Chapter XVII: Part 17

[157] _An Essay on the Future Life of Brutes_. By Richard Dean, Curate of Middleton, Manchester, 1767. The 'part of the Scriptures' on which the author chiefly relies is the _Epistle to the Romans_, viii. 19-23. He also finds support for his belief in 'those passages in _Isaiah_ where the prophet speaks of new Heavens, and a new Earth, of the Lion as eating straw like the Ox, &c.' Vol. ii. pp. x, 4.

[158] The words that Addison's Cato uses as he lays his hand on his sword. Act v. sc. 1.

[159] I should think it impossible not to wonder at the variety of Johnson's reading, however desultory it may have been. Who could have imagined that the High Church of England-man would be so prompt in quoting _Maupertuis_, who, I am sorry to think, stands in the list of those unfortunate mistaken men, who call themselves _esprits forts_. I have, however, a high respect for that Philosopher whom the Great Frederick of Prussia loved and honoured, and addressed pathetically in one of his Poems,--

'Maupertuis, cher Maupertuis, Que notre vie est peu de chose!'

There was in Maupertuis a vigour and yet a tenderness of sentiment, united with strong intellectual powers, and uncommon ardour of soul. Would he had been a Christian! I cannot help earnestly venturing to hope that he is one now. BOSWELL. Voltaire writing to D'Alembert on Aug. 25, 1759, says:--'Que dites-vous de Maupertuis, mort entre deux capucins?' Voltaire's _Works_, lxii. 94. The stanza from which Boswell quotes is as follows:--

'O Maupertuis, cher Maupertuis, Que notre vie est peu de chose! Cette fleur, qui brille aujourd'hui Demain se fane A peine A(C)close; Tout pA(C)rit, tout est emportA(C) Par la dure fatalitA(C) Des arrtA¬s de la destinA(C)e; Votre vertu, vos grands talents Ne pourront obtenir du temps Le seul dA(C)lai d'une journA(C)e.' _La vie est un Songe. Euvres de FrA(C)dA(C)ric II (edit. 1849), x. 40.

[160] Johnson does not give _Conglobulate_ in his _Dictionary_; only _conglobe_. If he used the word it is not likely that he said 'conglobulate _together_.'

[161] Gilbert White, writing on Nov. 4, 1767, after mentioning that he had seen swallows roosting in osier-beds by the river, says:--'This seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water.' White's _Selborne_, Letter xii. See also _post_, May 7, 1773.

[162] _Travels from St. Petersburgh in Russia to divers parts of Asia_. By John Bell, Glasgow, 1763: 4to. 2 vols.

[163] I. D'Israeli (_Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, i. 194) ranks this book among Literary Impostures. 'Du Halde never travelled ten leagues from Paris in his life; though he appears by his writings to be familiar with Chinese scenery.' See _ante_, i. 136.

[164] See _post_, Oct. 10, 1779.

[165] Boswell, in his correspondence with Temple in 1767 and 1768, passes in review the various ladies whom he proposes to marry. The lady described in this paragraph--for the 'gentleman' is clearly Boswell--is 'the fair and lively Zelide,' a Dutch-woman. She was translating his _Corsica_ into French. On March 24, 1768, he wrote, 'I must have her.' On April 26, he asked his father's permission to go over to Holland to see her. But on May 14 he forwarded to Temple one of her letters. 'Could,' he said, 'any actress at any of the theatres attack me with a keener--what is the word? not fury, something softer. The lightning that flashes with so much brilliance may scorch, and does not her esprit do so?' _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 144-150.

[166] In the original it is _some_ not _many_. Johnson's _Works_, vii. 182.

[167] _An account of the Manners and Customs of Italy_, by Joseph Baretti, London, 1768. The book would be still more entertaining were it not written as a reply to Sharp's _Letters on Italy_. _Post_ under April 29, 1776.

[168] Mrs. Piozzi wrote of him: 'His character is easily seen, and his soul above disguise, haughty and insolent, and breathing defiance against all mankind; while his powers of mind exceed most people's, and his powers of purse are so slight that they leave him dependent on all. Baretti is for ever in the state of a stream damned up; if he could once get loose, he would bear down all before him.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii. 335.

[169] According to Hawkins (_Life_, p. 460), the watch was new this year, and was, he believed, the first Johnson ever had.

[170] _St. John_, ix. 4. In _Pr. and Med_., p. 233, is the following:--'Ejaculation imploring diligence. "O God, make me to remember that the night cometh when no man can work."' Porson, in his witty attack on Sir John Hawkins, originally published in the _Gent. Mag_. for 1787, quotes the inscription as a proof of Hawkins's Greek. '_Nux gar erchetai_. The meaning is (says Sir John) _For the night cometh_. And so it is, Mr. Urban.' Porson _Tracts_, p. 337.

[171] He thus wrote of himself from Oxford to Mrs. Thrale:--'This little dog does nothing, but I hope he will mend; he is now reading _Jack the Giant-killer_. Perhaps so noble a narrative may rouse in him the soul of enterprise.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 9.

