The Life Of Johnson Vol 3 by James Boswell (page 9)

_John_; John_ston_ the Scotch. My illustrious friend observed that many North Britons pronounced his name in their own way. BOSWELL. Boswell (_Hebrides_, Oct. 21, 1773) tells of one Lochbuy who, ‘being told that Dr. Johnson did not hear well, bawled out to him, “Are you of the Johnstons of Glencro, or of Ardnamurchan?”‘

[312] See _post_, under Dec. 24, 1783.

[313] Johnson’s old amanuensis. _Ante_, i. 187. Johnson described him as ‘a man of great learning.’ Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 654.

[314] On account of their differing from him as to religion and politicks. BOSWELL. See _post_, April 13, 1778. Mr. Croker says that ‘the Club had, as its records show, for many of his latter years very little of his company.’

[315] See _ante_, i. 225 note 2, July 4, 1774, and March 20, 1776.

[316] Boswell was no reader. ‘I don’t believe,’ Johnson once said to him, ‘you have borrowed from Waller. I wish you would enable yourself to borrow more.’ _Ante_, April 16, 1775. Boswell wrote to Temple on March 18, 1775:–‘I have a kind of impotency of study.’ Two months later he wrote:–‘I have promised to Dr. Johnson to read when I get to Scotland, and to keep an account of what I read. I shall let you know how I go on. My mind must be nourished.’ _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 181, 195.

[317] Chesterfield’s _Letters to his Son_ were published in 1774, and his _Miscellaneous Works_, together with _Memoirs and Letters to his Friends_, early in 1777.

[318] ‘Whatso it is, the Danaan folk, yea gift-bearing I fear.’ Morris, AEneids, ii. 49.

[319] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on March 19, 1777:–‘You are all young, and gay, and easy; but I have miserable nights, and know not how to make them better; but I shift pretty well a-days, and so have at you all at Dr. Burney’s to-morrow.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 345.

[320] A twelfth was born next year. See _post_, July 3, 1778.

[321] It was March 29.

[322] _Pr. and Med_. p. 155. BOSWELL

[323] See _ante_, i. 341, note 3.

[324] See _ante_, i. 439.

[325] Johnson’s moderation in demanding so small a sum is extraordinary. Had he asked one thousand, or even fifteen hundred guineas, the booksellers, who knew the value of his name, would doubtless have readily given it. They have probably got five thousand guineas by this work in the course of twenty-five years. MALONE.

[326] See _post_, beginning of 1781.

[327] See _ante_, ii. 272, note 2.

[328] Mr. Joseph Cooper Walker, of the Treasury, Dublin, who obligingly communicated to me this and a former letter from Dr. Johnson to the same gentleman (for which see vol. i. p. 321), writes to me as follows: –‘Perhaps it would gratify you to have some account of Mr. O’Connor. He is an amiable, learned, venerable old gentleman, of an independent fortune, who lives at Belanagar, in the county of Roscommon; he is an admired writer, and Member of the Irish Academy.–The above Letter is alluded to in the Preface to the 2nd edit, of his _Dissert_, p. 3.’–Mr. O’Connor afterwards died at the age of eighty-two. See a well-drawn character of him in the _Gent. Mag_. for August 1791. BOSWELL.

[329] Mr. Croker shows good reason for believing that in the original letter this parenthesis stood:–‘_if such there were_.’

[330] See _ante_, i. 292.

[331] ‘Johnson had not heard of Pearce’s _Sermons_, which I wondered at, considering that he wrote all the _Life_ published by the Chaplain Derby, except what his Lordship wrote himself.’ _Letters of Boswell_, p. 242. See ante, March 20, 1776.

[332] Boswell, it seems, is here quoting himself. See his _Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 201 (Sept. 13, 1773), where, however, he lays the emphasis differently, writing ‘_fervour_ of loyalty.’

[333] ‘An old acquaintance’ of the Bishop says that ‘he struggled hard ten years ago to resign his Bishopric and the Deanery of Westminster, in which our gracious King was willing to gratify him; but upon a consultation of the Bishops they thought it could not be done with propriety; yet he was permitted to resign the Deanery.’ _Gent. Mag_. 1775, p. 421.

[334] ‘This person, it is said, was a stay-maker, but being a man of wit and parts he betook himself to study, and at a time when the discipline of the inns of court was scandalously lax, got himself called to the Bar, and practised at the quarter-sessions under me, but with little success. He became the conductor of a paper called _The Public Ledger_ and a writer for the stage, in which he met with some encouragement, till it was insinuated that he was a pensioner of the minister, and therefore a fit object of patriotic vengeance.’ Hawkins’s _Johnson_, p. 518. See _ante_, ii. 48 note, and _post_, 1784, in Mr. Nichols’s account of Johnson’s last days.

[335] ‘This address had the desired effect. The play was well received.’ Murphy’s _Garrick_, p. 302. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield, ‘Lucy [his step-daughter] thinks nothing of my prologue for Kelly, and says she has always disowned it.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 352.

[336] It was composed at a time when Savage was generally without lodging, and often without meat. Much of it was written with pen and ink that were borrowed, on paper that had been picked up in the streets. The unhappy poet ‘was obliged to submit himself wholly to the players, and admit with whatever reluctance the emendations of Mr. Cibber, which he always considered as the disgrace of his performance.’ When it was brought out, he himself took the part of Overbury. ‘He was so much ashamed of having been reduced to appear as a player, that he always blotted out his name from the list when a copy of his tragedy was to be shown to his friends.’ Johnson’s _Works_, viii. 110-112.

[337] It was not at Drury-lane, but at Covent Garden theatre, that it was acted. MALONE.

[338] Part First, Chap 4. BOSWELL. See _ante_ ii. 225.

[339] _Life of Richard Savage_, by Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL.

[340] See _ante_, i. 387, and _post_, May 17, 1783.

[341] Sheridan joined the Literary Club in March, 1777. _The Rivals_ and _The Duenna_ were brought out in 1775; _The Trip to Scarborough_ on Feb. 24, 1777, and _The School for Scandal_ in the following May. Moore (_Life of Sheridan_, i. 168), speaking of _The Duenna_, says, ‘The run of this opera has, I believe, no parallel in the annals of the drama. Sixty-three nights was the career of _The Beggar’s Opera_; but _The Duenna_ was acted no less than seventy-five times during the season.’ _The Trip to Scarborough_ was a failure. Johnson, therefore, doubtless referred to _The Rivals_ and _The Duenna_.

[342] The date is wrongly given. Boswell says that he wrote again on June 23 (_post_, p. 120), and Johnson’s letter of June 28 is in answer to both letters. The right date is perhaps June 9.

[343] See Boswell’s _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11, 1773.

[344] See pp. 29, 30, of this volume. BOSWELL.

[345] Johnson, describing ‘the fond intimacy’ of Quin and Thomson, says (_Works_, viii. 374):–‘The commencement of this benevolence is very honourable to Quin, who is reported to have delivered Thomson, then known to him only for his genius, from an arrest by a very considerable present; and its continuance is honourable to both, for friendship is not always the sequel of obligation.’

[346] See _ante_, ii. 63, and _post_, June 18, 1778.

[347] Formerly Sub-preceptor to his present Majesty, and afterwards a Commissioner of Excise. MALONE.

[348] The physician and poet. He died in 1779.

[349] Boswell nine years earlier (_ante_, ii. 63) had heard Johnson accuse Thomson of gross sensuality.

[350] ‘Savage, who lived much with Thomson, once told me he heard a lady remarking that she could gather from his works three parts of his character, that he was a great lover, a great swimmer, and rigorously abstinent; but, said Savage, he knows not any love but that of the sex; he was perhaps never in cold water in his life; and he indulges himself in all the luxury that comes within his reach.’ Johnson’s _Works_, viii. 377.

[351] Dr. Johnson was not the _editor_ of this Collection of _The English Poets_; he merely furnished the biographical prefaces. MALONE. See _post_, Sept. 14, 1777.

[352] See _ante_, under April 18, 1775.

[353] One letter he seems to have sent to him from this spot. See _ante_, ii. 3, note 1.

[354] Dr. Johnson had himself talked of our seeing Carlisle together. _High_ was a favourite word of his to denote a person of rank. He said to me, ‘Sir, I believe we may at the house of a Roman Catholick lady in Cumberland; a high lady, Sir.’ I afterwards discovered he meant Mrs. Strickland, sister of Charles Townley, Esq., whose very noble collection of pictures is not more to be admired, than his extraordinary and polite readiness in shewing it, which I and several of my friends have agreeably experienced. They who are possessed of valuable stores of gratification to persons of taste, should exercise their benevolence in imparting the pleasure. Grateful acknowledgments are due to Welbore Ellis Agar, Esq., for the liberal access which he is pleased to allow to his exquisite collection of pictures. BOSWELL.

[355] See Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Sept. 11, 1773.

[356] It is no doubt, on account of its brevity that Boswell in speaking of it writes:–‘What is called _The Life_.’

[357] See Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Oct, 29, 1773.

[358] See _ante_, under Feb. 7, 1775.

[359] See post, p. 139.

[360] See _ante_, i. 494.

[361] From Prior’s imitation of _Gualterus Danistonus ad Amicos_; the poem mentioned by Boswell in his _Hebrides_, Aug. 18, 1773.

[362] _Copy_ is _manuscript for printing_.

[363] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 521) says that the jury did not at the trial recommend Dodd to mercy. To one of the petitions ‘Mrs. Dodd first got the hands of the jury that found the bill against her husband, and after that, as it is supposed, of the jury that tried him.’ Ib. p. 527. He says that the public were at first very little interested in his fate, ‘but by various artifices, and particularly the insertion of his name in public papers, with such palliatives as he and his friends could invent, never with the epithet of _unfortunate_, they were betrayed into such an enthusiastic commiseration of his case as would have led a stranger to believe that himself had been no accessory to his distresses, but that they were the inflictions of Providence.’ Ib. p. 520. Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on May 19:–‘Poor Dodd was sentenced last week…. I am afraid he will suffer. The clergy seem not to be his friends. The populace, that was extremely clamorous against him, begins to pity him. _Notes and Queries_, 6th S., v. 423.

[364] Horace Walpole says ‘the criminal was raised to the dignity of a confessor in the eyes of the people–but an inexorable judge had already pronounced his doom. Lord Mansfield, who never felt pity, and never relented unless terrified, had indecently declared for execution even before the judges had given their opinion. An incident that seemed favourable weighed down the vigorous [qu. rigorous] scale. The Common Council had presented a petition for mercy to the king. Lord Mansfield, who hated the popular party as much as he loved severity, was not likely to be moved by such intercessors. At Court it grew the language that the king must discountenance such interposition.’ Walpole adds that ‘as an attempt to rescue Dodd might be apprehended, two thousand men were ordered to be reviewed in Hyde Park during the execution.’ _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 125.

[365] Johnson, in the ‘_Observations_ inserted in the newspapers’ (_post_, p. 142), said ‘that though the people cannot judge of the administration of justice so well as their governors, yet their voice has always been regarded. That if the people now commit an error, their error is on the part of mercy; and that perhaps history cannot shew a time in which the life of a criminal, guilty of nothing above fraud, was refused to the cry of nations, to the joint supplication of three and twenty thousand petitioners.’ Hawkins’s _Johnson_, p. 528. Johnson’s earnestness as a petitioner contrasts with the scornful way in which he had spoken of petitions. ‘There must be no yielding to encourage this,’ the minister might have answered in his own words. _Ante_, ii. 90.

