Chapter XXIX: Appendix: F (8)

[818] This verse is from the long-lost _Bellerophon_, a tragedy by Euripides. It is preserved by Suidas. CHARLES BURNEY. 'Alas! but wherefore alas? Man is born to sorrow.'

[819]

'Sento venir per allegrezza un tuono Que frêmer l'aria, e rimbombar fa l'onrle:-- Odo di squille,' &c.

_Orlando Furioso_. c. xlvi. s. 2.

[820] 'His degree had now past, according to the usual form, the surrages of the heads of Colleges; but was not yet finally granted by the University. It was carried without a single dissentient voice.' WARTON. BOSWELL.

[821] 'On Spenser.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[822] Lord Eldon wrote of him:--'Poor Tom Warton! He was a tutor at Trinity; at the beginning of every term he used to send to his pupils to know whether they would _wish_ to attend lecture that term.' Twiss's _Eldon_, iii. 302.

[823] The fields north of Oxford.

[824] 'Of the degree.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[825] 'Principal of St. Mary Hall at Oxford. He brought with him the diploma from Oxford.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. Dr. King (_Anec_. p. 196) says that he was one of the Jacobites who were presented to the Pretender when, in September 1750, he paid a stealthy visit to England. The Pretender in 1783 told Sir Horace Mann that he was in London in that very month and year and had met fifty of his friends, among whom was the Earl of Westmoreland, the future Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Mahon's _England_, iv. II. Hume places the visit in 1753. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 462. See also in Boswell's _Hebrides_, the account of the Young Pretender. In 1754, writes Lord Shelburne, 'Dr. King in his speech upon opening the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, before a full theatre introduced three times the word _Redeat_, pausing each time for a considerable space, during which the most unbounded applause shook the theatre, which was filled with a vast body of peers, members of parliament, and men of property. Soon after the rebellion [of 1745], speaking of the Duke of Cumberland, he described him as a man, _qui timet omnia prater Deum_. I presented this same Dr. King to George III. in 1760.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 35.

[826] 'I suppose Johnson means that my _kind intention_ of being the _first_ to give him the good news of the degree being granted was _frustrated_, because Dr. King brought it before my intelligence arrived.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[827] Dr. Huddesford, President of Trinity College.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[828] Extracted from the Convocation-Register, Oxford. BOSWELL.

[829] The Earl of Arran, 'the last male of the illustrious House of Ormond,' was the third Chancellor in succession that that family had given to the University. The first of the three, the famous Duke of Ormond, had, on his death in 1688, been succeeded by his grandson, the young Duke. (Macaulay's _England_, iii. 159). He, on his impeachment and flight from England in 1715, was succeeded by his brother, the Earl of Arran. Richardson, writing in 1754 (_Carres_. ii. 198), said of the University, 'Forty years ago it chose a Chancellor in despite of the present reigning family, whose whole merit was that he was the brother of a perjured, yet weak, rebel.' On Arran's death in 1758, the Earl of Westmoreland, 'old dull Westmoreland' as Walpole calls him (_Letters_, i. 290), was elected. It was at his installation that Johnson clapped his hands till they were sore at Dr. King's speech (_post_, 1759). 'I hear,' wrote Walpole of what he calls _the coronation at Oxford_, 'my Lord Westmoreland's own retinue was all be-James'd with true-blue ribands.' _Letters_, iii. 237. It is remarkable that this nobleman, who in early life was a Whig, had commanded 'the body of troops which George I. had been obliged to send to Oxford, to teach the University the only kind of passive obedience which they did not approve.' Walpole's _George II_, iii. 167.

[830] The original is in my possession, BOSWELL.

[831] We may conceive what a high gratification it must have been to Johnson to receive his diploma from the hands of the great Dr. KING, whose principles were so congenial with his own. BOSWELL.

[832] Johnson here alludes, I believe, to the charge of disloyalty brought against the University at the time of the famous contested election for Oxfordshire in 1754. A copy of treasonable verses was found, it was said, near the market-place in Oxford, and the grand jury made a presentment thereon. 'We must add,' they concluded, 'that it is the highest aggravation of this crime to have a libel of a nature so false and scandalous, published in a famous University, &c. _Gent. Mag_. xxiv. 339. A reward of £200 was offered in the _London Gazette_ for the detection of the writer or publisher,' _Ib_. p. 377.

[833] A single letter was a single piece of paper; a second piece of paper, however small, or any inclosure constituted a double letter; it was not the habit to prepay the postage. The charge for a single letter to Oxford at this time was three-pence, which was gradually increased till in 1812 it was eight-pence. _Penny Cyclo_. xviii. 455.

[834] 'The words in Italicks are allusions to passages in Mr. Warton's poem, called _The Progress of Discontent_, now lately published.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

'And now intent on new designs, Sighs for a fellowship--and fines.

* * * * *

These fellowships are pretty things, We live indeed like petty kings.

* * * * *

And ev'ry night I went to bed, Without a Modus in my head.'

Warton's _Poems_, ii. 192.

For _modus_ and _fines_ see _post_, April 25, 1778.

[835] Lucretius, i. 23

[836]

'Hence ye prophane; I hate ye all, Both the Great Vulgar and the Small.'

Cowley's _Imit. of Horace_, Odes, iii. 1.

[837] _Journal Britannique_. It was to Maty that Gibbon submitted the manuscript of his first work. Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 123.

[838] Maty, as Prof. de Morgan pointed out, had in the autumn of 1755 been guilty of 'wilful suppression of the circumstances of Johnson's attack on Lord Chesterfield.' In an article in his _Journal_ he regrets the absence from the _Dictionary_ of the _Plan_. 'Elle eût épargné à l'auteur la composition d'une nouvelle préface, qui ne contient qu'en partie les mêmes choses, et qu'on est tenté de regarder comme destinée à faire perdre de vue quelques-unes des obligations que M. Johnson avait contractées, et le Mécène qu'il avait choisi.' _Notes and Queries_, 2nd S. iv. 341.