[172] See _ante_, ii. 3

[173] Under the same date, Boswell thus begins a letter to Temple:--'Your moral lecture came to me yesterday in very good time, while I lay suffering severely for immorality. If there is any firmness at all in me, be assured that I shall never again behave in a manner so unworthy the friend of Paoli. My warm imagination looks forward with great complacency on the sobriety, the healthfulness, and the worth of my future life.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 147

[174] Johnson so early as Aug. 21, 1766, had given him the same advice (_ante_, ii. 22). How little Boswell followed it is shewn by his letter to the Earl of Chatham, on April 8, 1767, in which he informed him of his intention to publish his _Corsica_, and concluded:--'Could your Lordship find time to honour me now and then with a letter? I have been told how favourably your Lordship has spoken of me. To correspond with a Paoli and with a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of virtuous fame.' _Chatham Corres_., iii. 246. On the same day on which he wrote to Johnson, he said in a letter to Temple, 'Old General Oglethorpe, who has come to see me, and is with me often, just on account of my book, bids me not marry till I have first put the Corsicans in a proper situation. "You may make a fortune in the doing of it," said he; "or, if you do not, you will have acquired such a character as will entitle you to any fortune."' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 148. Four months later, Boswell wrote:--'By a private subscription in Scotland, I am sending this week AL700 worth of ordnance [to Corsica] ... It is really a tolerable train of artillery.' _Ib_ p. 156. In 1769 he brought out a small volume entitled _British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans. By Several Hands_. Collected and published by James Boswell, Esq.

[175] From about the beginning of the fourteenth century, Corsica had belonged to the Republic of Genoa. In the great rising under Paoli, the Corsicans would have achieved their independence, had not Genoa ceded the island to the crown of France.

[176] Boswell, writing to Temple on May 14 of this year, says:--'I am really the _great man_ now. I have had David Hume in the forenoon, and Mr. Johnson in the afternoon of the same day, visiting me. Sir J. Pringle and Dr. Franklin dined with me to-day; and Mr. Johnson and General Oglethorpe one day, Mr. Garrick alone another, and David Hume and some more _literati_ another, dine with me next week. I give admirable dinners and good claret; and the moment I go abroad again, which will be in a day or two, I set up my chariot. This is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and appearing like the friend of Paoli.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 151.

[177] See _post_, April 12, 1778, and May 8, 1781.

[178] The talk arose no doubt from the general election that had just been held amid all the excitement about Wilkes. Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, iii. 307), in a letter dated April 16, 1768, describes the riots in London. He had seen 'the mob requiring gentlemen and ladies of all ranks as they passed in their carriages, to shout for Wilkes and liberty, marking the same words on all their coaches with chalk, and No. 45 on every door. I went last week to Winchester, and observed that for fifteen miles out of town there was scarce a door or window shutter next the road unmarked; and this continued here and there quite to Winchester.'

[179] In his _Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage_, he thus writes:--'If I might presume to advise them [the Ministers] upon this great affair, I should dissuade them from any direct attempt upon the liberty of the press, which is the darling of the common people, and therefore cannot be attacked without immediate danger.' _Works_, v. 344. On p. 191 of the same volume, he shows some of the benefits that arise in England from 'the boundless liberty with which every man may write his own thoughts.' See also in his _Life of Milton_, the passage about _Areopagitica_, _Ib_ vii. 82. The liberty of the press was likely to be 'a constant topic.' Horace Walpole (_Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, ii. 15), writing of the summer of 1764, says:--'Two hundred informations were filed against printers; a larger number than had been prosecuted in the whole thirty-three years of the last reign.'

[180] 'The sun has risen, and the corn has grown, and, whatever talk has been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly reaped it, and he that built a house was master of the door; the vexation excited by injustice suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by any private man, or single community, was local and temporary; it neither spread far nor lasted long.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 170. See also _post_, March 31, 1772. Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, iii. 215) wrote to the AbbA(C) Morellet, on April 22, 1787:--'Nothing can be better expressed than your sentiments are on this point, where you prefer liberty of trading, cultivating, manufacturing, &c., even to civil liberty, this being affected but rarely, the other every hour.'

[181] See _ante_, July 6, 1763.

[182] See _ante_, Oct. 1765.

[183] 'I was diverted with Paoli's English library. It consisted of:--Some broken volumes of the _Spectatour_ and _Tatler_; Pope's _Essay on Man_; _Gulliver's Travels_; A _History of France_ in old English; and Barclay's _Apology for the Quakers_. I promised to send him some English books... I have sent him some of our best books of morality and entertainment, in particular the works of Mr. Samuel Johnson.' Boswell's _Corsica_, p. 169.

[184] Johnson, as Boswell believed, only once 'in the whole course of his life condescended to oppose anything that was written against him.' (See _ante_, i. 314.) In this he followed the rule of Bentley and of Boerhaave. 'It was said to old Bentley, upon the attacks against him, "why, they'll write you down." "No, Sir," he replied; "depend upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 1 1773. Bentley shewed prudence in his silence. 'He was right,' Johnson said, 'not to answer; for, in his hazardous method of writing, he could not but be often enough wrong.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 10, 1773. 'Boerhaave was never soured by calumny and detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to confute them; "for they are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves."' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 288. Swift, in his _Lines on Censure_ which begin,--

'Ye wise instruct me to endure
An evil which admits no cure.'

ends by saying:--

'The most effectual way to baulk
Their malice is--to let them talk.'
Swift's _Works_, xi. 58.

Young, in his _Second Epistle to Pope_, had written:--

'Armed with this truth all critics I defy;
For if I fall, by my own pen I die.'