[366] The king signs no sentences or death warrants; but out of respect to the Royal perogative of mercy, expressed by the old adage, ‘_The King’s face gives grace_,’ the cases of criminals convicted in London, where the king is supposed to be resident, were reported to him by the recorder, that his Majesty might have an option of pardoning. Hence it was seriously doubted whether a recorder’s report need or, indeed, could be made at Windsor. All his Majesty did on these occasions was, to express verbally his assent or dissent to or from the execution of the sentence; and, though the King was on such occasions attended by his Ministers and the great legal Privy Councillors, the business was not technically a council business, but the individual act of the King. On the accession of Queen Victoria, the nature of some cases that it might be necessary to report to her Majesty occasioned the abrogation of a practice which was certainly so far unreasonable that it made a difference between London and all the rest of the kingdom. CROKER. ‘I was exceedingly shocked,’ said Lord Eldon, ‘the first time I attended to hear the Recorder’s report, at the careless manner in which, as it appeared to me, it was conducted. We were called upon to decide on sentences affecting no less than the lives of men, and yet there was nothing laid before us to enable us to judge whether there had or had not been any extenuating circumstances; it was merely a recapitulation of the judge’s opinion and the sentence. I resolved that I never would attend another report, without having read and duly considered the whole of the evidence of each case, and I never did.’ Twiss’s _Eldon_, i. 398.

[367] Under-Secretary of State and a member of the Literary Club. _Ante_, i. 478.

[368] Johnson does not here let Boswell know that he had written this address (_post_, p. 141). Wesley, two days before Dodd’s execution, records (_Journal_, iv. 99):–‘I saw Dr. Dodd for the last time. He was in exactly such a temper as I wished. He never at any time expressed the least murmuring or resentment at any one; but entirely and calmly gave himself up to the will of God. Such a prisoner I scarce ever saw before; much less such a condemned malefactor. I should think none could converse with him without acknowledging that God is with him.’ In earlier years Wesley was more than once refused admittance to a man under sentence of death who was ‘earnestly desirous’ to speak with him. Wesley’s _Journal_, ed. 1827, i. 255, 292, 378.

[369] Between the Methodists and the Moravians there was no good-will. In 1749 the Moravians published a declaration that ‘whosoever reckons that those persons in England who are usually called Moravians, and those who are called Methodists, are the same, he is mistaken.’ Thereupon Wesley recorded in his _Journal_, ii. l20:–‘The Methodists, so called, heartily thank Brother Louis for his Declaration; as they count it no honour to be in any connexion either with him or his Brethren.’

[370] Since they have been so much honoured by Dr. Johnson I shall here insert them:

‘TO MR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

‘MY EVER DEAR AND MUCH-RESPECTED SIR,

‘You know my solemn enthusiasm of mind. You love me for it, and I respect myself for it, because in so far I resemble Mr. Johnson. You will be agreeably surprized when you learn the reason of my writing this letter. I am at Wittemberg in Saxony. I am in the old church where the Reformation was first preached, and where some of the reformers lie interred. I cannot resist the serious pleasure of writing to Mr. Johnson from the Tomb of Melancthon. My paper rests upon the gravestone of that great and good man, who was undoubtedly the worthiest of all the reformers. He wished to reform abuses which had been introduced into the Church; but had no private resentment to gratify. So mild was he, that when his aged mother consulted him with anxiety on the perplexing disputes of the times, he advised her “to keep to the old religion.” At this tomb, then, my ever dear and respected friend! I vow to thee an eternal attachment. It shall be my study to do what I can to render your life happy: and, if you die before me, I shall endeavour to do honour to your memory; and, elevated by the remembrance of you, persist in noble piety. May GOD, the Father of all beings, ever bless you! and may you continue to love,

‘Your most affectionate friend, and devoted servant, ‘JAMES BOSWELL.’
‘Sunday, Sept. 30, 1764.’

‘To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.
‘Wilton-house, April 22, 1775.
‘My DEAR SIR,

‘Every scene of my life confirms the truth of what you have told me, “there is no certain happiness in this state of being.”–I am here, amidst all that you know is at Lord Pembroke’s; and yet I am weary and gloomy. I am just setting out for the house of an old friend in Devonshire, and shall not get back to London for a week yet. You said to me last Good-Friday, with a cordiality that warmed my heart, that if I came to settle in London, we should have a day fixed every week, to meet by ourselves and talk freely. To be thought worthy of such a privilege cannot but exalt me. During my present absence from you, while, notwithstanding the gaiety which you allow me to possess, I am darkened by temporary clouds, I beg to have a few lines from you; a few lines merely of kindness, as–a _viaticum_ till I see you again. In your _Vanity of Human Wishes_, and in Parnell’s _Contentment_, I find the only sure means of enjoying happiness; or, at least, the hopes of happiness. I ever am, with reverence and affection,

‘Most faithfully yours,

‘JAMES BOSWELL.’

[371] William Seward, Esq., F.R.S., editor of _Anecdotes of some distinguished persons_, etc., in four volumes, 8vo., well known to a numerous and valuable acquaintance for his literature, love of the fine arts, and social virtues. I am indebted to him for several communications concerning Johnson. BOSWELL. Miss Burney frequently mentions him as visiting the Thrales. ‘Few people do him justice,’ said Mrs. Thrale to her, ‘because as Dr. Johnson calls him, he is an abrupt young man; but he has excellent qualities, and an excellent understanding.’ Mme. D’Arblay’s _Diary_, i. 141. Miss Burney, in one of her letters, says:–‘Mr. Seward, who seems to be quite at home among them, appears to be a penetrating, polite, and agreeable young man. Mrs. Thrale says of him, that he does good to everybody, but speaks well of nobody.’ _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 89. He must not be confounded with the Rev. Mr. Seward of Lichfield.

[372] See _post_, under date of June 18, 1778.

[373] In the list of deaths in the _Gent. Mag_. for 1779, p. 103, we find, ‘Feb. 8. Isaac de Groot, great-grandson to the learned Grotius. He had long been supported by private donations, and at length was provided for in the Charterhouse, where he died.’

[374] The preceding letter. BOSWELL.

[375] This letter was addressed not to a Mr. Dilly, but to Mr. W. Sharp, Junior. See _Gent. Mag_. 1787, p. 99. CROKER.

[376] See _ante_, i. 312.

[377] See _ante_, p. 101.

[378] See Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Oct. 16.

[379] See ante, p. 86, and _post_, under Nov. 29, 1777.

[380] Johnson gives both _epocha_ and _epoch_ in his _Dictionary_.

[381] Langton. See _ante_, p. 48, and _post_, Sept. 22, 1777.

[382] This very just remark I hope will be constantly held in remembrance by parents, who are in general too apt to indulge their own fond feelings for their children at the expence of their friends. The common custom of introducing them after dinner is highly injudicious. It is agreeable enough that they should appear at any other time; but they should not be suffered to poison the moments of festivity by attracting the attention of the company, and in a manner compelling them from politeness to say what they do not think. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 28.

[383] Gibbon wrote to Garrick from Paris on Aug. 14:–‘At this time of year the society of the Turk’s-head can no longer be addressed as a corporate body, and most of the individual members are probably dispersed: Adam Smith in Scotland; Burke in the shades of Beaconsfield; Fox, the Lord or the devil knows where, etc. Be so good as to salute in my name those friends who may fall in your way. Assure Sir Joshua, in particular, that I have not lost my relish for _manly_ conversation and the society of the brown table.’ _Garrick Corres_. ii. 256. I believe that in Gibbon’s published letters no mention is found of Johnson.

[384] See _ante_, ii. 159, and _post_, April 4, 1778. Of his greatness at the Bar Lord Eldon has left the following anecdote;–‘Mr. Dunning, being in very great business, was asked how he contrived to get through it all. He said, “I do one third of it, another third does itself, and the remaining third continues undone.”‘ Twiss’s _Eldon_, i. 327.

[385] It is not easy to detect Johnson in anything that comes even near an inaccuracy. Let me quote, therefore, a passage from one of his letters which shews that when he wrote to Mrs. Boswell he had not, as he seems to imply, eaten any of the marmalade:–‘Aug. 4, 1777. I believe it was after I left your house that I received a pot of orange marmalade from Mrs. Boswell. We have now, I hope, made it up. I have not opened my pot.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 350.

[386] See _ante_, March 19, 1776.

[387] What it was that had occured is shewn by Johnson’s letter to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 4:–‘Boswell’s project is disconcerted by a visit from a relation of Yorkshire, whom he mentions as the head of his clan [see _ante_, ii. 169, note 2]. Boszy, you know, make a huge bustle about all his own motions and all mine. I have inclosed a letter to pacify him, and reconcile him to the uncertainties of human life.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 350.

[388] When she was about four months old, Boswell declared that she should have five hundred pounds of additional fortune, on account of her fondness for Dr. Johnson. See Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, 1773. She died, says Malone, of a consumption, four months after her father.

[389] See _ante_, March 23, 1776.

[390] By an odd mistake, in the first three editions we find a reading in this line to which Dr. Johnson would by no means have subscribed, _wine_ having been substituted for _time_. That error probably was a mistake in the transcript of Johnson’s original letter. The other deviation in the beginning of the line (_virtue_ instead of nature) must be attributed to his memory having deceived him. The verse quoted is the concluding line of a sonnet of Sidney’s:–

‘Who doth desire that chast his wife should bee, First be he true, for truth doth truth deserve; Then be he such, as she his worth may see, And, alwaies one, credit with her preserve: Not toying kynd nor causelessly unkynd,
Nor stirring thoughts, nor yet denying right, Nor spying faults, nor in plaine errors blind, Never hard hand, nor ever rayns (reins) too light; As far from want, as far from vaine expence, Th’ one doth enforce, the t’other doth entice: Allow good companie, but drive from thence All filthie mouths that glorie in their vice: This done, thou hast no more but leave the rest To _nature_, fortune, _time_, and woman’s breast.’

MALONE.

[391] 2 Corinthians, iv. 17.

[392] Boswell says (ante, i. 342):–‘I am not satisfied if a year passes without my having read _Rasselas_ through.’

[393] It appears that Johnson, now in his sixty-eighth year, was seriously inclined to realise the project of our going up the Baltick, which I had started when we were in the Isle of Sky [Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Sept. 16]; for he thus writes to Mrs. Thrale; _Letters_, vol. i. p. 366:–

‘Ashbourne, Sept. 13, 1777.

‘BOSWELL, I believe, is coming. He talks of being here to day: I shall be glad to see him: but he 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_, 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_.’

