observations which your letter suggested to me.
‘You are afraid of falling into some improprieties in the daily service by reading to an audience that requires no exactness. Your fear, I hope, secures you from danger. They who contract absurd habits are such as have no fear. It is impossible to do the same thing very often, without some peculiarity of manner: but that manner may be good or bad, and a little care will at least preserve it from being bad: to make it good, there must, I think, be something of natural or casual felicity, which cannot be taught.
‘Your present method of making your sermons seems very judicious. Few frequent preachers can be supposed to have sermons more their own than yours will be. Take care to register, somewhere or other, the authours from whom your several discourses are borrowed; and do not imagine that you shall always remember, even what perhaps you now think it impossible to forget.
‘My advice, however, is, that you attempt, from time to time, an original sermon; and in the labour of composition, do not burthen your mind with too much at once; do not exact from yourself at one effort of excogitation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as they rise, in the first words that occur; and, when you have matter, you will easily give it form: nor, perhaps, will this method be always necessary; for by habit, your thoughts and diction will flow together[1352].
‘The composition of sermons is not very difficult: the divisions not only help the memory of the hearer, but direct the judgement of the writer; they supply sources of invention, and keep every part in its proper place.
‘What I like least in your letter is your account of the manners of your parish; from which I gather, that it has been long neglected by the parson. The Dean of Carlisle[1353], who was then a little rector in Northamptonshire[1354], told me, that it might be discerned whether or no there was a clergyman resident in a parish by the civil or savage manner of the people. Such a congregation as yours stands in need of much reformation; and I would not have you think it impossible to reform them. A very savage parish was civilised by a decayed gentlewoman, who came among them to teach a petty school. My learned friend Dr. Wheeler[1355] of Oxford, when he was a young man, had the care of a neighbouring parish for fifteen pounds a year, which he was never paid; but he counted it a convenience that it compelled him to make a sermon weekly. One woman he could not bring to the communion; and, when he reproved or exhorted her, she only answered, that she was no scholar. He was advised to set some good woman or man of the parish, a little wiser than herself, to talk to her in a language level to her mind. Such honest, I may call them holy artifices, must be practised by every clergyman; for all means must be tried by which souls may be saved[1356]. Talk to your people, however, as much as you can; and you will find, that the more frequently you converse with them upon religious subjects, the more willingly they will attend, and the more submissively they will learn. A clergyman’s diligence always makes him venerable. I think I have now only to say, that in the momentous work you have undertaken, I pray GOD to bless you.
‘I am, Sir,
‘Your most humble servant,
‘SAM. JOHNSON.’
‘Bolt-court, Aug. 30, 1780.’
My next letters to him were dated August 24, September 6, and October 1, and from them I extract the following passages:–
‘My brother David and I find the long indulged fancy of our comfortable meeting again at Auchinleck, so well realised, that it in some degree confirms the pleasing hope of _O! preclarum diem!_[1357] in a future state.’
‘I beg that you may never again harbour a suspicion of my indulging a peevish humour, or playing tricks; you will recollect that when I confessed to you, that I had once been intentionally silent to try your regard, I gave you my word and honour that I would not do so again[1358].’
‘I rejoice to hear of your good state of health; I pray GOD to continue it long. I have often said, that I would willingly have ten years added to my life, to have ten taken from yours; I mean, that I would be ten years older to have you ten years younger. But let me be thankful for the years during which I have enjoyed your friendship, and please myself with the hopes of enjoying it many years to come in this state of being, trusting always, that in another state, we shall meet never to be separated. Of this we can form no notion; but the thought, though indistinct, is delightful, when the mind is calm and clear[1359].’
‘The riots in London were certainly horrible; but you give me no account of your own situation, during the barbarous anarchy. A description of it by DR. JOHNSON would be a great painting[1360]; you might write another _London, a Poem_.’
‘I am charmed with your condescending affectionate expression, “let us keep each other’s kindness by all the means in our power;” my revered Friend! how elevating is it to my mind, that I am found worthy to be a companion to Dr. Samuel Johnson! All that you have said in grateful praise of Mr. Walmsley,[1361] I have long thought of you; but we are both Tories,[1362] which has a very general influence upon our sentiments. I hope that you will agree to meet me at York, about the end of this month; or if you will come to Carlisle, that would be better still, in case the Dean be there. Please to consider, that to keep each other’s kindness, we should every year have that free and intimate communication of mind which can be had only when we are together. We should have both our solemn and our pleasant talk.’
‘I write now for the third time, to tell you that my desire for our meeting this autumn, is much increased. I wrote to Squire Godfrey Bosville[1363], my Yorkshire chief, that I should, perhaps, pay him a visit, as I was to hold a conference with Dr. Johnson at York. I give you my word and honour that I said not a word of his inviting you; but he wrote to me as follows:–
‘”I need not tell you I shall be happy to see you here the latter end of this month, as you propose; and I shall likewise be in hopes that you will persuade Dr. Johnson to finish the conference here. It will add to the favour of your own company, if you prevail upon such an associate, to assist your observations. I have often been entertained with his writings, and I once belonged to a club of which he was a member, and I never spent an evening there, but I heard something from him well worth remembering.”
‘We have thus, my dear Sir, good comfortable quarters in the neighbourhood of York, where you may be assured we shall be heartily welcome. I pray you then resolve to set out; and let not the year 1780 be a blank in our social calendar, and in that record of wisdom and wit, which I keep with so much diligence, to your honour, and the instruction and delight of others.’
Mr. Thrale had now another contest for the representation in parliament of the borough of Southwark, and Johnson kindly lent him his assistance, by writing advertisements and letters for him. I shall insert one as a specimen:
‘TO THE WORTHY ELECTORS OF THE BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARK.
‘GENTLEMEN,
‘A new Parliament being now called, I again solicit the honour of being elected for one of your representatives; and solicit it with the greater confidence, as I am not conscious of having neglected my duty, or of having acted otherwise than as becomes the independent representative of independent constituents; superiour to fear, hope, and expectation, who has no private purposes to promote, and whose prosperity is involved in the prosperity of his country. As my recovery from a very severe distemper is not yet perfect, I have declined to attend the Hall, and hope an omission so necessary will not be harshly censured.
‘I can only send my respectful wishes, that all your deliberations may tend to the happiness of the kingdom, and the peace of the borough.
‘I am, Gentlemen,
‘Your most faithful
‘And obedient servant,
‘HENRY THRALE.’
‘Southwark, Sept. 5, 1780.’
On his birth-day, Johnson has this note:–
‘I am now beginning the seventy-second year of my life, with more strength of body, and greater vigour of mind, than I think is common at that age[1364].’
But still he complains of sleepless nights and idle days, and forgetfulness, or neglect of resolutions. He thus pathetically expresses himself,–
‘Surely I shall not spend my whole life with my own total disapprobation[1365].’
Mr. Macbean, whom I have mentioned more than once, as one of Johnson’s humble friends, a deserving but unfortunate man, being now oppressed by age and poverty, Johnson solicited the Lord Chancellor Thurlow, to have him admitted into the Charterhouse. I take the liberty to insert his Lordship’s answer[1366], as I am eager to embrace every occasion of augmenting the respectable notion which should ever be entertained of my illustrious friend:–
‘To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.
‘London, October 24, 1780.
‘SIR,
‘I have this moment received your letter, dated the 19th, and returned from Bath.
‘In the beginning of the summer I placed one in the Chartreux[1367], without the sanction of a recommendation so distinct and so authoritative as yours of Macbean; and I am afraid, that according to the establishment of the House, the opportunity of making the charity so good amends will not soon recur. But whenever a vacancy shall happen, if you’ll favour me with notice of it, I will try to recommend him to the place, even though it should not be my turn to nominate.
‘I am, Sir, with great regard,
‘Your most faithful
‘And obedient servant,
‘THURLOW[1368].’
‘To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
‘DEAR SIR,
‘I am sorry to write you a letter that will not please you, and yet it is at last what I resolve to do. This year must pass without an interview; the summer has been foolishly lost, like many other of my summers and winters. I hardly saw a green field, but staid in town to work, without working much.
‘Mr. Thrale’s loss of health has lost him the election;[1369] he is now going to Brighthelmston, and expects me to go with him; and how long I shall stay, I cannot tell. I do not much like the place, but yet I shall go, and stay while my stay is desired. We must, therefore, content ourselves with knowing what we know as well as man can know the mind of man, that we love one another, and that we wish each other’s happiness, and that the lapse of a year cannot lessen our mutual kindness.
‘I was pleased to be told that I accused Mrs. Boswell unjustly, in supposing that she bears me ill-will. I love you so much, that I would be glad to love all that love you, and that you love; and I have love very ready for Mrs. Boswell, if she thinks it worthy of acceptance. I hope all the young ladies and gentlemen are well.
‘I take a great liking to your brother. He tells me that his father received him kindly, but not fondly; however, you seem to have lived well enough at Auchinleck, while you staid. Make your father as happy as you can.
‘You lately told me of your health: I can tell you in return, that my health has been for more than a year past, better than it has been for many years before. Perhaps it may please GOD to give us some time together before we are parted.
‘I am, dear Sir,
‘Yours most affectionately,
‘SAM. JOHNSON.’
‘October 17, 1780.’
APPENDIX A.
(_Page_ 314.)