Hume, in his _Auto_. (p. ix.) says:--'I had a fixed resolution, which I inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body.' This is not quite true. See J. H. Burton's _Life of Hume_, ii. 252, for an instance of a violent reply. The following passages in Johnson's writings are to the same effect:--'I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those that they provoke.' _Piozzi Letters_ ii. 289. 'It is very rarely that an author is hurt by his critics. The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket.' _Ib_ p. 110. 'The writer who thinks his works formed for duration mistakes his interest when he mentions his enemies. He degrades his own dignity by shewing that he was affected by their censures, and gives lasting importance to names, which, left to themselves would vanish from remembrance.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 294. 'If it had been possible for those who were attacked to conceal their pain and their resentment, the _Dunciad_ might have made its way very slowly in the world.' _Ib_ viii. 276. Hawkins (_Life of Johnson_, p. 348) says that, 'against personal abuse Johnson was ever armed by a reflection that I have heard him utter:--"Alas! reputation would be of little worth, were it in the power of every concealed enemy to deprive us of it."' In his _Parl. Debates_ (_Works_, x. 359), Johnson makes Mr. Lyttelton say:--'No man can fall into contempt but those who deserve it.' Addison in _The Freeholder_, No. 40, says, that 'there is not a more melancholy object in the learned world than a man who has written himself down.' See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, near the end.

[185] Barber had entered Johnson's service in 1752 (_ante_, i. 239). Nine years before this letter was written he had been a sailor on board a frigate (_ante_, i. 348), so that he was somewhat old for a boy.

[186] Boswell, writing to Temple on May 14 of this year; says:--'Dr. Robertson is come up laden with his _Charles V_.--three large quartos; he has been offered three thousand guineas for it.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 152.

[187] In like manner the professors at Aberdeen and Glasgow seemed afraid to speak in his presence. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug 23 and Oct 29, 1773. See also _post_, April 20, 1778.

[188] See _ante_, July 28, 1763.

[189] Johnson, in inserting this letter, says (Works, viii. 374):--'I communicate it with much pleasure, as it gives me at once an opportunity of recording the fraternal kindness of Thomson, and reflecting on the friendly assistance of Mr. Boswell, from whom I received it.' See _post_, July 9, 1777, and June 18, 1778.

[190] Murphy, in his _Life of Garrick_, p. 183, says that Garrick once brought Dr. Munsey--so he writes the name--to call on him. 'Garrick entered the dining-room, and turning suddenly round, ran to the door, and called out, "Dr. Munsey, where are you going?" "Up stairs to see the author," said Munsey. "Pho! pho! come down, the author is here." Dr. Munsey came, and, as he entered the room, said in his free way, "You scoundrel! I was going up to the garret. Who could think of finding an author on the first floor?"' Mrs. Montagu wrote to Lord Lyttelton from Tunbridge in 1760:--'The great Monsey (_sic_) came hither on Friday ... He is great in the coffee-house, great in the rooms, and great on the pantiles.' _Montagu Letters_, iv. 291. In Rogers's _Table-Talk_, p. 271, there is a curious account of him.

[191] See _ante_, July 26, 1763.

[192] My respectable friend, upon reading this passage, observed, that he probably must have said not simply, 'strong facts,' but 'strong facts well arranged.' His lordship, however, knows too well the value of written documents to insist on setting his recollection against my notes taken at the time. He does not attempt to _traverse_ the record. The fact, perhaps, may have been, either that the additional words escaped me in the noise of a numerous company, or that Dr. Johnson, from his impetuosity, and eagerness to seize an opportunity to make a lively retort, did not allow Dr. Douglas to finish his sentence. BOSWELL.

[193] 'It is boasted that between November [1712] and January, eleven thousand [of _The Conduct of the Allies_] were sold.... Yet surely whoever surveys this wonder-working pamphlet with cool perusal, will confess that it's efficacy was supplied by the passions of its readers; that it operates by the mere weight of facts, with very little assistance from the hand that produced them.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 203.

[194] 'Every great man, of whatever kind be his greatness, has among his friends those who officiously or insidiously quicken his attention to offences, heighten his disgust, and stimulate his resentment.' _Ib_ viii 266.

[195] See the hard drawing of him in Churchill's _Rosciad_. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 391, note 2.

[196] For _talk_, see _post_, under March 30 1783.

[197] See _post_, Oct. 6, 1769, and May 8, 1778, where Johnson tosses Boswell.

[198] See _post_, Sept. 22, 1777, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. i, 1773.

[199] See _post_, Nov. 27, 1773, note, April 7, 1775, and under May 8, 1781.

[200] He wrote the character of Mr. Mudge. See _post_, under March 20, 1781.

[201] 'Sept. 18, 1769. This day completes the sixtieth year of my age.... The last year has been wholly spent in a slow progress of recovery.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 85.

[202] In which place he has been succeeded by Bennet Langton, Esq. When that truly religious gentleman was elected to this honorary Professorship, at the same time that Edward Gibbon, Esq., noted for introducing a kind of sneering infidelity into his Historical Writings, was elected Professor in Ancient History, in the room of Dr. Goldsmith, I observed that it brought to my mind, 'Wicked Will Whiston and good Mr. Ditton.' I am now also of that admirable institution as Secretary for Foreign Correspondence, by the favour of the Academicians, and the approbation of the Sovereign. BOSWELL. Goldsmith, writing to his brother in Jan., 1770, said:--'The King has lately been pleased to make me Professor of Ancient History in a Royal Academy of Painting, which he has just established, but there is no salary annexed, and I took it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to myself. Honours to one in my situation are something like ruffles to one that wants a shirt.' Prior's _Goldsmith_, ii. 221. 'Wicked Will Whiston,' &c., comes from Swift's _Ode for Music, On the Longitude_ (Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xxiv. 39), which begins,--

'The longitude miss'd on By wicked Will Whiston; And not better hit on By good Master Ditton.'

