Chapter XXII: Appendix: F (1)

JOHNSON'S FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE THRALES AND HIS SERIOUS ILLNESS.

(_Page_ 490.)

Johnson (_Pr. and Med_. p. 191) writes:--'My first knowledge of Thrale was in 1765.' In a letter to Mrs. Thrale, he says:--'You were but five-and-twenty when I knew you first.' (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 284). As she was born on Jan. 16/27, 1741, this would place their introduction in 1766. In another letter, written on July 8, 1784, he talks of her 'kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched.' (_Ib_. ii. 376). Perhaps, however, he here spoke in round numbers. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 125) says they first met in 1764. Mr. Thrale, she writes, sought an excuse for inviting him. 'The celebrity of Mr. Woodhouse (_post_, ii. 127), a shoemaker, whose verses were at that time the subject of common discourse, soon afforded a 'pretence.' There is a notice of Woodhouse in the _Gent. Mag_. for June, 1764 (p. 289). Johnson, she says, dined with them every Thursday through the winter of 1764-5, and in the autumn of 1765 followed them to Brighton. In the _Piozzi Letters_ (i. 1) there is a letter of his, dated Aug. 13, 1765, in which he speaks of his intention to join them there.

'From that time,' she writes, 'his visits grew more frequent till, in the year 1766, his health, which he had always complained of, grew so exceedingly bad, that he could not stir out of his room in the court he inhabited for many _weeks_ together, I think _months_. Mr. Thrale's attentions and my own now became so acceptable to him, that he often lamented to us the horrible condition of his mind, which, he said, was nearly distracted: and though he charged _us_ to make him odd solemn promises of secrecy on so strange a subject, yet when we waited on him one morning, and heard him, in the most pathetic terms, beg the prayers of Dr. Delap [the Rector of Lewes] who had left him as we came in, I felt excessively affected with grief, and well remember my husband involuntarily lifted up one hand to shut his mouth, from provocation at hearing a man so widely proclaim what he could at last persuade no one to believe; and what, if true, would have been so unfit to reveal. Mr. Thrale went away soon after, leaving me with him, and bidding me prevail on him to quit his close habitation in the court, and come with us to Streatham, where I undertook the care of his health, and had the honour and happiness of contributing to its restoration.'

It is not possible to reconcile the contradiction in dates between Johnson and Mrs. Piozzi, nor is it easy to fix the time of this illness. That before February, 1766, he had had an illness so serious as to lead him altogether to abstain from wine is beyond a doubt. Boswell, on his return to England in that month, heard it from his own lips (_post_, ii. 8). That this illness must have attacked him after March 1, 1765, when he visited Cambridge, is also clear; for at that time he was still drinking wine (_ante_, Appendix C). That he was unusually depressed in the spring of this year is shewn by his entry at Easter (_ante_, p. 487). From his visit to Dr. Percy in the summer of 1764 (_ante_, p. 486) to the autumn of 1765, we have very little information about him. For more than two years he did not write to Boswell (_post_, ii. 1). Dr. Adams (_ante_, p. 483) describes the same kind of attack as Mrs. Piozzi. Its date is not given. Boswell, after quoting an entry made on Johnson's birthday, Sept. 18, 1764, says 'about this time he was afflicted' with the illness Dr. Adams describes. From Mrs. Piozzi, from Johnson's account to Boswell, and from Dr. Adams we learn of a serious illness. Was there more than one? If there was only one, then Boswell is wrong in placing it before March 1, 1765, when Johnson was still a wine-drinker, and Mrs. Piozzi is wrong in placing it after February, 1766, when he had become an abstainer. Johnson certainly stayed at Streatham from before Midsummer to October in 1766 (_post_, ii. 25, and _Pr. and Med_. p. 71), and this fact lends support to Mrs. Piozzi's statement. But, on the other hand, his meetings with Boswell in February of that year, and his letters to Langton of March 9 and May 10 (_post_, ii. 16, 17), shew a not unhappy frame of mind. Boswell, in his _Hebrides_ (Oct. 16, 1773), speaks of Johnson's illness in 1766. If it was in 1766 that he was ill, it must have been after May 10 and before Midsummer-day, and this period is almost too brief for Mrs. Piozzi's account. It is a curious coincidence that Cowper was introduced to the Unwins in the same year in which Johnson, according to his own account, had his first knowledge of the Thrales. (Southey's _Cowper_, i, 171.)

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Post_, iv. 172.

[2] _Post_, iii. 312.

[3] _Post_, i. 324.

[4] _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, ed. 1807, vol. i. p. xi.

[5] _Post_, iii. 230.

[6] _Post_, i. 7.

[7] _Post_, ii. 212.

[8] _Post_, i. 7.

[9] _Post_, iv. 444.

[10] _Post_, ii. 100.

[11] _Post_, iv. 429; v. 17.

[12] _Post_, v. 117.

[13] _Post_, i. 472, n. 4; iv. 260, n. 2; v. 405, n. 1, 454, n. 2; vi. i-xxxvii.

[14] _Post_, i. 60, n. 7.

[15] _Post_, ii. 476.

[16] _Post_, vi. xxxiv.

[17] _Post_, iii. 462.

[18] _Post_, vi. xxii.

[19] _Post_, iv. 8, n. 3.

[20] _Post_, i. 489, 518.

[21] _Post_, iv. 223, n. 3.

[22] _Post_, i. 39, n. 1.

[23] _Post_, iii. 340, n. 2.

[24] _Post_, i. 103, n. 3.

[25] _Post_, i. 501.

[26] _Post_, iii. 443.

[27] _Post_, iii. 314.

[28] _Post_, iii. 449.

[29] _Post_, iii. 478.

[30] _Post_, iii. 459.

[31] _Post_, i. 189. n. 2.

[32] i. 296, n. 3.

[33] _Post_, vi. 289.

