Chapter XXX: Appendix: F (9)

[947] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 440) says that 'Reynolds and some other of his friends, who were more concerned for his reputation than himself seemed to be, contrived to entangle him by a wager, or some other pecuniary engagement, to perform his task by a certain time.' Just as Johnson was oppressed by the engagement that he had made to edit _Shakespeare_, so was Cowper by his engagement to edit _Milton_. 'The consciousness that there is so much to do and nothing done is a burthen I am not able to bear. _Milton_ especially is my grievance, and I might almost as well be haunted by his ghost, as goaded with such continual reproaches for neglecting him.' Southey's _Cowper_, vii. 163.

[948] From _The Ghost_, Bk. iii. 1. 801. Boswell makes two slight errors in quoting: 'You cash' should be 'their cash; and 'you know' should be 'we know.'

[949] See _post_, April 17, 1778.

[950] Mrs. Thrale writing to him in 1777, says:--'You would rather be sick in London than well in the country.' _Piozzi Letters_. i. 394. Yet Johnson, when he could afford to travel, spent far more time in the country than is commonly thought. Moreover a great part of each summer from 1766 to 1782 inclusive he spent at Streatham.

[951] The motto to this number

'Steriles nec legit arenas, Ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere verum.'

(Lucan).

Johnson has thus translated:--

'Canst thou believe the vast eternal mind Was e'er to Syrts and Libyan sands confin'd? That he would choose this waste, this barren ground, To teach the thin inhabitants around, And leave his truth in wilds and deserts drown'd?'

[952] It was added to the January number of 1758, but it was dropped in the following numbers.

[953] According to the note in the _Gent. Mag_. the speech was delivered 'at a certain respectable talking society.' The chairman of the meeting is addressed as Mr. President. The speech is vigorously written and is, I have no doubt, by Johnson. 'It is fit,' the speaker says, 'that those whom for the future we shall employ and pay may know they are the servants of a people that _expect duty for their money_. It is said an address expresses some distrust of the king, or may tend to disturb his quiet. An English king, Mr. President, has no great right to quiet when his people are in misery.'

[954] See _post_, May 19, 1777.

[955] See _post_, March 21, 1772.

[956] 'I have often observed with wonder, that we should know less of Ireland than of any other country in Europe.' Temple's _Works_, iii. 82.

[957] The celebrated oratour, Mr. Flood has shewn himself to be of Dr. Johnson's opinion; having by his will bequeathed his estate, after the death of his wife Lady Frances, to the University of Dublin; 'desiring that immediately after the said estate shall come into their possession, they shall appoint two professors, one for the study of the native Erse or Irish language, and the other for the study of Irish antiquities and Irish history, and for the study of any other European language illustrative of, or auxiliary to, the study of Irish antiquities or Irish history; and that they shall give yearly two liberal premiums for two compositions, one in verse, and the other in prose, in the Irish language.' BOSWELL.

[958] Dr. T. Campbell records in his _Diary of a Visit to England_ (p. 62), that at the dinner at Messieurs Dilly's (_post_, April 5, 1775) he 'ventured to say that the first professors of Oxford, Paris, &c., were Irish. "Sir," says Johnson, "I believe there is something in what you say, and I am content with it, since they are not Scotch."'

[959] 'On Mr. Thrale's attack of apoplexy in 1779, Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'I remember Dr. Marsigli, an Italian physician, whose seizure was more violent than Mr. Thrale's, for he fell down helpless, but his case was not considered as of much danger, and he went safe home, and is now a professor at Padua.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 48.

[960] 'Now, or late, Vice-Chancellor.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. He was Vice-Chancellor when Johnson's degree was conferred (_ante_, p. 282), but his term of office had now come to an end.

[961] 'Mr. Warton was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in the preceding year.' WARTON.-BOSWELL.

[962] 'Miss Jones lived at Oxford, and was often of our parties. She was a very ingenious poetess, and published a volume of poems; and, on the whole, was a most sensible, agreeable, and amiable woman. She was a sister to the Reverend River Jones, Chanter of Christ Church Cathedral at Oxford, and Johnson used to call her the _Chantress_. I have heard him often address her in this passage from _Il Penseroso_:

"Thee, Chantress, oft the woods among I woo," etc.

She died unmarried.' WHARTON

[963] Tom. iii. p. 482. BOSWELL.

[964] Of _Shakspeare_. BOSWELL.

[965] This letter is misdated. It was written in Jan. 1759, and not in 1758. Johnson says that he is forty-nine. In Jan. 1758 he was forty-eight. He mentions the performance of _Cleane_, which was at the end of 1758; and he says that 'Murphy is to have his _Orphan of China_ acted next month.' It was acted in the spring of 1759.

[966] _Juvenal_, Sat. iii. 1.

'Though grief and fondness in my breast rebel, When injured Thales bids the town farewell, Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend, I praise the hermit, but regret the friend; Resolved at length from vice and London far To breathe in distant fields a purer air, And fixed on Cambria's solitary shore Give to St. David one true Briton more.'

Johnson's _London_, l. 1.

[967] Mr. Garrick. BOSWELL.

[968] Mr. Dodsley, the Authour of _Cleone_. BOSWELL. Garrick, according to Davies, had rejected Dodsley's _Cleone_, 'and had termed it a cruel, bloody, and unnatural play.' Davies's _Garrick_, i. 223. Johnson himself said of it:--'I am afraid there is more blood than brains.' _Post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_. The night it was brought out at Covent Garden, Garrick appeared for the first time as Marplot in the _Busy Body_ at Drury Lane. The next morning he wrote to congratulate Dodsley on his success, and asked him at the same time to let him know how he could support his interest without absolutely giving up his own. To this Dodsley returned a cold reply. Garrick wrote back as follows:--

'Master Robert Dodsley,

When I first read your peevish answer to my well-meant proposal to you, I was much disturbed at it--but when I considered, that some minds cannot bear the smallest portion of success, I most sincerely pitied you; and when I found in the same letter, that you were graciously pleased to dismiss me from your acquaintance, I could not but confess so apparent an obligation, and am with due acknowledgements,

Master Robert Dodsley,

Your most obliged

David Garrick.'