It goes on so grossly and so offensively as regards one and the other, that Boswell's comparison was a great insult to Langton as well as to Gibbon.

[203] It has this inscription in a blank leaf:--'_Hunc librum D.D. Samuel Johnson, eo quod hic loci studiis interdum vacaret_.' Of this library, which is an old Gothick room, he was very fond. On my observing to him that some of the _modern_ libraries of the University were more commodious and pleasant for study, as being more spacious and airy, he replied, 'Sir, if a man has a mind to _prance_, he must study at Christ-Church and All-Souls.' BOSWELL.

[204] During this visit he seldom or never dined out. He appeared to be deeply engaged in some literary work. Miss Williams was now with him at Oxford. BOSWELL. It was more likely the state of his health which kept him at home. Writing from Oxford on June 27 of this year to Mrs. Thrale, who had been ill, he says:--'I will not increase your uneasiness with mine. I hope I grow better. I am very cautious and very timorous.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 21.

[205] Boswell wrote a letter, signed with his own name, to the _London Magazine_ for 1769 (p. 451) describing the Jubilee. It is followed by a print of himself 'in the dress of an armed Corsican chief,' and by an account, no doubt written by himself. It says:--'Of the most remarkable masks upon this occasion was James Boswell, Esq., in the dress of an armed Corsican chief. He entered the amphitheatre about twelve o'clock. On the front of his cap was embroidered in gold letters, _Viva La Liberta_; and on one side of it was a handsome blue feather and cockade, so that it had an elegant, as well as a warlike appearance. He wore no mask, saying that it was not proper for a gallant Corsican. So soon as he came into the room he drew universal attention.' Cradock (_Memoirs_, i. 217) gives a melancholy account of the festival. The preparations were all behind-hand and the weather was stormy. 'There was a masquerade in the evening, and all zealous friends endeavoured to keep up the spirit of it as long as they could, till they were at last informed that the Avon was rising so very fast that no delay could be admitted. The ladies of our party were conveyed by planks from the building to the coach, and found that the wheels had been two feet deep in water.' Garrick in 1771 was asked by the Stratford committee to join them in celebrating a Jubilee every year, as 'the most likely method to promote the interest and reputation of their town.' Boswell caught at the proposal eagerly, and writing to Garrick said:--'I please myself with the prospect of attending you at several more Jubilees at Stratford-upon-Avon.' _Garrick Corres_. i. 414, 435.

[206] Garrick's correspondents not seldom spoke disrespectfully of Johnson. Thus, Mr. Sharp, writing to him in 1769, talks of 'risking the sneer of one of Dr. Johnson's ghastly smiles.' _Ib_ i. 334. Dr. J. Hoadly, in a letter dated July 25, 1775, says:--'Mr. Good-enough has written a kind of parody of Puffy Pensioner's _Taxation no Tyranny_, under the noble title of _Resistance no Rebellion_.' _Ib_ ii. 68.

[207] See ante, i. 181.

[208] In the Preface to my _Account of Corsica_, published in 1768, I thus express myself:

'He who publishes a book affecting not to be an authour, and professing an indifference for literary fame, may possibly impose upon many people such an idea of his consequence as he wishes may be received. For my part, I should be proud to be known as an authour, and I have an ardent ambition for literary fame; for, of all possessions, I should imagine literary fame to be the most valuable. A man who has been able to furnish a book, which has been approved by the world, has established himself as a respectable character in distant society, without any danger of having that character lessened by the observation of his weaknesses. To preserve an uniform dignity among those who see us every day, is hardly possible; and to aim at it, must put us under the fetters of perpetual restraint. The authour of an approved book may allow his natural disposition an easy play, and yet indulge the pride of superior genius, when he considers that by those who know him only as an authour, he never ceases to be respected. Such an authour, when in his hours of gloom and discontent, may have the consolation to think, that his writings are, at that very time, giving pleasure to numbers; and such an authour may cherish the hope of being remembered after death, which has been a great object to the noblest minds in all ages.' BOSWELL. His preface to the third edition thus ends:--'When I first ventured to send this book into the world, I fairly owned an ardent desire for literary fame. I have obtained my desire: and whatever clouds may overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors, with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something worthy.' The dedication of the first edition and the preface of the third are both dated Oct. 29--one 1767, and the other 1768. Oct. 29 was his birthday.

[209] Paoli's father had been one of the leaders of the Corsicans in their revolt against Genoa in 1734. Paoli himself was chosen by them as their General-in-chief in 1755. In 1769 the island was conquered by the French. He escaped in an English ship, and settled in England. Here he stayed till 1789, when Mirabeau moved in the National Assembly the recall of all the Corsican patriots. Paoli was thereupon appointed by Louis XVI. Lieutenant-general and military commandant in Corsica. He resisted the violence of the Convention, and was, in consequence, summoned before it. Refusing to obey, an expedition was sent to arrest him. Napoleon Buonaparte fought in the French army, but Paoli's party proved the stronger. The islanders sought the aid of Great Britain, and offered the crown of Corsica to George III. The offer was accepted, but by an act of incredible folly, not Paoli, but Sir Gilbert Eliot, was made Viceroy. Paoli returned to England, where he died in 1807, at the age of eighty-two. In 1796 Corsica was abandoned by the English. By the Revolution it ceased to be a conquered province, having been formally declared an integral part of France. At the present day the Corsicans are proud of being citizens of that great country; no less proud, however, are they of Pascal Paoli, and of the gallant struggle for independence of their forefathers.