[839] He left London in 1751 and returned to it in 1760. _Memoirs of Dr. Barney_, i. 85, 133.

[840] See _ante_, p. 183, note 2.

[841] Sir John Hawkins, p. 341, inserts two notes as having passed formally between Andrew Millar and Johnson, to the above effect. I am assured this was not the case. In the way of incidental remark it was a pleasant play of raillery. To have deliberately written notes in such terms would have been morose. BOSWELL.

[842] 'Talking one day of the patronage the great sometimes affect to give to literature and literary men, "Andrew Millar," says Johnson, "is the Maecenas of the age."' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 200. Horace Walpole, writing on May 18, 1749 (_Letters_ ii. 163), says:--'Millar the bookseller has done very generously by Fielding; finding _Tom Jones_, for which he had given him six hundred pounds, sell so greatly, he has since given him another hundred.' Hume writing on July 6, 1759, says:--'Poor Andrew Millar is declared bankrupt; his debts amount to above £40,000, and it is said his creditors will not get above three shillings in the pound. All the world allows him to have been diligent and industrious; but his misfortunes are ascribed to the extravagance of his wife, a very ordinary case in this city.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 64. He must soon have recovered his position, for Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 434) met Millar at Harrogate in 1763. In the inn were several baronets, and great squires, members of parliament, who paid Millar civility for the use of his two newspapers which came to him by every post. 'Yet when he appeared in the morning, in his well-worn suit of clothes, they could not help calling him Peter Pamphlet; for the generous patron of Scotch authors, with his city wife and her niece, were sufficiently ridiculous when they came into good company.' Mr. Croker (_Boswell_, p. 630) says that Millar was the bookseller described by Johnson, _post_, April 24, 1779. as 'habitually and equably drunk.' He is, I think, mistaken.

[843] His _Dictionary_. BOSWELL.

[844] 'A translation of Apollonius Rhodius was now intended by Mr. Warton.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[845] Kettel Hall is an ancient tenement built about the year 1615 by Dr. Ralph Kettel, President of Trinity College, for the accommodation of commoners of that Society. It adjoins the College; and was a few years ago converted into a private house. MALONE.

[846] 'At Ellsfield, a village three miles from Oxford.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[847] It was published on April 15, 1755, in two vols. folio, price £4 10_s_. bound. Johnson's _Works_, v. 51.

[848] 'Booksellers concerned in his _Dictionary_.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. 'June 12, Mr. Paul Knapton, bookseller. June 18, Thos. Longman, Esq., bookseller.' _Gent. Mag_., xxv. 284. The 'Esq.' perhaps is a sign that even so early as 1755 the Longmans ranked higher than most of their brethren.

[849] 1. _Own_ not in the original. Johnson's _Works_, v. 36.

[850] 'I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own expectations.' Johnson's _Works_, p. 41.

[851] In the _Plan of an English Dictionary_ (_ib_. p. 16) Johnson, writing of 'the word _perfection_' says:--'Though in its philosophical and exact sense it can be of little use among human beings, it is often so much degraded from its original signification, that the academicians have inserted in their work, _the perfection of a language_, and, with a little more licentiousness, might have prevailed on themselves to have added _the perfection of a Dictionary_.' In the Preface to the fourth edition he writes:--'He that undertakes to compile a Dictionary undertakes that, which if it comprehends the full extent of his design, he knows himself unable to perform.' _Ib_. p. 52.

[852] _Ib_. p. 51.

[853] See _post_, under May 19, 1777.

[854] See _ante_, p. 186, note 5.

[855] He defines both _towards the wind_. The definitions remain unchanged in the fourth edition, the last corrected by Johnson, and also in the third edition of the abridgment, though this abridgment was made by him. _Pastern_ also remains unaltered in this latter edition. In the fourth edition he corrected it. 'The drawback of his character,' wrote Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'is entertaining prejudices on very slight foundations; giving an opinion, perhaps, first at random, but from its being contradicted he thinks himself obliged always to support it, or, if he cannot support, still not to acquiesce. Of this I remember an instance of a defect or forgetfulness in his _Dictionary_. I asked him how he came not to correct it in the second edition. "No," says he, "they made so much of it that I would not flatter them by altering it."' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 461.

[856] In his Preface (_Works_, v. 50) he anticipated errors and laughter. 'A few wild blunders and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter and harden ignorance into contempt' In a letter written nearly thirty years later he said:--'Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 406.

[857] See _post_, under July 20, 1762.

[858] 'Network. Anything reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.' Reticulated is defined 'Made of network; formed with interstitial vacuities.'

[859] 'That part of my work on which I expect malignity most frequently to fasten is the _Explanation_.... Such is the fate of hapless lexicography, that not only darkness, but light, impedes and distresses it; things may be not only too little, but too much known, to be happily illustrated.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 34.

[860] In the original, 'to admit _a_ definition.' _Ib_.

[861] In the original, '_drier.' Ib_. 38.

[862] 'Tory. (A cant term derived, I suppose, from an Irish word signifying a savage.) One who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England: opposed to a _whig_.'