Such an ardour of mind, and vigour of enterprise, is admirable at any age: but more particularly so at the advanced period at which Johnson was then arrived. I am sorry now that I did not insist on our executing that scheme. Besides the other objects of curiosity and observation, to have seen my illustrious friend received, as he probably would have been, by a Prince so eminently distinguished for his variety of talents and acquisitions as the late King of Sweden; and by the Empress of Russia, whose extraordinary abilities, information, and magnanimity, astonish the world, would have afforded a noble subject for contemplation and record. This reflection may possibly be thought too visionary by the more sedate and cold-blooded part of my readers; yet I own, I frequently indulge it with an earnest, unavailing regret. BOSWELL. In _The Spectator_, No. 436, Hockley in the Hole is described as ‘a place of no small renown for the gallantry of the lower order of Britons.’ Fielding mentions it in _Jonathan Wild_, bk. i. ch. 2:– ‘Jonathan married Elizabeth, daughter of Scragg Hollow, of Hockley in the Hole, Esq., and by her had Jonathan, who is the illustrious subject of these memoirs.’ In _The Beggar’s Opera_, act i. Mrs. Peachum says to Filch: ‘You should go to Hockley in the Hole, and to Marylebone, child, to learn valour. These are the schools that have bred so many brave men.’ Hockley in the Hole was in Clerkenwell. That Johnson had this valour was shewn two years earlier, when he wrote to Mrs. Thrale about a sum of L14,000 that the Thrales had received: ‘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 in 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. To the ‘King of Sweden’ _late_ was added in the second edition; Gustavus III having been assassinated in March 1792. The story is somewhere told that George III, on hearing the news, cried out, ‘What, what, what! Shot, shot, shot!’ The Empress of Russia was Catherine II.

[394] It so happened. The letter was forwarded to my house at Edinburgh. BOSWELL. Arthur Young (_Tour through the North of England_, iv. 431-5) describes, in 1768, some of the roads along which Boswell was to travel nine years later. ‘I would advise all travellers to consider the country between Newcastle-under-Line and Preston as sea, and as soon think of driving into the ocean as venturing into such detestable roads. I am told the Derby way to Manchester is good, but further is not penetrable.’ The road from Wigan to Preston he calls ‘infernal,’ and ‘cautions all travellers, who may accidentally purpose to travel this terrible country, to avoid it as they would the devil; for a thousand to one they break their necks or their limbs. They will here meet with ruts which I actually measured four feet deep, and floating with mud only from a wet summer; what therefore must it be after a winter?’

[395] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Sept. 15, 1777:–‘Last night came Boswell. I am glad that he is come. He seems to be very brisk and lively, and laughs a little at —- [no doubt Taylor].’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 368. On the 18th he wrote:–‘Boswell is with us in good humour, and plays his part with his usual vivacity.’ On this Baretti noted in his copy:–‘That is, he makes more noise than anybody in company, talking and laughing loud.’ On p. 216 in vol. i. he noted:–‘Boswell is not quite right-headed in my humble opinion.’

[396] In the _Gent. Mag_. for 1777, p. 458, it is described as a ‘violent shock.’

[397] ‘Grief has its time’ he once said (_post_, June 2, 1781). ‘Grief is a species of idleness,’ he wrote to Mrs. Thrale (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 77). He constantly taught that it is a duty not to allow the mind to prey on itself. ‘Gaiety is a duty when health requires it’ (Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 529). ‘Encourage yourself in bustle, and variety, and cheerfulness,’ he wrote to Mrs. Thrale ten weeks after the death of her only surviving son (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 341). ‘Even to think in the most reasonable manner,’ he said at another time, ‘is for the present not useful as not to think.’ _Ib_ i. 202. When Mr. Thrale died, he wrote to his widow:–‘I think business the best remedy for grief, as soon as it can be admitted.’ _Ib_. ii 197. To Dr. Taylor Johnson wrote:–‘Sadness only multiplies self.’ _Notes and Queries_, 6th S., v. 461.

[398] ‘There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved, nor will by me at least be thought worthy of esteem.’ _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 198. Against this Baretti has written in the margin:– ‘Johnson never grieved much for anything. His trade was wisdom.’ See _ante_, ii. 94.

[399] See _ante_, iii 19. Mr. Croker gives a reference to p. 136 of his edition. Turning to it we find an account of Johnson, who rode upon three horses. It would seem from this that, because John=Jack, therefore Johnson=Jackson.

[400] Mr. Croker remarks on this:–‘Johnson evidently thought, either that Ireland is generally mountainous, or that Mr. Burke came from a part which was: but he was mistaken.’ The allusion may well be, not to Burke as a native of Ireland, but to him as a student of national politics and economy, to whom any general reflections on the character of mountaineers would be welcome. In Johnson’s _Works_ (1787), xi. 201, it is stated that ‘it was the philosophy of the book that Burke thought well of.’

[401] Mr. Langley, I have little doubt, is the Mr. L—- of the following passage in Johnson’s letter, written from Ashbourne on July 12, 1775:–‘Mr. L—- and the Doctor still continue at variance; and the Doctor is afraid and Mr. L—- not desirous of a reconciliation. I therefore step over at by-times, and of by-times I have enough.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 267.

[402] See _ante_, ii. 52.

[403] George Garrick. See Murphy’s _Johnson_, p. 141.

[404] See _ante_, March 26, 1776, and _post_, Sept. 21, 1777.

[405] ‘While Lord Bathurst held the Great Seal, an attempt was in vain made to corrupt him by a secret offer to Lady Bathurst of three thousand guineas for the living of St. George’s, Hanover Square. The offer was traced to the famous Dr. Dodd, then a King’s Chaplain, and he was immediately dismissed.’ Campbell’s _Chancellors_, v. 464. See Walpole’s _Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 298.

[406] Horace Walpole, who accompanied Prince Edward to a service at the Magdalen House in 1760, thus describes the service (_Letters_, iii. 282): –‘As soon as we entered the chapel the organ played, and the Magdalens sung a hymn in parts. You cannot imagine how well. The chapel was dressed with orange and myrtle, and there wanted nothing but a little incense to drive away the devil,–or to invite him. Prayers then began, psalms and a sermon; the latter by a young clergyman, one Dodd, who contributed to the Popish idea one had imbibed, by haranguing entirely in the French style, and very eloquently and touchingly. He apostrophised the lost sheep, who sobbed and cried from their souls: so did my Lady Hertford and Fanny Pelham, till, I believe, the city dames took them both for Jane Shores. The confessor then turned to the audience, and addressed himself to his Royal Highness, whom he called most illustrious prince, beseeching his protection. In short, it was a very pleasing performance, and I got _the most illustrious_ to desire it might be printed.’ Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 503) heard Dodd preach in 1769. ‘We had,’ he says, ‘difficulty to get tolerable seats, the crowd of genteel people was so great. The unfortunate young women were in a latticed gallery, where you could only see those who chose to be seen. The preacher’s text was, “If a man look on a woman to lust after her,” &c. The text itself was shocking, and the sermon was composed with the least possible delicacy, and was a shocking insult on a sincere penitent, and fuel for the warm passions of the hypocrites. The fellow was handsome, and delivered his discourse remarkably well for a reader. When he had finished, there were unceasing whispers of applause, which I could not help contradicting aloud, and condemning the whole institution, as well as the exhibition of the preacher, as _contra bonos mores_, and a disgrace to a Christian city.’ Goldsmith in 1774 exposed Dodd as a ‘quacking divine’ in his _Retaliation_. He describes Dr. Douglas as a ‘The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks,’ and he continues,–

‘But now he is gone, and we want a detector, Our Dodds shall be pious, our Kenricks shall lecture.’

See _post_, April 7, 1778.

[407] The fifth earl, the successor of the celebrated earl. On Feb. 22, 1777, Dodd was convicted of forging a bond for L4,200 in his name; _Ann. Reg_. xx. 168. The earl was unfortunate in his tutors, for he had been also under Cuthbert Shaw (_ante_, ii 31 note 2).

[408] Mr. Croker quotes the following letter of Dodd, dated 1750:–‘I spent yesterday afternoon with Johnson, the celebrated author of _The Rambler_, who is of all others the oddest and most peculiar fellow I ever saw. He is six feet high, has a violent convulsion in his head, and his eyes are distorted. He speaks roughly and loud, listens to no man’s opinions, thoroughly pertinacious of his own. Good sense flows from him in all he utters, and he seems possessed of a prodigious fund of knowledge, which he is not at all reserved in communicating; but in a manner so obstinate, ungenteel, and boorish, as renders it disagreeable and dissatisfactory. In short it is impossible for words to describe him. He seems often inattentive to what passes in company, and then looks like a person possessed by some superior spirit. I have been reflecting on him ever since I saw him. He is a man of most universal and surprising genius, but in himself particular beyond expression.’ Dodd was born in 1729.

[409] ‘One of my best and tenderest friends,’ Johnson called him, _post_, July 31, 1784. See _post_, April 10, 1778.

[410] _The Convict’s Address to his Unhappy Brethren: Being a Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Dodd, Friday, June 6, 1777, in the Chapel of Newgate, while under sentence of death, for forging the name of the Earl of Chesterfield on a bond for L4,200. Sold by the booksellers and news-carriers. Price Two-pence_. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield on Aug. 9:–‘Lucy said, “When I read Dr. Dodd’s sermon to the prisoners, I said Dr. Johnson could not make a better.”‘

_Piozzi Letters_, i. 352. See _post_, p. 167.

[411] ‘What must I do to be saved?’ _Acts_ xvi. 30.

[412] ‘And finally we must commend and entrust our souls to Him who died for the sins of men; with earnest wishes and humble hopes that He will admit us with the labourers who entered the vineyard at the last hour, and associate us with the thief whom he pardoned on the cross.’ p. 14.

[413] _The Gent. Mag_. for 1777 (p. 450) says of this address:–‘As none but a convict could have written this, all convicts ought to read it; and we therefore recommend its being framed, and hung up in all prisons.’ Mr. Croker, italicising _could_ and suppressing the latter part of the sentence, describes it as a criticism that must have been offensive to Johnson. The writer’s meaning is simple enough. The address, he knew, was delivered in the Chapel of Newgate by a prisoner under sentence of death. If, instead of ‘written’ he had said ‘delivered,’ his meaning would have been quite clear.

[414] Having unexpectedly, by the favour of Mr. Stone, of London Field, Hackney, seen the original in Johnson’s hand-writing, of ‘The Petition of the City of London to his Majesty, in favour of Dr. Dodd,’ I now present it to my readers, with such passages as were omitted in-closed in crotchets, and the additions or variations marked in Italicks.

‘That William Dodd, Doctor of Laws, now lying under sentence of death _in your Majesty’s gaol of Newgate_, for the crime of forgery, has for a great part of his life set a useful and laudable example of diligence in his calling, [and as we have reason to believe, has exercised his ministry with great fidelity and efficacy,] _which, in many instances, has produced the most happy effect_.

‘That he has been the first institutor, [or] _and_ a very earnest and active promoter of several modes of useful charity, and [that] therefore [he] may be considered as having been on many occasions a benefactor to the publick.

‘[That when they consider his past life, they are willing to suppose his late crime to have been not the consequence of habitual depravity, but the suggestion of some sudden and violent temptation.]

‘[That] _Your Petitioners_ therefore considering his case, as in some of its circumstances unprecedented and peculiar, _and encouraged by your Majesty’s known clemency_, [they] most humbly recommend the said William Dodd to [his] your Majesty’s most gracious consideration, in hopes that he will be found not altogether [unfit] _unworthy_ to stand an example of Royal Mercy.’ BOSWELL.

[415] His Speech at the Old Bailey, when found guilty. BOSWELL.