[34] _Post_, ii. 350.

[35] _Post_, iii. 137, n. 1; 389.

[36] _Post_, i. 14

[37] _Post_, i. 7-8

[38] _Post_, i. 14-15.

[39] _Post_, iv. 31, n. 3

[40] ii. 173-4.

[41] vol. ii. p. 47.

[42] Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1825, vol. v. p. 152.

[43] Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1825, vol. v. p. 152.

[44] See _Post_, ii. 35, 424-6, 441.

[45] See _Post_, iv. 422.

[46] _Correspondence of Edmund Burke_, ii. 425.

[47] To this interesting and accurate publication I am indebted for many valuable notes.

[48] _Post_, iii. 51, n. 3.

[49] Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1825, vol. iv. p. 446.

[50] _Post_, i. 331, _n_. 7.

[51] Johnson said of him:--'Sir Joshua Reynolds is the same all the year round;' _post_, March 28, 1776. Boswell elsewhere describes him as 'he who used to be looked upon as perhaps the most happy man in the world.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 344.

[52] 'O noctes coenaeque Deum!' 'O joyous nights! delicious feasts! At which the gods might be my guests. _Francis_. Horace, _Sat_, ii. 6. 65.

[53] Six years before this Dedication Sir Joshua had conferred on him another favour. 'I have a proposal to make to you,' Boswell had written to him, 'I am for certain to be called to the English bar next February. Will you now do my picture? and the price shall be paid out of the first fees which I receive as a barrister in Westminster Hall. Or if that fund should fail, it shall be paid at any rate five years hence by myself or my representatives.' Boswell told him at the same time that the debts which he had contracted in his father's lifetime would not be cleared off for some years. The letter was endorsed by Sir Joshua:--'I agree to the above conditions;' and the portrait was painted. Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 477.

[54] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773.

[55] 'I surely have the art of writing agreeably. The Lord Chancellor [Thurlow] told me he had read every word of my _Hebridian Journal_;' he could not help it; adding, 'could you give a rule how to write a book that a man _must_ read? I believe Longinus could not.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 322.

[56] Boswell perhaps quotes from memory the following passage in Goldsmith's _Life of Nash_:--'The doctor was one day conversing with Locke and two or three more of his learned and intimate companions, with that freedom, gaiety, and cheerfulness, which is ever the result of innocence. In the midst of their mirth and laughter, the doctor, looking from the window, saw Nash's chariot stop at the door. "Boys, boys," cried the philosopher, "let us now be wise, for here is a fool coming."' Cunningham's Goldsmith's _Works_, iv. 96. Dr. Warton in his criticism on Pope's line

'Unthought of frailties cheat us
in the wise,'

(_Moral Essays_, i. 69) says:--'For who could imagine that Dr. Clarke valued himself for his agility, and frequently amused himself in a private room of his house in leaping over the tables and chairs.' Warton's _Essay on Pope_, ii. 125. 'It is a good remark of Montaigne's,' wrote Goldsmith, 'that the wisest men often have friends with whom they do not care how much they play the fool.' Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 166. Mr. Seward says in his _Anecdotes_, ii. 320, that 'in the opinion of Dr. Johnson' Dr. Clarke was the most complete literary character that England ever produced.' For Dr. Clarke's sermons see _post_, April 7, 1778.

[57] See _post_, Oct. 16, 1769, note.

[58] How much delighted would Boswell have been, had he been shewn the following passage, recorded by Miss Burney, in an account she gives of a conversation with the Queen:--

THE QUEEN:--'Miss Burney, have you heard that Boswell is going to publish a life of your friend Dr. Johnson?' 'No, ma'am!' 'I tell you as I heard, I don't know for the truth of it, and I can't tell what he will do. He is so extraordinary a man that perhaps he will devise something extraordinary.' _Mme. D'Artlay's Diary_, ii. 400. 'Dr. Johnson's history,' wrote Horace Walpole, on June 20, 1785, 'though he is going to have as many lives as a cat, might be reduced to four lines; but I shall wait to extract the quintessence till Sir John Hawkins, Madame Piozzi, and Mr. Boswell have produced their quartos.' Horace Walpole's _Letters_, viii. 557.

[59] The delay was in part due to Boswell's dissipation and place-hunting, as is shewn by the following passages in his _Letters_ to Temple:--'Feb. 24, 1788, I have been wretchedly dissipated, so that I have not written a line for a fortnight.' p. 266. 'Nov. 28, 1789, Malone's hospitality, and my other invitations, and particularly my attendance at Lord Lonsdale's, have lost us many evenings.' _Ib_. p. 311. 'June 21, 1790, How unfortunate to be obliged to interrupt my work! Never was a poor ambitious projector more mortified. I am suffering without any prospect of reward, and only from my own folly.' _Ib_. p. 326.

[60] 'You cannot imagine what labour, what perplexity, what vexation I have endured in arranging a prodigious multiplicity of materials, in supplying omissions, in searching for papers, buried in different masses, and all this besides the exertion of composing and polishing; many a time have I thought of giving it up.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 311.