[863] 'Whig. The name of a faction.' Lord Marchmont (_post_, May 12, 1778) said that 'Johnson was the first that brought Whig and Tory into a dictionary.' In this he was mistaken. In the fourth edition of Dr. Adam Littleton's _Linguae Latinae Liber Dictionarius_, published in 1703, _Whig_ is translated _Homo fanaticus, factiosus; Whiggism, Enthusiasmus, Perduellio; Tory, bog-trotter or Irish robber, Praedo Hibernicus; Tory_ opposed to whig, _Regiarum partium assertor_. These definitions are not in the first edition, published in 1678. _A pensioner_ or _bride_ [bribed] _person_ is rendered _Mercenarius.

[864] 'Pension. An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.' _Pensioner_ is defined as 'One who is supported by an allowance paid at the will of another; a dependant.' These definitions remain in the fourth edition, corrected by Johnson in 1773.

[865] 'Oats. A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.' See _post_, March 23, 1776, and March 21, 1783. 'Did you ever hear,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'of Lord Elibank's reply when Johnson's famous definition of oats was pointed out first to him. "Very true, and where will you find such _men_ and such _horses_?"' Croker's _Carres_, ii. 35.

[866] He thus defines Excise: 'A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom Excise is paid.' The Commissioners of Excise being offended by this severe reflection, consulted Mr. Murray, then Attorney General, to know whether redress could be legally obtained. I wished to have procured for my readers a copy of the opinion which he gave, and which may now be justly considered as history; but the mysterious secrecy of office, it seems, would not permit it. I am, however, informed, by very good authority, that its import was, that the passage might be considered as actionable; but that it would be more prudent in the board not to prosecute. Johnson never made the smallest alteration in this passage. We find he still retained his early prejudice against Excise; for in _The Idler_, No. 65, there is the following very extraordinary paragraph: 'The authenticity of _Clarendon's_ history, though printed with the sanction of one of the first Universities of the world, had not an unexpected manuscript been happily discovered, would, with the help of factious credulity, have been brought into question by the two lowest of all human beings, a Scribbler for a party, and a Commissioner of Excise.'--The persons to whom he alludes were Mr. John Oldmixon, and George Ducket, Esq. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker obtained a copy of the case.

'_Case for the opinion of Mr. Attorney-General_.

'Mr. Samuel Johnson has lately published "A Dictionary of the English Language," in which are the following words:--

'"EXCISE, _n.s_. A hateful tax levied upon commodities and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid."

'_The author's definition being observed by the Commissioners of Excise, they desire the favour of your opinion_. "Qu. Whether it will not be considered as a libel, and if so, whether it is not proper to proceed against the author, printers, and publishers thereof, or any and which of them, by information, or how otherwise?"

'I am of opinion that it is a libel. But under all the circumstances, I should think it better to give him an opportunity of altering his definition; and, in case he do not, to threaten him with an information.

'29th Nov. 1755. W. Murray.' In one of the Parl. Debates of 1742 Johnson makes Pitt say that 'it is probable that we shall detect bribery descending through a long subordination of wretches combined against the public happiness, from the prime minister surrounded by peers and officers of state to the exciseman dictating politics amidst a company of mechanics whom he debauches at the public expense, and lists in the service of his master with the taxes which he gathers.' _Parl. Hist_., xii. _570_. See _ante_, p. 36, note 5.

[867] He defined _Favourite_ as 'One chosen as a companion by a superiour; a mean wretch, whose whole business is by any means to please:' and _Revolution_ as 'change in the state of a government or country. It is used among us _kat hexochaen_ for the change produced by the admission of King William and Queen Mary.' For these definitions Wilkes attacked him in _The North Briton_, No. xii. In the fourth edition Johnson gives a second definition of _patriot_:--'It is sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government.' Premier and _prime minister_ are not defined. _Post_, April 14, 1775. See also _ante_, p. 264 note, for the definition of _patron_; and _post_, April 28, 1783 for that of _alias_.

[868] 'There have been great contests in the Privy Council about the trial of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford [on a charge of Jacobitism]: Lord Gower pressed it extremely. He asked the Attorney-General his opinion, who told him the evidence did not appear strong enough. Lord Gower said:--"Mr. Attorney, you seem to be very lukewarm for your party." He replied:--"My Lord, I never was lukewarm for my party, _nor ever was but of one party_!"' Walpole's _Letters_, ii. 140. Mr. Croker assumes that Johnson here 'attempted a pun, and wrote the name (as pronounced) Go'er. Johnson was very little likely to pun, for 'he had a great contempt for that species of wit.' _Post_, April 30, 1773.

[869] Boswell omits the salutation which follows this definition:

Chair Ithakae met haethla, met halgea pikra Haspasios teon oudas ikanomai.

'Dr. Johnson,' says Miss Burney, 'inquired if I had ever yet visited _Grub-street_, but was obliged to restrain his anger when I answered "No;" because he had never paid his respects to it himself. "However," says he, "you and I, Burney, will go together; we have a very good right to go, so we'll visit the mansions of our progenitors, and take up our own freedom together."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 415.

[870] Lord Bolingbroke had said (_Works_, in. 317): 'I approve the devotion of a studious man at Christ Church, who was overheard in his oratory entering into a detail with God, and acknowledging the divine goodness in furnishing the world with makers of dictionaries. These men court fame, as well as their betters, by such means as God has given them to acquire it. They deserve encouragement while they continue to compile, and neither affect wit, nor presume to reason.' Johnson himself in _The Adventurer_, No. 39, had in 1753 described a class of men who 'employed their minds in such operations as required neither celerity nor strength, in the low drudgery of collating copies, comparing authorities, digesting dictionaries,' &c. Lord Monboddo, in his _Origin of Language_, v. 273, says that 'J. C. Scaliger called the makers of dictionaries _les portefaix de la république des lettres_.'

[871] Great though his depression was, yet he could say with truth in his Preface:--'Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress me to negligence.' _Works_, v. 43.