The alehouse in the city where Johnson used to go and sit with George Psalmanazar was, no doubt, the club in Old Street, where he met also ‘the metaphysical tailor,’ the uncle of Hoole the poet (_post_, under March 30, 1783). Psalmanazar is mentioned a third time by Boswell (_post_, May 15, 1784) in a passage borrowed from Hawkins’s edition of Johnson’s _Works_, xi. 206, where it is stated that ‘Johnson said: “He had never seen the close of the life of any one that he wished so much his own to resemble as that of him, for its purity and devotion.” He was asked whether he ever contradicted him. “I should as soon,” said he, “have thought of contradicting a bishop.” When he was asked whether he had ever mentioned Formosa before him, he said, “he was afraid to mention even China.”‘ We learn from Hawkins’s _Life of Johnson_, p. 547, that ‘Psalmanazar lived in Ironmonger Row, Old Street; in the neighbourhood whereof he was so well known and esteemed, that, as Dr. Hawkesworth once told me, scarce any person, even children, passed him without shewing him the usual signs of respect.’ In the list of the writers of the _Universal History_ that Johnson drew up a few days before his death his name is given as the historian of the Jews, Gauls, and Spaniards (_post_, November, 1784). According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anecdotes_, p. 175):–‘His pious and patient endurance of a tedious illness, ending in an exemplary death, confirmed the strong impression his merit had made upon the mind of Mr. Johnson. “It is so very difficult,” said he always, “for a sick man not to be a scoundrel.”‘ Johnson, in _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 102, mentions him as a man ‘whose life was, I think, uniform.’ Smollett, in _Humphry Clinker_ (in Melford’s Letter of June 10), describes him as one ‘who, after having drudged half a century in the literary mill, in all the simplicity and abstinence of an Asiatic, subsists upon the charity of a few booksellers, just sufficient to keep him from the parish.’ A writer in the _Annual Register_ for 1764 (ii. 71), speaking of the latter part of his life, says:–‘He was concerned in compiling and writing works of credit, and lived exemplarily for many years.’ He died a few days before that memorable sixteenth day of May 1763, when Boswell first met Johnson. It is a pity that no record has been kept of the club meetings in Ironmonger Row, for then we should have seen Johnson in a new light. Johnson in an alehouse club, with a metaphysical tailor on one side of him, and an aged writer on the other side of him, ‘who spoke English with the city accent and coarsely enough,'[1370] and whom he would never venture to contradict, is a Johnson that we cannot easily imagine.
Of the greater part of Psalmanazar’s life we know next to nothing–little, I believe, beyond the few facts that I have here gathered together. His early years he has described in his _Memoirs_. That he started as one of the most shameless impostors, and that he remained a hypocrite and a cheat till he was fully forty, if not indeed longer, his own narrative shows. That for many years he lived laboriously, frugally, and honestly seems to be no less certain. How far his _Memoirs_ are truthful is somewhat doubtful. In them he certainly confesses the impudent trick which he had played in his youth, when he passed himself off as a Formosan convert. He wished, he writes, ‘to undeceive the world by unravelling that whole mystery of iniquity’ (p. 5). He lays bare roguery enough, and in a spirit, it seems, of real sorrow. Nevertheless there are passages which are not free from the leaven of hypocrisy, and there are, I suspect, statements which are at least partly false. Johnson, indeed, looked upon him as little less than a saint; but then, as Sir Joshua Reynolds tells us, though ‘Johnson was not easily imposed upon by professions to honesty and candour, he appeared to have little suspicion of hypocrisy in religion.'[1371] It was in the year 1704 that Psalmanazar published his _Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa_. So gross is the forgery that it almost passes belief that it was widely accepted as a true narrative. He gave himself out as a native of that island and a convert to Christianity. He lied so foolishly as to maintain that in the Academies of Formosa Greek was studied (p. 290). He asserted also that in an island that is only about half as large as Ireland 18,000 boys were sacrificed every year (p. 176). But his readers were for the most part only too willing to be deceived; for in Protestant England his abuse of the Jesuits covered a multitude of lies. Ere he had been three months in London, he was, he writes (_Memoirs_, p. 179), ‘cried up for a prodigy, and not only the domestic, but even the foreign papers had helped to blaze forth many things in his praise.’ He was aided in his fraud by the Rev. Dr. Innes, or Innys, a clergyman of the English Church, who by means of his interesting convert pushed himself into the notice of Compton, Bishop of London, and before long was made chaplain-general to the English forces in Portugal (_Memoirs_, p. 191). The same man, as Boswell tells us (_ante_, i. 359), by another impudent cheat, a second time obtained ‘considerable promotion.’ Psalmanazar’s book soon reached a second edition, ‘besides the several versions it had abroad’ (p. 5). Yet it is very dull reading–just such a piece of work as might be looked for from a young man of little fancy, but gifted with a strong memory. Nevertheless, the author’s credit lasted so long, that for many years he lived on a subscription ‘which was founded on a belief of his being a Formosan and a real convert to the Church of England’ (p. 208). He was even sent to Oxford to study, and had rooms in one of the colleges–Christ Church, if I mistake not (p. 186). It was not only as a student that he was sent by his dupes to that ancient seat of learning; the Bishop of London hoped that he would ‘teach the Formosan language to a set of gentlemen who were afterwards to go with him to convert those people to Christianity’ (p. 161).
While he was living the life of a lying scoundrel, he was, he says (p. 192), ‘happily restrained by Divine Grace,’ so that ‘all sense of remorse was not extinguished,’ and there was no fall into ‘downright infidelity.’ At length he picked up Law’s _Serious Call_, which moved him, as later on it moved better men (_ante_, i. 68). Step by step he got into a way of steady work, and lived henceforth a laborious and honest life. It was in the year 1728, thirty-five years before his death, that he began, he says, to write the narrative of his imposture (p. 59). A dangerous illness and the dread of death had deeply moved him, and filled him with the desire of leaving behind ‘a faithful narrative’ which would ‘undeceive the world.’ Nineteen years later, though he did not publish his narrative, he made a public confession of his guilt. In the unsigned article on Formosa, which he wrote in 1747 for Bowen’s _Complete System of Geography_ (ii. 251), he says, ‘Psalmanaazaar [so he had at one time written his name] hath long since ingenuously owned the contrary [of the truthfulness of his narrative] though not in so public a manner, as he might perhaps have done, had not such an avowment been likely to have affected some few persons who for private ends took advantage of his youthful vanity to encourage him in an imposture, which he might otherwise never had the thought, much less the confidence, to have carried on. These persons being now dead, and out of all danger of being hurt by it, he now gives us leave to assure the world that the greatest part of that account was fabulous … and that he designs to leave behind him a faithful account of that unhappy step, and other particulars of his life leading to it, to be published after his death.’
In his _Memoirs_ he will not, he writes (p. 59), give any account ‘of his real country or family.’ Yet it is quite clear from his own narrative that he was born in the south of France. ‘His pronunciation of French had,’ it was said, ‘a spice of the Gascoin accent, and in that provincial dialect he was so masterly that none but those born in the country could excel him’ (Preface, p. 1). If a town can be found that answers to all that he tells of his birth-place, his whole account may be true; but the circumstances that he mentions seem inconsistent. The city in which he was born was twenty-four miles from an archiepiscopal city in which there was a college of Jesuits (p. 67), and about sixty miles from ‘a noble great city full of gentry and nobility, of coaches, and all kinds of grandeur,’ the seat of a great university (pp. 76, 83). When he left the great city for Avignon he speaks of himself as ‘going _down_ to Avignon’ (p. 87). Thence he started on a pilgrimage to Rome, and in order to avoid his native place, after he had gone no great way, ‘he wheeled about to the left, to leave the place at some twenty or thirty miles distance’ (p. 101). He changed his mind, however, and returned home. Thence he set off to join his father, who was ‘near 500 miles off’ in Germany (p. 60). ‘The direct route was through the great university city’ and Lyons (p. 104). His birth-place then, if his account is true, was on the road from Avignon to Rome, sixty miles from a great university city and southwards of it, for through this university city passed the direct road from his home to Lyons. It was, moreover, sixty miles from an archiepiscopal city. I do not think that such a place can be found. He says (p. 59) that he thought himself ‘obliged out of respect to his country and family to conceal both, it being but too common, though unjust, to censure them for the crimes of private persons.’ The excuse seems unsatisfactory, for he tells enough to shew that he came from the South of France, while for his family there was no need of care. It was, he writes, ‘ancient but decayed,’ and he was the only surviving child. Of his father and mother he had heard nothing since he started on the career of a pious rogue. They must have been dead very many years by the time his _Memoirs_ were given to the world. His story shews that at all events for the first part of his life he had been one of the vainest of men, and vanity is commonly found joined with a love of mystery. He is not consistent, moreover, in his dates. On April 23, 1752, he was in the 73rd year of his age (p. 7); so that he was born in either 1679 or 1680. When he joined his father he was ‘hardly full sixteen years old’ (p. 112); yet it was a few years after the Peace of Ryswick, which was signed on September 22, 1697. He was, he says, ‘but near twenty’ when he wrote his _History of Formosa_ (p. 184). This was in the year 1704.