Garrick _Corres_., i. 80 (where the letters that passed are wrongly dated 1757). Mrs. Bellamy in her _Life_ (iii. 109) says that on the evening of the performance she was provoked by something that Dodsley said, 'which,' she continues, 'made me answer that good man with a petulance which afterwards gave me uneasiness. I told him that I had a reputation to lose as an actress; but, as for his piece, Mr. Garrick had anticipated the damnation of it publicly, the preceding evening, at the Bedford Coffee-house, where he had declared that it could not pass muster, as it was the very worst piece ever exhibited.' Shenstone (_Works_, iii. 288) writing five weeks after the play was brought out, says:--'Dodsley is now going to print his fourth edition. He sold 2000 of his first edition the very first day he published it.' The price was eighteen-pence.

[969] Mrs. Bellamy (_Life_, iii. 108) says that Johnson was present at the last rehearsal. 'When I came to repeat, "Thou shalt not murder," Dr. Johnson caught me by the arm, and that somewhat too briskly, saying, at the same time, "It is a commandment, and must be spoken, Thou shalt _not_ murder." As I had not then the honour of knowing personally that great genius, I was not a little displeased at his inforcing his instructions with so much vehemence.' The next night she heard, she says, amidst the general applause, 'the same voice which had instructed me in the commandment, exclaim aloud from the pit, "I will write a copy of verses upon her myself." I knew that my success was insured.' See _post_, May 11, 1783.

[970] Dodsley had published his _London_ and his _Vanity of Human Wishes_ (_ante_, pp. 124, 193), and had had a large share in the _Dictionary_, (_ante_, p. 183).

[971] It is to this that Churchill refers in the following lines:--

'Let them [the Muses] with Glover o'er Medea doze; Let them with Dodsley wail Cleone's woes, Whilst he, fine feeling creature, all in tears, Melts as they melt, and weeps with weeping Peers.'

_The Journey_. _Poems_, ii. 328.

[972] See _post_ p. 350, note.

[973] Mr. Samuel Richardson, authour of _Clarissa_. BOSWELL.

[974] In 1753 when in Devonshire he charged five guineas a head (Taylor's _Reynolds_, i. 89); shortly afterwards, when he removed to London, twelve guineas (_ib_. p. 101); in 1764, thirty guineas; for a whole length 150 guineas (_ib_. p. 224). Northcote writes that 'he sometimes has lamented the being interrupted in his work by idle visitors, saying, "those persons do not consider that my time is worth to me five guineas an hour."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 83.

[975] 'Miss Reynolds at first amused herself by painting miniature portraits, and in that part of the art was particularly successful. In her attempts at oil-painting, however, she did not succeed, which made Reynolds say jestingly, that her pictures in that way made other people laugh and him cry; and as he did not approve of her painting in oil, she generally did it by stealth.' _Ib_. ii. 160.

[976] Murphy was far from happy. The play was not produced till April; by the date of Johnson's letter, he had not by any means reached the end of what he calls 'the first, and indeed, the last, disagreeable controversy that he ever had with Mr. Garrick.' Murphy's _Garrick_, p. 213.

[977] This letter was an answer to one in which was enclosed a draft for the payment of some subscriptions to his _Shakspeare_. BOSWELL.

[978] In the Preface he says:--(_Works_, v. 52) 'I have not passed over with affected superiority what is equally difficult to the reader and to myself, but where I could not instruct him, have owned my ignorance.'

[979] Northcote gives the following account of this same garret in describing how Reynolds introduced Roubiliac to Johnson. 'Johnson received him with much civility, and took them up into a garret, which he considered as his library; where, besides his books, all covered with dust, there was an old crazy deal table, and a still worse and older elbow chair, having only three legs. In this chair Johnson seated himself, after having, with considerable dexterity and evident practice, first drawn it up against the wall, which served to support it on that side on which the leg was deficient.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 75. Miss Reynolds improves on the account. She says that 'before Johnson had the pension he literally dressed like a beggar; and, from what I have been told, he as literally lived as such; at least as to common conveniences in his apartments, wanting even a chair to sit on, particularly in his study, where a gentleman who frequently visited him, whilst writing his _Idlers_, constantly found him at his desk, sitting on one with three legs; and on rising from it, he remarked that Dr. Johnson never forgot its defect, but would either hold it in his hand, or place it with great composure against some support, taking no notice of its imperfection to his visitor. It was remarkable in Johnson, that no external circumstances ever prompted him to make any apology, or to seem even sensible of their existence.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 832. There can be little question that she is describing the same room--a room in a house in which Miss Williams was lodged, and most likely Mr. Levet, and in which Mr. Burney dined; and in which certainly there must have been chairs. Yet Mr. Carlyle, misled by her account, says:--'In his apartments, at one time, there were unfortunately no chairs.' Carlyle's _Miscellanies_, ed. 1872, iv. 127.