[872] _Ib_. p. 51. 'In the preface the author described the difficulties with which he had been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically that the ablest and most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, Horne Tooke, never could read that passage without tears.' Macaulay's _Misc. Writings_, p. 382. It is in _A Letter to John Dunning, Esq_. (p. 56) that Horne Tooke, or rather Horne, wrote:--'I could never read his preface without shedding a tear.' See _post_, May 13, 1778. On Oct. 10, 1779, Boswell told Johnson, that he had been 'agreeably mistaken' in saying:--'What would it avail me in this gloom of solitude?'

[873] It appears even by many a passage in the Preface--one of the proudest pieces of writing in our language. 'The chief glory,' he writes, 'of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything by my own writings to the reputation of English literature must be left to time.' 'I deliver,' he says, 'my book to the world with the spirit of a man that has endeavoured well.... In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the _English Dictionary_ was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow.' _Works_, v. pp. 49-51. Thomas Warton wrote to his brother:--'I fear his preface will disgust by the expressions of his consciousness of superiority, and of his contempt of patronage.' Wooll's _Warton_, p. 231.

[874] That praise was slow in coming is shown by his letter to Mr. Burney, written two years and eight months after the publication of the _Dictionary_. 'Your praise,' he wrote, 'was welcome, not only because I believe it was sincere, but because praise has been very scarce.... Yours is the only letter of good-will that I have received; though, indeed, I am promised something of that sort from Sweden.' _Post_, Dec. 24, 1757.

[875] In the _Edinburgh Review_ (No. 1, 1755)--a periodical which only lasted two years--there is a review by Adam Smith of Johnson's _Dictionary_. Smith admits the 'very extraordinary merit' of the author. 'The plan,' however, 'is not sufficiently grammatical.' To explain what he intends, he inserts 'an article or two from Mr. Johnson, and opposes to them the same articles, digested in the manner which we would have wished him to have followed.' He takes the words _but_ and _humour_. One part of his definition of humour is curious--'something which comes upon a man by fits, which he can neither command nor restrain, and which is not perfectly consistent with true politeness.' This essay has not, I believe, been reprinted.

[876] She died in March 1752; the _Dictionary_ was published in April 1755.

[877] In the Preface he writes (_Works_, v. 49):--'Much of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was passing over me.' In his fine Latin poem [Greek: Inothi seauton] 'he has left,' says Mr. Murphy (_Life_, p. 82), 'a picture of himself drawn with as much truth, and as firm a hand, as can be seen in the portraits of Hogarth or Sir Joshua Reynolds.' He wrote it after revising and enlarging his _Dictionary_, and he sadly asks himself what is left for him to do.

Me, pensi immunis cum jam mihi reddor, inertis Desidiae sors dura manet, graviorque labore Tristis et atra quies, et tardae taedia vitae. Nascuntur curis curae, vexatque dolorum Importuna cohors, vacuae mala somnia mentis. Nunc clamosa juvant nocturnae gaudia mensae, Nunc loca sola placent; frustra te, somne, recumbens, Alme voco, impatiens noctis, metuensque diei. Omnia percurro trepidus, circum omnia lustro, Si qua usquam pateat melioris semita vitae, Nec quid agam invenio.... Quid faciam? tenebrisne pigram damnare senectam Restat? an accingar studiis gravioribus audax? Aut, hoc si nimium est, tandem nova lexica poscam?

Johnson's _Works_, i. 164.

[878] A few weeks before his wife's death he wrote in _The Rambler_ (No. 196):--'The miseries of life would be increased beyond all human power of endurance, if we were to enter the world with the same opinions as we carry from it.' He would, I think, scarcely have expressed himself so strongly towards his end. Though, as Dr. Maxwell records, in his _Collectanea_ (_post_, 1770), 'he often used to quote with great pathos those fine lines of Virgil:--

'Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi
Prima fugit, &c.'

yet he owned, and the pages of Boswell amply testify, that it was in the latter period of his life that he had his happiest days.

[879] _Macbeth_, Act ii. sc. 3.

[880] In the third edition, published in 1773, he left out the words _perhaps never_, and added the following paragraph:--

'It sometimes begins middle or final syllables in words compounded, as _block-head_, or derived from the Latin, as _compre-hended_.' BOSWELL. In the _Abridgment_, which was published some years earlier, after _never_ is added 'except in compounded words.'

[881] It was published in the _Gent. Mag_. for April, 1755 (xxv. 190), just below the advertisement of the _Dictionary_.

[882] In the original, 'Milton and Shakespeare.'

[883] The number of the French Academy employed in settling their language. BOSWELL.

[884] The maximum reward offered by a bill passed in 1714 was £20,000 for a method that determined the longitude at sea to half a degree of a great circle, or thirty geographical miles. For less accuracy smaller rewards were offered. _Ann. Reg_. viii. 114. In 1765 John Harrison received £7,500 for his chronometer; he had previously been paid £2,500; _ib_. 128. In this Act of Parliament 'the legislature never contemplated the invention of a _method_, but only of the means of making existing methods accurate.' _Penny Cyclo_. xiv. 139. An old sea-faring man wrote to Swift that he had found out the longitude. The Dean replied 'that he never knew but two projectors, one of whom ruined himself and his family, and the other hanged himself; and desired him to desist lest one or other might happen to him.' Swift's _Works_ (1803), xvii. 157. In _She Stoops to Conquer_ (Act i. sc. 2), when Tony ends his directions to the travellers by telling them,--'coming to the farmer's barn you are to turn to the right, and then to the left, and then to the right about again, till you find out the old mill;' Marlow exclaims: 'Zounds, man! we could as soon find out the longitude.'