[416] In the second edition he is described as ‘now Lord Hawkesbury.’ He had entered public life as Lord Bute’s private secretary, and, according to Horace Walpole, continued in it as his tool.’ _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iv. 70, 115. Walpole speaks of him as one of ‘the Jesuits of the Treasury’ (_Ib_. p. 110), and ‘the director or agent of all the King’s secret counsels. His appearance was abject, his countenance betrayed a consciousness of secret guilt; and, though his ambition and rapacity were insatiate, his demeanour exhibited such a want of spirit, that had he stood forth as Prime Minister, which he really was, his very look would have encouraged opposition.’ _Ib_. p. 135. The third Earl of Liverpool wrote to Mr. Croker on Dec. 7, 1845: –‘Very shortly before George III’s accession my father became confidential secretary of Lord Bute, if you can call secretary a man who all through his life was so bad a penman that he always dictated everything, and of whom, although I have a house full of papers, I have scarcely any in his own hand.’ _Croker Corres_. iii. 178. The editor is in error in saying that the Earl of Liverpool who wrote this was son of the Prime Minister. He was his half-brother.

[417] Burke wrote to Garrick of Fitzherbert:–‘You know and love him; but I assure you, until we can talk some late matters over, you, even you, can have no adequate idea of the worth of that man.’ _Garrick Corres_. i. 190. See _ante_, i. 82.

[418] ‘I remember a man,’ writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonomy_, i. 2l7), ‘much delighted in by the upper ranks of society, who upon a trifling embarrassment in his affairs hanged himself behind the stable door, to the astonishment of all who knew him as the liveliest companion and most agreeable converser breathing. “What upon earth,” said one at our house, “could have made–[Fitzherbert] hang himself?” “Why, just his having a multitude of acquaintance,” replied Dr. Johnson, “and ne’er a friend.”‘ See _ante_, ii. 228.

[419] Dr. Gisborne, Physician to his Majesty’s Household, has obligingly communicated to me a fuller account of this story than had reached Dr. Johnson. The affected Gentleman was the late John Gilbert Cooper, Esq., author of a _Life of Socrates_, and of some poems in Dodsley’s _Collection_. Mr. Fitzherbert found him one morning, apparently, in such violent agitation, on account of the indisposition of his son, as to seem beyond the power of comfort. At length, however, he exclaimed, ‘I’ll write an Elegy.’ Mr. Fitzherbert being satisfied, by this, of the sincerity of his emotions, slyly said, ‘Had not you better take a postchaise and go and see him?’ It was the shrewdness of the insinuation which made the story be circulated. BOSWELL. Malone writes:–‘Mr. Cooper was the last of the _benevolists_ or sentimentalists, who were much in vogue between 1750 and 1760, and dealt in general admiration of virtue. They were all tenderness in words; their finer feeling evaporated in the moment of expression, for they had no connection with their practice.’ Prior’s _Malone_, p. 427. See _ante_, ii. 129. This fashion seems to have reached Paris a few years later. Mme. Riccoboni wrote to Garrick on May 3, 1769:–‘Dans notre brillante capitale, ou dominent les airs et la mode, s’attendrir, s’emouvoir, s’affliger, c’est le bon ton du moment. La bonte, la sensibilite, la tendre humanite sont devenues la fantaisie universelle. On ferait volontiers des malheureux pour gouter la douceur de les plaindre.’ Garrick _Corres_. ii. 561.

[420] Johnson had felt the truth of this in the case of ‘old Mr. Sheridan.’ _Ante_, i. 387.

[421] Johnson, in his letters from Ashbourne, used to joke about Taylor’s cattle:–‘July 23, 1770. I have seen the great bull, and very great he is. I have seen likewise his heir apparent, who promises to enherit all the bulk and all the virtues of his sire, I have seen the man who offered an hundred guineas for the young bull, while he was yet little better than a calf.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 33. ‘July 3, 1771. The great bull has no disease but age. I hope in time to be like the great bull; and hope you will be like him too a hundred years hence.’ _Ib_. p. 39. ‘July 10, 1771. There has been a man here to-day to take a farm. After some talk he went to see the bull, and said that he had seen a bigger. Do you think he is likely to get the farm?’ _Ib_. p. 43. ‘Oct. 31, 1772. Our bulls and cows are all well; but we yet hate the man that had seen a bigger bull.’ _Ib_. p. 61.

[422] Quoted by Boswell in his _Hebrides_, Aug. 16, 1773.

[423] In the letters that Boswell and Erskine published (_ante_, 384, note) are some verses by Erskine, of very slight merit.

[424] Horace, _Odes_, ii. 4.

[425]

‘The tender glance, the red’ning cheek, O’erspread with rising blushes,
A thousand various ways they speak
A thousand various wishes.’

Hamilton’s _Poems_, ed. 1760, p. 59.

[426] In the original, _Now. Ib_. p. 39.

[427] Thomson, in _The Seasons_, Winter, 1. 915, describes how the ocean

‘by the boundless frost
Is many a fathom to the bottom chain’d.’

In 1. 992, speaking of a thaw, he says,

‘The rivers swell of bonds impatient.’

[428] See _ante_ March 24, 1776.

[429] Johnson wrote of Pope (_Works_, viii. 309):–‘The indulgence and accommodation which his sickness required had taught him all the unpleasing and unsocial qualities of a valetudinary man.’

[430] When he was ill of a fever he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:–‘The doctor was with me again to-day, and we both think the fever quite gone. I believe it was not an intermittent, for I took of my own head physick yesterday; and Celsus says, it seems, that if a cathartick be taken the fit will return _certo certius_. I would bear something rather than Celsus should be detected in an error. But I say it was a _febris continua_, and had a regular crisis.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 89.

[431] Johnson must have shortened his life by the bleedings that he underwent. How many they were cannot be known, for no doubt he was often bled when he has left no record of it. The following, however, I have noted. I do not know that he was bled more than most people of his time. Dr. Taylor, it should seem, underwent the operation every quarter.

Dec. 1755. Thrice. 54 ounces. Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 100.

Jan. 1761. Once. _Ib_. p. 122.

April 1770. Cupped. _Pemb. Coll. MSS_.

Winter of 1772-3. Three times. _Ante_, ii. 206, and _Pemb. Coll. MSS_.

May 1773. Two copious bleedings. _Pr. and Med_. 130.

1774. Times not mentioned. 36 ounces. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 209.

Jan. 1777. Three bleedings. 22 ounces in first two. _Ib_. i. 343.

Jan. 1780. Once. _Post_, Jan. 20, 1780.

June 1780. Times not mentioned. Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 649.

Jan. and Feb. 1782. Thrice. 50 ounces. _Post_, Feb. 4 and March 20, 1782.

May 1782. At least once. _Post_, under March 19, 1782, and _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 240.

Yet he wrote to Mrs. Thrale, ‘I am of the chymical sect, which holds phlebotomy in abhorrence.’ _Ib_. ii. 240. ‘O why,’ asks Wesley, who was as strongly opposed to bleeding as he was fond of poulticing, ‘will physicians play with the lives of their patients? Do not others (as well as old Dr. Cockburn) know that “no end is answered by bleeding in a pleurisy, which may not be much better answered without it?”‘ Wesley’s _Journal_, ii. 310. ‘Dr. Cheyne,’ writes Pope, ‘was of Mr. Cheselden’s opinion, that bleeding might be frequently repeated with safety, for he advised me to take four or five ounces every full moon.’ Elwin and Courthope’s _Pope’s Works_, ix. 162.

[432] ‘It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell him he is at the end of his nature.’ _Sir Thomas Browne _quoted in Johnson’s _Works_, vi. 485. See _post_, April 15, 1778, and Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Sept. 12, 1773.

[433] In the last number of _The Idler_ Johnson says:–‘There are few things not purely evil of which we can say without some emotion of uneasiness, _this is the last_…. The secret horrour of the last is inseparable from a thinking being whose life is limited, and to whom death is dreadful.’

[434] In the first edition for _scarce any man_ we find _almost no man_. See _ante_, March 20, 1776, note.

[435] Bacon, in his _Essay on Death_, says:–‘It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him.’ In the _De Aug. Sci_. vi. 3. 12, he says:–‘Non invenias inter humanos affetum tam pusillum, qui si intendatur paullo vehementius, non mortis metum superet.’

[436] Johnson, in his _Lives of Addison and Parnell_ (_Works_, vii. 399, 449), mentions that they drank too freely. See _post_, under Dec. 2, 1784.

[437] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_. 3d edit. p. 240 [Sept. 22]. BOSWELL.

[438] In the _Life of Addison_ (_Works_, vii. 444) he says:–‘The necessity of complying with times, and of sparing persons, is the great impediment of biography. History may be formed from permanent monuments and records; but Lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost for ever. What is known can seldom be immediately told; and when it might be told, it is no longer known. The delicate features of the mind, the nice discriminations of character, and the minute peculiarities of conduct, are soon obliterated; and it is surely better that caprice, obstinacy, frolick and folly, however they might delight in the description, should be silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merriment and unseasonable detection, a pang should be given to a widow, a daughter, a brother, or a friend. As the process of these narratives is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I begin to feel myself “walking upon ashes under which the fire is not extinguished,” and coming to the time of which it will be proper rather to say “nothing that is false, than all that is true.”‘ See _ante_, i. 9, and 30.

[439] Dr. Taylor was very ready to make this admission, because the party with which he was connected was not in power. There was then some truth in it, owing to the pertinacity of factious clamour. Had he lived till now, it would have been impossible for him to deny that his Majesty possesses the warmest affection of his people. BOSWELL. See _post_, March 21, 1783.

[440] The Duke of York in 1788, speaking in the House of Lords on the King’s illness, said:–‘He was confident that his Royal Highness [the Prince of Wales] understood too well the sacred principles which seated the House of Brunswick on the throne of Great Britain ever to assume or exercise any power, be his claim what it might, not derived from the will of the people, expressed by their representatives, and their lordships in parliament assembled.’ _Parl. Hist_. xxvii. 678.

[441] See _ante_, i. 430.

[442] See Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Sept. 18, 1773, and _post_, under date of Sept. 9, 1779, note.

[443] ‘The return of my birth-day,’ he wrote in 1773, ‘if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 134. In 1781 he viewed the day with calmness, _if not with cheerfulness_. He writes:–‘I rose, breakfasted, and gave thanks at church for my creation, preservation and redemption. As I came home, I thought I had never begun any period of life so placidly. I have always been accustomed to let this day pass unnoticed, but it came this time into my mind that some little festivity was not improper. I had a dinner; and invited Allen and Levet.’ _Pr. and Med_. p. 198. In 1783 he again had ‘a little dinner,’ and invited four friends to keep the day. Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 739. At Streatham the day, it would seem, was always kept. Mrs. Piozzi writes (_Anec_. p. 211):–‘On the birthday of our eldest daughter, and that of our friend, Dr. Johnson, the 17th and 18th of September, we every year made up a little dance and supper to divert our servants and their friends.’

[444] The son of a Mr. Coxeter, ‘a gentleman,’ says Johnson, ‘who was once my friend,’ enlisted in the service of the East India Company. Johnson asked Mr. Thrale to use his influence to get his discharge. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 33.

[445] The bookseller whom Johnson beat, _ante_, i. 154.

[446] ‘When a well-known author published his poems in the year 1777, “Such a one’s verses are come out,” said I: “Yes,” replied Johnson, “and this frost has struck them in again. Here are some lines I have written to ridicule them; but remember that I love the fellow dearly now–for all I laugh at him.

‘Wheresoe’er I turn my view,
All is strange, yet nothing new;
Endless labour all along,
Endless labour to be wrong;
Phrase that time has flung away;
Uncouth words in disarray,
Trick’d in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.'”‘

Piozzi’s _Anec_. p. 64.