[980] In his _Life of Pope_ (_Works_, viii. 272) Johnson calls Theobald 'a man of heavy diligence, with very slender powers.' In the Preface to Shakspeare he admits that 'what little he did was commonly right.' _Ib_. v. 137. The Editors of the _Cambridge Shakespeare_ on the other hand say:--'Theobald, as an Editor, is incomparably superior to his predecessors, and to his immediate successor Warburton, although the latter had the advantage of working on his materials. Many most brilliant emendations are due to him.' On Johnson's statement that 'Warburton would make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices,' they write:--'From this judgment, whether they be compared as critics or editors, we emphatically dissent.' _Cambridge Shakespeare_, i., xxxi., xxxiv., note. Among Theobald's 'brilliant emendations' are 'a'babbled of green fields' (_Henry V_, ii. 3), and 'lackeying the varying tide.' (_Antony and Cleopatra_, i.4).

[981] '_A familiar epistle_ [by Lord Bolingbroke] _to the most impudent man living_, 1749.' _Brit. Mus. Catal_.

[982] 'Mallet, by address or accident, perhaps by his dependence on the prince [of Wales], found his way to Bolingbroke, a man whose pride and petulance made his kindness difficult to gain or keep, and whom Mallet was content to court by an act, which, I hope, was unwillingly performed. When it was found that Pope had clandestinely printed an unauthorised number of the pamphlet called _The Patriot King_, Bolingbroke, in a fit of useless fury, resolved to blast his memory, and employed Mallet (1749) as the executioner of his vengeance. Mallet had not virtue, or had not spirit, to refuse the office; and was rewarded not long after with the legacy of Lord Bolingbroke's works.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 467. See _ante_, p. 268, and Walpole's _Letters_, ii. 159.

[983] _A View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy in Four Letters to a Friend_, 1754-5.

[984] A paper under this name had been started seven years earlier. See _Carter and Talbot Corres_., ii. 33.

[985] In the two years in which Johnson wrote for this paper it saw many changes. The first _Idler_ appeared in No. 2 of the _Universal Chronicle or Weekly Gazette_, which was published not by Newbery, but by J. Payne. On April 29, this paper took the title of _Payne's Universal Chronicle_, etc. On Jan. 6, 1759, it resumed the old title and was published by R. Stevens. On Jan. 5, 1760, the title was changed to _The Universal Chronicle and Westminster Journal_, and it was published by W. Faden and R. Stevens. On March 15, 1760, it was published by R. Stevens alone. The paper consisted of eight pages. _The Idler_, which varied in length, came first, and was printed in larger characters, much like a leading article. The changes in title and ownership seem to show that in spite of Johnson's contributions it was not a successful publication.

[986] 'Those papers may be considered as a kind of syllabus of all Reynolds's future discourses, and certainly occasioned him some thinking in their composition. I have heard him say, that Johnson required them from him on a sudden emergency, and on that account, he sat up the whole night to complete them in time; and by it he was so much disordered, that it produced a vertigo in his head.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 89, Reynolds must have spoken of only one paper; as the three, appearing as they did on Sept. 29, Oct. 20, and Nov. 10, could not have been required at one time.

[987] 'To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavours with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.' _The Idler_, No. 17.

[988] Prayers and Meditations, p. 30 [36], BOSWELL.

[989] In July, 1759.

[990] This number was published a few days after his mother's death. It is in the form of a letter, which is thus introduced:-'The following letter relates to an affliction perhaps not necessary to be imparted to the publick; but I could not persuade myself to suppress it, because I think I know the sentiments to be sincere, and I feel no disposition to provide for this day any other entertainment.'

[991] In the table of contents the title of No. 58 is, 'Expectations of pleasure frustrated.' In the original edition of _The Idler_ no titles are given. In this paper he shews that 'nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.'

[992] In this paper he begins by considering, 'why the only thinking being of this globe is doomed to think merely to be wretched, and to pass his time from youth to age in fearing or in suffering calamities.' He ends by asserting that 'of what virtue there is, misery produces far the greater part.'

[993] 'There are few things,' he writes, 'not purely evil, of which we can say, without some emotion of uneasiness, _this is the last_.... The secret horrour of the last is inseparable from a thinking being, whose life is limited, and to whom death is dreadful.'

[994] 'I asked him one day, why the _Idlers_ were published without mottoes. He replied, that it was forborne the better to conceal himself, and escape discovery. "But let us think of some now," said he, "for the next edition. We can fit the two volumnes in two hours, can't we?" Accordingly he recollected, and I wrote down these following (nine mottoes) till come friend coming in, in about five minutes, put an end to our further progress on the subject.' _Piossi Letters_, ii. 388.

[995] See _post_, July 14 and 26, 1763, April 14, 1775, and Aug. 2, 1784, note for instances in which Johnson ridicules the notion that weather and seasons have any necessary effect on man; also April 17, 1778. In the _Life of Milton_ (_Works_. vii. 102), he writes:--'this dependence of the soul upon the seasons, those temporary and periodical ebbs and flows of intellect, may, I suppose, justly be derided as the fumes of vain imagination. _Sapiens dominabitur astro_. The author that thinks himself weather-bound will find, with a little help from hellebore, that he is only idle or exhausted. But while this notion has possession of the head, it produces the inability with it supposes. Our powers owe much of their energy to our hopes; _possunt quin posse vidertur_.' Boswell records, in his _Hebrides_ (Aug. 16, 1773), that when 'somebody talked of happy moments for composition,' Johnson said:--'Nay, a man may write at any time, if he will set himself _doggedly_ to it.' Reynolds, who Alas! avowed how much he had learnt from Johnson (_ante_, p. 245), says much the same in his _Seventh Discourse_: 'But when, in plain prose, we gravely talk of courting the Muse in shady bowers; waiting the call and inspiration of Genius ... of attending to times and seasons when the imagination shoots with the greatest vigour, whether at the summer solstice or the vernal equinox ... when we talk such language or entertain such sentiments as these, we generally rest contented with mere words, or at best entertain notions not only groundless but pernicious.' Reynolds's _Works_, i. 150. On the other hand, in 1773 Johnson recorded:--'Between Easter and Whitsuntide, having always considered that time as propitious to study, I attempted to learn the Low-Dutch language.' _Post_, under May 9, 1773. In _The Rambler_, No. 80, he says:--'To the men of study and imagination the winter is generally the chief time of labour. Gloom and silence produce composure of mind and concentration of ideas.' In a letter to Mrs. Thrale, written in 1775, he says:--'Most men have their bright and their Cloudy days, at least they have days when they put their powers into act, and days when they suffer them to repose.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 265. In 1781 he wrote:--'I thought myself above assistance or obstruction from the seasons; but find the autumnal blast sharp and nipping, and the fading world an uncomfortable prospect.' _Ib_. ii. 220. Again, in the last year of his life he wrote:--'The: weather, you know, has not been balmy. I am now reduced to think, and am at least content to talk, of the weather. Pride must have a fall.' _Post_, Aug. 2, 1784.