With his father he stayed but a short time, and then set out rambling northwards. At Avignon, by shameless lying, he had obtained a pass ‘as a young student in theology, of Irish extract [_sic_] who had left his country for the sake of religion’ (p. 98). It was wonderful that his fraud had escaped detection there, for he had kept his own name, ‘because it had something of quality in it’ (p. 99). He now resolved on a more impudent pretence; for ‘passing as an Irishman and a sufferer for religion, did not only,’ he writes, ‘expose me to the danger of being discovered, but came short of the merit and admiration I had expected from it’ (p. 112). He thereupon gave himself out as a Japanese convert, and forged a fresh pass, ‘clapping to it the old seal’ (p. 116). He went through different adventures, and at last enlisted in the army of the Elector of Cologne–an ‘unhappy herd, destitute of all sense of religion and shamefacedness.’ He got his discharge, but enlisted a second time, ‘passing himself off for a Japanese and a heathen, under the name of Salmanazar’ (pp. 133-141). Later on he altered it, he says, ‘by the addition of a letter or two to make it somewhat different from that mentioned in the _Book of Kings_’ (Shalmaneser, II _Kings_, xvii. 3). In his _Description of Formosa_ he wrote it Psalmanaazaar, and in later life Psalmanazar. In his vanity he invented ‘an awkward show of worship, turning his face to the rising or setting sun, and pleased to be taken notice of for so doing’ (p. 144). He had moreover ‘the ambition of passing for a moral heathen’ (p. 147). By way of singularity he next took to living altogether upon raw flesh, roots, and herbs (p. 163).
It was when he was on garrison duty at Sluys that he became acquainted with Innes, who was chaplain to a Scotch regiment that was in the pay of the Dutch (p. 148). This man found in him a tool ready made to his hand. He had at once seen through his roguery, but he used his knowledge only to plunge him deeper in his guilt. By working on his fears and his vanity and by small bribes he induced him to profess himself a convert to the Church of England and to submit to baptism (p. 158). He brought him over to London, and introduced him to the Bishop of London, and to Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury (pp. 164, 179). Psalmanazar spoke Latin fluently, but ‘his Grace had either forgotten his, or being unused to the foreign pronunciation was forced to have it interpreted to him by Dr. Innes in English’ (p. 178). The young impostor everywhere gave himself out as a Formosan who had been entrapped by a Jesuit priest, and brought to Avignon. ‘There I could expect,’ he wrote, ‘no mercy from the Inquisitors, if I had not in hypocrisy professed their religion’ (_History of Formosa_, p. 25). He was kept, he says, in a kind of custody, ‘but I trusted under God to my heels’ (p. 24). It was Innes who made him write this _History_.
In the confession of his fraud Psalmanazar seems to keep back nothing. His repentance appears to be sincere, and his later life, there can be little question, was regular. Yet, as I have said, even his confessions apparently are not free from the old leaven of hypocrisy. It is indeed very hard, if not altogether impossible, for a man who has passed forty years and more as a lying hypocrite altogether to ‘clear his mind of cant.’ In writing of the time when he was still living the life of a lying scoundrel, he says:–‘I have great reason to acknowledge it the greatest mercy that could befall me, that I was so well grounded in the principles and evidence of the Christian religion, that neither the conversation of the then freethinkers, as they loved to stile themselves, and by many of whom I was severely attacked, nor the writings of Hobbes, Spinosa, &c. against the truth of Divine revelation could appear to me in any other light than as the vain efforts of a dangerous set of men to overturn a religion, the best founded and most judiciously calculated to promote the peace and happiness of mankind, both temporal and eternal’ (_Memoirs_, p. 192). Two pages further on he writes, a little boastfully it seems, of having had ‘some sort of gallantry with the fair sex; with many of whom, even persons of fortune and character, of sense, wit, and learning, I was become,’ he continues, ‘a great favourite, and might, if I could have overcome my natural sheepishness and fear of a repulse, have been more successful either by way of matrimony or intrigue.’ He goes on:–‘I may truly say, that hardly any man who might have enjoyed so great a variety ever indulged himself in so few instances of the unlawful kind as I have done.’ He concludes this passage in his writings by ‘thankfully acknowledging that there must have been some secret providence that kept me from giving such way to unlawful amours as I might otherwise have done, to the ruin of my health, circumstances,’ &c.
When he came to wish for an honest way of life he was beset with difficulties. ‘What a deadly wound,’ he writes, ‘must such an unexpected confession have given to my natural vanity, and what a mortification would it have been to such sincere honest people [as my friends] to hear it from my mouth!’ (p. 213.) This was natural enough. That he long hesitated, like a coward, on the brink is not to be cast in his teeth, seeing that at last he took the plunge. But then in speaking of the time when he weakly repeated, and to use his own words, ‘as it were confirmed anew,’ his old falsehoods, he should not have written that ‘as the assurance of God’s mercy gave me good grounds to hope, so that hope inspired me with a design to use all proper means to obtain it, and leave the issue of it to his Divine Providence’ (p. 214). The only proper means to obtain God’s mercy was at once to own to all the world that he had lied. It is only the Tartuffes and the Holy Willies who, whilst they persist in their guilt, talk of leaving the issue to the Divine Providence of God.
Since this Appendix was in type I have learnt, through the kindness of Mr. C.E. Doble, the editor of Hearne’s _Remarks and Collections_, ed. 1885, that a passage in that book (i. 271), confirms my conjecture that Psalmanazar was lodged in Christ Church when at Oxford. Hearne says (July 9, 1706):–‘Mr. Topping of Christ Church … also tells me that Salmanezzer, the famous Formosan, when he left Christ Church (where he resided while in Oxon) left behind him a Book in MSt., wherein a distinct acct was given of the Consular and Imperial coyns by himself.’ Mr. Doble has also pointed out to me in the first edition of the _Spectator_ the following passage at the end of No. 14:–
‘ADVERTISEMENT.
‘On the first of April will be performed at the Play-house in the Hay-market an opera call’d _The Cruelty of Atreus_. N.B. The Scene wherein Thyestes eats his own children is to be performed by the famous Mr. Psalmanazar lately arrived from Formosa: The whole Supper being set to Kettle-drums.’
* * * * *
APPENDIX B.
JOHNSON’S TRAVELS AND LOVE OF TRAVELLING.
(_Page 352_).
On the passage in the text Macaulay in his Review of Croker’s Edition of _Boswell’s Life of Johnson_ partly founds the following criticism:–
‘Johnson’s visit to the Hebrides introduced him to a state of society completely new to him; and a salutary suspicion of his own deficiencies seems on that occasion to have crossed his mind for the first time. He confessed, in the last paragraph of his _Journey_, that his thoughts on national manners were the thoughts of one who had seen but little, of one who had passed his time almost wholly in cities. This feeling, however, soon passed away. It is remarkable that to the last he entertained a fixed contempt for all those modes of life and those studies which tend to emancipate the mind from the prejudices of a particular age or a particular nation. Of foreign travel and of history he spoke with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance. “What does a man learn by travelling? Is Beauclerk the better for travelling? What did Lord Charlemont learn in his travels, except that there was a snake in one of the pyramids of Egypt?”‘ Macaulay’s _Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 403.
In another passage (p. 400) Macaulay says:–
‘Johnson was no master of the great science of human nature. He had studied, not the genus man, but the species Londoner. Nobody was ever so thoroughly conversant with all the forms of life and all the shades of moral and intellectual character which were to be seen from Islington to the Thames, and from Hyde-Park corner to Mile-end green. But his philosophy stopped at the first turnpike-gate. Of the rural life of England he knew nothing, and he took it for granted that everybody who lived in the country was either stupid or miserable.’
Of the two assertions that Macaulay makes in these two passages, while one is for the most part true, the other is utterly and grossly false. Johnson had no contempt for foreign travel. That curiosity which animated his eager mind in so many parts of learning did not fail him, when his thoughts turned to the great world outside our narrow seas. It was his poverty that confined him so long to the neighbourhood of Temple Bar. He must in these early days have sometimes felt with Arviragus when he says:–
‘What should we speak of
When we are old as you? when we shall hear The rain and wind beat dark December, how In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing.’
With his pension his wanderings at once began. His friendship with the Thrales gave them a still wider range. His curiosity, which in itself was always eager, was checked in his more prosperous circumstances by his years, his natural unwillingness at any one moment to make an effort, and by the want of travelling companions who were animated by a spirit of inquiry and of enterprise equal to his own. He did indeed travel much more than is commonly thought, and was far less frequently to be seen rolling along Fleet-street or stemming the full tide of human existence at Charing Cross than his biographers would have us believe.
The following table, imperfect though it must necessarily be, shows how large a part of his life he passed outside ‘the first turnpike-gate,’ and beyond the smoke of London:–
1709-1736. The first twenty-seven years of his life he spent in small country towns or villages–Lichfield, Stourbridge, Oxford, Market-Bosworth, Birmingham. So late as 1781 Lichfield did not contain 4,000 inhabitants (Harwood’s _History of Lichfield_, p. 380); eight years later it was reckoned that a little over 8,000 people dwelt in Oxford (Parker’s _Early History of Oxford_, ed. 1885, p. 229). In 1732 or 1733 Birmingham, when Johnson first went to live there, had not, I suppose, a population of 10,000. Its growth was wonderfully rapid. Between 1770 and 1797 its inhabitants increased from 30,000 to nearly 80,000 (_Birmingham Directory for_ 1780, p. xx, and _A Brief History of Birmingham_, p. 8).
1736-7. The first eighteen months of his married life he lived quite in the country at Edial, two miles from Lichfield. _Ante_, i. 97.