Thomas Warton in 1777 published a volume of his poems. He, no doubt, is meant.

[447] In _The Rambler_, No. 121. Johnson, twenty-six years earlier, attacked ‘the imitation of Spenser, which, by the influence of some men of learning and genius, seems likely to gain upon the age…. They seem to conclude that, when they have disfigured their lines with a few obsolete syllables, they have accomplished their design, without considering that they ought, not only to admit old words, but to avoid new. The laws of imitation are broken by every word introduced since the time of Spenser.’

[448] Warton’s _Ode on the First of April_ is found a line which may have suggested these two lines:–‘The morning hoar, and evening chill.’

[449] ‘Collins affected the obsolete when it was not worthy of revival; and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, with some later candidates for fame, that not to write prose is certainly to write poetry.’ Johnson’s _Works_, viii. 404. Goldsmith, eleven years earlier, said in his _Life of Parnell_ (_Misc. Works_, iv. 22):–‘These misguided innovators have not been content with restoring antiquated words and phrases, but have indulged themselves in the most licentious transpositions and the harshest constructions, vainly imagining that the more their writings are unlike prose, the more they resemble poetry.’ Collins and Warton might have quoted by way of defence the couplet in Milton’s _L’Allegro_.–

‘While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of _darkness thin_.’

[450] As some of my readers may be gratified by reading the progress of this little composition, I shall insert it from my notes. ‘When Dr. Johnson and I were sitting _tete-a-tete_ at the Mitre tavern, May 9, 1778, he said “_Where_ is bliss,” would be better. He then added a ludicrous stanza, but would not repeat it, lest I should take it down. It was somewhat as follows; the last line I am sure I remember:

“While I thus cried,
The hoary seer reply’d,
Come, my lad, and drink some beer.”

In spring, 1779, when in better humour, he made the second stanza, as in the text. There was only one variation afterwards made on my suggestion, which was changing _hoary_ in the third line to _smiling_, both to avoid a sameness with the epithet in the first line, and to describe the hermit in his pleasantry. He was then very well pleased that I should preserve it.’ BOSWELL.

[451] When I mentioned Dr. Johnson’s remark to a lady of admirable good sense and quickness of understanding, she observed, ‘It is true, all this excludes only one evil; but how much good does it let in?’–To this observation much praise has been justly given. Let me then now do myself the honour to mention that the lady who made it was the late Margaret Montgomerie, my very valuable wife, and the very affectionate mother of my children, who, if they inherit her good qualities, will have no reason to complain of their lot. _Dos magna parentum virtus_. BOSWELL. The latter part of this note was first given in the second edition. The quotation if from Horace:–

‘Cos est magna parentium Virtus.’
‘The lovers there for dowry claim
The father’s virtue and the mother’s fame.’

FRANCIS, Horace, Odes, iii. 24. 21.

[452] He saw it in 1774 on his way to Wales; but he must, I think, have seen it since, for it does not appear from his _Journal of a Tour into Wales_ that he then saw Lord Scarsdale. He met him also at Dr. Taylor’s in July 1775. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 267.

[453] I do not find the description in Young’s _Six Months’ Tour through the North of England_, but in Pilkington’s _Present State of Derbyshire_, ii. 120.

[454]

‘Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?’ ‘What place, what land in all the earth but with our grief is stored?’

Morris, _AEneids_, i. 460.

[455] See _ante_, March 21 and 28, 1776.

[456] At Derby.

[457] Baretti in his _Italy_, i. 236, says:–‘It is the general custom for our authors to make a present of their works to booksellers, who in return scarcely give a few copies when printed.’ The Venetian bookseller to whom Metastasio gave his cleared, Baretti says, more than L10,000. Goldoni scarcely got for each of his plays ten pounds from the manager of the Venetian theatre, and much less from the booksellers. ‘Our learned stare when they are told that in England there are numerous writers who get their bread by their productions only.’

[458] I am now happy to understand, that Mr. John Home, who was himself gallantly in the field for the reigning family, in that interesting warfare, but is generous enough to do justice to the other side, is preparing an account of it for the press. BOSWELL. Dr. A. Carlyle, who knew Home well, says (_Auto_. p. 295):–‘All his opinions of men and things were prejudices, which, though it did not disqualify him for writing admirable poetry, yet made him unfit for writing history.’ See _ante_, i. 225, for Boswell’s projected works.

[459] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale the next day:–‘The finer pieces [of the Derby china] are so dear that perhaps silver vessels of the same capacity may be sometimes bought at the same price; and I am not yet so infected with the contagion of china-fancy as to like anything at that rate which can so easily be broken.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 380.

[460] See _ante_, April 14, 1775.

[461] See Hutton’s _History of Derby_, a book which is deservedly esteemed for its information, accuracy, and good narrative. Indeed the age in which we live is eminently distinguished by topographical excellence. BOSWELL. According to Hutton the Italians at the beginning of the eighteenth century had ‘the exclusive art of silk-throwing.’ Lombe went to Italy, and by bribery got admittance into the works. Having mastered the secret he returned to England with two of the workmen. About the year 1717 he founded a great silk-mill at Derby. He died early, being poisoned, it was asserted, by an Italian woman who had been sent over to destroy him. In this mill, Hutton, as a child, ‘had suffered intolerable severity.’ Hutton’s _Derby_, pp. 193-205.

[462] ‘I have enlarged my notions,’ recorded Johnson in his _Journal of a Tour into Wales_ (Aug. 3, 1774), after he had seen some iron-works.

[463] Young. BOSWELL.

‘Think nought a trifle, though it small appear.’ Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles life.’

_Love of Fame_, Satire vi.

[464] ‘Pray, Sir, don’t leave us;’ said Johnson to an upholder of Berkeley’s philosophy, ‘for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist.’ _Post_, 1780, in Langton’s _Collection_. See also _ante_, i. 471.

[465] Perhaps Boswell is thinking of Gray’s lines at the close of the _Progress of Poesy_:–

‘Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate.’

[466] Goldsmith wrote:–‘In all Pope’s letters, as well as in those of Swift, there runs a strain of pride, as if the world talked of nothing but themselves. “Alas,” says he in one of them, “the day after I am dead the sun will shine as bright as the day before, and the world will be as merry as usual.” Very strange, that neither an eclipse nor an earthquake should follow the loss of a poet!’ Cunningham’s _Goldsmith’s Works_, iv. 85. Goldsmith refers, I suppose, to Pope’s letter to Steele of July 15, 1712, where he writes:–‘The morning after my exit the sun will rise as bright as ever, the flowers smell as sweet, the plants spring as green, the world will proceed in its old course, people will laugh as heartily, and marry as fast as they were used to do.’ Elwin’s Pope’s _Works_, vi. 392. Gray’s friend, Richard West, in some lines suggested by this letter, gives a pretty turn to Pope’s thoughts where he says:–

‘For me, whene’er all-conquering Death shall spread His wings around my unrepining head,
I care not; tho’ this face be seen no more, The world will pass as cheerful as before; Bright as before the day-star will appear, The fields as verdant, and the skies as clear.’

Mason’s _Gray_, ed. 1807, i. 152.

[467] See _post_, April 12, 1778.

[468] A brother of Dodd’s wife told Hawkins that ‘Dodd’s manner of living was ever such as his visible income would no way account for. He said that he was the most importunate suitor for preferment ever known; and that himself had been the bearer of letters to great men, soliciting promotion to livings, and had hardly escaped kicking down stairs.’ Hawkins’s _Johnson_, p. 435.

[469] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 523) says that a Mr. Selwin, who just missed being elected Chamberlain of the City, went by request to see a man under sentence of death in Newgate, ‘who informed him that he was in daily expectation of the arrival of the warrant for his execution; “but,” said he, “I have L200, and you are a man of character, and had the court-interest when you stood for Chamberlain; I should therefore hope it is in your power to get me off.” Mr. Selwin was struck with so strange a notion, and asked, if there were any alleviating circumstances in his case. The man peevishly answered “No;” but that he had enquired into the history of the place where he was, and could not find that any one who had L200 was ever hanged. Mr. Selwin told him it was out of his power to help him, and bade him farewell–“which,” added he, “he did; for he found means to escape punishment.”‘

[470] Dodd, in his Dedication of this Sermon to Mr. Villette, the Ordinary of Newgate, says:–‘The following address owes its present public appearance to you. You heard it delivered, and are pleased to think that its publication will be useful. To a poor and abject worm like myself this is a sufficient inducement to that publication.’

[471] See _ante_, p. 97. ‘They have,’ says Lowndes (_Bibl. Man_.), ‘passed through innumerable editions.’ To how many the book-stalls testify, where they are offered second-hand for a few pence.

[472] Goldsmith was thirty when he published _An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe_; thirty-six when he published The _Traveller_; thirty-seven when he published _The Vicar of Wakefield_, and thirty-nine when he brought out _The Good-Natured Man_. In flowering late he was like Swift. ‘Swift was not one of those minds which amaze the world with early pregnancy; his first work, except his few poetical Essays, was the _Dissentions in Athens and Rome_, published in his thirty-fourth year.’ Johnson’s _Works_, viii. 197. See _post_, April 9, 1778.

[473] Burke, I think, is meant.

[474] This walking about his room naked was, perhaps, part of Lord Monboddo’s system that was founded ‘on the superiority of the savage life.’ _Ante_, ii. 147.

[475] This regimen was, however, practised by Bishop Ken, of whom Hawkins (_not Sir John_) in his life of that venerable Prelate, p. 4, tells us: ‘And that neither his study might be the aggressor on his hours of instruction, or what he judged his duty prevent his improvements; or both, his closet addresses to his GOD; he strictly accustomed himself to but one sleep, which often obliged him to rise at one or two of the clock in the morning, and sometimes sooner; and grew so habitual, that it continued with him almost till his last illness. And so lively and chearful was his temper, that he would be very facetious and entertaining to his friends in the evening, even when it was perceived that with difficulty he kept his eyes open; and then seemed to go to rest with no other purpose than the refreshing and enabling him with more vigour and chearfulness to sing his morning hymn, as he then used to do to his lute before he put on his cloaths.’ BOSWELL.

[476] See _ante_, under Dec. 17, 1775.

[477] Boswell shortened his life by drinking, if, indeed, he did not die of it. Less than a year before his death he wrote to Temple:–‘I thank you sincerely for your friendly admonition on my frailty in indulging so much in wine. I _do_ resolve _anew_ to be upon my guard, as I am sensible how very pernicious as well as disreputable such a habit is! How miserably have I yielded to it in various years!’ _Letters of Boswell_, p. 353. In 1776 Paoli had taken his word of honour that he would not taste fermented liquor for a year, that he might recover sobriety. _Ib_. p. 233. For a short time also in 1778 Boswell was a water-drinker, _Post_, April 28, 1778.

[478] Sir James Mackintosh told Mr. Croker that he believed Lord Errol was meant here as well as _post_, April 28, 1778. See Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773.

[479] ‘Must give us pause.’ _Hamlet_, act iii. sc. 1.

[480] ‘He was the first,’ writes Dr. T. Campbell (_Survey of the South of Ireland_, p. 373), ‘who gave histories of the weather, seasons, and diseases of Dublin.’ Wesley records (_Journal_, iv. 40):–‘April 6, 1775. I visited that venerable man, Dr. Rutty, just tottering over the grave; but still clear in his understanding, full of faith and love, and patiently waiting till his change should come.’