[996] Addison's _Cato_, act i. sc. 4.

[997] Johnson, reviewing the Duchess of Marlborough's attack on Queen Mary, says (_Works_, vi. 8):--'This is a character so different from all those that have been hitherto given of this celebrated princess, that the reader stands in suspense, till he considers that ... it has hitherto had this great advantage, that it has only been compared with those of kings.'

[998] Johnson had explained how it comes to pass that Englishmen talk so commonly of the weather. He continues:--'Such is the reason of our practice; and who shall treat it with contempt? Surely not the attendant on a court, whose business is to watch the looks of a being weak and foolish as himself, and whose vanity is to recount the names of men, who might drop into nothing, and leave no vacuity.... The weather is a nobler and more interesting subject; it is the present state of the skies and of the earth, on which plenty and famine are suspended, on which millions depend for the necessaries of life.' 'Garrick complained that when he went to read before the court, not a look or a murmur testified approbation; there was a profound stillness--every one only watched to see what the king thought.' Hazlitt's _Conversations of Northcote_, p. 262.

[999] _The Idler_, No. 90. See _post_, April 3, 1773, where he declaims against action in public speaking.

[1000] He now and then repeats himself. Thus, in _The Idler_, No. 37, he moralises on the story, how Socrates, passing through the fair at Athens, cried out:--'How many things are here which I do not need!' though he had already moralised on it in _the Adventurer_, Nos. 67, 119.

[1001] No. 34.

[1002] _Poems on Several Occasions_, by Thomas Blacklock, p. 179. See _post_, Aug. 5, 1763, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773.

[1003] 'Among the papers of Newbery, in the possession of Mr. Murray, is the account rendered on the collection of _The Idler_ into two small volumes, when the arrangement seems to have been that Johnson should receive two-thirds of the profits.

_The Idler_.

'DR. £. s. d.
Paid for Advertising.. 20 0 6
Printing two vols., 1,500 41 13 0
Paper. . . . . . . 52 3 0
* * * * *
£113 16 6
Profit on the edition . 126 3 6
* * * * *
£240 0 0
* * * * *
'CR. £. s. d.
1,500 Sets at 16£ per 100 240 0 0
* * * * *
Dr. Johnson two-thirds 84 2 4
Mr. Newbery one-third. 42 1 2
* * * * *
£126 3 6
* * * * *

Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 204.

If this account is correctly printed, the sale must have been slow. The first edition (2 vols. 5s.) was published in Oct. 1761, (_Gent. Mag_. xxxi. 479). Johnson is called Dr. in the account; but he was not made an LL.D. till July 1765. Prior, in his _Life of Goldsmith_ (i. 459), publishes an account between Goldsmith and Newbery in which the first entry is:--

'1761. Oct. 14, 1 set of
_The Idler_. . . . . £0 50 0.'

Johnson, as Newbery's papers show, a year later bought a copy of Goldsmith's _Life of Nash_; _ib_. p. 405.

[1004] See _ante_, p. 306.

[1005] This paper may be found in Stockdale's supplemental volume of Johnson's _Miscellaneous Pieces_. BOSWELL. Stockdale's supplemental volumes--for there are two--are vols. xii. and xiii. of what is known as 'Hawkins's edition.' In this paper (_Works_, iv. 450) he represents in a fable two vultures speculating on that mischievous being, man, 'who is the only beast who kills that which he does not devour,' who at times is seen to move in herds, while 'there is in every herd one that gives directions to the rest, and seems to be more eminently delighted with a wide carnage.'

[1006] 'Receipts for _Shakespeare_.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[1007] 'Then of Lincoln College. Now Sir Robert Chambers, one of the Judges in India.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[1008] Old Mr. Langton's niece. See _post,_ July 14, 1763.

[1009] 'Mr. Langton.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[1010] Boswell records:--'Lady Di Beauclerk told me that Langton had never been to see her since she came to Richmond, his head was so full of the militia and Greek. "Why," said I, "Madam, he is of such a length he is awkward and not easily moved." "But," said she, "if he had lain himself at his length, his feet had been in London, and his head might have been here _eodem die_."' _Boswelliana_, p. 297.

[1011] 'Part of the impression of the _Shakespeare_, which Dr. Johnson conducted alone, and published by subscription. This edition came out in 1765.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[1012] Stockdale records (_Memoirs_, ii. 191), that after he had entered on his charge as domestic tutor to Lord Craven's son, he called on Johnson, who asked him how he liked his place. On his hesitating to answer, he said: 'You must expect insolence.' He added that in his youth he had entertained great expectations from a powerful family. "At length," he said, "I found that their promises, and consequently my expectations, vanished into air.... But, Sir, they would have treated me much worse, if they had known that motives from which I paid my court to them were purely selfish, and what opinion I had formed of them." He added, that since he knew mankind, he had not, on any occasion, been the sport of such delusion and that he had never been disappointed by anyone but himself.'