1737. He was twenty-eight years old when he removed to London. _Ante_, i. 110.
1739. He paid a visit to Appleby in Leicestershire and to Ashbourn. _Ante_, i. 82, 133 note 1.
1754. Oxford. July and August, about five weeks. _Ante_, i. 270, note 5.
1759. Oxford. July, length of visit not mentioned. _Ante_, i. 347.
1761-2. Lichfield. Winter, a visit of five days. _Ante_, i. 370.
1762. In the summer of this year his pension was granted, and he henceforth had the means of travelling. _Ante_, i. 372.
A trip to Devonshire, from Aug. 16 to Sept. 26; six weeks. _Ante_, i. 377.
Oxford. December. ‘I am going for a few days or weeks to Oxford.’ Letter of Dec. 21, 1762. Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 129.
1763. Harwich. August, a few days. _Ante_, i. 464.
Oxford. October, length of visit not mentioned. A letter dated Oxford, Oct. 27 [1763]. Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 161.
1764. Langton in Lincolnshire, part of January and February. _Ante_, i. 476.
Easton Maudit in Northamptonshire, part of June, July, and August. Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 166, note, and _ante_, i. 486.
Oxford, October. Letter to Mr. Strahan dated Oxford, Oct. 24, 1764. _Post, Addenda_ to vol. v.
Either this year or the next Johnson made the acquaintance of the Thrales. For the next seventeen years he had ‘an apartment appropriated to him in the Thrales’ villa at Streatham’ (_ante_, i. 493), a handsome house that stood in a small park. Streatham was a quiet country-village, separated by wide commons from London, on one of which a highwayman had been hanged who had there robbed Mr. Thrale (_ante_, iii. 239, note 2). According to Mrs. Piozzi Johnson commonly spent the middle of the week at their house, coming on the Monday night and returning to his own home on the Saturday (_post_, iv. 169, note 3). Miss Burney, in 1778, describes him ‘as living almost wholly at Streatham’ (_ante_, i. 493, note 3). No doubt she was speaking chiefly of the summer half of the year, for in the winter time the Thrales would be often in their town house, where he also had his apartment. Mr. Strahan complained of his being at Streatham ‘in a great measure absorbed from the society of his old friends’ (_ante_, iii. 225). He used to call it ‘my _home_’ (_ante_, i. 493, note 3).
1765. Cambridge, early in the year; a short visit. _Ante_, i. 487.
Brighton, autumn; a short visit. Piozzi’s _Anec_. p. 126, and _Piozzi Letters_, i. 1.
1766. Streatham, summer and autumn; more than three months. Ante, ii. 25, and _Pr. and Med_. p. 71.
Oxford, autumn; a month. _Ante_, ii. 25.
1767. Lichfield, summer and autumn; ‘near six months.’ _Ante_, ii. 30, and _Piozzi Letters_, i. 4, 5.
1768. Oxford, spring; several weeks. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 6-15.
Townmalling in Kent, September; apparently a short visit. _Pr. and Med_. p. 81.
1769. Oxford, from at least May 18 to July 7. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 19-23, and _ante_, ii. 67.
Lichfield and Ashbourn, August; a short visit. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 24, and _ante_, ii. 67.
Brighton, part of August and September; some weeks. _Ante_, ii. 68, 70, and Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 198, letter dated ‘Brighthelmstone. August 26, 1769.’
1770. Lichfield and Ashbourn, apparently whole of July. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 26-32.
1771. Lichfield and Ashbourn, from June 20 to after Aug. 5. _Ante_, ii. 141, 142, and _Piozzi Letters_, i. 36-54.
1772. Lichfield and Ashbourn, from about Oct. 15 to early in December. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 55-69.
1773. Oxford, April; a hurried visit. _Ante_, ii. 235, note 2.
Tour to Scotland from Aug. 6 to Nov. 26. _Ante_, ii. 265, 268.
Oxford, part of November and December. _Ante_, ii. 268.
1774. Tour to North Wales (Derbyshire, Chester, Conway, Anglesey, Snowdon, Shrewsbury, Worcester, Birmingham, Oxford, Beaconsfield) from July 5 to Sept. 30. _Ante_, ii. 285, and _post_, v. 427.
1775. Oxford, March; a short visit. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 212.
Oxford, Lichfield, Ashbourn, from end of May till some time in August. _Ante_, ii. 381, and _Piozzi Letters_, i. 223-301.
Brighton; apparently a brief visit in September. Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 459.
A tour to Paris (going by Calais and Rouen and returning by Compiegne, St. Quintin, and Calais), from Sept. 15 to Nov. 12. _Ante_, ii. 384, 401.
1776. Oxford, Lichfield, Ashbourn, March 19-29. (The trip was cut short by young Thrale’s death.) _Ante_, ii. 438, and iii. 4.
Bath, from the middle of April to the beginning of May. _Ante_, iii. 44, 51.
Brighton, part of September and October; full seven weeks. _Ante_, iii. 92.
1777. Oxford, Lichfield, and Ashbourn, from about July 28 to about Nov. 6. _Ante_, iii. 129, 210, and _Piozzi Letters_, i. 348-396 and ii. 1-16 (the letter of Oct. 3, i. 396, is wrongly dated, as is shown by the mention of Foote’s death).
Brighton, November; a visit of three days. _Ante_, iii. 210.
1778. Warley Camp, in Essex, September; about a week. _Ante_, iii. 360.
1779. Lichfield, Ashbourn, from May 20 to end of June. _Ante_, iii. 395, and _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 44-55.
Epsom, September; a few days. _Pr. and Med_. pp. 181, 225.
1780. Brighton. October. MS. letter dated Oct. 26, 1780 to Mr. Nichols in the British Museum.
1781. Oxford, Birmingham, Lichfield, Ashbourn, from Oct. 15 to Dec. 11. _Post_, iv. 135, and Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 699, note 5.
1782. Oxford, June; about ten days. _Post_, iv. 151, and _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 243-249.
Brighton, part of October and November. _Post_, iv. 159.
1783. Rochester, July; about a fortnight. _Post_, iv. 233.
Heale near Salisbury, part of August and September; three weeks. _Post_, iv. 233, 239.
1784. Oxford, June; a fortnight. _Post_, iv. 283, 311.
Lichfield, Ashbourn, Oxford, from July 13 to Nov. 16. _Post_, iv. 353, 377.
That he was always eager to see the world is shown by many a passage in his writings and by the testimony of his biographers. How Macaulay, who knew his _Boswell_ so well, could have accused him of ‘speaking of foreign travel with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance’ would be a puzzle indeed, did we not know how often this great rhetorician was by the stream of his own mighty rhetoric swept far away from the unadorned strand of naked truth. To his unjust and insulting attack I shall content myself with opposing the following extracts which with some trouble I have collected:–
1728 or 1729. Johnson in his undergraduate days was one day overheard saying:–
‘I have a mind to see what is done in other places of learning. I’ll go and visit the Universities abroad. I’ll go to France and Italy. I’ll go to Padua.’ _Ante_, i. 73.
1734. ‘A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity, nor is that curiosity ever more agreeably or usefully employed than in examining the laws and customs of foreign nations.’ _Ante_, i. 89.
1751. ‘Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristicks of a vigorous intellect.’ _Rambler_, No. 103. ‘Curiosity is in great and generous minds the first passion and the last; and perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties.’ _Ib_. No. 150.
1752. Francis Barber, describing Johnson’s friends in 1752, says:–
‘There was a talk of his going to Iceland with Mr. Diamond, which would probably have happened had he lived.’ _Ante_, i. 242. Johnson, in a letter to the wife of the poet Smart, says, ‘we have often talked of a voyage to Iceland.’ _Post_, iv. 359 note. Mrs. Thrale wrote to him when he was in the Hebrides in 1773:–‘Well! ’tis better talk of Iceland. Gregory challenges you for an Iceland expedition; but I trust there is no need; I suppose good eyes might reach it from some of the places you have been in.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 188.
1761. Johnson wrote to Baretti:–
‘I wish you had staid longer in Spain, for no country is less known to the rest of Europe.’ _Ante_, i. 365. He twice recommended Boswell to perambulate Spain. _Ante_, i. 410, 455.
1763. ‘Dr. Johnson flattered me (Boswell) with some hopes that he would, in the course of the following summer, come over to Holland, and accompany me in a tour through the Netherlands.’ _Ante_, i. 470.
1772. He said that he had had some desire, though he soon laid it aside, to go on an expedition round the world with Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander. _Ante_, ii. 147.
1773. ‘Dr. Johnson and I talked of going to Sweden.’ Boswell’s _Hebrides_, _post_, v. 215.
On Sept. 9, 1777, Boswell wrote to Johnson:–
‘I shrink a little from our scheme of going up the Baltick: I am sorry you have already been in Wales; for I wish to see it.’ _Ante_, iii. 134. Four days later Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:–‘Boswell shrinks from the Baltick expedition, which, I think, is the best scheme in our power: what we shall substitute I know not. He wants to see Wales; but except the woods of Bachycraigh (_post_, v. 436), what is there in Wales, that can fill the hunger of ignorance, or quench the thirst of curiosity? We may, perhaps, form some scheme or other; but in the phrase of _Hockley in the Hole_, it is a pity he has not a _better bottom_.’ _Ib_. note 1.
Boswell writes:–
‘Martin’s account of the Hebrides had impressed us with a notion that we might there contemplate a system of life almost totally different from what we had been accustomed to see…. Dr. Johnson told me that his father put Martin’s account into his hands when he was very young, and that he was much pleased with it.’ _Post_, v. 13.