[481] Cowper wrote of Johnson’s _Diary_:–‘It is certain that the publisher of it is neither much a friend to the cause of religion nor to the author’s memory; for, by the specimen of it that has reached us, it seems to contain only such stuff as has a direct tendency to expose both to ridicule.’ Southey’s _Cowper_, v. 152.

[482] Huet, Bishop of Avranches, born 1630, died 1721, published in 1718 _Commentarius de rebus ad eum pertinentibus. Nouv. Biog. Gene_. xxv. 380.

[483] When Dr. Blair published his Lectures, he was invidiously attacked for having omitted his censure on Johnson’s style, and, on the contrary, praising it highly. But before that time Johnson’s _Lives of the Poets_ had appeared, in which his style was considerably easier than when he wrote _The Rambler_. It would, therefore, have been uncandid in Blair, even supposing his criticism to have been just, to have preserved it. BOSWELL.

[484] Johnson refers no doubt to the essay _On Romances, An Imitation_, by A. L. Aikin (Mrs. Barbauld); in _Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose_, by J. and A. L. Aikin (1773), p. 39. He would be an acute critic who could distinguish this _Imitation_ from a number of _The Rambler_.

[485] See _post_, under Dec. 6, 1784.

[486] _Id est, The Literary Scourge_.

[487] See _ante_, ii. 236, where Johnson attacks ‘the _verbiage_ of Robertson.’

[488] ‘We were now treading that illustrious island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. 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. Far from me, and from my friends, be such rigid philosophy, as may conduct us, indifferent and unmoved, over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery or virtue. The [That] man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.’ Had our Tour produced nothing else but this sublime passage, the world must have acknowledged that it was not made in vain. Sir Joseph Banks, the present respectable President of the Royal Society, told me, he was so much struck on reading it, that he clasped his hands together, and remained for some time in an attitude of silent admiration. BOSWELL. See Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Oct. 19, 1773, and Johnson’s _Works_, ix. 145.

[489] ‘He that thinks with more extent than another will want words of larger meaning.’ _Ante_, i. 218.

[490] In the original _island_.

[491] See _ante_, ii. 203, note 3.

[492] In this censure which has been carelessly uttered, I carelessly joined. But in justice to Dr. Kippis, who with that manly candid good temper which marks his character, set me right, I now with pleasure retract it; and I desire it may be particularly observed, as pointed out by him to me, that ‘The new lives of dissenting Divines in the first four volumes of the second edition of the _Biographia Brittanica_, are those of John Abernethy, Thomas Amory, George Benson, Hugh Broughton the learned Puritan, Simon Browne, Joseph Boyse of Dublin, Thomas Cartwright the learned Puritan, and Samuel Chandler. The only doubt I have ever heard suggested is, whether there should have been an article of Dr. Amory. But I was convinced, and am still convinced, that he was entitled to one, from the reality of his learning, and the excellent and candid nature of his practical writings.

‘The new lives of clergymen of the Church of England, in the same four volumes, are as follows: John Balguy, Edward Bentham, George Berkley Bishop of Cloyne, William Berriman, Thomas Birch, William Borlase, Thomas Bott, James Bradley, Thomas Broughton, John Brown, John Burton, Joseph Butler Bishop of Durham, Thomas Carte, Edmund Castell, Edmund Chishull, Charles Churchill, William Clarke, Robert Clayton Bishop of Clogher, John Conybeare Bishop of Bristol, George Costard, and Samuel Croxall.–“I am not conscious (says Dr. Kippis) of any partiality in conducting the work. I would not willingly insert a Dissenting Minister that does not justly deserve to be noticed, or omit an established Clergyman that does. At the same time, I shall not be deterred from introducing Dissenters into the _Biographia_, when I am satisfied that they are entitled to that distinction, from their writings, learning, and merit.”‘

Let me add that the expression ‘A friend to the Constitution in Church and State,’ was not meant by me, as any reflection upon this reverend gentleman, as if he were an enemy to the political constitution of his country, as established at the revolution, but, from my steady and avowed predilection for a _Tory_, was quoted from Johnson’s _Dictionary_, where that distinction is so defined. BOSWELL. In his _Dictionary_ a _Tory_ is defined as ‘one who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England.’ It was on the _Biographia Britannica_ that Cowper wrote the lines that end:–

‘So when a child, as playful children use, Has burnt to tinder a stale last year’s news, The flame extinct he views the roving fire, There goes my lady, and there goes the squire, There goes the parson, oh! illustrious spark, And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.’

Cowper’s Works, viii. 320.

Horace Walpole said that the ‘_Biographia Britannica_ ought rather to be called _Vindicatio Britannica_, for that it was a general panegyric upon everybody.’ Prior’s _Malone_, p. 115.

[493] See _ante_, p. 99.

[494]

‘Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide.’

Dryden’s _Absalom and Achitophel_, 1, 163.

[495] _Observations on Insanity_, by Thomas Arnold, M.D., London, 1782. BOSWELL.

[496] We read in the Gospels, that those unfortunate persons who were possessed with evil spirits (which, after all, I think is the most probable cause of madness, as was first suggested to me by my respectable friend Sir John Pringle), had recourse to pain, tearing themselves, and jumping sometimes into the fire, sometimes into the water. Mr. Seward has furnished me with a remarkable anecdote in confirmation of Dr. Johnson’s observation. A tradesman, who had acquired a large fortune in London, retired from business, and went to live at Worcester. His mind, being without its usual occupation, and having nothing else to supply its place, preyed upon itself, so that existence was a torment to him. At last he was seized with the stone; and a friend who found him in one of its severest fits, having expressed his concern, ‘No, no, Sir, (said he) don’t pity me: what I now feel is ease compared with that torture of mind from which it relieves me.’ BOSWELL.

[497] See _ante_, i. 446. ‘Johnson was a great enemy to the present fashionable way of supposing worthless and infamous persons mad.’ Johnson’s _Works_ (1787), xi. 203.

[498] See _post_, April 1, 1779.

[499] See _post_, April 7, 1778.

[500] ‘Reynolds,’ writes Malone, ‘was as fond of London as Dr. Johnson; always maintaining that it was the only place in England where a pleasant society might be found.’ Prior’s _Malone_ p. 433. Gibbon wrote to Holroyd _Misc. Works_, ii 126:–‘Never pretend to allure me by painting in odious colours the dust of London. I love the dust, and whenever I move into the Weald it is to visit you and my Lady, and not your trees.’ Burke, on the other hand, wrote (_Corres_. iii 422):–‘What is London? clean, commodious, neat; but, a very few things indeed excepted, and endless addition of littleness to littleness, extending itself over a great tract of land.’ ‘For a young man,’ he says, ‘for a man of easy fortune, London is the best place one can imagine. But for the old, the infirm, the straightened in fortune, the grave in character or in disposition, I do not believe a much worse place can be found.’ _Ib_. iv. 250.

[501]

‘Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine captos Ducit, et immemores non sinit esse sui.’ Ovid, _Ep. ex Ponto_, i. 3. 35.

[502] ‘In the morn and liquid dew of youth.’ _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 3.

[503] Now, at the distance of fifteen years since this conversation passed, the observation which I have had an opportunity of making in Westminster Hall has convinced me, that, however true the opinion of Dr. Johnson’s legal friend may have been some time ago, the same certainty of success cannot now be promised to the same display of merit. The reasons, however, of the rapid rise of some, and the disappointment of others equally respectable, are such as it might seem invidious to mention, and would require a longer detail than would be proper for this work. BOSWELL. Boswell began to eat his dinners in the Inner Temple in 1775. _Ante_, p. 45 note 1, and _Letters of Boswell_, p. 196. In writing to Temple he thus mentions his career as a barrister. ‘Jan. 10, 1789. In truth I am sadly discouraged by having no practice, nor probable prospect of it; and to confess fairly to you, my friend, I am afraid that, were I to be tried, I should be found so deficient in the forms, the _quirks_ and the _quiddities_, which early habit acquires, that I should expose myself. Yet the delusion of Westminster Hall, of brilliant reputation and splendid fortune as a barrister, still weighs upon my imagination.’ _Ib_. p. 267. ‘Aug. 23, 1789. The Law life in Scotland amongst vulgar familiarity would now quite destroy me. I am not able to acquire the Law of England.’ _Ib_. p. 304. ‘Nov. 28, 1789. I have given up my house and taken good chambers in the Inner Temple, to have the appearance of a lawyer. O Temple! Temple! is this realising any of the towering hopes which have so often been the subject of our conversations and letters? … I do not see the smallest opening in Westminster Hall but I like the scene, though I have attended only one day this last term, being eager to get my _Life of Johnson_ finished.’ _Ib_. p. 314. ‘April 6, 1791. When my book is launched, I shall, if I am alone and in tolerable health and spirits, have some furniture put into my chambers in the Temple, and force myself to sit there some hours a-day, and to attend regularly in Westminster Hall. The chambers cost me L20 yearly, and I may reckon furniture and a lad to attend there occasionally L20 more. I doubt whether I shall get fees equal to the expense.’ _Ib_. p. 335. ‘Nov. 22, 1791. I keep chambers open in the Temple, I attend in Westminster Hall, but there is not the least prospect of my having business.’ _Ib_. p. 344. His chambers, as he wrote to Malone, were ‘in the very staircase where Johnson lived.’ Croker’s _Boswell_, p. 830.

[504] Sunday was the 21st.

[505] See _ante_, March 26, 1776, and _post_, under Nov. 17, 1784.

[506] In _Notes and Queries_ for April, May, and June 1882, is a series of Johnson’s letters to Taylor, between June 10, 1742 and April 12, 1784. In the first Johnson signs himself:–‘Your very affectionate,’ (p. 304). On Nov. 18, 1756, he writes:–‘Neither of us now can find many whom he has known so long as we have known each other…. We both stand almost single in the world,’ (p. 324). On July 15, 1765, he reproaches Taylor with not writing:–‘With all your building and feasting you might have found an hour in some wet day for the remembrance of your old friend. I should have thought that since you have led a life so festive and gay, you would have [invited] me to partake of your hospitality,’ (p. 383). On Oct. 19, 1779, he says:–‘Write to me soon. We are both old. How few of those whom we have known in our youth are left alive!’ (p. 461). On April 12, 1784, he writes:–‘Let us be kind to one another. I have no friend now living but you and Mr. Hector that was the friend of my youth,’ (p. 482, and _post_, April 12, 1784). See _ante_, p. 131, for his regret on the death of his school-fellow, Henry Jackson, who seemed to Boswell (_ante_, under March 22, 1776) to be a low man, dull and untaught. ‘One of the old man’s miseries,’ he wrote, (_post_, Feb. 3, 1778), ‘is that he cannot easily find a companion able to partake with him of the past.’ ‘I have none to call me Charley now,’ wrote Charles Lamb on the death of a friend of his boyhood (Talfourd’s _Lamb_, ed. 1865, p. 145). Such a companion Johnson found in Taylor. That, on the death of his wife, he at once sent for him, not even waiting for the light of morning to come, is a proof that he had a strong affection for the man.

[507] _Ecclesiasticus_, ch. xxxviii. verse 25. The whole chapter may be read as an admirable illustration of the superiority of cultivated minds over the gross and illiterate. BOSWELL.