[1013] This, and some of the other letters to Langton, were not received by Boswell till the first volume of the second edition had been carried through the press. He gave them as a supplement to the second volume. The date of this letter was there wrongly given as June 27, 1758. In the third edition it was corrected. Nevertheless the letter was misplaced as if the wrong date were the right one. Langton, as I have shewn (_ante_, p. 247), subscribed the articles at Oxford on July 7, 1757. He must have come into residence, as Johnson did (_ante_, p. 58), some little while before this subscription.

[1014] Major-General Alexander Dury, of the first regiment of foot-guards, who fell in the gallant discharge of his duty, near St. Cas, in the well-known unfortunate expedition against France, in 1758. His lady and Mr. Langton's mother was sisters. He left an only son, Lieutenant-Colonel Dury, who has a company in the same regiment. BOSWELL. The expedition had been sent against St. Malo early in September. Failing in the attempt, the land forces retreated to St. Cas, where, while embarking, they were attacked by the French. About 400 of our soldiers were made prisoners, and 600 killed and wounded. _Ann. Reg_.i.68.

[1015] See _post_, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell's _Collectanea_.

[1016] Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 365. BOSWELL. 'In the beginning of the year 1759 an event happened for which it might be imagined he was well prepared, the death of his mother, who had attained the age of ninety; but he, whose mind had acquired no firmness by the contemplation of mortality, was as little able to sustain the shock, as he would have been had this loss befallen him in his nonage.'

[1017] We may apply to Johnson in his behaviour to his mother what he said of Pope in his behaviour to his parents:--'Whatever was his pride, to them he was obedient; and whatever was his irritability, to them he was gentle. Life has among its soothing and quiet comforts few things better to give than such a son.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 281. In _The Idler_ of January 27, 1759 (No. 41), Johnson shews his grief for his loss. 'The last year, the last day must come. It has come, and is past. The life which made my own life pleasant is at an end, and the gates of death are shut upon my prospects.... Such is the condition of our present existence that life must one time lose its associations, and every inhabitant of the earth must walk downward to the grave alone and unregarded, without any partner of his joy or grief, without any interested witness of his misfortunes or success. Misfortune, indeed, he may yet feel; for where is the bottom of the misery of man? But what is success to him that has none to enjoy it? Happiness is not found in self-contemplation; it is perceived only when it is reflected from another.' In _Rasselas_ (ch. xlv.) he makes a sage say with a sigh:--'Praise is to have an old man an empty sound. I have neither mother to be delighted with the reputation of her son, nor wife to partake the honours of her husband.' He here says once more what he had already said in his _Letter to Lord Chesterfield_ (_ante_, p. 261), and in the _Preface to the Dictionary_ (_ante_, p. 297).

[1018] Writing to his Birmingham friend, Mr. Hector, on Oct. 7, 1756, he said:--'I have been thinking every month of coming down into the country, but every month has brought its hinderances. From that kind of melancholy indisposition which I had when we lived together at Birmingham I have never been free, but have always had it operating against my health and my life with more or less violence. I hope however to see all my friends, all that are remaining, in no very long time.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. iii. 301. No doubt his constant poverty and the need that he was under of making 'provision for the day that was passing over him' had had much to do in keeping him from a journey to Lichfield. A passage in one of his letters shews that fourteen years later the stage-coach took twenty-six hours in going from London to Lichfield. (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 55.) The return journey was very uncertain; for 'our carriages,' he wrote, 'are only such as pass through the place sometimes full and sometimes vacant.' A traveller had to watch for a place (_ib_. p. 51). As measured by time London was, in 1772, one hour farther from Lichfield than it now is from Marseilles. It is strange, when we consider the long separation between Johnson and his mother, that in _Rasselas_, written just after her death, he makes Imlac say:-'There is such communication [in Europe] between distant places, that one friend can hardly be said to be absent from another.' _Rasselas_, chap, xi. His step-daughter, Miss Porter, though for many years she was well off, had never been to London. _Post_, March 23, 1776. Nay, according to Horace Walpole (_Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iv. 327), 'George III. had never seen the sea, nor ever been thirty miles from London at the age of thirty-four.'

[1019] For the letters written at this time by Johnson to his mother and Miss Porter, see Appendix B.

[1020] _Rasselas_ was published in two volumes, duodecimo, and was sold for five shillings. It was reviewed in the _Gent. Mag_. for April, and was no doubt published in that month. In a letter to Miss Porter dated March 23, 1759 (See Appendix), Johnson says:--'I am going to publish a little story-book, which I will send you when it is out.' I may here remark that the _Gent. Mag_. was published at the end of the month, or even later. Thus the number for April, 1759, contains news as late as April 30. The name _Rasselas_ Johnson got from Lobo's _Voyage to Abyssinia_. On p. 102 of that book he mentions 'Rassela Christos, Lieutenant-General to _Abysinia; Sultan Segued.' On p. 262 he explains the meaning of the first part of the word:--'There is now a Generalissimo established under the title of _Ras_, or _Chief_.' The title still exists. Colonel Gordon mentions Ras Arya and Ras Aloula. The Rev. W. West, in his _Introduction to Rasselas_, p. xxxi (Sampson Low and Co.), says:--'The word _Ras_, which is common to the Amharic, Arabic, and Hebrew tongues, signifies a _head_, and hence a prince, chief, or captain.... Sela Christos means either "Picture of Christ," or "For the sake of Christ."'

[1021] Hawkins's Johnson, p. 367.

[1022] See _post_, June 2, 1781. Finding it then accidentally in a chaise with Mr. Boswell, he read it eagerly. This was doubtless long after his declaration to Sir Joshua Reynolds. MALONE.