[210] According to the _Ann. Reg_. (xii. 132) Paoli arrived in London on Sept. 21. He certainly was in London on Oct. 10, for on that day he was presented by Boswell to Johnson. Yet Wesley records in his _Journal_ (iii. 370) on Oct. 13:--'I very narrowly missed meeting the great Pascal Paoli. He landed in the dock [at Portsmouth] but a very few minutes after I left the waterside. Surely He who hath been with him from his youth up hath not sent him into England for nothing.' In the _Public Advertiser_ for Oct. 4 there is the following entry, inserted no doubt by Boswell:--'On Sunday last General Paoli, accompanied by James Boswell, Esq., took an airing in Hyde Park in his coach.' Priors _Goldsmith_, i. 450. Horace Walpole writes:--'Paoli's character had been so advantageously exaggerated by Mr. Boswell's enthusiastic and entertaining account of him, that the Opposition were ready to incorporate him in the list of popular tribunes. The Court artfully intercepted the project; and deeming patriots of all nations equally corruptible, bestowed a pension of AL1000 a year on the unheroic fugitive.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iii. 387.

[211] Johnson, writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_., p. 228), ridiculed a friend 'who, looking out on Streatham Common from our windows, lamented the enormous wickedness of the times, because some bird-catchers were busy there one fine Sunday morning. "While half the Christian world is permitted," said Johnson, "to dance and sing and celebrate Sunday as a day of festivity, how comes your puritanical spirit so offended with frivolous and empty deviations from exactness? Whoever loads life with unnecessary scruples, Sir," continued he, "provokes the attention of others on his conduct, and incurs the censure of singularity, without reaping the reward of superior virtue."' See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 20, 1773.

[212] The first edition of Hume's _History of England_ was full of Scotticisms, many of which he corrected in subsequent editions. MALONE. According to Mr. J. H. Burton (_Life of Hume_, ii. 79), 'He appears to have earnestly solicited the aid of Lyttelton, Mallet, and others, whose experience of English composition might enable them to detect Scotticisms.' Mr. Burton gives instances of alterations made in the second edition. He says also that 'in none of his historical or philosophical writings does any expression used by him, unless in those cases where a Scotticism has escaped his vigilance, betray either the district or the county of his origin.' _Ib_ i. 9. Hume was shown in manuscript Reid's _Inquiry into the Human Mind_. Though it was an attack on his own philosophy, yet in reading it 'he kept,' he says, 'a watchful eye all along over the style,' so that he might point out any Scotticisms. _Ib_ ii. 154. Nevertheless, as Dugald Stewart says in his _Life of Robertson_ (p. 214), 'Hume fails frequently both in purity and grammatical correctness.' Even in his later letters I have noticed Scotticisms.

[213] In 1763 Wilkes, as author of _The North Briton_, No. 45, had been arrested on 'a general warrant directed to four messengers to take up any persons without naming or describing them with any certainty, and to bring them, together with their papers.' Such a warrant as this Chief Justice Pratt (Lord Camden) declared to be 'unconstitutional, illegal, and absolutely void.' _Ann. Reg_. vi. 145.

[214] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 24, 1773.

[215] In the Spring of this year, at a meeting of the electors of Southwark, 'instructions' had been presented to Mr. Thrale and his brother-member, of which the twelfth was:--'That you promote a bill for shortening the duration of Parliaments.' _Gent. Mag_. xxxix. 162.

[216] This paradox Johnson had exposed twenty-nine years earlier, in his _Life of Sir Francis Drake_, _Works_, vi. 366. In _Rasselas_, chap. xi., he considers also the same question. Imlac is 'inclined to conclude that, if nothing counteracts the natural consequence of learning, we grow more happy as our minds take a wider range.' He then enumerates the advantages which civilisation confers on the Europeans. 'They are surely happy,' said the prince, 'who have all these conveniences.' 'The Europeans,' answered Imlac, 'are less unhappy than we, but they are not happy. Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed.' Writing to Mrs. Thrale from Skye, Johnson said: 'The traveller wanders through a naked desert, gratified sometimes, but rarely, with the sight of cows, and now and then finds a heap of loose stones and turf in a cavity between rocks, where a being born with all those powers which education expands, and all those sensations which culture refines, is condemned to shelter itself from the wind and rain. Philosophers there are who try to make themselves believe that this life is happy, but they believe it only while they are saying it, and never yet produced conviction in a single mind.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 150. See _post_, April 21 and May 7, 1773, April 26, 1776, and June 15, 1784.

[217] James Burnet, a Scotch Lord of Session, by the title of Lord Monboddo. 'He was a devout believer in the virtues of the heroic ages, and the deterioration of civilised mankind; a great contemner of luxuries, insomuch that he never used a wheel carriage.' WALTER SCOTT, quoted in Croker's _Boswell_, p. 227. There is some account of him in Chambers's _Traditions of Edinburgh_, ii. 175. In his _Origin of Language_, to which Boswell refers in his next note, after praising Henry Stephen for his _Greek Dictionary_, he continues:--'But to compile a dictionary of a barbarous language, such as all the modern are compared with the learned, is a work which a man of real genius, rather than undertake, would choose to die of hunger, the most cruel, it is said, of all deaths. I should, however, have praised this labour of Doctor Johnson's more, though of the meanest kind,' &c. Monboddo's _Origin of Language_, v. 274. On p. 271, he says:--'Dr. Johnson was the most invidious and malignant man I have ever known.' See _post_, March 21, 1772, May 8, 1773, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 21, 1773.