From the Hebrides Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:–
‘I have a desire to instruct myself in the whole system of pastoral life; but I know not whether I shall be able to perfect the idea. However, I have many pictures in my mind, which I could not have had without this journey; and should have passed it with great pleasure had you, and Master, and Queeney been in the party. We should have excited the attention and enlarged the observation of each other, and obtained many pleasing topicks of future conversation.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 159. ‘We travelled with very little light in a storm of wind and rain; we passed about fifty-five streams that crossed our way, and fell into a river that, for a very great part of our road, foamed and roared beside us; all the rougher powers of nature except thunder were in motion, but there was no danger. I should have been sorry to have missed any of the inconveniencies, to have had more light or less rain, for their co-operation crowded the scene and filled the mind.’ _Ib_. p. 177.
See _post_, v. 334 for the splendid passage in which, describing the emotions raised in his mind by the sight of Iona, he says:–
‘Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings…. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.’
Macaulay seems to have had the echo of these lines still in his ear, when he described imagination as ‘that noble faculty whereby man is able to live in the past and in the future, in the distant and in the unreal.’ _Essays_, ed. 1853, iii. 167.
1774. When he saw some copper and iron works in Wales he wrote:–
‘I have enlarged my notions.’ _Post_, v. 442. See also _ante_, iii. 164.
His letter to Warren Hastings shows his curiosity about India. _Ante,_ iv. 68.
1775. The Thrales had just received a sum of L14,000. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:–
‘If I had money enough, what would I do? Perhaps, if you and master did not hold me, I might go to Cairo, and down the Red Sea to Bengal, and take a ramble to India. Would this be better than building and planting? It would surely give more variety to the eye, and more amplitude to the mind. Half fourteen thousand would send me out to see other forms of existence, and bring me back to describe them.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 266.
‘Regions mountainous and wild, thinly inhabited and little cultivated, make a great part of the earth, and he that has never seen them must live unacquainted with much of the face of nature, and with one of the great scenes of human existence.’ Johnson’s _Works_, ix. 36. ‘All travel has its advantages. If the traveller visits better countries he may learn to improve his own; and if fortune carries him to worse he may learn to enjoy it.’ _Ib_. p. 136.
To Dr. Taylor he wrote:–
‘I came back last Tuesday from France. Is not mine a kind of life turned upside down? Fixed to a spot when I was young, and roving the world when others are contriving to sit still, I am wholly unsettled. I am a kind of ship with a wide sail, and without an anchor.’ _Ante_, ii. 387, note 2.
1776. In the spring of this year everything was settled for his journey to Italy with the Thrales. Hannah More wrote (_Memoirs_, i. 74):–
‘Johnson and Mr. Boswell have this day set out for Oxford, Lichfield, &c., that the Doctor may take leave of all his old friends previous to his great expedition across the Alps. I lament his undertaking such a journey at his time of life, with beginning infirmities. I hope he will not leave his bones on classic grounds.’
Boswell tells how–
‘Speaking with a tone of animation Johnson said, “We must, to be sure, see Rome, Naples, Florence, and Venice, and as much more as we can.”‘ _Ante_, iii. 19.
When the journey was put off by the sudden death of Mr. Thrale’s son, Boswell wrote:–
‘I perceived that he had so warmly cherished the hope of enjoying classical scenes, that he could not easily part with the scheme; for he said, “I shall probably contrive to get to Italy some other way.”‘ _Ib_. p. 28.
A day later Boswell wrote:–
‘A journey to Italy was still in his thoughts. He said, “A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see. The grand object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean.”‘ _Ib_. p. 36. ‘Johnson’s desire to go abroad, particularly to see Italy, was very great; and he had a longing wish, too, to leave some Latin verses at the Grand Chartreux. He loved indeed the very act of travelling…. He was in some respects an admirable companion on the road, as he piqued himself upon feeling no inconvenience, and on despising no accommodations.’ Piozzi’s _Anec_. p. 168.
Johnson, this same year, speaking of a friend who had gone to the East Indies, said:–
‘I had some intention of accompanying him. Had I thought then as I do now, I should have gone.’ _Ante_, iii. 20. According to Mr. Tyers he once offered to attend another friend to India. Moreover ‘he talked much of travelling into Poland to observe the life of the Palatines, the account of which struck his curiosity very much.’ _Johnsoniana_, ed. 1836, p. 157.
1777. Boswell wrote to Johnson this year (_ante_, iii. 107):–
‘You have, I believe, seen all the cathedrals in England except that of Carlisle.’
This was not the case, yet most of them he had already seen or lived to see. With Lichfield, Oxford, and London he was familiar. Winchester and Exeter he had seen in 1762 on his tour to Devonshire (_ante_, i. 377), Peterborough, Ely, Lincoln, York, and Durham he no doubt saw in 1773 on his way to Scotland. The first three he might also have seen in 1764 on his visit to Langton (_ante_, i. 476). Chester, St. Asaph, Bangor, and Worcester he visited in 1774 in his journey to Wales (_post_, v. 435, 436, 448, 456). Through Canterbury he almost certainly passed in 1775 on his way to France (_ante_, ii. 384). Bristol he saw in 1776 (_ante_, iii. 51). To Chichester he drove from Brighton in 1782 (_post_, iv. 160). Rochester and Salisbury he visited in the summer of 1783 (_post_, iv. 233). Wells he might easily have seen when he was at Bath in 1776 (_ante_, iii. 44), and possibly Gloucester. Through Norwich he perhaps came on his return from Lincolnshire in 1764 (_ante_, i. 476). Hereford, I think, he could not have visited.
When in the September of this year Johnson and Boswell were driving in Dr. Taylor’s chaise to Derby, ‘Johnson strongly expressed his love of driving fast in a post-chaise. “If,” said he, “I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman; but she should be one who could understand me, and would add something to the conversation”‘ (_ante_, iii. 162). He had previously said (_ante_, ii. 453), as he was driven rapidly along in a post-chaise, ‘Life has not many things better than this.’
1778. Boswell wrote to Johnson:–
‘My wife is so different from you and me that she dislikes travelling.’ _Ante_, iii. 219.
Later on in the year Boswell records:–
‘Dr. Johnson expressed a particular enthusiasm with respect to visiting the wall of China. I catched it for the moment, and said I really believed I should go and see the wall of China had I not children, of whom it was my duty to take care. “Sir, (said he,) by doing so you would do what would be of importance in raising your children to eminence. There would be a lustre reflected upon them from your spirit and curiosity. They would be at all times regarded as the children of a man who had gone to view the wall of China. I am serious, Sir.”‘ _Ante_, iii. 269.
1780. In August he wrote to Boswell:–
‘I know not whether I shall get a ramble this summer…. I hope you and I may yet shew ourselves on some part of Europe, Asia, or Africa.’ _Ante_, iii. 435.
In the same year Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:–
‘I hope you have no design of stealing away to Italy before the election, nor of leaving me behind you; though I am not only seventy, but seventy-one.’ _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 177.
On Oct. 17 he wrote:–
‘The summer has been foolishly lost, like many other of my summers and winters. I hardly saw a green field, but staid in town to work, without working much.’ _Ante_, iii. 441.
1784. Johnson’s wish to go to Italy in the last year of his life was caused by the hope that it might be good for his health. ‘I do not,’ he wrote, ‘travel for pleasure or curiosity; yet if I should recover,’ he added, ‘curiosity would revive.’ _Post_, iv. 348.
Mrs. Piozzi, without however giving the year, records:–
‘Dr. Johnson was very angry with a gentleman at our house for not being better company, and urged that he had travelled into Bohemia and seen Prague. “Surely,” added he, “the man who has seen Prague might tell us something new and something strange, and not sit silent for want of matter to put his lips in motion.”‘ Piozzi’s _Journey_, ii. 317.
All these passages shew, what indeed is evident enough from the text, that it was not travelling in general but travelling between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four, with a character unformed, a memory unstored, and a judgment untrained, that Johnson attacked. It was a common habit in his day to send young men of fortune to make the tour of Europe, as it was called, at an age when they would now be sent to either Oxford or Cambridge. Lord Charlemont was but eighteen when he left England. Locke, at the end of his work on _Education_, said in 1692 much the same as Johnson said in 1778.
‘The ordinary time of travel,’ he wrote, ‘is from sixteen to one and twenty.’ He would send any one either at a younger age than sixteen under a tutor, or at an older age than twenty-one without a tutor; ‘when he is of age to govern himself, and make observations of what he finds in other countries worthy his notice … and when, too, being thoroughly acquainted with the laws and fashions, the natural and moral advantages and defects of his own country, he has something to exchange with those abroad, from whose conversation he hoped to reap any knowledge.’
Goldsmith, in his _Present State of Polite Learning_, ch. xiii, wrote in 1759:–
‘We see more of the world by travel, but more of human nature by remaining at home…. A youth just landed at the Brille resembles a clown at a puppet-show; carries his amazement from one miracle to another; from this cabinet of curiosities to that collection of pictures; but wondering is not the way to grow wise…. The greatest advantages which result to youth from travel are an easy address, the shaking off national prejudices, and the finding nothing ridiculous in national peculiarities. The time spent in these acquisitions could have been more usefully employed at home.’ Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 197) says that ‘the previous and indispensable requisites of foreign travel are age, judgment, a competent knowledge of men and books, and a freedom from domestic prejudices.’