[1023] Baretti told Malone that 'Johnson insisted on part of the money being paid immediately, and accordingly received £70. Any other person with the degree of reputation he then possessed would have got £400 for that work, but he never understood the art of making the most of his productions.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 160. Some of the other circumstances there related by Baretti are not correct.

[1024] Hawkesworth received £6000 for his revision of Cook's _Voyages_; _post_, May 7, 1773.

[1025] See _post_, March 4, 1773.

[1026] _Ecclesiastes_, i. 14.

[1027] See _post_, May 16, 1778. It should seem that _Candide_ was published in the latter half of February 1759. Grimm in his letter of March 1, speaks of its having just appeared. 'M. de Voltaire vient de nous égayer par un petit roman.' He does not mention it in his previous letter of Feb. 15. _Grimm, Carres. Lit_. (edit. 1829), ii. 296. Johnson's letter to Miss Porter, quoted in the Appendix, shows that Rasselas was written before March 23; how much earlier cannot be known. _Candide_ is in the May list of books in the _Gent. Mag_. (pp. 233-5), price 2_s_. 6_d_., and with it two translations, each price 1_s_. 6_d_.

[1028] See _post_, June 13, 1763.

[1029] In the original,--'which, perhaps, prevails.' _Rasselas_, ch. xxxi.

[1030] This is the second time that Boswell puts 'morbid melancholy' in quotation marks (ante, p. 63). Perhaps he refers to a passage in Hawkins's _Johnson_ (p. 287), where the author speaks of Johnson's melancholy as 'this morbid affection, as he was used to call it.'

[1031] 'Perfect through sufferings.' _Hebrews_, ii. 10.

[1032] Perhaps the reference is to the conclusion of _Le Monde comme il va_:--'Il résolut ... de laisser aller _le monde comme il va_; car, dit il, _si tout riest pas bien, tout est passable_.'

[1033] Gray, _On a Distant Prospect of Eton College_.

[1034] Johnson writing to Mrs. Thrale said:--'_Vivite lacti_ is one of the great rules of health.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 55. 'It was the motto of a bishop very eminent for his piety and good works in King Charles the Second's reign, _Inservi Deo et laetare_--"Serve God and be cheerful."' Addison's _Freeholder_, No. 45.

[1035] Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL.

[1036] This paper was in such high estimation before it was collected into volumes, that it was seized on with avidity by various publishers of news-papers and magazines, to enrich their publications. Johnson, to put a stop to this unfair proceeding, wrote for the _Universal Chronicle_ the following advertisement; in which there is, perhaps, more pomp of words than the occasion demanded:

'London, January 5, 1759. ADVERTISEMENT. The proprietors of the paper intitled _The Idler_, having found that those essays are inserted in the news-papers and magazines with so little regard to justice or decency, that the _Universal Chronicle_, in which they first appear, is not always mentioned, think it necessary to declare to the publishers of those collections, that however patiently they have hitherto endured these injuries, made yet more injurious by contempt, they have now determined to endure them no longer. They have already seen essays, for which a very large price is paid, transferred, with the most shameless rapacity, into the weekly or monthly compilations, and their right, at least for the present, alienated from them, before they could themselves be said to enjoy it. But they would not willingly be thought to want tenderness, even for men by whom no tenderness hath been shewn. The past is without remedy, and shall be without resentment. But those who have been thus busy with their sickles in the fields of their neighbours, are henceforward to take notice, that the time of impunity is at an end. Whoever shall, without our leave, lay the hand of rapine upon our papers, is to expect that we shall vindicate our due, by the means which justice prescribes, and which are warranted by the immemorial prescriptions of honourable trade. We shall lay hold, in our turn, on their copies, degrade them from the pomp of wide margin and diffuse typography, contract them into a narrow space, and sell them at an humble price; yet not with a view of growing rich by confiscations, for we think not much better of money got by punishment than by crimes. We shall, therefore, when our losses are repaid, give what profit shall remain to the _Magdalens_; for we know not who can be more properly taxed for the support of penitent prostitutes, than prostitutes in whom there yet appears neither penitence nor shame.' BOSWELL.

[1037] I think that this letter belongs to a later date, probably to 1765 or 1766. As we learn, _post_, April 10, 1776, Simpson was a barrister 'who fell into a dissipated course of life.' On July 2, 1765, Johnson records that he repaid him ten guineas which he had borrowed in the lifetime of Mrs. Johnson (his wife). He also lent him ten guineas more. If it was in 1759 that Simpson was troubled by small debts, it is most unlikely that Johnson let six years more pass without repaying him a loan which even then was at least of seven years' standing. Moreover, in this letter Johnson writes:--'I have been invited, or have invited myself, to several parts of the kingdom.' The only visits, it seems, that he paid between 1754-1762 were to Oxford in 1759 and to Lichfield in the winter of 1761-2. After 1762, when his pension gave him means, he travelled frequently. Besides all this, he says of his step-daughter:-- 'I will not incommode my dear Lucy by coming to Lichfield, while her present lodging is of any use to her.' Miss Porter seems to have lived in his house till she had built one for herself. Though his letter to her of Jan. 10, 1764 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 163), shews that it was then building, yet she had not left his house on Jan. 14, 1766 (_ib_. p. 173).

'To JOSEPH SIMPSON, ESQ.

'DEAR SIR,

'Your father's inexorability not only grieves but amazes me[1038]: he is your father; he was always accounted a wise man; nor do I remember any thing to the disadvantage of his good-nature; but in his refusal to assist you there is neither good-nature, fatherhood, nor wisdom. It is the practice of good-nature to overlook faults which have already, by the consequences, punished the delinquent. It is natural for a father to think more favourably than others of his children; and it is always wise to give assistance while a little help will prevent the necessity of greater.