[508] Passages in Johnson’s Letters to Mrs. Thrale are to the same effect. ‘Aug. 3, 1771. Having stayed my month with Taylor I came away on Wednesday, leaving him, I think, in a disposition of mind not very uncommon, at once weary of my stay, and grieved at my departure.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 52. ‘July 13, 1775. Dr. Taylor and I spend little time together, yet he will not yet be persuaded to hear of parting.’ _Ib_. p. 276. ‘July 26, 1775. Having stayed long enough at Ashbourne, I was not sorry to leave it. I hindered some of Taylor’s diversions, and he supplied me with very little.’ _Ib_ p. 287.

[509] The second volume of these Sermons, which was published in 1789, a year after the first, contains the following addition to the title:–‘To which is added a Sermon written by Samuel Johnson, L.L.D., for the Funeral of his Wife.’ ‘Dr. Taylor had,’ writes Murphy (_Life_, p. 171), ‘The LARGEST BULL in England, and some of the best Sermons.’

[510] If the eminent judge was Lord Mansfield, we may compare with Boswell’s regret the lines in which Pope laments the influence of Westminster Hall and Parliament:–

‘There truant Windham every muse gave o’er, There Talbot sunk, and was a wit no more. How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast! How many Martials were in Pulteney lost!’

_The Dunciad_, iv. 167.

[511] Boswell’s brother David had been settled in Spain since 1768. (_Boswelliana_, p. 5.) He therefore is no doubt the son, and Lord Auchinleck the father.

[512] See _ante_, ii. 129, and Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Sept. 22, 1773.

[513] ‘Jack’ had not shown all his manners to Johnson. Gibbon thus describes him in 1762 (_Misc. Works_, i. 142):–‘Colonel Wilkes, of the Buckinghamshire militia, dined with us. I scarcely ever met with a better companion; he has inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour, and a great deal of knowledge; but a thorough profligate in principle as in practice, his life stained with every vice, and his conversation full of blasphemy and indecency. These morals he glories in–for shame is a weakness he has long since surmounted.’ The following anecdote in _Boswelliana_ (p. 274) is not given in the _Life of Johnson_:–‘Johnson had a sovereign contempt for Wilkes and his party, whom he looked upon as a mere rabble. “Sir,” said he, “had Wilkes’s mob prevailed against government, this nation had died of _phthiriasis_. Mr. Langton told me this. The expression, _morbus pediculosus_, as being better known would strike more.”‘

[514] See _ante_, p. 79, note 1.

[515] See _ante_, p. 69.

[516] See _ante_, i. 402.

[517] See _ante_, i. 167.

[518] See _post_, under Sept. 30, 1783.

[519] See _post, ib_., where Johnson told Mrs. Siddons that ‘Garrick was no declaimer.’

[520] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, ii. 16) says that she once asked Garrick ‘why Johnson was so often harsh and unkind in his speeches both of him and to him:–“Why,” he replied, “it is very natural; is it not to be expected he should be angry that I, who have so much less merit than he, should have had so much greater success?”‘

[521] Foote died a month after this conversation. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:–‘Did you see Foote at Brighthelmstone? Did you think he would so soon be gone? Life, says Falstaff, is a shuttle [_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act v. sc. 1]. He was a fine fellow in his way; and the world is really impoverished by his sinking glories. Murphy ought to write his life, at least to give the world a _Footeana_. Now will any of his contemporaries bewail him? Will genius change _his sex_ to weep? I would really have his life written with diligence.’ This letter is wrongly dated Oct. 3, 1777. It was written early in November. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 396. Baretti, in a marginal note on _Footeana_, says:–‘One half of it had been a string of obscenities.’ See _post_, April 24, 1779, note.

[522] See _ante_, i. 447.

[523] _To pit_ is not in Johnson’s _Dictionary_.

[524] Very likely Mr. Langton. See _ante_, ii. 254.

[525] Two months earlier Johnson had complained that Langton’s table was rather coarse. _Ante_, p. 128.

[526] See _post_, April 13, 1781, where he again mentions this advice. ‘He said of a certain lady’s entertainments, “What signifies going thither? There is neither meat, drink, nor talk.”‘ Johnson’s _Works_ (1787), xi. 207.

[527] William, third Duke of Devonshire, who died in 1755. Johnson (_post_, April 1, 1779) ‘commended him for a dogged veracity.’ Horace Walpole records of him a fact that ‘showed a conscientious idea of honesty in him. Sometime before his death he had given up to two of his younger sons L600 a-year in land, that they might not perjure themselves, if called upon to swear to their qualifications as Knights of the Shire.’ _Memoirs of the Reign of George II_, ii. 86.

[528] Philip Francis wrote to Burke in 1790:–‘Once for all, I wish you would let me teach you to write English. To me who am to read everything you write, it would be a great comfort, and to you no sort of disparagement. Why will you not allow yourself to be persuaded that polish is material to preservation?’ Burke’s _Corres_, iii. 164.

[529] Edit. 2, p. 53. BOSWELL.

[530] This is a mistake. The Ports had been seated at Islam time out of mind. Congreve had visited there, and his _seat_, that is _the bench_ on which he sometimes sat, used to be shown. CROKER. On the way to Islam, Johnson told Boswell about the dedication of his _Plan_ to Lord Chesterfield. _Ante_, i. 183, note 4.

[531] See _ante_, i. 41.

[532] ‘I believe more places than one are still shown in groves and gardens where he is related to have written his _Old Bachelor_.’ Johnson’s _Works_, viii. 23.

[533] Page 89. BOSWELL.

[534] See Plott’s _History of Staffordshire_, p. 88, and the authorities referred to by him. BOSWELL.

[535] See _ante_, ii. 247, and _post_, March 31, 1778.

[536] See _ante_, i. 444.

[537] Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anec_. p. 109):–‘In answer to the arguments urged by Puritans, Quakers, etc. against showy decorations of the human figure, I once heard him exclaim:–“Oh, let us not be found, when our Master calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of contention from our souls and tongues! … Alas! Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey one.”‘ See _ante_, i, 405.

[538] Campbell, who was an exciseman, had in July, 1769, caught a favourite servant of Lord Eglintoune in smuggling 80 gallons of rum in one of his master’s carts. This, he maintains, led to an ill-feeling. He had a right to carry a gun by virtue of his office, and from many of the gentry he had licences to shoot over their grounds. His lordship, however, had forbidden him to enter his. On Oct. 24, 1769, he passed into his grounds, and walked along the shore within the sea-mark, looking for a plover. Lord Eglintoune came up with him on the sea-sands and demanded his gun, advancing as if to seize it. Campbell warned him that he would fire if he did not keep off, and kept retiring backwards or sideways. He stumbled and fell. Lord Eglintoune stopped a little, and then made as if he would advance. Campbell thereupon fired, and hit him in the side. He was found guilty of murder. On the day after the trial he hanged himself in prison. _Ann. Reg_. xiii. 219. See _ante_, ii. 66, and Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Nov. 1.

[539] See _ante_, p. 40.

[540] _See ante_, ii. 10.

[541] Boswell here alludes to the motto of his Journal:–

‘Oh! while along the stream of time thy name Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame; Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?’

Pope’s _Essay on Man_, iv. 383.

[542]

‘His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by.’

Gray’s _Elegy_.

[543] Johnson, a fortnight or so later, mentions this waterfall in a letter to Mrs. Thrale, after speaking of a pool that Mr. Thrale was having dug. ‘He will have no waterfall to roar like the Doctor’s. I sat by it yesterday, and read Erasmus’s _Militis Christiani Enchiridion_.’ _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 3.

[544] See _post_, April 9 and 30, 1778. At the following Easter he recorded: ‘My memory is less faithful in retaining names, and, I am afraid, in retaining occurrences.’ _Pr. and Med_. p. 170.

[545] I am told that Horace, Earl of Orford, has a collection of _Bon-Mots_ by persons who never said but one. BOSWELL. Horace Walpole had succeeded to his title after the publication of the first edition of this book.

[546] See Macaulay’s _Essays_, i. 370.

[547] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 158) tells how ‘Rochester lived worthless and useless, and blazed out his youth and his health in lavish voluptuousness; till, at the age of one and thirty, he had exhausted the fund of life, and reduced himself to a state of weakness and decay.’ He describes how Burnet ‘produced a total change both of his manners and opinions,’ and says of the book in which this conversion is recounted that it is one ‘which the critick ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety.’ In Johnson’s answer to Boswell we have a play on the title of this work, which is, _Some passages of the Life and Death of John Earl of Rochester_.

[548] In the passages from Johnson’s _Life of Prior_, quoted _ante_, ii. 78, note 3, may be found an explanation of what he here says. A poet who ‘tries to be amorous by dint of study,’ and who ‘in his amorous pedantry exhibits the college,’ may be gross and yet not excite to lewdness. Goldsmith, in 1766, in a book entitled _Beauties of English Poetry Selected_, had inserted two of Prior’s tales, ‘which for once interdicted from general reading a book with his name upon its title-page.’ Mr. Forster hereupon remarks ‘on the changes in the public taste. Nothing is more frequent than these, and few things so sudden.’ Of these changes he gives some curious instances. Forster’s _Goldsmith_, ii. 4.

[549] See _ante_, iii. 5.

[550] See _ante_, i. 428.

[551] Horace, _Odes_, ii. 14.

[552] I am informed by Mr. Langton, that a great many years ago he was present when this question was agitated between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke; and, to use Johnson’s phrase, they ‘talked their best;’ Johnson for Homer, Burke for Virgil. It may well be supposed to have been one of the ablest and most brilliant contests that ever was exhibited. How much must we regret that it has not been preserved. BOSWELL. Johnson (_Works_, vii. 332), after saying that Dryden ‘undertook perhaps the most arduous work of its kind, a translation of Virgil,’ continues:–‘In the comparison of Homer and Virgil, the discriminative excellence of Homer is elevation and comprehension of thought, and that of Virgil is grace and splendour of diction. The beauties of Homer are therefore difficult to be lost, and those of Virgil difficult to be retained.’ Mr. E.J. Payne, in his edition of Burke’s _Select Works_, i. xxxviii, says:– ‘Most writers have constantly beside them some favourite classical author from whom they endeavour to take their prevailing tone. Burke, according to Butler, always had a “ragged Delphin _Virgil_” not far from his elbow.’ See Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Aug. 21, note.

[553] According to Sir Joshua Reynolds, ‘Mr. Burke, speaking of Bacon’s _Essays_, said he thought them the best of his works. Dr. Johnson was of opinion that their excellence and their value consisted in being the observations of a strong mind operating upon life; and in consequence you find there what you seldom find in other books.’ Northcote’s _Reynolds_, ii. 281.

[554] Mr. Seward perhaps imperfectly remembered the following passage in the _Preface to the Dictionary_ (_Works_, v. 40):–‘From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth, a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance. If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the translation of the Bible; the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh; the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney; and the diction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost to mankind for want of English words in which they might be expressed.’

[555] Of Mallet’s _Life of Bacon_, Johnson says (_Works_, viii. 465) that it is ‘written with elegance, perhaps with some affectation; but with so much more knowledge of history than of science, that when he afterwards undertook the _Life of Marlborough_, Warburton remarked, that he might perhaps forget that Marlborough was a general, as he had forgotten that Bacon was a philosopher.’