When he was only eighteen years old he saw the evils of early travelling:–
‘I never liked young travellers; they go too raw to make any great remarks, and they lose a time which is (in my opinion) the most precious part of a man’s life.’ _Ib_. p. 98.
Cowper, in his _Progress of Error_ (ed. 1782, i. 60), describes how–
‘His stock, a few French phrases got by heart, With much to learn and nothing to impart, The youth obedient to his sire’s commands, Sets off a wanderer into foreign lands.
* * * * *
Returning he proclaims by many a grace, By shrugs and strange contortions of his face, How much a dunce that has been sent to roam Excels a dunce that has been kept at home.’
APPENDIX C.
ELECTION OF LORD MAYORS OF LONDON.
(_Page_ 356.)
In the years 1751-2-3, the Lord Mayor was not appointed by rotation; Sir G. Champion, the senior Alderman, being accused of a leaning towards Spain. From 1754 to 1765 (inclusive) if there was in any year a contest, yet in each case the senior Alderman nominated was chosen. From 1766 to 1775 (inclusive) there was in every year a departure from the order of seniority. In 1776-8 the order of seniority was again observed; so that two years before Johnson made his remark the irregularity had come to an end. This information I owe to the kindness of Mr. Scott, the excellent Chamberlain of the City. Sir George Champion had been passed over in the year 1739 also. In an address to the Liverymen he says that ‘the disorders and great disturbance to the peace of the city, which in former times had been occasioned by the over-eagerness of some, too ambitious and impatient to obtain this great honour, had been quieted’ by the adoption of the order of seniority. _Gent. Mag_. 1739, p. 595. Among the Lord Mayors from 1769-1775 (inclusive) we find Beckford, Trecothick, Crosby, Townshend, Bull, Wilkes, and Sawbridge. ‘Where did Beckford and Trecothick learn English?’ asked Johnson (_ante_, iii. 76). Crosby, in the year of his mayoralty (1770-1), was committed to the Tower by the House of Commons, for having himself committed to prison a messenger of the House when attempting to arrest the printer of the _London Evening Debates_, who was accused of a breach of privilege in reporting the Debates (_Parl. Hist_. xvii. 155). Townshend in the same year refused to pay the land-tax, on the plea that his county (Middlesex) was no longer represented, as Wilkes’s election had been annulled (_Walpole’s Letters_, v. 348). Bull in the House of Commons violently attacked Lord North’s ministry (_Parl. Hist_. xix. 980). Sawbridge, year after year, brought into Parliament a bill for shortening the duration of parliaments. During his Mayoralty he would not suffer the pressgangs to enter the city. (Walpole’s _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 84.)
Among the Aldermen the Court-party had a majority. In April 1769 Wilkes’s eligibility for election as an Alderman was not allowed by a majority of ten to six (Walpole’s _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iii. 360, and _Ann. Reg_. xii. 92). On his release from prison in April 1770 he was, however, admitted without a division (_ib_. xiii. 99). When, in March 1770, the City presented an outspoken remonstrance to the King, sixteen Aldermen protested against it (Walpole’s _Letters_, v. 229). About this time there arose a great division in the popular party in the City. According to Lord Albemarle, in his _Memoirs of Rockingham_, ii. 209, from the period of this struggle ‘the Whigs and what are now called Radicals became two distinct sections of the Liberal party.’ Townshend, who in this followed the lead of Lord Shelburne, headed the more moderate men against Wilkes. The result was that in 1771 each section running a candidate for the Mayoralty, a third man, Nash, who was opposed to both, was returned (Walpole’s _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iv. 345, and _Ann. Reg_. xiv. 146).
The Livery, for a time at least, was Wilkite. Wilkes’s name was sent up as Lord Mayor at the top of the list in 1772 and 1773, but he was in each case passed over by the Court of Aldermen. It was not till 1774 that he was elected by a kind of ‘Hobson’s choice.’ The Aldermen had to choose between him and the retiring Lord Mayor, Bull. Walpole, writing of Nov. 1776, says the new Lord Mayor ‘invited the Ministers to his feast, to which they had not been asked for seven years’ (_Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 84). See Boswell’s _Hebrides_, _post_, v. 339.
APPENDIX D.
THE INMATES OF JOHNSON’S HOUSE.
(Page 368.)
In September of this year (1778) Miss Burney records the following conversation at Streatham:–‘MRS. THRALE. “Pray, Sir, how does Mrs. Williams like all this tribe?” DR. J. “Madam, she does not like them at all; but their fondness for her is not greater. She and Desmoulins quarrel incessantly; but as they can both be occasionally of service to each other, and as neither of them have any other place to go to, their animosity does not force them to separate.” … MR. T. “And pray who is clerk of your kitchen, Sir?” DR. J. “Why, Sir, I am afraid there is none; a general anarchy prevails in my kitchen, as I am told by Mr. Levett, who says it is not now what it used to be.” MRS. T. “Mr. Levett, I suppose, Sir, has the office of keeping the hospital in health, for he is an apothecary.” DR. J. “Levett, Madam, is a brutal fellow, but I have a good regard for him; for his brutality is in his manners, not his mind.” MR. T. “But how do you get your dinners drest?” DR. J. “Why, Desmoulins has the chief management of the kitchen; but our roasting is not magnificent, for we have no jack.” MR. T. “No jack! Why, how do they manage without?” DR. J. “Small joints, I believe, they manage with a string, and larger are done at the tavern. I have some thoughts (with a profound gravity) of buying a jack, because I think a jack is some credit to a house.” MR. T. “Well, but you’ll have a spit too.” DR. J. “No, Sir, no; that would be superfluous; for we shall never use it; and if a jack is seen, a spit will be presumed.” MRS. T. “But pray, Sir, who is the Poll you talk of? She that you used to abet in her quarrels with Mrs. Williams, and call out, _At her again, Poll! Never flinch, Poll!_” DR. J. “Why, I took to Poll very well at first, but she won’t do upon a nearer examination.” MRS. T. “How came she among you, Sir?” DR. J. “Why, I don’t rightly remember, but we could spare her very well from us. Poll is a stupid slut. I had some hopes of her at first; but when I talked to her tightly and closely, I could make nothing of her; she was wiggle waggle, and I could never persuade her to be categorical.”‘ Mme. D’Arblay’s _Diary,_ i. 114.
More than a year later Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:–‘Discord keeps her residence in this habitation, but she has for some time been silent. We have much malice, but no mischief. Levett is rather a friend to Williams, because he hates Desmoulins more. A thing that he should hate more than Desmoulins is not to be found.’ _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 80. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 213) says:–‘He really was oftentimes afraid of going home, because he was so sure to be met at the door with numberless complaints; and he used to lament pathetically to me that they made his life miserable from the impossibility he found of making theirs happy, when every favour he bestowed on one was wormwood to the rest. If, however, I ventured to blame their ingratitude, and condemn their conduct, he would instantly set about softening the one and justifying the other; and finished commonly by telling me, that I knew not how to make allowances for situations I never experienced.’ Hawkins (_Life_, p. 404) says:–‘Almost throughout Johnson’s life poverty and distressed circumstances seemed to be the strongest of all recommendations to his favour. When asked by one of his most intimate friends, how he could bear to be surrounded by such necessitous and undeserving people as he had about him, his answer was, “If I did not assist them, no one else would, and they must be lost for want.”‘ ‘His humanity and generosity, in proportion to his slender income, were,’ writes Murphy (_Life_, p. 146), ‘unbounded. It has been truly said that the lame, the blind, and the sorrowful found in his house a sure retreat.’ See also _ante_, iii. 222. At the same time it must be remembered that while Mrs. Desmoulins and Miss Carmichael only brought trouble into the house, in the society of Mrs. Williams and Levett he had real pleasure. See _ante_, i. 232, note 1, and 243, note 3.
* * * * *
APPENDIX E.
BOSWELL’S LETTERS OF ACCEPTANCE OF THE OFFICE OF SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE TO THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
(_Page 370, note i_.)
LETTER I.
‘Agli Illustrissimi Signori Il Presidente e Consiglieri dell’ Academia Reale delle arti in Londra.
‘Avreste forse illustrissimi Signori potuto scegliere molte persone piu degne dell’ ufficcio di Segretario per la corrispondenza straniera; ma non sarebbe, son certo, stato possibile di trovar alcuno dal quale questa distinzione sarebbe stata piu stimata. Sento con un animo molto riconoscente la parzialita che l’Academia a ben voluto mostrar per me; e mi conto felicissimo che la mia elezione sia stata graziosamente confirmata dalla sua Maesta lo stesso Sovrano che a fondato l’Academia, e che si e sempre mostrato il suo beneficente Protettore.
‘Vi prego, Signori, di credere que porro ogni mio studio a contribuire tanto che potro alia prosperita della nostra instituzione ch’ e gia arrivata ad un punto si rispettevole.
‘Ho l’onore d’essere,
‘Illustrissimi Signori,
‘Vostro umilissimo,
‘e divotissimo servo,
‘Giacomo Boswell.’
‘Londra,
’31 d’Ottobre, 1791.’
LETTER. II.
‘A Messieurs Le President et les autres Membres du Conseil de l’Academie Royale des Arts a Londres.