[61] Boswell writing to Temple in 1775, says:--'I try to keep a journal, and shall shew you that I have done tolerably; but it is hardly credible what ground I go over, and what a variety of men and manners I contemplate in a day; and all the time I myself am _pars magna_, for my exuberant spirits will not let me listen enough.' _Ib_. p. 188. Mr. Barclay said that 'he had seen Boswell lay down his knife and fork, and take out his tablets, in order to register a good anecdote.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 837. The account given by Paoli to Miss Burney, shows that very early in life Boswell took out his tablets:--'He came to my country, and he fetched me some letter of recommending him; but I was of the belief he might be an impostor, and I supposed in my minde he was an espy; for I look away from him, and in a moment I look to him again, and I behold his tablets. Oh! he was to the work of writing down all I say. Indeed I was angry. But soon I discover he was no impostor and no espy; and I only find I was myself the monster he had come to discern. Oh! he is a very good man; I love him indeed; so cheerful, so gay, so pleasant! but at the first, oh! I was indeed angry.' _Mme. D'Arblay's Diary_, ii. 155. Boswell not only recorded the conversations, he often stimulated them. On one occasion 'he assumed,' he said, 'an air of ignorance to incite Dr. Johnson to talk, for which it was often necessary to employ some address.' See _post_, April 12, 1776. 'Tom Tyers,' said Johnson, 'described me the best. He once said to me, "Sir, you are like a ghost: you never speak till you are spoken to."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 20, 1773. Boswell writing of this Tour said:--'I also may be allowed to claim some merit in leading the conversation; I do not mean leading, as in an orchestra, by playing the first fiddle; but leading as one does in examining a witness--starting topics, and making him pursue them.' _Ib_. Sept. 28. One day he recorded:--'I did not exert myself to get Dr. Johnson to talk, that I might not have the labour of writing down his conversation.' _Ib_. Sept. 7. His industry grew much less towards the close of Johnson's life. Under May 8, 1781, he records:--'Of his conversation on that and other occasions during this period, I neglected to keep any regular record.' On May 15, 1783:--'I have no minute of any interview with Johnson [from May 1] till May 15. 'May 15, 1784:--'Of these days and others on which I saw him I have no memorials.'

[62] It is an interesting question how far Boswell derived his love of truth from himself, and how far from Johnson's training. He was one of Johnson's _school_. He himself quotes Reynolds's observation, 'that all who were of his _school_ are distinguished for a love of truth and accuracy, which they would not have possessed in the same degree if they had not been acquainted with Johnson' (_post_, under March 30, 1778). Writing to Temple in 1789, he said:--'Johnson taught me to cross-question in common life.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 280. His quotations, nevertheless, are not unfrequently inaccurate. Yet to him might fairly be applied the words that Gibbon used of Tillemont:--'His inimitable accuracy almost assumes the character of genius.' Gibbon's _Misc. Words_, i. 213.

[63] 'The revision of my _Life of Johnson_, by so acute and knowing a critic as Mr. Malone, is of most essential consequence, especially as he is _Johnsonianissimum_.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 310. A few weeks earlier he had written:--'Yesterday afternoon Malone and I made ready for the press thirty pages of Johnson's _Life_; he is much pleased with it; but I feel a sad indifference [he had lately lost his wife], and he says, "I have not the use of my faculties."' _Ib_. p. 308.

[64] Horace, _Odes_, i. 3. 1.

[65] He had published an answer to Hume's _Essay on Miracles_. See _post_, March 20, 1776.

[66] Macleod asked if it was not wrong in Orrery to expose the defects of a man [Swift] with whom he lived in intimacy, Johnson, 'Why no, Sir, after the man is dead; for then it is done historically.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22, 1773. See also _post_, Sept 17, 1777.

[67] See Mr. Malone's Preface to his edition of Shakspeare. BOSWELL.

[68] 'April 6, 1791.

'My _Life of Johnson_ is at last drawing to a close.... I really hope to publish it on the 25th current.... I am at present in such bad spirits that I have every fear concerning it--that I may get no profit, nay, may lose--that the Public may be disappointed, and think that I have done it poorly--that I may make many enemies, and even have quarrels. Yet perhaps the very reverse of all this may happen.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 335.

'August 22, 1791.

'My _magnum opus_ sells wonderfully; twelve hundred are now gone, and we hope the whole seventeen hundred may be gone before Christmas.' _Ib_. p. 342.

Malone in his Preface to the fourth edition, dated June 20, 1804, says that 'near four thousand copies have been dispersed.' The first edition was in 2 vols., quarto; the second (1793) in 3 vols., octavo; the third (1799), the fourth (1804), the fifth (1807), and the sixth (1811), were each in 4 vols., octavo. The last four were edited by Malone, Boswell having died while he was preparing notes for the third edition.

[69] 'Burke affirmed that Boswell's _Life_ was a greater monument to Johnson's fame than all his writings put together.' _Life of Mackintosh_, i. 92.

[70] It is a pamphlet of forty-two pages, under the title of _The Principal Corrections and Additions to the First Edition of Mr. Boswell's Life Of Johnson_. Price two shillings and sixpence.

[71] Reynolds died on Feb. 23, 1792.

[72] Sir Joshua in his will left £200 to Mr. Boswell 'to be expended, if he thought proper, in the purchase of a picture at the sale of his paintings, to be kept for his sake.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 636.

[73] Of the seventy-five years that Johnson lived, he and Boswell did not spend two years and two months in the same neighbourhood. Excluding the time they were together on their tour to the Hebrides, they were dwelling within reach of each other a few weeks less than two years. Moreover, when they were apart, there were great gaps in their correspondence. Between Dec. 8, 1763, and Jan. 14, 1766, and again between Nov. 10, 1769 and June 20, 1771, during which periods they did not meet, Boswell did not receive a single letter from Johnson. The following table shows the times they were in the same neighbourhood.

1763, May 16 to Aug. 6, London. 1766, a few days in February " 1768, " " March, Oxford. 1768, a few days in May, London. 1769, end of Sept. to Nov. 10, " 1772, March 21 to about May 10, " 1773, April 3 to May 10, " " Aug. 14 to Nov. 22, Scotland. 1775, March 21 to April 18, London. May 2 to May 23, " 1776, March 15 to May 16, London, Oxford, Birmingham, with an interval of Lichfield, about a fortnight, Ashbourne, when Johnson was at and Bath and Boswell at Bath. London, 1777, Sept. 14 to Sept. 24, Ashbourne. 1778, March 18 to May 19, London. 1779, March 15 to May 3, " " Oct. 4 to Oct. 18, " 1781, March 19 to June 5, London and Southill. 1783, March 21 to May 30, London. 1784, May 5 to June 30, London and Oxford.