[885] Joseph Baretti, a native of Piedmont, came to England in 1750 (see Preface to his _Account of Italy_, p. ix). He died in May, 1789. In his _Journey from London to Genoa_ (ii. 276), he says that his father was one of the two architects of the King of Sardinia. Shortly after his death a writer in the _Gent. Mag_. (Iix. 469, 570), who was believed to be Vincent, Dean of Westminster, thus wrote of him:--'Though his severity had created him enemies, his talents, conversation, and integrity had conciliated the regard of many valuable friends and acquaintance. His manners were apparently rough, but not unsocial. His integrity was in every period of his distresses constant and unimpeached. His wants he never made known but in the last extremity. He and Johnson had been friends in distress. One evening, when they had agreed to go to the tavern, a foreigner in the streets, by a specious tale of distress, emptied the Doctor's purse of the last half-guinea it contained. When the reckoning came, what was his surprise upon his recollecting that his purse was totally exhausted. Baretti had fortunately enough to answer the demand, and has often declared that it was impossible for him not to reverence a man, who could give away all that he was worth, without recollecting his own distress.' See _post_, Oct. 20, 1769.

[886] See note by Mr. Warton, _ante_, p. 275. BOSWELL.

[887] 'On Saturday the 12th, about twelve at night, died Mr. Zachariah Williams, in his eighty-third year, after an illness of eight months, in full possession of his mental faculties. He has been long known to philosophers and seamen for his skill in magnetism, and his proposal to ascertain the longitude by a peculiar system of the variation of the compass. He was a man of industry indefatigable, of conversation inoffensive, patient of adversity and disease, eminently sober, temperate, and pious; and worthy to have ended life with better fortune.' BOSWELL.

[888] Johnson's _Works_, v. 49. Malone, in a note on this passage, says:--'Johnson appears to have been in this year in great pecuniary distress, having been arrested for debt; on which occasion Richardson became his surety.' He refers to the following letter in the _Richardson Corres_, v. 285:--

'To MR. RICHARDSON.

'Tuesday, Feb. 19, 1756.

'DEAR SIR,

'I return you my sincerest thanks for the favour which you were pleased to do me two nights ago. Be pleased to accept of this little book, which is all that I have published this winter. The inflammation is come again into my eye, so that I can write very little. I am, Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

The 'little book' is not (as Mr. Croker suggests) Williams's _Longitude_, for it was published in Jan. 1755 (_Gent. Mag_. xxv. 47); but the _Abridgment of the Dictionary_, which was advertised in the _Gent. Mag_. for Jan. 1756. Murphy says (_Life_, p. 86), that he has before him a letter in Johnson's handwriting, which shows the distress of the man who had written _The Rambler_, and finished the great work of his _Dictionary_. It is directed to Mr. Richardson, and is as follows:--

'SIR,--I am obliged to entreat your assistance. I am now under an arrest for five pounds eighteen shillings. Mr. Strahan, from whom I should have received the necessary help in this case, is not at home, and I am afraid of not finding Mr. Millar. If you will be so good as to send me this sum, I will very gratefully repay you, and add it to all former obligations. I am, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

'SAMUEL JOHNSON.

'Gough-Square,
16 March.'

In the margin of this letter there is a memorandum in these words:--'March 16, 1756. Sent six guineas. Witness, Win. Richardson.' In the _European Mag_., vii. 54, there is the following anecdote recorded, for which Steevens most likely was the authority:--'I remember writing to Richardson' said Johnson, 'from a spunging-house; and was so sure of my deliverance through his kindness and liberality, that before his reply was brought I knew I could afford to joke with the rascal who had me in custody, and did so over a pint of adulterated wine, for which at that instant I had no money to pay.' It is very likely that this anecdote has no other foundation than Johnson's second letter to Richardson, which is dated, not from a spunging-house, but from his own residence. What kind of fate awaited a man who was thrown into prison for debt is shown by the following passage in Wesley's _Journal_ (ii. 267), dated Feb. 3, 1753:--'I visited one in the Marshalsea prison, a nursery of all manner of wickedness. O shame to man, that there should be such a place, such a picture of hell upon earth!' A few days later he writes:--'I visited as many more as I could. I found some in their cells under ground; others in their garrets, half starved both with cold and hunger, added to weakness and pain.'

[889] In a Debate on the Copyright Bill on May 16, 1774, Governor Johnstone said:--'It had been urged that Dr. Johnson had received an after gratification from the booksellers who employed him to compile his _Dictionary_. He had in his hand a letter from Dr. Johnson, which he read, in which the doctor denied the assertion, but declared that his employers fulfilled their bargain with him, and that he was satisfied.' _Parl. Hist_. xvii. 1105.

[890] He more than once attacked them. Thus in _An Appeal to the Public_, which he wrote for the _Gent. Mag_. in 1739 (_Works_, v. 348), he said:--'Nothing is more criminal in the opinion of many of them, than for an author to enjoy more advantage from his own works than they are disposed to allow him. This is a principle so well established among them, that we can produce some who threatened printers with their highest displeasure, for having dared to print books for those that wrote them.' In the _Life of Savage_ (_ib_. viii. 132), written in 1744, he writes of the 'avarice, by which the booksellers are frequently incited to oppress that genius by which they are supported.' In the _Life of Dryden_ (_ib_. vii. 299), written in 1779, he speaks of an improvement. 'The general conduct of traders was much less liberal in those times than in our own; their views were narrower, and their manners grosser. To the mercantile ruggedness of that race the delicacy of the poet was sometimes exposed.'

[891] _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 40 [25]. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote to Miss Boothby on Dec. 30, 1755:--'If I turn my thoughts upon myself, what do I perceive but a poor helpless being, reduced by a blast of wind to weakness and misery?... Mr. Fitzherbert sent to-day to offer me some wine; the people about me say I ought to accept it. I shall therefore be obliged to him if he will send me a bottle.' _Pioszi Letters_, ii. 393.