‘Messieurs,
‘C’est avec la plus vive reconnoissance que J’accepte la charge de Secretaire pour la Correspondence etrangere de votre Academie a laquelle J’ai eu l’honneur d’etre choisi par vos suffrages unanimes gracieusement confirmes par sa Majeste.
‘Ce choix spontane Messieurs me flatte beaucoup; et m’inspire des desirs les plus ardens de m’en montrer digne, au moins par la promptitude avec laquelle Je saisirai toute occasion de faire ce que Je pourrai pour contribuer a l’avantage des Arts et la celebrite de l’Academie.
‘J’ai l’honneur d’etre avec toute la consideration possible,
‘Messieurs,
‘Votre serviteur tres oblige tres humble et tres fidel, ‘Boswell.’
‘A Londres,
‘ce 31 d’Octobre, 1791’
[In this letter I have made no attempt to correct Boswell’s errors.]
LETTER III.
‘To the President and Council of The Royal Academy of Arts in London.
‘Gentlemen,
‘Your unsolicited and unanimous election of me to be Secretary for Foreign Correspondence to your Academy, and the gracious confirmation of my election by his Majesty, I acknowledge with the warmest sentiments of gratitude and respect.
‘I have always loved the Arts, and during my travels on the Continent I did not neglect the opportunities which I had of cultivating a taste for them.[1372] That taste I trust will now be much improved, when I shall be so happy as to share in the advantages which the Royal Academy affords; and I fondly embrace this very pleasing distinction as giving me the means of providing additional solace for the future years of my life.
‘Be assured, Gentlemen, that as I am proud to be a member of an Academy which has the peculiar felicity of not being at all dependant on a Minister[1373], but under the immediate patronage and superintendence of the Sovereign himself, I shall be zealous to do every thing in my power that can be of any service to our excellent Institution.
‘I have the honour to be,
‘Gentlemen,
‘Your much obliged
‘And faithful humble servant,
‘JAMES BOSWELL.’
‘London,
’31 October, 1791.’
LETTER IV.
‘SIR,
‘I am much obliged to you for the very polite terms in which you have been pleased to communicate to me my election to be Secretary for Foreign Correspondence to the Royal Academy of Arts in London; and I request that you will lay before the President and Council the enclosed letters signifying my acceptance of that office.
‘I am with great regard,
‘Sir,
‘Your most obedient humble servant,
‘JAMES BOSWELL.’
‘London,
’31 October, 1791.
‘To John Richards, Esq., R.A. &c.’
Bennet Langton’s letter of acceptance of the Professorship of Ancient Literature in the place of Johnson is dated April 2, 1788.
I must express my acknowledgments to the President and Council of the Royal Academy for their kindness in allowing me to copy the above letters from the originals that are in their possession.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See ante, March 15, 1776.
[2] _Anecdotes of Johnson_, p. 176. BOSWELL. ‘It is,’ he said, ‘so _very_ difficult for a sick man not to be a scoundrel.’ Ib. p. 175. He called Fludyer a scoundrel (_ante_, March 20, 1776), apparently because he became a Whig. ‘He used to say a man was a scoundrel that was afraid of anything. “Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is,” he said, “a scoundrel.”‘ Johnson’s _Works_ (1787), xi. 199, 211. Mr. Croker points out that ‘Johnson in his _Dictionary_ defined _knave_, a scoundrel; _sneakup_, a scoundrel; _rascal_, a scoundrel; _loon_, a scoundrel; _lout_, a scoundrel; _poltroon_, a scoundrel; and that he coined the word _scoundrelism_’ (Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Aug. 25, 1773). Churchill, in _The Ghost_, Book ii. (_Poems_, i. 1. 217), describes Johnson as one
‘Who makes each sentence current pass, With _puppy, coxcomb, scoundrel, ass_.’
Swift liked the word. ‘God forbid,’ he wrote, ‘that ever such a scoundrel as Want should dare to approach you.’ Swift’s _Works_, ed. 1803, xviii. 39.
[3] See _ante_, i. 49, for Johnson’s fondness for the old romances.
[4] Boswell, _ante_, i. 386, implies that Sheridan’s pension was partly due to Wedderburne’s influence.
[5] See _ante_, i. 386.
[6] Akenside, in his _Ode to Townshend_ (Book ii. 4), says:–
‘For not imprudent of my loss to come, I saw from Contemplation’s quiet cell
His feet ascending to another home, Where public praise and envied greatness dwell.’
He had, however, no misgivings, for he thus ends:–
‘Then for the guerdon of my lay,
This man with faithful friendship, will I say, From youth to honoured age my arts and me hath viewed.’
[7] We have now more knowledge generally diffused; all our ladies read now ‘which is a great extension.’ _Post_, April 29, 1778.
[8] See _post_, April, 28, 1783.
[9] See _post_, March 22, 1783.
[10] See _post_, March 18, 1784.
[11] Newbery, the publisher, was the vendor of Dr. James’s famous powder. It was known that on the doctor’s death a chemist whom he had employed meant to try to steal the business, under the pretence that he alone knew the secret of the preparation. A supply of powders enough to last for many years was laid in by Newbery in anticipation, while James left an affidavit that the chemist was never employed in the manufacture. He, however, asserted that James was deprived of his mental faculties when the affidavit was made. Evidence against this was collected and published; the conclusion to the Preface being written by Johnson. _A Bookseller of the Last Century_, p. 138. See _ante_, i. 159.
[12] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on the birth of a second son who died early:–‘I congratulate you upon your boy; but you must not think that I shall love him all at once as well as I love Harry, for Harry you know is so rational. I shall love him by degrees.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 206. A week after Harry’s death he wrote:–‘I loved him as I never expect to love any other little boy; but I could not love him as a parent.’ _Ib_. p. 310.
[13] Johnson had known this anxiety. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Ashbourne on July 7, 1775:–‘I cannot think why I hear nothing from you. I hope and fear about my dear friends at Streatham. But I may have a letter this afternoon–Sure it will bring me no bad news.’ _Ib_. i. 263. See Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Sept. 21, 1773.
[14] See _ante_, ii. 75.
[15] _ante_, April 10, 1775.
[16] See _ante_, March 21, 1776, and _post_, Sept. 19, 1777.
[17] The phrase ‘vexing thoughts,’ is I think, very expressive. It has been familiar to me from my childhood; for it is to be found in the _Psalms in Metre_, used in the churches (I believe I should say _kirks_) of Scotland, _Psal_. xliii. v. 5;
‘Why art thou then cast down, my soul? What should discourage thee?
And why with _vexing thoughts art_ thou Disquieted in me?’
Some allowance must no doubt be made for early prepossession. But at a maturer period of life, after looking at various metrical versions of the _Psalms_, I am well satisfied that the version used in Scotland is, upon the whole, the best; and that it has in general a simplicity and _unction_ of sacred Poesy; and in many parts its transfusion is admirable. BOSWELL.
[18] ‘Burke and Reynolds are the same one day as another,’ Johnson said, _post_, under Sept. 22, 1777. Boswell celebrates Reynolds’s ‘equal and placid temper,’ _ante_, i. I. On Aug. 12, 1775, he wrote to Temple:–‘It is absurd to hope for continual happiness in this life; few men, if any, enjoy it. I have a kind of belief that Edmund Burke does; he has so much knowledge, so much animation, and the consciousness of so much fame.’ _Letters of Boswell_, p. 212.
[19] _ante_, i. 446.
[20] Baretti says, that ‘Mrs. Thrale abruptly proposed to start for Bath, as wishing to avoid the sight of the funeral. She had no man-friend to go with her,’ and so he offered his services. Johnson at that moment arrived. ‘I expected that he would spare me the jaunt, and go himself to Bath with her; but he made no motion to that effect.’ _European Mag_. xiii. 315. It was on the evening of the 29th that Boswell found Johnson, as he thought, not in very good humour. Yet on the 30th he wrote to Mrs. Thrale, and called on Mr. Thrale. On April 1 and April 4 he again wrote to Mrs. Thrale. He would have gone a second time, he says, to see Mr. Thrale, had he not been made to understand that when he was wanted he would be sent for. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 309-314.
[21] Pope, _Essay on Man_, iv. 390. Boswell twice more applies the same line to Johnson, post, June 3, 1781, and under Dec. 13, 1784.
[22] Imlac consoles the Princess for the loss of Pekuah. ‘When the clouds of sorrow gather over us, we see nothing beyond them, nor can imagine how they will be dispelled; yet a new day succeeded to the night, and sorrow is never long without a dawn of ease. But they who restrain themselves from receiving comfort do as the savages would have done, had they put out their eyes when it was dark.’ _Rasselas_, ch. 35. ‘Keep yourself busy,’ wrote Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, ‘and you will in time grow cheerful. New prospects may open, and new enjoyments may come within your reach.’ _Piozzi Letters_.
[23] See _ante_, i. 86. It was reprinted in 1789.
[24] See Boswell’s _Hebrides_ under Nov. 11, 1773.
[25] See _post_, under April 29, 1776.
[26] In like manner he writes, ‘I catched for the moment an enthusiasm with respect to visiting the Wall of China.’ _post_ April 10, 1778. Johnson had had some desire to go upon Cook’s expedition in 1772. _ante_, March 21, 1772.
[27] Mme. D’Arblay (_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 284) describes ‘the perfect case with which Omai managed a sword which he had received from the King, and which he had that day put on for the first time in order to go to the House of Lords.’ He is the ‘gentle savage’ in Cowpers _Task_, i. 632.