[74]

'To shew what wisdom and what sense can do, The poet sets Ulysses in our view.'

_Francis_. Horace, _Ep_. i. 2. 17.

[75] In his _Letter to the People of Scotland, p. 92, he wrote:--'Allow me, my friends and countrymen, while I with honest zeal maintain _your_ cause--allow me to indulge a little more my _own egotism_ and _vanity_. They are the indigenous plants of my mind; they distinguish it. I may prune their luxuriancy; but I must not entirely clear it of them; for then I should be no longer "as I am;" and perhaps there might be something not so good.'

[76] See _post_, April 17, 1778, note.

[77] Lord Macartney was the first English ambassador to the Court of Pekin. He left England in 1792 and returned in 1794.

[78] Boswell writing to Temple ten days earlier had said:--'Behold my _hand_! the robbery is only of a few shillings; but the cut on my head and bruises on my arms were sad things, and confined me to bed, in pain, and fever, and helplessness, as a child, many days.... This shall be a crisis in my life: I trust I shall henceforth be a sober regular man. Indeed, my indulgence in wine has, of late years especially, been excessive.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 346.

[79] On this day his brother wrote to Mr. Temple: 'I have now the painful task of informing you that my dear brother expired this morning at two o'clock; we have both lost a kind, affectionate friend, and I shall never have such another.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 357. What was probably Boswell's last letter is as follows:--

'My Dear Temple,

'I would fain write to you in my own hand, but really cannot. [These words, which are hardly legible, and probably the last poor Boswell ever wrote, afford the clearest evidence of his utter physical prostration.] Alas, my friend, what a state is this! My son James is to write for me what remains of this letter, and I am to dictate. The pain which continued for so many weeks was very severe indeed, and when it went off I thought myself quite well; but I soon felt a conviction that I was by no means as I should be--so exceedingly weak, as my miserable attempt to write to you afforded a full proof. All then that can be said is, that I must wait with patience. But, O my friend! how strange is it that, at this very time of my illness, you and Miss Temple should have been in such a dangerous state. Much occasion for thankfulness is there that it has not been worse with you. Pray write, or make somebody write frequently. I feel myself a good deal stronger to-day, not withstanding the scrawl. God bless you, my dear Temple! I ever am your old and affectionate friend, here and I trust hereafter,

'JAMES BOSWELL.' _Ib_. p. 353.

[80] Malone died on May 25, 1812.

[81] I do not here include his Poetical Works; for, excepting his Latin Translation of Pope's _Messiah_, his _London_, and his _Vanity of Human Wishes_ imitated from _Juvenal_; his Prologue on the opening of Drury-Lane Theatre by Mr. Garrick, and his _Irene_, a Tragedy, they are very numerous, and in general short; and I have promised a complete edition of them, in which I shall with the utmost care ascertain their authenticity, and illustrate them with notes and various readings. BOSWELL. Boswell's meaning, though not well expressed, is clear enough. Mr. Croker needlessly suggests that he wrote 'they are _not_ very numerous.' Boswell a second time (_post_, under Aug. 12, 1784, note) mentions his intention to edit Johnson's poems. He died without doing it. See also _post_, 1750, Boswell's note on Addison's style.

[82] The _Female Quixote_ was published in 1752. See _post_, 1762, note.

[83] The first four volumes of the _Lives_ were published in 1779, the last six in 1781.

[84] See Dr. Johnson's letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated Ostick in Skie, September 30, 1773:--'Boswell writes a regular Journal of our travels, which I think contains as much of what I say and do, as of all other occurrences together; "_for such a faithful chronicler_ is _Griffith_."' BOSWELL. See _Piozzi Letters_, i. 159, where however we read '_as_ Griffith.'

[85] _Idler_, No. 84. BOSWELL.--In this paper he says: 'Those relations are commonly of most value in which the writer tells his own story. He that recounts the life of another ... lessens the familiarity of his tale to increase its dignity ... and endeavours to hide the man that he may produce a hero.'

[86] 'It very seldom happens to man that his business is his pleasure. What is done from necessity is so often to be done when against the present inclination, and so often fills the mind with anxiety, that an habitual dislike steals upon us, and we shrink involuntarily from the remembrance of our task.... From this unwillingness to perform more than is required of that which is commonly performed with reluctance it proceeds that few authors write their own lives.' _Idler_, No. 102. See also _post_, May 1, 1783.

[87] Mrs. Piozzi records the following conversation with Johnson, which, she says, took place on July 18, 1773. 'And who will be my biographer,' said he, 'do you think?' 'Goldsmith, no doubt,' replied I; 'and he will do it the best among us.' 'The dog would write it best to be sure,' replied he; 'but his particular malice towards me, and general disregard for truth, would make the book useless to all, and injurious to my character.' 'Oh! as to that,' said I, 'we should all fasten upon him, and force him to do you justice; but the worst is, the Doctor does not _know_ your life; nor can I tell indeed who does, except Dr. Taylor of Ashbourne.' 'Why Taylor,' said he, 'is better acquainted with my _heart_ than any man or woman now alive; and the history of my Oxford exploits lies all between him and Adams; but Dr. James knows my very early days better than he. After my coming to London to drive the world about a little, you must all go to Jack Hawkesworth for anecdotes: I lived in great familiarity with him (though I think there was not much affection) from the year 1753 till the time Mr. Thrale and you took me up. I intend, however, to disappoint the rogues, and either make you write the life, with Taylor's intelligence; or, which is better, do it myself after outliving you all. I am now,' added he, 'keeping a diary, in hopes of using it for that purpose sometime.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 31. How much of this is true cannot be known. Boswell some time before this conversation had told Johnson that he intended to write his Life, and Johnson had given him many particulars (see _post_, March 31, 1772, and April 11, 1773). He read moreover in manuscript most of Boswell's _Tour to the Hebrides_, and from it learnt of his intention. 'It is no small satisfaction to me to reflect,' Boswell wrote, 'that Dr. Johnson, after being apprised of my intentions, communicated to me, at subsequent periods, many particulars of his life.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 14, 1773.