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

[893] See _post_, April 6, 1775. Kit Smart, once a Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, ended his life in the King's Bench Prison; 'where he had owed to a small subscription, of which Dr. Burney was at the head, a miserable pittance beyond the prison allowance. In his latest letter to Dr. Burney, he passionately pleaded for a fellow-sufferer, "whom I myself," he impressively adds, "have already assisted according to my willing poverty." In another letter to the same friend he said:--"I bless God for your good nature, which please to take for a receipt."' _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 205, 280.

[894] In this Essay Johnson writes (_Works_, v. 315):--'I think there is room to question whether a great part of mankind has yet been informed that life is sustained by the fruits of the earth. I was once, indeed, provoked to ask a lady of great eminence for genius, "Whether she knew of what bread is made."'

[895] In _The Universal Visiter_ this Essay is entitled, 'Reflections on the Present State of Literature;' and in Johnson's _Works_, v. 355, 'A Project for the Employment of Authors.' The whole world, he says, is turning author. Their number is so large that employment must be found for them. 'There are some reasons for which they may seem particularly qualified for a military life. They are used to suffer want of every kind; they are accustomed to obey the word of command from their patrons and their booksellers; they have always passed a life of hazard and adventure, uncertain what may be their state on the next day.... There are some whom long depression under supercilious patrons has so humbled and crushed, that they will never have steadiness to keep their ranks. But for these men there may be found fifes and drums, and they will be well enough pleased to inflame others to battle, if they are not obliged to fight themselves.'

[896] He added it also to his _Life of Pope_.

[897] 'This employment,' wrote Murphy (_Life_, p. 88), 'engrossed but little of Johnson's time. He resigned himself to indolence, took no exercise, rose about two, and then received the visits of his friends. Authors long since forgotten waited on him as their oracle, and he gave responses in the chair of criticism. He listened to the complaints, the schemes, and the hopes and fears of a crowd of inferior writers, "who," he said, in the words of Roger Ascham, "lived, men knew not how, and died obscure, men marked not when." He believed, that he could give a better history of Grub Street than any man living. His house was filled with a succession of visitors till four or five in the evening. During the whole time he presided at his tea-table.' In _The Rambler_, No. 145, Johnson takes the part of these inferior writers:--'a race of beings equally obscure and equally indigent, who, because their usefulness is less obvious to vulgar apprehensions, live unrewarded and die unpitied, and who have been long exposed to insult without a defender, and to censure without an apologist.'

[898] In this essay (_Works_, vi. 129) Johnson describes Canada as a 'region of desolate sterility,' 'a cold, uncomfortable, uninviting region, from which nothing but furs and fish were to be had.'

[899] The bill of 1756 that he considers passed through the Commons but was rejected by the Lords. It is curious as showing the comparative population of the different counties, Devonshire was to furnish 3200 men--twice as many as Lancashire. Essex, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk were each to furnish 1920 men; Lancashire, Surrey, Sussex, and Wiltshire 1600: Durham and Bedfordshire 800. From the three Ridings of Yorkshire 4800 were to be raised. The men were to be exercised every Sunday before and after service. _The Literary Magazine_, p. 58.

[900] In this paper are found the forcible words, 'The desperate remedy of desperate distress,' which have been used since by orators. _Ib_. p. 121.

[901] Johnson considers here the war in America between the English and French, and shows a strong feeling for the natives who had been wronged by both nations. 'Such is the contest that no honest man can heartily wish success to either party.... The American dispute between the French and us is only the quarrel of two robbers for the spoils of a passenger.' The French had this in their favour, that they had treated the natives better than we. 'The favour of the Indians which they enjoy with very few exceptions among all the nations of the northern continent we ought to consider with other thoughts; this favour we might have enjoyed, if we had been careful to deserve it.' _Works_, vi. 114, 122.

[902] These Memoirs end with the year 1745. Johnson had intended to continue them, for he writes:--'We shall here suspend our narrative.' _Ib_. vi. 474.

[903] See _ante_, p. 221.

[904] The sentence continues:--'and produce heirs to the father's habiliments.' _Ib_. vi. 436. Another instance may be adduced of his _Brownism_ in the following line:--'The war continued in an equilibration by alternate losses and advantages.' _Ib_ 473.

[905] In a letter from the Secretary of the Tall Club in _The Guardian_, No. 108. 'If the fair sex look upon us with an eye of favour, we shall make some attempts to lengthen out the human figure, and restore it to its ancient procerity.'

[906] See _post_, March 23, 1783.

[907] 'As power is the constant and unavoidable consequence of learning, there is no reason to doubt that the time is approaching when the Americans shall in their turn have some influence on the affairs of mankind, for literature apparently gains ground among them. A library is established in Carolina and some great electrical discoveries were made at Philadelphia...The fear that the American colonies will break off their dependence on England I have always thought chimerical and vain ... They must be dependent, and if they forsake us, or be forsaken by us, must fall into the hands of France.' _Literary Magazine_, pp. 293, 299.