[218] His Lordship having frequently spoken in an abusive manner of Dr. Johnson, in my company, I on one occasion during the life-time of my illustrious friend could not refrain from retaliation, and repeated to him this saying. He has since published I don't know how many pages in one of his curious books, attempting, in much anger, but with pitiful effect, to persuade mankind that my illustrious friend was not the great and good man which they esteemed and ever will esteem him to be. BOSWELL.

[219] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 108) says:--'Mr. Johnson was indeed unjustly supposed to be a lover of singularity. Few people had a more settled reverence for the world than he, or was less captivated by new modes of behaviour introduced, or innovations on the long-received customs of common life.' In writing to Dr. Taylor to urge him to take a certain course, he says:--'This I would have you do, not in compliance with solicitation or advice, but as a justification of yourself to the world; _the world has always a right to be regarded_.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 343. In _The Adventurer_, No. 131, he has a paper on 'Singularities.' After quoting Fontenelle's observation on Newton that 'he was not distinguished from other men by any singularity, either natural or affected,' he goes on:--'Some may be found who, supported by the consciousness of great abilities, and elevated by a long course of reputation and applause, voluntarily consign themselves to singularity, affect to cross the roads of life because they know that they shall not be jostled, and indulge a boundless gratification of will, because they perceive that they shall be quietly obeyed.... Singularity is, I think, in its own nature universally and invariably displeasing.' Writing of Swift, he says (_Works_, viii. 223):--'Whatever he did, he seemed willing to do in a manner peculiar to himself, without sufficiently considering that singularity, as it implies a contempt of the general practice, is a kind of defiance which justly provokes the hostility of ridicule; he, therefore, who indulges peculiar habits is worse than others, if he be not better.' See _ante_, Oct. 1765, the record in his _Journal_:--'At church. To avoid all singularity.'

[220] 'He had many other particularities, for which he gave sound and philosophical reasons. As this humour still grew upon him he chose to wear a turban instead of a periwig; concluding very justly that a bandage of clean linen about his head was much more wholesome, as well as cleanly, than the caul of a wig, which is soiled with frequent perspirations.' _Spectator_, No. 576.

[221] See _post_, June 28, 1777, note.

[222] 'Depend upon it,' he said, 'no woman is the worse for sense and knowledge.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 19; 1773--See, however, _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection, where he says:--'Supposing a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome'

[223]

'Though Artemisia talks by fits Of councils, classics, fathers, wits; Reads Malbranche, Boyle, and Locke: Yet in some things, methinks she fails; 'Twere well if she would pare her nails, And wear a cleaner smock.'

SWIFT. _Imitation of English Poets, Works_, xxiv. 6.

[224] _A Wife_, a poem, 1614. BOSWELL.

[225] In the original _that_.

[226] What a succession of compliments was paid by Johnson's old school-fellow, whom he met a year or two later in Lichfield, who 'has had, as he phrased it, _a matter of four wives_, for which' added Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, 'neither you nor I like him much the better.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 41.

[227] Mr. Langton married the widow of the Earl of Rothes; _post_, March 20, 1771.

[228] Horace Walpole, writing of 1764, says:--'As one of my objects was to raise the popularity of our party, I had inserted a paragraph in the newspapers observing that the abolition of vails to servants had been set on foot by the Duke of Bedford, and had been opposed by the Duke of Devonshire. Soon after a riot happened at Ranelagh, in which the footmen mobbed and ill-treated some gentlemen who had been active in that reformation.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, ii. 3.

[229]

'Alexis shunned his fellow swains, Their rural sports and jocund strains, (Heaven guard us all from Cupid's bow!) He lost his crook, he left his flocks; And wandering through the lonely rocks, He nourished endless woe.'

_The Despairing Shepherd_.

[230] 'In his amorous effusions Prior is less happy; for they are not dictated by nature or by passion, and have neither gallantry nor tenderness. They have the coldness of Cowley without his wit, the dull exercises of a skilful versifier, resolved at all adventures to write something about Chloe, and trying to be amorous by dint of study.... In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 15, 22.

[231] _Florizel and Perdita_ is Garrick's version of _The Winters Tale_. He cut down the five acts to three. The line, which is misquoted, is in one of Perdita's songs:--

'That giant ambition we never can dread; Our roofs are too low for so lofty a head; Content and sweet cheerfulness open our door, They smile with the simple, and feed with the poor.'

Act ii. sc. 1.

[232] Horace. _Sat_. i. 4. 34.

[233] See _ante_, ii. 66.

[234] Horace Walpole told Malone that 'he was about twenty-two [twenty-four] years old when his father retired; and that he remembered his offering one day to read to him, finding that time hung heavy on his hands. "What," said he, "will you read, child?" Mr. Walpole, considering that his father had long been engaged in public business, proposed to read some history. "No," said he, "don't read history to me; that can't be true."' Prior's _Malone_, p. 387. See also _post_, April 30, 1773, and Oct. 10, 1779.