[1038] In the _Rambler_, No. 148, entitled 'The cruelty of parental tyranny,' Johnson, after noticing the oppression inflicted by the perversion of legal authority, says:--'Equally dangerous and equally detestable are the cruelties often exercised in private families, under the venerable sanction of parental authority.' He continues:--'Even though no consideration should be paid to the great law of social beings, by which every individual is commanded to consult the happiness of others, yet the harsh parent is less to be vindicated than any other criminal, because he less provides for the happiness of himself.' See also _post_, March 29, 1779. A passage in one of Boswell's _Letters to Temple_ (p. 111) may also be quoted here:--'The time was when such a letter from my father as the one I enclose would have depressed; but I am now firm, and, as my revered friend, Mr. Samuel Johnson, used to say, _I feel the privileges of an independent human being_; however, it is hard that I cannot have the pious satisfaction of being well with my father.'

[1039] Perhaps 'Van,' for Vansittart.

[1040] Lord Stowell informs me that Johnson prided himself in being, during his visits to Oxford, accurately academic in all points: and he wore his gown almost _ostentatiously_. CROKER.

[1041] Dr. Robert Vansittart, of the ancient and respectable family of that name in Berkshire. He was eminent for learning and worth, and much esteemed by Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL. Johnson perhaps proposed climbing over the wall on the day on which 'University College witnessed him drink three bottles of port without being the worse for it.' _Post_, April 7, 1778.

[1042] _Gentleman's Magazine_, April, 1785. BOSWELL. The speech was made on July 7, 1759, the last day of 'the solemnity of the installment' of the Earl of Westmoreland as Chancellor of the University. On the 3rd 'the ceremony began with a grand procession of noblemen, doctors, &c., in their proper habits, which passed through St. Mary's, and was there joined by the Masters of Arts in their proper habits; and from thence proceeded to the great gate of the Sheldonian Theatre, in which the most numerous and brilliant assembly of persons of quality and distinction was seated, that had ever been seen there on any occasion.' _Gent. Mag_. xxix. 342. Would that we had some description of Johnson, as, in his new and handsome gown, he joined the procession among the Masters! See _ante_, p. 281.

[1043] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3d edit. p. 126 [Aug. 31]. BOSWELL. The chance of death from disease would seem also to have been greater on the ship than in a jail. In _The Idler_ (No. 38) Johnson estimates that one in four of the prisoners dies every year. In his Review of Hanway's _Essay on Tea_ (_Works_, vi. 31) he states that he is told that 'of the five or six hundred seamen sent to China, sometimes half, commonly a third part, perish in the voyage.' See _post_, April 10, 1778.

[1044] _Ibid_. p. 251 [Sept. 23]. BOSWELL.

[1045] In my first edition this word was printed _Chum_, as it appears, in one of Mr. Wilkes's _Miscellanies_, and I animadverted on Dr. Smollet's ignorance; for which let me propitiate the _manes_ of that ingenious and benevolent gentleman. CHUM was certainly a mistaken reading for _Cham_, the title of the Sovereign of Tartary, which is well applied to Johnson, the Monarch of Literature; and was an epithet familiar to Smollet. See _Roderick Random_, chap. 56. For this correction I am indebted to Lord Palmerston, whose talents and literary acquirements accord well with his respectable pedigree of TEMPLE BOSWELL.

After the publication of the second edition of this work, the author was furnished by Mr. Abercrombie, of Philadelphia, with the copy of a letter written by Dr. John Armstrong, the poet, to Dr. Smollet at Leghorne, containing the following paragraph:--'As to the K. Bench patriot, it is hard to say from what motive he published a letter of yours asking some triffling favour of him in behalf of somebody, for whom the great CHAM of literature, Mr. Johnson, had interested himself.' MALONE. In the first edition Boswell had said:--'Had Dr. Smollet been bred at an English University, he would have know that a _chum_ is a student who lives with another in a chamber common to them both. A _chum of literature_ is nonsense.'

[1046] In a note to that piece of bad book-making, Almon's _Memoirs of Wilkes_ (i. 47), this allusion is thus explained:-'A pleasantry of Mr. Wilkes on that passage in Johnson's _Grammar of the English Tongue_, prefixed to the Dictionary--"_H_ seldom, perhaps never, begins any but the first syllable."' For this 'pleasantry' see _ante_, p. 300.

[1047] Mr. Croker says that he was not discharged till June 1760. Had he been discharged at once he would have found Johnson moving from Gough Square to Staple Inn; for in a letter to Miss Porter, dated March 23, 1739, given in the Appendix, Johnson said:-'I have this day moved my things, and you are now to direct to me at Staple Inn.'

[1048] _Prayers and Meditations _, pp. 30 [39] and 40. BOSWELL.

[1049] 'I have left off housekeeping' wrote Johnson to Langton on Jan. 9, 1759. Murphy (_Life_, p. 90), writing of the beginning of the year 1759, says:--'Johnson now found it necessary to retrench his expenses. He gave up his house in Gough Square. Mrs. Williams went into lodgings [See _post_, July 1, 1763]. He retired to Gray's-Inn, [he had first moved to Staple Inn], and soon removed to chambers in the Inner Temple-lane, where he lived in poverty, total idleness, and the pride of literature, _Magni stat nominis umbra_. Mr. Fitzherbert used to say that he paid a morning visit to Johnson, intending from his chambers to send a letter into the city; but, to his great surprise, he found an authour by profession without pen, ink, or paper.' (It was Mr. Fitzherbert, who sent Johnson some wine. See _ante_, p. 305, note 2. See also _post_, Sept. 15, 1777). The following documents confirm Murphy's statement of Johnson's poverty at this time:

'May 19, 1759.