[908] Johnson, I have no doubt, wrote the _Review of A True Account of Lisbon since the Earthquake_, in which it is stated that the destruction was grossly exaggerated. After quoting the writer at length, he concludes:--'Such then is the actual, real situation of _that place which once was_ Lisbon, and has been since gazetically and pamphletically quite destroyed, consumed, annihilated! Now, upon comparing this simple narration of things and facts with the false and absurd accounts which have rather insulted and imposed upon us than informed us, who but must see the enormous disproportion?... Exaggeration and the absurdities ever faithfully attached to it are inseparable attitudes of the ignorant, the empty, and the affected. Hence those eloquent tropes so familiar in every conversation, _monstrously pretty, vastly little_; ... hence your _eminent shoe-maker, farriers, and undertakers_.... It is to the same muddy source we owe the many falsehoods and absurdities we have been pestered with concerning Lisbon. Thence your extravagantly sublime figures: _Lisbon is no more; can be seen no more_, etc., ... with all the other prodigal effusions of bombast beyond that stretch of time or temper to enumerate. _Ib_. p. 22. See _post_, under March 30, 1778.

[909] In the original _undigested_.

[910] Johnson's _Works_, vi. 113.

[911] In the spring of 1784, after the king had taken advantage of Fox's India Bill to dismiss the Coalition Ministry. See _post_, March 28, 1784.

[912] In Ireland there was no act to limit the duration of parliament. One parliament sat through the whole reign of George II--thirty-three years. Dr. Lucas, a Dublin physician, in attacking other grievances, attacked also this. In 1749 he would have been elected member for Dublin, had he not, on a charge of seditious writings, been committed by the House of Commons to prison. He was to be confined, he was told, 'in the common hall of the prison among the felons.' He fled to England, which was all that the government wanted, and he practised as a physician in London. In 1761 he was restored to the liberties of the City of Dublin and was also elected one of its members. Hardy's _Lord Charlemont_, i. 249, 299; and _Gent. Mag_., xx. 58 and xxxi. 236.

[913] Boswell himself falls into this 'cant.' See _post_, Sept. 23, 1777.

[914] Johnson's _Works_, vi. II.

[915] _Ib_. p. 13. He vigorously attacks the style in which these 'Memoirs' are written. 'Sometimes,' he writes, 'the reader is suddenly ravished with a sonorous sentence, of which, when the noise is past, the meaning does not long remain.' _Ib_. p. 15.

[916] The author of _Friendship in Death_.

[917] In the _Lives of the Poets (Works, viii. 383) Johnson writes:--'Dr Watts was one of the first authors that taught the Dissenters to court attention by the graces of language. Whatever they had among them before, whether of learning or acuteness, was commonly obscured and blunted by coarseness and inelegance of style. He showed them that zeal and purity might be expressed and enforced by polished diction.'

[918] 'Such he [Dr. Watts] was as every Christian Church would rejoice to have adopted.' _Ib_. p. 380. See also _post_, July 7, 1777, and May 19, 1778.

[919] Johnson's _Works_, vi. 79.

[920] Mr. Hanway would have had the support of Johnson's father, who, as his son writes, 'considered tea as very expensive, and discouraged my mother from keeping company with the neighbours, and from paying visits or receiving them. She lived to say, many years after, that if the time were to pass again, she would not comply with such unsocial injunctions.' _Account of Johnson's Early Life_, p. 18. The Methodists, ten years earlier than Hanway, had declared war on tea. 'After talking largely with both the men and women Leaders,' writes Wesley, 'we agreed it would prevent great expense, as well of health as of time and of money, if the poorer people of our society could be persuaded to leave off drinking of tea.' Wesley's _Journal_, i. 526. Pepys, writing in 1660, says: 'I did send for a cup of tee, (a China drink) of which I never had drank before.' Pepys' _Diary_, i. 137. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, i. 224) writing in 1743 says:--'They have talked of a new duty on tea, to be paid by every housekeeper for all the persons in their families; but it will scarce be proposed. Tea is so universal, that it would make a greater clamour than a duty on wine.' In October 1734 tea was sold in London at the following prices:--Ordinary Bohca 9s. per lb. Fine Bohca 10s. to 12s. per lb. Pekoe 15s. per lb. Hyson 20s. to 25s. per lb. _Gent. Mag_. iv. 575.

[921] Yet in his reply to Mr. Hanway he said (_Works_, vi. 33):--'I allowed tea to be a barren superfluity, neither medicinal nor nutritious, that neither supplied strength nor cheerfulness, neither relieved weariness, nor exhilarated sorrow.' Cumberland writes (_Memoirs_, i. 357):--'I remember when Sir Joshua Reynolds at my house reminded Dr. Johnson that he had drank eleven cups, he replied: "Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?" And then laughing in perfect good humour he added:--"Sir, I should have released the lady from any further trouble, if it had not been for your remark; but you have reminded me that I want one of the dozen, and I must request Mrs. Cumberland to round up my number."'

[922] In this Review Johnson describes himself as 'a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 21. That 'he never felt the least inconvenience from it' may well be doubted. His nights were almost always bad. In 1774 he recorded:--'I could not drink this day either coffee or tea after dinner. I know not when I missed before.' The next day he recorded:--'Last night my sleep was remarkably quiet. I know not whether by fatigue in walking, or by forbearance of tea.' _Diary of a Journey into North Wales_, Aug. 4.

[923] See _post_, May, 1768.

[924]

'Losing, he wins, because his
name will be
Ennobled by defeat who durst
contend with me.'

DRYDEN, Ovid, _Meta_., xiii. 19.

[925] In Hanway's _Essay_ Johnson found much to praise. Hanway often went to the root when he dealt with the evils of life. Thus he writes:--'The introducing new habits of life is the most substantial charity.' But he thus mingles sense and nonsense:--'Though tea and gin have spread their baneful influence over this island and his Majesty's other dominions, yet you may be well assured that the Governors of the Foundling Hospital will exert their utmost skill and vigilance to prevent the children under their care from being poisoned, or enervated, by one or the other.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 26, 28.