[88] 'It may be said the death of Dr. Johnson kept the public mind in agitation beyond all former example. No literary character ever excited so much attention.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 3.

[89] The greatest part of this book was written while Sir John Hawkins was alive; and I avow, that one object of my strictures was to make him feel some compunction for his illiberal treatment of Dr. Johnson. Since his decease, I have suppressed several of my remarks upon his work. But though I would not 'war with the dead' _offensively_, I think it necessary to be strenuous in _defence_ of my illustrious friend, which I cannot be without strong animadversions upon a writer who has greatly injured him. Let me add, that though I doubt I should not have been very prompt to gratify Sir John Hawkins with any compliment in his life-time, I do now frankly acknowledge, that, in my opinion, his volume, however inadequate and improper as a life of Dr. Johnson, and however discredited by unpardonable inaccuracies in other respects, contains a collection of curious anecdotes and observations, which few men but its author could have brought together. BOSWELL.

[90] 'The next name that was started was that of Sir John Hawkins; and Mrs. Thrale said, "Why now, Dr. Johnson, he is another of those whom you suffer nobody to abuse but yourself: Garrick is one too; for, if any other person speaks against him, you brow-beat him in a minute." "Why madam," answered he, "they don't know when to abuse him, and when to praise him; I will allow no man to speak ill of David that he does not deserve; and as to Sir John, why really I believe him to be an honest man at the bottom; but to be sure he is penurious, and he is mean, and it must be owned he has a degree of brutality, and a tendency to savageness, that cannot easily be defended.... He said that Sir John and he once belonged to the same club, but that as he eat no supper, after, the first night of his admission he desired to be excused paying his share." "And was he excused?" "O yes; for no man is angry at another for being inferior to himself. We all scorned him, and admitted his plea. For my part, I was such a fool as to pay my share for wine, though I never tasted any. But Sir John was a most _unclubable man_."' Madame D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 65.

[91] 'In censuring Mr. [_sic_] J. Hawkins's book I say: "There is throughout the whole of it a dark, uncharitable cast, which puts the most unfavourable construction on my illustrious friend's conduct." Malone maintains _cast_ will not do; he will have "malignancy." Is that not too strong? How would "disposition" do?... Hawkins is no doubt very malevolent. _Observe how he talks of me as quite unknown.' Letters of Boswell_, p. 281. Malone wrote of Hawkins as follows: 'The bishop [Bishop Percy of Dromore] concurred with every other person I have heard speak of Hawkins, in saying that he was a most detestable fellow. He was the son of a carpenter, and set out in life in the very lowest line of the law. Dyer knew him well at one time, and the Bishop heard him give a character of Hawkins once that painted him in the blackest colours; though Dyer was by no means apt to deal in such portraits. Dyer said he was a man of the most mischievous, uncharitable, and malignant disposition. Sir Joshua Reynolds observed to me that Hawkins, though he assumed great outward sanctity, was not only mean and grovelling in dispostion, but absolutely dishonest. He never lived in any real intimacy with Dr. Johnson, who never opened his heart to him, or had in fact any accurate knowledge of his character.' Prior's _Malone_, pp. 425-7. See _post_, Feb. 1764, note.

[92] Mrs. Piozzi. See _post_, under June 30, 1784.

[93] Voltaire in his account of Bayle says: 'Des Maizeaux a écrit sa vie en un gros volume; elle ne devait pas contenir six pages.' Voltaire's _Works_, edition of 1819, xvii. 47.

[94] Brit. Mus. 4320, Ayscough's Catal., Sloane MSS. BOSWELL.--Horace Walpole describes Birch as 'a worthy, good-natured soul, full of industry and activity, and running about like a young setting-dog in quest of anything, new or old, and with no parts, taste, or judgment.' Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 326. See _post_, Sept. 1743.

[95] 'You have fixed the method of biography, and whoever will write a life well must imitate you.' Horace Walpole to Mason; Walpole's _Letters_, vi. 211.

[96] 'I am absolutely certain that my mode of biography, which gives not only a _History_ of Johnson's _visible_ progress through the world, and of his publications, but a _view_ of his mind in his letters and conversations, is the most perfect that can be conceived, and will be more of a Life than any work that has ever yet appeared.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 265.

[97] Pope's Prologue to Addison's _Cato_, 1. 4.

[98] 'Boswell is the first of biographers. He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not worth while to place them. Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere.' Macaulay's _Essays_, i. 374.

[99] See _post_, Sept. 17, 1777, and Malone's note of March 15, 1781, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22, 1773. Hannah More met Boswell when he was carrying through the press his _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_. 'Boswell tells me,' she writes, 'he is printing anecdotes of Johnson, not his _Life_, but, as he has the vanity to call it, his _pyramid_. I besought his tenderness for our virtuous and most revered departed friend, and begged he would mitigate some of his asperities. He said roughly: "He would not cut off his claws, nor make a tiger a cat, to please anybody." It will, I doubt not, be a very amusing book, but, I hope, not an indiscreet one; he has great enthusiasm and some fire.' H. More's _Memoirs_, i. 403.

[100] Rambler, No. 60. BOSWELL.

[101] In the _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_.

[102] 'Mason's _Life of Gray_ is excellent, because it is interspersed with letters which show us the _man_. His _Life of Whitehead_ is not a life at all, for there is neither a letter nor a saying from first to last.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 265.

[103] The Earl and Countess of Jersey, WRIGHT.