'I promise to pay to Mr. Newbery the sum of forty-two pounds, nineteen shillings, and ten pence on demand, value received. £42 19 10.

'Sam. Johnson.'

'March 20, 1760.

'I promise to pay to Mr. Newbery the sum of thirty pounds upon demand., £30 0 0.

'Sam. Johnson.'

In 1751 he had thrice borrowed money of Newbery, but the total amount of the loans was only four guineas. Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. 340. With Johnson's want of pen, ink, and paper we may compare the account that he gives of Savage's destitution (_Works_, viii. 3):--'Nor had he any other conveniences for study than the fields or the streets allowed him; there he used to walk and form his speeches, and afterwards step into a shop, beg for a few moments the use of the pen and ink, and write down what he had composed upon paper which he had picked up by accident.' Hawkins (_Life_, p. 383) says that Johnson's chambers were two doors down the Inner Temple Lane. 'I have been told,' he continues, 'by his neighbour at the corner, that during the time he dwelt there, more inquiries were made at his shop for Mr. Johnson, than for all the inhabitants put together of both the Inner and Middle Temple.' In a court opening out of Fleet Street, Goldsmith at this very time was still more miserably lodged. In the beginning of March 1759, Percy found him 'employed in writing his _Enquiry into Polite Learning_ in a wretched dirty room, in which there was but one chair, and when he from civility offered it to his visitant, himself was obliged to sit in the window.' _Goldsmith's Misc. Works_, i. 61.

[1050] Sir John Hawkins (Life, p. 373) has given a long detail of it, in that manner vulgarly, but significantly, called rigmarole; in which, amidst an ostentatious exhibition of arts and artists, he talks of 'proportions of a column being taken from that of the human figure, and _adjusted by Nature_--masculine and feminine--in a man, sesquioctave of the head, and in a woman _sesquinonal_;' nor has he failed to introduce a jargon of musical terms, which do not seem much to correspond with the subject, but serve to make up the heterogeneous mass. To follow the Knight through all this, would be an useless fatigue to myself, and not a little disgusting to my readers. I shall, therefore, only make a few remarks upon his statement.--He seems to exult in having detected Johnson in procuring 'from a person eminently skilled in Mathematicks and the principles of architecture, answers to a string of questions drawn up by himself, touching the comparative strength of semicircular and elliptical arches.' Now I cannot conceive how Johnson could have acted more wisely. Sir John complains that the opinion of that excellent mathematician, Mr. Thomas Simpson, did not preponderate in favour of the semicircular arch. But he should have known, that however eminent Mr. Simpson was in the higher parts of abstract mathematical science, he was little versed in mixed and practical mechanicks. Mr. Muller, of Woolwich Academy, the scholastick father of all the great engineers which this country has employed for forty years, decided the question by declaring clearly in favour of the elliptical arch.

It is ungraciously suggested, that Johnson's motive for opposing Mr. Mylne's scheme may have been his prejudice against him as a native of North Britain; when, in truth, as has been stated, he gave the aid of his able pen to a friend, who was one of the candidates; and so far was he from having any illiberal antipathy to Mr. Mylne, that he afterwards lived with that gentleman upon very agreeable terms of acquaintance, and dined with him at his house. Sir John Hawkins, indeed, gives full vent to his own prejudice in abusing Blackfriars bridge, calling it 'an edifice, in which beauty and symmetry are in vain sought for; by which the citizens of London have perpetuated study their own disgrace, and subjected a whole nation to the reproach of foreigners.' Whoever has contemplated, _placido lumine_ [Horace, _Odes_, iv. 3, 2], this stately, elegant, and airy structure, which has so fine an effect, especially on approaching the capital on that quarter, must wonder at such unjust and ill-tempered censure; and I appeal to all foreigners of good taste, whether this bridge be not one of the most distinguished ornaments of London. As to the stability of the fabrick, it is certain that the City of London took every precaution to have the best Portland stone for it; but as this is to be found in the quarries belonging to the publick, under the direction of the Lords of the Treasury, it so happened that parliamentary interest, which is often the bane of fair pursuits, thwarted their endeavours. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, it is well known that not only has Blackfriars-bridge never sunk either in its foundation or in its arches, which were so much the subject of contest, but any injuries which it has suffered from the effects of severe frosts have been already, in some measure, repaired with sounder stone, and every necessary renewal can be completed at a moderate expence. BOSWELL. Horace Walpole mentions an ineffectual application made by the City to Parliament in 1764 'for more money for their new bridge at Blackfriars,' when Dr. Hay, one of the Lords of the Admiralty, 'abused the Common Council, whose late behaviour, he said, entitled them to no favour.' Walpole's _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, i. 390. The late behaviour was the part taken by the City in Wilkes's case. It was the same love of liberty no doubt that lost the City the Portland stone. Smollett goes out of the way to praise his brother-Scot, Mr. Mylne, in _Humphry Clinker_--'a party novel written,' says Horace Walpole, 'to vindicate the Scots' (_Reign of George III_, iv. 328). In the letter dated May 29, he makes Mr. Bramble say:--'The Bridge at Blackfriars is a noble monument of taste and public spirit--I wonder how they stumbled upon a work of such magnificence and utility.'

[1051] Juvenal, _Sat_. i. 85.

[1052] 'Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton.'--George III's first speech to his parliament. It appears from the _Hardwicke Papers_, writes the editor of the _Parl. Hist. (xv. 982), that after the draft of the speech had been settled by the cabinet, these words and those that came next were added by the King's own hand. Wilkes in his _Dedication of Mortimer_ (see _post_, May 15, 1776) asserted that 'these endearing words, "Born,&c.," were permitted to be seen in the royal orthography of Britain for Briton,' Almon's _Works_, i. 84.