[926] 'Et pourquoi tuer cet amiral? C'est, lui dit-on, parce qu'il n'a pas fait tuer assez de monde; il a livré un combat à un amiral français, et on a trouvé qu'il n'était pas assez près de lui. Mais, dit Candide, l'amiral français était aussi loin de l'amiral anglais que celui-ci l'était de l'autre. Cela est incontestable, lui répliquat-on; mais dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.' _Candide_, ch. xxiii.

[927] See _post_, June 3, 1781, when Boswell went to this church.

[928] Johnson reprinted this Review in a small volume by itself. See Johnson's _Works_, vi. 47, note.

[929]

'I have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth.'

Henry VIII, Act iii. sc. 2.

[930] _Musical Travels through England_, by Joel Collier [not Collyer], Organist, 1774. This book was written in ridicule of Dr. Burney's _Travels_, who, says his daughter, 'was much hurt on its first appearance.' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, i. 259.

[931] See _ante_, p. 223.

[932] Some time after Dr. Johnson's death there appeared in the newspapers and magazines an illiberal and petulant attack upon him, in the form of an Epitaph, under the name of Mr. Soame Jenyns, very unworthy of that gentleman, who had quietly submitted to the critical lash while Johnson lived. It assumed, as characteristicks of him, all the vulgar circumstances of abuse which had circulated amongst the ignorant. It was an unbecoming indulgence of puny resentment, at a time when he himself was at a very advanced age, and had a near prospect of descending to the grave. I was truly sorry for it; for he was then become an avowed, and (as my Lord Bishop of London, who had a serious conversation with him on the subject, assures me) a sincere Christian. He could not expect that Johnson's numerous friends would patiently bear to have the memory of their master stigmatized by no mean pen, but that, at least, one would be found to retort. Accordingly, this unjust and sarcastick Epitaph was met in the same publick field by an answer, in terms by no means soft, and such as wanton provocation only could justify:

'EPITAPH,

'_Prepared for a creature_ not quite dead _yet_.

'Here lies a little ugly nauseous elf, Who judging only from its wretched self, Feebly attempted, petulant and vain, The "Origin of Evil" to explain. A mighty Genius at this elf displeas'd, With a strong critick grasp the urchin squeez'd. For thirty years its coward spleen it kept, Till in the duat the mighty Genius slept; Then stunk and fretted in expiring snuff, And blink'd at JOHNSON with its last poor puff.'

BOSWELL.

The epitaph is very likely Boswell's own. For Jenyns's conversion see _post_, April 12 and 15, 1778.

[933] Mr. John Payne, afterwards chief accountant of the Bank, one of the four surviving members of the Ivy Lane Club who dined together in 1783. See Hawkins's _Johnson_, pp. 220, 563; and _post_, December, 1783.

[934] See _post_, under March 19, 1776.

[935] 'He said, "I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life; it generates kindness and consolidates society."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 21, 1773.

[936] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3d edit. p. 48. [Aug. 19.] BOSWELL.

[937] Johnson's _Works_, p. 435.

[938] He was paid at the rate of a little over twopence a line. For this Introduction see _Ib_. 206.

[939] See _post_, Oct. 26, 1769.

[940] See _post_, April 5, 1775.

[941] In 1740 he set apart the yearly sum of £100 to be distributed, by way of premium, to the authors of the best inventions, &c., in Ireland. Chalmers's _Biog. Dict_.

[942] _Boulter's Monument. A Panegyrical Poem, sacred to the memory of that great and excellent prelate and patriot, the Most Reverend Dr. Hugh Boulter; Late Lord-Archbishop of Ardmagh, and Primate of All Ireland_. Dublin, 1745. Such lines as the following might well have been blotted, but of them the poem is chiefly formed:--

'My peaceful song in lays instructive paints The first of mitred peers and Britain's saints.' p. 2. 'Ha! mark! what gleam is that which paints the air? The blue serene expands! Is Boulter there?' p. 88.

The poet addresses Boulter's successor Hoadley, who he says,

'Shall equal him; while, like Elisha, you Enjoy his spirit, and his mantle too.' p. 89.

A note to _mantle_ says 'Alluding to the metropolitan pallium.'

Boulter is the bishop in Pope's lines, (_Prologue to the Satires_, 1. 99):--

'Does not one table Bavius still admit?

'Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit?'

Pattison's _Pope's Satires_, p. 107. In the _Life of Addison_, Johnson mentioning Dr. Madden adds:--'a name which Ireland ought to honour.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 455.

[943] See _ante_, p. 175. Hawkins writes (_Life_, p. 363):--'I congratulated him length, on his being now engaged in a work that suited his genius. His answer was:--"I look upon this as I did upon the _Dictionary_; it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of."'

[944] They have been reprinted by Mr. Malone, in the Preface to his edition of _Shakspeare_. BOSWELL.

[945] At Christmas, 1757, he said that he should publish about March, 1758 (_post_, Dec. 24, 1757). When March came he said that he should publish before summer (_post_, March 1, 1758).

[946] In what Johnson says of Pope's slow progress in translating the _Iliad_, he had very likely his own case in view. 'Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure all take their turns of retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and ten thousand that cannot be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and multifarious performance was ever effected within the term originally fixed in the undertaker's mind. He that runs against time has an antagonist not subject to casualties.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 255. In Prior's _Goldsmith_ (i. 238) we have the following extracts from letters written by Grainger (_post_, March 21, 1776) to Dr. Percy:--'June 27, 1758. I have several times called on Johnson to pay him part of your subscription [for his edition of _Shakespeare_]. I say, part, because he never thinks of working if he has a couple of guineas in his pocket; but if you notwithstanding order me, the whole shall be given him at once.' 'July 20, 1758. As to his _Shakespeare, movet sed non promovet_. I shall feed him occasionally with guineas.'