[104] Plutarch's _Life of Alexander_, Langhorne's Translation. BOSWELL.

[105] In the original, _revolving something_.

[106] In the original, _and so little regard the manners_.

[107] In the original, _and are rarely transmitted_.

[108] _Rambler_, No. 60. BOSWELL.

[109] Bacon's _Advancement of Learning_, Book I. BOSWELL.

[110] Johnson's godfather, Dr. Samuel Swinfen, according to the author of _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr. Johnson_, 1785, p. 10, was at the time of his birth lodging with Michael Johnson. Johnson had uncles on the mother's side, named Samuel and Nathanael (see _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. v. 13), after whom he and his brother may have been named. It seems more likely that it was his godfather who gave him his name.

[111] So early as 1709 _The Tatler_ complains of this 'indiscriminate assumption.' 'I'll undertake that if you read the superscriptions to all the offices in the kingdom, you will not find three letters directed to any but Esquires.... In a word it is now _Populus Armigerorum_, a people of Esquires, And I don't know but by the late act of naturalisation, foreigners will assume that title as part of the immunity of being Englishmen.' _The Tatler_, No. 19.

[112] 'I can hardly tell who was my grandfather,' said Johnson. See _post_, May 9, 1773.

[113] Michael Johnson was born in 1656. He must have been engaged in the book-trade as early as 1681; for in the _Life of Dryden_ his son says, 'The sale of Absalom and Achitophel was so large, that my father, an old bookseller, told me, he had not known it equalled but by Sacheverell's Trial.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 276. In the _Life of Sprat_ he is described by his son as 'an old man who had been no careless observer of the passages of those times.' Ib. 392.

[114] Her epitaph says that she was born at Kingsnorton. Kingsnorton is in Worcestershire, and not, as the epitaph says, 'in agro Varvicensi.' When Johnson a few days before his death burnt his papers, some fragments of his _Annals_ escaped the flames. One of these was never seen by Boswell; it was published in 1805 under the title of _An Account of the Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, from his Birth to his Eleventh Year, written by himself_. In this he says (p. 14), 'My mother had no value for my father's relations; those indeed whom we knew of were much lower than hers.' Writing to Mrs. Thrale on his way to Scotland he said: 'We changed our horses at Darlington, where Mr. Cornelius Harrison, a cousin-german of mine, was perpetual curate. He was the only one of my relations who ever rose in fortune above penury, or in character above neglect.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 105. His uncle Harrison he described as 'a very mean and vulgar man, drunk every night, but drunk with little drink, very peevish, very proud, very ostentatious, but luckily not rich.' _Annals_, p. 28. In _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. x. 465, is given the following extract of the marriage of Johnson's parents from the Register of Packwood in Warwickshire:--

'1706. Mickell Johnsones of lichfield and Sara ford maried June the 9th.'

[115] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 3) records that Johnson told her that 'his father was wrong-headed, positive, and afflicted with melancholy.'

[116] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 213 [Sept. 16]. BOSWELL.

[117] Stockdale in his _Memoirs_, ii. 102, records an anecdote told him by Johnson of 'the generosity of one of the customers of his father. "This man was purchasing a book, and pressed my father to let him have it at a far less price than it was worth. When his other topics of persuasion failed, he had recourse to one argument which, he thought, would infallibly prevail:--You know, Mr. Johnson, that I buy an almanac of you every year."'

[118] Extract of a letter, dated 'Trentham, St. Peter's day, 1716,' written by the Rev. George Plaxton, Chaplain at that time to Lord Gower, which may serve to show the high estimation in which the Father of our great Moralist was held: 'Johnson, the Litchfield Librarian, is now here; he propagates learning all over this diocese, and advanceth knowledge to its just height; all the Clergy here are his Pupils, and suck all they have from him; Allen cannot make a warrant without his precedent, nor our quondam John Evans draw a recognizance _sine directione Michaelis_.' _Gentleman's Magazine_, October, 1791. BOSWELL.

[119] In _Notes and Queries_, 3rd S. v. 33, is given the following title-page of one of his books: '[Greek: Pharmako-Basauos]: _or the Touchstone of Medicines, etc_. By Sir John Floyer of the City of Litchfield, Kt., M.D., of Queen's College, Oxford. London: Printed for Michael Johnson, Bookseller, and are to be sold at his shops at Litchfield and Uttoxiter, in Staffordshire; and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire, 1687.'

[120] Johnson writing of his birth says: 'My father being that year sheriff of Lichfield, and to ride the circuit of the county [Mr. Croker suggests city, not being aware that 'the City of Lichfield was a county in itself.' See Harwood's _Lichfield_, p. 1. In like manner, in the Militia Bill of 1756 (_post_ 1756) we find entered, 'Devonshire with Exeter City and County,' 'Lincolnshire with Lincoln City and County'] next day, which was a ceremony then performed with great pomp, he was asked by my mother whom he would invite to the Riding; and answered, "all the town now." He feasted the citizens with uncommon magnificence, and was the last but one that maintained the splendour of the Riding.' _Annals_, p. 10. He served the office of churchwarden in 1688; of sheriff in 1709; of junior bailiff in 1718; and senior bailiff in 1725.' Harwood's _Lichfield_, p. 449.