[235] See _ante_, i 75, _post_, Oct 12, 1779, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, August 15, 1773. Boswell himself had met Whitefield; for mentioning him in his _Letter to the People of Scotland_ (p. 25), he adds:--'Of whose pious and animated society I had some share.' Southey thus describes Whitefield in his _Life of Wesley_ (i. 126):--'His voice excelled both in melody and compass, and its fine modulations were happily accompanied by that grace of action which he possessed in an eminent degree, and which has been said to be the chief requisite of an orator. An ignorant man described his eloquence oddly but strikingly, when he said that Mr. Whitefield preached like a lion. So strange a comparison conveyed no unapt a notion of the force and vehemence and passion of that oratory which awed the hearers, and made them tremble like Felix before the apostle.' Benjamin Franklin writes (_Memoirs_, i. 163):--'Mr. Whitefield's eloquence had a wonderful power over the hearts and purses of his hearers, of which I myself was an instance.' He happened to be present at a sermon which, he perceived, was to finish with a collection for an object which had not his approbation. 'I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all.'

[236] 'What an idea may we not form of an interview between such a scholar and philosopher as Mr. Johnson, and such a legislatour and general as Paoli.' Boswell's _Corsica_, p. 198.

[237] Mr. Stewart, who in 1768 was sent on a secret mission to Paoli, in his interesting report says:--'Religion seems to sit easy upon Paoli, and notwithstanding what his historian Boswell relates, I take him to be very free in his notions that way. This I suspect both from the strain of his conversation, and from what I have learnt of his conduct towards the clergy and monks.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, ii. 158. See _post_, April 14, 1775, where Johnson said:--'Sir, there is a great cry about infidelity; but there are in reality very few infidels.' Yet not long before he had complained of an 'inundation of impiety.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30, 1773.

[238] I suppose Johnson said atmosphere. CROKER. In _Humphry Clinker_, in the Letter of June 2, there is, however, a somewhat similar use of the word. Lord Bute is described as 'the Caledonian luminary, that lately blazed so bright in our hemisphere; methinks, at present, it glimmers through a fog.' A star, however, unlike a cloud, may pass from one hemisphere to the other.

[239] See _post_, under Nov. 5, 1775. Hannah More, writing in 1782 (_Memoirs_, i. 242), says:--'Paoli will not talk in English, and his French is mixed with Italian. He speaks no language with purity.'

[240] Horace Walpole writes:--'Paoli had as much ease as suited a prudence that seemed the utmost effort of a wary understanding, and was so void of anything remarkable in his aspect, that being asked if I knew who it was, I judged him a Scottish officer (for he was sandy-complexioned and in regimentals), who was cautiously awaiting the moment of promotion.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iii. 387

[241] Boswell introduced this subject often. See _post_, Oct. 26, 1769, April 15, 1778, March 14, 1781, and June 23, 1784. Like Milton's fallen angels, he 'found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.' _Paradise Lost_, ii. 561.

[242] 'To this wretched being, himself by his own misconduct lashed out of human society, the stage was indebted for several very pure and pleasing entertainments; among them, _Love in a Village_, _The Maid of the Mill_.' Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 136. 'When,' says Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 168), 'Mr. Bickerstaff's flight confirmed the report of his guilt, and my husband said in answer to Johnson's astonishment, that he had long been a suspected man: "By those who look close to the ground dirt will be seen, Sir, (was his lofty reply); I hope I see things from a greater distance."' In the _Garrick Corres_ (i. 473) is a piteous letter in bad French, written from St. Malo, by Bickerstaff to Garrick, endorsed by Garrick, 'From that poor wretch Bickerstaff: I could not answer it.'

[243] Boswell, only a couple of years before he published _The Life of Johnson_, in fact while he was writing it, had written to Temple:--'I was the _great man_ (as we used to say) at the late Drawing-room, in a suit of imperial blue, lined with rose-coloured silk, and ornamented with rich gold-wrought buttons.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 289.

[244] Miss Reynolds, in her _Recollections_ (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 831), says, 'One day at Sir Joshua Reynolds's Goldsmith was relating with great indignation an insult he had just received from some gentleman he had accidentally met. "The fellow," he said, "took me for a tailor!" on which all the company either laughed aloud or showed they suppressed a laugh.'

[245] In Prior's _Goldsmith_, ii. 232, is given Filby's Bill for a suit of clothes sent to Goldsmith this very day:--

Oct. 16.-- AL s. d.
To making a half-dress
suit of ratteen, lined
with satin 12 12 0
To a pair of silk stocking
breeches 2 5 0
To a pair of _bloom-coloured
ditto 1 4 6

Nothing is said in this bill of the colour of the coat; it is the breeches that are bloom-coloured. The tailor's name was William, not John, Filby; _Ib_ i. 378, Goldsmith in his _Life of Nash_ had said:--'Dress has a mechanical influence upon the mind, and we naturally are awed into respect and esteem at the elegance of those whom even our reason would teach us to contemn. He seemed early sensible of human weakness in this respect; he brought a person genteelly dressed to every assembly.' Cunningham's _Goldsmith's Works_, iv. 46.

[246] 'The _Characters of Men and Women_ are the product of diligent speculation upon human life; much labour has been bestowed upon them, and Pope very seldom laboured in vain.... The _Characters of Men_, however, are written with more, if not with deeper thought, and exhibit many passages exquisitely beautiful.... In the women's part are some defects.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 341.

[247] Mr. Langton informed me that he once related to Johnson (on the authority of Spence), that Pope himself admired those lines so much that when he repeated them his voice faltered: 'and well it might, Sir,' said Johnson, 'for they are noble lines.' J. BOSWELL, JUN.