[556] It appears from part of the original journal in Mr. Anderdon’s papers that the friend who told the story was Mr. Beauclerk and the gentleman and lady alluded to were Mr. (probably Henry) and Miss Harvey. CROKER. Not Harvey but Hervey. See _ante_, i. 106, and ii. 32, for another story told by Beauclerk against Johnson of Mr. Thomas Hervey.

[557] Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, gives as the 17th meaning of _make, to raise as profit from anything_. He quotes the speech of Pompey in _Measure for Measure_, act iv. sc. 3:–‘He made five marks, ready money.’ But Pompey, he might reply, was a servant, and his English therefore is not to be taken as a standard.

[558] _Idea_ he defines as _mental imagination_.

[559] See _post_, May 15, 1783, note.

[560] In the first three editions of Boswell we find _Tadnor_ for _Tadmor_. In Dodsley’s _Collection_, iv. 229, the last couplet is as follows:–

‘Or Tadmor’s marble wastes survey,
Or in yon roofless cloister stray.’

[561] This is the tune that William Crotch (Dr. Crotch) was heard playing before he was two years and a half old, on a little organ that his father, a carpenter, had made. _Ann. Reg_. xxii 79.

[562] See _ante_, under Dec. 17, 1775.

[563] In 1757 two battalions of Highlanders were raised and sent to North America. _Gent. Mag_. xxvii. 42, 333. Boswell (_Hebrides_, Sept. 3, 1773) mentions ‘the regiments which the late Lord Chatham prided himself in having brought from “the mountains of the north.”‘ Chatham said in the House of Lords on Dec. 2, 1777:–‘I remember that I employed the very rebels in the service and defence of their country. They were reclaimed by this means; they fought our battles; they cheerfully bled in defence of those liberties which they attempted to overthrow but a few years before.’ _Parl. Hist_. xix. 477.

[564]

‘Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee.’

Line 154.

[565] See _ante_, ii. 168. Boswell, when a widower, wrote to Temple of a lady whom he seemed not unwilling to marry:–‘She is about seven-and-twenty, and he [Sir William Scott] tells me lively and gay– _a Ranelagh girl_–but of excellent principles, insomuch that she reads prayers to the servants in her father’s family every Sunday evening.’ _Letters of Boswell_, p. 336.

[566] Pope mentions [_Dunciad_, iv. 342],

‘Stretch’d on the rack of a too easy chair.’

But I recollect a couplet quite apposite to my subject in _Virtue an Ethick Epistle_, a beautiful and instructive poem, by an anonymous writer, in 1758; who, treating of pleasure in excess, says:–

‘Till languor, suffering on the rack of bliss, Confess that man was never made for this.’ BOSWELL.

[567] See _post_, June 12, 1784.

[568] See _ante_, p. 86.

[569] ‘For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.’ _Romans_, x. 2.

[570] Horace Walpole wrote:–‘Feb. 17, 1773. Caribs, black Caribs, have no representatives in Parliament; they have no agent but God, and he is seldom called to the bar of the House to defend their cause.’ Walpole’s _Letters_, v. 438. ‘Feb. 14, 1774. ‘If all the black slaves were in rebellion, I should have no doubt in choosing my side, but I scarce wish perfect freedom to merchants who are the bloodiest of all tyrants. I should think the souls of the Africans would sit heavy on the swords of the Americans.’ _Ib_. vi. 60.

[571] See _ante_, ii. 27, 312.

[572] ‘We are told that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear,’ etc. _Works_, vi. 262. In his _Life of Milton_ (_ib_. vii. 116) he says:–‘It has been observed that they who most loudly clamour for liberty do not most liberally grant it.’

[573] See page 76 of this volume. BOSWELL.

[574] The address was delivered on May 23, 1770. The editor of _Rogers’s Table Talk_ quotes, on p. 129, Mr. Maltby, the friend of Rogers, who says:–‘Dr. C. Burney assured me that Beckford did not utter one syllable of the speech–that it was wholly the invention of Horne Tooke. Being very intimate with Tooke, I questioned him on the subject. “What Burney states,” he said, “is true. I saw Beckford just after he came from St. James’s. I asked him what he had said to the King; and he replied, that he had been so confused, he scarcely knew what he had said. But, cried I, _your speech_ must be sent to the papers; I’ll write it for you. I did so immediately, and it was printed forthwith.”‘ Tooke gave the same account to Isaac Reed. Walpole’s _Letters_, v. 238, note. Stephens (_Life of Horne Tooke_, i. 155-8) says, that the King’s answer had been anticipated and that Horne had suggested the idea of a reply. Stephens continues:–‘The speech in reply, as Mr. Horne lately acknowledged to me, was his composition.’ Stephens does not seem to have heard the story that Beckford did not deliver the reply. He says that Horne inserted the account in the newspapers. ‘No one,’ he continues, ‘was better calculated to give copies of those harangues than the person who had furnished the originals; and as to the occurrences at St. James’s, he was enabled to detail the particulars from the lips of the members of the deputation.’ Alderman Townshend assured Lord Chatham that Beckford did deliver the speech. _Chatham Corres_. iii. 460. Horne Tooke’s word is not worth much. He did not resign his living till more than seven years after he wrote to Wilkes:–‘It is true I have suffered the infectious hand of a bishop to be waved over me; whose imposition, like the sop given to Judas, is only a signal for the devil to enter.’ Stephens’s _Horne Tooke_, i. 76. Beckford, dying in his Mayoralty, is oddly connected with Chatterton. ‘Chatterton had written a political essay for _The North Briton_, which, though accepted, was not printed on account of Lord Mayor Beckford’s death. The patriot thus calculated the death of his great patron:–

L s. d.
Lost by his death in
this Essay 1 11 6
Gained in Elegies L2.2
in Essays L3.3
—-
5 5 0
————-
Am glad he is dead by L3 13 6

D’Israeli’s _Calamities of Authors_, i. 54.

[575] At the time that Johnson wrote this there were serfs in Scotland. An Act passed in 1775 (15 Geo. III. c. 22) contains the following preamble:–‘Whereas by the law of Scotland, as explained by the judges of the courts of law there, many colliers and salters are in a state of slavery and bondage, bound to the collieries or saltworks where they work for life, transferable with the coalwork and salteries,’ etc. The Act was ineffectual in giving relief, and in 1779 by 39 Geo. III. c. 56 all colliers were ‘declared to be free from their servitude.’ The last of these emancipated slaves died in the year 1844. _Tranent and its Surroundings_, by P. M’Neill, p. 26. See also _Parl. Hist_. xxix. 1109, where Dundas states that it was only ‘after several years’ struggle that the bill was carried through both Houses.’

[576] See _ante_, ii. 13.

[577] ‘The Utopians do not make slaves of the sons of their slaves; the slaves among them are such as are condemned to that state of life for the commission of some crime.’ Sir T. More’s _Utopia–Ideal Commonwealths_, p. 129.

[578] The Rev. John Newton (Cowper’s friend) in 1763 wrote of the slave-trade, in which he had been engaged, ‘It is indeed accounted a genteel employment, and is usually very profitable, though to me it did not prove so, the Lord seeing that a large increase of wealth could not be good for me.’ Newton’s _Life_, p. 148. A ruffian of a London Alderman, a few weeks before _The Life of Johnson_ was published, said in parliament:–‘The abolition of the trade would destroy our Newfoundland fishery, which the slaves in the West Indies supported _by consuming that part of the fish which was fit for no other consumption_, and consequently, by cutting off the great source of seamen, annihilate our marine.’ _Parl. Hist_. xxix. 343.

[579] Gray’s Elegy. Mrs. Piozzi maintained that ‘mercy was totally abolished by French maxims; for, if all men are equal, mercy is no more.’ Piozzi’s _Synonymy_, i. 370. Johnson, in 1740, described slavery as ‘the most calamitous estate in human life,’ a state ‘which has always been found so destructive to virtue, that in many languages a slave and a thief are expressed by the same word.’ _Works_, v. 265-6. Nineteen years later he wrote of the discoveries of the Portuguese:–‘Much knowledge has been acquired, and much cruelty been committed; the belief of religion has been very little propagated, and its laws have been outrageously and enormously violated.’ _Ib_. p. 219. Horace Walpole wrote, on July 9, 1754, (_Letters_, ii. 394), ‘I was reading t’other day the _Life of Colonel Codrington_. He left a large estate for the propagation of the Gospel, and ordered that three hundred negroes should constantly be employed upon it. Did one ever hear a more truly Christian charity than keeping up a perpetuity of three hundred slaves to look after the Gospel’s estate?’ Churchill, in _Gotham_, published in 1764 (_Poems_, ii. 101), says of Europe’s treatment of the savage race:–

‘Faith too she plants, for her own ends imprest, To make them bear the worst, and hope the best.’

[580]

‘With stainless lustre virtue shines, A base repulse nor knows nor fears;

Nor claims her honours, nor declines, As the light air of crowds uncertain veers.’ FRANCIS. Horace _Odes_, iii. 2.

[581] Sir Walter Scott, in a note to _Redgauntlet_, Letter 1, says:– ‘Sir John Nisbett of Dirleton’s _Doubts and Questions upon the Law especially of Scotland_, and Sir James Stewart’s _Dirleton’s Doubts and Questions resolved and answered_, are works of authority in Scottish jurisprudence. As is generally the case, the _Doubts_ are held more in respect than the solution.’

[582] When Boswell first made Johnson’s acquaintance it was he who suffered from the late hours. _Ante_, i. 434.

[583] See _ante_, ii. 312.

[584] Burke, in _Present Discontents_, says:–‘The power of the Crown, almost dead and rotten as Prerogative, has grown up anew, with much more strength and far less odium, under the name of Influence.’ _Influence_ he explains as ‘the method of governing by men of great natural interest or great acquired consideration.’ Payne’s _Burke_, i. 10, 11. ‘Influence,’ said Johnson,’ must ever be in proportion to property; and it is right it should.’ Boswell’s _Hebrides_, Aug. 18. To political life might be applied what Johnson wrote of domestic life:–‘It is a maxim that no man ever was enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.’ _Notes and Queries_, 6th S., v. 343.

[585] Boswell falls into what he calls ‘the cant transmitted from age to age in praise of the ancient Romans.’ _Ante_, i. 311. To do so with Johnson was at once to provoke an attack, for he looked upon the Roman commonwealth as one ‘which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind.’ _Ib_. Moreover he disliked appeals to history. ‘General history,’ writes Murphy (_Life_, p. 138), ‘had little of his regard. Biography was his delight. Sooner than hear of the Punic War he would be rude to the person that introduced the subject.’ Mrs. Piozzi says (_Anec_. p. 80) that ‘no kind of conversation pleased him less, I think, than when the subject was historical fact or general polity. ‘What shall we learn from _that_ stuff?’ said he. ‘He never,’ as he expressed it, ‘desired to hear of the _Punic War_ while he lived.’ The _Punic War_, it is clear, was a kind of humorous catch word with him. She wrote to him in 1773:–‘So here’s modern politics in a letter from me; yes and a touch of the _Punic War_ too.’ _Piozzi Letters_, i. 187. He wrote to her in 1775, just after she had been at the first regatta held in England:–‘You will now find the advantage of having made one at the regatta…. It is the good of public life that it supplies agreeable topics and general conversation. Therefore wherever you are, and whatever you see, talk not of the Punic War; nor of the depravity of human nature; nor of the slender motives of human actions; nor of the difficulty of finding employment or pleasure; but talk, and talk, and