[121] 'My father and mother had not much happiness from each other. They seldom conversed; for my father could not bear to talk of his affairs, and my mother being unacquainted with books cared not to talk of anything else. Had my mother been more literate, they had been better companions. She might have sometimes introduced her unwelcome topic with more success, if she could have diversified her conversation. Of business she had no distinct conception; and therefore her discourse was composed only of complaint, fear, and suspicion. Neither of them ever tried to calculate the profits of trade, or the expenses of living. My mother concluded that we were poor, because we lost by some of our trades; but the truth was, that my father, having in the early part of his life contracted debts, never had trade sufficient to enable him to pay them and maintain his family; he got something, but not enough.' _Annals_, p. 14. Mr. Croker noticing the violence of Johnson's language against the Excise, with great acuteness suspected 'some cause of _personal animosity_;' this mention of the trade in parchment (an _exciseable_ article) afforded a clue, which has led to the confirmation of that suspicion. In the records of the Excise Board is to be found the following letter, addressed to the supervisor of excise at Lichfield: 'July 27, 1725. The Commissioners received yours of the 22nd instant, and since the justices would not give judgment against Mr. Michael Johnson, _the tanner_, notwithstanding the facts were fairly against him, the Board direct that the next time he offends, you do not lay an information against him, but send an affidavit of the fact, that he may be prosecuted in the Exchequer.'

[122] See _post_, March 27, 1775.

[123] 'I remember, that being in bed with my mother one morning, I was told by her of the two places to which the inhabitants of this world were received after death: one a fine place filled with happiness, called Heaven; the other, a sad place, called Hell. That this account much affected my imagination I do not remember.' _Annals_, p. 19.

[124] Johnson's _Works_, vi. 406.

[125] Mr. Croker disbelieves the story altogether. 'Sacheverel,' he says, 'by his sentence pronounced in Feb. 1710, was interdicted for three years from preaching; so that he could not have preached at Lichfield while Johnson was under three years of age. Sacheverel, indeed, made a triumphal progress through the midland counties in 1710; and it appears by the books of the corporation of Lichfield that he was received in that town, and complimented by the attendance of the corporation, "and a present of three dozen of wine," on June 16, 1710; but then "the _infant Hercules of Toryism_" was just _nine months_ old.' It is quite possible that the story is in the main correct. Sacheverel was received in Lichfield in 1710 on his way down to Shropshire to take possession of a living. At the end of the suspension in March 1713 he preached a sermon in London, for which, as he told Swift, 'a book-seller gave him £100, intending to print 30,000' (Swift's _Journal to Stella_, April 2, 1713). It is likely enough that either on his way up to town or on his return journey he preached at Lichfield. In the spring of 1713 Johnson was three years old.

[126] See _post_, p. 48, and April 25,1778 note; and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 28, 1773.

[127] _Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson_, by Hester Lynch Piozzi, p. 11. Life of Dr. Johnson_, by Sir John Hawkins, p. 6. BOSWELL.

[128] 'My father had much vanity which his adversity hindered from being fully exerted.' _Annals_, p. 14.

[129] This anecdote of the duck, though disproved by internal and external evidence, has nevertheless, upon supposition of its truth, been made the foundation of the following ingenious and fanciful reflections of Miss Seward, amongst the communications concerning Dr. Johnson with which she has been pleased to favour me: 'These infant numbers contain the seeds of those propensities which through his life so strongly marked his character, of that poetick talent which afterwards bore such rich and plentiful fruits; for, excepting his orthographick works, every thing which Dr. Johnson wrote was Poetry, whose essence consists not in numbers, or in jingle, but in the strength and glow of a fancy, to which all the stores of nature and of art stand in prompt administration; and in an eloquence which conveys their blended illustrations in a language "more tuneable than needs or rhyme or verse to add more harmony."

'The above little verses also shew that superstitious bias which "grew with his growth, and strengthened with his strength," and, of late years particularly, injured his happiness, by presenting to him the gloomy side of religion, rather than that bright and cheering one which gilds the period of closing life with the light of pious hope.'

This is so beautifully imagined, that I would not suppress it. But like many other theories, it is deduced from a supposed fact, which is, indeed, a fiction. BOSWELL.

[130] _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 27. BOSWELL.

[131] Speaking himself of the imperfection of one of his eyes, he said to Dr. Burney, 'the dog was never good for much.' MALONE.

[132] Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 1, 1773.

[133] 'No accidental position of a riband,' wrote Mrs. Piozzi, 'escaped him, so nice was his observation, and so rigorous his demands of propriety.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 287. Miss Burney says:-- 'Notwithstanding Johnson is sometimes so absent and always so near-sighted, he scrutinizes into every part of almost everybody's appearance [at Streatham].' And again she writes:--'his blindness is as much the effect of absence [of mind] as of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at times. He can see the colour of a lady's top-knot, for he very often finds fault with it.' Mme. D'Arblays _Diary_, i. 85, ii. 174. 'He could, when well, distinguish the hour on Lichfield town-clock.' _Post_, p. 64.

[134] See _post_, Sept. 22, 1777.

[135] This was Dr. Swinfen's opinion, who seems also to have attributed Johnson's short-sightedness to the same cause. 'My mother,' he says, 'thought my diseases derived from her family.' _Annals_, p. 12. When he was put out at nurse, 'She visited me,' he says, 'every day, and used to go different ways, that her assiduity might not expose her to ridicule.'

[136] In 1738 Carte published a masterly 'Account of Materials, etc., for a History of England with the method of his undertaking.' (_Gent. Mag_. viii. 227.) He proposed to do much of what has been since done under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. He asked for subscriptions to carry on his great undertaking, for in its researches it was to be very great. In 1744 the City of London resolved to subscribe £50 for seven years (ib. xiv: 393). In vol. i. of his history, which only came down to the reign of John (published in 1748), he went out of his way to assert that the cure by the king's touch was not due to the 'regal _unction_'; for he had known a man cured who had gone over to France, and had been there 'touched by the eldest lineal descendant of a race of kings who had not at that time been crowned or _anointed_.' (ib. xviii. 13.) Thereupon the Court of Common Council by a unanimous vote withdrew its subscription, (ib. 185.) The old Jacobites maintained that the power did not descend to Mary, William, or Anne. It was for this reason that Boswell said that Johnson should have been taken to Rome; though indeed it was not till some years after he was 'touched' by Queen Anne that the Pretender dwelt there. The Hanoverian kings never 'touched.' The service for the ceremony was printed in the _Book of Common Prayer_ as late as 1719. (_Penny Cyclo_. xxi. 113.) 'It appears by the newspapers of the time,' says Mr. Wright, quoted by Croker, 'that on March 30, 1712, two hundred persons were touched by Queen Anne.' Macaulay says that 'Charles the Second, in the course of his reign, touched near a hundred thousand persons.... The expense of the ceremony was little less than ten thousand pounds a year.' Macaulay's _England_, ch. xiv.