[248] We have here an instance of that reserve which Boswell, in his Dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds (_ante_, i. 4), says that he has practised. In one particular he had 'found the world to be a great fool,' and, 'I have therefore,' as he writes, 'in this work been more reserved;' yet the reserve is slight enough. Everyone guesses that 'one of the company' was Boswell.

[249] Yet Johnson, in his _Life of Pope_ (_Works_, viii. 276), seems to be much of Boswell's opinion; for in writing of _The Dunciad_, he says:--'The subject itself had nothing generally interesting, for whom did it concern to know that one or another scribbler was a dunce?'

[250] The opposite of this Johnson maintained on April 29, 1778.

[251] 'It is surely sufficient for an author of sixteen ... to have obtained sufficient power of language and skill in metre, to exhibit a series of versification which had in English poetry no precedent, nor has since had an imitation.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 326.

[252] See _ante_, i. 129.

[253] 'If the flights of Dryden are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing ... Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 325.

[254] Probably, says Mr. Croker, those quoted by Johnson in _The Life of Dryden_. _Ib_ vii. 339.

[255] The Duke of Buckingham in Dryden's _Absalom and Achitophel_.

[256] _Prologue to the Satires_, I. 193.

[257]

Almeria.--'It was a fancy'd noise; for all is hush'd.

Leonora.--It bore the accent of a human voice.

Almeria.--It was thy fear, or else some transient wind Whistling thro' hollows of this vaulted aisle; We'll listen--

Leonora.--Hark!

Almeria.--No, all is hush'd and still as death,--'Tis dreadful! How reverend is the face of this tall pile, Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, To bear aloft its arch'd and ponderous roof, By its own weight made stedfast and immoveable, Looking tranquillity! It strikes an awe And terror on my aching sight; the tombs And monumental caves of death look cold, And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart. Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice; Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear Thy voice--my own affrights me with its echoes.

Act ii. sc. 1.

[258]

'Swear by thy gracious self, Which is the god of my idolatry.'

_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii. sc. 2. He was a God with whom he ventured to take great liberties. Thus on Jan. 10, 1776, he wrote:--'I have ventured to produce _Hamlet_ with alterations. It was the most imprudent thing I ever did in all my life; but I had sworn I would not leave the stage till I had rescued that noble play from all the rubbish of the fifth act. I have brought it forth without the grave-digger's trick and the fencing match. The alterations were received with general approbation beyond my most warm expectations.' _Garrick Corres_., ii. 126. See _ante_, ii. 78, note 4.

[259] This comparison between Shakespeare and Congreve is mentioned perhaps oftener than any passage in Boswell. Almost as often as it is mentioned, it may be seen that Johnson's real opinion is misrepresented or misunderstood. A few passages from his writings will shew how he regarded the two men. In the _Life of Congreve_ (_Works_, viii. 31) he repeats what he says here:--'If I were required to select from the whole mass of English poetry the most poetical paragraph, I know not what I could prefer to an exclamation in _The Mourning Bride_.' Yet in writing of the same play, he says:--'In this play there is more bustle than sentiment; the plot is busy and intricate, and the events take hold on the attention; but, except a very few passages, we are rather amused with noise and perplexed with stratagem, than entertained with any true delineation of natural characters.' _Ib_, p. 26. In the preface to his _Shakespeare_, published four years before this conversation, he almost answered Garrick by anticipation. 'It was said of Euripides that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence. Yet his real power is not shown in the splendour of particular passages, but by the progress of his fable, and the tenour of his dialogue, and he that tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in _Hierocles_, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen.' _Ib_, v. 106. Ignorant, indeed, is he who thinks that Johnson was insensible to Shakespeare's 'transcendent and unbounded genius,' to use the words that he himself applied to him. _The Rambler_, No. 156. 'It may be doubtful,' he writes, 'whether from all his successors more maxims of theoretical knowledge, or more rules of practical prudence, can be collected than he alone has given to his country.' _Works_, v. 131. 'He that has read Shakespeare with attention will, perhaps, find little new in the crowded world.' _Ib_, p. 434. 'Let him that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play, from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or explanation.' _Ib_, p. 152. And lastly he quotes Dryden's words [from Dryden's _Essay of Dramatick Poesie_, edit. of 1701, i. 19] 'that Shakespeare was the man who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.' _Ib_, p. 153. Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anec_., p. 58), that she 'forced Johnson one day in a similar humour [to that in which he had praised Congreve] to prefer Young's description of night to those of Shakespeare and Dryden.' He ended however by saying:--'Young froths and foams and bubbles sometimes very vigorously; but we must not compare the noise made by your tea-kettle here with the roaring of the ocean.' See also _post_, p. 96.

[260] _Henry V_, act iv., Prologue.

[261] _Romeo and Juliet_, act iv., sc. 3.

[262] _King Lear_, act iv., sc. 6.

[263] See _ante_, July 26, 1763.

[264] See _ante_, i. 388.

[265] In spite of the gross nonsense that Voltaire has written about Shakespeare, yet it was with justice that in a letter to Horace Walpole (dated July 15, 1768,) he said:--'Je suis le premier qui ait fait connaA(R)tre Shakespeare aux FranASec.ais.... Je peux vous assurer qu'avant moi personne en France ne connaissait la poA(C)sie anglaise.' Voltaire's _Works_, liv. 513.