[28] See ante, ii. 50.
[29] Voltaire (_Siecle de Louis XV_, ch. xv.), in his account of the battle of Fontenoy, thus mentions him:–‘On etait a cinquante pas de distance…. Les officiers anglais saluerent les Francais en otant leurs chapeaux…. Les officiers des gardes francaises leur rendirent le salut, Mylord Charles Hay, capitaine aux gardes anglaises, cria:–_Messieurs des gardes francaises, tirez_. Le comte d’Auteroche leur dit a voix haute:–_Messieurs, nous ne tirons jamais les premiers; tirez vous-memes_.’
[30] See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton’s _Collection_. Hay was third in command in the expedition to North America in 1757. It was reported that he said that ‘the nation’s wealth was expended in making sham-fights and planting cabbages.’ He was put under arrest and sent home to be tried. _Gent. Mag_. 1758, p. 170. Mr. Croker says that ‘the real state of the case was that he had gone mad, and was in that state sent home.’ He died before the sentence of the court-martial was promulgated. Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 497.
[31] In _Thoughts on the Coronation of George III_ (_Works_, v. 458) he expressed himself differently, if indeed the passage is of his writing (see _ante_, i. 361). He says: ‘It cannot but offend every Englishman to see troops of soldiers placed between him and his sovereign, as if they were the most honourable of the people, or the King required guards to secure his person from his subjects. As their station makes them think themselves important, their insolence is always such as may be expected from servile authority.’ In his _Journey to the Hebrides_ (_ib_. ix. 30) he speaks of ‘that courtesy which is so closely connected with the military character.’ See _post_, April 10, 1778.
[32] ‘It is not in the power even of God to make a polite soldier.’ Meander; quoted by Hume, _Essays_, Part i. 20, note.
[33] In Johnson’s Debates for 1741 (_Works_, x. 387) is on the quartering of soldiers. By the Mutiny Act the innkeeper was required to find each foot-soldier lodging, diet, and small beer for fourpence a day. By the Act as amended that year if he furnished salt, vinegar, small-beer, candles, fire, and utensils to dress their victuals, without payment, he had not to supply diet except on a march. _Ib_. pp. 416, 420. The allowance of small-beer was fixed at five pints a day, though it was maintained that it should be six. Lord Baltimore, according to Johnson, said that ‘as every gentleman’s servants each consumed daily six pints, it surely is not to be required that a soldier should live in a perpetual state of warfare with his constitution.’ _Ib_. p. 418. Burke, writing in 1794, says:–‘In quarters the innkeepers are obliged to find for the soldiers lodging, fire, candle-light, small-beer, salt and vinegar gratis.’ Burke’s _Corres_. iv. 258. Johnson wrote in 1758 (_Works_, vi. 150):–‘The manner in which the soldiers are dispersed in quarters over the country during times of peace naturally produces laxity of discipline; they are very little in sight of their officers; and when they are not engaged in the slight duty of the guard are suffered to live every man his own way.’ Fielding, in _Tom Jones_, bk. ix. ch. 6, humourously describes an innkeeper’s grievances.
[34] This alludes to the pleadings of a Stoic and an Epicurean for and against the existence of the Divinity in Lucian’s _Jupiter the Tragic_. CROKER.
[35] ‘There is a time when every man is weary of raising difficulties only to ask himself with the solution and desires to enjoy truth without the labour or hazard of contest.’ Johnson’s _Works_, vi. 497. See _ante_ May 7, 1773, and _post_, April 3, 1779, where he says, ‘Sir, you are to a certain degree hurt by knowing that even one man does not believe.’ Hume, in his Essay _Of Parties in General_, had written:–‘Such is the nature of the human mind, that it always takes hold of every mind that approaches it; and as it is wonderfully fortified and corroborated by an unanimity of sentiments, so is it, shocked and disturbed by any contrariety.’ ‘Carlyle was fond of quoting a sentence of Novalis:–“My conviction gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it.”‘ _Saturday Review_, No. 1538, p. 521. ‘The introducing of new doctrines,’ said Bacon, ‘is an affectation of tyranny over the understandings and beliefs of men.’ Bacon’s _Nat. Hist_., Experiment 1000.
[36] ‘We must own,’ said Johnson, ‘that neither a dull boy, nor an idle boy, will do so well at a great school as at a private one.’ Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Aug. 22, 1773. See _ante_, under Dec. 5, 1775. On June 16, 1784, he said of a very timid boy:–‘Placing him at a public school is forcing an owl upon day.’ Lord Shelburne says that the first Pitt told him ‘that his reason for preferring private to public education was, that he scarce observed a boy who was not cowed for life at Eton; that a public school might suit a boy of a turbulent forward disposition, but would not do where there was any gentleness.’ Fitzmaurice’s _Shelburne_, i. 72.
[37] ‘There are,’ wrote Hume in 1767, ‘several advantages of a Scots education; but the question is, whether that of the language does not counterbalance them, and determine the preference to the English.’ He decides it does. He continues:–‘The only inconvenience is, that few Scotsmen that have had an English education have ever settled cordially in their own country; and they have been commonly lost ever after to their friends.’ J.H. Burton’s _Hume_, ii. 403.
[38] He wrote to Temple on Nov. 28, 1789:–‘My eldest son has been at Eton since the 15th of October. You cannot imagine how miserable he has been; he wrote to me for some time as if from the galleys, and intreated me to come to him.’ _Letters of Boswell_, p. 314. On July 21, 1790, he wrote of his second son who was at home ill:–‘I am in great concern what should be done with him, for he is so oppressed at Westminster School by the big boys that I am almost afraid to send him thither.’ _Ib_. p. 327. On April 6, 1791, he wrote:–‘Your little friend James is quite reconciled to Westminster.’ _Ib_. p. 337. Southey, who was at Westminster with young Boswell, describes ‘the capricious and dangerous tyranny’ under which he himself had suffered. Southey’s _Life_, i. 138.
[39] Horace, Satires, i. 6. 65-88.
[40] Dr. Adam Smith, who was for some time a Professor in the University of Glasgow, has uttered, in his _Wealth of Nations_ [v. I, iii. 2], some reflections upon this subject which are certainly not well founded, and seem to be invidious. BOSWELL.
[41] See _ante,_ ii. 98.
[42] Gibbon denied this. ‘The diligence of the tutors is voluntary, and will consequently be languid, while the pupils themselves, or their parents, are not indulged in the liberty of choice or change,’ _Misc. Works_, i. 54. Of one of his tutors he wrote:–‘He well remembered that he had a salary to receive, and only forgot that he had a duty to perform.’ _Ib_. p. 58. Boswell, _post_, end of Nov. 1784, blames Dr. Knox for ‘ungraciously attacking his venerable _Alma Mater_.’ Knox, who was a Fellow of St. John’s, left Oxford in 1778. In his _Liberal Education_, published in 1781, he wrote:–‘I saw immorality, habitual drunkenness, idleness and ignorance, boastingly obtruding themselves on public view.’ Knox’s _Works_, iv. 138. ‘The general tendency of the universities is favourable to the diffusion of ignorance, idleness, vice, and infidelity among young men.’ _Ib_. p. 147. ‘In no part of the kingdom will you meet with more licentious practices and sentiments, and with less learning than in some colleges.’ _Ib_. p. 179. ‘The tutors give what are called lectures. The boys construe a classic, the jolly young tutor lolls in his elbow-chair, and seldom gives himself the trouble of interrupting the greatest dunce.’ _Ib_. p. 199. ‘Some societies would have been glad to shut themselves up by themselves, and enjoy the good things of the cook and manciple, without the intrusion of commoners who come for education.’ _Ib_. p. 200. ‘The principal thing required is external respect from the juniors. However ignorant or unworthy a senior fellow may be, yet the slightest disrespect is treated as the greatest crime of which an academic can be guilty.’ _Ib_. p. 201. The Proctors gave far ‘more frequent reprimands to the want of a band, or to the hair tied in queue, than to important irregularities. A man might be a drunkard, a debauchee, and yet long escape the Proctor’s animadversion; but no virtue could protect you if you walked on Christ-church meadow or the High Street with a band tied too low, or with no band at all; with a pig-tail, or with a green or scarlet coat.’ _Ib_. p. 159. Only thirteen weeks’ residence a year was required. _Ib_. p. 172. The degree was conferred without examination. _Ib_. p. 189. After taking it ‘a man offers himself as a candidate for orders. He is examined by the Bishop’s chaplain. He construes a few verses in the Greek testament, and translates one of the articles from Latin into English. His testimonial being received he comes from his jolly companions to the care of a large parish.’ _Ib_. p. 197. Bishop Law gave in 1781 a different account of Cambridge. There, he complains, such was the devotion to mathematics, that ‘young men often sacrifice their whole stock of strength and spirits, and so entirely devote most of their first few years to what is called _taking a good degree_, as to be hardly good for anything else.’ Preface to Archbishop King’s _Essay on the Origin of Evil_, p. xx.
[43] According to Adam Smith this is true only of the Protestant countries. In Roman Catholic countries and England where benefices are rich, the church is continually draining the universities of all their ablest members. In Scotland and Protestant countries abroad, where a chair in a university is generally a better establishment than a benefice, by far the greater part of the most eminent men of letters have been professors. _Wealth of Nations_, v. i. iii. 3.
[44] See Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773.
[45] Dr. Goldsmith was dead before Mr. Maclaurin discovered the