[137] See _post_, p. 91, note.

[138] _Anecdotes_, p. 10. BOSWELL.

[139] Johnson, writing of Addison's schoolmasters, says:--'Not to name the school or the masters of men illustrious for literature is a kind of historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously diminished. I would therefore trace him through the whole process of his education.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 418.

[140] Neither the British Museum nor the Bodleian Library has a copy.

[141] 'When we learned _Propria qua maribus_, we were examined in the Accidence; particularly we formed verbs, that is, went through the same person in all the moods and tenses. This was very difficult to me, and I was once very anxious about the next day, when this exercise was to be performed in which I had failed till I was discouraged. My mother encouraged me, and I proceeded better. When I told her of my good escape, "We often," said she, dear mother! "come off best when we are most afraid." She told me that, once when she asked me about forming verbs I said, "I did not form them in an ugly shape." "You could not," said she "speak plain; and I was proud that I had a boy who was forming verbs" These little memorials soothe my mind.' _Annals_, p. 22.

[142] 'This was the course of the school which I remember with pleasure; for I was indulged and caressed by my master; and, I think, really excelled the rest.' _Annals_, p. 23.

[143] Johnson said of Hunter:--'Abating his brutality, he was a very good master;' _post_. March 21, 1772. Steele in the _Spectator_, No. 157, two years after Johnson's birth, describes these savage tyrants of the grammar-schools. 'The boasted liberty we talk of,' he writes, 'is but a mean reward for the long servitude, the many heartaches and terrors to which our childhood is exposed in going through a grammar school.... No one who has gone through what they call a great school but must remember to have seen children of excellent and ingenuous natures (as has afterwards appeared in their manhood); I say no man has passed through this way of education but must have seen an ingenuous creature expiring with shame, with pale looks, beseeching sorrow and silent tears, throw up its honest eyes and kneel or its tender kneeds to an inexorable blockhead to be forgiven the false quantity of a word in making a Latin verse.' Likely enough Johnson's roughness was in part due to this brutal treatment; for Steele goes on to say:--'It is wholly to this dreadful practise that we may attribute a certain hardiness and ferocity which some men, though liberally educated, carry about them in all their behaviour. To be bred like a gentleman, and punished like a malefactor, must, as we see it does, produce that illiberal sauciness which we see sometimes in men of letters.'

[144] Johnson described him as 'a peevish and ill-tempered man,' and not so good a scholar or teacher as Taylor made out. Once the boys perceived that he did not understand a part of the Latin lesson; another time, when sent up to the upper-master to be punished, they had to complain that when they 'could not get the passage,' the assistant would not help them. _Annals_, pp. 26, 32.

[145] One of the contributors to the _Athenian Letters_. See _Gent. Mag_. liv. 276.

[146] Johnson, _post_, March 22, 1776, describes him as one 'who does not get drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always muddy.'

[147] A tradition had reached Johnson through his school-fellow Andrew Corbet that Addison had been at the school and had been the leader in a barring out. (Johnson's _Works_, vii. 419.) Garrick entered the school about two years after Johnson left. According to Garrick's biographer, Tom Davies (p. 3), 'Hunter was an odd mixture of the pedant and the sportsman. Happy was the boy who could slily inform his offended master where a covey of partridges was to be found; this notice was a certain pledge of his pardon.' Lord Campbell in his _Lives of the Chief Justices_, ii. 279, says:--'Hunter is celebrated for having flogged seven boys who afterwards sat as judges in the superior courts at Westminster at the same time. Among these were Chief Justice Wilmot, Lord Chancellor Northington, Sir T. Clarke, Master of the Rolls, Chief Justice Willes, and Chief Baron Parker. It is remarkable that, although Johnson and Wilmot were several years class-fellows at Lichfield, there never seems to have been the slightest intercourse between them in after life; but the Chief Justice used frequently to mention the Lexicographer as "a long, lank, lounging boy, whom he distinctly remembered to have been punished by Hunter for idleness." Lord Campbell blunders here. Northington and Clarke were from Westminster School (Campbell's _Chancellors_, v. 176). The schoolhouse, famous though it was, was allowed to fall into decay. A writer in the _Gent. Mag_. in 1794 (p. 413) says that 'it is now in a state of dilapidation, and unfit for the use of either the master or boys.'

[148] Johnson's observation to Dr. Rose, on this subject, deserves to be recorded. Rose was praising the mild treatment of children at school, at a time when flogging began to be less practised than formerly: 'But then, (said Johnson,) they get nothing else: and what they gain at one end, they lose at the other.' BURNEY. See _post_, under Dec. 17, 1775.

[149] This passage is quoted from Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773. Mr. Boyd had told Johnson that Lady Errol did not use force or fear in educating her children; whereupon he replied, 'Sir, she is wrong,' and continued in the words of the text.

Gibbon in his _Autobiography_ says:--'The domestic discipline of our ancestors has been relaxed by the philosophy and softness of the age: and if my father remembered that he had trembled before a stern parent, it was only to adopt with his son an opposite mode of behaviour.' Gibbon's _Works_, i. 112. Lord Chesterfield writing to a friend on Oct. 18, 1752, says:--'Pray let my godson never know what a blow or a whipping is, unless for those things for which, were he a man, he would deserve them; such as lying, cheating, making mischief, and meditated malice.' Chesterfield's _Misc. Works_, iv. 130.